SCIENCE SIFTINGS

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLIX, Issue 40, 12 October 1922, Page 46

SCIENCE SIFTINGS

jyy_J ' By “VOLT"

V Nature’s Sunshade. '. ' / ;: The first thing with which your friends greet you when you return from the seaside is a remark about the healthy tan of your complexion. , ' : '' The dark color that appears on your/face after a little while by the sea is simply Nature’s sunshade. The skin is very delicate, as you may find to your' cost if you ; lie about on the sands on a hot day after bathing. Those who have spent most of their time indoors during the year go away for their holidays with skins that are unprotected because they are nearly white. If the skin, remained this color it would be scorched by the rays of the sun. , . . . The brown shade that appears as soon as the skin is exposed to the strong light acts as a kind of filter, straining out the harmful rays which, if unchecked, would work havoc. ' \ * Sometimes the brown appears mainly in little patches these are <the freckles which the seaside girl dreads to see appearing on her nose. She does not realise that Nature is merely doing her best to prevent that nose from : being scorched and blistered by the sun. " Hotels on Wheels. The largest and most powerful railway engine ever used in the British Isles has just been introduced by the Great Northern Railway Company. The new locomotive was built to the design of Mr. Gresley, the company’s engimjpr. It has a total heating surface of 3,455 square feet, or nearly 1,000 square feet more than that of the company’s next biggest engine. The engine and tender together weigh one hundred and fifty, tons; the combined vehicles can carry eight ton s of coal, five thousand gallons of water, and can haul a load of six hundred tons at fifty-five miles an hour. -This mammoth locomotive will be used to draw the “Flying Scotsman,” the express that has left London for Scotland at ten o’clock every morning for more than sixty years. ' ' . './. ■. ~ . The same company, have also built for .their Scottish’ service some new sleeping-cars which are the last word in travelling luxury. They - have a patent device for preventing rocking. .In addition,Ahere are specially constructed beds, hot and cold water, semi-indirect lights ■which can be dimmed for use as night-lights, and switches controlling the lights, fans, heating ventilator, and bell, which can all be operated by the passenger from his bed. Invading Hosts of Insects. Though the locusts found near London recently caused some alarm (says Tit-Bits), they are by no means the first seen in this country, and French scientists, who predicted not long ago that one of the plagues of Egypt would be added to our other post-war troubles, are not likely to be able to say, “We told you so.” In semi-tropical countries, and even in parts of the Continent, the appearance of a couple of locusts may be of much graver import, since they may prove to be the advance guard of an array of countless millions. / • A pair of the pests were found at Port, St. Louis, near Marseilles, in 1817. Three years later the whole district • was invaded by the voracious insects, and the inhabitants,of more than twenty communes abandoned their farms, . which had been stripped, bare. Trees, vegetables, grassall "had gone. Usually, however, locusts,.-come like thieves in the night, and it would be thus that they would descend / upon us if they paid us a visit at all. ■ : • A long, dark cloud is seen low on the horizon. Nearer’, and. nearer it comes, and louder .and louder' grows an " ominous sound—-a sound which the Wise ■ Man of ■ the Bible compared to that of “chariots of many_horses . running into battle. Soon the. cloud is overhead, and a ■ moment/ later . the air is ’alive with buzzing, whirring insects,; which-/ dash into people’s faces, fill their houses,. perish by myriads in ' water troughs, and - settle on everything. /.- ; Birds by the thousand dart among them, for they;/ have been ' followed from afar by flocks of bee-eaters and/' locust-eaters, which in'' turn have been pursued Jby hawks, kites, and falcons. . But their ' natural , enemies do : not appear to diminish their numbers.'' ' * ‘ V, “