SCIENTISTS MYSTIFIED.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 144, 19 June 1926, Page 18

SCIENTISTS MYSTIFIED.

a WHIRLING BORNEO BASKETS. LIKE PERPETUAL MOTIOX. A little problem, involving "perpetual motion," is baffling the professors of Harvard University, U.S.A. AVeeks of study and experimentation have produced no solution to the mystery surrounding the whirling Borneo baskets at the Peabody Museum of the University. These little baskets, strung on si?: feet of fine copper -wire, have- comprised part of the Borneo exhibit at the museum for nearly six months. Sdou after they were hung in place they started to rotate, at first slowly, a quarter turn one way, then a quarter turn back. Then they began moving faster, until eventually they assumed a regular speed which they have , since maintained. From great distances scientists have come to obsc-rve the whirling basket?, but aU have gone away, mystified and vexed. Harvard professors have discovered they can vary the period of rotation •by inducing negative static electricity, but as soon as conditions returned to normal the baskets resumed their regular speed. An electroscope placed in the cabinet under the baskets showed no electrical discharge. At first it was thought the vibration of the building might be responsible, but Curator Sayles said this theory had been virtually disproved, A pos&ible solution which is given some credence is that static electricity is responsible for the baskets' antics, but its soutce continues a. mystery, "It may be an entirely new principle," the curator, said. "We inav not learn the answer for fifty year«. Such things have happened in the-history of science. Perliaps it is the came power that makes it possible for . some people lo locate a eprinsr of water under ground with a hazel 'divining rod,'"