NEW, ODD, INTERESTING

Rodney and Otamatea Times, Waitemata and Kaipara Gazette, 17 February 1915, Page 3

NEW, ODD, INTERESTING

- A school for gipsies, the only one of its kind in the world, has been openin Berlin.

A trap baited with sunflower-seeds is one of the most efficacious means of catching rats.

In Italy there are more theatres in proportion to the population than in any other country.

An egg was dug up recently in Egypt, having been buried -one thousand eight hundred years in the tomb of a child.

Two English words in which all the five vowels are to be found in proper alphabetical order are "abstemious" "facetious."

Sperm-whales are the richest prize of the ocean, yielding spermaceti from the cavities in their heads, ivory from their lower jaws, and rich yellow oil from their sides.

It costs somewhere about eight hundred and eighty thousand pounds a year to maintain the twenty-four royal palaces and lesser dwellings of the German Emperor.

The staple crop of China is said to be sweet potatoes. There is no section which does not raise them, and they are a substantial part of the diet of a greater part of the Chinese people.

The witch-tree of Nevada is so luminous that on the darkest night if can be plainly seen a mile away. A person standing near can read the smallest print by its light.

Students of natural history have discovered that a bee, unladen, will fly 40 miles in an hour, but one coming home laden with honey does not travel faster than twelve miles an hour.

The origin of the phrase, "Mind your P's and Q's," is said to have been a call of attention in the old English alehouses to the pints and quarts being scored down to the unconscious or reckless beer-bibber.

California is unique among the saltproducing States in that the great b'iJi of her salt comes from sea-water, being obtained by solar evaporation on San Francisco Bay, near Long Beach, and near San Diego.

Specialists have discovered that any one who is partially deaf can hear best when riding in a train. The rumbling of the heavy wheels on the track causes the drum of the ear to vibrate, and in this way excites the capacity to hear.

The greyhound seems to have been developed in level, treeless, and shrubless countries, where a moving object is visible at a long distance, and great speed is therefore necessary to enable a predaceons animal to overtake its prey.

It has been frequently stated that steam is driving sailing vessels off the sea. It appears that about one-half of the tonnage of the world is in vessels propelled by wind, and even in Britain 40 per cent, of the tonnage is in sailing vessels.

A French scientist has enunciated the remarkable theory that the germ in the hen's egg is not destroyed by an electric current that would kill an adult fowl, but that the germ is so modified in most cases that a monstrosity will be hatched.

Japanese auctions are conducted in the following manner: Each bidder at an auction writes his name and bid on a slip of paper, which he puts in a box. When the bidding is over the box is opened, and the goods declared the property of the highest bidder.

The nearest approach of Mars to the sun is 129,500,000 miles; his mean distance, 141,500,000; his greatest distance, 154,500,000. Our mean distance from the sun is about 93,000,000 miles. The nearest approach of the two planets to each other is 35,050,000 miles.

The ancient Chinese and Japanese frequently used to draw pictures with their thumbnails. The nails were allowed to grow to a length of some eighteen inches^ and were pared to a point and dipped in vermilion or sky-blue ink the only color used in these thumbnail sketches.

It is a singular fact, but true, that the majority of cyclists depend principally upon the right foot to push the machine along. In proof of that, if the balls on a crank axle are examined, those on one side will be found more worn than on the other. That is accounted for by the fact that the greatest strain is on the right side.

Wire wheels with rubber tyres are beginning to compete seriously with Japanese wooden wheels for use on the better class of rickshaws in Ceylon. For persons in Ceylon who have their own private rickshaws, and especially for ladies who value smartness in appearance, wire wheels are rapidly gaining

in favor.