NEWS BY MAIL.

Hokitika Guardian, 20 October 1924, Page 1

NEWS BY MAIL.

LARGEST SAPPHIRE. LONDON, August 20. Still another attraction lias l>cen added to the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley. This i.s the world’s largest sapphire, a jewel weighing ten ounces and valued at more than £SOOO. This stone was discovered recently in the home of a Mohommodan official in llyderbad State, who had been using it for many years as a paper-weight. In fact, so little value did this man attach to the curious-looking stone, which is intricately carved in the form of an car ornament, that he frequently gave it to his children as a pretty plaything. The stone has a long and romantic history which has been traced from the twelfth century, when it was an ornament on a Buddha belonging to the Ballala kings of South India. It was handed down from generation to generation until it came into the possession of a while man, who eventually gave it as a present to the ancestors of its present owner.

XKAV GERMAN CAR. BERLIN, Aug. 10. The Wernigcroder Motor AA’orks and the Morsdorf-Mctal AYorks have produced a 6-18-h.p. motor-ear which, it is claimed can be run on crude oil at a cost of 3s per 100 miles. It is protected by 20 German and 40 foreign patents. Professor A. AT. Low said last night that there is no reason why practically every motor engine should not bo adaptable to this fuel if drivers were prepared to sacrifice cleanliness of engine. ease of starling, and general comfort. to cheapness. This fuel would make motoring very cheap. The disadvantages of the crude oilconsuming engine, lie said, are: AA'eight. bad starting, dirtiness, inconvenience. lack of control. The German engine, he thought', i.s a development of the Diesel or semi-Die-sel engine.

BEACH .MORALS. VIENNA, Aug. 6,

Though Bad Ischl, GmumTcn. and many other holiday resorts in Austria are packed to overflowing, ami people arriving unexpectedly often have to spend the night in a cab, there is great distress, especially among the middle classes, in both Austria and Hungary. By bank and business failures in A’icnna in July about 5.000 clerks have boon thrown out of work. Til Hungary 7,000 businesses have failed or shut down since January.

Put everybody who can possibly get away is making holiday, and even Siofok, on Lake Balaton, in Hungary, which was empty three weeks ago, is filling up. There most of the visitors spend the whole day in pyjamas or swimming costume, while gendarmes with fixed bayonets anil peremptory manners patrol as judges of decorum and intervene if their scrutiny gives them cause. GERMAN AIR AMBITION. LONDON. Aug. 10. A wave of popular interest in Hying is sweeping over Germany, writes a correspondent. For the annual light aeroplane meeting this week on the famous Wasserkuppe, .'ll) miles north-east of Frankfort. there are 7o entries—a record number. Many of these are from air clubs and associations formed among university students. Others are machines constructed by private enthusiasts. Twenty-eight of the “air-cars” are motor-driven. One is filled with a detachable “nose,” so that it can be used as an engineless or ns a motor-driven craft.

Germany is creating a great “air sense” and air ambition among all yeting men of the country.

ADAM. AND EVE A MYTH

LONDON, August- 2. “ There was Hu’ special creation of Adam and Eve . . . probably a

gradual evolution of a tribal group ol monkeys, who slowly began to shun a brain development characteristic of humanity,” was the assertion to the London “Evening News” of Canon Haines, of Westminster, who has been appointed Bishop of Birmingham. The time had come, he added, when the biological doctrine of evolution must be accepted by all churches. According to biologists, an animal in whom human characteristics could he discerned probably appeared not less than about a million years ago. Since then there has been a gradual development of that humanoid being, which has finally led to civilised man as we now know him. In this picture of the past' there is no room for the garden of Eden. The appointment has given rise in Birmingham to considerable discussi°n. ...