WORLD-WIDE NOTES.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XLIII, Issue 2286, 26 February 1912, Page 7

WORLD-WIDE NOTES.

PUT PLANTS OUTDOORS AT NIGHT.

In a recent paper, Dr. Robert H. M. Dawbam tells why it is considered best not to keep flowers or growing plants in a sick room at night. Flowers give off moisture taken up from the soil, hence air becomes somewhat humid if many—particularly growing plants—are kept in the room. Flowers, having a method of breathing, they use up the oxygen as human beings do., and in exchange give off carbonic dioxide as waste matter. The action of sunlight upon the stems, leaves and all green parts of flowers is to store carbonic dioxide within the plants and release oxygen. Thus, in daylight, there is a fair balance between the carbonic dioxide and the oxygen given and taken, leaving neither good nor ill results. But during the entire night the plant continues to breathe, and until the return of daylight the oxygen is used, just like an additional person breathing in the room, thus leaving less oxygen for the use of I the invalid. Therefore the standing order to remove all plants and flower* at night Is based upon the ; facts of plant physiology and is right. | MAN’S ORIGIN : WHEN WAS IT ? Man’s origin is being assigned greater end greater antiquity. Reviewing the remarkable discoveries of the last ten years in Western Europe Prof. McCurdy show* that it la being gradually proved that the human racf Is as old as any of the tailless apes, and probably had the same ancestors. The oldest undisputed flint imj plements date from the upper Mioj cene period of geology ; the oldest | human bone, the jaw of Homo heldel- | bergensis, from near the beginning of the Quaternary. Primitive man, j therefore, must have lived in Western Europe during the entire Glacial period, and developed into Homo primlgenlus, low In stature and robust, with short, stout arms and legs,—much like the Eskimo of today. A more intellectual race, probably from the east, appeared in the Upper Quaternary, or at least 30,000 years ago. This people, Homo aurignacensis, sculptured and frescoed the walls of the caverns, and their own implements, and their descendants, who must have flourished more than 10,000 years ago, introduced the rudiments of writing. The negroid people probably came into Western Europe soon after Homo aurignacensis. Prof. Klaatsch finds Homo primignacensis to resemble more nearly the chimpanzee of Asia. AERO WIRELESS OPERATED OVER WIDE RADIUS. M. Henry Farm an has successfully used wireless telegraph apparatus from an aeroplane over a radius of six miles. This Seat was accomplished in France after many experiments. Farman believes he will eventually be able to extend the radius to sixty miles. The military possibilities of this accomplishment are almost limitless. An aero scout equipped with wireless could furnish information that would be invaluable. Even with a radius of six miles bin message could be relayed by the ordinary field wireless equipment a distance of j at least 30 miles to the commanding j general, who would thus be enabled i to plan his movements with accurate Information of the enemy’s position a day in advance. Trouble has an extraordinary effect in altering the values of life. No one within its charmed or, ought we to say, its accursed, circle, is any longer overshadowed by comparison with those outside. It is a world — an ephemeral, hut a new, world—in which the last may be first and the first last. Again, for all those who have an intense interest in human nature, and who are not particularly kind-hearted, trouble has an attraction. In trouble they think they see their acquaintances as they really are. Often they are mistaken here. They see some traits they would not have seen under ordinary circumstances, and they see their friends without their affectations ; but that is all that can be said for certain. Not a few people who have self-com-mand enough for ordinary life lost it in trouble ; but when they have lost it, they are less themselves in any real sense than they were before, j A perfectly trustworthy dog will snap when in pain, and bo dog is safe while in a trap. He will bite his deliverer by instinct. To give him a bad name because he has yielded to j overmastering temptation is quite 1 absurd. There is no infallible ‘test’ j of character. To look at the other j side of the matter, the devouring fire of trouble instantly destroys all that j is visible above ground, so to speak, j of certain, inferior element* in charac- j ter, but it does not root them out, | No one is a snob in trouble, very few people are flippant, very few are haughty, the minor ambitions disappear.—' ' Spectator. ’ ’