Fascinating Facts

A diamond is a piece of pure carbon, just as is soot in the chimney but in crystal form. It is 80times as hard as the next hardest substance which is corundum.

The clock tower that supports the famous clock “BIG BEN” at the House of Parliament in London is 320 feet high. The bell from which the clock gets its name, weighs 13.5 tons.

If all the oceans on earth dried up the rock salt remaining would be enough to build a wall a mile thick and 18 miles high all around the equator.

The largest magnet in the world is earth itself, because the hot nickel and iron at its core pull everything towards it.

Do you know that cattle fish has three hearts, two of which are placed at the base of gills and third is at central heart?

The world’s tallest mountain, even higher than Mt. Everest is Mauna Koa an underwater mountain which rises 33,476 feet and has its peak on the island of Hawaii.

The Dead Sea ( Actually a lake 45 miles long and 10 miles wide) is so salty that it is impossible to drown in it unless you are held under water. On the other hand, the Baltic is the least salty sea in the world.

The world’s highest mountain, Mt. Everest were dropped into the deepest part of the ocean, water more than a mile deep would still be flowing above its summit.

Twice a year, on March 21st and September 22nd all places on earth have equal day and night – twelve hours long each. These are called EQUINOXES.

If all the stars in the Milky Way had names, anyone trying to say their names one after the other would take 4,000 years, even if they could say one name every second without ever stopping.

No solar eclipse can last longer than 7 minutes 58 seconds because of the speed at which the sun moves.

Women can weep over the slightest grief and frequently, most men can not. And more men have peptic ulcer and heart condition than women in every society. Such stress related diseases are there in man because, in display of daring, he holds emotional tears rather than let them flow easily and freely.

During its entire life time a house fly never travels more than a few hundred feet from the place where it was born.

A humming bird beats, or flaps its wings up to 90 times a second, or over 5,000 times a minute.

There is one place in the world where you can find trees with square trunks. This is in Panama, a few kilometers to the north of Panama Canal. When such a tree is fallen its age is counted not by rings, but by squares.

In Spitzbergen, Norway at one time of the year the sun shines continuously for three and a half months.

George Washington, the first President of United States, was a champion wrestler and long jumper.

From 13th June, 1948 to 1st June, 1958 a citizen of Los Angeles hiccoughed 160,000,000 times. People sent 60,000 suggestions for cures.

A fly moves its wings at the rate of 330 strokes a second.

The muscles required for an Alligator to open its jaws are so weak; a man can keep them closed with his hands.

Half a kilo of cotton has been spun into more than 3,300 kilometers of yarn.

Bungalows are named after the Hindi word “BANGLA” which means belonging to Bengal.

The muscles of human jaw exert a force of over 219 Kg.

The nail on our middle finger grows fastest. The nail on the thumb grows slowest.

An ounce of gold can be beaten into a sheet covering 9.3 square meters, or drawn into 80.5 Km (50 Miles) of wire.

Draftsmen have to make 27,000 drawings for the manufacture of a new car.

The giant bamboos of south-east Asia can grow almost 1 meter in 24 hours.