SCIENCE SIFTINGS

New Zealand Tablet, 9 August 1917, Page 43

SCIENCE SIFTINGS

By "Volt."

Discovery of Petroleum. Petroleum is first mentioned by a priest, Joseph d'Allion, a French missionary laboring among the Indians. In a letter, written by him in the year 1629, he tells how he went from western New York to northern Pennsylvania, where he found a well from which oil flowed. The savages, he declared, thought highly of the oil for medicinal purposes. A New Artificial Eye. —■ The high Velocities and high explosiveness of the present day projectiles often result in facial wounds of most horrible appearance in the repair of which the surgeons meet with extreme difficulties. In particular soldiers return from the line of fire not merely with an eye shot out, but with the entire lid and eye-socket destroyed, and the absence of these foundations has often made the insertion of an artificial eye impossible. Until now there has never existed any means for concealing this disfigurement and restoring to the unfortunate victim the appearance of a normal man possessing two eyes. But quite recently a French oculist, Henri Einius, has made it possible to do this even when the eyelid is entirely missing. In its essential features the apparatus consists of an artificial eye, equipped with a lid of any convenient plastic material—paraffin or moulding paste, colored to match the subject's complexion. This eye is furnished also with lashes, to give to it the fullest possible extent the appearance of a natural eye. It derives its support from fine metal wires attached to eye-glass or spectacles, so adjusted that when the latter is placed upon the nose, the artificial eye falls accurately into its cavity.

New Zealand Iron.

“There are many deposits of iron ore throughout the islands of New Zealand,” states the final report of the Dominions Royal Commission, “but the only one of any x'eal magnitude is at Parapara, on the west coast of the South Island. Its contents have been variously estimated, but the total is undoubtedly very large. The ore is of good quality, suitable for fouxxdx-y purposes and for making basic steel, but the requirements of the New Zealand market would not at present justify the outlay necessary for conversion into steel. It was suggested to us that a market could be found for the ore in Japan, and we are of opinion that it would be in the interest of New Zealand that it should be exported to as many markets as possible in order that its quality should be thoroughly tested. It would be welcomed in the United Kingdom, but we fear that the cost of freight would render shipment there impossible. New Zealand has an asset of gx-eat potential value in the ironsands on the West Coast. The metallic iron contained is vii’tually free from deletexdoxxs ingredients, and the supply is practically inexhaustible. But to convey it to any distance in its present fox-nx would be very costly, whilst its conversion would on all probability involve treatment in electric furnaces. This asset is essentially so valuable that it is not likely to remain permanently neglected.” The report adds that towards the end of 1916 a beginning was made with the utilisation of the ironsands of Taranaki for the production of iron and steel. The statement of the report that the Parapara deposit of iron ore is “the only one of any real magnitude” in New Zealand is sweeping in view of the limited amount of prospecting work that has been undertaken in connection with the known iron deposits (says the Dominion). There is a bed of iron ore about sixty feet thick on the west side of Mount Peel, in Canterbury, for instance. Samples of the ore have been shown to contain 56 per cent, of metallic iron, and the deposit has been traced for a distance of three miles. Axx extensive deposit of iron ore (limonite and glauconite) occurs on the western slope of Mount Royal, in Otago. It contains about 37 per cent, of metal, and has been stated by experts to be important as regards both quality and position.