TIMBERS FROM BRONZE AGE

Taranaki Daily News, 15 July 1933, Page 20 (Supplement)

TIMBERS FROM BRONZE AGE

MONUMENT UNIQUE IN EUROPE. BRITISH CIRCLE FOUND BY A FARM A small fund of a hundred pounds is being raised in Lancashire to preserve one of the most remarkable monuments of Antiquity in these islands—Bleasdale (says the Children’s Newspaper.) Lancashire has at Bleasdale a monument about as old as Stonehenge, but built of wood. , Near Stonehenge lies Woodhenge, the site of a wooden forerunner of Stonehenge, with holes cut in the chalk for wooden posts which have. perished and left no trace. We have only its plan. The remarkable fact about Bleasdale is that here still remain the massive wooden blocks which formed the circle 3500 years ago. Steps are now being taken to investigate this monument thoroughly and to preserve all the wood that remains. The fund of £lOO is being raised by tfie Bleasdale Preservation Society, who now need £4O to complete lt * CIRCLES 3500 YEARS OLD. As in the case of Woodhenge, which was revealed by a photograph from an aeroplane, Bleasdale Circle was discovered from above-I—by 1 —by a farmer - who in 1898 looked down on it from a neighbouring height and noticed that the ground showed a strange but regular variation in colour with the wetness or dfyness of the season. Excavations were made and -under tne soil were found remains of wooden circles 3500 years old. The outer circle was 150 feet in diameter and was originally a palisade of oak logs. These had perished to a depth of about two feet below the surface, but below thjs they \yere still solid. Within thjs palisade, and- touching it at one point, ran a smaller circle- of, birch poles. These were found in. a ditch five feet deep, rouqd which is a rampart. The diameter of this circle is 75 feet. another. WOODHENGE. These circles might very well have been the defences’ of a village community but ’a ’. discovery was made within’ which gives Bleasdale an exceptional distinction. Concealed under. a low mound were found 11 massive blocks of oak ranged in a circle 35 feet wide and assuming.the shape of a horseshoe close to the point where the two outer circles met. Here was the entrance and here were found two larger oak blocks giving the splay to the openingDigging in the centre of all two cinerary urns, containing’ human bones were found. . 1 . Other- prehistoric monuments, Stonehenge for-, example, have their • inmost circle of horseshoe form, and antiquaries have com© to the opinion that Bleasdale Circle was another Woodhenge, the only example in Europe in which the original wooden posts have been preserved. Since the oak-blocks were exposed at the beginning of this century they have suffered' from weathering, and the chief object at the monument is to treat them with’ chemicals' for their preservation. The antiquaries will also establish the exact plan of this remarkable work of the early Bronze Age. PLANES LOST AND FOUND. A STRANGE COINCIDENCE. A strange coincidence in the history of flying has occurred. While''the French authorities were searching for .an English airman lost in the Sahara two other lost planes were found in Italy ; withjn 'a few hours of each other. Brave Hinkler was found in. the wreckage of, his plane in the Apemfines, as we tell elsewhere, and Italian soldi e.rs searching among the. rocky heights above Saracens came across the wreckage of a French seaplane in the.snow. To their amazement three of the eight occupants were found alive, -huddled together, in. me rear part.of th© cabin which had escaped serious damage.. . . For five days they had waited there, living on chocolate and sandwiches, fearing to venture across the,, snow in their weak state in search of help. AN IMAGE 43,000 TIMES MAGNIFIED. A n©w discovery in the Kodak works enables amateur kinema photographers to obtain four times as many pictures on the usual length of film- , The amateur film is 16 millimetres wide and 25 feet long,, sufficient for 1000 pictures of the old type, but now 4000. ; ' '■ • ' As the new film -is’ nin' through the camera only ’ half its width 1 is exposed, each tiny , picture being a quarter the size of the picture taken bn the old film. When the pew film comes to ’ its end it is turned round and run .through again,- the other. half then being . exposed. When the film' has been developed it is automatically slit' down the middle and th© tiyo. halves are joined end to end. It would take 26 of the tiny pictures to cover a penny stamp, yet the linage thrown on the screen can be magnified nearly 43,000 times. Th© secret is in its.light-sensitive coating. The image thrown on the screen is made up of‘the shadows of millions of silver grains; in the film coating, and, in the new film these grains are of exceptional fineness. -

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