MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 2848, 14 October 1908, Page 67

MULTUM IN PARVO.

«. —It costs £2000 x> paint the Forth Bridge. — England contains about 13,000 square miles of coalfields. — There are mountains on the moon 56,000 ft high. — The lite of a North Atlantic iceberg is sometimes 200 years. are more than 5000 motor boars already on the canals of Holland. — The growth,«f ths beard is strongest on most men on the right-hand side. — Nearly 44 per cent, of the dectors of Austria die of heart disease. — Oattle and cheep will nci fatten alone; they must feed in company. — Yttrium is a very rare metal, dark grey in colour, and very brittle. , — The average siz© / of a man's hand is from liii to ■ l|in longer than that of a woman. — Malta is only 17 miles in length and nine in breadth. — A good locomotive should, with ordinary care, last 12 y-eare. — The cscrich has bsea known to travel as fast as a pile a minute. —At an altitude of 2000 ft, the Alpine air is : free from microbes. —A ■ message crosses tho Atlantic by cable in abcuc three seconds. -^Xylotschnographica, patented in 1875, is a "p-roce* 5 tcr staining weeds various colours. — Holding the pen between the first and second fingera is a very., good euro for writer's cramp. , - -—The Ltipiand'era are the shortest people in Europe, the average hsight being under sft. ' — Tbs Fr«ach penal settlement of New Caledonia, has an orchestra mad-a up entirely of convicts."" — The roadside fruit trees of Belgium make. an annual profi^ of about £13,000 for that country. ■/■ — Great • Britain Las the longest c<sastline in Europe. Italy, Russia, and France come next in the -order given. — A pigeon postal -service- has recently been organised in ihe FTench Congo. —An elephant c^n carry from. 18001b to 25001b; a horsa 'only from 2001b to 2501b. — Plants with white blossoms -have "a larger pioportion of fragrant species than any other.' —In St. Petersburg is the largest bi-onze statue in existence — that of Peter tho OTeat, which weighs 1000 tons. — Many 'of iho Scottish lochs are a-sfcan- . ishingly deep, tbs deirth of one — Loch Marcc — being known to exesed lOCOrt. — Englidi is practically the only lan- . ijuage in which tha singular first perscjial pronotui is spalt with- a capital letter " I." — A first ciass battleship costs tho country £231,5C0 a roar; a torpedo Loat dcetroyer, £17,5X)0j and a tTSt-cJass tcxp;do boat, £6100. —la view of th«- high marriage rate in Canada, a, steamship lieing built for the Canadian . Pacific Itailway is to contain ••ion«yrcoon". cabins. .— The longest railway 1 bridge in the-,; world, two miles in length, has just been oompisted .acuoes tho Cblumbia River at ] Vancouver, Washington. » , — -No fewer titan 60 different languages may- ba lisard ■ used by the inhabitants of FTsetown, Sierra 'jLaoce. — Tbs lcnzcafc pier in .England is thot of Southend. It is 6600£t in length, but it will in. time bs excoa<icd by th^ Minstsr-on-Sea pier, which is to be, when built, 7000 ft long. — The Hen. Sydney Holland, chairman o£ the Lou-cyon Hospital, recently elated j that during 12 months iie had WTitien come | 117,000 letters, whioh meant 118 mites of continuous ■nriting:- — Pall Mall, Ix>ndcn, has become or>o cf the danger-spots of London. During on© hour 350 vehicles have been noted to pasi, j travelling in six different directions. ~ — The peniophthalmus, or walking fifh, is found in the South 1-kicifio. At low tide it -crawls «ver the lonely whi:o coral beacibcs on two shimmering, ycMoA'-^calcd legs, in siarch of sa-nd -crabs ' j — A v sn»ll dri-aking fountain is to bs j erected £t\he Scott Monument, Edinburgh, j for tli3 convenience of visitors. It 13 ; stated that th? visitors to thj monumrenc -an-ged from some days up to 1200. 1 — Dundee College Council Has •resolved to recommend the governors to proceed with the er-action of an engineering laboraTory. ift the cost of about £14,000. Tha funds will bs supplied by the Carne-jrie-trus-tees, supplemented by a ccntribu,tiou from the council." ' " . ." --. — Both nran and women in Lapland dTess precisely alike. They wear tunics bslted loosely at the waist, t%ht breeclKß, wrink,'.c<l leather .stockings, and pointed fcho*-?; their whole appearance, iv short,.' is identical, at least to the casual observer. — It. Best-on. U.S.A., of ihe child.-on admitted to tho schools, 45 per cent. ha.d ; never seen the country, 20 per cent, did ftot | know 4hat cows gave milk, 47 p?r cent, j had never ceen a pig, and 15 por c?ni. J could r.c-t distinguish by name between the , colours yellow, g-reen, "and blue-. " — Th-2 Tilla33 of Hi»h Haldcn, aioar ! Ashford, undoubtedly holds the record for the numter of twin* born there. Ten children, all of whom are twins, aticn'l \ the village school regularly. Every morn- ' ing two older twins can be seen carrying , two younger twins to school, all being I members of one family. — The newest -thing in freak photography in Egypt is jjosing -for photographs in cardboard sphinx moulds and mummy : casce. A hole is leffe whore tho face or I the sphinx should be, and English and American faces peer out from this vantage upon the j>hocographer. Exceptionally live mummy effects are made in tne same way. — A new alpine -hotel is advertised a 6 the ideal resort for (.hose who want a complete rest-cure. All the plates, diehes, cups, and saucers are made of papier xnache, co that guests will be spared Aie clatter of a restauo^iifband, as the material ia so light, 'guests' trill suffer the least, possible fatigue in lifting the cups to their lips. 1 — What has been calkd the oldest inhabited- building in Ireland, Castle Malahide, near Dublin, is ehortly to be tho scene of a large garder party given by Lady Taibot de Malahide. The castle has come down to heirs male of the Malahide family in* one long line for seven centuries and a-half without a break. Ifc is an tvy-covewd mansion, flanked by d-rmn-shaped towers. The regie idle Miles Corbet lived there, and one of his exploits was to unroof the fine old abbey church Mtr by in. ordea: Ja coyer hia ba<r\u

— From Kentucky we have details of a curious raffle, in which the prize was a baby. A widow wa^ so pocr*th*at she \\ iahed someone to adopt h-er baby. Seve- ; raj people offered to adopt the child, and i the id^a ,was suggested: to the mother of making it tho subject of a raffle, and proj fifing thereby. This waG_done, and tha 1 whole town entered into the spirit of tn9 j thing, 50GC tickets at 10 osnts each bein^ ' sold, ar.d bringing the mother £40. A I lawyer named Stitt wen the child. Mr I Stitt 13 a bachelor, but co delighted was I he with the baby, who never cried during i the whole proceedings, thar he has an- ' pounced his intention of lerraUy adopting 1 it. 1 — Captain S. Musgrave, who was m j charge of Lord Itoberte's armoured train I in. South Airica during tho Boer War, has r-eturncd to England by the Cunard liner I Carmania after a 20 months' mul«~ trip i tbrough Colombia. Besides numerous ' specimens- of plants, in?scts, and skins of j animals the captain has brought home ,1 1 live ant-eater, which during -the voyago to j England was- fed on bananas, rio?, and ' milk. Captain Musgrave s^ys that he had 1 been on a zoological expedition, and had ; been successful in g>etting several fine specij mens. He had he said, discovered a ' specimen of a carnivorous plant which had ! a brain, digestive crgans, and a nervous I system, like a, human being.