MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 2355, 13 April 1899, Page 48

MULTUM IN PARVO.

-■ A shell-fish of the Mediterranean has the power of spinning a viscid silk which in Sicily is made into a very handsome fabric. The silk is spun by the shell-fish for the purpose of attaching itself to the rocks. This material is gathered at low tide, washed in soap and water, dried, straight ened, and Carded.

— More than 2000 people earn a living in Paris by fortune-telling, and their total yearly earnings are estimated at £400,000. ' — It is essential that children should be born and brought up in towns; it is no less tessehtial that a considerable part of their lives should be spent in the fresh air, amid greenery and the songs of birds. The city arab who never saw a cow in a green meadow or heard the song of the lark as it soared into the blue is the most dreadful product and portent of our civilisation. — Spectator. — Cocoanut shells moke excellent fuel, especially as fire-lighters, the enormous amount of oil they contain causing them to take fire at once. — Spanning an inlet of the Yellow Sea is a. bridge five and a quarter miles long, which ' was ' built by Chinese engineers 800 years afc».

— The lightest tubing ever made is of nickel aluminium. Three thousand feet of t 'tkis tubing weighs only one pound. — .The Radical working man in England -J3 essentially a practical creature. He is .willing to abolish anything if he sees clearly ■ that he can get something out of it. — Satur- • day Review.

— The butchers of Berlin have a curious way of .informing their customers of the days on which fresh sausages are made by placing a cVair. covered with a large clean apron, at the side of the shop door. — The most common name for a place in England is Newton, which occurs no fewer than 72 times.

—It is not the material object that the negro worships as a Fetish, but the spirit that lives in it; and when once this fact is . firmly grasped, much that is otherwise unintelligible in Fetish worship becomes capable of intelligent explanation. — Saturday Re- - view.

— Lemon batha are popular in the West Indies. Three or four lemons are cut up and left to soak in water half an hour The bath is very refreshing — The only armless and legless millionaire on earth is Henry Wendhoff, of Mauch Creek, Pa. He was dismembered in a railway accident 20 jrears ago. Mr Wendhoff has four artificial limbs, which cost him £5000, and with these he manages to get along very well. — Since 1879 more than 3000 houses have been detenanted and closed in Dublin on account of their, unsanitary condition. — The first' international exposition in Japan is planned for the year 1902. The Japanese Government is already getting ready to take the first preliminary steps, and a suitable site for the exhibition is being chosen, i — Some Egyptian boats made of cedar, proImbly in use 4500 years ago, have been found buried near the banks of the Nile, and furnish an interesting proof of the power of that wood to withstand the ravages of time. . —The Queen is supplied with four clo-^n pain of kid gloves per month, from a ceitain fund, and she inpisbs on having them. — The new Swiss aluminium steamer for lake Victoria Nyanza is 43ft long, carries 50 persons, and separates into nine sections, no part weighing over 3501b. — The Norwegian army has a highlytrained corps of skaters armed with repeating rifles. Those men can be manoeuvred on ice with a rapidity equal to that of the besttrained cavalry. — The Swedish mile is the longest mile in the world, being exactly 11,700 yards. — A medical paper estimates that over £50,000 worth of medicine is annually distributed gratis at the English dispensaries. — Tho horse succumbs to cold more quickly than any other animal. — All old man has just died in Blaydon, Northumberland, who could number 136 descendants round his family board. He had five sons, two daughters, 60 grandchildren, and 69 great-grandchildren. — Glycerine is one of the most useful preeervative media for microscopical manipulations. Pure glycerine should not, however, be used, as confervojd growths are apt to appear in it. To obviate this, the addition of about 2 per cent, of camphor water is recommended.

— A Japanese admiral receives the equivalent of £1200 a year, a vice-admiral gets £800, end first and second class captains are paid £500 p,nd £450 respectively. — The largest goldmine owners in the world " fere the Rothschilds.

— Africa has nearly 700 languages, and this lact presents great difficulties to missionary effort.

— There are now not a few women moneylenders, the charges of one of them being a shilling a week for each pound that is »•! vanced.

—It is believed that in China there is 20 times as much coal as in all Europe. — Among the treasures of the Austrian Crown are some religious relics that would make the fortune of a church. They include a nail from the Cross, a fragment from the Cross itself, a piece of wood from the manger at Bethlehem, fragments of the apron worn by the Virgin, and a tooth of John the Baptist.

— Sheffield possesses a curious knife with 220 blades, all etched with portraits, landscapes, or other artistic designs. — On the Continent not only is meat sometimes coloured to make it look fresh, but poultry and vegetables are also treated. — The French engineer, M. Berlier, whose proposal to tunnel the Straits of Gibraltar is said to have been approved by the Spanish Government, is making great efforts to interest Englishmen in Jus scheme. He recommends it as providing a new route from London to Bombay, which journey, he says, can be made in a little over a week, without scarcely putting foot on board a ship. — Peach stones find a ready market in New York city, where perfume, flavouring extracts, and pruseio acid are distilled from the kernels.

—By donning a miner's suit, descending into a pit at Leus, and talking to the miners, the late President Faurc not long back prevented a strike.

— The Shah has in his palace at Teheran * 12in globe, upon which the parts of the world are set out in jewels of various colours • — England with rubies, India with diamonds, the sea with emeralds, and so on. — A hunter in the tropical regions tells of (seeing a cricket pursued round the trunk of a ixeehy a lizard. Suddenly the insect settled in a small depression in the bark, and flattened itself so that the lizard actually crawled over it and went away witkout knowing what had become of it: — There are 118 schools foi music alone in

—It is estimated that fully two-thirds of the •whole amount of public money held by the London banks does not bear interest. — A doctor has introduced a new form of treatment for those who are given to seasickness. His method is to hypnotise them, and then cause them to believe that they are being tossed on the ocean without suffering from sea-sickness. After a short course of this treatment, he avers, his patients actually are able to make long and rough voyages without discomfort.