Amador ledger., 1909-04-23

paratus brought before British com
mittee of experts by A. j. Mcleod,
of West HaTtlepool, is designed es-
pecially for use from the ship. 1t is
in the form of a cannon, with barrel
feet long. mounted on four wheel
ed carriage. Compressed air is the
propelling power, and crank wheel
on each side gives means Of quickly
generating by hand sufficient energy
to throw the line-carrying projectiIe
half mile. special check keeps
the line from uuwinding from it's
winch so rapidly as to become tangl-
ed. In the trisls made, this apparatus
seem to have proven more efficient
and to have a longer range than the
ordinary rocket, and, as it uses no
explosive, it can be employed with
out risk of firing any combustible
or explosive cargo. Line firing from
the vessel has a number of advantages.
The apparatus is promptly at hand,
the wind is usually toward shore, and
the land Is a much better target than
the Iife-save have when working
from shore.
The quantity of helium present is
thought by X. j. Strut to bear de-
finite relation to the age of radio
active rocks. From the ratio of the
helium to the uranium, he has esti-
mated the time necessary to accumu-
late the former. that is, the age of
the stratum. His provisional results
show an age of 225, 900 years for the
English Pliocene, 3,080,000 for the
upper green sand of the Cretaceous.
3.950.0 600 for the lower green sand,
and l41 900, 600 for the hematlte
covering limestone of the CarboDi-
ferrous.
blue whale 81 feet long has been
reported by e. Il. Waite, of Canter
bury Museum, Christchurch, N. u.
OF blue whales taken off the coast of
Newfoundland, +. A. Lucas, of the
Brooklyn Institute of Arts and
the largest little less than 80 feet in
extreme length. A whales skeleton
in Copenhagen reported to be $50 feet
long proves, on Investigation, to
measure only IS feet.
Attention has been drawn rece entity
to the probable fact that the EARTH
ahrinkape 10 TAKING pIaoa of q naoeur.
able rate, so that accurate surveys in
all countries at regular intervals of
30 or 40 years are recommended for
the enlightenment of future gen.
erations. Most of the rocks IN sight
were Originally deposited by water in
horizontal position, but cooling
and shrinking changed the size and
consequently the contour of the
surface, causing strata to be pushed
up as dry land and folded into noun
tain ranges, the crumpling that form
ed the Alps having produced a hori-
zontal displacement of rs miles,
Various measurements of degree of
latitude seem to indicate that the
earth's quadrant has shoItened more
than 10 per cent since the time of
Eratosthenes (230 b. c. Modern
triangulation is very exact, and
measurements at regular intervals of
a degree on different parts of the
earth would eventually show whether
shrinkage is really peroeptible and
whether its ratio is uniform or the
result of occasional violent convul-
sions. Since the San Francisco
earthquake, a repetition of surveys
over more than 1900 square miles has
shown dIsplacements varying from 20
inches to Is feet, The same causes
affect elevation, and leVeling at
different times can reveal changes of
4 inches in the height Uf land.
Towers and other prominent objects
have sunk in Saxouy within a gen
Grafton so as to be no longer visible
from certain points. Periodical sur
veys, horizontal and vertical, will be
useful in various ways, and may even
give a hint as to the ultimate tate of
the earth.
Only within quite recent years
have tropical fruits become common
in northern markets, and now a new
luxury is promised in tropical and
out of season flowers. In Tefriger-
ators these are kept quite fresh while
being transported long distances,
During the winter, flowers picked III
the bud in Cape Colony have been
carried in cold storage to London,