MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 2520, 2 July 1902, Page 70

MULTUM IN PARVO.

— The biggest university in the world is in Psltvs, with 9300 students. Oxford has 1800. —In the Canaries the banana is never cut with a knife, because the fruit when cut through exhibits what is regarded as a representation of the Crucifixion. , — On. the Mangishlak Peninsula, in the Sea, there are five small lakes. ( One of them is covered with salt crystals .strong enough to allow a man to cross the [Sake on foot ; another is perfectly round t and of a lovely rose colour. Its banks of Bait crystals form a setting, white as the driven enow, to the water, which not only shows all the colours from violet to rosy red, but from which rises a perfume as of /violets. Both the perfume and the colour are the result of the presence of seaweed?. { — The manufacture of sham champagne is % flourishing business. American apples ar» cored, sliced, and dried, sent to France, and there converted into cider. With the addition of carbonic acid gas and yeast and a Hittle flavouring powder the. cider -becomes .champagne, and much of it is sent to {England and is drunk under tho delusion that it is the read article.

— A gigantic crane, which is styled by the jGermans as "the largest crane in the world," as to be seen in use at Kiel. Its own weight as 450 'tons, and it is capable of lifting as much as 150 tons. Its arm stretches 50 yards from point to point, and is 50 yards and more high above the foundation. It is (worked by electricity. ' — Fourteen executions take place yearly in the United Kingdom, 710 in India. 1 — A person in Paris can wow speak by telephone to Cologne, but only by way of tJerlin, which makes the distance about 1000 miles. , — Glass is the most perfectly elastic subtetanee in existence. A glass plate kept finder pressure in a bent condition for 25 years will return to its exact original form. 1 — The children of the Amos, a people living in Northern Japan, do not receive Itheir names until they arc five years old. fft is the father who then chooses the name by which the child is afterwards called. 1 — In the churchyard of Leigh, near Bolton, /will be found a tombstone bearing the following amazing sentence: "A virtuous /woman is 5s to her -husband." The explanation seems to be that space prevented "a crown" being cut in full, and the stonemason argued that «i< crown equals ss. J — It will probably startle a good many persons to find, says a mfdical publication, on tbe authority of a well-known statistician, j"thafc could the infants of a year be ranged an a line in cradles the cradles would extend round the globe. t — Wasp 3 may often be observed detaching ifronv fence 3, boards, or other old wood loose ,fibres, which they afterwards manufacture into a kind of papier-mache in their nests. 1 —In Italy no persons under 18 are allowed ,to play barrel-organ or other music in the etreets. and in St. Petersburg no itinerant musician of any land whatever is allowed to . perform. . ' — The darkness that lias pervaded the Pyramids for thousands of years is now ro be dispelled by the electric light. The direc/tor of the society entrusted with the preservation of Egyptian antiquities has begun ■■M-'ork on the historic temple of Karnak, at •Thebes. ?o successful has the result been that the inner passages and catacombs of the jGrcat Pyramids are now to be lighted.

—It may not be generally known that the ■deliberations called Cabinet Councils arose (by accident. The custom of the King being /present at all meetings of his Ministers had to be discontinued at the Hanoverian succession from the monarch's ignorance of the language. The advantage of full and free discussion among Ministei-s, by themselves, was so obvious that it has been unchangeably .established.

— The. record price ever paid for a. walnut tree was £300, but the veneer» cut from this tree sold retail for £12,000.

— Ordinary glass, not extra" thick or strong, may have holes bored in it by pressing a disc of wet clay upon the gla=s and making a hole through the clay of the ividth desired, so that the glass 19 laid bare here. Then molten lead is poured into the (hole, and lead and glass drop down at once. This method .is based upon the quick local (heating of the glass, whereby it obtains a circular crack, the outline of which corresgjonds to the outline of the hole made in the clay.

— A novel suggestion for starting delicate plants has been made known by a French gardener. He sets the seed in some earth laid in naif an egg-shell instead of a little pot; the KheU, which has a small hole in it /to permit of draining, is placed in a box of idamp mould. When tlio time ai rives for transplanting all that need be done is to break the shell. —It is proposed at Valencia, Spain, to tax all the church bells in the town. — The chemical destruction of weeds is ' advocated by learned French horticulturists. One application of mineral oil and water keeps down the grass in walks for two year', sea-sajt kills thistles, and a spray of sulphate bf iron is effective against injurious plants Df all kinds. — Out of 100 deaths in London, 40 take p'.ace in winter and only 12 in summer. —An American inventor claims to have introduced the lightest "run-about" motor car. It weighs 2501b, and attains a speed of eight miles an hour. The motor is cooled by n funnel underneath actiuar as a windsail. — The little town of Massos, in Sweden, has a female contingent, 150 strong, in its fire brigade. The water supply of the village consist? simply of four great tubs, and it is the duty of the women "firemen" to keep these full in caws of fire. They stand in two continuous lines from the tubs to the lake Borne distance away, one line passing the full buckets and the other sending them back. — Ono of the most remarkable stage spectacles London has seen is the great chariot raoe in the new Drury Lane drama, "Ben•Hur." Sixteen horses gallop on revolving platforms worked by electric motors, and a i most striking effect i 3 obtained when at the ! end of the race they aro apparently charging down on to the orchestra. — Stram has been found very efficacious in extinguishing fires on ships loa^f-d with cotton. When such fires are extinguished with water, the water often causes the principal damage. Steam, while very efficacious, cau«p.« excoedindy httle damage. A fire-extinguishine b^at in Oalvr<=ton Harbour ■lias been fitted for this application of steam, with a special view to the protection of cotton-loaded ships. — The longest reach of railway without a curve is claimed by travellers to be that of the Argentine Pacific railway, from Buenos Ayres to the foot of the Andes. For 211 miles it is without a curve, and has no cutting or embankment de»pes than two or three feet.