Short Papers and Notes. 187 
flowers when they have collapsed, I often put them loosely 
between sheets of vegetable parchment before immersing them in 
the fluid.” 
A Minute. 
In a minute, we shall be whirled around on the outside of the 
earth, by its diurnal motion, a distance of fifteen miles. At the 
same time, we shall have gone with the earth in its grand journey 
around the sun 1,040 miles. 
In a minute, a ray of light travels 11,160,000 miles. 
In a minute, over all the world, about 80 new-born infants 
have each raised a wail of protest at the fates for thrusting 
existence upon them, while as many more human beings, weary 
with the struggles of life, have opened their lips to utter their last 
sigh. 
In a minute, the lowest sound we can hear has been made by 
990 vibrations, while the highest tones reach us after making 
2,228,000 vibrations. 
In a minute, an express train will travel a mile, and an average 
pedestrian will have got over 16 rods. 
A Sagacious Morse. 
A remarkable case of the sagacity of the horse is reported 
from Gillot Road, Edgbaston. A man, named Nathan Gilbey, a 
coal-dealer and hauler, rents a field there, in which a horse and 
goat have been in the habit of grazing. Recently, a gang of 
young roughs from the Icknield Port Road, have amused them- 
selves by throwing stones at the goat, and some of the more 
cowardly ruffians beat it with a stick. Whenever the goat has 
been attacked in this way, the horse has always raced to its 
rescue, and a few days ago he seized the young rascal by the coat- 
collar, and flung him clean over the hedge into the road. 
A Large Meteorite. 
The Bendigo meteorite—a mighty mass of meteoric iron—has 
been transported to Rio de Janeiro, and is now in the Brazilian 
National Museum. It has lain in the Bendigo Creek since 1785, 
and has been written about again and again by travellers and men 
of science. The removal of this famous meteorite was not pos- 
sible until the completion of the railway to within seventy-two 
miles of Bendigo Creek, and even then it had to be transported 
over trackless hills and dales. Many believed the Bendigo 
meteorite to weigh about nine tons. Its actual weight is now 
