Local & General

Chronicle (Levin), 4 July 1949, Page 4

Local & General

Dfeep-Sea Diver. Mf. J. Johns-one, the deep-sea( diver who since winriing f°nie by rdtrieving the Niagafa's gold h?s worked on salvage jobs in many oceans, has accepted a similar task off Northern Ireland. He is now abodrd the liner Orion.on, his way to England. A substantial sum 'was gtiaranteed to secure his services. Iron Tests At Onekaka. e At the Onekaka ironworks important smelting tests are to begin shortly on the extraction of iron from Taranaki ironsands and. Onekaka deposits by the use of a modern electric tbiast furnace, which was specially imported for the purpose. Last week the plant was I given a trial run. The tests are under the control of the State Iron j and Steel Department. Technical ! assiStance wih be given by the DeI parfcment of Scientific and Indus- ' trial Research". Experts from oVer- ' seas will supervise tbe operation of the furpa.ce and- the processing of the ironsand. Wekas For Weka Pass. | Weka Pass, Canterbury, . can sgain lay claim to its name. Mr. Ken Lowe, of Waikari, Who return- ! ed from the Chathanl Islands by I the Port Waikato last , week, j brought with him five wekas. He ! said t'hat wekas were p'e'ntiful in I the Chathanis, and' that he intendj ed to release those he had brought I with him in the. Weka Pass-. Ac- ! dording to one Waikari resident, | there have been no wekas in that vicinity for almost nine years — so ! long, in fact, that he has forgotten ! what they look like. The weka, or natiVe wood hen,' is a brown bird about the size of a bantam.

Backward Lambs. The question- of making use of poor or apparently poor land will 'be discussed at the New Zealand Grassland Association's annual conference to be held from November 21 to 24. The pumice country near Rotorua will be eonsidered. Other topics will be the restoration of native pastures in Marlborough and the effect of high-producing strains of grasses and clovers. plus tjie heavy application of fertilisers on the well-being of stock. Hill country problems will a1so be discussed. Land deveiopment areas at Waikiti and Ngakuru and exotic forest plantations of the State Forest Service will be visite'd. Bowlers' Blazers. With the growth in the number of clubs and players, it had become increasingly difflcult to- get enough patterned Vazer material, let alone enough patterns, said Mr. W. J. Short (Auckland) when the New Zealand Bowling Council discussed the adoption of a standard blazer, hearing club or official emblems on the'pocket. Saying that there would be 500 bowhng clubs in the Dominion before the end of the year, Mr. M. J. Walsh (Auckland) suggested that the new "blazer should be introduced oVer a period of five years. It was decided to recommend centres to adopt a standard blazer, and to get reports of centre vie.ws for discussion at the half-yearl'y meeting in January. Crimmals Unimaginative. "Criminals are unimaginative, They are likely to get one technique and stick to it," declarfed Mr. H. M. Howgrave-Graham, a former • secretary. of the Metropolitan Police, Scotland Yard, in London, in an address to the Christchurch branch of the Overseas League. The methods pecUliar to a certain knovm criminal were listed in the "modus operandi" lndex at Scotland Yard, he said; and from reports of witnesses or those direc.tly coiicerned with a certain incident it was possible, in many cases, to re'duce the number of suspects to pefhaps half-'a dozen by consulting the flies. By careful checking this number cotild eventually be i whittled doWn Uiltil the culprit was discovered. Mr. Graham cited a case where this had occurred.