“Commonsensical Curios”

Have you an old Spanish mandolin in the attic? Have you two? Then, a fine pair of snow shoes can be easily made of them. They are Musical Snow Shoes, made so by the rubbing of your boots upon their strings as o’er Winters blank “snow white music sheet you tread. Simply lay down the mandolins on the snow, one under each toot, and bind each toot to each mandolin with a length of stout twine. But step lightly on your Musical Snow Shoes, and keep moving. “It is the wise man who never stands on a mandolin.

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If you are under an avalanche, did you know that your watch may be saved, it you will but smartly tuck it into the pit of an arm? But act quickly, as “Snow waits tor no man,” in particular an avalanche of it.

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Why do logs float? It has to do with the principle of flotation, worked out in the long ago by Archimedes, of the ancient Greeks, tine sailors all.

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How to “catch the lightning.” Stand in an open field when there is a storm. Hold aloft a thing of metal of some kind. It shall find you! Can you turn Heaven’s Edisomanism into electricity for powering a lamp, or turning a churn? Make a game of it. Because a thing has not yet been done, is no reason why it cannot be done.

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It is a queer tact that the Canadian prefers his house to be a brick, or stucco-tinished, when yet all about him are trees for the cutting. So it is with the Canadian.