RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 148, 19 March 1931, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events local and general (By Kickshaws.) When Mr. Lang reads the London “Times’s” description of him as “this very Red Premier,” he will probably go purple. • • » A French court has decided that » man has a right to open his wife’s letters. The thing is, would he have the courage? Dunedin has been surprised by the amount of real hard work a recent burglar managed to put In during one short night. At the subsequent court proceedings the place was piled high with the proceeds. One had only to see a man digging himself in during the last war to realise just what a man can do when he feels the spur. It is the same with burglars. There are no “union” rules. Indeed, most union rules are broken right and left by hard-working men anxious to make a good night’s haul.

A few years ago a gang of really progressive cracksmen spent one Saturday night at the office of a well-known dealer in precious stones, in Holborn, London. Before they were able to complete the job something alarmed the thieves. They left without their equipment Altogether they had carted over a ton of safe-breaking impedimenta into a room on the third floor. One item of the equipment consisted of a fair-sized tent This had been erected over the safe in order to avoid attracting attention by lights, flashes and blow-pipes during the night’s operations. They evidently realised that the safe was a tougU job, for another portion of the equiii’ment consisted of a large iron screen to protect themselves from the heat and glare of the blow-pipes which were directed against the safe for no less than six hours on end without effect.

An idea of the tools that had been introduced into this third floor room in a few hours may be had from the fact that they included four pairs of carpet boots, innumerable pairs of rubber gloves, one electric searchlight and power battery, 60 jemmies, drills, pliers, crowbars, wedges, wrenches and clamps, and last, but not least, no less than 20 heavy cylinders of oxygen and acetylene. On the sideboard, after the thieves had fled, were found arranged in perfect order a veritable chemist’s shop of acids and re-agents for the job.

Owing to the Hawke’s Bay earthquake having moved the country out of place it has been found necessary to resurvey the whole area. It is thought that the job will take a year. Most of us have seen trigonometrical points at the top of many hills at which surveyors delight to gaze through theodolites. There is one of these points beside the radio masts at 2YA. AU over New Zealand similar points have been accurately fixed. The earthquake, beside upsetting the relative positions of these points, has also altered the physical features of the countryside. Maps of the area, therefore, are possibly inaccurate.

Few people realise the amount of work that goes into even the ordinary maps with which we are blessed in this Dominion. Parties of men have been absent for years on end chasing triangles round New Zealand to give us our maps. The features that we see on maps, such as roads, rivers and railways, are the last things to get put in a map. Their accuracy depends upon the man with the theodolite and his triangulation. An idea of the time and trouble that is sometimes spent on measuring even the length of the first side of the first triangle may be had from the fact that it has been known to take five years.

During the last 100 years England has been surveyed with a lavish expenditure of money impossible in this Dominion. Cheap maps may be bought from the Ordnance Department which show every imaginable detail, including contour lines giving the. accurate height of practically every inch of the country. Every 20 years existing maps are kept up-to-date by parties continually at work. An earthquake of the nature of the Hawke’s Bay disaster would be calamitous to the Ordnance Department of that country. At a conservative estimate it would necessitate detailed alteration! and costly field work involving years of labour and millions of pounds u» money.

It is hoped to obtain a million bricks out of Mount Cook Barracks, now being demolished. These bricks were, made by prison labour on the spot over forty years ago. Each of them bears the impress of the broad arrow. They are reported to be good brieks. Forty years is a long time, but some of the sun-baked bricks made on the spot in Assyria, to build the city of Babylon 6000 years ago, are still in existence. These old bricks were also impressed with information concerning those who had made them. It is one of the few sources of information these days by which we may glean some idea of the men who lived so long ago. Another old building built of brick , was discovered four years ago. This Sumerian palace at Kish was built 3000 years BC. Unburned bricks set with niud joints were used. For some peculiar reason these bricks were cushionshaped on top.

Although it seems unbelievable that crude bricks made 6000 years ago could have survived to modern times, some experts declare that If we want to find the man who made the nrst brick we must find the child who maae the first mud-pie. It is averred that even the Tower of Babel was made of brick over 12,000 years ago. Some idea of the lasting qualities in these old bricks may be had from the fact tat as time went on Babylon was ransacked for bricks with which to build more modern towns, just as Mount Cook. Barracks are being ransacked to-day to build more modern structures. of these Babylon bricks were w inches long by 3 inches thick. ♦ ♦ •

The art of brick-making seems to have arisen in almost every count > spontaneously. There are wondetf evimnles of ancient Indian work S The Chinese built their Grea Wall’of brick, while tbe excellence ot the Roman bricks is still a surprise among the experts of to-daj. Tbe Romans even developed the «i coating tbeir bricks with beautiful dazes. Moreover, we have to thank the Romans for introducing the art the whole of Europe. Pe ™ a P* J ® -reatest mystery about bricks Is the ° • - -fnot tint for ten whole cencurious fact mat ior it turies not a brick was made in Europe. The art was lost from, uit fourth to the fourteenth centuries—wlu, nobody seems to know exactly.