HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Herald, 1951-01-04, Page 3"Old Min River"
Reaches Gulf
;As seen from a comfortable steam-
er chair, the New Oreleans water
front looks like an tutbroken lite of
ships straining at the wharves, with
decks burning beneath a brutal sun,
under which ssveating'rnee load and
unload precious cargoes.
OLD MAN RIVER races past
the levees impatient to reach the
Gulf, depositing his collection of
dirt and debris throughout the Delta
as he passes. Finally the River
sweeps into the blue of the Gulf
where sharks, porpoises, and tarpon
test the skill of the deepsea fisher-
man.
South of Venice the levees disa-
ppear; the lana is vast and flat, with
treacherous swamps. Modest shacks
rise above the soggy soil on pilings
sunk fit shifting hillocks that devas-
tating winds and rain dissolve away,
During a hurricane this lonely reg-
ion is swept clean by its • force—
everything that man 'built disap-
pears. After a severe storm . the
survivors return from places of.
safety to build anew—as insecurely
as ever, with the familiar pirogue
at the water's edge.
Port Eads, at the end of South
Pass, was named for James B, leads,
who built the first river jetties,
which still maintain a deep channel
into the Gulf. The bar pilots,at Port
Eads guide the ships to and. from
the. Gulf in fair weather and fpul.
The treacherous sand bars at the
mouth of the River are resting
places for migratory birds, and the
water filled with fish attracts the
gulls and the awkward pelicans, who
share thein feeding grounds with
others only after loud, raucous pro-
tests.—From "Louisiana Gallery:
The River Country and New Or-
leans by Philip Kappel.
Glamour That Will
Shine In The Dark
Very soon, glamour will shine as
dazzling in the dart: as, it does by
dayl Imagine, for instance, some
lovely blonde cover girl on a mid-
night bathing party.
She sits by the side of the- pool,
pr on the beach, the golden tints
in her hair, the smooth texture of
her skin, the red of her lips and blue
of her eyes—even the bright spots
that decorate her swim-suit—shin-
ing in the darkness!
Yes, that will be a fact when the
scientists complete their researches
into the manufacture. of luminous
make-up and fabrics, Any •minute
now your girl friend will be quite,
as easily seen in the darkness as the
luminous face of a bedside clock!'
Nail varnish and.. lipstick that
glow in the blackest night would
already be in production if it had
not been found that the paint now
being used on posters is of particu-
larly good for the skip. So scientists
are looking for a harmless substi-
tute which, when discovered; will be
incorporated in foundation creams,
face powder and probably lotions
that can be sprayed on to, the hair
—so that, in fact, madame can high
light as many of her. features as she
likes and conveniently suppress
those of which she isnot so proud,
Even beforenight-proof make-
up is available,: luminous fabrics
will probably be manufactured,
doubtless out of the finest nylon,
which is now among the favourite
materials for swim -wear because it
dries almost immediately.
Don't be surprised, either, if the
glamorous figure -revealing swine-
suits of the near future are stuck
on to their wearers!; Two recent.
crises—one when Jean Simmons lost
the top half of her two-piece suit
under -water at. Venice, but fortun-
ately managed to retrieve it and put
it on again before she emerged, and
the second when the..cleaners re-
moved the elastic front all the nylon
suits to be worn by the girls in the
Aqua -show at Karl's Court, with
nearly disastrous results—have sug-
gested that something in the nature -
of sticking plaster or liquid glue
would be safer, particularjy if fash-
ionable. swim -suits are going to be-
come still more abbreviated.
"'Foxier" Tban A Fox
America's prowling prairie wolf,
the coyote, is every bit as artful
as Brer Fox, according to a Texan
ex -cowboy, now turned writer, Prof.
J. Frank Dobie. •
One day, for example, a fellow
cowpuncher of his saw a bunch
off cranes in the grass, gathered
close together with stretched necks,
watching with fascination a coyote
400 yards away, turning sorrier-
saults and capering round and
round to hold their attention.
• Rut .all the while the free show
was in progress: another coyote was
creeping stealthily towards them
front, the rear ... until he was near
enough to spring and catch one of
the cranes before they could fly
off. The first coyote then ceased his
antics, ran up, grabbed the crane
and ate it.
Pretended Death
Here isan interesting instance
of the wily, coyote's trick of sham-
ming death to gain. a meal.
.A than saw 'a coyote suddenly
stop,' fall to the. earth and stretch
out •like a dead animal. He supposed
the : animal; had been poisoned; as
people in the vicinity were putting
down strychnine: But presently he
noticed a, buzzard wheeling earth-
ward .ever. ,the coyote., Before long
the bird of carrion alighted near
the motionless body and hopped
near .it; Just as• it was 'within reach,
the coyote sprang up, seized the
buzzard by the neck; killed and' ate
it,
It's also, known that the coyote
produces a: queer kind, of bark by
placing -his lower jaw against the
ground and his foot into his mouth.
It's believed, too,' that to "break
up" his voice vibrates his lower
jaw from side to side while bark-
ing mid 'makes his chest shiver by
stamping the ground with rigid
forelegs. -
When two coyotes sing a duet,
according, to the observer, they
don't bark hapahzardly, or in unison
but catch each other up with light-
ning quickness, producing such a
torrent of barks that they sound like
a large pack.
An army lieutenant, out hunting
in the Monterey hills, tells how he
saw three -coyotes, shot at them,
and brought one tumbling down the
steep slope. To his surprise the
other two followed—and actually
bolstered„ .up their wounded com-
rade and assisted him out of sightt
In: 'his absorbing book, "The
Voice•of the Coyote," Prof. Dobie.
has dome highly interesting . tales
to tell of coyotes, ,even touching
on them as weather -forecasters' and,
warners of impending death.
"Perfect Doctor"
Lands In Jail
Because he failed 'to keep : up
payments on his car, a 37.-year.:-
old
7=year=old New .York "doctor" has been
exposed as one of the most sensa-
tional frauds in medical history.
. For five years, William R.' Mac-
leod was highly • regarded as'
physician : and surgeon in various
American ;hospitals. In one- Brook-
lyn hospital he delivered- no fewee
'
than 475 babies. Yet he has never
even possessed a -high school dipio-
ma—let- alone a ,nedical. degree!
Even Judge John T. McCormick,.
who recently imposed a year's jail,
sentence ort Macleod, came pnd'er..
his care as a patient last July.
"He seamed .to be the real' McCoy
among doctors," declares the Judge.
Macleod is a Canadian who serv-
ed as a private in the U.S. Forces
during the war. While helping a
bacteriologist in the Medical Corps
he read all the books on medicine
he could find, and in 1945 became
a self-styled—and highly success-
ful—doctor.'
It was when he got 'behind with
payments for his car, , that the police
made a routine check and discover-
ed that he had never had a medical
licence. .
I n numerous operations li e
neither "lost" a patient nor ,com-
mitted a single medical misdeed.
,72
BY
HAROLD
ARNETT
DOWELS SET
IN SLANTING 1-IOLES
GLASS AGK ES SREMOV—
ABLE'
DOWLIN SLANTED
HOLES SAVES DRAM BOARD SPACE AND DRIES
-ASSES QUICKLY.
•
Classy Job On A. Cold Subject ---"The Professor," a nine -
foot bust done in snow almost blocks the entrance to the
architecture building at the University of Illinois. The three
co-ed snow artists are: 'Barbara Stinson, Carmen Mowry and
Avis Raascli.
Lighthouse Tending
Not All. Boredom
'.Citeaverage landsman probably
thinks of life in a 'lighthouse as
Mainly a struggle against boredom.
He imagines that, isolated in their
granite towers, the keepers live a
secure and uneventful existence• in
which the greatest hazard'is the fail-
ure of the relief boat to' reach then.
at the appointed time:
Yet this is' by no means, the case.
There has been in the annals of the
lighthouse' service enough of mys-
tery and tragedy to satisfy the most
adventurous' imagination.
Consider, for example, the experi-
ence undergone by a:' keeper at a
lighthouse at the end of the eigh-
teenth centu`ry..The weather was so
bad during one winter that no corn,
municatioit with the land was pod-
sible for a period of nearly four ••
,months.
Nevertheless, the relief 'boat- made
several unsuccessful attempts to ap-
proach the rock.
After ,one' attelept it returned With
the report that a man could be'•seen
standingiipright.an.d motionless on
•etre lantern'gailery with•the distress
flag floating beside him:, ,
Whether he twos -.alive -'oz dead' it
was impossible to tell, •' but as the
lamp''shone out every night it. was
'obvious that the work of the light-
house „Was being, .carried, on ,as
usual..
Month's • Tortures
The . mystery was so ed by a
local fisherman who. managed to --
•land on the rock in a moment of
calm. 'He found that one of the
.keepers had died of fever and that
`his coinp'anion, afraid of being'sus
.petted; of murder if he .had flung
the.' body into the sea, had •placed it
in a canvas shroud' and securely
bound it to the gallery.
Strangely' enough, a keeper in the
Eddystone .lighthouse had precisely
the ,sameexperience some ' years
earlier In this instance, however,
the survivor was forced to spend
a whole month inside the tower
with the body of his companion.
When the relief boat finally ar-
rived it took off not only a corpse
but a white-haired, gabbling mad-
man.
Are lighthouse -keepers ever driven
out of their minds through living in
this state of almost continual soli-
tude and monotony? ,There is at
least one case on record.
Unsolved Mystery
During a spell of boisterous
weather in the winter of 1862 one of
the three' keepers of the Longships
lighthouse became so unnerved by
the heavy battering set up by wind
and sea that, on being called to go
on watch, he' stabbed himself in the
chest with a knife.
But probably the most mysterious
of all lighthouse 'tragedies occurred
in connection with the Flannan Is-
lands lighthouse off the Outer
Hebrides.
One bleak December day in 1900
the relief boat called at the light-
house and found it deserted. The
lamp was burnt out, the last entry
in the journal was dated a week be-
fore—but of the three keepers there
was no trace whatsoever. They had
vanished as completely as if they
had never existed.
Search For Cause
Of "Baby Measles"
The cause of roseola, or "baby
Measles," one of the most common
and''frightening but least dangerous
diseases of infants, has been, traced
by •scientists iia the University of
California to a virus, it was an-
nouinced' recently. Many physicians,
• particularly in Europe, have main-
tained that the ailment, which
causes great concern among parents,
is, not a specific disease but merely
an reaction.
Roseola infantum, also known as
exanthema, subitum • (surprise rash)
afflicts almost all children, some
.time between the ages of 6 Months
:and. 2 years. It usually starts with a
fever; the temperature often rising
;
toashigh as 105 degrees. The fever
• lasts about three days, then drops
•' precipitously. A rashthen develops,
lasts for a day, and the disease is
-terminated. It is a mild •infection,
there being no records of fatalities.
The scientists began theirinvesti-
gation by taking blood serum from•
a 'diseased infant. They passed it
through 'a • filter that permits only,
viruses to go through its minute
.pores. On injecting'the•filtered ma-
terial into monkeys, the roseola was
readily developed in the animals,
marking the first time that the dis-
ease has- been successfully trans-
mitted. From this it is concluded
that roseola is a definite disease' and
that it is caused by a virus.
The California scientists now have
started a search for reservoirsof
the virus. •Since the disease fre-
quently occurs among infants who
are. most carefully protected against
exposure to sick children or infants,
the scientists concluded that if the
infectious agent is acquired, from
other human beings, it might be
from other human beings, it night
be from a healthy person.
The roseola virus,• the evidence
indicates, is something like herpes
simplex --a very common virus in-
fection that causes fever blisters.
The investigators believe that, like
herpes, the roseola virus may be
present nearly all the time in .the
oral passages of neatly all adults—'
even though it may' not cause •dis-
ease in the carrier. So they are now •
trying to isolate the virus from the
throat washings of adults.
FAIR PLAY '
When the coast of Florida was
sparsely populated and hurricanes
wrecked sailing vessels on its
shores, the people of the towns
would hurry out and "salvage" all
they could from damaged vessels
One Sunday, a small boy dashed
into the church service to announce
that another ship had just been
beached, The congregation dashed
like a tidal wave for the doors,
when the preacher intoned pontifi-
cally, "Wait! I have but eight more
words to say to you."
The impatient people shuffled
restlessly, while the preacher walk-
ed to the door, Placing his hand on
the door --knob, he said: "Now, let
us all get a fair start."
When "Dizzy" Bought
A. Real Bargain
Seventy-five years ago last Nov-
ember Benjamin Disraeli (,Lord
Beaconsfield) brought off the most
spectacular financial coup in Bri-
tain's histtory.
In November, 1875, it was an-
nounced that the Khedive of Egypt,
Ismail Pasha, was in urgent need
of funds and was negotiating with
certain French banks for the sale
or Mortgage of his shares in the
Suez Canal.
If this sale had been allowed to
take place Britain's most important
connecting link with India would
have been severed at a most critical
period inher history.
Determined that the canal should
not Become entirely French, Dis-
raeli on his own initiative, since
Parliament was not then sitting,
borrowed nearly $20,000,000 from
his friend Baron Rothschild, and
snapped up the Khedive's 176,602
shares on behalf of the British
Government.
His daring action was not consti-
tutional, but it was a fine invest-
ment for Britain.
Today those shares are worth
considerably more than 100 million
dollars, and for the last half cen-
tury the annual dividend has rarely
been less than 20 per cent of the
original purchase price.
Strategically the Suez Canal is
of the utmost importance to the
Royal Navy, especially during
periods of international tension,
It enables the Mediterranean Fleet
to be moved either east or west
as occasion. arises. Control of the
approaches to the canal by H.M.
warships is essential to the, cohe-
sion of the British Empire.
Egypt lies athwart our path to
the Far East, and if the Suez'
Canal fell into the hands of a hos-
tile power the shortest route to the
Far East would be blocked.
New Canal Proposed
The canal's future is a major
problem among statesmen of the
Western World. Although regarded
as an international waterway, free
to all nations in peace or war, the
canal is, nevertheless, a private
enterprise.
Ferdinand De Lesseps built this
miracle of engineering -on land
leased to him by the Egyptian Gov-
ernment.
That lease expires in 1968, when,
as in the case of leasehold property
generally, it reverts back to the
owners of the land, in this case the
Egyptian Government.
Sonie predict that before the •
lease expires Britain and the United
States will have built another canal
to rival that of De Lesseps, cutting
straight through from Gaza on the
Paelstine coast to the Gulf of
Akaba, the north-eastern; extremity
of the Red Sea.
Engineers have estimated that
with modern engineering tech-
niques, such a canal, 150 miles long,
could be completed in two years.
The Suez Canal took ten years
and cost some $85 million.to build.
From Port Said on the Mediterra-
nean to Suez on the Red Sea, it is
Solved A Mystery
Centuries Old
For four centuries the world's
greatest navigators had risked their
lives and their ships to find a sea
route north of 'America which
would offer a short cut to India
and the Far East.
All had failed.
Theo in the late autumn of 1850
two little slips, the "Enterprise"
and the "Investigator," slipped
away touter the command of Captain
Robert John LeMesurier McClure,
R.N., in an• endeavour to solve the
mystery of the disappearance in the
frozen seas of Sir John Franklin.
Sir John had set sail five years
earlier with a hundred and thirty
picked men from the Royal Navy
to find the elusive North-West
Passage.
}Ie had not returned, and Mc-
Clure's ships were two of many
sent to find him,
"Freezing Horror"
Unlike the other ships, however,
the "Enterprise" and "Investigator"
went via the Pacific and the Bering
Strait. Battered by the pack ice
and blind in the Arctic darkness,
. they lost each other.
The captain of the "Investigator"
decided to return, but McClure
pushed on till he reached Banks
Land.
Then his ship became hopelessly
'locked in the frozen waste, and
there began two years of what
one of leis officers, described as
"unmitigated, freezing horror."
Yet in spite of privation, hunger
and cold, McClure explored and
surveyed the island on which he
was imprisoned, and sent sledging
parties over the ice to map the
contours of neighbouring land
masses.
Because his gallant little ship
withstood all the efforts of the
ice to grind her to pieces, McClure
gave the -tame of Mercy Bay to
that part of the coast where his
ship was locked in.
Ocean to Ocean
By the spring of 1854 half his men
were dying. A few of the fit were
just getting ready to start overland
in a desperate attempt to get help
when another British expedition
found theta,
McClure reluctantly decided to
abondon his ship and sledge across
the. ice with his crew to join one
of the rescue ships, which then
returned with him to the Atlantic.
Thus he was the first man in•his-
tory to cross via the north of
America from the Pacific to the
Atlantic, a feat which earned .hint
a knighthood and a sum of $50,000
voted by Parliament.
He had .solved the mystery of
the North-West passage, for he had.
shown that a water and ice. pas-
sage existed from ocean to ocean.
about 100 miles long,, and entailed
the excavation, mostly by hand, of
80,000,000 cubic yards of sand,
earth and rock.
Estimates for the construction of
the proposed Gaza-Akaba Canal
have varied between $80,000,000 and
$400,000,000.
Life -Saving Gift—Hanging up her autographed cardboard rep-
lica of a blood container on a Christmas tree, Actress Anne
Jeffreys joined the ranks of those contributing to the Red Cross
blood bank during the holiday season. A mobile blood unit of
the Red Cross was set up on the stage of. a New York 'theater
to receive donations from show folk.
By Arthur Pointer