THINGS NOT GENERALLY KNOWN.

Colonist, Volume IV, Issue 381, 18 June 1861, Page 4

THINGS NOT GENERALLY KNOWN.

1. Tbe Castor-oil of the druggists is not extracted from the inguinal glands of tbe animal bo-called (the Beaver) as was formerly imagined but from the nuts.or seed of the Rioinus plant, a native of several of the hot climates of tha East. The kikiou, rendered gottrd in the authorised version of the book of Jonah, is generally admitted to be tho Eictinia plant. It is of very rapid growth, with broad palmate leaves, and giving, especially when young, an ample shade. The plant is currently called in Egypt kiki, a word evidently akin to the kikioa of tho book of Jonah.

2. The dreadfui ravages of the cholera in England were fully'compensated by tbe unusual and almost unprecedented healthiness which prevailed for sorao years after tbe last visitation of the plague.

3. When you tako off your hat to a friend in tho street, you wili have travelled several miles before you car .-replace it—such is tho velocity with wbich the earth moves in hor orbit and on aer axis.

4, Taking the whale to be the largest animal in creation, the common cheese mite may be considered to hold tho middle place as to size— so numerous and minute are the tiny subjects of microscopic observation!

D. The sun was long considered to have no motion besides that on its axis. It is now ascertained'to move with all its attendant worlds towards the constellation Hercules with a velocity of thirty-three millions of miies iv tbe year. The central orb, which originated and sliil. controls this stupendous movement, is calculated to be Alcyon, the brightest of the Pleiades, or Seven Stars. How vast that central body, to regulate tho motions of so many attendant worlds, aud one of which, the sun, 13 computed to be nearly nine hundred thousand miles in diameter.? What a striking emblem may we here sco of the grandeur of the Deity, and energies of Omnipotence!.

G. The number nine has a proporty peculiar, as far as I know, to itself. It is this": If you multiply it by any figure up to ten inclusive, the sum of tho figures in the product will bo nine— thus, 9+ 2 = 18, and I+B =9. .The carious will observe a similar property on multiplying by a figure between ten and twenty. 7. The name Tatar (for such is the coirect spelling) was changed to Tartar, in order to designate the origin of tho tribe of that name from the bottomless pit, or Tartarus. See Revelation of St. John, chap. 9.

8. The veteran Marshal Blucher, a fow minutes before he expired, turned towards his aide-de-camp and friend, Nostitz (who had saved his life at the battle of Ligny), and, grasping him by the hand said, " Nostiiz, you have learned much of me, learn now, also from me, how to die peacefully " [lemen sic nun audi yon mir ruhen slerben).

9. "If the life and death of Socrates were those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus were those of a Gcd." —Rousseau, the French infidel —if the author of such beautiful language may justly be called an infidel.

10. In the olden times of England, a clergyman, on proving himself to be such, became exempted from trial at a civil court, and might claim to he delivered to his ordinary or bishop, to purge himself of felouy. If convicted, several degrading particulars were omitted from the punishment. To test his clerical position, a verse, generally tho first of the fifty-first psalm, was given him to read, after which, on his satisfactorily acquitting himself, the judge cried out, Legit tit clericus —ho reads as a clergyman ! Hence the legal privilege, " Benefit of clergy." By the first of Edward the Sixth the privilege was extended to others than real cleric convicts.

11. It is generally understood that the date of the Saviour's birth was four years before the vulgar era; but few are acquainted with the reasons on which the decision is founded. The civeumstance3 of the case may thus ho summed up. Dionjsius, a Roman Abbot, in the year of Gicaoe 527 a ssttled thet aatmty of Ch«4 ta tha

and of tho 4713 th yoar of the Julian period (this period began 7.10 years before the creation), or to the end of the 4004 th year of the world. This computation ia followed by Christian nations, hut is generally thought by the learned to be too late by some#)ur years. According to the testimony of Josephus, there was an eclipse of the moon in the time of Herod the Great's last illness; which eclipse appears by our astronomical tables, to have been at Jerusalem in the month of March in the year of the Julian period 4710. Now, as our Saviour must have been born some months before Herod's death sincein the interval he was carried into Eg-ypt, tDe latest time ia which v;e can fix the true date of his birth is about the end of 4709 th year of the Julian period, that is, about four years before tho common account.

12. The year of the world 4000, tho most probable date of the Saviour's birth, witnessed the rare occurrence of the shuttiug of the temple of Janus at Rome, the sign of universal place. The same year, also, waa a jubilee year, tho SOth from the creation. A befittiug season for the appearance of the " Prince of Peace," who revealed in his person and work the jubilee blessings of the " acceptable year of tha Lord."