RANDOM READINGS.

Franklin Times, Volume 9, Issue 691, 9 December 1921, Page 6

RANDOM READINGS.

Floating Isianus. The imagination of man has always been impressed by floating islands. In ancient times such islands were regarded with superstitious reverence; and the romantic story of Delos—the natal isle of Apollo and Artemis—is but one of many cases recorded in classical literature of vagrant islands in the sea. Pliny says that in the lake of Vadimonis ' there is a dark weed which is never seen in the same place for a day and a night together; and he describes the islands called Calaminae (i.e., “made of reeds”), in Lydia, which were not only driven by the wind, but could be pushed about from place to place with poles. Floating gardens—some natural and some artificial —have flourished in many parts of the .world from early times. They are particularly advantageous in regions exposed to floods, where a garden planted on terra firma would be ruined by these occurrences, while the floating garden is undisturbed by the rise of the waters. The famous floating gardens of Cashmere are a case in point.

The lake of Xochimilco, near the city of Mexico, is nearly covered with floating gardens, called chinamnas, on which are raised vegetables and flowers for the city markets. They are formed of floating masses of water-plants, covered with soil, and secured by poplar stakes. The latter take root and surround the islands with living hedges.

Among the largest of natural floating islands are those formed by tangled masses or trees and brushwood carried down hv great rivers. Where a mat of vegetation borders the seashore the action of waves sometimes breaks off large islands. This was probab.lv the origin of a remarkable floating island which was first seen in the Atlantic Ocean, about 400 miles east of the New Jersey coast, in July, 1892. Its aiea was about 9,000 square feet, and it bore trees 30ft. in height. When again seen in the fallowing Septembw It bad travelled over 1,000 miles.