Awake!, September 8, 1958
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Happiness Not from Things w Cult of Ancestor Worship
The Nixon Good-Will Tour
Central Africa’s Queen City
SEPTEMBER 8, 1958
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CONTENTS
Happiness Not from Things
Enjoyment in Work
The Cult of Ancestor Worship
Why a Bullwhip Cracks
The Nixon Good-Will Tour
Trinidad Tigers
Good Water from Bad
Aruba Overcomes Its Water Shortage 16
Advertisement for Books
Central Africa's Queen City
“Transfusion Dangers"
Why the Unhappiness in Denmark?
Mileage Plus
“Your Word Is Truth"
What Was Paul's “Thorn in the
Flesh”?
Jehovah’s Witnesses Preach in All the Earth—Brazil
Watching the World
WHAT
does your happiness depend on? Does it depend on things? Many persons never learn that true happiness cannot arise from things; their futile quest for happiness by amassing possessions, acquiring creature comforts and getting gadgets should have revealed the truth to them.
Some persons do learn from experience. For a time they pursue things. They may go into debt to obtain the thing that they feel will ensure happiness. They engross themselves with it, especially enjoying the pride of ownership. Inevitably the luster of possession wears off; they see that they now need a new thing to restore the gloss of their ebbing happiness. Eventually they may come to realize how fleeting is the pleasure that things produce, how empty is the life of those who have been bedazzled by things.
What is wrong? People have been misled. They have been led to believe that happiness comes from things, that man’s goals in life are material, that an abundance of material things will readily compensate for any or all spiritual deficiencies. How wrong they are! It was the Son of God himself who declared that, though man cannot live without bread, neither can he live by it alone. Man has spiritual needs, and unless these are met his happiness cannot be complete.
Not long ago a professor of English at Wayne University, Detroit, Michigan, gave a talk to the members of the graduating class. Said Professor W. O. Ross: “It is my suspicion . . . that our culture—that you—are fundamentally wrong in your understanding of the basic nature and needs of man. You and all of us are wrong, I suspect, because within the last century we have become materialists. . . . We also believe, or act as if we believe, that man’s needs are principally material, whereas his true material needs are few and simple, and his needs for certain mental or spiritual qualities, such as love . . . are greatly out of proportion with these material needs. In other words . . . man’s needs are religious, not material.
“Man, I suspect, is primarily a religious creature, and is best comprehended in religious terms. And the precise error which the intellectuals of the Western world have been making for the last century or two is to deny this fact and insist that men are only complicated pieces of matter, whose true gratifications are ultimately those of the senses. To think thus, I suspect, is an error....
“Perhaps we all ought to be stronger and be able to resist the temptation of things, but we aren’t, and the inventions and discoveries of scientists and the achievements of technicians tend to keep us on an endless wheel, always m quest of a satisfaction which tomorrow will eclipse that of today. . . .
“I suspect that physical luxuries are red herrings with a vengeance, drawn across the path of our proper development. This, I suspect, is what is wrong with them! They divert us from our true course. I suspect that our true purposes should be to attempt to become saints, not men of wealth. Isn’t it curious? We have traveled —we people in this world—so far from the ideal of sainthood that when a professor ventures to suggest to a graduating class that it may be more important for them to be saints than to be doctors, or lawyers, or dentists, everybody has difficulty ip taking him seriously. Surely he’s cracking a rather dreary joke. But I assure you that I mean quite literally what I have been saying. . . . And so—I suspect you all, every one of you. I do not suspect you of any generally recognized crime. But I do suspect you of being materialists, and I suspect that materialism is a crime against humanity."—Vital Speeches of the Day, March 15,1954.
The first definition of the word “saint” in the Thorndike-Barnhart Dictionary is “true Christian.” This is the proper goal in one’s life; it is the paramount goal and it is a spiritual one. Making true Christianity one’s goal requires learning about God and his purposes, the searching out of God’s will for man and then the doing of that will. This is the way to lasting happiness; this is the way to gain everlasting life in God’s new world.
Material things all too often tend to obscure man’s main goal. Things should be an aid to one’s attaining the right goal rather than a goal themselves. People who are gadget-happy are not really happy; they are deluding themselves, cheating themselves of the happiness that comes from practicing true Christianity. Happiness is not the possession of things; it is the fruitage of love and service to God.
In the sermon on the mount Jesus showed the way to true happiness: “Happy are those who are conscious of their spiritual need.”—Matt. 5:3.
Those who are conscious of the need of only material things will find that discontent will be their lot. "Someday people wilt learn,” once said research scientist Charles P. Steinmetz, “that material things do not bring happiness.. , . Then the scientists wall turn their laboratories over to the study of God.”
To find happiness you must turn to the study of God. Learn his will. Do his will. Things of this world will pass away, “but he that does the will of God remains forever"—! John 2:17.
4.. "We have all become accustomed to rate the value of work by a purely money standard,” writes English writer Dorothy L. Sayers in Unpopular Opinions. “The people who still cling to the old idea that work should be served and enjoyed for its own sake are diminishing and—what is worse—are being steadily pushed out of control of public affairs and out of contact with the public. We find them odd and alien—and a subservient journalism . ... persuades us to consider them absurd and contemptible. It is only in times of emergency and national disaster that we realize how much we depend upon the man who puts the integrity of his job before money, before success, before self—before all those standards by which we have come to assess the value of Work,”
RAIN had not fallen in the Indonesian village of Kalingooa for many weeks. The threat of drought was getting serious. What could be done about it? Why, appeal to the ancestors, of course! So the natives, known as the Torajas, visited the grave of a famous chief, the grandfather of the present one. They began to pour water upon it and to pray: “O grandfather, have pity on us; if it is your will that this
passed into a deity, simply goes on protecting his own family and receiving suit and service from them as of old; the dead chief still watches over his own tribe, still holds his authority by helping friends and harming enemies, and still rewards the right and sharply punishes the wrong.”2
How far back ancestor worship goes cannot be dogmatically stated, but among its earliest manifestations doubtless was
year we should eat, then give rain.” For those primitive folk their dead chief not only was very much alive but whs endowed with even greater powers than he was supposed to have had before he died.1
The cult of ancestor worship, we are told, “is one of the great branches of the religions of mankind. Its principles are not difficult to understand, for they plainly keep up the social relations of the living. The dead ancestor, now
the worship of the slain Nimrod, as promulgated by his wife-mother Semiramis? In its cruder forms it is still found among primitive peoples throughout the world, particularly in Africa, Asia, Australia and their surrounding islands.
While ancestor worship at times is prompted by affection or reverence for the dead, more often than not it is need or fear that motivates it. Thus, “when a North American Indian fell into the fire, he believed that the spirits of his ancestors pushed him in because their worship was neglected.”2 In certain parts of Australia the natives “regard as very sacred certain trees which are supposed to be their de-
ceased ancestors transformed; hence they speak with reverence of those trees and are careful that they shall not be cut down,” lest they reap dire consequences. Similar beliefs are held by certain natives in the Philippines and in Korea.1
The same can be said about the ancestor worship of the African. Elaborate ceremonies and sacrifices are performed to appease dead chieftains. In these not only do the medicine men take the lead but even the clergymen of the sects of Christendom take a prominent part?
Foolish and False
The cult of ancestor worship has done incalculable harm, materially as well as spiritually. It accounts not only for the extreme backwardness of China for so many years but also for China’s being overrun by communism. Concerning its ancestor worship we are told that it “is perhaps the most unique element in Chinese religion. ... In no other nation has the intimate connection between a man and the spirits of his forebears been developed with such an elaborate ritual or had such an effect on Society as a whole.”^
Likewise, ancestor worship must largely bear the blame for Japan’s modern ambitious policy, which brought it as well as other nations so much grief. Says one authority: “In modem Japan the interaction of ancestor worship with Shintoism has been of major importance for the national character and indirectly in its effect upon international relations. ... In early times nature gods became associated with imperial ancestors. Japanese ancestor worship was at first imported from China.”6
As for the spiritual harm it has done: The cult of ancestor worship is credited with being one of the origins of idolatry. Thus “at Santa Cruz, when a man of distinction dies, his ghost becomes a duka. A stock of wood is set up in his house to represent him. Offerings are made to it in times of danger at sea, at the planting of a garden, on recovery from sickness.”2 At times such stocks of wood are given a head made of earth or clay resembling as closely as possible the deceased.
Then again, note the ancestor worship of ancient Rome, which was a communal rather thari a familial worship of ancestors, the manes. It.was closely associated “with apotheosis, the deification of a person after his death, applied chiefly to emperors.”6 Many were the Christians that suffered martyrdom rather than take part in this form of ancestor worship. This example, together with the previous one, highlights the most serious objection to ancestor worship, namely, that it represents a course of rebellion against God’s plain command: “You must never have any other gods against my face ... because I Jehovah your God am a God exacting exclusive devotion.”—Ex. 20:3, 5.
How this perversion came about God’s Word tells us: “Although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God nor did they thank him, but they became empty-headed in their reasonings and their unintelligent heart became darkened. Although asserting they were wise, they became foolish and turned the glory of the incorruptible God into something like the image of corruptible man . . . even those who exchanged the truth of God for the lie and venerated and rendered sacred service to the creation rather than the One who created, who is blessed forever.” —Rom. 1:21-25.
Nor is that all. The cult of ancestor worship has done great harm by reason of its teaching that the dead are actually more alive than the living, that the dead can help and harm more than they, could before they died. This very basis of ancestor worship makes a lie out of God’s Word, which expressly teaches the opposite: “Do not put your trust in nobles, nor in the son of earthling man, to whom no salvation belongs. His spirit goes out, he goes back to his ground, in that day his thoughts do perish." "For the living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all, neither do they any more have wages, because the remembrance of them has been forgotten. Also their love and their hate and their jealousy have already perished, and they have no portion any more to time indefinite in anything that has to be done under the sun.” “The soul that sing shall die.”—Ps. 146:3, 4; Eccl. 9:5, 6; Ezek. 18:20, RS.
What About Christendom?
Most persons, if not all, in Christendom will agree that all such forms of ancestor worship, primitive and Oriental, are very naive and foolish. However, the fact is that Christendom itself is saturated with the same beliefs and practices basically, being only superficially different. Do not its religious organizations, with very few exceptions, teach that man has an immortal soul? that at death man knows more and is more powerful than before he died? that he goes either to heaven or to hell or to purgatory, from which latter place one can be rescued by efforts in his behalf on the part of the living?
Note also the widespread veneration or adoration given “saints,” religious ancestors, as it were. Do not the devout appeal to them, especially in times of stress, instead of praying to God in Jesus’ name? Is not the very making or beatifying of supposedly holy persons as saints a form of ancestor worship? And is not the practice of devout persons in Latin-American lands of placing food before the statues of their “saints” identical with that of primitive peoples’ placing food at the base of a tree for the benefit of their arwestoEs whom they believe to be inhabiting the tree ?1
The worship of Nimrod, the deification of Roman emperors, the beatification of “saints" are all forms of ancestor worship, even as are its Oriental and primitive manifestations. Such are not only futile but also displeasing to the one true God, Jehovah. He alone is entitled to our veneration, adoration and service. He alone is able to help us, and therefore to him alone should we pray or make our supplications. Fittingly he commands: “It is Jehovah your God you must worship, and it is to him alone you must render sacred service.” Those -who are wise will not be "inciting Jehovah to jealousy,” but, knowing He “is also a consuming fire,” will give him the “exclusive devotion” due him.—Matt. 4: 10; 1 Cor. 10:22; Heb. 12:29; Ex. 20:5.
REFERENCES
r 77?r? Gotten bv Jb G. Frazer, pp. 71, 115,
Vol 1, pp. *46-433
J QiwZij'tert Ministers, p. 272, t 1954 yearbook of Je/iova/i’s p. 24811 th CTiina, E. H. and K. Hughes,
J The American Peoples' Encyclopedia, 1-913,
^04^ a.
Could it be that a bullwhip cracks because its tip breaks the sound barrier? According to Dr. Horace M. Trent of the Naval Research Laboratory, that is the reason. At a recent meeting of the Acoustical Society of America Dr. Trent and hie colleagues explained the principle to newsmen, “The motion of the whipper’s hand—only thirty or forty feet a second—eventually develops into a velocity of 1,400 feet a second at the whip’s tip," reported the ]yew York Times. “The tip slaps the air. Because of its speed it forces the air ahead of it to pile up, producing a sharp rise in air density and pressure. The pressure fries to relieve itself by going forward. At the point between the high pressure a shock front is produced, resulting in the sharp sound.”
i;
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and
COMMUNISTS” is the word usually heard to explain why the Nixon good-will tour to Latin America floundered. Vice-President Richard Nixon, speaking of the riot that caused his tour to collapse under a shower of spit and stones in Caracas, said: “Those who organized it were subject to central direction and are without a doubt Communist-dominated.” Yet he added; “A great majority of those who participated in the riots were not Communists.”
Similarly, Tad Szulc, the New York Times correspondent in South America who covered the Nixon tour, said: “Granted that Communist hands were pulling strings that set the crowds in motion, it remains the shocking fact that the majority in them were not Communists and that a climate of unadulterated hatred must have existed to lead men, women and children to degrade themselves to the point of spitting in the faces of the Vice-President and his wife.”
F GOOD-WILL TOOR
d it flounder?
Small wonder that Vice-President Nixon has called for a “reappraisal” of United States policies in Latin America.
Many observers have already made a reappraisal. They find that the riots cannot be written off merely as “Communist-inspired,” that the basis for the hostility is less Communist incitements than long-standing newly caused resentments and grievances.
Purpose of the Tour
The inauguration, May 1, of Argentina's president, Dr. Arturo Frondizi, gave Washington the opportunity to send Vice-President Nixon on a tour to Latin America. The purpose of the expedition was made up of about equal parts of attempts at fact-finding and efforts to explain United States policies. When the eighteen-day tour ended, some of the words the press used to appraise it were “fiasco” and “debacle.”
Why did the tour fail so miserably in its good-will aspect? Some of the blame for the tour’s floundering is now being charged up to inadequate preparation.
Though the good-will feature of the expedition came virtually to naught, the fact-finding phase, presumably, was productive. At the various stops, such as Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay and Colombia, the vice-president heard some sharp criticisms of United States policies. Fact-finding began in earnest at Lima, Peru. Arriving at the gates of the San Marcos University, the Nixon party was met by some 2,000 demonstrators. While some screamed such words as “Nixon is a viper!” others hurled eggs and stones. Later, when trying to return to his hotel, the vice-president was spat upon by the San Marcos mob. Peruvians were shocked; Lima newspapers called the incidents “shameful.”
The vice-president’s courage in the face of a howling mob won respect for him with many Latin Americans. Yet some of this respect, apparently, was soon lost. Explained The Christian Century: “Mr. Nixon won respect from shocked, intelligent South Americans for the fortitude with which he met the mean situation in Lima, Peru. Then he dribbled it away by rushing into the Quito soccer field to billygoat with his head. Whatever amusement his clowning provided local sport-fans, . . . he won only general contempt for himself and his country. The Latin American [demands in his leaders] dignity—and after all Nixon is the vice-president of the United States. Solemnly in frock coat and pinstripe trousers to lay a wreath on liberator San Martin’s monument, then rush forward with a salesman’s grin to backslap hoi polloi and go cavorting around a soccer field—this is too much for Latin Americans.”
But if the dignity of Vice-President Nixon had suffered, the prestige of the United States had suffered far more. Especially in Venezuela was United States prestige at a low ebb. At the Caracas airport the Nixon tour was confronted with several hundred students who shouted and spat at the Nixons as they walked to waiting limousines. On the outskirts of Caracas, a traffic jam halted the Nixon car. About fifty adults moved menacingly toward the car, but a truckload of soldiers blocked them off. The Nixon car moved, only to be halted again by another traffic jam. Ulis time the truckload of soldiers had disappeared. A crowd estimated at about 150 persons set upon the car with clubs, pipe.5 and stones. The Nixons were covered with shattered glass, and the Venezuelan fofeign minister, riding next to the vice-president, was struck in the eye by a piece Pf glass. Both the United States and Venezuelan flags were ripped from the car. After about twelve minutes, the battered car moved again.
Mobs roamed the streets for a day, burning the United States flag, denouncing the government it stands for. Thus the Nixon tour, which began April 27 with high hopes, endt’d, to all intents and purposes, on May 13 in near disaster.
The leaders of Venezuela’s political parties, with the exception of the Communists, called the day of the attack on VicePresident Nixon and his wife “Venezuela’s day of sorrow.” Comments in South American newspapers soon brought to the surface many °f the grievances that accounted for much of the hostility toward the United States.
Trade Grievances
“Any interpretation attributing all the origin to Communist inspiration does not represent ah the truth,” said the Rio de Janeiro Pwirio Carioca. “The United States Government has not tried to avoid reasons for friction and crisis, which become points of infection to good continental relations— petroleum and prices of basic commodities which we export and on which we base our economic survival.”
At the heart of these trade grievances are United States tariffs, import restrictions and the so-called dumping of farm products that compete with Latin-American exports.
“In Uruguay, Nixon was told,” reports Carleton Beals, “that our wool policy and our subsidized wheat dumping abroad have brought that country dose to economic ruin. Argentina has the same complaints. . . . Moreover, Argentina still smarts, as she has for more than a generation, over the exclusion of her meat from the United States on the specious charge of hoof-and-mouth disease. In Bolivia, Nixon was told that our policy on tin, plus Soviet dumping, had brought that country also to economic ruin. Peru likewise suffers from low prices and curtailed demand for copper and other raw products, and is bitter over proposed duties that would necessitate further cutback in production. Colombia has grievances over coffee and oil.”
In Venezuela petroleum makes up 93 percent of the country’s exports. Thus when the United States imposed a voluntary cut on its oil imports from Venezuela (also from Canada), cutting down Venezuela’s sales by more than 10 percent, it was a serious matter to a country where oil wells are the mainstay of its economy.
Many Venezuelans are incensed, not only by the restrictions on oil shipments to the United States, but also by the United States policy toward Latin-American dictators. In fact, one of the most often raised criticisms of United States policy, as VicePresident Nixon learned, is that of coddling dictators. At virtually every press conference the vice-president heard this criticism. This sentiment is especially strong in Argentina, Colombia and Venezuela, countries that have ousted dictators since 1955. When the United States granted asylum to former Venezuelan dictator Perez Jimenez and his police chief, it deeply disturbed many Venezuelans.
Placing the charge of dictator-coddling high up on the list of Latin-American grievances, the New York Times said that Washington’s “alleged support for Latin-American dictators—and it would be speaking less than the truth to deny that Washington frequently has been leaning over backward to show cordiality to local cavdiUos as the price of anti-Communlst policies in their countries—unquestionably has done the United States more harm since the war than anything else.”
"Inadmissible Forgetfulness"
But Washington’s treatment of dictators and its trade policies are not the only important reasons for Latin-American resentment. After the Nixon tour fiasco, Senator John Sherman Cooper declared: “This is more than just a Communist show. I think it represents some deep-seated grievances. Perhaps the Latin-American countries feel that we have been too preoccupied with Europe and Asia and have forgotten our closest friends.”
Similarly, the Buenos Aires Bianco said: “Inadmissible forgetfulness and unjust treatment seem to be the two dominant factors of United States policy toward its southern neighbors in recent years.”
How has South America fared as a recipient of United States gifts, compared with Europe and Asia? Since the end of World War II Europe has received $29,700,000,000; Asia, $18,800,000,000; and South America, $700,000,000. This is less than 1.5 percent of the grants to Asia and Europe.
A recent cause of resentment against the United States is a foreign-aid bill passed by the House of Representatives in May. The total sum is for $3,000,000,000, Of this only $100,000,000 was earmarked for Latin America. That is about 3 percent of the total.
Latin Americans are hoping that the floundering of the Nixon tour will result in what the vice-president has called for, a “reappraisal of our policies’ ’ in Latin America. The State Department has already launched one, and so now has a Senate committee.
TRINIDAD TIGERS
By “Awokal" torr«ipond*nt In Trinidad
ARE there tigers in Trinidad? Weil, not really, but still the name given by the Trinidadian to these creatures is appropriate, Just as real tigers are long, stealthy and deadly, so are Trinidad’s tigers. They are bold, and when they strike, death can ensue in a short time,
TjJ Really two different kinds of snakes, Trinidad’s tigers are known locally as “Mapepire Z'Ananna” and "Mapepire Balcin”; you may know them by the names bushmaster and fer-de-lance. These tigers are well equipped for cutting down a foe or putting meat on the dinner table,
■g The bushmaster is some snake. He carries two long, deadly hypodermic needles that fold away against the upper jaw when not in use; they jut out when the tiger is in the process of fetching a snack. This tiger's size is almost enough to frighten a victim into submission. Though more slender in build than rattlesnakes, Mr, Bushmaster may reach as much as twelve feet in length; in Trinidad eight feet is considered large. Mr. Bushmaster is thus one of the largest vipers in the world and the largest of the poisonous snakes, with the exception of the king cobra!
■jj Small wonder Mr, Bushmaster makes a striking figure! He is quite a fancy dresser in a rough sort of way; and he is rough. His skin, or scales, is about as rough as a wood rasp or a green pine cone, but it has an attractive color scheme. It has a basic pinkish or reddish yellow covered over with black splotches of a rectangular shape. For reasons best known to himself Mr. Bushmaster wears a streak of black from the eye to the corner of the mouth, reminding one of the mustached stage villain of days gone by.
This Trinidad tiger minds what he considers to be his own business and does not look for trouble, but he will take the offensive if trouble does come. He is a gentleman about it, however, and vibrates his rattleless tai] against the. leaves to produce a warning sound. It spells ‘,halt,.'' in any man's language. He will even advance slightly, keeping his body in an S-shaped striking loop. People here swear that he measures the distance and is unerring in his strike.
■J? Balcin, or Mr. Fer-de-lance, is the smaller of the two tigers. Its unusual name comes from French, meaning “iron [tip] of a lance," and refers to the shape of its head, one that is almost the shape of an arrowhead. Usually five to six feet in length, the fer-de-lance strikes without warning.
U There seems to be some sort of agreement between the two tigers as to dwelling places. The bushmaster takes the high road and the fer-de-lance the low road, since the latter prefers lower ground. It can be found around abandoned buildings or places where rats gather, such as old corn storage places or cane fields,
'S? Neither of these snakes is especially abundant in Trinidad; in fact, daytime hunters seldom come across them. Night hunters may meet them more often, because the snakes win their living at night, wandering about In search of prey. If a hunter is bitten it is usually due to carelessness.
The effect of the venom of these tigers is immediate and fearful. The poison is a powerful hemotoxin that attacks and destroys the red blood cells. It also attacks the walls of the blood vessels. Profuse bleeding occurs from the wounds, and in a short time bleeding from the throat, mouth, stomach and kidneys takes place. The tissue around the wounds is practically dissolved. Instant action is vital if death is to be averted. A man bitten in the thigh lias been known to die within ten minutes,
'K Emergency treatment consists of applying a tourniquet around the bitten member between the wound and the heart and gashing crosswise both fang marks. Suction is then applied. Prompt injections of the proper antisnakebite serum are highly necessary to combat the effects of the venom. Even then there is grave danger. Gangrene may set in at the bite due to the breakdown of circulation in that area. Recovery is a slow process,
'J,’ In view of the lethal power of the mape-pire’s ever-ready weapons and his willingness to use them, it is easy to understand why the Trinidadian coming across one will say he met a tiger.
T SEEMS strange that a man can die from thirst while floating in water; yet it has happened time and again. The victim of a shipwreck is surrounded by hundreds of miles of water, but there is not a mouthful he can drink. The sea water will poison his system.
There are about three and a half pounds of chemicals in every hundred pounds of sea water. That is far more than the body can safely handle. The impurity content of safe drinking water should be about one thirty-fifth of this amount.
But what would happen if a castaway should drink sea water? If his body is in water balance he can take in small amounts without too much harm. If he should continue drinking it, however, he will shorten his survival time. How it affects a person is described in an article that appeared in the magazine Natural History:
“Excretion of the salts in the sea water was taking water from his body, and he would have been dangerously dehydrated if he had continued drinking sea water. . . . The U.S. Naval Aero-Medical Safety Journal stated in 1955 that ‘all physiological knowledge at present indicates that sea water is inimical to the human organism and that its use will shorten rather than prolong survival time.’ ”
Must a castaway depend upon uncertain rainfall or perhaps even die from thirst while floating in a life raft? Is there no way to make sea water drinkable? There is a way, and the necessary equipment is usually supplied now with life rafts. They have desalting kits that consist of a plastic processing bag and several cakes of silver aluminum silicate. Each cake will purify one pint of sea water by causing the impurities to precipitate into solids.
Another device that comes with life rafts is the solar still. This consists of a plastic bag that is inflated into a ball when needed. It distills about two pints of fresh water a day by using the sun as its source of heat. Several stills and desalting kits are needed on each raft to supplement- its water supply.
Thirsty Cities
Since seawater can be converted to fresh water for castaways, why can it not be converted on a large scale for thirsty cities? Many cities in water-short areas have a serious water problem. Even cities that are located where water is more abundant are worrying about a water shortage because of the increasing demand being placed upon their supplies.
In the United States, from 1950 to 1955 water consumption leaped from 185 billion gallons a day to 262 billion gallons. By 1980 it is expected to range from 400 billion to 600 billion. Modern industry is the biggest cause of this water problem. One steel mill can use as much as 500 million gallons a day. About 65,000 gallons of water are needed to make one ton of steel, 500 gallons to make a yard of woolen cloth, and 100 to 200 gallons to produce a pound of rayon.
With growing industries and growing populations, is it any wonder that many cities are worried about their water supply? Some are coastal cities that have to bring in water from hundreds of miles away. Yet at their back door is an unlimited supply of sea water. Other cities may have large supplies of brackish water near at hand, but neither of these water sources can be used.
If these cities had big purifying plants that would convert bad water to good water, they could then draw from these untapped reservoirs and their water problem would be permanently solved. What is holding them back ?
Expensive Water
Converting bad water into good water is an expensive process. In the Caribbean island of Curasao distilled sea water costs about $3.80 a thousand gallons. This is more than ten times the cost of natural fresh water in other parts of the world. Converted sea water at this price is practical only when natural water is scarce and expensive. It will have to be brought down in price to the neighborhood of what municipalities now pay before they can use it.
You may wonder why the cost of converted sea water should be so high when there are no expensive dams to build, no long pipelines to lay and maintain, and nowhere near as many pumps needed. The expense is due to the energy and special equipment needed. If fuel is expensive, the cost of converted sea water is very high. Even when fuel is cheap the production of distilled water costs about two dollars a thousand gallons.
There is another method, however, that has promising prospects. It is the electric membrane system. A large plant that is designed to treat three million gallons of brackish mine water a day is being built in South Africa. The builders estimate that they will be able to produce good water at a cost of about thirty-five cents a thousand gallons. This is nearer the price cities are willing to pay. Of course, pumping costs and other distributing expenses will bring up the cost for the consumer, but even so it is cheap enough to give water-hungry cities hope.
Distillation
There are two approaches to the problem of purifying sea water. Either the water can be separated from the salts or the salts can be separated from the water.
The distillation method is commonly used by the world’s navies and ocean liners. It follows the approach of separating water molecules from the salts. When water is heated it is changed to vapor. As water molecules separate from the body of liquid they leave behind the salts that had clung to them. When the vapor is cooled it condenses into fresh water. This procedure is expensive.
Production costs can be kept down by using several tanks with water under successively lower pressures. The boiling point of water is lowered when the pressure on it is lowered. Vapor from the first tank is condensed by passing it through sea water in a second tank. The heat given off by the vapor is sufficient to boil the water in tank number two because pressure on the water is lower. The vapor from tank number two can then be passed through the sea water in tank number three, which is under a still lower pressure.
Even when several of such tanks exploit to the fullest the heat used in the first tank, energy costs are still high, about seventy cents a thousand gallons. Total costs may be three or four times this figure.
The cheapest distillation method is compression distillation. In this system sea water is heated to 212 degrees Fahrenheit, and then the vapor is compressed until the pressure is about 22 percent more than it was. This mechanical action raises the vapor’s temperature to 275 degrees. It is then passed through the sea water in the tank from which it came. Since the boiling point of water is raised when pressure is increased, this compressed vapor will condense at a higher temperature than the 212 degrees needed for boiling the water. The compressed vapor thus supplies all needed energy to heat another batch of sea water. Once this cycle has been started, no further fuel is needed for heating.
The energy that continues to be used by the process goes into the compressor. The cost of this method of distillation will depend upon the price and quantity of fuel used in generating electricity for the compressor. It is still expensive for large operations. Perhaps further research will bring its cost down to where water-hungry cities can use it.
Freezing
It is possible to separate sea water from its salts by freezing it. Since seven times more energy is required to evaporate water than to freeze it, this would appear to be a cheap way to produce large quantities of fresh water at low costs. But an obstacle stands in the way. It is very difficult to separate ice crystals from the salts.
As sea water is frozen its salts are left outside the ice crystals in the form of a highly concentrated brine. The big problem is how to remove this brine in a cheap manner from the microscopic cracks between the ice crystals. At present additional energy has to be used to keep the crystals from growing large and to spin them at a high speed. The centrifugal force throws out the brine. The crystals must then be melted to produce fresh water.
A pilot freezing plant has been built in the desert of southern Israel to convert sea water from the Mediterranean into fresh water. It uses freezing and compression distillation together in an effort to cut down production costs. But the freezing method is still too expensive for general use.
Solar Heat and Chemicals
A solar still works satisfactorily for producing small amounts of drinking water, but it cannot be used to meet large demands. Equipment costs are too great whether solar heat is used at a low temperature or at a high temperature by focusing it with mirrors. To produce enough pure water to supply the needs of an eighteen-mile-square piece of farm land would require some 200,000 acres of glass-covered trays. That would be out of all reason.
Chemicals are also out of the question. There are approximately three hundred pounds of impurities in a thousand gallons of sea water. The amount of chemicals needed to remove them must be about the same in weight. In a large plant producing one billion gallons of fresh water a day it would be necessary to add 150,000 tons of chemicals daily to cause the impurities to solidify and fall out of solution. The cost of the chemicals alone would make the price of the water prohibitive.
Electric Membrane Method
The impurities in sea water consist of atoms or groups of atoms that have either a negative or a positive electrical charge. They are called ions. Sodium ions are positive, whereas chlorine ions are negative. When joined they form sodium chloride or common table salt. They make up 86 percent of the impurities in sea water.
Since about a third of sea water consists of impurities, it should require less energy to separate them from the water than to remove the greater bulk of water molecules, as is done in distillation and freezing. It is possible to do this electrically.
When two electrodes, one positive and the other negative, are' placed in a tank of sea water the impurities that are nestled tightly among the water molecules are pulled away. The negative ions are drawn toward the positive pole and the positive ions toward the negative pole. But it has been found that simple electrolysis requires too much energy and does not purify sea water satisfactorily.
If specially constructed membranes are placed in the tank to act as sieves, a workable system is then possible. One membrane must pass only negative ions and another must pass only positive ions. With a large number of these membranes placed alternately between the two poles of an electrolysis tank, small chambers are formed. Each chamber has a negative membrane on one side and a positive one on the other.
When sea water is poured into aH of these chambers and electrical power is turned on, the positive ions in the water are pulled through a membrane into the next chamber, which is toward the negative pole. They are stopped in this chamber by a membrane that passes only negative ions. The negative ions in the first chamber are, in turn, pulled in the opposite direction into the chamber on the other side, where they are stopped by a membrane that passes only positive ions. This leaves the water in this first chamber free of impurities. Every alternate chamber in the tank will thus have fresh water, whereas the others will have concentrated brine because of the ions that are trapped in them. The brine is drained off into the sea and the fresh water is piped to a storage reservoir.
Electrodialysis, as this process is called, appears to be the most promising method of extracting fresh water in large quantities at nominal expense. It works best in brackish water. The salt content therein is lower than in sea water and requires less energy to remove. It is believed that this method can produce good water from bad at about thirty cents a thousand gallons.
A great amount of money is being spent for research on this problem of getting fresh water from bad water. The United States government is spending ten million dollars on it. It is hoped that between the government’s efforts and those of private industry large conversion plants can be developed that will successfully supply thirsty cities and arid lands with an abundance of moderately priced water from the sea.
By “Awakvl" CQrrttpcndent In Aruba
^rRUBA is a small island of some seventy B square miles with a population of about H 55,000. It lies in the Caribbean Sea, off the coast of Venezuela, and belongs to the group of islands known as the Netherlands Antilles* It has a healthful climate and boasts of year-round sunshine. One urgent problem, however, Aruba seems to have always had; a lack of fresh water*
s;. Aruba has no streams. With few exceptions its wells furnish only brackish water and there is only one spring, in a remote corner of the island. It gets little rainfall because of the trade winds and its lack of high hills. Its water shortage has become more acute in recent years due to industries moving in, such as the world’s largest oil refinery.
< Then, twenty-six years ago, technical science began to come to the rescue. In July, 1932, a still went into operation that utilized salt water. It produced 60,000 gallons of pure water a day—far from enough, however, for its 28,000 inhabitants. More stills were built and by 1950 there were ten of them, producing 600,000 gallons daily. However, the population and industry kept increasing also and a shortage of water still plagued Aruba. This has made it necessary for industry to import water by ship tankers from both Venezuela and the United States.
So early in 1957 the cornerstone was laid for a $10-million plant with live additional stills of a very economical type, which at the same time will provide the island with electricity. These stills, by employing an entirely new principle, the exact nature of which is still a secret, are able to distill water without having any scale-removing problem, one of the costly factors in producing fresh water from salt. When these new evaporators are com
pleted, sometime in 1959, the island will be able to supply water at half the present cost. Then, too, the system will pay for itself, while now there is a deficit that has to be made up by taxation.
When the new evaporators are completed, the capacity of the island will be 2.7 million gallons of water a day. This will mean plenty of fresh water for the population, for the oil refinery, for a 150-room resort hotel and for a hydroponic farm project (growing vegetables with their roots immersed in a water solution containing the essential elements instead of being planted in soil). At the same time the new plant will be generating 12,500 kilowatts of electricity a day from high-pressure steam. One new industry will utilize the residue from the distilled sea water, chlorine for making insecticides and caustic soda for oil refining* And no longer will it be necessary for the oil refinery to get its water by tanker from Venezuela.
Another thirst, that for truth and righteousness, is also being provided for in Aruba today. Supplying this spiritual water had its beginning some twenty-five years ago when the “New Testament" was translated into the local dialect, Papiamento. Later a little more was provided with the appearance of a Catholic version of the four Gospels. And today, just as technical science is helping Arubans to get plenty of pure fresh water, so the modern rotary' printing presses of the Watch Tower Society are turning out publications in readable Papiamento and neighboring languages. These have spread far and wide throughout Aruba and the rest of the Netherlands Antilles. As a result, today there is one witness of Jehovah for every 550 Arubans regularly calling upon their neighbors, telling them to come and take of life's water free. —Rev. 22:17.
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BY AWAKE! CORRESPONDENT IN SOUTHERN RHODESIA
V w OULD you be willing to pay $250,000 for an acre of land in the heart of Africa? No diamonds or oil or anything, but a plain square acre of land. Well, that is what you would have to pay for some business plots in the city of Salisbury, the fast-growing Queen City of Central Africa, Little would anyone have imagined such a price when in 1870 a pioneer column of European settlers from the South, traveling by oxcart, braved the fears and dangers of unexplored bushland and crocodile-infested rivers to land at the foot of a hill and began a settlement on a piece of land that was then covered by a native kraal. Today that little settlement has grown into a thriving modern city of almost a quarter of a million people, a city described by some recent American tourists as ‘the city most like American cities of any we have seen outside the United States.’
Salisbury is reputed to be the fastest-growing major city in Africa and one of the fastest in the world. The facts certainly seem to give good support to this claim. Numerically Johannesburg in South Africa has increased more in population than any other city in Africa. But when we take it by percentages we find that between 1951 and 1956, Salisbury’s population increased by 47 percent, well over three times as much as the city with the closest rate of increase! That represents growth!
What has contributed to this phenomenal growth? There are many factors. One is the climate. Though in the tropical zone, Salisbury sits on a high plateau, about five thousand feet above sea level, and this makes its weather almost ideal. However hot it may be in the sun, the shade is always cool and pleasant. In the entire history of weather keeping the temperature has never gone above 95 degrees Fahrenheit nor lower than 30 degrees, and these extremes are rare. Usually it is a pleasant 75 to 85 degrees, with the temperature dropping sharply at sundown, ensuring a pleasantly cool night for sleeping. Though Salisbury has moderate temperature, its being in the tropical zone gives it tropical fruits and flowers in abundance.
So, along with its ideal climate, Salisbury’s high standard of living, high wages and good education facilities have enticed many an emigrant from Britain, Europe and other places, making the population truly a cosmopolitan one. Salisbury’s new Kentucky airport can handle more passengers in a shorter space of time than any other airport in Southern Africa. It
is less than twenty hours1 flying time from London. It boasts the world’s largest single tobacco auction floor. Its new multiracial university provides excellent opportunities for advanced education, hitherto available only outside the Federation. Indeed, there is much to attract the immigrant to Salisbury.
Housing Difficulties
The population of this city is divided according to race. In 1956, the time when the last census was taken, there were 62,-000 Europeans, 3,740 Asians and coloreds and about 151,000 Africans. European immigrants are coming in at the rate of about 850 to 900 a month. Africans are coming to Salisbury at about 35,000 a year. This, plus local births, has created a real housing problem. Both government and private enterprise are trying to alleviate this situation.
Private enterprise has enjoyed, a remarkable boom and money continues to pour in from South Africa, Britain, America and other countries. Interestingly, the more than £15,000,000 ($42,000,000) worth of building plans passed for Salisbury in 1957 was about evenly divided between industry and residence. One scheme involving over £20,000,000 ($56,000,000) is already under way that will result in an entirely new suburb of about 6,000 houses for over 25,000 people. Plans are being made to provide these homes with “closed-circuit” TV and even to connect them with the city by installing a monorail system. Other smaller ventures are seen cropping up in several places around the city.
The government and City Council have not been slow in doing their part to cater to those from other countries who are seeking greener fields. One government scheme, started in March, 1957, is using £4,000,000 to provide nearly 2,000 homes in one suburb for people with low incomes. This is the biggest government-sponsored housing scheme in all Southern Africa and the money for it all comes from outside the borders of Southern Rhodesia. The City Council has also put up many houses and apartment blocks throughout the city.
The African population, too, has received the attention of the government and the council. Up until comparatively recently no great effort was made to provide homes for the Africans who were seeking employment. Aside from Harari, an African township, employers were expected to make provision for accommodation for their employees, but no provision was made for the families. As a result Africans would come into Salisbury, work for a year or two in industry, and then go back to the reserves to their families. Because of this, industries were never getting maximum efficiency. They never had the employees long enough to train them properly. Now, however, the government and City Council have built African townships and villages and provided them with bus sendee. Employees now have their families with them and are more content to stay put. The government now has a plan for African housing involving 12,-000 acres of land within a ten-mile radius of Salisbury Center.
All this has meant a great hum of activity and a great building boom for Salisbury. Everywhere you look you see office flats and residential apartment buildings going up. The avenues in Salisbury Center, once lined with quaint old-fashioned houses in spacious gardens, are now lined with graceful, ultramodern three- to six-story apartment blocks. The old-style business houses of one and two stories with their iazy, small-town atmosphere have given way to beautifully designed twelve- to sixteen-story buildings with the latest in modern architecture. Even now buildings are going up and up, with some planned to go as high as twenty-two stories.
4 Beautified City
All this change of face has made a new Salisbury, but as yet it has not detracted from the charm and beauty of the place. It is merely beauty of a different kind. Who can refrain from expressing himself in admiration at many of the suburban homes with trimmed hedges and shady driveways, with their swimming pools (a pleasure by no means confined to the privileged few) and tennis courts? Who can close his eyes to the breath-taking beauty of Victoria Park with its six- to eight-foot sweet peas in the wintertime and lovely flowering vines and trees in the summer? Some decry the passing away of old Salisbury, and long for the “good old days.” But they must confess that Salisbury, with all its rapid growth, is growing up in a graceful and charming way.
One certainly appreciates the foresight of town planners in making Salisbury a “rose among thorns,” for though surrounded by uninteresting “bush” country, Salisbury’s flowering tree-lined streets would be hard to surpass in any other city. Whole streets are lined with the beautiful jacaranda tree, and in "jacaranda time’' along the whole length of the street one sees a canopy of purple with a purple carpet underfoot. When these blooms begin to fall, the entire next street bursts into an orange-red glow with the flamboyant tree. Cross streets are lined with yellow flowering trees, and then come the vivid African flame trees, the bougainvillaea vines with their soft, many-colored flowers, trees with pure white flowers. Constantly changing, these beauties of nature never cease to call forth one’s admiration.
We must not conclude that all is a bed of roses, however. It is inevitable that with the rapid growth in population comes an increase, in crime, delinquency, road accidents, etc. Youth gangs are cropping up; immorality and divorce are becoming increasingly common, tsut tnis is to be expected and must be accepted as port of the growing pains in this world.
Protests Affoinst Salisbury
Not all are happy about Salisbury’s present spate of prosperity. Many claim that everything is being pushed toward the capital at the expense and to the economic hurt of other places^ It is like a lot of little piglets. The biggest ones crowd in and get all the milk. Many claim that this is just what Salisbury is doing. In fact the expression Bamba Zonke (“Take all”), applied to Salisbury, has become so common that they had to ban its use in parliament. Bulawayo, for instance, felt that, as it was the second-largest city of Southern Rhodesia and the Federation, it should at least have become the capital of Southern Rhodesia when Salisbury became the Federation’s capital. Then, too, why concentrate everything on one city when other places have the necessary amenities? As one city official put it, “Why push ourselves up to the sky in one small area when we have the wide-open spaces around us?”
Actually a committee was formed tolook into the question of decentralization and it has already made its recommendations to the government. These recommendations include industry in smaller places, extending of rail lines and improving of roads. And it seems the government is working on it. Plans have been made to spend £11,000,000 (about $31,000,000) during a four-year period on roads alone. Excellent progress has been made during the past five years, resulting in good asphalt roads to all the main centers of the Federation, except where the road goes through foreign territory. The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is rich in minerals, a recent discovery of emeralds adding to the mineral wealth. Tobacco and agriculture are more and more catching the eye
of overseas interests. The tremendous amount of money being invested in it speaks well indeed for its stability, a stability that is as solid as can be expected in this shaky old world. As long as it can maintain that stability Salisbury will no doubt reign as queen of Central Africa. It will continue? to grow and prosper.
It has been pleasant telling you about this city of ours and we say that the half has not been told. But we could never - think of letting you go without letting you know a bit about the most phenomenal growth of all, and that is the growth of the New World society of Jehovah’s witnesses. This group of Christian people who enjoy the reputation of being ‘the world’s fastest-growing religion’ is keeping up its reputation here in Salisbury. In 1950 there were two congregations of Jehovah’s witnesses, one African and one European, with about 125 active ministers. At the end of 1957 there were thirteen congregations, with a total of nearly a thousand active ministers! A 700-percent increase!
This also represents a great building program, building up a society of honest-hearted persons who long for Jehovah’s new world with its peace and security. Then they will “build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. . . . my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.” (Isa 65:21, 22, AS) Instead of huge monopolies buying sections of land for exorbitant prices and using it for commercial purposes, this land will be given to its inhabitants as a trust for which they will be responsible to God. Then there will be no fear of a “slump” or economic ruin, for Jehovah will be with his people and will bless them with peace and prosperity
Yes, that is something to look forward to, something now not very far away.
TRANSFUSION DANGERS""
INDER the above title the March, 1958, is- ; sue of Modem Medicine of Canada pub-11 shed the following thought-provoking : editorial as a matter in the “Forefront of ’ Canadian Medicine”: z ■
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