MISCELLANEOUS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 5031, 12 June 1889, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

Ono of the triumphs of modern engineering has just been completed at Chatham Dockyard in the form of a monster crane capable of lifting a weight of no loss than 250 tons. The crane measures 131 feet from the end of the jib to the ground, and is the largest in the world.

A piano tuner who says that pianos frequently deteriorate because they are allowed to become too dry, prescribes this remedy: Keep a growing plant in tho room, and so long as the plant thrives your piano ought to, or else there is something wrong with it. Some people keep a huge vase or urn with a sopping wet sponge in it near or under the piano, and keep it moistened. Some interesting trials of a new “ smokeless powder ” were made lately at Dartford, One great advantage of this powder ia that “after being wetted and dried it is still efficient ” and we are even told that “ a charge of this powder has been actually chewed, then dried, and afterwards fired.” We do not envy the man who chewed it. He must have resembled tho economical Greenwich pensioner who said of his tobacco —First! chaws it.jthen I smokes it, and then I grinds it up, and makes snuff on it.”

All coins bearing the image and superscription of the Ameer of Afghanistan are hand struck. But now Abdurrahman is going to have a mint, with tho necessary machinery, established in Cabul. He ia going to have a small arms factory established also, and the report comes that for this the requisite plant has already been purchased by"tho Amcor s European engineer. By one and the other it will be gathered that civilisation .is making headway in Afghanistan.

Mr J, H. Faruham, having to lecture before a New York audience recently, showed a miniature battery, to illustrate tho minuteness of telephone currents. This consisted simply of a glass bead, through which was t hreaded a thin copper wire and a thin Jron wire, tho ends being connected to a telephone wire. Tho solution was ono drop of acidulated water. By means of this battery, transmitted over more than 200 miles of wire. To a popular audience this is a wonderful illustration of tho sensibility of the telephone. A drop of water containing sal amnionic may be used instead of the acidulated water.