RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 200, 21 May 1936, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

qp. Sidelights on Current Events (By Kickshaws.) Well, Labour policy in Australia seems significantly to be a case ot down the Garden path. • * • It may be true that the trawler Girl Pat is looking for Captain Kidd's treasure, but whether she finds it or not she seems to know all about kidding. * » * The recent ruling regarding the shortness of shorts worn by women athletes makes one wonder how long a long short must he before the long and short of it is that a long short becomes a short long. “Fronde in his lectures on ‘English ■Seamen of the 16th Century’ says that the credit of tlie foundation of the British Navy lies with the Protestant privateers in Elizabeth’s reign,” says “Interested.” “As England’s kings for centuries before this bad their armies, can yon tell me why the Royal Navy is called the senior service?” [The British Army owes its inception to the extinction of feudal tenures in 1661. The first five regiments of British infantry were established between 1633 and 1680. Charles I, however, had instituted a standing army in 1638, but it was subsequently declared to be illegal. In the case of the British Navy, is it not on record that Alfred the Great built our first fleet in 897. By the year 1007 a formidable fleet had been equipped. The Navy Office comes on the scenes in. 1512, and by the time that the British Army arrived the British Navy had a tradition of many centuries.]

Here’s luck to the Dunedin resident who may have New Zealand’s rarest stamp, a full-face Queen Victoria worth very nearly £2OOO. It is not bad in our comparatively short history to produce a stamp originally worth threepence that has risen in value 160,000 times. British Guiana, one must admit, can boast a stamp originally worth a halfpenny that has increased in value in some 80 years nearly five million times. As values go. this stamp is not only the most valuable stamp in the world, but almost the most valuable thing in the world on a comparative basis.. The stamp occupies about one square inch of paper. There is certainly no other square inch of paper worth as much. It is doubtful if there is any square inch of anything worth as much. In cubic measure, the stamp works out at under one sixty-fourth of a .cubic inch. A sixty-fourth of a cubic inch of the most precious gem in the world is not so valuable as this stamp. It is perhaps a lesson in the artificial values that man has given to valueless things. In reality, this stamp, and most other stamps, is not worth anything at all. You cannot eat stamps

Owing to the demand for certain stamps there is no denying that as : n investment some of them have worked out very satisfactorily. Au idea of the rapid increase in some stamp values may be had from the fact that a certain Irish Free State stamp, issued in 1922 worth one halfpenny, is now worth £l2. A Barbados stamp worth one penny in 1878 is now worth £35. A 3-anna Iraq stamp of 1920 can be sold to-day for as much as £55 These stamps mentioned are of course special stamps and every stamp of the dates mentioned is not so valuable. It is. however. a grim reality that those countries which have tried to raise the most revenue out of new issues are now the possessors of stamps that are almost valueless. South or Central American stamps have very little value because the demand is satisfied. The republics of those parts of the world have overdone the stamp issue business as a revenue-raising scheme. Liechtenstein issues, except the earliest, have also become worthless mostly because for years this little principality in Europe balanced its budgets by selling new issues to philatelists.

The discovery of transparent synthetic resin, as reported in the news yesterday, would appear to indicate that the milk age is upon us. At one time we were content to drink milk, but that time is past. Milk is showing every indication of becoming a key substance, until synthetic milk in its turn ousts the real stuff. Aviation, for example, is moit iu debt to the cow than would apiiear at a casual glance. Casein, a milk by-product, is used for making wing ribs. The plywood panels in the cabins are made from the same stuff. The cow's hoofs provide a hot glue for sealing the fabric. The cow's hide is tanned into seat covers for the pilots and passengers. The cow’s entrails are used for making coverings for dirigibles. Admittedly it is possible to make material similar to casein products from coal and wood, but nevertheless the milk of the cow can be used for such diverse things as gear wheels for cars and buttons for dresses. Efforts to make wool from milk have also had a measure of success.

It seems strange that the plastic age in which we find ourselves quite unconsciously all came about because a cat upset some formaldehyde over soims cheese. The hard substance so formed was found under proper treatment to have a tensile strength greater than steel. It would not burn, rot, rust, scratch, stain, lose colour or warp. White ants disliked it. rind it is used for railway track purposes where these pests abound. The public became familiar with the material without knowing it. Ash trays, manicure sets, dental plates, table lamps, powder boxes, kettle handles, coachwork, and table tops were made of it. The time is probably not far distant when our houses will be made of it. our motor-cars, and possibly our clothes. Already synthetic resin materials have displaced 100.000 tons of metal every year in England Gears and pinions made of the stuff put to work in steel rolling mills have been found to give better results than metal. In some cases there has been one-tenth the wear. It is an interesting change because the change uses a nian-inade product not. found iu Nature. * * * A casual glance round the synthetic age in which we live reveals that some surprising changes have been made ami are on the eve of being made. Me can now make oil from rubber, rubber from vegetalties, wool from milk (of sorts), soap from coal, not to mention aspirin, perfumes, disinfectants, dyes, paving materials and 4000 other coal productsWe can make clothes from wood, jam from wood, anti most other foods. Windows can be made of treacle, seaweed converted into leather, silk can be made from the air, aud socks from trees Motor spirit can be made from sawdust, sausage skins from weeds. Milk bottles can be made into soft hats, and wooden dross material is probably on the way. This is hut a short list of what can be done with synthetic products. In nearly all these eases the product is a new product, although there are similarities between it mid Nature's effort It must also be admitted that in some cases Nature makes the better article. There is no wool like sheep’s wool and no silk like that of the silkworm.