Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1905-10-10
Populeds Sience.



When showing the violet shade, the
thickness of the film of a soap bubble
Is about tie one million two hundred
and forty thousandth part Of an inch.
Paper car wheels made by pressure
from rye-straw paper are usually good
enough to take a second set OF steel
Tires after the first set has been worn
out by run of 100000 miles.
A firm of Baltimore architects has
Drawn plans for a building without
any wood in it's construction. 1t will
be six stories in height, the entire
structure to be of REINFORCED concrete
ana steel. Even the doors, window
sashes and door jambs will be of
metal
Three human lungs-one white, one
black and one gray-form an instrrc-
tive exhibit in an Edinburgh museum.
The first came from an ESQuimaux,
who breathed the pure air of the Arc
tic regions; the second, from coal
miner, who inhaled much coal dust,
the third, from a town dweller, kept
in city dust and smoke.
The proposed new calender of
Camille Flammarion, the French as
tronomer, begins the year at the
Vernal Equinox March 2D, and to ev-
cry quarter gives two months of thirty
days and one month of thirty-one
days. The 365th day, set aside as a
fete day, is not counted in any month,
two such days following leap year.
The object of this plan is to make tine
same dates fall always on the same
days Of the week and thus give a
calendar that is good for any year.
At the Lowell Observatory in Ari-
iona photographs of the planet Mars
were taken last May, showing, in
whole or part, about a dozen of the
narrow markings on that planet which
are called canals" Some of these
photog apis, which are less than a
quarter of an inch in diameter, have
been reproduced in one of the observa-
tory bulletins. As shown in these re-
productions, the markings, except in
the case Of one or two Of the broader
ones, are very faint, but yet recogniz-
able.
Prof. Henry L. Bolley of the North
Dakota Agricultural College an
nounces, as interesting news, that the
red spores Of some of the important
rusts affecting wheat are capable Of
withstanding not only the drying
winds of autumn, but the intense cold
of North Dakota winter. They have
been found surviving upon dead
leaves, dead straw and the partially
dead or green leaves of living grain
or grasses. This applies also to other
important rusts which attack wheat
and allied grasses. Heretofore it has
generally been assumed that the
spores are quick to terminate and
short Of life, and simply spread the
disease from plant to plant during the
summer season.
Although the existence of tantalum,
the new material employed for in
candescent lamp filaments, has been
known for a hundred years, it is only
very recently that the metal has been
prepared in a pure state. This is eff
fected with the aid of the electric
furnace. Tantalum combines extreme
ductility with extraordinary hardness.
When red-hot it is easily rolled into
sheets or drawn into wire, but upon
being heated a second time and then
hammered it becomes so hard that 1t
has been found impossible, with a
diamond drill, to bore a hole through
sheet only one millimeter thick
Such drill, working day and night
for three days, at 5000 revolutions per
minute, made a depression only a
quarter Of a millimeter deep, and the
diamond point was badly worn.