The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1883-08-23
MiscELLASEous MATTERS AND
THINGS.

PenitentiaIy convicts at Laramie,
Wy. turn out $4,000 bricks week.
Chinese sugar has appeared in San
Francisco In shipment of 100000
pounds.
The largest COW in America weighs
S2OO pounds, and gives milk in Chase
county, Kansas.
1t is said that 2450 watches are man
ufactured in this country every work.
ing day in the year.
Wolves destroy S12. 10000 worth of
cattle in Eastern Russia every year,
and human lives are also lost.
Gold mines.in the famous Wilder
ness, Spottsylvania county, Virginia,
are being worked, it is stated, with
profit.
|. The export of ostrich feathers from
the Cape last year were unprecedent-
eddy large. The prices obtained were
enormous.
A French journal suggests the Joint
occupation of Mecca by the powers
for the purpose of stopping pilgrim
age thither, which disseminate cholera
so widely.
In Krupp'S great gun mandatory,
at Essen, compressed carbonic acid is
used for the manufacture of what ice
and settler water may be required by
the workmen.
Brides at Saratoga wear their white
satin wedding robes in the evening,
and thus silently notify strangers
that they have not been married long
enough to want to fiirt with them.
q II - Il =
the Blue Ridge, between Amherst and
Rockbridge counties, Virginia, is re-
llably reported. If so, it is the first of
the kind yet made in the United
States.
Chicago has had a summer school in
Hebrew. Ninety persons, chiefly min
listers, were in attendance. There
were four Rotations day, besides a
lecture each evening, and frequent
conversations.
1t is said that the European volun-
teer committee in Alexandria, discov-
cred that canal supplying a crowded
quarter of the city with drinking wa
ter, communicated with place in the
native cemetery used for washing
cOrpseS.
The latest wrinkle in field sports at
watering place on Long Island is
snake matches. The contestants start
off in different directions, and the one
who returns with the greatest num-
Der of snakes dangling from his belt
is acknowledged to be the victor.
The Willimantic Linen company u
year ago, gave notice that no employees
would be received who could not read
or write, Last week a number of il
literateS were discharged. They had
been given a year to learn in the night
school maintained by the company.
Although the failure of McGeoch,
the Chicago lard dealer, involved
nearly $6,OO0,OO0 in liabilities. the bust
ness was wound up without the adj
vice of counsel, without reaching the
laws proverbial delay, not only very
quickly, but also very cheaply, and all
within a month.
Thermometer records show that in
the last thirty years the temperature
| OF our summers have changed but lit
tie, and that little is owing to an in
crease of heat, due. perhaps, to the
| clearing Off of great areas Of forest,
with less moisture on the surface of
the earth for evaporation.
A rich mine has just been opened in
Manitoba after a curious history. 1t
has lorg been known to the Indians,
who believed that the Great Spirit
would kill anyone who revealed its
location to white man. At last a
Frenchman married squaw, who in
time told him the golden secret.
A curious well is in Mlssoula coun-
ty, Montana. 1t contains but eighteen
inches of water, which never lowers
an inch, though water is constantly
pumped from it to supply steam
boiler. At depth of thirty feet solid
ice forms around the pipe in the hot
test weather. AS strong draft of air
comes from the bottom, the well is
supposed to tap a subterranean pass
age.
Among the precautions against
cholera it is suggested that, as work
ers in copper in Hungary and those
engaged in the manufacture of brass
and copper articles elsewhere never
seem to catch it, a thin disk of pure
copper about two and one-halt
inches in diameter should be worn
next the skin, over the pit of the
stomach, and suspended from the neck
by a tape.