"The tests were entirely satisfactory, and the pilot manoeuvred for a
quarter of an hour at a height of 500 metres and a speed of 150
millimetres an hour."--_Aeronautics._

This is believed to be the nearest approach to "hovering" that has yet been
achieved by a machine.

* * * * *

NITRATES.

All alone I went a-walking by the London Docks one day,
For to see the ships discharging in the basins where they lay;
And the cargoes that I saw there they were every sort and kind,
Every blessed brand of merchandise a man could bring to mind;
There were things in crates and boxes, there was stuff in bags and bales,
There were tea-chests wrapped in matting, there were Eastern-looking
frails,
There were baulks of teak and greenheart, there were stacks of spruce and
pine,
There was cork and frozen carcasses and casks of Spanish wine,
There was rice and spice and cocoa-nuts, and rum enough was there
For to warm all London's innards up and leave a drop to spare;

But of all the freights I found there, gathered in from far and wide,
All the smells both nice and nasty from the Pool to Barkingside,
All the harvest of the harbours from Bombay to Montreal,
There was one that took my fancy first and foremost of them all;
It was neither choice nor costly, it was neither rich nor rare