NEWS AND NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15411, 20 September 1913, Page 4 (Supplement)

NEWS AND NOTES.

A valuable little handbook for all interested in "Modern Systems of Burning Oil-Fuel" (Sturrock. Auckland) has been .written by Mr. W. B. Morton. The book is a mine of information upon the oil-fuel question, and on the principle, construction, and operation of liquid-fuel apparatus. Those who desire to obtain with ease a serviceable insight into one of the great industrial questions, will appreciate its terseness and arrangement. In view of the discovery of oilfields in New Zealand, the following is of general interest:—" A strata of porous character, such as sands or sandstones, • limestone or fine gravel is most favourable to the occurrance of petroleum. Shales, however, often yield petroleum, while small quantities are often obtained from clay formations. Th« wells yielding the bulk of the world's supply are sunk in sands varying in quality from hard compact rock to loose, flowing sand, of the nature of quicksands. Any sands met with in a well-defined petroleum Bone generally yield oil or gas to some extent. The Eastern and Texan oilfields of the United States and those of Ontario Canada, produce some oil from limestones! hut apart from these cases the principal wells of the world obtain their output from sandy formations." Mr. Jeffery Farnol has written another charming book for the Christmas market: "The Honourable Mr. Tawnish," (Sampson and Son, London). It will be illustrated in colour by Charles E. Brock, and the binding and get-up will be somewhat similar to that of the illustrated edition of "The Broad Highway." Mr. Farnol wrote a considerable portion of "The Broad Highway" in a great dismal studio, grimy and rat-haunted, in 38th Street, and lOth Avenue, New York, in which his work of scene painting compelled him to pass many of his days and nights and for two years every moment he could snatch from his other work he gave to'his writing. But "The Amateur Gentleman," for which the demand is so" great that the publishers can hardly keep pace with it, was written under very different circumstances. Chapter after chapter was penned in his study at the top of a charming house on the main road, not a hundred miles from Eltham, amidst most congenial surroundings- On occasions he had to write under pressure owing to the demands made by America for instalments for serial publication, but for the most part he was able to write leisurely, taking days off from time to time to roam the territory where the scenes are laid.