HERE AND THERE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2915, 26 January 1910, Page 81

HERE AND THERE.

—Rivers of Fire.— A graphic description of the scene in Teneriffe during the volcanic eruption is contained in a, letter dated November 22 from a resident at Hcya Grande, in the south of the Island :—"We could hear the i-oar of the volcano a very long time before arriving at the site, and indeed — although the wind was the other way—in the Hoya itself; and it was a terrible and awful sight at night, the blaze and fhe noise being something; to remember with awe all one's life. The streams of lava looked terrible in the darkness, and we could trace them away into the night like—what they were—rivers of fire. The eruption began in an open plain, and there are now seven craters, not including the ,very small ones, some distance from fhe larger, which have stopped working, and only smoke. The seven larger ones are in line, and are about 20 metres in diameter, and have formed a large mountain behind them, from which at frequent intervals tine loose ashes slip in large quantities back into the craters' mouths, choking these and causing, when the internal force clears the volcano's tubes, the loud explosions which have frightened the people here so very much. We went close up to the craters, which looked like seven huge Bun-sen burners, and make the same sound, throwing up liquid fire some 150 metres straight lip into the air, which falls in showers, like" the best display of fireworks Brock ever gave, multiplied by thousands.. We got really very close, within, I should say, some 300 to 400 metres, and could have gone nearer but for the surrounding red-hot lava, from which we lit our pipe*." —A Deadly Gun. — The Beret-Mercier gun weighs only 221 b against the 1601 b.. of the Maxim. Five mules are required to carry the Maxim. An infantryman can carry the new gun for five miles with 300 rounds of ammunition. "In skirmishing its efficiency was shown to be equivalent to that of 20 men armed with rifles. Under most favourable conditions it is said to have as great efficiency as an infantry company of from 75 to 100 men. In cavalry use its advantages are even greater. It is so constructed that its stock, weighing 101 b, can be hung on one side of the saddle, while the barrel, weighing 121 b, can be hung on the other side. The two parts can be adjusted for action in about 20 seconds, and thenweight is not sufficient to retard the •movements of During the government tests it was found that one mule could .easilv carry two guns, two extra barrels, and 1200 rounds of ammunition. 1909 has also, seen the completion of the most powerful vessels of Avar which the world has ever seen. These are the Delaware and 1 North Dakota added to tl& United States navy, and the magnified Dreadnoughts of the English and German navies. —Cast of a Death; Struggle.— In the Museum of Algiers there is one object which is unique in the world's list of curiosities. It is a plaster cast of the martvr Geronimo in the .agony of death. The Algerians put Geronimo alive into a soft mass of concrete, which presently hardened into a block and was built' into a fort. This was in 1569,. and about 40 years later p Soanish writer described the event and told exactly how that particular block couM be keited. The fort stood for nearly 300 years. Then

' in 1863 it was torn down, and the block was identified l and broken open, and an almost perfect mould of the dead martyr was found within. They filled the mould with plaster, and the result, a wonderful cast, lies' there in the museum to-day, face down as he died, hands and feet bound and straining,' head twisted to one side in the supreme torture of that terrible martyrdom.. "It is a gruesome, fascinating thing," writes Albert Bigelow Paine in Outing, "and you go back to look at it more than once, and you slip out between times for a breath of fresh air. If I lived in Algiers and at any time should sprout a little bud of discontent with the present state of affairs—a. little sympathy with the population— I would go and take a lcok at Geronimo, and forthwith all the discontent and the sympathy would pn,ss away, and I would come out gloating in the fact that France can crack the whip, and that we of the West can ride them down." —The Ober Ammergau Passion Play.— The next performance • of the Passion Play at Ober Ammergau takes place this year. Some interesting facts, concerning the origin of the performance as now given are set forth in a little book, "Ober Ammergau and Its Passion Play," by Edith Milner. After the Thirty Years' War plague broke out in Germany and devastated many towns and villages. At Ober Ammergau there was scarcely a home where one, at least, was not dead. Then the people who had escaped infection came to their priest arid begged him, as the favoured people did Moses of old, to stand between their dead' and their living. To God's house'' they followed the venerable man, and there, before the altar, they vowed a solemn vow, that if God would hear their prayer, they would revive the old practice of giving the story of Christ's last days on earth, to be performed by living men and women. The plague was stayed, . and the people fulfilled their vow. ; The music of the Passion Play as it exists to-day, is by Rochus Dedler, who woe born In 1779. He was a native of Ober Ammergau, and possessed for his times a high degree of learning. All the original music was burned' in 1817. Dedlei immediately created new music, which is used at the present time. The orchestral music Miss Milner considers decidedly unique. The band patrols the town before each performance, and then the performers take their places in the theatre and give the overture. The text of the play was -remodelled in 1850 by the priest of the parish, Aloise Daisenberger; but he did not presume to change the text of the songs composed by Otmar Weiss in 1811. The words of the Prologue. Miss Milner says, cannot be adequately translated, but she gives the following rendering: Cast thyself down in holy wonder, O race of man, bowed down beneath the curse of God, Yet peace comes down for thee, and grace from Zion. i Not for ever shall his.anger last, Though deep his wrong and just his wrath. The Lord God speaks: " 'Tis not The sinner's death I wish. I will Forgive and he shall live. The Son Himself—9ie offered sacrifice— By His own Will, and the world From sin is purged. Praise and thanks we offer Thee, O everlasting One." The performance of the play every ten years is still looked upon by the inhabitants as a binding duty as well as a high privilege. —London's Immunity from Fleas.— At the last meeting of the Quekett Microscopical Club a remarkable statement was made by the president (Professor E. A. Minchin, F.Z.S.) with reference to London's apparent immunity from fleas. Mr Minchin has, for some time, been experimenting on the transmission to the common rat by means of fleas of those microscopic disease-conveying protozoa called trypanosomes. To carry on his investigations he required a considerable number of fleas, but notwithstanding that he offered a shilling for each flea he was unable to get any in London. However, being convinced' that ,-British-born fleas were not altogether extinct, he made known his wants outside the metropolis, and at last secured an "adequate supply" of Pulex irritans from', the County of Norfolk. 'Perhaps this is less a proof of a flealess London than a tribute to the skill of the people of Norfolk in bagging this most elusive of all parsitic insects. —Seventy Years of Eating,— If a man of 70 years was starving, it would probably bs little comfort to him to think that he had consumed in the course of his life 53$ tons of solid food and 42| tons of liquid, or about 1280 times his own weight in both solids and liquids, but it would be true. Being a man of average appetite and purse he would have eaten 15 tons of bread, which would have made a single loaf containing 1200 cubic feet, and appearing about as large as the average suburban home, and on this bread would have spread one ton of butter. If his bacon had been cut in a single slice (says Harper's Weekly), the strip would have been four miles Ion?, and his chops placed end to end would have extended two miles. Twenty ordinary-sized bullocks have supplied him with beef, 18 tons of which he has eaten, along with five tons of fish and 10,000 .and 3501 b of cheese. If he had elected to have all his vegetables served at once they would have come to him in a train of cars, the pod' containing all his pea.* beina: over three miles long. He has had 90001 b of sugar, 15001 b of pa-lt. 81b, of pepper, and 100 cans of mustard. Three pints of liquid a day would have amounted to 76,600 pints, or 42? tons. If ha had been a smoker he would haveburned about half a ton of tobacco in a nipe, or, if he preferred cigarettes, would have smoked about a quarter of a million. —Steel-making in Japan.—• The initial outlay on. the Imperial Steel , Works at Wakamatsu, Jajpan, was un-

■ necessarily heavy, and this has handiI capped the enterprise somewhat; but the ! Government seems determined to perseI vere, and no doubt they will meet with ■ success financially before long, as they have already attained success mechanically. This plant is now in full operation, and employs over 7000 men. The works comprise three bias' furnaces, with a combined daily capacity of 450 tons of pig-iron, a 160-ton mixer, and three cupolas ; three Bessemer converters, each of 10 tons capacity; cogging, rail, b:ir, rod, and plate and i>heet mills; crucible steel-plant; wire-drawing plant; galvanising and corrugating plant; boiler, engine, and bridge shops; a railway 45 miles long, with 51 locomotives and 6550 trucks, and loading and unloading arrangements. "Rifles, heavy artillery, big guns for battleships, etc., are now being made in these works, and it is intended to so extend and develop the concern p.s. to render the Japanese Almiralty practically independent of foreign steel and armament makers. New works are aleo to be erected at Mororau, near Yezo. —T. Good, in Cassier's Magazine for November. —Pine Forests at the South Pole.— "Professor David, who occupies the Chair of Geology in. the University of Sydney, and who accompanied "Sir Ernest Shackfeton to the Antarctic, has been making some interesting remark* on his discoveries there," s*ys the Westminster. "The fossil woods he- had found showed that pine forests had flourished in the vicinity of the South Pole at a remote geological epoch. The coal seams he had discovered suggested the same conclusion. At that time there was more or less continuous land from Australia to the South Pole. The climate all over the world was at that period probably much milder than at present." —Another Daniel Comet. — Mr Daniel, of the Princeton Observatory, New Jersey, who came into prominence in 1907 as the discoverer of the naked-eye comet visible during the summer of that year, has just netted his second cometary capture by discovering a new comet to the east of the section of the Milky Way which divides Taurus from Gemini. At present a telescopic object, it is above the horizon for more than 16 hours out of the 24 (says the Westminster Gazette), and is moving above Gemini northward towards the first-magnitude star Capella, which is almost overhead about midnight. Should this newest comet develop, as did the Daniel Comet of 1907, it will oe much more interesting to the- ordinary observer, as its movement northward will soon take it into circumpolai* regions, where it will never set, and will be splendidly placed for observation from our latitudes. —-The First Hindu Temple in America.— The first Hindu Temple in the Western Continent now occupies a prominent site in San Francisco. It was dedicated in April, 1908, and was erected under the auspices of the Ramakrishna Mission, Behir-Math, of Central. India. Although of modest dimensions, it has a pronounced architectural style, having been designed after the great Taj Mahal of Agra., one of the seven wonders of the world, and •after the famous temple at is, in fact, a combination of .Hindu temple. Christian church, Mohammedan mosque, ind Indian monastery. The votaries .at the temple are said to be all American citizens. —Precious Stones of India. — Diamonds, Tubies, sappniires, spinels, tourmalines, garnets, rock crystals, and various sorts of amber and jadeite are the precious istones found on India's, coral strand. The ruby and jadeite are the only stones of considerable value produced. Large quantities of turquoise come from Sikkim and Tibet, that from the latter country being harder, darker blue, and therefore more valuable. The importation of precious stones into India amounts annually to about 4,900,000 dollars. The diamond."industry is limited, and is carried on in Southern India, the northern part of the Indian peninsula, and in the central provinces. Ruby mining is carried on in Upper Burma, and, next to petroleum, is the most profitable of the mineral resources of the State, the value of the product being about 500.000 dollars annually. One ruby; of 77 carats was taken out a few years ago, and valued at 133,330 dollars. Sapphires, used to be mined in Kashmir, but the mines are now said to be exhausted. _ The yellow, white, blue, and green varieties of sapphires are found in the ruby-bearing gravels in Burma. The spinel is found in considerable quantities in Burma. Tourmaline stones of blue, green, and black colouring are found in Upper Burma.- Garnets are mined in Jaipur. Pvdck crystal, cut for cheap jewellery, known as v-a-ieam diamonds, is found in Madras. Another quartz crystal, found in-Kalabagh, is cheaper and is used for necklaces.' Chalcedonic silica is called happik, and embraces many forma of agate, mined in the Deocan. Agates and cornelians are cut and prepared for market in Bombay. They come mostly from Rajpipea. Large quantities are shipped to Europe and China. Jadeite of beautiful green veins is found in Upper Burma, and an inferior ja.de is found in other parts of India. The stone sells for 50dol to lOOdol a hundredweight,—Chicago Tribune. : . —Some Curious Relics. — The museum of the Royal College of Surgeons can boast some curious relics. They include, the Lancet states, the body of the wife of one Van Bute-hell, which was embalmed by Dr Cruikshank andl William Hunter in 1775.; the mummied' body of a boy who- died from plague in, 1665; the skin of the' heads of three; Macas Indians from Ecuador, curiously preserved so as to contract to the size of a doll's head, and at the same time to retain the features of a living individual; a collection of boots, she??., and ploves worn by the Irish gri&rfc O'Brien : pieces of human skin which had formerly been found nailed to the doors of Worcester Cathedral and the churches of Had stock

iuk! Oopford in Essex : and a cast of the head of the Deeming murderer, who wat hanged .at Old Newgate in May. 1892. —Questions for Captains.— The captain of one of the American liners lias been relating the troubles oi h.i.s responsible position. The chief among these seems to be that he is continually having unnecessary inquiries put him by anxious passengers. There -are; nine questions, he says, that are invariably asked him on each voyage as soon "as the ship leaves port. The nine matters on which information is demanded are as follows: Have you ever been shipwrecked? Are there any whales in this latitude? What tips should one give, and to whom? How many times have you crossed th-2 Atlantic? What is the best cure for seasickness? Why are they always painting the ship? Will you let me come an on the bridge one day? Do you remember my cousin who crossed over with you in 'O6? J. suppose the passengers ask you a great many silly questions?- Another very common inquiry is, "Where is the nearest land?" One -harassed cantain, en being asked this question fo-r about the fiftieth time, pointed over the vessel's side and blandly replied: "Madame, the nearest land is at the bottom of the sea."