GENERAL NEWS.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 July 1921, Page 10

GENERAL NEWS.

POWER FROM THE WIND. Many attempts have been made to solve the problem of efficiently utilising the wind to generate electricity. The difficulties arise from the extreme variations in the force of the wind and from the liability, even in windy regions, to periods of calm during which no power can be obtained. These conditions suggest that wind power should be used on.y as an auxiliary to some other source of energy, such as the burning of coal or oil. Hitherto the usual plan has been to use a large slow-speed windmill to drive a dynamo at a high speed through gearing—a rather wasteful arrangement. During the war, however, there was in great Britain a remarkable development in the design and construction of small highspeed dynamos on aeroplanes. These dynamos were direct-coupled to propellers, or rather “impellers” driven by the wind created by the. aeroplane in flight. A British firm has devised a scheme for fitting three or more of these winddynamos on the swivelling top of a vertical pole; with a vane to keep them in position against the wind. Each equipment gives GO watts, and the arrangement forms a cheap and efficient auxiliary to the ordinary country house lighting installation. The energy produced is, of course, stored in accumulators in the usual way. THE USE OF POISON GAS. As has been officially admitted, research in the use of poison gas is being continued by the British military authorities. The employment of this weapon in warfare is defended, in an article l in the Chemical Age, by Sir William Pope, Professor of Chemistry in the University of Cambridge, and' President of the Society of Chemical Industry. In a closely-reasoned article, he declared that “poison gas is far less fatal and far less cruel than any other instrument of war.” His contention is that poison gas is responsible for many casualties and few deaths, and that it is therefore a merciful agent. “Among the ‘jnustard gas’ casualties the deaths were less than 2 per cent., and when death did not ensue complete recovery generally ultimately resulted. . Other materials of chemical warfare in use at the armistice do not kill at all; they produce casualties, which, after six weeks in hospital, are discharged practically without permanent hurt.” Against this argument that the Use of poison gas teflds to hasten the issue by temporarily dis* abling but not destroying the armies, Sir William Pope says by preventive medicine vast armies were kept fit to go On fighting, while epidemic diseases were disseminated among the civil population. “We see at the present moment,” he remarks, ••large tracts of Europe and Asia famine-stricken, with a mortality of thousands per day, as the direct result of the efficiency of preventive medicine in keeping the whole man-power of a great part of the world under arms for so long a period. In fact, for each soldier kept in the field by the army mediants died, and hosts more will die.” cal services, ten or twenty non-edmbat-

“FOR. EVER ENGLAND.” There are 3500 British military cemeteries in France and Flanders, varying from little burying places sheltering 40 graves to the vast base cemeteries of 15,000 at PoelcapeUe and 11,000 at Poperinghe. Says a correspondent of the London Times:—“....We come suddenly upon this beautiful graveyard. There is a hush upon it like the quietude that lies upon the Residency Garden at Lucknow. Forceville is a cemetery of some 300 graves—small in comparison with the huge graveyards marking the sites of base hospitals and casualty clearing stations. But it is, indeed, a finished and a magnificent monument. Its white headstones, each bearing a. soldier’s name, his regimental badge and his date of death, stand in rows of plants linked by pathways smooth as an English lawn. Wallflowers, narcissi, forget-me-nots. pansies abound —one is dumb [before the sweetness of it all. Gunners and Sappers, Tnnisfcillings and Dorset?, men who stumbled through muddy lakes to attack at Serre, and men who perislu ed in the Y-ravine, lie side by side eternally. Their tombs face a tall white Gross of Sacrifice with a bronze sword 'Jain upon its face, and above their heads, backed by rising moorland and flanked by the dark firs of an old French communal burial-place, an altar-like Stone of Remembrance bears the inscript ion ‘Their Name Liveth for Evermore.’ I This little sanctuary at Forceville re-'-ujeseuta the finished achievement of the