NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14809, 12 October 1911, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

BRITAIN'S ; HIVE OF INDUSTRY. J A Blue-book has ' been issued from the Board of Trade dealing with the census of production for 1907. According to this; return the gross output, selling value or value of work done in the United Kingdom during ' that year * was £1,757,000,000, the cost of. materials used £1,019,000,000, the work given out, or amount paid to other firms, £26,000,000. The net output was thus £712,000,000, while the * total number of persons employed. (excluding out workors), was 6,936,000. There were in addition 100,000 ' out workers, so' that . the total limber of workers employed on the work covered by the census was about 7,000,000.' The gross output (selling value or value of" work done) in the building and contracting trades was £87,967,000, and ; the net output £42,954,000, , the number of persons employed being -513,961. In the case of gas companies (employing 54,946 persons), the. respective • outputs were £20,838,000 and £11,546,000.. The gross and net output of public authorities working gas undertakings were respectively £10,769,000 and £5,732,000 these bodies employed 28,585 . persons. . Electricity, undertakings worked by public authorities showed gross and net outputs of. £5,721,000 and; £3,572,000," and similar company undertakings had outputs of £3,182,000 and £1,996,000 respectively.' In the industries mentioned' the total gross output of the above-mentioned industries, together with those of slate, limestone and iron quarries, waterworks, and miscellaneous factories and . workshops, amounted to £156,615,000. The cost of . materials used was £63,236,000. , The work given out to other; firms represented £6,498,000 leaving a net output of £86,881,000. There were 780,747 persons employed in , these industries. Local, authorities in the Brit- ; ish Isles, canal, dock, ~. etc., ; companies,; tramway and light railway ■>. companies, certain . Government departments, and ' the. National Telephone Company produced a • gross output of' £26,451,657, and a net output.; of £14,356,397, and employed in all 219,361 persons. . The net output of the General Post Office, telegraph, and tele-: phone undertakings was £654,819, -and, of .the Telenluia<Cbmj3anv„i2sl4 1 229* Ia con,!

nection" with ; the ; former undertaking. 10,171 persons" were employed, while there were • 7028 employees of the Telephone Company. • " • A MAN OF MANY PARTS. ." Leonardo da Yinci, whose celebrated picture Mona Lisa was stolen, from the Louvre recently, was a man of extraordinary, parts. He has been compared with , his . contemporary Michael, Angelo, with •Raphael, and the accuracy of his drawing with that /of Andrea Del ;Sarto._y But while they were ' painters, and Angelo a sculptor also, there are few professions which Leonardo did not. find - time to follow. Yet his life was a « short one. He was born in 1452 at the Castle Vinci, in 'the Vale of the Arno, and died in France, . 1519.: From his early : days he was a remarkable musician, not only making lutes of various- kinds, . including one of silver,- but improvising simultaneously both the music and - the words. And this in no rude age when a warlike chant . delivered in a pugnacious and music-hallian manner would appeal to a . clan or a mob; but in- a period" when Lorenzo had earned for himself the title of Magnificent, when Beatrice d'Este held her court, and when Dante and Boccaccio may .be taken as popular poets. His great work -on '' .Fainting and the Movement of the Human Body"- was issued 1 in 'France ;in an abbreviated * form 130 ; years after the author's death. Two editions have survived; the first being an abridged,.-but by no means brief, one in 365 chapters; the other, -Which has the quality and quantity of a. library edition, being in 912. 'In 1817 a transcript of the original was. discovered in the Vatican i Library. To this day artists learn from it. Leonardo-was not only a Turner in his own person, but combined the experimental qualities in philosophy of a Ruskin.';"/ It is possible to'discuss him seriously as a scientist. IJe was the" first to rediscover the Archimedean laws relating to the lever, while he mastered statics and hydro-statics which had been developed by Stevenus about/ 100 years before. It was also Leonardo who discovered the camera-obscura, : and partially for the sake of. painting, botany and physiology were known .• to / him, It < is alleged too, that he ' was the first to employ the signs of plus and minus. , His saw is still employed in the marble quarries of Carrara, and a rope-maker has regretted that the Leonardian -rope has /become out-of-date. Leonardo employed both water , and steam' as - motor "power, and though he never launched a steamboat evolved plans for * a steam "cannon, the' needs of the moment being more .warlike than commercial. - --

THE OXFORD OF SCOTLAND. Last month the University •of St. Andrews, the oldest and most . famous seat of ' learning' „in Scotland, celebrated its 500 th anniversary. The roll of its most famous students includes the names of men. distinguished in science, literature, and art, and others who played conspicuous parts in ecclesiastical affairs, as well as in the service of the State. George Buchanan, the greatest humanist in Europe, and the first Latin poet of his age, studied at. St. Andrews, and so did that prodigy of learning, James Crichton, better known as " The Admirable Crichton," who entered St. Salvator'e College when only 10 years of, age! ,On the scroll of fame are also enshrined the names of James Beaton, who flourished in the reign of James V.; John Napier, Baron of Merchiston, the inventor of logarithms; Andrew Melville, who spent three years in the Tower, and 1 was - afterwards sent into exile for having ' committed' such acts of "Me majeste as comparing Queen Mary with' Nebuchadnezzar, 'and' calling ' King" James VI. " God's sijlie vassel-James Melville (his' brother), +ho diarist,' who also offended the King, and was compelled to reside in England for the greater part of his life. The University of St. Andrews can also lay claim to having been the alma mater of practically all the great leaders • on the j Covenanting and "Royalist sides, including I James, Marquis of Montrose, ' and . the 1 ! great -Marquis of Argyll. Other ? famous' students of the, period were: David. Leslie, afterwards Lord Newark, who was • defeated by Cromwell, at the historic Dun-; bar Drove; the Earl of Lauderdale, who was, the Royal instrument for crushing the Covenanters in Scotland; James Graham of.. Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, who perished in the hour of victory at the battle of Kiliiccrankio; Alexander Robertson of Struan, the Jacobite poet; and William Murray, Marquis of Tullibardine, who unfurled the Pretender's standard :at Glen-' finnan in 1745. At a still later" period there were studying at St. Andrews Henry Dundas, first Viscount Melville, the trusted lieutenant of Pitt; Lord Chancellor Erskine, who supported the French Revolution; -Robert Ferguason, the poet James Wilson," founder of the American Constitution when the Independence of that colony was proclaimed; and the immortal Thomas Bowdler. * Nor does- this exhaust the list of great men upon whom the oldest university in Scotland can lay claim. Dr. Arbuthnott, ' the physician of Queen Anna and 'th friend of Pope and Swift, was a student of St. Andrews, and so was £>r. Thomas Chalmers, the famous Scottish divine James Bowan Lindsay, who discovered wireless telegraphy so # long* ago as 1855 Baron Play fair, the famous chemist and last, but not least, Andrew Lang, who loves to speak of his first college as " mine own St. Andrews."