SOME OF THE BIGGEST, SMALLEST, TALLEST, AND LONGEST THINGS IN THE WORLD.

Otago Witness, Issue 1916, 30 October 1890, Page 31

SOME OF THE BIGGEST, SMALLEST, TALLEST, AND LONGEST THINGS IN THE WORLD.

There was recently completed at the Fall River Ironworks, Fall River, Massachusetts, a tall smoke shaft, which its proud owners described as " the tallest chimney in the world, designed solely for making a draught for boilers." It was 340 ft high above its granite base, and 30ft square at the bottom. There is a chimney at East Newark, New Jersey, which reaches a height of 335 ft, including its ball, while at Boston, Massachusetts, a chimney 200 ft in height towers into the air, and another at Providence, Rhode Island, rises from the world to the height of 20ft less.

For a while the Fall River chimney enjoyed the high honour of beating all the chimneys in the world, but it has been taken down from its high eminence. It is not and never was, as it turns out, the tallest chimney in the world, this honour being lawfully due to Townsend's stack, Port Dundas, Glasgow, which is 454 ft high. There are two other chimneys which have reason to look down upon all their brethren — St. Rollox, Glasgow, which is 436^ft high, and Dobson and Barlow's, Bolton, which shoots up to a height of 367 ft.

The tallest school girl in the world is said to be found in Reidmann, near Sterzing. Germany is the nation which gave her birth, and she literally looks down upon all her teachers. She is only in her eleventh year, and is about 6ft in height. She is taller than any woman in her community, and has already had several " offers " from local Barnums, who want to take her about and show her off as the " greatest school girl on earth."

The parents of the girl, however, refuse to allow their "maderl" (little girl) to be gassed upon in a show, though they don't mind all the neighbours looking up to her at home.

To America (that mighty country that " raised " Tom Thumb) belongs the honour of producing the smallest baby on record. This mite of humanity is a girl, and weighed, when born, just lib. At the age of two months the little darling only weighed 21b with all her clothes on. and yet is well favoured and in excellent health. This tiny atom's head is just the size of an ordinaiy hen's ege:. A finger ring can easily be slipped over the wee thing's hand, while each foot just measures lin, and the fingers are thin as straws. For all her size, Alice Foster Curtis is reported to make a wondernoise in the world, and who knows but that yet she may shake London to its centre, as did her little countryman Thomas Thumb, Esq.

America not only produces the littlest screecher in the world in the person of Miss Curtis, but it also gives us the littlest preacher who ever gave out a text in the person of a prodigy who has just reached the mature age of five years. His mother has taken him regularly to church, and though he cannot read, he delivers, we are told, fluent discourses in an earnest manner. He cannot get on without music to start him off.

An eye-witness of one of the drawing-room services conducted by this prodigyj relates that at the conclusion of the opening hymn the boy desired the congregation to kneel in prayer, and when they Bbowed no sign of

obeying he began to cry. When he had a good whimper he began hJs sermon, and preached with as much command of language, ges;ure, and power of oratory as Mr Spurgeon or John M'Neill. While the sermon was in full s^ing, a little listener of his own age began to play on a trumpet. The preacher stopped and said he must have silence, which request being unheeded he walked over to the little troubler, took the trumpet from him, and finished his sermon as cool as any bishop.

The largest tombstone in the world f monuments to distinguish persons not being reckoned) is probably that of the late Henry Scarlett, of Upson County, Georgia. Scarlett was a hermit, fleeing the world because he had been disappointed in love.

Several years before his death, in the spring of 1888, he selected a monster boulder — a miniature mountain of granite, 100 ft by 200 ft in dimensions — for a tombstone, and had it appropriately lettered by a marble cutter, A cave fitted up as a lofty tomb was excavated under the huge mass, Scarlett; himself giving directions for carrying on the work. When he died, his friends, neighbours, and relatives carried his body to this spot and deposited it under the rock ; and to-day the remains of Henry Scarlett, the luckless lover, repose under the most gigantic tombstone in the world.

Scotland claims the credit of having th smallest burial ground in the world. It is situated in the Walter Scott country, in the town of Galashiels, between Bridge street and High street. It measures only 22£ ft b> 14.} ft, and is surrounded by a rickety wall about 7ft high. It has been closed as a burial ground for many years, the last person interred being a Robert Dickson Skinner, who was gathered to his fathers on July 13, 1819, aged 68 years.

Australians claim to have in the parent Broken Hill mine, of New South Wales, the largest silver mine in the world. The early shareholders of the mines are lucky. Shares £2 each recently rose to £85, and the concern is now worth over £13,600,000. The company has not been in existence five years, yet it has paid no fewer than 40 dividends, and in a recent half-year the dividends and bonuses amounted to £368,000 on a capital of £320,000.

If Australia can beat us in silver mines we can beat Australia in Sunday schools. Stockport has the biggest Sunday school in the world, and it is aaid to be one of the wonders of Christendom. This gigantic Sunday school has 5000 scholars and about 500 teachers, including 40 superintendents. The scholars do not only include children, but great numbers of young men and maidens. In some of the adult classes there are scholars of from 25 to 45 years of age. Some of the teachers have attended the Stockport school all their lives, and there is at present a superintendent aged 70.

" I am 70 years old," he said to a visitor, " and I have been 65 years in this school. I entered it at five as an infant scholar ; I passe I up through the grades, became a teacher, and after many years I became one or the superintendents. Here I still am, and I hope to die in harness."

In connection with this monster school there are libraries and a periodical department, which sells over 20,000 publications every year. It has trained 6000 teachers, and over 100,000 scholars.

The biggest family ever born to one man is surely that over which presided Brigham Young, the founder of the Mormons. No fewer than 56 children were born to him, and it is a curious physiological fact that not one of these was halt, lame, or blind, all being as perfect in body and sound in mind as the general run of humanity. The boys are now sound, healthy, industrious, and intelligent men. Among them are merchants, lawyers, a railroad king, a banker, an architect, a civil engineer, and a manufacturer. Several have graduated from the law schools and the naval schools, while one is a colonel in the United States array.

The girls of this big family are finely developed physically, quick, bright, and high-spirited, while some have extraordinary ability in music. A daughter of Brigham Young's— Mrs Susa Young Gates — says they are a family that any man might well bo proud to call his own.

The longest ride on record is claimed by Captain Peschkoff, the Cossack officer who left the eastern shores of Siberia last November to travel on horseback to St. Petersburg, a distance of 5000 miles. He accomplished the journey the other month, and was presented to the Emperor of Russia at a military parade, and has joined the Imperial escort.

The biggest price ever paid for a clock was that paid some weeks ago by a representative of the Rothschild family for the famous Louis Quinze clock at Malton Hall, the Northamptonshire seat of the Fitzwilliam family. Thirty^thousand pounds was the price paid. The clock is said to have been a wedding gift from a foreign potentate to a former Countess Fitzwilliam.

Magnificent public buildings are presently being erected in Philadelphia, and the town is to be provided with a clock which will be one of the biggest as well as one of the most marvellous in the world. The centre of the dial (25ft in diameter), will be about 351 ft above the street. The bell is to weigh between 20,0001b and 25,0001b. The chimes will be similar to those of Westminster clock, ringing at the quarter, half, three-quarters, and hour. The minute hand will be 12ft long and the hour hand Oft, while the Roman figures on the dial will be 2ft Bin in length. At nights the dial will be lighted by electricity, and will be seen from any point in the city. This great clock will be wound up by a steam engine every day.

The smallest literary production in the world, and one of the most curious, was lately displayed in a book dealer's shop in Broadway, New York. It was a single sheet of parchment-like paper sft wide and 6ft sin high. On this sheet was written all the books of the Old Testament, forming a design of a window in King Solomon's Temple. No lines were used ; words made up the whole design. The writing is very small, three colours of ink being used. The writer was David Davidson, a rpligious enthusiast, who was blind of an eye. His plan was to lie his full length upon the floor when writing, and write with his no^e almost touching the paper, his sight bring very much impaired. Bach chapter and veree is numbered, and every letter is eepa-

».. — ■ — — — rate. The letters are not much larger than a 32nd of an inch high. The largest literary work ever issued by the authority and at the expense of the British Government is undoubtedly the report of the scientific results of the voyage of the Challenger Including sums voced for expedition work, no less an amount than £88|000 has been spent on this literary labour, the returns from sales only reaching something like £18,000.

An interesting literary anecdote is told by Mr Digby Pigott in connection with the vast literary enterprise. Last winter a steamer bearing about 300 volumes of the Challenger report, sailing from Leith to London, was wrecked off the Lincolnshire coast. Thirteen cases, containing 190 copies of the lost Challenger volumes, were recovered, all fished from the depths of the sea. These were bought back by her Majesty's Stationery Office, and after careful doctoring and drying, will be issued for sale, after the uninjured volumes have all been sold. Doubtless future book collectors will learn to prize these precious volumes, so curiously rescued from the bottom of the sea.