NOTES AND COMMITS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12447, 17 December 1903, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMITS.

AMERICAN INVESTMENTS IN CAN>> A . Tiro United States Consul-General i, Montreal devotes a recent report to a list->f the investments of American capital in Canadian enterprises during the early mont s of the present year. Ho says the indusyjal outlook in Canada was very bright, that lew and great enterprises were being underlain and existing ones being enlarged. Most if these are being aided by American capita. Thus 5000 shares in the Royal Bank d Canada were purchased by a group of American capitalists, whose adhesion will make the bank one of the greatest financial institutions in the Dominion. Large areas of the rich timber lands of Newfoundland are being worked by Canadian and American companies. One group owns 350,000 acres, mainly covered with pine, and expects to be able to export 10,000,000 ft to 'Great Britain next spring; another group is taking over 4000 square miles-;of Newfoundland and already owns vast tracts in Nova Scotia. A Boston syndicate has secured an extensive coal property, also in Nova Scotia, and 210,000 acres of timber have been purchased for 1,500,000 dollars for New York capitalists. Nickel mines in Northern Ontario have been secured for Mr. Edison ; 34,000 acres of timber, with mills and equipment, in the Gaspe Basin, have been purchased for pulp-making by Americans from Buffalo; 125,000 shares in the Graiiby Copper Com- j pany have been acquired by American capitalists, four of whom have become directors ;! a company of paint manufacturers from Cleveland have purchased land in Montreal for the erection of large paint works ; while five American companies have amalgamated, and are about to erect a factory for seeding machines in Toronto. Asbestos and mica companies and properties have been purchased by American companies,- while copper mines, saw • mills, weaving mills, dyeing works,' aluminium, iron and steel works, hotels, incandescent burners, coal and iron mines, a tunnel under the St. Lawrence, gold mining, a fly paper and a button factory, a shingle mill, a railway, and a fleet of steamers on the Great Lakes are all amongst the Canadian enterprises either commenced or purchased by American capitalists, or ini which they have taken, • a large number of shares during the brief period to which the report"refers. The i Consul-General, who gives the details of all the above undertakings, with names of the persons concerned, places, •■ amounts, etc., concludes his statement by 'saying that there are doubtless many more'investments of American capital in Canada which have escaped his notice. " In every great enterprise projected American capital'is solicited, and investors are readily obtained. • The rapid development of Canada is largely due to enormous investments of American capital and to the energy of Americans." "

ITTE BRITISH AMBASSADOR AT WASHINGTON. Sir Henry Mortimer Durand, the new Ambassador to Washington, comes of a family which has achieved great distinction both in/the military and in the political field in India. Sir Mortimer Durand himself made a brilliant career in the Indian political service before he entered the British diplomatic service as Minister at Teheran. , The second son of the late MajorGeneral Sir Henry Marion Durand, R.E., a former Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab, and brother of Sir Edward Durand and Colonel Algernon Durand, both distinguished Indian officers, he was educated at Blackheath School and Eton House, Tonbridge, and passed by examination into the Indian Civil Service in 1870. He was called to the Bar by Lincoln's Inn in 1872, and took up his first "appointment, in Bengal in the following year. After a. short experience as. assistant magistrate and collector he was appointed to the foreign department of 'the Government of India, a department with which he continued connected during the remainder of his Indian service. In 1879, after officiating as assist-ant-secretary of the department, he was appointed to the post of. political secretary to Lord Roberts during the Kabul campaign. The important duties of this post he discharged with so much ability that in 1880 he became urider-secretary, and five years later secretary of the foreign department. In 1893 he proceeded to Kabul on a very delicate mission, of which the Ameer had for a long time contrived to secure the postponement. A number of important frontier questions had arisen which Abdurrahman was reluctant to settle" on conditions acceptable to the Indian Government, and the relations between the Afghan ruler and the British, authorities had for some time past lost a good deal of the cordiality which had followed the meeting of the Ameer and Lord Dufferin at the great Rawal'Pindi Durbar of 1885. Sir Mortimer Durand discharged his mission with conspicuous success, and the agreement he signed with the Ameer before leaving Kabul is generally known; as " the Durand agreement." In the following year he succeeded Sir Frank Lascelles as British Minister at Teheran, and in 1900 he was , promoted to be British Ambassador at Madrid. Sir Mortimer Durand married in 1875 Ella, daughter of Mi. Teignmouth Sandys. He is in his 54th year. THE STEREOSCOPE IN EDUCATION. Everyone— at home or master or mistress in class—knows how difficult it is to get young people to form true conceptions of material facts from verbal or written description (says a London journal). Therefore the picture is called in to helpthings seen are mightier than things heard —and often with excellent results. But in proportion as the picture deals with an altogether unfamiliar subject, one unconnected with any previous experiences, and in proportion as it is complicated by distance, the pupil's translation of it, his realisation of its meaning, will be imperfect. A drawing of a pomegranate or mangosteen will be understood at once, for the pupil has seen drawings of pear, apple, oi peach, and can apply the relation oetween original and counterfeit to this similar case; but a drawing of a volcano in eruption, an iceberg, v. tree-fern forest, will convey a very hazy notion ot the truth, because there is no previous experi-

ence to co-ordinate, and also lack of practice prevents anything approaching to an accurate estimate of the distances represented" Tins last difficulty is, ot Course; due to th' ■fact that a picture only shows two dime ° ■ sions, height..and breadth ; the third, slept], being only suggested. In other words, there "' i is nothing ?oiid in a piitiir?, and we only ice " ! the solidity by dint of long practice, of r peated interpretation o\the flat; Reeopfsing the extent of this diViculty, recourse ha& been had to the stereoscope, which does give solidity, and for some considerable time i a many parts of the world pupils have been provided with this instritae'nt in order that they may be able to fulioj- accurately verbal description and realise >r themselves the subject in hand. The steri »Rcope as a scientific instrument is little nown in England though all of middle-age can remember its brief popularity as a drawagroom toy.' R ut it is perhaps in physical ■geography, geo ; logy, and botany, that lie most valuable edicts are obtained. Jeyser. volcano, glacier, crevasse, mangrt e swamp, : moun' tain peak, stratified roc!, waterfall, everv feature of nature can be might before the eye—no the eyes—with sl:h startling realism that so far as sight is joncerned there is little indeed left to the irrgination.