SCIENCE SIFTINGS

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 16, 26 April 1923, Page 54

SCIENCE SIFTINGS

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What is a Whale Worth? The whale is worth more money than any other living creature. For this reason it is hunted unceasingly, and if the present rate of destruction continues our grandchildren may look upon it as an extinct monster. A single Greenland whale will have in its mouth about a ton of whalebone, which alone is worth from £ISOO to £2OOO. From its blubber 25 tons of oil may be obtained. As whale oil fetches £2O a ton, this represents another £SOO. Another species, the sperm whale, not only provides enormous quantities of the finest oil, but may also prove to contain ambergris, which is worth considerably more than its weight in gold. * The Pace of Wind. The recent twelve-minutes tornado in New York, which capsized 250 boats and caused the deaths of fifty people, brought to one’s realisation the great power of the wind when it works at high pressure. Happily, when it is in its most furious mood, we are usually given warning. The following table gives the different speeds of wind, according to the usual meteorological descriptions; Hardly perceptible, 1 mile per hour; just perceptible, 2 miles; gentle breeze, 5 miles; brisk wind, 10 miles; very brisk wind, 20 to 25 miles; high wind, 35 miles; very high wind, 45 miles; storm', 50 miles; great storm, 60 miles; hurricane, 80 miles. And great hurricane, capable of carrying trees before it, 100 miles an hour. When a tempest blows at sea, the wind may rush over the water at 60 miles an hour; but the waves, assisted by other forces, will travel 20 miles an hour faster. Perhaps the greatest Speed of wind ever recorded was that at Wallingford, U.S.A., during a cyclone on March 22, 1892. The pace was just under 250 miles an hour. Handwriting: Is It Hereditary. Charles Darwin long ago recognised that handwriting was inherited, and this idea may be found scattered through scientific liteiature as an axiom for the past fifty years. For the most part writing is the upshot of inheritance, childhood discipline, habits of character, temperament, disposition, and what may well be called your chronic, mood. Air. R. H. Chandler has recently devoted great car© to the study and investigation of likenesses which exist in the writing of various members of the same family (says the Pall Mall Gazette). So strong is this similarity in some families that it is often difficult for the expert to distinguish one member’s hand from another’s. Indeed, the same word written by different persons seems to be written many times by one. Likeness in handwriting follows the same general prinaccording to this investigator, as that which acts in families as regards resemblances in face, motions, and that family likeness among human beings which may be defined as an accumulation of indescribably faint suggestions of similarity rather than any strong identity. For instance, a family likeness may show itself by the color of the eyes, shape of the nose, general outline of face, or eccentricity of manner; but more often it is the tout ensemble, something that cannot be put into words and defined accurately, which causes old friends of parents to exclaim; “Isn’t he like his father?” or “He is just like his father as a boy. T ’ This brings us to another point of agreement between handwriting and ourselveslikeness at corresponding ages. It would be absurd to expect a grandfather of seventy to write like his son of forty-five of his grandson of twenty; but there may be just comparison between the grandfather’s writing of middle-age and his son’s at the present time, or between that of the son and the grandson at corresponding ages. Another point of agreement is what may be called “peculiarities,” and the father who has a style of handwriting which shows these peculiarities will frequently bequeath them, more or less unaltered, to his son.