Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1883-08-10
IN GENERAL.

"A census recently taken In Egypt SHOWS
that its population is now 6,70S,2 200.
The largest sponge in the world was late
ly gathered at Key West. 1t measured eight
feet in circumference.
There are more than 500 600 telephones
in use in the United States to-day, and the
manufacturers cannot supply the demand.
1t is reported that leprosy prevails to an
alarming extent among the Norwegians in the
northwestern portions of Wisconsin and east
ern Minnesota.
The manufacture of kid gloves is rapidly
increasing in this country, and great many
of the goods sold as imported are manufactur-
ed here.
That republics are not always ungrateful
is shown by the fact that the United States
has paid its soldiers 500, 600, 900 in PENSIONS
and will pay many millions more.
Edwin Arnold has published another In
dian poem, which will be published in Octo-
Der. 1t contains FIVE idyls from the Sanskrit
of the Mahabharata.
1t is said that Broad river at Anthony
Shoals Ca, has a horse power of 81, 2SG,
while Lowell the finest developed water pow
er in the United States, has only 16, 600 horse
power.
The copper product of Arizona last year
was over II, 1000, 900 pounds. Thus far this
year the increase has been 3S per cent, and as
new furnaces are going up the output in 1888
is likely to be $4,000, 900 pounds.
"A Berlin correspondent of the London
News says that China can meet a hostile in
vasion between Tientsn and Pekin with an
army of at least ljO,O 900 troops, equipped
and drilled equal to Europeans" They are
armed with Manser rifles and Krupp cannon.
A natural bridge is reported in Arizona,
100 miles from Phenix fully equal to the IA
nous one in Virginia. Its span is 80 feet
height 1GS width, $50. The rock is lime
stone, curiously followed out, and some of the
veins are said to be very beautiful. The little
stream under it is called Pine creek.
The $40, 600 statue of Garfield modelled
by Charles Nichaus for the state of Ohio sp-
pears to be satisfactory. 1t is to be placed in
the rotunda of the capitol at Washington.
The figure stands in plain Prince Albert
coat, buttoned to the throat the left foot
little in advance, the left arm, with partially
ungloved hand, hanging gracefully at the
side while the right is thrust in the bosom of
the coat.
Perhaps the greatest sufferers from heat
are the coal.heavers of ocean steamers, who
work for hours in a sitting hole where the
very air seems to be on fire. Recently one
of these unfortunates on German steamer
was driven crazy by the heat, and, rushing
into the engine.room, seized a knife and
plunged it into his heart.
While Great Britain is deporting the in
habitents of Ireland to this country, the lands
of that island are relapsing into barbarism.
The area under cultivation in the last year
shows a decrease of about 100, 900 acres, and
so, 900 acres, once arabic, have gone back to
bog. The potato crop was /, 800, 900 tons
short. The crumbling walls of deserted cot
tages mark the failure of British domination
and of Irish thrift.
The San Francisco Chronicle counts up
80 Californians who have died in ten years,
each of whom was worth over a million and
some of them many millions. The only ones
of the 80 who loft anything for public pur-
poses were James Lick, II. B. Woodward,
Louis Strauss and William Sahlen. The last
two were dry goods Dealers and contributed
to charitable institutions, Woodward left S40,-
900 to the poor, aud Lick large educational
fund.
Lynch law has been executed with fright
full frequency during the present year. Since
the 1st of last January sixty-fve criminals
have been hanged by due process of law,
while seventy-One have been hanged or shot
without it. The South furnishes thirty six
of these, and of this number twenty two were
negroes. OF the thirty.fve lynched in the
North, sixteen or almost one-half came to
their end in parts of Montana, where there is
no law administered.
There is an island of the coast of Cali
| fornia which is covered by three acres of eggs
A sea captain who recently visited it says the
island is of rock, with a surface of about
three acres 1t is covered with guano, in
which sea fowls of every description were
found laying or inoubatng their eggs. The
surface seemed to be almost entirely covered
with eggs, principally those of sea gulls,
shaggs, and q small bird known as the salt
water duck. He says it was difficult to walk
without treading on the eggs, and a ship could
be easily loaded with them.
Captain John Ericsson passed his S0th
birthday, July 3lst, much as he has passed
every other day of the last ten years-work-
ing hard in his dingy New York chamber
! from eight in the morning until ten at night.
| The inventor of the screw propeller the rival
of George Stephenson, the builder of the
Monitor and originator of what is believed TO
be torpedo boat of terrible power, is still a
strong and hearty old man, and he has now
practically finished a steam-engine-a sun
motor designed for pumping water on the
| plains, where its small cost is likely to make
| it invaluable.
"A second electric boat, forty-siT feet in
| length and capable of carrying fifty passen-
| gers, has Just been launched on the Thames.
| The motive force lies concealed in seventy
boxes, each of one-horse power, stored under
the floor of the boat, and at the end there il
Semens dynamo, the spindle of which is
continued so as to form the screw, without
intermediate gearing. A speed of nine miles
an hour can be maintained for six or sever
hours, when the secondary batteries have t.
be replenished There is no noise, or heat
or smoke, or SMELL or waste, and the machin
cry takes up so little room that practically
the entire boat is available for passenger &C
| commodations.