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Show Keeping Up VtllSci e n O Selene Servic. WNU Sarvlc. High Rail Speeds Facing Big Problem of Safe Stopping Best of Modern Brakes Are Not Sufficient New York. Top speeds on railroads have been raised in the last three years from 80 and 90 miles an hour to 100 and 120 miles an hour. Locomotives Loco-motives capable of keeping sustained speeds at the latter figures are not at hand but present few technical difficulties. difficul-ties. Major problem that must be solved if the public is ever to attain this swiftness swift-ness in actual travel is what to do about stopping such speeding masses of metal. On applying the most modern brakes yet developed, a train speeding speed-ing 100 miles an hour would have moved 1,300 feet at the end of ten seconds and would still be traveling 72 miles an hour! It will go another 1.300 feet before coming to a full stop, or about a half mile In all. With conventional brakes, as used widely, the picture is even worse. It would take 22 seconds to cut the 100 miles an hour speed to 72 miles an hour, and 4,800 feet In all would be required to achieve a complete stop. Solution a Necessity. All of which makes discussions of running trains at such speeds for or-iinary or-iinary passenger and freight traffic a sizable waste of time at present, unless adequate measures are taken to govern the train movements In the faster schedules. Chief responsibility for a gradual increase in average speed lies in the train dispatcher's office, where tighter running schedules must be watched closely and swifter movements move-ments ordered so that the crack trains of the line will not run the slower ones into sidings too frequently. fre-quently. A gradual rise in average speed on schedules is the way the railroads rail-roads are starting to solve the problem. prob-lem. Already many of the major railroads have their roadbeds so improved im-proved that trains are more safe while traveling at 80 miles an hour than they were previously at 60. Earliest Traces of Man's Existence in Palestine Dug Up Bone Beth of Bethlehem YieM Ancient Specimens By B. N. FALLAIZB, Royal Anthropological Anthropo-logical lniUlul ol London. London. The earliest known traces of man's existence exist-ence in Palestine, and it may be, almost the earliest evidence evi-dence of man in the whole world, have been discovered in deposits now known as the Bone Beds of Bethlehem. The discovery was made by Miss E. Gardiner and Miss D. Bate excavating ex-cavating the deposits, in what appears ap-pears to be a swallow hole near Bethlehem, on behalf of the Wellcome Well-come Marston archeological research re-search expedition to the Near East. The discovery of the swallow hole was made some few years ago when excavations were being made for a water supply. On the nature of the deposits becoming apparent, a concession con-cession to excavate was granted to J. L. Starkey on behalf of the Wellcome Well-come expedition. The actual examination exam-ination of the deposits was entrusted to Miss Bate, the well-known authority author-ity of the British Museum of Natural Nat-ural History on paleontology, and Miss E. Gardiner, lecturer on geology geol-ogy of London university. Important Animal Specimens. The most striking specimen among the animal remains is the hinder part of the shell of a gigantio tortoise of a species not yet identified. identi-fied. With it were several detached plates of the shell and a huge leg bone. Although only the tall part of the shell was found whole, it measures meas-ures well over two feet across, as compared with a little over two inches for the same part in a tortoise tor-toise of about a foot in diameter. There is also part of the tooth of an elephant the elephant was first Identified in Palestine in evidence from the Bethlehem bone beds and cheek teeth of the rhinoceros. Most important, however, from the view of the paleontologist and geologist is what appears to be part of a leg bone of a very small form of horse, possibly hlpparlon, the three-toed horse of the Tertiary geological epoch. ep-och. Very Early Human Artifacts. In the same beds, and associated with these animal remains, were a number of worked flints of which a selection has been brought to England Eng-land and is now available for examination exam-ination by expert Judges of man's earliest handiwork. There can, however, how-ever, hardly be any doubt as to the human origin of these specimens. One of them appears to be a core, from which flakes have been struck, while the others show the characteristic charac-teristic forms and chipping found in eollthic or pre-palaeolithic implements. imple-ments. Of those who have seen them, J. Reid Moir, the great authority au-thority in Great Britain on pre-palaeolithic pre-palaeolithic implements, is confident as to their human origin and their early form. There is every reason to say that at least the deposits are not later than Early Pleistocene, and it may be that they are Pliocene. This is certainly nearly as early as the earliest date assigned to the earliest implements found by Reid Moir in England, and approximately contemporary con-temporary with Peking Man. 'Ghost' Comet Seen Near Mars Claimed to Be Real Thing . London. When reports were received in April of the discovery of a new comet in the southern skies by W. F. Gale, an Australian astronomer, astrono-mer, and great observatories in Europe and America were unable to locate it, the assumption as-sumption was made that it was a "ghost." It was near the brilliant planet Mars, and often reflections from such a bright object, inside the eyepiece of a telescope, cause these ghosts, which look like comets. The comet was real after all, according ac-cording to a claim in a letter from Mr. Gale to Dr. A. C. D. Crom-melin, Crom-melin, published in the Journal of the British Astronomical Association. Associa-tion. Mr. Gale states that he fully recognized the likelihood of Its being be-ing a ghost, and made careful tests to determine Its reality. The telescope, he says, never showed such ghosts before, and the comet was seen best when Man was completely out of the field. It was observed by several others, and through other telescopes, over a period pe-riod of nearly a month, during which It moved as a comet should. Fungus Found That Traps and Eats Small Worms Chapel Hill, N. C. A fungus, a sort of fifth cousin to the common bread moid, that captures and eats small worms, was recently described de-scribed by Dr. J. N. Couch of the University of North Carolina. While insect-eating plants such as the Venus Ve-nus fly trap and the pitcher plant are quite well known, animal-catching fungi are rare. The fungus grows in a threadlike thread-like form. Loops are spaced at intervals in-tervals along the thread. These are the traps. When a worm sticks its head or tail into one of these loops it contracts, tightening up on the worm and holding it fast. At times a worm may be caught by two of the loops. When the worm is firmly held, small threads grow out from the main thread. They penetrate the body of the worm and digest it. Dr. Couch was able to watch the capture and digestion of the prey. Rattles More Used by Adults Than by Babies Chicago. Almost 5,000 years ago babies in the old city of Kish in Mesopotamia were kept happy with rattles, says Richard A. Martin, archeologist, of the Field Museum of Natural History, here. Yet, rattles rat-tles have been used more by adults than by children in most lands explored ex-plored by science. Soldiers In ancient China were stirred by music of bronze rattles in military orchestras. African tribes devised many kinds of rattles rat-tles for use in magical rites. Egyptians Egyp-tians had a kind of rattle called a sistrum, made of a atari with metal rings dangling at the end, and used ''in solemn religious ceremonies. American Indians used rattles in religion and magic. Modern Europe and America stand out, as exceptions in using rattles rat-tles mainly for amusing babies. Big Fish Eat Little Ones and Latter Tiny Things Washington. The bass or trout or pike you triumphantly bear home, or the more prosaic halibut or salmon you buy in the store of a Friday, is the end and culmination of a long line of complicated de-vourings. de-vourings. Few fish eat primary foods directly, as a cow eats grass or a pig eats corn. They eat smaller fish and other animal forms like shrimp and crayfish. These in turn have eaten still smaller creatures and so ad infinitum, infini-tum, or almost "that far. For the end (or rather the beginning) of the chain consists of plants too small to gee, which the first and smallest of the tiny animal forms devour, to get the food which this "water pasture" pas-ture" has made with the he'p of the sun. |