MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 1956, 20 August 1891, Page 40

MULTUM IN PARVO.

—The North American Indiana have- as a race, the longest hair in the world, and it ia Baid that one obief or the Crow tribe had hair that reached the phenomenal length of 10ft. —Sturgeons, porpoises, and whales, are royal fisb," and are olaimed, nnder certain oiraumstances, by the sovereign. — One of the interesting faots of physiology is that the human body generates enough heat during the day to melt 441b of ioe and raise it to the boiling point, —Iron mats more readily when subjected to alterations of hot and cold. When kept at abont the temperature of boiling water it corrodes more rapidly than at any other degree of beat. o* -7M7 Mo ™ murders take place in the United tttatea than in any other country. —In Hungary, an exhaustive study of the tapta shows that the average duration of life with the Croats is 202, of the Germans 26 7, but of the Jews 46 6 years, and that although the latter generally are poor, and live under much more unfavourable sanitary conditions Mian tneir gentile neighbours -Nearly 3,000,000 people living in England are of Irish extraction. 3,0m!05)ES, o! India growsby over -A ghastly little exhibition has been held ia •{?,' *£ 1B a c °H«otion of coffins, of all possible shapes, Borts, and kinds, vfiich have been gathered together from all parts of Germany. v —Nearly 2050 people mysteriously disappear worn iiondon every year and are never heard of again. —There are 131 people in the United Kingaom with annual incomes exceeding £50,000. —The Ghoorkas are not only among the bravest but tinder their own officers among the steadiest troops in the world.— Saturday Raview. i O ™^L eventeen P MBODB * ho died in England in £474 b £9 ueathed to wwiotra charities the sum of -V-Vignelte means properly a likeness having a border of vine leaves round it. —No less than four different mountain peak* in Idaho ftre how from 13ft to 23f$ lower than they were 15 years ago. This settling is gupposed to be eoing on in many others. The cause of the settling is generally supposed to be ths presence of quicksands at their base. &.-rln 1718 Price, the London executioner, was himself executed for murder. —The Congo river ia 15 miles wide in some places. Steamers often pass [each other, but out of sight. —The Japanese word for farewell means, I* it must be so." And the Chinese say! " Go away slowly." —Nearly 2500 convicts are annually discharged on tioket-of-leave in Great Britain, # — There ia more poetry in a meeting of lovers m a line of Burnß than in 20 " Epics of Hadea." — Spectator. —Sharks were almost unknown in the Adriatic until the Suez, Canal was opened. Now the harbours of Piume and Pola are so infested with them that residents darejio longer bathe in the open sea, -There are about 30 Grand Dukes in Russia, all of them being near relatives of the Czar. Each receives from the State an annual pension amounting to £16,000, and the majority of them have large private fortunes besides.

-Extensive, i investigation by tbe Massachusetts Board of Health info Frenqh canned vegetables has resulted in tbe order prohibiting their sale in Boston. In every sample tested it was found that metallic poison exiited in the form of copper, and 27 out of 37 samples showed adulteration. ■—Seaweed is now made into a tough paper, which; takes tbe place of window glass. When coloured tbe effeot is similar to stained or painted glass. n T^ 8 £ rare * fche P° 9t and Pinter Dante Gabriel Koßsetti, at Birobing ton- on-Sea, is undistinguished by any memorial etone. It is nothing more than a grass-grown grave, like that of any "rude forefather" of the Tillage.

—Miss Bell is the only woman in the United Kingdom who. baa adopted the profession of a stockbroker. Miss Bell, who has a oity office, has been engaged for some time in her new profession. She has a few male olients, but bne chiefly laya out her, talents in the service of " the unprotected female," ; —The most prevalent surnames in Sootland 5£ c STL 811 "'", 'he name of one person in every 69 ; Macdonald, one in 78 ; Brown, one in 89 • Robertson, one in - 91 ; Campbell, one in 92 ; Thomson, one in 95; and Stewart, one in 98. " One person in every 12 in Sootland," eaye Mr beton, will answer to one or other of these seven names."

—There is an orchard in Jeraey containing 60,000 pear trees. ' —The speed at which Lohmann, the Surrey bowler, Bends the ball when in form is estimated at 90ft per second.

—About 1750 seven and a-half million yards of linen were annually woven in Scotland alone.

—A small printing establishment in London has type and appliances for printing in 500 different languages. —An ingenious arrangement has been intoduced into a mill in Pittsburg which enables wire nails to be made from steel plate. This invention may be attached to the ordinary out nail machine, and' is Baid to be capable of producing perfectly formed naila in greater quantity than is possible by the present wire nail.

—A philologist estimates that the coinage of new words goes on at the rate of 100 annually in the English language. —Four out of the nine Emperora of Russia since Peter the Great have been assassinated. —In Prussia, the mean duration of Jewish life averages five years more tban that of the general population. In Furtb the average duration of Jewish life iB 37, and of Christians 26 years.

—The average mortality among British troops in India is 16 per 1000, while in Entrland it is only 7$ per 1000. —The prices of ivory are now nearly double what they were a few years ago. —About 420 of the islands round the United Kingdom are inhabited.

—Light -haired people are longer lived as a rule than dark.

. — No wijxdows of a Persian house are visible :rom the street.

—There is a prison and reformatory for women in Indiana whioh is managed entirely by women, without any assistance from the other sex,

— A writer in an exchange Bays that the pact two years have developed more improvements in mechanical devices tban any 20 years preceding. During that time almost every branch of business has baen mora or lesa revolutionised by new mechanical applianoes or new prooesses.

—Liverpool and suburbs now have a population of 937,300, against 869,075 in 1881, being an increase of over GB.OOO. —It is astonishing what a bold the notion that a kind-hearted man is a fool has got upon the English people,— Speaker,

— Dr Kikodze, a specialist, has been devoting hia attention to the condition of blood in the human body daring pneumonia, and found that during the course of this disease, the white corpuscles increase in number as much as three times what they are in healthy persons. —South-west of Suez a party of Fraflcfi surveyors have discovered the bed oi an ancient canal, running for miles in the direction of the Bed Sea, which it seem* to have* connected with the basin of the* Meditenranean. —The national debt of Francs' in 1890* was* £1,006,123,000, requiring an annual interest of £34,258,000, an increase of more than £190,009,000 in capital, and of. nearly £3,800,000) in interest in 10 yeatß of peace. Franoe'ha* spent on her navy,'' from 1871 to 188& £148,442,000, or od# iome £28,000,000 leal than England. —The habit et young girls carrying their school books under their arms, or in bags or portfolios huntf from their arms, is said to be* to distort thaflgure. German {Joetors are exhorting parwJta to provide young girls between the ages c/ 11 and 14 with knapsaok's tot carrying their sohool books. -=-Tae number of letters delivered in India* wwifc up from 17| millions in 1854 to 120 h> 1580, and now we find the figures in the annual report for 1889 at nearly 168$ millions. Postcards were not known id 1854 ; in 1880 they stood at 7i millions, and now they reach the considerable number of nearly 86 millions, —The largest gatholder in the world will shortly be ereoted at Greenwich. It will have a capacity of 12,000,000 ft of gas ; its total weight will be 2220 tons ; and it will require 1200 tons of coal to fill it with gas. The cost of the bolder alone will be £41,195, and the concrete tank on which it will rest has cost £15,000. —Religion has to-day lost its splendour, nofc because there ia Jess religion, but because men hardly tojerate its external manifeafcatiens, thing, symboljam stagey, and half, donbt, 0* wholly doubt, whether the fervour which displays itself in publio has not id it something of the hypocritical.— Spectator. —The rabbit excels all other animals in en* during cold. A professor in toe Ifrenolr Academy of Soienoe£«*ritfed at this conclusion after a series of experiments. He pat a ratibifc in a block of ice, covered the aperture with it pieoe of the same artiole, and froze it fast, The animal spent the night in this cool apartment, and the next morning, when release^, went about as if nothing strange or unusual had ocourred.

— A late mechanical wonder of the age is a pleasure boat, to accommodate four person*, and which, will be made entirely of Aluminium,' and is to be propelled by electricity, by-means of a storage battery also made of (Bis metal, —Not, until one has aotually travelled in America oaa qnfi.form any idea of how enormously the States are»,in all parts, oon-i atantly being recruited by Englishmen and, Scotsmen. Moat of them say they wish they had gone to Australia instead* bepause.jf .they' are better paid in America, yet the 'dollar does, not go any farther than a shilling, and! indeed, often not even as far as the shilling does' at Home. And that this in quite 1 true loan' vouch for myself.— Oapt. Andbbw Haqoabd. in Blaoktrood. .

—It was stated to the annual meeting of i ij&«V§fa»keM?eata ust 9ea tho other, day. that, ;22 v O»7 people ymted the poet's birthplace 2m£ lyaar, m compared with, 12,300 10 years ago. . too, 1890 tw a very saW»otory year, a balance of over £300 remaioM^ at its 1 close. ( • ■ i •" :- D