STILL GREEN

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 511, 14 November 1928, Page 7

STILL GREEN

AN ANCIENT LAUREL WREATH Laurel wreaths should be immortal, and it is appropriate that a laurel wreath recovered from an Etruscan tomb over 2,000 years old should still be green. Who its hero was we cannot tell. His skeleton was wrapped in veils of white and blue. There were leather objects whose purpose is unknown, ornamented with geometrical designs, purses containing glass beads, belts with copper clasps and buckles, and the laurel wreath, but no name.

The tomb is one of a great number at Vulci, in Tuscany, whose existence was first discovered a hundred years ago. The wife of Napoleon’s brother Lucien was watching a yoke of oxen ploughing in a field when they suddenly disappeared, and it was found they had broken through into an Etruscan tomb. Over 6,000 tombs were opened in the next quarter of a century, their contents being distributed over Europe, after which the tombs were filled up. Now, in celebration of the centenary, new excavations have been undertaken. THE LEAP OF A FLYING-FISH A flying-fish, which, by a supreme effort made a succesful landing on the deck of the Aquitania, has won for itself a place in the annals of natural history. For a number of years the dispute raged as to whether a flying-fish was a mere glider which propelled itself out of the water with a rush and then skimmed through the air on the planes of its wings, or whether it was a true heavier-than-air machine which sustained itself by the beating of these wings like a dragon-fly or a helicopter.

The Aquitania’s flying-fish has answered the question. The deck was 40ft above the water-line, and no rush out of the water, whatever the force of the leap, could lift a flying-fish so high as that if it had to depend merely on floating on its wings, without using them to lift itself higher. Those who have believed that the wings do move, though their movement is so rapid as to be very hard to perceive, are now justified, and this flying-fish, which was the Icarus of its kind, should enjoy a sort of immortality for its effort. A GOOD GAME Here is al game that will test your skill. Stand a washing-basin on the floor or in the middle of a. table, and make a mark a few feet away from which to throw. The object of each player is to make a soft rubber ball bounce just in front of the basin and then drop into it. To ‘ accomplish this, the ball will need to be tossed gently and with considerable judgment. A good way of scoring would be to let each player have three innings of three shots each, scoring five marks every time he lands the ball in the basin. Whoever scores most marks wins the game.