HERE AND THERE.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10042, 9 January 1909, Page 4

HERE AND THERE.

HIS PRIVATE ARMY. The Duke of Atholl, now 68 years old, I owner of 200,000 acres of land and-deer forests, is the only individual m Ureal Britain who has-the right to maintain, an anny of soldiers. He keeps up almost regal state at Blair Castle, in. Perthshire, and he has an army .3000 m® l * kilted, armed, regularly drilled and -ready for war at. any moment! The* late. Queen Victoria presented the army with , its colors. At.one time the ancestors or the duko were sovereigns of the Isle of Man, but gave up their kingly rights to , the British' Government' for a "consideration of £75,000. DEMAND FOR FALSE HAIR. ' THe deiiiand-fdr womeli's hair itl-Eorope Eas RSver bien greatfir than it is iidwi Men are going from town to in France, Germany, Switzerland, and Russia buying all they can get. The finest haiT in- Europe- is furnished by women in Brittany, for the Breton women have: luxuriant tresses, which never fail to bring a high price. Most of these women are poor, and are quite willing to sacri-: fice their hair, especially as they wear bonnets which completely cover their heads, and thus effectively, hide them when shorn. France, furnishes more black and brown hair than any other -country. The women of Germany and t the north .of Europe, as a rule, furnish fair and golden hair. Gray and white hair is always in demand, apd if of good qil&lity Commands a high price. . ODD THINGS HAPPEN IN INDIA. Some curious things occur at times on the East Indian railway, states a contemporary. The latest of these mysterious occurrences is. the entire loss of nine combined brake vans and third-class carriages—practically a complete train. What has. become of them no one knows, ' nor do the authorities of the line under reference, for they were advertising the disappearance in a 'recent issue of their Weekly Gazette, and . asking statioiimasters to make a. careful search in sidiflgs, at large stations, and on branch lines with a view to finding out if the" errant vehicles have decided to take a rest and hidden themselves in any of these places. PICTURE POSTCARD ETIQUETTE. Picture postcards are being used in Europe for all kinds of announcements. Newly married- couples pose in" wedding costumes for card pictures, which are sent to friends; proprietors of inns and restaurants use them for advertising, purposes; the new baby is introduced to distant friends and relatives by means of the card, and engaged couples make use of the same medium to show their smiling faces to interested persons at a distance. The" latest thing in that line is a card from Germany with the picture of a wreath and flower covered coffin, under which a member of the bereaved family wrote: "So ruhte unser Seliger"—"Thus rested our sainted one." SUPERSTITIOUS RHODES. In his recently published book of travel, Mr A. K. Colquhoun has set down some reminiscences of Cecil Rhodes, whom he knew to have been afraid of ghosts: "Atone time he shared a house in Adderley street, Cape Town, with two other men, and that house was haunted. The ghostly visitant tramped about at night, and so powerfully did he affect the nerves of his fellow lodgers that neither Rhodes nor the other two would ever sleep alone in the house! My informant has himself occupied the house, and, without knowing its reputation, was disturbed by footsteps in the night. He complained to Rhodes next morning, and learned the fact that the empire builder was not proof against superstition. The mystery was never solved." The traveller describes Rhodes as the worst dressed man he had ever seen. "His old felt hat was battered and dirty, his trousers bagged at the knees, and his coats at the pockets." He wa6 "a firm believer in the power of the dollar, and had no false shame about bis methods. I remember once he said, speaking of a man who was notoriously upright. 'Of course, vou can't go and plank down a bag of dollars in front of him; he .would kick you out—but there are -ways!'"

AN EXPLORER'S-TRIALS. Dr Sven Hediri, the famous traveller and explorer, who has just returned to civilisation after two years in Tibet, had [ some terrible experiences during a former journey through that region of the world. He has told how, owing to the high altitude at which he and his party travelled, that to unbutton one's coat meant acute pain and tension to an overwrought heart, which literally was at a point of breaking. His only safety lay in the fact that he never left the saddle for a single moment from morning till evening. Had he done so his heart Would have given way. At one time they were nine days without water, and when at last he saw a small pool Dr Hedin drank five pints -without stopping.

AIRSHIPS IN 1809. To Nicholson Journal for 1809 Sir George Cayley contributed an; enthusiastic prophecy of the conquest of the air. He declared, "We shall be able to transport ourselves and our families, and their goods and chattels, more securely by air than by water, and with a velocity of from 20 to 100 miles an hour." He 6aw that a motor was essential to the solution of the problem. He suggested the steam engine and also a kind of gas engine worked "by the inflammation of spirits of tar." He went on to say that a much cheaper engine might be produced by a gaslight apparatus, and by" firing the inflammable air generated, with a due portion of common air, under a piston. In the rest of his paper he discussed the flight of birds, and applied his results to the construction of heavier-t-han : air flying ships. Sir George's Enthusiasm ihad been aroused by the successes of "Degen, a watchmaker of Basle, who had flown short distances in a large hall. BRITISH MUSEUM EXTENSIONS. The founding of the British Museum dates back to 1753, when an Act of Parliament was passed tor provide' accommodation for the collections of _ Sir Hans Sloaae and Sit "Robert Cotton. Montagu House wa6 acquired for the purpose in 1754. In . 1816 'additions were made ; to-accommodate the famous Elgin marbles;' and-by 1845 Montagu House had been "replaced by the building designed by Smirke. In 1880 the natural history department wa6 transferred to_j>outh Kensington, ..and . in .1695 a plot totalling thirteen acres was " acquired around the Museum from the Duke of Bedford. Very, 6low progress has been made, however, in meeting the obvious danger from fire which no. one has been, able to forget since a narrow escape of some fifteen years ago. The Museum was then closely built round with rows of houses, without even a passage for fire engines. In 1906 a forward movement began, and the. rows of houses in Montaguplace were cleared away. On this block an addition is now to .be- that will make tihe Museum'haTf ,as large again. The cost will be about" £200,000. This new accommodation has* long -been badly needed." There' iire over 2,000,000 volumes of printed books in the Museum, and the collection grows at the rate ,of some 50,C00 a year. , . GAS- FROM CORK.. ~ ... In parts of Spain,;: Where the cork-oak 'grows freely, the peasants light their houses by home-madte gas, (made from cork bark. . Ac«Jordmg, -to : ;I»: Lddiah-, who writes in The II lumin ati ng ~Engi neer : (Naw York), this is done by filiimg a large irota kettle: With: refuse bark," closing the tight-fitting lid', and placing itho kettle On the hob by the open fire. He goes on: "The spout is turned toward imd alinoet over the fire, andi after dire ;-heating, the volatile' gas aid smoke .began to emerge from the small hole ati the end of the spout; and) inflames. above the wood-fire. 'From time . to time .it., goes out—more smoke —jumps into flame aigaoin; and io jm .tilT exhaustion. Then tie kettle is removed,' and another (which has been 'heating. up' . meantime- in: immediate' proximity) takes its place. Thus the cork-gas-lightang igoes oa till .the family''go to bed. . But. there is a dtonble object in thos carbonising the cork-refuse. It is not alome to secure lighting: in the morning, the kettles are emptied of their charred remains, which ultimately finds its way into world-commerce as 'Spanish- black'— one of the. in tensest black-browns known among pigments. Essayed an a regular gas-retort scale, cork-gas yields a good .flame; the odor is not disagreeable; and for a time the opera-'house in- oro of -the continental cities was entirely lighted by cork-refuse gas. But-it proved' a failure—because the cork-biack-by-product (which had been counted upon to 'show a profit') now necessarily began;to; show up in such quantities that the market oonldnot ab00Tb it at any prict. This ended the bis-

Tory of coTk-gas-lightiag on a commercialscale m old Hispama, but its use is still continued for home-made gas among the poverty stricken farmer-peasants of the southern CSid land "

THE MAXIM NOISELESS RIFLE.

'A tost, made" August 24 ftt th« Spring-, field Armory, of the noiseless nils invented by Hudson Maxim, 'is described in Machinery (N3w York). Says this paper: "The test demonstrated .'that the > report -of a service -'army rifle' was so "ty the servioe as to be inaudible at a distance of 150 feet from the pereon firing. The invention is 'of a' nature similar to the muffler" of agas-etigine. Its fsaential p&rta" are'a valve" closes the bor* of the guil Immediately after the projectile has passed the valve. This dloslire Of the valve prevents' tHe su&fa esgahaofl of tl» gaisesf being emitted slowly. . TBS: that ;tKe xsharacteristic jeport of a rifle is re&iiCia loudness, it being judged by the dfficiftte who were present that the efficiency of the apparatus was about 74 per cent. In the "Teport of the test it is. stated) that upon firing, the- report was like the snapping of one's fingers accompanied by a slight hissing as the gaees escaped. The sound of the hammer striking; the firingpin was much sharper than the" report of the pdeoe. The invention appears to be entirely practicable and it is thought thatit will work a revolution in warfare. The firing-line of an army equipped with noise less and smokeless rifles will be very bard to locate, as there will be neither noise fiOf E&ifikis -£e guidS the observer as_ to the position of the enemy. A Sa-riig&POUs feature of the new weapon is that it lends itself admirably to the cowardly assassin. With a noiselessi gun. it will be possible to shoot down a man in the street without alarming the police. On the other hand, as a game gun the new rifle will be highly prized, it being possible with it to- shoot an animal without scaring the remainder of the herd ; but eveii that has its drawback, as it will- tend to' make the business of pot-hunting successful."