Science Sittings

New Zealand Tablet, 2 September 1909, Page 33

Science Sittings

BY 'VOLT

India Rubber Tree Fruit. The fruit of the India rubber trel is somewhat similar to that of the Ricinus communis, the castor oil plant, though somewhat larger. ~ The seeds have a not disagreeable taste and yield a purplish oil. It is a fairly good substitute for linseed oil, though it dries less rapidly: Mixed with copal blue and turpentine, it makes a good varnish. The oil may be also used in the manufacture of soap's, and lithographic inks. The seeds are somewhat like tiny chestnuts, although darker hr color.. The Indian girls are.fond of wearing bracelets and necklets made-of them. Man's Temperature. Man is the coldest blooded animal there is. Man's low temperature is responsible for more than half his ailments. Your normal temperature is 98£ degrees • Fahr. It is only when you have a bad temperature that you get as warm as any of the lower animals —that is to say, when you are in a high fever, with a temperature of 102, you are at the normal heat of the cat, the dbg, .the ox, the rat, and so on. In the coolest of seas the porpoise is never cooler than 100 degrees." The bat, the rabbit, the guinea pig, the hare, and the elephant likewise are all cool at 100 degrees. The hen has the highest temperature of all the " lower creatures, and it is a good deal warmer, too, whea a chicken. Its temperature then is as high as 111, but age and experience cool its blood by three degrees. Building the Pyramids. An English engineer says that no one has been able to decide how the enormous stones in. the Pyramids were handled. Even after allowing for a great army of men, some sort of mechanical contrivance must have been used. One theory is that as each course of stone was laid, a sand embankment was built around it with long, easy slopes, so that the stones for the next course could be pushed up on rollers and slipped into place. A pyramid thus would be buried as fast as it was built, until the top was reached, when the stupendous job of removing the sand embankment was begun. This might account for the great number of laborers used. It is said that in building the Pyramid of Cheops 100,000 men were employed for thirty years, although the quarry from which the stone was obtained was only 3000 ft from the pyramid. Growth of Coral. Coral is a calcareous deposit secreted by many kinds of zoophites, which are links between the animal and vegetable worlds. Those which produce coral are compound animals, which increase by a process of budding. From one polyp another buds forth, contributes, its portion of lime, which remains firmly fixed, and then produces a mud in its turn. Thus the beautiful corals are built up by a natural process, one layer surrounding or crowning another, and the whole branching out as a crop, a fan, a shrub, or a mushroom. The lime framework is strengthened by an admixture of horny animal matter. Light has been thrown upon the rapidity of the growth of coral by the fact that a French man-of-war on passing a reef in the South Pacific picked up a young fungia, which adhered to the vessel, and in nine weeks was found to have grown to a diameter v.f nine inches and a weight of two pounds and a half. Making Shoes in Four Minutes. / How long would it take you to make a pair of boots, do you think? (says the Chicago Daily News). You probably had better not begin it, especially if you need them soon. Even a cobbler in the old days, working with his assistant, would spend a day and a half making a pair of boots, and the cost would be about four dollars. But now, of course, shoes are made by machinery, and it is" astonishing to hear how quickly they are made. It takes just four minutes to make a pair of boots! And the labor cost is about 35 cents. Of course, no one makes the whole boot nowadays. There are a hundred different men making different parts of it, and each one does the same thing over and over again, and each man learns to do his particular work especially well and quickly. And you should see the buttons sewed on! A boy takes the part of the shoes where the buttons are to go, and fits it into a machine/ throws in a handful of buttons quite carelessly, turns the machine, and in no time out comes the piece of leather with all the buttons exactly in the right place. No wonder some factories turn out 10,000 pairs of shoes in a day. '