THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 1906.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIX, Issue 8122, 19 April 1906, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 1906.

Mr Field, of the New Zealand Esperanto Association, has been bringing the subject of the proposed universal language prominently before the New Zealand public of late. The first appearance of Esperanto was in 1887 in a pamphlet issued by its inventor, Dr Zamenhof, entitled "An International Language, by Dr Esperanto." It was well received, first in Russia and then in Norway and Sweden, and wa3 then taken up in Prance by M. de Beaufront, who bad himself invented a universal language, but gave it up as soon as he became acquainted with the admirable work of the Kußsian competitor. He was the man who forced the world at large to stop and seriously consider Esperanto as the solution of the great problem proponed by men l*ke Roger Bacon, Descartes, Pascal, Loibnitz, Looke, Voltaire, Diderot, and others, Frott,

France Esperanto went to Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, and Anally to England, whore thirty Esperanto Societies were created in little over a year, in its iutroduc-| tiou two chief difficulties were to be met—firstly, that with no capital behind them the Esperantists had ] to rely solely upon the intrinsic ! value of their cause; and secondly, there was the obstacle of the prejudice created against the idea of b,n artificial language by tbo failure of VolapuU, though it was no doubt perfectly soundly argued that the case of Volapnk proved nothing whatever except that the special Volapuk in question did not fulfil, requirements. Esperanto hasj received the support of many great names, and iu Franco, particularly, illustrious men have enrolled by the score under its flap;. It is now printed in twenty-two different countries, and about thirty-five journals are published in the new idiom, one of them of strictly scienti&c character. Several of the Continental papers occasionally or regularly offer their readers an article in Esperanto. The Paris Eaperantist Club or Society numbers 3,000 members. The Congress of Bologne, held in August of last year, is said to have provided the most convincing demonstration, of the possibility of using Esperanto as a medium for oral communication.. The experiment had never been made before on suoh a scale. Twelve hundred delegates from twettty-two different countries had gathered,, and while it was possible- to tell the different nationalities, it is said than there was no trouble in understanding everyone present. The- French Government took the opportunity of this Congress on French soil to compliment the creator of Esperanto. The opinion has been freely expressed that as a utilitarian international medium of communication Esperanto is admirable, if though a claim on its behalf to great literary value could not be substantiated. Of course its primary purpose-is as a key language, and for such it as designed. It has been aptly described as the medium of a world-wide entente cordiale.

The undertaking which has recently involved the construction of an enormous reservoir to hold the New York water supply is described as one of ttre most remarkable of modern •times, and one of the greatest modernworks of engineering. The-growth ofthecftyhas been illustrated, in the development of and provision for its water supply. The old aque duct was finished in 1842, andi 90i000,,000 gallons daily was the supply. Fifteen jears ago the new aqueduct was completed, and the city now uses its full daily capacity of 300,000,000 gallons. Provision for drought was not included in this, and the new Croton dam was started in 189 S. It is now completed, audi the reservoir behind it will bold 3.200,000,000. gallons, or enough, for 100 days' use. The concrete and stone dam is 2.300 ft long and 300lfc high; its bottom width is 216 ft, and the pressure at the base will be something like 1(5 tons to the square foot. The foundations are 162 ft down in solid rook. The water will be backed up the Croton River for a distance, of 20 miles, and 3,425 acres is the area of the reservoir proper. The new water supply is said to have cost New York nearly £3,000,000 and to have necessitated the destruction of three villages and the moving of three railways. The cost of the dam itself is set down at £1,360,000, and the material in it is estimated to be approximately about the same as that contained in the pyramid of Cheops. Seven hundred men would not have gone far with the ancients iu a work of such magnitude, but the building of 20 miles of railway tracK aud the use of 100,000 tona of coal aro characteristic of the work of modern engineers.