NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVII, Issue 17459, 1 May 1920, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The yellow sap of a tree of Siam produces gamboge. The maximum flight of the swallow is 290 feet per second. The Russian Empire embraces one-sixth of the land surface of the world. An ordinary snail travels at an average speed of one mile in fourteen days. Nova Scotia's 1919 lobster catch is 5,852,096 pounds; valued at £279,700. China exported in 1918 egg albiimpa and yolk to the value of over £1,800.000. Over 6,000,000 persons were engaged in 1 mining throughout the world during ISC9. The blood propelled by the human heart travels at the rate of seven miles an hour. Three-quarters of the flax used in Groat Britain for making linen came from Russia. Great Britain paid Russia every year in pre-war days over £40,000,000 for raw materials. So long ago as 1714 a patent for a typewriter was taken out in England by Henry Mill. Great Britain and France, for their sizft, contain fewer Jews than any other European nation. A French airman at Madrid recently looped the loop 624 times in a flight of 2hrs 49m 9sec. There are 16 miles of subterranean wine cellars beneath the French cities of Rheims and Epernay. A good Arabian* horse ran canter in the desert for 24 hours in summer and in winter without drinking. At the great Russian fair of Nijni"VovArod. goods used to be bought every year to the extent of £16,000,000. It is estimated that one of the Peruvian rain trees will on the average yield from nine to ten gallons of water each day. One home in every two in the rural districts of Ontario ba« a telephone, and 1 about one farm out of ©very four has a motor-car. The mechanical newsboy is in use in ■ America. A coin is put in the slot, a handle turned, and the newspaper ia '. delivered. Coal used for household purposes in i Great Britain amounts to 50,000,000 tons i a year ; industries use nearly 100,000,000 ! tons annually. ' Before August, 1914, the British \ Navy ' possessed 7,112 guns of all calibres by ' October 31, 1918, this total had increased ' to 14,724. '. The largest pin factory is in Binriing- ! ham. England, where something like , 50,000,000 pins are manufactured every 1 working day. i Light and electricity, which mere at » the rate of from 186,000 to 190,000 miles 3 per second, have no rival in any velocity 1 known to us. The progress of glaciers, even under favouring circumstances, is not more than * thirty-five feet in a day, or about three ' miles in a year. e One of the principal by-products of tha e national forests of Japan is mushrooms, e which have yielded in one year a revenue ', of over £200,000 r A man of 70 has sweetened" his life '• with four tons of sugar, and a ton of '* butter would be no extravagant allowance) 0 for a long lifetime. ,* The rat was carried from India an<? Persia to England in 1727, by 1750 bad. made its way to France r.cd thence spread id throughout Europe. 01 Half a million barrels of high-grada in petroleum in ten years, is the»jecord yield; 3 y of one of the pioneer wells in the Salt of Creek oil field of Wyoming. ; d The Japanese cultivate chrysanthemums at in 169 varieties of colours. Of these, 87 't are white, 63 yellow, 32 purple, 3). pink„ ill 30 red, 12 russet, and 14 of mixed hues. 18 In India military bands are frobidden s ' to play " Home, Sweet Home," because '» of its pathos having so potent an effect D on the English people who may hear it. It A company of thirty actors can be en,ll gaged for £6 in China to play as many in dramas, tragedies, comedies, and vaude;h ville sketches as may be desired for two is days at a stretch.

Among th most famous of fake fasten was " The Fasting Woman of Tutbury," who claimed to have abstained from food for twenty months. She created a furore before being finally exposed in 1808. Rubiee chemically produced by the fusion of alumina are being manufactured in larger and larger numbers both in Paris and Switzerland. The beat synthetic rubies, if without the deep fire of the pigeon-blood" rubies of Burm£, are beautiful things, and are indistinguishable,, except by experts, from natural crystals. The natives in the Canary Islands art expert whistlers and hold conversations with each other through this medium. Visitors to the islands tell how they have ■Become acquainted with the strange language and also of how long and complicated conversations have been held by i whistling with a neighbour a mile away. filling an elephant's tooth is not a job for the ordinaw tooth-doctor; it resembles rather the operation with concrete and steel bars upon a big tree. The, animal dentist who was called in to deal with tno affliction of a performing elephant at Ts&v York found that her cavity was of very moderate size-it would only require j.4oz | of filling! The Shah's throne is the most valuable one in the world. It is made of pure white marble and is no less than eighteen feet by ten feet wide. The actual seat is mounted on a laTge platform of the same material, and is upheld by fourteen spotless ivory pillars, carved in the shape of men and women while the whole is covered with pictures worked in th« purest gold-leaf. Ascending to the platform is a staircase of solid gold, and iri front of the monarch's seat is a magnificent silver fountain which continually, sprays *. stream of a very exquisite scent. Since the conditions for human existence at an elevation of six miles are extremely inconvenient and difficult the sounding of the atmosphere beyond 'tin* height has be:n attempted b;r tf.3 use of b.illoon-sondes or sounding Ulioons which are unmanned, but carry self-recording instruments. In 1894 a bailees of this type reached an altitude of 54,000 feet, a record, which was '.eft far behind by Ilia same vessel in 1895, when a height of 72,000 feet was recorded. The immensity of this record may bo belter appremVd when it is said that it is equivalent to 13£ miles. A Bible weighing three-quarters of a, ton, carried in a specially-constructed motor-car, with pulpit and platform, ia to be a feature of a Bible Crusade that will start in the United Kingdom shortly. The book will be remarkable in other respects than its size, for every one of the 12,000 texts from Genesis m Revelation will be hand-written and signed by individual Christians as a testimony ot their faith. Standing on end the hook is more than five feet two inches high and nearly three feet six inches wide. When opened flat it measure, seven feet ten inches across. The world's cha-npion practical ]'<*« is claimed to be Ellis 0. Jones By handbills be timated that i>ew io.* w«> Strife ambush clos by. Tlea the revolution appeared It was Jo es ,'fid. under an umbrella. He «as 2ed. and medically examined. . But he imrej to be quite sane, and merely a K who liked 4 We little joke. To put down Jones' revolution is reported to have, cost New york7Goo dollars!