The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1882-03-09
ITEMS OF INTEREST.
WHALES are rarely over fifty feet

WHALES are rarely over fifty feet long.
ABOUT four Thousand roses are re-
quired to make one pound of ottar of
roses.
FOURTEEN kinds of dogs can be dis.
tnguished in the Greek and Roman
records.
THE pearl fisheries of the Persian
Gulf afford support to about 85,0
families.
FORTY thousand dollars worth of
chewing gum is gathered annually in
the State of Maine.
The number of persons killed on rail-
ways in England is proportionally twice
as great as in France.
IT Is reported that twenty thousand
people In India, in the year 1880, were
killed by snakes and tigers.
THE milk of the elephant contains less
water and more fatty matter and sugar
than that of any other animal.
The age of an oyster may be reckoned
by counting the lines in the grove of the
hinges of the bivalve. These lines indi-
cate the annual layers of the she'll
growths.
The Malays of Singapore used to give
a large price for the flesh of tiger, not
because they liked it, but because they
thought person was imbued with the
characteristics of the animal he ate.
ITALIAN bees gather honey from flow
ers which fail to attract black bees, be-
cause the former have longer tongue
and are able to find honey which is be-
yond the reach of the black variety.
Both linen and cotton cloths were
wrought by the Egyptians, but, unlike
the modern work, the warp had gener-
ally twice or thrice and not seldom four
times the number of threads in an inch
that the woof had.
The leprosy prevalent in the Hawaiian
Islands does not differ from the European
and Asiatic forms. The increasing in
tercourse between the Pacific States,
China and the Sandwich Islands makes
vigilance a duty in suppressing the
spread of the disease.
A FRENCH soldier, stationed for some
years in the Pontine Marshes, has be-
come entirely of deep brown color,
totally distinct from that shade produced
in natives of Northern Europe by ex-
posure to the sun of lower latitudes.
In JAPAN, owing to the gentleness of
| the people, the crow has full liberty to
| go where he likes. As q consequence.
the most densely populated cities swarm
with the noisy fellows, who repay the
kindness shown them by acting as scav-
| engers.
| FORTY years ago only about thirty
auks and forty eggs were recorded as be-
longing to public and private collections.
| At one time $50 were paid for two auks
and two eggs; little later, half that
sum for one egg; and not very long
since we read that $500 were given for
one egg.
ONE reason that the ancients were
lacking in museums was the fact that
they lacked efficient methods of pre-.
serving the various forms of life. It was
not until the discovery of alcohol and
manufacture of glass bottles that muse.
ums became of importance.
ST. THOMAS, of Aquinas, gives the
most ingenious explanation of any of the
ancients on the subject of earthquakes.
He suggests that the commissions may
be caused by the struggles of the de.
funct disbelievers trying (by a stimuli
taneous stampede, perhaps,) to escape
from the pit of torment.
WHEN a Kaffir is on marauding ex
peditlon he gives utterance to those cries
and hisses in which cattle drivers indulge
when they drive a herd before them
thinking in this manner to persuade the
gods of the country he is attacking tha
he is bringing cattle to their worship
pers, instead of coming to take thei1
heads from them.