BRIEF MENTION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10106, 18 March 1911, Page 1

BRIEF MENTION.

Members of the Russian Duma art elected for fire years.

In Morocco there, are practically no roads or wheeled vehicles.

The capital value of total wealth of Belgium has been estimated in round figures at £1,160,000,000. ; The longest span of telegraph wire in the world is that over the river Kistha, in India. It is over 6000 ft long. . ■ Ihe next Canadian census is expected to show that the population is well over 8,000,000. In 1901 it was only 5,300,000. ; Prince August Wilhehn, son of the German Emperor, has been sworn in as a referendar—a hamster without emolument—the lowest stag© of the legal hierarchy in Prussia. Bank notes and. securities worth £12,000 were found in an old coat belonging to a Greek beggar who died at Kasaka, Roumania, by his widow, who had always thought her husband was a poor man. British exports to Canada, in 1896 totalled £5,852,000. in 1909 £15,688,000 and in 1910 £19,683,000. The president of the Board of Trade states that 68 per cent of British export* to Canada enjoy preference. !., A two and a half years .old child was found lying uninjured and well wrapped up in the middle of a road near Market Drayton, England. It had fallen out of a trap, and its parent* did not miss it until they had travelled six miles from the spot. Tolstoi's presentiment of death calls to mind the fact that his brother Nicholas had a similar experience just before his death. Nine hours before he died he had a presentiment of his end* and, asking to be undressed, went to bed and succumbed, soon aftei. Benzine and Benzene are two terms frequently confounded. # Benzine i? .petroleum spirit—a distillation from crude petroleum. Benzene, however, is distilled from organic substances", such as coalrtar, and is used in the manufacture of dyes, for cloth-clean-ing, and in rubber-working. Mr William Johnson, of . Hesketh, near Preston, who has died' at the ag*of .ninety-seven years, had 175 descend ants —twelve children, seventy grandchildren, eightv-severi great-grand-children, a nd six great-great-grand-children. No fewer than 149 of these are still living. He left a widow, ag£d ninety-one years. Remarkable archaeological discoveries were made during excavations in th'n grottos at Arlesherm, near Basle. They consisted of a reindeer horn javelin ten inches long, and other objects belonging to the pre-glacial period. Swiss experts estimate them to be from 130,000 to 630,000 years old, resembling the late discoveries at Dordogne, <n France.

The engineers in the navy have a very effective way of kUlin'g sharks. They seal up .a dynamite' cartridge in an empty can, and put the can; inside a large piece of pork. The .pork ! is thrown overboard on • a wire which has been connected with an electric .battery. When the shark takes the/bait the engineer presses a button, which explodes the cartridge and kills the fish.- : ; • • • • ■•.

There are no metals which • are; attracted by mercury, or- "quickjsilVety as it is often called, as'iron is attracted by a magnetl Mercury will : wet aid adhere to a large number of metals when, they are clean, just as. water; will wet' clean glass, and it will dissolve these metals, forming amalgams'with them. Tin, gold/ silver, lead and coj>per are the. more common metals 1 to De thus attacked by mercury. "V'.: One of the main reasons of the decline of the Indian BUverindiwtryj'aniJ, indeed, of the decay of Indian taste, -is the complete surrender of the"" educated" Indian public to English ideas'and ideals. To .give only one ; example that I lately came across illustrating the way in which fashion is killing Indian art and industry—the Kashmir Durbar have abandoned the official use of the exquisite and unrivalled hand-mode paper formerly used, and now import their stationery from a London firm,' declares Dr Coomaraswaray. .* When offered for sal« in the local market in the Bahamas, sponges are either piled up loose or maae into strands or beads of from two to ten sponges each. The beat sponges' are usually made into strings or from eight to ten sponges each. Others are generally sold in lots not strung. The buyer, however, is not guided in his purchase by the number of sponges on a string, but by what a;certain lot will weigh, and the weight is never given, but the buyer must estimate it; hence practical experience is needed in the purchasing of sponges. While excavations were in progress recently at Pompeii, the petrified body of a woman of the Roman period was found. On her arms and hands were superbly jewelled ornaments, two raasf sive buckles being fashioned in the form of bunches of grapes, each grape being represented by a large pearl. Bythe side of the body was found a casket iull of jewellery and precious .stones.The assumption is that the woman, who appeared to have been of the *ris-; tocratio class, was flying from the ,Vesuvian eruption which destroyed the. city, when she was struck-down and buried under the streams of lava ,and ashes.

Germany is a country of •• Nlmroda. There are we learn, 600,000 ■portemen, which means one gun for every hundred people. Bach year fall to the gun, on an average, 400,000 hares, 4,000,000 partridges, 500,000 rabbits, 2,000,000 thrushes,. 190,000 . deer, 145,000 woodcocks, 40,000 wild ducks, 25,000 pheasants, 15,000 quails, 13,500 bucks, 1400 wild boars, and 1800 bustards. In weight this "bag" represents 25,000,000 kilogrammes, a kilo-, gramme being 2 l-51b. The /aonetary' value is 32,000,000 francs, or £1,240,-. 000. The sum received for licenses W shoot is 7,500,000 francs, or £300,000. Roughly speaking, the Chinese medicines are derived about as follows: From metals and stones, 138 kinds of physic are extracted] from grasses and vegetables, such as roots, stubs,'leaves,, flowers and seeds, 350 kinds; from trees; 130 kinds are found in the roots, bark,,' trunk, leaves, seeds and flowers; from the human body, 27 kinds; from vege-., tables, such as cabbages, turnips, and.! birds. 34 kinds; from bugs, worms'/, shellfish, snakes, turtles and flies, 100,, kinds; from fruits, 40 kinds; from" vegetables, such as cabbage, turnips,., melons, etc., 62 kinds. And to all'" these must be added medicines derived from wheat, corn and other grains. The age of a fish can be determined„ with accuracy by inspection of the oto* liths or bony conoretions which are found in the auditory apparatus. These.; otoliths increase jn size during.the entire life of the nsh, each year adding, two layers, a light-coloured layer formed in summer and a dark layer formed in autumn and winter. The alternate layers are sharply contrasted and very" distinct, so that there is no difficulty in counting them. The numbers of; pairs of layers is equal to the number of years the fish has lived. By thiir method Wallace has made an interest-" ing studv of the distribution of fishes of the plaice species over various seaV'bottoms, according to age. In this wbt" the rapidity of growth of fishes and tK » effect of fisheries upon the population .y-. the soa can be determined. /,A.