The San Francisco call., 1904-04-08
Scientific Notes.

We note with pleasure that our
space-devouring friends at Zossen have
not yet satiated their hunger for pace,
and touched the record the other day
for no less than 140 miles per hour.
says the Street Railway Journal. They
seem TO be overcoming air pressure
rather comfortably up to the present.
and We have heard nothing about the
motors failing or the pressure caving
in the front end of the car
Perhaps the doubling gentlemen who
figured on the motors burning out from
overload at so to 100 miles per hour will
now be convinced that higher speeds
are both possible and practicable. One
hundred and forty miles per hour is a
decidedly hot pace, but it will more
than likely be beaten before we go to
press. 1t has taken a good many years
TO evolve the twO-minute trotting
horse, but this year we have him in
triplicate, and just so it has been with
electric railroading. Once the records
began TO break they fairly few up, and
left only small fragments.
One hundred and forty miles per hour,
even if not outdone by a considerable
margin, still means that the hundred
mile-an-hour train is much nearer to
reality than it has ever been before.
That speed is quite feasible whenever
it is demanded. and it is, moreover,
quite high enough to meet all require
ments of humanity for some little time
to come. Its real Importance lies, as
We have often remarked, in its appli-
cation 10 long lines on which the saving
81
down the running time to Flatbush or
Hackensack may defer the dyspepsia
of the commuter for another season or
two, but it is not commercially import
ant 1t is cutting the time on long runs
that counts - reducing the time to
Washington to less than three hours,
and converting the trip to Chicago into
a mere nights run.
IL is now announced that the expert
ments have been conducted largely
with the idea of the early application
of the system to the railroad connect
ing Berlin with Hamburg, distant by
rail 176 miles from each other, and that
an early conversion of that line is by
no means improbable. Somehow the
hundred mile an hour train looks
nearer than it did a few months ago.
and our spy-glass is still trained in
the direction of Germany.
To appreciate the force of sub
aqueous conyulsions that produce tidal
waves it is Illuminating to remember
through what an enormous bulk of
water the energy is transmitted. The
Pacific Ocean covers $4,000, 900 miles
and has a weight of water computed at
s4S. 200, 600. OOO. .O00. 900, 900 tons; the
Atlantic is spread over 80, 900, 600
miles and weighs $4,000, 600. .0OO.-
100000 tons. Atlantic waves of 500 feet
in length and between forty and fifty
feet in height have a velocity of fifty
to fifty-five feet per second Who
will be bold enough to figure out the
amount of energy exerted by an earth
quake which sends the whole abyss
of ocean into coneulsions, drives the
storm waves high inland upon the
West Indies and shifts the balance of
the remotest loch in Scotland? 1t
brings the problem nearer to mind,
perhaps, to reflect that a shock strong
enough TO agitate all the seas and
oceans would set in motion a body of
water which would cover the whole
globe to depth Of two miles-were
il not for the houses in between.
Also, it helps to know that to the 323,-
100000 cubic miles of water comprised
in the whole ocean all the storms and
deluges of the worst years contribute
but $500 cubic miles.-St. James Ga
zette.