INTERESTING ITEMS.

Lake County Press, Issue 2135, 13 September 1906, Page 7

INTERESTING ITEMS.

England spends £1,844,000 annually in coal for the fleets. Some sixty languages are spoken in the dominions ot' the Czar. The report of a gun a mile away takes a full five seconds to reach the ear. - * During (lie recent war, cablegrams to" the amount of about £50,000 were sent from Japan every month. The largest book in the world is in the British Museum. It is an atlas, measuring sft. lOin. by 3ft. 2in. and weighing close upon 2cwt. The hardest wood is not ebony, but cocos. ft. grows in the West Indies, and is used for making flutes and similar instruments. The officers of the British Navy include five admirals, twenty-one viceadmirals, and thirty-three rear admirals. * There are "mounted" nurses in India in connection with the British Army. They receive thirty rupees a month for the upkeep of the horse. New South Wales is just two and a half times the size of the British isles. Queensland is equal to three times the German Empire and Belgium put together. .{. It was only in the reign of Henry Yill., who was a great lover of all martial exercises, that the institution of fencing-schools was encouraged in England. The only, country which does not use the red cross as an emblem of her hospital corps is Turkey, which is allowed to use a red creseut in its place, in deference to her soldics* religious susceptibilities. * The largest map in the w p*W is the Ordnance Survey Map >« Eogloud which covers 108,000 -bests. Tu its preparation it cost £20,000 a year for twenty years. The scale varies from 10ft. to l-10iri. to the mile. Recruiting in the Department of the Seine revealed the fact that out of 16,110 Parisian conscripts, 112 could neither read nor write, 110 could read only, while 569 who could both read and write were incapable of solving the simplest arithmetical problems. Belgium, where public libra) Jes are almost unknown, has PJO.OOO jiublichouses. rhat means one pi' Rehouse for Vvv.uvc :\-:>i above seventeen years of age, the publivnn i/jcJuded. During the last fifty years tb* puliation lias increased o0 pec cent., the number of public-houses 25S per cent. *r The largest grape-vine in the world is growing in the Carpinteria Valley, twelve miles east of Santa Barbara, California, and is called La Para Grande, it was started from a cutling sixty-three years ago by a young Spanish woman, it is Bft. 4in. in circumference at its base, arrd one of the horizontal branches measures more than ."ft. in circumference. The trellis covers about a third of an acre, and sixty heavy posts support it. 'The vine produces as many oa 5,000 bunches annually. 1012.