Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1934-01-11, Page 3THURSDAY, JANUARY 11, 934 BRODHAGEN. Mrs. M'aunvsz, Kitchener, has taken the position of ,housekeeper for Rev, S. Frederickson. !Henry Bennewies, senior, promin- ent resident of this community, expir- ed suddenly Saturday morning while dressing. He had previously been in good health. Born in Logan township he was in his 7't3th year. He Has a suc- cessful farmer retiring a number of. years ago. Surviving are his widow, three sons, Henry and ,George Mc- Killop, and John L., •Brod'hagen, and one daughter, Mrs, Emmanuel Wal- ters, Mitchell, irk very enjoyable evening was spent at the home of Mr. and Mrs, Norman fl3ennewies 'Wednesday when friends of Mrs. 'Ernest Koh'lmeier, formerly Miss Annie. Wright, gathered to sho- wer her with gifts and congratula- tions on her recent marriage which took place on Christmas day, Miss Valera Rose read an address to which both Mr. and Mrs. Kolilmeier replied thanking everyone for their beautiful gifts. Mrs. Hohlmeier has been a res- idetlt of this community for the past twenty-two years and her many friends wish her and her husband the 'hest of luck in their new bonne near 1-litchell, LATEST 'DISCOVERIES Ili the laboratory of .Professor 'Ilar- old C. Urey in Columbia ,University is a half pint of water in various small glass containers and of various de- grees of purity. The whole half pint is worth about $3;5.00. At least it cost Professor Urey that much to obtain It by patient electrolytic decomposi- tion. Some day similar water may cost no more than that bought in bottles, eft stands to reason that this is no ordinary water. In fact, it is the "heavy" water which was discovered two years ago. It looks like ordinary water, yet it is different. It is com- posed of two atones of hydrogen and one of oxygen, but the atoms of hy- drogen are twice as heavy as those of rain -water. Much sof the oxygen which is sold commercially to hospitals and chemi- cal laboratories is obtained by passing go electric current through ordinary water, Hydrogen bubbles off at one pole and oxygen at the other. Prof, 'Urey induced a commercial decom- poser of water to reduce. 4,000 gallons left in his cells after the current had passed through to 1150-a half per cent solution of heavy water, Fifty ;gallons of this Professor Urey .him- self reduced to one-third its volume, so that he had about a one -per -cent solution. As more and more current was passed through, the lighter hy- THE SEAFORTH NEWS. 0 The Seaforth News bargain subscription offer to New and Renewal suhseri hers closesJan- uary 31st. °,-o matter whe ,,. your subscription expires, you will save by renewing now. drogen was driven off and collected. What retained in the cell was electric- ally decomposed still -further, -until at last only hydrogen which Was all heavy was given off. "Deuterium" is the name of this heavy hydrogen; "protium" that of the more familiar, lighter variety. Thanks to this discovery of heavy hydrogen,•chennistry .becomes amore exact science than ever, Because deu- terium combines more slowly with other elements than protium, the chem;ist at last is able to find out what happens in some of his chemical reactions. Take sugar, for example, a compound of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. ,What happens when the wat- er is evaporated and the sugar re- crystallized? Does the sugar leave some of its constituents in the water and take back their equivalents in the process of evaporation? It is such questions that deuterium and the new heavy water answer. When heavy water i$ used as a sol- vent it is just as if the atoms were id- entified by red and green tags. Hence it is easy to decide whether the -hyd- rogen in the sugar is all light, as it was originally, or whether it is heavy. Experiments made in Europe seem to show that the atones actually wand- er about and that some of the hydro- gen in recrystallized sugar is heavy. MarcMthan 300,000 organic com- pounds contain some forte of hydro- gen in addition to carbon, nitrogen and oxygen. How does the new 'hea- vy hydrogen affect these? Chemistry has evidently a huge task .before it, It was ,Darwin who ,first pointed out the significance of color in mature. The insect called a 'walking stick' is indistinguishable front the sur- rounding twigs, and certain butter- flies look like leaves. Why? So that enemies will pass them by in blissful ignorance. .If a color is particularly garish in an insect or lower animal, it is supposed to have a frighteningef- fect or to give warning of "'a vile taste, Gaudy petals are asstuitod to be sig- nals to attract a :pollen -bearing insect tfram another flower. :Even one who is nota biologist. must be struck by this anthropomor- phism, tIu other words )Darwin as- sumed that the lower animals includ- ing the insects, see the world as we see it. 'But is the assumption justified? Dr, !Frank .E. (Lutz of the American Museum of Natural History has been making experiments which show can- clesively that it is not. All of which makes one Wonder if the whole Dar- winian doctrine of •mimicry and the purposefulness of color 'must not be modified. Writing in Natural History, Dr. Lutz points out that "a red flower looks red to us because out of all the ago with ants and 'Dr. Lutz more re- Here it rears its young, confident that cently with bees and fruit flies. the presence of man will protect it from the enemies found in the wild. THE DAINTY BLUEBIRD One of the daintiest and most col- orful of all our small songsters is the little bluebird, 'which returns year after year to the nest cox in the back yard to rear another brood of insect- destroyers. Like its cousin, the raisin, the blue- bird is one of the first songsters to arrive from the South in the Spring, and here its dainty appearance is belied, for its sometimes has to wea- ther late 'blizzards which would ut- terly destroy some of our songsters. wave lengths of light which we can The bluebird is found all over the see it reflects only or chiefly the long eastern half of the United States and ones which give us the optical stilts- Canada, wherever it can find trees or ulus we call red. If this flower` re- hollow posts in which to build a nest. :fiected only these, an insect which It is a close relative of the robin, but cannot see red, at least as a calor, while the latter cannot be induced to would say, if it could talk, that such enter a nest box of any kind, the a !flower is black or dark gray, 1!, on bluebird takes very kindly to these the other hand, such a flower reflected man-made homes as a substitute for ultra -violet wave lengths which an hollow trees, which are becoming insect can see, that insect, if it could talk and knew physics, would say that the flower is ultra -violet color, Pro- bably it could even distinguish sever- al colors in the hart of the spectrum we call ultra violet." 'On the mimicry theory a yellow spider ought to' be invisible to visiting insects beside the yellow .flowers in which he is accustomed to hide. 'P'hot- ographs show that the flower is only slightly ultra -violet, To an ultraviolet seeing insect the spider ought to be as ennspicuous as a red hunting coat amid green 'foliage. Dr. Lutz proved photographically that red, yellow -'and pink portulacas are strongly ultra -violet except in the centre, :'Brit neither a vivid yellow nor a pink zinnia had any ultra -violet. Obviously the zinnias have not much to say for themselves if floral colors mean anything to insects.. In the same way ,Dr. Lutz found many flowers must look. very different to insects. 'And that insects are responsive to ultra -violet rays there can be no doubt. Lubbock proved it many years more scarce each year. The most suc- cessful type of nest box is one which imitates as closeiy as possible a hol- low tree. The male bird is sky-blue above and reddish brawn below, while the female is somewhat duller in color. The birds are a little larger than the common English sparrow, which of- ten drives then) from their nesting place., in a most ruthless manner, 'Bluebirds build a nest of dry grass in the bottom of a cavity in a tree, and deposit three or four blue eggs which they sometimes guard as jeal- ously as a robin. A favorite site for the nest is an old neglected orchard, where insects are plentiful. Tour young birds can consume an im- mense 5010001 of insects when they are fed almost nothing else. The song of the bluebird is a cheer- ful little warble which is almost es dainty as the bird's appearance, and the liquid notes seem to speak of running brooks, or water dripping over stones. It is one of the most common bird songs in early spring. nt' r eck '`•: ook!, • We Are Selling Quality Books Books are Well Made, Carbon is Clean and Copies Readily. All styles, Carbon Leaf and Black Back. Prices as Low as You Can Get Anywhere. Get our Quotation on Your Next Order, fo rt, SEAFORTH, ONTARIO, OsstAt News The bluebird is one of the thrushes, which, like the robin, has sought the protection of man's dooryard, leaving the wilds to its shyer cousins. THE COASTAL STEAMERS )Among the vast and varied sea pop- ulation that is 'Britain's shipping, no vessel is more exclusively of these is - :ands than the !British coaster .. ,the little steamship which trades from the 'Elbe to Ushant and round the British Isles. (She evolved from our special needs and we would as a nation in war or in peace be curiously lamed 'without her. IS'lie is also the most dangerously employed vessel afloat. These British coasts are never kindly.. and the coaster is always small. She is easily recognizable an the water. She is small and her funnel is always aft. She has stumpy masts and a narrow bridge 'amidships. The rest of her is hatch space. Except for the driving machinery placed aft to facilitate loading and discharging cargo, and to save the space a propeller shaft would occupy in her 'hold, her hull is all cargo space. The officers are lodged in tiny cabin's under the bridge, and her crew are forward under the forecastle head. The quarters have to be seen to be believed. The average railway carriage fs more roomy than most coasters' forecastles, and certainly more richly furnished. The •coasting sailor •has a wooden bench and an .iron bunk frame and a small locker. His 'bathroom is a buck- et. He isn't even given this bucket. He brings it in his kit -bag with 'his bed, blankets,uxl cooking utensils. Unlike the foreign -going sailor. the coastingm an is not fed by the ship- owner, '131s money is a little higher than his 'brother of the ocean's, and out of the extra he has to buy his own food—and cook it. The officers are better off to the ex- tent that their food is cooked for them. and they have the privacy of a room to themselves. The rooms average about six feet by six. The coasting sailor is usually past fifty or under twenty. Coasting is the training college and the last stand of many sailors, The officers are a breed of their own. 'They have very often never sailed beyond coasting limits, and more often than not they do not possess even the "ticket" for home trade efficiency which permits the .holder to command a vessel between the Elbe and Ushant and round these islands, The engineers seldom possess "ti- ckets" either. They are the old ,breed of "shovel engineers who have •come from the stoke -hold and earned their rise 'by a !hard-earned practical know- ledge of their jobs. :Each and every one of 'these coast- ing officers is a working officer. His hands are as calloused and efficient as the most horny -handed dockhand, and if they can handle a marlinespike and wheel .better than they cart handle a sextant and pen it is 'because they have their navigation in their blood and , nose, and need no more than e smell of •the air to tell them where they are and what is best to do when they are there. There isn't a trick of ship handling they don't know, and it's a thrill for any sailor to watch a' coasting master standing with one hand 00 his ves- sel's steering wheel and one hand on the engine telegraph, twisting" .his little vessel through crowded docks or swinging her :in ,little more than her own length to make a mooring place. • Foreign -going .sailors, from the su- periority of their thigh decks, have a joke about ships; that don't stay out at night. That's a gibe at the short passages' t 1 fH awes CaaS etas mese.i. otne trade l'mits are narrow against' the vastness (Continued on 'Paco Seven.),' PAGE THREE of the oceans, and about the longest;. passage a coaster can mike is seldom more than three days, weather per- mitting. But very often weather does not permit, and ten days at sea on a two - days' fair-weather passage is no MI, usualoccurrence and ,coasting own- ers don't like delays, and coasting masters are not easily stopped. T'he coaster_' has, however, about ,the worst waters in the world to ne- gotiate. The English channel •with a strong sou'=wester, rounding the ,Longships off Land's End, 'with the, :Atlantic open,. and a gale from the west; the 1Pemtland Firth and its pars ticular brand of storm and racing cur- rents; the short, vicious seas of the North can and do stop the larg- est vessels, , )Add to storm the •'freezing cold.of winter, the fogs that blind these little vessels for weeks, and the rock and shoal obstructions that make these coasts among the:most dangerous in the world, and you have all the wor- ry any sailor wants on a trip. The weather'has to be fair indeed before a coasting master turns into his bunk at night, If the coasting voy- age is short it is intense. To :be dry in winter is pleasure so rare for these hone 'trade sailors that it has all the sensation of a 'holiday, and to stand on an exposed bridge and 'be deluged every .few minutes by chilling seas is the expected lot every time a `man goes an watch, And these small vessels roll and pitch as deep -water amen never knew. Cooking becomes impassible, because pots won't stand on the stave even with battens, and ,fires would be swamped in any' case, The decks are full of )cater rushing and exploding against hatch comb- ings and deckhouses, and no place is other than wet. 'An'd there is no relief in knowing passages last only a few days, for the crews have to be on duty in port. On the smaller coasters crews work thei own cargoes, and on the larger vs sels the crews have to stand by shift their vessel to and fro as the' stevedores want her, ' There is a large fleet of coasters which 'trades between Leith and Lon- don, ,Glasgow and the •Bristol channel, They bring coal for gas and fire's, :The crews of these vessels think nothing of twenty-four hours or more on deck at one stretch, entering port with a gale 'bursting round them and their decks-. teeming '`Veer,' going-- "+' straight under the coal tips and worlc- ing steadily for hours, hauling and heaving on mooring wires to bring the holds under the tips to trim the car- go evenly as it pours into the holds, replacing hatches and battening down tarpaulins, ,then taking their vessel out to another ell of battering seas that at least save them the trouble of hosing the decks clean. !Actually the sea passage, be it ever so bad, is a relief to these men. At least it 'gives them their sea hours of twelve hours a day, and that is 'bet- ter than a harbour stand-by. 'All night in bed is a gift from the gods themselves, and a week end In port is a trium:p'h over fate. A week end within reach of their homes is a dream that is wild and wonderful. The deep -water sailor should stick to his nights at sea in the peace of tropic calm, ,He doesn't know how lucky he is. He hasn't seen "men ww'ay and almost drop with the stabbing pain of returning circulation as 'b ad-. bleached bands are held under pits, hasn't seen youths cry w'burning pain of cold vises pa through their 'hands, or 'lain in bunk with mind stu'peliied by crashing drop of a steel 'hul'l p11 driving into seas which vrouid hard') wet the bigger vessel's decks. The coasting man takes all these as his lot . . and with all . the desire in the woeld to state a case truthfully and with the know-ie•dgs that one exaggeration falsifies my whole picture I give -these details as truth, alt -in the special circtxnstances, but as a picture of the usual lot of coastal sailoring, Wages? What 'would 'suita:b'ly re- pay amen for this physical outlay arra devotion to a task? •' Its' an empty question, for few 111011 me paid according to what they put out. It's what they bring in that ass- esses their wage value. .•\ coasting master gets .from .five..