BRIEF MENTION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10301, 4 November 1911, Page 1

BRIEF MENTION.

A cord of wood weighs on an average 2£ tons. The intrinsic value o£ one penny is less than a farthing. The first playbill was issued from Drury Lane Theatre on April 8, 1668. On July 29, over six years ago, peace was declared between Russia- and Japan. . - " v Beven million free meals for children, • , were provided in London during 1909- "H 10 by the State. ; . ' It is estimated that, for ammunition, alone, the cost of a big sea-battle would work out at well oyer a million pounds an hour. Originally the Marble Arch in London was designed as the main entrance gateway to Buckingham* Palace, and 1 cost .£'Bo,ooo. In 1910 1.07b,083 persons worked Ja mines in. the United Kingdom, and 85,837 in quarries. During the yeai* 264,417,588 tons of coal was raised. Although the course of the Thames winds and curves through an actual distance of 220 miles, the mouth is only about 100 miles from the source as thfl crow flies. j t Four swords are carried at the Coronation of a British Sovereign:—(l) Sword of State; (2) Sword of Mercy; (3) Sword of Spiritual Justice; (4) Sword of Temporal Justice. The Kansas State Board, of HoaltK will shortly promulgate an order- abolishing the common roller-towol in al\ schools, railway trains, stations and hotels." The Board is .now experw menting in several schools with, indivv*' dual paper towels. , - ; At the Health Congress jn Dublin 're* cently, Dr Hope, Medical Officer' of Health for Liverpool, spoke about tbtef '. danger of flies. He said flies should be relentlessly destroyed. They were' the cause of infantile cholera and 1 death. The domestic cat should alsO> be watched. Mothers must part wltK one of three things, the ashpit, ii* cat, or tho baby. ' I While mammals have lungs and fishes gills, insects. have neither one nor th* other. Instead they present a complex system of tubes' running throughout thi length of their bodies, wherebythe air, is conveyed, to every part of the To guard mseots against collapse from pressure of air, Nature has furnished . the little creatxires with a fine* thread running spirally within of th* tube, just as a garden hose is protected with wire. The sundial which, was discovered ati the base of Cleopatra's Needle is of Greek origin. We have to go to th* Far East to find the earliest history of the sundial. In China almost every in f habitant possesses one, and the Japa-i_ huese carry small ones about with them,' as wo do -watches. In England dials have been in use since early Saxon times, one liow on Bewcastle Cross dafcj ing, it is said, from before the time of Alfred the Great. '• . The " Photographone" is a r«*nt Swedish invention, by means of which l|i is said that sound waves can be . re(pa*; * ■tered;'.on a photographic plat© and:fe*j,.-• produced by.the gramophone. Gjrt.'ao^''-. count of the immense volume"of 'Sound; ruado. it is claimed that the "instrument 1 will replace fog-syrens • in lighthouse*! j So,'instead of the inarticulate Jxowl sentf forth by the syrens, the photographonei would call out the name of the light*! : house for miles over the ocean. . * I Among the Lolos of Western China .ty is customary for {he bride on the wed- ( " ding morning to perch herself on the, highest branch of a large'tree, while' > the elder female members of her family l cluster on-the lower limbs; arme&vWitra, sticks. When all ar© duly the bridegroom clambers np, the tree, j assailed on all 6ides, by blows, pushe*; and pinches from the dowagers, and rt is not until he has broken through, fence and captured the bride thatfhe Ml allowed to carry her off. ;-| Dr J. Stenson Hook maintains that over-feeding is at the root of tho phyl vsical evils of to-day, and advocates ft: two-meals-a-day plan. It would be in-v finitely better for most of us (says the doctor) if we would take our firsi meal at eleven or twelve o'clock, with! . nothing whatever before that, unless it be a little fruit; then wait for some nix, seven, or eight hours" before wo have our second meal. This plan of, two meals a day would alone Tbe thoj means of renovation in tho case of > many diseases. 1 Queen Alexandra has a solemn oldj f owl at Sandringham which she regardi) as a mascot. Her friends, knowing this J have from timo to time given her bers of ornaments representing owls, and how she has a table which is def voted to tho collection. When Mrs! Nicholas Longworth, daughter of cxA President Roosevelt, was in England oif her honeymoon, she saw.one morning tui ... she was driving out from DorchesteiH House, where she was.visiting Mr ana! Mrs Whitelaw Ileid, a-starving kitten. J She picked it up. and a few weeks later!, , took it back to New York with her as her mascot. j A bird is nearly one thousand times, :■" heavier than the air it displaces. A ! | man, to successfully imitate a bird flight, would require to be formed on a: proportionate scale. His lungs would'/ have to weigh forty pounds to consume.' sufficient oxygen, his breast musclet? seventy-five pounds, and his breast-' ' bone would have to be extended is.' front twenty-one inches. Further, hia logs would have to dwindle to the si«s of broomsticks, and his head to that, of an apple. Not being built on those lines, artificial planes or wings and a motor propelling force are essential foi* man. '. ; At the rifle butts at Hytne, Jn En,gV land, a. man was seen crawling very! slowly over tho earth banks below the' targets. On nearer approach, he was, seen slowly hacking the surfaoe with a'. short -hatchet-shaped implement, and' casting into a bag by his side the result of his digging. He explained that "ha was going over the banks and extract* ing the iead bullets/' and for this he received the sum of os per hundred-; weight from the Government. The War Office paid out last year £l6O for the lead, and re-sold, it for £658. After this, who shall say that the War Office'' is not businesslike? Whoever heard of a chimney two miles high with a. brook running through it? Yet such a chimney exists in connection with the copper works at Cwmayon, near Aberavon, in Glamorganshire. Wales. This is how it camei to be built: —About sixty years ago tho j copper smoke from these works was tha' ' plague of the neighbouring countryside. \. It settled upon and destroyed the grass! for twenty miles round, while the sul-; phur and arsenic in the fumes affected! the hoofs of cattle, causing gangrene.! The company tried all sorts *of devices! to remedy the trouble, but in vain.: Finally Mr Robert Brenton, who was, later engineer of tho Sind railway in' India, solved tho problem. The copper; works are at the foot of a high, steep mountain. Mr Brenton constructed a flue or chimney running continuously ' from the base to about 100 ft above the summit, following the natural slope of the ground. The bricks which lined it and of which it was largely constructed were burned close by. A small spring, rushing out near the mountain-top, was. turnedT into the chimney, and allowed to flow through almost its entire lengths to condense the smoke. Once a year it is swept out, and about a ton of precipitated copper obtained. Its top can be Been for between forty and fifty, ini'es* 1