WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 45, 17 November 1926, Page 10

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM

T.D.H.)

(By

A correspondent asks for a definition of Fascism.—So far as we can gather, Fascism to-day is what Signor Mussolini happens to be thinking this morning, and Fascism to-morrow will be what the good Signor is thinking then. The high percentage of youths rejected for Territorial service is causing concern as to young Australia’s physique.—But mayn’t it be merely testimony to his mental alertness? Two French scientists, it is reported to-day, have discovered a means of harnessing the sun’s rays and producing'' illimitable power at a trifling cost. This is an item we have heard before, but the various inventions taken to the Patent Office rarely secure this publicity in the news. The sun’s rays are already harnessed at the Mount Wilson Observatory in California by one of the most successful contrivances so far produced. It is quite a reliable contrivance, with some mirrors and a can of oil,, and if you don’t mind waiting long enough it will cook a joint for dinner. If you are not ai. astronomer and happen to be in a hurry for your victuals at Mount Wilson you leave the illimitable energy of the sun alone and light the kerosene stove.

There is an appalling amount of power going to waste in the sun, and the figures show all too. conclusively that Nature is ruining the universe with reckless extravagance. The temperature in the centre of the sun i» 70,000,000 degrees Fahrenheit, but on the surface it falls to the almost chilly level of 10,000 degrees. Such at least is the report of Professor Eddington, of Cambridge University, and we will not wcarv the reader by attempting to explain how the Professor found out how hot it is in the centre of the sun. As to how much of the heat hurtled out across space by Old Sol lauds on the surface of the earth we have the calculations of Dr. 11. A. Spoehr, of the Carnegie Institution. Dr. Spoehr has measured it up, and finds that we get down on every square centimetre of the earth’s surface 1.5 calories per minute from the sun. If this quantity of heat doesn’t always arrive that is only through defects in the meteorological arrangements, for it is _ always waiting to be picked up, with the clouds' out of the way.

In more comprehensible terms this 1.5 calories means that in six hours the average amount of heat from the snu falling on each acre of the earth’s surface is equal to what would be produced bv 16J tons of coal. A man with a hundred acre farm on a fine day thus .receives delivered at the door free of charge the equivalent of round about 3300 tons of coal. At current rates this quantity of coal would cost some £lO,OOOl If it is fine the next day the farmer gets anbthet £lO,OOO worth of sunshine on his hundred acre lot—a tidy fortune of £70,000 in a nice sunny week.

The same valuable quantity of heat, one gathers from the scientists, is heaved out bv the sun into vacant space where there is no earth, Mars, o ranvthing else waiting to pick it up. The waste going on, even in a sins'® hour, shrinks our entire national debt down to the size of a pimple. Such squandering cannot, of course, continue for ever, and Professor Eddington has properly warned the. thinking public that in less than fifteen million million years the sun will be a burnt but cinder, and the curtain will have to be rung down on the solar svstem.

The efforts of the Parisian scientists to gather up some of this precious solar,energy while it lasts are thus of the closest attention of all. Natuie in her crude, blundering way has already been trying to do something in the matter of conserving solar energy, but the undertaking, we are told, is one on which it is necessary that trained, High-class intelligence should be brought to bear. Industrially considered the earth is in a peculiar position, for its has no exports end no imports, except occasional meteorites. It Jias, however, sunlight- laid on, es. stated above, at the rate of 1.5- calories per square centimetre per minute. _ A certain amount of these 1.5 calories is used by nature in running the earth, but hot'to mince words, we have to recognise the fact, so clearly demonstrated by Df. Spoehr, that “the processes of organic'nature are'exceedingly'inefficient and wasteful.” These are Dr. Spoehr’s own words, ;nd they leave no room for dotibt that nature, as we have long suspected, is’completely cut of date.

The methods- by which plants, etc., absorb and store up solar energy are crude in the extreme, and Dr. Spoehr, in the paper from which we have quoted, directs attention to the urgent need for gifted minds to take up the study of photosynthesis. Agriculturists, although -eternally growling at the weather, in reality make very, little, real use of the valuable sunlight falling gratis on their properies,- and, as Dr. Spoehr says, it is high time indeed that something was done about the matter.

We would like to have presented our readers this morning with Dr. Spoelir’s conclusions as to what ought to be done, but, unless, there are some pages missing from the learned volume before us, it would seem that Dr. Spoehr had held them over for a later issue of the “Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry.” Even if by chance Dr. Spoehr has’ not reached definite conclusions as to just what should be done, our readers we are sure will feel indebted to him for directing attention to the urgent need for doing something and doing it at once. An antiquarian has discovered why that farmer of an early day cut two holes through his barn door to accommodate the cats, a large hole for the big cat and a smaller for the little cat. In an old diary found in the attic was the explanation: This thrifty old settler gave In's reason that it was poor economy to allow so small a cat the use of so big a hole. 0 HAND UNSEEN. O Hand Unseen, be gentle and kind to me. Touch me in desperate hour When I forget thy guidance; though I be Impatient of thy power, Yet doth my heart elect To turn along the way thou dost direct To meet the ultimate end, Content on thee, thee only, to depend. —Edward Davison.