Sunday 29 September 2019

Liking vs Love

CAPE ARGUS – 1939, February 20
Lines from Sunday’s sermon

“Liking and love are too closely connected in thought by most of us. The one has in it all the feeling which comes from attraction. The other has will behind it. The one lives on while pleasure lasts and enjoyment feeds it. The other can live while its object gives it pain and shame. That is why the Apostolic description ‘Love suffereth long and is kind,’ is such an excellent test ready to hand.” – The Rev. A. W. Carter, Parish Church, Bellville.

Thursday 26 September 2019

Trams and Tramways in Cape Town

CAPE TIMES - 1924, April 8


City Tramways Company Ltd. provides a luxurious means of seeing what is admittedly the finest mountain scenery in the world – 92 miles of glorious motoring, including luncheon and afternoon tea.The appreciation of beautiful scenery will be greater if you travel by a C.T.C. Bus, with its deeply upholstered seats, its well-sprung body, and giant pneumatic tyres that eliminate all jolts and jars. The City Tramways Company’s buses are the only buses that have been specially built for our mountain roads, with their stoep gradients, their twists and turns. They are, indeed, the most comfortable buses on the road. 
















Once the pride of Cape Town, derelict Camps Bay trams were left to stand in a roofless shed representing all that was left of “The Finest Tram Ride in the World.” The building was to be demolished for the purpose of erecting a palatial block of flats and cinema on the site. (CAPE TIMES - 1933, July 18)



A sad sight in Adderley Street, when the passing of Cape Town’s last rail trams was marked by farewell inscriptions in chalk. (CAPE ARGUS - 1939, January 28)



Tuesday 24 September 2019

Constantia and its Nest of Homesteads


CAPE TIMES – 1933, April 1  
Only those who traverse its many winding roads, its sunken farm lanes, its avenues of oak and pine – stumbled on in unexpected places – who ascend and descend the billowy ridges of well-ordered fertility, can realize and memorize the true meaning of Constantia.
Sliding slowly down from Constantia Nek to the lower levels, one obtains a very satisfying impression of the valley, but that is not the true Constantia, nor is the fine panorama that is outspread below the upper road and the Nek itself.
Constantia effectively conceals its beauty; it does not flaunt its vernal splendours. Only those who traverse its many winding roads, its sunken farm lanes, its avenues of oak and pine – stumbled on in unexpected places – who ascend and descend the billowy ridges of well-ordered fertility, can realize and memorize the true meaning of Constantia.
OUT OF THE CAR
You have to get out of that car. You will for an hour or two have to leave that unromantic “tarmac”. You must give yourself time, not only to see the things that are hidden from the majority but to allow the full effect of 270 years of civilized settlement in South Africa – concentrated and developed in farm pursuits and farm architecture – to sink in. In no valley is there so striking a South African atmosphere to be found.  “South African” is the wrong term to use. Perchance the atmosphere of Constantia is the atmosphere of “the Cape,” that old historic term that we in the South should never relinquish, for, as the Cape, its place in history is no insignificant one. Nor among the charmed and chosen valleys of the world is Constantia the least. But not until those three interesting roads have been traversed, has the full bosomed fruitfulness and graciousness of the true Constantia been revealed to those who search for her.
NEST OF HOMESTEADS
The difficulty of attempting to describe all that Constantia holds, as a link in a chain of wine and fruit-producing areas, one struck me when Witte-boomen, humming with activity, forced its claim insistently. We pulled up. Just below, there was the “nest” of the Constantia homesteads, Groot, High, Klein, and Hoop Constantia. Over the hill – and the silver leaves tempted me to take that road through the Witteboom – lay Glen Dirk, Hohenhort, and a dozen other desirable farms and residences, amidst scenery that is, in my opinion, the finest in the valley. Away under the mightly hills, where the pine forests of Tokai lay like a dark cloud with the grey peaks above, there were the wine farms and the estates of the Lategans.
Lower down in the valley, above Alphen, the Brommers Vlei Road carried, in its memories, its own temptations. A valley crowded like a hive before, swarming, over-flowing with luscious fruit and wines. The blame for any omissions – and they are inevitable – must be laid not on me, but on Constantia. The rare vintage of autumn in that wonderful valley cannot be compressed into an aum; it needs special cellar-age, and time to mature. Lacking both, one is compelled to treat Constantia in the abstract, a remarkable corner of the Cape Peninsula which by the persistent genius of men and women, has been developed until it is not only the most delectable spot, but on its output and the unfailingly high standard that is maintained, the most valuable agricultural land in the Southern Hemisphere.
HIGH CONSTANTIA
Having decided, then, to skate over thin ice, and to try and treat Constantia as a complete entity, we moved on to the appointed task. High Constantia differs from all other homesteads in the Cape. It is reminiscent of all old French chateau, as the published impression from the angle at which we saw it, will reveal.
Pausing, but for a moment to watch the purple grapes being poured in a never-ending stream into the insatiable maw of the presses, and to snatch an impression of the most profile and probably the oldest pear tree that can be recalled, we left the pleasant home of the Bertrams, where everyone was making full use of the precious moments. As in duty bound, we paid inevitable call on Groot Constantia.
I am afraid the custodian of our national treasures will number us among the vandals of that particular day, for we ignored the restored homestead. We looked out across the valley over the vineyard wall, marked the fine impression created by the enclosed court at the back of the homestead, raised our hats to the classical pediment and the memory of Anton Anreith, and admired the luxuriant vegetation that is filling up the deli. Then we hunted, unsuccessfully, for “Jock” van Niekerk, who occupies his time even in the football season in making high-quality wines of the one-time Government Farm.
THE PRESSING HOUSE
The pressing-house a Groot Constantia is so spotlessly bright and clean. Not an acorn or even a leaf falls but it is promptly removed. Admirable, perchance, but there have been so many new buildings built on the old ideals of late that one would leave this historic spot without that feeling of veneration if it were not for one thing. The old block of farm buildings that flanks the main approach have been admirably maintained, not restored or rebuilt.
There are today just as they were when originally erected, and – that is precisely as Adrian van der Stel, when Governor of the Cape, desired them. This restored the balance somewhat. But autumn at Groot Constantia, without the rustle of the fallen leaves as the wind stirs them, or without the crunching of acorns underfoot must be most unsettling to the kindly spirits of its founders, though there is compensation in the full maintenance of that great industry which first made Constantia known throughout the world.
FORTY FARMS IN THE VALLEY
Now the problem had to be faced. There were forty farms in the valley, all producing fruit for export, with 50% of them making quality wines. It was obviously impossible, in such circumstances, to visit all of them. So, the line of least resistance was taken, and choosing the hours when likely to be least inconvenienced or to inconvenience anyone, a complete tour of the valley was made, and every intersecting lane traversed. The one road on which we lingered long was that at the back of Alphen, that leads over the hills, through plantations of oaks, with vineyards at intervals, to Hohenhort.
Even at the risk of estranging the friendship of those living on the other side of the valley, this opinion is held that this is the Constantia, that, in future years will live in song and story. It lends itself to poetic inspiration. It is the ideal wine country of the Continent, but it is enclosed in a priceless setting of mountains unchallengeable for colour and beauty anywhere, and over all is the beneficent sunshine that is rarely absent. Fold after fold, ridge after ridge -for this is the reverse slope of Wynberg Hill – the country rises and falls in a succession of verdure clad rollers, each wave crowned with its homestead or chateau.
This is, indeed, the Wine Mountain. Peculiarly it is the one part of the valley that 90% of those who visit Constantia never see. At Hohenhort wine pressing and grape packing, with apples to follow, were in progress, giving employment to a little village which has arisen on the estate. A circuit was made of the centre flower garden, and our departure was as swift and as unceremonious as our arrival, just as it was at Alphen, ten minutes later.
Alphen and Hohenhort are recognized as homes of good wines, of which they were among the pioneers. Alphen’s wines are mentioned in the archives; their quality, in the great wine age, has been testified to by many famous travelers. But these facts are so well known that beyond this reference, and to the delight experienced in circumnavigating that tree-shaded courtyard with a hundred casements looking out on us, nothing more need to be said.
HEART OF WOODLAND COUNTRY
Fruit, flowers and a delightful sense of being deep in the heart of a woodland country, is the prevailing impression conveyed by the Brommers Vlei Road, that turns off the main highway after Alphen has been left behind. It leads right up to the head of the valley near Klassenbosch. By farm roads it is possible to cut right across the valley, passing Constantia churchyard – once hidden deeply among the pinewoods. But pear and peach have superseded pines, and Constantia is the richer, though much of the glory of her tall timbers has departed.
Eventually wandering here and there, we came out at the head of the Tokai valley, having marked on the way, the great oak at Buitenverwachting, the old-world appearance of the Hoop op Constantia and looked out over that portion of Constantia where the Lategan estates range to the forests. In our time, in the time of the present generation actually, the family of the Lategans has brought in half of the hillside, and much of the country that no one thought anything of, and made it – Constantia.
Those who can recall Tokai before the forests were planted, will remember the white wind-swept sandy waste it was, sloping upward to wild heather-clad lands, ridges and dells that ran into the Steenberg.
EXPANDING BOUNDARIES
“Not much good for anything,” was the general opinion. Yet, today, on the land where the Imperial Field Artillery in the opening of the century, and frequently later, used to fire live shell, to the detriment of none – are to be found some of the finest fruit farms in the world. On the spot where the guns used to be parked prior to “battle” practice, are the finest vineyards of Mr. W H Lategan, whose table grapes were the envy of all who saw them at Rosebank this year. Nor is he actually at the head of the valley on that side; there are others now above him, climbing upward, just as they have done at Stellenbosch. If they go on much further, it will be necessary to grow the grapes in trellises, as is done in Madeira and on the banks of the Rhine.
The one great fact remains, that within the last quarter of a century, Old Constantia has been supplanted by a new, virile and vigorous Constantia, which has expanded its boundaries until it is almost impossible to find an acre of soil that is not producing to capacity, north, south, east and west. The success of those who daringly farmed on the Tokai side, is one of the best examples of the value of applied knowledge in fruit and farm enterprises that can be put forward. The South-Easter sweeps across those ridges so fiercely that the first proposals were dismissed as impracticable. But the veteran, Mr. W H Lategan, who held the outermost boundary, had sufficient confidence to “carry on.” He has won through in no uncertain manner.
From the farm “Uitsig,” it is possible to look across to the fruitful holdings of the other members of the same family, and to know that in breaking new ground as he did, he has left an indelible impress for good on the valley of Constantia. From this corner pour the wines of Constantia that make cheerful the heart of man in a never-failing stream.
The success of this part of Constantia in fruit production is such that there may be a temptation on the part of the authorities to emulate these achievements at Tokai. But the probability is that the forests at Tokai have alone made possible the splendid achievements in that corner of New Constantia that have not yet attained to full maturity.


Monday 23 September 2019

Penguin Special - An Antarctic Snow Cruiser

CAPE ARGUS  –  December 1939


In 1939, The Antarctic Snow Cruiser, a massive new vehicle intended for use in Antarctic exploration, was built by scientists and engineers at Chicago’s Armour Institute of Technology. It was 55 feet long, weighed more than 37 tons fully loaded, and rolled on four smooth 10-foot-tall tires designed to retract and allow part of the vehicle to scoot across crevasses. Rear Admiral Richard Byrd was the leader of the Antarctic expedition. The Snow Cruiser was driven from Chicago to Boston to be loaded on the ship the North Star. 

Here is a diagram of the 150 000 dollar snow cruiser, Penguin Special, designed by Dr. Thomas Poulter of Chicago’s Armour Institute for Rear-Admiral Richard E. Byrd’s use in Antarctic exploration. It averaged only 10 miles an hour, but in its 27-ton body it could carry fuel enough to take it from New York to San Francisco and back again without stopping. It carried a plane on its back. (CAPE ARGUS - 1939, December 23)



This picture will give you some idea of the size of the Admiral Byrd ice cruiser. The three men here are standing against one of the wheels. Admiral Richard Byrd is the figure on the right. (CAPE ARGUS - 1939, December 27)

The Bear of Boston sailing from Boston, Massachusetts, in a snowstorm on her way to the Antarctic with members of the Byrd Expedition on board. (CAPE ARGUS - 1939, December 30)


Read more about the Snow Cruiser at https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2015/06/the-antarctic-snow-cruiser/396617/

To see how the Snow Cruiser was unloaded in Antarctica, have a look at the YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avCuZacklEo




Saturday 21 September 2019

The Secret of Happiness

CAPE ARGUS – 1939, February 20
Lines from Sunday’s sermon
The mother of Sir Samuel Hoare wrote some striking words in her will. ‘I die in the firm belief that the true happiness of life consists of Something to do, Someone to love, and Something to hope for.’ The Secret of Happiness could hardly be better put. But the success turns upon the quality of the Something to do, the character of the Someone to love, and the nature of the Something to hope for. It is here that the Christian faith stands unchallengeably supreme. It offers Something for even the poorest and lowliest to do – the interpreting of the life and death of Jesus in terms of daily life; it offers Someone to love – Jesus; it offers Something to hope for – a land of lights and eternal love.” – The Rev. R. Barr, Presbyterian Church, Mowbray.


Thursday 19 September 2019

Petrol problem solved in SA and SWA



CAPE ARGUS - 1939, March 22

Petrol reserves were referred to by the Minister of Defence, Mr. O. Pirow, when he surveyed the Union’s defences in the Assembly last evening.
Mr. Pirow said the Government was considering the possibilities of alcohol being produced from Natal sugar cane, and also whether oil might not be converted into petrol in time of need.
About a year ago a departmental committee was appointed to consider proposals submitted by the Natal sugar industry. The scheme was dependent on the compulsory mixing of petrol and alcohol. Similar proposals submitted to the Government some years ago for the compulsory mixing of petrol and alcohol produced from maize were rejected. The committee has not completed its investigation yet.
Private companies in Natal and Germiston are producing annually about 3 000000 gallons of alcohol from sugar cane and maize.
The committee last year recommended a survey of coal deposits to see what supplies of coal were suitable for the Fisher-Tropsch and hydrogenation processes for converting coal into oil and petrol. It also recommended that tests be carried out on a fairly large scale. This is still being considered by the Government.
Plans for distilling maize and sugar cane can be obtained from a number of countries.


SWA petrol problem solved
A South-West African farmer, Mr. J. Delport, has solved his fuel problem, with petrol at from 2s. 6d. to 4s. 6d. (in isolated parts) a gallon. Gas is generated by passing water over burning charcoal and used with a ten percent admixture of petrol vapour, 150 miles of running being obtained from a sackful of charcoal and a gallon of petrol. (CAPE TIMES 1933, April 21)


Production of South African Spirit
The first step towards the production of South African petrol was taken last night with the delivery of 25 000 gallons of crude petroleum to the refining plant of the South African Torbanite Mining and Refining Company at Boksburg. This photograph shows Mr. Stirling, manager of the S.A.T.M.A.R., directing pumping operations. 
(THE STAR Johannesburg - 1935, September 19) 

Have a look at the petrol prices on 1918, January 7
(THE STAR Johannesburg)



Tuesday 17 September 2019

Shark Tanks in Sea Point

CAPE ARGUS - 1939, December 16
How deceptively small Cape Town’s new ultra-modern aquarium at Sea Point appears from outside was demonstrated to a representative of The Argus today by Dr. C. von Bonde, Director of Fisheries, in a tour of the new building.
The aquarium, which is rapidly nearing completion and should be officially opened some time in the first half of next year, extends underground to more than twice its surface height. The exhibition hall itself is below ground, and below that again are great water-storage tanks.
Through an entrance on Beach Road, the public will do down a broad staircase, paneled in green Transvaal marble, to the exhibition hall. There 42 tanks, ten of them for fresh-water specimens, line the hall behind glass that is 1½ inches thick.
HOLD A SHARK
In this hall, too, the walls are marbled, with copper tank-frames, louvres and other fittings. Some of the tanks are 13 ft. long and big enough to hold small sharks. Daylights, diffused through the surface of water, makes luminous all the marine life in the tanks.
Down in the basement 62 000 gallons of water are stored in darkness in order that no algae may develop in it to cloud the glass of the exhibition tanks. Great air-ducts run through the hidden “service” passages where another 30 000 gallons of water are stored to feed the exhibition tanks. The entire building is air-conditioned.
FISHERIES LABORATORY
The new aquarium, which will be operated, as far as the visiting public is concerned, as a municipal enterprise, is really the “head office” and laboratory of the Director of union fisheries and his staff. For them three laboratories and a photographic dark-room have been provided on the most modern lines.
The aquarium will be one of the “show” places of the Peninsula. The opening, eagerly awaited, is being pushed forward as much as possible and will not be delayed through war time shortage of material, since all the necessary materials are already on the site.
The Fisheries Department staff, it is expected, will move to their new laboratories within the next six weeks.


Monday 16 September 2019

Prehistoric Monster of the Deep

CAPE ARGUS – 1939, February 20

What is regarded as one of the most sensational scientific discoveries of recent times has been made at East London, where a “prehistoric” fish has been caught in a trawl net. Dr. JLB Smith, of Rhodes University, who has examined the specimen, states that it belongs to an order thought to have been extinct 50 000 000 years ago. Dr. L Gill, Director of the South African Museum in Cape Town, has been consulted about the discovery by Dr. Smith. From the details already in his possession he thinks it should prove one of the most exciting scientific discoveries ever made. The fish was trawled in about 40 fathoms between Gulu and Chalumna by one of Irvin & Johnson’s trawlers. The catch of half a ton of redfish and “kobs” and a ton and a half of sharks included a great primitive looking fish, five feet in length, steel blue in colour with big dark blue eyes. It weighed 127lb.

On reaching port the captain of the trawler, Capt. HP Goosen, asked Miss M Courtnay Latimer, curator of the East London Museum, to see the fish. She realised it was one of a very primitive species.
When Mr. R Center, a taxidermist, skinned the fish he found a cartilage structure in place of the usual body skeleton. Miss Latimer immediately communicated with Dr. JLB Smith of Rhodes University College and ichthyologist of the Albany Museum, who was on holiday in the Knysna District. Dr. Smith came to East London and after an intensive investigation he pronounced the catch a sensational scientific discovery.
When interviewed, Dr. Smith produced a picture of the fossilised remains of a fish belonging to the order crossopterygil which was stated to have become extinct 50 millions years ago. The resemblance between picture and the specimen was most striking.
“This is one of the most valuable zoological specimens in the world today and its scientific value is incalculable,” said Dr. Smith.
He added that the specimen so closely resembled Mezozoic fossilized forms that there was no question as to its taxonomic position. The structure of the jaws of the specimen is very different from that of the majority of modern fishes. The fins, which are known as lobate or paddle-shaped fins, are strangely limb-like. The large scales, too, differ widely from the ordinary in that they are covered with an enamel-like substance known as ganoin, which is found only in the most primitive forms. The order crossopterygil first appeared in the carboniferous age about 250 million years ago. Scientists have regarded these principal crossopterygil fishes as having been extinct for 50 million years. Numerous fossilized remains, chiefly in the northern hemisphere, testify to an abundance of these fishes at earlier periods, but in the last 50 million years all trace has been lost.
SIGNS OF ADAPTATION
Dr. Smith said that the specimen possessed features showing that it was tending to develop and adapt itself to more modern conditions. The mouth is proportionately large and has even plates of sharp, catlike teeth. Just above and behind the eyes is an opening known as the spiracle which is characteristic of these primitive forms.
SCIENTISTS INTERESTED
Dr. Leonard Gill, Director of the South African Museum, told a representative of The Argus today that for some time past he has been in communication with Dr. Smith about the prehistoric fish discovery at East London. A few weeks ago, Dr. Smith first consulted him and Dr. KH Barnard, the fish expert attached to the South African Museum, sending particulars of the catch.
“We are eagerly waiting to see a photograph of the fish,” said Dr. Gill. “If it turns out to be what we expect, then it can only be described as a most extraordinary occurrence – as one of the most exciting scientific discoveries ever made.”
DEEP WATER SPECIES
Dr. Gill said it was not possible to give a scientific name to the fish, except as a member of the order crossopterygil, thought to have been extinct for many millions of years. Fish of this type had to live in fairly deep water with a rocky bottom, but it was astonishing that none had ever been caught by trawlers before.
Dr. Gill thought it a pity the fish had been skinned instead of being preserved whole in spirits. Fortunately, sufficient data was collected and the time to ensure the positive identification and classification of the fish.
If the sensational nature of the find had been fully realized earlier on, the fish would undoubtedly have been preserved whole. – S.A. Press Association

Read more about the COELECANTH on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coelacanth

Snap, Crackle & Pop!

THE STAR Johannesburg - 1918
CAPE TIMES - 1933
Do you remember the slogan “Snap, Crackle and Pop?” Have a look at how old the famous Kellogg’s Rice Crispies and other cereals are!



Kellogg’s Rice Crispies
When you want to give the children a light, but satisfying meal there’s nothing better than Kellogg’s Rice Crispies. Made from kernels of wholesome rice, they are toasted to a delicious golden brown – so light they snap, crackle and pop in cold milk or cream. Children and grown-ups alike enjoy their tasty flavor and crunchy goodness. Try them today. No cooking required. Sold by all grocers in the red-and-green packet. 
(CAPE TIMES - 1933, August 5)

Old John Oats
Cooked in five minutes. The genuine Scotch porridge, prepared with a minimum of trouble. Made by John Grant & Sons, Ltd., Craig Mills, Dundee, Scotland 
(THE STAR Johannesburg - 1918, Jan.19)






Post Toasties
You have not tasted Corn Flakes at their best until you have eaten POST TOASTIES – a breakfast cereal with winning flavor. By a special process of cooking, rolling and toasting, the true, rich flavor of ripe Indian corn is brought out. This splendid food comes in sealed packets, air-tight and crisp. Eat with cream or milk. Delicious! Made by Meyer, Bridgens & Co., Ltd. 
(THE STAR Johannesburg - 1918, Feb. 14)

Pioneer “Crunchies” – South African Corn Flakes
Fresh, appetizing, wholesome, these South African Cornflakes will tempt the appetite of children who do not care for ordinary cereals. Although ready to serve, they may be prepared in a variety of ways and at any meal. (THE STAR Johannesburg - 1933, August 31)

Friday 13 September 2019

Why Men will Fly like Birds

CAPE TIMES – 1933, September 28
In Science, Mechanics & Invention, the Age of the Bird Man is foreseen.
Today in the most matter-of-fact manner you step into your motor car, press the accelerator and quickly travel to your destination.
Tomorrow, as indicated by recent discoveries in the science of aviation, you will be able to strap on a pair of wings, set in motion the machinery that will make them flap, soar through the air and speedily reach your journey’s end.
Men will soon be flying like birds, according to Professor Antoine Magnan, technical adviser of the French Air Ministry. In an address before the French Academy of Science this authority on aviation vividly described the early development of a gigantic new industry, which would spring up almost overnight, for he foresees countless millions of winged men.8
Professor Magnan has been studying the flight of birds and insects for more than 20 years, with the idea of making aircraft more efficient. He has experimented with 500 different kinds of birds, as well as innumerable insects, and has written more than 30 000 detailed reports on flights.
NEW TYPE OF PLANE
This French investigator, however, is not alone in his investigations to solve the secrets of the investigations to solve the secrets of the bird’s power of flight. Johnathan E. Caldwell, of Madison, New Jersey, likewise has been studying for years the wings of birds to discover their secrets of aerial propulsion. As a result of his investigations Mr. Caldwell has designed a new type of an aeroplane which embodies many of the principles he discovered that birds use in flying.
Mr. Caldwell’s plane is equipped with three wings, instead of the bird’s one, on each side. His plane uses a rotary motion where the bird uses a flapping action. The three wings, revolving, give a balanced action, a fly-wheel effect. The valves in the wings open on the upstroke and close on the downstroke, and thus function exactly as the feathers in a bird’s wing. The power impulse on the down-stroke, when the valves are closed, is a lifting impulse, thus keeping the plane in the air. In vertical ascent and descent, the wings are maintained in a neutral angle and in forward flight they are tilted into a negative or gliding angle while revolving. Altitude is regulated by the degree of rotation and controlled by the pilot at the throttle.
The idea of man flying with beating wings is several thousand years old, but it has suddenly become practicable, Professor Magnan points out, because of the development of motors, of increased knowledge of air structure, and most of all, because rapid motion pictures have revealed the mechanism of winged flight.
THE “BIRD-MAN”
By ultra-rapid motion pictures, and by using mixtures of tinted smoke so that the air movements round a flying bird literally can be dissected, aviation experts now understand for the first time just what is necessary for winged flight and so the era of bird-men is at hand, Prof. Magnan predicts. “I am certain that in a comparatively short time, perhaps two or three years, men will be frolicking about in the sky like birds,” says Prof. Magnan. “A man fitted with two wings, each with four or five square feet of surface, can fly with his own bodily energy if he can make his wings beat somewhere between 13 and 20 strokes a second. The man and his machine should not weigh more than 220 lb. for wings of this size. Naturally the wings would have a full spread in the downward beat and be turned sideways for the upward beat. The angle of the arc made by the wings would be 45 or 50 degrees. The flier would hardly have sufficient power to climb, though upward wind currents would lift him, but he could fly horizontally as long as his strength held out.” Prof. Magnan describes the bird-man’s flying equipment as a motored machine consisting of a light frame, including a seat, with two wings. Each wing would be from 60 ins. to 80 ins. long and the shape of half a leaf, cut along the main stem, with the straight side forward and both ends pointed. The centre width would be from 20 ins. to 30 ins.
SMALL MOTOR
The wings would not beat straight up and down, but the course of an inclined and rather flat figure eight; that is, a long stroke downward and forward, a turn upward, a long rising backstroke, a turn upward, and then the long downward and forward stroke again. The number required would be between 13 and 20 a second, depending on weight and other circumstances but 20 is the maximum necessary and a small motor is sufficient to produce this power. Prof. Magnan has calculated that a man has sufficient physical energy to fly with wings on a horizontal line, as he needs only one-eighth of a horse-power, which is what a day labourer exerts in his work. But it will be far safer and more exhilarating for him to use a small motor no bigger than his hat. Extra and revolving propellers also could be attached like those of an auto-giro.


Watch Jarno Smeets, a Dutch mechanical engineer, take off and fly like a real bird just by flapping wings of his own invention. Smeets took notes from the albatross and this system allowed him to literally start flapping his arms to take off and keep flying.



Tuesday 10 September 2019

Moulds in Medicine

CAPE TIMES – 1933, August 17

Messrs. O. E. May & H. T. Herrick of the United States Bureau of Chemistry, with a bed of growing mould used in producing chemicals for the treatment of disease. While the mould is growing it is kept covered with the screen which is shown raised in the picture.
Moulds, those uninviting and distasteful fungus growths of green that form on some foods as evidence of decay, have been discovered to be very healthful and now occupy a wide and useful field in the science of medicine, chemistry and industry.
Two chemists of the United States Bureau of Chemistry, Horace T. Herrick and Orville E. May, have found that mould is generally healthful. Of equal interest is the fact that mould occurs in a thousand different forms, several of which are applicable to business and industry. They have also discovered that various forms of mould, however deadly and disgusting they may look, when properly controlled are useful in promoting human happiness and health.
Mould is so all-pervading that it cannot be easily avoided even in the diet. You breathe mould without knowing it. When you tear off the tinfoil on a piece of yeast, you are preparing to eat a solid cake of mould. If you are a lover of good cheese, your Roqueford and Camembert will introduce you to forms of mould every time you indulge your appetite.
Mould has been discovered by these chemists as a powerful industrial aid. When the ore engineer attempts to duplicate Nature’s simple production, he takes acres of ground, tons of machinery, and the productive labour of hundreds of men.
Nature accomplishes it in the stem of a plant or the leaf of a tree or a bit of mould. Moulds do not sleep on the job; they work in 24-hour shifts. All they need, is an infinitesimal quantity of the proper food, a comfortable home in an evenly warm climate and protection from common enemies.
Moulds are being found useful for a wide variety of things, due to their ability to perform complex chemical engineering. Colouring matters, sugars, starches, fats and alcohols are among the products, as well as their production of citric acid from dextrose.
The process of putting moulds to work in producing gluconic acid, use in the making of expensive calcium salt with highly important medical qualities such as benefited the King when he was critically ill not long ago, was discovered by these two Washington scientists. By the use of moulds the salt is reduced in cost from 150 dollars a pound to 50 cents a pound. At that time, they were hunting for moulds that would produce tartaric acid. After they had examined 149 moulds the 150th unexpectedly produced the desired results. By producing chemical, calcium gluconate, mould has proved an unexpected medical ally in the treatment of calcium deficiency in the blood. Those suffering from this cause are constant consumers of mould.
It is believed that calcium gluconate, when fed to high-producing hens which lay thin-shelled eggs, may have a marked effect in thickening the shells. It is believed that the textile and tanning industries will also make use of this gluconic acid.
Chemists of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in their experiments found that moulds have sex. It was not previously known that there were male and female moulds. In these fundamental studies looking toward the production of mould on large scale there is a mould room with various dishes. One contains a piece of stale bread which is quite obscured by a luxuriant growth of black mould. In another is an old book, musty and mouldy, bound in leather. Still other dishes hold bits of cooked rice, gelatin, cake and others. These are all well covered with mould. The development of mould life is extraordinarily rapid. In the bread mould there are tiny, threadlike growths of separate cells. The threads sometimes grow from two to four inches and when conditions are right, from 15 to 18 inches.
At the free end of the threadlike filament, there are seen round swellings about the size of a pin head. These contain enormous numbers of a minute reproductive body, known as spores. At room temperature, when the air is moist, a spore germinates. It has been found that certain species may reproduce more than 70 000 spores from the original spore. Spores are so light, wafted about as they are on the slightest breath of air, that they are found nearly everywhere. Some scientists believe that spores were the first form of life on the earth. It is thought that they may have come through space, pushed along by the pressure of light waves.
There is rapidly developing many wide uses for moulds. Industrial fermentation produced by moulds embraces three operations which have widely different purposes, such as the use of mould to produce a substance hitherto found only in natural products, the use of mould to dispense with complicated and costly chemical reactions and the use of a living mould as a chemical reagent.

Monday 9 September 2019

First Penguins in Cape Town

CAPE ARGUS – 1939, March 6 & 15

The first Emperor Penguins ever seen in Cape Town arrived aboard the German vessel Schwabenland from the frozen South. Photographed with them is their “keeper”, Mr. E. Barkley who hoped to deliver them to the Hamburg Zoo.



Shortly after these penguins left Cape Town, a Golden Crest Penguin was found in the Cape Docks and a home was sought for this penguin.
WHO WANTS A PENGUIN?
One of the Golden Crest variety was found in the Cape docks by Mr. R. Charter, of the Division of Fisheries. At first, he thought it was the penguin which “deserted” from the American freighter West Isleta. A number of Jackass penguins were sent to the World Fair in this ship, but one slipped away before the vessel cleared and has not yet been found.
The penguin is about 14 inches high and has two golden “eyebrows,” the distinctive mark of the variety. Mr. Charter then thought the penguin might have escaped from the German ship Schwabenland, which had on board several Emperor and Adelie penguins, which it brought from the Antarctic and is taking to Germany. The Emperor penguins were the first of their kind ever to be seen in Cape Town.
According to inquiries made by Mr. Charter at the South African Museum, the Golden Crest penguin must have come from the Antarctic where they are to be found in large numbers. It is the only one in the Union at present.
It is thought that the penguin may have come in one of the whaling ships, but so far no one has come forward to solve the solution of how this Arctic bird arrived in Cape Town docks.
Today the penguin was taken to Mr. Charter’s home for the weekend. But he is not anxious to keep it and will gladly give it to anyone who wants it.

Saturday 7 September 2019

Burdens and Loads

CAPE ARGUS – 1939, February 20
Lines from Sunday’s sermon

“St. Paul writes of two sorts of ‘burdens – our own and our brother’s – and he uses different words to describe them – ‘burdens’ and ‘loads.’ Every man has his own life to live, his own problems to solve, his own responsibilities to face. Friends may help by their cheering counsel and kindly sympathy, but the full weight of the burden must rest on his own shoulders. But there are other burdens which one can carry for another, and this helping hand fulfills the law of Christ and makes one’s own load the easier to carry.” – The Rev. William Avery, Presbyterian Church, Woodstock.


Cape Town’s new £22 000 Broadcasting Station at Milnerton

 CAPE TIMES - 1933, July 18 The Cape and Peninsula Broadcasting Association started Cape Town’s first Broadcasting Station on September 15, ...