GENERAL NEWS.

West Coast Times, Issue 2849, 21 May 1878, Page 3

GENERAL NEWS.

It is stated in L'Explorateur that Mr James Gordon Bennett, of the New York Herald, intends to equip an expedition for a Polar exploration. A telephaue company in San Francisco has devised a plan whereby every one of their subscribers can be placed instantaneously in communication with every other subscriber in the city. At Melbourne, they frequently have plea-ure-trips to sea on Saturday for a distance of twenty miles or so, and the venture pays the owners of tbe steamer very well. The chickory seed sown in California is imported annually from Germany, it having been, found that seed raised in California will not answer, as the plant appears to degenerate. The Hobart Town Tribune thinks that the new tin discoveries open out a bright future for " neglected and misgoverned " Tasmania.

Lord Colin Campbell, the son of the Duke of Argyll, has been admitted to his bachelor degree with honors at the Cambridge University.

The Americans are now exporting to England furniture, wiudow sashes, doors, skirting boards, panel-work, wainscots, and all descriptions of joinery. Dr James Robertson, iun., Renfrew, has been appointed by a large mining company to go to India, to make a geological and mineralogical investigation ef the Kingdom of Burmah.

At the great iron works of Pittsbarg, Pa., they roll iron so thin as to resemble tissue paper. Ten thousand sheets make one inch in thickness.

St. "George's Hall stage, Melbourne has been transformed into an elegant drawing room, on the model of Kelly and Leon's stage, New York, for the reception of the Kelly and Leon Minstrels.