The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1885-09-02
VARIETIES.

1t is estimated that foreigners own about
%, 090,000 acres of land in this country.
The council OF University College, London,
have crealed a professOrship of electrical en-
gineering.
Scotland still contains seven millions of
acres reserved for the amusement OF deer
stalkers and grouse shooters
a New Jersey man has gone to Florida and
established cOcoanut farm. 1t comprises
>, 500 acres, and has 200, 600 cocOanut trees.
The Hebrews of New York city have formed
committee for the purpose of putting
monument of Sir Moses Monttiore in Central
Park.
Edward Valentine. Virginia sculptor of
note, is to receive $4,000 for n bronze statue
of General Breckenridge, to be erected in
Lexington, Ny.
Taking morphine leaves in a short time,
the head bare Many persons are nearly
bald from this cause. Morphine also lOos-
ems the teeth, so that il is as good for the
dentists as for the capillary artists.
The number of names carried on Baptist
Church books of members whose wherea-
bouts are unknown is said by the Examiner
to be very large; and the same thing is said
of the Presbyterians by the Observer, while
a third authority reckOns the proportion of
those lost members at 10 per cent. OF the
whole.
DIR. c. c. Abbott. the naturalist, recently
found upon his farm at Trenton y. j..
box tortoise, upon the under shell of which
was cut his grandfather's name, j. Abbott,
with the date 1921. The appearance of the
tortoise denoted great age, and there Is no
reason to doubt the fact that the name was
really engraved upon it sixty-four years
ago.
An air balloon railway is about to be con-
structed on the Gaisberg, near Sal2burg,
N.r-~~
magnificent view over the beautiful en-
virons Of the town. The balloon, which will
have grooved wheels on one side of its car,
viii ascend a perpendicular line of rails, con-
Structed on the principle OF the wire rope
railway invented years ago for the Righi, but
never realized.
Seventeen years ago the death penalty for
murder in the first degree was abolished by
Minnesota, and life imprisonment was sub
stituted; but the gallOws has just been re-
erected. Michigan tried the same oxperi-
ment, and not long since bill was passed by
the Lower House of the Legislature re-enact-
ing the hanging policy, although II failed OF
adoption in the Senate Maine did no hang
ing for six years and then went back TO capt
tai punishment.
Franklin Simmons, one of the best known
of the Boston sculptors, is said by his friends
to have gone TO much painstaking in his
studies of General Grant AT the very time the
victor of Nicksburg was most worth study
ing-iust at the end of the war. At that
time Mr.. Simmons passed not less than thirty
hours, at close intervals, with the General,
and made what was regarded as a satisfactory
bust. This bust. now in the SculptOr'S studio
at Rome, has never been reproduced in mar
bic or bronze.
OF the 4l3 species of trees found in the
United states there are sixteen species whose
perfectly dry wood will sink in water. The
heaviest of these is the black ironwOod Con
dalia ierrea) of southern Florida,
which is more than 30 per
the others, the best known are the lignum
vit;e (Guaiacum sanctum.) Another is a
small oak (Quercus grisea) found in the
mountains of western Texas, southern New
Mexico and Arizona, and westward to the
Colorado desert. at an elevation of 5000 to
10000 feet. All the species in which the
wood is heavier than water belong to semi
tropical Florida or the arid interior Pacific
region.
A scientist, lecturing in Philadelphia on
coal saws it takes a prOdigiOus amount of
vegetable matter to form a layer of coal ;
that il is estimated that the present growth
of the world would make layer only one
eighth of an inch thick, and that it would
take 100000 years to form a coal bed 100
feet thick. The United States has an area of
$40 900 square miles of coal fields; 100 900, 900
tons of coal were mined in this country last
year, enough 10 run ring around the earth
at the equator , = feet wiee and so feet
thick, and there is enough coal in the United
States 10 supply the whole world for period
of 800 to 1000 years. When coal is burned
for Illuminating purposes, at least 10 per
cent is wasted.