Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 134, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 June 1910 — Science AND Invention [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Science AND Invention

There is a noticeable development in the Jaws of the boys taken out of the Btreets of London and sent into the British navy. A scientist says of the phenomenon: “The important notable improvement in them, next to their superior stature and healthy appearance, was the total change in the shape and expression of their faces. On analyzing this, one finds that it was to be mainly accounted for by the increased growth and Improved angle of the lower Jaw.” Among the most useful in the many ways in which science is teaching us to transform the world is the choice of vegetable forms which are capable of resisting diseases that practically sweep some varieties out of existence. At present hope is entertained in France of replacing the native chestnut, which has been destroyed in many parts of the country by a disease of the roots, with a Japanese variety. Experiments were first made with American chestnuts, but they soon fell victims to the disease. The Japanese trees, on the other • hand, give promise of proving immune. Everybody knows the defect of the ordinary arc-light, wherein the carbons are placed vertically, one over the other, with a consequent shading of the space directly beneath. Messrs. Timar and Von Dreger, in Germany, have recently Invented a form of electric candle in which this objection is eliminated. The carbons are placed horizontally, one beneath the other, and parallel. The arc is formed by separating the tips, and experience shows that It doeß not travel along the carbons, as might have been expected, because of the existence of an -electric field-between them. The electric field tends, on the contrary, to keep the arc at the tips, and even acts as an automatic regulator, for when the current becomes too strong the arc Is forced farther out and becomes longer, thereby increasing the resistance. The light is thrown downward, and by using two sets of carbons facing in opposite directions a good field of illumination is produced below. This candle is intended specially for indoors. In advocating the American plan of building factory chimneys of re-en-forced concrete, E. R. Matthews told the Concrete Institute in London recently some interesting facts about these structures. They can be built at less than half the cost of brick chimneys, and are of greater stability than brick structures, because they have no Joints. Very much less material is required on account of the relative thinness of the walls. Under the British law a chimney 300 feet tall would have to have the walls, if constructed of brick, about four feet ten inches thick at the base, but a concrete chimney would have a thickness of only nine inches for the outer wall, and five inches for the inner, with a space of four inches between. The “hair cracks” in concrete chimneys art only skin-deep, and have no practical importance. The chimneys are anchored by having the vertical steel bars continued into the foundation, and there bent at an angle of 90 degrees. Many are calculated to resist a wind of 100 miles per hour, a velocity practically unknown.