NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3656, 23 June 1927, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

One-tenth of the world is still unexplored.

One-third of the Paris streets are planted with trees.

One-seventh of the territory of France is composed of forests. Sackville Street, Piccadilly, is the only street in London without a lamp post. The average family of five persons in Britain drinks about 351 b. of te.a annually.

People born on Christmas Day are, according to an old inscription, lucky all their lives. Rice paper is not made from the rice plant, but from the jnth of a tree growing in Formosa. The average depth of sand in the deserts of Africa is estimated to be from 40ft. to 80ft. There are 16,000 diamond mills in Belgium and 700 or more workshops for cutting the stones. Englishwomen now have an average expectation of life of 00 years. This is eleven years more than in 1890. The new grandstand at Epsom (England) is the largest on any European racecourse. It has room for 20,000 spectators. Water affects the colouring of the plumage of a bird native to Senegal, a specimen of which is now in the London Zoo. Motor licenses issued in Britain up to the end of March this year were nearly 100,000 more than in the same period last year. The verse-writing hobby of Mr. Arthur Keene, a Bradford roadsweeper, has earned him the title of “Kipling of the Crossings.” Aeroplanes dying in mountainous country have on more than one occasion been attacked by eagles, who mistook the strange machine lor a rival bird. Foghorns that begin to blow whenever a thick mist gathers have been invented. The action 01. the damp air on calcium carbide sets the device in motion. Women voters outnumber men in four British constituencies, and iu two of these, Cheltenham and one Glasgow Division, the present M.P.’s are bachelors. A rainbow may sometimes be seen all day long in a cloudless sky in Siberia. It is said to be due lo reflection of the'sun on fine particles of snow in the air. At the School of Oriental Studies in London some of the most difficult of the African languages arc taught by a lady, Prfessor Alice Werner, a Newnham College' graduate. Ipecacuanha, the basis of one of the most popular cough remedies, has recently risen, through shortage of supplies, to 25s per lb. four oi' five times the normal price. A constable patrolling his beat at Blackburn recently saw through the window of a room at the side of a confectioner's shop a cal, apparently dying (says the Timaru Post). The constable forced an entrance, and found that the cat had turned on the tap of a gas main. Artificial respiration was applied to the cat, and it revived. A new tap was put on the gas main, but a few days later the cat again turned on the tap, and it was dead when found.