A SLICE OF SYDNEY BREAD.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 8965, 3 August 1905, Page 2

A SLICE OF SYDNEY BREAD.

"Here you see a slice of pure Sydney bread," remarked the professor to hi* class, as he raised the object aloft like an auctioneer's man showing an art object to the gaping crowd. "1 place the piece of bread in this specially prepared slide. I slip it into the receptacle in this powerful magnesium lantern.- and I turn the 1" lit on the demonstration screen, so."

The class held its breath and stared hard at the screen upon which a large irregularshaped object had made its appearance, honeycombed with enormous pits or craters. It was the professor's slice- of Sydney bread magnified to 1,000,000 diameters.

"Look, look," screamed an hysterical lady student in the front row; but there was no need to call the attention of the class. The sight that was presented to their astonished eyes was more exciting than the competition for the amateur boxing championships at the National Sporting Club. An animal resembling an enormous lobster, almost as large as a calf, was observed jumping frantically from one if the holes of craters to another, pursued- closely by a creature of the arachnid or spider family, about the size of a polo pony. Other creatures of weird appearance, with innumerable legs and loudly-popping eyes, sat round in a ring watching the battle.

''These," said the professor, in his calm, unperturbed voice, " are- two of the commonest forms of the micro-organisms found in Sydney bread that is manufactured during the warm weather. The slice of bread in which they occur was taken by mo from the very centre of the loaf, where all the germs retire for comparative coolness and safety as soon as the baker begins to stoke up his oven. In much the same way you may observe the fauna of the bush flying to a creek or pool before the advancing bush fire."

"It's as good as a Grand National Steeplechase and a heavy-weight, boxing contest, thrown into one," muttered a sporting student with his chin buried in his hands as he watched the evolutions of the colossal lobster and the spider of not inferior proportions. Gradually the spider absorbed the lobster, until nothing Taut one claw remained sticking out of its mouth, and the class was hushed in the presence of the tragedy. "Excuse me a moment,", said the professor, "fhis is my lunch," and lie slowly devoured, the slice, of bread. — Daily Te]e~ |