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Otago Daily Times, Issue 18750, 2 January 1923, Page 13

—Mr Dandono, of the Michigan Agricultural College. has submitted to careful examination the heads of Canadian thistledowns, in order to determine their effectiveness as parachutes, carrying the seeds of the plant groat distances through the air His results aic quite remarkable (according to the Montreal Witness). Calculation "shows that, a thistledown starling from an elevation of 20ft, in still air, would require two-thirds of a minute to reach the ground. With a wind blowing 20 miles an hour it would be carried, on the average about n fifth of a mile. The total surface exposed to the air in an average thistledown is, on account of the great number of hamlets, a little more than onethird of a square foot. Another wellknown and very beautiful example of nature’s parachutes is furnished by the light silken threads with the aid of which ‘!m little gossamer spider makes long aerial vovages. , , Living to ha over tno years old, Mrs James Johnston, of Montreal, has outlived everyone mentioned in her w>U,