Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 149, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 June 1910 — Science Invention [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Science Invention

The boiling-points of metals have not hitherto been very accurately ascertained. Recently H. C. Greenwood had undertaken a new investigation of this subject, and he gives the following results for certain well known metals: Aluminum, 1,800 degrees C.; copper, 2,310 degrees C.; iron, 2,450 degrees C.; lead, 1,525 degrees C.; silver, 1,955 degrees C.; tin, 2,270 degrees. Lord Dudley, the Governor-General of Australia, has headed a movement for persuading the federal government to establish in Australia a solar observatory to act in concert with those now In operation in England, India and America. It is pointed out that there is a great break in the chain of these observatories, extending between California and India, and covering a distance of 150 degrees of longitude. The proposed observatory ,in Australia would serve to fill this gap. Moreover, it would possess special value from being ideated in the southern hemisphere. With its aid a continuous series. of observations of the sun, extending throughout the 24 hours, could be made. Among the most interesting of American birds Is the great vulture called the California condor, which rivals the famous condor of the Andes in size, averaging 4V£s feet in length and 10 feet in spread of wings. It nests in wild and t inaccessible places in the mountains. Its eggs measure 4% by 2y 2 inches, and are very rare in collections. Prof. Vernon L. Kellogg calls attention to the fact that this bird carries two mallophagan parasites which are common to it and to the two oth«r great vultures of the American c*dillera, the Andean condor and the king-vulture, whose combined range extends several thousand miles north and south. But the parasites are wingless, whereas the vultures represent three separate genera, of which the Individuals are particularly non-grega-rious. How, then, have they come into the possession of identical parasites? Professor Kellogg believes that the,explanation must be that the parasites infested an extinct common ancestor of the three related types of birds, and have persisted, practically unchanged, on Its now divergent descendants. Invention during the next two or three centuries, says Prof. John G. McKindrick, will probably be In the direction of. imitating the wonderful economy, and the simple, direct methods of nature. Take the electric eel. Its electric organ is in no sense a storage-battery, but a contrivance by which electric energy is liberated at the moment when it is required. At rest, the organ shows so small an electromotive force that a good galvanometer is required to detect it, but a sudden nervous impulse from the eel’s spinal cord raises a potential of many volts, with very litle heat and so small an expenditure of matter as to defy the most expert chemist to weigh It. Fireflies, glowworms and many deep-sea fishes; produce light without, heat, “at a cost which would make the price of wax vesja an extravagant outlay.” The organic chemist requires all the resources of his laboratory, with high temperatures and potent agencies, to produce alkalold&l which plants make at a low temperature and by slow processes.