Thursday, April 7, 1949
Last Friday afternoon, neighbors called in to observe the big silver ring around the sun. What was the sign? Why, snow, of course; there was a plenty on high ground Monday morning. The book says the ring is reflected light of the sun on ice crystals in the upper atmosphere.
HONOR STUDENTS
Of the 119 residents of the woman’s dormitory at the University who made a B or better in their scholastic averages during the first semester were Jeanne Sheets, daughter of Clarence A. Sheets, of Dunmore, and Ruth Hill, daughter of George P. Hill, of Hillsboro…
FIELD NOTES
On Thursday morning of last week, Ernest Burr, of Burr Valley, took his famous Bluetick jip hound, Queen, out fox hunting. She routed a gray fox in a short time and ran him all day long without Ernest getting a shot. He took the dog off the track at dark and decided to wait until daylight next morning. At day break, he took Queen back where he had taken her off the track, and started her again.
In about an hour, she had the fox going again. She again ran the fox all day with terrific speed. Ernest got two shots which were more or less guess work. The shots taking no effect caused the fox and dog to increase their speed until dark again. It was after dark when Ernest took his dog off again and trudged home more or less disgusted. Not to be outdone, (like all old fox hunters) he went back on Saturday morning and started the dog at the same place. She trailed the fox about one half mile and suddenly quit barking. Ernest knew something had happened so he began trailing his dog and found the fox lying dead and stiff. The dog had not touched the fox. Of course, it’s anybody’s guess what happened, but Ernest is of the opinion, that two days of hard breath-taking speed by Queen was more than Mr. Fox had bargained for.
WASTED KNOWLEDGE
Nearly every great development has been hindered by people who didn’t want their thinking disturbed. The Wright brothers flew their plane six months before a leading American scientist flatly declared it couldn’t be done. The first tests of Edison’s electric light were hailed as a failure by the president of Stevens Institute of Technology. When the first railways were being built in Germany, doctors solemnly testified that hurt-ling across the countryside at the tremendous speed of 15 miles per hour would cause blood to spurt from the eyes, mouths and ears of the passengers…
Stagecoach owners drove the first steam automobiles off the English roads by ridiculous laws. It took more than 40 years for English automobiling to catch up with the rest of the world…
The lag between the needed idea and the wide use has apparently always existed. S. C. Gilfillan analyzed 19 major inventions that were important between 1888 and 1913. Averaging them out, he found that about 176 years had elapsed after the idea for the invention was first mentioned and before a working model was made. The first practical use took another 24 years. And another 12 years went by before the invention became of real social importance.
Perhaps the most dispiriting obstacles in the way of using what knowledge we have are broadly social, rather than any caused by the self-interest of any special group. The responsibility for the lag in their introduction rests squarely on the door-step of society as a whole. – George Mann, Science Digest
