NEW, ODD, INTERESTING

Waipa Post, Volume VIII, Issue 359, 20 October 1914, Page 1

NEW, ODD, INTERESTING

The Salvation Army is at work in 47 different countries,and has 55 periodicals, printed in 21 languages.

The earliest book which mentions gold is the Bible, it occurs in Genesis ii., 11.

The use of sights on cannon tor aiming did not commend itself until the beginning of this century.

Roasted coffee and ground coflee beans mixed with honey are used to restore horses in Germany.,

About 1,000,000 tourists visit the Alps each year, of whom about 24 are killed in accidents.

The ancient . Greeks and Egyptians wore the simple sandal. The Assyrians first introduced the heel for security and comfort in walking/

Doctor Alfred Russel Wallace nas said that "man has shown no improvement either in intellect or morals from the days of earliest Egyptian and Syrians down to the keel-laying of the latest dreadnought.”

Shakespeare produced all his plays with about 15,000 different words; Milton's range comprised about 8000, and the Old Testament’s limit is 5612. A person of good education seldom exceeds 4000, while many people are limited to about 300.

Recently-formed ice one inch and a half in thickness will support a man; four inches will support cavalry; five inches will support cannon capable of throwing an eighty-four-pound shot; ten inches will support an army, and eighteen inches a railway, train

A firm belief among German children is that on December 25 animals have the gift of speech for 24 hours. Their inability to understand what they say is due, so their parents tell them, to the fact that they have misbehaved themselves during some portion of the Drevious 12 months.

Burglar-proof glass is now made in France. Embedded in the glass are light wires running in parallel transverse lines about one inch apart. The wires are connected with a battery, and carry a light charge of electricity. The breaking of the wires releases a magnetic switch, causing an alarm to be given.

A method of using X-rays with the microscope has been tried. The internal structure of minute organisms was so clearly revealed that what had appeared to be one species was proved to be several, and the bones and other parts of larger animals and fossils can be shown in minute detail never before known.

Perhaps the most extraordinary tattooing idea ever carried out was that of a coachman who, at the time of the Dreyfus trial, had his body and legs covered with no fewer than one hundred and twenty illustrations of the case, including portraits of the leading personages. The work occupied nearly two years.

That 'such plants as ‘‘Venus’s flytrap” actually catch and squeeze to death flics and other insects alighting on their leaves has long been known but the discovery is comparatively recent that, tho plants digest the softer parts of their prev by means of a peptic ferment secreted by the leaves. These are real instances of plants feeding upon animals.

The custom of adoption is universal in Japan, where it is practised to keep a family name from becoming extinct. Indeed, there is scarcely a family in which it has not at some time or other been observed. A person who has no male issue adopts a son, and, if he has a daughter, often gives her to him in marriage. A youth, or even a child, who may be head of a family, occasionally adopts, on the point of dying, a son older than himself to succeed him.