Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1873-06-19
FACTS AND FIGURES.

See, in another column, the advertise
ment headed Il aoiU help dny man."
Chicago has one saloon for every 40
of her population, including women and
children.
Over 100000 acres of land are open
for homesteads and presumption in Da-
kota.
The value of the silk raised annually
in the United States is from thirty to forty
million dollars.
New York City does a butter and
cheese business of fifty millions of dollars
a year, and the dealers in that city, who
number 1870, have resolved to establish an
trade.
"A recent calculation relative to the
principal European languages shows that
English is spoken by ninety millions of
persons, German by fifty-five millions,
Spanish by fifty-five millions, and French
by forty-tive millions.
There were built last year in the
United States 6,043 miles of railroad,
which, with the relay of new rails on ex-
listing roads, made total consumption of
,472, S42 tons of rails. Of these, $50, $50
tons were imported, and 951 1922 were
manufactured at home.
The value of the raw cotton imported
into Great Britain in the three months
ending March 81, this year, was SS7 ,666,-
500, as compared with 800, 1894 $50 in The
corresponding period of 1872, and $93,-
66O,0.5 in the corresponding period of
1871. In these totals the United States
figured for S50,0SS,060, $51,O64,7 3O, and
1863, 2SS, 800, respectively.
1t is believed that, under favorable
conditions, $500 miles of new railroad
will be built in 1878, divided among the
several sections of the country as follows:
Northeastern States, 435 miles; Middle
States, 1905 miles; Western States and
Territories, $3.50 miles; Southern States,
1910 miles; Pacific States, etc, no miles
The capital required to complete this ex-
tension will amount to $240,000,000 The
money necessary to advance this railroad
progress will probably, for most part,
come from abroad There is great pie
thora of capital in Germany, seeking a
good investment in the United States, and
with this foreign capital and the supplies
of capital from our domestic resources,
the $240,OO0,00O will doubtless be forth
coming.
1t is said that probably about
100000 or 100000 goldfish are taken
from the seas annually around the shores
of Newfoundland. But even that quantity
seems small when we consider that the
cod yields something like 3,5OOOOO eggs
each season, and that even 100000 have
been found in the roe of a single cod
Other fish, though not equaling the cod,
are wonderfully productive. A herring
six or seven ounces in weight is provided
with about 10000 ova. After making all
reasonable allowances for the destruction
OF eggs and of the young, it is calculated
that in three years a single pair Of behring's
produce 154 100000. Button said that if
a pair of herrings were left to breed and
multiply undisturbed for period of
twenty years, they would yield a fish bulk
equal to the globe on which we live. The
cod far surpasses the herring in fecundity.
Were it not that vast numbers of the eggs
are destroyed, fish would so multiply as to
fill the waters completely.
Pittsburgh claims to have in process
of construction pair of engines which
will be the most powerful in the world.
Reducing the capacity of some of the larg
est pumping engines to uniform lift of
one foot in twenty four hours, it is found
that the one at the Lehigh zinc
mines Will lit 5,456,OoO,OOU gallons; the
pair at the Chicago water-works, $780,
5000 gallons; the pair at Harlem, Hol-
land, 10,0OO,000,O 900 gallons; while the new
Pittsburgh engines will lift Il, 240, 600, 900
gallons. The pair will weigh 1900 tons,
and will cost $423,55O. The following di-
mansions will serve to give some idea of
it's magnitude: Cranks, nine tons; shaft,
twenty -four tons four sections Of the two
valve chambers, one hundred and twenty
tons; f1y-wheel seventy tons The four
plungers will weigh upwards of four hun
bred TONS Cylinder, sixty-four inches
diameter; stroke, fourteen feet. Plungers
forty inches diameter; eleven foot stroke |
This ponderous piece of machinery will |
be used to raise water into the Highland |
auenue reservoir, in Pittsburgh, a height |