BIG STOCKS RANDOM READINGS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 7, Issue 429, 26 November 1918, Page 4

BIG STOCKS

RANDOM READINGS.

* ' (DAYLIGHT SAVING IN HENRY VHl.'s TIME. In an old book of husbandry, published in the early part of the sixteenth century, we find the following advice given to a wife:— "I advise thee earnestly to remember well one thing: when in winter time, that the days be short and the evenings long, and thou sittest by th 6 flre and has supped, consider in thy mind whether the works that thou and thy maiden do are advantage equal to the fire and candle, the meat and the drink, that they consume; if not, go to thy bed, sleep, and be up by time to breakfast before daylight, that thou mayest have all the day before thee entire to thy business." BEA BALT. "Real Salt" has been used for a mriety of purposes. It is the raw material in soda manufacture, and the basis of the glaze on our pots and pans. But Professor Joly, of Dublin, used salt in calculating the age of the world. His method had the simplicity of genius. He first computed the amount of salt In the sea and found the quantity to be enough to replace the whole continent of Europe. Now, all this salt was brought to the sea by the rivers, so his next computation was the amount of salt transported annually from land to ocean. A little sum in long division gave him a quotient of between 90,000,000 and li) 0,000,000. That was the age of Mother Earth, who had deceived Lord Kelvin into thinking her a maiden of from 20,000,000 to 25,000,000 years. PROFITABLE SHELLS. There are. found in many of the bays indenting the shores of Prince Edward Island extensive deposits of 80-called mussel mud, which are organic remains of countless generations of oysters, mussels, clams, and other shell-fish. The shells, usually more or less intact, are found embed-; ded in dense deposits of a mud-like' substance, and this combination is a fertiliser of high value and potency. It supplies lime and organic matter, besides small quantities of phosphates and alkalies. An ordinary dressing of it has a very marked beneficial effect on even poor andl most exhausted soils. The shells decay slowly, year by year, I browing off a Aim of fertilising materials, Thej deposits around Prince Edward Island vary from five to twenty-five feet in depth. They are taken up by dredging machines, worked from rafts in summer or from the ice in winter. A WISE MAN. , During the reign of Louis XV. of Prance, the light chaise came into fashion, and great ladies of Paris were accustomed to drive in them about the city. But beautiful hands are not always strong ones: accidents' began to occur more and more frequently in the streets. Consequently the. King besought the .Minister ofj Police to do something, since the lives! of pedestrians were constantly in danger. "I will do whatever is in my pover," replied the Police Minister. "Your Majesty de-sires that these accidents cease entirely?" The King replied, "Certainly." The next day there appeared a royal ordinance that ordered that, in the future, ladies under thirty years of age should not drive chaises through Ihe streets of I'aris. That seems u mild restriction: but it is said that scarcely a woman from that time on drove her own chaise. The Police Minister knew that few women would care to advertise the fact that they were over thirty, and that the rest would probably be too old to drive, anyway. "LORD OF THE NARROW SEAS." When did Uritain first assert he supremacy on the Narrow Seas? Ii is possible that litis may have been first done in the time of the Edwards, when the English Kings, ruling- possessions on both sides of the Channel, would naturally claim sovereignty over the waters between England and France; and it is quite certain thai this right was admitted by both the French and also the Flemish so early as 133u, for in a petition of certain Flemish traders to the English Kins for the punishment of English pirates, he is distinctly alluded to as "Ixjrd of the Narrow Seas" —in fact, they were commonly spoken of about this time as the "English Seas." Even earlier titan this, however, after the great, battle of Damme, King John caused it to be proclaimed that all foreign ship« refusing to salute English men-of-war were to be treated as enemies, and either destroyed or confiscated, and instruct ions io this effect were actually issued to Ihe fleet down to the end of the eighteenth century. In the time of the Commonwealth this sovereignty of the seas was strongly resisted by the lunch, but Admiral Blake's great victory over Van Tromp and De Ruyter finally settled the matter, and since then every ship of another nationa!ii\ salutes a British one first. This. howewr. has now come to be regarded as niep ly a piece of naval etiquette, and does not convey any idea of inferiority or submission. Why lot your music books, piocos etc., remain untidy or torn when the same can be reb rnnd or repaired a the " Times " office. All branches of book-binding undertaken. The only ,vay to secure a copy of tho "Times" every issue is l.y placing an order with your u w £■ nt. Agents lmve no spao < r V "or chance sales; we print ot V wb.:t are ordered by the agents. (}:v3 youi ordor NOW if yon h ,vt,.. >t already ordered,