Our Miscellany

Southern Cross, Volume 5, Issue 37, 18 December 1897, Page 4

Our Miscellany

,v lM|hfe&o ! -'&ie IbriftMt dis: tance on,record a*: which a man’?, voice has been \ heard. ’This occurred in the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, ■where one man shouting the name ‘Bob’at one end, his voice was plainly heard at the other end, which is eighteen miles away. It is calculated that the ordinary sickness of England and Wales annually costs the country 20,000,000 weeks’ work —that is as much work as 20.000. of people in good health would accomplish in a week. Put in another way, this amount may be ’ stated as equalling one-fortieth part of the work done yearly by the whole population between sixteen and sxityfive years of age. Not long ago the inhabitants of Capetown were greatly surprised at the firing of the midday time gun before the appointed hour, and for a period the officials were equally puzzled at the extraordinary occurrence. The action of the electric current by which the gun is fired goes through an instrument fitted with a light tongue, which is very finely set. It appears that a spicier found its way through one of the openings in the instrument, and whilst exploring must have touched this ongue sufficiently to move it, and fired the gun. Since the beginning of this century no fewer than fifty-two volcanic islands have risen out of the sea. Nineteen of that number have since disappeared, and ten are now inhabited. Barber, the great authority on fish, siys that every square mile of the sea is inhabited by 120,000,000 fish. ' To insert a circular in the letterbox of every house and shop in London means the disposal of over half a million bills. The head of Liberty, which adorns the silver dollar issued by the United States Mint, is a reproduction of the features of a beautiful young school teacher of Philadelphia. Birmingham turns out every week 300.000. cut nails, 100,00,000 buttons, 4,000 miles of wire of different sizes, 5 tons of hairpins, 500 tons of nuts, and 20,000 pairs of spectacles. The Japanese are fond of bathing. In the city of Tokio there are 800 public bathhouses, in which a person can take a bath, hot or cold, for a sum equal to one halfpenny, Sutton-in-Ashfield, in Nottingham, has given birth to more famous cricketers than any other town in England. More than twenty professionals leave the little hosiery town &t the: beginning of every cricket season. The two essentials of keeping a watch in good condition are winding and cleaning. The majority of people wind their watchesi before going to bed. It is the worst possible time. The right time is the morning. A watch always goes faster when the spring is tightly coiled and when laid down over night is sureto gain a little. In the daytime the shaking of the body oscillates the spring, and retards the movement. If, however, the watch has been wound in the morning the effort of the coiled spring to send the hands faster is equalised by the shaking of the body, and thus the watch goes neither too fast nor too slow. Unless the watch case is an unusually tight-fitting one du-t is certain to find its way to the delicate and intricate works, and interfere with the movement. The watch will go slowly and evince a determination to stop when only half run down. This is its method of showing it wants a cleaning, and a cleaning should be given as often as once a year if the watch is valued and expected to keep good time. With these two points in mind a watch used with ordinary care should last several lifetimes.