TOPICS OF THE TIMES

Southland Times, Issue 22130, 26 September 1933, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE TIMES

Telling the Time. Another appeal for the adoption of the 24-hour system of expressing time was made in the House of Lords by Lord Newton, in proposing a motion that in accordance with the recommendations of the Home Office Committee appointed in 1919, the system should be introduced into the Post Office, and that the railway companies should be invited to adopt it in their timetables. He said that, as no public expense would be involved in the adoption of the system, it might have been expected that the recommendations of the committee would have been put into operation, but 14 years after the committee had reported, the Government, in ths shape of the Post Office, stolidly refused to look at them. He had made representations on the subject to every Government since the war, but he had never received an adequate or reasonable _ reply. After several other speeches in support of the motion, the Earl of Lucan said that personally he was not opposed to the change, but speaking for the Government he could only repeat the reply which had been given by the representative of the Home Office every time the subject was raised in the past three years. Except for a few letters i’ll the Press, there had been an entire lack of public interest in the matter. The Government thought there was no point in making the change unless it was going to be a real help to the public, and there was no evidence of that.

Measuring Altitude. The Marchese Marconi stated recently that he hoped shortly to have found the means of applying the “echometer (an instrument for echo sounding) to aeroplanes with the same success that it is applied at present to ships for measuring by sound the depth of the sea. This would mean fliers would be afforded for the first time a reliable method of determining their height, whether above land or sea. Present methods depend on the decrease of atmospheric pressure with height and are unavoidably affected by weather changes during flight. A large number of accidents have occurred owing to the pilot of an aeroplane being deceived as to his height. An instrument of the type promised would, therefore, be a safety factor of the first importance for all long-distance flights when cloud or mist was likely to be encountered. The principle of the “echometer” is that seme form of wave, whether sound or wireless, is directly or indirectly timed on a double journey from the observer to the reflecting surface—in the case of a ship, the bottom of the sea, and in the case of an aeroplane the land or sea beneath. For sea sounding the most effective method has been the use of sound waves of higher frequency than the ear can detect — .more than three octaves above the limits of music.

Water Divination. Answering the question in the Morning Post “What Makes a Dowser?” Major C. A. Pogson, late water diviner to the Government of Bombay, writes: —“Most water diviners claim that it is attributable to a physical basis; on the other hand, the late Sir William Barrett, who spent many years investigating the subject, came to the conclusion that some psychic sense was employed. As a result of a very large number of practical tests, I personally am of the opinion that this “faculty” (I use the word for want of a better) is possessed by at least 75 per cent, of people and that it is merely an additional sense that has become dormant owing to the march of modern science. Before the advent of boring plant, other devices of civilization, progress of engineering, and geological knowledge, the faculty naturally was more in demand, and I think that in bygone days it must have been in constant use. Just as some individuals have keener eyesight or hearing than others, so in some people this sense still remains more or less developed, and it is a question of degree. As by constant use a sense is developed, so those who possess this faculty of water divination can develop and improve it with practice and experience. At the same time, I do think that a certain amount of concentration, conscious or unconscious, is necessary. Unfortunately, although interest in the subject has made strides in recent years, it is difficult to get the matter taken up and investigated from a purely scientific point of view, as there is so much in it that savours of mysticism.