The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1905-10-15
NO SUCH COUNTRY AS HOLLAND

II
| What ought we to call Wilhelmina' s
| little country: Holland or The Neither
lands? ]. D.
To answer in Yankee fashion, how
would you like to here the name New
England applied to the whole of the
United States? The principle is the
same Holland" is only part, or
one of several provinces, of The Me-
therIands. so that the right name for
the country is THE Netherlands and
when you say Holland" you are really
talking about only portion of the
country.
! A BOOK BINDING STRONGER
/ THAN LEATHER.
Is not leather the strongest material
Ito bind books in? BOOkWORM.
1t has always been considered so,
but in the recent report of the Lib
rarian of Congress he states that a
good quality of duck has been found
| more dura BILE than the feathers pro-
duced under modern tanning condi-
tons.
THE LATEST WAY OF CATCHING
| Where is it that people catch fish
drugging them in some way?
| ADIRONDACKS.
| South Sea Islanders pound the mar
| cotic fruit of a tropical tree and put it
| in bags down into holes in reefs. at low
tide. The fish, drawn over the spot
as the tide rises, become stupefied and
float to the surface. They appear in
| such numbers that the natives not only
gather them from the surface, but dive
for them as well. This method does
not seem to spoil the fish.
GLASS IS VERY ELASTIC.
1 read somewhere that glass is
very elastic This does not seem SEN
sible. ACADIA
But it is sensible, and you can prove
for yourself what physics textbooks
teach, that glass is one of the most
elastic substances known. Not that it
will bend most easily. but that on be-
ing bent it regains it's first straightness
most quickly and most completely.
Take a thin glass rod and bend it
along three nails on the wall, over the
middle one and under the other two;
leave it there as long as your patience
lasts-ten years if you like-and you
will find on taking it down that it
springs back as straight as an arrow
a thing which rubber could not do,
nor wood, nor most of the things which
we think of as pretty elastic.
QUEEN ALEXANDRA'S SPECIAL
PRIVILEGES.
Is it true that Queen Alexandra has
more special privileges than her pre-
decessors as Queen-consort?
ADELAIDE F.
Yes, she is practically given privi-
Ieges accorded to no one else except
the King-privileges which have sell
dom or never before been extended to
IQueen-consorts. She can contract debts
on her own account, being exempt
from the Married Woman's Property
Act; she has her own attorney general
land solicitor-general to represent her in
all legal matters; she presided once in
a crisis at a. council of ministers of
state, when King Edward could not
be present; and she shares with the
King the provision which makes it
high treason to plot against the throne.
F. B. w.
ANTS HEAR WITH THEIR FEET.
notice that ants seem to hear
noises, but have always learned that
they had no ears, nor eyes either. Have
they a peculiar apparatus of their
own? l.. p.
No apparatus any more peculiar than
feet It has been recently determined
that they preceive sound by means of
their sensitive feet, which carry sound
to their inteHigences as rapidly as
would any regular sense of hearing.
AS to their seeing without any eyes,
they do not really see, but only smell.
BY their power of smelling, effected by
the minute joints at tlse end of the
waving antennae on their heads, they
find their way around with the utmost
accuracy. Thus it might almost be
said that as these little animals hear
with their feet, they see with their
noses.
THE TURKS ORIGINATED HEAD
STONES.
How did ornamental headstones for |
the dead originate? F. B. S.
The Turks are believed to be respon-
sible for this custom.
HOW DOES THE BEE FIND THE
''BEE-LINE"?
We hear so much about "bee-line'' /
as the unerringly straight route to |
given point. Has the bee that queer |
faculty known as the sense of direc- !
ton, which the carrier-pigeon has?
K. M.
1t is probably safe to say that the |
bee has no sense of direction For /
long time it was thought that he |
must have to enable him to find the |
hive, as invariably as he does, !
TO matter how far away he is. nor
how long absent from it. But lately /
Maeterlinck has stated-confirming the
assertions of Sir John Lubbock and of
Romanes-that this power in bees is
due entirely to their phenomenal mem
DRY for landmarks. Bees note every