The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1888-01-28

pnauts nave D@cn uecCfIDeus tLcI DOuG5
having been found in recent geological
DEPOSITS of all quarters of the globe except
Africa. The best known species is the
North American mastodon IN Gidnteus),
of which fragments are frequently dis
inferred IN the different parts of
the United States few remains
had been discovered as early as
l70o, though nothing like complete
skeleton was obtained until 1901.
The most perfect skeleton now
Known was discovered at Salisbury Mills
near Newberg. n. Y, in 1877, and is now
mounted in the American Museum OF
Natural History, New York City. By
the side of this specimen will soon be
placed the skeleton of Barnum's great
Asiatic elephant, killed at the late fire,
and in the near future good example
OF the African elephant viii make the
third figure in a notable group. Com
pared with the mastodon, the elephant
shows greater height and shorter body,
together with many other differences.
HIGHWAY POSTAL LocoMoTIvEs.-In
the south of France the government
postal service is supplemented by the
''wagon post" of private contractors,
who employ many hundred horses in
conveying small parcels from town to
town, even along the railway lines. This
business has become so extensive that
several road locomotives have been or
dered for it, and are proving very salts
factory. Two of these machines are run
ming between towns seventy miles apart,
each making the trip one way nightly,
at a speed of eight miles an hour. Part
of the road is very billy, with long gra-
dents up to as much as one in eleven.
The locomotive, with coal and water,
weighs fifteen tons, and the loaded
wagon from seven to ten tons, making
the average weight of the train about
twenty-three tons. At rs pounds pres
sure the engines give about twelve
horse power, and with fair roads use
about half ton of fuel for the round
trip of 40 miles These engines have
been running over six months without
interruption.
Portions of the Andes seem to be sink
ing, the altitude of Quito having dimin-
ished seventy-siX feet IN 122 years, and
that of another peak 21S feet. a crater
has sunk 425 feet in twenty-five years.
GEOLOGICAL ARCHITECTURE.-Ac Gu
rious effect of the wear and tear to which
the earth's crust is ever being subjected,
is exhibited in TIE sinyularly capped pin
nacles existing on the South River in the
Wahsatch Mount inns. There are hun
dreds of these slender pillars, ranging
in height from forty TO Jour hundred
feet, most of the crowned by large
caps of stone. They are not works of
human art, as might almost be imag-
ined, but are the memorial monuments
of the once rounded hills, from which
they have been cut by the action of air
and water. These pinnacles alone re-
main of some square miles of solid rock,
which has been washed away to a depth
of four hundred feet. The greater hard
ness of the surface has caused it to re-
sist erosion more than the underlying
| rock, thus leaving the huge stone caps
perched high in air on the points of the
| thin columns. At one point, while this
| carving process has been going on, a thin
| wall of rock was penetrated, leaving a
lofty natural bridge or arch, which adds
to the picturesqueness of remarkable
landscape.
| VACCINATIoN AND TON.
Statistics are against the few persons
who insist that vaccination is useless
and unnecessary. A compulsory vacci-
nation law had entirely driven out small
pox from Zurich, so that not a case oc-
Cured in 1882. The law was repealed
in 1888, and in every 1000 deaths that
year two were caused by small pox; in
1884, there We're three; in 1885, seven
teen; and in the first quarter of 1886,
eighty-five. In England the deaths from
this disease in 1S3S-1S42 were 57.2 per
100 900 living; but in the five years 1880
1884 the death rate was only 8. ) per
100 900. Vaccination has not only vastly
reduced the number of victims directly
but seems to have had an indirect infiu-
ence in rendering the offspring of vac
cinated parents less liable to the disease
The Greenwood mines, of Michoacan,
Mexico, have yielded sixty nuggets of
native silver, weighing from one to fifty
and one-half pounds The largest
most remarkable ever found, and is said
TO have been twelve pounds heavier in
its original state.