Varieties.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 352, 5 February 1903, Page 7

Varieties.

SLIPPING INTO SEA. f INVERNESS, tha capital of the Highlands, is threatened with a terrible calamity, according to Dr. Davidson of Birmingham, an authority in seismology. It is known of geologists that Inverness occupies a most interesting position at the outlet of the great crack, or crevasse, in the ecological formation of the northern part of the island, which, as the Caledonian canal, cuts the country in two, says Pearson's Weekly. Dr Davidson warns tne inhabitants of Inverness to be prepared for earthquakes periodically. The earth's crust in the Inverness district is gradually slipping seaward, and Loch Ness (one of the chain of lakes -which form the canal) in a few ' hundreds of thousands of years * will be part of the sea. OEEIS BOOT FOR THE WARDROBE A laundress who lives with p. family that prefers the fragrance of orris root to the delightfully fresh and clean odour of 'no smell at all' puts a large piece of orris root wrapped in a 'little ball of linen into the water in which the body linen is boiled each week. When ironed the linen is placed in drawers sweet with violet powder in linen or paper sachets. RELICS OF THE VIKINGS. An interesting discovery is reported fro-n Norway, bearing upon both Norse and Anglo-Saxon history. Three hundred feet from the seashore on the coast of North Fjord there has been dug up from a hillock remnants of a burned ship, and the bones of a female skeleton and of a horse, with a weapon and parts of armor, and objects of adornment. The style of them all indicates that they belong to a later period than the iron age, when the Viking raids were chiefly directed toward the west of England- and Ireland Thus it ia once more proved that in the Viking epoch women lived as warriors, and that it was the castom for the Norse vikings to burn the corpse of a prominent warrior on his ship. SOME VELOCITIES. .The velocity of the earth on its own axis exceeds, it is estimated, 1,000 miles per hour; and its velocity round the sun is believed to average 66000 miles per hour. The velocity of the moon is calculated to be 2,273 miles per hour; of a gentle wind, abont five miles per hour; of a high wind, about 30 to 45 miles per hour; of a great hurricane, 80 to 100 miles per hoar. Sound travels in steel wire at abont 17,130 ft. per second- electricity, along wires, above ground, about 22,360 miles per second; light, about 186/770 miles per second. RIGHT OF DISCOVERY. There ace timea when differences of rank do not count, and an Irish soldier is said to have chanced upon one of them during the late war in C ba. He was discovered by the sergeant of his company in a hole, well out of the way of even a stray shot, when he should have been engaged in active service. ' Get out of that hole !' commanded the sergeant, sternly. ' Get out of it this minute 1' The broad Irish face looked up at him with stubborn resistance written on every feature. 'Ton maybe me superior officer,' he said, boldly, ' but all the same, O'm the wan that found this hole fir-ret!' AN UNFAILING REFUGE.

He was new to the basiness, and, being uiu xpectedly called upon to make a few remarks at a public meeting of the Universal Improvement Association, he ?ose with the intention of pleading illness and begging off. Bat a sudden inspiration oecurred to him 'Mr Chairman,' he said, 'this is an occasion on which we may justifiably indulge in stronger language than would be permissible under ordinary circumstances. I have, therefore, no hesitation in saying, in the language of that grand old statesman, Gladstone' This was as far as he got. The audience rose as one man, and cheered, and yelled, < and whooped, and st-jod on stairs, and whooped, and yelled, and cheered, and thrsw hats and canes in the air, and whooped again, and kept it up for five minutes. In the midst of which confusion and enthusiasm he sat down. He had made the hit of the evening. BOON FOB CHIC AGO ANS. * Oh, we're booming right along' said the Chicago man, as he talked to a Pit'B--in the smoking compartment of a Pullman sleeper. ' I suppose you noticed that the city directory puts us well above the 2,000,000 mark in the matter of circulation.' •Yes,' added the Pittsburger, 'your directory man is surely a wonder as an estimator. The Chicagoan ignored this and continued to remark: 'Of course, you have Been something of the fast train that is to run between Chicago and New York ?' * Yes; you are glad of that, I suppose ?' ' Surely.' * I thought you mast be. It adds to your facilities for escaping from Chicago, you know.' Then the Chicagoan relapsed into discomfited silence —Pittsburg Gazette. COULDN'T CATCH THIS FELLOW. ! ' Well,' said the red-faced man, ' the most exciting chase I ever had happened a few years ago in Bassia. One night, when sleighing about ten miles from my destination, I discovered, to my intense horror, that I was being followed by a pack of wolves. I fired blindly into the pack, killing one of the brutes, and, to my delight, saw the others stop to devour it. I kept on repeating the dose, with the same result, and each occasion gave me an opportunity to whip up my horses. Finally, there was only one wolf left, yet on it came, with its fierce eyes glaring in anticipation of a good hot supper.' Here the man who had been sitting in the corner burst forth into a fit of laughter. •Why, man,' said he, 'by your way of reckoning the last wolf must have had the rest ot the pack inside it.' ' Ah,' said the red-faced man,' how I remember, it did wobble a bit!' A CULINABY HINT. In using beaten egg for croquettes or other mixture that is to be fried, dilute it with a tablespoonful of cold water to each egg. This is not only an economy, but an improvement te the process, as the diluted egg fe mutih. afere easily handled than in the other form.