NEW ODD, INTERESTING

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 7, Issue 430, 29 November 1918, Page 4

NEW ODD, INTERESTING

Thar* la no core for eeloar-bUa* MBS. 0 The speed of a wIW duck Is ninety - miles an hoar. Out of 13,000 specie* of deh nif 1 belong to fresh water. f Wicket a lure been placed twenty, two yards apart since 1790. . The British Mint ecrfns tw«3tyt#v% tons of pennies every year. > It takes newly four pounds of t grape? to make a bottle of wise. Civet, ambergris, aad musk are all most offensive in odour in tkeir raw state F*or penknives the steel is temper* ed at 470 degs., for taMfikntmo at 630 dogs., for saws at 544 degs. In the Polar regions conversation can be heard with ease at » distance of store than a mile. A railway engine may roogfciy be said to be equal in strength to »•* hesaee. The elephant beetle of Venezuela is the largest insect known. One has been found to weigh seven ounces. The biggest cemetery in the world is the Catacombs at Borne. They contain six million bodies Spain has on an average 3,000 hours of sunshine a year, against only 1,400 in England. Some moths do not eat anything, but have enough vital force to fulfil their mission in life, and then die. Twelve per cent, of all human beings have the right arm distinctly longer than the left. The largest window in Britain is the east window in York Cathedral. It is 75ft. high and 321t, wide. A last penuiau will write at the rate of thirty words a minute, which means that in an hour's steady writing he has drawn his pen aiong a apace of 300 yards. Lake Morat. in Switzerland, has -he curious property of turning red every ten years, owiug to the presence of certain aquatic plants, which are not known in any other lake in the world. The reason that a "baker's dozen" means thirteen is that many bakerin days gone by were so afraid oi being lined for giving short weigh' that they gave an extra loaf with every dozen. All the buildings in Yaletta, the capital of the island of .Malta, are oi white stone. Ther- being no smoke or fog to discolour them, they are a.fresh and clean now as when the> werp erected. The Blue Crotto, on the island of Capri, in the Hay of Naples, is absolutely unrivalled for the vivid splendour of it* colours. Owing to tin peculiar nature ol the refraction of the sunlight on its waters, wall, roof, and sea are tinged a beautiful ultramarine. which .-hades into a deep violet in the furthest recesses of the cavern. Billiard balls are titsi roughly ttiiii ed by a la'he from the tusk, then left from -i>; month- to a year in a ro'i-e about tiie temperature of an ordinary billiard-room. This length of time is necessary, because the ivory shrinks more in <.:,<• diieetir.i :han anol!)< r. and tiie seasoning must be complete before the bails are finished and poli: lied. A ship carrying an admiral is known by a white flag, with a red .St. George's Cross, Hying from the foremast. A vice-admiral's tlag is similar. tiie only diifert-nce being the addition of a red circle in the top lefthand coiner: and a ivar-adniiiat (lies a tlag will: ihe same design, but with a red circle in each left hand corner, toil and houom The rain-tree ol Colombia measures about r.oli, high v. hen at maturity, and about ;:n. in diameter at the base. It absorbs mi immense quantity of moisture from the atmosphere, which it concent rates, and subsequently sends forth from i's leaves and branches in a shov.er, in some instances so abundantly that the ground in its vicinii) is converted into a quagmire. It possesses this curious property in its greatest degree in the summer, precisely when the rivers are at their lowest and water most j scarce. j What are probably the largest and j smallest book • in the world have ]