NEWS BY MAIL.

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXII, Issue 11493, 21 November 1931, Page 12

NEWS BY MAIL.

FIRST PLANT PATENT GRANTED

“Plant Patent No. 1” lias been granted to Mr. Henry F. Rosenberg, of New Brunswick, New Jersey (U.S.A), for an ever-blooming rose named New Dawn, r lt is the first to be issued under a law 'passed by Congress last year, which places the discoverer or breeder of a new plant on. the same looting as the inventor of a new machine. The inventor of a plant is entitled, according to the law, to “the exclusive right to reproduce, use, or sell his invention. or discovery throughout the United States and its Territories for a period of 17 years,” (says the “Pop--lilar Science Monthly”). "Instead *of blooming once eacli year, the- new rose blooms repeatedly in the fashion of “everhlooming” tea roses. Otherwise it resembles a variety wellknown as the Dr. Van Fleet climbing rose. It is the everhlooming feature upon which the new patent has been granted. While it is intended to encourage American horticulturists the new- law is likely to raise difficult questions for the Patent Office. A new odour, a slight variation in color, or double blossoms may cause a breeder to apply for a patent. INVENTOR OF 1700-TON PRESS. MOSCOW, Sept. U. A gigantic new “blooming” machine which it is claimed will almost revolutionise tin* pressing and rolling of steel, has triumphantly passed its tests at the Yigorsky Steel Mills here. The machine is capable of pressing steel ingots weighing 7 to 10 tons, instead of 3 to 3J toils as formerly, and turning out 1,200,000 tons lyA second machine will he completed by September 25. The machine can also roll steel of the most varied shapes and sizes, and. it- is claimed, far surpasses in its adaptability latest German presses. An entirely new principle is involved in this invention, which works at an extremely low Cost. If weighs 1700 tons and took nine months to build, the men working three shifts under 17 engineers and technicians. Tlie inventor, Niemeyer, one of the leading engineers of pre-revolution Russia, was sentenced two years ago to ten years’ imprisonment as a “damager.*' Working in prison here with two oilier men, he worked out- his plans and was promised pardon if he succeeded. Ho was released two months ago under the recent campaign to save the “wastage to industry” of keeping skilled engineers in prison ‘‘SOVIETISINC'’ THE CIRCUS. The “Bolshevisation” and mechanisation *of the Russian circus are proposed as an urgent necessity hv Comrade Gregory Rosev in an article appearing above his signature in “Pravda.” of Moscow, the official organ of the Russian Soviet. If Comrade Rosev has hi* way. a moving conveyor belt, symbolic of mass production. will supplant the horse as one of the central features of the Russian c-ircus. and Russian clowns will he directed to employ their talents wholly in propaganda for the new Socialist State. The mechanisation of the circus is required, be writes, as a means of bringing before the masses the urgency of industrial development. Under his plan the principal acts would be performed on the moving conveyer. WHOLE FAMILY GOES BLIND. A mysterious epidemic of blindness struck a whole family which was oil holiday a Southampton. Within six months all its members, four in number. suddenly .lost.their.sight one after the other. The family was that: of Mr. James Marehand. a retired business man. Mr. Marchaud himself lias the first to bo stricken last February. Since then his wife, his son. aged 20, and his daughter, aged 24. all went- blind. “It is a terrible afHiction, and came upon us suddenly without any warning at all,” Mr. Marehand said. “In my own case 1 was sitting reading one afternoon when I found the print suddenly receding from my eyes. I felt as though I had a film over them. Within a week I had completely lost my sight.” Mr, Mareliand’s daughter was the next to bo stricken, a fortnight later. After complaining of pains in her head her eyesight suddenly began to fail. In her case total Blindness supervened within a month. Specialists who were called in were at a loss to account for the sudden affliction, hut expressed the view that the family’s sight might bo rostered, as unexpectedly as it vanished.

THE ANCESTORS OF AIAN. Urofegsor ■ Henry .Fairfield Osborn, of New.. York,, peered . 1,00.0.00 O) years into the, past when he announced a discovery which shatters the.pi'CVtuling.. .beliefs as, to-man’s .distant _ beginnings. 'Drawing.on. a -lifetime. of. research, with, fossils,. Professor Osborn asserted . that the oldest man was, not. the Java man, hitnbrto supposed, - but tin.) Piltdowii, Mini, who .roamed- tliQ forests .of, Southern England in the dim prehistoric -ages. The-clues .which revealed .the story, lie, declared,- were,, not the famous human fossils but the fossilised.- teeth of prehistoric elephants, which primitive, man hunted.for .food and Thus- he declared- tjriit- the Pijtdown Aran-lived 1,000,000 years ago, .'and the so-called Heidelberg and , Peking Men 020,000 years ago. . The Java Man, or Pithecanthropus Erectus; who - was thought to .bo. thp oldest, Prof .Osborn declared, to. have lived only- 500,000 years-ago. The; Neanderthal Alan came next,-70,000 years ago, ,ho said,- and 30,,000 years ago appeared-the,Cro-Alagnon- Alan, whose, credo, drawings" arc, still- to he seen in- caves..in Southern. France. Aloderni Nordic- Alan • of; Southern .Scandinavia, ho -held, appearedl2,ooo years ago. •• •