MISCELLANEOUS

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 206, 11 January 1872, Page 6

MISCELLANEOUS

It is said that one oyster drinks more water than 1,000 men.

It is that if a tree is felled while in leaf, and allowed to lie until the foliage withers, the wood will be the soonest seasoned, as the leaves will draw all the sap before they die.

A wash composed of limp, salt, and fine sand of wood-ashes, put on in the ordinary way of white-wash, according to an American journal, renders a shingle roof fifty-fold more safe against fire from falling cinders, in case of fire in the vicinity. It pays its expense a hundred-fold in its preseiving influence against tbe weather ; the older and more weither beaten the shingles, the more benefit derived. 'Such shingles are generally more or less warped, rough, and cracked. The application of wash, by washing the upper surface, restores them to their original or firm form, thereby closing the space between the shingles, and tbe lime and sand, by filling up the crack", prevent it warping. By the addition of a small quantity of lampblack, the wash may be made of the same color as old shingles, and thus the offensive glare of a whitewashed roof may be avoided.

Prof. Gr. G. Zeriffi, in his, new work " Spidtualism and Animal Magnetism," attempts to prove that all phenomena, whether in the spiritual or material world, must be the mere effect of some causes. That we have an organ in us that can act on the perceptive faculties of the brain from within. That this is the organ of dreams Tbat dreams may be classed as follows: dreams without meaning, halfdreams, theorematic dreams, allegorical dreams, somnambulic dreams, clairvoyant dreams, visionary dreams. That the organ of dreams has its seat in the ganglionic system of nerves. That this organ may be acted upon from without. That there can be no such phenomena as spiritual manifestatioas from an objective point of view, but that they are all subjective. Thai spectral visions are the products of the disturbed balance between positive and negative magnetism. That persons in whom the negative magnetism is predominant see, hear, smell, feel, ta3te, and even think, whak ever an individual charged with positive magnetism. wills. That there is not a single accredited ghost story, | spectral vision, or spiritual manifestation, that could not be> explaiued from a natural point of view That the trade in spiritualism should be stopped by law, as it is a crime against Society, demanding as much repression as tbe trade in fortunetelling, for one credulity doservea as^ much support as another.