GENERAL INFORMATION.

Western Star, Issue 2220, 8 July 1898, Page 3

GENERAL INFORMATION.

Honey may be poisonous if the bees have extracted it from poisonous plants. Only one man in two hundred is over six feet in height.

Orange juice is one of the best dressings for black shoes or boots.

Diamonds are not dug out of the ground, but are generally found in narrow crevices of rocks.

Wood sleepers on railways last about fifteen years. There is no thunder and lightning within the Arctic Circle.

The length of the Suez Canal is 100 miles ; its depth 2Gft. The custom of wearing wedding-rings originated with the Romans. Snake's liver is said to taste very like good ptarmigan. A single salmon produces something like twenty millions of eggs. Only 8 per cent, of Russia's enormous population can read and write. Some insects are in a state of maturity half an hour after birth. The Chinese are said to have used clocks 800 years before the Christian era. The explosive force of dynamite is about eight times that of gunpowder. Five hundred years ago the rent of arable land in England was 6d. an acre. A pelican's pouch is large enough to contain Beven or eight quarts of water. An oculist declares thrit only one pair of eyes in every fifteen are absolutely perfect. The highest point to which man can ascend without health being seriously affected is 10,500 feet. A Bible written on palm-leaves is preserved in the University of Gofctingen. It contains 5.37 G leaves.

There are several villages in England in which no intoxicating drinks of any kind are sold.

Phthisis and pneumonia are more frequent and fatal among men than among women.

In spite of the closest espionage, the diamond mining companies of South > Africa lose, it is said, £200,000 a year by theft. '**

Eminent medical authorities say that the best drink after eating is a cup of coffee, not very strong, and taken without sugar or cream.

There is a curious superstition in Venice that if a stranger dies in an hotel the number of his room will be lucky at the next lottery. There is a newspaper published in Pekin over a thousand years old. Over nineteen hundred of its editors have been beheaded.

According to a celebrated French dentist, river, sea, rain, and snow-water all contain more or less alcohol. Only pure spring water is free from it. Paper teeth are made by a dentist in

Lubeck, Germany. One of his patrons has a set which has been in use for thirteen years, and gives complete satisfaction.

A physician asserts that so long as a ■: cyclist can breathe with his mouth shut, he is safe so far as a strain of the heart is concerned.

Gold was known much earlier than silver, and was at first the cheaper of the two metals ; but the price of silver was lowered by the discovery of silver mines in Silesia, Spain, and Laurium. In the Island of San Domingo there is a remarkable salt mountain, nearly four miles long, estimated to contain nearly ninety million tons, and so clear that medium-sized print can be read through a block a foot thick.

A plant grows in Assam which has the peculiar property, when chewed, of temporarily neutralising the sense of taste as regards sweet and bitter things. The Hindus claim that the plant is an antidote to snake-bite.

There is a tcee in India and Africa from which butter is made. The fruit grows the size of a pigeon's egg. Inside the fruit are seeds, which are preased, and from the oily subs t a nee a, very good butter is manufactured.