Science Sittings

New Zealand Tablet, 20 March 1913, Page 53

Science Sittings

By ‘ Volt.’

Crystallised""' Grasses.

Crystallised grasses are prepared by dipping in supersaturated solution of alum. Put into water as much as you can possibly manage to dissolve, and boil till half the water is evaporated. Hang the grasses in the solution, tops down, and place to cool in a clean place, where no draught of air can be felt and no dust will fall. In from one to two days the grasses may be taken out. Let them harden in a cool room. If you wish blue crystals put blue vitriol or sulphate of copper in the alum solution for gold crystals add turmeric; for purple crystals add logwood. Almost any color may be produced, and if grasses of many different colors are arranged artistically together, the effect will be striking and highly attractive.

(Shoes for Walking on Water.

A German cabinet-maker has constructed a pair of water shoes with the help of which he walks upon the water. He has already crossed Lake Amner, in Bavaria, 12,000 feet wide, in two hours. These water shoes are really two long, narrow boxes of pine wood, squared off at the rear end and shaped like the bow of a boat in front. To preserve his balance the traveller grasps two upright posts. At the outer edge of each boat or shoe three small paddles, shaped like rudders, are fastened. These move on hinges and are worked by a sliding mechanism that is operated by the traveller pushing his feet forward alternately, like a boy learning to skate. He can travel rapidly and with safety on smooth water, although the apparatus is probably not fit for use in stormy weather. Those who have tested it assert that it does not tax the strength as much as rowing a moderately sized boat. The inventor uses his water shoes almost every day for crossing the lake and transporting his tools and a moderate amount of luggage.

The Formation of Coal.

The substance of coal is all derived from vegetables which at one time grew upon.the surface of the earth, either in dry land or in marshes, or beneath the water. In any bog or swamp may be seen one step in one kind of process of the transformation of living plants into coal. On the surface grows the green living moss with many other plants. Two or three inches below that is a brown, spongy mass, consisting of the fibre of dead plants; this passes gradually down into a compacted brown mass in which the vegetable tissue begins to disappear. Lower down it is still denser and darker, and all obvious traces of fibre and tissue, perhaps, are lost; until at a depth of sometimes thirty feet, a compact black substance is found which cuts like cheese, but, for its dampness, might be called soft coal. When artifically dried and compressed it makes a hard, black substances and scarcely differs either in appearance of composition from some varieties of pit coal. The Force of Water. A wager sprung on curious visitors by the engineers of some of the big water power projects of the Western States of America is that a powerful man, swinging a four-pound axe with all his might, cannot make a dent in the water as it emerges from the nozzle at the power house. Burying an axe in a stream of water looks like child's play, and the average healthy visitor is likely v to bite. He invariably loses, so great is the velocity of the water emerging from the nozzle in these up-to-date j power plants that an axe, no matter how keen an edge it may have is whirled from the hands of the strenuous axemen at the instant of contact with the water. The water travels under a pressure of upward of 500 pounds to the square inch in many instances, and no power on earth can turn it off at the nozzle, once it gains momentum. It has the same effect on one's fingers as a rough emery wheel, and will shave a plank with the nicety of a razor-edged plane. When, as frequently happens, it is necessary to shut down a power plant operated by one of these streams, the nozzle is deflected by means of a powerful seat of gears.

CELTIC FOOTBALL CLUB, TIMARU (From an occasional correspondent.) The annual meeting of the Celtic Football Club was held on February 25. Rev. Father Murphy occupied the chair, and there was a good , attendance of members and intending members. - The rev. chairman congratulated the club on the good form shown last season and wished them success for the coming season. Mr. Gillespie endorsed the chairman’s remarks, and said he was pleased to see so many players selected from the club to represent South Canterbury, and also two members in the South Island team. The players who represented South Canterbury were Messrs. Geo. Niall, T. Lynch, M. Darcy, W. Dalton, T. Fitzgerald, J. O’Brien, and M. Houlihan; and T. Lynch and W. Dalton represented South Island. Very Rev. Dean Tubman was elected patron, Rev. Father Murphy president, Mr. W. Dalton club captain, Mr. M. Darcy vice-captain, Mr. J. O’Brien coach, Mr. W. Gillespie secretary and treasurer, Rev. Brother Egbert auditor, and Messrs. J. P. Leigh and W. Gillespie representatives on the Catholic Federation.

The 1913 season will open on Easter Saturday, when the annual" match with the Christchurch Marist Old Boys will be played. The meeting was marked by much enthusiasm, and everything points to a successful season.