NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3550, 14 October 1926, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Goats’ tallow and beech ash were the ingredients 'of the earliest kind of soap.

Mosquitoes are said to be capable of flying a distance of' a mile and a half.

A man who fasted recently in Britain for 41 days lost nearly 40 lb. in weight;

Nearly 5,000 new ways of using gas have been devised in the last ten years.

It is estimated that the number of hairs on the human head varies from 100,000 to 250,000. Within a minute after garlic is eaten by a cow the flavour can be detected in the milk.

Snow fell? recently in parts of the Cape Province, South Africa, for the first time in 20 years.

London has been provided by its Countyf Council with more than 12,000 houses since the war.

Shoes of aluminium with wooden soles are now being used by workmen in German chemical factories.

According to a gem expert the total value of all the diamonds in the world to-day is one billion pounds. By a new by-law of the Pont.vpool Council, milkmen are forbidden to smoke while engaged in delivering milk. . i

The British birth rate last year was the lowest of any of the great European countries for which figures are available. Eskimo dogs of the Arctic region are capable of hauling a sleigh over 20 to 40 miles of snow and ice in a single day.

Nearly one quart of blood may be lost by a healthy adult without serious effects, according to two university professors. At London’s newest tube station —Morden —there is an omnibus terminus where passengers will alight under cover.

Open-air bathing pools are provided for the public in 12 of the parks and open spaces under the London County Council. The fastest flowing river in the world is the Sutlej in India, which rises 15,200 ft. above the sea and falls 12,000 ft. in 180 miles. Among the “new arrivals” at the London Zoo are some baby sharks, which have been hatched out in the aquarium there. Acorns carefully graded in sizes are used for making a quaint Indian musical instrument discovered in Southern California. A remarkable new slot machine has 30 kinds of articles in it. An indicator is pointed to the name of the article desired, and when the coin is inserted that article drpps out.

Owing to the fact that dance bands play as fast, or as slow as they like, Mr George Chester, president of the British. Association of teachers of Dancing, says that the standard of dancing is being seriously lowered. Moths change their colour according to their environment. Specimens from Sussex were fed on food collected in industrial areas, and in a few generations their colour had begun to darken until it was almost black.

Believed to be the oldest in the world, a cricket bat made more than 170 years ago, was lately exhibited in London. It is about six inches longer than the bat of to-day, and only four inches wide at its broadest point. In order that the straw can be harvested separately, a machine has been invented to strip rice from the stalks while standing.

Yew trees were originally planted in churchyards to protect them from cattle, and so preserve them for the making of bows and arrows. One of the Canary Islands possesses a rain-tree of the laurel species which sheds a copious shower of j)urei water from its foliage every evening. The Ipswiteh Public Library has issued 420,000 volumes in, 12 months, equal to five volumes for every man, woman and child in that ancient town.

There are many periodicals published for blind readers, including one which gives the world’s news every week in about I,ooo' words. A jigsaw game, played by the Greeks and Romans 2,000 years ago and invented by Archimedes, consisted of fourteen pieces of wood of various shapes, mostly triangular. With these all sorts of “pictures”) can be built up. Over 300 classes of schoolchildren, together with their teachers, were recently sent from London to the country, where they continued their education for a fortnight. This work was carried out by the School Journey Association. A goat’s horn, a tin of condensed milk, a metal cigarette ease containing ten cigarettes, a pair of woman’s shoes, a box of matches, some rope, sail-cloth and other objects were found in the stomach of a shark caught in Dalmatian waters.

A report issued by the Glasgow Corporation Tramways shows —despite tradition —how easily the Scot and his money may be parted. During the year ended May 31, no fewer than 2,186 sums of money and 918 parcels of clothing were found in the corporation’s tramcars.

Troway, a village near Sheffield, is developing into a miniature Kimberley. iV short time ago a Sheffield business man bought a field there and, after digging four feet below the surface, found a seven foot thick seam of the famous Wharncliffc Silkstone coal. He engaged 50 miners, and in a few days was producing fifty tons of coal) a day. To become an artist is the ambition of a boy of eight, William Dodd, of D'onifan, Montana, who was born without arms. He is learning to do everything a normal boy can accomplish. He writes with his toes, can play marbles', throw stones, draw pictures and carry loads. The discovery of two mummified horses recently made by Mr Firth, who is carrying out excavations for the Egyptian Department of Antiquities at the Sakkarah Step Pyramid, is the first of its kind ever recorded. It is conjectured that the remains date back to Raineses 11. (1,200 8.C.). A ease to which probably there are few. parallels in the annals of sheepfarming is reported by Mr. C. R. Caverhill, manager of Glendhu station, Hinalmra. A shepherd on his round found a ewe in sore straits. The animal died soon after being found, and a post-mortem examination showed that she was carrying six lambs. Mr. Caverhill vouches for the facts. He saw the lambs, and describes them as being about half the size of the ordinary lamb at birth. _ “Rats are everywhere in Wellington,” says a city inspector. “You can see evidences of them throughout the shopping area, one sign being the sinking down and breaking up of footpath flags as a result of the rats burrowing underneath and taking away the support’ “During the last plague scare,” said another, “I was a member of the rat gang. In one butcher’s shop we got 96 in a quarter of an hour and the second night a kerosene tin full.” Illustrating the manner in winch excessive use of paper money robbed currency of its value in commerce, Professor Murphy, in an address at Gisborne, quoted the case of two sons of a German who died at-the close of the war. The fortune of the deceased was divided equally between a thrifty, steady youth, and a wild harumscarum young man, each receiving half a million marks, then a considerable legacy. The first invested his in good securities, the other expended his in a wild debauch which left him with nothing but a pile of bottles and corks. With the subsequent fluctuations of the mark, however, the steady.son found the value of his investments reduced to an absurdly small amount, while the, consequent increase in the value of materials jjnabled the other to realise a large fortune by the sale of his corks and bottles.