THE MARCH OF SCIENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 312, 27 May 1911, Page 9

THE MARCH OF SCIENCE.

led by carnewe's dollars. "We are already able to visualise ten times as many new enterprises as the entire endowment will finance," an interviewer of President Robert S. Woodward, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, was told in reply to an inquiry as to how the additoinal endowment of .C' 2,000,000 promised the institution by the Laird of Skibo Castle would be expended. Now what.is it accomplishing for the good of mankind? At a point above the clouds and a mile above sea level the institution has established upon the summit <>l Mount Wilson, California, a "solar observatory," which is being equipped with the most ingenious instruments known to astronomy. Tn the presence of Mr. Carnegie, Professor (leorge F. Hale, the director, lately focussed upon the heavens a new reflecting telescope containing a mirror live feet in diameter. When the plate was developed the.ironmaster beheld upon it the image of sixty thousand stars not previously known to astronomy. With another large instrument, the Snow telescope, which lies flat upon the mountain top, and is covered by a long white shed, photographs of the sun's image are being daily token. With these and other pieces of apparatus i= being made a study of the efTects of sunspots upon the earth's atmosphere, which may make long range weather forecasting an exact science. Already it has been established by these instruments j:hat sunspots arc great electrical vortices moving across the face of the orb of day as cyclones move through our atmosphere, and that they are the cause of magnetic WORLD'S ORKATEST TELESCOPE. In France there is shortly .to he cast a great four and a half ton disc of glass, which will be transported to the observatory and there ground and polished into 11 mirror 100 inches (81-3 feet) in diameter. This will he mounted in the most colossal telescope known to man. It will bring (he moon's image within 50 miles of the earth. If aimed at Mars this wonderful instrument will probably magnify that mysterious planet's image to five times the diameter of Lowell's famous photographs. With such instruments the observatory will discover heavenly bodies never even suspected by astronomers. The stars visible in the heavens of the northern hemisphere have been catalogued by astronomers, hut those of the southern hemisphere have been long neglected. So to meet this want the institution has established at San Luis, Argentina, upon the east plateau of the Andes, an observatory where Professor Lewis Boss is at work completing a star catalogue for the entire space of the heavens. Ingenious apparatus for the study of our food's efl'eets upon our bodies has lately been installed in a ' nutrition laboratory" which the institution has erected in Boston. Here are to be found a number of airtight cells in which men and animals are shut up for various periods. Every grain of food passed to them through airtight valves is analysed before they eat it, and every bit of it which their bodies eliminate in perspiration, breath, or otherwise, is similarly weighed and analysed. Bv subtraction the exact amount of each ingredient retained by the body is learned, and the cells are equipped with apparatus by which the voluntary prisoners may exercise or perform other kinds of work whose effects upon nutrition arc to be determined. A bronze-yacht, the Carnegie, so built that its material will not disturb the magnetic laboratory which it carries on board, has been despatched by th# institution upon a three-year criiise around the world. By measuring the magnetic influences in various areas of the ocean where the mariner's needle is disturbed, this unique ship is correcting the charts by which vessels are guided. But no apparatus supplied by tile Carnegie millions is more wonderful than the great electric arc furnaces and hydraulic compressors by which Dr. Arthur L. Day, director of the institution's geographical laboratory at Washington, generates temperatures of 7000 degrees F. and pressures of 100,0001b to the square inch in order to counterfeit the rocks of earth. Using the purest raw materials he manufactures rocks at will, and thus learns how nature performed the same operation. From this work a sounder estimate of the earth's age is expected to result, but more practical results are also being obtained, as, for example, the determination for the first time of an exact formula for making Portland cement from materials found in different parts of the world—a problem which for years has,vexed engineers. None of the great workshops maintained by the institution is more interesting than the laboratory of experimental evolution at Cold Spring Harbor. Long Island. Here men and animals are being studied for the purpose of discovering the laws of evolution and heredity. And when these laws are known man can control the process, different creatures being modified to meet our requirements of beauty, food, materials, and power.

The American correspondent, of the London Times says that a new and curious turn has been given this winter to the negro problem. In various northern cities where there are many prosperous negroes, and where there are no traditions such as exist in the South to regulate the race question, a controversy has arisen over the holding of real estate. As negroes prosper they naturallv like to acquire dwellings in tne better parts of the cities. This the whites resent. They assert that quarters in which negro flat building* or residences are erected tend to degenerate. The. trouble is most acute in Baltimore. An ordinance is apparently on the point of being passed by the City Council segregates the negroes into colonies reserved for people of color. In New York the white residents and property owners of at least one district have combined to exclude negroes from their neighborhoods.

STARVATION AND PLAGUE. DJSSWiUATJi SITUATION LN CHINA. CANNU'JJALISM AND CIULDSALK COMMON. Ju the provinces of Kiaugsu and Anhetii, (.'liiiui, the spectre of famine. hovers over between 2,."il)ll,UOO and :j,000,0011 people. Between 00,000 and 101),000 men, women, and children are encamped outside the wails of ilit; city of Nanking in improvised shelters, whieii are little better than burrows, or under the" open sky, crying for food or waiting upathetically for death to overtake them. Down from the north llie other spectre of plague is slowly making its way. From Harbin it has followed tlie line of railway to Dalin or t'ort Arthur. It lias crossed the entrance of the Cult' of I'efliili and made its appearance in Shanone hundred and lil'ty miles of the valley of the lluai river. Jl it gains a foothold in that region, it i- believed that the number of deaLhs, which now mounts into the thousands daily from ninrvaiion and exposure will be increased nianyfold, and the whole stretch of low-lying country to the north of Nanking will be laid waste. Every day the horror of the situation is growing, according to reports received .at the Slate Department in Washington from consular ollicers in touch with the missionaries, who, for the most part, are directing the work of relief. The people throughout the valley, as well as the refugees who have gathered .around the towns, and cities of the region, have reached the point at which the scant stores of grain and food have entirely disappeared. Hundreds of thousands are entirely dependent upon distribution .of food 10 keep themselves alive until the winter is over and the hind which was inundated by the Hoods begins to yield again. The supplies contributed by the United States and other foreign countries and the Government itself are sufficient to tide over only a small portion of the famine siill'erers. Hundreds of thousands who cannot obtain the rice gruel, which is distributed as extensively as the meagre stores will permit, subsist as best they can on bark and weeds and by digging into the frozen earth for roots and herbs. Many have sold all but the merest scraps of their clothing to buy food, and are unable, in their emaciated condition, to withstand the rigor of the winter, in many cases it is doubtful in which form death will come, whether by starvation or freezing. THE INROADS OF Pl.AC('[■:. In the meantime the plague, in its pneumonic form, in which it will undoubtedly spread with great rapidity through the famine camps, in which thousands are huddled together, is drawing nearer. The fear of epidemic also lies in the almost inevitable outbreak of famine fever, a- loathsome disease which manifests itself in eruptions of the -.kin and the swelling of the limbs, and is almost always fatal. With little vitality left, the people would be swept away by the scourge. The stronger among the survivors, who gather in the camps about the cities, resorting to extreme measures to maintain their existence, have adopted the plan of organising bunds to loot the shops, particularly in Nanking. Unusual precautious are taken to prevent them entering the walled towns, but they elude the vigilance of the authorities by going in at different gates singly or in small groups, which excite no suspicion, gathering later at an appointed meetingplace. The plundering was stopped for a time, but there is fear of fresh outbreaks. The weaker, both in the famine eamps and throughout the valley, in some instances have taken to cannibalism, and eat the bodies of the dead, [n the conntry region nearly all domestic animals have disappeared. Dogs, cats, and donkeys have either been sold or eaten. The sale of girls and women into slavery has become common, but even this affords little relief, as there is no market. Where any offer to purchase is made the price is so low that the proceeds of the bargaining are of little avail with food as high as it is. KKiURES THAT TELL A TALE. According to one report, out of less than SO,OOO families in n single "lmien," a. county town, 40.200 were without a | bushel of grain, an ox or a donkey. Iw the counties of Nanhsuchow and .Menachen alone 750,000 people receive aid. Most of the people, say this authority, die at home, being too weak to go into the 'field and dig when they become exhausted. The Side of girls between the ages of twelve and eighteen is common. Men oilier their wives for sale, but there is no market for tlieni. Under the present conditions such sales are looked upon as justifiable. The purchasers, instead of being regarded with hostility or contempt, are acclaimed as benelactoi's. Children are sold for a few bits of cash or given away to save them from starvation. The following incident., related by one of the Chinese gentry to the American consul in Nanking, illustrates the general condition in the stricken region, hi one hut lived a family of eight—the parents, two sons, and their wives and two children. The food supply having become exhausted and every available article of value sold, the wife of the elder son oll'ered herself for sale In order that something to eat might be obtained for the others, hut the wife of the younger sou interposed. "She has children and T have none," she said. ''She is needed more than J.'' Neither was successful in carrying out the design. Some days later the entire family was found dead. Iwerv moment it is feared that an epidemic will break out among the .>O,OOO or 100.000 people who are encamped outside the walls of Nanking. Many of them are sleeping on the ground in several inches of mud and water, and their condition is becoming worse each day. THE DEADLY PNEUMONIC. The plague, which has been at its worst at Harbin, but. appears io be alwting there as it moves southward, will ; probably persist until summer comes and the people live more in the open air. The pneumonic plague is even more deadly than the bubonic form. Ficquently the death rate of siill'erers is , 100 per cent., that is. all who take the ' disease die of it. The seizure is frightfully sudden, and death follows usually in six or seven hours. A >tory comes to tis from Chefoo that shows the awful swiftness of the disease. "A servant in the house of ail English trade-man asked leave to go home for ( the night, as one of his family was ailing. The master let him go. but he did not. return. In a day or two the merchant sent to impure for him. He learned that the man was dead from the plague. . His wife, hi- mother, his brother and his brother'- two wives had all died with him. As the servant, had not come back' the master's household was not infected." Inoculation has been tried as a pre- 1 ventive of the bubonic plague, and its success has been very doubtful. Asminst the pneumonic form it is practically useless. MARTYRS IN THE CAUSE OF HUMANITY. When the present epidemic broke out the Chinese Government called on Dr. ■

.Uosny, a French bacteriologist, of the Tientsin Medical School, to take part in the fight He hurried to Harbin and threw himself into the work, which was largely in the hands of American and British phjpicians. He luid been inoculated, and he took all possible precautions against the infection. One evening, when lie had been attend- ' iug plague patients in the relief hospital, ' lie dropped into a doze after dinner. ' When lie awoke he suddenly recognised > tne symptoms of the plague appearing ' in himself, lie dressed and hurried to 1 the Russian isolation hospital. He would " not even allow the doctors to take his 1 temperature, for fear of infecting the " thermometer. He knew that his wife would hurry to him if she know of his ' danger, and asked that =lie should not 1 be notilied until after his death. Tile ' i! icliiiv, kept liitn alive for two days, ' and then he died. Every mau who is in tile Held knows that he is likely to meet tile same end by one of the most horrible diseases that is known.. Vet they take it as part L of their ordinary duty. Twelve days after Dr. Mesny's death they lost another colleague, Dr. Arthur F. Jackson, a missionary of the United Free Church of Scotland, a Cambridge University man I and a highly trained physician. He was at .Mukden supervising the work of quar- , antmo of the railway and the fumigatI ing of the mails, He was attacked afld , died within a few hours. ; THE SUFFERING OF THk VOI'NG. The news from the famine country is even more revolting to a foreigner than , the horrors of the plague. There hun- , dreds go barefooted and almost uaked in the cruel winter weather. The sale of ' children into slavery is not uncommon in ; famines, but in the present one the : market has been so glutted that there is \ no demand for them. Ordinarily, a boy sold for adoption to a fairly well-to-do family will bring £4, while a girl is of , small value. The Chinese way of showing that a thing is for sale is to fasten a straw to i it. Our missionaries in the stricken provinces frequently see children playing in the streets with straws stuck in their hair. One little boy, whose clothes had I been sold for food, was buried up to his neck one night in a waggon load of manure to keep him from freezing. Next day his father sold him for a eattie of .bread. A eattie is a pound and a third. Slavery is technically forbidden by the Imperial law, but it is very widely practised notwithstanding. While I was in China I rescued three slave children at different times. One had been stolen and sold to a wandering theatrical troupe. Another was taken from his widowed mother, and sold to a young bride, who believed that she was about to bear a daughter and wanted to have a husband ready for her. Her child proved to be a son, and she was glad to be rid of her bargain. When children cannot be sold or given away, as at present,, still more horrible things happen. It is known that parents have eaten their own children under the stress of Such cases have been reported from the Anhuei district On the point of starvation children are nearly Always abandoned and left to die by the roadside. LAWLESSNESS ADDS ADDITIONAL HORRORS. The common sights and sounds of the famine district are only part of the horror that hangs over the country. There is always more or less brigattdage in China, and the famine has driven 'hundreds of starving men into a life of robbery. It is a capital crime to steal a yard of cloth, so that a man w,lio ia committing a robbery finds it safer to kill his victim. The robbers roam through the famine provinces sacking houses, killing .whole families for their rice and money, and 'burning buildings to extort blackmail. One robber band, said to have five hundred members, raided the walled town of Kunshan, not fifty miles from Shanghai. They broke open the store and ransacked private houses, killing eleven of the inhabitants during the two days that they held the town. Then they moved to a smaller village about five miles away, carrying off a small caravan of plunder and eight of the wealthier citizens to be held for ransom. The townsmen were frantic with rage. They went in pursuit, arousing the countryside as they went.. They surrounded tli'e bamlits'in the village with a mob of two thousand men, armed, some with hoes and sickles, some with swords.and a few with revolvers arid rifles. They barricaded the village gates and set the houses on lire. The bandits broke through the barricade and appeared with five of their hostages, vowing that, they would kill them unless their band was allowed to escape. The crowd surged forward and drove them back through the gates. Tli.» prison >rs were cut to pieces, and their arms, legs and heads were thrown over the wall one bv one. The three other hostages were lied to stakes beside the burning buildings. Except for two of the robbers, who made a dash and were shot, down, the whole band was burned to death in the village. \ separate famine, in the province of lTu-Peh, has been quite as severe, though of not so great extent, as that in the ha-in of the Anhuei. Here even the work of relief, always on the hands of the missionaries. has brought on its share of horror. (A cable message last week stated that the Chinese Government officially notify tliat the plague epidemic has ended.)

Farming lias been a pretty pood business for some littlo time. An old Roman officer wlio lived fifty years B.C. once wrote: "Of all professions farming makes the brilvest men the sturdiest soldier.', niwl of nil sources of sain is the unrest, the most natural, and the least invidious. and those who are busy with it have the fewest bad thoughts.* Through 150 years of careful breeding Southdown sheep have been noted for hardiness, a high standard of wool and mutton, and early maturity. Considering the amount of capital invested, if well cured for, there is no animal on t.ho farm that will bring in so good a, return as the brood sow. An over-supply of fat in aiiimlas at an immature nge means that the generative orirans have been prevented from making full and perfect development. Fruit to the value of nearly £10,000,000 sterling is consumed in England every year, Manure is necessary for the land so as to maintain its productiveness and increase its yield: vet we believe that many farmers hardly realise the benefits that accrue to thorough tillage and clean farmintr, which arc of vital importance in days of fierce competition and rivalry. Latienshier has more trade unions tlinn any other county. Honghly speaking, it costs two million pounds to elect a new Parliament. According to a Birmingham inventor, we shall soon have wireless telephony on trains, A sea-aeroplane—a machine that can be used to fly or float—has been launched at East Cowed. < < . - •