The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1877-02-09
FACTS FOR THE CURIOUS.

THE PEAcH.-Originally, the peach
was a poisonous almond. In olden
times its feshy parts were used to
poison arrows, and it was for this pur-
pose introduced into Persia. The trans
portation and cultivation not only re-
moved its poisonous properties, but
produced the delicious fruit which wo
now enjoy in its season.
"THE SCENT OF THE ROSES. There
is something wonderful in the wide diff
fusion of odors. A single grain of musk
has been known to perfume large room
for the space of twenty years Con-
slider how often during that time the air
Of the apartment must have been
changed. At the lowest calculation, the
musk has been subdivided into three
hundred and twenty quadrillions OF par
ticles, each of them capable of affecting
the olfactory organs
INDEsTRUCTIBLE. Everything lives
again but surely nothing comes before
us in so many unacceptable shapes as
our old clothes. They are thoroughly
used up. The buying and selling of
cast-off apparel is business in London.
Usually the worn garments are freshened
up by dye-stuffs, pressed and otherwise
doctored for the market. This process
is called clobbering, and in itself is a
business. The better class of old dress
! coats, when clebbered, have respecta-
BILE appearance. Clerks with poor sala-
ries, walters, small tradesmen, and Gu
rates with meager stipends are among
the purchasers. Goats and wooden gar
ments which have done good service are
exported to Ireland and Holland, where
you may see them in great quantities for
sale at the fairs and markets. When
wooden garments are at last no longer
passable, they are torn up by toothed
wheels into condition of loose fibers,
which, on being properly sifted, are
mixed with fresh wool, carded, spun and
woven into cloth. This is triumph of
art. The shoddy is Incorporated into
what appears to be exceedingly beauti-
full cloth, and is again proudly exhibited
as Sunday clothes on the backs of thou
sands of wearers. 80 much for the res
direction of old clothes.
The EYE.-Science gives us interest
ing details about what the human eye
has been and what it may become. The
Vedas of India, which are the most an
cient written documents, attest that in
times the most remote, but still recorded
in history, only two colors were known,
black and red. A very long time elapsed
before the eye arrived at the perception
of the color yellow, and still longer
time before green was distinguished /;
and it is remarkable that in the most an
cient languages the terms which desig-
mated yellow insensibly passed to the
Specification of green. The Greeks had,
according to the received opinion now,
the perception of colors very well de-
veloped; and yet authors of a more re-
cent date assure us that, in the time of
Alexander, Greek painters had for fun
damental colors only white, black, red
and yellow. The words to designate
blue and violet were wanting to the
Greeks in the most ancient times of
their history they called these colors
gray and black. 1t is thus that the
colors of the rainbow were only distin-
guished gradually, and the great Aristo-
tie only knew four of them. 1t is we'll
known fact that when the colors of the
prism are photographed there remains
outside the limit of the blue and violet
in the spectrum a distant impression,
which our eyes do not recognize as a
color. According to Psychologists, a
time will come when the human eye will
be perfected SO as to discern this color
as well as the others.