HERE AND THERE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16744, 27 May 1922, Page 8

HERE AND THERE.

AN EYE FOR EVERYTHING.

IMPROVED ENG USB TRAIN. An articulated train put in eerric* recently by the Great Northern Railway of England, consists of five oars mounted on six four-wheeled trucks, there l>eing a truck at each end and one under each of tho short vestibuled connections between the cars. A 40ft kitchen car is at the middle of the train with a first-class 4of*fc dining car and a 55ft coach at one end. and a third-class dining car and coach at the other end. All cooking is done by electricity. This train is for a fourhour run between London and Leedsmaking a round trip daily. The purpose of the design is to reduce dead weight. Thus, the train is 246 ft long, accommodates 128 passengers and weighs 118 tons on twelve axlee. The ordinary train previously used consisted of four cars 60 and 65ft long, of which the two dining cars (with kitchen in one car) had six wheel trucks. This older train was 256 ft long, accommodated only 110 passengers, and weighed 139 tons on 20 axlee. HUMAN NERVE TELEGRAPHSWhen you are bathing and tread on a stone, in a fraction of a second a nerve-thrill flashes from your foot to a centre in the spinal cord, and a return thrill causes the muscles of the leg to contract, thereby jerking bock the foot. This is a nerve-message which travels at a remarkable speed. In the case of an octopus, such a message traveLs at the rate of about 80 inches a second; in a frog the speed has worked up to 90ft a second; in man it reaches about 400 ft a second. The greater part of the body is run by this automatic action—that is, action without conscious effort—and almost the whole body is connected up by automatic nervous machinery. Even when a piece of dust blows against your eyeballs, one nerve sends a thrill to the centre in the brain, and in a fraction of a second the message comes back to the eyelid. Thus, in our body, we have a human telegraph more remarkable than the most perfect instrument in the post office. GIRL WIDOW AND A GOBELINS. A distracted young widow’, finding three tapestries hidden under her father’s bed, took one of them to the chief pawnshop in Vienna and obtained a loan upon it of about £3. She was amazed and scared when they told her the tapestry was a Gobelin, worth millions of crowns. The Gobelins are the property of Prince Czartorvska, who had given them to the young woman's father to guard. When the man discovered one was missing from the hid-ing-place untler his mattress he rushed to the police who tracked down and arrested his daughter. The weeping girl told the judge that she was married 18 months ago and her husband died the day her baby was born. She became homeless and went to lodge with her father, who had been in the service of the Prince. She meant to redeem the Gobelin with the first money she earned. The Prince said he had suffered no injury as the tapestries were undamaged, and the amount the girl had borrowed w’as no more than he had meant to pay her father for taking care of them. When the young mother was acquitted her father repeatedly kissed her tear-stained fa and led her from the court. HOW TREES EAT.

Even a short walk in the woods will suffice to bring to light a score or more of leaves, all of different shapes and sizes—long and narrow, broad and flat, oval, round, tapering or angular. No two of these shapes come from the same plant or bush. The object of the leaves of trees and shrubs is to convert the carbonic acid gas from the air into food for the plant itself, an object which they accomplish by means of the

“ chlorophyll,” or green colouring matter just below the surface. In the case of tho larger trees it will be noted that the majority* of the leaves are broad, thus, exposing a large surface to the sun and helping the changing of the carbonic acid gas and the throwing off of the oxygen, which, in turn, is needed by all forms of animal life. The trees, being closer to the sun, have not. had to exert themselves to secure sunlight as have many of the smaller forms-of vegetation whose leaves are long and thin, so that they may. secure the maximum amount of light while stretching upwards. Thus, the different families of the vegetable world have leaves of the shape and size best suited to their needs.

CONDITIONS ON MARS From the recent observations it i a evident that Mars, like the earth, has warm and cold years, for the polar snow-caps sometimes melt* to a greater extent than in other years. It is inferred that the supply of water on the planet is scanty. It is likely that warm and cold seasons on Mars are more closely related to variations in the sun’s output of heat than is the case of the earth. Besides the white polar caps the other• surface features are the large dusky regions formerly considered to he oceans, but now considered by many people to be tracts covered with vegetation. Observers are agreed that the large orange-tinted regions, which give the planer- its characteristic ruddy colour, are sandy deserts, similar to our Sahara but covering a very large portion of the planet’s surface. Thee© are crossed by the intricate series of dark streaks generally known as 44canals.” though the term 44 c’nawrtels ” is more appropriate. The nights on Mars must be intensely cold, owing to the thinness and clearness of the air. Mars is steadily drawing nearer to the earth and by the middle of June, it will be closer than it has been sinoe 1909. IN CASE OF ACCIDENT. A certain author had been operated on for appendicitis, and the operation took place in the early morning. Some time later he woke up in a strange and darkened room. When he had collected his thoughts, everything came bgok to him, but he could not understand why the room was dark. When the nurse- came up to him, he asked: “ But why this dark room? It was early morning when they operated on me, but now it can’t be night.” 44 No, it isn’t,” the nurse answered. “ But we were afraid of the shock you might get.” 44 Why. what shock?’ 44 Well, there was a big fire just across the street, and we were afraid if you woke and saw the flames, you might think that the operation hadn’t been suoces*ful.”