Miscellaneous.

Lake County Press, Issue 2184, 29 August 1907, Page 7

Miscellaneous.

AN ICE MOTOR-GAR. THE development of the steamship, the locomotive, and the mu or-car, would seem to have exhausted the field of novel means of transportation on land or water. Yet a machine which in its basic principle is a decided innovation has been designed for use on ice by an American who is interested in mining properties in Alaska, which are difficult to develop on account of their inaccessibility in the winter time. This ice locomotive is propelled by steam engines, but instead of resting On wheels or runners it is supported by four great steel spirals, one at each corner of the body. The edges of the blades are fashioned like skate blades in order that they may grip the ice well. Each spiral can be worked independently of the others, and the car can be driven forward, backward, sideways, or obliquely as desired. The bottom of the car is made water-tight so that in the event of the ice breaking the car would float upon the surface of the water and could be pr - polled even then by tbe spirals.

WO/IDERFUL TEMPLE: SECOND TO THE PYRAMIDS. JJoro J’o.doer is about three hundred and fifty miles south-east of ilutavia, and is the location n .I. only of the most stupendous rums in Java in the Jlutch Fast, Indies, but of a ruin which ranks scarcely second to the great pyramids o) Egypt, 1 Jr. A lire a Russel Wallace says uf tins ruined temple : ‘'J im amount ol human labour expended on the great pyramids ol Egypt sinks into insignificance wheti compared with that, required tu complete this sculptured hilltemple in the interior ol Java.’ 'J he wonderful structure was erected in the eighth and ninth centuries; it docs not, however, sin pass nor equal the pyramids in massive masonry.

The temple covers an ai oa of about nine acroH, and towers above the surrounding plain 150 feet. It lias three miles of alto and bass reliefs and hundreds of statues. While the rums of this temple in Java are marvellous in their extent, they are more marvellous in the incomprehensible amount of artistic labour requisite for the miles of historic and allegorical aculptares, wuich Professor -guson, the authority on Oriental architecture, says, ‘ are complicated and rellned beyond any examples known in India.’ A 0 R BICYLE SLEDGE.

Mr Walter Wellman, who has a scheme on foot for reaching the North Pole by means of an air-ship, is utilising all the resources of modern invention and science. A novel motor bicycle sledge has been constructed for him. The motor is of 41- horsepower, and the machine" can travel from two to thirty miles an hour over smooth ice. The runners used are two pairs of Norwegian ‘ ski,’ both having seen actual service in the North on Mr Wellman’s former trips. The wood is, therefore, well seasoned, and can bo relied upon. They are also strengthened with sheet iron, and underneath are steel runners or skates. The-front ‘ski’ are the guides the rear ones being used to take some of the weight from the driving wheel when soft snow is encountered.

The driving wheel is quite an interesting bit of mechanism, It is composed entirely of steel except for the rubber tyre. The width of the wheel proper is about six inches, on the outer edge of which are broad teeth that are to give the power in the snow or soft ice. In the centre is a pneumatic tyre of rubber two inches wide. This is covered with steel wire to prevent puncture, and this latter is covered with a strip of leather which is filled with sharp steel teeth about the size of the head of an ordinary screw, that will grip the hardest ice, and as the inventor and builder. Mr Wells, put it, will climb the side of a house.

QUEER FOODS USED IN VARIOUS countries: Tho list of queer foods eaten in different parts of the world reminds us very forcibly that one man’s meat is another man’s poison. The intercourse between nations leads ery often to the adoption by one of another’s favourite dish. Thus snails, always so popular in Trance, no longer offend the American palate, but, indeed, aie relished highly; and eaten by many persons in this country. Why they should be rejected by the man who likes oysters is truly a mystery. In Canton, rats sell for fifty cents a dozen, and dogs’ hindquarters command a higher price than lamb or mutton. Taney eating birds’ nests worth thirty dollars a pound! This is what a mandarin revels in. In the West Indies baked snake is a common dish, where the reptiles abound, and it is a good way of getting rid of them. 15 ut when it comes to frying palm-worms in fat, one would think the stomach would rebel. It is not so, however, though, by a strange inconsistency, stewed rabbit is looked upon with disgust. On the Pacific coast the Digger Indians eat dried locusts, and in the Argentine Republic skunk tlesh is a dainty. Our own favourite bivalve, the oyster, is very disgusting to a Turk, whi'o the devilfish, eaten in Corsica, is equally so to us. We cannot understand, either, how the inhabitants of the West Indies and the Pacific coast can eat lizards’ eggs with a relish ; still less, how the eggs of the turtle and alligator can become a tavourite article of diet.

The Brazilians eat ants, probably to get rid of them, for they literally infest the country, and are of an enormous size. Parrots are eaten in Mexico, while roasted spiders are considered a delicacy in the New Caledonias. Silk-worms are found delicious by tho Chinese. Caterpillars are to the African, like reed-birds on toast, and bees are eaten regularly by the Singalese. Geophagy, or the habit of earth-eating, is very widespread. Stone butter is a fine clay used upon bread in place of butter in many parts of Germany. Earth is baked in bread in tho northern part of Sweden and on the peninsula of Kola. It is also sold in the open market in Sardinia and in parts of Italy, while the Persians use it in the manufacture of sweetmeats. In Nubia it is used as a medicine and to many primitive tribes its use has also a religious meaning. The habit is general over almost all of India, and the grey or drabcoloured shale, which is the favourite in northern India, and which is excavated mostly at Meth in Bikanir, is exported to the Punjaub at the rate of two thousand camel loads a year. In different districts different varieties of claj are eaten, b..t if the natives have at one time a taste for a special kind of mud, as the habit increases the depraved appetit’ soon becomes satisfied with bricks and broken pots. White ant soil, with the nests and ants themselves, is a great delicacy.

The reasons given for indulging in tho habit are classified under the following heads. 1. A peculiar fascinating odour and taste in the clay, rendering it a delicacy. 2. An unnatural craving due to disease. X. To satisfy hunger. L Force of example. 5. Supposed medicinal virtues.