THINGS IN GENERAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14940, 13 March 1912, Page 10

THINGS IN GENERAL.

OTE SHOCK TO HELENSVILLE. , Teh raod people along the railway..line , , K«£ Auckland and .HelonsviUo wo j filled with mixed emotions on Monday. £r know tho Minister for Railway was S2»g tiut way, and they knew that ho , '■'' was coming in a special torn. Thence ( : . 2£ argued that they would see the sigh , S%S Many * timid eye peeped from ; Sd tho edge of a drawn blind, look- > i ■ fog anxiously for a fire-eating mens , that, with blazing, stinking breath should , dash from behind ono curve «***»£ 1 pear round another, leaving behind it . '. Joining but smoke and a smell of singed .tool rails. Not one of them had tho least notion of what a train would look like, waning from Auckland to HclensyiUo a , f distance of 38 miles, in less than two . hours. The wise among tho virgins drove tho COWS homo to roost on Sunday night, ( milked them sub rosa next morning, and 3 WOW careful not to, let them.wander dur- • in- the dav. Nothing is more apt to maKo i 0 cow stop her milk than tho sudden chock ; Of seeing unaccustomed trains. The others took tho risk, and goodness only knows What consequences. Their cows toMly watched tho train pass, with a blank look •of amazement that the passengers might easily have behoved indicated that ■ the poor beasts had been stricken with idiocy. Nineteen stations passed like flushes. Their names ran into each oilier, till all that tho unhappy passengers could see was one long, horrible 'Anglo-Maori conglomeration of syllables, - meaningless. The carriage smoked with > • its angry rush through the air, and the « * Minister Was stepping out at Helensville « lost as the oldest identity looked at his ■ watch and remarked: "The Honourable J Millar's cofmin' out to-day, ain't Re? I ] * Vposo he's about at Mount Eden now. la J vhe goin* to be here in time for tea, d'ye j think!" However, Helensville, and all ' H intermediate stations, as the railway hand- I bill says, get over the shock the train cooled down, the; mesmerism passed away < from, the poor cows, and the oldest identity shut his watch with a snap, saw the , ;'. Minister, and said:" .Well, Til he—!" , ' To settle its nerves properly, and make , '.' sure of Mr. Millar's at the same time, j . , everybody adjourned to the springs, to sup » the waters. Truth to tell, they tasted « ' rather much like a dilute solution of i ' . boardinghouso egg. ,: ? Helensville needed ' , the settler. Yet, after all, it was not such a eroat achievement for Mr. Millar, or or the engine, of for Mr. Glover, or for the Sard, or oven for Mr. Millar's walking•Stick, because they had all been on other railways. .- But for the poor - people or HelensviUe. who have only tune "to get . into Auckland and .back once .or twice in J - " a long while, it was a great day* SHE TWISTINESS OF IT, j It is very . easy to make fun of an in- j , fiction that has for yeai* been the cross j and burden of hundreds of people who have deserved better things. The North Auck- . laid lino is a very real trouble tothepeo- . ! 0 who live in its string of towns; and < ft is a beautiful example of ; the- sort of • tvQ thing that 'is" covered ;by the,aphorism— .. 1 . 6 cheat, and nasty. When the railway was ■ built, tho consideration was rather for the - moment than for the future. _J h a cb j? cfe , .sopeared to be rather to build the, line m San to run the ! railway. There were all * ■sorts of hills and hoHowo along the route; thai was one aide of the problem, , ing certain difficulties. Trains may chmb j & certain' gradient...say, one m 40— •was the other side, limiting the extent to < ' t which the engineers had to carve, build i to find their levels.' And so off they went, f up hill and down dale, so long as tho ' shibboleth of one in 40 was safe, and dodglag round r a corner whenever it was: in . danger. Considering that, hills of a greater '. steepness axe very common, the line dodges ' ■ and'twists like a man imminent in bank-• | ruptcy avoiding angry creditors. The J builders of . the line had . a love of curves as fine as that of the true artist. Arid so "j to-day, up and down, round and about, the ' train has to follow the elow and thoughtful meanderings of a.,shortsighted \ surveyor's J pencil. And the worst of the hardship *' mtsoa to be that while the ~ draughtsman ' may low carves, and if he wishes may lay ; them down, there is nothing the locomotive people diplike mere, nofc even an incline of ono 'in 40. Yet alter,all, tljtere I ' is; and that is the sad 'and _ solemn ,] curve, skilfully combined ■■ with the ' , already said-to-be-hated gradient of r one ! in 40. . Against, that obstacle the. heavily 1 loaded engine butts his head in vain. He has to take on that" strange habit of the ' : * lizard, observed and told of by veracious small boys, but not always proved. Stopping momentarily,, the engine gives a wriggle, and drops the end"of its tail. With a reduced load, it'struggles up the hill; then ~ • coming down again readily enough, it picks op its dropped joints again; , and gravely sticking them on to its truncated body, goes oil afresh to meet another . twisted slope. There is some* pleasure in driving st Issomotive over a goody line; and the reverse is most surely the case. I should ' suggest that part ojf the' reward and i duty of nil who design jrailtray lines should be to have to drives a heavy train over their own work for a periodl of six months. It Would 'be in nome ostscs only a decent compliment; .ia .others, -, it .would serve shem right. 'USB FALL OF MODERN LONDON. Professor Haverfield has thrown out the disturbing { suggestion that the " fall of London" is, if notprobable, still a reasonable possibility. "This suggestion is based on the fall of Roman London, due to geo- ' graphical conditions. In the fifth century , Roman London^, tho largest and most important city in the country, a centre of [ financial: administration, the seat of an .'lmperial mint, the- diocesan city of a ' '- Christian bishop, was ! destroyed by the • ' Saxons. In that troubled age, indeed, its 'Splendid geographical position ceased for a while to matter. In the present day 'the 1 geographical conditions of I<ondon are onco 'more ceasing to count* London no longer 'represents the North of England. The . .opening ( of tho AtTantio_to trade and traffic, > '-the opening of : mineral resources in the north have: changed the incidence of geol 'graphical conditions, and the professor .»-, finds himself wondering whether—not cer- . tainly in his time, but at some future day ;—-the capital of England will, bo trans- ■;,:. ferred from London to the North. An 'opposite commentary on the ;fall of London is incidentally provided by the ©iv , torpriso of Islington, which is seeking to bay the garden in Bamsbury-square as an ,;!!■ open space. The site is the only portion \ of «. Roman oncampment on which there is no < building. Upon this high ground ■ 'was situated the summer camp of the _ f army, and to it returned Suetonius Paulin- ,",. •us, with about 10,000 men, to avenge the sacking and burning, of London by Boa.dic«i.. The encampment is fully described Joy -Tacitus, .•.;'■ * f: MAN EST THE ROCKS, .. lb is a striking fact that very few fos*il remains of j ancient types of man have been found. A remarkable find was the 10**11 men of La .Chapolle-aux-Sainfcs, in , ■'I ranee, which showed a skull in a remarkable state of - preservation. The find attracted much attention at the time.- but It remained to be . seen what conclusions could be drawn from it. Scientists have i been trying ' to reconstruct our ancient ancestors from this model, but many doubts Stffl prevail -n New light is th « on' the subject, by Professors Boulo and Anthony, of Bans. As tho skull was in a very' ■ good state of preservation, they wore able to obtain a plaster cast of the inside of the skull almost as fiharp and complete , m those made from modem skulls Thus ' » voiy good idea could bo gained of the shape of .the brain, which could not be - .- done satisfactorily in • tho case of the pre- - ; ,* historic specimens discovered previously. According to the conclusions reached by joule and Anthony in their examination,. ■l^'&i. of the individual, whose skull , sual been handed down to us in the fossa remains ' presents in its general cbarjicter , : a type inferior to any known among all BfefeStflNS? ° t** of the present day. »L ■■'■■■.■'■

far from that of the modern man's brain, in many of its detail structures the organ resembles more closely that of an anthro- | poid, or man-like ape. It is a well-known fact that the human brain is in general unsymmqtrical in its development, while that of anthropoids is, as a rule, symmetrical. In this respect the newly-dis-covered specimen approaches the human type. At the same time, the convolutions are very much simpler and less finely marked than in the brain of the modern civilised man. Generally speaking, it may be said that the newly-discovered specimen represents a typo intermediate between modern man and the anthropoid apes. Thus, for instance, the two lobes of 'the cerebellum are mulch separated, somewhat as in the simian brain. In the Australian savage of the present day, the two lobes may bo said to display a condition of incipient junction, while in emlised man the lobes aro very close. In spite of tho considerable volume of the brain of this specimen,' tho combo aspect of tho convolutions indicates that the man had only rudimentary intellectual faculties, and there are indications that the individual possessed no articulate speech, or at most only a primitive language. The unsymmetrical structure of the brain is taken as a sign that tho individuals were right-handed, a sign , of somewhat advanced specialisation. i. Tira Grnbrai-,.