OCR Text |
Show . This Week by ARTHUR BR1SBANB Wealth in Those Waves Mars, China, Far Away Russia Turns Jingo Don't Despise the Pig What wealth is hidden in the ocean? When shall we build submarines strong enough to stand the pressure of water two or three miles deep, and go down to explore systematically? Such submarines, with steel walls, perhaps twenty feet thick, might defy any artillery or bombing and be useful, use-ful, if war were forced upon us. The American Qeophysical Union, in Washington, says the ocean's bed holds vast stores of the precious radium, ra-dium, of which you could hold ten millions mil-lions dollars worth in your hand. C. S. Plggott, deep sea scientist, estimates es-timates the radium on the ocean's floor at one billion tons at least. Figure Fig-ure the value of that, at one thousand dollars a grain, which would be cheap J' now. Perhaps the radium comes to us from outer space, via meteorites. It is known that meteoric dust falls constantly con-stantly on the ocean surface, and settles set-tles down on the ocean floor. Also, thousands of billions in gold are held in solution in the waters of the ocean. There might be fine gold mines to be found, where "slides on the sides of deep valleys in the ocean" have uncovered the rich yellow lodes. That would interest France. We may some day end our troubles and sit perched on a gold basis that nothing could ever shake, only too much gold might make gold worth nothing. You know that two nations In Europe voluntarily abandoned the gold basis after the California rush in 1849. They thought gold would become be-come worthless, being too plentiful. it it were told on reliable scientific authority that strange, brass colored inhabitants on Mars, with four pairs of hands and with four pairs of feet, were dying in tens of thousands, we !Ve have underestimated the pig. The University of Cincinnati says ; that gastric juice, taken from the ' stomachs of swine, injected into the muscles of an anaemic patient gives Quick relief. The University of Michigan Michi-gan had previously used extracts from : the pig's stomach itself in fighting j anaemia. ! Harvard Medical School had achieved achiev-ed results with liver extract. But the gastric jujce from the stomachs of swine appears to be most efficacious, I immediately increasing the number of ! red blood corpuscles in the human patient. Respect the poor pig, and re- j member that he would be clean if men would let him. On the desert you may see the deadly dead-ly poisonous female scorpion wander-' wander-' Ing with her young ones clinging to her back. While slowly devouring their mother's body, leaving only an empty shell, they occasionally drop off, return and "climb on again. The female scorpion is the forerunner forerun-ner of the giant dirigible Akron. That great ship, which would prove very "poisonous" in war, sails around carrying car-rying small flying machines called "spider" planes stowed away in a hangar inside the ship. Recently Lieutenants flarrigan and Young flew from the mother ship in these little planes and flew back again, "hooked on" and repeated the operation fifteen times. Such a dirigible, carrying a group of "spider" bombing planes within striking distance of an enemy city, j might make itself disagreeable. I A curious country is Mexico and j puzzling to Uncle Sam. They make ; laws there, and then obey the laws. Because of one law, increasing the taxes on Mexican liquor, saloons are closing all along the border. An American racketeer crossed the border from California to Mexico to enjoy himself, taking his bodyguard, had an argument with a Mexican citizen, citi-zen, and instructed his bodyguard to "do his stuff." The bodyguard replied: "Not here, we are in Mexico. After we get back across the border, anything you say. Too dangerous here." (,1932, by King Features Syndicate, Inc.) should be interested, but not particularly particu-larly sympathetic. , They are so far away. Newspapers give eight or ten lines to the fact that 30,000 Chinese flood refugees in the v Hankow district will soon die of hunger hun-ger because they cannot get more American wheat. Even that doesn't Interest In-terest us much, for though they live on our planet, they also are far away. If one child were drowned In a bath tub, next door to you, that would mean something. Not satisfied with the worries of her Five Year Plan, Russia talks about what she would do if war came. Blucher, Eastern commander of the Red army, says Russia likes peace, but is ready for a fight. The "oath of fidelity" has been administered ad-ministered to the Russian soldiers as "an Iron call to strengthen and to fight." ' Talking to any European government govern-ment about war now, is like talking to a seasick passenger about pork In mid-ocean, but Russia's talk at present is Intended for Japan. The Japanese, very Intelligent, probably prob-ably will not be misled Into Imagining that they could do to modern Russia what they did under the incompetent rule of the czars. i |