Miscellaneous.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 653, 9 December 1908, Page 7

Miscellaneous.

The principal garments of the Japanese infantry regiments are composed of specially prepared paper of a yellowishj China and japan ate pre-eminently the seaweed-eating nations of the world. Among no other people are seaweeds so extensively devoured and relished as food substances. Doors made entirely of paper are used in some of the modern dwellings in French cities. They are finished to resemble any kind of wood, and there is no warping, shrinking, or cracking. > When a Japanese woman of the middle and lower classes is dressed for an evening entertainment, she generally shows as much of her feet as she can, and is sometimes barefooted. v . T Drinking'-glasses,' called tumblers, owe their name to the fact that they are the successors of little round silver bowls, so perfectly balanced that, whichever way > they were tipped "about

on the tablei ? th6y tumbled Into posi T tion again and there remained with the.rim upwards. ' ' •••>

After a maa-o£-war has been to sea for six months, it requires one-fifth greater propelling power; to drive it at the same speed than when it left, the docks, on account of the accumulation of barnacles and weeds on its bottom.

The rope used for tethering a war balloon is a very strong but light steel hawser, having a diameter of about one-third of an inch* or even less, and weighing about 50lb. to the I.OOQft. Inside this hawser'is a telephone-wire, through which communication js carried on with those on the ground.

Even the poor in the United States and England eat white bread. In most of the Continental countries of Europe rye bread is the staple. The Russians use buckwheat. The. Laplanders have a bread made of oaten meal mixed with pine bark, and; the Icelanders make their flour from ■ Banana flour is used in the. South Sea Islands.

■'-. An appeal is being made to the American public to save from the axe the few/ remaining groves of Californian big trees. N > Several of these trees are said to be 5000 years old, 300 feet' hip-ri, 30 feet through, arid' still growing. The Sequoias, the family to which the big trees belong, flourished in prehistoric days. At that time they covast areas both in Europe and America, but now they are restricted to a narrow strip in California.

Belgium; is probably the most democratic of all ; the monarchical States. .The King- of the Belgians not only does not wear a crown, but has not even sot a crown to wear!; <No ation ceremony is known to the Constitution, the Sovereign inaugurating his reign simply by taking - ah oath to govern according to the _ laws. Moreover, the births of his children, if he has* any, must be registered in exactly \the same phraseology and in the same set of books as the births of the humblest of his subjects, and anyone who likes to pay a small fee is entitled to obtain a copy of the certificate. \ ' ■ ' • ' PLANT THAT KNOWS UP FROM DOWN. ' Most persons who own gardens, and many who do 'not, have wondered why it is that, no matter in what position a bean happens to lie in the ground, as soon as it sprouts the little totfis turn down, and the bean plant will pretty certainly find the pole. . What is more, the bean Will take the nearest )pole, and the stem will be straight until it reaches the support; then it will begin to tWine» ; ; Moreover, the beani like any plant, will grow toward the light, and if grown in the house will spread its leaves toward the window, and later, if turned about, will round its leaves into their' old posiAltogether the bean knows than it sometimes gets credit for. Of late years a number of scientists, have been studying the behaviour of -beans and other plants, and, though nobody yet knows all about them, we are.able to explain several of these ap> parently purposeful acts. It has been discovered among other things that the bean does not know up from down. The stem does not simply grow towards the light and the root away from it; for if the bean is, planted in an inverted pot, so that soil is 4ip and the air down, the stem will gros up into the darkness i and the root dangle down into the light; Moreover, it appears that in all plants, even in the largest trees, all, the green parts of the stem and twigs have this feeling for direction. For if the bud at the end of the shoot which should grow straight up, is.re moved, a -lateral bud, which natural!} would become a horizontal branch, wil turn vertically upward* and become th<" leading shoot. On the other hand the sense of direction in the root ii confined to the tip alone. . A root, un like a stem, does not grow at the end : , but at a point just behind it, so that there is a sort jof cap on the tip which is pushed forward by the growth. If then the tip of a foot is amputated, the root will keep on growing as before; but it will no longer grow down. Instead, it seems" to lose its way and wander about aimlessly, growing in one direction as well as in another.