The Chronicle-star combined with the Moss Point advertiser., 1947-03-28

ing, James heart pounded mad
" as she poured water into
his parehed mouth and said "a
silent PRAYER. YEARLY, the ape
man staggered to his feet and
Jane uttered a cry of gladness.
I'm al right DEAR Tarzan
said. Just shaken and scorch-
ed'l"
The only man in the party
who is killed, the character
called the Mad Genius, has
been killed by flying rock.
We have been constant read
ers of Edgar Rice Burroughs
"Tarzan' stories for a genera.
ton. But neither the Mad Gen
ius nor the Phantom Men nor
the jungle beasts of the older
Tarzan stories has ever scared
US as much as the artists ig-
norance about atom bombs.
Five of these things have now
been exploded on the earth.
and 100000 people have been
killed by them, and at least
that many have been infected
with a strange new kind Of
sickness which science tells us
is transmitted to the children
in the very structure Of their
flesh cells. and will continue
to be transmitted so long as
that defective line breeds on
the eacth, down through thous-
ands OF generations.
We should think that any
intelligent high school boy
would have read enough by
now about the. effects of an
atom explosion to know that
any man close enough TO a blast
to be killed by flying rock,
would be no more than a little
piece Of burnt toast, and very
dead, by the time the rock hit
him. In the first place. the
rock, steel, earth and other
solids at the scene of a blast
don't remain IN solid form.
They + not even "pulverized,"
which is the phrase we used
to use with accuracy in talk
ing of gunpowder explosions.
Pulvcrized means TO be crush
ed into powder. But steel and
rock and other solids in an
atom blast are "Vaporized.'
Think about that for a moment.
good reader. The steel tower on
which the first atom bomb
was exploded in Los Alamos,
was changed into a poisonous,
burning, fiery, deadly vapor.
Like air, it could be blown
about by any passing breeze.
Whatever life that deadly at
mosphere touched. was doom
ed. Far from the center of the
blast some rocks and sand
were indeed pulverized and
blown into the ar. When this
settled on cattle fifty miles
away, il burned their skin and
the hair fell off Think of that:
fifty miles away.
. s. .
Yet here is an artist, intel
ligent enough to draw a we'll
known comic strip, and who
earns thousands of dollars a
year, and who lives in sup
posedly enlightened New York.
who can nevertheless eoncoct
a situation in which five men
survive the blast of "a hun
dred atom bombs" and the on
ly one who gets it, was kill
ed-not by the ravs--but by
flying rock"
ANY intelligent school boy
should know that a person who
walked over rocks which were
still not from an atom ex-
plosion, as Tarzan's wife is
depicted would be doomed.
Didn't we all see pictures of
the navy scientists testing the
hulls of steel ships for atomic
activity weeks after the blast
at Bikin? Even the barnaeles
on those ships had been "pois-
oned" and made dangerous to
human life.
The average layman mas by
now accepted the fact that a
person can be fatally burned
by being exposed too long to
x-rays or by handling radium.
both of which give off high
speed, penetrating rays which
go through flesh like a hot
knife through butter and a
whole lot faStel. YOU don't
feel them go through you. but
YOU are nevertheless a dead
pigeon If YOU get enough of
them. In the case of an atom
bomb explosion, all material,
even.the air itself in the neigh
borhood of the blast. is made
many time more deadly than an
x-rav machine. Il is made
highly radioactive. by which
il is meant that The material
has absorbed some of the fan
tastic energy of the blast and
gives il back IN the form of
\ rays. and other hard" rays.
Probably the most deadly as
peet of the atom bomb. SO far
as the future Of civilization is
concerned. is that exposure to
the blast changes the heredi-
tarv characteristics of plants.
man and animals Part Of the
seed by which life is miracu-
lousy transmitted from one