HERE AND THERE

Shannon News, 4 March 1927, Page 2

HERE AND THERE

PROM THE WORLD'S PRESS.

Road accidents in Britain which ended fatally during 1925 numbered nearly 4000; in each of these, one or more persons were killed.

Two miles long, the great Sennar dam on the Nile, which was begun in 1913 and opened last year, is the greatest in the world.

Only one perpetual British pension is now bsing paid by the State.. This is an annual sum tff £SOOO to the holder of the Nelson earldom.

Attempts are being made to grow the Douglas pine to its full height ir Britain. In the Canadian Rockies and elsewhere this pine, reaches 250 ft. •

A radium-bearing ore vein of considerable size and value was discoverad recently near the old Tuya-Muyun anines in Turkestan, Asiatic Russia.

The sum of £11,688 was spent by the London County Council last year on 859 band performances, 224 dances and 128 stentorphone performances,.

Mr Thomas Shaw, Minister for Labour in the late British Labour Government, worked in a cotton mill at tillage of eight. He speaks French and German.

A Russian electrical expert is sail to have invented a battery which ca'i be carried in the pocket, vet coßtains enough energy to drive a motor-car fo> - ten days.

Mr G. T. E\ erhden, of Maidstone, who is 82 years of age, possesses mor<: then 90 pipes, and claims to smoke 16 oz. of tobacco a week. He smokes a different pipe cveiy day.

Foghorns begin to blow whenever a thick mist gathers have been invented in France. The aeticn of the damp air on calcium carbide sets the device in motion.

Last yaar saw women score two sue cesses. Tih,e English Channel was swum by two women, and the first avoman aviator qualified for a license to carry passengers.

Rents for furnished rooms in the poorer paivts of London are stated to vary from 18s to 30s a week. In many cases the furniture is not worth more than 20s or so.

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution possesses at Poplar, London, a shipyard to which their damaged boats are sent from all round -the coast to be repaired and refitted.

On any given day there are on the seas, counting only the. value of ships over 3000 tons and the cargoes borne, no less than £700,000,000 worth of trade under the British flag.

Tho snn moves at a speed of 12 miles a* second; Arcturus, a star recently visible in the sky, does 250 miles a second; while there are other stars that have a velocity of 1000 miles a-second*

Golders Green Tube Station, London, is used by more than 40,000 passengers every day. When the station was opened, less than twenty years ago, the daily passengers numbered 1000.

The world's greatest disasters due to fire were London, 1666; Moscow, 1812; Chicago and Paris, both 1871; Boston, 1872; Baltimore, 1904; San Francisco, 1906; and Salonica, 1917.

Tobacco consumption is increasing in Britain. In the period January to June, 1924, the quantity was 73,805,76 S lb; in 1925 it had increased to 76,165,3511 b; and in 1926 it was 78,421,1521 b.

Royal Air Force pilots recently flew in a specially-equipped aeroplane up side down for four and a-half min utes, thus beating the record of twi and a-half minutes made by a Belgian pilct.

A becon of 1,000,000 candle-power, said to be the most nowerf ul in the wiorld, was inaugurated recently on Mont Valerien, a hill near Paris, wherj it has been erected to facilitate airnavigation.

A new electric prospecting instrument is being used by the Ontario Departmert of Mines to indicate the presence of gojd deposits—not so much to locate new veins, however, as to survey known areas.