The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1878-09-19
TIMELY TOPICS.


The ammonia of the commercial fer.
tilizers manufactured in the suburbs OF
Augusta, Ga, has completely driven
out the chills and fever and other NAL
aria that used to infect the locality.
An artesian we'll $3.50 feet deep has
been bored in Posth, Hungary. It is
the deepest in the world, being nearly
twice the depth of that in Paris. II
sends by jet of nearly boiling water
forty-two feet high.
Minnesota is engaging in frog culture,
which consists chiefly in protecting the
eggs and young from their enemies by
wire screens. The product so far has
been about 5000 dozen legs quoted in
st. Louis at twenty cents dozen.
A blazing meteor which fell during a
recent storm near Beaufort, s. O., was
picked up d.found to be an irregularly
shaped rock, weighing about twenty
five pounds, and having a thin coating
as if of lava. More remarkable was the
finding of fallen @rolite on the Cali.
fornia desert, near San Bernardino,
which weighed $50 pounds and contain
ed gold, silver and copper.
Stanley, the African explorer, is
claimed by his mother. A Mrs. Easta-
way, of Liverpool, England, writes to
EUery Saturday, Baltimore literary
journal, that she is Stanley's mother,
and that she can identify him by pecu-
liar India-ink marks upon his arms and
mole on his neck. He was born, she
says, in New York, on October 26, 1843.
His father was a sea captain, and died
fifteen years later.
In 1920 the best trotting time was a
mile in three minutes. In 1880 the time
was reduced to g. 40; in 1910, to 2. 28; in
1850, to 2.26; in 1860, to 2.19a; in 1870,
2.171; in 1876, the best record was made
by Goldsmith Maid, who made mile
in 2. IA. Practically, the limit of trot-
ting speed may be said to have been
reached, though it is by no means i'm
probable that phenomenal animals may
decrease the time of Goldsmith Maid.
Victor Hugo has habit of working
upon four or five subjects at once, rarely
knowing which he shall finish first. In
the morning he begins with which ever
subject first takes his fancy, and after
devoting himself for few hours to
verse, turns to his novel after luncheon,
and finishes the day by writing on some
theme utterly unlike that which he took
up in the morning, He has now in
preparation six prose works and four
poems.
At Bombay lady and gentleman
who were taking q stroll sauntered into
church, and finding the marriage reg
lister on O table the gentleman for fun
wrote in it the names of four people
1.-TWO couples) we'll known in their circle
of friends. The names may not now be
erased, because any one tampering with
the signatures in the registry is liable
to seven years penal servitude. The
offender has absconded, the gentlemen
are in pursuit and the ladies in dismay.
The governor has been appealed to, but
no decision has been arrived at as to
what can be done.
There are 100000 dead letters re-
ceived annually at the Dead Letter
Office. 100000 without stamps; $4,000
partially addressed; 5000 no address;
s., 10000 of money orders and drafts
of money value; $4,000 packages con-
tanning property; $4,000 in money
nine-tenths of which is returned, the
balance remaining in the treasury-sub.
ject to application for four years; 25, COO
photographs; 250,000 European letters
are returned unopened; one-tenth of all
letters received contain property; 10, 900
applications for letters reported lost; the
great proportion found and delivered.
There is an association in Germany
founded for the pursuit of scientific
investigation about Africa, which has
been led by the recent discoveries of
rich natural resources in the interior of
the "dark continent" to go outside of it's
own proper field, and call the attention
OF the German commercial and manu-
featuring classes to the importance of
establishing trade connections with that
undeveloped territory. So important
does the imperial government consider
this suggestion that it has made a pre-
liminary appropriation of $25, 900 in aid
OF enterprises of the kind advised, with
intimations that all necessary further
aid will be forthcoming. A geographic
commercial association for establishing
trade with inner Africa has also been
formed in Switzerland.
The Grand Canal of China is likely to
share the fate of the Great Wall. This
waterway was constructed by Kubail-
Khan and his successors of the Yuen
race, and is 600 miles in length. There
are 10, 900 fat-bottomed boats on this
canal, and these are used in the trans
portation of grain. The Echo states
that this great waterway is an enormous
"white elephant" as it costs an enor-
nous amount every year for repairs,
the appropriations there, or elsewhere,
not being entirely devoted to the pur-
pose for which they are meant. Junks
are delayed every month while channels
are being dug for their passage. This
year, for the first time since the con-
structior of the canal, the grain from
Nankin, with the consent of the govern
ment, has been forwarded by sea, and
this fact has impelled the Pekin authori-
ties to consider the e1pediency of
abandoning the canal as commercial
highway.