NEW, ODD, INTERESTING.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 549, 12 March 1913, Page 2

NEW, ODD, INTERESTING.

V Fish will drown if the action of their grills is disturbed or interfered with. Iron corrodes with great rapidity at or about the temperature of boiling water. The Chinese have a flower which is white at night, or in the shade, and red in the sunlight. Moscow's orphan asylum, founded by Catherine 11., is supported by a tax on playing-cards. , The Pharos Lighthouse, Alexandria, was built B.C. 255; height 550 feet, light visible 42 miles. In the British Museum, according to the catalogue just issued, there are 2700 complete Bikles in all lanffuaffe3- O A clergyman in America recently celebrated his 99th birthday. He is the oldest living clergyman in the United States. A chemist advises that canned fruit be opened an hour or. two before it is used. It is far richer after the oxygen of the air has been restored to it. Among the Riffian pirates of Morocco the women do all the agricultural and other hard work, while the men,.when at home, do the cooking and mend • the clothes, including the women's. .. The bone of a sheep was transferred to the arm of a patient at the Charity Hospital, New Orleans. The forearm of the patient undergoing the novel operation had been shattered by the discharge of a gun. The operation was pronounced successful. Increasing rubber culture has resulted in a marked advance of prosperity in the Straits Settlements. Malacca, which for years had been declining, has become quite flourishing since continuous tracts of iand have been reclaimed from the wild and cultivated. Till about 1400 all painting was in caustic, or in water-colours. Ciambuc was the: first painter in oil-colours ; but previously finished water-colour pictures were washed in oil, and the incorporation gives them the mature appearance of colours first worked in oils. In Switzerland clocks are now being made which do not. require hands and faces. The timepiece merely stands in the hall, and you press a button, when, by means of the phonographic internal arrangements, it calls out, "Half-past five," or "Five minutes to nine." as the case may be. According to high authority, the velocity of a rifle bullet is something like' 2,130 feet a second, or 24.2 miles a minute, and that of the projectile weighing 339 lbs. from a quick-firing 9inch gun is about 3,000 feet a second, or 34 miles a minute, so that the velocity of the earth is 32.3 times as fast as the latter.

Sugar Sticks for M.P.'s. The Spanish Parliament, whose members are agitating- for payment for their services, would be a paradise for children, for unlimited barley sugar is supplied free during" the debates. The curious custom dates from the days when Spain owned all the West Indies, whence came the entire sugar supply of the world. Egg-Marking Extraordinary. An egg-marking attachment for the hen is the mechanical oddity covered by a recent foreign patent. The apparatus is secured in place by rings passing through cartilaginous parts of the hen, and suitable springs bring the marker into position to stamp the egg as it is laid. Each individual hen being assigned her own special mark, this device ensures her full credit for her product. Elastic Roads. An interesting- experiment has been made, with promising results, at Zurich . Fine gravel, the grains averaging one-twentieth to one-twelfth of an inch in diameter, the whole carefully freed from earthy substances, was coated, in a revolving drum, with tar. These pellets were then carefully dried and hardened and after eight or ten weeks were spread upon a prepared road-bed and rolled. The road thus formed is inexpensive, possesses a certain elasticity, and is . said to withstand well the effects of heavy traffic. The desirability of a slightly elastic road for saving wear and suppressing noise is evident. .«* : How Clouds are Colored. The color of a cloud depends on the manner in which the sunlight falls upon it, and the position of the observer. It will be noticed that high clouds are always white, or light in color, and this is because the light by which they are s,een is reflected from the under surface by the numberless drops of moisture which go to form the cloud. Heavy rain clouds, on the other hand, are found much nearer the earth, and so the light falls on them more directly from above, giving a silver lining to the cloud, though the under surface appears black, owing to the ODmplete reflect ion and absorption of the light by the upper laySeen from above by an observer balloon the blackest rain clouds of the most dazzling brilliant e&\ 4