The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-11-05
THINGS TO KNOW

More than i've billion gallons of petro- leum are produced annually.
 A national society for the preservation of wild flowers has been organized.
 About fifty thousand automobiles were in use in this country last year.
 A fine ruby weighing one caret is worth s45o; a sapphire $500 and a diamond $15O.
 It is officially estimated that there are 1s2, ,750.OOO acres of standing timber in British Columbia
 Butter making, formerly one of the chief industries of Holland, is being re- vived on an extensive scale.
 The City of Mexico is to have a $Do,- 900 900 legislative palace corresponding to the capitol at Washington.
 Among western people the English are the greatest tea drinkers and the Amer jeans the greatest coffee drinkers.
 syndicate of American capitalists has acquired control of the water-power rights on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls.
 Forest fires in the United States de- stroy annually at least s50000,000 worth of timber, buildings and other property. During the year 1904 diamonds to the value of s9,62s,0S3 were shipped from Amsterdam. of which B, 1928 worth were polished.
 The Great Tun of Heidelberg Castle, world-famous wine cask, holds 2s3,OO0 bot ties of wine and has been filled three times.
 1889, ,973 messages, not including those sent over leased wires or under railroad contracts, were sent by one telegraph company last year.
 Of the population of the United States, 34S per cent. are of wholly or partial al per cent reside in the northern states.
 Switzerland has developed from one of the poorest to one of the richest nations of the world per capita, most of her wealth being gained from the hordes Of tourists who visit in an endless procession the glaciers and lakes.
 Factory girls in England are regular patrons of public houses, girls of fourteen treating their friends to two-penny whis- ky and getting drunk every Saturday night and on holidays as matter of course.
 The production of meat ready for sale at the butcher shop involves no less than twenty-five separate industries set at work after the animal is killed, so ex- tensively are the by-products utilized.
 Whitaker estimates that the sensible atmosphere of the earth extends to a height of some forty miles or more. At a Q1StdnCe Ol d NcIJ icW hAiACo hici'' si.S earth's surface, however, it becomes Of too great tenuity to support life.
 At sea level, at an elevation of one foot, an object Is visible at a distance of l31 miles; at an elevation of ten feet, 4lS miles, twenty-five feet. 8.61 miles; 100 feet, 1923 miles; 1000 feet 33.41 miles; at an even elevation of one mile; 96.1O miles.
 The American chamber of commerce in Paris. organized fifteen years ago, has grown to be an important factor in trade between the two countries and recently has been able to exert sufficient infu- ence to prevent French legislation hostile to certain American products. The heroine of the classical nursury rhyme Mary Had a Little Lamb" was Massachusetts girl whose kindness to the lamb, which had been disowned by It's unnatural mother, was made famous by the well-known verses written by Har- ward student named Rowlston The lamb finally met an untimely death by the horns of an angry COW.
 In South America on the Ignazu river has been discovered the grandest cataract in the world situated in an almost im- nenetrable forest. The precipice over which the water falls is 210 feet high; the cataract Is 13123 feet wide, and 1t Is esti- mated that 10000. 900 tons of water pass over 1t in one hour. (Copyright 1905, by J. E. Brigham)