Science Siftings

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVII, Issue 7, 18 February 1909, Page 275

Science Siftings

BY 'VOLT

Ships With Fish Skin. A German inventor has been experimenting for years with various preservative paints for the bottoms of ships. Among those used at the present time even the best permit the growth of barnacles and marine vegetation upon the wood or metal sheathing, and the ship has to go into dry dock to have her bottom cleaned of the growths which :>o materially retard her progress. -The inventor in question has devoted his time of late to the determination of the chemical construction of the coating found upon the scales of fishes. He declares that the agility of the fish is due to this coating, which enables it to overcome the resistance of the water, while at the same time it prevents the growth o£Joreign matter. He asserts that he is now able to produce this coating in a form permitting it ta be used for vessels, and that ships thus treated 'will not only be able to keep clean bottoms but that the paint will materially reduce the resistance of the waves and permit .faster time to be made with the same expenditure of power. How Fireworks are Made. The most solitary person in the world during working hours (says Rene Bache in the Technical World Magazine), is the maker of Roman candles. He occupies an isolated cell, somewhat like that of an old-time hermit, save that its precincts are more contracted, and nobody comes near him while he is engaged in his patient toil. The wages he gets are high, but not by reason of the loneliness to which he is condemned; he is paid for the risks he -is obliged to take. The quarters occupied by this eremite artisan are a tiny house, which might almost be called a hut, with a floor space not more than six feet square. Standing by itself, at least sixty yards from the main structure, the little building is of wood, of the simplest imaginable architecture. If it were to be blown up the financial loss wou:d be almost nil — a point of some importance, inasmuch as its diurnal tenant is obliged to use considerable quantities of explosives in the business which engages his attention. For a Roman candle is a sort of magazine, or repeating gun, with a paper tube for a barrel and balls of fire for projectiles. An Irish-Victorian Invention. Tbe principles involved in the Brennan monorail formed the subject of an interesting lecture which was delivered recently by Mr. Kerr Grant at the Hawthorn Town Hall, Melbourne, before the local branch of the Australian Natives' Association. The inventor, Mr. Louis Brennah, C.8., now living in England, is son of a Melbourne photographer, and learned his profession of an engineer in Melbourne. All the Brennan family were natives of tho West of Ireland, and migrated to Victoria. - Mr. Grant said that locomotives and cars running on a single rail are in practical operation to-day, but to preserve the equilibrium of the train it is necessary to provide the overhead guides. The problem that Mr. Brennan set himself to solve, said the lecturer, was to obviate the necessity of these overhead guides, by making the car balance itself automatically. This he accomplished by enclosing in the vehicles two electrically-driven gyrostats. The gyrostat' was a i&riant of the ordinary spinning top. When a top was spun it maintained itself on a vertical axis, and if it were fixed by suitable attachments to the interior of a vehicle it would maintain the vehicle also in an upright position, even, to use scientific language, 'though the centre of gravity was below the point of support.' The next aspect of gyroscopic action considered was the effect of shifting weights .in a car fitted with gyroscopes. At first sight it would appear that if a number of passengers moved to one side the car must capsize, in spite of the gyroscopic effort to .keep it upright. The lecturer, however, using an ordinary top to illustrate his point, showed that this was not the case. The practical advantages of the Brennan monorail, supposing it emerged successfully from its present experimental stage, would be a great cheapening in construction of railways; and greater speed would be possible, first, through the reduction of friction, and also because it would be possible .to run at very high speeds round curves. Mr. Brennan anticipated speeds up to 200 miles an hour with his monorail system. - '