BRIEF MENTION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9430, 2 January 1909, Page 3

BRIEF MENTION.

Ceylon possesses over 500 miles of railway. Greenland's population does not number 11,000. > The proportion of gold and silver in ! circulation is one to fifteen. I Eton's playing-fields are the largest belonging to any public school. Only 60,000 full-blooded Red Indians are to be found to-day in the United States. ■ , ■ ' The average life of a horse is twenty years, but horses have been worked up to forty-five years. Marble is still quarried in the way employed over 2000 years ago, when the Parthenon was built. Although the sand in the Sahara only averages 30ft in depth, it has been found 200 ft below the surface. Brushes .made of such thin glass fibre that they are like spun silk are used by artists when decorating china. A bridal wreath in England is usually composed of orange blossom. Germany uses myrtle, Italy white roses, Spain red roses, Greece vine leaves, and Bohemia rosemary. Golonel Strong, chairman of the Peterborough Quarter Sessions since 1875, who recently resigned, had the unique power of passing the death sentence, owing to Peterborough's ancient privileges. ..-.■. It is stated that in the Crow's Nest Pass, in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, there are over 22,000,000,000 tons of coal, which will* be available for development when transportation facilities have been secured. t Mindanao, in the Philippine Islands^ contains a large lake of 400 square miles, in which there are a number of floating islands. One of these, which is inhabited, is three-quarters of a mile m area, and .moves according to. tiie direction of the wind. More than 5,000,000 boxes of oranges have been shipped from California during the season, or more than double the record of any previous season. The lemon acreage of the State has also been increased, and its, output will soon be felt in Eastern markets. War correspondents were used as far back as the time of Edward 11. Bcribes, specially commissioned, were sent with the English army which invaded Scot" land at that time. One of them completed his task, but the other was captured at the battle of Bannockburn. Vast quantities of flowers are gathered for perfumery purposes. '. It is es"timated that each year 1860 tons of orange flowers are used, besides, 930 tons of roses, 150 tons each of violet* and jasmine, 75 tons of tuberoses, fftons of cassia, and 15 tons of jonquils. Professor John Mason Tyler, professor of biology at Amherst College, has sold his bead for use after death for £2000. His is said to be the bestshaped head in America, with an extraordinary brain development, and is regarded as of tremendous value to science. It is. announced that the vacancy Created by. the death of TriHey, tjip War Office cat, has been filled by the promotion of Major, tile second 3at, and one is now. considered enough .or the mice. The announcement is r«cessary owing to the number of applications sent in to supply a successor. Siam has recently passed a law gijring women the right to vote in certain cases. While this may eeem an extraordinary step for an Oriental people, the Siamese women themselves explain that it is the teaching of Buddhism. They point out that Buddhism preaches the equality of the sexes, and gives equal education to boys and girls. # The oldest office under the Crown in England is that, of Lord High Steward, which was in existence before the time of Edward the Confessor; indeed, some' authorities say that it was instituted by O^a in 757. For a long time this official was second only to the King, and the office was for some time hereditary in certain noble families. A section of the Canadian Northern railway t running/ north-west from Sudbury and crossing the Vermilion River, is unique in that it is ballasted with gold. Every yard of the gravel* usec* for ballast has been found to .contain from two shillings worth to four shillings worth of the precious , metal in the shape of fine dust, and a syndicate is installing machinery for. its extraction. News reached Sheffield recently of the death in Russia, in his eighty-third year, of Mr Roland H. Bunting, who had served as surgeon-dentist to the Russian Court under the Emperors Nicholas 1., Alexander 11., Alexander. 111. and the present Emperor. He lost two sons in the war with Japan, one in the Russian army and the other in t?«e navy. > An interesting discovery hasr been made in the underground workings of Arley Colliery, North Warwickshire, England. At a depth of about 340 yards workmen came across the bed of an old river, more than 150 yards wide, and at one point running into a lagoon or lake of considerable size. The river and lake have dried in, or, it is supposed, the watercourse was diverted by some huge upheaval. Arfey Colliery was opened out a few years ago. - • While visiting the caves at Pentargon, near Boscastle a woman recently discovered the hull of a vessel inside one of the caves about sixty or seventy yards from its month.* On making inquiries in the village she found that no one was aware of the existence of the vessel, so she communicated with ihe coastguard station. A man was sent to the cave, and ascertained that the wreck was that of the Gazelle, which went ashore at Pentargon. some years &go. The work of pruning the mammoth beech hedge at Meikienur, Perthshire, on the estate of the Marquis of Lansdowne. wa» being carried out in October. The hed«ce, which is the most famous of its kind in the world, was planted in 171 S. It is one-third of a mile long and about 100 ft higE. It is pruned every eight or ten v<»*re. +Hp operation as may be su-oposed, being both a difficult and a costly one. Special apparatus for the purpose had to be obtained from London. In North Wales there is a section of single line worked on the electric train staff svstera. When the signalman tried recently to draw a staff from the instrument in order to despatch a train he was unable to do so. The failure ot the instrument lasted for nearly five hours. Investigation revealed that a small fly had crept into the instrument, - and apparently had while in' the act of examining the. delicate mechanism of one of the contacts. leaving its tiny body as an insuperable barrier to the passage of the electric current. / . . . , .._.. _ The Transvaal minmg statuses for the half-year ended June 30. 1908, show that the total 'wages paid to white miners during that period amounted to £2 655.161, as compared with £2 67fi ff(Tl m the previous six months, and £2.837,755 in the first half of 1907. The stores consumed in the first six months of 1908 were valued at. £4.468.131, as compared with £4.360.376 in i&e previous B alf -y*jJ£The whites employed in June, 190°; numbered 19 ; 907, as compared with 19 526 in December last. The number of whites increased to 20.406 by the end of the following quarter. "The most beautiful and extraordinr ary chiekena in the » worldi are those bred by the Royal Family of Japan, the privilege of raising them not bemg accorded to any of the^Mikado's subiects." said Mr L, J. T)e;Orareav. of Yokohama, at the Rennert. "These chickens are celebrated for the wonderful growth of their tail feathers, a fullgrown rooster's, tail ©f+£n reaching a leneth of twenty feet. Tbe^tail is of a foveW deep blue shade, while the body is buff and about the neck is a white rino-. A pair of these chickens has been known tn.wll.to-a we*»lthv Englishman for £200, on condition that he would take them out of the conntry. I believe that ere Jong the species will entirely disappear, as I heard before leaving Japan that.it was the intention of his Majesty to cease their breeding."