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Oamaru Mail, Volume X, Issue 4205, 5 September 1888, Page 4

ITEMS.

The Bible baa been translated into mora than 300 different languagda and dialects. Next to our Qaeen the European, sovereign who baa reigned longest ia the Emperor-King of Austro- Hungary, who ascended bis throne in 1848. The pulse beats much higher at birth than in subsequent life ; in a newly born infant the beats namber aba at 140 a minute. Threo hundred and eighty pounds ia the average value of the houses in Great Britain. There are about eight hundred million Pagans in the world. The United States cover a rather less area than Europe. The moat common Christian name is Mary, which belongs to sixty-three persons in eyery thousand. There are 169 Scotch mountains which have the prefix " Ben." The National Debt arose in the year 1688, and then amounted to L 668,263. Iron and glas3 are the two best conductors of aoand. The number of sheep in Europe baa been for a length of time largely on the decrease. Compared with what ibey were a dozen years or so back, the»e animata in round nnmbera are 50,000,000 leas at the present time. The largest decrease seems to be in An3tria, which has fewer sheep by 16,000,000 than it once had. France baa also less sheep by 11.000,000, the decrease in Germany being 9,000,000, Eagland 6,000,000, and Spain 5,000.000, At one time there were some 224,000,000 sheep in Europe. Now the numbers are set down at about 195,000,000. So that in the comparatively new countries of' Australasia there is plenty of scope for the sheep industry, althnush there are now upwards of 86,000,000 sheep in those colonies. It may be stated that in the United States sbesp are also fast decreasing The numbers, which amounted in 1886 to 44,750,000, over 4,000,000 less than they had been the preceding four years, have been farther reduced owing to various causes. A few months ago, at the annual meeting of the Farmers* Alliance, Mr W. E. Baar read a paper on the very appropriate subject of "The Farmer's Share in his Produce," in which statiatic3 were qaoted. which most have opened the eyes * of those parties who have been styled " middlemen," called so inasmuch as they come in between the producer and the consumer, and, as a general rule, in the majority of cases taking the lion'k share of profits—necessary evils no doubt, bnt evils that cost a lot of money. Basing his calculations on the figures of Mr James Howard, Mr Bear showed that, on the supposition of the whole of the United Kingdom being regarded as one gigantic farm, the value of its produce would be L 216,139,496, But, aa a matter of f.tct, consumers hava tn p*y fnr this produce the sum of L 335,410,957; so that the enormoas balance of Lll9 270,461 went into the pockets of the middlemen. Fcom these fignres Mr Bear argued that too many people were trying to live off the Drodnce of the soil, that more co-operation was necessary in buying and selling, and that farmers should combine with the object of squeezing out the middlemen or tbey themselves would be squeez-'d oat. Indeed, the very existence of the farmers depended noon their obtaining a larger share of profit from their own produce than tbey got at present. Mr Bear affirmed that all the genuine farmers' co-operative associations established were doing fairly weU. In the course of a paper read before the Wellington Philosophical Institute recently, Mr James Park, F.G.S., said that after a careful consideration of the circumstances attending the surface indications in the Poverty Bay district, be was of opinion that payable oil would not be fonnd at the places where boring was at present being conducted, bis reasons being —(1) That the strata contain too small a proportion of carbonaciou3 matter to yield payable oil. (2) That the oil strata are too much ahattered to collect the oil and condense the volatile hycro carbona. He said the Awanni shale was always at or near the surface, and could not be regarded as the sonrce of the oil. The true source of the oil was the dark grey marly shales which only contain from 1 to 2 per cent of carbon. The Pennsylvania ■bales contain from 10 to 20 per cent of carbon. He thought a limited amount of payable oO might be found if a place canld be found where the atrata were leaa disturbed and cod toried, and more favorable for the accumulation of oil.