Miscellaneous. 



70 



[January, 1912. 



Probably in most industries there are 

 what have another such vulnerable 

 spot — a trans-search. For example, the 

 efficieucy of steam boilers, based upon 

 the heat energy of the coal used and the 

 efficiency of the engine using the steam, 

 are constantly being raised. We may 

 expect, until the maximum calculable 

 efficiency is reached, that this advance 

 will continue. The reason is not far to 

 seek- It is a vulnerable spot. Improve- 

 ment is impossible. A small increase in 

 efficiency of power plant is an ever- 

 continuing profit. Great numbers of 

 steam power olants exist, and so in- 

 ventors are influenced by the fact that 

 new improvements may result in 

 enormous total economies. Every rule 

 of the game encourages them, I can 

 make this clearer by illustrations. 



Artificial light is still produced at 

 frightfully poor efficiency. Electric light 

 from incandescent lamps has been 

 greatly improved in this respect, but 

 there is still room for greater economies. 

 It is still a vulnerable spot. 



In the case of iron used in trans- 

 formers, we have another such vulner- 

 able spot. A transformer is practically 

 a mass of sheet iron, wound about with 

 copper wire. The current must be 

 carried arouud the iron a certain number 

 of times, and the copper is chosen be- 

 cause it does the work most economic- 

 ally. No more suitable material than 

 copper seems immediately probable, nor 

 is there any very promising way of 

 increasing its efficiency, but in the iron 

 about which it is wound there is a 

 vulnerable spot. The size of the iron 

 about which the copper is wound may 

 possibly be still much further reducible 

 by improvements in its quality. In 

 other words, we do not yet know what 

 determines the magnetic permeability 

 or the hystersis of the iron, and yet we 

 do know that it has been greatly 

 improved in the past few years, and that 

 it can still be greatly improved. 



Let us make this vulnerable point a 

 little clearer by considering the condi- 

 tions here in Boston. I assume there 

 are approximately 50,000 kilowats of 

 alternating current energy used here, 

 Nearly all of this is subject to the losses 

 of transformers. If the transformers 

 used with this system were made more 

 than ten years ago, they probably 

 involve a total loss, due to eddy and 

 hysteresis, of about §1,000 per day at the 

 ten-cent rate. Transformers as they are 

 made to-day, by using improved iron, 

 are saving nearly half of this loss, but 

 there still remains over $500 loss per day, 

 to serve as a subject for interesting 

 research work. 



It should also be noted that Boston 

 used only a very small fraction of the 

 alternating current energy of this 

 country. 



Consider for a moment two references 

 to the sciences and industry in Germany 

 and England. Dr. O. N. Witt, professor 

 in the Berlin Technical High School, 

 reporting to the German Government in 

 1903, says : " What appears to me to be 

 of far greater importance to the German 

 chemical industry than its predominant 

 appearance at the Columbian World's 

 Pair, is the fact which finds expression 

 in the German exhibits alone, that 

 industry and science stand on the foot- 

 ing of mutual deepest appreciation, one 

 ever influencing the other," etc. As 

 against this Prof. H. E. Armstrong, of 

 entirely corresponding prominence and 

 position in England, says of England : 

 " Our policy is the precise reverse of 

 that followed in Germany. Our manu- 

 facturers generally do not know what 

 the word research means. They place 

 their business under the control of prac- 

 tical men, who, as a rule, actually resent 

 the introduction into the work of the 

 scientifically trained assistants. If the 

 English nation is to do even its fair 

 share of the work of the world in the 

 future, its attitude must be entirely 

 changed. It must realize that steam 

 and electricity have brought about a 

 complete revolution, that the applic- 

 ation of scientific principles and methods 

 is becoming so universal elsewhere, that 

 all here who wish to succeed must 

 adopt them." 



So long as motors burn out, so long a9 

 subways are tied up by defective appa- 

 ratus, so long as electric motors can run 

 too hot, so long as street cars may catch 

 fire from so-called explosions of* trie 

 current, so long as the traffic of a whole 

 city can be stopped by a defective insul- 

 ation or a ten-cent motor brush, there 

 will probably be the equivalent of re- 

 search laboratories somewhere con- 

 nected with the electrical industries 

 where attempts will be continually 

 made to improve. 



HOW TO USE FOWL MANURE. 



("Prom the Queensland Agricultural 

 * Journal, Vol. XXVII., Pt. 3, 



September, 1911.) 

 Hens require a highly nitrogenous 

 ration, for the reason that eggs contain 

 a very high percentage of protein, and 

 one of the constituents of protein is 

 nitrogen. If* poultry food is rich in 

 nitrogen, it is natural to suppose that 



