MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 2685, 30 August 1905, Page 62

MULTUM IN PARVO.

Si'Wirelcsd' messages sont over a distance sf '50 miles in America were received by :an exxiresa train while it was running at the- rato of a mile a minute. It has been arranged to eqxiip many trains in Amerca with a wireless installation. — 'Lessons by telephone" is among the most recent developments. In one instance, a boy, prevented by accident from .attending school, was allowed to repeat his jlessons over the wire, and thus keep pace -;writb. th© . claje. — Tho largest cabbage farm in the world is near Chicago. It is 190 acres in exteni, .and yields nearly 1,250,000 cabbages each •«rop. . ••—Birthday celebrations are unknown among female Moors. They consider it tomplhncntary to be absolutely ignorant of llieir age. — According to the last figures available, the foreign trade of the United Kingdom -was £b per head of the population to £3 <.* •of the population in Germany. There nas "been practically no change in this ratio for

.33 years. . , , ,• mr n Georgia tho mountaineers oateh irotii; with a sledge-hammer,. Their practice •is to thump a rock under which a trout ->eeks refuge with a hammer, the concussion rendering the fish senseless and an prey. - .a French newspaper asserts tnat the ira'de in "artificial" mummies in Egypt kmourits every year to more than £50,000. Most-ofriha un-to-date "mummy factories >re located in Italy, but there are also a tnimbcr of them in Germany and France. —In Austria 47 per cant, of the women .are- self-supporting, in Italy 40 per cent., in England" 27 per cent., in Germany 25 per cant., and in the United States only 14.0 toer cent. — The butchers of Tottenham, m Ixin"don in terms of a circular just issued by the medical officer to the district council, are, with the view of preventing contamination by handling of meat exposed for sale and: of preventing the spread of infectious diseases, requested to provide a ♦uitabie supply of forks wherewith intending Eurchasers may make examination of meat cfore buying. ' — Every Geroiia fortress keeps on an average 200 carrier pigeons. — Tooth-brushes and tooth-powder are to be supplied to all the inmates of the Austrian prisons. , — ,Dunstabkf district holds a. record of Ite own. Every year over 48,000 larks are dispatched to liondon to make lark pies. v Experimental forest schools have been instituted by Berlin and Charlottenburg, in Tyiuch yov-ng children go out by tram to the woods every morning and spend , thear ■cbtirc' day ths.re."A barrack or shed of &s>mc kind ' form's their headquarters, out indoor lessons arc of comparatively *hdrt duration. ** • - . —'Siberia could contain all Lurope - ex-cept'-Russia, and there would still be i-ooji Uit for another country twice the size of

.Germany. ' . " '-— The-lsaya, bird of India haa the curious habit of~ fastening fireflies to its nest with moist clay. On a dark night such a nest *>igM ba taken for an electric strtet lam?. .— In somo parts of the United States, •where timber is scarce and expensive, con•crete posts »ye being manufactured ard •c^ed in the nlace of wood for fencing and .-Bimilar purposes. The posts, which are .■Stren&thcned with metal, are made in •vrooden moulds, and require aboufc a coupio -of days to set. — Hiram Crank, the last survivor of all ' llhe 286,730 men who fought in the Ameri.ustn armies in the war of 1812, died the mother day near New York, aged 105 years »nd two weeks. For six years he had been •the only veteian of that war left on tho national pension rolls. In tho last years --of his life the State of New York paid him ,a special pension of £14 per month in :»ddition to his national pension of £5. — The southern counties of Ireland are 'dotted over with snug- cotiage* which iiro let to labourers at a rental of Is per week. Tor this film they get a substantially-built tiouee with elated roof, a small outbuilding, ■ end half an acre of land. — A new steel tool has been placed on

tho market by a firm of Sheffield 1 makers. Among its advantages it stated that for hardening the steel only requires to b© _ heated to a bright red, arid allowed to. cool in tho air, when it is ready for use. It can •be re-Hnno.'.terl, according to th« makers, fimply by Jieating tlie tool to a cherry red, ftllowinsr this to become a dark ved, and - 'fteii plunging into water. It then becomes quite soft -— A German experimentalist has prcrvaa .that a single hair will suspend 4oz with cut breaking, stretching under the process and contracting again. But the hair thus heavily weighted must lxs dark brown, for blonde hair breaks down under 2£oz. — Tho late Mr K. A. Gerntaine, X.0., was cng.ised in what was probably the longest arbitration case on record. With Sir Robct Reid he appeared before tVe cwiss tr : bunal whic-h considered the FrancoChilian arbitration. The affair lasted about eight years. _ — A dying experiment which carries with }t a good deal of interest has been carried out at Billancourt, in France. The experimenter was M. Voisin, who seated nfrnself ready foi fligiht on a raft towed by in auto-boat. At a given signal the autojMsat put on full speed, the machine began jo rise, and M. Voisin, cutting himself j drift from the auto-boat, maintained a. Ueady flight for aboufc 3Ooyds, ai a height i>f about 80ft. He then brought himself gently down to the surface of the water. — A cubic foot of earth weighs about Bye and a-half times as much as a cubic foot of water. A cubic mile of earth, then, weights 25,648,300,000 tons. Th© volume of earth is 259,880,000,000 cubic miles. The weight of the world without its atmosphere h 6,666,250,000,000,000,000,000 tons. If we add to this the weight of the atmosphere given above, we get a prand total — 6,666,255,819,000,000,000.000 tons. No wond^r, says the American Machinist, Atlas became round-shoulder-eel. — Gwandu, a town in Africa, contains "between 10,000 and 15,000 inhabitants, and is surrounded by a palisade of poles, the top of every pole being crowned by, a human sEull. There are six gates, and the. approach, to each is laid with a pavement of human skulls, the tops being the only parts that show above-groumd. More than 2000 skulls are used in the pavement leading up to each gate. The pavement is of snowy whiteness, polished to the smoothness of ivory by the daily passage of hunired& of naked feet.

— Dr Dawaon Burns estimates that the people ol the Unir«K) Kingdom expended nearly £169.000.000 sterling" in 1904 upon intoxicating liquors —to he exact, £168,987,165 Thi3 outlay foil short by nearly £5,500,000 of the national drink expenditure in 1903— £174,445.372.

— Tha Eec-orchis, perhaps the mos* beautiful of British, orchids, is now in flower on the grassy .slopes of the South Downs. This species ia curious among native orchids in that it is self-fertilised, whereas In most species there are elaborate contrivances for securing cross-fertili-sation by insects. This was one of the things which mado Darwin*wish he could live a few thousand years. He wished to see the Bee-orchi& become extinct, an end to which he thought its habit of self-fer-tilisation was leading" it. —In ancient Ireland the bard was a person of immense power and influence. He had to undergo at least 12 yearo' training before the coveted + .itle of "Ollanih"' was conferred upon him. At that cir.lo-i-ank was designated by colour in dress. Th© Lard had a- drsss of fine colours, including a white mantle and a blue cap c'xnanien'tod with gold crescent. There were nine -liiferent musical instruments in use. The harp was the most appreciated, and after it in popularity came the bagpipes, flute, a.nd horn. — Tho Prince de Ligne is the fortunate possessor of perhaps tho mo«t ouriou=i book in the world. It js neither printed nor written. The letters of the book are all cut out of vellum and pasted on blue paper. The. book is a-s easy" to read' as if printed from the boldest type. All the characters are cut out with marvellous precision and uniformity, and this dexterous piece of handicraft must havo required a great r mount of time, _ labour, and patience by the author. "The volume bears the titl<«, "The Book of all Passions of Our Lord Jesus Christ, with Characters not Composed of Ar.y Material." Tt is said that in 1640 the German Emperor, Rudolph 11, offered the enormous sum of 11,000 ducats for this wonderful but yet curious work of art. "What makes the, history of the book more peculiar is the fact that ibe English arms aio -inscribed upon it. although the book is supposed never to havo been in England.