GRAINS OF KNOWLEDGE.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 18762, 29 December 1930, Page 2

GRAINS OF KNOWLEDGE.

The Victoria Cross carries an annuity of £lO. An agoraphobe is one who hates open spaces. St. Hilda of Whitby was the first great woman teacher in England The most beautiful fountains in England are at Catsworth, Derbyshire. The Gulf Stream is heaviest in flow in July, August and September. The first regular troops and standing army were formed by King Saul about 1093 B.C. The Solitary wasp is so-named from the fact that each egg is hatched in a separate nest. The highest-paid official in Ireland Is the Governor-General of the Free State; £IO,OOO a year. Parrot and hornbill resemble each other In formation of toe, both being scansores, or tree-climbers. The last dukedom to be created (apart from Royal dukedoms) was that of Fife, previously an earldom. Blasphemy was punishable by death according to the law of Moses (Lev. xxiv.) about 1490 8.C., and by code Of Justinian, A.D. 529. The two best-known wedding marches were composed by Mendelsshon (Music to “Midsummer Night's Dream”) and Wagner (“Lohengrin”). Beautiful as the firefly appears at night, by day it is an ordinary brown bettle, without a single element of beauty beyond a certain elegant of form. , , ,

The first Peace Society was started in 1816 by a group of reformers; the first International Arbitration and Peace Association was founded by Lewis Appleton, 1880. Among the Chinese the command that is thought to be the least terrible is the command to commit suicide, because in that case they can avoid mangling the body, and so make their appearance in the spirit world whole and entire.

That part of Great Britain between the Esk and the Sark, which was claimed by both England and Scotland, and was for a long time the subject of dispute, was called the “Debatable Land.” It was a regular hotbed of thieves and vagabonds.

The cuckoo passes the winter for the most part in south-western Africa. It also visits India, China, Java, and the Sunda Islands in the course of Its migration. It arrives in England in April, and leaves at the end of July for warm southern climes to pass the winter. The power of a steam engine is calculated by multiplying the pressure in pounds on a square inch of the piston, the area of the piston in inches, and the number of feet pressed through by it in a minute. From this amount deduct one-tenth for friction, and the result will give the number of pounds the engine will raise one foot in a minute. The standard used in England is that of James Watt, who calculated that a London dry-horse working eight hours a day would raise 33,0001 b one foot in a minute.