Evening star., 1937-10-16

A plant emigrant out Of the Old Testa-
ment has gotten its first foothold in
North America and is causing some con-
Germ.
This is harmel, or Syrian rue" mat
like growing plant with the odor of rue
and seeds which contain an opium aka
loid with some of the properties OF hash
eeSh or marihuana. 1t has established
itself in an area of four square mile in
New Mexico. apparently from seeds ac-
cidently dropped
Department of Agriculture specialists
are loath not to welcome the emigrant,
for it promises to be an ideal erosion
checking growth for a great deal of the
arid Southwest. But unfortunately. ac-
cording to report from William A. Day.
ton of the United States Forest Service,
if it becomes widely distributed through
the range country it is likely to prove
poisonous to cattle and sheep.
1t is common plant in Judea. The
alkalOid in its seed has various medical
uses especially in the treatment of such
nervous diseases as sleeping sickness.
Turks use the plant as sleep producer
and also as source OF spice. Its best
known use. however, has been as the
source of the brilliant dye, Turkish red
This now can be made synthetically.
There is naturally some hesitation
against the introduction of plant which
might add new drug problem. 1t ap-
pears never to have been cultivated in
the United States, although 1t has been
used for many years as an ornamental
garden plant in England and Germany.
In the Southwest it seems to have found
q natural habitat where conditions
Of heat and moisture are Just right.
A somewhat similar plant, with some
medical repute among the Mexicans,
long has grown In this country.
The earth for a brief time after its
creation was entirely molten.
Such supposition is necessary from
the most recent findings concerning the
composition of the planet, according to
DR.. L. H. Adams, acting director of the
Carnegie Institution of Washington's
geophysical laboratory.
DR.. Adams said "Our earth is a
spherical body about 5000 miles in
diameter floating In nearly empty space.
Its nearest neighbor, the moon, is a
quarter of a million miles away. To-
gether, they revolve around the sun at
a distance of some 80 million miles. The
other planets of the solar system circle
around the same sun, which, although
by far the largest object in the system,
Is merely star like countless others
that dot the sky, and is, as stars Co. a
rather small and insignificant one.
Separated from the sun by enormous
distances are the other stars of our
galaxy, which has a disklike form and
an extent Of at least $4,000 light years,
and is merely one Of the innumerable
spiral nebulae scattered irregularly
through space at an average distance Of
perhaps 10000 light years.
On 50 vast scale, our earth, q tiny
planet accompanying small star, seems
to dwindle into insignif1cance, but 1t Is
after all the place where we dwell. and
have our being, and for US 1t has the
importance attaching to a great object,
which, except for the surface layers, Is
as yet unexplored.
1T is now generally accepted that the
earth was created from the parent sun
about 1000 million years ago through
tidal disruption by q passing star. The
subsequent ltquefaction and solidiflcation
OF the detached mass Of glowing gas
formed the juvenile earth.
This notion, advanced by Jeans and
Jeffreys, is quite different from that in
volved in the nebular hypothesis Of La
place. according to which the sun was
originally surrounded by rarefied nebu-
Ia which rotated about the central mass.
As the nebular material cooled 1t was
supposed to contract and increase Its