RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 157, 31 March 1937, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events (By Kickshaws.l We understand that the idea behind those seven scientists living with the apes is to warn the ignorant creatures about civilisation. ♦ * ♦ The Russians have invented a process whereby a sheep may be plucked in 10 minutes. Wall Street invented a better process years ago. It is stated that production in America must increase 20 per cent, to reduce unemployment to the 1929 level. The problem is to discover ;i system to enable two-car families of two to become three-car families.

“I wish to make use of your valuable column, to put an English visitor of mine right,” says “Oxford.” “He is under the impression that Denmark and Australia lead New Zealand in dairy imports into Great Britain I say they do not, but do not know tlie ‘ exact figures giving the weight of butter and cheese sent by each of the above mentioned, during the past year (1936).’’ [The Department of Agriculture, to whom the question was referred, has kindly supplied the following facts:— “New Zealand’s principal competitors are Denmark and Australia in respect of butter, and Canada and the Netherlands for cheese. The following figures relating to the year ending December, 1936, indicate the position. For the year mentioned, Great Britain imported from New Zealand 2,791,911 cwt. of butter; from Denmark 2,170,542 cwt., aud from Australia 1,694,222 cwt. With regard to cheese, tlie imports into Great Britain from New Zealand were 1,681,147 cwt.; from Canada 602.541 cwt.; from the Netherlands 181,542 cwt., and from Australia 91,008 cwt. The foregoing figures are taken from the official returns relating to trade and navigation of the United Kingdom.”]

If this Russian idea of making sheep moult ever comes to New Zealand we shall have to pass strict laws to ensure that the thallium used for the purpose does not go astray. Oue hesitates to think what damage a little carelessness would do if some carefree farmer or some biased shearer were to get loose among the thallium. A picture of completely naked sheep dogs chasing equally naked sheep is a subject that does not lend itself to artistic treatment. We like our bills clothed in grass, but a flair for the picturesque goes even further than that. Moreover, lack of control with the thallium may result in its getting—via the mutton for breakfast, lunch, tea and other meals — into the farmer’s system and into the systems of his chickens and stock. No doubt we shall get used to bald farmers, and possibly hairless cows, but naked chickens running all over the place is calculated to give even the most hardened farmer the jim-jams or what-nots. We therefore plead for proper thallium control in New Zealand.

The trouble takeu by fountain pen makers, as mentioned in the news yesterday, to recover the waste gold from the nibs is a normal process where gold is concerned. In fact, at many refineries the soot and waste from the flues is always carefully preserved and treated iu order to recover the gold that goes up the chimney. In laboratories where chemical reactions are staged with materials containing gold a careful analysis is subsequently made and the gold recovered. Moreover, iu the making of beaten gold the sweepings from the floor are never thrown away. This precaution is, iu fact, taken wherever rare and precious metals are treated or worked. At the time when platinum was used for the make-and-break of motor cars stringent precautions were taken to see that not the smallest particle escaped down the sink or into the rubbish bins. The only place where gold was ever allowed to fritter itself away was in tlie pockets of the public when sovereigns were current money. The loss in Britain alone from this source amounted to quite £lO.OOO a year. Yet a second-hand purse and pockets trade never arose.

.As metals become rarer mankind takes more and more interest in them. In fact, improvements in the methods of recovering gold from Nature caused man to go over his rubbish heaps around gold mines and extract from them the gold that the improvements had made possible. As tile price of gold rose, more aud more of these dumps were treated and thousands of pounds’ worth of gold recovered. There is even a tree in Queensland which collects gold so that its ashes contain no less than 610 grammes of pure gold to the ton. The snag is that it takes 2.7 tons of the plant to produce one ton of ashes. There is a limit beyond which the recovery of gold is not a commercial proposition, otherwise this plant would have a short life. In the same way there is gold to be had for the taking from sea water. There is enough gold in the sea to give each person in the world gold valued at £5060. The gold in the sea amounts to only one grain to the ton of water, as compared, say, to 240 grains to the ton from quartz. So far nobody has found a cheap enough process to make it a commercial proposition to obtain gold from the sea. Wellington Harbour is worth many thousands for its gold content, tint nobody has to be stopped from stealing it.

News that two new directors have been appointed to the Bank of England is about the only reminder we get that the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street is still active. One may well ask why this institution hides its head modestly under a cloak. Possibly it is on account of the not altogether creditable fact that the Bank of England was started by a buccaneer. In fact, for 200 years all cash was kept under three locks and three keys held by three directors just in case the buccaneering spirit gained the upper hand. Possibly this modesty is also due to tlie fact that tlie Old Ixady pays her directors 1 ridiculous sum. In 1892 the annual allowance of the Governors aud directors was generously settled so that tlie Governor was paid tlie magnificent sum of £2OOO a year ami his directors £5OO each. Hut then the fact that a buccaneer, sick of easy money, retired to found the bank may have had something to do with this parsimonious spirit. John Paterson, who gave us the Bank of England, was astounded at tlie opportunities lie had missed for buccaneering in the City. In a spirit of jealous envy he suggested the Bank of England to thwart the goldsmiths, and from the start the scheme went with a swing. Ah, tell me not that memory Sheds gladness o'er the past; What is recalled by faded flowers. Save that they did not last? M ere it not better to forget, Than but remember and regret? —Elizabeth Landom