ROMANCE AND THE GASMANTLE.

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, Issue 18042, 6 February 1923, Page 6

ROMANCE AND THE GASMANTLE.

Steel was invented for big things—to-day we have razor blades. Chloroform on the other hand, was first a joke; now it is one ot the greatest benefactors the human race has known. The iron sands of Taranaki were to have built navies; to-day they have been-discovered to possess hafnium, an element, which, if developed,' will be eminently suitable for the manufacture ol gas mantles. News from England, cabled on Sunday, told New Zealand that at last the sands had got recognition, following the discovery of hafnium by Danish scientists, as Dr. Alexander Scott had decided to investigate deposits he had in hand, ' Taranaki, as well as Thames, and Gabriel’s Gully, is one of New Zealand’s romances. There is nothing romantic about black, ugly sand—seven miles of it, as Dr. Scott says—on which children could not play. But, as “Taranaki” Smith M.P., said, when he presented the now famous axes to Parliament House, “There are possibilities.” The axes were manufactured out of metal extracted from the. ironsand, and up to this day they grace the sacred lobbies of Wellington's Sanctum Sanctorum. Mr Smith had dreams of Taranaki —but there were no visions of gas mantles in his thoughts. He dealt with more solid matters as far as Taranaki was concerned. Gas mantles, one must admit, are not as imposing as a six inch gun; one does not know, _of course, what hafnium looks like, whether it resembles steel or flaky powder. The cables will tell us later on. At any rate, Dr. Scott has proved that there is still romance in New' Zealand, even when it is associated with the humble gas mantle that usually breaks so easily, and causes so many wails from the harried housewife!