Page 11 Advertisements Column 3

Taranaki Daily News, 23 April 1921, Page 11

CLEMENT L. WRAGGE, F.R.G.S., F.R.Met.S.C.C., F.R.C.1., ETC,

SOME BEMINISCENCES OF AN EVENTFUL LIFE. I am an “onjy child,” born at Stourbridge, England, in 1852, lost both parents in infancy, and was nutured by a beloved grandmother at the family home at Oakamoor, in the romantic and lovely C’hurnet Valley, North Staffordshire. Granny taught me the first principles of Astronomy, Geography, and the natural Sciences; and being evidently born that way, long before I was twelve I revelled in the stars and wondered if the Jewish God was really The God of an endless Universe. As .to Geography, no boy could touch me, and Granny expounded the mysteries of the “weather glass.” I rejoiced in Nature; and the surroundings of the Crystal Palace, near where I went to school, fostered my tastes. Evolution progressed! I finished classics with the Vicar of Launceston, romantic Cornwall compelling a love of Nature still more. I studied navigation at Janet Taylor’s Nautical Academy in London, and went to sea for experience. I have travelled in all the six divisions of the world. I founded the Wragge Museum of Ethnography, Geology, and Natural History at Stafford, England, and gave it to the country. Worked three meteorological stations in North Staffordshire, and then founded the /Ben Nevis Qbservatory, climbing the mountain 4406 feet daily in all weathers. This got me the Gold Medal. I joined the South Australian Survey and became devoted to science with physical astronomy and meteorlogy as very special lines, and started the Torrens Observatory, Adelaide, and another on Mount Lofty, S.A., and later, on Mount Wellington, in Tasmania. Then I became Government Meteorologist of Queensland, and travelled in duty all over that State. I attended International Conferences and inaugurated the Observatories in the French Colony of New : Caledonia, also the famous Observatory on top of Mount Kosciusko, in New South Wales. One of my main works , was the issue of weather forecasts for All. Australia. Since 1903 my beloved sciences have maintained me, and given me a home in God’s Own Country. All that time 1 have lectured on the marvels of the Universe, in England, also all over India, Ceylon, Australia, Fiji/ Tahiti, Tonga, and New Zealand, doing all I could to lift mankind to a nobler conception of God and what the Eternal Universe really means. Radium is one of my very special subjects, and I have splendid specimens. I have published the “Romance of the South Seas” and other works. In constitution I am strong and wiry as a steel rope, but in South Australia a few years ago I suffered temporarily from an awful backache and kidney | trouble. Something said “Try Doan’s Pills.” I did so, with the result that in a little while I was cured, and have not been bothered with the agony since. This is a simple fact. ’ I care not what the medicine is composed of. suffice it to say that it is a boon to mankind, and I very cordially and conscientiously recommend it. And now in my 6!)th year J have my own Weather Bureau, which serves all Australasia, and take delight in working with iron bar, pick, and shovel, in my beautiful tropical gardens, which I made out of a desert in my new home at “Waiata,” Birkenhead, Auckland, N.Z., and which are open to everybody. So much for “Doan,” whoever he may be, and my best thanks to him.—O.

The first requisite in life is that we shall be able to earn a living. For our own good we must be able to produce as much or more than we consume, and to make two grains grow where there was only a grouch before. Reciprocity, co-operation, mutuality, are the three big words. No man is a safe person whose time is not employed in some useful daily occupation where others as well as himself are the gainers. Can you earn a living? Also do you?