SCIENTIST IN U.S.A.

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 59, 7 September 1938, Page 11

SCIENTIST IN U.S.A.

TRAVEL IMPRESSIONS

THE TOLL OF A HARD CLIMATE

RICHES AND POVERTY

Through passengers from New York to Chicago are granted a free ticket on the twenty-five miles of branch line from Buffalo to Niagara Falls, writes the scientific correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian," in describing a recent tour of the United States. It is best to stay during the night in an hotel at Buffalo and visit the (Falls on the following day. One station on the branch line is about two hundred yards from the centre of the city. As we walked to this station we passed a large building under erection. Qver the first doorway was an inscription, PRISON. Some distance further was a second inscribed MORGUE. We walked on and came to a third notice, KEEP OUT. We concluded that we had discovered a town hall extension. x Though Buffalo contains half a million inhabitants, parts of the city are roughly planned and built. The railways near, the waterside in the centre of the city are unprotected, and much paving, is sunken through lack of proper foundations. The destructive power of an extreme climate is evident on the northern border of the United States, as in Russia. Thfe surfaces of roads are broken and paint is dulled by. frost. \ THE NIAGARA FALLSThe Niagara Falls were cdvered with ice, and the gorge was filled wi,th floes fifty feet thick. ; The eight-hundred-foot steel observation bridge, which had been pushed off. its foundation piers, lay crumpled on the top of the ice like a child's broken tin toy. The steamer which takes visitors to the base of the Falls had been raised by the ice half-way up the side of the gorge, and buildings on the side had been splintered into pieces. The rocks in the rapids above the Falls were white with ice. The water running between them appeared black. This moving design of black and white formed a beautiful aspect, and the Falls were not disappointing on this occasion. . / The dilapidation of the exterior of American buildings is surprising to an Englishman, for he expects the richest country in the world to look the richest. The American cares.more for the interior of his house, and makes it .more comfortable than an English interior. Nevertheless, the wide dilapidation is evidence of much poverty. Small towns in Kentucky are remarkably shabby, and (the unemployed youths who loiter in the street look undernourished and listless. The goods wagons on the railways are often old and unrepaired and look like the roll-ing-stock on the German railways during the inflation of 1923. I , FLOODS AND TYPHOID. The marks of the great Ohio River I floods are still visible at Louisville which was in the centre of the flooded area. The river bank rises steeply from' the normal level to a height of about forty feet, so the water rose considerably more than that when it flooded the city streets. The gas, electricity, and water supplies were cut off. The interruption of the sanitation in the tall hotels and apartment buildings had revolting effects, but the inJ cidence of typhoid fever in the population declined below normal. . This was due to compulsory inoculation. When the disaster happened the Federal authorities ordered.that all persons should be inoculated. There was less typhoid with compulsory. inoculation and no sanitation than with sanitation and voluntary inoculation. . When the .waters in Louisville were receding and running out of the ground floors of buildings v the manager of the leading hotel and the captain of his "bell-hops" went down the stairs from the first floors to explore the lobby. The chairs and floors were covered in mud, and an object was seen floundering in a corner! The captain of the "bell-hops" seized it, and it proved to be a fine specimen of a buffalo fish. It is now stuffed and exhibited in a glass case over the hotel's information desk. THE CITY OF ST. LOUIS. The great city.of St. Louis is three hundred miles further west and is on the banks of the Mississippi. It is the birthplace of Mr. T. S. Eliot; there, was not much "waste land," but very much waste river. The Mississippi is straight and sluggish, and its .water has • a disagreeable yellowish-brown colour. The main part of the city is on the west side of the river, and several railway lines run along this- river front. On, the opposite bank there is another ; series of railway lines. At the first 'glance St. Louis consists of two sets of freight railway lines with a brpad river between. The suburbs are more attractive. There is an excellent university, where Professor A. H. Compton discovered the celebrated physical effect n,amed after him. He showed that when a ray of light collides with a particle it behaves as if it also were a particle and transfers its momentum and energy through'the collision in the same way. ' The researches of Professor Jauncey at St. Louis have recently raised much excitement. He believed he had evidence that a heavy electron may be obtained from radio-active substances. He is an enthusiastic physicist, but his results have an alternate explanation. He told me he still felt there is more than an even chance that his results are significant. MANCHESTER OF AMERICA. St. Louis is very different from Manchester, but its part in American life resembles that of Manchester in English, life. It is a great provincial city with a population of about 80Q.000, and the views of its citizens on affairs are more typical of the United States than those of the citizens of New York and Washington. It also provides opportunity for young men of talent, from Compton to Lindbergh, as Manchester has from Cobden to Rutherford. , Chicago is more unique tnan typical. The avenue along lake Michigan is rich and enormous. It is protected by concrete promenades from the waves which break on the shore'in rough weatKer. There are stretches of sand, and the aspect is that of an open sea. The weather is exceptionally winds'. Behind the wonderful front there are areas of fantastic slums. These look like piles of magnified poultry shanties, but inhabited by human beings. They are made of bits of wood and corrugated iron and are as black from soot as the buildings of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Then there are the extraordinary wooden stockyards, which look cleaner. The Chicago water supply is chlorinated in order to reduce infections, but so heavily that it makes the gums sore. The transport system is slow, owing to the lack of a subway. The earth is waterlogged, and subterranean construction would be expensive. EDUCATIONAL INNOVATIONS. The policies of Mr. R. M. Hutchiris, the president of Chicago University, are exciting much controversy in the United States. He is a tall, handsome man of thirty-eiglfi^years. He has I severely criticised the superficiality of higher learning in the United States, and has espoused the teaching of classical and medieval philosophy as 'the antidote. In conversation he has perspnalitji* He. combines^