Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1881-11-30
FAcTs FOR THE CURIOUS.

Orr of every 100 inhabitants OF 'ne
frnitad States sixteen live III cities. !
4 LOCOMOTIVES drinks forty five gal
ions of water every mile II travels.
The finest thread IN spiders wep Is
composed of no less than 4,C0o STRANDS
WHEN an orang-outang dies the others
,oyer up the body with great branches
If trees.
NJ. LIE GUAT saw in Java female
chimpanzee that made her bed very
neatly every day, lay upon her side and
covered herself with the clothes.
THE heat on the Colorado desert is
terrific. At Yuma the thermometer ire
quently registers 125 degrees and the
air is so rareied that objects 100 miles
distant appear very near.
IT is noted as curious fact that no
President, from Washington to CARRIED,
was born in city, and that only the
second Adams was even nomlneily
resident of city when elected.
SOME beetles, when counterfeitlng
death, will suffer themselves to be grad
ually roasted without moving single
| Joint. 81 have pierced spiders with
| pins" says Mr.. Snellie, "and torn them
to pieces without their indicating the
slightest marks of pain"
The -boatmen, among the most
agile of water insects, row themselves
along under-side uppermost. Their
habit of moving upside down is OF
great use to them in feeding, for many
of their victims have hard backs, 30 the
water-boatmen dive down and come up
under their prey, thus attacking them
ON their soft side.
The unicorn still exists in the interior
of Thibet. It is there called the one
horned tso-po. Its hoofs are divided
it is about twelve or thirteen hands
high it is extremely wild and fierce,
vet associating in large herds. Its tail
Is shaped like that of a boar, and its
horn, which is curved, grows out of its
forehead. Et Is seldom caught alive,
but the Tartars frequently shoot it, and
use its flesh for food.
The equatorial diameter of the earth
is greater than the polar by some thirty
four miles. While the center of gravity
remains as now the polar and equatorial
regions will remain substantially the
same but if from any cause the polar
shall preponderate, then a change in
polarity viii ensue. Such, without
doubt, was the case when the tropical
elephants were incased in the icebergs
of Nova Zembla and Spitzbergen.
The paintings of the ancient Egyptians
show that we cannot mix paints as well
as they. In manufacturing metals they
were our Supporters. Theymade asword SO
exquisitely that it could be put in asheath
coiled up like snake without breaking.
They had the steamboat and canal 5, OlO
years ago. and they had the art of NOV
ing immense masses of rock, weighing
1000 tons each. The pyramid built l, 500
years B. G. employed $50, 900 men for
twenty years. Twelve billions, seven
hundred and sixty millions pounds OF
granite were used in its construction,
and i'll dimensions it WAS 400 feet high.
ASTRONOMERS say that the average
number of meteors that traverse the at
mosphere, and that are large enough to
be visible to the naked eye at one place,
if the sun, moon and stars would per
nit, is forty-two in an hour, or j, 200
daily. The apparent size Of meteors is
greatly magnifed by irradiatlon. Some
of them have been computed to have a
diameter of 100 or 200 feet, and others
LOCO up to 5000 or 5000; but this
must be regarded as the diameter of the
blaze of light which surrounds the
meteor. The meteor itself, before il
takes fire, may have diameter of only
8 few feet, or perhaps only fraction Of
an inch. The mean distance of meteors
from the observer is about los miles.