GENERAL INFORMATION

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 18, Issue 31, 16 April 1907, Page 2

GENERAL INFORMATION

The upkeep of a lifeboat costs about £BO a year. James V. of Scotland was the first to put dates on his coinage. A Russian woman may not enter a university unless she is married. The drum was the first, musical instrument used bv mankind. .!. « Tea was cultivated in China 2,700 years before the Christian era. . * Afghan soldiers are not admitted as witnesses in law-courts in their own country. Twenty-seven out of every hundred people in the world live-under the Union Jack. v ■ For all Europe the rate of suicide in May, June, and July is nearly double the rate in Ihe winier months. When a new Great Seal is made the Lord Chancellor receives the existing one as a perquske. j. Among the Basutos, and also wilt the natives of the New Hebrides, hissing is a sign of applause. *♦, It is thought that the first game o! whist was first played in the lime ol King Henry VIII. j. The oldest lighthouse in existence is at Corunna, Spain. It was erected in the reign ol" Trajan, and was rebuilt in 1634. The distinction of being the oldest living thing undoubtedly belongs to one of the giant trees, and many attempts to locate it and determine its age have been made. * There has been discovered at Greenock an old-fashioned umbrella with whalebone ribs, which must be quite 120 years old, When opened it affords shelter for a whole family. * Although the name of the first ropemaker and that of the land in which he practised his art have, both been lost to history, Egyptian sculptures prove that the art was practiced at least 2000 years before th« time of Christ. ; j. . T What is asserted to be the oldest lifeboat in existence is preserved at South Shields as a valued relic. It was built in 1830, and during more than fifty years of active service was instrumental in saving 1,028 persons, * The oldest mathmctical book in the world is called the "Papyrus Rhind." It is in manuscript, of course, and was written by one Ahmes, an Egyptian, who lived in the year 2000 B.C. The book is now in the British Museum. * The oldest university in the world is at Peking. It is called the "School for the Sons of the Empire." Its antiquity is very great, and a grand register, consisting of stone columns, 320 in number, contains the names of 60,000 graduates. * The oldest architectural ruins in the world are believed to be the rock-cut temples at Ipsambool, on the left bank, of the Nile, in Nubia. Tho largest of these ancient temples contains fourteen apartments, hewn out of solid stone. The ruins are supposed to be 4,000 years old. What was probably one of the earliest theatres built was the Theatre of Dionysus, which was begun five centuries before Christ, The seating capacity of this remarkable building is said to have been 30,000. The theatre of Dionysus was erected when Greek art and literature were in t>heir prime. Here were presented to appreciative spectators the wonderful works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. * i A century ago De CandolW found two yews—one at Fortingal in Perthshire, and one at Hedsor, in Buckinghamshire—that were estimated to be respectfully, 2,500 and 3,240 years old. Both are still flourishing, and the older tree has a trunk 27 feet in circumference. A gigantic baobad of Central America, with a trunk 29 feet through, was thought by Humboldt to be not less than 5,150 years old. Mexican botanists boliovo they have now discovered a life span even greater than this, and from tho annual rings a cypress "of Chepultepec, whoso truck is 118 feet' in circumference, is a.ssignod an ago of a~ bout 6,200 years*. ir>24.