Science Sittings

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVII, Issue 5, 4 February 1909, Page 195

Science Sittings

BY «VOLT

Heat Endured by Mankiiid. During the reheating of the furnaces in an iron establishment in England (says the British Journal of Science) the men worked when the thermometer, placed so as, not to be influenced by the. radiation of heat from the open doors, marked 120 degrees. In the Bessemer pits the men continue a kind of labor requiring great muscular effort at 140 degrees. In some of the operations of glass making the ordinary summer working temperature is considerably over 100, and the radiant heat to which the workmen, are subjected far exceeds 212 degrees. In a Turkish bath the shampooers continue four or five hours ' at a time in a moist atmosphere at temperatures ranging from 105 to 110. In enamel works men labor daily in a heat of over 300 degrees. On the Red Sea steamers the temperature of the stokehole is 145 degrees. And -yet in none of these cases does any special form of type of- disease develop - itself. ' The Migration of Birds. Mr. E. Kay Robinson has an interesting comment in The Countryside on the migration of birds — as to whether they are guided by instinct or the wind. His remarks refer to experimental markings" at Alnwick, and are : 'In concluding some notes on bird migration last week, I said : ' ' The more one studies bird migration the more one realises how completely the birds are at the mercy of the winds and the weather." A good illustration of this is afforded by the results to date of the constant marking of young woodqocks hatched on the Duke of Northumberland's estate aj Alnwick. __Qne of these marked birds has been killed in the Highlands, another in- the South of England, and a third in Ireland ; but the majority have totally disappeared. Manifestly this result cannot be brought into accord with any theory that birds possess an "unerring instinct" which guides them in any particular direction. No, their only guide is the wind; and a very troacheroxxs guide, too, for birds of Britain and West Europe, with tne wide Atlantic on one side of their proper course.' - An Accurate Clock. In the observatory of Columbia University is one of the most accurate clocks in the world. It has run for several months with a mean error of only fifteen-thou-sandths of a second and a maximum error of thirtythousandths of a second per day. That means that it does not vary more than half a second a month, or six seconds a year. Compare this with the first pocket time-piece, the ' animated egg of Nuromburg,' which required winding twice a day and varied an hour and a half in the same time ! Compare it with some of the highest priced watches manufactured to-day, which often vary more than ten seconds a week, and you will have some idea of the refinements in the science of measuring time. Yet even this accuracy is surpassed by some famous timepieces, if the trade magazines are to be believed. There have beeii accounts in them of clocks or watches that have varied less than a second in periods as long as ten years. The clock at the University of Columbia is an astronomical clock. It is surrounded by a glass case in which a partial vacuum is maintained, and in order that the case may not be opened or disturbed • the winding is done automatically by electricity. Baser Metals into Gold. There is something almost sensational in the inter-- - view with Sir William Ramsay, published in the Matin. This famous savant asserts that he sees no reason to doubt the possibility of the transmutation of the baser metals into gold. This, after all, is only a natural development cf ■ the revolutionary discovery made in the last few years. The ancients sought to transmute metals to gold, and by their researches in the art of alchemy, developed the modern science of chemistry. The modern chemist laughed with superior scorn at the ancient alchemist. His experiments taught him that atoms of the elements were eternally immutable. For a hundred years this was a firmly-held scientific theory, on which the whole structure of chemical theorising was built. Then came the discovery of radium, and it was found that the elements are transmutable. Sir William Ramsay -has turned copper into an inferior metal of the same species — lithium. He sees no reason why an emanation of radium should not construct as well as disintegrate, and he believes it will not be impossible to obtain gold from silver. . So the quest of the alchemists, at- which modern science laughed up to a few years ago, is now. considered by' well-informed scientists as within the region of feasibility.