MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 3524, 27 September 1921, Page 45

MULTUM IN PARVO.

Tho war debt of Great Britain costs £304,500,000 in interest alone annually. A woman hairdresser is tlhe latest addition to the staff of one Atlantic liner. Opals, corals, and amber are among the stone 3 and gems which have been cleverly i mitated in a substance made from dried milk. Woolwich Arsenal staff, which had grown from 14,366 in pre-war limes to 97,000 at the date of the Armistice, is to be reduced by 5700. —On the telegraph line constructed through eastern Africa, from Cairo to the Cape of Good Hope, living trees, instead of cut poles, were used over long distances, in order to escape the ravages of white ants, which attack the poles but not the trees. The latter were planted along the line, with their branches cut off. They readily took root, and only needed to have their bra nches trimmed from time to time. The finest cork in the work comes from Spain. The province of Andalusia is particularly famous for its cork trees. Cork stoppers manufactured in Spain are exported to all parts of the world; likewise fine and very smooth sheets of cork, which are used for tips of cigarettes, linings of hats and helmets, and, to some extent, for the printing of visiting cards. Electric locomotives for the Paul ista railroad in Brazil arc now being built in the Unhed States. It is a freight locomotive weighing 105 metric tons, and has six driving axles, each equipped with one 280 h.p. direct-current motor, arranged for operation with two motors in series on the 3000-volt line. This locomotive lias been designed to handle trailing loads up to 7CO metric tons over a line having a maximum grade of approximately 2 per cent. tionally high, aceordirjg to the ‘ Bulletin de la Ftatisr'q us Generals de France.” Of every 100 children born there is an average death rate of 12.. In some of the provinces of France the rate is as high a.s 16. The lowest death-rate is found in the Department of the preuse. where only six out of every 100 children born succumb. In 1914 the average death-rate among tile children born was 11.

—ln the Inland Sea of Japan is an 1 island that 3000 inhabitants of both sexes; but on that island births and deaths practi- * cally never happen, observes Everyday Science. For ages this island, known as < Miyajima, has been given over to religious ceremonies, and most of its inhabitants are priests, image carvers, and fishermen. Miyajima is, in the eyes of the Japanese, one : of the three sights of the country. Some of it. is cultivated, but most consists of wooded heights and rocky valleys, with streams of crystal water. Wi'd animals, including large herds of deer, abound, anil . are never touched by the people. Birds and all kinds of creatures become so tame that they do not fear man in the least, and crime of .any sort is practically unknown. One of the most rigorous rules on Miyajima is that there must be no deaths or births. When a child is likely to be born die woman is rowed across to the mainland, and anyone who is very ill is removed in a- like manner. In the old days very severe penalties wore inflicted on the relatives of anyone who chanced to die on the island. Even to-day the relatives are banished for a month. Another curious rule is. that no one is allowed to keep a dog. Although this strange island is venerated so much by the Japanese, thov do not object to white men visiting the place. Judging by the number of people who suffer from corns, bunions, fiat feet, and kindred troubles, the art of fitting boots is large! y in nr <1 of potentate assistance. Tliis assistance is now being given in Great Britain hv moans of X-rays. A simple self-contained X-ray apparatus has been produce! bv which tho customer and the shop assistant can see. on a fiorosee-nt screen, the hones of the foot. The picture thus given shows exactly the real structure of the foot, from which an intelligent shop man con gauge the type of shoe which will give the customer the support and comfort be or she desires. The electric power required is so small and the exposure of such brief duration that there is absolutely no fear of any burning or ill effects from the use of this appliance. Pearls arc small bodies found not infrequently in bivalve moll 'sc.s —shellfish like the oyster, missel, cockle, and the like. They in many erse* of no beauty and of no value, and would probably bo refused the name of pearl altogether by the yreneral public. r i bey are composed of a number of layers of nacre arranged somewhat, like the layer*? in an onion. If tho ‘dm I !bs-b has a beautiful nacreous layer to its shell there is some chance of beautiful pearls being* formed in the soft parts of the amma.l within the shell, writ's “A Marine Biologi't” in the Daily Mail. If, however, the shell (like that of the common edible mussel) docs not possess an exquisite inner nacreous layer, there is little chance of the pearls being worth a glance. Now the reason for this relationship is that pearls are produced by "fragments” of the same tissue which secrets the nacre of the shell—but these ‘‘fragments” are out of place; they have in some wav been carried from the surface into the soft parts of the animal’s body. They continue to live in their abnormal position, and as a result layers of nacre are secreted, usually round some nucleus —the body which was perhaps responsible for the initial disturbance. It was orreo thought, that, this nucleus was a sand-grain ; then more recently it was sib own that the young: stages of certain marine worms —parasites—micrhfc occasion the phenomenon of pearl modwtion by boring; into the soft, anatomy of the pearl oyster and carrying 1 a small part of the shelf-secreting layer before it. This te no doubt true in some cases; as a matter of fact anything 1 which causes a displacement of the shollvo'i- tire layer may occasion pearl production. Now the discovery of the Japanese i- simply the .secret of introducing some email particle into the soft parts of a pearl oyster in such a way that, it becomes surrounded bv the r-acre-sccreting layer fenithelii m). !: i - probable that this particle introduce 1 1 ‘i i« actually a minute pearl - of no value whatever. Tn this case ; i would ho obvious that even an examination of the HhT centre of a “culture” pearl wo-uld not reveal any difference from a pearl taken from a pearl oy ter off a coral reef A section through sm-h a “culture” p< arl mi'/ht reverl some dislocation between the introduced and tin Ferreted bn ors, Inf it is no use cutting up one's valuable peurls to see how they were started. As n matter of fact there is no difference, and there ought to be no difference, between a. Vulture” pc-ail and any other To speak of “real” pearls and “culture" pearls h finite incorrect. Pa th are formed in the eame wav and by the same animal.