This edited article about vitamins originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 690 published on 5 April 1975.

A poster from the 1940s promoting healthy food consumption

Doctors were puzzled. In Britain’s smoky industrial cities, children were suffering from a disease which made them very ill and left them with bent bones.

But in the fishing ports, the youngsters seemed miraculously free from this ailment. What was the reason? In time, the doctors found the answer.

The fishermen’s children were eating bread dipped in fish oil, and it was the oil which was keeping them free from the dreadful illness, called rickets, which was spoiling the health of the city children.

Rickets is caused by a lack of calcium which is necessary for the building of strong bones. This cannot be obtained unless there is vitamin D in our food. Fish oil is rich in vitamin D, and that is why the fishermen’s children who ate it were fit and the city children, who were denied it, were sickly.

If we eat a balanced diet, we will get all the things we need to be healthy, including all the substances called vitamins, from the Latin word vita for “life”. They are tiny chemical compounds and were discovered in 1911 by Casimir Funk, a Polish scientist.

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This edited article about the sea originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 689 published on 29 March 1975.

Waves crashing on the seafront by Clive Uptton

Most of us think that the sea consists entirely of water. But in every hundred pounds weight of sea water there are about three and a half pounds of solid materials. Most of them are salts of one kind or another.

If all the salts could be taken out of all the world’s oceans and spread over the continents, they would form a crust several feet thick.

Another surprising thing is that sodium chloride, which is the chemists’ name for the salt we sprinkle on our food, makes up only three-quarters of the salts dissolved in sea water.

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This edited article about dust originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 684 published on 22 February 1975.

Brick dust seller in Portman Square; it was used for cleaning knives and cost a penny a quart

Most of us think of dust as just dirt that has to be swept up in the house or as something that gets into your eyes on a windy day.

But dust is much more than gritty dirt or an irritating speck in the eye. It is one of the most important things in our lives. It can do us good and it can do us harm.

Without dust, we would have no food, because the shape and size of dust particles making up soil decide whether or not crops will grow. This is because particles of earth, which are really dust, can hold, on their surface, a lot of moisture, heat and air. Without these three things, plants could not grow.

The dust particles in the earth attract specks of the minerals that plants need. The moisture on the dust then dissolves the minerals to feed the plant roots.

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This edited article about Barney Barnato originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 676 published on 28 December 1974.

Barney Barnato realised he had walked all the way to Kimberley

Everyone knew there were diamonds in South Africa. Not just ordinary diamonds, but massive gems that were just waiting to be picked up like pebbles from a beach. Men had made themselves rich for life in just half an hour. Wilder and wilder grew the stories from the diggings and soon every ship that arrived at Port Elizabeth and Cape Town was packed with prospectors eager to lay their hands on any sort of transport that would carry them the 600 miles to the get-rich-quick township of Kimberley.

It cost £40 to hire a coach that would cover the distance in comfort, £12 for a place on a bone-shaking ox wagon. But so far as 20-year-old Barney Barnato was concerned, both were hopelessly beyond his means. He had landed in South Africa in the summer of 1873 with barely enough money for food, let alone transport, yet he wandered up and down the sand-covered streets with cheerful optimism. The son of a poor Jewish family that had scraped up a living buying and selling old clothes off London’s Commercial Road, he was used to bargaining. Sooner or later he’d find someone who’d come down to his price.

Finally he succeeded.

“Ja. I take you for five pounds.” The Boer wagon driver studied his customer with amusement, seeing a youngster who was only five feet three inches tall, with golden hair and wearing small, wire framed spectacles. Then he added hastily, “But your food you find yourself. Also I have only six oxen, and they are old. So when there is bad going you walk, yes?”

“That’s all right. So long as you show me the way.”

It was an agreement, and Barney Barnato stuck to it. Even though, when he finally arrived at Kimberley two months later, he realised it had been bad going all the way and he had walked the whole six hundred miles.

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This edited article about Zaire originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 673 published on 7 December 1974.

Henry Morton Stanley explored the Congo and with King Leopold II of the Belgians  he largely invented the country known as the Belgian Congo. Picture by C L Doughty

During the last two decades, many regions of Africa have gained their independence, and Britain, who had a large part of her empire in this continent, gave back the power of self-government peacefully to many states.

The Congo, now called The Republic of Zaire, has had a turbulent and violent history. Henry Morton Stanley was the first man to explore the main Congo River, and after his great journey, the Congo Free State was founded in 1879 by King Leopold II of Belgium. King Leopold II and Stanley literally created the Belgian Congo. These two men were both similar in character, ambitious, with great tenacity and boundless energy.

Leopold became one of the richest men in the world through the exploitation of the country’s wealth, particularly its vast resources of rubber and ivory which were then the main exports. He ruled with a rod of iron and during his reign, it has been estimated that between five and eight million Congolese lost their lives or were killed, either in the plantations or hunting elephant. If an African did not satisfy his boss, often his foot or arm sometimes both, were cut off.

The Congo was plunged into anarchy when the army mutinied just after receiving its independence from Belgium in 1960. Before the mutiny, the then Belgian Congo was turned into a blood bath when the Congolese butchered many of their Belgian ‘white masters’. For several years the native population had been plotting and planning to overthrow the foreign domination of their country. Right through this mainly dense forest area of Africa, which covers 905,000 square miles, the various tribes sent messages to each other by their bush telegraph, (the talking drum). Each village had their tribesmen signallers who passed information backwards and forwards through this hostile land.

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This edited article about South Africa originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 672 published on 30 November 1974.

Diamond mining near Pretoria in South Africa

Africa is a continent of contrasts; not only its people but its regions also are startlingly different. This is illustrated by the harsh deserts of North Africa and the breathtaking beauty of South Africa with its soaring mountains, vineyards, and rugged cliffs sloping down to secluded beaches which make it as near perfect a Garden of Eden as could be found anywhere in the world.

From the temperate Transvaal Highveld to the sub-tropical lands of Natal, this is a country that can rightly claim to have one of the most magnificent climates on Earth, with months of uninterrupted sunshine. Since South Africa lies south of the equator it celebrates Christmas during the height of its summer; winter comes between June and July.

The Republic of South Africa juts southwards between two oceans, the turbulent Atlantic in the west and the calmer, warmer Indian in the east. These two great oceans meet at the Cape of Good Hope, so named by the Portuguese who, five centuries ago, discovered this route to India.

Two hundred years later, Dutch traders decided to cut the voyage in two by establishing a supply depot at the cape.

In 1652, three ships of the Dutch East India Company dropped anchor in the beautiful bay at the foot of Table Mountain. Their commander, Jan van Riebeek, founded a colony, and they were the first citizens of what has now become the Republic of South Africa. Within ten years, a large white settlement had been established. In those days the countryside was all bush land; wild game roamed where the modern skyscraper-lined streets of Cape Town are today.

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This edited article about superstition originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 650 published on 29 June 1974.

The coat of arms of the Worshipful Company of Salters, one of London’s great twelve livery companies, which was first licensed by Richard II in 1394,  by Dan Escott

Although we may regard it as commonplace, salt has always been a precious commodity. It improves the flavour of food, it cleanses, it preserves and it possesses medicinal properties.

In certain places, in the past, its value has been increased by its scarcity. A Roman soldier stationed in Britain traditionally received part of his pay in salt – hence the word salary, for the Latin word for salt is sal. To be told he was “not worth his salt” meant he was not worth his wages.

From the earliest times, it has been a symbol of friendship. To eat someone’s salt after it was placed on the head of the sacrificial victim was a bad omen. This was the origin of our own superstition.

Nowadays we often forestall the risk of bad luck by throwing a pinch of salt over the left shoulder with the right hand. Nobody quite knows why. Originally this, too, was a propitiatory “sacrifice.” Incidentally, if the thrown pinch scatters in someone else’s direction, he takes over the bad luck.

A salt-cellar overturned between friends forecasts a quarrel. In Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting “The Last Supper,” Christ’s betrayer, Judas Iscariot, is identified by the salt-cellar he has overturned.

Salt is still regarded as a valuable gift in some places. Scottish first-footers carry it with them on New Year’s Eve. Occasionally, too, it is still put into coffins. Satan is believed to hate it because of its connections with purity and immortality.

Another old Scottish custom of throwing salt on top of the mash when brewing “to keep the witches from it” sounds like a superstition, but like many others its origin was practical. By limiting the fermentation, salt had the effect of improving the quality of the liquor.

This edited article about diamonds originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 603 published on 4 August 1973.

Sinbad the Sailor finds the legendary  diamonds by Nadir Quinto

It was in the year 1271 that the great Venetian traveller, Marco Polo, found the Valley of Diamonds. Or so he claimed. The great stones glittered in the sunlight, tantalising, but hopelessly beyond reach, for the sides of the valley consisted of cliffs so steep that not even the most agile man could hope to scale them.

Suddenly a group of tough, Asian tribesmen appeared and began to hurl pieces of meat down to the ground below. Soon numbers of white eagles were swooping down and snatching up the meat in their talons. Amid shouts of excitement the tribesmen gave chase as the great birds circled up again. As soon as an eagle alighted on a tree the nearest man would do his best to make it drop its intended meal, whereupon the man would snatch it up and inspect it eagerly. After a moment the luckier ones were proudly exhibiting the diamonds that they had found stuck in the meat, and only then did the Venetian understand that he had been watching a highly ingenious method by which birds were used to secure diamonds that would otherwise have been beyond the reach of man.

That Marco Polo actually made his astonishing travels is an undeniable fact, for they are confirmed by the official Chinese records of the time. But whether all his traveller’s tales are true is another matter. Quite apart from the sheer improbability of the eagle story, the whole thing bears a marked resemblance to one of the adventures of Sinbad the Sailor. What is interesting is the manner in which the tale illustrates just how old is the quest for the ultimate in diamond finds. And how timeless are the searches for a remote, undiscovered spot where priceless gems lie scattered about like pebbles, waiting to be collected.

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This edited article about gold originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 827 published on 19 November 1977.

The Californian goldrush by James E McConnell

Gold fever! In the 19th century, it could sweep whole continents like a raging fire. America, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and Canada each had their own gold rush, or rushes.

The pattern kept repeating itself. There would be a rumour of a gold “strike”, then a stampede to the area would begin. Office boys in London and New York headed for the ports: good men and bad men set out for the gold-fields. Many never arrived; many more never found gold; a few discovered unimaginable wealth – in places with names like Bonanza Creek and Last Chance Gulch.

Some of those who had been in the Californian Gold Rush of 1849 in their teens were to be found heading for the Klondike in 1898. Such was gold fever.

Two things made the 19th century the greatest age of gold-mining – the sheer size of the finds, and the fact that travel by sea and later by rail became available to everyone.

Even so, toiling in the gold-fields was a hard way of making a fortune.

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This edited article about South Africa originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 820 published on 1 October 1977.

Andries Potgieter leads his Voortrekkers on the Great Trek, by Angus McBride

Here and there among the few scattered houses in the village a window glowed, and at wide intervals in the blackness of the night, far out on the veldt, pin-points of light flickered out, showing that distant neighbours were in their beds. Although it was only 9 p.m., the villagers were all Boers – the Dutch word for farmers – and that meant that they would be in their fields at sunrise, scratching a precarious living from the wilderness, a month’s journey by ox-wagon from Cape Town.

This night, though, there was to be no sunrise for these hardy Boers. For as the last lights petered out a horde of black warriors rose silently from the veldt and swept down like a tidal wave upon the village.

That night the villagers were murdered, their cattle driven off, and their homes enveloped in flames. And right across the veldt in village after village, the land was turned into a desert of blood and ashes.

It was two days before Christmas, 1834, in Cape Colony, and this was to be not a season of goodwill, but of bitterness and resentment. For the Boers who survived the vicious attack by the army of 12,000 Kaffirs, or natives, blamed the lax methods of their new rulers, the British Government, for the savagery of the black men, who were being allowed to destroy everything that the Boer settlers had built up.

“The British are tyrants,” declared the Boers, who longed for a return to the days when their own Dutch kinfolk ruled Cape Colony. “We do all the work and they offer us neither protection nor help.”

It was true that when news of this latest outrage reached Cape Town, the British governor sent Colonel Harry Smith at the head of an army to deal with the Kaffirs. The insurgents were made to submit and new rules were made to protect the Boers. But all that was speedily undone when the British Government in London ordered that the Kaffirs’ confiscated land should be restored to them. Once again, as the Kaffirs sharpened their assegais for more bloodshed, the angry Boers felt themselves betrayed.

Very well, they decided, if they could not be allowed to live in peace, they would leave the colony. Far beyond the Orange River was a fertile land of safety, free from Kaffir plundering. This was the Promised Land.

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