Science Siftings

New Zealand Tablet, 30 November 1911, Page 2443

Science Siftings

By Volt.’

Hemp Industry in Manila. As is generally known, the growth of hemp is the foremost industry of the Phillipines. The hemp plant belongs to the banana family, and Manila hemp thrives nowhere else in the world. The Phillipine fields supply the entire world with raw hemp for manufacture into rope and cordage. In view of these conditions one would naturally think that factories for working up the raw product are numerous. But such is not the case. It is very doubtful if there were more than a dozen rope- / workers of any nature in existence when the Americans landed. And at present there is but one modern factory in Manila, that being owned and operated by Americans. A number of British firms, who have branch offices in Manila and agents throughout the provinces, do most of the buying and exporting. Exports aggregate anywhere from 200 to 300 millions of pounds annually. It is estimated that the average value of the total production is £6,000,000. Until a year ago hemp had always been stropped by handa slow and wasteful progress. It is cleaned by having a number of native laborers drag the stocks across a knife provided with iron teeth, thus separating the strands from the pulp. No sooner had the Americans arrived than the inventors commenced to devise means to do this work by machinery, getting out a better grade of hemp, wasting less, and accomplishing more in a given time. Several of these inventors have been successful, and the machines are now .doing excellent work, thus increasing the output. The tensile strength of machine-stripped hemp is nearly 50 per cent, greater than that of handstripped. The Dead Sea. Undoubtedly one of the strangest things about the Dead Sea is the density of its waters. It contains 23 per cent, of solid matter, and is, bulk for bulk, heavier than the human body. Many believe that it is impossible to swim in this sea, and even in Jerusalem ridiculous fables are told as to the impossibility of bathing here, and how that no animals or vegetation can exist near its shores. As to the vegetation about its shores, this will be referred to later, but so far as swimming is concerned the excessive buoyancy of the water simply renders it difficult to make much headway, but a swim is both feasible and enjoyable. Care should be taken, however, not to let the water get into the eyes. Indeed, did Palestine belong to any other Power but Turkey, probably the northern shore of the Dead Sea would be a popular bathing-station. No doubt the chloride of magnesia, which enters so largely into the composition of the water, would be found to have medicinal and curative properties. ' Perhaps a better idea of the density of the water of this inland sea may be realised from the following statistics: In a ton of water from the . Caspian Sea there are 111 b of salt; in the Baltic, 181 b; in the Black Sea, 261 b; the Atlantic, 311 b; in the English Channel, 721 b; in the Mediterranean, 851 b; in the Red Sea, 931 b ; and in the Dead Sea, 1871 b. Because of the saltness and bitterness of the waters, noth- £ ing lives in the Dead Sea, absence of life is emphasised by there being no living creatures on or around it, as, but for these small plains which have a small population, there are no towns or villages, consequently no birds are seen around or over it. This has appealed to the native’s impressionable imagination, as he explains ‘ God protect us where not a living creature praises God.’ This has given rise to the fancy statement frequently met in books that the noxious gases escaping from the sea deal death to any bird attempting to fly across. The fact is the region is so utterly desolate, so hot, with so few inhabitants, and so arid and waterless, except at the points mentioned and the small oasis at Engedi, that neither birds nor creatures of any kind are met with except at those points, so widely separated, where water is found.