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Otago Witness, Issue 3957, 14 January 1930, Page 62

r l wo new cables, for use in the telegraph and telephone toll services, have been laid by the Telegraph Department across the Auckland Harbour. Each of the cables is one mile and a-quarter in length. From a steamer which arrived shortly before the Christmas holidays they were unloaded direct on to a barge and were immediately laid, the terminal points being at the foot of Curran street and at the Northcote wharf. The work of linking the new cables with the land lines is now proceeding, and within a few weeks they should be ready for use. A considerable improvement in telephone communication between Auckland and the north is expected to follow, as the new cables have a greater capacity and are of a more efficient type than those now in use.

Pohutukawas have been very irregular in their blooming time this Christinas (says the Auckland Star). Some of them came out exceptionally early, and on the other hand, some of then) are still clothed in scarlet from the topmost to the lowest branches. There is one fine tree in the Albert Park which is still a mass of bloom, and it is of an intensely brilliant hue. Many of the trees round about Auckland have flowers of a rather dull brown-red which is not half so pleasing as the brilliant red kind. All the trees along the waterfront seem to have very bright and vivid blossoms, and those 'shewing the brown red hue are generally those inland. It may be that the tree must Lie washed by the spray and spindrift to attain itn perfection. Certainly no other tree, not even tlie njjsio thriven so weit at the edge of the tide, exposed to all the breezes that blow.