ROUND THE COMPASS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18887, 11 October 1929, Page 8

ROUND THE COMPASS.

Lindbergh’s Find. JJIDDEN in the jungle of the Yucatan an ancient Maya city was this week seen for the second time by Colonel Charles Lindbergh. The cable announced his discovery of the city, ut actually Lindy discovered it last ebruary. It happened this way. Turning inland at Belize, British Honduras, fie new over interior regions of the Mexican Province of Quintana Roo, irough which white men had never penetrated. I n this dense jungle counry the May a Indians lived and built tfieir cities long before Christ, but since that time only scattered colonies oi Indians have inhabited the district, believed by some to be descendants of ‘ the ancient Mayas. Colonel Lindbergh i headed north towards Merida, Yuca- 1 tan, and while he was yet many miles away, his attention was caught by what ! seemed to be two emerald eyes staring k l * u* 'tl l ° Ut tangle of jungle 1 bush. The country he was passing over is shown in white on the maps; uncharted land which archaeologists know must be filled with rich treasures ol 1 past glories, but so inaccessible that though employees of the Carnegie In* ■ stitute have long been pushing towards it through the jungle they have never reached it. As Colonel Lindbergh : dropped low he beheld the ruins of a c |ty s ° me eight miles in diameter, eroded but not yet entirely erased by time. : Out of the tangled verdure there arose numerous small pyramids and one stately pile, some 250 feet high, hold- 1 ing aloft the ruins of an ancient Maya ; temple. At the foot of this temple ’ were two green pools of water that from high above had looked like eyes gazing out of the bush. Apparently formed by breaks in the earth above the course of an underground river, ' they had been caught by the Mayas and held in basins of white stucco; work done 2000 or 3000 years ago. No one can tell when. Lindbergh when he reported his find declared that he intended going back with a camera. Evidently he did so. Sartorial Barbarism. A FEW weeks ago the “Outfitter”, I which divides with the “Tailor and Cutter” the responsibility of seeing that Man’s habits of dress do not relapse into barbarity, had occasion to quarrel with certain Old Etonians and Old Harrovians who had committed a heinous sin. They had appeared at the Eton and Harrow match wearing tie-pins. The re-emergence of these now discredited aids to elegance at a moment of such social importance called forth from the "Outfitter” a just denunciation. This denunciation, however, seems to have been a little too successful. It has suggested to some that our national shortcomings in the sartorial way are confined to tie-pins or to the “old boys’* of the two schools; so that the' indignant journal has thought it necessary to issue a horrid list of the enormities daily committed in our midst by men of high <if not Harrovian) social standing. Some of them are really shocking. Coloured handkerchiefs with full evening dress, plus-fours with bowler hats, coloured hose with white flannel trousers—is it possible that any decent Englishman has appeared in these things? A superfluous tie-pin is a peccadillo in comparison. And yet, after all, perhaps the “Outfitter” was right to pitch into the tie-pins so severely. If Old Etonians or Old Harrovians dress improperly, even in the least degree, how can humbler members of the flock be expected to conform to sartorial standards? If the salt of the earth lose its flavour, with what shall it be salted? Alchemy to Chemistry. term alchemy is but a name for A mediaeval chemistry. It was practised usually with the one consuming desire to find the way to transmute baser metals into gold. The word is said to indicate from its derivation that alchemy was originally the art of extracting juices from plants for medicinal purposes. Many peculiar conclusions were reached by the alchemists. Proceeding from the premise that earth, air, fire and water were the four elements composing the world, the alchemist looked upon chemical changes as tiansformations of one element into another instead of, as modern chemistry does, viewing a chemical reaction as a dissociation of elements—of which there are many more than any recognised by the alchemist—into different combinations, the new substance having many dissimilar properties from the original form.

Journalist Lion-tamers. XWO Paris journalists revealed themselves recently in the role of liontamers. They went through their task so gloriously that, if ever journalism fails them, they need not worrv about a new means of livelihood. MM. Dalgara and Saladin, J . .seising the oldfashioned duel with rapier or revolver, arranged a comnact to enter the lion’s den at a Montmartre menagerie, leav ing it to the proprietor and other experts to decide which of them acquitted himself the more nobly. There were three occupants of the cage, the gentlemanly lion Prince, and the two fierce lionesses Cora and Bett)'. The ball was opened by M. Saladin. He entered the den jauntily, clutching a tamer’s whip in his right hand and his left nervously twitching a pencil in his waistcoat pocket. Prince responded obediently to his commands, but the two ladies did not seem to be so frightened of the scribe. Cora, indeed, caught him vindictively with a claw, but the resultant disaster was merely embarrassing for the journalist and highly diverting to the onlookers. M. Saladin’s haste to leave the den was not due to any craven fear of its denizens, but to an overweening anxiety to reach the dressing-room. M. Dalgara, who followed, distinguished himself as well as his confrere had done. In this case, too, it was only the females that seemed to resent his intrusion. The jury decided that so magnificently had each hero acquitted himself that only a declaration of a dead heat was possible.

Little America. 'J'HREE main houses, a photographic laboratory, three main storerooms, radio and aeroplane workrooms, a machine ship, two hangars for ’planes, a magnetic observatory and workroom, a zoological workroom, a gymnasium a three-tower radio antenna system and an entire system for generating electricity for radio and electric lights—how many small villages in various parts of the world can boast any more than “ Little America,” the base of the Byrd Expedition in Antarctica?