DO YOU KNOW?

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 20, 18 October 1930, Page 24

DO YOU KNOW?

(1) What is the normal temperature of the human body?

(2) What is the temperature of a frog?

(3) If whales and sharks are related ?

(4) What are the three smallest countries in the world?

*(5) How did the phrase “setting the Thames on fire” originate? ANSWERS

(1) It is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. (2) The cold blooded frog averages only about 48 degrees. (3) No. Whales are mammals of the family Balaenidae. Sharks are fishes of the order Selachii. The largest is the whale shark of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, which reaches a length of fifty feet. (4) Monaco, eight square miles; San Marino, 38 square miles; and Liechtenstein, 65 square miles. (5) The phrase has nothing to do with the River Thames, but has come down to us from very early times when housewives commonly used a kind of sieve, called a temse, for various work in the kitchen. To say “You will never set the temse on fire” was a reproach to anyone who was slow at the work of shaking the sieve. A temse is still used in some northern parts of the country.

There had been a collision between a motor-car and a haycart, with the result that the hay was upset. A boy who had been leading the horse was surveying the damage. “Hadn’t you better run and tell your father?” queried the motorist. “He knows already,” replied the boy.

“But how can he?” protested the cardriver.

“He’s under the hay,” was the quiet retort.