INTERESTING ITEMS.

Northland Age, Volume 3, Issue 38, 7 May 1907, Page 5

INTERESTING ITEMS.

Icebergs sometimes last for 200 years.

The black diamond is so hard that it cannot be polished.

It is said that freckles are frequently due to bad digestion.

A nightingale’s song can be heard at a distaace of a mile.

Twice as many women as men are afflicted with neuralgia.

Leather trunks were used in Rome as early as the time of Caesar.

Tho annual loss of vessels of the world is calculated at about 2,200.

Twelve million silk hats are made annually in the United Kingdom,

It is said that nearly 40,000 men desert from the Crerman Army every year.

Ancomarca, Peru, is 16,000 feet above the sea, and the highest inhabited spot in the world.

Pere are 400 country livings of the Church of England endowed with nof less than £SO per year.

There are three times as many muscles in the tail of a dog as there are in the human hand and wrist.

One of the curious things about the Gulf Stream is that no whales are found in it.

It is a remarkable fact that the deepest parts of the sea are in all cases verv near the land.

The velocity of the wind varies from the rate of five miles an hour to 100 miles—a hurricane.

Pious Russians do not eat pigeonf because of the sanctity conferred oe the dove in the Scriptures.

It costs about patent ar. invention all over the world. There are sixty-four countries in which a patent can be protected.

A caterpillar is so greedy that ii one month it usually devours si* thousand times its own weight ir food.

Australia has a population of les? than 5,000,000 ; but economists declare that it could support 100,)00,000 with ease.

The present bronze coinage (penny, halfpenny, and farthing) is composed of ninety-five parts of cop|»er, four of tin, and one of zinc.

Napoleon's first plaything was a toy cannon Later in life he declared that the whole course of his life was determined by that cannon.

Eighteen tons of steel disappear daily on the London and NorthWestern Railway through wear and ru6t.

An ordinary healthy man, in tha prime of life, can lift with both hands 23G8). and support on hia shoulders 3301 b.

Of 100 million passengers by sea all the world over, fifty lose their lives. Of the same number by rail forty-seven are killed.

There is a hospital for trees ori the banks of the Seine in Paris. Trees which do not thrive on the boulevards are taken there to recover.

A scientist has calculated that ths eyelids of the average man open and shut no fewer than 4,000,000 times in the course of a single year of his existence.

Tho molo is not blind as many people suppose. Its eye is hardly longer than a pinhead, and is carefully protected from dust and dirt by meant of inclosing hairs.

Shepherds say that the wool of th« sheep furnishes an excellent indicatioo of weather changes. When it is crisp there will be no rain. When it is limp and feels very soft to the touch, a storm is imminent.

Cockroaches are never wittingly slain by Chinamen. They consider them sacred insects and think it portends ill-luck to step on them. As they never make any effort to exterminate them, Chinese quarters are usually overrun With these pests.

Insurance against burglary and numerous other contingencies is being more and more appreciated, and the main insurance principle that is better to make small annual payments than to incur the risk of a great loss, is entering more and more fully into I both commercial and private life. * Nearly sixteen million pounds sterling are paid out of England every year for butter alone. For foreign eggs we pay four and a half millions in money a year Denmark alone claiming £700,000 of that sum. 11m