General News

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21809, 15 June 1936, Page 10

General News

Seaplane Base at Picton Suggested The establishment of a seaplane base at Picton was proposed in a motion carried at the June meeting of the Picton Borough Council. The council decided to ask Mr E. P. Meachen, member for the district, to put the suggestion before the Government. Whales in Tory Channel More whales are about in Tory Channel this season. Mr J. A. Perano’s whaling party, which is operating in the channel, has so far made 10 catches, compared with two for the same period last! year. The new radio-telephone system which is being used led to the capture of one. Docking the Marama As the Kalingo is still occupying the floating dock at Wellington, there was no chance of the Marama being docked last week-end, and it is intended to dock the vessel for cleaning and painting next week-end. This, it is hoped, will increase the Marama’s speed, and enable her to complete the Wellington-Lyttelton run more quickly. As the Marama was not built for the express service, her speed is not equal to that of the regular vessels, and it is not to be expected that she will be able to make the trip every day in the time taken by the Rangatira, Wahine, or Maori, False Alarms of Fire Four false alarms of fire and an early morning call to a minor outbreak kept the Central Fire Brigade busy during the week-end. Two of the false alarms came from an automatic system in a building in Cathedral square, and the other two were malicious calls, one at 9.55 p.m. on Saturday from Wilson’s road, St. Martins, and the other at 3.41 p.m. yesterday from the corner of Riccarton road and Clarence road. The fifth call was to a fire in a fence at the back of a dwelling occupied by Mr J. Armstrong, at 389 Durham street. The fire developed from a heap of ashes placed near the fence, but was soon extinguished. The alarm was received at 1.24 yesterday morning. Carnivorous Land Snails Seven new species of carnivorous land snails peculiar to the Nelson district, and discovered only within the last two years, were described in an address by Mr A. W. B. Powell, conchologist at the Auckland War Memorial Museum, to the Auckland Institute. They differed, he said, from the imported garden snail, as they were not vegetarians, but fed on earth worms. Their beautiful colours varied from bright chestnut to reddish brown, and their highlypolished shells were banded in additional colours, including green. Mr Powell further dealt with the distribution of snails peculiar to New Zealand, Tasmania, and Victoria, which proved the geologists’ theory that voter hos not always separated these lands. He spoke also of the extreme local distribution of many New Zealand species, and said that every new field not previously studied held out possibilities of other species being found. History Must be Vital “Generali-"- speaking, the treatment of history still awaits a wider conception,” said the annual report of the inspectors of the Wellington schools. “The time-worn procegfion of kings and battles is but tardily yielding to the more vital and more interesting pageant of man’s social and educational progress down the centuries. In classes where the teaching is limited to the text-book—and these appear to be all too numerous—it is not surprising to find that the subject has been robbed of its natural appeal to children. Where, on the other hand, vital oral teaching, supplemented by such visual aids as time charts and pictures, has awakened a purposeful interest and a desire to read, the subject takes its right place in the forefront of liberal human studies.” Cancelled Old-age Pensions A provision of the Pensions Act that if an old-age pensioner is convicted under the Police Offences Act his pension is permanently cancelled. is considered by the Hospital Boards’ Association to be unduly harsh. A resolution of the recent Dominion conference, which was submitted last week to the Minister for Health, the Hon. P. Fraser, by Mr W. Wallace, president of the association, proposed that the Pensions Act be amended so that a pensioner so convicted should be allowed to apply to a magistrate after three years to have his pension reinstated. Mr Wallace said that the Minister had gone further, and expressed the opinion that pensions should not be cancelled automatically in such cases, since the ordinary penalty which the court would inflict was entitled to be treated as adequate. He promised to consider the request. Bridge An important work * down for early attention is the replacement of a bridge at Taheke, on the main highway between Dargaville and Kaikohe, via the Waipoua kauri forest. This bridge was washed away during heavy storms some time ago, and traffic has since used a temporary structure. The new bridge will be in reinforced concrete, and will consist of three 50ft spans. Secondary Schools’ Curriculum Defended “Critics of secondary schools,” said Mr J. N. Millard in a report to the Hutt Valley High School, Wellington, “are very fond of saying that the teaching in these schools is very out of date, and that the teachers themselves are strongly opposed to any deviation from the old type of academic teaching. Both these statements are very wide of the mark. It is apparent to those of us who have had a fairly long experience in these schools that big strides have been made in modernising both teaching methods and subject matter. Old pupils of 20 years ago would scarcely recognise-subjects like English, history, and geography, because they have changed so much both in subject content and in method of presentation. Practically every secondary school is endeavouring to find more room in the curriculum for music and art, and all schools now have facilities for giving their pupils a certain amount of manual training. No schools are as keen as their critics maintain on forcing their pupils to take Latin and French. In this school only 25 per cent, of the pupils take Latin, and 20 per cent, take neither Latin nor French. At present the syllabus of the schools. is governed largely by the University entrance examination.” Zuyder Zee Reclamation “In their quiet way, the Dutch are very proud of the reclamation of the Zuyder Zee,” remarked Miss L. M. Cranwell, at a meeting of the Auckland Institute when she was giving some impressions of the recent Amsterdam Congress. Miss Cranwell said that a 26-mile dyke had been built across the entrance to the Zuyder Zee, and it had been renamed the Yselmeer, after the river Ysel, which flowed into it. The river water was making the Yselmeer less saline, so that, in a few years, that part that was not reclaimed would form a fresh-water lake. On parts that were under the sea only two years ago, crops were already being raised, which was a great triumph for the combined efforts of the engineers, soil experts, and botanists. Many Jewish refugees from Germany had been temporarily established by the Dutch Government on these reclamations to learn the rudiments of agriculture before settling in Mesopotamia. Large Model Aeroplane With a wing span of 10 feet and a total wing area of 13 square feet, a model aeroplane, which is claimed to be the largest yet flown in New Zealand, successfully underwent its trial flight at the Mangere aerodrome recently. The machine, which is six feet long, weighs six and three-quarter pounds, and is driven by a petrol engine of the two-stroke type, developing one-fifth horse-power. It has a cylinder about the size of a man’s thumb, which drives the propeller at 6000 revolutions a minute. Built by two members of the Auckland Model Aeroplane Club, Messrs I. Chinnery Brown and F. Mac Donald, the model took nearly 12 months to complete. On a full tank it is capable of a flight lasting half an hour, but for testing three eye-droppers full of benzine were put into the tank. The machine behaved splendidly, circling the aerodrome at a height of more than 70 feet before landing in the mangrove swamps outside the aerodrome.