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Southland Times, Issue 1572, 3 May 1872, Page 3

Why may carpenters reasonably believe there is no such thing as stone ? Because they never saw it. ' Sam,' said a mother to one of her 4 wery obedient' sons one day, ' how many logs have you sawed, eh ?' ' Why mnrtn, when I get this and three other ones done, I'll have done four.' The French journals record " matches and despatches," but not the " hatches." To supply this omission, a list of separated — once happy — couples, is sometimes given. A negro waiter who had twic awakened a traveller to inform him that breakfast was ready, and a third time broke bis slumbers by attempting to pull off the bedclothes, thus explained," Massa, if you isn't gwine to git up I must hab de sheet anyhow, case dey'er waiting for de tablecloth." The durability of the framed timbers of' buildings is very considerable. The trusses of the old part of the roof of the Basillica of St. Paul, at Rome, were framed in £16, and were sound and good in 1814, a space of nearly a thousand years. These trusses are of fir. The timber work of the external domes of the Church of St. Mark, at Venice, is more than 840 years old, and is still in a good state. And Alberti obseryed the gates of cypress to the Church of St. Peter, at Rome, to be whole and sound after being up nearly 600 years. The inner roof of the Chapel of St. Nicholas, King's Lynn, Norfolk, is of oak 9 and was constructed about 500 years ago. Daviller Btates, as an instance of the durability of fir, that the large dormitory of the Jacobins Convent, at Paris, had been executed in fir, and lasted 400 yearß. — The Engineer.