Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1880-11-21
FACTS FOR THE CURIOUS.

ALTHOUGH idleness is frequently fatal
to persons of great mental or physical
energy, some workmen still find their
term OF existence very short on account
OF the deadly nature of their employment.
The average life of Sheffield fork grinder
Is only29 years, but that of the dry grind.
er OF sickles is 38 years. For every
7O,451 tons of coal dug up in Prussia
the life OF q miner is sacrificed and in
England there is one life lost for every
o9,419 tons raised to the surface.
In the Bible about 100 planets are al
luded to; Hippocrates mentioned 233 ;
Iheophrastus 500 and Pliny 800. From
this time there was little addition until
the renaissance. In the beginning of
the fifteenth century Gesner could only
enumerate 800, but its close at Bauhin de-
scrlbed 5000. Tournefort, in 1894, re-
cognized 10, 156 species; but Linn@us,
IN the next century working more eau
tl!ous.ly, defined only 1924. In the be-
ginning of this century, in 1905, PERSON
described $4,000 species, comprising,
however, numerous minute fungi. In
1919 De Candolle estimated the known
species at 10000. Loudon, in 1889.
gave 81, 731 species; in 1916 Prof. Lind
ley gave 9O,3S7, but in 1853 these had in
creased to 92,920. At present the known
species are estimated at 1875, 1000.
CHARLES D. McGUFFEY, of Chatta-
nooga, has been endeavoring "to get
some idea p" of the magnitude of the ma
tlo1al debt at the close of the war. He
has made the calculation that if four
men were to sit down to pay the inter-
est, and count silver dollar second.
and work every second of the year, they
could not keep down the interest on the
original debt and if another should sit
down at 2 years of age to count the
principal at the same rate, he would be
over 1O7 years old by the time he count
ed the last dollar, interest on the prin-
clpal having ceased from the first mo-
ment. The pile of silver dollars, more
over, which he would make in counting
that principal would be four feet square
and fifteen times as high as Lookout
mountain q ,600feet above Chattanooga
and II the silver were conveyed in a con-
tlnuous wagon train, each wagon carry
ing ton, and each wagon and team &C.
cupying thirty-fve feet, the train would
stretch from Chattanooga to Columbus.
WHAT a noisy creature would a man be
were his voice, in proportion to his
weight, as loud as that of locust A
locust can be heard at the distance OF
one-sixteenth of mile. The golden
wren is said to weigh but half all ounce :
SO that a middling- sized man would
weigh down not short Of 4, 900 of them,
and it must be strange if a golden wren
would not outweigh four Of our locusts.
Supposing, therefore, that common
man weighs as much as $4,000 of our To-
Gusts, and that the note of locust can
be heard one-sixteenth of a mile, man
of common dimensions, pretty sound in
wind and limb, ought to be able to make
himself heard at the distance of 1000
miles, and when he sneezed "his house
ought to fall about his ears" Suppos-
ing flea to weigh one grain, which is
more than it's actual weight, and to
jump one and half yards, a common
man of 150pounds, with jumping powers
in proportion, could Jump u, 800 miles,
or about the distance from New York to
Cochin China.