Miscellaneous.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 699, 27 October 1909, Page 7

Miscellaneous.

INTERESTING FACTS. Moscow has at least 1800 churches. Most of the best corks come from Algeria. The tallest tree known is an Australian gum tree. It is 415 feet hiffh. Cloves come very largely from Zanzibar, where the trees thrive remarkably well. Bank of England notes are numbered backwards from 10,000, hence the figures 000.01. Of domestic animals, sheep come nfst as cold resisters. Goats and pigs take second and third places respectively. A leafless tree grows on an island in the Pacific. It reaches a height of 30 feet, and has branches spreading like an umbrella. For every tree chopped down in Norway the law requires three saplings to be planted. The strongest animals exist entirelv 011 vegetable food. It is the ferocitv of the hon rather than his strength that makes him formidable. An elephant is a match for several lions and is a vegetarian. Another Quest for King Solomon's <ylmes.—-lo discover King Solomon''; gold mines in the heart of Africa is the object of another attempt to be made by Dr. Karl Peters, who more than ten years ago headed an expedi- , turn in search of this Biblical Eldor;ado. Dr. Peters believes that the ! Land of Ophir" lies near the gold and copper mines of the Mudza Valley, 111 the Lower Zambesi region, lie is convinced that the mi-nes worked I,> Phoenicians were only "scratched, and that their development with modern appliances and methods might yield immense results. Dr. Peters starts for the Zambesi very soon."

GARDEN ON A LINER. "Are you going into the garden today? was the novel question constantly on the lips of the saloon passengers on the Hamburg-American liner kaiserin Augusta Victoria during a recent voyage. There was a real garden on the after portion of the vessel's deck, where strawberries and lettuce were growing. The former were covered with glass. The patch or..ground on board the ship in midocean was also growing lilies of the valley and mushrooms. When the wind died down the garden was slid out into open sunshine for airing. Herr August Keller, the manager of this sea-going- "Ritz," says he hopes on the next westward trip to have a small orchard containing peach and cherry trees.

QUEENS AND CORSETS: WHAT THEY THINK. The Queen of Italy is also a strong antagonist of corset-wearing-. Queen ; Helena says that only foolish women | and women who are silly imitators of others wear stays. She never will wear a garment which is- ugly deforming and painful. On the other hand, the pro-corset people have the German Empress on their side. She not only wears a very stiff corset herself,but more than once has let her maids of honour understand that they must not appear in her presence without this garment. But her daug-hter-in-law, the Crown Princess, objects to corsets, and save on the rarest occasions never wears one. Neither does the Grand Duchess of Hesse-Darmsdadt nor the Grand Duchess of Baden. We feear from a feminise correspondent that Berlin women are rapidly leaving the corset and taking to wearing a firm band around their waists instead, a band which does not press unduly and leaves to the body a full freedom and sinuosity. At all big social gatherings in aristocratic Berlin circles the majority of the women present are innocent of corsets.

ORIGIN OF NAUTICAL TERMS. We are all so familiar with many of the terms relating- to the sea and ro sea life that the origin of some of the more common ones will undoubtedly be a surprise to many of u's. For an instance of this take the word admiral. How many people think of it except as a thoroughly English word? Yet we are informed that its origin is :n rhe last place we should expect—the East. It is derived from "Emir el Bach," which is Arabic for "Lord of the Sea." Captain comes direct from the Latin "caput," a head, but the word mate owes nothing to any dead language, being almost identical with the Icelandic "mati," which means a companion or equal. The derivation of coxswain would never be ' suspected. Originally coxswain was the man who pulled the after-oar of the captain's boat, then known as a cock-boat. "Cock boat" is a corruption of the word "coracle," and, as many people know, the oracle is a small round boat used for fishing on some rivers in Wales, such as the Wye and Usk. Commodore is simply the Italian commandatore. or commander, and naval cadet was originally the French "capdet," which, going a step further back, has the same origin as the word captain. We frequently hear oL"Davy Jones," and we have all heard of his locker, vet there never was such a person: but speak of "Duffy Jonah's locker," and you have the original term. "Duffy'' is the West Indian negro term for spirit or ghost, while "Jonah" refers to the prophet of that name. MOST WIDELY CIRCULATED PUBLICATION IN THE WORLD. The Chinese almanac is the most largely circulated publication in the world, the copies printed and sold yearly reaching many millions. It is printed at Pekin, and is a monopoly of the Emperor, no other almanac heme permitted to be sold in that country. Althoug-h containing reliable astronomical information, its chief mission is to give full and accurate information for selecting lucky places for performing all the acts, great and small, of evervday life. And as every act of life in China, however trivial, depends for its success on the time in which and the direction (point of compass) towards which it is done, it is of the utmost importance that everyone should have correct information at all times available to enable him so to order his life as to avoid bad luck and calamity and secure good luck and prosperity. So ereat is the native faith in its infallibility that not long since the Chinese Minister to Germany refused to sail on a day which kad been appoint«d, because it was declared in the almana- to be unlucky.