1960-10-29 — Page 17

SPEC

SECTION FOR HONGKONG

MICRO MONSTERS

EVERYONE must have shuddered at some time at

who set out to make a man-and created a monster.

The story the father of all the The Thunder and What was

name

horror tales-was written by Lightning Mar. Many though! Mary Shelley, wife of the poet he was in league with the Shelley, when she was 21 devil. years old in 1818, and it has -

been the basis for a score of In fact Crosse was doing sequels and horror films. valuable work inside the house -in making crystal formations But 20 years after Mary by electricity. This was some- Shelley had written her thing completely new. It was Frankenstein book (as the only in 1800 that Count Ales- result of a friendly, contest sandro Volta hed discovered

the secret

of the

man-made

with her husband and Lord how to make a primitive life? asks

Byron to write the most battery by the contact of two frightening story) a Somerset dissimilar metal plates in acid squire was being hounded as a water. real-life Frankenstein.

In 1836 Crosse was invited to It's true that he didn't make explan his work to the geolo-. a shambling, seyen-foot-tall, gical section of the British Lon Chaney type of monster Association. He told how, by but something much, much passing A current through smaller. But the worry, and mineral solutions, he had the bate and the abuse that his managed to make crystals like work brought him were almost those found in nature, as bad as that endured by Frankenstein for his creationi

Leaping

The man was Andrew Crosse, : pre of Britain's pioneers in the uses of electricity. He was a country gentleman; his home was at Fyne Court, Broomfield in Somerset, a manor house that had been in his family for generations.

Henry Lewis

The whale countryside rose up .against him, it wasn't even

safe to go out

sect standing erect on a lew range of mites and ticks. But scientists were deeply interest- This was a revolutionary bristles which formed its tail. were they a known type or ed, of course. thought at the time-man find- Till this period I had no notion something completely new? ing a way to equal the work of that these appearances were nature. But it caused no stir. other than the beginning of outside scientific circles. The mineral formation." public were not alarmed. Crystals sounded barmless enough. Crystals had no life.

ter

Insects were a different mat-

Horror

But then a newspaper picked up the story of the man-made Wrote Crosse: "There appears insects. It went around the to be a difference of opinion as world. Church leaders rushed to to whether they are a known denounce the man who 'made' species; some assert they are life not."

How

did

"No good can come of i" they declared. they happen? Crosse protested: "I am not.

that an umbeliever, nor a self-

Now the note of horror begins Crasse's first thought was It happened the next year. to creep in despite Crosse's they came from fantastically imagined creator. To create is Crosse was trying to make a scientific detachment,

tiny ova or germs laid by female to form something out of new mixture of hydrochloric

insects in the atmosphere and nothing and can only be an acid and a solution of silicate of "On the 28th day, he wrote, hatched out by the electrical attribute of the Almighty. I 25- He went to Oxford and took potash. Then he allowed the "these little creatures moved action.

But his microscopes sure you most sacredly that I his degree, then, with his mixture to seep through a piece their legs. After a few days were unable to detect anything have never dreamed of any parents dead, the young man of porous stone-iron oxide they detached themselves from to bear out this theory. He could theory to account for the ap- moved into the manor house, from Mount Vesuvius-which the stone and moved about at find no traces of any egg shell. pearance of the insects. turned three ground-floor was electrified by a battery. pleasure." rooms into laboratories and began his experiments, study- ing electricity, chemistry and mineralogy.

were

We have an account of what happened in his own words.

Fourteen days after the ex- periment began he noticed through his microscope that the stone had grown a few whitish pimples.

Confess

irst

Next he thought they must Then with what must be a have come from the water he masterpiece of understatement used. But again he failed to find even among scientists, he added: any evidence. "I must

"I confess I was not a little say I was not a little Soon the villagers

astonished.”

He made further experiments surprised and am so still, quite talking about the big, house

and again the insects appeared as I was when the acari Within the next few weeks in the liquid. And what is more, made their appearance. I have For in the grounds, or poles,

100 insects appeared miraculous- they bred, Ova were produced never claimed any merit for Crosse strung up a mile and a

ly on the stone. "I examined and they began to multiply. But these experiments. It quarter of insulated copper. Eighteen days after the ex- them with a microscope and ob- they never lived beyond matter of chance; I was looking studying periment began each pimple served that the smaller ones ap- autumn; the first frost always for silicious formations and atmospheric electricity.

sent out seven or eight tiny peared to have only six legs, the killed them.

acari appeared instead." threads. But as tales spread of elec-

larger ones eight," wrote Crosse.

Crosse tried to settle the mat- Crosse told his story to fellow ter. He set up an experinat trical flashes scen leaping and "On the 26th day," wrote What were they? There was scientists, how he could only under conditions designed "to cracking about the wires in Crosse, these appearances as- no doubt they were of the assume that he had made rule out any possibility of insect stormy weather he was given sumed the form of a perfect in- Acarus species which includes a these insects in some way. The

wire.

He was

UNDERSTANDING

YOUNG

THROUGH

TOWARD

sad

LASTING

.

I HAVE received many requests from members asking whether I could

put them in touch with pen-friends overseas.

was a

ova getting into his chemicals from outside. He used an airtight glass retort sterilised in hot alcohol and filled with electrified salution. He sterilised his wires, used the same silicate solution but used it hot. Every-

For this reason I feel that this letter received from the States would thing possible was sterilised and be of interest to you.

NEWS RELEASE

FROM

Youth of All Nations, Inc.

16. SAINT LUKE'S PLACE

Telephone WAtkins 4-1358

NEW YORK 14, N. Y.

MAN the young people of Hongkong study or even just travel-abroad? Does not your youth want to.

know how life is in other countries?

So asks YOUTH OF ALL NATIONS, INC. (YOAN), earthwide correspondence agency beadquartered in New York.

"It is not only young America that turns to us for pen-friends all over the world, wanting to swap ideas, hopes, experiences plans, and find out about the way of life elsewhere. Young people of a hundred other countries also do

We beg help in letting your young readers know this."

citizens in the 1960's.

YOAN, whose motto is force. YOAN is non-political, selves for me:ningful roles as NATIONS, 16 Saint Luke's "Through Young Understanding and non-sectarian.

challenging Place, New York 14 NY. toward Lasting Peace," has

All letters should tell the We know that the young Persons aged 13 to 24 won much praise, and enjoys people of Hongkong

who writers age, the languages he must bê want information may send. an or she knows, and somethin, the blessing of Eleanor Roose- eager to know their cantem- International · Reply Coupon about special hobbies and E; velt and other notables, for poraries of other countries and (obtainable at any post office) jerests. Also what foe having developed "pen-pal-ing" to widen their 'little private or enough unused postage three choices of countries woul

an attractive educational worlds, thus preparing them- stamps to YOUTH OF ALL be.

into

|

sealed. No pormal life should have been able to live, let alone be born, under the con- ditions he imposed.

But again the acari appeared. He repeated the experiment in a chlorine atmosphere. Agaf the acari appeared.

Now the countryside, hearing the experiments were still go ing on, rose against the scientist and his friends.

A hermit

They broke down his fences, set fire to his crops and Filled bis cattle in an attempt to drive Crosse away from the village.

He sealed himself inside the manor and becara spore or less a þegnit. He mid në mate of my experiments producing liv ing things. And gradually, the storm died

Where did the insects `come from? Still no one kodus. Were they, in fact, a known species or sortething new-Acari Electri-

cus?

Was there anything significant in the fact that the stone used came from Mount Ventus, which is of course, yolcamc?

Grove pres is no beo Ha

wrote: I have never ́ ventured 20 opinion on the cause of their birth and for a good regscha. 1 was unable to form one."