MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 1974, 19 September 1889, Page 37

MULTUM IN PARVO.

__Cbautauqua Lake ia said to bs the highest navigable water in the United States, Jet HOOffc above the sea level and 700 ft Higher than Lake Erie. __For a man to do a good deed on his (jeafchbed is clear proof of his not being in his jjgbt mmd — so think the relatives of the Jate jjarl of Caithness. The Earl left by will to be divided among the Canisbay crofters, and the will is now disputed. .-Labour i 3 the secret of a healthy life, 6lK l it has been well said thac no constitutions are so morbid as those by which no wor k is done. Overwork is, no doubt, one of the great evils of our day ; but very much of the harm thus caused is due to the mechanical monotony o£ the toil, which exhausts the body and leaves no leisure for mental exertion.— Illustrated London News. _-Man is the universal animal. It is estimated that there is 1,250,000,000 of him on the globe. The sheep rank next with 500,000,000; 300,000,000 cattle; 100,000,000 hogs (the four-footed variety), and 60,000,000 horses continue the list. —A red-green blind person sees only two colours on the spectrum ; all the colours on the side of the red (warm colours) are confused together, and all on the side of the violet (cold colours), but the warm and the cold are never confused. Yellow is the one colour which is always distinguishable. It js a curious fact that colour blindness is often associated with a corresponding inability to distinguish musical sounds.

—A man was put in the stocks as late at 1860. In that year a Sunday gambler was kept in them for six hours at Stanningley. —A Mr Bolton in recent visits to Egypt and Mount Sinai measured the maximum angle at which dry sand will lie at rest, and found it to be from 31deg to 32deg ; higher than this it will move down the slope. This does not accord with the well-known formula in text books.

— Ceylon is again about to astonish the world with an extraordinary stone, but this time it is a sapphire. It was found by a poor digger in a gem pit, in which he was trying his luck. It was immediately purchased from him for £600, and was straightway sold in Colombo for £1200. By the time it reaches Bond street its value will probably have risen to £3000.

—A curious change comes over a man when he has caught his first fish, or when he has brought down his first grouse. The instinct of the chase, the barbaric love of sport that is latent in all men, although in some it is never developed, has been aroused ; and henceforth he thinks less and less of the pain

his sport causes, until at length he forgets it altogether. — Spectator.

— No less than 2,250,000 acres in Aberdeen, Argyle, Oroaiart}, Inverness, Ross, and Sutherland have been taken from man and given to the deer. The deer forest of Mr Arthur Balfonr covers 60,080 acres, from which he derives a rental of £2500 a year. These facts spe tk for themselves.

— Although a few American fortunes surpass those of any other country, neither the United States nor, it is needless to say, any Continental nation can compare with the prodigious wealth of England. France in particular suffers from the disadvantage of the fact that her large fortunes, such as they are, concentrate themEelves upon Paris, whereas in England the greatest wealth finds a permanent scope of enjoyment in rural life and interests.

— The banks of the United Kingdom, numbering 380, have deposited with them 900 millions sterling belonging to their customers, and it is calculated that a quarter of this vast amount ;will never be claimed. Numbers of persons deposit money without any intimation of the-fact to their friends and then disappear frbrh the scene. A large revenue is derived from notes burned, lost at sea, or otherwise destroyed.

—The sole and single condition on which Russia and England could and might very well come to an understanding, which hardly any possible Continental coalition could gainsay or dissolve, is that Russia should keep her hands from picking and stealing in future, should acknowledge frankly that the North of Asia is her sphere, the South ours, and should set herself to cultivate her already pretty extensive garden, instead of trying to remove her neighbours' landmarks.

— At the last meeting of the King's Daughters in New York City, it waa found that the order numbered about 100,000 members, most of whom are young ladies devoting their time to charity and reform.

—The 26 letters of the alphabet may be transposed 620, ÜB, 401,733,239,439,360,000 times. All the inhabitants of the globe, on a rough calculation, could not, in a 1000 millions of years, write out all the transpositions of the 26 letters, even supposing that each wrote 40 pages daily, each of which pages contained 40 different transpositions of the letters.

-—Thirteen centuries have added 2in to the circumference and 3£ cubic inches in the capacity of the Caucasian skull. The brain has developed in the parts presiding over the moral and intellectual , functions growing higher and longer, without increase of the lower portions, which give breadth to the head, and in which the selfish propensities are centred.

—"England and America," says the Presbyterian, "stand together in giving a grand testimony to the sacred ness of the Saobath day. They refuse to exhibit their waves in the great Parisian Exhibition on Sunday. The people of Paris, of course, mutter and complain. But the standard has been lifted up, and there are no signs that it will be lowered because the pleasure-lopinpr and irreligious crowd of sightseers wish God's laws to be disregarded."

— It is not only in material results that the makers of ancient civilisation can stand comparison with the most advanced spirits in modern development. The greater part of Europe still lives under the jurisprudence laboriously and scientifically put together by the old Roman lawyers ; our scarcely completed reaction against the feudal system is bit a return to the point at which we parted company with the ancient world.— St. James' Gazette.

—Mrs Henry Nash has been elected churchwarden for the current year at Sotwell, a small village about a mile and a-half from Wallingford, Berkshire.

—London has 70dO miles of streets—and If you walked them at the rate of 20 miles a day you would have to walk almost a year — ■ and more than a year by nearly 60 days if you should rest on Sundays. And if you were a thirsty sort of a traveller, and couldn't pass a publio house, don't be alarmed — the 7000 miles have 75 miles of public houses ; so you need not think of thirst.

— The Isaac Church at St. Petersburg is one of the most costly and beautiful church edifices in the world. Its foundations are said to have cost 4,000,000d01, and its shrine cost 1,000,000d01. Its huge dome is thickly covered with gold. It is simple and grand ; not one of the elaborately ornamented churches of Europe.

— The postal tubes between Dover and Calais (two in number) will be a yard each in diameter, and the letters, &c, will be conveyed by a little railway with cars capable of carrying 4501b in weight. No parcel of greater weight than this will be taken, and the cost is estimated at the modest figure of £1,000,000.

— Negroes increase far more rapidly than do whites, and thus there is no small reason to fear that the whole of the Southern States may practically fall into the hands of a halfeducated coloured population. To realise what this means, we must remember that one of the most appalling things about the condition of Hayti is the fact that men and women belonging to the educated classes, and possessed of a fairly thick veneer of cultivation, indulge in secret in the most hideous practices of barbarism. — Spectator.

— The birth-rate in a community is commonly represented by the ratio of births-to population, so many per thousand. The basis is, as a rule, adequate for practical purposes, and tables so consturcted display throughout Europe generally a tendency in the birth-rate to decline. In the United Kingdom the decline has been fairly regular and continuous for some years past, the decline amounting to almost three per 1000 in seven years.

—A legacy of £100,000 was recently left by a New York lady for the purpose of establishing a fund to enable poor families to have a short summer outing free of expense. A Fresh Air Fund has existed for some years in various cities of the United States, but for the benefit of children only. In Paris, also, and in several other cities on the Continent associations have been formed to give the children of the slums a taste of the joys of country life.

— No portion of the Upper Sahara is less than 1300 ft high. Most of the lower reaches from 200 ft to 300 ft. The two spots below sea level consist of the beds of ancient lakes, now much shrunk by evaporation, owing to the present rainless condition of the country ; the soil around these is deep in gypsum, and the water itself is considerably salter than the sea.

— Bulgaria is at present the scene of a very rare ornithological phenomenon. Simultaneously with enormous swarms of locusts, a very remarkable bird has invaded the valley of Sofia. Its scientific name is Pastor roseus. Its home is in the warm regions of the Caucasus. The appearance of these birds has given rise to all sorts of superstitious interpretations among the people, for 12 years ago, immediately before the Russo-Turkish war, a large number of them made their appearance at Sofia and in the environs of Pirot. Finding abundant food in the migratory locusts, they have begun to build their nests.

— One of th« scientific uses of the Eiffel Tower will be to weigh the moon. The method by which this rather startling purpose is to be accomplished is explained, along with the other marvellous capacities of that mammoth aspiration of iron, by Canaille Flaramarion, president of the French Astronomical Society, in the July number of the " Cosmopolitan," with a number of striking illustrations.

— The success of the parcels post in England is demonstrated by the fact that the number of parcels carried has .increased from 1,000,000 the first year to 40,000,000 last year.

—It is stated that hereafter the boats to be carried by Atlantic steamers instead of being made of wood will be made of steel in one piece. Wooden boats rot and are easily crushed. The new boats will be built by maoninery especially made for rolling them out in all sizes in a single plate.

— The dnce noted Russian sculptor. Theodore Kamensky is a humble inn-keeper in Clearwater, Fla. At one time a favourite of the Czar, he was afterward exiled, and is now living in poverty under a fictitious name.

— The King of Siam was recently present at the cremation of Phra Tama Saranlt, and himself lighted the pyre. A great many European ladies and gentlemen also attended in order to show their respect to the deceased.

—There are more than 30,000 British sabjeots permanently residing in France.

— Hypnotism is now frequently employed at the Hotel Dieu Hospital in Paris to facilitate surgical operations. One woman, hypnotised against her will, saying that she preferred chloroform, chatted gaily during a long and dangerous operation.

f— It is said that a powerful American syndicate is about to be formed for the purpose of building railroads in Siberia. Besides a large subsidy, the Government will give 4,000,000 roubles yearly for the transportation of mails and convicts,

— There is one bar«room in New York the decoration and furniture of which' cost £40,000. There are scores of them that are fitted up at an expense of over £10,000 each.

— The.craze for old Gremcnas in England at the present time threatens to xival the notorious speculative craze for Dutch bulbs. The possessor of a renowned fiddle it Scotland intimates that he is prepared to part with his violjn for the trifle of £8000.

— A medal is to be struck to commemorate* the 700 th anniversary of the mayoralty of London,