TIMELY TOPICS

Northern Advocate, 20 June 1925, Page 9 (Supplement)

TIMELY TOPICS

MARVELLOUS INSTINCT.

AUSTRALIAN BIRD'S WAYS.

There is found in Australia a bird known as the Megapodius, which, is not only a chemist, but a builder of nqsts which, in proportion to its size, make the efforts of man seem pygmy-like. The bird, about the size of a partridge, and weighing about 21b, builds a nest 14ft high, with a circumference

of 150 ft! A man weighs on an average, 1301b. In order to build a structure corresponding to the nest of the bird he would have to accumulate a mountain of earth almost double the height and bulk of one of the great pyramids of Egypt! The female bird usually lays eight eggs, which, she disposes in a circle in the centre of the nest among the herbs and leaves heaped at this spot. The eggs are placed exactly at equal distances from each other and in a vertical position. Megapodius abandons its masterpiece and its offspring Nature having revealed to it that it is no longer useful to them. Endowed with, a marvellous chemical instinct, the bird collects such a mass of vegetable matter that it may safely commit the hatching of the eggs to the fermentation they j produce. It is, in fact, on the heat so engendered' that the bird relies for supplying her place. The mother tlius substitutes a chemical process for her own cares. HARD PRACTICE. GREAT PIANISTS' METHODS. All the great pianists practice hard. It is the only way if success is to be won. These great performers, of course, l-ave exceptional gifts to start with. But no amount of gift absolves the artist from the necessity of immense and long-continued work at the key-boavd. Technical facility is not to be attained except of fingers, wrists, and forearms. Rubinstein was a tremendous worker. Paderewsld confessed to seven hours a day, and a good deal of it scales and fivefinger exercises. Pachmnnn, Hofmann, Rostenthul —all these eminent players spent many hours iaily at the piano in pursuit of the enormous technical ?kill they were determined to acquire. There is no royal road to efficiency as a pianist; but the necessary practice need not be dull work. On the contrary, the real musician loves working at his technical exercises, and sometimes, even, prefers them to his pieces. HARNESSING THE DESERT. The suggestion was mode recently , that the Sahara might become the | greatest power station in the world by | the utilisation of the heat of its count- I less miles of burning sand This is a new idea in the way of making the desert useful; but when one remembers how electrical power is obtain ,d from water, as in the case of Niagara, and even from the wind, this latest suggestion cannot be dismissed as impracticable. It is certainly unlikely, says an English paper, that the deserts of the world will be permitted to remain indefinitely as they are at present. New territory is constantly being opened up in the search for now sources of food and raw materials, the latest development in this direction being a plan for making the French possessions in the Sudan into a great cotton-growing and cattle-raising country.

It is a good plan to extend the pruning operation over several weeks so as to encourage a succession of blooms. The climbing roses and those that are in a sheltered position are generally the best for early bloom and are therefore generally pruned first. PEGGING DOWN ROWER. Many strong growers develop long strong s,hoots. If these are bent over and fastened near the tips to a stake f. foot or so above the ground they will then shoot, from the dormant buds and make a •» cry fine show, covering a bed well at the same time. Those 'ong shoots will generally las! for two years after which low ones will have to be Pegged down to take their places. These strong growing roses are also useful for covering a low fence, a? many of the climbers grow too tall for this purpose; the shoots should be tied into position when they are growing. Roses that are suitable for such treatment arc:—Frau Karl Drusehki. Sachengruss, George Dickson, Hugh Dickson, The Hon. Ina Bingham, ami other likely looking ones may be tried. (To be continued.)

The Lnited States is now importing bananas at the rate of four million pounds worth a year.

POPULAR PINK,

SOME FOOD PREFERENCES.

Have the'psychologists ever tried to explain why people are so fond of red foods? asks L. F. Bamsey in the "Evening Standard/' of March 26. Every housekeeper knows they are. If the rhubarb gets overstewed ever so little find turns brown nobody waaits it. But the dish of pink rhubarb is jicver large enough for the normal family. She knows, too, how often the village grocer tells her: —"I'm sorry, ma'am, we are out of raspberry and strawberry jellies. But we have plenty of orange or lemon " Look round the restaurant when the ice cream is being served; you'll see a dozen strawberry ices to one vanilla. Pink stuff is all the rage in food. Strawberries are pop.ular, not, a<; some folks think, because they are in season for such a short tine, but because they are pink. I.make this asscrton without hesitation because 'I have lived on a sub tropical island where strawberries are to be had all the year through, and where I never knew a garden party without strawberries and cream, either in December or July, or in any of the other months. When we prepare for the children's parties we take care to have plenty of pink jellies, pink icing, and pink blancmanges. Though, as the cook said one day, when I ordered a blancmange

—"It didn't ought to be pink blue man ge, did it, ma 'am ?'' -

THE NAVY.

A CONTRAST IN COST,

The Naval estimates for the time of the Armada were about £56,000 a year. The cost of building the largest ship in the Navy in 1561 was £3783, and her stone shot cost sixpence* each. The pay of an admiral was £3 6s 8d a month and that of a sailor 10s a month. The heaviest anchor weighed just over a ton. To-day, the Naval estimates nre £60,000,000, and it costs something like four or five millions to build a battleship of the Hood class. This class of ship can lire a sh»t weighing as much as an anchor did in the Armada days! These shots cost many hundreds of pounds against the stone shot at sixpence. An admiral's pay today runs into two or three thousand a year, with allowances according to seniority and duty, and that of a sailor is more than an admiral's was in the days of Elizabeth. TRAINS TAKING THE LIFT. At the Whitechapel hoist on the London and North-Eastern Railway, a giant lift which can carry two goods trucks at a time makes over 2100 journeys in a week. The main railway line here runs on a level with the roofs of the houses, and the business of the hoi3t is to lower trucks to railways running through East London. A whole train of fifteen trucks can be shunted in tlr.3 way from one line to another in about half an hour. The trucks are run on to the floor of the lift, which can raise or lower 35 tons, and is worked by hyilraulic machinery. A pressure of 7001b to the square inch is controlled by levers to regulate the movement of the lift. In this way it travels 36 miles in a week.

TITANIC SURVIVOR DROWNED

Oscar Palmquist, a survivor of the Titanic disaster, who kept afloat for hours in the North Atlantic when the steamship struck an iceberg thirteen years ago, was drowned in six feet of water hi Beardsley Park pond, Bridgeport, Connecticut, U.S.A., perhaps on the very anniversary of the sinking of the steamship, which took place on the night -)i April 14-15, 1S)12. His body was found on April 18. He had been missing from his boarding-house since March 2?!, when he drew two weeks' pay from the Connecticut Electric Company, which employed him, <uid told his landlady he was going out for a good time and didn't know when he would be back. He had 7dol when his body wns found. HOLLY-GROWING IN CANADA. A little-known Canadian industry, one of' sinall dimension, but increasing each war, ;in.d still with good deal of room for expansion, is ihe cultivation of holly. Though the really insistent and eolur.iinous demand for this decorative shrub comes but once a year, it is such, t sa.vs " Agricultural and Industrial Progress in' Canada," as to

warrant a much greater production in the Dominion. Holly-growing on a

commer'tial scale in Canada is pretty well confined to the province of British Columbia, and (here again the area is large l .;/ limited to Vancouver Island.

THE HIGHLANDS,

GEOGRAPHICALLY DEFINED. Most people living .south of tiie Tweed, or, fit least, of the Tees, have only a very vague uotion of what is included in the term Highlands, beyond the fact that it has reference to 111e more elevated or mountainous districts of Scotland. Eoughly, the Highlands are separated from the Lowlands by a straight line between Stonehaven and Dumbarton. Nine Scottish counties are said to be wholly or partly Highland. They are Caithness, Sutherland, Ross and Cromarty, Nairn, Inverness, Perth, Bute, Dumbarton and Argyle. The Highland boundary line, as determined by the present Gaelie-speak-ing population, commences west of Thurso, crosses Caithness to Lybster, and follows the coast-line south to Nairnshire, most of which it includes, accompanies' the course of the Spey to the Avon, thence south to the borders of Forfarshire; then south-west to the Tay at. Logierait, Perthshire, following the stream to Dunkeld, then south-west through Strath Braan to the source of the Almond, south by Comrie of earthquake fame to Loch Arcl and Inversnaid 011 Loch Lomond, excluding Stirlingshire. Thence it follows the southwest side of Loch Long, and includes Bute, Arran, and Kintvre.

ALL FOR THE BEST

WEDDING CAKE RAFFLED

Among many stories related by '-?ir George R. Greaves of his life in India is that of a broken, engagement. "I met a very pretty girl one evening at a dinner party; she was engaged to ui officer up for the signalling class, and they were to be married in a few days; but when she told her fiance that she was going to' a fancy dress ball, just coming off, as Ariel, he told her plainly that if she wore the scanty clothing Ariel was supposed to wear, he simply would not keep his engagement. She however, went to the ball as aranged, and looked very beautiful, but the wedding was off, though the wedding cake was in the house! She got her mother to give a large picnic to all the people who had had invitations for the wedding »\ay, and after lunch the wedding cake appeared and was raffled. There was great excitement over it, especially when she won it herself! People so thoroughly enjoy themselves in India, and make the best of every situation. She afterwardsmade a very good marriage; so, as usual, everything turned out for the best."

STRUGGLE FOR £20,000

FIFTY-NINE LAWYERS.

Fifty-nine lawyers—22 senior counsel, 11 juionrs and 26 solicitors —were engaged in a case in the Dublin High Court. The action concerns the disposal of some £20,000 out of the estate of the late Mrs Lewis, widow of Mr Harvey Lewis, a former M.P. for Hackney, and recalls the amazing romance of a "cabby's" £80,000 windfall. Mrs Lewis, in her will, directed that on the sale of her real estate £80,000 should be spent in erecting a Harvey Lewis Memorial Hospital in Dublin, but as she died within three months of the will being executed the real estate was vested in her next-of-kin, William Browne, who had been 'a i Dublin cab-driver for fifty-two years. , Browne died ten days after hearing of his good fortune, and only about £20,000 is available for the proposed hospital. All the local hospitals ars represented in the case, which is expected to provide a long legal duel. A PIANIST'S PEJRTINACITY. Frederick Lamond, the well-known Scottish pianist and Beethoven.specialist, learned in his early days from Ilans von Bulow. At the age of fourteen Lamond was to be examined by \ Bulow, an irascible genius, .and on being asked what he was going to play, replied, "Beethoven Opus 100." "Go away," shouted the angry master, "and come back to me in thirty years." A little later the boy returned and again suggested "Beethoven 106," when Bulow bellowed "Bah!" and drove him from the room. A third time the pertinacious youth came up, and if not smiling was still undaunted when he boldly said: " Beethoven Opus .106." Then it was that pertinacity won the day for Bulow grudgingly growled: "Well, plnv me I the scherzo." Lamond did so, and at I the conclusion was immediately commanded to perform the entire work.