NOTES AND MEMORANDA:

Southland Times, Issue 879, 10 January 1868, Page 3

NOTES AND MEMORANDA:

Oak in pensoning losses at least one-third of if original weight. There are but three manufactories of wire rop ia the United States. Pc s'ns ylyania. f urrkb es 73| per cent, of all th coal pro luced in the United States. There are 862 journals of vaiiouq lands pub lished in Paris, a^a'nsfc 416 only in 1864. It ia stited that wages in France have increasai 40 per cent, within the last fifteen years. It is calculated that Pennsylvania contains coa enough to supply 20,000,000 tons annually for thi ! next 650 years. In Mexico there exists 197 different kinds o minerals, among which are gold, silver, iron copper, lead, zinc, mercury, and tin. There are at this moment no less than twentj or thirty thousand workpeople employed in iron works in the Clyde district. The first employment of electricity foi firing gunpowder dates as far back as 1751, anc is due to Franklin ; and in 1767 Priestly tarnec his attention successfully in the same directin. M. Brttckb has observed that diffused solai lisht, instead of being perfectly white, it singed with red. The light of burning magnesium, which appeara to be so like sunlight, has a tinge ol violet. To show how completely iron steamboats are superseding wooden ones, it may be mentioned that only forty of the latter were built in England last year, while 283 iron steam vessels were built. The best quality of oak, as far as strength and durability are concerned, is that grown in Sussex. The nexS in quality is that which grows in the south-west parts of Kent, and in the north-east parts of Hampshire, The French are transforming their old threedeckers in transports, with three lines of stabling for horses. Some of these vessels will carry 1,200 horses, and the navy undertake to convey 25,000 horses at a short notice. Mb John Calyert lately found a specimen of cronstedtite, near the Exeter-road not far from South Lawton. This extremely rare mineral has hitherto only been found at Przibram in Bohemia and Wbeal Maudlin in Cornwall. In healthy trees, or those which have not already passed their prime, the density of the butt is, in some cases, to that of the top in about the ratio of four to three, and that of the centre to thecircumferencg as seven to five. Professor Peirce stated in evidence in a recent law case in the United States, that the probability of two persons writing a signature exactly alike independently of one another was 2,666,000,000,000,000,000,000 tol. A New composition exploding by electricity has been suggested by Mr Able. It consists of an intimate mixture of phosphide of copper, chlorate of potash, and powdered coke. The coke only serves as a conductor of the electricity. The specific gravity of a tree grown in good and rather dry soil, is to that of a similar tree in wet marshey situations frequently as seven to five j and the weights which a similar beam will support without breaking, in the two cases, are in about the ratio of five to four. In her mercantile tonnage Great Britian leads the world with 7,000,000 tons. Germany far exceed France, being third on the list. In the year 1860 the United States had overtaken England ; the four years' war, however, reduced her merchant fleet ; and now she ranks second, with 5,000,000 registered tonnage. Militaex aeronauts do not appear to have afforded any very useful results in the war in Paraguay. Although frequent balloon ascensions have been made, the ascent was but the signal for ! Marshal Lopez to order the kindling ot great fires, the smoke from which covered his camp, and thus prevented the allies from discovering what was going on therein. If a steel pen is hard and obstinate, refuses to yield when pressed, and annoys by its rigidity, hold it a half minute or less in the flame of a gas light or candle and immerse it in water, oil, or tallow. In most instances it will cure the rigidity. In fact, it is a good practice to pass a steel pen through the flame of a lamp before using it. This burns off the oil used in the tempering, and prevents that slipping of the ink, or the refusal to Row, generally noticed in all new steel pens. .... .._... During the year ended 31st March7~Tß677 214, 431, acres of land were sold by the South Australian Government,-more than 100,000 acres icres less than the quantity sold during the same period of the preceding year. The total area of purchased land in the occupation of lease and freeholders on 319t December 1866, was 5,424,721 acres, or 20 acres per head of the sstimated population. It appears that the most oumerous class of farmers are those with between LOO and 200 acres. With regard to cultivation, the increase of last year was rather better than that of the year before. The total quantity of ploughed land was, 739,714 acres as compared with 660,569 acres in 1865-6. The filtering-paper made in Sweden is better ihan that produced by any other nation, in consejuence of its being wholly free of accidental salts, which in many papers of similar make often entirely destroy the effects of chemical analysis. Die excellence is supposed to be due to its being nade entirely of linen rags, more readily procured ;here than elsewhere, and to the purity of the water. This hint may be seiviceable to foreign makers of filtering paper by causing them to asc in its manufacture only distilled water. A recent experiment proved that an equal weight of linen and Swedish filtering-paper being burned, jach gave forth the same volume of cinder. At the present time large orders of common writingpapers are being executed at Bosendahl for sxportation to England though possibly it is not biowu that these qualities contain sixty per cent, of wood-pulp. In spite of this circumstance, however, they meet with a ready sale.