Whakaari in Edinburgh magazine

Chambers’s Journal has some notes about White Island, which is characterised as the “horridest” place on earth, and one of the richest also. This island is comparable with no other among the very numerous and very diverse possessions of the British Empire. They who work occasionally there call it by another name — that applied to the Satanic regions, for such the island is to the quarry crews. White, or Sulphur Island, is neither more nor less than a vast chemical works of Nature — a place where human precautions against sudden death are almost impossible. A New Zealand firm is now intending to exploit its chemical products.

Call me God

Deferential compliments to our new Knights and Companions of Most Distinguished Orders!  In regard to the Companions, a hint of condolence might, perhaps, be tacked on to the congratulatory compliment. “CMG” looks well at the end of a name, but it does not carry the full titular distinction. “Sir” is “Sir,” and “Mr” is “Mr,” and never the twain shall meet, until — ah! the gleam of hope appears. Companions have been known to blossom out into knights. The good Saints Michael and George keep watch over their patient acolytes. We may still live to greet “Sir” H.L. Tapley and “Sir” J. Sutherland Ross with three times three and all the honours. —  by “Wayfarer”

Giant kale for cattle chow

It was recently stated in this column that chou mollier, which is so popular in Southland, had not come into favour in North Otago as a food for stock. That it will flourish in some parts of the district has been amply demonstrated. A farmer of Totara has left at the office of the National Mortgage and Agency Company a sample of chou mollier grown upon his property. It is over 6 feet in height, and the leaves have a spread of between 4ft and 5ft.

Money, it’s a gas

The Balclutha Gasworks closed on Wednesday last week. The first works in the town were established in 1888 by Mr John Watt in a building on the present site, on which formerly stood the Presbyterian Church. Oil or water gas was produced. The venture was unsuccessful, however, and the plant was sold to a syndicate, which built part of the present building and carried on till 1905, when the works were sold to the Balclutha Gas Co, which used coal for the first time as fuel. For the first two years the company ran two retorts, but in 1909 three more were built, two being used in summer and three in winter. The same year a new gas holder was installed, and two and a-half miles of mains was laid. In 1917 the price of coal rose 100 percent. 

Under these circumstances the company failed to make the works pay, but by agreement with the Borough Council was obliged to carry on till the present year.

“We are not closing down because of the competition of the electric light,” said Mr Atkinson on Monday.

“We would have stopped supplying gas in 1917, but we had to hold to our agreement.’’

Paintings for DPAG

Our London correspondent mentions that the pictures bequeathed by Mr Wolf Hams to the Public Art Gallery in Dunedin are Shaw’s “The Knight and His Followers,” Barbara Chamier’s “King’s Son Found,” and A. Elkey’s “The Fisherman’s Wife of Boulogne.” — ODT, 7.7.1926