All Sorts

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 3, 17 January 1907, Page 38

All Sorts

The Norwegian, catch of codfish this year yielded 1,073,257 gallons of medicinal cod-liver oil. . Switzerland has. 2DG stations for obtaining electric power from falls and streams. A plant for manufacturing artificial marble-was're-cently established in. Catania, Italy. A certain ' farmer ' makes a trip to the factory every day, (says the « Hawera Star') with his daily supply of milt attached to a cycle. The ' herd'consists of one cow, and last month's cheque came to £1 3s. - ' Anxious Old .Lady (on steamer)—' I say, my good man," is this boat going up or down?' j * Surly Deckhand— ' Well, she's a leaky old tub, mum, so I shouldn't wonder if she was goin' down ; then, again, her boilers ain't -none too,/ good, so she might., go vp ;s ' With the object of furthering, improving; and de- - veloping industries, the Department of Agriculture and Commerce of Japan *s- to dispatch agents" to Europe and America to make purchases of up-to-date machinery. For- example, dyeing and weaving* machinery will he purchased, to be rented~Tq those so circumstanced as to be able to use it to advantage under regulations. - -"- - ' ___ The most common form ojE color-blindness is an inability to distinguish red. Last year thirty-four ofli-. cers and would-be officers of the -British mercantile marine failed' on their color test, twenty-three being red blind and the remainder unable to distinguish green. The '4,600 candidates for certificates were also subjected to the form-vision tests, and twenty-two of them failed to distinguish the shape of the object submitted.. ' - The 'word- * nugget " — now used for no other purpose than as a name for- a lump of alluvial gold — was not first applied in America.- It is»supposed to be of Australian origin, and has been traced back to the old "convict dajs. There are records showing that — a vJreq-uen't. offence in the penal settlement. was. gambling for what, in the slang of the prison, were called. ' nug•gets,,' otherwise lumps of tobacco. The, proof that ikis not of American origin lies in the fact that .the name Nugget .Island appeals on an old chart of New Zealand, published in either 1835 or 1836, ~" which was prior to the discovery _of gold in California,. Many convicts .from Sydney went to . California, and to them the word nugget is attributed. , There are known to exist, on the face .of this small hemisphere, about three thousand^ languages and dialects. In, Asia there are eighteen popular languages —three used only by men of learning— and nine huntired and ''twenty dialects derived from these. In Africa, - as, far as known, there are two hundred, and forty-seven languages. In America two hundred and, sixty-four, two indigenous, and a great" many dialects. In Australia several indigenous and many dialects. In Europe three hundred and eighty-seven; languages. 'Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese,- and Wailaohian are derived from the Latin ; Bohemian, Russian, Polish, Hungarian), fronr the Slav; from the German -in addition to its different branchosp^gome English and Swedish. Israelites, the world over, use the Hebrew. A woman invented blue paper. It was by accident that she, did it, though. Before her time all paper was white. She was the wife of William Eastes, one of the leading paper makers of England in the eighteenth century. In passing through the- paper plant one, day she dropped a blue bag into- a vat of pulp. Eastes was a stern chap, ;. and so, since no one had | , seen the accident, ».Mrs. Eastes decßLed to say nothing about it. The paper in' the vat, which should have been white, came out blue. The workmen- were mystified, Eastes enraged, while • Mrs. Eastes kept quiet.' The upshot was that the paper was. senl to London -marked ' damaged,' to be sold for whatever it would " bring. The selling agent in London was shrewd. He saw that this blue-tinted paper was attractive. - He , declared it to . be "a wonderful new invention, and he sold it : off Hue hot cakes at double the white paper's . price. Eastes -soon received an order ' for more of the blue paper— an order" that he and his men wasted.several days in trying vainly to fill. Then Mrs. .Eastes came forward and told the . story of . the blue bag. There was no difficulty after . that in making the.- blue paper. This paper's price remained very high, Eastes having- a monopoly in making it.'