WESTERN WONDERS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20104, 24 March 1928, Page 7

WESTERN WONDERS

AMANULIAH’S tour A BUSY DAY IN LONDON. (A. A NX.) LONDON, March 22. The Daily Telegraph states that the Foreign Office has arranged for the filming <of King Amanuliah’s tour of Britain. Copies of the film with Persian sub-titles will be forwarded to Kabul, where there is only one cinema. King Amanullah was keenly interested in what he saw to-day on his voyage in a launch down the Thames. He passed many big ships, including the White Star liner Megantic. In King George the Fifth Dock he inspected a great 150-ton lifting derrick which is the latest acquisition. The Customs sheds, and immense warehouses where merchandise is stored were pointed out to the King and he was astonished at the magnitude of the dock.

Visiting Greenwich Observatory the King was conducted by Sir Frank Dyson, Astronomer Royal. He inspected the original observatory founded by Charles IL, in 1675, and designed by Christopher Wren and he looked through the giant 28-inch telescope which weighs three and a-half tons, and is the largest in Europe. It had been hoped to show him a star of the first magnitude, but the sky was too cloudy, and there were no planets in a position favourable for observation.