THE ELEPHANT AND THE MOUSE

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 243, 4 January 1928, Page 7

THE ELEPHANT AND THE MOUSE

•Not long ago a humble mouse caused consternation in a travelling circus by making the elephant, hitherto a most docile creature, take panic and run amok. It appeared that a small mouse had crossed the elephant's path, and elephants have a horror of mice. With a loud trumpet of terror the elephant threw up its trunk and stampeded. taking the greater part of a huge marquee with it. The most probable theory for this extraordinary behaviour is that there is something in the smell of a mouse which “sets on edge” the sensitive nerves of the elephant. The quick, sharp movements of a mouse, appearing and disappearing so abruptly, would also tend to unnerve Jumbo who. like most other animals, is terrified of the unexpected and unknown. FREEDOM To-day, in a tiny corner of the vast African continent, happiness has < onto to over two* hundred thousand people. As they work they sing, and laugh as they talk, for they are free. The claims of bondage which have held them for past generations have been parted, and now a quarter of a. million slaves in Sierra Leone on th rwest coast of Africa are free to leave their masters. Sometimes, these people revelling in their new-found freedom, pause in their laughter and turn dark, solemn eyes jto the roof of the big, official-looking building in the distance. But that is only when the fleeting fear of captivity passes across their minds, when they look at the distant building with its flagstaff from which flutters the red, white and blue. They gaze at the Union Jack, and in their simple, unlearned minds it spells freedom. They watch it flutter in the breeze and watching, breathe a silent prayer to the British Government that has brought them their freedom. FLINT Why flint breaks as it does is not yet explained. If a block of it be struck in the centre of one of it* surfaces by a steel hammer or a hard stone, and the areas surrounding the place where the blow’ fell be gently tapped, it will sometimes bo found that these areas will break away, leaving exposed to our surprised gaze a beautifully symmetrical cone. Flint was the material out of ■which prehistoric man made his implements and weapons, and it was owing to the peculiar manner in which this rock fractures that he was able to produce them so easily. Of course he had to become expert in his art. ar.d there is no doubt that these ancient people were highly proficient flakers, and probably knew more about flint fracj ture than anyone living at the present j day. Flint to them must have been as important and necessary as coal and iron are to us.