MISCELLANEOUS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 61, 5 November 1907, Page 4

MISCELLANEOUS.

AS ODD BUSINESS: INSECTS FOR FOOD. In Fiance, at this season," said a bird dealer, "the banks of tho streams are yellow with bonfires every night. About the fee* bif peasant*, men and women amok. «ng, chattering, spooning. They keep the blaze going all night, and ait dawn, be. hold—the ground is an inch or two deep with May fies, fireflies, motW-Jittie creature* that, expecting some unknown and divine sensation, flew out of the darkness into those clear and gemliko flames, fluUctxd forth again Sn agony, fell and died. The tiny corpses are sold to the French bird dealers at five cents a pint, and are resold for food to the owners of pet birds, finches, thrushes, canaries, night. ingaks, and the Uke." A RECOBD RAINFALL. The most remarkable rainfall on record stems to' hare been that of a ihunderstorm in Suvia, Fiji, on (he night of August 8. 1906. Mr R. 1,. Holmes reports to the Royal Meteorological Society of London teat (be fall was continuous from 6 p.m. until sunrise the following day, and thai the rain-gauge—holding 12.5 inches—wa-s overflowing at 10 p.m., again at 2 a.m. and e, third time at 6 a.m. This is an actual measurement of more than 37 inches Besides the unknown overflow, it is supposed that there was a further loss of about 11 per cent on account of the height of the gauge which was 25 feet above the ground. The conclusion is that not less than 41 inches of rain must have fallen I in about thirteen noun.

SUPERVISORS SEEING THROUGH WALLS. A simple system of observing object:, and places concealed at a distance is now being constructed. By this means it is expected that a manager of large works, for instance, can sit in his office and actually see what is going on in any department. If the plan succeeds it will bo possible for a central office to watch tho interiors of all the sub-offices. Tho system consists of tubes or pipes with branch tabes proceeding from the main tubes at •angles, and miners for reflecting tho rays •of light from one tube to tho other. At 4he observing end a pai- of field-glass;* magnifies the reflected image where the distance requires it. The pipes can be laid underground, and through walls, or wrsaravtr necessary eo .secure the desired connections.

LOST MANUFACTURING SECRETS. "It is a curious tact," says a well known tcientist, "that some of the most important secret* of manufacture of past years are now lost Take, for instance, steel. Wo claim to make good steel, but the blados the Saracens tamed out hundreds of years ago would cot one of our blades in Uveas easily as ours would cut butter. Again. take ink. Much modem ink fades in five or ten years to rust color, yet the- ink of the mediaeval manuscripts is as black I and bright to-day as it was 700 years ago. In tbe building trade tho ancients were far ahead of us. Their mortars and cement, the secrets of Which are now lost, veto actually harder and more darab'c than the stones they bound together. We can't <*ven make artificial diamonds now. Old brilliants of French paste were so beautiful that they would frequently deceive experts. But the secret of the French paste, like a hundred other sec. J retj of the days of conscientious work, I is gone, apparently lost for ever."

MILE A MIXUTE AT SEA. Mr Peter Hewitt, a fairly welLknown American inventor, claims to have de signed and built a boat, or gliding craft. whkh will solve the problem of goinj sixty miles an hour at sta, and bring Xew York, when tJie model is perfected, within thirty hours of Liverpool. In appearance Mr Hewitt's rough model, which is capable of holding two men, hardly looks like a boat, but it is a water-borne structure nevertheless, and is propelled by a gasoiene motor, working a screw. It is really a development of the well-known catamaran type of boat of the Fiji is landers, but instead of parallel logs iA smooth timber, cigar-shaped arrangements I arc attached to the hull of the vessel, by I means of which the cat&maran glides owr the water. They are well-constructed steel planes, taking the place of tbe logs of Umber in the catamaran, and these planes are attached to tbe craft by steel arms. Many people may refuse to take his idea seriously, but he claims to have gone 78 miles an hour at sea with one man aboard and with a two hundred feefl, model ho guarantees a mile a minute. Some American experts {n machine propulsion say that Mr Hewitt has hit this this time and should be encouraged to continue his experiments. If be cannot apply the idc.i to big liners, he may, it is said, construct a craft of lightning speed which would be snapped by the > T avy for war pur roies.