NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 1999, 5 July 1919, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

It was -found.recently that bars of pure silver, heated to a certain temperature and left for a time in a strong magnetic field, become weakly but permanently magnetised. 1836, Thome de Gamond, proposed the construction • of a bridge twenty-two and a qiParter miles in length, across the .English Channel, at an estimated cost of £32,000,000. The fall of water at Niagara is 18,000,000 cubic feet per minute, but a flow of only 15,000 feet per second is diverted above the falls and harnessed for the use of man.

Of all grades of coal ranking with or above bituminous, the visible supply is 4,500,000,000,000 tons. This includes all coal down to one foot in thickness and 4,000 feet in depth. A fragment, enclosed in a locket, of the skull of Percy B. Shelley, the poet, was bequeathed by Mr William Michael Rossetti, the author, to his daughter, Olivia Frances Madox Agresti.

Very shortly France will put in circulation 90,000,000 pieces' of nickel coins, in conformity with the law of August sth, 1913, permitting the coinage of nickel money to taka the place of copper. The cataract of Kaietenr, in British Guiana, is capable of fmulshing four times as much power as is derived to-day by the harnessing of Niagara Falls. It is theoretically .21,100,000 horse-power. By means of a new X-ray invention just completed in London, it is possible to watch (he heart boating. It is slated that under suit able conditions even the blood can be seen (lowing (lirough the arteries. A shipment of birds collected in French Guiana and Brazil, for the New York Carnegie Museum, was broken into and rubbed of a largo part of its contents on its arrival in New York Citv recently.

A magnificent'' ram, with three horns —the additional one projecting directly upward and slightly forward from the forehead —is an unusual specimen of sheep owned by an animal fancier of Washington. During the operations of the British National Egg Collection, which lasted over more than four years, close on -12,000,000 eggs were collected as gifts and distributed to wounded soldiers and sailors. The record for sending a longdistance wireless message was established recently, when a radio communication was sent from the wireless station at Carnarvon, Wales, to Sydney, Australia, a distance of 12,000 miles.

While General Will iams was motoring on the road to Charier.)!, three highway robbers attacked the car and carried off a valise containing £OOO and jewellery. The British military police arrested the robbers. Sir 'William Allardyee, Governor of the Bahamas, who arrived in London recently, staled that; the Bahamas provided an ideal health resort, which was apparently unheard of in England. “The climate,'’ he said, “is the mosf perfect in the world, and there is the best bathing and yachting obtainable anywhere.” Moving a resolution in the Canadian Parliament, the Hon. J. D. Reid embodied his proposal in one sentence of .1,300 words —enough to fill an ordinary newspaper column. This is the world’s record sentence.

The districts of Alai (Siberia) and Andrestchinsk, formerly ’ the personal property of the Tsar, have been taken over by the State, thus increasing the national wealth of Siberia with their abundant forests', and rich deposits of iron, copper, zinc, gold, jasper, and precious stones.

Retiring after 53 years’ post office . service, Mr C. J. Upfold, of TTaslemere, England, lias walked 300,000 miles. His live sons, all of whom served in the war, have all been in the postal sendee, and bis grandfather was a letter-carrier nearly 100 years ago.