WAYSIDE GLEANINGS.

New Zealand Times, Volume LV, Issue 2043, 28 October 1893, Page 7 (Supplement)

WAYSIDE GLEANINGS.

There are at present more than 500 women in New York who ride bicycles. The United States blttebook -contains information about 180,000 government of- . flees, with salaries amounting to 890,000,000 ' a year. ■■ ■“ ; l *' ' ■ The balance of a watch gives five vibrations every second, 300 every minute, 18,000 every hour, 432,000 every day and 147,680,000 during the year. ; In regard to good roads, the United States is at present about where'Ehgland was 150 years ago. The movement for good roads In England began in 1770, , Wolves in Russia destroy annually upward of 800,000 head of domestic animals, valued at 8,000,000 rubles." Their number does not appreciably decrease. The violin upon which the wedding inarch was played at George Washington’s marriage has come into the possession of the Sunbury (Pa.) Musical society. A shield shaped cap of show and ice, having in some places a thickness of 6,000 feet, is spread over the interior of Greenland, In that section having a winter of six months the thickness is still more. * A bell that could be heard at a distance of 45,000 feet in water could be heard at a distance of only 655 feet in the open air. Dogs barking on the earth can be heard by balloonists sailing at a height of fourmlles. For very fine writing there is no instmi ment equal to a crow quill. It requires the 1 assistance of a microscope to make a proper pen out of such a quill, but when made it is of wonderful delicacy. The microscopic writing told of in books of literary curiosities was all done with a crow quill.

The lost books of Euclid' in Sanskrit are said to be now in-riSe library of the' Maharajah of Jeypoor.