NOTES AND QUERIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3333, 30 January 1918, Page 35

NOTES AND QUERIES.

Questions tor reply In oomrlng Ueuo to be r#Mivod »ot later than BATUEDAY night. Qoeationa will NOT be replied to through the post. Parent of Thbee Soldiers—(l) A soldier's pay ceases in three, months from the date on which he is reported killed in.action. (2) Application for a pension should ' be made to Mr Stokes, Pensions Department, Dunedin. Soldier's Friend. —In addition to the number, rank, company, etc., to which the soldier belongs, .the letter must be addressed care G.P.0., "Wellington. .The address, " France," must not be used. M. I«.—lt will be necessary to make application to the secretary of the Financial Assistance Board, Wellington. Doubtful. —Yes, jam can be sent to Great Britain, —but it must be put into tins, not bottles, for fear of breakage. Special tins can be procured for the purpose from a tinsmith, and they must be well soldered up after the jam is put in. Soho.—There is no system of giving a bonus on the birth of a child in New Zealand. A young person who has joined the Government National Provident Fund, after having contributed for 12 months, is entitled to a payment not exceeding JG6 for every birth happening after. Engineer.—So far as we are aware the School of Engineering in connection with Canterbury College does not undertake to teach by correspondence. You had better communicate with the registrar, Canter-bury-College, Christchurch, and ask for a prospectus or calendar. A charge is usually made for the latter. Ignoramus.—Yarr is not included in the schedule of the Noxious Weeds Act. The weeds mentioned ai-e: —Second schedule: Canadian or Californian thistle, sweet briar, ragwort. Third schedule: Bathurst burr, broom, burdock, dock, elderberry, fennel, foxglove, giant burdock, gorse, hakea, hemlock, kangaroo acacia, lupin, ox-eye daisy, pennyroyal, periwinkle, St. John's wort, taubinu, thistles (any species), tutsun, Viper's bugloss, wild borage, wild turnip, winged thistle. In the fourth schedule- a number of those in the third schedule are enumerated, and in addition burr clover, clover dodder, and fathen. Old Subscriber. —What is termed drying boiled linseed oil is used for making what is called an oilskin. The drying quality is given by the use of litharge—one quarter the weight of the oil. The following process is found successful:—Dissolve some good resin or lac over the fire in the drying linseed oil till the resin is dissolved and the oil brought to the thickness of a balsam. If this be spread upon canvas or any, other linen cloth so as fully to drench and' entirely to glaze it over, the cloth, if then suffer-rd to dry thoroughly, will be quite* impenetrable to wet "of any description Colour may be added to the mixture before applying—verdigris for a green, amber for a hair colour, white lead and lamp black for a .grey, indigo and white for a light bluo, etc. Grind the colour with the last coating applied. You must. bo careful to apply the" varnish equally to all parts. Puzzled, Fairlie. —Mr H. M. Dayey writes: " Through a most curious mistake I am supposed to hava written in your reply in last week's issue: The pipes are 'bruised,' Whether it was my mistake or not, tho words should have been: Ths pipes are ' buried.' So, please, read that part again, substituting ' buried ' for ' bruised.' 1 believe the usual smoke tost is to get some substances that give out dense smoke, preferably placing the receptacle containing the burning, smoky materials at tho low end of the pipes to be tested, and allowing the smoke to pass through tho pipes, than siopping it at the far. end, when smoke escapes through any cracks, -which it is very good at finding out. The only pipes that matler to you are those between the well and the pump, as they would leak air inwards. The pipes betwepn the pump and tho tank would leak out-

wards, if they did leak, and even then the only trouble would be that just so much less water was pumped into the tank. To obtain reliable information as to the best manner of proceeding, I coneurted Mr Petei Walker, who, in the course of business makes such testa, and he kindly replied as follows:—'There is a special appliance for this work, but a good test can be made without it by disconnecting (iff your case) sufficient of the pump to allow smoke to escape at the top of the suction pipe. At the lower end a smoky fire is made with oily waste or anything that' gives out a dense smoke, and when this escapes freely at the other end, it is' 1 stopped from escaping, and at ■ the* same time an air pump is applied at the lower end to force the smoke, if there is any crack, out.' He then remarked that the pump was very likely to cause trouble, as some of the faces were iron, and might be lusted, necessitating either facing up, true again,' or else; greasing, whioh sometimes remedied imperfect action."