On supporting science journalism
If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
Among the interesting novelties at the Fisheries Exhibition, London, besides the American gaslight buoy, and the pneumatic alarm buoy, is Capt. Cator's tidal buoy, which we here illustrate. It is arranged something like a ship's log, and is towed astern of a vessel iu the same manner. The motion causes the screw upon the buoy to rotate, the number of revolutions varying, of course, with the speed of the ship. Connected to the spindle of thescrewisahammer which strikes a gong. A number of these buoys are used in the British navy, their special object being to denote to another vessel astern the speed of the one ahead. This is readily ascertained by counting the beats of the gong per minute. They are intended to be used during the prevalence of fog, and although they may be serviceable for squadron evolutions, would M we imagine, be of much good to the pas-er marine. A Signal Station at Mount Whitney The Government has determined to establish a signal service station on the summit of Jlcrant Whitney, and during the coming summer a detail from the engineer corps at the Presidio will be sent thither to make the" necessary survey for that purpose. Mount Whitney is supposed to be the highest peak in the United States, having an altitude of 14,898 feet above the sea level. It is described as "the culmination point of an immense pile of grauite, which is cut almost to the center by numerous steep, and often vertical canyons." It is situated on the west border of Inyo County, Cal., near the center of the Sierra Nevada, and about 325 miles southeast of San Francisco. The station will have an elevation more than double that of the station on Mount Washington, New Hampshire. At the latter station the winter gales attain a speed of 100 miles per hour. As the data on which storm predictions for this coast are obtained from stations north of San Francisco, that on Mount Whitney will not be as useful to this coast as the Mount Washington station is to the eastern seaboard. It w ill.however, serve for many important scientific purposes. The signal station at Point Barrow, the most northerly extremity of the western coast of North America, latitude 71 24' N., is to be abandoned, and a vessel will be sent up next month to remove the party stationed there. There the winds in winter blow with a speed of over lOOmiles per hour, and the mercury sinks below 50 below zero.
