The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1868-03-15
MORNING STAR AND CATHOLIC HHssKaGzR.
NEW oRLIANs, SUNDAY. nAhcH Is, i.ss.
sczUTuIc, KsTo1lcAI. ETC.


has constructed cylindrical eye-piece OF
O-O7 metre in focal length, which no has
substituted for the ordinary eye-piece in has
siznplified spectroscope. The results oD-
tanned with the new continuance have been,
says Father Secchi, admirable.
RUINS oE "A PALACE Found AT LYONS
The excavations which have been made
in the hill of Fouvrieres, at Lyons, has
brought to light numerous vestiges of Roman
construction which are of great interest.
There is found columns and capitals OF the
pure Archaique style, with tablets OF stone
and sculptured marble, indicating beyond
question the spot where was situated one of
those sumptuOus palaces inhabited by the
Caesars, who made the capitals of Gaul their
homes during the first year of the Christian
era.
THE GARDEN.-The garden under the
charge of the lady of the household, should
be a sort of "model farn," sample OF
"high farming" which might tempt the lord
of the manor into better methods of culture
by the force of example on q small scale.
However timid we may be OF expenditures
so large as would be required to manure
and cultivate in the best manner the broad
acres of the farm, there can be no such ex-
cuse for the garden. The difficulty here is
that the liege lord is somewhat too stingy
of the help absolutely necessary, and THINK
ire the garden of "no account" in compari-
son of his more extended operations, leaves
his lady to help herself as best she may. We
enter our protest against policy SO unwise,
and insist upon all needful aid in this de-
partment.
IMPURE WATER.-Set a pitcher of iced
water in II room inhabited, and in few
hours it will have absorbed from the room
nearly all the respired and perspired gases,
of the room, the air of which will have be-
come purer, but the water utterly filthy.
This depends on the fact that the water has
the fucufty- of -eendensing and thereby alb
sorbing all the gases, which it does without
increasing its own bulk. The colder the wa
ter is, the greater it's capacity to contain th Sc
gases At ordinary temperatures, pint of
water will contain II pint of carbOnic acid gas
and several pints of ammonia. This capacity
is nearly doubled by reducing the tempera-
ture to that of ice Hence water, kept in the
room awhile, is always unfit for use, and
should be often renewed, whether it has be-
come warm OF not.
The ENGLISH LANGUAGE.-How much is
there in our present familiar speech which
would he strange and meaningless to one of
Elizabeth's court! How much, again, do we
find in any OF the writers of that period-in
Shakespeare for Observation-Disclosures Is no longer
-voet-eufrent- English! Phrases and
forms Of construction which never fall from
our lips now save as we quote them scores
of words which we have lost out of memory,
or do not employ in the sense they~then bore
Go back yet farther, from half-century to
half-century, and the case grows rapidly
worse; and when we arrive ut Chaucer and
Cover, who are separated from us by pal
try interval of five hundred years, only
fifteen or twenty which has q half foreign
look, and can only be read by careful study
with the aid of Il glossary. Another like
interval of five hundred years brings us to
the Anglo Saxon of King Alfred, which is
absolutely IL strange tongue to us, not less
uninteliigible than the German of the pre-
sent day, and nearly as hard to learn.
A WONDERFUL CLoCK.-Mr. II. o. Morrill,
of Baltimore, has constructed a marvellous
clock. His extra time for the last fourteen
years has been devoted to it's perfection.
The space necessary to display its capacity
and operation is nine feet by eighteen. 1t
runs eight days, and performs as follows: 1t
wakes up a household strikes the quarters
by four automatons on four bells; sounds
the alarm to awaken the master of the house;
lights IL lamp and kindles fire in the stove.
road. calls at u place of business, and gets
clock left for repairs. Tho bell is rung to
awake the servant who rises in the presence
of the audience. and draws the curtain of
her chamber to make her toilet. The car
riagc is again seen upon the road when
near Il rocky covert, IL robber springs in
front of the horses and battle ensues. A
farmer by the roadside, not seeing the rob-
Der, commences to belabor the horses, when
II hunter in the distance comprchends the
situation, fires his rifle ut the robber, who
escapes to the mountain, and the carriage
with its inmates drives on to its destination.
TALL TUEEs.-We are in the habit of
priding ourselves on the possession of the
largest trees in the world, but recent re-
searches in Australia have shown that, al
though the thickness of our California
giants NAV not he cQuallcd, their height is
considerably exceeded by species of Eu-
calyptus, vegetable form characteristic of
Australia. Specimens of various heights
have been measured, and the t:llest actually
submitted to this test gave an altitude OF
ence of a feet at IL height of four feet from
v the ground, was estimated to be over 500
feet high. The tallest spire in Europe, the
Munster ofStrasbnrg, is 466 feet high. The