NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 1944, 25 February 1919, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Eight million pounds of fish Avere taken in Canadian Avaters last year. Radium has a long life, half of it decaying in approximately 1,600 years. It is calculated that Denmark during the Avar lost approximately 250 ships and 450 sailors. The first concrete ship Imilt in Ireland was launched in December last from a Belfast yard. In some churches of Continental Europe notices may he seen requesting women to keep on their hats. Brazil, Avhieh before the Avar exported no frozen meat.-, is now sending 80,000 tons annually to Europe. The total weight of the atmosphere is represented by (he imposing figure of 6,000,000,000,000,000 tons.

' Ships built of steel are estimated to lie able to carry about twenty per cent, more freight than those made of iron. Ilfracombe, an English city of

10,000, has the unique distinction of

having no pawnbrokers Avilhin its boundaries.

No living representative of the animal kingdom lias more Ilian five toes, digits, or cluavs to each foot, hand or limb.

A sample of wheal sown in Alberta, Canada, on May Olli and cut on July 15th, avus 4 ft. long, a groAvth of 48in. in 67 days. Edmonton has the distinction of having upon the register the oldest woman voter, Mrs .Lambert, avlio is 105 years of age. A now industry for (lie production of salt by the electrical evaporation of sea Avater is being inaugurated in Norway. Starfish have a considerable power of reproducing lost parts, a single arm having been known to groAv up into a new starfish. The first aeroplane (light took place fifteen years ago, when Orville Wright made a flight of just under one minute, at Da ton, Ohio. The thimble was originally called a Ilium-bell by the English, because worn 011 the thumb: then a I bumble, ind finally its present name.

A new invention is an electric heater Avhieh may be placed in a bath (id) after it lias been tilled to raise (be Avater to any desired tempera lure.

The University of Pelrograd is the largest institution of its kind in the world, one building of which has a frontage of nearly a quarter of a mile. A London firm lias received a contract to supply a large number nf: gas masks for miners working underground. They have proved a complete success. The world’s production of crude petroleum in 1017 was 500,651,086 barrels of 42 gallons, of Avliicli (he United Slates’ proportion was 66.08 per cent. .America’s biggest chicken hatchery, located at Cleveland, holds amany as 660,000 eggs al a time, and in a single season hatches 2,000,000 chicks.