RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 221, 14 June 1930, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current

Events

LOCAL AND GENERAL

(By

Cosmos.)

Farms never had fewer horses «• more horse-power.

You can always tell a civilised country. . It’s one where people kill the birds and then spend thousands to fight insects.

One day of old-fashioned winter is enough to reconcile most persons to the fact that it is old-fashioned.

In Bermuda a Mr. Beebe has descended 800 feet beneath the sea in a steel ball fitted with fused quartz windows. Although this can scarcely be caUed a diving suit, it does mark the course of progress in the art of diving. Not so long ago a well-known for- ■ elgn diving firm was reported to have invented a sort of underwater robot, capable of descending to great depths for rescue work in sunken submarines. One might be excused for imagining that the art of diving was more or less a modern one. Nevertheless Aristotle is supposed to have alluded to a diving bell over 300 years before Christ. By 1662 adaptations of this diving bell were used on the coast of Hull, fishing for the remains of the Armada. Thirty years after that a patent was granted to John Stapleton for “a new engine soe by him contrived as to permit a person Inclosed in it to walk under water, and to a new invented way to force air into any depth of water to supply the person in the said engine therewith, and for continuing a lamp burning under water, also a way to deserate and purifye the air so as to make the same serviceable for respiration.” They were never anything if not optimistic, those inventors.

“Tt A T,.** writes: “In your interesting dissertation on modern speed accelerations you appear to indicate that if these accelerations continue, as seems to be guaranteed by the fertility of human inventiveness, the speed of mechanical transport must eventually surpass the speed of thought, i.e., the speed of communication between eye and brain. Have you not omitted consideration of the speed of light? This speed (186,300 miles per second) carries the light from all things to the seeing eye of man. In the speed of transport, therefore, the eye of the controller of transport is receiving light from objects ahead at a rate thousands of times faster than any possibly imaginable acceleration of mechanical speed. Practically, thus visibility being good, the controller’s eye sees all objects ahead before the start of any acceleration that may be made. The eye consequently warns the brain to act before the accelerated speed can reach any point ahead. However rapid the acceleration of speed, the incomparably greater speed of light will always (visibility good) ensure time to the controller’s brain to direct his controlling hand to safety, i.e., if safety is a thinkable thing, at the enormous speed in question. This raises the question of a speed limit.

The leaning tower of Pisa has now ceased to lean, and tourists are thus denied what had been a certain draw to the town of Pisa. This curious tower is about 180 feet high and made entirely of marble. It was erected to contain bells and stands in a square close to the cathedral. Some people think that the tower was intentionally built out of plumb in 1154. Experts, however, now state that it is due to subsidence beneath the foundations, which are in themselves only ten feet deep. There can be no doubt about the lean, at any rate. In 1829 the tower was 15i feet out of plumb. Year by year the lean was increasing until in 1910 the top of the tower was hanging 164 feet out of true. A tower, of course, is still stable until its top leans out further than its base. There were only one and a half feet to go, and it would not have been long before the leaning Tower of Pisa had overleant itself and toppled to the ground. But even leaning towers have their uses. In 1635. Galileo made his famous observations on gravity from this tower.

Queen Marie is reported to be on her way home. She declares that she is returning so as to be useful to her son, who has a great mission before him. One would "not like to say that she would fulfill the role of a royal publicity expert better than anyone else m the world. Nevertheless, judging by her trip in the United States, there can be no doubt that Queen Marie ’ has learnt a point or two on the subject. Her trip through that country was more like a Gilbert and Sullivan opera than anything else. In the full blare of comic relief her sayings and her mishaps tickled the rest of the world at a time after the war when it was most appreciated. There appeared to be always a free fight for accommodation on her train by officials and others. At intervals when the train stopped they all got busy pushing one another off and everybody’s baggage got hopelessly lost.

The following is perhaps typical of her trip: “The day at Philadelphia,” said a report, “was marked by much ceremonial and by several amusing mishaps. When the Queen went to the Se»quicentennial Exhibition to witness the performance of the ballet composed by herself entitled ‘The Queen’s Handkerchief,’ she found a box specially built, for her. In this the Queen was in full view of those who had subscribed ten guineas aud upwards, but the stage was completely shut off from her own view. So the Royal party left the Royal box and made their way to an ordinary tenguinea box and saw the performance. Dinner, too, was marred by a slight mishap. After the privileged guests and the Queen were assembled the door was locked to exclude unauthorised admissions. Prince Nicholas, who was late, was thus locked out. He elbowed his way through the .kitchen and entered with the waiters. The key.of the door could not be found when the dinner was over, and the Queen had no alternative but to reach her apartment by the service lift.” Queen Marie, of course, is the widowed Queen of Kumania and grandmother of UtUe exiting Michael. After the death of King Ferdinand, her husband, she is stated not to have taken any official part in politics and has occupied her time writing children’s books. • « •

Vladimir Mayakovsky, the Soviet poet, his heart torn with uncertainty over the love of two actresses, each of whom he liked equally well, committed suicide in Moscow a few weeks ago to escape the agonies of indecision. Then there wan the unfortunate animal that perished between two carroU,