A DARING EXPERIMENT.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLII, Issue 5, 7 January 1908, Page 6

A DARING EXPERIMENT.

Few of us would care to emulate the daring experiment accomplished the other day by a Belgian Colonel of Engineers. ' Wishing to test the strength ot a dome-roofed fort, he shut himself up in one at Brasschaet. A shell charged with dynamite was fired at the fortification, and it struck it full and square. Instantly the horrified spectators made a rush for the ruined structure, but instead of finding the daring soldier blown to atoms, they found him totally uninjured and radiant with satisfaction. "I had a real pleasant time," he remarked, smiling ©ooly to his anxious friends. "I scarcely noticed any disturbance at all." The above instance is a typical example of the deadly risks that courageous men will run in the interests of science or their callingIn this respect no class has a more brilliant record than our medical men, who, for the sake of poor suffering humanity, will boldly expose themselves to the most obnoxious diseases in the hope of discovering some antidote or cure. Time and again these brave experimenters have paid the greatest penalty of all for their daring. The man who succeeded in isolating the microbe of Malta or Mediterranean fever died of it. Dr Dutton, one of the men who successfully investigated a new and deadly fever in the Congo, gave his life for his discovery; and a like penalty was cheerfully rendered by Milan Sach, who at the time of his death had almost reached the source of plague. : The history of the Rontgen Rays ,is a record bf noble deeds of selfsacrifice by s savants of all lands, that they might find out the range and value of this wonderful light. Notable among the victims of the subtle rays wasDr M.i Radiguet, of Paris, who died from the effects of experimeints on his person. Mr Clarence Dally, chief assistant to T. A.. Edison, the American inventor, also succumbed to X-ray experiments, death being preceded by seven years of frightful agony. *Dr Elizabeth Aschseim, an expert radiographer, was so severely burned during her courageous investigations that heir right arm'had to be amputated ; while -in London the Hospital of St. Thomas's had its X-ray tragedy, one of the staff having contracted cancer during the progress of , his experiments with the light. ! A similar story might be told of 'scientists whose work has been associated with the, study of radium. The late Mr Curie, the discoverer of thi3 wonderful substance, was him self accustomed to perform the most fearless experiments, which frequently endangered his life and left wounds that took months to heal.

In another branch of science we find Dr Tesla, the brilliant electrican, actually passing 10,000 horsepower of electricity through his body, an amount held to be sufficient to kill an elephant in a second. But excelled by none in the daring nature of his experiments was James Vesey, the intrepid seismologist. In the pursuit of his peculiar calling he made a point of visiting volcanic eruptions. Frequently he was to be seen at Vesuvius and Etna, standing 'on the very brink of the crater with the lava bubbling at his feet and stones being hurled into the air arouud him.

About ten years ago he visited

Hawaii to investigate Mauna Loa, one of the greatest volcanoes in the world. Following his usual custom, he proceeded to the edge of the fiery abyss, in spite of the warnings of the natives, and as he jotted down notes of his observations, suddenly the rotten rock on which he stood was seen to give way under his feet, precipitating him into the dreadful crater beneath.—Smith's Weekly.