Science Siftings

New Zealand Tablet, 10 September 1908, Page 35

Science Sif tings

BY TOLT

' -Wild' Horses of Russia.

In the steppes^' of Russia, where ' wolves abound and -the horses lead a wild life and "have to shift- for themselves, it is said that a young colt will ' sometimes be made so furious by' the persecutions of his enemies that he' will rush wildly among a drove of wolves and bite and strike until he has slaughtered a large number of them." These horses, are exceptionally fierce,, .reh.dered'so, it is supposed, by the extreme variations in the climate. At one time of the year they suffer from the' intense heat of a tropical sun, and at another they live among raging snowstorms and extreme cold.

Seeing One!s Own Voice.

An ingenious machine has been invented by means of which sound can be visualized., .^ All. sound comes from -air vibrations, • which radiate from the centre of a circle, just as when a stone is thrown into a still pond the "water vibrates info' little waves, 'lac air waves of sound are, however, invisible, and though they can be measured they -cannot be seen. , By using"-a- small flame and rapidly rotating mirrors, Mr. Brewer -Brown, . the'inventor,, is able to show a continuous picture of the vibrations caused by the human voice, which vary, "of course; according to the note sounded. It is very difficult for a .person to hear whether his own voice is sounding a correct note," but by" means of Mr. Brown's machine he can see for himself.

Evolution of the Piano.

A .-'Dead -Mammoth.

The piano,' as we see it to-day, is "the growth of centuries of invention. In its infancy it was -a harp with two or three strings. From time to time more strings \yere added ,and after a while the cithara was -born. -The cithara was in the shape of the letter P, and had ten strings. It took many centuries,, for musicians to get the idea of stretching the strings across an \ open box, but' somewhere about the year 1206 this was thought of and the dulcimer made its . appearance, the strings being struck with hammers. "For another hundred years the-hammersr were held in thehands of the players, and then a genius invented a keyboard, which, being struck .by the fingers, moved the ham-^ mers. This instrument wjas a clavicytherium, or keyed" cithara. This underwent some modifications and improvements from time to time. In Queen Elizabeth's time it was called a virginal. Then .it was called a spine, because the hammers were covered with spines or quills, which struck or caught the strings of wires and produced the sound. From 1700 to 1800 it was much enlarged and improved, and called harpsichord. In 1710, Bartolomeo Christofoll,- an Italian, invented a key. or key-j.-board such as we have now substantially, which' caused hammers to strike the wires from above, and thus- developed the' piano. In the past 150 years there is no musical instrument which has so completely absorbed the inventive faculty of man as the piano. \ _ ~ - ,

In 1846 a young Russian engineer, Benkendorf, saw the River Lena in Siberia release a dead mammoth frozen ages ago i Tn the bog. There had been^ exceptionally warm. weather in ""1 the north of Siberia, and the river, swollen by melting snow and ice and torrential warm rains, swept out of its old channel and carved a new one, carrying to the sea vast quantities of. its former banks and furrowing up the thawing bogs over which, it raced. As he made his way in a ■ steam cutter- against the current Benkendorf saw'the head of a mammoth appear above the flood. Rush upon rush of water more and more released the body. Its hind legs were still embedded when he saw. 'ft, but twenty-four hours liberated these, , The mammoth had sunk feet first into a bog. " The boze Tiad frozen over it. Successive tides had heaped' soil and vegetation upon it. Bone and , flesh and hair .: were perfect. They secured' it They cut off its," tusks. They dissected it and found in its stomach the last meal *. it had eaten, young shobfs %£ the' fir and pine and -masticated" fir cones. ' They were still at work" when the river," spreading farther, engulfed them. The men escaped, but the .waters, surged over the-rnarhmoth and carried it for carrion to the sea..- .