The home journal. (Winchester, Tenn.) 1858-188?, 1882-05-17
FACTS FOR THE CURIOUS.

VASES often attack a beehive, and
driving out all the bees, devour the
honey.
In the beginning Of the last century II
was suggested to the mind of French
man TO use wood for the manufacture Of
paper by observing that the nests OF
wasps were made of this material.
| A RArrLEsNAKE confined in cage Tor
eleven months shed its skin four times.
ate sixty rats, and, although it had &C
cess TO q tank Of water, an apparatus
prepared for tile purpose proved it had
never drunk drop.
THE Baltimore gazette relates that a
lady who had been vaccinated borrowed
pair OF earrings from lady friend for
q day. The owner, on resuming their
use, was astonished to find that she was
thoroughly vaccinated in the ears.
EXPERIMENTS made to test the mus
cular power Of insects prove that the
smaller tho insect the greater proper
Tomato muscular power. A bee is, for
its weight, thirty times stronger than q
horse, for bee harnessed TO wagon
can pull twenty times its own weight.
The hydra, water insect; when cut
in two and the extremity severed, will
at once form another separate and living
body. Again can the second be "sliced
up, and the same strange programme
Of formation will be carried out. The
hydra can be turned inside out, and will
live in that manner as well as in its
natural state.
The mass OF the sun-that is, the
quantity of matter contained in it's
nearly 330, 900 times as great as that of
the earth. This mass is about $50 times
MS great as the combined masses of all
the planets and satellites Of the solar
system; it is two octillions Of tons.
The attractive pull of this tremendous
mass upon the earth, at q distance of
nearly 100000 miles, transcends all
conception. 1t is thirty.six quadrillions
Of tons; in figures, thirty-six followed by
fifteen ciphers.
IF we could imagine an infant with an
arm long enough to enable him to touch
the sun and burn himself, he would die
OF old age before the pain would reach
HIM, since, according to the experiments
OF Helmholtz and others, q nervous shock
Is communicated only at the rate of about
100 feet per second, or /, G37 miles day,
and would need more than $50 years 10
make the journey. Sound would do it
in about fourteen years if it could be
transmitted through celestial space and
cannon-ball in about nine, if it were to
pove uniformly with the same speed as
when Il left. the muzzle OF the gun. II
the earth could be suddenly stopped in
her orbit, and allowed to fall unob.
structed toward the sun, under the nc.
celebrating influence of his attraction,
she would reach the center in about four
months.
The wonderful snow sheds-tunnels-
on the Central Pacific railroad are of two
kinds, one with very steep roofs and the
other with fiat roofs. They cost per
mile from So, 900 to $l2, 600, and in some
places where heavy masonry was needed
the cost reached $4,000 u mile. They
are firmly constructed to support the
great weight of snow and to resist the
rush OF avalanches. Fire precautions
are very thorough. Corrugated plates
OF iron separate the buildings into Sec
tons, and in the great ten-mile section
there are automatic electric iire-alarms,
AT the summit is an engine and tank al
ways ready to flood the ignited spot in q
moment. These sheds shut in the view
OF the great Sieras, but without them
travel would be impossible. sometimes
five feet of snow falls upon them in q
day, and often thirty feet lies on the
ground ut one time, and in many places
snow accumulates to tho depth OF hity |
feet above these great wooden arches.