NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15750, 27 October 1914, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

NEW TERROR OF BATTLEFIELD.

' A wfxl-KN'OWN* analytical chemist, writes : to the London press with reference to the i use of tiirpinite by the French artillery. j Ho quotes the remarks of an American i j member of the Croix Rouge as having seen j " The German trenches as the French guns | I had left them, filled with dead, but with I ! dead in such posture as the world has ! never seen since the destroying angels ! passed above the Philistine camp, in that avenging night of Scripture. They stood j ; in line rifles to shoulder, a silent company i 1 of ghosts." ''One of the salient features j I of this novel terror," says the chemist, i "'is that it cannot he fired from an ordiI nary field gun, and for its use guns of particular, and difficult, construction are required. The handling of these guns is at present confined to specialists. Had ; the successful experiments carried out at j Chalons-sur-Marne taken place earlier, the I result of this war, in so far as its primary ' stages were concerned, might well have : 'oeen different. Turpinite produces complete paralysis of certain organs of the body, j causing invariably instantaneous, and abso- | lutely painless death to every living thine; j within its reach. That the end thus acI complished is without pain or convulsion j has been abundantly demonstrated by a lengthy series of experiments. It follows, therefore, that amongst modern instruments of warfare this invention must be counted as tho most humane. The explosive produces an effect wholly different from that derived by lyddite fumes whilst other advantages are claimed for it, from military points of view. Who can say that the therapeutic value of this discovery may not afterward assert itself, or that an antidote may not hereafter be found? Whether the latter could be made the subject of military usage is another question." » READY FOR SERVICE. The British ships which suffered damage in the fight off Heligoland have been fully repaired, and are again fit for active .service. One of the destroyers which won in the thick of the fight and was damaged considerably by the fire of the German cruisers is as perfect an engine of war as when sho steamed boldly into the Heligoland Bight to challenge the, enemy. There is this difference. She now displays in a prominent place a metal plate bearing the words, " Heligoland, Septem■"■■v 4. 1914." Other whips which did prominent work on that same occasion will, in due course, possess a. similar badge of honour. THE TOST OF WAR. It would be difficult to find a more striking illustration of the disorganisation to the world's trade and commerce produced by the war than the figures of America's cotton exports for August. i According to the Census Bureau's report, America exported only 20,000 bales of cotton, a*> compared with 257.000 in August of last year. Germany took 52 hales, as compared with 73,000 last year, I and tho United Kingdom took only j 6570. as compared with 77,500. The filling off in the British marketis due simply to the fact that the r Exchanges have not yet been re-efctab-

lished and the financing of international trade is therefore made largely impossible. Hut the German market is closed for other reasons as well—the impossibility of making shipments to German ports, for instance. That means that this vast trade between America and Germany will bo shut down, and when it is remembered that the raw materials of other staple industries in Germany are equally cut off, it is possible to realise what the economic pressure of war must be as long as the British Navy has the command of the sea. SHOTS IN THE AIR. Thousands of shots of various kinds have been fired at aerial craft, but in not a single case is the projectile known to have returned to earth again in such a manner as to inflict any damage. What becomes of the bullet* and the shot from machine guns? According to one theory the friction of their flight to the limit of the trajectory, and the subsequent decent, causes them to disappear in a gaseous vapour. No one has as yet succeeded in proving this, and it seems far more likely that the projectile is carried some considerable distance away in the horizontal direction from the point of firing, since it is an established fact that even when there is next to no wind near the ground there may be a very stiff breeze, in the upper atmospheric regions. Hence the apparent disappearance of a bullet fired at an aeroplane probably signifies that it has been caught up by the wind at the end of its flight and come down some considerable distance away.