HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Herald, 1924-12-25, Page 7.�ICRA��OPE N1ARV�I
The dctteettve in fict1ea sloes roonte
amazing things with a microscoee, as
also does the scientist in real life.
Ouiy the. :other day, for instance, .a
report was 'published'of New York
bandits being tracked and convicted
by the aid of one of• these wonderfee
instruments, whichrevealed • to the
searches the bandits' occupations,
and enabled them to lay hands on the
wanted men,
Few persons :realize that it is
through the mediusn of the micro-
scope that they are enabled to ride
in a railway train in safety or even
to use blotting paper that will blot
satisfactorily.
In the past weivaveexperienced
terrible accidents due to broken rail-
way lines, which puzzled the mann
fa,oturers greatly until the microscope
.>kevealed why the little molecules of
which the steel rail is cauapoeed" fail-
ed to hod together under the strain
of service. It has_performed similar
servii>e in the case of other metals.
There is nothing which so delights
a mart as the •clean feeling after a
perfect shave. Probably he cosnpli-
ments himself, upon the edge on his'
razor being "straight as a'die."
`1f he only knew it, however
e he
shaves with a ,saw, Under the micro-
scope we see that the edge of a razor
• has very fine teeth, and the manu-
facturer usres the microscope to in-
sure that these teeth are regular, thus
giving a good shavingedge.
Farming has also benefited by the
Clever use of this instrument. It has
disci sed many pests and blights
which attack garden vegetables, as
well as trees • and grains, and the re-
sults thus obtained have caused a
great revolution in farming methods.
Together, the chemist, the naturalist.
and the microscopist, have odinbined
to fight these blights, and have there-'
.by slaved millions Of dollars of the
country's money each year, ,
In certain rare instanter, the micro
scope will magnify an object as much
es three thousand tithes, and in 'the
study of bacteria,: lenses that magnify
1600. to 2000 times are commonly used,
Perhaps it will serve to emphasize
what• this means when it is mentioned
that' the naked eye of ,the average
person can distinguish seperate ob-
jects or lines totaling about 160 to
the inch, Thus, it will be seen how
far beyond your sight are the red cor-
puscles of the blood, for, placed side
• by side, it would take some three
thousand of them to cover an inch.
And they re quite large, compared.
with many 'objects which can be seen
under the microscope,
For the examination of a• large num-
ber of objects,however, lenses that
magnify from ten to fifty times, are
quite sufficient. As a matter of fact,
the microscope makes a very interest-
ing hobby, for even the most common-
place things take on a new aspect
when seen through the lens.
Ordinary blue blotting paper is a
beautiful sight seen through a micro-
scope. The fibres are transparent
and airy, of a wonderful blue, and in-
terlace one another in fantastic
curves. With this instrument's aid,
you will learn that a fly does not gnaw
at a lump of sugar—it has no biting
apparatus --but emits a drop of liquid,
frorm its proboscis, and then sucks it
up again when it haseabsorbed some
of the sweetness.
But don't expeot to see too much.
The'advanced scientist with his won-
derful magnifier, will tell you that he.
can take a thimbleful of water from
a water -butt and discover in it many
more living creatures than there are
people on this earth. - But most
people are willing to take his word.
for that, and, in any case, it would be
a long job counting them.
THE LEGEND OF THE
ASH `TREE
By Isabelle Sandy
t,.- Translated by
c
'William L. McPherson
'1 I "I'm going to cut down that mis-
erable tree!"
From the corner of his eye he
watched the mother, who accepted in
silence this last aggravation of her
suffering. After her other torments,
what was this one? Had she not
heard from the neighbors that her
a son, sick• since the war, was. hardly
After chasing •away his son, who able to support 'hips family and that
his wife was wearing herself out
hadmarried a poor servant girl,- and trying , to fill his. place? Yet the
not ;.even a pretty one, the old farmer father's little fortune seemed to be
vindictively pursued the boy's memory, increasing more every year,
trying to eradicate.it•from his mother's The man took his axe. Made a little
heart. remorseful by the mother's calm, he
Following long silences full of pent -.struck a blow at, the ash's. trunk. The
up wrath, he was accustomed to ' tree hardlysuffered. T
grumble while she hfeeble. 'humbly served him The
The blow was
Tlie odd man stopped, al -
his smoking :soup: s ready exhausted.
"Tho scoundrels :He will never"get,. "Wait Wait till next :.fall,'' the mother,
suggeebed:
Site knew well that her acquiescence.
would disarm the angry' husband, as
her cries would have made him more
a penny from me!"
Or:
"If that woman :comes prowling
around here, 1'B break her back;
One day when she hard been to -mar -
aggressive. Winter
ket Catali found on returning that brought its .frash=
thethe son's bed had disappeared.: To nese to the wounded tree. Spring re -
look, charged withfear andsui• clothed it with buds. Probably it did
faring, old Deljeau responded: •not shed a tear from the notch,
Indifferent to the love or hate of men,
"What good would it have been here, infinitely wiser than' they, the ash
since that scoundrel will never set accomplished its.destiny, which is to
foot in this 'house? Pierrou's Baugh- lift toward the light the soul of the
ter, who is going . to be married, fecund earth, and, perhaps, • to en
was very glad to buy a fine bed at chant humans with its aerial grace.
et bargain. Neighbors must do one But in the minds of this wrath -
another,. a good turn." fol father and this grieving mother,
One evening when he had leen the ash had only one reason for ex-
drinking and the sky was ,black he istence—to recall memories. It had
bumpedinto an ash tree in the corner the name and almost the face of a
of the farmyard. ^ steady and tender youth, who suffered
Sobered at once, his nose swollen afar in poverty while his parents lived
end his hands bleeding, he swore that in abundance.
the offending tree should be cut down When the next autumn came rheu-
the next day,-
., matism crippled the old man. He had
Wait until fall; you will have.ni1ore to go to a neighbor.
time then, said the mother. "Take that ash tree out of m.
For she loved this tree, which •was y
farmyard and you will dame a favor:",
thirty-two years old, as much as the "I will .gladly do so, but
father now began to hate it—less: be you must
cruse •ef his wound than because of give me the tree for my trouble.
the memories attached to its bark,
to each of its branches, to the most
fragile of its buds, to its tiniest root
burled alive in the ancerstral soil.
There was not a deaf unfolded in
"You are joking. A trunk like that
is worth forty francs."
"But you don't like this tree. You
can plant ,another."
"That aright quit you,but it doesn't
April, not leaf bronzed by the sum -.suit me," the ,old man grumbled. •
mer and torn away by. the autumn, He suffered—less in his petrified
which did not write on the sky— heart than in his.. aching limbs. He
impassive witness of human variationsenvied his wife her serene,and.un-
spoken grief. He insultedher with-
= -the name of their son.
For the boy and the ash tree had out reason, merely in order not to
seenhe light get the sameyear, the lat-
Lter because of the former, since the
tree's .growth was to mark the growth
,.of •the`cliild. Wes it not natural that
the rancorous old man wished to tear
it out of the ground? He wished to
tear the love of her eon from the
mother's heart.
In the autumn when. the farm work
was over, he declared, as he sliarp-
ened his ax:
perish of silence. Then he envisaged
another escape than wrath. It eves
as if a'w•an door opened in his night.
He fixed it withhis glance; which
had always carried command and au-
thority,
And he understood that death would
obey hitu,.
So one morning, before the faint
dawn had- awakened hiswife, he took
a rope, elle a running noose in it
,.•,:cs T1,01, fit ixt with the' steams of ( :,i t f f Mice, it is
'orit view of the:iluclson Bay fur trading post at Moose Factory in reality
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and tied it to one.
strongest branches.
"You are going at
•use," he murmured.
uproot you, but you
of the ash tree's
last' to be of some
. "I am too old to
are strong :enough
to support me. I know people who,
after having seen what they shall see
this morning, will cut you down, be-
cause you have caused them so much'
horror. And I shall suffer no longer."
He mounted a little ladder, put • the
noose around his neck and jumped.
Because of the dog, who scented•
death and howled, the old man was'
saved. But he had used. up .111 thise
supreme resolution all that remained
ofhis wrathful will. '
Sick and impotent, he confided the
farni work to others and scarcely ever
quitted the room. At certain hours thea
ash's shadow came and danced oveT''
the rough floor:. But the old man no
longer resented anything. One day he
said to Catali:
"I feel that I am going soon."
She answered simply: ;•,
"When God wills." •
But she . .craftily studied out of the
corner of her eye the progress of theµ.
decline shown on his distented, weal
shed face. ` -=
One morning the old peasant hear_
a joyous chatter in the ash. He sa,,
up and saw on the branches two little''
boys, very like his son. At a stroke a
quarter of a century effaced itself for
Slim. He recalled his past, which was
that of an upright man, rich in a son.
and a good wife.
He grasped his stick, tapped on the
floor and waited for his wife. She
hurried in, with no sign of fear, cher
face all aglow. With a gesture he for-
bade her to speak, Was he not the
master and free to choose the link
which would reunite the family chain?
"Bring me the children," he: com-
manded, pointing to the tree from
whichthe chatter came.
For his wounded pride and his ran-
cor in the past counseled him to turn
his thoughts to the future of his race. •
The sons of his son climbed down
from the branches of the ash tree, like
fruit for which some unknown woman
was stretching out her hands.
He Forgot His Own Wedding.
The wedding, says a contributor to
the Youth's. Companion, was to be at
a farmhouse, the home of the bride's
parents. The ceremony was to take
place at six o'clock in the evening.
and an old-fashioned wedding feast f
was to follow it.
Six o'clock carne; the guests had as -.,i
sembled, and the super was ready to
be served, but the bridegroom was not
A Thrush at Dawn.
In the dawn's dewy hush
I woke to hear
A solitary thrush
Invoking clear;
Lifting its liquid voice
Against the day; -
"Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice!"
It seemed bo say. -
No cloud. The blue dome aeop,
Aye, infinite;
A gold and azure sweep,
From height to height!
Then was :I seized with shame
To think, dull thrall,
How I praised not His name
Who wrought it all.
—Clinton Scollard.
The World's Beasts of
Burden.
A well-bred Shetland ponyis no
0 ore than forty inches in height,' yet
'capable of„ carrying 'on its back a
,grown. man. Which is a proof that
hot only size which counts in the
atter of strength.
wo animals that are much strong-
” -than is usually supposed are the
lig and the sheep. Bouts have often
been broken to'harnes• ., and have been
Used for ploughing, and on a certain
Bedfordshire estate a large dog has
been trained as asaddle animal. At
the same place sheep have been used
for riding, and were found quite equal
to bearing the weight• of • a full-grown
man.
It is not mangy years since oxen were
used for ploughing in England. Again,
the little Indian ox, the zebu, is a capi-
tal draught animal and can trot at a
merry pace.
Horses are plentiful on the eastern
plains of South .America, but do not
do well in the Andes, where their place
asbeasts of burden is taken by mules
ends by the Mania, a large sheep -like
creature with a very long ooat.
Llamas will carry sixty to eighty
pounds apiece over the most appalling
mountain passeson very little food.
There is, however, one point to be
present. The bride could not hide her i
dismay and chagrin. No one 'seemed
to be able to account for the young
man's absence.. Half past six came
but no bridegroom, Speculation and
conjecture ran the rounds among the
guests, The bride wee almost beside
'herself with grief and mortification,
The hands of the clock pointed to
"half past seven when down the lane
I leading to the home came three horse-
men riding at breakneck speed. They
were the tardy briclegroom and two of
his companions,' The bride, whose
oyes were red with weeping, was un
certain how to receive the young man,
belt irbentls gathered round, add ex-
lt.anatiors were made.
The two companions had arrived
early at the farm where the young
man was keeping house alone and,
having time oa their hands, began en
joying themselves as young men 'ofteti
do. 'Che wedding was quite f'orgottett
until ohe of the young men said to the
host, "T thought you were to be mar.
vied at six o'clock, lis that time
now."
A. bath, a shave, theyweddisig suet to
be domied and adjusted and 'lieu a
ride of two miles before the ceremony
could be perforinedi : Fortunately the
three hadfast "horses, but, ' alas, the
young mien Bever heard the end of
his fergotting his own wedriing!
Oe an average each person in' Bri-
lain, Belgium, Rolland, and Switzer.-
land
wvi er.-
land lues fourteen matches a day.
remembered about them• They are
dreadfully nervous creatures, and they
will not stand being beaten " or Ill-
treated. In the Andes they will work
for their owners and for nobody else.
The Lapps still use the reindeer as
a draught animal, and °a good reindeer
will pull a -sleigh fifty miles a doy. The
elk has been similarly used., and was
found abe to do a journey of eighty
miles in one day. This compares well
wills the horse, ter .which the one -day
record is a little ,over a hundred miles,
Study of Medicine in the
University of Toronto.
•I`herehas just been'' sent out to all
graduates of the Faculty .of Iliedlcine,,
University, of Toronto; a letter from
the Dean giving a report of the active
,ties• of tire year. In thi,s• report Dean
Primrose stresses the tact that the
deineeeks °eject •ol the curriculum is to
provide elm most efficient training pos-
sible air the general practitioner; the{...,:..;..n...
country ;doctor. He calls attention al,
stele the graduate work and the spe-
6161 iccersee which are .offered to en-
able doctors to keep abreast of the
iatesesclisc•overies ia niedficine. .During
the year 139 papers and denmoilstra-
tions" were provided in the Province
of Ontario, outeede of Toronto,for
various' medical societies. The amount
of medical. knowledge has so greatly
increased during .the ` past decade or
two that' a six -years' course is iiow
neeeesary in order fully to equip a dere
to ..tor his life's• were. The new
Scheel o! Hygiene made possible
the gift 'of the Rocltefei.ler F0tindation
is ,sSer fly' to be writeeced and will
holt"de„the Deportment 'of bIygie.ne and
Preventive Medietho, the Department.
of Public Health Nursing, and the iters X.ttunswick is proud c t its =imitative of pulp wood that 'dot the pro-
Connaughti,abcratorios. The regis-
. "'lee. in s he p1Vtatuicl of logs, wllicit will ssomeday be transi`oti.-•ued itlto
trh"d I'ttcul�ty of Medicine for e. '1 ing
lei's session 18'796. paper, was photographed tut Bathurst In that province.
Fifteen Little Sparks from the
Anvil of Progress.
Ata employer advertised for a typist,
Sias aiaplieatats were interviewed. Two
narked, "What' aye the livens?" Two
asked, "What 'make of typewriter do
you .use?" One asked, "Hew long a
holiday: do 1 get?" and the other want-
ed a job She got it.
The':