NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22008, 15 January 1935, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS

WOOLLEN RESEARCH The world is full of shortages of one sort or another, but there is a report abroad that one of the most persistent and troublesome is about to be remedied, it is said that in the laboratories of the Wool Industries Research Association there lias been devised a method which will prevent that hitherto intractable shortage whirji is liable to occur in woollens that have been sent too often to the wash. Science, it is claimed, has found a way to make woollen materials unshrinkable, let the laundry and washerwoman do their worst. Similar claims have been heard before, remarks the Manchester Guardian, but when we descend from claims to cloth in common experience another shrinking process becomes evident; the proud hope contracts as fast as the fickle fabric. One would say that the woollen fibre had an incurable objection to getting into hot water. It curls itself up tightly as though it would withdraw from the contaminating touch of soap and water, and, having once wriggled itself into an attitude of protest, it never relaxes. That is why the garment of which it forms part becomes, thicker but shorter as the washdays wear on. and once the fibres have begun to cling together for protection it has hitherto been true that nothing could disturb their infinite capacity for cohesion. But science is full of wonders nowadays, and it may be that this new claim will justify itself and not lead on once more to another example of much cry but little wool. BRAIN WAVES Two Cambridge investigators have just added yet another item to the already bewildering list of scientific marvels. They have evolved an instrument capable of registering on a chart the condition of the human brain. If the brain is inactive a series of regular waves will appear on the record sheet; as soon as activity begins the rhythm is interrupted and gives place to broken lines. True, remarks the Morning Post, the apparatus has as yet scarcely been developed beyond the stage of distinguishing between activity and inactivity; differentiation between various modes of activity has only been achieved in connection with that part of the brain concerned with the mechanism of sight. But that in no way detracts from the importance of the discovery. In striking out new pathways of progress it is always the first step which counts. After all, it is not much more than a quarter of a century ago since a heavier-than-air machine first accomplished the epoch-making feat of rising a few feet from the ground. In a few years, we may be sure, innumerable activities of the brain will have become associated each with a particular kind of wave, and medical diagnosis will be greatly assisted by the ability to connect a given ailment with the faulty functioning of the relevant part of the brain. Time alone can show what will be the limits to this process of brain-recording. CANTERBURY'S ANNIVERSARY The service in Canterbury Cathedral on December 3 commemorating the 700 th anniversary of the city's Charter,' was an event of much more than local interest, remarked the Morning Post. For Canterbury is a shrine which stirs the piety of the English-speaking world—a noble memorial to the continuity of our history, 6ince the roots of' our national life were struck in the English soil. Seven hundred years, though time may be but a convention, is a period long enough to reveal a wondrous working of the proces.ses of social and political evolution. When Canterbury's first Charter was granted by Henry 111., more than a hundred years had yet to elapse before Geoffrey Chaucer wrote his Canterbury Tales, in English which to the modern reader seems wellnigh a foreign language. And Chaucer's Pilgrims entered on their journey—now compassed in less than two hours—with a sense of high and perilous adventure which would be out of place to-day for an expedition to any place less remote than the North Pole, or the Forbidden City. The centuries have passed, and have left memories which Canterbury still enshrines—memories which we do well to cherish and celebrate. As the archbishop said, in his address at the special service in the Cathedral, " the nation or city which neglects its history becomes narrow in its outlook, cramped in its ideals, and impoverished in its life."

COTTAGES FOR LONDONERS The ideal of cottage homes for work-ing-class Londoners is expounded by Sir Raymond Unwin, a past-president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, in the Daily Telegraph. "No one who has compared life in a tenement block with that in a cottage, with its little garden, can for one moment rank life in a flat, however modern in construction and up-to-date in equipment, as comparable to that in the cottage for its value as a dwelling-place," he writes. "What is the basis for this supposed necessity for crowding into tenements? Is it that space is scarce? Every family in the world could be housed in a cottage dwelling at 10 to the acre in the single island of Great Britain. The population of England and Wales, including the 4,500,000 at present living in the County of London, could bo housed in like manner outside that county area, and within the Greater London region; and there would still be over 100 square miles left for open spaces; and the whole of the County of London woujd be available for public and business buildings. Another reason frequently urged is the necessity for people to live near their work. Remarkably little evidence is forthcoming that workmen occupying tenement blocks in London are particularly near their work. Hardly less obvious than the ribbon development of dwellings is the like development of factories outside London. The extent to which workmen are travelling across London to factories on the outskirts is notorious. The extra cost of housing families in tenements, which in London approaches £3OO per family, would go a long way to meet the coSt of securing this better localisation of factories and dwellings. The high cost of land is another reason given for housing more families on each acre. It is notorious, however, that nothing more certainly sends up the cost of land than any increase in the volume of building which may be allowed or expected to | be put on it."