OVERSPEED TEST PIT

Our cover this week, reproduced by courtesy of the General Electric Company, from a painting by Mott Smith, shows the installation of a waterwheel generator rotor in the Company’s test pit preparatory to giving it an overspeed test. As such a test may smash a rotor, and liberate a tremendous amount of energy, the pit is built stronger than the heaviest bridge or building.

The inner wall is of concrete three feet thick and reinforced with one-inch steel bars closely woven together. Surrounding this wall is a seven-foot cushion of closely packed sand, and around that another wall of reinforced concrete four feet thick. The steel lid, four feet thick, constructed of a steel plate on a braced I-beam skeleton, prevents the pot from "boiling over." Instruments in the pit permit the observers outside to check everything that happens until a smash actually occurs.

RADIO WAVES PENETRATE ROCK

Radio waves of the frequency used for broadcasting are capable of passing through at least 300 feet of rock, such as limestone and sandstone. This is the conclusion drawn by Dr. A.S. Eve, professor of physics at McGill University, following tests that he made in Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. The experiments were performed in collaboration with D.A. Keys and F.W. Lee, under the joint auspices of the U.S. Bureau of Mines and the Geological Survey of Canada. They are described in a report to Nature.

NEW PROCESS TO COMBAT FRUIT FLY

Thanks to research scientists who have discovered a method of processing grapefruit, oranges and other fruit so that they can not harbor the dangerous Mediterranean fruit fly, the next citrus fruit crop of Florida will be able to move in commerce with perfect protection against spread of the pest to other states.

Since the new crop comes on the market in September, the newly perfected method of utilizing the cold storage and coloring processes and plants of Florida to render the whole fruit incapable of harboring the eggs and larvae of the dangerous pest is expected to relieve the financial situation that has developed in Florida as a result of the necessary quarantine enforced since the fruit fly was discovered four months ago.