FROM FAR AND NEAR.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 164, 11 July 1906, Page 2

FROM FAR AND NEAR.

A lamp chimney that will not break on a lamp has at last been made. It results from a newly-discovered process of making malleable glass, something the world has been searching for since the making of glass began hundreds of years before Christ. The Egyptians, the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Romans, and all nations since have striven in vain to make a glass that would mash before it would break. The problem has been solved by an Indiana man. His name is Louis Kauffeld, and he lives in the town of Matthews, Ind. His may be regarded <£s the greatest achievement of the present age in the art of glass manufacture. The secret of making the glass the Indianian refuses to .divulge, but he gave ample tests with the finished product to prove its malleability. It seems impossible to break it from the effects of heat. Water was boiled in a lamp chimney made from the glass and another of the chimneys was placed over a fire and permitted to attain such a heat that one side shrunk in as if it were beginning to melt. In neither instance was there any sign of a crack. The glass appears to be clearer than the ordinary product, and is more elastic in its molten state. Mr Kauffeld claims that his glass contains neither lime nor lead, and at present i 3 only manufacturing lamp chimneys, such as are made in an off-hand factory. Here (writes "Londoner" to the Liverpool "Post") is the latest society bonne bouche. Winston Churchill, as all the smart world knows, is growing a moustache, this so-called hirsute adornment being very much in the embryonic stage. A fair lady was being taken in to dinner by the budding politician. "Mr Churchill," said she, "I like your politics as little as I like your moustache." A blow to paralyse the readiest you think? By no means. Rapidly came the reply: "Madam, you are not at all likely to come in contact with either." Whether they spoke again during dinner is not recorded. There is a certain man-milliner of the Rue de la Paix who must (says the "Pall Mall Gazette") be uttering the French for "demnitionl" very freely. He had a weakness, it seems, for kissing his workgirls, and it was not merely a jealous Mantalini, but the terrors of the French law, that he had to reckon with. Twenty of the girls sued him recently, and he was fined the maximum penalty for each proven kiss. The "Express" puts that maximum at twelve shillings, which, we presume, means fifteen francs. In ail, the gallant milliner has had to pay fifteen pounds. A short sum will show thac that works outsat twenty-five kisses, or one and a quarter for each girl. There are difficulties, however, one would suppose, about kissing four girls at once, and perhaps the odd five kisses were encores in the cases of five special favourites. 1 They may even have all been given to *>ne. It is a nice question whether a second or fifth kiss should be reckoned for at a lower tariff on the principle of a reduction upon taking a quantity, or at a higher one on the principle that a repeated insult becomes worse In geometrical progression. Probably the Court was wise in pricing each at thj same figure. A very rare Canadian stamp was recently sold in New York at a high figure. It is known among collectors as the "Connell stamp." Jn 1860 there was a fresh issue of stamps in New Brunswick. The ten-cent stamp had a portrait of > Queen Victoria, and the seven-teen-cent one of the Prince of Wales, now King Edward. But on the fivecent stamp the local Postmaster-Gene-ral of the period, the Hon. Charles Connell, was vainglorious enough to place his own counterfeit presentment. The Governor strongly objectedd, and the stamp was promptly withdrawn, but not before a few had got into circulation. Ever and anon there still raises its puzzling bead that ancient question: Which results in the better work: the slow and painstaking writing, or that "dashed off" in the white heat of what our grandfathers called "inspiration" f Stevenson, it appears, employed now one method and now another, but, in the biographical edition of his works, his wife assures us that the sixty thousand words of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde were written in six days when the author was suffering from constant hemorrhages. The first lighthouse ever erected for the benefit of mariners is believed to be that built by the famous architect Sostratus, by command of Ptolemy Philadelphus, King of Egypt. It was built near Alexandria, on an island called Pharos, and there was expended upon it about eight hundred talents, or over £200,000. Ptolemy has been much commended by some ancient writers for his liberality in allowing the architect to inscribe his name instead of his own. The inscription reads: "Sostratua, son of Dexiphanes, to the protecting deities, for the use of seafaring people." This tower was deemed one of the seven wonders of the world and was thought of sufficient grandeur to immortalize the builder. It appears from Lucian, however, that Ptolemy does not deserve any praise for disinterestedness on this score, or Sostratus- any great praise for his honesty, as it is stated that tho litter, to engross in after times the glory of the structure, caused the inscription with his own name to be carved in the marble, which he afterward covered with lime and thereon put the King's name. In process of time the lime decayed, and the inscription on the marble alone remained. M. P. de Wilde, Professor at the University of Brussels, has taken up the study of the gold which is contained in sea-water. He proposes a new method of extracting it. A ton of sea-water 1b treated with four or five cubic centimetres of an acid and concentrated solution of chloride of tin. The whole of the gold is thus concentrated in the complex body known as purple of Cassius, which contains gold, tin, arid oxygen. It is found that the purple body- is fixed very strongly upon the flaky hydrate of magnesium which is set free in sea water when we pour in lime water. The hydrate falls to the bottom with the gold attached to it. The gold is set free by a cyanide of potassium solution (about 1 in 2000), thus forming a cyanid? of gold. The metal can then be extracted by a number of well-known methods. Liversidge shows that when Bea-writer is sent in casks the wood causes the gold to precipitate, and thus none is found in the water. M. de Wilde made experiments at the seashore in France on the .west coast, and found traces of gold in <i,„ .*,..<,..,.,. JT-, ,-, fi, t ~,,..„!, ,-<•

the gold is thrown down to the sea bottom, and thus it escapes ua. It will be remembered that Liversidge, Professor at the University of Sydney, found from }gr to Igr of gold per ton of sea-water from the coast of New South Wales. — "Scientific American."

The rule by which the persecuted turns persecutor is illustrated (says the ''Jewish World") in a remarkable fashion by Finland. The manner in which the civilised world gave unstinted sympathy to the Finns in their struggle with the overwhelming forces of Russian despotism might have led one to believe that this interesting little people would show a certain fairness to the oppressed Russian Jews among them. There are about 1000 Jews all told in Finland, and it is enough to say that their position is legally wore than in Russia itself. Although there was always a large measure of self-government in Finland, there has never been any protest against the barbarous treatment to which Jews are subjected there. They are at best allowed to live in the towns of Helsingfors, Abo, and Wiborg; newcomers can only settle by special permission of the GovernorGeneral, which has to be renewed every six months. Any Jew caught without permission is transported back to Russia in chains, and anyone staying three kilometres out of the area is expelled from the eoOntry. They are restricted for a livelihood to selling old clothes, watches, cigarettes, etc. Jews who marry have to leave the country, and those who go out of it to serve their military term may not return. No wonder a deputy once declared that a Jew in Finland is worse off than a criminal in Siberia.