NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2005, 22 July 1919, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

There are 35,000 parts in a single aeroplane. The first tanks were designed and built in Lincoln. The nail on the middle finger grows faster than any other. There will be 4,000,000 more acres under crop in Canada this year than in 1917. The extent of Canada’s sea coast is equal to half the circumference of the world. The Germans during the war found a substitute for cotton in a seaweed called “sugamo.” The Sikorsky biplane, built in 1913 by M. Sikorsky, was the largest aeroplane in the world. When a U-boat submerges to a depth of 15 yards its whitish trail is invisible from above, A burglar alarm has been invented for automobiles that are temporarily left alone on the street. Great petroleum wells are reported to have been discovered in what was formerly German New Guinea. Compulsory rationing in the United Kingdom began with the issue of sugar cards in December, 1917. Of 19 persons sentenced to death for treason and similar offences during the war, eight were of enemy origin. Deaths in Sweden during 1918 exceeded the previous year by 27,000, the increase being ascribed to Spanish influenza. China exports more than 300,000,000 preserved and fresh eggs and 50,000,000 pounds of egg yolk and albumen annually, Owing to the war, 350,000 houses in the United Kingdom have not been built, which would have been built in normal years. The United States battleship Tennessee, when it goes into commission early next year, will be the largest battleship in the world. Some of the natives of Ecuador eat a beetle that is found extensively on high plains of that country, after roasting it like a chestnut. About 30 British and American mine-sweepers are now at work clearing the North Sea in the neighbourhood of the Norwegian coast. Deaths reported in the American Army during the war total 111,170, 51 per cent, from disease and 43 per cent, from wounds received in battle. As Secretary General of the League of Nation*, Sir Eric Drummond will receive £5,000 for expenses and £5,000 for his staff expenses per annum. . Snow is especially harmful to boots and shoes, because its latent heat warms the leather, opens the pores, and thus, as it melts, penetrates easily. Sailors consider it very unlucky to point towards another ship. It is (heir custom to nod towards it, or to indicate its presence otherwise, but never point. For every 5,000,000,000 hydro-el-ectric horse-power put to work, 17,000,000 tons of fuel is saved annually and 100,000 men arc released for other employment. Trees of the Sapindus, or soap berry order, grow in the north of Africa. They are amazingly prolific, and their first fruit contains about 30 per cent, of sapolin. It is said that about 5,000,000 American immigrants are ready to return to Europe immediately, and another 5,000,000 when additional transportation will become available. There is no bettor fertiliser than seaweed, and many acres of corn are being grown on the fiat lands of Essex, over which seaweed lias been thrown by the tides. Another direct route to the north of Scotland is to be established by the erection of a bridge over the River Forth, above the Firth of Forth, at Alloa, costing £220,000. Over 1,000 species of birds, 500 of which are met in Quebec, are affected by the international convention for the protection of migratory birds in Canada and the United States. In Borneo the natives capture large serpents—like the python—after they have gorged themselves with a meal, when they are more or less lifeless, and can be handled without danger. It is in Edward lll.’s reign that the mariner’s compass is first heard of in England, and there is little doubt that the English ships who won the battle of Sluys carried compasses.