GENERAL NEWS.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 July 1921, Page 5

GENERAL NEWS.

ELECTRIC PROPULSION. The United States Tennessee is the first baitleship to be specifically dei signed for electrical propulsion, for ! while the New Mexico was the first ■ electrically-driven capital ship, she was originally intended for turbine drive, ' and was changed over during the course of construction. One of the most inj teresting features made possible by the 1 Tennessee’s drive, it is stated, is the | extreme subdivision of her interior. She is literally a vast honeycomb. No means whatever have been provided for horizontal inter-communication between compartments, and if one wishes to pass •from one to another he is compelled to climb tip to the gun-deck and then descend again. It is therefore believed that the Tennessee can be struck below the waterline, perhaps repeatedly, by torpedo, mine, or shell, without being put out of action. Another unique de-

VITAMINES. tail of the Tennessee’s design is the concentration of the control of her propelling machinery at one point, practically all the controls of her main generators and motors being placed in a row down the centre of a. single narrow compartment in the most protected part of the ship. The Tennessee’s main propelling machinery consists of two 10,000 kva. Westinghouse turbo-generators and four 8000 h.p. propeller motors.

For the first time on record a woman is to judge live stock at an English county agricultural show. She ia the Hon. Mrs. Murray Smith, of Gumley Hall, Market Harborough, and she has been selected as a judge of Jersey cattle at the Essex* Agricultural Society’s Show at Rochford.

A legal correspondent in The Weekly Dispatch says that Sir Edward Ca-rson, who was recently appointed a Lord of Appeal, must have earned more at the English Bar than probably any leader of modern times. He joined the English Bar in 1893 after a distinguished career in Ireland. He became an English “silk” a few months later. In the 27 years since it is probably no exaggeration to put the total of his professional earnings at £306,000. Sir Charles Russell made large fees, yet he never had the innings that Sir Edward had.

In these days of straightened financial circumstances with local bodies, the Waikato County Council has hit upon an approved idea by which roading attention can be given when the persistent demands of settlers along a route lead the local body to the conclusion that the call is urgent (says the Waikato Times). The ratepayers themselves are called upon to form a working bee, and put the work through at the usual contracting raites, but on the understanding that no outpayment will be made until the ratepayer with the bill against the council for this labor has met his obligation for rates.

Writing in the English Review, Professor Julian Huxley says nobody yet knows what a vitamine is chemically, nobody has yet succeeded in isolating I one. We know, however, what they do, ■ and where they occur, ’and that is al- ' ready a great deal. Professor Hopkins, of Cambridge, discovered that if a diet was made up of protein, carbohydrate, fat, and salts, all young animals—rats in this case—would not grow on it, although it contained ample substance both for energy and for repair. They not only would not grow, but soon lost weight, and died within a week or so. The addition of an apparently negligible quantity of milk, ! however—a mere two or three cubic centimetres a day—restored the animals to health at once. The substance lack- 1 ing in the original diet was what is ! now generally called fat-soluble vita- | mine A. These vitamines, though abso- j lutely necessary to growth, health, and i continued life itself, yet need to be present only in infinitesimal quantities to ' produce their effects, and with know- | ledge of their properties, it should be possible to wipe out rickets, the preval- ! ent malnutrition disease of children,! wiU.a half a century at the utmost, i