The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER MONDAY, JUNE 8, 1914. RADIO-ACTIVITY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 39, 8 June 1914, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER MONDAY, JUNE 8, 1914. RADIO-ACTIVITY.

That specially attractive subject, radio-activity, was lectured upon at Auckland the other evening by Professor G. Owen, the new Professor of Physics at the University College. Dr. Owen said that it would be necessary to dispel some false impressions regarding discoveries in connection with radio-activity. One was that it involved a fundamental breach in the laws of nature, and had thrown the chemists and physicists into confusion. This was not so; they had modified their views, that was all. A second point concerned the use of radium in regard to the treatment of disease, ft was true that it had certain physiological effects, and had been used with some success in the treatment of lupus and ringworm, but the hope regarding it as the long-sought-for cure for cancer, among other diseases, had not been fulfilled. Another misapprehen-) sion existed with regard to the latent power or energy in radium, so that some people had visions of a time to come when, for instance, ships would lie driven by its power. Only a few grains of radium could be extracted from several tons of pitch-blende, and the process was tedious and costly. A piece of radium of the size of a pin’s head was worth from £2O to £3O, The lecturer dealt with five characteristics of radium—giving illuminative illustrations as he wont along—its heatproducing property, its physical effects, its power to affect n photographic plate, its property of causing air to he a conductor of electricity, and its ability to produce phosphorescent activity. In doing so, Dr. Owen paid high tribute to the work done by that distinguished New Zealander, Sir Ernest Rutherford, in the field of radioactivity research, and reminded his hearers that Professor Rutherford’s disintegration theory was now universally aec»pt«d among men of sci•HCO.

RULE OF THE ROAD.

People do not always fully realise the, importance of the rule of the road, so far as it affects passengers and pedestrians, or, if so, they do not always observe it with that punctilioususes which is desirable in such an important matter. Kecently in the course of an address to a jury, Mr Justice Hosking gave an interesting l explanation. His Honor was hearing a case in which a lady motor driver has sued for damages by a man whom her car had knocked down and injured. The rule of the road, said his Honor, was adopted for the purpose of persons who passed along a carri-age-way—riders of horses and drivers of vehicles. That rule did not compel riders and drivers to keep on any particular side, but it imposed on them a duty to meet or pass any vehicle on a particular side of the road. On crowded streets in a city it was found that people did not ride and drive on particular sides of the road, because of the frequency with which they had to meet or pass vehicles or horses, but on country roads it was very different. A pedestrian had a right to walk on the carriageway if he desired to do so; but, where footpaths were provided, and lie walked on the roadway, he imposed on himself a greater duty of care on Ins ownj part than jf he walked on the footpath. If a man walked in the road he must exercise a reasonable amount of care to protect himself. The fact of a corner being dangerous had to be considered from the point of view of the motor car, and also from the point of view of the pedestrian who was on the carriage-way. In these days of motor-cars a pedestrian had to take to the carriage-way with greater risks than he used to incur in the days of the old-fashioned horse. It did not follow, however, because a man might be sauntering along a road, or : even walking backwards, and a car ran into him, that he had been negligent in tire sense that it would deprive him of any rights to damages.