NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16169, 4 March 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Rome burned for eight days. Neither Nelson nor Napoleon ever saw a gas lamp There are more French people than Eng- ' lish in Quebec. A fire which cost £30,000,000 gutted Moscow in 1812. About 1100 kinds of insects make their homes in oak trees. The present population of the earth is about 1450 millions. The bore on the Bramapiitra is'mora than 12ft in height. The ancients held the theory that thearth was a flat disc. New York's fire department is practically a military organisation. Th« mean distance of the earth from the sun is 92,800,000 miles. Louis Napoleon was once enrolled as a special constable of London. Peat i 3 being used as fertiliser in greater quantities in the United States. The British Museum has paid as much as £315 for a Shakespere autograph. Bolivia's chief exports are tin and rubber, with tin largely predominating. The number of special constables in the metropolitan area of London is 32,617. Every time a 15in gun is fired a bale of cotton weighing 5001b is blown away. Official figures place th« 1915 production of grapes in Spain at 1,790,073 metric tons. Geodesy is the name given to the science of measuring the surface of the earth. By far the greater portion of the earth * land surface is covered with growing vegetation. One hundred pounds of raw beef neigh only 741b (when boiled and 671b when roasted. St. Augustine's, Florida, the most ancient city in the United States, is 360 '. years old. A quarter of a mile below the surface of the sea it is quite dark, and no plant . life grows. i There are traces of an organisation for . the extinction of tire as far back as 2000 , years B.C. : What we row call the earth was at first nothing more nor less than a great globe of blowing gas. Between 1865 and 1895, London more than quadrupled the number and apparatus . of her fire brigade. ' The first fire engine in ■which steam was used to drive the pump was that of ! Braithwaite in 1829. ' s About 25,0001b of American salt pork " are being consumed daily in the City of. : Copenhagen, Denmark. The amount thus far awarded for i damages for air raids and bombardments . in Britain is £90,038., Sixty years ago aluminium was worth . £3 an ounce. It is now worth, in normal j. times, about 3s a lb. f Lake Superior, which has an area of i 31.200 square miles, is the largest body of fresh water in the world, i No Greek or Roman army crossed a frontier 'without carving an altar on which r a sacred fire always burned. ii " Among the planets the earth comes third . in order or nearness to the sun, Mercury and Venus being before it. r , Some 5,000,000 are employed in the world's mines; more than one-third of 7 them in the British Empire. g i In Montana and Dakota, U.S.A., the '?. j thermometer lias \ been known t0,.. fall a hundred ■ degrees in 24; hours, .--;,.. >. . Scientists are, unable to tell the earth's age exactly; their estimates range from i- 10 million to 40 million years. >- " Two men with a machine-gun," a terv • 3 distinguished British general has' said, * "can hold up a brigade" (6000 men). ~ The water of the fountains in Trafalgar . Square, London, comes from artesian wells, which penetrate to a depth of 400 ft. •„.■ \ In the great fire of London in 1666, the damage amounted to ten and three-quarter lf million pound? and involved 436 acres. • • Rheims holds the record of being the " most heavily bombarded town in France, l " having been. bombarded on 288 occasions. 0 a sentry never gives up his rifle to.anye one— even to his general, no matter/ :, how persistently the latter may demand : i it, - * ■ '< ' Enemy prisoners of war will be allowed, 0 in certain conditions, to work on the har--9 vest, under guard, near places of deten- '■' tion. i Over the same wires telephone and, telegraph messages are sent, the two cur* 3 rents in no way interfering with each • other, o . European red ants attack other kinds . of ants, carry off the workers to. their 0 own nests, and detain them there as , r slaves. ii Queen . Alexandra refuses to wear os:s preys on account of the cruelty to birds o which the collecting of the feathers inis volves. II Bulgarians have a reputation for lonie gevity. They boast of possessing mora d centenarians than any other people in is Europe. The earth wobbles as it spins, just as a top will wobble if it is prevented frora spinning upright. One wobble takes about 20,000 years, 'I The Government of Colombia has just Q made an appropriation of 10,000 dollars '» annually for the encouragement of silk cu!- '' ture in tho republic. ,{ Opium is such an important article of • ir export from Greece that it ranks third in y the country's export list, coming after ;? tobacco and currants. 11 .The speed limit for motor-ears at the e front is 25 miles an hour, and it is one 'f of the duties of the military police to see '. that the speed is not exceeded. '] The first life insurance company .to 06 j started iii Japan was established in 1881. " Thus far the life insurance business of tbo * islands has doubled every ten years, n* . e Tho time occupied by the earth in it; i- circuit of 580 million miles is 365 days el 6 hours 9 minutes— an average i,' velocity of about 66,000 miles an hour. 11 At the equator, the circumference of '* the earth is 24.899 miles, and this is the 0 longest distance which can possibly be tra'l veiled in a direct line over the surface. '' The public educational system of Greater ,( New York, comprising elementary, high, training, vocational, and truant schools. shows a total registration of 831,885 pupils. The origin of fire varies, according to old-time fables. The Greeks held that 11 Prometheus brought to earth the torch he d bad lighted at the sun, and hence there e was fire. IS Cats, dogs, rabbits, and chickens have * been killed in such numbers by the electn--0 Red wires protecting the Dutch-Belgian * frontier that the German soldiers have had ll to fee set to work to bury them. '■ Estimates of exports of the Cuban sugar * crop of 1915-16 show that it will be i '• Sd one One hundred and eightyh S sugar centrals have begun jrrindin? J the sugar as against 176 in operation last J Th°e"' French fishing fleet off the Newr fniindland banks made during 1915 the 5 SS catch of fish ever recorded in progreatest caicu number *?*£%& ' Th« fleet, consisting of eleven steam I trawto and twenty-five sailing vessels, , caucht 23,294,4281b of cod. ! S in the United States for . 1 1914 wasl3.6 per thousand, the lowest ~| ; J2J Said km W* ? 6 Kffi cm '-. howeverrio' not cover the entire United . ; ' States but only, the estimated population .. : 2 8 £ restrain area, some , communj- ~ 1 having. inadequate death registry - :