New, Odd & interesting

Rodney and Otamatea Times, Waitemata and Kaipara Gazette, 21 May 1913, Page 3

New, Odd & interesting

Over 500,00 people are employed in Italy in rearing silkworms.

Memory, it has been ascertained, is stronger in summer than in winter.

A service of municipal ambulances for sick and infirm dogs and cats has been inaugurated in Amsterdam.

Willow wood, on account of its lightness, is generally used for artificial limbs.

The smallest bone in the human body is to be found within the drum of the ear.

Before a fire brigade can start for a fire in Berlin the members must all fall in line in military fashion and saltite their captain.

The emerald improves in color by exposure to light. Pearls kept in darkness lose their lustre, but regain it on exposure to the sun.

"All peace" is the meaning of the Christian name Alfred, while Arthur means a strong man. Samuel rleans "Heard by God."

Some harps have been discovered in Egyptian tombs, the strings of which, in several instances., were intact, and gave forth distinct sounds after a silence of about three thousand years.

Peru, though situated in the torrid zone, possesses such a variety of elevations and climatic peculiarities that it is possible to grow there almost any product known to man.

Five attempts were made pn the life of the late Queen Victoria—on June ioth, 1840; May 30th, 1842; July 3rd, 1842; May 19th, 1849; and March 2nd, 1882.

The black apeg of Guinea have long, silky hair, and their fur is. admired for muffs and capes. During the past eight years 1,075,000 skins have been shipped to Paris.

Swedish girls at an early age begin to make and accumulate linen garments. By the time they are of marriageable age, they have an extensive outfit of such articles.

Coal dust can b» formed into bricks for fuel by mixing tfie dust with one part of molasses and two of fuel, until the mass assumes the proper consistency to be pressed into bricks'.

One of the strangest prizes offered by the French Academy of Sciences is £4,000 for the person who discovers a method of communication between planets. It is claimed that Kieff takes the first place of all Russian provinces for abnormal longevity. During last year, it is officially stated,: there were fourteen centenarian deaths registered, one of whom had reached 110 years. A Burmese mile, nearly equals two English ones. The word for "mile" in Burmese means "to sit," and so a mile is the distance that a Tian goes before he considers it necessary to sit down.

Harriet Martinearu wrote her own obituary notice for the London "Daily News/ but she lived twenty-one years after writing it, anjl it was published after her death, word for word as she wrote it.

There is a fish found in Hudson's Bay which builds a nest. This it does by picking up pebbles in its mouth and placing them .in a regular way, on a selected spot on the bottom of the bay, where the water is not very deep.

Two doctors have independently arrived at the conclusion that most persons struck by lightning, and to all appearances dead, could be called to life by applying the method of artificial respiration in use for resuscitating the drowned.

It is somewhat singular that, notwithstanding- the great- advances made in chemistry and metallurgy, no other more satisfactory silver alloy has yet been discovered for coining and other purposes than the alloy used 800 years ago.

It is not generally known that an orange hit in the exact centre by a rifle ball will vanish at once from sight. Such, however, is the fact. Shooting it in the centre scatters it in such infinitesimal pieces _ that it is at once lost to sight.

The chrysanthemum is served at almost every, elaborate Chinese dinner table. The flower has a peculiar flaror, and requires a taste by many trials before it can be fully appreciated; but Chinese epicures frequently pay fancy prices for special kinds.

In France old shoes are brought up ! in large quantities by leather dealers ] and sold to factories. There they are taken apart and submitted to long processes which turn them into paste, from which the material is transformed into imitation, leather, finally coming out in a form which very closely imitates 'the finest morocco. This material is stamped with the most stylish

designs, arid it appears in the shops in the form of a handsome wallpaper, trunk coverings, and similar articles of household decoration.