Excerpta.

Kaikoura Star, Volume XIV, Issue 746, 12 June 1894, Page 7

Excerpta.

§ Small Agents and Great Work.

It is the little things that count much oftner than we areapt to suppose. Agencies apparently so trivial as to be almost beneath notice have changed, and are changing, the face of the earth. So comparatively insignificant a form of vegetation as moss, for instance, may not only affect the aspect of a landscape, but may, in the course of time, powerfully assist in giving a new character to a continent.

One of the most surprising results of recent scientific investigation in Greenland is the indication of the wonderful work mosses are performing there. Where glaciers have ceased to advance, or have become ‘ dead,’ various species of mosses have found a foothold on them, and gradually overspread them with a mantle of green. The amount of vegetable matter slowly deposited by these Greenland mosses is so considerable that it has been suggested that this deposit will be of great importance in the future history of that strange land. It is known that in a past geological age Greenland was not the dreary, icesheeted continent that it is today, but a beautiful land, almost tropical in appearance in some respects. And if, in the future, geological or astronomical causes should bring about a return to tho former conditions, when Greenland was really ‘green,’ the rich stores of vegetable material now accumulating there through the growth of mosses amid the ice will give wealth to the soil of the regenerated continent.

What can be more interesting to a thoughtful mind than such evidences of foresight by which, from age to age, are provided the means and agencies that revolutionise the earth ? Plain Words from a Bishop. Bishop Wilson, of Calcutta, had as housekeeper a venerable lady, who remembered the duel between Sir Philip Francis and Warren Hastings, on August 17, 1780. On entering the cathedral on a Sunday morning, fully robed, lawn sleeves and all, and passing the pew where the old lady sat, he would pause and give her the ‘ kiss of peace ’ before all the congregation, and this although he had met her at breakfast. His sermons, too, were racy. Preaching against dishonesty, especially in horse flesh, as one of the great English failings in India, he -went on : ‘ Nor are we, servants of the altar, free from yielding to this temptation.’ Pointing to the occupant of the reading desk below him—‘ There is my dear and venerable brother the Archdeacon sitting down there ; he is an instance of it. He sold me a horse, it was unsound : ‘ I was a stranger, and he took me in.’—‘The Still Life of the Middle Temple,’ by W. G. Thorpe. * * ☆ ☆ The Intelligence of Birds. ‘ Bur-rds is intelligent,’ Mrs Granby observed as she encountered her friend Mrs Green. Ye can teach ’em anything. Me sister has wan as lives in a clock, an’ phin it’s toime to tell th’ toime it comes out and says cuckoo as manuy toimes as th’ toime is.’ ‘Dthot’s wondherful, said Mrs Green.

‘ It is indade,’ said Mrs Brannigan. ‘An’ th’ wonderful par-rt ov it all is, it’s only a wooden bur-rd at dthot.’

Certainly tbe best medicine known is Sandbr and Sons’ Eucalypti Extract. Test its eminently powerful effects in coughs,colds, influenza ; the reliefisinstantaneous. In serious cases, and accidents of all kinds, be they wounds, burns, scaldings, bruises, sprains, it is the safest remedy—no swelling—no inflammation. Like surprising effects producedin croup, diphtheria, bronchitis, inflammation of the lungs, swellings, &c.: diarrhoea, dysentry, diseases of the kidneys and urinary organs. In use at hospitals and medical clinics all over the globe, patronised by His Majesty the King of Italy ; crowned with medal anddiploint Interatnational Exhibition, Amsterdam Trust in this approved article and reject all others