Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1882-07-23
FACTS FOR TIE CURIOUS.

The most acute p iii will not provoke
an elephant to I'M ure those who have not
offended him.
A NEEDLE passes through the hands
of eighty workmen before being ready
to deliver to The trade.
If lamp chimney be cut with dia-
mond on the convex side it will never
crack with the heat, as the inciIipn at
fords room for expansion, and the glass
after cooling returns to its original
shape, with only scratch visible where
the cut was made.
In "Walton's Complete Angler" is
the story that pike vas taken i'll 1897,
in fsh-pond near Heilbronn, i'll Arabia,
with ring fixed in its gills, on which
was engraved the words, 81 am the fish
which Frederick the Second, Governor
of the World, put into this pond tn of
October, 1881 by which it would ap-
pear that this fish had thel. lived $50
years. This fish was said to have been
nineteen feet in length, and to have
weighed $50 pounds.
THERE is class of objects to be found
in ponds and bitches, of great interest
the rotifers, so called because they have
a motion resembling that of a wheel. In
length they are about the fifteenth part
of an inch, and form beautiful objects in
water under the microscope. They
are marvelously tenacious of life
You may dry them to a powder, and
keep them year, or even two years, In
your cabinet, and when again put into
the water they will in the course of an
hour or two revive and be found whirl
ing about with their accustomed vigor.
THE most clever of all spiders are
found on the shores of the Mediterrane-
an. They not only live in silk-lined
tunnels In the loose soil, but actually
make doors to their houses. These
doors are made of layers of web and
earth, and shut down naturally by their
! own weight, so as to be hidden by the
grass growing above them. But if by
chance they are disturbed, the spider
herself will often rush to the top of the
tube, and sticking her claws into the
door Will hold it down with all hel
might as she presses her body against
the sides of her house. When the spi-
der would ensnare victim, she goes to
the top of the hole or tunnel, pushes
open the door, fastens it back by five
threads to blades of grass near, and then
spins web round the open hole, and
goes back into her tunnel. When .
beetle or other insect is caught, the
spider darts out, pierces her victim with
her poisoned fangs, sucks its blood and
carries the carcass away to some dis.
lance from the hole. To guard against
crawling insects that creep into their
| holes to attack them, these spiders make
a second tunnel branching out of the
first, and build doorway between the
| two, so that they can retreat into the
second passage In case of attack, and,
setting their ackagainst the door, bafAa
he intruder.
THE report of the anthropometrio
! committee of the British Association
contains a new and unexpected state
ment-that there is very slow but de-
cided increase III stature In all classes OF
persons up to the age of 70. This is
explained by the survival of the taller
and better-developed members of the
population, and the elimination of the
smaller and feebler ones In the matter
OF height, to him that hath shall be
given. Ii you are tall and strong at 81,
you may go on getting decidedly, though
very slightly, taller for half century.
The discovery, therefore, does not con.
Germ men who are in extremes. The
dwarf will grow no taller, because he i,
not tall to begin with The giant will
grow no taller, because giants. since
Goliath, are usually not well-developed
As regards class and occupation, the tive
extremes of tie anthropometric scale
both as regards height and weight, ar,
the artisans and the professional class
the average difference between the tive
being little over two inches and rather
more than sixteen pounds. The labor
ers and commercial class come between
the two, the average height and weigh
for all four classes being: