CURRENT TOPICS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 110, 9 April 1932, Page 6

CURRENT TOPICS

(By “Wayfarer”). Professor Garstang, the leader ot Sir Charles Marston’s expedition to Jericho, the once important city, or Palestine, whose archaelogical discoverers afford tho strongest .evidence supporting the authenticity of the Ula Testament narratives of tho fortincations and'their destruction, lias advanced the view that an earthquake, not a human agency, caused the ramparts to fall before Joshua’s hosts. ino Biblical version is that Joshua commanded his people, when the priests sounded their trumpets, to shout, for tho Lord had given them the city. Coincident with the mighty shouting the walls fell down and the people took the city and burnt it with fire. The precise reason for the collapse of the walls has intrigued archaeologists, and Professor Garstang’s theory will no doubt command their respect. Another point on which there has been obscurity relates to the extent of the conflagration and whether the inhabitants as a whole were entombed or destroyed in the fire. The Bible narrative and other accepted authorities reveal that city was captured by the Israelites on their entrance into Canaan; refortified by Hiel the Bethelite; destroyed under Vespasian, and rebuilt under Hadrian. It was in the centre of a fertile district wherein palms, rose trees, raisins and balpms grew in abundance. Cleopatra, it is said, received its groves as a present from Antony, and Herod the Great dwelt there.

Because of its strategic importance in dominating the ancient trade routes from Jerusalem to the East, and its isolation in times of emergency, Jericho was strongly fortified, from a remote age, by defensive walls. History and archaeology are in agreement that the city was frequently destroyed. German excavators 20 years ago discovered two systems of defence, an outer stone rampart and a double inner brick wall. Traces of destruction and of fire were held to substantiate the Biblical story. A further investigation in 1920 established tGe stone rampart as belonging to the Middle Bronze Age (1800 8.C.) and in 1930 Professor Garstang proved that the inner wall, believed by the Germans to have dated from a much earlier period, was constructed mainly in the Late Bronze Age, the period of Joshua.

The most arresting fact disclosed by Professor Garstang (says an authontativo publication) is the traces of intense fire “including reddened masses of brick, cracked stones, charred timbers, and ashes. Houses alongside the wall are found burned to the ground, their roofs fallen upon the domestic pottery within.” . There is substantial evidenoe, therefore, that the fallen walls of the Late Bronze Age are those of the city which fell before the Israelites under Joshua after they had encompassed Jericho. The Marston Expedition dates the fall of Jericho at 1407 B.C.

Advice to New Zealanders to plant trees to repair foolish wastage and wanton destruction in the past, is always timely. An afforestation conscience is being developed to the advantage of future generations of tins Dominion. The Great War awakened the people of Great Britain to the urgency of the problem, when extraordinary demands were made tor home grown timber. To-day a Eorestry Commission is performing valuable service. Recent statistics show that half a million acres have been acquired and 100,000 planted tor the production of timber. Germany, France and Switzerland are Continental countries which have long sinoe realised the economic value of afforestation, and the United States is an example of State interest in the problem. The serious decline in the returns from agricultural products in the Union recently led Mr R. B. Stuart, forester in the Pacific north-west, to propound the idea that his nation needs fewer farms and more forests. “More land has been brought under cultivation than can be farmed, if the farming is well done, without creating burdensome agricultural surpluses,” says Mr Stuart. “Public policies now taking shape are to reclothe with forests lands on which agriculture no longer can be practised successfully, and cut-over lands formerly thought to be destined for agricultural use.” In view of the plight of the farmer and the steady dwindling of the United States timber supply, the proposal is held by publicists to deserve a great deal of thought.

There can be no suggestion, of course, that New Zealand can turn over farm lands to afforestation, but there are areas which can certainly more profitably grow trees than be put to agricultural purposes, and the planting of these, whether they be small parts of fann lands, or more extensive areas which oannot be profitably broken in for dairying, grazing or arable purposes, should substantially repay the outlay when the trees reach maturity.

The working of Nature is a subject of intriguing interest to those who have the time to turn from workaday matters to the beauty of their gardens. Unseasonable weather, it is frequently recorded, causes fruit trees, after yielding a bountiful supply, to suddenly burst again into bloom from which fruit may develop, with stunted growth its main characteristic. Then, again, the buds of flowering shrubs that are normally developing for their regular blooming, have beeu known to open wide under the force of some unseen agency. Such an example of freakish Nature is to be seen in a local garden, where an azalea, of the large bushy type, which flowers in tlie spring, is bearing several delicately shaded salmon pink blooms. “Nature alone knows what she wants,” says Goethe.

Fraternity must have been strained almost to breaking-point at a meeting of the Trades Union Congress in London, when an American fraternal delegate advocated more “steady, regular work,” ana spoke disparagingly of ii! 6 r oie ‘ ■ admire .the courage of the American even more than I admire ins common sense ” says a writer in a London paper, "though as a tactful effort at fraternity I should hazard tlie opinion that his speech was a complete ‘flop.’ It reminds me of the story of a public speaker who got into the wrong hall by mistake, and inadvertently delivered an. enthusiastic eulogy on beer to a teetotal audience.” * • • * * * • A c mariner who sailed 900,000 miles in San Francisco Bay without ever going to sea somewhat resembles manv modern American city dwellers who walk or ride thousands of miles a vear sidewalks, and pavements without traversing a foot of original earth, comments a United States paper. * * * * Research at the University of Minnesota shows that a butterfly’s legs are u times as sensitive to sweetness as the human tongue. Parents of small children’ are expected to take this report with a grain of salt.