NEW ODD, INTERESTING.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 533, 15 January 1913, Page 2

NEW ODD, INTERESTING.

Fish will drown if the action of their "sins .iv disturbed or interfered wilh - ♦ . _ .. Iron, corrodes with great rapidity at or about, the temperature of boiling 1 water. ,The Chinese have a flower which is white at night, or in'the shade, and red in the sunlight. Moscow's orphan asylum, founded by Catherine 11., i* supported by a tax on playing-cards.. The Pharos Lighthouse, Alexandria, was built B.C. 285; height/550 feet, light visible 42 miles.- • In the British Museum, according to the catalogue' just issued, there are 2700 complete Bibles in all languages, j, A clergyman in America recently celebrated his.. 99th birthday. He is the oldest living clergyman in. the 1 United States. / • ! A chemist advises that canned 'fruit I be opened an hour or two before it is used. It is-far richer after the oxygen of the air has been restored to it

Among the Riffian pirates of Morocco the women do all the agricultural and other hard work, while the men, when at home, do the cooking 1 and mend the clothes, including the women's.

' The bone of a sheep was transferred to the arm of a patient at the. Charity Hospital, New Orleans. The forearm of the patient undergoing the novel operation had been, shattered by the discharge of a gun. The operation was pronounced successful.

Increasing rubber culture has resulted in a marked advance of prosperity in the Straits Settlements. Malacca, which for years had been declining-, has becomo quite flourishing since continuous tracts of land have been reclaimed from the wild and cultivated.

Till about 1400 all painting was in caustic or. in water-colours. Ciambue was the first painter in oil-colours; but previously finished water-colour pictures were washed in oil,' and the incorporation gives them the mature appearance of colours first worked ia oils. '"'"'.■

In Switzerland clocks are now being made which do not require hands and' faces. The timepiece merely . stands

in the hall, and you press , a button, when* by means of the phonographic i internal- -arrangement s, -it ■■, ca% out, : "Half-past five," or "Five -minutes to nine," as the case may be? ' 0 ■,"'•'' ■ • According to high authority, t the velocity of a rifle bullet'is something like 2,130 feet a second, or 24.2 miles a minute, arid that of the projeqtile weighing 339 lbs. from a quick-firing 9irich gun'is about 3,000 feet a second, or 34 miles, a minute, so that the-Vel-ocity, of the earth is 32.3 times as fast -,: •as the latter. ■■'.■"■■ i ''■ Sugar .Sticks for M. P.'». The Spanish; Parliament, whose members are agitating- for, payment , for their services, would be a paradise for children, for unlimited barley sugar is supplied free during the debates. ' The curious custom dates from the days when Spain owned all the West Indies, whence came the entire sugar supply of the world. Egg-Marking Extraordinary. An egg-marking attachment for 1 ' the hen is the mechanical oddity covered by-a recent foreign patent. The apparatus is secured in place by rings passing through cartilaginous parts of the hen, and suitable springs bring ■the marker into position to stamp the ' egg as it is laid. Each individual hen being- assigned her. own special mark, this device ensures her full credit for her product. Elastic Roads. An interesting experiment has been made, with promising results, at. Zurich. Fine gravel, the grains averaging one-twentieth to one-twelfth of an inch iir diameter, the whole carefully freed from earthy substances; was coated, in a revolving drum, with tar. These pellets were then carefully dried and hardened and after eight or ten weeks were spread upon a prepared roadrbed and rolled. The road thus formed is inexpensive, possesses a certain, elasticity, and is said to withstand well the effects of heavy traffic. The desirability ( of a slightly elastic road for saving ,wear/' and suppressing- noise is evident. ' , How Clouds are Colored. The color of a cloud depends on, the manner in which the sunlight falls upon it, and the position •of the. observer. It will be noticed that high clouds are always white, or light in color, and this is because the light by winch they are seen is reflected from tile under surface by the numberless drops of moisture which go to form cloud. Heavy rain clouds, on the other hand, are found much nearerthe earth, and so the light falls on them more directly from ab'ove,_ giving a silver lining- to the cloud, though, the tinder surface appears black, owing to the *>mplotc iciloction and a?jsorption of the lulu hy the upper layer-?. , Seen i.nm nbuvc by .111 obscivcr in a balloon the blackest rain clouds. 1 appear of the most dazzling brilliant wjbite../.. M .„ - v -,-•>- ..4 +