Oddments

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 February 1949, Page 4

Oddments

In Moscow, where jokes" against bureaucratic snoopers flourish, they are saying that half the Government departments don’t know what the other half are cfoing. But they’re investigating. * * * * ® The new rector of Buxhall, Suffolk, will have to take his hat off to the King—something that the priests of the village parish haven’t done for more than four centuries. The rectors, for more than 400 years, all members of the Hill family, inherited from Henry VIII the concession that they might wear their headgear in the presence of the reigning monarch. The permit was inscribed on parchment and signed by King Henry. It lapsed with the death of the Rev. Henry Copinger Hill, who had been rector for 46 years. His only son was killed in 1927. St * * * »• A guided missile shooting, at you from half-way around the world may evaporate before it gets to you. Evaporation of solids travelling fast at heights of 50 to 100 miles was reported to the American Astronomical Society at Yale University. Shooting stars, astronomers said, sometimes simply vanish because of their speeds. Their impact on the thin air produces heat that peels off their atoms. This study is part of a ballistics programme of the United States Navy reported by Dr Fred L. Whipple of Harvard College Observatory. . Military authorities are using shooting star photographs to study the upper reaches. —The Seeker