Daily Republican., 1886-07-22
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

led to the discovery that plunging iron
castings into mixture of tteacle and
water softens the metal to such de-
gree that 1t can be worked as readily
as wrought iron.
Mrs. Buckingham, the richest wo-
man fruit farmer IN California, has an
orchard mile long, with row after
row of pear, cherry, peach and apricot
trees. She has been very successful
in the business of fruit growing, and
manages her business with good judg-
ment.
Official data as to the proposed canal
from the North Sea to the Baltic show
that the probable cost of the work will
be 81, 800, 600. OF this sum Prussia
will furnish 60, 500, 900, and the Impe-
rial German Government will have to
provide $780, 900.
The Vulcan Shipbuilding Company
OF Stettin has received an order from
the Chinese Government for the con-
struction OF two heavily ironclad cor
vettes, each of 1000 tons displacement,
and to be fitted with engines of 5000
horse power.
The name chapel, as applied to
printing houses, printers unions, etc,
comes from the fact that the first print.
ing press in England was said to have
been placed in the chapel of Westmin-
ster Abbey, although it was not, as a
matter of historical fact.
The heavy armed Roman foot SOL
diers had helmets, breastplates,
greaves, shields, spears and two lodged
swords Each legion had also band
of cavalry with lighter arms; also had
its own artillery, not cannon, but bat
tering rams and machines for dis
charging great stones.
| A cheap and durable substitute for
whalebone is found in quilts. They
are split into fibres, and these are
twisted and bound together by a
thread, so as TO form string as long
as may be desired, and a sufficient
number of these fastened to each other,
side by side, make the article COM
Iplete.
1t is asserted on good authority that
liquid oxygen and nitrogen are among
the most perfect insulators. The re-
sistance of copper decreases much
more rapidly than the absolute tenn
perature, and approaches zero at a
temperature not very remote from
that obtained by evaporating liquid
nitrogen in vacuum.
The output of coal in France in the
second half of last year was 10,157,-
$50 tons. This total presents an in
crease of 780, 919 tons, as compared
with the output in the first half OF 1885.
The production of coal in France for
the whole of 1885 was 1884, 341 tons,
as compared with 20,023, 514 tons in
1884.
1t is stated that French surgeons
have succeeded in replacing glass eyes
with the front parts of rabbits eyes.
The coat is stitched fast to the ball of a
sightless human eye, and made to adj
here, 80 that it causes no further trou-
BILE and looks as well as the natural
eye. 1t is, of course, sightless, but is
| far less bother than glass one.
Man is not the only animal that
commits suicide. Herrings and other
fishes have sought death by rushing
ashore in myriads; regiments of ants,
by deliberately marching into streams;
swarms of rats, by migrating into the
face of their deadly foes; and even but
ltertlies, by flying in immense clouds
straight out to sea.
A certain sagacious horse has to haul
sixty five loads of clay and one load of
coal dust every day. He receives no
orders, yer never fails to go exactly the
right number OF times to the clay pit,
and then to the coal pier. He has his
own idea of how much each load ought
TO be, and rears and kicks if too much
is put on his cart.
The skull of man dug up at North
borough, Mass, last year, proves a
puzzle for the naturalists. Prof. Put
nam, of the Peabody Museum at Cam.
bridge, rays it is the most remarkable
and interesting skull he ever studied
Not one of the great collection of heads
of the Peabody Museum is anything
like it.
= You travel in Persia on horses, dom
keys and camels. There are no rail-
roads and no hotels, excepting small
one at Teheran and one at Casbus. In
travelling one takes his cook along, and
puts up at vacant public houses built
for the purpose and called "chappah
hane" They are very dirty and full
of vermin, and your servants have to
clean them out thoroughly before they
are habitable.
The British Government has deci-
ded to remit the tax ON dogs employed
on the south coast of Devon. These
animals perform the novel work of
going out to sea and catching hold of a
rope thrown from fishermen's boats
They bring it ashore and the people
who are waiting there are able to haul
in the boat through the surf. The
rocky coast prevents fishermen from
lpulling the boats ashore without the
dogs, who have to be trained to the
work, which is extremely risky.
Beef is never seen on a Chinese
table, oxen and cows capable of work
ing the plough being accounted too
valuable to the farmer to be consigned
to the butcher. Very severe penalties
are attached TO the slaughter of these
animals. The punishment for the first
offence is hundred strokes with a
bamboo, and then two months in the
wooden cellar. Should love of beef or
desire of gain induce repetition of
the crime, q second judicial Jogging is
followed by exile for life from the
province