News Items

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 43383, 3 November 1908, Page 1

News Items

Wooden sleepers on railways List about fifteen years. The Yaticau contains 208 staircases aud 1,100 different rooms. There are 80 miles of tunnels in Great. Britain, the total cost exceeding £6,500,000. The longest canal in the world is the Imperial Canal in China, which is over 1,000 miles in length. The value of all the standing timber in England is estimated to be just uuder £35,000,000 sterling. The temper of fine-edged surgical instruments is gradually destroyed by frequent exposure to brilliant light. Spain proposes to build eight fine battleships, each of 14,000 tons, aud five armoured cruisers. These willcostabout£l6oooooo. The Thames has two main sources, oue known as “ Thames Head,” the other 16 miles away in the Cots wolds, as the u Seven Springs.”

The swiftest bird that flies is the frigate bird ; its speed cannot be calculated accurately, but it is supposed to exceed 300 miles an hour.

The coloured- population of the United States is increasing more rapidly than the white ; the former, doubles itself in 20 years, the latter in 35 years. ;

In the four cables of the Manhattan Bridge, now being constructed over the East River, there will be 23,100 miles of wire, weighing 12,570,000 lb—aud costing 1,567,125d015. The Secretary of the. Prescot | Watchmakers’ Association states that a wonderful new watch, which should supersede the cheap foreign importations, has been produced at Prescot. The longest distance to which a projectile has been thrown was at Shoeburyuess, as far back as April 15, 1888, when a Longridge wire-bound gun threw a shot 21,358 yards, or 12 miles 238 yards. Inmates of the Perry County fU.S.A.) goal are actually complaining that they are over-fed. They say they are given so much pie and cake and so little exercise that they are developing dyspepsia. An American has discovered a simple method for rendering the fo ugliest chicken tender and jiYCV. Ti e process is to electrocute ie past'iug several huiks re ' a , vo^s 0 ec " tricily througu body The largest caY 41:7015 grims for Mecca si al | s rnm Constantinople, with L> masons for'its destination. On rear , u £ this place it generally 40,000 people. The second largest caravan goes from Cairo. The Russian boot is composed of many pieces of morocco in several colours, put together in a shape to please the taste of the maker or the wearer. • The foot of the boot is beautifully embossed with thread in bright colours. The Captain of the steamer u Captain Benuet,” wlvoh has reached Philadelphia, reports that when off Cape Henry the ship passed through a sea of hundreds of thousand'- f crabs. T t is thought the cm os were L „ "ied cut to sea by a storm. , Cilri. -

1 'TlieiO au old-fashioned precaution 01 keeping a goat in a stable. Supposing always that i'ihe animals are 1 loose, the goat dll leave the stable cm the ouU V -ml of a fire, and the horses wi li follow the goat when uo am of persuasion fr m men will ’ get the terrified creatures to T®*