430
T H E J O U R N A L OF I N D U S T R I A L A N D ENGINEERING C H E M I S T R Y NATURAL GAS IN CANADA
Remarkable progress is reported for 1913 by the Canadian Western Natural Gas, Light, Heat and Power Co. According to the Journal of Gas Lighting and Water S u p p l y , 97 (1914), 639, the daily consumption amounts to some 26,000,000cu. ft., which is paid for a t the rate of 15 cents per 1000. The distribution has a capacity of 33,000,ooo cu. f t . daily, but enlargements are in contemplation, sipce 500 consumers are being added monthly. The pressure in the borings is over 600 lbs. per sq. in., and this is practically as great as when the well was first started. It may, therefore, be assumed that the supply will last for some years. The total capital of the company a t the end of 1913amounted t o more than $9,747,000.
Val. 6 , NO. j
place in the converter. A steel containing 0.04per cent of nitrogen, when tested, broke without elongation, but was improved by Prolonged annealing.
THE CINEMATOGRAPH IN RESEARCH
In an extremely interesting lecture before the Frankisch-Oberpfalzischer Section of the Verein deutscher Ingenieure [ Z e d schrift des Ver. deut. Ing., 58 (1914),2681, Dr.-Ing. Hanz Goetz outlined the part cinematography had played in scientific and technical research and suggested some of the things that may be expected of it in the future. After an introduction giving statistics, describing apparatus and outlining the history of the invention, the lecture takes up the position of moving picture photography among the means of reproducing phenomena to the census. It differs from other means in that it correlates TAR AND BENZOL PRICES two of the basic quantities that physics deals with, time and The Journal of Gas Lighting and Water S u p p l y , 97 (1914), extension in space. 640,quotes an article in the Journal f u r Gasbeleuchtung, in which The most obvious way in which the cinematograph may act appears a diagram (drawn up by Professor Dr. Ost) showing as an aid to science is in recording rare phenomena such as scenes the remarkable fluctuations in the prices of tar and benzol bein the life of seldom seen or difficultly accessible animals, unusual tween the years 1880 and 1905. The price of a ton of tar in 1880 was about 30 marks; in 1883 it had risen to 55; in 1887 surgical operations, etc.-fields in which considerable success it was down to about 16;in 1892it was up to 40 again; from 1889 has been attained. Its usefulness only begins here, however. Just as the scale of objects may be varied when they are t o 1905 it was round about 2 0 marks. The variations in the benzol curve are even more remarkable. Between 1885and 1886 represented graphically, so the time scale of actions may be the price of 100kg. dropped from 400 marks to 40, owing to the changed when they are represented by the cinematograph. By an increase in speed, Professor Pfeffer, of Leipzig, has been advent of benzol washing in coke-oven practice. In 1890 i t able to reproduce in three minutes a ten-day period of growth again rose to I I O marks; in 1895 it was below 27; and in the next of a horse-chestnut twig ; pictures for this reproduction were year it shot up to 75 again. From 1899 t o 1905 it was fairly taken a t five minute intervals. A large field for the study of steady round about 20 marks. The prices in the London market the growth of both plants and animals is thus opened up. Just last week were about 32 marks per ton of tar, and 27 to 28 marks as slow motions can be hastened so that it is possible to see the per IOO kg. for benzol. total effect in a truer perspective, so it is possible to retard and DOMESTIC LIGHTING FIFTY YEARS AGO analyze quick movements, and the limits are only those of the The Journal of Gas Lighting and Water S u p p l y , 97 (1914), speed with which the pictures can be taken. With the most re516, quotes the following paragraph from The Builder for Feb. fined mechanical devices i t is not possible to take more than 250 pictures per second, but by illuminating the moving object with 20, 1864: “Of late, in provincial towns, and even in some villages, gas- regularly succeeding electric sparks and photographing on a film moving continuously rather than intermittently, it was found lights have been introduced into the dwellings of the working possible to ipcrease the number of exposures to 2000 per second. classes-a practice which adds to the cheerfulness of homes and Bull has studied the flight of insects in this manner. is not more expensive than candles. In Manchester most new From an engineering point of view the cinematograph has been houses, of even the third class, have gas-pipes laid on a t the time most useful in studying projectiles and their effect on armor of building. In London this is not so generally done, even in plate. Much higher frequencies had to be used than Bull obnew houses of this class; and to lay the pipes to old ones, by retained, and the apparatus employed differed from his in not opening the pavements, is a seldom recurring art. Of late, using a mechanical interrupter; in series with the illuminating however, lamps constructed for the use of paraffin or petroleum spark-gap was a large condenser, and in parallel with i t a small and colza oils are coming much into use in the houses of the workone; the large condenser is charged by an induction machine, ing classes; and it is stated that in the longest days of winter, and when it is discharged the small condenser is alternately when light is needed from between four and five o’clock P . M . charged and discharged across the gap. The period of the till between ten and eleven, and also in the morning, the cost alternations can be judged with fair accuracy by the tone. is only about 8d. a week. Common candles would come to about Since an explosion can take place in the five-thousandth part a shilling, while the paraffin gives three or four times the volume of a second, the speed of nine to fifty thousand exposures per of light that could be obtained from candles for that money.” second, obtained by this method, is sufficient to furnish interesting results. Since it is obviously impossible t o have the GASES IN IRON AND STEEL An investigation by W. Herwig, Stahl und Eisen, 33, 1721, camera near the object photographed, a special arrangement is on the gas contained in blisters formed on steel plates during used. The cinematograph can also be used for making quantitative rolling and annealing is quoted in the Journal of Gas Lighting and Water S u p p l y , 97 (1914),502. This gas consists chiefly measurements of movements. The fall of a body has been studied by photographing on the same film the falling object of nitrogen. The gases evolved during the solidification of iron and the hand of a chronograph, and in the same way the action immediately after tapping from the blast-furnace include large of a steam hammer has been timed. quantities of hydrogen and carbon monoxide; white iron contains In these lines the cinematograph has just begun to be demore hydrogen, and hot-blast gray iron more carbon monoxide. veloped, and offers great possibilities in solving problems dealBy heating in a current of hydrogen, the nitrogen in steel turning with time and space in fields as wide apart as engineering ings was reduced from 0.022 to 0.006 per cent; and, though it was not increased by heating in a current of nitrogen, yet and biology, and makes possible the study of motions so slow from a mixture of nitrogen and hydrogen in equal proportions that it has hitherto been impossible to form conception of their a steel was obtained, in one case with as much as 0.052 per cent whole meaning, or so fast that it has been almost impossible to form any conception of them a t all. of nitrogen. The author considered that similar action takes
