IT'S AN INTERESTING WORLD!
RIGHT ON TIME
THERE are many examples of how certain types of fish or birds always return to a certain spot at a certain time to reproduce, but the grunions, a species of small smelt, hold the record of being the most punctual and regular of them all. According to the Bureau of Fisheries, the grunions come out of the ocean every spring to lay their eggs in the wet sands of the California beaches. Starting on the third day after the full moon during the months of May, June, July, and August, they always appear one hour after high tide.
Their reputation for punctuality is so widespread that the local newspapers print a schedule of their appearances and people for miles around come to watch the fish as they leave the water to lay their eggs.
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A BLESSING THAT WENT SOUR
For many years, the inhabitants on the island of Jamaica in the West Indies were bothered by the great numbers of rats on the island. Plan after plan was tried to get rid of the rats—without success. Finally the British decided to import the mongoose, who is a natural enemy of both snakes and rats, from India where he is quite common.
The mongoose thrived in Jamaica and within a short time had killed a great majority of the rats on the island. The people and government officials were overjoyed at their success with the mongoose, but not for long. When the mongoose had killed off its food supply of rats, it developed a taste for birds and chickens. The birds and chickens had been keeping the insects on the island in check by eating them, but as the mongoose killed off the wild and domestic fowl, the insects began to multiply at an alarming rate.
Now Jamaica is having trouble with the insects and the ever increasing mongoose population that has become a greater pest than the rats they destroyed. The problem before the government now is how to get rid of the mongoose, rats or no rats, so that the birds and chickens can live in peace and once again hold the insects in check.
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A MEASLY $2.50 WAGER
How would you like to collect $2,084,495,605.22? Well, someone is going to collect that tidy sum, but not until the year 2432.
Two friends made a bet in Baton Rouge, La., but neither of them will ever know who won. J. D. Stotler bet R. E. Collins that Louisiana's $5,000,000 capitol building will stand up 500 years. Collins bet $2.50 that it wouldn’t. And so the papers were signed and the money banked under contract in 1932. In the middle of July, 1938, the two friends again met in Baton Rouge, reaffirmed the bet and learned that their money had grown to $6.85 from the 4 per cent interest rate that will boost it above two billions in 500 years. The contract specifies for the bank to pay the money to the heirs of the winner.
I wish my great, great, grandpappy had thought of me in a similar way.
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A GLIDER THAT CAN'T LAND
Just picture in your mind, the predicament an army glider would be in if he was told that he could not land. But that is the problem faced every day by the greatest glider of them all, the man-o'-war bird.
This huge bird has a wingspread of over seven feet which enables him to stay in the air longer than any other bird. It prefers the great atmosphere over the warmer oceans and makes use of the many air currents found there to enable it to stay in the air so long.
The man-o'-war bird can never land on level ground, as it would be almost impossible for it to rise again. All of its leg bones, with the exception of the toes and ankle, are embedded in the bird's flesh and so the bird cannot walk. Moreover, if the bird ever landed in water it would drown.
Therefore, it makes its home on the edge of a cliff or a high limb of a dead tree. From this home, the bird jumps out into space and depends upon its wings and gliding skill for locomotion.
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POWERFUL, BUT OH SO GENTLE
Just imagine a machine that is so powerful that it can crush a locomotive boiler and yet so gentle that it can crack your wrist watch crystal without harming the movement. Such a machine is the hydraulic press put on display in March, 1940, in Pittsburgh. It is called the Templin Precision Metal Working Machine and is hailed by research workers of the Aluminum Company of America as the world's most powerful testing device.
The machine is capable of exerting a force of 3,000,000 pounds in compression (pushing) and 1,000,000 pounds in tension (pulling), yet it is so delicately balanced it will record the pressure required to crack an egg. The three story machine is more than forty feet high and sixteen feet wide.
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