ITEMS OF INTEREST.

Waikato Times, Volume 94, Issue 14770, 8 October 1921, Page 9 (Supplement)

ITEMS OF INTEREST.

FROM THE WORLD’S PRESS. Statistics show that the Chinese live longer than the people of any other nation. Nova Scotia apple-growers and shippers report a record return for their 1920 crop. The Cope Expedition, landing at Graham Island, found x'ich seal and > penguin colonies. Deposits in French savings banks at the end of last year amounted to £120,000,000. A young goose with four legs is an object of much interest on a Colebrooke, Devon (Eng.) farm. Aviation has been added to the sports in which the undergraduate at Cambridge can win his “blue.” "An order for 7,700,000 feet of railway ties for Egypt is being executed by sawmills in British Columbia. In North China it is not uncommon for new-born Chinese babies to have blue or green eyes and light red hair. Discovery has been made ,of a process by which the muscular’tissucs of horses and cattle can be converted into silk.

Eggs of the Algerian locust have been found to yield a thick oil resembling honey in appearance. It burns well, and mixed with alkali makes a good soap.

Scented toilet waters have now io be treated with chemicals which render them unfit for drinking before being sold in America. More women than men go blind in Sweden, Norway, and Iceland; more men than women in the rest of Europe and the United States. Small farms jrc the rule in Japan, and every foot of land is put to use. The farmer who has more than ten acres is considered a monopolist. The British Admiralty has just admitted that it now costs half a million pounds apiece annually to maintain the newest battleships ami battle-cruisers in full commission in home waters.

Esperanto has now been recognised by Italy as a “clear” language for telegraphic purposes, and is no longer considered as a cipher of “conventional” language. Choked by his false teeth while cycling, Walter Bramley (36), fell with his cycle into the canal near Bletchlcy (England). When the body was recovered the teeth were found in his throat. From a London newspaper; “Demobilised captain makes hand-embroider-ed crepe de chine blouses, 255. Exclusive designs.” A major who knitted jumpers advertised in the same column.

Tristan de Cunha, Britain's lonely island possession in the South Atlantic, 2000 miles west of the Cape of Good Hope, has been without clergyman or schoolmaster since 1900; there are 119 inhabitants.

So many mackerel are being washed up into the Swansea Bay (Wales) nets that the fishermen are returning tons of fish to tlie sea. Catches are weighing down the nets, and the fishermen declare they are unable to cope with the huge quantities which arc being washed up by the tide. All the wars of Napoleon Bonaparte cost his country £225,000,000, while the wars of Louis Napoleon cost France £442,000,000. The former made the enemy pay most of the expenses; the expense of the wars wage! by the latter was borne by France. A strange example of friendship between different animals is the recent case of a blind ox that used to be the inseparable companion of a gander on a farm in Alabama, U.S.A. When its feathered friend died, it is staled to have slowly pined away of grief. The gander used to lead the ox to the water to drink.

Those who beldeve that tS is an unlucky number should fight shy of the American 25cent piece. It has 13 stars, 13 letters in (he scroll held in the. eagle’s beak, 13 marginal feathers on each wing, 13 tail feathers, 13 parallel lines in the shield, 13 horizontal bars, and 13 arrow-heads. Much of the costly red, white, and pink coral used for ornamental purposes is obtained from the coast' of Italy. Men go out in boats and drag the rocky bottom of streams wild wooden frames or nets, in which the coral becomes entangled, but the delicate branches arc crushed in this way. The finest coral is obtained by diving. In Ceylon graphite is found in greater abundance than in any similar sized area in the world. The soil and rocks of Ceylon are almost everywhere Impregnated with graphite, so that it may be seen covering the surface in the drains after a rain. The supply is practically inexhaustible.. The popularity of Ceylon graphite is its remarkable purity. In China, graphite is found in several localities. Tennis, the forerunner of the lawn game of to-day, is a very old game. It was introduced 'into England about the 14th century. A line was chalked on a wall, and a stroke below this was considered a fault. “Palm-tennis originated in France. The ball was driven by the palm of the hand; at first Ihc hand was bare, but later the players used a glove, and later still some form of racquet was used. The Riksgranscn Railway lies wholly within the Polar Circle, thus necessitating special appliances to contend with the snow. Except for Ihc stations, the railway is single-line throughout, of standard gauge, with a maximum grade of 1/100, and sharpest curve of 500 metres radius. The whole Knc is being electrified, the power being supplied by water. In the famous Conslock silver mines in Nevada, the temperature at iho 2700-foot level is 12G degrees. Yet men, with the aid of ice-water, work there regularly. In another shaft the temperature rises to 170 degrees, and here men can only work for ten or :lfteen minutes at a shift. The highest sun temperature ever recorded was at Muscat, on the Persian Gulf, where the black bulb solar thermometer uas registered 187 degrees. An immense African irrigation project to enable the French colony to raise France’s cotton, instead of leaving the country dependent upon ihe United States, is contained in a bill recently presented in the Chamber of Deputies. It will require the expenditure of about 225.000.000 francs for damming the Upper Niger in iho French Soudan, and irrigating there and three-quarter million, acres. WVu the Niger utilised between Bamnnko and Timbuctoo, it is calculated the t yield will exceed that in America.