MISCELLANEOUS.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 68, 13 March 1877, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

A SINGULAR NATURAL FORMATION. f

About 220 miles from Los Angelos, on the Pacific coast, there is a dry bed of a lake, completely surrounded by very high mountains, the approach to which is through a canon ordivide in the mountains ; in this bed there is a deposit of carbonate of soda about five miles in length, and a ridge of common salt eight mileslong,and some thousands of acres of this same dry lake is covered with borate of soda and pure borax ; the latter is in a solid mass three feet thick. The lake has the appearance of an immense mass of snow; it is fearfully hot there, being 106deg. to 115deg. in the shade. ROYAL ETIQUETTE. As evidence of the etiquette insisted upon by the Prince Consort, a writer in the Nelson Mail says, within his own knowledge the lady who was under-nurse in the Royal nursery, and had the immediate care and attendance on the Royal children while infant?, was forbidden to kiss them. She has stated to the writer that it was one of the greatest trials of her life to have to hold these children in her arms and yet never to be allowed to embrace them. One of her duties was to attend the Queen and Prince on their evening visit to the nursery, on which occasion she had to walk backwards down a long corridor with a heavy silver candlestick in each hand. A JUVENILE GENIUS. Earnest Hutcheson, aged five years and a few months, is the son of Mr. Davis Hutcheson, of Carlton, and the little fellow is (says the Telegraph) undoubtedly a prodigy. The child was introduced to a few musical people the other day at Mr Allan's in Collins-street. Perched on his knees in a chair, he performed the fantasia, by Gantier, from "II Trovatore ;" fantasia, by the . same composer, from " Don Giovanni ;"" the Siege of Rochelle," by Choteck ; " La Sympathie," by Commettant ; and a number of other difficult selections ; and the execution, time and expression of the preformances were more than extraordinary. The child had not muscular strength enongh to birng out the full tcnes of the piano where they were required, but he proved that he knew exactly what should be done though he could not do it. M. Julius Herz tasked him severely by striking chords on the piano when his back was to the instrument but the child named every note in each case without the least hesitation, and never made a mistake. It is ten months since he first touched a piano, and he had no tuition further than what he has received from his father, who states that the boy has chiefly taugl t himself." He sits down to the piano, and plays sometimes for four hours without stopping, " reading" the most difficult music with ease. M. Herz will probably take charge of the little wonder, and it will be interesting to watch his career.