The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-02-15
Things Science
Has Found Out

Furnaces for metallurgical work and
glass making usually have smooth
interior, but F. del Marmol, French
engineer, maintains that honeycomb-
ing the inside walls with cavities sets
up eddies that insure the thorough
mixing of the combustible gases with
the air supply, greatly increasing the
heat. An experimental furnace had a
crate 31a by IA feet, with a stack so
feet high. With the ordinary smooth
inner surfaces charge of glass could
not be melted in less than nine to ten
hours; but on rebuilding the furnace
with rough walls, the cavities being
half a brick in width and depth and
one brick between centers, the time
of melting was reduced to between
two and One-half and three hours. The
furnace walls soon reached a brilliant
white heat.
At the power station of Vouvry,
Switzerland, twenty 500 horse power
turbines are to be supplied with wa
ter at the extraordinary head Of
3,117 feet. The water is conducted
from Lake Tanay, q pond of Ill acres
draining less than three square miles
at a height of 4,644 feet above sea lev
ell, and the lower part of the conduits
consists of, two steel pipes about IS
inches in diameter. The pressure on
these pipes is estimated to reach 10,-
667 pounds to the square inch-scarce-
ly less than that of powder explo-
sion in a cannon.
The freezing well' Of Raoul Pictet
is fur-lined steel cylinder about five
feet deep. In this is placed the suf-
ferer from lung, stomach or kidney
disease for five to fifteen minutes, and
a liquefied mixture of sulphurous and
carbonic acids, at ITO degrees below
zero, is circulated by special pumps
between the double walls of the cylin-
der. By eight applications of this
treatment, which gives no sensation
of cold, Pictet claims to have cured his
own dyspepsia of fifteen years stand
ing.
The corn from an acre-forty to
eighty bushels-is estimated to have
the fuel value of one to two and one
half tons of coal. Burning the stalk
would increase this one-fourth or one
third.
The comets tail has been initiated
by Prof. E. F. Nichols and G. F. Hull
under conditions closely resembling
those of nature. A mixture of emery
powder and puff-ball spores was plac-
ed in an hourglass- shaped vacuum
tube and the air was withdrawn as
completely as possible, with precau-
tions to get rid of mercury vapor. On
pouring the powder from one part of
the tube to the other while Illuminated
by the concentrated rays of an cleo
trio arc, the lighter portions of the
powder were seen to be blown out as
though repealed by the light. The be-
haV1or Of comets tail was very ac-
curately reproduced and the effects
were found to agree with the calcula-
tons of the press ure Of light made by
these eXperimenters.
A study of the vibrations of gun
barrels has been made by two German
physicists. Several military rifles of
different caliber were used, being either
held on cork supports or in the usual
way, and the shadow of a projecting
wire was photographed, with that Of
a vibrating tuning fork, on moving
film. An electric contact recorded the
exact instant at which the projectile
left the barrel. 1t was found that the
vibrations are elliptical, that with no
cal1ber larger that six millimeterS GA
1nch) were the vibrations delayed I'M
til the bullet had left the muzzle, that
right-handed breech caused slight
deviation to the right and a left-hand-
ed breech to the left, and that the bay
onet altered the phase of the vibra-
ton at the instant Of the bullets leav-
ing the muZZle.
From observations Of ninety-one oc-
cultations of stars by the moon, G. w.
Hough divides the phenomena into four
classes. In one curious class the star
appears to be projected upon the
moons disc for some seconds before
its final disappearance, the cause seem
ing to be the passage Of the star be-
hind depression on the edge of the
disc. In the occultation of a close
double, the star was seen again after
its first disappearance and a second
disappearance was recorded four Sec
Onds after the first.
The new automatic pistol of Lieut..
Hino, of the Japanese infantry, fires
eighty cartridges a minute and has a
range of mere than 1000 yards.
The largest flying machine in ma
ture is found by Langley and Lucas
to have been the ornithostoma ingens,
the greatest of the pterodactyls of an
cient days, whose body weight was
probably about thirty pounds, and
whose extended wings measured about
twenty feet from tip to tip. The Iarg-
est Of existing flying creatures is the
albatroSS, Which has a weight of eigh-
teen pounds and a spread Of wing of
SISNCA anu d HAIL leSl, InOuSn us wing
area IS but seven square feet, While
1t develops only a twentieth of a horse
power, and such is this birds power
of progression by mysterious soaring
that tagged individual has been
known to travel at least $3.50 miles in
twelve days. Whether the pterodactyl
represents the extreme possible limit
of weight carrying by wings is one of
our interesting problems. Langley's
steel flying machine had supporting
area of ffty-four square feet, a weight
of thirty pounds, developed one and
one-half horsepower and repeatedly
flew from one-half to three fourths Of
a mile.
A vacuum tube of any length up to
six feet, in which mercury vapor is
raised to high incandescence, consti-
tutes the Cooper Hewitt electric Iamp.
The light is curious and unusual, being
of vivid violet hue, almost complete
Iy free from red rays, and it's weird eff
fects unfit 1t for domestic use, al
though 1t is claimed to have advan-
tages for many purposes. It is stat
ed to require only one-Seventh as much
electric energy as the ordinary glow
lamp, while it has run continuously
without renewal for 200 days of ten
hours each.
The known mammals of Greenland
are stated by Herluf Winge to num-
Der thirty. Of these sixteen are ceta-
ceans and six are marine carnivores
(seals). On land there are two ro-
dents (the polar hare and the lem
mlng), two ungulates (the reindeer and
the musk-ok), and four carnivores (the
Arctic fox, the wolf, the polar bear
and the stoat, or ermine).
Since 1896 the weight of storage