CURRENT TOPICS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12088, 17 August 1917, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

SAVING. Occupying the. pulpit of Knox Presbyterian C-hurob, Ottawa, recently, at a patriotic service, Sir George E. Foster, the Canadian Minister of Trade and Commerce, made some scathing remarks regarding those who " t-oil not, neither do they spin, - ' in Canada. Calling v.pon The people of Canada to eat less and waste less in the future, the Minister declared that if the request of the now Food Controller in this respect was not paid proper attention to he would find it necessary to do all in his power toward eliminating waste and over-eating. "In this country. ' said Sir George, "joyriding is carried on to the maximum, and wo find tables overtaxed with food and men and women gorging thenisf-lve?- n have not commenced to make sacrifices in this war sucli as the people of Great Britain are doing, hut we have got. to make these sacrifices now if wo are to do our duty. ' At the conclur-icn of an eloquent address, Sir George en id that Canada had ideals—they were freedom, justice and righteousness, to whirl! was being added unselfishness. The war was having the effect of shaking the people out of a state of materialism and selfishness, and out of the welter of the war, there, was coming ;i loosening away of selfishness to a plane of higher i bought and better service. A HEW NAVAL WF.APOM. One of America';-; grfttcst r'e*t::cnl engineers, v."!:o-e rcp"!tF.t:{>n extends throughout the "-or!:', has. says •'Popular Mechanics," developed what h~terms an aeromnrine torpedo. Jt, is intended as a weapon for des L roving hostile war vessels. Ksscnt-iaiiy it- consists of a torpedo froeiv suspended by cables beneath a skiff, or pontoon. 'I he latter is connected. Lv men:i-* of a long piano wir■ 1 , with a flying beat, which tows it through the water at high speed until it strikes its target. The ,wire, j which serves as a lev/Vine, p.-sscs through an eye m the ha "<:!!•.• of -a. lever and is wound a brut n <lrunj insiaiied in the skiff. Y»*!mc the flying boat is skimming across the water, the towline assumes a low angle. This depresses the lever, which in turn leeks the drum against movement so that needless unreeling does not occur. When the pilot craft ascends into the. air, however, the drum revolves as the wire is drawn out. This motion is transmitted to a propeller and the forward propulsion of the skiff thus aided. In attacking a vessek an airman would leave the water and attempt to cross the enemy's path, dragging the torpedo carrier after him. The towline, or course, would fall across the radio aerial, or across the deck of a vessel. The continued pull upon it by the air craft would bring the torpedo, it is assumed, against the vessel with considerable force. ASTRONOMICAL WORK. In his annual report of the Royal Observatory, the Astronomer Royal states that in spite of considerable restriction of the work on account of the reduction of the staff, special efforts have been mado to maintain all the lines of observations in which a breach of continuity would be serious. The error in the moon's place as given in the Nautical Almanac was minus 13i seconds of arc, and is increasing nearly j a second a year. T>r Ernest Brown's j improved lunar tables are to be readyshortly. Observations with regard to stellar proper motions have received special attention; those of 12,000 stars in the zone between the North Declination 2-1 degrees and 32 degrees having! been determined. These results confirm the accuracy of Kapteyn's formula., giving the distances of stars as a function of their magnitude and proper motion. In 1916 a faint star was discovered by Professor Barnard which has the unprecedented motion of 10 1-3 seconds per annum. This proves it to be thenearest known star in the northern hemisphere, its light taking six and a. half years to reach this planet. A number of observations and photographs of this star were made at- Greenwich. Another interesting discovery is that made by Mr Innes at Johannesburg f hct a faint- star about 2 degrees distant from Alpha Cent-aim shares the large proper motion of that star, so that, there aro good grounds for suspecting it to be a distant companion. Since Alpha Centauri is -the earth's nearest stellar neighbour, this discovery is of special interest. Pairs of photographs of several star fields, taken at intervals of some fifteen years, were sent out to him for study with the Blink microscope, which is a very effective method of detecting stars that have changed their positions in the interval.