WONDERS OF NATURE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 251, 20 September 1933, Page 3

WONDERS OF NATURE.

. COMPARISONS OF SIZE. At the Women’s Psychology Club’s recent meeting, .Mr J. L. Harwood, who took as lus subject “Big Tilings and Little Things,” introduced his lecture with the example of Swift, where Gulliver was a giant and , a dwarf merely by comparison with things around him. It was the same with all things visible, said the speaker. II we would form a correct estimate oi an object’s magnitude we must judge it by comparison. Dealing with the earth as his comparative object, Mr Harwood showed how it could be regarded as big and little, swift and slow, rough and smooth. It was big indeed when compared with other tilings terrestrial but became very tiny when compared with things celestial. He gave the dimensions of the earth showing its surface area, its volume and its weight. These figures seemed appalling in their magnitude; but on ascending upwards the earth became dwarfed . ipto insignificance.. The speaker then compared it with Jupiter, the sun, Syrius, Arcturus, Betelgueze and lastly' the fiery red giant called Auteres, the largest object ever viewed through a telescope which, according 'to the latest astronomical report, had a diameter of four hundred million miles. This being so, it would in volume be equal to seventy million suns such as our own. The sun was equal in volume to well over a million globes like our earth. Compared then with Auteres our earth, containing as it did two thousand million cubic miles and weighing six hundred million billion tons, became dwarfed beyond all degree of comparison. It was true that the earth’s surface was rough and rugged, he said, but if one had a model of it made to scale in a globe six inches in diameter the mountains which towered up to. a distance of six miles would become imperceptible and the globe would be smooth and -symmetrical. “I can speak,” said Mr Harwood, “with personal knowledge of the wonderful architecture and great beauty and variety to be found in the world of tiny things. It has been my privilege' to spend some pleasant hours in viewing both forammifera ’ and diatoms through a powerful microscope. Foraminifera can be collected on any part of the New Zealand coast. In size it is no larger than a pin’s head, consequently its beauty can only be detected by the help of the microscope. More varied, more beautiful and more wonderful still is the diatom. New Zealand is very rich in diatoms. It has been stated that in the Oamaru district can be found a larger variety than in any other single district. Upwards of 80CO diatoms have been listed and named and Oamaru has the honour of adding a new specimen to this largo number. As described by Mr J. Drummond, F.L.S., F.Z..5., they ‘amaze men of science by the variety and grace of their form and by the coniplexity, delicacy 7 and exquisite beauty of their manifold designs. They are so small that 100 of them would be required to cover the space occupied by a pin’s head. The wide diversity in their design is remarkable." me marvel is that so much beauty lias been compounded into so small a space. Yet, big as the diatom is, it is a giant when compared to the atom. 'the theory has been propounded that our particles of carbon, etc., are clusters of worlds. Of all the theories ever propounded this is one which is hardest to deny, and hardest to admit. Of course, the possibility is to be added of the same thing being true of .the particles which make up our particles, and so doivn for ever; and, on the other hand, of our planets and stars as being particles in some larger universe and so up for ever. “Contemplation of the big tilings and little things to be found in the natural world,” concluded Mr Harwood. “brings us to a sense of our own limitations. The handwork ol the Divine Artificer is to be seen in all things great and small.”