HERE AND THERE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17220, 11 December 1923, Page 6

HERE AND THERE.

AN EYE FOR EVERYTHING. SKI INDUSTRY IX NORWAY. Though ski-ing (pronounced skee-ingl is one of the most popular sports in Norway, skis are not made in iactories, but by carpenters ifrho devote all their time to this labour, in summer laving up a supply for the coming winter. They make them in their homes, by hand, and sell them direct to individuals or to retail stores. Christiania supplies all Norway and also exports skis to Germany, France, Austria and the- United States. In the country districts skis are often made at home, bu% the best ones are bought from th# Christiania carpenters. The best skis are made of green ash, with oak next popular, while the cheap grades are made of fir and pine. For ski-ing jioles. ash, oak and bamboo are used, the latter being imported. The poles are made bv the carpenters that make skis. Lately Germany has commenced to manufacture skis by machinery, and Norwegian exports to that country have slightly decreased.

PROPOSING BY FLOWERS. In remote Alpine hamlets and villages, especially in the Bernese Oberland, there still exist ancient and pretty customs of proposing marriage by the language of flowers. If a maid accepts a bouquet of edelweiss from a man she at the same time accepts him as her fiance, the idea being that the man has risked his life to otbain the flowers for tho woman he loves. Another method which exists in the Canton of Glarus is for the young man to place a flower-pit containing a single rose and a note on the windowsill of tho girl’s room when she is absent from home, and wait—-perhaps days—for a reply. Jf the maid takes the rose the young man boldly enters the house to arrange matters with her parents; but if the rose is allowed to fade away the proposal is rejected without a single word having been exchanged between the couple.

TREASURES OF THE CHURCH. In the Rheims Cathedral there is a relinquary worth £BOOO. For the chasuble and stole of Thomas a’Becket, preserved at Paris, the father of the present Duke of Norfolk is said to have offered £160,000. For a gilded Virgin at Amiens an offer of £32,000 has been received. Business in such treasures is seldom done, but some of them are occasionally put upon the market to raise money for church repairs and similar purposes, and then, the dealers in antiquities are apt to make advantageous bargains. That wa-s the case with the sale of certain treasures belonging to the church of Montpezat. The incumbent sold them foi- £BO, after much haggling, and believed that he had spoiled the Egyptian. He afterwards heard that the Egvptian had resold the treasures for £llOO.

LTME VERSUS FROST. Unslaked lime has been used successfully for thawing frozen earth in West Liberty, lowa. Sewer trenches were being dug during the winter montlis. The ground froze to a depth of 4ft and resisted all efforts of the trenching machine to break it. Finally, quicklime was broken up into small pieces, spread the width of the trench to be opened, and covered with straw, hay. or manure. Water was then poured on it-. The covering retained the beat and this.'with the hot water, penetrated the frozen ground sufficiently to enable the trenching machine to make headway.

SMALLEST AMERICAN RAILWAY. Tho Carillon-Grenville line of Quebec possesses the smallest railway in America. It is a quaint, independent public track of broad gauge and wood-burn-ers, and the old engine, the Ottawa, is claimed to be the oldest in America. Built in 1849. and still in good working order to-day, it is so great a curiosity that American and British locomotive builders and railway men have made special trips to see and ride on this quaint railway built to the old broad gauge of sft 6in. There are thirteen miles of road in connection with this line. There are also a few passenger and flat cars still in use by the. company, together with a second engine, which was bought from tho Grand Trunk Railway about for tv years ago. when the Grand Trunk adopted the gauge of 4ft Biin. The old-timer also presents a remarkable appearance, but- the pioneer engines still in use will soon be discarded, as the tracks are to be rebuilt to standard gauge. Carillon, from which the quaint train starts, is a c delightful riverside resort at the head of the Lake of Two Mountaius, forty-five miles from Montreal.

OUR NEW* OCEAN GREYHOUNDS. One cannot help wondering what our ancestors of a century ago. if they could revisit the earth, would think of the leviathan ships of the present day. When, in tlie year 1800. the French built a vessel “ of most extraordinary 6ize,” 172 ft long and of 2850 tons, she was pronounced to be “ entirely unfit for service, and hath never been out of harbour.” “ And the Spaniards are said.” to quote a contemporary writer, “to hare built one still larger: but on sending this unwieldy monster to sea, they found that she must have been lost\if they had not had the precaution to send out two other ships with her. which towed and brought her back again.” Less than eighty years ago the first Cunarders. 207 ft long and of 1154 tons burden, were considered marvels of size, although all four of them could have been placed in a line on the deck of one of the W’hite Star liners, which has ton times their aggregate tonnage.

THE RAINBOW. This beautiful phenomenon is due to a special sort of wave, caused by rerv tiny things called electrons, which fly about in all directions at a tremendous speed. They make no waves until thev come up against what scientists call ether. Tlie waves produced by the contact of the electrons with ether are of different sizes, and this gives the impression of different colours. Long waves with a big distance between the tops give red light, with less distance, blue. All light is really a mixture of colours, which can l>e separated. The rainbow is caused by drops of water sifting the sunlight into its different colours. Those colours form the spectrum, which was first discovered by Sir Isaac Newton. The spectrum can lie produced artificially by passing lightthrough a mirror ruled with lines of fourteen thousand to an inch. Thing" in the world have different colours be cause they possess the power of absorbing certain colour* while sending others back to the eye. When substances are burnt in a flame, and the light sent through a j>rism. the spec-