The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1869-01-03
ARTS, SCIENCES, ETC.

Il Church Maze ont OF RdJs.-IherelS chIfcn
! actually existing near Bergen, Prussia, which
can contain nearly one Thousand persons. 1t is
circular within, octagonal without The re-
lieves outside, and the statues within, the roof
the ceiling the Corinthian capitals, are all pa
pier mache, rendered waterproof by saturation
in vitriol, lime water, whey, and white of egg
We have not yet reached this ;illttaclty IN our
use of paper, but it should hardly surprise us,
inasmuch as we employ the same material in
private houses, in steamboats,, and i'll some
public buildings, instead OF carved decorations
and plaster corniccs. When Frederick II: of
Prussia set up limited papier-inaclle nianlifac-
tory at Berlin in 1865, he little thought that
a paper cathedral might within century spring
out of his snutf-boNes by the slight-of-lalld art.
At present old-fashiOned English who haunt
cathedrals and build churches, like stone bet
ter. But there is no saying what we may come
to. 1t is not very long since it would have
been as impossible to cover eighteen acres with
glass, to erect pagOda with soap bubbles
yef>tae thing was done. When we think OF IL
psalm sung by 1000 voices pealing through the
edifice made of rags, and the universal element
bound down to carry our messages with the
speed of light, it would be presumption to say
what cannot be achieved by science and art
under the training of steady old Time
Slaughter in the .Sca.-The life of all fishes is
one of perpetual warfare. and the only law that
pervades the great world of waters is that of
the strongest, the swiftest, and most voracious.
The carnage OF the sea UNNECESSARILY exceeds
even that which is permitted to perpleX our
reason on earth. We know, however, that
without it the population of the sea would soon
become so immense that, vast as 1T Is, 1T would
not suffice for its multitudncus inhabitants.
Few fishes, probably die of natural death, and
some seem to have been created solely to de
vour others. There is probably none which
does not feed on some other species or on its
own
Many of the monsters that oamLthe watery
plains are provided with maws capable of en-
gulphing thousands of their kind II day. A
hogshead of herring have~been taken out of the
belly of whale. A shark probably destroys
tens of thousands in year. Fifteen full-sized
herrings have been found in the stomach of II
cod.
Sea-birds are scarcely less destructive to fish
than fish to each other. The solon-goo
can swallow and digest at least six full-sized
behring's per day. 1t has been calculated that
the Island of ST. kilda, assuming it to be inhab-
tied by two hundred Thousand of these birds,
feeding for seven months i'll the year, and with
an allowance OF five hcrrings each per day, the
number of fish for the summer subsistence of n
single species of bird cannot be-under two hun
dred and fourteen millions. Compared with the
enormous consumption of fish by birds and each
other, the draughts made upon the population
Of the sea by man, with all his ingenious fish
ing devices, seem to dwindle into absolute in
Significance Edinburgh Rerier.
| 4 French writer has propoundcd an entirely
new theory of sound. He assures us that the
| velocity of sound varies according to the fol-
! lowing rates: Praises attain Il speed of 1900
metres A;r ulctre is about 3 feet mchcs) per
| second; hattcry is still more rapid, 1oVU per
| second good advice only 10 metres, and bad
advice 1850 metrcs~pcr second; meritcd re-
! proaclles, 20 metres Islander, which is tircter
| than the wind is 2OQO per second; falschood
! travelling with the speed, 1000; while
! truth and appeals to charity only attain , me
! tres each per second
! The american ERtomologst assures us that it
| is very inhuman to stick pins through insects,
| but that it is not the wound made by the pin
that the insect particularly objects to, but the
confinement! 1t attempts to prove this by sta
ting that if night flying moth be transtixed in
the daytime, it will remain quietly without
tluttering until evening approaches Then it
begins tostruggle violently, apparently i'll great
agony; but the truth is, it wants to be flying
abroad, and is only tluttering to get free from
the pin for that purpose. This statement will
! go very we'll with story told by British en-
tomologist of a dragon-hy that he once caught,
! which, upon his directing its tail to its mouth
! by way of experiment, actually bit off and ate
! four joints of its abdomen, and then, having ac-
cidentally escaped from him, flew away as
! briskly ever
An invention is ascribcd to the Russians, by
which enormous pieces of marble may lie de
tachcd from the whole mass in the8quarrics.
| CrcvccS are made in, the marble during the
y summer and filed with water As winter APP
proachcs the water gcongcals, and causes the
Crevice to become wider and wider; finally, a
| huge piece of marble ssctached.
Why is Il badly conducted hotel like fiddle