An Experiment in Pins, Pens, and fteedles.

Otago Witness, Issue 2288, 6 January 1898, Page 54

An Experiment in Pins, Pens, and fteedles.

An old gentleman in the north of London has been making a series of inten sting experiments with a view to finding a solut'on to the question oftrn a^ked : " What becomes of the countless myriads of pins, &c, that are aniius-lly lost ? " As he expected, he finds tbab it is tbe disintegrating effects of the air which resolve even these intractable little instruments into their elements. He pub some hundreds of brass and steel pins, needles, hairpins, &c, in a quiet corner of his garden where they would be subject to all the destructive agencies of dampness, eartb, wind, &c, although secure from the predatory hands and disturbing feet of inqu'sitive intruders.

The results are curious. Ordinary hairpins were the first (taking 154- dajs on an average) to oxidise into a brownish rust- ferrous oxide — which was scattered by the wind as it was formed, and not a trace of a single one could bs detected at the end of seven mouths. Common bright pins took as long as 18 months b fore their ci mbustion was complete, but brass ones had been entirely turned into green verdigris long before that.

.A the end of 15 months an ordinary penh-'! <i. r had had its nib entirely rusted away, but ih- wooden stick was still almost unnltered. It is probable that the paint on it had something of a preservative tfEecb. Some U3ed wax vestas were almost gone, with the exception of the cotton wick, in less than 80 days from the time they were deposited, bat the sulphur heads of some uulit ones were as perfect as ever. Polished steel needles of a small siz6 la»ted a very long time (over two years and a-half) ; but a blackle&d pencil proved itself to be practical'y indestructible, both cedar and plumbago bsirg almost as good as when new, even though harder things had quite rotted.