Photography, Not ‘Star Gazing,’
Is 1939 Astronomer's Method
Huge Glass Eyes Peer
Into Space, Solving
New Riddles.
Prepared by National Geoernphlc Society,
Washington. D, C.-WfJU Service.
The "eyes of the world," the great
telescopes that peer out from the
turning earth to explore the far
reaches of the universe, are in
creased by one more in the new 82
inch mirror of McDonald observa
tory on Mount Locke in the Davis
mountains of western Texas.
The completion of this giant
"eye,” which con photograph stars
only a millionth as bright as any
that can be seen by the unaided
human eye, brings to a total of at
least 40 the number of telescopes of
two feet in diameter or more now in
use In the world.
The McDonald observatory tele
scope is the second largest in the
world in actual use at present, be
ing exceeded only by the 100-inch
telescope at Mount Wilson observa
tory, Pasadena, Calif. Both, how
ever, are being surpassed by the
200-inch telescope set up on Mount
Palomar, Calif., under Joint aus
pices of California Institute of Tech
nology and Mount Wilson observa
tory. The McDonald observatory is
operated Jointly by the Universities
of Texas and Chicago.
Each Has Its Job.
The increasing size of telescopes
does not mean that the various in
struments will compete with one an
other in exploring the heavens, how
ever, nor is a smaller telescope
made out of date or useless by a
larger one. There is work enough
for all in probing secrets of the
vast universe, and the task of ex
ploration is divided among the vari
ous instruments.
Astronomers nowadays seldom
"look through” their large tele
scopes. They do most of their ex
ploring of the heavens by photo
graphing sections of the sky. The
great telescopes of modern times
are primarily giant cameras. Their
huge mirrors or lenses act as fun
nels for light, making it possible
to concentrate a large quantity of
star light in one spot.
By exposing a sensitive plate for
several hours, or even for several
nights, to light concentrated by a
4
Here is a replica of the 15
million-dollar Mt. Palomar ob
servatory and 200-inch. “sky
mirrorlargest in the world.
The replica is one-twenty-fourth
the size of the original dome,
which is 14 stories high. Every
movement and function of the
observatory is reproduced faith
fully. Samuel Orkin, who con
structed the replica at Pasadena,
Calif., is shown examining it.
telescope, an astronomer can photo
graph stars and galaxies of stars so
distant that he could never see them
with his own eyes through the same
telescope If he looked a lifetime.
This is because the effect of light
on a photographic emulsion is cumu
lative. which is not true of the hu
man eye.
Photographic Processes Improved.
The “seeing” ability of telescopes
grows greater also as photographic
emulsions are improved and made
more sensitive. Better emulsions
make the 100-inch telescope at
Mount Wilson considerably more ef
ficient today, for example, than
when it was built 20 years ago,
though its mirror remains the same
size.
But astronomers still would know
comparatively little about the uni
verse, if they merely looked at stars
and photographed them, even with
the largest telescopes. The light
that is concentrated by the giant
mirrors and lenses is not only pho
tographed directly, but is also bro
ken up into its spectrum of different
wave-lengths. By analyzing the
spectrum of a star, astronomers in
many cases can learn an amazing
number of things about it—its dis
tance, mass, brightness, tempera
ture, size, speed of rotation, and
even sometimes the approximate
number of atoms it contains.
Britain Mans
Old Fortress
On Alderney
‘Second Gibraltar’ Lies
In Mid-Channel,
Nearer France.
Prepared by National Geographic Society,
Washington. D. C.—WNU Service.
Already tagged as a “sec
ond Gibraltar” is Alderney,
of the English channel is
lands, as reports from Lon
don indicate that plans are
under way to fortify this lit
tle island which is closer to
the coast of France than to
the coast of England.
Sixty miles from England
at its nearest point, less than
ten miles from the Norman
dy shore, Alderney was once
described by Napoleon as “Eng
land's shield." During the Napole
onic wars and after, it was heavily
and expensively militarized by the
British, who also launched consid
erable construction on a great
breakwater that was to make the
isle’s principal harbor safe for the
British fleet. This haven is on the
north coast facing England.
A Rock-bound Coast.
Only about three and a half miles
long and with an average of one
mile in width, Alderney is something
of a natural fortress in itself. With
high precipitous cliffs on its south
and west coasts, it looms in many
spots from 100 to 200 feet above
foaming seas below.
Rocks surrounding the island
make navigation extremely hazard
ous on all but the northeast side.
Between Alderney and the French
mainland is a dangerous strait
known as the Race, where currents
and wind combine, in bad weather.
Map shows Alderney island and
its strategic position in the Eng
lish channel.
to churn the waters into wild, break
ing seas. On the other side of the
island, some seven miles west, is
the still greater hazard of the Cas
quet rocks on which many a ship
has gone down. Swinburne, the Eng
lish poet, once wrote a poem called
"Les Casquettes,” which described
a storm battering at the rocks and
mentioned a girl, who, it is claimed,
actually did live there.
Fortresses Still Usable.
Adding to the grim look of the is
land are the old forts and military
works, most of which have long
been dismantled. Fort Albert east
of the Harbor, Fort Tourgis on a
northwestern shoulder of the is
land, and Fort Essex on the south
eastern side, are still good, how
ever, for barracks. The latter,
named for Queen Elizabeth’s favo
rite, the Earl of Essex, was turned
into a military hospital, with facili
ties of wards, dispensary, and kitch
en.
Toward the interior, Alderney’s
fertile plateau displays a more invit
ing aspect Almost in the center ot
the island is located the only town,
St Anne, with its well-paved streets,
postal telegraph office, hotels and
shops.
WHO’S
NEWS
THIS
WEEK
By LEMUEL F. PARTON
■^EW YORK.—If the king and
^ queen had talked with Lawrence
Tibbett, after he sang for them at
the White House when they visited
T>.. „ n . our Capital.
Tibbetts Proof they might
Ours Is Not a have been
Parvenu Nation PJeasantly as*
sured that they
j had dropped in on the America
of authentic British tradition and
not a parvenu nation without a past.
In the California badlands, when
Lawrence Tibbett was 7 years old,
his father, a deputy sheriff, cornered
the bandit, wild Jim McKinney, in a
Chinese joss house in Bakersfield.
At that time, McKinney ranked Billy
the Kid, previously the leading bad
man in those parts. Shooting his way
out, he killed Tibbett. Tibbett’s
brother, Bert, then shetifT of Bakers
field, stepped in in time to land a
load of buckshot between the bandit's
eyes.
Just the other day, Lawrence
Tibbett’s Uncle Bert gave him
the shotgun which had dropped
McKinney. The boy had a hard
scramble, getting an education
and helping support his widowed
mother and, at long last—speak
ing in the manner of the house
of Windsor—here’s another dis
tinctive American touch—Law
rence Tibbett is the first Amer
ican singer to gain fame without
European training.
Betty Lee Tibbett, his sister,
taught him his first songs, and how
to play the piano. Joseph Dupuy,
the southern California tenor, was
y. , his first profes
/ ahes on a T sional teacher.
And Luck Does He knew he had
A Happy Turn a voice- but was
determined to
be a Shakespearean actor. However,
his fame as a singer grew in Los
Angeles, and he began studying with
Frank LaForge in New York. On
January 2, 1925, he stole the show
from Scottl, in Verdi's "Falstaff.”
The record shows one score for the
numerologists. His luck wasn’t so
good until he added another “t” to
his name—it Is properly Tibbet.
There’s still another touch of
quaint Americana in Mr. Tib
bett’s .story. Whenever he has a
headache, he walks around on
his hands. He says that sluices
the blood out of his head and
stops the pain. Many a time, just
before he was to sing a specially
exacting role, members of the
Metropolitan cast have seen him
off stage, running around upside
down. Our reception to the king
and queen was necessarily rou
tined, but they would have
learned much of interest if they
could have circulated in dis
guise like good King Alfred who
burned the cakes.
/X'HE Duke of Windsor gave the
L Rev. Robert Anderson Jardine a
pair of cufflinks for marrying him,
and the duchess sqpt him a piece of
I J• u wedding cake.
Jardine Had but That was about
Walk-On Part on the net return
History's Stage tor little vi‘
car’s defiance
of his clerical superiors. As the cap
tains and the kings depart, he's
broke in Hollywood, which, some
people say, is worse than being
broke in Death Valley. Those who
liked to think they had a ringside
seat at great events projected the
plump, sandy-haired little priest in
to history, along with the parish
priest mixed up in Napoleon's di
vorce and marriage—an event which
set up the "Black Cardinals” and
set churchly hierophants wrangling
ever after.
Soon forgotten was the Rev.
Mr. Jardine. His lecture tour In
this country wa,s a failure. He
found engagements mysteriously
cancelled. He now says, “Big
otry and persecution have fol
lowed us across the sea. My
wife and I hardly know where
to turn, but we’re fighting on. I
found that America thus far is
a land of promises, not of prom
ise.”
He was a low-church, Evangelical
pastor in Darlington, county of Dur
ham, working in the slums and ap
pealing for better conditions for the
| Welsh miners, known as “the poor
man’s parson.” It was King Ed
ward’s sympathetic reference to the
sad plight of the miners that claimed
1 his loyalty, even to the extent of
sacrificing his living of $2,000 a year.
He had hoped to gain a living by
lecturing in this country.
"People seem to shun me,” he
says. “I can’t quite understand
it.” He is a rather bewildered,
meager little man. He sent the
duke a cablegram congratulat
ing him on his recent peace
speech, but got no reply. How
ever, he has no regrets. He be
lieves it was clearly his duty to
perform the wedding ceremony.
"If 1 had to do it all over again,
I’d do it,” he says.
(Consolidated t eatures—WNU Service.)
NATIONAL
AFFAIRS
Reviewed by
CARTER FIELD
Curious picture devel
oped in hearing on the
Mead bill to extend loans
to small business . . . Dan
gers in the bill pointed out
. . . Financing of TV A be
comes four-sided question
. . . European dictators
jolted by the reception
given King George and
Queen Elizabeth in Canada
and the United States.
WASHINGTON.—A bit of testi
mony before the temporary national
economic committee, put together
with President Roosevelt’s enthusi
astic endorsement of the bill of Sen
ator James M. Mead of New York
for loans to small business, and then
added to the frequently stated doc
trine of the President that one of
the causes of the bust of 1929 was
a tremendous increase in over
capacity by our producers, unac
companied by increased spending
power to take up the slack, presents
a curious picture.
It almost justifies the pessimism
of Chairman Marriner S. Eccles,
of the federal reserve board, as to
the good that the Mead bill would
do if enacted.
The curious part of the whole
| thing is that Mr. Roosevelt, it would
seem, would encourage the same
sort of increase in over-capacity by
means of the Mead bill that he be
gan deploring in his 1932 accept
ance speech. He spoke then of the
i vast profits of the corporations in
I the good years, and wanted to know
! what had become of them. “Some
j of them,” he declared, "have gone
into increases of plant, now stand
ing stark and idle."
nis uieory uien, as enunciated
many times since, was that if this
money, instead of being put into un
needed additions to plant capacity,
had been paid out in wages, or
even dividends, the discrepancy
between buying power and produc
ing power would not have zoomed
to the point where it produced the
1929 crash and the depression.
Reference to this testimony leads
to speculation as to whether gov
ernment aid to the little fellows may
not work the same havoc that greed
on the part of the big fellows pro
duced in 1929.
Points Out Inherent
Dangers in Mead Bill
On the stand was T. N. B. Hicks
Jr. urging, on behalf of the Wyom
ing valley industrial development
fund, of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., more
liberal credit. He said there was a
small silk throwing company w'hich
would buy additional machines if it
could borrow cheaply.
"Are you satisfied,” inquired Sen
ator Joe O’Mahoney of Wyoming (no
connection with the Wyoming valley
in question), “that there is a market
for the product of this company if
it were enabled to aoquire the ma
chinery."
“The company already has the
business. Senator,” replied Mr.
Hicks. “They are already farming
It out under contract.”
“And not doing it themselves,”
said Mr. Hicks. "They want to do
it in our community.”
“Well, if the business is being per
formed on contract,” continued
O’Mahoney, “this financing would
merely mean shifting the production
from one plant to another plant.”
“Yes.” said Mr. Hicks, "for all
practical purposes. It means, on
the other hand, in our particular
community, three hundred jobs.
Senator.”
“But,” retorted O'Mahoney, "three
hundred jobs in your community
taken away from some other com
munity.”
This is not cited by the writer
to demonstrate that the Mead bill
is bad, or would work harm. But it
is cited to show that there are cer
tain dangers in the Mead bill, just
as there are inherent dangers in
any government control of credit,
or anything elso, for that matter,
which arbitrarily changes the lives
and habits of people.
Sometimes l here Are
Four Sides to a Question
Sometimes there are four sides to
a question, instead of only two. The
authorization measure for the Ten
nessee Valley authority to issue
$100,000,000 in bonds to finance the
purchase of the private utility prop
erties in Tennessee seems to be such
a case.
Introduced by Senator George W.
Norris, it passed the senate with
little or no discus
sion, but since then
for a time has been
stymied in the house
appropriations com
mittee. Actually it
was held up by the
coal operators. They
pointed out to com
mittee members
that this was nearly
twice as much mon
ey as TVA needed
for paying the Com
Senator Norris
mon wealth and Southern and the
; Electric Bond and Share for the
properties of their subsidiaries.
“What,” they demanded, “does
TV A need with the forty odd mil
lions in excess of that amount?”
The inference taken by the coaf
people of course was that TVA
would build additional hydro elec
tric plants. That is where the coal
interests come in, for obviously ev
ery time a hydro plant Is built just
that much of coal market departs
forever, no matter how the result
ing electricity is used.
Behind the scenes the private util
ity folks have been in a quandary.
Naturally they have the same in
terest as the coal people in prevent
ing, if possible, further invasion of
the electric field by the government.
They are especially close to the
coal people in their interests s&co
most of the private utility execu
tives now figure that current can be
produced more cheaply from coal,
by using modern methods than it
can be produced by water power, if
due allowance is made in comput
ing its cost for interest on the cost
of the hydro electric plant, and for
taxes.
Which brings in another angle; for
the state, county and municipal gov
ernments in Tennessee were anxious
to force a provision into the bill
which would require the TVA and
the local agencies set-up for public
distribution of electricity to pay
into the state and local treasuries
the same amount of money each
year which they would have paid
had they continued.
Don’t Like to Have Public
Power Systems Handicapped
This is a sore point with the pub
lic ownership advocates. They do
not like to have the public power
systems handicapped with this
charge of taxes. Naturally the pri
vate utility people are keen for it,
contending that no “yardstick” ap
proaches fairness unless this is in
cluded. In fact taxes and a com
parable amount of interest are the
two chief advantages which public
electric systems have had over pri
vate systems in fixing low rates.
David E. Lihenthal pointed out in
the TVA special committee hearings
at Knoxville last summer that the
government could borrow money for
2 per cent while private enterprise
would have to pay much more. But
private utility men have been con
tending ever since this is only part
of the story—that in fixing rates the
TVA has made no charge whatever
for the millions of dollars interest
every year the taxpayers have to
pay for the cost of the TVA project.
Also that in local public ownership
systems 45 per cent of the cost
would be a free grant from PWA,
with the other 55 per cent at a low
rate of interest
But the utility people would like
to see government money actually
paid for the Tennessee properties,
and the stupid possibility of compe
tition between private and public
ownership systems prevented. So
they would like to see the bill
passed, with certain amendments.
The coal people don't care much
about the amendments, but want
them written in if the bill is to pass.
Reception of British Rulers
In Canada Jolts Dictators
Whether British Prime Minister
Chamberlain “planned it that way”
may never be known, but the visit
of the king and queen to Canada
may easily have stayed the hands
of Mussolini and Hitler for some
time to come.
The reports of the tremendous
ovation which their majesties re
ceived from Quebec to Vancouver
and back must have surprised and
startled the foreign offices of Berlin
and Rome as much as they did
the Canadian politicians. There is
no speculation about this. Eminent
political leaders of all parties in
Canada frankly said so to visiting
American newspaper men.
In short, the greeting of the
Canadians, no matter what was the
mother country to their own fathers
and mothers, put an entirely differ
ent face on the probabilities as to
what Canada would do if Great Brit
ain should become involved in a
war.
It is a truism in politics, certainly
in the United States and probably
in Canada, that it is not the truth
which is important, but what peo
ple believe. Carrying on the thought
a bit further, it is not what the peo
ple believe which is really impor
tant—in between elections—but what
the politicians they have elected to
represent them think the people
believe.
It is as simple as that.
Mental Attitude of Crouds
Big Surprise of Visit
British and American newspaper
men on the "pilot” train which ran
always—until it neared Washington
and developed trouble—a little
ahead of the royal train, were
amazed at the outpourings. They
would be told, not only by the
Canadian officials, but by their Cana
dian newspaper colleagues, that this
particular town would not be worth
while—that it had been kept on the
schedule through a mistake, and
that only a few hundred people
could possibly be there.
Then they would arrive and the
whole surrounding countryside
would have apparently turned out,
for there would be thousands.
Even more important, it was the
mental attitude of the crowds which
I had been appraised even more in
accurately in advance. Th ir maj
esties had been warned not to ex
pect too much. The people in one
community, they were told, would
be mostly Scotch, and hence dour
and cold, though pleasant, while in
another community most of the peo
ple would be Poles, Germans, Rus
sians, etc., who could not be expect
ed to be too enthusiastic.
(Bell Syndicate—WNU Service.)
Hoyd (tib&otosL
Wm>'
ADVENTURERS’ CLUB
HEADLINES FROM THE LIVES
OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELFI
“When Clocks Stopped”
Hello everybody:
Bryan Oarlock of Bloomington, 111., is one man who
knows exactly when his adventure started. Other folks may
be a little vague about the exact hour and minute of their
life’s biggest thrill.
When death is staring you in the face, you don’t stop to
look at your watches and say, “Ho, hum, if I don’t get out
of this mess pretty quick I’ll be late for dinner.” Neither ^
did Bryan, for that matter. But he knows the time.
He knows it because, when the blow struck, all the clocks
and watches stopped. It was the end of time. The end of
the world! The end of everything! The day was March 10,
1933, and Bryan had arrived in Long Beach, Calif., just that
morning, to visit his sister, who was married to an army
officer, Lieut. Chester Linton.
She and Bryan had gone down town in the afternoon and
returned home at 5 o’clock. The clocks and watches stopped
at exactly 5:55!
In the meantime, they were busy getting dinner ready.
Chester Linton had come home. Sis was in the kitchen mak
ing salad and biscuits. Potatoes were boiling on the stove and the roast
was in the oven. The rest of the family was in the living room. Bryan
was reading and the children—a girl and three boys—were playing on
the floor.
Sis came in and said, "Are you all hungry? Dinner will be ready in
a few minutes.” And then
The Building Began to Rock and Sway.
And then—terror! The words were hardly out of his sister’s
mouth when the building began to sway and rock. There was a
roar that sounded like thousands of firecrackers exploding all at
once. Tables and floor lamps fell over. Plaster crashed down
from the ceiling, and the floor bulged upward and burst open.
Says Bryan: “I thought the world was coming to an end. The whole A
house was rocking like a boat. I couldn’t get my voice for a moment, V
^ I
<Z. A't/A'/rs*
When we couldn’t run any more, we walked.
and when I did, I cried out, ‘What is it?’ Then I heard Chester say, ‘Earth
quake! Get out!’ As he said it, the wall beside him crumbled and fell
out into the street.”
The apartment was on the second floor of a brick building at the
corner of Broadway and Linden. They started for the stairway, and
Bryan says when he reached it it was moving like an escalator. Sis and
the kids were safely at the bottom. The lieutenant was behind him- Bryan
was half way down that tottering stairway when his foot went through
a broken step and caught there.
He struggled to extricate himself, but the harder he tried, the
tighter he seemed to be wedging himself in. Now, the lieutenant
was at his side, trying to get him out. Plaster was still falling
from the walls and ceiling. At last the lieutenant got him loose,
and they ran out into the street
Across the Street a Neighbor Was Killed.
On the other side of the street, a neighbor was lying dead on the lawn
—a great chunk of cornice beside him. He had run out of his home al
the first shock of the quake, just as the cornice fell, and it killed him.
The whole neighborhood was in confusion. Some men were carrying
a woman into the bungalow next door, her leg torn and bleeding.
And then, another terrible cry was passed from mouth to mouth
through the stricken area. “Tidal wave coming!” "We were only three
blocks from the ocean,” says Bryan, “and we took the kids and began
running inland. We had had nothing to eat. The roast and potatoes and
other food back home had been blown against the north wall of the kitchen.
When we couldn’t run any more, we walked. We went on
that way for two or three hours, through streets filled with debris
and ruin and desolation. Before long, the city was under martial
law. About eight or nine o’clock we struck a place that hadn’t 4
suffered quite as badly as other sections of the town. They were
serving soup, sandwiches, coffee, etc., so we stopped and had
something to eat.”
They were all exhausted by this time. There was still no sign of a
tidal wave and, tidal wave or no tidal wave, Bryan wasn’t going to go a
step farther. They held a council of war and decided to return to the
i neighborhood of home.
They wandered back toward the ocean and, within a block of the
Lintons’ wrecked house they found an apartment building which was stil)
in pretty good shape, and managed to get shelter for the night.
Bryan Noticed His Foot Was Damp.
For the first time, then, Bryan noticed that his right foot was
damp. He pulled up his trouser leg and found the foot covered
with blood. There was a nail in the calf of his leg. Evidently it
had been thrust there when he got caught in the broken stairway.
“There was a doctor in the house,” he says, “and he dressed the
wound. I was walking like a drunken man, and the doctor told me I was
j ‘earth shocked.’ ”
The tremors continued all through the night. They stayed in the
apartment house, but in the morning they had to move on, for the city’s
mains had been broken and there was no gas or water. They went to
City Hall park, where relief work was getting under way, and there
they were put into a truck and sent to Lennox, about 12 miles from Lo?
Angeles where a woman’s club had been turned into a dormitory.
“They gave us medical attention there,” says Bryan, and
a lot of us needed it. A lot of the women were hysterical. One of
the nurses there had been in hospitals in France during the .war
and had been bombarded by the Germans, but she said it didn t
affect her nearly as badly as the quake did.
“Our little group got off easily. My sister and her little girl had been
hit by plaster and the three boys had their legs skinned. The lieutenanl
had had the presence of mind to hold a chair over his head, and he
escaped without a scratch. But the thing that saved us all from death
was our delay in getting out of the house. If we had gone out while the
debris was still falling we would have met the same fate as our neighboi
across the street.”
(Released by Western Newspaper Union.)
_____-_
College Graduates and Divorce
The divorce rate among college
graduates is low, compared with
the rate of the country as a whole.
In a study made by the office of
education of 46,000 alumni over
the period from 1928 to 1935, there
were 19 divorces per 1,000 mar
riages. More college women than
college men are divorced.
Head-Hunting Persists
Head hunting is still being prav
ticed. The best-known case of this
in present-day times is represented
by the Jivaro of South America.
There is also good evidence that in
spite of governmental pressure, iso
lated cases of taking heads still oc
cur in remote parts of the Philip
pine islands and in Borneo.
