GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20324, 3 August 1929, Page 16 (Supplement)

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

AEROPLANES FOR ENGINEERS. A tin syndicate operating in Malaya, Burma anil Siam is preparing to put amphibian planes into operation to transport engineers and inspecting officers from ono mine to another. Although a Siamese railway serves for hauling heavy machinery, it is not fast enough for the engineering experts, whose presence may ho needed on twenty similar projects within a few days' time. MADMAN IN SIGNAL-BOX. 'A madman dashed into tho signal box at tho Houston, Texas, Railway Station, and, at tho point of his revolver, forced tho signalman to retire. Thou ho began to play with the signals, and it was tho rapidity with ■which tho various signals were moved tliafc caused tho engine-drivers to suspect, something was wrong. Meanwhile tho signalman had called in tho police and tho man was captured. HOME FOR POOR LADIES. 'A homo for tho new poor is proTided for in the will of Miss Bertha Maty Portal, of West Norwood, who left a substantial fortune. Miss Portal gavo four houses and ground " to bo carried on as a home for ladies of limited means, to bo called Tongo Houso. the Portal Homo for Ladies, who must each havo at. least £25 a year of their ow.i and pay for their own notepapor and stamps. It, is for members of the Church of England and 110 'Roman Catholic Socialist." " BLINDFOLD " FLYING. /An interesting system of " blindfold" flving has been adopted for the training of pilots for tho commercial night services which aro shortly to be put into operation, in Britain. Iho pilot sits in n hooded cockpit in which ho can see only tho instruments on tho dashboard in front of him. A seat in tho back of the plane—with a lull range of vision—is occupied bv an instructor, who has a duplicate set of controls, enabling him to tako charge of tho machine if necessary. The pupil pilot is given orders to fly to some distant point and the " blindfold cockpit reproduces tho conditions of a right flight. A system of coloured lights shows 'the pilot when he is living on an even keel. TRAIN IN CIGARETTE BOX. ' What is believed to bo tho smallest working scale railway iu tho world has been constructed by Mr. J. Langridgo, of the Wimbledon and District Model Railway Club. In every detail it was constructed at a scale, rate of eight-hundredths of an inch to a foot. At its tallest, point, the cab of the locomotive, the miniature train is only jin. high, and the track on which it runs is gin. gauge. It is operated by an electric motor housed in tho tiny engine. The train, with its engine, three coal cars, and two passenger coaches, fits into ono side of a cigarette box designed to hold fifty cigarettes.

DANGER FROM TRAMCARS, The Roads Improvement Association of / England has prepared a design for a sign to warn motorists of points where, owing to loop lines on tramway tracks, the margin between tramcars and the kerb is insufficient for the passage of another vehicle. Accidents due to motor-cars being caught between the kerb and a tramcar swinging out are, it is stated, a frequent occurence. The suggested sign consists of a plaquo bearing a tapering device in red. and the words " Narrowing margins," surmounted by a red triangle and two red lamps of a distinctive tapering shape. Ihe provision of the double red lamps on the sign is to distinguish it from the single lamp frequently used to indicato train stopping places. J ~ Seed pod worth £30,000. Behind the sale of a singlo flower, only a few inches high, for over £350 at a recent Chelsea Flower Show, lies a romance of horticulture. Tho seed pod from which the flower sprang may bo worth £30,000. Already four or five .seeds from tho pod have produced plants that have sold for an average of £2OO each, and there aro still a thousand loft, half of which should produce results. 'lhfi flower is called Miltonia Armstrongii nnd its dark cerise bloom with touches of whito and yellow is new to orchid experts. It has Mexican parentage but English breeding, and three and a-halt years of tender cultivation in a Tunbridge We'ls hothouse have been devoted to its production. SEARCH FOR "WHALE FOSSILS. ' Fossils of whales, which churned the foam of an inland sea countless ages ago, will be the objects of a quest in California by -Mr. Remington Kellogg, of the /'.National Museum. Marine deposits in tho San Joaquin valley, laid down probably inoro than three" million years ago, will bo pierced ip a co-operativo project of the Smithsonian and Carnegie institutions. Whales lived in tho region when water stretched westward from the Sierra Nevadas. ' (Jrustal movements aro believed to have changed the contour of the ocean bed, and elevated the land to its present state. The expedition will be in the nature of a reconnaissance to determine _ the fields that offer promise of containing valuable remains, and to inspect collections that have been made. Six weeks will be spent in covering the territory of Southern California in the vicinity of Fasedena and Santa Rarbara. / FACTORY OF MANY COLOURS. A rainbow factory is in course of erection at Wolverhampton. It will not manufacture rainbows, but will look like one. Tho walls of the factory, instead ot being white-washed in the usual way, will be of many colours, ranging trom a delicate cream to browns and restful dark greens. _ . Tho machinery, instead of being oi gleAming black and silver, will be painted in blue'; red. whito. pink, green, grey, and yellow. Even the pipes lor conveying water or for containing electric cables will be painted in art colours. /The workers, too, will not be clothed in the customary factory uniform, but will wear overhauls of an artistic combination of varied hues—a sort ot .Joseph's coat. A local lirm oi paint am varnish manufacturers is building the factory as an experiment in the aesthetic sirle of factory life.

THE WORLD'S 2500 LANGUAGES. The fact that there are no fewer than 2500 different lamjuagos in use. into K8 of which the British and Foreign Bible Society has translated the Bible, is revealed by the. society. ,'/ " Since our centenary in 1904," said an official of the society recently, " progress in translation has been very rapid. Dining t.he past quarter of a century tho Scriptures have been reproduced in just under 250 languages, an average of a language every five weeks. Even if this rate is maintained, it will bo another 200 years or so before the Scriptures can be 'printed in every language. "At present" we know the names of some 700 languages in Africa, and there / are about 150 known tongues in India. In the South Sea Islands there are close /Upon ninety. Last year was a record vear in distribution. We issued 11,399,540 ▼olumes, nearly a million and a half more ij during tho preceding year.".

LINK WITH ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ( Mr. Benjamin E. McGrew, one of tho few surviving members of tho audience which was in tho Ford Theatre, Washing- , ton, when President Lincoln was shot died recently at Philadelphia. I Mr. McGrew was oightv-one years old. Ho was connected with the Treasury Department iii Washington, and later with j tho Erie Railroad. NUNS' LAST RESTING PLACE. Following the purchase by the Taunton Town Council of tho Convent of Perpetual Adoration, has been the exhumation and re-internment of the bodies of thirteen Sisters buried at different periods during the past sixty years. Tho 1111ns have gone, some to St. Augustine's Priory, Newton Abbot, others to St. Scluilastica's Abbey. Teicumouth, tho Franciscan Convent, Woodchester, | and St. Mary's Abbey, Colwieh, while j one has returned to the Mother House of tho Order at Bollene, France. 1 t PIG FOR NOTHING. A livestock company with neither yards nor plant is in its (ittis ye;'. of successful business at South Carolina, Olr.o Tho firm each year gives away brood sows to fanners, of tho vicinity, with the stipulation that it receives three sow pigs from the first litter of each brood. Each of tho three must- weigh at, least 1001b. Tho company iias several head of swine for sale or redistribution each year. This vear, more than 'IOO sows were distributed to ICO farms. The concern expects to receive more than 1000 pigs, which will be marketed. HUGE HAILSTONES. Iu 1847 hailstones that measured Win. in circumference are said to have fallen in New South Wales. Others weighing 4Jlb. were reported after a storm at Cazorla, Spain, in June, 1829. Thousands of balls of ice, each as large or larger than oranges, fell at Hallas, Texas, causing nearly £IOO,OOO worth of damage. The most amazing report of such a bombardment from the skies comes from Cette, France. In October, 1844, such huge hailstones are said to have fallen that thev wrecked dwellings and sunkvessels anchored off shore. The formation of large hailstones begins at heights estimated at between 15,000 ft. and 40,000 ft. above tho ground. EPIC FIGHT WITH ZULUS. An appeal for a veteran who fought at TJorke's Drift, and is now blind and on tho verge of destitution, was recently made by the Mayor of Ilford, Essex. Tho veteran is Mr. G. D. Power, aged 76. Before joining tho Army Mr. Power was in the service of tho Great Western Railway. After first joining the colours ho was bought out by his father for £3O, but within a year had rejoined an infantry regiment. t Describing iho events at Rorke s Drift, Mr. Power said that when Lord Chelmsford took tho column out thoro was suddonly fierce fighting against hordes of Zulus* Although the Britishers were outnumbered they stuck to their guns and an enormous number of Zulus were ki'led. Mr. Power himself helped to bury 350. SOME COINAGE CURIOS. Tho collection of coins mado by Mr. Farran Zerbe, of New ork, who has spent forty years in acquiring specimens of the money of different nations and periods, recently has been sold to an American bank, It was valued at £10,000,000 heforo the War. The most,curious thing about some of the old-timo money is its bulk. Ihus, a slab of copper, 2ft. long by a Ift, wide, and weighing 311b. was oriro worth thirty-five shillings in Sweden. Tea compressed into bricks, tobacco, aiul condensed milk havo also served as coins. Cattle and salt wero other forms of money favoured by some primitivo communities, and when these came into contact with Europeans, bullets and gunpowder also very frequently became " current coin." ROBOT AIR PILOT. After ten years' experiments in France, a pilotless aeroplane has been perfected. Experiments have been carried out with a machine of 1300 h.p., which has boon controlled with far greater accuracy by mechanical moans than by tho human pilot. This mechanical pilot is a sort of Robot weighing 651b. Tho Robot pilot is composed of threo stabilsators, one for longitudinal stability, ono for latitudinal and a third for control of direction. The stabilsators communicate their or--1 dors to small electric motors, which replace tho human muscles, and manipulate : the controls with a precision said to be ten times that of a man. The stabilsators 1 also control a little motor which controls 1 the engine, giving the machine more gas as it climbs and less as it doscends. Iho correction is instantaneous. To give instructions to tho Robot pilot, all that need bo done is to press the suitable button. LONG-LIVED LEATHER. Tho durability of leather is proved by tho discovery, in the course of excavating for the foundations of the new Bank of England, of soles of Bom an shoes, ono ' of which bears clearly tho impress of the 1 official Roman eagle. The soles evidently wero those of the sandals worn by women and children. Bronze rivets wore used to hold together two or three thicknesses of leather and no doubt accounted in part for the life ■ obtained from tho footwear, which must ' havo been much greater in weight than \ present-day shoes. The old leather wiik • in about the same state of preservation as might be expected of a modern shoe that hud been on a rubbish heap for a ' couple of months. Although nowadays leather is produced with more speed and less mechanical crudity, the processes of preserving toughening, and softening it aro not, materially different from those practised by the Romans in England about 2000 years a go.

BOYS OF THE OLD BRIGADE. The King's Body Guard of the eo/ncn of tho Guard recently held a dinner to commemorate tho King's birthday in accordance with the terms of a bequest made, by Roger .Monk, an hxon, 'if tho Guard, over one hundred years ago. Tho dinner was attended by all serving Yeomen, who are selected from senior non-commissioned officers of every regiment, specially distinguished for long and gallant service. " At the top of tho table, presiding, sot Mr. B. White, the Senior Messengor, an ancient rank hijzher than that of sergeantmajor. Mr. White has had sixty-four years' service with tho Colours, has been thirty-seven years in tho King s Body Guard. Tho Yeomen entered the room to the strains of *' Boys of the Old Brigade.." The toast of Ifoger Monk was received in silence, according to custom.

The King's Body Guard of tho "Yeomen of the Guard is not only tho oldest Royal Body Guard, but is also tho oldest military corps in tho world. The Yeomen wear tho picturesque Tudor uniform of scarlet, and gold, with low-crowned hats garlanded with rod and white favours and gold-embroidered crossbelts.