Amador ledger., 1910-07-22

The hand-grenade, the use of which
was revived in the Japanese
war, has been greatly improved by F..
Marten- Hale, an Englishman in a shell
that can be fired a quarter of a mile
from a gun or thrown by hand at short
range. A charge of tonite, a safely
handled but very powerful explosive,
is inclosed in the annular space, be-
tween a steel tube 516 in diameter and
much smaller inclosed tube. To the
fixed plate closing one end of the shell
can be screwed rod 10 inches long, to
be inserted in a rifle barrel, and to
the other end detonator, with full
inmate cap, is screwed just before use.
A ring of "a segments fitted on the
shell near the detonator end adds "a
projectiles to the fragments of the
grenade on explosion. In an expert
ment at Vienna, 223 fragments were
collected after explosion; and in a test
by the Spanish Government, 80 dummy
soldiers were arranged in a circle, $50
feet in diameter, when a single gre
made killed 9 and wounded" At.
The grenades, perfectly safe to carry
with detonators removed. may serve
also as cartridges for destroying
bridges, walls, etc.
A scheme for a British scientific
system of weights and measures-em-
bracing one of the best features of the
metric system-has been suggested to
Thomas Parker, of Ironbridge, Salop,
by the striking discovery that 1 cubic
inch of water at so deg. c., 122 deg.
F., weighs exactly $50 British standard
grains. Without change of values,
therefore, he proposes to make inch
the unit of length, l cubic inch the
unit of volume, and l inch-weight"
the unit of weight. A 20" weight
of ID grain is added for convenience.
The avoirdupois pound being 1000
grains, we have: l 20" equals a
grain; 1000 los" equal the inch
weight" Inch weights" equal L.
600 grains; % "inch weights" equal 1
pound.
The actually available water-p power
of continental Europe is placed by
German estimate at 5000. 900 horse
power. Of this more than 100000
is in Sweden and Norway. 6,OOO,O ZOO in
Austria Hungary, and 5,500,000 each
in France and Italy.
The theory that sunspot activity sets
up magnetic storms on the earth by
bombardment of negatively charged
electrified particles is not confirmed
by DR.. L. A. Bauer, who finds instead
that Roentgen and ultraviolet rays
from the sun give increased activity to
earth currents already existing. Ex-
animation of the records of obser-
vatories showed that magnetic storms
do not begin at absolutely the same
instant of time all over the world, as
was supposed. The storms instead
progress around the earth, the feeble
ones making the complete circuit in
three or four minutes, while those
strongly affecting the compass may
take half an hour or more to get COM
pletely around. Besides the electrified
particles coming from the sun, there
are radiations that do not carry electric
charges. Both Roentgen rays and
ultra violet light make the air better
conductor of electricity, or "ionize"
it, and the observations seem to in
dicate that the magnetic disturbances
are due to this action, setting in mo-
tion electric currents brought about by
the atmosphere cutting across the
earth's lines of magnetic force. AS
the currents get lower down in the
tmosphere-more strongly affecting
the compass-thei velocity is checked
The current idea that the earth's in
terror is solid steel is rejected by a
French geologist, who concludes in
stead that the nucleus-the mass be-
low depth of 40 or so miles-repre-
sents mixed matter in a state beyond
the solid. This would give us four
states of matter-the meta-solid solid,
liquid and gaseous. 1t is argued that
if the nucleus were steel, some of it
would have reached the surface as
pure iron in the millions of years of
volcanic activity, but pure iron does
not occur in volcanic products, and the
proportion of iron is small. Another
late suggestion is that the nucleus con-
sists of heavy element or elements
that transforms itself into the ele