BORROWED FROM NATURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2369, 27 July 1899, Page 59

BORROWED FROM NATURE.

DEBTS WE SELDOM THINK OF. A recent writer in Answers pointed out how strangely people depended on custom and instinct in everyday life. It is perhaps even more peculiar to notice to I what an extent every art and ciaft has copied the designs already set for them ' by Nature. The wii-est engineers and 1 manufacturers of all ages have gone to the ant or the bee, and not been too proud to learn from these or other members of animate or inanimate Nature. Who first wove that delicate nnd beautiful fabric we call lace? We do not know

his name. But we do know that he took the spider's web for his model, and we still talk of lace filmy as a cobweb. What gave Professor Bell his idea for the telephone? ,Was it not the drum of the human ear, a delicate skin stretched tight to receive the air vibrations we call sound? Most readers have seen that machine commonly known as the " hay-devil," a sort of circular horse-rake, used for tossing damp hay into the air and redrying it. A variation of the machine is made in America, and called the " hay-tedder." The long legs of this are, as may be seen from the illustration, modelled precisely after the hindlegs of the common grasshopper. If you want to dig a dock or a railway cutting, a steam navvy or excavator is used, designed exactly , after the shape of an acorn, witli each flange on hinges. A somewhat similar machine, only it gathers hay instead of gravel and earth, is modelled on the clutching claws of the crab. Do you know what a pulsometer is? A form of pump, with a double pipe and a ball-shaped valve, which alternates from side to side, thus supplying a constant stream of water. Look at the illustration of this, and next to it one of the human heart. Could anything be a closer copy?

The heart is a more perfect pump than the human brain ever devised unaided* Whilst on the subject of the human frame, it might be mentioned that the idea of ball- ! bearings, such as are used on bicycles, is only a development borrowed from the joints of our body. Our knee and elbow joints are perfect samples of the ball and I socket which, has from early, times been tlie

simplest and most complete used by engineers. When a man junrns into the water he puts his hands over his head and takes a "header." But that is not natural. A child does not do so ; he wades in and

does not immerse his head at all. Man undoubtedly borrowed the idea from the water rat, one of the few creatures which rejoice in this head-foremost style of taking to the water. Another four-legged creature taught a nation the science of house-building. The Indian name for his own wigwam is the same as that he gives to the beaver's " lodge. ' The beaver was once common enough in European and British rivers, and it is not unlikely that to "this creature we owe our whole science of dams and bridge-building. Certainly Master Flattail could give points and a beating to man of tho Stone Age in the way of architecture. The South Sea Islanders are experts at canoe-sailing, and make long, open sea voyages in tiny crafc. They have a tradition — probably a true one — that the first of their fathers* to build a sail boat copied

his sail from that of the dainty nautilus, a small shellfish which has the power of erecting a delicate membrane in the form of a sail, and so skimming across the waves of tropic seas. Architects owe much to nature. The splendid columns, Corinthian and lonic, we so much admire originated in the stately trunk of the date palm, and the delicate ornamentation of the capitals began in copying leaves and fruit of various kinds. Indeed, nearly all ornamentation in architecture, conventional and otherwise, is taken more or less directly from nature. The crenelated ornament, for instance, is derived from the dainty scallop shell, and the dog tooth moulding on Norman arches betrays its origin in its namo. Weights and measures owe their inception to natural beginnings. Some of them still show this by their names. What is a foot but the average length of the human understanding? The Jewish span was the distance stretched between the thumb and forefinger, and the cubit, 13 to 22 inches, the distance from the elbow to the extremity of the middle finger. The grain weight was originally a, grain of wheat. Diamonds and other precious stones are still measured by the oarat, which is the bean of an AbyWriian tiee, the •'euara.".

It weighs about the same as four grains. Without the telescope and microscope modern civilisation would have halted sadly. These natural aids to sight are nothing more than artificial development of the crystal lens of the eye itself. That \*as the first lens-maker's model. In the early ages of the world men lived in holes in the rocks and cliffs. High on the edges of a precipice some enterprising savage one day watched a swallow gather clay and piece together bit by bit her snug and cosy nest. Could he copy her? he wondered ; and forthwith set to work, and eventually produced a sort of hut. Rough indeed — nothing near so well finished as

the model. But it was the direct ancestor of the palaces of to-day. To another of the bird tribe .w« ai'e

doubtless indebted for the useful thatch that keeps our barns and ricks dry. The South African weaver bird, which lives and nests in colonies, constructs a heavy rainproof thatch over its congregation of nests. It is worthy of note that the Zulu's kraal of to-day is roofed in an almost precisely similar manner. Kecently experiments h^ave been made with a view to driving ships, not by a screw, but by a' jet of water projected from her stern. This device was taken direct from the cuttlefish, which has no fins, but swims in this way at great speed without them. Every flying machine inventor whose inventions seem to promise any degree of success has studied the soaring of hawks and buzzards. The successful flying machine of the future will almost undoubtedly not be a balloon, but depend for its flying powers on great aeroplanes, similar to the wide wing expanses of soaring birds. And so on all through the wide range of what we call applied mechanics. Any great inventor or philosopher, from Edison down-

ward, will cheerfully acknowledge that it is from watching wild creatures in their homes and in the open woods or fields that many of his best and greatest ideas have come to him. — Answers.