MOTHER OPOSSUM.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 February 1931, Page 21 (Supplement)

MOTHER OPOSSUM.

The opossum is one of the animals tiiat have pockets to carry their babies in. Mother Opossum’s pocket is a large fold ot skin on her stomach, and into this pocket she puts her babies when they are very small. It is nice and warm and soft and in it the little blind babies live and are fed on nice warm milk. These little baby opossums look something like baby mice. They are blind at first and have no hair.

After a while these babies grow nice soft little coats and have bright black eyes. When there is nothing around to hurt ‘them Mother Opossum opens her pocket- and lets them peep out. When she doesn't, want anything to see her babies, she pulls her pocket up tight just as we pull up the top ot our shopping bag. There are always many brothers and sisters in an opossum family. When the weather is fine, Mother Opossum lets her babies climb on her back. She holds her tail over her back and they wrap their little tails around it. .1 bus they ride all around while Mother Opossum hpnte for food. If she sees or hears anything that she thinks will harm her babies, she tells them and they all scamper into her big pocket ipid hide. Mother Opossum cannot travel very fast on the ground but when she is in the trees, she holds on by her ta.il and swings herself from one branch to another and travels with ease, an quite fast.- .. Mother Opossum makes hcrseli a nest bv carrying dry leave? and glass into a hollow tree. She does not have to make a nest for her babies because all she has to do is to put them into her big warm pocket and they have the best nest in the world. Mother Opossum does not have to travel aroun arid go back to her babies like other animals, for she carries them with her wherever she goes.

■HOW DID THE SEA GET ITS SALT?

You have probably often asked the question: How did the sea get its ealtt It seems a rather mystifying occurrence. There are various salts in the <sea, not merely the common salt, which is known to chemists as chloride ot sodium. Out of every thousand parte Of sea-water a little more than thirty:eight parts by weight consist of mineral mltter. Of this solid matter in solution nearly 73 parts consist of common salt, the remaining 22 parts being made pp of various other chemical compounds, the chief of which is chloride of mag-

nesium. , ~ . ~ It has been calculated that the amount of Sea water in the world is 323,722,150 cubic miles, or about thirteen times the volume of land above sea-level. Knowing the volume and composition of the sea watei, we c calculate the amount of solid matter there i 6 in the whole of the ocean. This is 4,532,110 cubic miles, which, if in solid form, would cover the whole of the oeean bed to a depth of 17aft. in other words, it is equal ih amount to about one-fifth of all the Idnd above sea-level. . Where did the salt in the sea come from, and how long has it taken to gev there? An expert says the rivers carry into the sea each year (1400 cubic miles of water, and this takes with it a certain amount of salt, estimated at 4,070, 000,000 tons. If all the salt m the sea had been contributed at this rate, it • would have taken 370,000,000 years for the sea to have got as salt as it tO Aß s the salt, however, is not brought into the sea by rivers, nor is it likely that the rivers have always contributed ht their present rate, so that it is impossible to say exactly the period dur.in<r which the salt has been accumulating in the oceans. No doubt some of the mineral matter has been dissolved from the ocean beds.

THE SECRET VALLEY. Marjorie kept one walk all to herself. It went up a lane and ended in a still, green valley. She had grown to love it. 8 And when .Uncle Clifford (who whs over on a holiday from Rihodssia) came to stay, Marjorie resolved that sfie would show him. every thing but her own surprise, uncle announced on the first day that' he wished to walk alone. Marjorie went off to her private valley quite happily. When Shu got there 7 she found that somebody had got there first. It was Uncle Cliffoid. He was lying on the hillside, puffing his Pl ‘-Oh, dear!" cried Marjorie, ruefully, as sihe came up to him. “I thoug[lit thia was mine. I’m sorry it seems selfish of me, Uncle Clifford, but I did discover it.” . . . „ “And eo did I—when I was a boy, said her uncle. “Don’t 1? sad, r ij.l jprie. Every lovely place, green and quiet, belongs to many people.. They ne^ 11 -Y a . ways go there by themselves. i our secret, and probably other people s, too. I often think of this place when 1 am far away in Rhodesia; and you will think of it, Marjorie, when you are grown up and far away. 1 shall not epoil it for you, for 1 understand Why you love it. And to love .the same place,” he added with a smile, meitne that we are going to be tremendous friends.”

And, indeed, they were.