Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1884-09-12
TIMELY TOPICS.

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A workman in a gold mine at Mishi-
magori, Japan, recently found stone
which he preserved on account of its
lustre. He subsequently, sent it to
relative in Toxic, who in turn took it
to an English jeweler in Yokohama. The
jeweler pronounced the stone to be a
diamond, worth upwards of $500, 900.
The lucky finder has quit mining and is
on his way to Yokohama.
The climate of California seems to be
well adapted to the best development of
the thoroughbred horse. At the sale in
Sacramento, recently, of horses sired by
the famous stallion, Norfolk, fourteen of
all qualities, colts, fillies and mares,
brought the handsome sum of $40, 200,
or the high average of $1,371 each.
This average is fifty per cent. higher
than that obtained at the recent Loril-
lard sale. The highest price paid was
$3.50.
1t is not generally known that the
Amalgamated Association of Iron and
Steel Workers claims to be one of the
largest associations in the world. Ac-
cording to some of the reports the mem
bership is about 100,0 900, which di-
rectly and indirectly controls and in
fiuences nearly 100000 workingmen.
At one time the organization was said to
have 1875, 900 in its treasury, but the
strikes of the last two years have de-
pleted it considerably.
The shipment of buffalo bones from the
plains of the West to Eastern phosphate
factories has largely increased recently,
because of the reduction in the trunk
line freight rates. Thousands of buffalo
skeletons are gathered up by the bone
men on the prairies, especially in the
valley of the Arkansas, every season.
One Philadelphia manufacturer alone re-
ceived in the course of two months over
200 carloads. Delivered at the factory
the bones are worth $50 ton.
The problem of running railroads by
means of electricity has apparently been
solved successfully. Cars using this mo-
tive power have been run over mile of
road in Cleveland, Ohio, being started,
stopped and reversed with perfect ease.
The current is conveyed underground,
and with the machinery now in use in
Cleveland, any number of cars up to fif-
teen can be run at one time. A leading
electrician of New York predicts that
the time will soon come when electricity
will supersede horse-power on street rail
roads and elevated lines.
Commenting on the cholera, Nature
says Of the future course of the cpl
demic it is at this stage almost impossl-
BILE to speak with any authority, but it is
very certain that occasional lulls in the
number of attacks-occurrence which
immediately reported as indicating a
subsistence of the outbreak-cannot be
regarded as having much significance in
this respect; for it is one of the essential
characteristics of cholera, especially in
the early stage of an epidemic, to ex-
hibit periodic fluctuations both in the
number and in the intensity of attacks.
In a town in Normandy lives an aged
lady named Marie Durant, much visited,
who is believed to be 1872 years and few
months old, but who, when asked, with
true feminine instinct declares she does
not know. For ninety-six years she has
bean widow, and during her lifetime
four kings have ruled, the stars of two
emperors have risen and set, and three
republics have been established. She
lives exclusively on vegetable diet. Her
flesh seems to have disappeared from
under it, though there are still small
veins of color on her withered cheeks.
Some of the Panama and Amazon
grasses and grain heads, so extensively
used on walking hats, have been de-
nounced on account of the moths that
reside under the little sheaves. These
parasites would not be molested were
they less rapacious. But during the
night, it is learned, they 60 out for a
promenade and eat holes in the velvet
facing and trimming. This nuisance
perplexed the milliners for long time,
but when the cause was finally reached
the natural grasses from Pampas, Llano
and swamps of the Amazon were thrown
in the waste-basket, and return
has been made to the artificial flowers,
for which there seems to be no substi-
tute.
The manufacturers of oleomargarine
in England have discovered new and
cheap source of grease for mixing with
their filthy compounds, asserts the Anaeri
can Culti0at0r. It is asserted that stakes
are driven into the sewers at LondoI
from which stakes a fatty deposit left
by the current is scraped off every day
and after proper treatment this fatty de.
post becomes genuine English dairy but
ter" This disgusting source of grease
though new to us, may have been long
known to American manipulators of but
ter substitutes. They have ransacked
offal heaps, slaughter houses, cotton seed
oil mills for years, and probably have
not overlooked the sewers. With pure
genuine dairy butter selling at current
low prices we cannot see why any on,
should be willing to use these numer
GUS substitutes at any price.
One of the most intelligent views o
Arctic exploration is furnished by Ser
geant Brainard, of the Greedy expedition
He says they found nothing to show tina
the open polar sea exists. He believes
1t a myth. The space bayond their high
est point of exploration and the pole
he says, is open in places little while
at time, but this space opens and shut
arbitrarily, and any vessel trying to pen
citrate it may meet the fate of the Pro
teus, and be crushed at any moment. o.
the other hand it cannot be traverseC
by sledoes. because the open waite