UNKNOWN.

Otago Witness, Issue 1387, 29 June 1878, Page 5

UNKNOWN.

Edison, who invented the phonograph, now 31, is self-educated. First a newsboy, then a compositor. He saved the life of a lelegraph operator, who repaid him by teaching him telegraphy. Ho has patents for 112 inventions. <i t the end of April last, the farmers of California were beginning to prepare for the harvest. The crops were in a highly promising condition. The Abbe Debaize haa left France, with nine missionaries from Algiers, for Zanzibar, to establish Catholic Missions in the interior of Africa. He expects to be gone three years. Fifteen ships and twelve steamers were engaged at Bombay to transport troops to Malta. Native troops were volunteering. The Ballarat Juvenile Industrial Exhibition was a great financial success. After paying all expenses, there will be a balance of £1.250. There are two woollen mills at Ballarat, Victoria. The s; unuy Corner Mill makes tweeds, blankets, shawls, &c. ; and the Soldiers' Hill Mill tweeds only or mainly. The principal feature of the bill before the American Congress to restrict Chinese immigration is a capitation tax of $100 for every Chinaman landed. "Matzos," the Jewish Passover cakes, which were formerly made by hand, are now made by machinery in America, a change which would astonish the descendants of Abraham iv the old world. England ha 3 decided to have a great show next year. It will be an agricultural exhibition. The expense is estimated at £30,000. The ceremony of tho betrothal of the Duke of Connau»ht to Princess Louise, third daughter of Prince Frederick Charles, of Prussia, was to have taken place at Darmstadt on the 9th of May. The Baptists have in Indiana 30 associations, 557 churches, 418 ordained ministers, and 41, 785 members. There were 2716 baptisms last year. Dr Carver, the famous glass - ballshooter, will proceed from Europe to Africa, to shoot wild animals, returning by way of Australia and California. There are more than 150 named varieties of wheat, but in many cases the distinctions between them are very slight. One of the reigning attractions in Paris at present is an artist named Andre Gauthier, who paints a portrait in six minutes, and two different pictures simultaneously, one with each hand. At the Paris Exhibition, during the first two months no gratuitous days will be allowed ; in the next two months, admission half a franc ; and last two months the Sunday will be free. Dr Carver and Captain Bogardus have challenged the world to a competition with rifle or shot-gun, issuing their challenges in multiform Waya. The Catholic Church spends $600,000 a year among the free men of the South, and has 150,000 of them in her schools. The Paris Exhibition building was finished on the opening day, Ist May. Many of the exhibitors, however, were behind hand. The English, American, Swiss, and Dutch sections were most advanced. The best description ever written, of a circular stair-case is by Mdme. George Sand ; and the best account of a steeplechase is by Misa Louisa de la Ram<s (Ouida). The Great Metropolitan Stakes Handicap, at Epsom, on the Ist of May, was won by the Duke of Westminster's filly Mida. The Cologne Gazette reports that several Prussian bishops have memorialised the Pope that an understanding with Prussia is impossible. Henri Rochefnrfc, the Communist, who escaped from New Caledonia, was married, ab Geneva, on the 20fch April, to Mile. Strebinger, a Swiss lady. Fifteen hundred clergymen of the Church of England have signed a protest against war with Russia. Lafcost accounts fmm America state that Communists in Chicago were drilling and arming with breech-loading rifles. There are 8000 of thorn in the city. Dr. Carver offers to wager $3000 that he can break 5000 glass balls thrown in the air in less than 500 minutes. Mr Edison expects to speak a piece through his aerophone, at the French Exposition, which shall be heard by all Paris at one and the same time. Tho trial of Beecher upon the action brought against him by Theodore Tiltonto recover $50,000 is held to be still in abeyance, as the jury failed to agree. Professor Huxley was born in 1825. His father was a public school teacher at Baling, Middlesex, and it was there that the future author of "Man's Place in Nature " received his earliest instruction. There have been built by the Methodist Church in America in the past ten years 4678 new churches, at a cost of $30, 000, 000. The Cleopatra Needle case haa been decided, the snlvora having beon awarded £5000 an.4 costs. Tho value of the monolith was assessed at £25,000. A society has been formed in London called the Sunday Social Union, to provide tho means of spending Sunday evenings in an intellectual and social manner. The gatherings aro to take the shape of conversaziones.. The facility with which people aro killed in Paris 'is quite remarkable. It ia esti** mnhA that between ihc, Rue Montmartro and the Madeleine eight persons aro run over every day. Lord Leitrim had no relatives savu a sister and his nephew and successor, Hon. Robert Clements.

We are told that Stanley, when sketching in the wilds of Africa, used the focussing glass of his camei a when dry plates were no longer available for the purpose of fixing the perspective of his pictures. Teachers expect a child of five to fill with her voice a room 50 feet square, and the consequence is that the sweet home voice is change 1 into the school scream. Lest our readers sh"uld not understand the nature of the phonograph, we would explain that it is a machino through which the vibrations of the air are impressed upon tin-foil. The written sounds can then bo re-converted into audible speech. Edison, who invented the phonograph, is also the inventor of the aerophone, which not only registers sound, but multiplies its force, rendering the repetition of the human voice distinctly audible for miles. "Evolution," " Transcendentalism," and " Orthodoxy," are the titles of the Uev. Joa. Cook's three series of lectures. Re grants the main points of the doctrine of Evolution, but he insists on looking at man's spiritual side. M. Itenan, author of the "Life of Jesus," has written a grand philosophical drama, to be performed during the Paris Exhibition, and Gustave Dors' has completed an enormous vase for exhibition, which is full of originality. The Sunday edition of the New York Herald now contains twenty pages of six columns each. The composition on one issue varies very little from one million ems. Miss Graham ia a belle in London, who receives from the British Government a pension, in consequence of having been wounded, when an infant, at Lucknow, during the mutiny. Almost all the principal English and American morning papers are printed from steveotpye plate 3. Papers which circulated largely had to be set up twice, before an expeditious method of stereotyping was discovered. In Edison's eerophone, when the tympanum is spoken against, its vibration, 1 instead of pricking a sheet of tin-foil, opens and closeo a valve in a steam pipe, and thus gives to the whistle the articulations of the human voice. Queen Victoria haa sent the crown diamonds to the French Exposition. The Koh-i-noor diamond is in the casket, and the total value is 42,000 000 francs. The French Ambassador ab Berlin has been instructed to use all possible efforfcß to induce the Emperor of Germany and Prince Bismarck to visit tho Paris Exposition. The marriages between the Royal houses of Europe would seem to insure kindly political relations between the various Powers ; but such connections rarely make any difference if " interests '' are supposed to be jeopardized. The Republicans have done moro business work for popular education in Francs within the last two years than haa been effected since the Revolution. Two Japanese mediums, at the Paris Exhibition, are to walk with naked feefe over the edges of swords ground to the keenness of a razor, and also over a bed of live coals. Maud Branscombe, the actress, haa had 42,000 of her photographs sold during the past year. Marie Koze, next in public favour, pictorially, numbers up to 18.000. The new railway brake, worked by compressed air, gives admirable results in Paris. Some trains on the circular railway are supplied with it. . Yellow fever ia an epidemic at Rio Janeiro. Sixty to seventy deaths have beon occurring daily among the shipping, and from 200 to 300 on shore. , The questions of the invasion of India and privateering have been well threshed and winnowed, but have been found not to contain even the two grains of wheat 'in the bushel of chaff. It is estimated that the total acreage now sown to wheat throughout the North.weatern States of America exceeds that of any preceding year to the extent of about 30 per cent. The first wool from tho Diamantina country arrived at Townaville, Queensland, on the 30th April. It took exactly four months for the teams to travel from. Oondooroo to Townsville. The light obtained from the new electric candle is as white and as steady a» that of the sun, with which it is probably identical. Professor Blakie's "Natural History of Atheism," just published, ia said to bo a work full of succulent matter, readable, learned, free freui pedantry, and fresh in style. Mr George Francis Traiu, the crazy lecturer, who was once U. S. Consul at Melbourne, has some idea of visiting Australia on a lecturing .tour. It is said that Mra E. Hardinge-Brit-ten's oration, at the Opera House, Malbourne, upon the Martyrs of Santiago, was a most powerful and thrilling piece of oratory. Mesßva Ruttou and Pons, of London, have- at t.he Paris Exhibition, on their stand, which is 95 feet in length, more than 2000 models from naturo of British plants and roots. William Calcraffc, tho English veteran executioner, is a mild, inoffensive old man, fond of flowers, and a rearer of rabbits. He is venerable in appearance, and grows a handsome white beard. There is a keen competition between two line? of steamers running from Glasgow to Dublin, and Ihe fares have been reduced to 2a. 6d. for each journey. The Rev. Dr. Somerville delivered his j lecture, " The Bible for the World," before a large audience, in the Town Hall, Hobart Town, on the 14th June.