GENERAL NEWS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8060, 13 March 1906, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS.

I'iue nepilica are utilised in Oregon fur stalling furniture. It is said that insects Jo nut harm this kind of sluHing, \vliioh resembles horsehair, and is really the pulp obtained after exfractiug the medicinal pinu needle oil.

India claims the distinction of possessing the longest span of wire in the world. This is a single telegraph wire which crosses tho the river Kistnah. It is over 6000 feet in length, and is 1200 feet high, being stretched from a hill on one side of the river to one on the other.

The sunflower crop is one of tho best paying in ltussia. A good crop is worth, as it stands in the field, live pounds an acre. Tho seeds are sold by the farmer to the merchant, who salts them and retails them at about sixpence a pound ; and at every street crossing in liussian provincial towns are stands and pedlars with baskets, selling to the passer-by the salted product of the big sunflower, which is eaten.

In Japan the earthquakes are tor the most part silent, but some are heard within a radius of a few miles (rom the centre of disturbance. The ruinble of an earthquake is so near the lower limit of audibility iri the human ear that, according to Dr. Davison, the silenoe of Japanese earthquakes is owing to the d illness of the Japanese ear ; but surely the inference is doubtful, and the geological nature of the ground may account for the silence.

Macedonian mothers tie led and white yarn round their children's wrists, which is afterwards placed under a stone. Should later investigation reveal that ants have made their home in the same spot it is regarded as an omen of health and good fortune. Ants are also associated as an omen of health by the aborigines of Xew South Wales, who place a tooth extracted from n lad's month under a stone, believing that if ants run over it the boy will suffer from some affection of the mouth"

A carious custom is said to exist in Southern India among some of the moiv primitive non-Aryan tribes. This consists in wedding a girl to a plant, a tree, an animal, or even to an inauimate object, the notion being that any ill-luck which may follow an actual marriage will lie averted by a unfon of this kind. The first " husband " acts as a scapegoat for the second. Tho superstition which forbids the younger sisters to be married before the older ones is set aside by the eldest daughter marrying the branch of a tree, after which sister number two may safely enter into the bonds of matrimony.

The Warwick vase, famous as the largest marble vase known, was found at tho bottom of a lake fit Hadrian's villa, near Tivoli, by Sir William Hamilton, and presented to the father of the present Earl of Warwick. This magnificent vase is of white marble, designed and executed in the purest Grecian style, and one of the most beautiful specimens of ancient sculpture in exister.ee.' It is circular in form, and will contain one hundred and thirty-six gallons of liquid. The body of tho vase is enfolded with the skin of a. panther, showing the head and claws; above are the heads of satyr-: bound with ivy, the spear of Bacchus, and the crooked stall of the Augurs.

Many authorities state that our paying cards originated in China, their appearance in Kurope being credited to the Saracens, who'are said to have brought them from India, China, and other Asiatic countries. But those claims are doubted, and it seems quite as likely that the cards originated in Kurope in the fourteenth century. Lefore then cards bearing emblematic pictures were used in fortune telling, and early playing cards had, in place of the present suit, symbols, cups, money, clubs and swords in Spain and Italy, and hearts, hells, acorns and leaves in Germany. The fifty-two card pack, substantially like that of to-day, dates back to the lifteenth century.

Many birds form their sounds without opening their bills. The pigeon is a wellknown instance of this. Its cooing can be distinctly heard, although it does not open its bill. The call is formed internally in the throat and chest, and is only rendered audible by resonance. Similar ways may be observed in many birds tuid other animals. The clear loud call of the cuckoo, according to one naturalist, is the resonance of a note formed in the bird. The whirring of the snipe, which betrays the approach of the bird to the hunter, is an act of ventriloquism. Even the nightingale has certain notes which are produced internally, and which are audible while the bill is closed.

Strange associations are numerous in Japan. Among the most curious are the M Falltogether Society," the " Pauper Brotherhood," the u Society of Protesters." and the " Seaweed Society," the members of the last community wearing nothing but ] the most tattered garments. More curious still is the " Society of Self-Annihilation," formed, apparently, by discontented nobles infected by Nihilistic doctrines. The members of this society are bound to possess no private capital, they must look to nothing but their own right arm to support and protect them, and they, must be in session every ;day during the year, their object being to say what thop please, cat and drink what theyjliie, sleep when so disposed, and concern' themselves about nothing, which does not affect themselves personally. •

Botanical research has shown lluin the trunks of trees undergo daily changes in diameter. From 'early morning to early afternoon there is a regular diminution till the minimum is reached, when the process is reversed, and the maximum diameter is attained at the time of twilight; then again comes a diminution, to be succeeded by an increase about dawn —an increase more marked than that in the evening. Variations in diameter are believed to coincide With the variations of tension, but thcyure shown to be inverse to the temperature, tho maximum of the one corresponding roughly to the minimum of the other, and so on. In connection with these investigations it may be remarked that the height of a man is greater in the morning than in the afternoon, and again, that, other influences being suspended, the barometer is higher in the morning than in the fi^-vnoon.