The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1930-12-31
SCIENCE Will
CONTINUE ITS
RAPID STRIDES
Progress in All Lines of
Endeavor Forecast for
Coming Year.
HUGE PROJECTS PUSHED
Boulder Dam and Golden
Gate Bridge Headline
Engineering Feats.
BY WATSON DAVIS
ne Srierea Sarvira

BY WATSON DAVIS
= OF Science Service
written for The Times and NEA Service)
Bridge, telescope, dam and air.
ship-all larger and better than
ever built before.
Better health and fewer deaths.
Progress toward the rescue of hui
mankind from an eventful death
due to lack of power. More knowl-
edge of the human past and more
plans for the human future.
These stand out on Sciences cal
endar for achievement in 1881.
Utilization of sun power may ap-
proach closer to solution.
Sun May Give Power
Direct use of suns rays for power
will become a stark necessity when
the stored supplies of fossil fuel,
coal and oil, are exhausted. For
this reason there is quiet research
in laboratories on the problems of
turning light and heat rays eff
sciently into electricity.
The coming year will probably
see an extension of INCORPORATION
of hydrocarbons in this country
while other chemical processes will
come to perfection and modify ex-
listing Industries.
Construction of the Boulder Dam,
which will begin in earnest during
1881, will give impetus to new
methods for the transmission of
electricity.
The United States navy's airship
Akron will take the air about the
middle of the year as the largest
ughter-than-air craft aloft. The
hull, or frame, of a sister ship of
the sa me size, 6,5O0,OOO cubic feet
helium capacity, will be laid in the
giant hangar at Akron as soon as
the f1r st airship is launched.
Ocean Air Mail to Start
The, United States air mails
promise to make the first step to-
ward Europe following trails blazed
earlier by transatlantic flights. The
postoflce department at Washing
ION Is contemplating a weekly car
rying of the mails across the At
lantiG by way of Bermuda and the
azores. European nations have
plans for a mail route across the
southern Atlantic to South America
ITans- Atlantic steamship compa-
Mes are turning their designers to-
ward larger and -Speedier liners for
the north Atlantic service. The
Curlard line may begin construction
OF q 73,000-ton ship during the year
while American interests may coun-
ter by beginning construction of a
ship larger than the Leviathan.
The internationalism Of science
VIII be given impetus by Professor
Albert Einstein's visit to this coun-
try to check his famous theories at
astronomical observatories in Cali
folnia.
Continue War on Insects
The conflict between man and in
sect will continue. Although 1880 saw
TIE successful elimination of I'm
cle Sans chronological defense
a{ainst the Mediterranean fruit fly
~ Florida, other pests, including the
European corn borer, the Gypsy
10th, the Japanese beetle, the orr
eRtal fruit moth and the cotton boil
iweevil continue to be problems to
s. agriculture.
~ Smallpox cases were numerous
eduring 1880 and unless vaccination
! is more widespread this will con-
s&tinue.
a Fewer cases of diphtheria are ex-
~pected, thanks to toxin antitoxin.
"A Typhoid fever is at low ebb and
&probably i'll remain there.
The death rate fer the country
PAS a whole probably will continue
downward. Whether the birthrate
b will do the same, as it has for the
q last year, can not be foretold
Farther progress upon conStruc-
j ton of the 200inch telescope, to be
twice as large as the worlds largest
now on Mt. Wilson in California,
will be made during 1881.
Glant Bridge underway
In California also another
worlds largest project will get
underway. This will be the $32,-
100000 Golden Gate bridge to span
with a 4,200-foot unbroken stretch
the entrance to San Franciscos
harbor. It will take several years
to complete this immense. structure.
Natural gas promises to continue
spreading its pipe line net across
America. Pipe lines for gas promise
to become as common as Oil lines
and compete with railroads and
electrical transmission lines in
transporting of energy.
More clews to mans evolution
are likely to be found in 1881 in
China, which already has yielded
two skulls of the "Peking man"
who is expected to go down in his
tory as an important ancestor of
the human race.
New evidence for or against a
greater antiquity of man in the
United States also may be found
through excavations in Gypsum
cave, near Las Vegas, New.