NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2104, 18 March 1920, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Spain is the sunniest country in. Europe. A rigid airship consists of 20,000 parts. ■ The .original home of the coffee' plant is Abyssinia. The full equipment of a diver weighs about 1751 b. Ostriches are the largest feathered creatures existing. There are over 40,000 characters in the Chinese language. The wood known as Circassian walnut is too heavy to float. The greatest damage done by lightning is usually in flat, open country. The record time of 2min. 27sec. for skating one mile was made in 1912. Of the 34,000 blind jfeople in Great Britain, only 2,500 are employed. The average Australian eats twice as much moat as the average Briton. Tiie forceps, or pincers, is an instrpment that dates hack into times of antiquity. The Victoria Cross was awarded to sixty-three Australians during the war. All animals use their hind legs to. move them along, the fore legs supplying the balance. The diamond has been found on all the continents and in almost every country in the globe. Thackeray used to lift his hat whenever he, parsed the house in which he wrote “Vanity Fair.” More than 70 species of fungi are found lo he safe to ear, ami many are considered very nutritious. Canada, Russia, and Siberia have (he three greatest hells of virgin timber still left in the world. It is estimated that throughout (he world blind men outnumber blind women in the proportion of two to one. The American' corn era;) of 1919 is estimated at 2,910,000,000 bushels, which is 300,000,000 more than in 1918, There arc 2*000,000 acres of producing cultivated rubber trees itr Hitworld. Of these, 1,000.000 acres are under British control. It is unlawful in Turkey to seize a. man’s residence for debt, and sufficient land to support him is also exempt from seizure. More turf than eoa! is burned in Ireland, (>,000,000 tons of peat turf being used every year, against 1,500,000 lons of coal. France has some 5,00(1 miles of canals, which are broad and deep chough to carry barges of six feet draught, and of 300 tons burden. The largest pin factory is in Birmingham, England, where somethinglike 50,00(1.OttO pins are manufactured every working day. In the early days of Greece and Rome all the doors of dwellings opened outward. A person passingout of the house knocked on the door before opening it. More than 2,000,000 civilians have died in Roland since the outbreak of the war, and 20 per cent, of the country’s present population of 20,000,000 are refugees. There tire no fewer limn .110 nationalities into which the Russian population has been divided, IliO' three great stock's being the Linns,, the Tartars, and the Slavs. Much interest is being shown in China in motor cycles, due to the fact: that they can travel on the narrow paths used by foot-passen-gers and for wheelbarrows. A great many of the line colours are furnished by the cochineal insects. A few of these beautiful colours arc carmine, crimson, scarlet carmine, and crimson lake. Violins made by Stradivari are rarely worth less than £1,000. 4 Onerecent ly realised £3,000, and a Cello £4,000. Yet Antonio Stradivari sold his fiddles for about £4 oat'h!