NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1747, 14 August 1917, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Africa lias 700 languages and dialects. TJ a; Bank of England was founded in An elephant lias more than DUO muscles in his trunk. The entire coastline of the globe is about 13(i,000 miles. Ivon steamships were lirst built in Great Britain in 1843. People as a rule hear better with their right than with their left ear. One pound of sheep’s wool is capable of producing one yard of cloth. The tlrst bread was made by the Ureeks; the first windmills by the Saracens. The Eskimos of Alaska make waterproof boots and shirts of the skin of the salmon, A new industry has sprung up in the manufacture of gigantic blinds for church windows. in the elementary schools of Japan the English language is required to be taught by law. The left side of the face is usually . considered by artists to bo more beautiful than the right. Eince the South Kensington Museum, London was lirst opened, fifty millions of people have visited it. A man will die for want of air in five minutes, for want of sleep in ten days, for want of water in a week. Japan was originally civilised by China; to-day Japan .sends .scholars and men of science to instruct the Chinese. The clove tree grows in many tropical countries, often reaching the height of 40ft. Cloves are dried, undeveloped flower buds. The sunniest part of the British Isles is the Channel Islands. There the sun shines four hours out of every ten it is above the horizon. The laud devoted to corn in the United States exceeds in area the whole of the British Isles, together with Holland and Belgium. Polish women are renowned for the beauty of their hands and feet. They place fineness of the hands ahove every other charm. According to anatomists, a per-fectly-formed foot should be as long as the bone of the forearm, which extends from the elbow to the'joint of the wrist. The flagpole supporting the German flag raised by a hyphenatedi hotel proprietor at Woodport, New Jersey, to signalise the arrival of the Deutschland, was shattered to splinters with axes by his neighbours.