HERE AND THERE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3101, 20 August 1913, Page 77

HERE AND THERE.

A Safety Parachute for Airmen. — A. Leo Stevens, of New York Oity, has invented a novel compact’safety aeroplane parachute. F. It. Law and Arthur Lapham, with its aid, have made all told a score of leaps into space from bridges, buildings, speeding aeroplanes, exploding balloons, and the like without mishap. The parachute is rolled up into a pack worn on the aviator’s shoulders like a knapsack. It is wrapped in a square piece of cloth which, when the parachute opens, remains with the harness of leather straps by which the aviator is supported. Instead of harness, a leather belt is all that is necessary. When made of Japanese silk the parachute weighs only b complete. It is 16ft in diameter, and is attached by 16 Italian hemp ropes to a spreader bar of steel tubing filled with hickory, which is located 15ft below the parachute when open. A wire rope having a breaking strength of one ton and a-half is secured to the spreader, and the supporting ropes are fastened to the strong cable. Two additional ropes. 2ft shorted than the main ones, run te the 12iu hole in the centre. .These ropes receive the initial strain when a drop in made, assure the proper opening of the parachute, and put an equal strain upon the top by drawing down upon it. The rush of air against the folds, however, is what really opens the parachute. So sensitive is it to this, that it is designed to open within 100 ft. The jumper also holds in his hand a small cord, by pulling which he opens the parachute in case he has. only a short distance to fall. On the sensations of the aviator when his machine is suddenly relieved of 1501 b weight, Mr Harry B. Brown, has this to say: “ When I reached an elevation of 4000 ft I motioned to Law to prepare to give me a 'return motion of the hand, indicating that he was ready to go. 1 nodded my head, and away he went. 1 saw no more of him until I reached the starting-point some eight minutes later, when I was notified that he reached the earth two and a-qnarter minutes after making the jump. As he released his weight from the moving machine I felt myself go 'up rapidly, and the machine acted very much as if it were suspended by a cable and was being pulled up rapidly by jerks. This lasted for perhaps 10 seconds. The machine all this time was on an even keel.”

Revival of Spelling Bees.—

The secretary of the Simplified Spelling Society points out (says the Daily Telegraph) that spelling-bees are “sweeping the United States,’’ as they did, by the by, 40 years ago. “Giant meets” are hold, and invitations are sent to the general public broadcast to come and be “spelled down.” Missouri has recently held “» State bee”; in Altona the largest hall was too small for tlie multitude of competitors. “ Such an interest can be worked up over this State event thioughout Minnesota that all through the summer children will be poring over dictionaries with the same zeal they employin hunting birds’ nests,” Dean Woods is repotted to have said. State superintendents of ptihlic instruction give the bees their blessing. “ Good spellers are all too rare,” says one. “ I believe in the spelling-bee. It developed good spelleis in the past.’’ It seems that the craze has taken a social turn. “ Well-known hostesses send out gilt invitations to spelling-bees, which are invested with quaint and ancient ceremony. Whistdiives are overthrown and in ruins.” And a “ champion speller becomes the darling of his district, is carried shoulderhigh, gets a reputation for prodigious learning.” “ America does not yet understand that spelling is not language, and that a man can ‘ spell down ’ every rival and remain a fool.’’ This craze is a result which Mr Roosevelt, reformer of spelling, hardly expected to develop. But it would seem that something needs to be done for American orthography since nearly all the 200 children who competed at Madison broke down at the word “ technicalities.” Refrigerated Bread.— Stale bread is to be a thing of the past (says the Paris correspondent of the Daily Telegraph). Bread that is once fresh is to remain for ever fresh. The discovery is said to have been made in Holland, but its application is to he tried in Paris. The proce«f> is exceedingly complicated and scientific, and would require a lengthy explanation but the way it is done seems simple enough in practice. The baker’s oven is to he supplemented in the future with a refrigerating chamber, containing just as many degrees of cold, broadly speaking, as there are degrees of heat in the oven. Thus the baker, after baking his bread lias only to place it in the ice-chamher and lock it up and keep it in a temperature of a degree or two below zero. The bread will keep fresh foi months and perhaps for years. Journeymen bakers, therefore, will no longer be required to work at night. The remarkable thing is that the process also works the other way. If stale bread is put in the ice-chamber it wili in a short time become fresh again and will remain fresh for an indefinite period. It becomes frozen, of course, but as soon as it is unfrozen it appears as perfectly fresh bread. 'Whether it is as delicious to the taste and as eatable as real fresh bread is another question. The people of Paris have not yet had an opportunity of trying it. Value of Meat Diet.— A diet of vegetables only is insufficient, for the reason that the most important producer of energy-—albumen—is scarcely represented in it. If the vegetables he supplemented with plenty of eggs, cheese, milk, and butter, then the diet, becomes almost ideal. Cows and sheep live on a purely vegetarian diet. But in order to get enough nutrition cows and sheep ha ve to spend their entire time eating. Man cannot eat from earlv morn to late night. His stomach is not big enough. He has only one stomach : a cow has four. No

man on a strictly vegetarian diet can take b enough food to maintain his strength. He has to spend most of his waking hours at work, and can devote only a small part of his time to eating. Then, again, to get the full benefit of his vegetable food, he must masticate it as thoroughly as a cow does. If his teeth were like a cow’s, and he had as much saliva and Eepsin, and could regurgitate the food he ad swallowed and then spend hours rechewing it like ‘a cow, then he might subsist on vegetables alone. The small quantity of albumen in vegetables is enclosed in cells of cellulose, which the human teeth are incapable of mashing fine enough and the human gastric juice incapable of digesting. The result of persistence in such a diet is intestinal trouble. However, there are certain diseases —gout, arteriosclerosis, diabetes, and obesity, for example —which are benefited by a vegetable diet, but it must not be persisted in for too long a time.

Sunset Evidence. —

Sunset on Saturday night (June 21), says the Daily Telegraph, brought evidence which satisfied the archaeologists that the circle of huge sfones at Bulbres Hill, or Mount of Baal, near Matlock, are Druiclical. These remains were discovered by Mr John Simpson, <vh<r, believing that they were the work of the Druids, wanted the confirmatory evidence of the last rays of sunlight on the longest day. Practically either June 21 or June 22 might be reckoned the longest day. Fortunately, Saturday’s sun set in a clear sky, and photographs were taken of the last gleams falling on the ruins.* The plates showed that the sunset- seen mini Bulbre, which is 800 ft high, was precisely as had been anticipated. The sun's parting rays fell exactly over the so-called ‘’N’ine Ladies.’’ a well-known Druidical circle eight miles from Bulbre, and as./the great stone builders v»f Britain fixed their circles in line with one another at midsummer sunset, Mr Simpson regarded the photographic record as proof of Druidical origin. The Rand Gold Output.—

The gbld mines of the Rand, where the .strike of miners is now causing much anxiety, contribute more than a third of the total annual oupnt of gold in the world. In 1885. when the Witwatersrand reef was discovered, the value of the year’s output of gold was just over £6OOO. Last year the total value, including a few mines outside the Rand area, was £38,757,560! A few of the “outcrop” mines are now nearing the end of their life, but the deep-level mines have many years of life before them. Some of these mines are now working more than 4000 ft deep, and the extraordinary regularity of the reef is still maintained. The largest mill on the Rand is on the Randfontein Central property, where a thousand-stamp battery has been erected. A Memory and a Dream.—

A writer in the Daily Chronicle tells a curious story. A barrister took his letters to the post afler midnight. While undressing he missed a cheque for a large sum received during the day. Having hunted for it in vain, he went to bed and dreamed he saw it curled round an area railing near his door. He woke, got up. dressed, went out, and found it there. The explanation, believed by himself, is that his eye must have seen the cheque fall from his pocket and ding to the railing, hut that his mind was then preoccupied, and not until he slept did the memory get its chance.