RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 259, 29 July 1937, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events

(By

Kickshaws.)

A shilling may not go as far as it used to do, but it makes up by going much faster. « * » Germany, it is declared, is not committed to Japan. We lake it, then, that Germany is still playing a loan band. * * » We wish that some motor magnate would start to concentrate his genius on the quantity production of parking places. ♦ ♦ ft Regarding those famous New Zealanders who come out of New Zealand,” says “Reader,” “what about great Scotsmen who come out of Scotland: (1) The originator of the Darien Scheme. (2) Lord Bute (cobber of George III), and what a bate! (3) Mr. R. Macdonald (a survivor of Culloden). (4) Mr. Nimmo. (5) Sir Harry Lauder. Must I go ‘right to the end of the road?’ (6) James.l. (7) Jock o’ Hazeldean. (8) Mr. Fraser. (9) Anyone in Mataura, but especially tie M.P. Now, ‘Kickshaws,’ trot out your list and kick back.” [“Kickshaws” has always found Scots folk well able to kick back without outside help. Perhaps they will.'l “Glad to see you take up cudgels in our defence,” says “C.A.” “Does not Sir Herbert Hart (of Carterton) deserve a place in your list? And then there is Katherine Mansfield and Rosina Buckman, too. We don’t breed gangsters in New Zealand.” The tale of sudden death and premature demise made public in the report on the Auckland Zoo would appear to indicate that animals do not live very long. This is not the case in their wild state. Some animals live nearly as long as human beings. Alligators certainly live out a century, and ponies of sturdy stock reach the age of 50 years, in the case of other animals, such as cats and dogs and the like, 13 or 14 years is equivalent to 60 years in human beings. Nevertheless, cats have been known to live for 25 years. Dogs live about as long as cats. Horses and donkeys have a long span, reaching 40 years in suitable conditions. Most horses die of hard work in their early twenties, not of old age. Cows and pigs rarely live to be 30 years old. The farmyard hen usually dies young on account of problems of tenderness. Nevertheless, the normal life of a heu is anything up to 20 years. Even sparrows live 15 years. Many larger birds, such as eagles, owls, pelicans and condors, have been known to reach 50 years of age.

The one sure thing that the present gigantic sunspot cannot do is to give us worse weather than we have had already. Exactly what this giant spot is going to do to our little speck of a world can only be answered in the words of politicians, who advise people to wait and see. Experts do seem to suspect that a boom in sunspots produces or coincides with very wet weather conditions, as well as magnetic storms. These spots are bubbles of gas that rise from the interior of the sun. Each is large enough to engulf the world. At the surface of the sun the bubbles burst. Jets of electricallycharged particles are shot off into space at a rate of a million miles an hour. The intensity has dissipated before the particles reach the world. Normally, so say the experts, bad storms may be expected some 30 hours after large sunspots appear. The storms may last several days. If that be the case, it looks as if we shall have another bad week-end, but that will be nothing new.

In addition to affecting the weather in the world, it seems that extra large sunspots produce noticeable effects on other planets. The appearance of a large sunspot appears to make the polar ice caps on Mars melt at an abnormal rate. Effects are said to occur on other planets. So far as this world of ours is concerned, the Abbe Moreux has shown that sunspots produce variations in the earth’s climate which re-act on life. The growth of corn is affected. Outbreaks of fire damp in mines seem, in some way to be connected with sunspots.' Bird migration is affected, and in secondary ways the fecundity of animals are controlled by sunspots. These waves of abnormal conditions come at 11-year periods, as do sunspots. An example of the roundabout manner in which sunspots affect man may be had from the fact that during or just after a sunspot cycle farmers in southern Scotland reported abnormal numbers of field mice. Over an area of 160,000 acres hardly a blade of grass was left. The result was that the farmers’ sheep died, and the farmers got into debt.

Investigations into various forms of animal life tend to suggest that abnormalities occur every 10 or 11 years in sympathy with sunspot periods. Tlie weird migrations of the lemmings, it has been shown, occur at 10- to 11-year periods. Famous years for partridge shooting have also been shown to have had some connection with sunspot cycles. The Hudson Bay Company records show that for the last 100 years the bumper years have come in rhythm with sunspot cycles. My lady’s furs, the rent of grouse moors and the growth of grass all appear to be connected with sunspots. So far as human beings are concerned, all manner of inferences have been drawn to show that sunspots affect us. If they do, there should be an abnormal report in the newspapers of sudden death; suicides should increase; crime should rise to a maximum, and the human race as a whole become more irritable, resulting in outbreaks of hostilities. Certainly as regards the suicide rate careful comparison in Britain has shown that suicide and epilepsy become more frequent. » » »

Having suspected that mankind is subject to forces from outside that affect him once every 11 years, many experts have been busy trying to correlate data on the subject. Some vital impulse comes from space every 10 or 11 years and seems to spread through the'world, affecting every living creature. Whether sunspots are the e:i” “ it is'a fact that fish have their ups and downs every 10 years. Rabbits are similarly affected, as Dr. Charles Eltou has shown in a masterly analysis of the ups and downs of the Canadian rabbit. In the case of man, his trade cycles, being based on food and clothing, occur with similar frequency. Statistics show that major depressions and booms come approximately every 10 years. One theory attributes this to tlie harvest, which is in its turn controlled by the weather. The weather is controlled by sunspots. Ae‘trade cycles occur at every three, seven and elevon years. Fluctuations in (lie weather follow a similar frequency. All our troubles may not be due to sunspots, but a certain proportion of them may be.