HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Herald, 1949-04-14, Page 3Newfoundland Officially Welcomed Into Canadian Confederation—In a colorful ceremony its
Ottawa on Friday, the new tenth Province of Newfoundland was welcomed into the Canadian
confede ration.
Top picture shows those who took leading parts in the program. Left to right they are; Prime
Minister St. Laurent; Governor-General Viscount Alexander; Hon. Gaspard Fauteux, Speaker
of the Commons; Hon. j. Gordon Bradley, secretary of the State and newly appointed repre-
sentative of Newfoundland in the Cabinet; Senator j. H. King, and. Former Prime Nfinistei King
Lower photo shows Prime Minister St. Laurent cutting the first strokes of Newfoundland's
coat -of -arms on the shield reserved for the new province on the Peace Tower, while Mr. Bradley
look S. on,
How The Continents
Once • andered
Few youngsters today manage to
"finish" geography without an exer-
cise in juggling cut-out continents
around.
They find the nose of South
America' fits very neatly into the
Gulf of Guinea, that North America
swings over to match Europe with
extreme nicety if the islands and
peninsulas are tucked in, too. Even
an
Australia Antarctica •can be
s d
pushed up and fitted in at the south-
ern end of things, to make a map
after the style of the ancients—
earth's land area in one mass, with
seas all around.
Children have been doing this for
several generations, 'but merely as
an exercise in mental gymnastics.
Teachers and men of natural science
who found themselves intrigued
with the possibilities and who
studied the matter at all seriously
have been pretty generally smiled
at in learned company—until recent-
ly. Now there is a growing mass of
evidence which seems to indicate
there may be more truth to be
uncover e d than • fiction writers
dreamed.
Taylor, Baker, Wegener, du Toit,
Evans, Daly, van der, Gracht,
Bailey, and Schuchert are just a
few of the names in a• long list of
people who have had something to
say for or against the "Wegener
Hypothesis." Even before such re-
cent investigators as these, the
famed philosopher -scientist, Francis
Bacon discussed "continental drift"
as early as 1620. Most proponents
postulate a time when the earth was
oriented differently in space, when
the polar axis did not go through
what is now called the Arctic and
Antarctic writes Herbert B. Nichols
in The Christian Science Monitor.
The first real attempt to outline
the problem is an orderly sort of
way was made by F. B. Taylor,
geologist, in 1908. For 30 years he
periodically published reports of in-
vestigations which had led him to
believe that back in Cretaceous
Tunes (some 180,000,000 years ago
•wheu the age. of giant reptiles n as
ending), the earth captured a satel-
lite out of space (the moon).
For the next several million years,
he theorized, giant tides rose and
fell on this planet. Together with
rotational forces these caused an un-
balance on the globe which resulted
in sliding continents, in a radical
drift of land masses, like giant rafts
of granite sial afloat on a glasslike '
sea of the underlying and more
dense sima. Just as a cork bobs to
the top of a pail of water, so the
continents project because made of
rocks lighterthan underlying
the ocean.
Fellow geologists picked him
apart because he ignored strati -
graphical and fossil relationships as
well as earth movements believed
Versatile
This versatile cotton T-shirt,
done in brilliant greets -and -
white stripes, is at home with
shorts slacks or pedal -pushers.
It has short sleeves and buttons
tip to a neat, turn -down collar,
Actress Lola Albright finds it
ideal for cycling,
'Hands' for Research
inventor Raymond C. aoertz of the Argonne National Laboratory
in Chicago demonstrates his "master slave," a device to be used in
research involving radioactive materials, The Inventor controls
the mechanical "hands" in the foreground from outside +s glass
panel, which is replaced by concrete and lead insulation in actual
operation. Special optical lenses will enable scientists to wateh the
t,;•lc of the ingenious contrivance, which can perform virtuatl.
any .operation possitgg Ith human hands.
earlier than Cretaceous. He made
no attempt to put the jigsaw puzzle
together except in the case of North
America and Greenland.
Then in 1911 Howard Baker made
up for his deficiency by presenting
his "displacement globe':. postula-
ting that originally there was but a
single continent or pangaea which
split from Alaska across the Arctic
and down the full length of the
Atlantic to the Antarctic. The un-
equal parts, he said, drifted off in
opposite directions toward the Pa-
cific region with additional fractures
and rotations taking place in certain
portions.
Alfred L. Wegener, German geo-
physicist, really put the prevailing
theories. to test and assembled the
parts in the working hypothesis that
bears his name. It is best set forth
in his work on "The Origin of Con-
tinents and Oceans," revised in
1928.
Wegener quotes astronomical ob-
servations to support a claim that
the continents are still drifting.
Measurements in Europe, Green-
land and North America proved to
him that North America is still
traveling slowly westward. This
movement, more distinct in times
past, he held. accounts for the mar-
ginal foldings, the so-called "back-
bone of the Americas," the Andes
ancl Rockies.
This idea is considerably at vari-
ance with Baker, who saw the early
--drifting not as any slow, angular
movement but the result of simu•l-
taneous and• rapid flight. Sometime
during the late Miocene or early
Pliocene eras; he said, the orbital
movenntnts of the earth and Venus
varied enough to -bring those planets
so close together that a thick layer
of crustal matter was stripped from
the Pacific region, hurled into
space to forever afterward travel a
path of its own around the earth.
That was his -explanation of how
the continents were formed and
how the moon began.
In his early restoration of the
land areas, Wegener brought the
shore lines almost together. How-
ever, in his later work he recognized
the weight of opinion against him
and allowed room not only for the
olid -Atlantic ridge, a long chain of
mountains known to stretch beneath
the ocean from Iceland clear to
Antarctica, but for generous mar-
ginal areas as well, to take care of
known continental shelves. These
stretch out to sea for many miles
before dropping off into abyssal
depths.
* * *
No one is ready to admit yet that
continental drift is really proven
fact, hut an increasing number of
scientists in many fields are enter-
taining the thesis at least. Further-
more, several institutions have not
only been willing to publish the re-
sults of, scientific investigations but
to finance those investigations as
well.
At the University of Cincinnati,
Dr. Kenneth E Caster, geologist,
reopened the question following
four years of research work in South
America. There he traveled tens of
thousands of utiles gathering 'data
tinder the auspices of the .United
States Department of State and the
Guggenheim Foundaion.
"None of tar ftttdinois tau 1 'ousta
&mace deftttttely proves or di -
Proves the delft hypothesis," he
sass, "but they are signifies*
enough to warrant additional field
studies hs South Africa, India, M td
Australia to make necessary com-
parisons,
"Although a great number of
geologists discount the theory of
continental drift, especially North
American ones, it is a completely
open issue. Tt can't be settled with
inforination now at hand, I'm not
yet convinced that the theory is
valid, but I ate also not discounting
it,"
One of the theory's most famous
champions was Alexander L. du
Toit, a noted South African geolo-
gist, responsible for "A Geological
Comparison of South America With
South Africa," published under this
title in 1927 by the Carnegie In-
stitution of Washington. Ten years
later he produced a more finished
work, "Our Wandering Continents,"
in which he presented a mass of
detailed data indicating Africa to be
the key to the whole problem..
Africa, he held, was the heart of
Gondwanaland. His early work
` showed how South America and
West Africa tie in beautifully from
a geological viewpoint. Later he
. accomplished like comparisons to.
show how India, Africa, Australia
and Antarctica must have filled up
the Indian Ocean at one time.
He found that the Falkland
Islands must have been closer to
Cape Horn than to Argentina in
former tines, for its geology more
nearly fits that of the Cape than it
does the Argentine.
Geologic literature is full of pond -
Starting
Soon...
A Thrilling New Serial
EST
Of The
SUN
JOSEPH s LEWIS
CHADWICK
The West was young, it was
wild, it was lawless, violent,
hard, In the eighties 't was no
place for a young eastern girl—
but Virginia Ames could see no
alternative, Her fiance Phil
Lawrence had written her; his
letter had been strange, cryptic,
Urgent, By rail and stage and
horseback she crossed the raw
frontier . , meeting soldiers,
Apaches, gamblers, the riff -rag'
of the West, And finding at the
end of the long trail a love that
was older than she knew.
LOOK FOR THE
FIRST INSTALMENT
COMING SOOlsi
You Won't Want To Miss
A Single Chapter
erous volumes written to explain
how oceans and continents might
have been formed. One school says
the ocean basins have always been
more or less permanent. But op-
ponents argue there is far too much
evidence to show that there have
been great interchanges of land and
sea areas, of continental and oceanic
dimensions.
Du Toit surveyed this literature
and, together with his studies on the
ground, bolstered the case for con-
tinental drift. If one were to set out
to prove this thesis, he would look
for vast rift valleys and ocean deeps
where continents on the move
would cause fractures; for evidence
of mountain building or upwelling
of crustal material near the assumed
forward moving edge of a drifting
land mass; for time correlations
with movements of sub -crustal mol-
ten magma from below; for fossil
relationships indicating widespread
similarity of flora and fauna in the
days before separation—increasing
diversity since; for evidence that
the earth's poles may not have al-
ways been where they are now;
for species of plants and animals
now living, but of known ancient
origin,- which might have persisted,
in now widely separated areas, as
relics down through the ages.
WI4AT IN SAM 141LL`
15 THE. MATT R WiTI4
THIS FIRE PLACE!
T11E FA1
J
F]
Tlherels a produce buyer I've
heard about who estimates that
many poultrymen lose as much as
twelve cents a dozen on their eggs,
simply because they're dirty and so
must be graded much lower than
they otherwise would be.
* a *
Which gives point to Expert 5.
E. Boyd's saying, "Hens don't lay
dirty eggs. They get that way be-
cause the y aren't gathered often
enough, because .there aren't enough
nests, or because the litter is not
kept dry."
Just how can you clean dirty
' value? Well, if you have just a few
eggs without lowering their rnarket
of them, you can remove the dirt
quite easily with an egg sander.
Black emery cloth stretched over a
piece of sponge rubber will do the
trick; and very fine sandpaper or
steel wool also.work well,
r, *
If you have a whole lot of dirty
eggs, you'll probably want to wash
they. Here's a system which comes
to me highly recommended. Put the
eggs in a wire basket and soak the
whole basket in a mixture of hot
water (140 to 160 degrees) and
detergent ("soapless soap").
Soak the eggs for just a couple
of minutes. Then, when the dirt is
soaked loose, wash it off by pour-
ing or • spraying warm water over
the basketful. Then let the air dry
the eggs thoroughly. But don't on
any account use cold water, as it
will draw dirt and bacteria into
the eggs.
* * *
But don't start washing eggs until
you've checked with your produce
dealer. The chances are that he
won't cut your price on washed
evidence to show that even eggs
ones they are. But there is some
eggs—that is, if he knows which
which have been carefully washed
won't keep quite as long in cold
storage as will unwashed ones.
* * *
So it's best to be on the square
with the dealer and tell him about
the washing. Then he can put the
eggs into immediate consumption
channels, where they will he just
as good as any others.
* * *
A reader wants to know if there
is any sort of paint which he can
use on old lumber to prevent ter-
mites from eating into it, The an-
swer is that impregnating the wood
with coal -tar creosote will do the
job. If you paint the creosote on
with a brush, it will give fine pro-
tection to the surface. But if you
are planning to use that lumber for
sills, or something of the sort,—
in fact anywhere that the wood
might remain damp --it would be
better to impregnate it thoroughly
by soaking it in the creosote.
4,
Here's something a'oout farm:
sprayers which may be of value to
some of you. It's the advice of
Dale Hull, wito is an agricultural
engineer at Iowa State College, and
who should know what he's talking
about—I hope.
* * *
Pressures required for farce
spraying operations .range ail the
way from 30 pounds per square inch
in weed control work to 250 pounds
per square inch for fruit trees,
cattle grubs and lice.
HuII recommends a sprayer that
will produce up to 250 pounds per
inch pressure,
* *
Don't buy sprayers with ruiner
impeller type pumps. They are
sensitive to spray nmateriais that
have light petroleum bases. and
many farmers have not found ti,rrn
satisfactory, Hull says.
* * {:
Built-in or external by-pa'.e' are
recommended as pressure regulators
or. positive action pumps.
The suction hose needs to stand
a pressure of 100 pounds, and the
high pressure hose should he able
to stand a pressure of 400 Hounds.
In order to keep a nozzle from
clogging, Hull advises having an
80 or 100 -mesh screen in place over
the intake end of the hose trading
from the sprayer tank.
• * „
For the best coverage on a. -ea.,
use a nozzle producing a flat or
fan -shaped spray pattern. For
in-
secticide
-
secticide
spraying in cors, borer
control, use a nozzle that gives a
solid cone-shaped pattern.
* * 4'
Nozzles having various ,pray
angles and capacities can be pur-
chased for application from as low
as two gallons per acre up to any
quantity desired.
4,
Nozzle tips can be bought which
will produce either type of spray
pattern, thereby eliminating the
necessity of buying complete sets
of each type of nozzle.
* 4, *
Spray booms and tanks made of
non -corrosive material, or that arc
protected by special coatings, suck
as paint, plating or galvanizing, wilt
give more years of satisfactory
service, Hull says.
* * a,
Which will be all for today—and
my thanks to Mr. Hull far the
assist.
'Quick Change' Act Flops—Stanley i.'rosek, in cap, d
John Major, 39, Cleveland, 0., Transit System emplan
oyees, get
a free ride in a police van with part of "nearly a ton" of pennies,,
nickels and dimes police said they looted from fare boxes during
the past year. Officials estimated the value of the stolen c•,iisT
at $7,000.
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