IRON RUST.

Hokitika Guardian, 14 January 1922, Page 4

IRON RUST.

•ifnM ... ITS VALUE TO THE WOULD

Every year thousands el L>ins, v>vearyiug of tlieir endless jobs of clutching madly at unsewed seams, .or Iran tic efforts to join independent waists and shirts, decide lo end' it'all, and take a final,dive into oblivion. .What beeo.mes of all the pins ? ;\Viiat, indeed,, becomes of all. the rails, the barbed wire fences, ships, and cars, and .crumpled up masiiines for, which the" junk man ’ fir(ds ’no prises?. Thec^d' of all iron is the same.

" " Since the days of .Tnbal-cain, man has been busily at'.work trying to solve the' problem. ' This instructor ot workcfs in iroh and r copper gamed notice in the T3ook o'f'Genesis. " ' EveteVyear tlic blast furnaces of the i, woriii release 72,000,000 tons at iron "‘from its'oxide's, and every year abou u a miarteP of'that amount rctui ns to iJ its'original'’ form'', .' jfust'as the oxygen ‘ we iifcatiie from the air o nrnges m •<>.i lungs be expelled as carbonic add gas, so a chemical reaction takes pare whenever iron meets with moist air, "and ifiougli this union goes by various ’cognomens in the mineralog.cal and chemical worlds, in plain language it is callecl iron rust, and to prevent that ' veactipn has been man’s efforts since lie first (discovered iron. GltEEN ! LEA\tfes ANDRET> CHEEK. pht a pin m a glass and let it lie for .rlavs' and weeks and note the gradual ci’iange.to a Oddish-brown powder'iron rust, on 'wlii«»e life and colour iii nature Is dependent; flic most ...dispensable of all kno'.yn spb^ta, ices, except the air we breathe and the water \ve drink." The tints. in our r,ocks and soil', the. gree» in thc >nyes,'the colour of the (lowers we owe, to the presence of iron; even the red m our blood,' which we improve by the iron foods, which, n turn, « "up*from We'iron in the so.l-a.,d who niav'say how ..much of tbis is sprinkled over'' our ; hrpad>nd. by . myriads of scattered pins? "Nature is a wise woman to King this needed‘ iron"into';Tier' too highly civilised, localities where natural ore cannot exist by . the disintegration mode.n achievements—■ machinery, tools, and

1 The chlorophyll of the leaves and the haemoglobin of the ’ blood arc very similar in constitution, for though the leaf green contains magnesium in place ’of iron, the latter is necessary to its formation. A plant grows pale am sickly if its soil is short of non. bmp of iron in the blood brings pallor to the cheeks', and if the amount grows too small, the disease germs that nre always attacking us arc no longer destroyed, but multiply without encck, and we billow the way of the A noted chemist, Dr. Ed win E. son, has even suggested that a < h< mu a laboratory attached to tic courtroom would give more info.-i.atio:i of lalue than some of the evidence now o tained. , .

“An excess or a deficiency of iron u

the body is liable to result i<> criminality,” says he, “and a chemical system of morals might he developed on this basis. Among the ferruginous sms would be placed murder, violence and licentiousness. 'Among the non-lon uginous, cowardice, sloth, and lying. The virtues could ,of course, he similarly classified. According to tins ethical criterion the normal man would be defined as one whose conduct is bettor than we should expect from the percentage of iron in his blood. IRON WHITE AT FIRST. It is a good thing for our sense of sight that iron rust is red, not white, like zinc and'aluminium, metals much like iron in chemical properties. Otherwise leaves and flowers would always be'white, ’ arid men and women like walking corpses.