POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



March is preferred for its keeping properties. 

 The mill in use at the present day to crush 

 the olives differs but little from those which 

 have been used for centuries. A mill has 

 lately been invented which, as it crushes the 

 pulp, extracts the stone and throws it out, 

 thus allowing the pulp, the true virgin oil, to 

 be obtained from the press without any ad- 

 mixture of that obtained from the stone or 

 kernel. To prepare virgin oil, olives are 

 taken, free from blemish, when only three 

 quarters ripe, slightly crushed, with care that 

 the seed be not touched by the millstone, 

 then placed in a heap so arranged that the 

 oil shall run out of itself and be collected. 

 Oil thus prepared is greenish, has an exqui- 

 site perfume, and can be kept for many years. 

 A second quality of oil is extracted by the aid 

 of water ; and after all the usual means of 

 extracting the oil from the pulp have been 

 employed, ten per cent of oil can still be ob- 

 tained by using bisulphide of carbon. After 

 the oil is extracted, the skins and refuse are 

 employed in heating boilers ; the muddy sub- 

 stance found at the bottom of the most infe- 

 rior quality of oil is used as manure ; and the 

 broken stones, or grignons, make an excel- 

 lent fuel. 



The Pace of Mind. The appearance of 

 a new quickly calculating man, Jacques Inau- 

 di, a Piedmontese, in Paris, has suggested 

 the inquiry, What is the nature of the power 

 that gives men of this kind their remarkable 

 faculty ? The Spectator suggests that such 

 cases are abnormal instances of the differ- 

 ence in pace which we all know exists be- 

 tween the working of different and even of 

 equal minds. " Everybody who has studied 

 his acquaintance at all," it says, " knows 

 that this difference is very great ; that one 

 man can comprehend an interrogation in half 

 the time taken by another ; that no two chil- 

 dren are alike in quickness of thought, as 

 distinguished from accuracy or depth of 

 thought ; and that clever women constantly 

 reach results, which can only be reached by 

 their thinking more rapidly than men." The 

 difference is especially marked in mental 

 arithmetic; and the difference, though it 

 can be affected by practice or neglect, is ul- 

 timately independent of both. Inaudi was 

 asked to mention the day of the week on 

 which a given date would fall some years 



hence, and answered accurately, Monday. It 

 is not to be supposed that he guessed, for he 

 had done the like before, and there was no 

 ground for assuming collusion ; then " his 

 mind must, say, in three seconds, have trav- 

 ersed a calculation which it would take the 

 few men who could do it in their minds at 

 all, many minutes. Such pace is almost un- 

 thinkable, even if we remember that, the date 

 on which this day falls in this year being once 

 ascertained, the rest of the problem is only a 

 swift effort of memory, the days advancing 

 in a regular sequence, accelerated by leap- 

 years ; but still, superior pace is a theory 

 which does meet all the conditions." The 

 existence of differences in the pace of mind 

 being conceded, the question next arises 

 whether speed can be cultivated. If it can, 

 we have a way pointed out by which intelli- 

 gent life may be rendered longer and fuller. 

 Dr. Martineau is said to believe, what many 

 other persons fancy, that the English middle 

 class has in the last two generations gained 

 so greatly that the gain is perceptible in 

 mental quickness. The Brahmans of India 

 are celebrated for their superiority in this 

 faculty. Teachers admit that the children 

 of the educated poor are easier to teach than 

 children of the uneducated poor ; that " they 

 have not only more ' receptive minds,' which 

 may mean only better memories, but that 

 their minds move positively quicker." On 

 the other hand, the English educated never 

 seem as quick as the Irish uneducated. 



The Destiny of Sea-coast Land. Among 

 the results of his examination of the provis- 

 ions of the shore towns of Massachusetts for 

 public places of resort, and the industries and 

 resources of the people, Mr. J. B. Harrison 

 says, in Garden and Forest, that he found 

 "everywhere recent changes in the owner- 

 ship of land and a movement of people of 

 means from the cities and the interior of the 

 country to the shore regions of the State. I 

 found leagues and leagues together of the 

 shore line all private holdings, without a 

 rood of space in these long reaches to which 

 the public has a right to go. ... I found a 

 great population inland hedged away from 

 the beach, and all the conditions pointing to 

 a time, not remote, when no man can walk 

 by the ocean in Massachusetts without pay- 

 ment of a fee, as we formerly had to pay 



