FROM VARIOUS SOURCES.

Franklin Times, Volume 10, Issue 798, 9 January 1923, Page 3

FROM VARIOUS SOURCES.

A French scientist, Destandres, announces in the “yellow stars” new, unknown rays infinitely more powerful than X-rays. Between those blazing suns, with brilliancy of light incomprehensible to us, and our modest little sun the difference is as great as that between a tallow candle and the million, power electric light in the greatest lighthouse. We know as much about- this universe as a black, beetle on the track knows about the flying express that roairs over its head.

A lady saw Kemal Pasha, and reports that he has light hair and light-blue eyes. Where you see a natural born conqueror! you see blue r)r grey eyes, usually —for instance, Napoleon, Alexander, Caesar, Foch, Charles the Twelfth, George Washington—all men with blue oh grey eye's. Brown and black eyes are admirable for sentiment, therefore very pleasing and promising in women. But the quality that cuts through and gets things done seems to go with; the blue or grey eyed man —for instance, Rockfeiler, Gary, Armour. ,

A dramatic presentation depictingsome phrase of Biblical history, to take the place of the regular Sunday night sermon, is an innovation of Rev. Roy L. Smith, pastor of Simpson Methodist Episcopal Church, Minneapolis. The first attempt was a dramatic presentation iVom the closing days of St. Paul, 1 when the Christian missionary was imprisoned in a Roman house and attended by Luke, his physician and writer of the Third Gospel. The dialogue dealt with the history and future of the .Christian church. Mr Smith carried out the part of St. Paul. The other minister that of St. Paul. Two members of the congregation acted as .Roman guards. The pulpit was removed from the platform and curtains stretched to make a scene resembling the interior of Roman house. Footlights and an overhead light helped to make the scene real. “I believe that this is an affective way of preaching/’ Mr Smith said.

The last season of Oberammerg&u Passion Play performances were witnessed by 317,0f10 visitors,, with nearly 21,000,000 mark receipts. An American company has offered several million marks for a film of the performance. The temptation was exceedingly great, and some members of the community were wavering ; so the strong minded manager, George Larjg, insisted on the Apostles and| Saints going straight to the barber at the end of the last performance and cutting off their long hair and shaving their beards. So the temptation was evaded and traditions saved.

“No serious musician should scoff at machines like the gramaphone and pianola/’ declares Sir Landon .Ronald, the famous composer and conductor. The greater the musician the less contemptuous of these mechanical instruments ; a curious fact of great aesthetic and social significance. It is not their defects, which are obvious enough ,but their value that a genuine music love)’, as distinguished from a dilettante, inclines to stp-’e-ss. That value may be illustrated by analogy. Both of them are doing for music what the printing press .has done for literature. They bring delight to all. The pianola may be compared to the printed page; the gramaphone lothc colour print. A page of print cannot he compared in beauty to the illustrated manuscript that it displaced ; the colour print fails short of its . original in purity and delicacy of tint.' But it is only a hopeless antiquarian or a millionaire with a fad who would refuse to open a book or buy a colour reproduction.

One of the greatest literary undertakings never saw thfe light of print. This was the stupendous encyclopaedia planned by the Chinese Emperor Yung Lo. It was completed in 1408, arid consisted of the original manuscript and two copies. It covered the| whole range of Chinese learning, and ran to nearly a million pages. The original and one copy perished at Nanking on the downfall of the Ming dynasty. The remaining copy, consisting of no less than 11,100 volumes |2O inches long, 12 inches in breadth and half an inch thick and bound in yellow silk, was destroyed during the siege of the legations in Peking in 1900.

A coloured physician in one of the south-western States called up an oculist, according to a contributor to the “Journal” of the American Medical Association, and said, “Doctor, I have a patient that has been shot in the eye ; would you examine him for me ?” “Yes; you can bring him up now,” was the reply. Well, how much .will you charge?” was then asked. “Oh, we can only charge what he can pay. What has he got ?” the oculist inquired. “Doctor, he’s got a family?” was the appealing reply.

Iron and .steel manufactures are developing' rapidly ‘in Brazil, especially in. Sad Paulo. .? The products of this industry include nails, screws and bolts, chains, woven fancy wire, agricultural implements, enamelled iron ware, rolling. doors, safes, stoves and a great variety of general foundry 1 work. ’ The basis of the Brazilian industry is , the vast stores of high grade hematite and magnetite ore existing in Ivlinas Geraes and to a less a degree in several other States, including Sao Paulo and Parana. It has been estimated by competent geologists that the total ore contents of these fields is between 6,000,000 and 12,000,600 tons of hematite, a very laVge proportion of which runs over 60 percent. iron. This is exclusive of the less volume of magnetite ores.