From the July 24, 1937, issue
SCROLLS WITHOUT WRITING TELL OF FLOODS AND SUN
Scrolls without writing, yet eloquent in protest against outrage done to the land, and in warning of doom to come unless we presently mend our ways, can be found on any flatland after inundation, when the sun has had time to bake the thin layer of glutinous mud and crack it and curl the edges. For every flooding a new layer is added, until they are piled like the leaves of a book, as shown on the front cover of this week’s Science News Letter. All the bottomlands of the country have whole libraries of such warning volumes.
This particular one was read and pictured by a high school student, Clarence Tripp of Corsicana, Texas.
AERIAL ATTACKS BY HOPPERS BRING WAR INTO NEW AREAS
Dangerous aerial attacks by flying grasshoppers are predicted for middle western states about now (July 25). Out of the skies are likely to come great hordes of this insect pest, now in its flying or aviation phase, traveling with favorable winds hundreds of miles in a single day. This is likely to bring the grasshopper war into fields of farmers who thought they were safely remote from the battlefront they had heard about miles away.
Despite this new phase of science’s battle against the plagueful hoppers, Dr. W.R. Walton, senior entomologist of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s bureau of entomology, is feeling fairly well pleased with the defense being waged against these insects. As he checks his insect war plans, consisting of tables showing allotments of poison purchased with the million dollars appropriated this spring by Congress, he finds that the most serious foe is aligned from Arizona to the Canadian border.
This kind of grasshopper—locusts to the entomologist—is the lesser migratory locust, technically known as Melanoplus mexicanus. Some entomologists think it is an evolution of the old Rocky Mountain locust of years ago. The present variety is very much the same except that its wings are shorter.
This pest is just now getting to be grown-up and with this adulthood comes its dangerous ability to fly.
PARIS TO HAVE POWERFUL TELEVISION TRANSMITTER
The world’s most powerful television transmitter is now in limited service at the Paris Exposition, reports the U.S. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce.
By fall, the peak power of 30,000 watts is expected to be available. Transmission of television pictures from the Eiffel Tower antenna will give a definition of 405 lines to the picture.
Recent demonstrations of television in America have shown a definition of 441 lines to the picture but the power of transmission has been less than the 30-kilowatt effort of the French.
