GENERAL INFORMATION.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2643, 21 January 1908, Page 7

GENERAL INFORMATION.

One in about every seven of British landowners is a woman. A single plant of red poppy will produce 50,000 seeds. The sun yields about 300,000 times as much light as does the moon at its full. About one married couple in one thousand survive to celebrate their golden wedding. The first expedition in search of the North Pole was made by Corte Real, a Portuguese, in the year 1500. Norway and Sweden contain a larger proportion of Protestants than any other countries in the world. The famous clock at Strasburg which gives all the movements of the sun, moon, and planets, was constructed over 550 years agq. In the Arctic regions the air is so pure that affections of the throat and lungs are unknown. The region is also entirely free from contagious maladies. Skilled gardeners in Japan can twist and contort trees from their normal forms of groth into the likeness of animals, boats, houses, and other designs. It is reckoned roughly that about forty million animals are killed yearly for their furs. There are in the world about 180 towns with a population of over 100,000.

Seventeen distinct languages, besides English, are spoken in India. Variations of temperature in the ocean do not exist at a greater depth than 600 feet. Below that the temperature never varies. In India only the men from the hills, where the air is pure and exhilarating, make good soldiers. The plainsmen, physically as weak and mentally as gentle as women, have neither the strength nor the desire to fight. The standard mark for gold of twenty-twq carats is in England a lion passant; in Ireland a harp crowned; for Glasgow a lion rampant : and for Edinburgh a thistle. , Thunder is never heard more than fourteen miles from the flash of lightnßig. The report of artillery has reached much greater distances. The cannonading at the Battle of Waterloo was heard at the town of Greil, in the north of France, about 115 miles from the field. The number of men and women in France is more nearly equal than in any other country, there being 1007 women to 1,000 men. In Switzerland there are 1,064 men to 1,000 women, and in Greece only 933. In Hong-kong there are only 366 women to 1,000 men. 1585.