Science Siftings

New Zealand Tablet, 31 August 1911, Page 1715

Science Siftings

By 4 Volt.'

«. ; The Elephant's Trunk. -'.-.' Naturalists consider the elephant's trunk'the most marvellous miracle of Nature. It contains over four thousand musclesa great many more than are found in: the entire human body. By aid of these muscles the trunk will uproot trees or gather grass, lift a cannon or a nut, kill a man or brush off a fly. It is as useful as a hand with all its fingers to supply the elephant with food, and, being hollow, is used as a suction pump. No other animal has a single member or organ so perfect and so useful. r':

Big, Guns.

The first of the largest guns ever constructed in the United States has just been removed from the workshops of the Washington Navy Yard, preparatory to being mounted on one of the Dreadnoughts. It measures 53 feet 6 inches in length and weighs 65 tons. It has cost £15,000, and an additional £II,OOO will be expended for the mounting. The shell discharged by the gun weighs 12| cwt. Including the shell and powder, it costs £l4O for each discharge. The shell is effective at a distance of 12 miles. : c.: f

Proposed African Inland Sea.

That vast area of the earth’s surface which stretches across Africa from west to east and southwards from Fezzan to Lake Tchad has often inspired the speculations of engineers as well as dreamers. At one time it was popularly supposed to be one unbroken surface, and that by letting in the sea it might become useful as a means of communication from one part of the continent to another. This, however, is not the case. Even if it were, it is questionable whether the creation of a great inland sea would not be disastrous. Professor E. Etchegoyen, a French engineer, favors such a scheme, as did Captain Roudaire in 1874 and Mr. Donald Mackenzie in 1877, but on a more or less limited scale. In .geological ages a large portion of the desert was undoubtedly under water, but since then the land has risen above its ancient level. Supposing, nevertheless, that the flooding of the Sahara were possible, what would happen ? Professor Mollendorff, of Munich, says ‘ the flooding of the Sahara would make the climate of France and Germany sub-Arctic, while England and Belgium and Denmark would be almost uninhabitable.’

The Migration of Birds.

The National Geographic Magazine contains a most interesting article by Wells W. Cooke on ‘ Our Greatest Travellers : Birds that Fly from Pole to Pole ; and Birds that Make 2500 Miles in' a Single Flight.’ It gives the principal routes used by birds in their migrations between North and South America, together with much collateral information. Some birds (says America) travel by day and some by night. Some make their journey in short stretches, others in long ones. As an instance of the latter class, the American golden plover, when the weather is propitious, flies without rest or pause from Nova Scotia to South America, a distance of 2400 miles. In stormy weather it, makes emergency stop-overs at the Bermundas and the Lesser Antilles. The Pacific golden plover, however, travels the same distance, from Alaska to Hawaii, across an islandless sea where a stop is impossible. The Arctic tern breeds in Greenland, and spends the winter within the Antarctic Circle, and thus travels almost from Pole to Pole. It takes scarcely twenty weeks for the round trip of 22,000 miles, and must make at least 150 miles a day on an average. During eight months of the year the bird lives where the sun does not' go below the horizon.