NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3821, 21 July 1928, Page 1

NEWS IN BRIEF.

There are at present 43 eases of scarlet fever in isolation at the Napier Hospital. Scientists declare that wireless has no effect on the weather. The electric waves are but an infinitesimal fraction of the electrical energy emanating from the sun. In the making of a telephone receiver there arc employed aluminium, silk, copper, rubber, flax, nickel, mica, chellae, lead, cotton, silver, iron, platinum, zinc, and gold.

A warship may use up stores, apart from fuel or food, to the value of £2,000 in three months. There are over 6,000 items which come under this heading of “stores.” A novel game of golf is planned for the coming British summer,-the golfers .using aeroplanes to play in one day nine holes scattered over England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Shanklin, in the Isle of Wight, is claiming the longevity record. Sixteen of its inhabitants residing within 100 yards of one another luuta a combined age total of over 1,300 years. Tea-room cookery is the subject of a novel part-time course, the first of its kind organised by the London County Council, which is to be given at the Clapham Trade School for Girls. Two well-Avorn theories —that the more a man shaves the harder his beard grows, and that beards gr..w more rapidly in warm weather have been exploded by an American scientist.

Cor a wage of 50s a week and ac eommodation, there were 208 applications for the post of steward to a political club at Romsey, Hampshire, for which a local gardener was selected.

During the last seven years more than 659 War cemeteries have been constructed in France and Belgium. The work of the Imperial War Graves Commission is now nearly completed. Illustrated signs, showing where pedestrians may cross busy streets and motorists must give them right of way, is one suggestion for “safety first” being considered by the Paris.police. A large number of orchardists in the Havelock district (H. 8.) are evidently satisfied with the prospects of fruit culture, for on every side fresh areas, more or less, are being taken in and planted mostly with stone fruit.

The possibilities of building up a profitable trade with England in frozen poultry were mentioned by Sir Benjamin Morgan, chairman of the British Empire Producers’ Organisation at Auckland. He considered it would not be difficult to displace the Continental trade on the Home market, where good prices were being obtained. The expense would not be great as the machinery necessary was at hand in New Zealand.

So far 140 people have enrolled as members of the Canterbury Aero Club. Of these 16 are already pilots, 71 are desirous of learning to control a ’plane, and 53 are social members.

A great clearance has been made in the plantations at Te Mata, Hawke’s Bay, where some of the pines, 60 or 70 years old, have been cut into huge logs and carted away to be sawn into casing for fruit.

In the Waikato as well as in Gisborne plum trees have been fruiting this winter. Mr. J. Jamieson, of Horotiu, has well developed: plums now maturing on his trees, says the Poverty Bay Herald. The first typewriter was invented by an Englishman early in the eighteenth century; the first workable pattern, however, was designed in Detroit, United States, just 100 years ago.

Deep sea is blue because it re-* fleets the blue rays of light. When it is green it is not so deep; and it is the reflection of the yellow sand or pebbles at the bottom which makes it this colour.

An ancient wall recently discovered in London dates back to the fourteenth century, and is part of the great priory of Black Friars, where three English Parliaments assembled, the last in 1529. At the funeral of Mr George Offor, of Sydenham, England, who died aged 101, the first part of the service was held in the house which lie built himself, and in which he lived for seventy-three years. Quinine, one of the most valuable medicines, is derived from the bark of the chinchona tree, a native of Peru, which was not grown in England till 1858, although its virtues had been known for over 200 years. Human bodies need nourishment iu six forms, according to Sir George Newman, chief medical officer to the Board of Education. These are food, fresh air and sunlight, exercise of the body, warmth, cleanliness and rest.

The consumption of tin has increased enormously with the popularity of silk and artificial silk. Ten years ago British silk companies were using 800 tons of tin a year. Now they are useing £i/)00 tons —for weighting and dyeing purposes. New Zealand will be visited towards the end of the year by the Danish State scientific ship Danajon the course of a cruise of the Pacific with a view to increasing the world’s knowledge of oceanography and marine organisms and fishes.