The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-10-18

EoRAK "sTIMULANr' - "woNT YOU HAVE
ToAD-sTooL?"
After the conclusion of the ceremony, we
removed to an adjacent tent, and we're sur
prised as we came out into the open air to see
three or four Koraks shoutings and reelng
about in an advanced stage of intoxication;
celebrating 1 suppose, the happy event which
had just transpired. / knew that there was
not a drop of alcoholic liquor in all northern
Kamchatka, nor, so far al knew, anything
from which il could be made, and it was a
mystery to me how they had succeeded so
soon in getting hopelessly, thoroughly, un-
deniably drunk. Even Ross Brownies be-
loved Washoe with its "Howling Wilder
ness Saloons" could not have turned out
more disoreditable specimens of intoxica-
Gated humanity than those before us. The
exciting agent, whatever it might be, was
certainly as effective in its results, and as
quick in its operation, as any ''tanglefoot,
or 'bottled lightning" known to modern
civilization. We were not so far III advance
of the barbarians after all. They seemed to
have solved, by happy intuition, the prob
lem which civilization has so long studied,
viz, how to get drunk in the shortest possible
time and in the most effective way. For the
fulflment OF both conditions, the Korak
method takes precedence over all others which
1 have ever seen. They get drunk by eating
that species of fungus vulgarly known as a
toad-stool. The plant is peculiar to the coun-
try. Although a violent narcotic poison
when taken in large quantities, it acts upon
the brain and nervous system in small doses
very much as does alcoholic liquor, and
it is used as q stimulant by nearly all the
Siberian natives between the Okhotsk
Sea and Behring's Straits. It's habitual
use completely skaters the nervous system,
and its sale by the Russians to the natives is
made penal offense by Russian law. In
spite, however, of all prohibitions, the trade
is secretly carried on, and have seen twenty
dollars worth of furs bought with a single
fungus. The koraks would gather it for
themselves, but it requires the shelter of
timber for its growth, and is not to be found
on The barren steppes over which they wander,
so that they are obliged, for the most part, to
buy it at enormous prices from the Russian
traders. 1t may sound strangely to American
ears, but the invitation which a convivial
Korak extends to his passing friend is not
Come in and have a drink, but 'Won't you
90 and take toad-stool?' Not very alluring
proposal, perhaps, to a civilized topper, but its
effect upon dissipated Korak is magical
Far into the night we heard the shouts and
barbarous songs Of the Korali bacchanalans,
and our sleep was disturbed by many unplea-
SAINT dreams Of being chastised with willow
switches for getting drunk upon toad-stoels.
From the very interesting article by Pro-
fessor T. b. Maury, entitled ''Gateways to
the Pole, we make the following extracts:-
The Gulf Stream enters the space around
the Pole at a temperature above the freezing
point (2S deg }, when we find warmer water
Cat So deg. almost at the Pole, and outside
the heat-bearing current.
The Arctic current that Offsets the Gulf
Stream and flows south, reaching it at 80 deg
temperature, could not have left the Pole
colder than rs deg; for then it would have
been frozen up. In its transit to the south it
only loses deg. or deg Of its temperature.
Is it then thing incredible that the Gulf
Stream, this mighty ''riyer in the ocean,"
whose caloric, ''if utilized, could keep in
blast a cyclopean furnace, capable of sending
forth a stream of molten iron as large as the
volume discharged by the Mississippi river"
is it incredible that this current may reach the
Polar region at SO deg. Remember it begins
its race off Florida at Sc deg.
There certainly issues from the space
around the Pole q ceaseless and mighty flow
of waters to the tropics. In its course ice
bergs Of huge proportions are carried off
from the mainland SO vast are these icy
masses, and often so numerous in floating
clusters as to defy computation. Captain
Beechy saw a small one fall from a glacier in
Spitzbergen, over four hundred thousand
tons in weight. The Great Western, in 1871,
in her Transatlantic trip, met three hundred
icebergs. Sir John Ross saw several aground,
in Bafin's Bay, in water two hundred and
sixty fathoms deep; one he computed to
weigh l, 259, 397, ,G73 tons. a Danish voyager
saw one of 800, 600, GOO cubic feet. Sir j. @.
Ross met with some of these floating noun
tains twice as large as this. And in Davis
Straits, where there is deep water, ''icebergs
have been met having an area of six square
miles and six hundred feet high"
The hyperborean current, which bears these
monsters on its bosom, has formed, by the
deposit from their dissolution, the Grand
Banks of Newfoundland, which, were the
waters Of the Atlantic dried up would proba-
bly, be seen to rise from the sea-bottom in the
majestic proportions Of Mt. Brown and Mont
Blanc.
The single drift Of ice, which bore on its
Atlean shoulders the English ship Resolute
abandoned by Captain Kellett, and cast it
twelve hundred miles to the south, was COM
puted to be at least three hundred thousand
square miles in area and seven feet in thick
ness. Such a field of ice would weigh over
! $4,000, 100000 tons. We say this was single
drift through Davis Straits, only 0ae of the
avenues of this current from the Pole, and
only a fractional part of the drift in the year.
What a mighty flow of water fron the
south, must that be which, wedging itself into
the space around the Pole, elects such masses
out Of this space quietly and easily as the
steam-drlyen piston OF the fre-engine thrO US
out its jet dedUi
We dwell upon the might and magnitude of
! this lce-bearing river from the Pole becaus 50
IN gauging these we gauge the energy Of the
reciprocal, heat-hearing river" from the
tropics, .. g., the Gulf Stream.