RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 104, 27 January 1930, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

SIDELIGHTS ON CURRENT EVENTS LOCAL AND GENERAL (By Cosmo®,! There are said to be over a million laws in force in the United States, that is so, there must be a great many altogether. • • • . Overseas Court statistics show that wives get 65 per cent, of the divorces. It may be noted, also, that they get 100 per cent of the alimony. • * * A machine has been invented thpt can match colours perfectly. We don’t know what the machine Is, but it isn’t a husband. « • • “There will be no peace until all nations adopt a universal language,” says a writer. In that case we hope they won’t go to war to determine what language to adopt » * » The clock at Auckland which, thotfgh made in England in 1840, is still going strong, has a number of companions who have ticked off the centuries and are still working. Many of them have belonged to distinguished personages. The watch made in England for King Charles XIL of Sweden (1682-1718). weighs five ounces, and Warren Hastings’s timepiece, which bears the hallmark of 1744, are still in going condition. A clock which also belonged to him, and which passed from him to his wife’s niece, was presented to the late Sir William Schlich by his students, when he retired from the Chair' of Forestry at Oxford University. His daughter now owns it. A year or so ago the British Museum received tlie first clock ever made to go for a year iat a winding. This was made by Thomas Tompion, “The Father of English Clockmakers,’’ to the order of Sir Jonas Moore, for John Flamsteed, the first Astronomer Royal, in 1676. Two of Thomas Tompion’s grandfather clocks are also in working order today. The first was, like the Museum’s treasure, made for the first Astronomer Royal, whose name appears on the dial with that of the marker, and the other was made for one of the Royal Palaces about 1705. It is wound every two months.

A gruesome history lies behind the watch of the Rev. W. B. Valliant, of Weybridge. It was presented to his great-grandfather on May 5, 1760, by Lawrence, Earl Ferrers, on the Tyburn scaffold just before the final curtain. The condemned man took it from his pocket and presented it to the sheriff as a mark of gratitude for his kindness to him, stating “It is a stopwatch and a pretty good one.” Another executed earl was the original owner of a gold watch elegantly and elaborately chased, with a large p surmounted by an Earl’s coronet. The earl, whoever he was, is said to have paid the extreme penalty in the Tower, and to have handed it to his wife on the fatal morning. It is inscribed “Archibald Dalzell, Dumfries. 5969. A calender silver watch with a double case, made by Peter Brechant andwhlch the owner estimates, fromi a. study of Britten's book on Old Watches,” to date from 1680, keeps company with a lantern clock, made about the same time as the Auckland clock, by Peter Closon, who had his business “neare Holborne Bridge.” The clock in Ecton Church Tower, Northants, was erected In 1600, and is still ticking off the flying moments The earliest of these venerable timepieces is a doublacased silver watch. The outer case has a crest engraved upon It, as well as the words “Rd Dr Bridgman, Lincoln Inn, 1619. The face, of silver, has some jpleancut figures, a narrow gold rim qf oak of a the products of master craftsmen, long since turned to dust, surely a grea? tribute to British workmanship. , ,

A Dutch professor intends to throw twt tons of pulverised ice from an aerorflane upon clouds. It is expected that i riSFof S ln 5 £ P o?xSn% r the key to the weather, or it may not. He is certainly not the only man who has tried to so. Rainmaking was once 1 profession, and even to-day many uncivilised tribes have their oihcinl rninmaker. His office was at one time no sinecure, for when no ’ rain . ca “® was killed and someone else installed. Two American professors, Bancroft and wlrren, have forestalled the Dutch nrofessor They sent up a squadron of aeroplanes and scattered petrified ennd upon some clouds. The resurn proved satisfactory, for it rained. Tests in South Africa, using the same method, also proved satisfactory. *

It is claimed that it will not be long before squadrons of aeroplanes their time conquering "depressions. It is to be hoped that they are careful about choosing their sites, for they would not be popular, for instance, m many parts of New Zealand this summer. Other methods do not appear to have been so successful. In Hong-Kong powdered kaolin was dropped on to clouds in an effort to break a severe drought with most meagre results whilst efforts tabling ram by gunfire or explosion are now not so popular as thev were once. Enthusiasts have been discouraged by the fact that mathematicians recently worked out that.it would require the detonation of .1, aO tons of melinite to produce less than one-tenth of an inch of rain oyer one square mile. Upholders of tins once popular theory have been busy liquid air at clouds with results;enuuently satisfactory to the mannfactu ers of liquid air.

Another school of rainmakers suggests that a fleet of twenty ice-breakers should go and dislodge huge chunks, of ice from the poles, thereby ensuring moderate climatical conditions, anyway in the Northern Hemisphere, at the insignificant cost of one million pounds a vear. But the whole thing can be overdone. Charles Hatfield, the Cirhfornian sky wizard, was offered if he would fill to the brim the empty reservoir of sun parched San Diego. He took on the contract and let loose some chemicals into a cloudless sky from a twenty-foot ' high wooden tower. In well under contract time he was delivering the goods. In one day sixteen inches of ruin fell, and in some places in the same area over forty inches had fallen. The reservoir was not only filled for the first time in history, but released such an overflow that two rivers burst their dams. Ranches were submerged galore, roadways washed out, whilst houses, barns, farm implements, and stock were washed out to sea. The damage was estimated at half a million pounds. The victims sued the City Council for importing the rainmaker, and instead of paying him his £3OOO the City Council sued hip s foe O’—rdoing the job.