News and Miscellany

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 19, 1914

News and Miscellany

Notes and clippings from the daily and weekly press

— The well-visioned man who carries his India paper Bible in his pocket may the better appreciate his privilege when he learns that the American Bible Society is quoting the complete Bible for the blind (American Braille) for $34, the same to be shipped in nineteen volumes and weighing 190 pounds.

— The Canadian government has united with the provincial and city authorities in expending $50,000,000 for the improvement of the fortified port of Halifax, in Nova Scotia, which the Dominion leaders announce they will make the great national seaport of Canada.

— A complete government under the auspices of Turkey was installed at Avlona, in Albania, following the flight of Prince William of Wied. Mehmed Burhan Eddine Effendi, son of Abdul Hamid, former sultan of Turkey, has been proclaimed king of Albania. Burhan Eddine is twenty-nine years old. Albania, it is said, will remain independent of Turkey.

— By the terms of a treaty signed recently by the United States minister to Panama and the Panaman secretary of foreign relations, the United States acquires control of the waters of Colon and Ancon harbors and of two small islands lying in Ancon harbor, which are to be used for observation and light stations by the coast artillery. One of the islands will be fortified. The site of Battery Hancock, on the Colon water front, is given to the United States, as also is control of all the piers at the north entrance of the canal, costing approximately $2,500,000. Panama, on the other hand, will acquire a large tract of fertile land, called Las Sabanas, which will place the capital of the republic for the first time in direct physical connection with the remainder of the country, as it has hitherto been cut off by the Canal Zone. In Las Sabanas are many of the handsome country estates of wealthy Panamanos. It is stipulated, however, that no railway shall be built across this territory without the consent of the United States, and that the United States may retake and occupy a portion or all of these lands if needed for the protection and defense of the canal or its approaches. The treaty now awaits ratification by the Washington and Panaman senates.

— Within the antarctic circle there has never been found a flowering plant. In the arctic regions there are 782 different species of flowers.

— Shipping journals report that there is a revival of shipbuilding in the United States; that is, for the coastwise trade. Since the beginning of the year, orders have been placed with American builders for more than 100 steamships. Only one of these vessels is for transoceanic service.

— Flies are so few in Bavaria that they cannot be regarded as a pest. This is said to be due to the extreme cleanliness of Bavarian cities. Courtyards, alleys, and vacant lots are all kept clean, and the hallways and entrances to the houses are as fresh as soap and water can make them.

— According to Eastern Engineering, screws are still made in India just as they were made hundreds of years ago; that is, by winding two soft wires side by side around a mandrel. The wires are then carefully separated, and one of them is soldered to the inside of a tube, which then will form the nut, while the other is soldered to a mandrel or rod. All the screws are left-handed, because they are wound over and over by the right hand.

— The malevolent aspect of nature, as it appears from man's standpoint at least, is seen in the extraordinary rapidity with which the bacillus of the bubonic plague, perhaps the most dreaded scourge of history, multiplies. Dr. Anderson Stuart, of Sydney, Australia, in speaking of these germs, says: “The rapidity of growth is shown by the demonstration that at the end of the twelfth hour one germ had multiplied into 17,000,000. They are so small that 625,000,000 of them will cover one square inch.”

— Because of the increasing price of timber in Europe, much interest is shown in a French invention for preparing a substitute for this article. The process is very simple and inexpensive, being carried out by a single machine. Straw is the material used. In general appearance the product resembles whitewood, the compressed straw imparting a straight, grain-like effect. It works fairly easily, and when sawed leaves a clean cut. It is as strong as the ordinary whitewood, and it can be applied to all the purposes for which the latter is fitted.

— France promises again to demonstrate its lead in the science of aviation by a practical solution of a centuries-old problem—the crossing of the desert of Sahara. At present a caravan sometimes requires as long as four months to traverse the desert from the southern frontier of Algeria. Water is lacking except at a few widely separated oases, and the whirling sand storms occasionally encountered are a deadly peril. The French propose to establish an aerial mail service that will cross the desert in two days, high above the sand storm belt, for a total distance of not quite 1,000 miles. An expedition is soon to set out with a military escort to set up markers along the route, ten miles apart, with depots for water and provisions every sixty kilometers (thirty-seven miles). These depots are to be placed in the hands of friendly tribes indorsed by the French troops of the Sahara.

— America’s jewelry bill for 1913 was approximately $570,000,000, according to statistics of jewelry importations made public by the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce. This is declared to be more than thirty per cent in excess of the highest record yet established. The bureau declares that the value of all the diamonds in this country has reached the enormous sum of nearly $1,000,000,000.

— An illustration of the command man has over matter and her laws, within a limited scope, was recently made when engineers for the Lehigh Valley Railroad in five minutes removed a steel railroad bridge and put a new one in its place. It took a minute and three quarters to roll away the old bridge. The new bridge, previously completed, was substituted in three minutes. There was no delay in traffic.

— Seventy-five thousand claimed by cancer each year in the United States, and the scourge is steadily increasing! A nation-wide fight against cancer is being organized by the recently formed American Society for the Control of Cancer. The cancer death rate increased from 65.8 per 100,000 of the population in 1901 to 83.9 in 1911. The estimate of 75,000 deaths for 1913 is made by the well-known statistician, Frederick L. Hoffman.

— The latest development in building architecture is a no-window all-window twelve-story structure now being erected in New York City at the corner of Tenth Avenue and Thirty-sixth Street, to be known as the Hill Engineering Building. This skyscraper will receive its light through solid glass walls, get its ventilation by an artificial current of filtered air circulated through ducts from basement to roof, and will be as nearly dust-proof as science and ingenuity can make.

— On account of the war it has been decreed that there shall be no more beer for German soldiers, there shall be no absinth for French soldiers, and Lord Kitchener has urged total abstinence upon British soldiers. Yet it is not long since all patients in British public hospitals had their regular allowance of alcoholic drink; it is not long since beer and manliness were inextricably bound together in the German mind; and every attack on alcohol consumption in France was regarded as a blow at a great national industry.

— Automatons may replace soldiers in the next war if an invention just patented by a Danish engineer named Aeson does what is claimed for it. Aeson says he has invented a cylinder which may be buried in the ground for years in the same fashion as submarine mines are placed in harbors. The cylinder is operated by electricity from a distant station. When a button is pressed, the cylinder jumps two feet from the ground and fires 400 shots horizontally, the shots being effective at a range of 3,000 yards. Any number of cylinders may be placed around the places to be defended in one or several lines, and the inventor says they would mow down ninety per cent of the attacking forces. He asserts, moreover, that crops may be grown over the automatons in time of peace, and they would be completely hidden.

— King George of England rules 11,475,054 square miles of the earth's territory, and 378,725,857 of its population.