Daily Press from Newport News, Virginia • Page 6

i. th. In.clt.hl. resale "black bllS- Aloof com the aeaaonal wind, taking ever heavier loam which haa been aard" ire pic. tell the VrSr "VZJ1?" he ub? nLSS Fhfl pa.lur'.

land. deepen, ero.io. toll 01 tae ic made to (row big cropa to toll of the prlcele.a surface coni Birnu to ihi. luiuiun icum iMiMJiih, itpili Jr rev 7 J' liiiifiliiilii EVOLUTION OF A DUST BOWL NCE more the "black blizzard" is raging. Despite widespread rain and snow in the Southwest in the Spring, ominous clouds of dust black and gray and yellow once more are swirling over denuded farmlands and bil Some Savants Say that Erosion Recurs in Cycles and Is Not Due to Man's Exploitation of the Soil ft 7 lowing in undulations over cities in that hapless cluster of states Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico which haa come to be known as a "dust bowl." Since last year's ruinous visitation, which has cost the nation millions in crop and livestock losses and has practically expunged hunting and fishing in that region, many have been the regrets and the recriminations, the proposals for remedial legislation, the predictions of dire disaster.

'Twas a sort of divine punishment for folly; the farmers shouldn't have plowed up the soil indiscriminately they shouldn't have been Impelled by greed for two-dollar wheat to exhaust the soil with overplantlngv they shouldn't have 1" And so went the tale of travail, intoned with a wail. However, a saner view has come to be generally accepted, and it is now recognized that the mistakes that were made were national rather than individual; that if there is a feeling of guilt, it must be one shared alike by all and that the problem of the Great Plains la therefore a matter of national regeneration. The government has shown an acute 1 ml A Prolific Aggravation of Pneumonia and Influenza Canes Has Re-sultPd In the Dust Belt of the Southwest and the Reason Is Plain to See, Declares Dr. Helmut Landsberg, Geophysics Professor at Pennsylvania State College, as He Examines Dust. Particles That Pass Through the Lungs of the Victims.

-mm in foil away, away irn- sweeping in from the Pacific ocean, some from the Gulf of Mexico. And again, comes Dr. Waldo R. Wedel of the Smithsonian Institution, who is convinced, because 5f certain recent archaeological discoveries in the Great Plains, that there was a "dust bowl" here long before Columbus landed in the West Indies and that it converted the Pawnees, a peaceful farming people, into nomads, driven from their fertile fields by similar blows that today upheave the soil and carry it away. A final cheery note is added to this mass of evidence by the statement of Prof.

Horace J. Harper, Oklahoma Agricultural College soil expert, which emphasizes that it is indeed an ill wind that doesn't blow a bit of good. Texas soil, he says, has been enriched because of the dust storms; deposits from other states, rich in potash, which it lacks, have been scattered over the panhandle region of that state. And a postscript by Dr. James H.

Kimball, of the United States weather bureau, is added to Dr. Harper's "silver lining" slant on the big bad bowl which is as cheery and takes in a whole lot more territory in fact, the entire stricken district. For our top meteorological expert says that normal rainfall, once it returns, will dispose of the dust without further hullabaloo rand that there is no reason to assume that Jupiter Pluvius has put a permanent taboo on the presently rainless west. ft A SAVED CITY of the Euphrates and the Tigris, with Babylon the capital of the former domain and Bagdad of the latter, were fertile fields. All now are sandy wastes and cliffs of lifeless clay, and Babylon and Bagdad are but a memory.

And the transformation was brought about by the same causes which have given America a "dust But is the inference drawn from this picture entirely correct? Was It man's work that brought about this desolation or was it an immutable process of nature, expressed in cycles, with a naturally greater depletion of soil from cultivated land than from pasture land? More and more the evidence is piling up that the latter is the case. Dr. A. E. Douglas, of the University of Arizona and Carnegie Institution of Washington, famous tree geneologist who has made invaluable contributions to science on the basis of his discovery that tree rings tell an accurate story of the period during which trees survive, has found on examination of these rings that the same Southwest which is now experiencing the rigors of a "dust bowl" has weathered two major and two minor drouths in the past 1,200 years.

The two extensive dry periods lasted twenty-five years, covering the periods of 1276-1299 and 1572-1594, approximately, and the minor ones lasted fifteen years, one occurring in 782 and the other in 1435, approximately. Narrow rings, sliver thin, graphically told the story of these periods; for wide rings denote years of generous rainfall and the compressed ones lean and arid seasons. Bill Baker, Oklahoma archaeologist. after having examined fifty-five evergreens of an average age of 132 years in Cimarron county, in that state, concurred with Doctor Douglas, and stated that the drought had only a year more to go. It is now in its fourth year, he said, and drouth cycles do not last longer than five years, according to the lore of tree rings.

While G. R. Parkinson, meteorologist of Kansas City, offers a brand-new theory. He ascribes dust storms to the interplay of vast air forces, some stl 11 awareness of the situation, and with deeper study of the causes of the havoc wrought by the dust storms has come keen appreciation that a long-term and systematic program of reclamation of the land by the planting of sorghums, legumes and sudan grass is the solution. It is agreed among authorities who have carried on these studies that such action must be immediate, for the area of the "dust bowl," thus far restricted to west of the one-hundredth meridian, may be expanded greatly this year and cross that line, as its natural trend is eastward.

And this threat, it is pointed out, should serve as warning for the territory surrounding the "dust bowl" to take local action, and not lean altogether on federal intervention, in keeping this menace within A noteworthy example of such initiative already exists it is that taken by the Dakotas, which are challenging the hydra-headed monster, dust and drouth, with a congeries of hundreds of man-made lakes and dams to back up and conserve surplus rainfall and thus ward off the evil days that have befallen their sister states to the Utah, too, has taken time by the fetlock; when it found that grass would not take root, it planted weeds to check erosion. And it worked. As is invariable under the circumstances, there is considerable calamity howling, but, as always, there is tht counter-current of unquenchable optimism which makes all things possible, even such a gargantuan task as winning back the top-soil which has been blown away through the paralyzing and wholly unforeseen combination of protracted dry spells and modern farming implements. From the bare factual basis of present-day conditions with toppling rail revenues and crashing airliners, closed schools and aggravation of such diseases as pneumonia and influenza cited as dust-storm casualties in addition to the major items, livestock and crops these jittery literalists go back a thousand and more years in history and recall that once the lower part of Egypt, between Cairo and Alexandria, was the "granary of the that once the great "between rivers" land iiii Him if- 4 II ilestones SCIENCE A FACTORY-MADE skunk odor to be used for warning coal miners and other underground workers in case of fire Is taking the place of the old-fashioned alarm bell. It is a very powerful odor and goes under the scientific name of butyl mercaptan.

As soon as it is released in an underground working, all employes stop work Instantly and leave by the nearest exit DETAILS of a newly developed drill capable of boring a hole in the earth five feet in diameter and 1,125 feet (almost one-quarter of a mile) deep comes from the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers. The drill works on the principle of the old-fashioned cooky cutter. When the level is reached, a chamber can be hollowed out and the operations repeated for another 1,125 feet, and so on. JUST about this time, ninety-one years ago, dynamite was discovered quite by accident and as a result of an unanticipated explosion in the laboratory of Ascanio Sobrero, an Italian scientist. He had been pouring some glycerin, drop by drop, Into a mixture of nitric and sulphuric acid.

When some of this product was poured into water oily drops collected on the surface. Sobrero scooped out one of the drops and tried to evaporate it over a spirit lamp. A terrific explosion followed but that marked the discovery of nitroglycerin, and the beginning of the manufacture of dynamite. IN an endeavor to Improve air-conditioning methods in railroad sleeping cars, stale odors, mustlness and other impurities in the air are now being frozen and carried to the laboratory for examination. All the moisture in samples of the air, together with any odors, are condensed and frozen inside a tube.

In the laboratory the odors are measured to determine the amount of extra fresh air necessary to make any bad smell imperceptible. 'As a result of these tests a filter, using activated carbon, has been put in use in the air-conditioning equipment. WHAT A HAND WAR, domesticity and music are represented in this handful of miniature models. The hand belongs to Benjamin Harrison, of the Chicago Harrisons, who owns the largest collections of liliputian knick-knacks in the world. Just let him hear that someone has made a copper kettle from a penny or a model of the Norman-die in a bottle and he cannot rest until he has acquired it for his unique museum.

None of the articles shown at the side is over four inches long. 1 p- i i' I'l'i'iin'imiin fiinn tt I' unrnr -k ,1 1 I TUNNEL DATING back eight civilizations, a water-system has been discovered at the site of ancient Mcgiddo in Palestine by archaeologists of the University of Chicago a subterranean conduit crudely hewn out of solid rock. Their estimate is that the water tunnel was built prior to the twelfth century B. or more than a thousand years ago. Although other water tunnels and irrigation systems antedate the Megiddo development, it ranks as one of the oldest.

An adequate water supply was a vital necessity in withstanding long sieges in ancient days of strife, and Megiddo weathered one that lasted seven months. This was when Thutmoae III attacked the city, which had been encircled with a stockade. When the dry season set in, the besieged continued to draw on an ample water pp 1 from wells, conveyed to them through the secret tunnel, while the beleaguering force, not so fortunate, soon had to withdraw. From spring to shaft, the tunnel is 160 feet long. CRICKETS TELL HEAT AN astronompr aaya that If the chirps of a erirkrt in thirteen aecond are counted, and forty-two ia added to the total, the reault will be the temperature the plare where the cricket ia ainging.

-it A I sU ijuiuuimi inmi f- TELEVISION NEAR stands ready to make A its bow to the public. It will not take the place of radio, the motion picture, the stage or anything else. It is a new form of entertainment. People will still go to motion picture shows, they will still listen to radio broadcasts, but in addition to all this they will have the opportunity to both see and hear events in their homes which, until now, they could only hear. Television programs will absorb more In the way of actors, writers, costumes, scenery than any other known field of entertainment Rehearsals will have to be more thorough than for radio, since actors cannot read scripts if they are seen.

All in all, a tremendous new industry will grow up with television. For a long time television will be limited in its coverage, and it will be available only in large cities and centers of population. This cannot be otherwise. Once television is offered to the public, its future will be in the hands of the people; if they want television it is reasonable to assume that stations will be built to accommodate them. When television stations begin to operate for the public, programs will be built to entertain.

This is taking place in England today. Meanwhile, like a huge ship completed and ready for launching, television is on the ways, ready for the engineers and others interested to start it on its plunge into the sea of public approvaL Copyright, 1937. King aannnMnnWWnytr A Typical "Black Blizzard" Billowing Over a Town In Western Kansas, Heart of the "Dust Bowl," Is Shown Above. Red-Brown and Gray Layers of Dust, with an Occasional Infusion of Vellow, Add to the Weirdness of the Spectacle. Right: This Gas-Station Attendant at Oklahoma City Takes Precautions to Keep Dust Out of His Customer's Automobile Tank and Out of His Nostrils as WelL I 1 3 features Syndicate, Inc.

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