THE INQUIRY CLUB.

Otago Witness, Issue 1418, 25 January 1879, Page 23

THE INQUIRY CLUB.

Our young friends must not imagine that we have forgotten all about the Inquiry Club. Queries and answers have been coming in very slowly, so that the delay is owing to tho dilitoriness of our readers themselves. Twenty five queries and seventeen answers have already been published. We hope our boys and girls will now take a fresh start, and send in questions. Since the last lot appeared the following have been received : — QUERIES. 2Q. What is iho heaviest body known? Fred, North Taieri, 27. How many kinds of bees arc there in a hive ? Is it the old queen bee or a new one that leads a swarm ? John F., Oamaru. 28. What is the greatest natural heat ever observed ? Also, the lowest atmospheric temperature ever observed ? W. 0., Caversham. 29. What is an electric light ? J. X., Stoney Creek. 30. Do birds distinguish colours ? Jenny L., Dunedin. 31. What is the average growth and weight of boys and girls at different stages, between the firtt and twentieth year ? W. W., Port Chalmers. ANSWERS. 19, The chief ingredients in the different varieties of food which we eat arc phosphates, nitrates, and carbonates. The tirst make brain and bone, the second nerve and muscle, and the last fat. B. R., Shag Valley. 19. There are four kinds of food-stuffs, viz., proteids or nitrogenous matters, fatty bodies, starchy bodies, and minerals. There are certain stimulants in common usealcoholic drinks, spices of various kinds, and vegetable infusions containing various alcoloids as tea, coffee, &c. The proteids chiefly go to make up the active tissues of the body, the fatty and starchy bodies to keep up animal heat. Man being the most perfectly organised animal requires a combina tion of foods of all kinds. Uncle Ben, Dunedin. 20. Mr J. Norman Lockyer, a scientific man, says that "so far as our uncontested knowledge goes, the sun is chiefly made of metal, and on this account is strangely different from the oust of our earth, in which the metals are in a large minority." Professor Rudolph says: "It is a molten or white hot mass, equalling in bulk, 1,260,000 worlds like our own, having a surrounding ocean of gas on fire 50,000 miles deep, tongues of flame darting upward more than 50,000 miles, volcanic forces that hurl into the solar atmosphere luminous matter to the height of 160,000 miles, drawing to itself all the worlds belonging to our family of planets, and Lolding them all in their places ; attracting with such supeiior force the millions of solid stray masses that are wandering in tho fathomless abyss that they rush helplessly towards him, and fall into his fiery embrace. And thus he continues liis sublime and rest- \ less march through hia mighty orbit, having a period of more than 18,000,000 years." Uncle Ben, Dunedin. 21. The climate of Otago is not suitable for the growth of the tea plant, and if it were it would be impossible to compete with the Chinese in the production of tea. W . W., Green Island.