MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 1913, 9 October 1890, Page 37

MULTUM IN PARVO.

— In France a method of ventilating rail- ■ way carriages without dust entering the car is now operated. The faster the train goes the better tne apparatus works. The air is made to pass through water, which cools it and relieves it from dust. It, then goes through another filter before entering the car. —Cyclones may move 3000 or 4000 miles, have a diameter of 800 or 1000 miles, and last a day or two, while tornadoes seldom move farther than 50 or 60 miles, have a diameter of over half a mile, or continue more than two hours. The whirling motion in the tornado is of far greater depth and velocity than in the cyclone, and generally does more damage. — Qval, a Norwegian, who arrived in America a poor boy, obtained work at 30dol a month, and invested his savings in real estate, leaveß 1,000,000d0l to establish at Madison, Wis., a hospital for persons crippled and deformed from birth. — Ancient Greece was about equal in size to Scotland, and it had as many miles of sea coast as Spain and Portugal, though its superficial area is only one-tenth of that of the Iberian Peninsula. — Spectator. — The population of Ireland decreases by over 60,000 a year. —There exist to this day several rare medals which bear the head of Napoleon and purport to have 'been struck at London in the year 1803, but which were really prepared by the Paris Mint in anticipation of the conquest of England. — A type-writer manufacturer says that there are 75,000 women in the United States who make a living by running the machines. — An observer hazards the statement that not more than 10 per cent, of New York women are blondes. "Go anywhere where pretty girls congregate, and you meet tall, striking-looking figures, with dark hair and big dark eyes." — Seventy-nine persons in Great Britain pay tax on incomes exceeding £50,000 per annum. The total aggregate amount of incomes thus assessed exceeds £8,000,000. — White pine boards are said to be now obtained by reducing small trees and limbs of clear wood to pulp and pressing them in moulds of any desired size. —Cameron, the English African explorer, favours the introduction of Chinese and Indian planters into Africa, particularly the former. — London Board School teachers do not appear to be underpaid. Out of a total of 355 masters, 127 receive a salary of £300 and upwards, and 274 out of a total of 683 mistresses receive £200 a year and upwards. — It is said that an invention by which passengers may be transferred from railroad stations to trains going at full rate of speed is shortly to be tried in America. — Dr Starr, of London, says that it is impossible to draw any conclusion from the size or shape of the head as to the extent or surface of the brain, and so as to mental capacity. "For a little brain with many deep folds may really, when spread out, have a larger surface than a large brain with few shallow folds." — The total yield of petroleum in the world is annually 10,000,000,0001b, and half of this is produced in the United States. — It is stated that a system of electric homeopathy has been used with some success in India to cure leprosy. — According to the recent census of Switzerland, the republic contains 1,700,000 Protestants, 1,200,000 Catholics, 8300 Jews, and 10,700 adherents of no religion. — A luminous projectile to be fired from a gun is the idea of a Bussian officer. He claims great usefulness for discovering the movements of hostile vessels in a contest at night. — In the process of photographing colours, lately discovered, the photographs are taken on glass and paper, and the tints range from a deep red, through yellow, to bright blue, but green is absent in all the positives. Very long exposure is required. — Twenty-four carat gold is all gold ; 22 carat gold has 22 parts of gold, one of silver, and one of copper ; 18 carat gold has 18 parts of gold and three each of silver and copper ; 12 carat gold is half gold, and has three and a-half parts of silver and eight and a-half of copper. — It is stated that a Bohemian has discovered a combination of chemicals by the use of which the hardest stones can be dissolved and moulded into any shape, the " cast being as hard as flint, translucent, and capable of taking on a brilliant lustre." — There are at least 20 members of the House of Commons who have made their fortunes out of coal. Two began life as working colliers, one as a coal dealer, and the remaining 17 have waxed rich by becoming the freeholders of land, beneath which valuable coalfields were afterwards found. — At one time women threatened to become formidable rivals to the men as printers, but the invention of tjpe- writing has opened to them a more congenial occupation, and the number of female typesetters is said to be decreasing. — Tt has not been many years since water farming was added to the possibilities of " agriculture " in Indiana. It began as a diversion. It has become a business. As much money can be made off an acre of water as off an acre of land, including welllocated fish and frog ponds on the one hand, and ordinary farming land on the other. — In the course of his recent excavations in the Troad, Dr Schliemann discovered the ruins of a theatre capable of holding about 200 persons, which is proved by an inscription to have been constructed in the time of Tiberius. Two marble statues, representing goddesses, were also found. — A new albuminous poison 100 times the power of strychnine has been described by Professor Kobert. It is extracted from the seeds of Abrus precatoria, the poisonous principals causing death by coagulation of the blood corpuscles. — A gallant soldier was once heard to say that his only measure of courage was this : 11 Upon the first fiie I immediately look upon myself as a dead man ; I then fight the remainder of the day as regardless of danger as a dead man should be. All my limbs that I oarry out of the field I regard as so much gained, or a* so muoh saved out of the fire."

— Though much has been done for them by increasing wages and lessening the hours of labour and paying more attention to sanitation, still the habits and mode of living of our town population fully account for their degeneracy. They marry while in their teens, and rear their squalid children on tea. The women especially drench themselves with tea, to the ruia of their nerves and digestion. — St. James' Gazette. — The computed wealth of the coloured people in the United States is 263,000,000d01, or 200dol for every negro family. — An interesting experiment is sometimes tried with dry high-pressure steam issuing at a jet, which is rather astonishing. If a common match head is held in the invisible portion of the steam jet, close to the nozzle, it at once lights, and the fact seems convincing as to complete dryness, as the faintest moisture would prevent ignition oven at the highest temperature. — An inmate of a Liverpool workhouse, a watchmaker by trade, who is suffering from bad eyesight, has fashioned a wonderful clock out of pins, boot-rivets, buttons, knitting needles, and iron bedlaths. It took three years to complete. — A leading Japanese newspaper, the Hochi Shimbun, declares that Christianity is slowly but steadily making progress in Japan, never retrogading for an instant. The future of Buddhism, it says, is indeed in peril. — The apple trade of Nova Scotia is increasing enormously. Last year 300,000 barrels were exported, and it is expected that this year the export will exceed 400,000 barrels. — In Zululand, when the moon is at the full, objects are distinctly visible at as great a distance as seven miles ; by starlight only one can see to read print with ease. — Along the valley of the Nile, from Alexandria to the ilrst cataract, there are 70 mission stations and 70 Sunday schools, numbering 4017 scholars, while the boarding and day schools have orer 5000 pupils. — The total value of the annual exports of Africa is estimated at the enormous sum of £75,000,000. Of this amount Great Britain and France control £50,000,000 annually. — At this moment, a quarter of a century since the capture of Tashkend, the Russian possessions in Central Asia already extend over an acreage of 20,000 square miles, rich in fertile oases, and counting a population of about 3,000,000 inhabitants. — Dr Charcor, the eminent scientist at the head of the Saltpetriere Hospital, Paris, has finished a long series of experiments in hypnotism, and gives it as his opinion that not more than 1 person in 100,000 is subject to the influence. — There is an interesting scheme for establishing a floating hotel at Hongkong. The vessel is to have three decks, the lower being arranged for dining, billiard, smoking, and card rooms. The main deck will contain a drawing room, 21 bedrooms, each with a full-sized bath and dressing room, while the upper or spar deck has been arranged as a promenade. — Over 700 people were killed by a simoon which recently swept over Muscat, in Arabia. This town is reputed to be one of the hottest places in the world, the thermometer seldom recording less than 90deg in the shade. — Shway Ban is the first Burmese boy who has won a prize in an English school. He won a prize for Latin, and another for geography. — A paper of Finland mentions a carious stone that serves as a barometer in the northern part of that country. It is called 11 Ilmakiur," and turns black or dark grey when foul weather is approaching, becoming almost white in fine weather. — Another cheap and simple fuel discovery is announced in Germany, which possesses advantages that will tend to bring it into universal use. The process which has been patented at Munich, Bavaria, converts turf into a firm and highly valuable combustible material resembling anthraoite coal, and burning without smoke or odour. Through a successful combination of several oft-tried processes the cost of production has been brought down to a point that will admit of a patent turf entering into competition with coal. — A chiropodist will henceforth be attached to every German regiment. This may seem rather odd, but keeping soldiers' feet in order is one of the most important elements of successful war. —It may be a surprise to many to learn that statistics prove the sea to be safer to live on than land. The death rate of sailors in the British merchant marine is under 12 per 1000 ; the loss of life by shipwreck is about a quarter of this ; in fast, there are more lives lost among miners from accident than among sailors, and many more among railway employes., — A missionary in Borneo is confronted with a knotty problem. A native whom he recently converted to Christianity kept on indulging in the practice of head-hunting, his victims being a tribe of dwarfs in the interior, not much more intelligent than the brutes. Of course the missionary remonstrated with him, but without effect, the native taking the ground that the tribe in question does not belong to the human family at all, but to the family of apes, and that their slaughter is therefore not murder. —Within a quarter of a mile of St. Paul's Cathedral stand G4 churches belonging to the Church of England. The following shows a little of the inequality that exists between the duties of the clergymen and scale of remuneration :—: —

Ohurch. Income. Population St. Peter-upon-Cornhill £2150 with house 196 St. Olave, Hart street ... 2090 with house 430 St. Andrew, Undershaft 2000 with house 327 All Hallows, London Wall ... ... 1700 — 535 St. Mary. Woolnoth ... 1200 — 250 Sb. Ethelburga, Bishopngite ... .„ 1050 — 199 St. Miohael, Cornhill ... 935 with house 227 St. Alphage, London Wall ... ... 925 — 31