NOT REALLY CLEAN.

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 September 1934, Page 9

NOT REALLY CLEAN.

VIRTUE OF GREASY PLATE. The friction between scientifically clean surfaces is so enormous that it a clean glass rod is rested on a clean glass plate, the plate can bo tilted until it is just short of vertical before the rod will roll down it, says the London “Morning Post.” „ The catch is in the word “clean. What a layman would call a clean object. is really covered with a film of grease so thin that it would take 25,000 of them to make up the thickness of a piece of cigarette paper. It is only when these films are absent that the true effects of friction can be Observed. This was explained by Professor E. N. da C. Andrade, Quain Professor of Physics at the University of London, addressing the British Science Guild at the Royal Society of Arts. It would take a trained chemist an hour to wash a cup really free of grease, he said, and then the cup must be kept in a closed vessel, or the surface would be contaminated by matter from the air. This layer of grease normally Provides a distinct lubricating effect. This explains why, if a little tea is spilt in a saucer, the cup will slide about less, because the tea is uot such a good lubricant as the grease and interferes with it. Friction, Professor Andrade described as a feminine force, because ii is impossible to say in what direction it will act until you have decided in which direction you want to go, and then it always chooses to act in the opposite one. The scientist is interested in the •study of really clean surfaces, because they enable him to study the behaviour of very thin films of liquids, such as oil and grease, and so to investigate the problems of lubrication.

“PANCAKE” HATS. LONG HAIR IS RETURNING. Women will have to make up their minds to a drastic change in hairdressing for the coming season (says a London paper). Long hair is coming back. It is the new hats which are responsible for the change of course. Nearly as flat as pancakes, often with the merest semblance of a crown, the new hats tilt forward on the nose, leaving the whole of the back of the head completely exposed. The obvious solution was, of course, to balance the effect by letting the hair grow, and some of the smartest women, in anticipation, are wearing their hair in a ioil on the nape of the neck or brushing it back in a neat cluster of curls. One famous society leader bundles her hair, which is quite long, into a sort of fishing net on her neck. For most people, however, three or four inches is long enough. If women like the new vogue for a big hat, they can try the effect of one which is nothing less than an outsize in berets which a wavy brim pulled well over the eyes or one of the new large flat velvet picture hats bedecked with silky paradise plumes. Milliners are doing their best to help them keep these hats on, not only with the usual elastic band but also with a triangular flap to fit over the back hair. For the romantic-minded there is a tiny four-cornered shape, and another with a largo brim which appears on two sides only and has a cavalier sweep to it. But even the most autocratic of milliners must provide alternatives and, for those who like a hat that is a bat, there are the new little toques inspired by a mandarin’s hat. button and all, and with the back filled in by two fluffy feathers the quills of which sweep across the front and stick out over the forehead. An even more unusual hat which we shall see is JSuzy’s new Tibetan shape. This is a cap edged with a white strand of skunk and with a bird’s head placed on the front like the figurehead of a Roman galleon.

Feathers will be the most important trimmings this season. One hat has a group of tiny birds nestling on the crown, and another little ostrich plumes lapping the’ front of the backturned brim like a wave; while ospreys and paradise plumes—real and imitation —are legion. Felt and velvet are the leading materials used. These unusual hats are matched in originality by the materials made by the French fabric houses.