THE SEVEN WONDERS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16002, 19 February 1914, Page 6

THE SEVEN WONDERS.

The great British public will no doubt rejoice over the discovery of the seven wonders of the world, which, according to cablegrarii, an enterprising journal has jiist been enabled to make through the medium of a competition participated in by 150,000 persons. A popular verdict on such a subject, especially one Tecorded in this way, is not to be taken very seriously, but it possesses a certain interest as indicative of the direction in which the modern mind is most -widely disposed to extend its admiration. Times have changed, and the wonders of the world, or rather the things which the world seems most to wonder at, have changed aLso. The ancients must have approached the matter in a different spirit. The seven wonders of the world of which they have left a record that still honourably survives consisted of a select group of ancient works of art which had obtained pre-eminence among the sightseers of the Alexandrian era. Rich indeed in contrast are the respective lists of the sevon wonders of the ancient and of the modern world, if that elicited by the London newspaper may be accepted as a sufticiei.tly reasonable expression <jt modern opinion on the subject. On the one hand we have a list of the most imposing monuments of the time—the Pyramids of Egypt, the Hanging Gardens at Babylon, the Temple of Diana at Ephesus, Phidias's statue of Jupiter at Athens, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Colossus at Rhodes, and the Pharos (or lighthouse) at Alexandria. On the other hand we have a list which includes wireless telegraphy, the Panama Canal, the dirigible airship, the aeroplane, radium, the kinematograph, and the largest steamship afloat. The contrast is as startling as that which Masefield makes in his poe:n pn cargoes—quinquirerne of Nineveh versus dirty British coaster —the picturesque, the artistic, and the historic as against the new, the utilitarian, and the prosaic. To an extent that which is commercialised and adapted to everyday use is necessarily robbed of its romance; but nobody can deny that wireless telegraphy, radium, and such things are to be ranked among the wonders of the world, or that the claim that thev should

be so considered places the Pyramids and other monuments of the past at a very great disadvantage. Indeed, a great many lists of seven wonders would probably be compiled nowadays before the Pyramids or anything akin to them would be even given consideration. The world does not give much heed to the verdict of Solomon that " there is no new thing upon the earth," or to the idea that "all novelty is but oblivion." What it i≤ prepared to consider most wonderful is that which seems to Tepresent to it the greatest triumph of invention and discovery. It is interesting to find so many people selecting the seven wonders of the world from the list of the most recent inventions, discoveries, and monumental achievements of a utilitarian kind, for the circumstance implies that it is by that which most impresses them at the moment that those who took part in the plebiscite were influenced. The selection also indicates, however, the vast strides that have been made in the last few years in the direction of scientific discovery, and must suggest to the imaginative mind the possibilities of great developments in the future. Instead of the things most beautiful as works of art, most aweinspiring as monuments of human industry, the seven wonders of the world have become the things most amazing in their novelty and their potentialities. So the list of seven wonders will vary from generation to generation as the march of modern invention dictates. There will be many, however, who will agree that even to-day there is much that could be said for a viewpoint having more in common with that of the ancients.