FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 681, 5 June 1929, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN,” THE NEW STYLE The Minister of Education, the Hon. H. Atinore, proposes to improve the architectural standard of New Zealand schools. Ah, well, I recoiled “the dear old school ” That stood four-square in unpretentious shape, My “Alma Mater/* where the endless spool Of learning spun, while dullards watched agape. Now to relieve the academic lecture Enter the age of brighter architecture. Italian renaissance or maybe A touch of Gothic brightens the facade. Of modern schools, while Romanesques make free, In flowing regularity arrayed. This school is Florentine, and Spanish Mission As one to ten, is mixed with nice precision. Aesthetic notions such as Atinore boasts Are worth implanting in the breasts of men , Well they might win approval from the ghosts Of Jones (called Inigo) and even Wren. Picture a teacher, pedagogic, solemn, Fluting in glory by a fluted column. T. TOHEROA. THESE FLAPPERS Perhaps inspired by the success of women at the British elections, a number of women have besieged Sir Douglas Mawson with applications to accompany his party to the South Pole. The explorer has refused them, rather churlishly it seems; for after all, people successful at one poll might quite easily make a lot of difference to another. What could he more inviting than a home-like atmosphere in the Bay of Whales? PIPING DAYS The pre-eminence of the bagpipes as instruments suited to public "welcomes is acknowledged by all. Hence it was not a grim jest -which led pipers to congregate outside the Grand Hotel last evening. The enthusiasm of the McAtmores and McTaverners was intense. Soon the skirling took on a warmer note, the chieftain came out from dinner (for the haggis was all finished), and the triumphal procession formed up. Thus in Caledonian splendour he was escorted to the Town Hall. No, not Sir Harry Lauder; Sir Joseph McWard. WILLING COWS ‘.‘Ah, he was, a willing cow.” Many a true word spoken in jest. Perhaps an advertiser iin a morning contemporary took this colloquial tribute too seriously, for he seeks a family with “50 or 60 cows willing to work farm on a half-share; basis.” The idea of profit-sharing among cows, or of breeding an animal capable of, say, milking itself and 'taking the cream to the factory, is one that will no doubt warmly appeal to Waikato farmers. It is a suggestion that the Jersey Breeders* Association might well take in hand. * * * EO-YPT’S} TREASURE Once again an effort is to be made to recover the fabulous treasure that went down with the liner Egypt in the Bay of Biscay in 1922. Special diving-suits constructed to resist the immense pressures at great depths will be worn by specially-chosen Italian divers. In spite of ingenious appliances, efforts like this reduce themselves in the end to a question of man-power and human endurance, and the men who go down after the treasure gamble with the chance of physical infirmities for life. Salvage work Is now ai specialised occupation commanding its own histories and its own technical training schools. The raising of the sunken American submarine S 4 is one of the greatest feats ever achieved. Months were spent on the job before the vessel qould be raised to the surface and towed to the base at New York. There, as always, it was the divers who did the heaviest work, and one of them had the fearful experience of having the submarine roll oyer on him while he was carrying a chain under her hows. To escape he had to burrow through the ooze on the sea-floor. The salvaging of scuttled German ships at Scapa Flow was another wonderful achievement. There is no end to the Ingenuity of the salvage brigade. At Folkestone in 1918 a ship that had sunk alongside the pier was raised with the aid of railway engines. In the way of treasure hunts the most romantic is that conducted in quest of the treasure from the Almirante de Florencia, the Spanish galleon that foundered 80 yards off-shire in Tobermory Bay, Scotland, in 1588. The depth was 66 feet, hut in the course of centuries a crust of clay formed over the top of the ship. In 1912, after repeated attempts to reach the wreck had been made, a Colonel Foss Introduced powerful hydraulic jets, and recovered silver and gold goblets. He spent thousands of pounds, but did not succeed in reaching the bulk of the treasure, estimated to be worth half a million,