MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 2985, 31 May 1911, Page 67

MULTUM IN PARVO.

Four miles of an ordinary spider s thread would weigh only one grain. Thirty-two million tons of water roll over tbo cliff at Niagara every hour. Rain-drops rarely exceed one-eighth ot an inch in diameter.

The parrot appreciates music moTO than any other of the lower creatures. Over 60 miles of tunnel have been cut out of the rocks of Gibraltar. took place, while 1926 divorces weru granted. . n ~ • - —For its Foreign Secret Service Britain expended £17,10*. out of the £50,000 voted, during the year 1909-10. - A whale of 50 tons weight exerts JAD horse-power in swimming 12 miles an Of 30,000,000 emigrants from Europe during the last century, more than onethird were British. in Written by King Edward, when 10 rears old, to his sister, the Princess Royal, a letter has just been sold for to ISs. To make his set of certain stamps unique, a St. Petersburg collector recently paid £2500 for five duplicate stamps, which he then burnt. . A clock in St. Petersburg has 95 faces indicating simultaneously the time at M different spots on the earth's surface, besides the movements of the earth and P —Russia's Gross of St. Andrew has a remarkable peculiarity attaching to it. AJI who are decorated with it have the ri£M once to demand a pardon for a Russian subject condemned to death. A well-known scientist's theory for perfect phvsical conditions is as follows: Exercise' moderately and temperately for a short time at the same relative hour every day of your life." every year in a curious marunicr. Tne oldest master of every 10 houses has to count the families, and make a list, which is sent to the Imperial taxhouse. > The longest canal in the world is in Russia. It extends from St. Petersburg to the frontier of China, and its total length is close upon 4500 mffies. A tree the flower of which resembles a monkey's hand is found in Mexico. The outward resemblance is said to be perfect in every respect. The sea is infinitely more productive than the land. It is estimated that an acre of good fishing will yield more food in a week than an acre of the best land will yield in a year. more than 24- per cent, of the pupils are near-sighted; in those' of Germany, 35 per cent.; in these of the United Kingdom, £0 per cent. The grey eye is an almost universal characteristic of people of groat intellect. Black eyes indicate an ardent temper, while light-blue eyes, which are found chiefly among the Scandinavians, denote a cheerful disposition and a constant nature. The baya bird of India has the curious habit of fastenirjer fireflies to its 'nest with moist clay. On a dark night such a nest might be taken for an electric lamp. matophylluni, all the flowers of which open at once, as if by the stroke of a fairy wand, and they also wither together. The human voice has a more or less marked influence on all animals. In managing horses "specially, the voice_ is of this greatest use; it should be quiet, and, thou.<rh confident and masterful, not loud and boisterous. No one should ever touch a horee without at the same time speaking to it. use little or no wheat bread, their chief diet being beans and thin corn cakes known as tortillas. They .also use considerable rice, peppers, dried beef, and coffee. They are very vigorous, but not very energetic. The Budapest police have taken in hand the danger of ' the big hatpin. By an ordinance of the chief of police tho giant hatpin is to be suppressed. To begin with, the offenders are cautioned.. Then, if they persist in wearing these lethal weapons, they wall be dealt with in the magistrates' court. During the first week the police stopped 1236 ladies. Two engineers in Munich have completed the plans of a huge airship of a capacity of 10Q,CQO cubic metres. It will driven by six motors, with a total horsepower of 24,090, and is expected to attain a speed of 60 miles an hour. It is estimated that the airship will be able to' carry 300 passengers at a time. A French invention for preventing the formation of hail is described in the last bulletin issued by the International Institute of Agriculture. It takes the f orm of rockets, or "hail-dispelling petards," which, exploding at altitudes varying from 1300 ft to 1600 ft, break up the hail clouds. Eighty firing stations have been set up for tho protection of 59,000 acres of rich land at Limagne. For one of the episodes in the Pageant of London at the Festival of Empire what is described as the longest stretch of tapestry in existence has been made. This measures 600 ft by 150 ft, and weighs 10 tons, and 80 men are required to handle it. Some hundreds of ex-soldiers _ have been engaged to form marching armies of various periods. The Festival of Empire will be the finest entertainment ever held at the Crystal Palace. The 260 heirs of a man called Johann Kiln, who was_ born in 1719, met together at Kelkhelm, in the Taunus, recently, in curious circumstances. Their ancestor died in Holland, leaving a huge fortune to be divided amongst his heirs 100 years after his death. He directed that until that period had expired the interest on the capital should be devoted to a Dutch charity.. The capital amounts to the huge sum " of £3.000,000, ' and the claimants elected at this- meeting a committee to take steps to secure the property. It is curious that, although in 1860 100 years had passed since the death of Johann Kiln, nobodv had been at the pains to investigate the matter. The beneficent Gulf Stream, which makes the British Isles a much more pleasant place in which to reside than it wouild otherwise be, has long been suspected of sending off a subsidiarv stream towards the North of Russia. No definite traces of its presence, however, have been actually located, a failure which has just been explained by a party of Russian explorers, who have, it is said, found the long-looked for Gulf Stream flowing round the north of Nova Zembla, hundreds of miles to the north of where it has hitherto been sought. In this part of the Arctic Ocean

there is quite a remarkable absence of floating ice, and it looks as if the famous hot-water system which originates in the Gulf of Florida, after traversing the North Atlantic Ocean, finds its way to the Arctic to keep an open sea xoute to Siberia. Brown eyes are due to a brown pigment laid down in the iris ; blue eyes are due to a lack of such pigment. When both parents are brown-eyed (says an American paper) the children get the tendency to form iris pigment from both sides of the bowse, and the condition of the pigment is ©add to be duplex. If the children get the. tendency from, one parent only, they still have brown eyes, but the condition is said to be simplex. Two parents lacking brown in the iris (blue-eyed) will never have children, with brown eyes, but only with blue eyes. If both parent® have brown eyes simplex, then one in four of the children will have blue eyes. If one parent has simplex brown eyes and the other has blue eyes, one-half of the children will have blue eyes. But if in both or either one of the parents the blue iris pigmentation is duplex, all of the offspring will have brown eyes.