Miscellaneous.

Lake County Press, Issue 2460, 9 January 1913, Page 7

Miscellaneous.

Sea water contains silver in considerable quantities. It is often found deposited on the cooper sheathing of ships.

A French journal states that the railway authorities in France intend to inaugurate, "silence" carriages for passengers" who do not wish to be addressed by fellow travellers.

Among the Alps there are several post offices at a height of 6000 ft. or 7000 ft. One letter box, from which th ■» postman makes four collections daily, is nearly 10,000 ft. above the sea level.

The National. Telephone Company served 250,000 telephone users, and had an income of between tbreo millions and four millions. It employed 18,200 persons, and there wore 516,888 stations, 32,153 having been added last vear.

Mrs. Herbert AVadsworth, holder of the worlds r long distance riding record, has mauo a new record by outdistancing two army officers in a 900-mHc ride from Yvashington to her summer home. She was the only one of the five starters to complete the trip.

Dr. Alexif Carrei, a young French scientist now connected with the Rockefeller Institute of New York, has just demonstrated that the heart can exist and develop without the body. His, most recent experiments were made with chickens' hearts, and in one case he succeeded in maintaining, such ' a heart alive—and beating normally—for moro than throe months.

The best-laid plans of the most up to date post offices "gang aft agley," but the record in tardy delivery of a missive belong* to the Turkish Poet Office. The time taken was seventy-three vears, the distance being from Mount Athos to Corfu. In July, 1834, the Archimandrite of a convent wrote to a lady in the island announcing the departure of a begging mission. The letter was delivered to the lady's grand son in .November, 1907.

A German merchant, resident in Moscow, left all his fortune, amounting to half a million, to all those of his employees who havo served under him for five years or more. Their portions an* to bo reckoned on the basis of the first annual wage multiplied by the number of years they have been in his service. Those who have worked for the firm less than live years receive a joint sum of £IO,OOO, which is to be divided according to wages and length of service. The staff have decided to organiso the business inherited by them into a joint stock company.

An average man of 150 lb. contains constituents found in 1200 eggs. There is enough gas in him to fill a gasometer of 3645 cubic feet. He contains enough iron to make four tenpenny nails. His fat would make seventy-fivo candles and a good-sized cake of soap. His phosphate contents would make 8,064 boxes of matches. There is enough hydrogen in him in combination to fill a balloon and carry him above the clouds. The remaining constituents of a man would yield, if utilised, six teaspoonfuls of salt, a bowl of sugar, and ten gallons of water. WORLD'S LOFTIEST BUILDING. The last of the steel girders in the Woolworth Building, Broadway and Park Place, have been rivetted in place, and the United States flag was unfurled from the loftiest structure in the world. The Stars and Stripes fluttered in the hreeze from a staff just 780 feet above Broadway, and though tho bunting m asured 24 feet in length, from the street it appeared little larger than a pocket handkerchief. A small crowd of reporters and camera men climbed aB far as the fiftieth floor after leaving tho hoist at the thirty-ninth, but most of them were not sorry when it was all over and they could get back to earth. When completed the building will represent an expenditure of thirteen million fivo hundred dollars. A SHIPS "EAR." Sir Hiram S. Maxim's latest invention is "A New System for Preventing Collisions at Sea." In a pamphlet issued by Messrs. Cassell, Sir Hiram points out that certain wild animals are endowed with a sixth sense whore-

by they—the bat tribe, for example—are able to detect objects in their vicinity, to deter in«> their character, and to move aboui. ."'th rapidity an.i ease when deprived ox •» I i '-..-i and hearing. Sir Hiram sa,>& t...i. iy mechanical means wo can provide a ship with a similar sense. This is a drumshaped cylinder with a diaphragm ,ond, abwi an electrical circuit connecting a series ol bells so adjusted by .scientific skill that they will bo responsive to the merest fractional tone wave, even though such be produced by th" dense vibrations of cold air surrounding a fog-hidden iceberg in the distance or near at hand.

PULLING AN ELEPHANTS TOOTH

i It became necessary-recently to call !a dentist to one of the elephant in the Zoological Gardens at Rio de Janeiro: (The dentist saw atones what the trouble was—a hollow tooth—hut confessed his inability to fill it or to pull it without assistance. The elephant was not iu a happy frame of mind, for it had a really elephantine toothache.) But the dentist and the kcepe; * devised a method. They tied a strong rope i to the tooth, fastening it carefully and securely with platinum wire, a-id then i fifteen mon took hold and pulled. The elephant ?< emed to know that something for its good was being'dime, for it-kept quiet and showed no f'gn of anger—that is,until the fifte n men | gave the fourth pull, which brought .the huge tooth out. Then the ele- ! phant trumpeted with pain and anger i and the iitecn men deemed it wise to 'run. But after a few minutes of ! wrath tha beast, now relieved of its pair., quickly became calm. HEIR TO THREE MILLIONS. There is in tho Chancery Court an estate which has now reached the figure of three millions. It lies there, j unclaimed, in the name of Walters, an Exeter family, whose heir has been (duly advertised for without avail. It is now known, almost to a certainty, that this same heir has just died *at Point Chevalier, Auckland, ! New Zealand, that he knew he was the heir, and that he refused to claim the money. His death took place suddenly, and it was at the necessary inquest that the facts came to the knowledge of the public. Richard Walers was an old-age pensioner, and was employed Jby a Mr. Mavson as gardener. He had shown his "employer documents which, the latter considered, afforded quite conclusive proof that he was the heir to the family estate of Walters. The reason he gave for refusing to take any steps to secure the millions was that it was too much trouble, as ho was becoming an old man.