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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 131, 5 June 1877, Page 2

The following horrible announcement ap- i peared in a window in New York:-— " Baking everyday. N.B.— People's vitals cooked." The London letter in the Argus says:—*' It is understood that the marriage between Sir William Stirling Maxwell, of Keir, and the Hon Mrs Norton, which has long been spokan of as on the tapis, took place privately last week at) har residenca. What a strange life has her's baen, and what a delightful volume of ' mamoirs ' sha might publish if sha had a mind. It is cartain that money will now never tempt har to do it, for Sir William Maxwell is very wealthy." The Tarrengower Times states that a horse belonging to a selector was noticed with a running discharge from the neck, and on examination it was found that some wild oats had psiaed from the throat and lodged behind the skin, where they had germinated, and were 2{ inches to 3in in. length. In the second case irritation was observed in the eye of an animal, caused by seeds of grass taking root. Everyone has read of the uses to which photography was put during the siege of Paris. When that capital was cut off from intercourse with the rast of the world, microscopic despatches were sent to and fro by means of carrier pigeons. These dispatches, having beea printed, were reduced by photography to such a minute form that they could be enclosed in a quill fastened to the tail of a pigeon. They were read easily enough when they cama to hand; the recipients projected them on a screen by aid of a photo-electric niicroseope. The same principle of reducing printed characters by means of photography is, according to a scientific contemporary, to be adopted by the War Office for producing maps and plans on a small scale. The Ordnance Survey maps are to be photographed so as to measure only three or four inches in iength. So delicately | and distinctly can this be done, that the roads and railways will still be recognisable with the naked eye, while with the aid of a magnifying-glass the name of every hamlet and village will be read with ease. The little maps will be transparent, so that they . must be held up to tha light to be examined, and they will weigh only a few 'grains each. A scout mtght travel with fifty such maps in his waistcoat pocket, and the whole Continent of Europe depicted in this way could be contained in a pocket book.