MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 2265, 29 July 1897, Page 48

MULTUM IN PARVO.

~ When the flashlight of a submarine camera ; nag burned recently in the Mediterranean, i crowds of fl«h, with their wide-staring eyes, were instantly pictured on the sensitive plate. Photographs of submarine forests are start- < lipgly novel. Seaweed makes an altogether ] different appearance when seen in its natural ; element from that which it presents when seen j floating on the surface or driven up on the \ beach. | — With regard to women surgeons, one fact j is of interest. At the New Hojpital for j Women in Euston road, London, where all the j doctors are women, there have been only two j deaths out of 90 major operations. I • — A report from Urana, N.S.W., states that ■while a well was being sunk on a property in the district, a fiud was made of a fossilised ! human skull, the conformation of the bones be- j ing completely preserved. Tho find was made ! at a depth of 75ft from the surface. — Professor Forbes calculates that the first cataract of the Nile at high Nile represent* 500,000-horso power, and at low Nile 35,000-horse power. This power, conveyed by electricity to the places where it could be utilised, would be of enormous advantage to Egypt. Amongst other purposes to which it could- be put would be that of pumping I for the reclamation of vast areas now unculti- j vated. x j — At present it is estimated there are in the world's oceans 7,000,000 cubic miles of salt, and the me 6b astonishing thing about it is that if all this salt 'could he taken out in a moment, the level of the water' wonld not drop one single ! ipch. , " ; * — The lecture platform is attracting the ex- ] jalorers ju»t now, the latest recruit being Mr ' Harry de Windt, the famous Siberian explorer, i who will go to the States for this purpose in the j autumn. . | — The longest underground thoroughfare in ! Great Britain is in Central Derbyshire, where you can walk seven miles upon a road connecting several coalmines. > — An aged Newcastle convict solemnly bequeathed his worldly- effects to a certain institution. They consisted of a pocket-knife, a leadpencil, a 2ft rule, and 2d. — A clock which the maker believes will run 40 years with one winding has been invented by * Chicago man. The mechanism is composed ; of brightly-burnished aluminium rods, slowmoving cog-wheels, and many tiny, quick-mov- ; ing cog-balance wheels, which tick ceaselessly . and merrily away under the large oval glass ■ case which covers them. It has been running { now about a year, and has never been touched, fare to undergo a slight regulation during the ' first weeks. ' i — No matter how strongly a man asserts that he doesn't believe in ghosts, it may be doubted if he ever goes by a churchyard at midnight' i Without feeling as if something were going to grab him from behind. ' — No Irish agitation which han once died away ever, arises again in precisely the same form. — Speaker. - — Few people have any idea of the enormous amount of material used iv the largest of the modern high buildings. Not ltra jj ago an elaborate calculation was made as to what could be 'done in the way of building a small town with [the material used in one of the largest strucitures in London, and it was found that there : was^riough material put into tbafc one building to furnish houses, stores, churches, shops, and a public hail for a village of 1000 people. i > — Most people of to-day only know Ceylon aB an island inhabited by a rather effeminate race, the Singhalese, where the industries of tea /and coffee planting have gone through various vicissitudes ; and but few realise that the Singhalese were onco a powerful people, and that their cities and temples rivalled in splendour the -greatest buildings of the Eastern world.— Spectator. 1 —In a London street on one occasion Professor Garner, the student of monkey literature, made overtures to an organ-grinder's monkey. When the professor first approached, the nonk«-y ran away and showed bis teeth. Then Mr Garner used, a monkey word. The monkey distinctly repeated it, and at once came to him and perched upon his shoulders with signs of affectionate regard. ' ■ — The Chinese settlers on the Island of. Sumatra have a strange and ludicrous form of salutation. When they meet; each other, say, after an absence of. a month or longer, they do not shake each other's hand; they smile broadly, and each grasps his own hand, shaking It vigorously for a few moments. - — Though we think the Boers have suffered great wrong from Mr Rhodes and his fellows, though we hate the very thought of a race war at the Cape, and though we would do all we could to bring the Boers to a reasonable frame 'of mind in regard, to the breaches of the contention, we are bound to say that the Government will have the country at its back if it finds it necessary to enforce the convention by physical force. — Spectator. — Parisian street pedlars are now selling drained toads that climb little ladders and jllive into water. The toads coit about 9d each. f v — If tho temperature of the armpit or the part under the tongue falls below 96deg the patient must be in a state of collapse, while pnything over HOdeg has rarely been reached ia tht worst of ferers. — The Swedish traveller Sven Hedin has succeeded in crossing Northern Thibet, and discovered over 20 new salt lakes, four of which •re of coniiderable size, His collections ace

— The Arabs use camel's milk in place of | that of the oow, and in all parts of the East j sheep's milk is extensively used as a substitute j for cow'a milk. In Spain the goat is the ! domestic substitute for the cow, that country , having 4,530,000 goats. j I — Sir William Hamilton mentions a tailor, ' whose name he does not give, who was blind from birth, and yet by the sense of touch alone could distinguish the patterns of Scotch plaids used in the kilts of the Highland costumes, matching the cloth with all the exactness that m ; gb.t be expected of one having perfect ; vision. — Berlin pays a salary to a professional birdcatcher, wto keeps scientific and educational institutions supplied with birds, birds' nests, ; and eggs, and he ia the only man in the Empire permitted to do 60. i — The Yerkes lens, the largest in the world' > has been set in the telesoope constructed for it at Chicago, thefirsb object upon which it was turned being ttse planet Jupiter. ' The lens, which ha« a surface dis,nie'.er of 41£ in, weighs 515tb, and ! has been five years grinfliDg. ■ — The latest fire-lighter consists of a fan driven by a spring and enclosed in a box, from the bottom of which runs a narrow channel containing asbestcs. Paraffin oil is poured on to the asbestos, - lighted, and a small lever pulled. A strong' current of air dares the i flame into the coals', and a brilliant fire results 'in a few minutes. ' j • ■ — A well-known medical authority maintains i that the bicycle is in a great measure respen- ! sible for the decrease of consumption among women. He sajs that the death rate from pulmonary diseases among them has steadily declined during the past five years, since bicycle riding has become so popular among tbat sex. — From a certain Earl Gower, who flourished in the last c,enlury aud was great-great.-great-grandfather of the present Duke or Sutherland, are detcended all the Lavesons, Gowers, Howards, Cavendishes, Grosvenors, Uussells, and Harcourfcs who walk the face of the earth. Truly a noble and a highly-favoured progeny. — Manchester Guardian. — A postal card that required 15 years to travel 99 miles breaks the record for slow postal delivery. It wan posted in Leicester in June 1881, and has just been received in London. The address was plainly written on the card, and no one knows where it has been all this time. — A million aores of foreit are cut down ! every year to supply European railway com- j panics with sleepers on which the lines are ' laid. ! — A man, after walking across America, j 4000 miles, earning his living by lecturing at ' his stopping places, be having started without a i penny, has arrived in Liverpool to make a si mi- - lar tour through England. ■ — The mouth of the shark contain* 300 teeth, arranged iv rows, all not only pointed and keen-edged, but finely and regularly serrated, to that; the cutting power is greatly incraassd. — Greab Britain broke its record for shipbuilding iv 1896, the number of tqns launched being 1,326,822, as against 1,156,571 tons in 1895. • j — The mosaic work with which the crypfc of ■ • St. Paul's Cathedral is paved was made by the female convicts at Woking Prison. The quarries of the Me of Portland supplied the materials for St. Paul's Cathedral, 'and for all the most splendid buildings in London. Abpub 70,000 tons of Portland stone are now exported annually from these quarries. — The smallest bird's egg is that of the tiny Mexican humming bird, which is scarcely larger than a pin's head. — There isn't » vestige of cork about a cork leg apatt from the name, and that arises from the fact that nearly all the great Manufacturers of such articles used to live in Cork street, Piccadilly, Londor i —It is stated that the healthiest children in the world dwell in the Scottish Highlands. — Many men take a rest as if they were taking something' that didn'c belong to them. — Six thousand persons have visited Carlyle's house at Chelsea since it was opened to the public in July 1895. — Only one man in 203 is over 6ft in height. —It is not generally known that Colonel Gouraud, Mr Edison's partner, is responsible for a curious little toy. This toy is a sort of album, containing innumerable photos of a dancing girl, whiob, when passed rapidly from 1 under ths thumb show every movement of the j dancer, and it is, of course, made on the prinI ciple of the kinetoscope. | — There is in the strong rooms of one of the I London banks a large quantity of jewel*, plats, and other valuables, which were deposited for , safe custody by French refugees shortly before the outbreak of the Revolution. * — It is calculated that a week's work in Birmingham comprises, am on? its various results, the, fabrication of 14.000,000 pens, 6000 bedsteads, 7000 guns, 300,000.000 cut nails, 1,000,000 buttons, 1000 saddle*, 5,000,000 ', copper or bronze coins, 20,000 spectacles, 6 tons of papier-mache wares, over £30,000 worth of jewellery, 4000 miles of iron and steel wire, 10 ! tons of pins, 350 miles' length of wax for vestas, and 8000 tons of brass and copper wares. — A medical paper estimates th»t £250,000 worth of medicine is annually distributed gratis at British dispensaries. — The most curiou* thing about the butter-, fly is the size of the case from which the insect proceeds compared with the size of the insect's body. The case is rarely more than lin long and jf\a in thickness ; the butterfly covers a surface of nearly 4in tqaare. — A burglary — the highest on record — has been committed in Paris. The thief worked his way up the Eiffel Tower and broke open the safes of the to eat -e and restaurant. Unfortunately for himself he also managed to open the room where the liquors were kept, got drunk, and fell asleep there, where he was found in the morning. — Perhaps the most splendidly decorated church 'in England is that of Whitney Court, Worcestershire. It is entirely constructed of white marble ; the pews are chastely carved, and the pulpit is of genuine Carrara marble, richly panelled with precious stones. — Thß origin of the phrase "At sixes and sevens," meaning "at variance," is probably traceable to the fact that if you write the numerals they all agree in height until you come to six and seven, the former of whioh goes above the others and the latter below them. ' — The interior of the eye has been successfully photographed in two seconds. In this way the progress of disease or recovery 'can be measured by actual pictures of jfche' retina. — Indiatubber, in spits of its growing scarcity and expensive'ness, is meeting with favour as a paving -for streets. It is said to be perfectly noiseless, unaffected by heat or cold, and less ' slippery and more durable than asphalt. — It is said that a Bank of England note, twisted into a kind of rope, can suspend as much as 3291b upon one end of it and not be injured. » - — It is stated that President Kruger has the same number of grandchildren as Queen Victoria,