BRIEF MENTION.

Dunstan Times, Issue 2050, 11 January 1901, Page 3

BRIEF MENTION.

Mr Altan D. Adams, writing about distant water powers in the ‘ Scientific American,’ shows by a careful calculation into the cost and efficiency of power plants that with coal and electrical machinery at their present prices distant water powers cannot be used to any advantage, as the cost of machinery, buildings, repairs, etc., being so great that even supposing the water power to be free, and the wires to cost nothing and have no resistance, the cost per delivered horse power would be greater than that of power produced by a steam-engine in the city. Those who have been expecting that Niagara Falls would supply light and power to New York at a nominal price must therefore give up their dream —until such time as a new inventor appears upon the scene

London has 1.830 miles of streets ; Paris, 600.

The screw alone of an Atlantic liner costs about £4,000. Arrowroot comes from the bulbs of South American cannas.

Every day there hangs over London a vast smoke cloud that is estimated to weigh about 300 tons.

Fuel is now being manufactured in London out of mud, street refuse, and sewage, for sale to the poor. A chemical process has been invented by which all this waste material is so treated that it is rendered combustible. Mud has been withdrawn from the Thames, treated chemically, and compressed in briquettes that in appearance closely resemble blocks of dull ebony or bog oak. It burns readily, exhales a minimum of smoke, and leaves only 25 per cent, of firm ash. The street sweepings are mixed with a small percentage of cheap chemicals, pressed into blocks, and sterilised by being subjected to an intense heat of about 400deg Fahr. - This fuel produces great heat, burns freely with little smoke, and leaves very little ash. The sewage when subjected to this chemical process and pressed into briquettes looks like the best coal. The last fuel can be manufactured at the low cost of 8s 4d a ton, and it is equal in every way to the cheaper coals. Licenses have been granted to manufacture the fuel from these hitherto waste materials, and works are shortly to be installed on the river’s banks at Barking (Essex). A woman arrested in Russia is charged with earning on a lucrative trade in artificial mutilations. She performed operations injuriously affecting joints. Her clients were men who desired to escape military service, and others who wished to defraud accident insurance companies. It is the Swiss waiter (declares the ‘ Boston Home Journal ’) that goes all over the world, and generally does well. Half the waiters put down as Germans are Swiss The fact is this : the German Swiss and the Italian gives them an advantage over the Frenchman, who is only bom to one. And the Swiss waiter is generally a good business man, who has the makings of a restaurant keeper or a hotel proprietor also born in him. A mushroom gathered on Bisley Common measured 54in in circumference, and stood llin in height, its weight being nearly 41b. Needles are all made by machinery. The piece of mechanism by which the needle is manufactured takes the rough steel wire, cuts it into proper lengths, files the point, flattens the head, pierces the eye, then sharpens the tiny instrument, and gives it that- polish so familiar to the purchaser. There is also a machine by which needles are counted and placed in the papers in which they are sold, these being afterwards folded by the same contrivance. A wedding of an unusual character was celebrated in the parish church, Uxbridge, England, on September 25. The bridegroom, who is blind, is sixty-seven years of age, has been four times married, and his last wife was only buried three months ago. There was a large congregation to witness the event. The extent of railway line now in operation throughout the world is estimated at 466,539 miles, of which 186,245 miles are in the United States. The American Union thus possess 39.92 per cent, of the whole network of the world. A story runs that Mr Kipling, while on a visit to Mr Hardy, went to see a house which the author of ‘Life’s Little Ironies’ thought would suit him, and that when Mr Kipling moved out of earshot Mr Hardy observed to the occupant: “ I may mention to you that this gentleman is no other than Mr Rudyard Kipling.” “Is that so?” she replied. “I never heard the name before.” Presently Mr Kipling, in turn, found himself alone with the lady, and remarked; “Possibly you may not be aware that the gentleman who brought me here to-day is Mr Hardy, the eminent author.” “ Oh, indeed,” was her reply. “ I don’t know his name.” In fifteen years Russia has sent 624,000 persons to Siberia, fully 100,000 relatives of prisoners having accompanied the exiles of their own free will. The London County Council have come to Ihe conclusion that their duty of seeing after the domestic welfare of the people must be vigorously undertaken, and that it is possible to provide healthy accommodation for workmen upon a self-supporting basis. A souvenir of a bygone period of electioneering is in the possession of a cabman in London. It is a verge watch, which secured the vote of his grandfather for an Essex candidate in the General Election of 1812. That “ free and independent individual ” was handed five guineas for his support, which sum he invested in a timepiece asid a young pip. The latter has long gone the wry of all members of the porcine race, but the wvtch remains, and, it is satisfactory to record. ir:ep? excellent time. The Paris ‘ Matin ’ on October nounced that France would receive <f; ;-rder from Spain for eight firs; class cruisers of 12.000 tons each, four armored cruisers of 8.000 tons, and a hundred torpedo boars, the whole to be delivered within ten years. The expense of this programme wil". be covered by a loan to be redeemed in twentylive yearly instillments. Two Hungarians, Messrs Poliak and Virag, who some little while ago discovered a system of very rapid telegraphy, are now said to have invented a system by which 60,000 words per hour, can be transmitted, and, what is more wonderful, printed in ordinary characters on a slip of sensitised paper at the receiving end. The slip comes out of the receiving instrument ready to be gummed on to a form for delivery. The London ‘ Globe ’ publishes a letter from a Belgian gentleman who has been travelling to Pekin via the Trans-Siberian railroad. He describes, under date September 6, what he saw in the Amur River. His accounts surpass in horror those previously published. “ The scenes I have witnessed during the three days since the steamer left Blagovestschensk,” he says, “ are horrible beyond the powers of description. It is the closing tableau of a fearful human tragedy. Two thousand were deliberately drowned at Morxo, 2,000 at Rabe, and 8,000 around Blagovestschensk, a total of 12,000 corpses encumbering the river, among which there w ere thousands of women and children. Navigation was all but impossible. Last week a boat had to plough her way through a tangled and mangled mass of corpses lashed together by their long hair. The banks were literally covered with corpses. In the curves of the stream were dark, putrid smelling masses of human flesh and bones, surging and swaying in the steamer's wake. The captain vainly ordered full steam ahead. The sight and smell will be ever with us. From Blagovestschensk to Aigun, fortv-five kilometers, numerous villages studded the banks with a thriving industry. Their population was over IQO.OOO. That of Aigun was 20,000. No one will ever know the number of those who perished by shot, sword, and stream. Not a -village is left. The silence of death was around us. The smoking ruins of Aigun were on the right, with broken-down, crumbling walls and shattered, roofless houses.