Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1886-06-04
IN GENERAL.

Natural gas has been discovered in the
Red river valley, Dakota.
There are 5000 Indians on reservations
in the state of New York.
The main building of the New Orleans
exposition, which cost over $4,000 sold
for S9OjO.
Out of the 291 900 alien immigrants
landed in the United States last year, more
than 5000 we're sent back as unable to care
for themselves.
"A deaf dumb and blind young man in
the New York institution for the instruction
of the deaf and dumb can operate an ordin-
ary typewriter with great rapidity.
The largest pumping engine in the world
is used to pump water in Pennsylvania. In
one minute it forces 20, 600 gallons of water
out of a mine to a height of l30 feet.
A bill has been passed by the Kentucky
legislature for levying school taxes, one clause
of which reads ANY widow, spinster or
alien who is a taxpayer and has children Of
a school age shall be qualified to vote"
A resident of Minnesota, who has seen
several tornadoes, says that their most pecu-
liar feature is the singular sucking movement.
Buildings are sucked up into the clouds en-
tire, and come down soon in fragments.
1t is possible that an observing party of
American astronomers may be sent to the
west coast of Africa to observe the total
eclipse of the sun on August %, 1856. Near
Benguela the duration of totalty will be 4m.
40s.
The II miles of street railway in Glas-
gov are owned by the city, and bring to the
treasury a rental of $76 600 annually. There
is no uniform rate of fare, but penny mile
is charged, with reduced rates morning and
evening, when the working people travel.
oil fba yvbi he
and streets of Washington were stretched out
in two rows they would form an unbroken
vista to Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York
and nearly half way to Boston. The
annual paintings add from two to three thou
sand trees to the number of the year before
Tobacco blindness is becoming a COM
mon afll iction. At present there are several
persons under treatment for it at one London
hospital 1t first takes the form of color
blindness, the sufferers who have smoked
themselves into this condition being quite
unable to distinguish the color of piece of
red cloth held up before them. Sometimes
a victim loses his eyesght altogether.
California carries on a large business in
sea-shells, whichare gathered on its coast
and shipped to Europe. One firm has con-
tract to ship forty tons of shells every sixty
days. They are worth from 800 to $1,000 a
ton. They are used in all kinds of decora-
tive industries, returning to the United States
from France vastly increased in price when
transformed into pearl buttons, brooches,
shawl clasps, knife handles or inlaid work.
Tahita shells, large fiat mother. Of pearl Shells
are worth from 81 80 to 50 each, and the
finest selected pairs are sometimes sold for
as much as $50.
The Bohemians, who are the most dis
contented class in Chicago, worked twelve
I IL.
ed less than a half of the wages which they
obtain here In farm work men in Bohemia
get 30 cents day and women 20 cents with
out board or lodging. In the mines children
earn 10 cents, women 20 cents and men
from % to so. House servants get $3.50 a
month, clerks $40 and bookeepers $50.
When they come to this country and gain
greater wages and many other advantages
they become anarchists and dangerous cit-
zens.
"A correspondent in the Farmers Review
says that when riding over thousands of miles
of Russian railway four years ago he was in
terested in the system of shrub and tree
planting to arrest snow at all points where
banks could form. The trees are planted
twenty to thirty feet from the rails in
five to seven lines, lines five feet apart and
| the plants foot and a half apart in the rows.
The three inner lines are planted with trees,
and the outer ones with conifers, or shrubs.
This system is said to protect very perfectly
the roads during the gales on the steppes
The snow is whirled in heaps back of and
among the trees and shrubs, and fails to
reach the rails to a serious extent.
1.-THE great Lick telescope" says the
Boston Herald, "when mounted and swung
against the sky, will have focus of 30 feet
length and nearly 10 feet longer than the
largest one ever made. It will be a Tefractor,
which means that the image is formed direct.
| ly to the eye by the object glass, as contra
distinguished from the Gregorian and Hers
chelian telescopes, The largest instrument
known of the latter style was DIR. Herschels
The tube lacked but eight inches of being
40 feet in length. What new revelations in
the heavens this largest and most powerful
of all refractors may disclose from its costly
minaret and the surprising aid it promises to
the further study of the surface of the moon
alone, are matters which already excite i'm
patient expectation from the whole scentihc
! world"