NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2164, 17 August 1920, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Only one-third of the world's population is white. In 15)14 the population- of Europe was ;tbout 450,000,000. After the war of 1812, Hour jumped from 80s lo £2O a barrel. Canada expects to spend £lO,000,000 for good roads in the next five years, Use of paper in the manufacture of cheap fabrics has been revived in Japan. There are now 34 match factories in- China, with an annual output of 150,000 tons. There are .10 times as many Jews in the United States as there are in Groat Britain. There are about .150,000,000 cottoiT spindles and 2,800,000 looms throughout the world. A Turkish turban of the largest size contains 10 to 20 yards of the linesl and softest muslin. Although artillery is really the name of any form of missile, its use is now confined to cannon. .Potash in Germany occurs in the form of a rock, salt, and runs in seams of 30ft. or more in thickness. A mechanical arm and hand made in 1500, and still in working order, is preserved at Nuremberg. The custom of laying the corner stone of a public building with ceremonies was practised by the ancients. Nearly 05,000 applicants in New York arc waiting for telephones to he installed in their oftiees and homes. The first live presidents of theUnited States ended their terms of service each in the sixty-sixth year of his age. The most destructive of all iim seels is the grasshopper, which consumes in a day ten limes its weight in vegetation. The sun’s'brightness, as seen at sea level, equals the light of 270,000 candles for each square mile of its surface. Preach engineers have discovered phosphate deposits in Morocco that ran from 75 to 80 per cent, in phosphate content. Daring a chemistry demonstration at Munster University, Germany, an explosion occurred, eight persons being killed. More than 00,000 persons, have returned -to the ruins of Rheims, where they are mostly living in the miles of wine cellars. Sixty-five tons of iron dust in one day have been picked up within a radius of one mile in the iron city of Youngstown, U.S.A.t The steamer Aeneas, which left Glasgow recently, is (lie first ship to carry a library to meet the educational needs of the crew. A giant riveting machine of 575,000 pounds pressure can be so regulated as lo crack u shell of an egg without crushing it. The world’s principal jade mine is in Burma, where the privilege of mining the stone has been in the possession of one tribe for many generations, Detroit is now the fourth city in the United Slates. Jl considerably outrivals Cleveland, Boston, Baltimore, and Pittsburg, and- has replaced St. Lotus. The Spanish Government will permit experiments' in tobacco cultivation, and will inspect the seeds and plants and supervise the disposal of the crop. Wide tracts of land in West Texas are being eaten bare by a plague of grasshoppers, and in many districts (hero may be an absolute dost rue lion of plant life. Latest figures obtained -by the federal bureau of education show that between 300,000 and 400,000 children in the United States last year were without schooling.