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Ashburton Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 818, 14 December 1882, Page 2

Crowded Out.— Owing to the pressure of advertisements we are compelled to hold over our leading article and other local news. A Warning xo Small Boys.— Ostriches, which digest tenpenny nails, cannot stand tobacco. The other day, says the Natal Witness, a farmer living near Zuurbron was standing in one of his ostrich camps, smoking a meerschaum pipe, when one of his most valuable breeding birds came up and snatched the pipe from his mouth and swallowed it. In a very short time the bird was dead, having been poisoned by the nicotine in the pipe. This should act as a warning to small boys. An Umbrella Story. — During the shower a citizen carrying a very wot umbrella entered an hotel to pay a call to some one upstairs. After placing his urn* brella where it might drain, he wrote upon a piece of paper and pinned to it thd sen* tence, “ N. B.—This umbrella belongs to a man who strikes a 2501 b blow—back in fifteen minutes.” He went his way upstairs, and after an absence of fifteen minutes returned to find his umbrella gone, and in its place a note reading, P.S.—Umbrella taken by a man who walks ten miles an hour—won’t be back at all. ” —Detroit Free Press. Coal “ Winning ” by a New Process. —A series of experiments has bean made in the workings of the Wharnoliffe Silkstone colleries, near Sheffield, the object being to test the new method of winning coal by the use of compressed lime instead of blasting powder. The experiments took place in the Pargate seam.' A hole about Sin in diameter and 4ft deep was drilled through the solid coal and cleaned out, a perforated iron tube was then inserted, and the lime cartridge (3ft long) put in. When the lime had beOn rammed home and the hole made up,, a force pump was used to inject water into the bottom of the tube. Simultaneously with the injection of the water, the rending process began, and in 30 minutes about ten tons of coal came down almost in an unbroken mass. Of the whole of the fall, not more than 6 per cent, of the coal was small —a much smaller per centage than under the old system. It is anticipated that compressed lime will eventually supersede the use of blasting powder, and thus revolutionise the system of winning coal.