Miscellaneous.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Issue 39, 18 February 1899, Page 3

Miscellaneous.

The lovely vivid green oiddenite, or. lithia emerald, is found in North Carolina. It has. 'never been found outside the United States. The Hamburg- American liner Pretoria was caught in ' a hurrioane in the Atlantic, and broke her rudder shaft. She used her screws' and was steered to Plymouth. ' A destructive tidal wave has been experienced in the south of It rose to a height of 40ft., and flooded the lowlying coastal area. Its effects were also felt m Gloucestershire. Portions of the Severn Bridge were damaged, and the Monmouth Company's railway at Lydney, in Forest Dean, was also dam iged.

There are now three British warships at Muscat, and tive otheis are a&semblmg at Kurrachee. There are 300 cases of typHoid in Dawson city, Klondike goldfields ; a few of the cases being fatal. The heaviest sentence of flogging in the navy daring this century is believed to have been 500 lashes. Thirty thousand women spend their lives m driving and steering the danal boats in Southern and Midland England. His Holiness the! Pope, in receiving the Irish pilgrims, remarked that England's return to Roman Catholicism was daily growing more certain^ Before the Easter encampment the trhole of the defence forces will be armed with the Martini-Enfield rifle, and smokeless powder will be used. When a chameleon i 3 blindfolded it loses all power of changing its colour, and its entire body remains a uniform tint. Mr John Kensit, the anti-RitUalism champion, in response to a request from Protestant bodies, has consented to contest Mr Balfour's seat at the next election. The deserts of Arabia are specially remarkable for then- pillars of sand, which are raised by whirlwinds, and have a very close resemblance in their 1 appearance to waterspouts. A medical paper says that in railway collisions nearly all the people who are asleep escape the bad eifects of shaking and concussion, Nature's own ansosthelic preserving them. Great Britain is the largest consumer of cheese in Europe. The combined countries of Europe import annually 480,000,0001b, of which Great Britain takes upwards of 860,000,0001b, or nearly 70 per cent, of the whole. The Sydney Telegraph adversely criticises the New" Zealand Old Age Pensions. It considers that a much larger amount than is provided will be required to make proper provision for the needy poor and aged. Great Britain and France have agreed upon a free passage in their respective territories in Africa. France seeks two points of outlet to the Upper Nile on condition that they are similar to the outlet granted to Belgium at Rejaf. A celebrated lion-tamer has fitted Up an electric wire in one of the cages, find this serves as impassable yet invisible barrier, Which protect* the performer. One touch of the wire gives a lasting lesson to the fiercest lion. The most costly leather in the World is known to the trade as piano-leather. The secret of tanning this leather is known only to a family of tanners in Germany, though the skins from which it is tanned come almost entirely from America. Count Bulow, Secretary of Slate for Foreign Affairs, in reply to an interpellation in the Keichstag, strenuously denied that Germany had designs on the Philhpines. He asserted that uniformly friendly relations prevailed with America, and hoped for a commercial arrangement for the two countries on a basis of full reciprocity. Major-General French, of Sydney, who has returned from a visit to New Zealand, in an interview said that he was favourably impressed with the military forces of New Zealand. They would compare favourably with those of the other colonies, and included a good stamp of men* The defences of Auckland and Wellington were well designed and the armament quite up to date. The annual meeting of the Canterbury Saleyards Company, proprietors of the Addington yards, Was held on Tuesday* The directors' report stated that 547,929 sheep, 18,296 cattle, and 18,795 piga had been handled during the year. The profit and loss account showed a profit of £971 5s 3d. It was decided to pay a dividend of 4 per cent., making a total of 8 per cent, for the year. An Austrian inventor claims to have invented an electrical apparatus by the use of which a person may sit in a dark room and look at a scene in auothei' pari of the town, regardless of corners, intervening buildings, or any other obstruc-

tions. The' inventor of the new instru' ment, Which is tialled a " fernscher,'claims that his appliance transmits light ■Waves jdst ad sound waves are carried over the Wire by eledtrioity. Subscribers -wanted; Id weeky. , News is to hand that a Tungusoi tHbe discovered in Tfeinsdish, a prdvince of Eastern Siberia* riar't of a balloonj three 1 bodies, and & rium'ber of instruments. The bodies are supposed td be those of Andree and his two conlpanicns, Herr Fraenekell and Dr Strindber'g ~Dt Nansen, Baron Nordeflskjold, and Herr Stadling, the Arctic explorers, discredit the reported finding df the reiriains of the Andree expedition. , News is td Hand frdm Hong Kong that Americans' bombarded and captured Iloilo on Saturday last. The insurgents fired the town before evacuating, but the Americans Extinguished the flames before they had a g'odd hold, and the damage to the property of foreigners was only slight. The hostile action of the insurgents compelled the bombardment after they had bden siirrimoiied to surrender. There were rid casualties on the American side, but thd enemy ldst heavily. In the dourse of redent experiments trofesaor Sutherland found that the average temperature of warnl-blooded animals is abdtft lOOdeg 1 . Fahr., and, e'xeept in Constitutional disturbances, this ddes not vary more than 3deg. or 4deg, at any time of the year 1 . On the othei? hand, cold-blooded animals have no proper temperature of their own. A fish, a snake, a frog, or an insect when at rest is rarely more xhan 2deg. or 3deg. warmer than the air or tile water m which it is living. Excluding the iwo capitals, there is not a iidgle city in the whole of Buasia, properly so-dalled, ■which would be deemed a large town in Britain. Only 90 have a population exceeding 50,000, and only ISO count moie than 10,000 inhabitants.