Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 59, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 March 1917 — EXPLAINS WHY PINS VANISH [ARTICLE]

EXPLAINS WHY PINS VANISH

Scientist Seems to Have Solved World-wide Mystery. For many years the world has been baffled by the problem of where the pins go that are turned out in millions by the pin factories. But the problem seems to have been solved at last. A Paris scientist has been experimenting on pins, hairpins and needles by the simple process of watching a few. He states that they practically disappear into thin air, by changing into ferros oxide, a brownish rust that soon blows away—in dust. jfn ordinary hairpin took only 154 days to blow away. A steel pen lasted just fifteen months. A common pin took eighteen months to vanish. A polished needle defied the ravages of the atmosphere longeet r taking two and one-half years to disappear. So the reason why the world is not a foot deep in the pins it buys la, ft seems, exactly the same which makes an iron surface scale off when exposed for a long time to the atmosphere without the protection of paint