GENERAL INFORMATION.

Northland Age, Volume VI, Issue 3, 6 September 1909, Page 2 (Supplement)

GENERAL INFORMATION.

It takes fifty nests to make one pound of Chinese birds’-nesl jelly. St. Peter’s Church in Rome will contain 54,000 persons. India’s population is 300,000,000 —one-fifth of all the people in the world. Several thousands of hairpins, in many styles, have been recovered from rompeii. Hie natives of India never allow a fakir—of whom there are 3.000,000 who live by begging—to starve. J Most of the shoes worn in Japan are made of straw or wood. In ihi entire country there is but one factory where leather shoes a re made. A portrait of Chaucer, on a rianel of date 1380, and also one ol Henry IV. of England, painted in 1405, are said to be the oldest paintings known in England. Oranges are shipped from Florida in bulk, the same as potatoes. They are piled about three feet high, and the floor on which they lie is covered with fine marsh grass. Eighteen times as much strength is needed to climb stairs as for the level ground. The first successful display of electric light was given by Sir Humphry Davy in 1810. He showed an arc light three inches long. The “air fox," or “flying mouse," of Borneo is a moth. This queer creature has a head shaped some* thing like that of a fox or & I mouse. I The Suez Canal, the greatest worli !of marine engineering, is 88 mile* j l°ng, and reduces the distance from | Europe to India from 11,379 milet j to 7,628 miles. j The flags to be hoisted at one time in signalling at sea never exceed four. With eighteen various-colour-ed flags, and never more than four at a time, no fewer than 78,642 signals can be given. In countries w r here oranges grow in plenty the cheapest kinds arc used for blacking men’s boots. The orange is cut in two, and the flat side of one half is rubbod on the soot of an. iron pot and then on the boot. Then the boot is rubbed with a soft brush, and a bright polish at once appears. The Lulea-Gellivare Railway, in Sweden, built for the purpose of carrying iron ore from the Gellivare mines to the seaport of Lulea, fc extends fifty miles above the Arctic circle, and enjoys the distinction of being the first railway to open up the frigid zone. More than one-tenth of all the men in the French railway service get less than £3 10s. a month ; a little more than one-third receive from £4 to £5, and more than half get less than that per month The men work from seven to twelve V hours per day, and on the average about twenty-eight and a halfday.' ©er month. 1650