OUR WONDERFUL WORLD

Shannon News, 25 September 1925, Page 4

OUR WONDERFUL WORLD

j PECULIAR FACTS AND | FIGURES. Aeroplanes and airships do not send out "5.0.5." when in distress, but instead use the Avord "Maj-day" to clear the ether of all interfering traffic. The word "Mayday"' is derived from the Fench "m'aider." The ordinary bluebottle fly moves its wings about 330 times a second. This great speed is exceeded by the bee, which vibrates its wings at nearly twice this rate. The wings of the j average butterfly move at the rate of ! nine times a second. One of the attractions at the recent Leicester Shoe and Leather Exhibitions was leather upon which photographs were printed. In 1562 there was in Leicester a photographer named Isaacs who ■ did quite good business in printing pictures on leather. Young women were able to carry pictures of their sweethearts upon their shoes —and some of them did! Wireless and the Weather. A wireless set often acts as a good barometer. If violent cracklings are hoard it is a sign that thunder is somewhere in the district. If you get a sizzling noise, you'may be sure that

rain is near. In times of frost and snow this sizzling takes upon itself a peculiar rhythmic character. A self-contained gas mask which produces its own oxygen lias been invented .by Mr. H. C. Carter, of Victoria, Australia. It is said to have great possibilities for use among miners, divers, and mountaineers. A writer in the "Illuminating Engineer" gives the following table showing the brightness or intrinsic brilliance of various sources of light: Sun, 800,000 candles per square inch; modern searchlight, 400,000; open electric arc, 80,000,110,000; oxy-hy-drogen* limelight, 5,000; moon, 2; blue sky 2. In th e cartoons on the walls of the Tomb of Rekhmara, near Thebes drawn about the time of the Exodus, carpenters are shown boiling glue, splitting wood into thin sheets for veneer, and glueing the veneer on to coarser woods. The oldest clock in Britain is now at the Museum of Patents a.t South Kensington. It was made at Glastonbury Abbey by one of the monks in 1325, and in Elizabeth's reign was removed from Glastonbury to Wells Cathedral. It worked there until about forty years ago, when it was laid aside to make room for a new I clock.

I A current of a million volts, the highest voltage ever produced in Eng-, land, was generated at Dr. de Fer-/ ranti's works at Hollinwood, Lancashire, the other day, the experiment causing a spark nine feet six inches long. Mice, so small that a whole family could be put into a match box, have been found in Africa. The word chaperon is not feminine, .•Uhough it is generally applied to a woman. It means a hood, and when used metaphorically signifies that the married woman shields her youthful protegee as the hood shields the face. Insulin is now being made at onefifth of its cogt ol a year ago by a new process whereby it is extracted fr>m certain fish. The Origin or Chapels. The word chapei comes from capa, a chest. The word was originally apI plied to the chest in which the relics of a N saint were deposited, afterwards to the apartment in a church or cathedral in which the chest was kept, These chapels were dedicated separately, but were known by the name of the saint whose relics they contained. 4 The first circulating library of which there is any record was established at Dunfermline in 1711. The first in London was opened in 1740 at

•No. 132, Strand, by a person named Wright. A Swede has invented an electrio siren for submarines to sound when Ihey are about to come to the surface. A fruit-grower in Quebec has aa apple which produces apples without seeds and without cores. As a general rule, ants liv e from eight to ten years, although specimens in captivity have been known to reach the ag- e of fifteen.