A SCIENTIFIC CANARD.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8315, 19 December 1906, Page 5

A SCIENTIFIC CANARD.

(To the Editor). Sir, —Some years ago the world was startled by the announcement that the vexed question of the inhabitability of a certain planet was finally settled by an eminent American electrician receiving a message from Mars. Notwithstanding that Professor Tesla at once gave the lie direct to the story, the Press, with some assistance from the stage, gave it a world-wide publicity. From the same country has originated another "tall yarn," alleging marvellous results to have been recently obtained by the United States Agricultural Department in connection with certain tests made with ground granite, the test in question proving that a ton of this substance at a cost of twelve shillings can be made to yield fertilising matter equal in quantity to what is now sold at £2O. Were there any truth in this story, it would certainly be deserving of the great attention now given it. For a discovery of such a nature would not fail to be fraught with enormous results to agriculture—resul|s that would effect a revolution in this industry of which its history would afford few parallels. But commonsense revolts against the idea of the alleged discovery. Any person of intelligence naturally asks how it comes that soils formed from the disentegrated particles of granite — like those of Scotland—are always distinguished for their extreme poverty; or, again, why news has not arrived of an enormous slump in the great European and American businesses which go in for the manufacture of agricultural fertilisers. That granite contains certain elements of fertility is a fact well known to the chemistry of agriculture. It is no new idea that felspar, which constitutes from thirty to sixty per cent, of granite, contains on an average from eight to ten per cent, of potash. But special chemical treatment is required before the potash of ground granite is equal to that which the agriculturist ordinarily employs, and when treated a ton of granite will be found to be nearer twenty shillings than twenty pounds in value.' The absurdity of the story is at once apparent when it is known that highly concentrated potfissic, fertilisers like murrate of potash containing as much as sixty per cent, of ~this ingredient are put on the market at from £l2 to £l4 per ton. Even if some American magician could convert ground granite into pure potash it would scarcely have the value ascribed to it if the present commercial basis of calculation be taken. If any further evidence be required to discredit the story, which you embodied in a paragraph in the "Topical Notes" of Monday's issue, it can be furnished in the fact that the Government of this country have been for some time offering a reward of £SOO to any person who can discover a rock containing manurial constituents in sufficient quantities to pay the cost of crushing. This reward still awaits a claimant. —I am, etc., J.C. I