Miscellaneous.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 504, 17 January 1906, Page 7

Miscellaneous.

BANK of England notes are numbered backwards, that is, from one to 10,000, henoe the figures 000,01.

The stroke of a lion's paw is the third strongest foroe in the animal world. The first is the blow of a whale's tail, and the second is the kick of a giraffe.

Pearl divers remain under water from 50 to 80 seoonds on an average, but oases have been reported of their remaining as long as six minutes beneath the surfaoe.

Arabians on meeting shake hands six or eight times. Onoe is not enough. If, however, they be persons of distinotion, they embrace and kiss one another several times, and also kiss their own hands.

A Rouen professor is the owner of a oolleotion of 920 human heads, representing every known race of people. Burglarß attempted to make a selection on February 11th, but were discovered and oaptured. It iB supposed that they were bribed by a rival professor.

In mediaeval times rhinooeros horns were employed as drinking oups by royal perBonages. The notion being that poison put into them would show itself by bubbling. There may have been some truth in the idea, as many of the ancient poisons were adds, which would decompose the horny material very quickly.

Among the Arabs an interesting department of woman's duty is dairy work, This, like all other operations, is carried out on an old-fashioned and patriarohal plan. To make butter, for instance, a email skeepskin is filled with milk and tied to a ring in the wall. The woman then sits on the floor and rooks it to and fro till little balls of butter begin to form within. These grow larger and larger and aooumulate, and are finally brought out as ona big lump,

WAILING MEANS OF IDENTIFICATION-

The Russian method of identifying soldiers killed in battle is by means of little metal ioons—saored pioture images—found on the bodies, On the baok of each of these icons is stamped the wearer's name, regiment and commission. Every nation labels its soldiers in one way or another, with a view to just suoh eventualities. Our own Tommies when on active service are served with small oblong identification cards, which are supposed to be sewn inside the tunics.

NOT MUCH WINDING UP REQUIRED. An Englishman has invented a clock that will run for 2,000 years. The motive power is a small pieoe of gold leaf whioh is electrified by means of a very small quantity of radium salt. The gold leaf bends away from the metal substance and keeps moving under this influeuoe until it touches the side of the containing vessel. At the moment of contact it loses its electrical charge and then springs baok, and is again electrified and the process is repeated. AN ANCIENT SEPULCHRE. The cairns or giant graves at Bosau, near Eutin, Germany, are being excavated un3er the direotion of Professor Knorr of the Kiel Museum of Antiquities. One grave has already been opened up in whioh two urns and a gold bracelet twelve oentimetres in length, were found. A stone grave three metres long, and 170 centimetres wide, containing a skeleton supposed to be over 6,000 years, was also laid bare. The work is to be Gontinued, and it is supposed that an anoient cemetery or place of saorifioe existed there formerly. NO J4ATI/E JEWS, Japan is singular among the nations in having no native Jews. It has, however, a couple of hundred Hebrew familieaft&£sr. have emigrated from other oountries; but at the present time there are no organised Jewish communities except at Nagasski, where quite a romantic tale is attached to the synagogue. Some years ago a wealthy German Jew of the congregation married a native lady, who embraced the religion of her husband. The couple lived happily together until death parted them, and then the sorrowing widow perpetuated her husband's memory by contributing the greater part of the funds for a handsome synagogue for the Jews of the plaoa.

TKE LARGEST GRAPE YINE IN THE WORLD,

What is olaimed to be the largest grapevine in the world is, like many other big things, found in Amerioa. When the Mission- Fathers from Spam settled .in Amerioa they brought with them vines from their native oonntry. Finding the olimate and soil to their liking, these vines have grown to huge proportions. The one growing in the Oarpinteria Valley, in the south-west of the United States, is 63 years old. and has a double trunk to a height of sft. 7in,, where it separates into two hupe branches, the larger having a oiroumferenoe of three feet. Six inches above the ground the vino measures 8!t. sin. in oiroumferenoe, and it oovers an area of 115 ft. Equalre, 60 posts supporting the framework. The owner says that, were provision made, it would spread over a greater surface, but it is pruned every year. Fabulous stories are told of the grapes this vine produoes. That it did aotually yield ten tous in a reoent season seem 3 to be authentic HINDU CREMATION. In the oourso of a reoent leoture at the Camera Club, London, the late Mr Law Bros Bhowed some interesting photographs which illustrated the process of oremation as carried out by the Hindus. The body is laid upon a kind of bior made of bamboo, and faggots are piled on all sides of,it before fire is applied, Eaoh body is wrapped by the relatives in a piece of crimson oloth of considerable value, and this oloth becomes the property of the man who oonducts the oremation, who, in order that he may not be haunted by the ghost of the deoeasad( invariably oarries away from the oremation a fragment of burnt wood, whioh is supposed to frighten the spirit away. SPITZBERGEN. Mr E. T. Garwood, who aooompanied Sir Martin Conway on a reoent expedition to Spitzbergen, has given an aooount of their wanderings into the interior of that inhospitable island. The plaoe is quite destitute of inhabitants, for although the weather is pretty open in the summer-time the prevailing temperature in water is 40deg. below zero. At one time the Bussians made an attempt to oolonisa this No Man's Land; and happening to have on hand some wretohed oulprits who had been condemned to death, offered these men their lives on condition that they should be landed at Spitzbergen and stop there. They aooepted the reprieve, and were duly landed on the island. But before the ship had time to return, the men begged to be taken b»ok and executed. They returned to Russia, and their lives were soared.