NEWS BY MAIL.

Hokitika Guardian, 20 September 1926, Page 1

NEWS BY MAIL.

THE MOON MADE OF ICE! IS IT MELTING? LONDON, July ’2l. Professor Follies, an astronomer of authority and imagination, lias put forward a startling theory to explain the strange phenomena of the moon. “Three things," lie Says, “strike the eye in the first look through a telescope at the full moon—the great surfaces white as snow, the black holt like clean ice, and the streaks like icecracks. The whole of the white regions are broken up and disturbed, and covered with lunar craters. . . . The most common features of these eratei s are the flat floor, level with the general surface of the moon, the ring of crags enclosing it, and a hill or cone rising out from the very centre of Hie floor.” A BALL OF SNOW. In his fascinating hook, published to-day (“The Wonder and Glory of the Stars,” Ernest Bonn, 8s 6d);. which is written with a vigour and an absence of technicalities that will attract a wide public, he suggests that the moon may he in very fact a ball of snow and ic6 - with a small rocky core. The theory that the craters have boon formed by meteorites “ fails entirely. It does not explain “ the white streaks that radiate from Tyche,(oneof the craters) across the moon,” which , “ must hold the key of the problem.” • But if the moon was of ice and snow everything would he explained. “ Travellers in India- who have seen the full moon rising over the snow-clad , Himalaya, ranges have said that the equality of whiteness left them in doubt for a moment whether the moon wore not a part of the snow mountain ; range.’’ _ Moreover, experiments in the Highlands with snow have shown that “ very typo of lunar crater can bo reproduced ” by dropping snowballs on snow. lunar craters. Supposing the moon were composed of water with a. small rock core, and subjected to such terrific cold as prevails iii tlio lunar atmosphere, “ the whole surface would become covered with a shell of iec. This shell would gradually thicken to a depth of 100 miles or more. "Water expands m freezing. If inside the shell a new layer of ice is added by freezing, it expands. This must either burst tbe shell or compress tlio remaining water. Finally the accumulating waterpressure becomes insupportable. Then comes the cataclysm. The ice cover gives awav at its weakest point. 1 happened to fie where now we have the crater Tycho." Enormous masses of water aie s up “thousands of miles to the sky, freezing instantly into objects which “vary'"from the size of a raindrop to the size of a mountain.” and then fnf back on a surface that is covered with snow from the smaller fragments of this ejected water. 'Dins the lunar craters may l.e-'formed. • The theory fils the farts. But if the moon is of snow and ice, may it no melt ? the reader will ask. ft may >e melting with no apparent visible result: , ... " Tn a rare atmosphere (as on tae Himalayas) snow does not melt into water but evaporates in' vapour as camphor does. Then this must oe redeposited on the mountains of the moon, as it is on tbe fnov pejs o the Alns. But. most important- the disappearance of any mass could not lie detected by our vision unless the mass that was melted had a diameter of many miles. THOUSANDS DUPED. BERLIN, July 20. V man, named Arthur Kell has been arrested for swindling tbe Berlin public on a grand scale. From magnificent offices with 2(_ rooms in the chief business street of the eity and from 16 branch offices he sent out circulars stating that hv a careful system of betting on French races he could guarantee his clients gigantic profits, amounting to even 340 per cent., in ten days. . Thousands of dupes paid in their - money for the “Kiel Saving System.” Stamps bearing the head of Arthur Kell . were sold at 6d- apiece and cards with places for affixing the stamps were issued. Ten per cent- a week was pro-

miser] on the sum represented by the stamps on the cards. Not a single investor received a penny. To run the business’Kell employed 200 clerks, telephonists and messengers, all of whom /lad to deposit sums ranging from £1 to£s. They have lost their money am;! so have the lessors of the offices and the firms who supplied the furniture. It is stated that Kiel had £5 in his pocket when he started his scheme for extracting money from the -pockets of gullible Berliners.