NEWS IN-BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2033, 25 September 1919, Page 4

NEWS IN-BRIEF.

One end of the Simplon Tunnel is in Switzerland, and the other is in Italy, and at each end arrangements were made to enable the tunnel to be •stopped in ease of emergency by blowing up a portion of it, but during the war that tunnel has been Used continuously without any fear on the part of either country.

Some wonderful records were put up in munition factories during the war. In November, 1910, a workman belonging to Woolwich Arsenal told the London munitions tribunal that he had made'7B shells during a six-hour shift —something that had never been done before. There are at least two trade secrets which have been kept from the world at large for generations. One

is the Chinese method of making the bright and brilliant colour known as' vermillion, or. Chinese red, and the other is a ’Turkish secret —the inlaying of the hardest steel with gold or silver.

People talk about education destroying superstition, but there .is more widespread belief in. charms and amulets to-day than ever. A child’s to be a charm against drowning, could be bought for eightecupence before the war, but after the submarine ivar started 30s would hardly buy one. /; A great'treacle Hood occurred in New Orleans a few years ago. By some mischance a number of huge treacle tanks suddenly burst- their contents* and the treacle Hooded all over the low-lying portions of the city. The substance, by its. (sticky

nature, resembled an ociopus in its grip, and those who were caught in it shared a horrible fate by drown-

mg. , Abyssinia is supposed to hold many Biblical, manuscripts of surpassing interest. ‘When the French explorer, Hughes Le Roux, went there a few years ago, one of the treasures, he brought -back was" an ancient Abyssinian manuscript of “The Song of Solomon,”. differing considerably from.the Biblical version, and also a native version of the Queen of Sheba’s visit to her illustrious ally.

The first attempt at directing- and propelling a -balloon- instead of depending on the course of the wind, was made by the Robert Brothers, in England, who built the first elongated balloons and attempted to paddle them through the air with silk-cov-ered oars. This was early in the nineteenth century. Cfiffard, in France, built a Spindle-shaped gasbag 143 ft, long, in 1852, and equipped it with an 11 ft. propellerscrew connected with a three horsepower steam engine. The game of polo came to us indirectly from Trezibond. There the present Kabak-Maidan, or Bumpkin Square, occupies the site of a mediaeval polo ground. The game found great favour-with the nobles of Trebi/.ond, and was played-much in the same way as modern polo. It produced intense excitement among the spectators, rivalling that of the hippodrome, and was popular possibly because it was dangerous as well as fashionable. Polo caused the death of one Emperor of Trebizotid —John the First —who was killed bv. a fall from his horse.