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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1962-08-16, Page 7Message in Bottle Solves Sea Mystery [ took to the battle out of sheer sett -salt bravado this day I found myself alone in a bout with my mother-in-law, six miles out at sea, I tools an empty pelf bottle from the galley, and, while she talked incessantly, I gravely scribbled a note, pushed it into s bottle and flung it overboard with a flourish. She paused just long enough to ask ole what on earth I thought I was doing, "When at sea," I growled, gaze log stolidly ahead, "I always write to my friends like this," There was a ten second silence while she contemplated this stunning news, "But do • they," her eyes were little glazed, "get delivered?" "Sure," I lied. "Every single one," "Iviay 1 mai] a bottle, too?" she asked meekly. "Certainly," I replied. And fbr the rest of that 75 - mile voyage by niy cabin cruiser I was able to contemplate the blue horizon in splendid silence while my normally talkative mother-in-law scribbled notes to her friends and mailed them in bottles. All sea -going bottle -throwers are in distinguished company, for the patron -saint of bottle -throw- ing was none other than Christi- pher Columbus. On his way to the Indies in 1492 he mailed a bottled message to Isabella I of Spain. It bobbed on its way for 359 years before being picked up near Gibraltar by an American merchant -skip- per, John Haynes, who delivered It personally to Isabella II! One recovered from the id- eated Lusitania brought to light new details of that tragic marine disaster. "Still on deck," the message read, "along with a few people, The last boats have left, We are oinking fast, "The orchestra is still playing bravely, Some .hen near me are praying with a priest. The end le near. Maybe this note will , ." Here the message ended ab- ruptly. Bottled messages have often explained the total disappearance Of ships. One was the Huronlan, which in 1902 sailed from Glas- gow into oblivion. Four months after the disap- pearance, a bottle was washed on $o the coast near Owl's Head, Nova Scotia, The enclosed mes- eage said: "Huronian turned tur- tle in Atlantic Sunday night, Fourteen of us in boat." Five years later the discovery of a second bottle on the beach of Castlerock, Ireland, left no doubt as to the ship's tragic end. "Huronain sinking fast," the message read. "Top-heavy. One side under water. Good-bye, mother and sisters (Signed) Charles McFall, greaser," Investigation showed the steamer did indeed carry a greaser by that name, and the mother and sisters recognized the handwriting. It was 151 years before the Upsidedown to Prevent Peeking 53M 3N5Q".8330 0 0 V1R1.0 HS' 3513 0311Vddv. '0f1O1 0105 Na31.S"" ON a 3 1 3 /1 v 1 N S S V .1 B3 v 1 0 1 alu IS S N 3'1 Xt+ v 1 1 0 1 3{3 1.Sb1 OM.L 1 3 1 AO a0d3aT•S1 3 argeliganft 5 N 0111 v 0V CI STRAWBERRY PICKING, NEW STYLE - High school girls lie face down to pick strawberries on ❑ platform which moves mechanically through the rows of berries, The device was Invented by the grower to speed the harvest. last words written by a Japanese seaman named Matsuyama were plucked from the waves, They told how his ship em- barked on a search for a treasure island, only to be overcome by storms. Cast on an uninhabited coral reef in mid Pacific, he and his forty-four companions died of starvation, writes Paul Brock in "Tit -Bits," One of the strangest and most dramatic of ocean messages was delivered by a bottle found on the Australian coastline near Fremantle in 1938, Two boys were playing on a lonely beach when they saw an albatross struggling feebly on the sand. It had choked itself with a large fish, but the boys noticed that round its neck was a metal strip, roughly made. On it was written in French: "Thirty sailors have taken ref- uge on the Crozet Islands, Help, for the love of God." The date was twelve days earlier. A French gunboat was sent to investigate. On his return the commander reported that the message was genuine, The islands are normally un- inhabited, and he found them deserted but the stores of food and water always maintained there for shipwrecked mariners had gone. In their place he found another message. It said that supplies were ex- hausted and the seamen were starving. They were going to try to cross to another island in the hope of reaching a fresh store of food. They died in their desperate attempt. A few bachelors, thinking they had nothing to lose, have en- trusted proposals of marriage to the sea in sealed bottles address- ed to the first woman to read the proposal. Some have been accepted, and couples in distant lands have found romance through such bottled humour. An organization called the In- ternational Bottle Club was formed in 1926 expressly to con- duct correspondence by bottled mail. On more than one occasion membership of the club proved useful to men who were prison- ers of war in Germany during the 1939-45 War, One Englishman managed to mail a bottle in the Rhine and for two months it bobbed its way through the closely -guarded Kiel Canal to Russia, The British Consul at Lenin- grad received it and transmitted the message to the sender's home in England. BRIDGE OF ROCK ---- Nature, the master builder, fashioned on awesome spectacle in spanning this huge gap with the rrlaterial at hand - a thick layer of rock. The bridge was formed over the centuries by wind and rain erosion. The View through the span affords visitors a panoramic view of Natural Bridge State Park which Is located near Slade, Ky. TllEL&1N FRONT Jokz Two efforts, each designed to improve the farmer's economic position, are driving towards a possible collision in the U.S. nation's corn fields, One is push- ing for increased productivity; the other for reduction of out- put to remove surpluses. Will it be possible, by skillful direction, to harness these ef- forts so that they will work to- gether in the farmer's behalf and for the common welfare? * * Experts say the answer is yes, if farmers can achieve at the same time both higher produc- tivity per acre and reduced total production - or greatly expand- ed markets. Recognition of the need to do this and the great difficulty of doing it lie behind much proposed controversial farm legislation such as the cur- rent farm bill, • * 4 Each of these efforts has its defense. Those working for greater efficiency in production argue that a farmer's income will rise if he can produce two bushels of corn with the labor, materials, and land formerly re- quired to produce one. The ex- periment stations of the United States Department of Agricul- ture and the land grant colleges, plus the farm supply lieu. stry, have been working for decades in this field. Their achievements are remarkable. They have help- ed American farmers acquire technical ability that brings ad- miring observers to their fields from all around the world to study and learn, * * a On the other side are those whose chief concern is the too - great production of American farms. They point out the clas- sical axiom that production in excess of demand ruins prices. They have endorsed government programs to buy up excess pro- duction, and many of them fa- vor government - enforced con- trols to shrink the nation's ag- ricultural plant This is the kind of reasoning that led to the soil bank. It has had much to do with the administration's cur- rent farm bill. There are differences of opin- ion about controls and how they should be exerted, but very few people would favor putting a check on technological progress. An exception was the garden club lady who proposed to this writer the other day a farm plan of her own: return to horse- drawn plows to cut production costs. "Farriers could raise their own horses and wouldn't have to buy tractors or commercial fertilizer," she said. * * a To most people, however. it seems good sense for the farmer, like the manufacturer, to make his opration as efficient as pos- sible One fertilizer manufactur- er puts it this way in his adver- tisement of a new product: "Every farmer knows that most of hi; harvest mcnme mu -1 ee set aside to take care of fixed farm costs , seed, land, trac- tors, labor, maintenance, and a dozen other expenses. (Includ- ing, not least, fertilizer. which he does not specifically mention ) Your profit is what's left over. you must grow more " + + + Naturally the fertilizer com- panies plead for bigger produc- tion per acre, writes Dorothea Hahn Jaffe in the Christian Sci- ence Monitor. But they are not the only ones who look with fa- vor on means to increase yield. In the current kale. of The Na- tion's Aerirulture, publication of the American Farm Bureau Fed- eration, an article on a new method of growing corn is intro- duced with this statement: "If you grow corn you are on the threshold of your greatest year. A new era is here in corn farming which will lift the yield potential of your corn ground just as surely es hybrid corn did in the early '40's and nitrogen fertilizer in the early '50's, Good corn farmers who are now regu- larly growing 100 bushel crops will soon be aiming at 140 or even 150 bushels per acre." + e In view of the long period American corn land has been in use, this is impressive. In 1866, when the land was fresh to the plow, the national average corn yield was only 24.3 bushels. In 1960 it was b3 bushels, and the trend is up. Good farmers with good land- now frequently double the national average. k * + The new method outlined in The Nation's Agriculture article is one which calls for a three - pronged approach to planting and cultivating. A hybrid seed has been developed which pro- duces a type of corn that can be planted more thickly and which responds to the use of greater amounts of fertilizer. The three steps recommended are these: 1. "Use higher per- formance hybrids; 2. Increase your planting rate; 3. Apply ad- ditional fertilizer." But it is nec- essary to do all three at the same time, this article points out, for each depends upon the others for its success. With these increases forecast, what is the next step for agricul- ture?? While for the present some form of output control seems necessary, in the long rue., many farmers are saying, some way will have to be found to make this country's w•onderfut increasing productivity serve hu- manity's needs. Porpoises Are Fr:enslly Creatures Even though porpoises as a group do not seek wholesale physical contact with human be- ings, there is no denying the fact that they are very much interest- ed in their land -dwelling friends. These animals are famous for their tendency to swim toward almost any boat or vessel that is near them, They will also come close to swimmers and divers, as we have seen. In this respect the dolphin is unique in that it ap- pears to be what might be called "man -oriented" Instead of run- ning at the sight of a person - like the timid creatures of the woods -it seems to seek proxim- ity with human beings. Its atti- tude is ever more friendly, per - hap., than thst of the domesti- cated dcg cr horse. I have seen a porpoise swim hack and forth inside an encic urs, keeeing pace with a strolling person who walked back and forth on the dock beside it. When captured or kept out of the water, porpoises remain per- fectly quiet and do not thrash or struggle like fishes or shark., They are commonly carried from place to place on a hospital streteher or litter. When hand ed in this manner they co-operate full:• and seem to be aware of what is going on. , • Porpoises are certainly engag- ing and delightful animals. Sail- ors have tong regarded their pre- sence about a ship as a good omen. Not only are they fasci- neting+ tai watch in .lotion, but their st eamlinell forms are also attractive in repose, Even the mouth has a curvature which is often interpreted as a "built-in" smile, although the animal has no power of movement to pro- duce a change in its contour. Without doubt, the porpoise's most common form of play is the familiar frolicking and leaping about the bows of moving boats or vessels, Woodcock (1948) was the first to note that in the course of this activity, a porpoise sometimes gets a free ride by "coasting down" the bow -wave. Riding the bow -wave of a ship at sea is a trick practiced only by dolphins or porpoises, al- though in theory it might also be done by other animals such as seals, manatees, walruses, or even fishes, - From "Porpoises and Sonar," by Winthrop N, Kellogg. Travelling West In Ancient Style For nine long months the Gillis family of Virginia trekked across the nation in a creaking, home - male Conestoga wagon. Beset by blizzards and sandstorms, crack- ling cold and withering heat, the 3,500 -mile journey was not an easy one, At one point, a pet rooster's leg froze and had to b9 amputated. But, finally, the wagon lum- bered OY@r the jest sagsbrush- covered mountain and there, spread out In all its glittering reality, was the family's goal - the neon -striped, gaudily impos- sible complex that is Los An- geles, circa 1962. The Last Wagon West left Providence Forge, Va., in Sep- tember of 1981 after 41 -year-old Leon Gillis sold his sporting - goods store because he and his wife, Iyone, decided their six children should "see America the way it should be seen." And see it they did, said Gillis last month in Burbank, Calif. "We averaged 20 miles a day if we kept moving, but mostly we just moseyed along, stopping any time we pleased. We've been taken through museums, indus- trial plants, universities, missile installations clear across the country. It has been a real educa- tion for the kids - one they could never get in books." In addition to Ma and Pa, clan Gillis includes four daughters - Lee Ann, 18, Carol, 15, and Bar- bara, 14, and Janet, 10 - and two sons, Alan, 16, and George, 7. The prairie schooner was haul- ed by two of three horses that were rotated during the trip, while Man rode shotgun on the spare. All the Giilises are in exuber- antly good health - including a puppy that was born en route and Oscar, the now one -legged rooster. "Ile was our alarm clock," said Gillis, "Couldn't leave him behind." At Burbank, the family paused laet month to make guest appear- ances on various television pro- grams; and will be heading north to EL Sobrante, Calif., to visit relatives while Gillis writes a book of their experiences. Americans, said Gillis, are "all just folks- great and warm and friendly. But they travel too fast to see very much. At 60 miles an hour, all you see le the white linen rDAYscIIoot IESSON By Rev. R. Barclay Warren, S.A., B.D. Ezekiel Pleads for Repentance Ezekiel 2:1-7; 18:1-32 Memory Scripture: Rep en t, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; 80 iniquity shall not be your ruin. Ezekiel 18;30 The first Jewish captives were taken to Babylon in 606 B.C. • Three more deportations took place within the next twenty- five years, Ezekiel was deport- ed with the second group, 10.000 captives in 597, Living with a group of his countrymen slaves, we find him by the river Chebar. This is thought to be the large ship canal branching off from the Ephrates above Babylon through Napper to the Tlgres. To these he spoke on at teest four major themes: (1) He preached against the national sins which brought Israel to ruin, (2) He encouraged the faith of the exiles leading them to believe that they should some day return. (3) He warned that those who oppress them will some day be judged, (4) Final- ly, he looks into the broad ta- ture to welcome the dawn of the Messianic Age. Like Jeremiah before him, Ezekiel was warned in advance that his task was not easy. The rebellious people who had been deported to foreign soil had not changed in their basic nature. They were still impudent and stiff -hearted, Ezekiel is to dis- regard their bitter words and scornful looks, His responsibili- ty is to be cod's spolcesniin Whether or not they heed his message, they will at lost knew that "there has bees a prophet among them." ,The exiles were doubtless say- ing, ,'g*e are having to suffer for the sins Of dtlr fathers." Eze- kiel points out that while the es.- lamity of the Jews may be re- lated to their fathers' actions, their present and future condi- tion rests in their own hands. We are responsible as individu- als. "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." If the wicked repent and turn from their wickedness, God will forgive and they shall live. It is equally true that if the righteous turn from nis righteousness, and commits in- iquity, all his righteousness shall not be mentioned. In his sins shall he die. We need to remem- ber this today. Ezekiel calls the people to re- pentance. Sinful man can be forgiven. This is the message for all ages. If we would have God's favor here and hereafter, we must turn from our sins and believe in the Lord Jesus C'e•st. Q. What ran 1 do about some of my expensive crystal goblets that have become chipped at the edges? A There's nothing you can do at home. They can, however, re- ceive good first aid treatment from a good glazier. Ask your favorite store where this can be done. ISSUE 31 - 1962 CROSSWORD PLIZZ!,F. A(' ' 1*; 4 c;rtatl nailno 6 ' c' dent is 'lel? la. J:.r ISp.) 74 , l o. 10 .incus nereAse 17 :torero 13. Procures 3:. r;irdlcl. 20 Ath'atia • rl Id., 22 \Cie .n ng 2 is+Ile - e•tier • . '.Ilya 2:. ,hose lace 54 Nearly Rt, •harry rn!nr 34 Tbing, et law. r .,r 1 {.11'03[ 3 t,1" H cry 3: •.n,..,t 40. 11.. 1 .•f 1! t•.,'tt 41 t l 1 to 42. Sil•nt 42 I iEt'robs 4 t i ive8 6n , t ^ 1 r .:,...,rcea 82. r Intron 68 Awl, red .roof 54. trglo-SaXOn Y'tV 35 a1 i;,wvx 1. lt?versgs 10. cut 0nttail length. Ise 26 I:eautiful 11. flaying :,r1 maidens 16. Eskimo but 89. Bind of tree 19. Tiresome 40. Commen- [leraotf wean 11 20. f110 101 41. Sleigh ridges 47. hear., is of cabbage t ear.1 44. 0 46. Ibsen f charucter 47. 'rho legal 48. nut,:h mmune 49. [•'.male doer 2 lt.,rry 21. Filthy 3. Antique 22. P„nr:,_,use 4, •':trries 21. Agreen,tnt 6. nr+mnuated 21.5.4 thickly 6. Small etnrage 2g Eighth son rouln la,v+h 7. C?ntral State 29.1101'.1153 r:01'-1153 tab.) 31. (Irk y01 r„ !,oiled 32. 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