Miscellaneous.

Lake County Press, Issue 2167, 2 May 1907, Page 7

Miscellaneous.

THE most wonderful temple in the world is built on a rocking stone on the summit of a mountain in Northern India, which is over 20,000 ft. high. The rock weighs many thousands of tons, but is balanced on so line a point that a comparatively light pressure is sullicicnt to make it sway. Hindu priests teach their followers that this rock was placed in position by the help of the gods, and thus add considerably to the feeling of awe which they desire to create. King Edward VII. rules over 100,000,000 subjects, of whom there can be very few wlio arc unware of his existence, whilst to the majority of them his features must be iamiliar from pictures and otherwise. In addition to these he is known, in one way or another, to the 70,000,000 of English-speak-ing Americans in the United States, as well as to many foreigners on the Continent and elsewhere, so that, at a very eoiiversative estimate, more than half of the earth's population know our King. Practically all the best fish-hooks in the world—and nearly so of all qualities—are made at Keddifcli. The annual output is probably 500,000,000 hooks—about 10,000,000 per week—ranging in size from enormous and ferocious-looking shark-hooks to the tiniest hooks for very small trout-ilies, with a 'bend' daimeter of about onesixteenth of an inch, a thousand of which will not more than fill a good-sized thimble. The price varies as much as the size, ranging from a few pence to two or three pounds per thousand. SOME FORMs ue aALUTATJON. The Chinese when saluting each other will say, ' How is your stomach ? Have you eaten your rice ?' The Pole's greeting is, ' How do you have yourself ?' The Russians meet in the street with 'lluw do you live on ?' The Italian's greeting is, ' How do you stand ?' The Egyptian's greeting is, ' How do you perspire ?' The Dutch say, ' How do you fare?' The Swedes cry out merrily, 'How can you to-day?' The English and Americans nod quickly, and in passing say, ' Howdy-do ?' JfiQDißlt «r»»EsMIrtG. Thirty years ago threshing time was one of the most strenuous occasions that came to the farmer's annual experience and was something that was dreaded as much by the women of the house as by the farmer himself, as it required two or three days lo thresh the average crop, with ..ftccn and twenty men and as many teams to be fed and housed. The stacks of fried chicken and apple pie that disappeared during those troublous days were something wonderful to behold. This is now all changed The threshing crew come down the road with their whole outfit en train, pull in alongside of the stacks and in ten minutes are at work, and no one is surprised if they are threshing ten bushels a minute. The sheaves being fed automatically the threshed grain runs directly into the fanners' waggons, the straw being stacked automatically, taking awiy most of the laborious and dirty part of the work of the old times. I"or the average fanner one day cleans up the whole job, and the thresher moves on to the next setting. AN ADYiNTUKa HUM A WrULF, When a naval architect plans an improvement in marine construction he generally has little thought for its effect on the denizens of the sea. The man who invented bilge keels, however, provided the whales of the Brazilian coast with just the sort of backscratcher they needed. Insect pests :iim»y the whale, and barnacles find a home on a large part of his body. Sometimes the monsters may be seen rolling on a shallow sandy bottom to displace these pests, or rubbing themselves on the rocks of reefs. On one occasion the mail steamer Orissa was stopped during a dense fog a few miles oil' Santa Maria Inland in the Pacific. The coast being dangerous, an anchor was let down sixty fathoms or so, and the ship allowed to drift in the smooth water. About six in the morning the captain heard some heavy whale - blows' or ' spouts' apparently close at hand. Shortly afterwards a contintud tremor of the ship ois felt. .It was too gentle f>ran os rthqu; !;e, and was varied witli bum js. Soon a h.ige whale rose slow.'y out o. the .vater .ml floated alongside, ike a bar . boltov.i up. it again descended, and the treniours recommenced. Thou the crew noticed ba nacles and si "lllish coming to the su-Tai j, and the scret was out. The whale was scrapi lg itsoJi—currying himself—on the sharp pl.itc which projected as a steadier from tiie vessel's bilge. (