NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 3961, 27 June 1929, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

An emphatic protest against the teaching of evolution in public schools was made by a. meeting of abou't 400 persons at New Plymouth on Monday night. A 'resolution said Ithe overwhelming majority of parents objected to the teaching, and the government was called upon to 'take steps to prevent it. There were only eight dissentients.

According to the findings of James E. Boyce, professor of rural economy at Cornell University, milk is the most valuable product of the American farm. It may come as somewhat of a 'surprise to those who have generally believed corn to be the premier crop of this country to learn that the value of corn per capital of population is but 63 per cent, of that of milk. Professor Boyce lists the seven leading farm crops of the United States in the order of their value as milk, corn, hogs, cotton, hay, poultry, wheat. A quarter of a million people from all parts of Ireland and England attended the celebration of Pontifical High Mass a.t Phoenix Paiik, Dublin, on Sunday, as the crowning event of (the 'Catholic Emancipation Centenary celebrations. 'Dublin has never witnessed religious djemons'trations on such a vast and splendid scale. An 'altar fifty feet high had been erected lira an open space, and on either side were ranged classical columns linked with evergreen festoons. The ■clergy included the whole of the Irish Hierarchy, and a speledal envoy from the Pope. The arrangement of the vast assemblage w r as a marvel of organisation. 'The Go-vernor-General and President' Cos’grave were present. Tapping out his messages in Morse code on Sunday afternoon ],ast, |a broadcasting .amateur at Cheltenham picked up a fellow' amateur in Chile, who w T as on the point or retiring for the night. Ten minutes later the Aucklander got into touch with a transmitter in Bagdad, who stated that he had just risen after a good night’s rest and was indulging in his favourite pastime for a few minutes before breakfast and setting out for his day’s work. Another licensed transmitter in Auckland frequently has long conversations with an amateur iu Honolulu, whose favourite pastime is to discuss problems of the countries around the Pacific. Each holder of a broadcasting license throughout the world has his private call, and the calls are circulated in book form, wfith the result that many long-range friendships are being established. Truly we live in a romantic agel According to Dr. 10. E. Adams, Government Astronomer and Seismologist, earthquakes are divided into two classes —volcanic and tectonic. It is the latter class that has convulsed the West Coast of the 'South Island. Tectonic earthquakes arc said to hp,paused by the deformations of the earth’s crust, lo which surface features are ultimately due. These deformations arise from the gradual shrinking of the centi’al core, or from changes in the load on the c-trust through denudation and sedimentation. Stresses accumulate in the solid rock until relieved by the formation of fissures, along which movements of adjacent earth-blocks take place. These earth blocks may be of vast size and fractures or faults separating them are rarely single planes of rupture, but consist of numerous sub-parallel breaks, extending more or less continuously along elongated belts. Such faultzones may be hundreds of miles long, and many miles wide.

It is curious to recall the fact that because it was considered dangerous to build in stone or brick because of earthquakes the great Government building in Wellington was erected in wood. There are people alive who will remember how very few solid buildings Wellington once had. It was because of an actual experience of a brick building in an earthquake that bridle buildings were so unpopular. In 1845 the only (brick building in Wellington was a small barracks used by the military forces. The earthquake of that year, which entirely altered the contour of the coast, especially at Miramar, making what is practically a peninsula, shook that barracks and killed a (Soldier. It was the death of this uiian which Ikopt Wellington wooden for so long. Later earthquakes in the capital which shook down protecting masonry taught architects the butter-box plainness which is a feature to-day.