The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1885-08-26
CURIOUS, USEFUL AND SCIEN-
TIFIC.

Vegetable life in France is retarded four
days for every 800 feet of latitude, and the
coming of the chimney swallows is delayed
two days.
A nearly perfect skeleton of the mosasau-
rus was recently discovered in quarry near
Mons, in the Province. OF Hainaut, Belgium.
1t has the extraordinary length of tifty-five
feet nine inches 1t is to be preserved in the
National History Museum, Brussels.
Contrasting hot spells of weather, it is
stated that in 1903 and 1904 the Rhine, Loire
and Seine ran dry. Much later, in 1892, veg
etableS were burned up and fruit dried upon
the trees. The furniture and woodwork in
dwelling houses cracked and split up, meat
went bad in an hour.
OF all the states in the Union, Georgia
brings the most fantasti things to the sur
face. Its very latest oddity is spider
big as q hickory nut, the long, curved back
wereof. shows the human face in profile.
The face is like that of a man OF the malay
type, the brow, the eyes, the nose, the mouth
and the chin being initiated with a pre-
cision quite startling in its way.
Probable the fastest cruiser afoat is the
British vessel Mercury. She has attained an
average speed of 1917 knots an hour, while
the average speed OF the CHILEAN ram cruiser
Esmeralda is given at Is knots, and that of
the French cruiser Milan also at Is knots.
The Mercury is 800 feet long and 46 feet in
The Gillian vessel is % feet shorter but al
though the French ship is 3 feet longer, her
breadth of beam is only 33 feet.
AT recent meeting of the Society OF Arts,
London, Mr.. Parker said that petroleum
had been accidentally discovered at place
near Grenoble by a chance visitor who had
resided in the American petroleum districts.
The whole of the land about the place has
been bought and the working for the oil are
now in progress. AT depth of 139 meters
the quantity of gas was increasing, and hopes
were entertained that Grenoble and other
towns can be lighted with ii.
Crinoline seems TO be exceedingly ancient.
Hesiod, who wrote in the eighth century be-
fore Christ. must have observed something
of the kind. for he advises young men not to
be led astray by certain women of his day
N,:o wore their clothes pulled out behind.
III dress improvers were actually worn by
the Greek women of Hesiod's day, il is not
improbable that they were also worn 200
years earlier, and that Helen, when she fled
with Paris TO Troy. wore some primitive
kind of crinOline.
One of the young men who pass the sum-
mer roaming on bicycles round the country
found roadside curiosity the other day in
the shape of a sparrow-hawk's nest with eggs
and Young The eggs to the number of four,
were of tints varying from yellowish buff to
reddish brown. Returning that way two
days later he found and seized upon the
young hawks. They were fluffy balls, and
not an eye was open. There was the softness
of swans down about them, but, unlike
swans down, there was touch OF pink
as faint and delicate as that in ladys
cheek.
Herr Mohs, of the Madeburg Society of
German Engineers, says that the deepest
boreholes in existence is the one made in
searching for coal near the village of Schlade-
bach, on the railway between Corbetha and
Leipsic, at the instance of the Prussian Min
ing Department. 1t has been driven by hol-
low diamond-pointed rock drills, and water
flushing to depth of 4,559 feet in three and
a half years, at expenditure OF $4,000.
Its diameter at the bottom is 1 .S72 inches. and
at the top IL inches. The thermometer reg
istered at the bottom 1850 Fahrenheit.
In the most prosaic descriptions of Allan
tic storms the phrase mountains high" IS
not unusually applied to the waves. The
photographic Bureau, Washington, has pub
lished certain facts which may possibly con-
tribute to greater accuracy of statement:
The most careful measurements of the height
of waves give from Al to As feet as the ex-
treme limit; the average height OF great
waves is 80 feet The largest wave hitherto
! observed is said to have length OF half a