New, Odd & Interesting.

Rodney and Otamatea Times, Waitemata and Kaipara Gazette, 28 August 1912, Page 3

New, Odd & Interesting.

Nicotine, when it is practically pure, is worth 15s per pound.

In Canada about 87 in every 100 farmers own the farms they cultivate.

Europe's oldest sovereign is the Emperor of Austria, born in 1830; the youngest, the King of Spain, born in 1886.

Wild dogs are now one of the dangers of Indian jungles. Even the tiger and-panther flee before, these new pests.

A Strassburg shoemaker has constructed a practicable clock entirely from straw; the work took him fif-

teen years

There is a fish in China that will travel a mile overland from one stream to another. Land journeys are known to have been taken at night by eels.

The cocoanut palm has one peculiarity—it never stands upright. A Malayan saying has it that, "He who hath beheld a straight cocoanut palm will surely live for ever."

The Transvaal is said to be the largest consumer of explosives in the world, approximately one million four hundred thousand pounds annually being spent for this purpose.

The "life tree" of Jamacia is harder to kill than any other species of vegetable growth known. It continues to grow and^hrive for months after being uprooted and exposed to the sun.

The longest surname in the State of Indiana is that of a Greek candy vendor, Pappatheadorokokoummountaourgeotoppulos, who resides at Elkart, where also lives the man with the shortest name, John Bi.

In Norway no clergyman may perform a marriage unless the couple can prove that they have both been vaccinatsd or have had smallpox. Lack of sufficient means to-support a wife is a bar to matrimony in Austria.

The asphalting of the streets around Strassburg Cathedral has caused a startling exodus of pigeons from the spire, where they had nested for centuries. The asphalt i s cleaned frequently, and the birds no longer find food in the locality.

In Servia an old institution called the Zariruga still exists. It is the living together of a whole tribe, numbering about 100 persons, under the absolute authority of one chief, who keeps nil the money, makes all purchases, and decides every detail of family life.

It is a curious, fact that the fur seal was once a land animal. The baby seals are actually afraid of the water; they would drown if thrown into it, and have to learn to swim by repeated efforts. When once they have been taught to swim, however, they soon forget to walk.

Vegetable food is the sustenance of the strongest animals. The formidable character of the lion is due to his ferocity rather thfan to his strength. The 'elephant is a strict vegetarian, yet he is a match for a couple of lions. The horse, the reindeer, the antelope, and other animals remarkable for either speed of endurance are also vegetarians.

A French inventor has adapted the microphone to the discovery of underground water. One end of a tube is inserted in the ground, the upper end being attached to the microphone. The sound of flowing or dropping water are conveyed to the ear from great depths. In the Mc.rne Valley, France, two springs were recently discovered with this apparatus at'a depth of about 50ft. below the surface of the ground.

The gun to destroy the airship is perfecting almost as fast as the airship itself. The Ordnance Bureau of the U.S.A. Navy Department has recently tested the latest gun to be devised. It shoots a 1 lb. bomb 18,000 ft. into the air, at "an angle of 85 deg. Meanwhile, the Ordnance Bureau of the army has made a gun which has an effective range of seven miles, and which shoots a 6 lb. bomb. Either qua would bring down an airship at any height it is likely to attain.

Quaker guns—that is, the trunks of trees made to look like cannons— have often been used to deceive the enemy ; but in the Chinese civil war some years ago actual cannons made of wood were used. They were made from the trunks of hardwood trees, shaped, bored by means of red-hot pipes from some sugar mills, dried in hot air draughts, and bound with strong oxhides. They made fairly serviceable artillery, one piece being fired more than a hundred times before showing signs of weakness.

Not a scrap of paper is permitted to be carried out of the United States Treasury Department until it has pissed the censorship of the official examiners of the waste-paper baskets. They are two women, who sit side by side, going through the contents of the department waste-baskets. For years they have been doing this work, and have saved the Government the amounts of their salaries many t'mes over. Some time back one of them found in a waste-basket" a two thousand pounds United States coupon bond.