The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1874-05-02
TOPICS OF THE TIMES.

The Chilians desire to put up in the pub
lie park of Santiago statue representing
Lima, and the Peruvians are as mad as hor-
nets because it is a semi-nude female fig-
ure, with mirror in one hand and a bottle
of perfume in the other, and reclining in
altogether too free and easy an attitude.
Peru feels insulted and if the statue is not
withdrawn, something will happen about it.
The smallest poSt-office in the world is
kept in barrel, which swings from the
outermost rock Of the moutains overhanging
the Straits of Magellan, opposite Terra del
Fuego. Every passing ship opens it to
place letters in or take them out. Every
ship undertakes to forward all the letters in
it that is possible for them to transmit. 1t
hangs there by it's iron chain, beaten and
battered by the winds and storms, but no
locked and barred office on land is more Sc
cure. 1t is not in the track of mail robbers.
One year after his wife's death Commo-
dore Vanderbilt married Miss Frances
Crawford of Mobile, with whom he lives
very happily. His will has been made for
nearly twenty years, and he is said to over
haul it ever year, making additions for
changing it as he thinks proper. Some one
once said to him: ''You ought to be very
careful about your will, commodore, or
where there are such vast interests at stake
there may be endless trouble and l1tiga-
tion." To which he is reported as having
replied: "What the h-l do care what
they do with my money after | am gone?
l shall take good care of it while | am here,
and after that it does me no good" Still it
is believed that he does care and that his
plan is to preserve the bulk of his fortune
in the shape in which he will leave it, at
least during the generation which next sue
ceeds him.-NeW York Tribune.
Mr.. Scott, the noted English meteorolo
gist, has ascertained that the wettest place
in the world is Cherranpoonjee, a village in
further India, among the hills, and between
four and five thousand feet above the sea,
the rainfall being some six hundred inches,
taking place in six months; the calculation
being based on the fact that an inch of rain
over four square feet is equal to a gallon ct
water, or ten pounds, being the same as
sixty thousand tons over square mile.
Mr.. Scott's Investigations have also led him
to the belief that the three principal causes
of rain are: ascending currents of air which
produce the great tropical summer rains;
| the contact Of hot damp air with cold
ground, which makes the west coast of con-
| tinents SO rainy; and the setting in ofa cold
wind after warm one, also the reverse, as
when a northwest wind sets in after a
southwest.
! New Caledonia, the penal colony of
France, from which Henri Rochefort and
Pacal-Grousset have escaped, is an island in
| the South Pacific Ocean. It's surface
/ is very mountainous, and rises in the
center to an elevation of 5000 feet. The
convicts, now numbering about 5000, live
in improvised huts of saplings and grass,
and are guarded by garrison of 200 men.
| The island is 220 miles in length and 80
miles wide. The smallness of the guard
and the large extent of coast render an
escape comparatively easy, especially if
aided from without. Preparations are now
being made for the reception of the Com
munist prisoners, 1900 of whom, with their
families, have been exiled to this island.
Upon their arrival the prisoners are turned
at large, first being cautioned as to the man
ner of their behavior. Rochefort and his
companions escaped in small boat. They
had been three days at sea when they were
picked up by a British sailing vessel and
brought into an Australian port.