OLLA PODRIDA.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 869, 26 October 1888, Page 6

OLLA PODRIDA.

PHOTOGRAPHING THE SUN. Mr J. C. O’Loan, of Liverpool, writes : While experimenting with a ray of sunlight in a darkened room I had my attention directed to pinhole pictures, and am of the opinion that startling results can bo obtained in photographs of the sun or moon in this way. Iu a room darkened by blocking np windows with thick paper, make a small hole in the paper with a ‘ darning needle,’ so as to admit a ray of direct sunlight ; hold a piece of white paper in the path of -the ray 12in from the hole, SIOU will have ah image' of the sun Jin. in diameter, at 4ft. an image of Jin., and at the distance of Bft. from hole a lin. image, and so on. The size of opening used as lens does not alter the size of image at any given distance, but only its sharpness and bright, ness. Say the opening is l-16in., and gives a sharp picture at 4ft., by enlarging the opening to Jth the size of the image at 4ft. would be still the same but unsharp, so that the Bcreen or plate must be removed to twice the distance to obtain equal sharpness. In a room 100 ft. long a 12in. picture of the. sun oould be had, and of the moon one very much larger. A series of pipes 100 yards long for camera would give a 3ft. photograph of the sun ; in faot, there is no limit to size of imago but the length of camera. Perhaps someone who has more time and space at his disposal than I' have may take the subject up.— English Mechanic.

{ A MYSTERIOUS FEVER. A correspondent at Manila writes : —‘ The month of May is a terrible month in Manila, as everyone knows who haß lived any time here. There have been a great many sudden deaths during this last month. A most malignant kind of fever is common which tbe doctors here call pernicious fever. It attacks a patient and carries him off in a few hours, no possible help for it being known to medical science. No one knows whence it comes or any remedy or alleviation for it. It is supposed that it is caused by emanations from the soil, the most dangerous hour being that immediately succeeding the setting of the sun. Nothing will persuade the majority of Spaniards to remain seated either in thoir gardens or on the public promenade during this fatal hour. The fear, however, is founded more on supposition than known facts.’ RAILROADING IN THE AIR. In some mountain locations, galleries have been out directly into the rock, the cliff overhanging the roadway, and the line being carried in a horizontal cut or niche in the solid wall. The Oroya and the Chimbote railways in South America demanded constant locations of this character. At many points it was necessary to suspend the persons making the cliff above. The engineer who made these locations tells the writer that on the Oroya line the galleries were often from 100 ft. to 400 ft, above the base of the cliff,' and were reached generally from above. Rope ladders were used to great advantage. One 64ft. long and one 106 ft. long oovered the usual practice, and were sometimes spliced together. * *. * The ladders could be rolled. up and carried about on donkeys or mules. When swung over the side of a cliff and secured at the top, and when practicable at the bottom, they formed a very useful instrument in location and construction.—John Bogart, in Scribner’s Magazine. A WONDERFUL OLD MAN. One of the most notable of the wonderful old men of Germany i 3 Von Moltke. We gould learn a lesson or two from the Germans concerning the value of men. In the United States a man is shelved at seventy. When he haa reached that age in the G3rman Empire it is assumed that his faculties have reaohod their fullest development, and that his wisdom will then be of the highest value to the State. At all events he is lifted to power and importance and the reins of government lie in his hands to the very last. Although Von Moltke is nearly eighty-eight years of age, he i 3 as active as though but forty. Very often in Berlin I walked up to the War Office after breakfast, just for the pleasure of seeing the old Marshal go to work. There was always a little crowd around the door waiting for a glance at the famous commander, and when ho jumped out of his carriage and walked briskly into the big building that is known as the brjin of the army, because all the planning of that great organisation goes on there, he usually walked between two lines of people. Ho smiled with invariable good nature at the crowd, and occasionally stopped to kiss the ruddy cheek of a child if the mother pushed it forward for the honour. Then lie trotted into the office, and half an hour later could be seen hurrying along the corridor with his hands full of huge, official - looking papers, as hard at work as though he had not earned a rest by sb many years of toil. Like the sturdy old Emperor, Bismarok, Blumenthai and the rest of those wonderful old men, Von Moltke rises at seven in the morning, retires ea ly at night, sleeps on a hard camp bedstead,. < ats little and drinks lass. This military regimen undoubtedly has muoh to do with the amazing vigour they all snow. To speak of a man of eighty as old in Beriin is to cause a general sensation of surprise, pity, and indignation. In our judgment of men we are not so wise as the'subjects of William ll.—Blakely Hall, in the New York Sun.

THE EXTORTIONS OF RUSSIAN MONEY-LENDERS.

In January, 1880, says Stepnialc in * The Russian Peasantry,’ a large village of the Samara province, Soloturn, borrowed from a merchant of the name of Jaroff the name of £6OO, interest being paid in advance, and bought from Jnroff’s stock 15,000 puds of hay for the starving cattle. Repayment was to be made on October Ist, 1880, under the condition that £5 should be added for every day’s delay. When the time of payment arrived the peasants brought £2OO on account of their debt to Jaroff, who made not the slightest objection to waiting for the balance. For 11 months’ thereafter he kept quiet. But in September, 1881, he brought an action against the village for £ISOO. The magistrate before whom the case was tried, being evidently in a frame of mind not unlike that of Antonio’s judges, decided against the plaintiff. But Jaroff was not touch discouraged thereby. Confident in bis right, he appealed to a higher Court and won his case. And as this proceeding caused further delay, the claim, by accumulation of interest, had doubled, and Jaroff got judgment for £3OOO £n satisfaction of a debt of £6OO, of which £2OO had been repaid I In .he Novousen distriot of the same province the peasants of the village of Shendorf, being in great distress during the winter of 1880, borrowed from a clergyman named

K -, undertaking to pay him in eight months, £IOSO (i.e., 50 per cent, for eight months), on condition that in case of default they should give Mr K—, pending repayment 3500 dessiatines of their arable land at an annual rental of ten copeeks per dessiatine. As the peasants were unable to fulfil their engagement, Mr K— -■—received the 3500 dessiatines for 350 roubles, and forthwith relet the land to the peasants themselves at the normal rent, which in this province is about five roubles (103) per dessiatine. Thus ho obtained £1715 on a capital of £7OO, or interest at the rate of 25 per cent, a year.

RUSSIA’S PROGRESS. The Russians, says on English paper are moving rapidly on every line that makes for national progress. Scientific exploration is being carried on in many different directions ; laboratories and observatories are being founded, and railways opened at a wonderfully rapid rate. There are now 18,500 miles of railway open for traffic in Russia. Of this the State owns about one-fifth only. The Russians are independent of foreign nations for coal, iron, oil and mechanical skill, nnd the foreign element is being eliminated from Russian works, so that the progress of the empire is taking place on a wide basis. , r MR EDISON’S BABY AND HIS PHONOGRAPHAccording to the ''.Now York Herald Thomas A. Edison,^the inventor, has been interesting himself with his new baby and a phonograph at hiß home. When the baby crowed with glee, fibe/crow was registered ion the phonograph it got mad and yelled, its piercing screams were irrevocably recorded on the same' pjabhine. That phonograph is now a receptacle of every known noise peculiar to babj hood. It is Mr Edison’s., intention to take a reoqrdVf the strength of the baby’s lungs every three months. *1 will preserve the record,’, said, he, * until the child becomes a young.4ady. Then the phonograph can be operated for her benefit, and she can see for herself just what kind of a baby she was, and won’t have to take her mother’s and the nurse’s words for it.’ HOW TO BE HEALTHY AND WEALTHY. Don’t worry. * Seek peace and pursue it.’ Be cheerful. 1 A light heart lives long.’ « Work like a man, but don’t be worked to death.’ Never despair. ‘ Lost hope is a fatal dist ease.’ Spend 1e33 nervous energy each day than you make. Don’t hurry. • Too swift arrives as tardy as too s’ow.’ Sleep and rest abundantly. Sleep is nature’s beuedictioa. Avoid passion and excitement. A moment’s anger may be fatal. Associate with healthy people. Health is contagious as well ao disease. Don’t ovoroat. Don’t starve. ‘ Let your moderation be known to all men.’ Court the fresh air day and night. ‘ Ob, if you knew what was iu the air 1’ Think only healthful thoughts. *As a man tbinketh in his heart, so is he/ THE LARGEST ARTESIAN WELL IN THE WORLD. An acoount of the openiug of an artesian well at Baroaldiue, in the interior of Queensland, is given. The locality where the well has been sunk is far removed from any watercourse, and has frequently suffered severely from drought. The boring operations were commenced some time ago by Mr J. Longhead, managing 'direotor of the Federal Boring Association, and no sigh of water was met with till the 16th of December last, when the drill suddenly dropped 7ft. Within a few minutes tbe water ascended the bore, rose several feet into the air, and then fell away into the form of a large glass dome. Its temperature then was 120 deg. Fah., but soon after receded to 120 deg., and Mr Longhead anticipates that it will go down to. about 90 deg. Before the rods were removed the bore was continued to a total depth of 691 ft. 9in., so as to form a receptacle for any sediment, and prevent its interference with the course of supply. The rods were then lifted, and some additional oasing was put in to preserve the sides of the bore where any weakness had been revealed. A pipe 17ffc long was iusarted into the bore, aud carried up to the top, of the derrick, which had been u ! ed in connection with the boring plaut, aud over the top o£ this the stream of water, 12in. in diameter, has seemingly been allowed to run to waste. The pressure indicated that, had the piping been carried a much greater distance into the air, the stream would not have.- reached its natural level. It is supposed that tbe water is issuing at the rate of 490 gallons per minute, cr 576,000 per day. Mr Longhead is of opinion that the supply is Inexhaustible, and that its soft nature clearly indicates that it origtnally came from some snowy ranges.

The reports of the officers on the Afghan boundary say that the Indian soldiers are so much larger than the Russian Cossacks that it would take 160,000 of the latter to contend with 50,000 Indians.

Dr Mackenzie in an interview says that The Hague Tagblad misreported him. He also confirms the rumors that the present Emperor of Germany ha 3 a complaint that maybe regarded as dangerous. Quill toothpicks come from France, the largest factory, which turns out about 20,000,000 annually, being near Paris. It was originally erected for the manufacture of quill pens, but when these were superseded by the Bteel implement the quills became toothpicks, to which use they had long been applied by the dreamy bookkeeper. A new kind of glass has been invented in Sweden which is asserted to possess wonderful microscopic power. While the highest power of an old-fashioned microscopic lens reveals only the 1-400,000 th part of an inch, this new glass will enable us to distinguish 1-204,700,000 th part of an inch.

The first bank was established at Veniee about 1157, and the name of banco was given to it in Italian from the bench which the money-changers, or bankers, nsed to sit upon in their exchanges. The Bank of Genoa was established in 1345, that of Amsterdam in 1606, that of Hamburg in 1619, that of Rotterdam in 1635. The ‘ Enchanted Rook ’ in the San Saba Valley, Texas, rises two hundred feet from the plain, and can be seen for a distance of several miles. In the moonlight.it presents a striking resemblance to an immense castle with its many windows brilliantly lighted, this effect being caused by the reflection of the moon’s rays from numerous polished surfaces of quartz and pyrites of copper. The Comanches believe it to be one of the abodes of the Great Spirit, and regard it with much reverence.: i

Bishop Wilberforce rather plumed himself on remembering faces, and justly so. One day, however, he received a somewhat rude shook. A Hampshire lout (I do not know a a better word, says a writer in Temple Bar ) appeared in a country church among the can. didates. The Bishop felt sure he had confirmed him before, so he leant over and said very softly, *My boy, I think I have confirmed you before.’ The lad opened his great wide eyes and replied, *. You be a liar/ Wilberforce knew that this was only the ordinary way a clown knew how to deny what was not true. So he was told to kneel down, and ho was confirmed. Out of the aggregate total of 82,643 lunatics in England and Wales no fewer than 45,052 are females, which implies, to put it roughly, that lor every four male lunatics in the kingdom there are five female ones. Of this sadly large total more than eight-ninths are pauper lunatics, those under private treatment being less than 8000. Of criminal lunatics there are close upon seven hundred in Broadmore and elsewhere, and, so. far as these go, the preponderance of females does not hold good, for the male criminal lunatics outnumber the females by three to one.

There are 1,400,000,000 people living on the planet which we inhabit. And yet there is now and then a man who wonders what the rest will do when he dies. There are people in ‘ society ’ who honestly think that all the world closes ita eyes when they lie down to sleep. There are men who fear to act according to their own convictions because, perhaps, 10 persons in a crowd of 1,400,000,000 will laugh at them. Why, if a man could only realise every moment what a bustling, busy, fussy, important little atom he is in all this great ant hill of important, fussy little atoms, every day he would regard himself less, and think still less of the other molecules. We may fancy the cost of an apothecary’s bill (says Mr Everett in ‘ Dootors and Doctors’), when he sent, as he has'been known to send, under the direction of the old physician, • an ounce of pearl in a cordial emulsion/ Some of these learned gentlemen in caps and furs prescribed for their credulous but wealthy patients • peas prepared in the winter, or four or five ounces of peach kernels in the spring/ Sometimes, on the authority last quoted, they ordered a restorative electuary to be compounded *of parrots’ tongues and hawks’ livers.’ Under these circumstances ‘ you need not to Btare,’ adds our quaint informant, *if your bill (that is to say, the apothecary’s, to say nothing of the physician’s fee) amounted to pounds sterling.’