The Arizona sentinel., 1885-03-14
FACTS FOR THE CURIOUS.

THERE is a weekly sale of toads in Paris which are brought in casks filled with damp moss. One hundred good toads are worth from sixty to seventy shillings. These are bought for gardens.
 IN Peru, as soon as death occurs, ash- es are strewn on the floor of the room and the door fastened. Next morning the ashes are carefully examined for footprints and the soul of the dead IS said to have passed into the body of whatever animal the imagination traces in the marks on the ashes.
 ONE method used by the Anglo-Sax- ons for ascertaining the intentions ot fate was to take slips of wood from some fruit bearing tree, mark them, and after a solemn prayer shake them together and throw them into white garment spread for the purpose. The number of marks lying uppermost decided the greater or less degree of fortune to come.
 BANDS of music are forbidden to play on most of the large Iron bridges of the world. This is due to the well-known phenomenon that constant succession of sound waves, especially such as come from the playing of good band, will excite the wire vibrations. At first these vibrations are very slight, but they increase as the sound waves contin- ue to come.
 MINERS in the quartz mines believe that the rats-there are thousands of them in mines that are being worked can tell when an earthquake or cave in the walls of the mine is coming. They claim that before anything of the kind occnrs the rats will be seen trying to crowd into the cages or buckets, as the case may be, in which the ore IS hoisted to the surface. There is 8 similar be- lief about the cockroaches, which are said to crawl up the shaft before an acci- dent happens.
 IF gravitation were to cease, and steel wires were used to hold the earth in her orbit, each wire being as large as tine heaviest telegraph wire (No. A, 1t would require nine to each square inch of the earth's surface, and the whole sunward hemisphere of our globe would have to b. covered as thickly as blades of grass upon a lawn. A man who on earth would weigh 250 pounds would at the sun weigh nearly two tons, and be unable to stir. A planet as far away as the uear- est fixed star, which is more than 200,- 0OO times more remote than the sun from the earth, If not disturbed by any other attractions, would still be governed in its motion by the sun, though, if nov ing, in circle, nearly 0,000, 900 years would be required for single revolu- ton.
 TUE reindeer, which in one way or another manages to be almost the entire support of the Lapps who have herds, is a large, heavy animal, with remark able independence of character. He will not accept shelter under cover, no matter how inclement the weather may be. Neither will he eat any food that IS offered him he prefers to seek his own sustenance, which consists principally of a peculiar moss, and as this grows very slowly, requiring about seven years in which to reach maturity, the Lapp must shift his home from time to time to meet the necessities of his herd. In mid-winter the moss may be covered by several feet of snow, but the deer digs . hole with his feet and disappears from the surface, .burrowing his way through the snow as he follows his nose from one turf of moss to another. The flesh of the reindeer is quite palatable and nu- tritjous, his skin makes very warm gar ments as well as durable harness, and cheese made of reindeer milk is very rich, although the quantity of milk yielded per day seems scarcely worth inc taking, as it amounts to mere tea cupful.