GENERAL NEWS ITEMS

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2313, 9 August 1921, Page 1

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS

That great white land commonly known as Greenland is not exactly the region where one would expect to find crimson cliffs. Cliffs of ice and bare black rocks tire more what might be looked for. Yet when Captain John Ross sailed round Cape York in 1818 he noticed that all the snow-patches in the gorges and gullies of the const were coloured bright*»erimson. So startling was the appearance that he named the rocky coast “Crimson Cluffs.” On later Arctic expeditions similar red snow has been observed in Spitsbergen and other regions, but nowliere in such remarkable abundance as on the “Crimson Cluffs” of Greenland. And when this red snow is examined the colour is found to be due to a microscopic plant, re--1,-tied to the seaweeds, which grows in it. The plant itself is a minute spherical body, and - the botanist Sommerfelt named if the “little sphere of the snow.” An inquest was "held recently in London, on a man named Loo Major, whose heart continued to beat eight hours after respiration censed. Dr Turner said ihe man was admitted to the hospital suffering from drowsiness, stiffness of the

muscless of (lie neck, and headache. Ether and chloroform were administered for a simple operation for the purpose of diagnosis. It took only half a minute, but the man ceased to breathe, although bis heart continued to beat well. Artificial respiration was continued till the heart-beating ceased. Witness agreed with the coroner that it was a. most, extraordinary case. The post-mortem examination revealed a tumour about the size of a partridge egg on the j'ight side of the brain, and that was undoubtedly the cause of death. The coroner.entered a verdict of death from natural causes, and remarked that the fact tlial the heart had continued lo beat

in this extraordinary way was due lo something not accounted for. A novel race meeting took place

at Doncaster over the training course, in aid of the Doncaster distress funds for feeding miners’ children. The principal event on the card of six races was the St. Legcr for pit ponies up to DU hands, for a cup presented by the Mayor of Doncaster. There were 82 entries, and the race Imd to be run in two heats. The chairman of the Doncaster Race Committee was the judge, and the officials of the various Yorkshire collieries acted as stewards and referees. Nearly all the well-known collieries of South Yorkshire were represented in the racing. The ponies were so well groomed and so smartened upi that they were scarcely recognisable, and the jockeys were pony drivers in lhe colours of their colliery football clubs. All the ponies were saddled, and no whips or spurs were allowed. Thirty thousand people paid a shilling each for admission.