MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 2437, 28 November 1900, Page 56

MULTUM IN PARVO.

:- Although the ostrich. has powerful legs and can kick like a mule, his limbs are very brittle and are easily broken. He has two •toes oh each foot, one being armed with a, Jhornvnail, which he uses as his principal /weapon of warfare. When an unarmed man is attacked by one of these birds the chances are very much against the man unless he can climb a tree or jump over a five-foot wall. — A motor car has been designed for towing canal boats. Only 6 per cent, of the criminals of the United States are women. . Illiteracy is more common in Kussia tnan in any country claiming to have a civilised government. In 10,000 villages of the vast Empire there is' not a school, and it la estijnated'thafc less than 20 per cent, of the population has acquired even the rudiments of a ooinmon school education. « — In- China strangulation is reserved for offenders of high rank, it being considered a '.privilege to pass out of life with a whole -body. "When leave to die in this way has been granted to a criminal, a silken cord is sent 'to him in .prison. No explanatory message is considered necessary; arid he is leit to accomplish his own doom. " — Poisonous mushrooms (according to an Italian chemist) are dangerous, whether moist or dried. Birds and mammals are affected by •them, but not cold-blooded animals.- me poison acts when' injected under the skin. Animals repeatedly injected thus become portly immune from it, and their serum can be" used as a remedy in cases of poisoning by the mushroom. . . . — An Italian military officer, it is stated, lias produced a new explosive. He makes use of the explosive properties of water e-ectnc-aUy decomposed; he encloses this in a box or other steel receptacle hermetically sealed. It explodes with a force more than 50 fames greater than gunpowder, and nearly 30 times greater than dynamite. He is adapting this to rifle cartridges, % and the Italian Government is making tests in Turin. An electrical engineer recently made an oral will by talking into a phonograph. He signed his name on the wax roll of the machine with a hot copper wire, and the witnesses die 1 likewise. Legal authorities say that this strange will is perfectly valid. — According to Professor Mosso, the Italian physiologist, physical education and gymnastics not only develop the muscles but the brain. Children, he says, should only begin ' to read and write after they are nine years old. The more mobile the extremities of an animal the more intelligent he is. —At a recent meeting of arboriculturists, the question was debated whether spiders Eliould be suffered to spin their- webs on -fruit ■walls. The general opinion' seemed to be that the webs were more useful than objectionable. It was remarked that they prevent the incursions of earwigs and similar insects, and also interfere with the operations of noxious flies whose larvae ravage leaves and fruits. — There are nearly 6000 subscribers to the telephone in Tokio, Japan. — iThe first mention of hydrophobia in Great Britain was made in a work by Howell the Good of Wales, which was revised in the year' 1026, and recorded that at that time "there was madness among "die dogs." In 15? 6 rabies -existed .in France, Turkey, Hungary, and Austria. In 1819 the Buke of Richmond, who was then Governor General of Canada, was bitten by a captured fox, and was said to have died of hydrophobia — a malady which has caused the death of 1112 •persons in England and Wales within the last half-century. — The average duration of the reign of English monarchs for the last 600 yesws has been 21 years. — Coloured globes if chemists' windows were first displayed by the Moorish druggists of Arabia and Spain. - — The German navy has a system of wireless telegraphy rather different from that of Marconi. The Slaby-Arco apparatus has a vertical wire or "antenna," not insulated, but connected with earth for both transmitting and receiving. ' It sends messages 25 or 28 miles with vertical wires 38 to 44 yards high. — Horses are becoming higher in price every year. Six years ago the horse market was more than supplied and good horses could be had at half-price. The demand for horses in the armies of the world is one of the reasons for the change. — A photographic record was made during the recent session of the Ohio and Michigan Photographers' Association. . A negative and finished print were made at 10 o'clock at night, to test the utility of artificial light. The negatives were made with four seconds' exposure by acetylene gas, and- the print was don© by the same means. The total time of operation, beginning with the exposure and ending with the finished picture mounted on a card, was eight minutes and twenty-four seconds, this constituting a world's record. — Pope Leo XIII owns a pearl left to him by his predecessor on the throne of St. Peter which is worth £20,000, and the chain of 32 pearls owned ■by the Empress Frederick is estimated at £35,000. — The American walnut, "which has long been such a favourite wood, has met a powerful rival which threatens to supersede it in the English markets. This is the Cape laurel wood. The new wood is very hard to saw, but planes easily and turns well, while the polish that may be imparted to its surface is extremely brilliant. It is of a fine rose colour. — Fish skine are being' used for leather The Eskimo of Alaska make shirts and boots of salmon hide and jackets from codfish. Frog Bkins are said to make excellent bindings for books. — The public library building in Chicago is protected against the invasion of fire from the outside by means of a so-called "water curtain." At the top of the building is a system of tube 3 through which water, sup^/plied from a tank, can be caused to flow over the outside walls. Some time back the efficiency of the water curtain was tested by the occurrence of a fire in a spice mill adjoining the library building. The water being turned on, the outer "walls were immediately covered with a liquid sheet, which, as the temperature was low, became eventually a sheet of ice. —It is announced by a Vienna paper that an 'Englishman has bought Achilleion, the lovely villa which the late Empress of Austria built at Corfu. The place cost originally £250,000. Built almost on the spot where Ulysses was rescued, it was the 'Empress's whim to surround herself with "reminders of slassic incidents. _ Thus her own particular /ooms were arranged in imitation of those aid to have been occupied by Penelope and ffelena. Even her bed was made 'according o the description in the Odyssey. The place t famous for its beautiful tenaces and its ' /eaitli of sculpture,

— Six bull-rings are in course of construction in France, and there will probably be more ere long if the Government does not interfere. — Prudent people leave their watches behind them when visiting the Paris Exhibition, This precaution should not be set to the account of thieves, but to tie electric motors. For the supply of light and power to the Exhibition, groups of steam engines of 20,000-' h.p. set in motion huge dynamos, which create around themselves a wide "field of magnetism." Every particle of steel reached by these "fields" is converted into a magnet. The violent derangement set up in every watch carried into this region, by reason of the steel in its works, might have its amusing side were it not for the heavy watchmaker's bill involved for repairs. —An American farmer recently killed 82 rats by means of whisky-soaked maize. The rats played havoc with his maize, wheat, and other grain, and traps, shooting, and poison failed to get rid of them. Finally he tried the plan of~soaking a large amount of maize in whiskTy, placing it in a barrel where the rats could get at it. The plan was a success, and 82 of the rodents were killed owing to their abandonment of temperance principles. — 'it is a curious fact .that, although there -were no. horses in America when the continent was discovered by Columbus, abxxndance of remains of extinct horses have been found both in North and South America by geologists. Professor Marsh, of Yale College, himself' discovered the remains of no less than 30 species of iossil horses or horse-like animals, the most ancient being no larger than a fox, while in the more recent strata the fossil remains were of a size proving the animal to have been the size of a donkey, In_ England the horse was contemporary witli the mammoth, an(J is supposed to have become extinct for long ages,' being reintrodxiced by very early visitors from the East.