Marshall County Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1856-1878, 1872-06-27
CuriOus and Scientific.

Curious and Scientific.
SIR CHARLES LYELL computes that all
North America will be washed away
into the ocean by processes now actually
in operation. within a space Of four and
half millions of years.
The hair on a camel weighs about ten
pounds, and sells for ore than 800.
PISTOLS are an unknown weapon in
Lapland, the ancient fint-lock musket
being in that damp climate deemed
most reliable.
THE average life of Methodist minis
tiers is % per cent. below that of minis
tiers of other denominations. They work
too hard
THE sink-hole on the Sheboygan and
Fond du Lac railroad, two miles west OF
Ripon, Wis, has swallowed up from
5000 to 10000 yards Of earth, and 1t is
hoped that the bottom has been reached.
THE newest Western wonder is soda
lake, on the Union Pacific railroad,
several miles in circumference, and
capable of supplying 10000 tons of soda
year. We shall probably next hear of
brandy mandatory in that quarter.
THE actual duration of a flash Of light
ming does not exceed tho millionth part
of a second. But the retina of the hui
man eye retains the impression of the
electrical fash for much longer pc
Rod
THE English Anti-Tobacco Society
have endeavored TO demonstrate the
horrible effects of smoking by inducing
Prof. Newman to experiment upon
his own nervous system and note the
results. He found them so pleasant
that he has become confirmed user of
the weed, and the reformers are discon-
ISOLATE.
MAGMA CHARTA was translated into
English in 1855 the Psalms of David
We're done into meter in 1910; plays
were first performed in English in 1928;
wills and settlements were first written
in English in 1347 and the first speech
in English was made in Parliament in
1862, by Sir Edward Turner.
PRoF. SHEPARD, of Amherst College,
has recently made a valuable addition
to his splendid cabinet of minerals. 1t
is ruby of enormous size, the largest
in the world, weighing SIC pounds. 1t
was discovered somewhere in the South,
and was about to be taken to Europe,
but Prof. Shepard made high bid
$4,000, and secured it.
THERE is an artesian well in Paris
which is nearly two thousand feet deep.
four feet in diameter at the top and two
feet at the bottom, and which discharges
upward of FIVE millions of cubic feet
OF water every twenty-four hours.
Throughout Europe, it is stated, much
attention is being paid by scientific en-
gineers to this kind of wells, and the
opinion is rapidly gaining ground that
they are the cheapest as well as the best
sources of water supply for large cities.
IN a ps per read before the British
Association, DR.. Wilson argues that
habitual criminals do not possess such
an amount of intellect as to enable them
to discriminate between right and
wrong, and that the majority of them
are devoid of moral sense; they are of
a low type of intellectual development,
and some of them are unable to sur
mount even the rudimsntary difficulties
of education. DR.. w. states that he has
made several hundred separate measure
ments, and all showed cranial def
cheney, especially in the anterior lobes of
the brain.
IN Peru one of the greatest works of
the age is now in progress-the construc-
ton Of railroad from the port of Callao
across the Andes, involving a tunnel
through those mountains at higher
elevation from the sea than the summit
of Mount Blanc. Some idea of the diff
fculties experienced in the prosecution
of the work may be gained from the
fact that the Inca Indians are the only
persons who can work at such high
attitudes, and that the single mule train
by which all tools, materials and pro-
visions, except the scant means of sub
sistence obtained in the interior, passes
over an altitude of nearly seventeen
thousand feet, amid cluster of rocks
covered with perpetual snow. The work
is wholly under the direction of Ameri
cans, and is expected to Thoroughly open
up the vast mineral resources of that
portion of .he Cordillera range.