The Washington times., 1921-09-15

About Science and Such.
A 15-Foot Spark.
Very Old Earth.
The Greatest Woman.
By ARTHUR BRISBAl
Copyright, 1s2t.)


The General Electric Com
Pany, thanks to the scientists, is
now able to transmit an electric
current of 100000 volts. This,
engineers believe, will make it
possible to send power for in
9ustrial use to points 1000 miles
distant. Coal, heat, oil can be
Snanged into electricity wherever
found, and then CARRYING IT.
SELF over wires, it will 60 / 900
miles wherever it is needed. No
hauling, handling, little expense.
Soon power thus generated
Will be sent without wires to
nying machines in the air. The
great waterfall, with more power
than Niagara, now going to
waste in Brazil, will run rail-
roads over the Andes. The power
OF the tides, that French scien-
fists are actually Harvesting, will
be sent west from the Atlantic,
east from the Pacific, to work
the farms on the prairies and the
machinery of inland cities.
Great is the power of man,
but he still has long way to 60.
In the power Of man and of
nature you see "a difference
when you read that this gigantic
- 1000, ,000-volt current produces
spark fifteen feet long. That is a
wonderful electric spark for man
to produce, leaping between metal
points fifteen feet apart. But
when you look at the jagged
Hash in the sky called "forked
lightning" you look at an cleo
trio spark many miles long.
There Is real power.
On Tuesday, at Edinburgh, Lord
Rayleigh, scientist, told his fellow
scentists of the British Association
that the earth would last at least
q few thousand million years
longer and be fit for human life
that long. Thanking heaven, you
realize as you read about the
criminal courts and the bootleg
gers, there is time for human be-
fngs to improve.
Lord Rayleigh says no facts
whatever can be brought forward
denying his statement, and he is
right. .... - ~
Yesterday Professor Gregory, of
Glasgow. told the scientists-they
believed him, and you should-that
the earth now is already eight thou
sand million years old. He ar
rives at these figures by calculating
how long it must have taken the
ocean to become as salt as 1t is now
by gradual washing down Of salt
from the land to the sea.
The earth has lasted eight thou
sand million years, If Professor
Gregory Is right. Darwin and
Kelvin, conservative, figured only
twenty million years. Anyhove. we
have thousands Of millions of years
more to 20. Nothing could be
more exciting and interesting, II
it be true that we come back here
and continue to march along with
the earth and its improvement.
Where we go from here we don't
know, but that also must be inter
esting.
In yesterdays news did you no.
tice-more important than all the
rest except our long lease of this
earth-the fact that a process has
been invented to concentrate light
in telescopes that will enlarge the
planet Mars fifty thousand times.
1t will make possible enlargement
one million times by examination
of astral photographs under the
The most powerful enlargement
now possible is six thousand times.
With the new Macafee method we
should see the nearest planets and
our moon about as distinctly as
YOU see a distant mountain with a
good field glass.
Now that we know we are to
associate with them for thou
sands of millions of years longer,
our interest in those planets in
ereases.
Jane Adams, Of Chicago, so
well known you leave out "Miss."
IA hailed in England as "Amer-
ica's greatest woman" She is very
great, but nobody knows who is
greatest.
Nobody would have guessed, in
the month Of February 112 years
ago, that the greatest woman in
the world was doing all the house
work in a cabin without any win
dow, a tall. gaunt, powerful wom-
an, up and working within twen-
ty-four hours Of her child's birth.
But she, Nancy Hanks, was the
greatest woman. for she had just
horne Abraham Lincoln.
The greatest man Is identified
by his work. tho greatest woman
by her work, which is improving
the human race. Some, like Jane
do it by self-sacrjfice.
l. .~n,,l.. n~..~.z -