Yarieties.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 411, 31 March 1904, Page 7

Yarieties.

THERE AEE NO ARTIFICIAL BIRDS. ■SAT is 'artificial,' and what is 'imitation' P People speak of an artificial bird, an artificial palm, imitation leather, and so on. Now, a man who makes a bird or a palm, makes only an imitation of those objects. A trae 'artificial bird' would be able to sing and fij. A trne 'artificial palm' woald be able to grow. Both of these things, if they were truly artificial, would be exactly like the living originals; indeed, they would be alive. Consequently it is entirely incorrect to speak of copies of living things as bsing artificial. Diamonds can be made, and bave been made. _ It is correct to speak of them as 'artificial,' because they are real diamonds, identical in all respects with thoae found in the diamond fields. Chemistry has succeeded in producing artificial sugar. Many mineral waters are artificial, the carbonic acid gas and other properties being given to them by art. Bnt compositions made to take the place of atone are not artificial They are

imitation atone, Manufactured dyes are not artificial. They are imitation, for, while many of them are just aa fine as such natural dyes as are obtained from cochineal and other insects, and from plants, they are entirely different in composition. They do not reproduce nature. They imitate it.

VENEZUELAN WOMEN. Venekuelan women are indeed beautiful. Descended from Spanish and Indian ancestors, they combine in their persona the beauty of the two races, and with tbeir lovely faces and graceful figures make a type of feminine loveliness that is .< The Venezuelan woman's complexion is a clear olive, ..but her rounded cheeks are painted by Nature, with the loveliest crimson, and her beautiful dark eyes seem to express all the emotions of her heart. When she smiles her cherry lips reveal the most perfect of teeth, and she looks so perfectly bewitching that you long to Bee her smile agaia.

SNOW FIBEPLA.CES. Sixty degrees below zaro is the frightfully cold atmosphere in which Alaskan gold-hunters must often work. They make fireplaces of snow in that desolate region. The snow is pressed into blocks like bricks, and a fireplace 2Efc, or or 3ft. squareis built with them. When the fire is lighted, the snow, of course, melts on the surface; but when the fire is out this freezes so hard that the next fire causes it to be only damp. A anew fireplace used only for cooking purposes will last for an entire winter.

THE WOMAN DOCTOE The number of ladies in the medical profession in England is small. It is to Russia we have to go to see the woman doctor in any numbers, although there are a fair number in the United States, Among the wild and scattered population of Buseia there is an inexhaustible field for women as doctors and teachers, and it is the knowledge of this fact which has disarmed the opposition to their going through universities. In 1897 Eassia had 997 woman doctors, and the number constantly increases. In this profession Eußsian women have made a distinguished name.

BULL ON A. BUTCHER'S GRATE. George Schlessar, a wealthy butcher, of Morisinia, New York, was so devoted to his calling that before his death he ordered' his wife to place on his grave a monument bearing the figure of a bull After four years' argument with the cemetery authorities, a great granite monument surmounted by the image of a bull has just been erected.