The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-04-03 00:00:00

THE STOURBRIDGE OBSERVER.

door neighbour of Captain Barnaby, driven into the
flames of this mountain on Friday, May 15th, 1687,
at 3 hours 44 minutes p.m. On their return to Eng-
land, they found that Booty had died two minutes
before the vision. As they told the story, the widow
brought an action for slander, which was tried in the
King's Bench. The captain and crew swore to the
sight, and to the account of it in their journals, as well
as to the captain's recognition of Booty the moment
he saw him. The sailors describedhisclothes minutely,
and the description answered to the clothes of the
deceased produced in court. So the widow lost her
cause, and the'Court of queen's Bench inherits the re-
sponsibility of having judicially endorsed aghost story.
—Pictorial World.

of all clevage in the aggregation of flat blocks of
ice heterogeneously jammed in together. It will not
split. It only shatters, and that not far at a blast. For
two days they have been working with this powerful
and dangerous explosive, giving trial at the same time
o gunpowder, but without success. The blasting the
day before yesterday was made with twelve pounds of
nitro-glycerine, pure, in two-pound cans, and 24 pounds
of the same mixed with one volume of clay, known as
giant powder. The results were inconsiderable, con-
fined to the detachment of perhaps fifty square yards
of obstructing ice. The glacier was not touched, only
the way cleared. But that is something, and may
facilitate the movement whenever it may come. The
blasting was done by attaching the cans to wires with
sinkers, and dropping them through the fissures into
the water, a man 200 yards off connecting the wires to
an electrical machine, and with a few turns of the
crank setting off the explosion under the blocks.
• -

In most of the southern arms of the rivers mentioned
above, the gorges, in all cases unimportant, gave way
at the last temporary thaw; and were not relocked as
was -that at Port Jervis. Besides an ice lock on
the Matteawan Creek, in the upper part of this
State, and one in the Schuylkill at Fairmount Dam,
this gorge at Port Jervis is now the only one
attracting public attention; and that is so exceptional
in its causes that it stands alone even in this anomalous
season. The two others mentioned are not at points
where floods would do worse than destroy a mill or a
bridge, and they are merely masses of obstructed ice,
the worse to be feared from which are floods below
from sudden melting. At Port Jervis, however, we
have a phenomemon not often seen. It is to-day a
battle—rather a race—between the liquifying powers
of heat and rain and the disintegrating power of nitro-
glycerine. Which wins is an unimportant matter to the
scientific world, but very important to the citizens of
Port Jervis. It might be reasonablyasked why measures
are not taken to render such an event impossible before
it occurs, as could be done by a little engineering at
the island. The answer is an ugly commentary on the
tendency in our natures to procrastinate. It is the old
,story of the Arkansas traveller, who found a squatter
huddling with his family in one corner of his house,
having overhead only a temporary roof not covering a
fourth' of his cabin. The rain was pouring down when
the traveller arrived. "Why do you mit cover your
house all over?" he asks. Because," replies the
squatter, "it is raining too hard." "But why did
you not roof it before the rain ? " "Because it was
not needed then." The Port Jervis people are like the
Arkansas squatter in provident preparations for ice-
gorges.

than the trip across the pleasant country. Tfie morn-
ing, although the weather had been cold and rainy
for the previous days, was bright and sunny. The
fields were covered with the vegetation of early
spring, and the verdure of the ground crops formed
a delicious carpet to the thousands of almond trees
now in full blossom just before their budding leaf
appears, while the reflection of the sun on the moun-
tains, capped with the unmelted snow which had fallen
during the late storm, formed a charming background
to the landscape. All along the line the villagers
stood in crowds to see what a real railway train in
actual motion was like, for up to February, 1875, they
bad not a notion. More than one yoke of mules which
their too curious drivers had brought up in close
proximity to the line of railway, started off at full
gallop when they had had their peep at the unknown
monster now first appearing among them.

The train proceeded direct to Inca without stopping,
and arrived there at 10.45, or in 64 minutes. In Inca
it was received by two local bands of music. All the
streets were decorated by means of cords of myrtle
suspended from myrtle-covered posts, in the use of
which the Majorcans display natural skill on all their
festivals and holydays. Here, too, were half-a-
dozen-more triumphal arches, primitive in their con-
struction, but significant of their purpose. Thus,
one dedicated to "Industry, Agriculture, and
Commerce" was adorned by actual implements and
tools familiar to the eye of the country people.
Wine-casks, ploughs, baskets, brooms, hammers, and
such like were arranged amid the myrtle leaves, flowers,
emblems, and banners. Amid the crowded streets,
hung with flags as they had probably never been be-
fore, and accompanied- by the local musicians, the
public functionaries and gentlemen walked to the parish
church, receiving meanwhile the smiles and welcome
of the fair inhabitants from their draped balconies. At
church a Te Deuni was sung in the presence of a con-
gregation full to cramming. On return to the station
a capital lunch was offered by the railway authorities,
and after a number of speeches of more local than
general interest, the party returned to Palma, calling
on their way at the six intermediate stations. In the
afternoon a second special train conveyed the share-
holders who could be accommodated in the morning
train.