Facts Of General Interest

A hawk flies 150 miles per hour; an eider duck 90 miles; a pigeon, 40
miles.

A man's working life is divided into four decades: 20 to 30, bronze; 30
to 40, silver; 40 to 50, gold; 50 to 60, iron. Intellect and judgment
are strongest between 40 and 50.

Hair which is lightest in color is also lightest in weight. Light or
blond hair is generally the most luxuriant, and it has been calculated
that the average number of hairs of this color on an average person's
head is 140,000; while the number of brown hairs is 110,000, and black
only 103,000.

Goldsmith received $300 for The Vicar of Wakefield; Moore, $15,500 for
Lalla Rookh; Victor Hugo, $12,000 for Hernani; Chateaubriand,
$110,000 for his works; Lamartine, $16,000 for Travels in Palestine;
Disraeli, $50,000 for Endymion; Anthony Trollope, $315,000 for
forty-five novels; Lingard, $21,000 for his History of England; Mrs.
Grant received over $600,000 as royalty from the sale of The Personal
Memoirs of U. S. Grant.

One woman in 20, one man in 30 is barren--about 4 per cent. It is found
that one marriage in 20 is barren--5 per cent. Among the nobility of
Great Britain, 21 per cent have no children, owing partly to
intermarriage of cousins, no less than 4-1/2 per cent being married to
cousins.

The largest bells are the following, and their weight is given in tons:
Moscow, 216: Burmah, 117; Pekin, 53; Novgorod, 31; Notre Dame, 18;
Rouen, 18; Olmutz, 18; Vienna, 18; St. Paul's, 16; Westminster, 14;
Montreal, 12; Cologne, 11; Oxford, 8; St. Peter's, 8. Bell metal should
have 77 parts copper and 23 tin.

American life averages for professions (Boston): Storekeepers, 41.8
years; teamsters, 43.6 years; laborers. 44.6 years; seamen, 46.1 years;
mechanics, 47.3 years; merchants, 48.4 years; lawyers, 52.6 years;
farmers, 64.2 years.

A camel has twice the carrying power of an ox; with an ordinary load of
400 lb. he can travel 12 to 14 days without water, going 40 miles a day.
Camels are fit to work at 5 years old, but their strength begins to
decline at 25, although they live usually till 40.

The checks paid in New York in one year aggregate $77,020,672,494, which
is more than nine times the value of all the gold and silver coin in
existence.

Pounds of water evaporated by 1 lb. of fuel as follows: Straw. 1.9;
wood, 3.1; peat, 3.8; coke or charcoal. 6.4; coal, 7.9; petroleum, 14.6.

The average elevation of continents above sea level is: Europe, 670
feet; Asia, 1,140 feet; North America. 1,150 feet; South America, 1,100
feet.

A body weighing 140 lb. produces 3 lb. ashes; time for burning, 55
minutes.

The seven largest diamonds in the world weigh, respectively, as follows;
Kohinoor, 103 carats; Star of Brazil, 126 carats; Regent of France, 136
carats; Austrian Kaiser, 139 carats; Russian Czar, 195 carats; Rajah of
Borneo, 367 carats; Braganza, 1,880 carats. The value of the above is
not regulated by size, nor easy to estimate, but none of them is worth
less than $500,000.

According to Orfila, the proportion of nicotine in Havana tobacco is 2
per cent; in French, 6 per cent; and Virginia tobacco, 7 per cent. That
in Brazilian is still higher.

One horsepower will raise 16-1/2 tons per minute a height of 12 inches,
working 8 hours a day. This is about 9,900 foot-tons daily, or 12 times
a man's work.

Good clear ice two inches thick will bear men to walk on; four inches
thick will bear horses and riders; six inches thick will bear horses and
teams with moderate loads.

One pair of rabbits can become multiplied in four years into 1,250,000.
Australia ships 6,000,000 rabbit skins yearly to England.

The largest of the Pyramids, that of Cheops, is composed of four million
tons of stone, and occupied 100,000 men during 20 years, equal to an
outlay of $200,000,000. It would now cost $20,000,000 at a contract
price of 36 cents per cubic foot.

One tug on the Mississippi can take, in six days, from St. Louis to New
Orleans, barges carrying 10,000 tons of grain, which would require 70
railway trains of fifteen cars each.

Comparative Scale of Strength.--Ordinary man, 100; Byron's Gladiator,
173; Farnese Hercules, 362; horse, 750.

A man will die for want of air in five minutes; for want of sleep, in
ten days; for want of water, in a week; for want of food, at varying
intervals, dependent on various circumstances.

The average of human life is 33 years. One child out of every four dies
before the age of 7 years, and only one-half of the world's population
reach the age of 17. One out of 10,000 reaches 100 years. The average
number of births per day is about 120,000, exceeding the deaths by about
15 per minute. There have been many alleged cases of longevity in all
ages, but only a few are authentic.

The various nations of Europe are represented in the list of Popes as
follows: English, 1; Dutch, 1; Swiss, 1; Portuguese, 1; African, 2;
Austrian, 2; Spanish, 5; German, 6; Syrian, 8; Greek, 14; French, 16;
Italian, 200. Eleven Popes reigned over 20 years; 69, from 10 to 20; 57,
from 5 to 10; and the reign of 116 was less than 5 years. The reign of
Piux IX was the longest of all, the only one exceeding 25 years.

A knot, in sailor phrase, is a nautical mile, 6,080 feet, or 800 feet
more than a land mile.

The Garden of the Gods is near Colorado Springs and consists of a tract
some 50 acres in area surrounded by mountains and ravines of red
sandstone. A number of large upright rocks, some as high as 350 feet,
have given the beautiful valley its name. It is entered by a very narrow
pass called the Beautiful Gate.

The Trans-Siberian Railway is 6,003 miles long and was built at a cost
of $201,350,860.

The longest reigns in English history were; Victoria, 64 years; George
III., 60; Henry III, 56; Edward III, 50; Elizabeth, 45; Henry VIII., 38.

The highest mountain in North America is Mt. McKinley, at the headwaters
of the Suswhitna and Kuskokwim rivers, Alaska. Its height is 20,464
feet.

The largest viaduct in the world was designed and built by American
engineers for the English railway in Burma. It crosses the Gokteik
gorge, eighty miles from Mandalay. It is 2,260 feet long and 325 feet
high, and was constructed in 1900.

The degrees of alcohol in wines and liquors are: Beer, 4.0; porter, 4.5;
ale, 7.4; cider, 8.6; Moselle, 9.6; Tokay, 10.2; Rhine, 11.0; orange,
11.2; Bordeaux, 11.5; hock, 11.6; gooseberry, 11.8; Champagne, 12.2;
claret, 13.3; Burgundy, 13.6; Malaga, 17.3; Lisbon, 18.5; Canary, 18.8;
sherry, 19.0; vermouth, 19.0; Cape, 19.2; Malmsey, 19.7; Marsala, 20.2;
Madeira, 21.0; Port, 23.2; Curacoa, 27.0; aniseed, 33.0; Maraschino,
34.0; Chartreuse, 43.0; gin, 51.6; brandy, 53.4; rum, 53.7; Irish
whisky, 53.9; Scotch, 54.3. Spirits are said to be proof when they
contain 57 per cent. The maximum amount of alcohol, says Parkes, that a
man can take daily without injury to his health is that contained in 2
oz. Brandy, 1/4 pt. of sherry, 1/2 pt. of claret, or 1 pt. of beer.

The measurement of that part of the skull which holds the brain is
stated in cubic inches thus: Anglo-Saxon, 105; German, 105; negro, 96;
ancient Egyptian, 93; Hottentot, 58; Australian native, 58. In all races
the male brain is about ten per cent heavier than the female. The
highest class of apes has only 16 oz. of brain. A man's brain, it is
estimated, consists of 300,000,000 nerve cells, of which over 3,000 are
disintegrated and destroyed every minute. Everyone, therefore, has a new
brain once in sixty days. But excessive labor, or lack of sleep,
prevents the repair of the tissues, and the brain gradually wastes away.
Diversity of occupation, by calling upon different portions of the mind
or body successively, affords, in some measure, the requisite repose to
each. But in this age of overwork there is no safety except in that
perfect rest which is the only natural restorative of exhausted power.

The King James version of the Bible contains 3,566,480 letters, 773,746
words, 31,173 verses, 1,189 chapters, and 66 books. The word and occurs
46,277 times. The word Lord occurs 1,855 times. The word Reverend occurs
but once, which is in the 9th verse of the 111th Psalm. The middle verse
is the 8th verse of the 118th Psalm. The 21st verse of the 7th chapter
of Ezra contains all the letters of the alphabet except the letter J.
The 19th chapter of II Kings and the 37th chapter of Isaiah are alike.
The longest verse is the 9th verse of the 8th chapter of Esther. The
shortest verse is the 35th verse of the 11th chapter of St. John. There
are no words or names of more than six syllables.

Next: Some Of Nature's Wonders
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Facts Of General Interest