THE WEATHER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18316, 5 August 1921, Page 6

THE WEATHER

The weather took a change for tho worse yesterday, and the day was dull and sombre. Light rain set in in the evening, but the. temperature was not unduly low. The barometer fell last night to 28.65, a point to which it has not sunk since May, 191 f. except,'for one occakon in April of this year. The weather forecast yesterday prophesied everything from snow to thunder.

(Thom Oub Own Cokbbsponden’xb.i OTUREHUA. August 2. The rainfall roistered here for the month of July waa 1.51 inches. The maximum temperature was 1 57 degrees on the 12th, and the' average maximum 46.6 degrees. Tire minimum temperature was 22 degrees on the 26th, and the average minimum 30.32'degrees. There was frost on 21 days, QUEENSTOWN, August 4. The weather turned very bleak and wet. yesterday, and rain waa accompanied by snow cn the ranges. temperature "hale run down considerably. The meteorological records for July show that 352 points of , rain fell for the month, the greatest fall ; being 126 points on the 16th. Rain fell on nine days. . ... • ■

A new process for smelting ironsand haa been invented by an Auckland engineer, and, in view of the fact that a cable from Japan, published last week, announced that a new process had been tested and proved there, it is interesting to note that machinery for dealing with local magnetic sand is already in the course of erection at Onehunga (says the New Zealand Herald). Previous attempts at smelting ironsand in New Zealand have been unsuccessful, owing chiefly to the type of furnace used, but Mr N. G. GR Winkelmann, the inventor of the new process, claims that his type of furnace will obviate all the difficulties encountered previously. Laboratory experiments, it is stated, have been quitesuccessful, and it only remains for the company to carry on operations on a commercial scale to establish a valuable industry. The. extent of the fields of ironsand on the west coast of New Zealand is practically unlimited, and a fee ture of the . industry is that a scow can 10ad.60 or 100 tons of sand at Manukau Heads and take it to the smelter while the flowing tido fills in the cavity with fresh deposit. The sand haa metal in mechanical mixture, and thus the iron can be separated from the silicate by an electric magnet, leaving the fine silicate as a valuable by-product for building purposes. The iron will then be smelted in the now furnace, and instead of yielding pig-iron as in an ore furnace, a valuable manganese steel is deposited. Some of the most rare of precious metals are incorporated in the New Zealand ironsands, and eventually the extraction of these, it « predicted, will also form an industry. Tho colonial boy and girl between 14 and 17 years of age are quite able to decide the trade, calling, or profession he or she would like to follow. This is the opinion of Dr D. E. Hansen, director of the Christchurch Technical College, as stated when addressing the School Committees’ Association. Dr Hansen said that this waa more noticeable in New Zealand than in England —the New Zealand boys and girls appeared to develop more rapidly and to show marked ability. The dominion 1 * primary school system, he thought, helped to develop the child; instead of keeping them in one educational alley, the system brought out the individual characteristics of the scholars. He had taken out figures to respect of a school he was in. During a period of five years, something like 600 boys and girls passed through it, and he found that about 82 per cent, had followed out precisely the type of work for which they had been trained—not because they had been trained for it, but because they themselves had chosen the type of work they had a liking' for. While it has been recently shown that distress in a crowded, heated room is not due to an excess of carbonic acid gas, it has also been oroved on how little oxygen human life can be supported. Surgeon Murray Levick, who went with Captain Scott to the Antarctic, lived with his party for seven months in an “igloo,” or snow hut with ice-lined walls, and during that time the atmosphere was quite still in the place, with not sufficient oxygen to support the combustion of a lamp or even a match. The circumstance tempts one to rervise one’s attitude towards those sanguine folk who, in imagination, have peopled not only Mars, but- the moon as well. There is no doubt that judged from our standard, the atmosphere of Mars is exceedingly rare, and that the moon possesses _ practically .no atmo- j sphere at all. Yet it is _ now evident that life can exist under conditions which would at one time have been thought utterly impossible. i