The Examiner, Published MONDAY WEDNESDAY, AND FRIDAY. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25. THE STOCK ACT.

Woodville Examiner, Volume XXII, Issue 3865, 25 April 1906, Page 2

The Examiner, Published MONDAY WEDNESDAY, AND FRIDAY. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25. THE STOCK ACT.

In referring to the recent prosecutions by the Slate Department, and the numerous inquiries which we have received from settlers on this matter, we are convinced that a number of sheep-owners in this district are not as conversant with the Stock Act as they ought to be But believing their best interests demand that certain clauses of the same should be strictly enforced, in order to protect those who are alive to their own interests, and are endeavoming to keep their flocks clean, we have thought it advisable to quote in full that particular section of the Act of 1893, which requires especial attention by sheep-farmers. Section 45 reads as follows:—“If any sheep affected with lice shall be found in any pound, or in any yard or yards, or on any land or other place at which sheep are offered for sale, the owner exposing the sheep so affected shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding ten pounds. Any inspector, if he deems, it necessary, may order the withdrawal from sale of any sheep affected with lice until such sheep shall have been dipped or dressed to the satisfaction of such inspector, and shall give notice to the aforesaid owner of such sheep to dip or dress the same forthwith at such place as the inspector may direct; and every such owner who refuses, neglects, ot fails to comply with the aforesaid notice is liable to a further penalty not exceeding twenty pounds. But if the inspector is satisfied that such sheep are intended for immediate slaughter he may withhold such notice to dip.’’ By the Stock Act Amendment of 1898, the period prescribed for tht dipping of sheep was altered and declared to be the period between the first of January and the 81st of March, in lieu of the period as formerly between the first of February and the 30th of April. Thus it will be seen owners are not compelled to dip their sheep before the end of March, though it is clearly provided that no person shall expose sheep affected with lice for sale at any season of the year irrespective of whether they have or have not been dipped, or whether it is before or after the dipping season. We may also state that the local inspector does not accept the responsibility of instituting proceedings, but refers all breaches of the Act to the Department in Wellington.

Total solar eclipses are not frequent visitors, and the total average man is not solar well informed on eclipses. the subject. The total eclipse of 1905 naturally, however, attracted a good deal of astronomical attention. It was visible on a comparatively narrow strip of the earth, and its path began at sunrise south of Hudson Baffin Canada, entered the Atlantic Ocean a short distance north of Newfoundland, diagonally crossed Spain, swept over the Mediterranean, traversed Algiers, Tunis, and Egypt, and ended at sunset in south-eastern Arabia. Along that path a shadow followed the moon as it swam between earth and the sun, just as a man’s shadow follows him along a sunny street. When the shadow of the moon reached the astronomers stationed along the line traced from Canada to Europe the sun was to him eclipsed. For good astronomical reasons a total eclipse can never (says the Scientific American) last very much more than seven minutes. Last year’s totality was not even as long as this, enduring at only one point for three minutes forty-five seconds, and at others for two minutes and a-half. In an entire century, we are told that it is not possible to spend more than eight days in solid observation of total solar tclipses. Lack of time is not the only limit imposed on the observer of eclipses. Although the path traced by the moon’s shadow is several thousand miles long, be must take up his position in a narrow strip that cannot be possibly more than 107 miles wide, rarely reaches 140 miles, and is usually between 50 and 100 miles. Further, he is confined to dry land, as a sway-

ing vessel is 100 unsteady a platform for astronomical instruments. Moreover, it is safe to suy (hat any astronomer watching quietly in hie domestic observatory and having the good fortune to witness a single total eclipse from its convenient shelter, would, speaking generally, sit (hero for more than 800 years before a not tier would darken the same landscape. The only total eclipse eyer observed in New York City occurred in ISOG, and London in 1715 had not been visited by such an event for 600 years. The undertaking which has recently involved the construca modern tion of an enormous reservoir, reservoir to hold the New York water supply is described as one of the most remarkubla of modern times, and one of the greatest modern works of engineering. The growth of the city has been illustrated in the development of and provision for its water supply. The old aqueduct was finished in 1812, and 90,000,000 gallons daily was the supply. Fifteen years ago the new aqueduct was completed, and the city now uses its full daily capacity of 800,000,000 gallons. Provision for drought was not included in this, and the new Croton dam was started in 1898. It is now completed, and the reservoir behind it wi!) hold 3,200,000,000 gallons, or enough for 100 days’ use. The concrete and stone dam is 2,800 ft long and 300 ft high; its bottom wiclthJs 21 Git, and the pressure at the base wifi be something like 16 tons to the square foot. The foundations are 162 ft down, in solid rock. The water will be backed up the Croton River for a distance of 20 miles, and 3125 acres is the area of the reservoir proper. The new water supply is said to have cost New York neaily £8,000,000, and to have necessitated the destruction of three vllagcs and the moving of three railways. The cost of the dam itself is set down at £1, 360,000, and the material in it is estimated to he approximately about the same as that contained in the pyramid of Cheops. Seven hundred men would not have gone far with the ancients in a work of such magnitude, but the building of 20 miles of railway track and the use of 100,000 tons of coal are characteristic of the work of modern engineers. We were informed by one of the morning paper this rack to the week, says the Ohrists mpj.e life. church Truth, that New York society is getting so blaze with hilarious and riotous Jiving that, by way of a novelty, it is getting back to the “simple life’’ post haste. We can imagine Mr Rockefeller leaving his simple office of eighty flits in Wall Street and motoring in his simple 100-horse power Panhard to his simple country residence costing a few simple millions. He sits down to a simple snack of 340 courses, and then dictates an edict to the simple American people deifying simplicity in all things. Rut we would advise the Christchurch public not to rely too much on this simplicity idea-espe-cially during Exhibition time, and if simple-looking man comes up and attempts to work a simple confidence trick, catch him a simpla smack between the eyes and yell for the police.