54 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[May 2nd, 1887. 



Royal), and the air motors for working the dynamos will 

 be placed near the Palais-Royal. The application is some- 

 what novel, and it remains to be proved whether this system 

 of successive transformation of energy for finally producing 

 electric light will not be very costly. It is a question in 

 such a case whether secondary generators might not be 

 employed with greater advantage. However, the company 

 deserve well for trying the experiment in so bold a manner, 

 and the installation can hardly fail to afford valuable infor- 

 mation on the subject. 



A New Liquid Fuel Furnace, the invention of Lieutenant 

 Pashinin, has been tried and adopted by the Russian 

 Government. A trial was made a short time ago with two 

 steamers fitted with this furnace, the results being success- 

 ful. It is stated that the trial showed that ilb. of petro- 

 leum refuse evaporated i5'6 lb. of water, or 2j times more 

 than coal. A sheet of white paper is said to have been 

 held 14 inches above the funnel, and at the end was not in 

 the least discoloured or blackened. At Baku, the price per 

 ton of liquid fuel is often as low as 4d. In other parts of 

 Russia the fuel is not so plentiful and consequently dearer, 

 and the question of economy is studied more than at Baku. 

 The supply of liquid fuel is plentiful in the Black Sea, and 

 it is expected that a large number of the torpedo iDoats 

 stationed there will be fitted with the new furnace. 



Direct Fixation of G.^seous Nitrogen. — At a recent 

 meeting of the Paris Academy of Sciences, a paper was read 

 by M. Berthelot on the direct fixation of the gaseous 

 nitrogen of the atmosphere by vegetable soils with the aid 

 of vegetation. Having already described the results of the 

 experiments made at Meudon on the fixation of atmospheric 

 nitrogen by certain argillaceous and vegetable soils, apart 

 from the action of vegetation, the author now gives the results 

 of the experiments simultaneously carried on with the aid of 

 vegetation, and under the ordinary conditions suitable for the 

 natural development of plants. In this case the amount fixed 

 was only 4-67 and ysSgrms., as compared with 12- 7 and 23 '15 

 in the absence of plants. From these experiments impor- 

 tant conclusions are drawn with regard to the rapid exhaus- 

 tion of the soil under the prevalent systems of forced 

 culture. 



: Mr. Beecher's Voice. — The Philadelphia Times says there 

 is in the house cf Mr.Edison, at Llewellyn Park, a remarkable 

 memento of the late Mr. Henry Ward Beecher. The inven- 

 tor's phonograph for impressing on a soft metal sheet the 

 utterances of the human voice, and then emitting them again 

 by the turning of a crank, has never been put to any very 

 valuable use. He, however, used it to make a collection of 

 famous voices, and since he himself became famous his 

 visitors have included many celebrities. Instead of asking 

 them for their autographs or photographs, he has in two or 

 three hundred instances requested them to speak a few 

 sentences in a phonograph. He has kept the plates in a 

 cabinet, and occasionally he runs some of them through the 

 machine, which sends out the words as uttered. Edison is 

 probably the only man who can revive the silenced voice of 

 the great preacher. 



Hardening and Tempering Steel. — An American paper 

 publishes a report of tests made of a new process for harden- 

 ing and tempering steel. A drill made of the new steel 

 penetrated in forty minutes a steel safe plate warranted to 

 resist any burglar drill for twelve hours. A penknife tem- 

 pered by the process cut the stem of a steel key readily, and 

 with the same blade the inventor shaved the hairs on his 

 arm. A number of other interesting and successful tests 

 were made. The inventor is a young blacksmith, who has 

 been experimenting with the process for years, and who 

 claims that this tempering is done without expense or skilled 



labour. He has also a new process for converting iron into 

 steel at small expense. He claims to be able to make steel 

 plates so elastic and hard as to turn a ball fired from the 

 heaviest gun ever constructed. It is needless to say that 

 the invention is a secret, and a company has been incor- 

 porated to push it. 



The Wave-Length of a Ray of Light. — At a recent 

 meeting of the Berlin Physical Society, Dr. Lummer de- 

 scribed the experiments of M. Mace de Lepinay, who by a 

 new method had determined the wave-length of the ray of 

 light Dg, ascertaining, as he had done, by weighing, the 

 volume of a quartz cube, the size of which was detiermined 

 in units of the wave-lengths, and from the volume of the 

 cube finding the length of the light-wave. He showed a series 

 of inaccuracies in the measurements of M. de Lepinay, and, 

 in view of the fact that the wave-lengths of the rays of 

 light are now measured with a precision of i-6o,oooth, 

 whereas the determination of the centimetre was aft'ected 

 with an uncertainty of i -4,000th, he purposed inversely ascer- 

 taining the length of the centimetre from the wave-length. 

 The mode of procedure should be the same as that made 

 use of by M. de Lepinay^ yet several improvements in the 

 measuring and weighing were stated, such as the speaker 

 hoped to be able to effect later on. — The Engineer. 



Oxy-Hydrogen Lamps. — At a meetingof the Berlin Physical 

 Society, whilst speaking on the disadvantages of the oxy-hy- 

 drogen lamps. Dr. Koenig explained a new lamp constructed 

 by Herr Linnemann, in which the unsteadiness in the light 

 was avoided. This unsteadiness arises from the fact that in 

 the common lamp the flame burns sometimes in the burning 

 tube and sometimes outside it. In the new lamp the coal gas 

 or the hydrogen issues from a ring-shaped opening in the bur- 

 ner, while the oxygen in the centre is admitted throughacapil- 

 lary tube and does not come into contact with the burning 

 gas till outside the burner. In the middle of the blue flame 

 is seen a bright point which gives the heat maximum. In- 

 stead of the lime cylinder, Herr Linnemann uses in his 

 lamp zircon plates, which, at the place of the bright point, 

 give a highly intense constant light. Dr. Koenig made use 

 of this light in order, with the aid of the optical bench of 

 Prof Paalzow, to demonstrate by projection, a long series of 

 phenomena in connection with the doctrine of the polarisa- 

 tion of light. 



Conversion of Heat into Electrical Energy Direct. 

 — Herren Kinghausen and Neoust have recently described 

 in Wiedemann's Annalen a fact of very considerable in- 

 terest. It amounts to no less than a new method of obtain- 

 ing an electric current by the direct conversion of heat. In 

 some respects this new discovery resembles the effect which 

 was first observed by Hall a few years since, but in the 

 present case a thermal current is substituted for a current 

 of electricity. That is to say, if a thin slip of metal, 

 placed in a magnetic field, have its two ends maintained at 

 different temperatures, then a difference of potential is set 

 up between the two opposite sides of the metal slip. The 

 experimenters state that they have satisfied themselves 

 that the current so produced is not due to any thermo- 

 electric action between the contacts. The fact that 

 the direction of the current is reversed when the 

 direction of the magnetic field is reversed is in itself 

 sufficient to remove this objection. The effect is naturally 

 very minute. 



Secondary Batteries. — In a discussion at the Society of 

 Telegraph Engineers and Electricians on the merits of Mr. 

 Fitzgerald's new battery, Professor Ayrton protested 

 against the rating of secondary batteries or "accumulators" 

 in terms of horse-power-hours. He considered this very mis- 

 leading, for, as a matter of fact, a so-called horse-power cell 



