Science Siftings

New Zealand Tablet, 27 May 1915, Page 53

Science Siftings

By 'Volt.'

The Danger of Pack or Field Ice. During the autumn and winter the extreme cold in the Arctic regions holds the ice fast, and so far as this particular peril is concerned, the winter is the safest part of the year in the Northern Atlantic. Indeed, so far as the great modern liners are concerned, ice, and the risk of collision with other vessels or derelicts, are almost the only ocean dangers they have reason to dread. They can disregard the wildest storm and keep their course and, except under most exceptional circumstances, their speed, in spite of the wind and waves. Besides the icebergs, there is another risk which besets vessels in the spring and' early summer months. This is the pack or field ice, which is poured out in vast areas from the great sounds leading into Baffin's Bay, such as Lancaster, Jones, and Smith Sounds. The pack, which may be anything up to eight or ten feet in thickness, consists of the floe ice formed on the surface of the Arctic seas during the winter. When spring comes it breaks away in huge fields, sometimes thousands of square miles in area, and drifts south on the Labrador current at a rate of from ten to forty miles a day. Its speed is considerably accelerated by northerly or north-westerly gales along the American coast, due to the high-pressure atmospheric systems formed over North America, while, on the other hand, it may be entirely checked, or even driven some distance northwards again by strong southeasterly storms. The pack ice never drifts so far south as the bergs, as it melts and breaks up much more rapidly under the influence of the warmer water brought up by the Gulf Stream. The general effect of the prevailing winds and ocean currents tends to cause the ice, both berg and field, to accumulate in a vast horseshoeshaped area, of which Newfoundland forms, the heel and the southern edge of the Great Banks the toe. In this area bergs and pack ice of all sizes are to be met. Wonders of Scent-Making. Chemistry, which is the mother of all sciences, is peculiarly apt in its duplication of the perfume of flowers. It has even duplicated the odor of new-mown hay. In the Patent Office at Washington there are shelves of bottles containing odors that no one can tell from the perfumes of flowers, yet none of these were distilled from a blossom. One perfume, however, — that of attar of rosehas not been satisfactorily compounded ; but even that, the experts aver, will come in time. The oil that gives to the rose its fragrance is called rhodonel. It is found in the lemon-grass and also in some of the geraniums. Efforts are constantly being made to extract the oils from these plants, only a slight modification being required to transform such oil into the attar. The production of artificial musk from coal-tar has practically driven the real article out of the market. Though not the same thing as musk, chemically speaking, its scent is indistinguishable from it. Genuine musk is obtained from a gland of the musk deer that roams the forests of Central Asia. Ethereal oils give to fruits their delicious flavours. There are hundreds of these oils, and every one of them can be not only counterfeited, but actually duplicated, as they are chemical compounds. It no longer pays to use real fruit syrups for soda-water, as all of them can be made with ethers. The largest commercial success in the way of an artificial flavoring is vanillin. This product is responsible for the low price of the vanilla bean, and has threatened more than.once to drive it from the market..