Amador ledger., 1906-04-13


Lightning Measurement. - Electric
Chair for sickness. Heat Stor-
age = Energy of Dissertation. - A
Remarkable New Gas. Pipe
Protection.-A Meteor's Flight.
Artificial silk-or which the daily
production is now seven tons, or five
per cent of the total consumption of
Silks practically pure celluiose to
which the superficial luster of natural
silk has been given. l. Derome, a
French authority, finds four principal
varieties.-Q) those from nitro
cellulose or gun-cotton; ~ hydrate
of copper silks, from cellulose dis
solved in Schweitzer's liquid or
copper ammonia; (3) chloride of zinc
silks, from cellulose dissolved in zinc
chloride; and a. viscose silks, from
the decomposition of sulphocarbonate
of ceIlulose. The best of these silks
are about half as strong as the
natural, while the chief fault Of all
is their great weakening by damp
ness. They cost less than a third as
much as real silk, sviscose being
claimed to be cheapest, and also
strongest and most lustrous, and to
be insoluble in water, acids and
alkalies.
A four-inch black disc, marked
with white cross and rotated so to
60 times a second, has been used by
German physicist at night for
studying lightning flashes. Some
flashes caused the cross to appear
once, others brought it out several
times, and repeated observations con-
tirmed the view that the discharge is
very variable. The duration of some
seemed to be about 1-1OOO of second,
while in one instance eight partial
discharges followed each other at
regular intervals Of about 1-10O0 of a
second. Others were shorter, and
some we're evidently not more than
135000 of second. Faraday thought
flashes were at least one second long.
The fastest chair for the victim of
sickness has q movable seat
vibrated by an electric motor, the
sensation produced being much like
that experience by the motorist.
Surprising relief to the sufferers is
said to be given.
The novel recuperative boiler lately
awarded prize by the Paris Academy
of Sciences is able to supply steam
for several hours after the fire has
been extinguished. 1t Is the idea OF
M. Maurice, engineer-in- chief of the
French Marine, and it depends upon
the heat storage of mixture Of salts
having great specific heat, this
mixture being placed around the
tubular system of the boiler and
having Its temperature raised to about
450 degrees G. during the firing. This
method of storage offers great economy
in both weight and space over the old
plan of using reservoirs Of super.
heated water. After the accumulation
is used, a new reserve quickly follows
the starting of the fire, and the ad-
vantages are believed to be specially
important for the marine and fol
electric stations.
The new alchemy assumes that ele
ments of great atomic weight breaks
up into substances of lighter atoms,
but thus far the only transmutations
observed have been the changes Of
radium and actinlum into an emana.
tion, of which about seven per cent
seems to torn helium. What becomes
OF the remaining SO per cent of the
emanatlon Is not yet proven, although
there are reasons tor believing that
lead is part of the product. In the
atomic disintegration the energy
given out far surpasses all previous
experience, and it Is estimated that
if fragment Of radium could be
made to complete its change in
simultaneously the result would be an
explosion millions of times more
terrific than that of gun-cotton.
Carbon suboxide, the new oxide of
carbon obtained by two chemists of
| Berlin University, contains three