Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-12-26
CURIOUS CONVERSATIONS.


! North Dakota has barley farm Of
10000 acres.
in Abyssinia salt was used for money
for many centuries.
The best isinglass dissolves completely
in hot water, leaving no visible residuum.
-Camels can stand heat and cold, but
they perish quickly in moist atmosphere
The savings banks of France have
5,74s, COO depositors, with 29l1 600, 900 francs
! due them.
In the Sahara Desert the day may be
boiling hot but not unfrequently the tenn
perature ut night falls below freezing point.
Mail matter can be sent from Paris to
Berlin now in pneumatic tubes. 1t takes IS
minutes for package to go from one city 10
the other.
Reading, England, is known as Biscuit
opolis, because of the location there Of
George Palmer's big biscuit factory, in which
| 5000 people are employed.
Recently between Tewkesbury and
Cheltenham, in three minutes 700 words
were sent to a newspaper Office and cor
rectly received over telephone wire
| AT Dresden they are baking an Ameri-
can corn-bread that is finding much favor
and is much cheaper than their ordinary
bread. a pound costs a trifie over cents.
On farm in the suburbs of Providence,
r. l., there has been located what is claimed
to be one OF the largest and richest veins Of
granite east OF the Black Hills, ii not in the
entire country.
"A copper rod projecting from the face
of a cliff in Saline county, Missouri, indicates
that at some date in the far past, beyond
the ken of man, copper mining was carried
on in that vicinity.
The standing army of the Argentine
Republic numbers 900 men, and there are
over fifty generals on the active list. This
gives a general to about every hundred
other warriors of all lower grades.
A Frenchman has invented a new and
ingenious frictional machine. Mercury is
forced by means of pump through the
pores OF a piece of chamOis, and electricity
in considerable quantities is generated by
the friction.
Dice were invented by the Greeks.
Tradition has it that Palamades who lived
at the time of the Trojan war, introduced
them into Greece, and it is certain that the
Greeks imported into Rome tine three most
popular games.
I'm the new works of the Pir@us-Athens
Railway station the marble head of a woman
has been found, of good workmanship. 1t
wears a diadem, and the features are very
finely carved. 1t is thoeght to belong to a
headless statue found on this site in the city
little time ago.
Two farmers, neighbors and old friends,
named Rheaume and Morin, in the parish of
St.Marie, Beauce, Quebec, had each eight chill
dren, four sons and four daug hters. Morin's
four sons have married Rheaume's four
daughters. and Rheaumeis four sons have
married the daughters OF NORM.
The island of Fowkave in the Gulf of
Siam has n peculiar kind of dogs. They are
sleek haired and resemble fox terriers in
size and build, but are prick cared, reddish
brown in color 1.-THE female being of lighter
shade), with black muzzles and dark lines
on the forehead, like those sometimes seen
in bulldogs.
The number OF water works in operation
or under construction in the United states
is 2,O37, and the number OF towns and cities
supplied is :, 49, Pennsylvania has 2l6works
for supplying 245 towns, while New York has
1919 works for 2ls towns. Massachusetts has
l2s Michigan ll3, California l03, and Illinois
1O2 works. Twenty-Five cities have dupli-
cate or triplicate plants.
The size of Australia is not generally
appreciated. The seven colonies occupy a
territory greater than that of the United
States excluding Alaska. New South Wales
alone is as large as the IL original States.
Tasmania, the Rhode Island of Australia. is
as large as that State, with New Jersey, New
Hampshire and Massachusetts added: Vic
toria the smallest colony of the continent
is equal in size to Great Britain,
There is no special ceremony connec ted
with marriage among the Esquimaur. In
some tribes the husband joins the wife's
relatives and is expected to hunt and fish
for them. If ne is lazy or refuses to give
the furs he gets to his father-in-law he is
likely to be bounced. and some one more
active and obedient is installed i'll his place
as husband. Sometimes it happens that a
girl has 10 or IL husbands in Succession be-
fore she finally settles down to a permanent
conjugal state.
Old watches of particular value include
those with hogs bristles for regulating the
vibrations, egg watches, ell watches with
one hand, with or without ornamentations,
watches without balance springs, and with
out regulating arrangements, those with per-
forated cases, those with finely chased cases,
If the chasing be distinct; enameled gold
watches of the finest workmanship, watches
or wood or ivory or with iron or porcelain
cases, and nearly all watches with peculiar
movements.
"A traveller in Central Australia has dis
covered that the surface of the country has
been greatly changed by what may appear
at first thought q ridiculous agency-the
white ants. On plain and in thickets their
nests are so numerous that it is difficult to
drive among them. The clay with which
the nests are built is, when cemented with
resinous matter, rs hard as brick and when
the nests fall to pieces they form clay flats,
almost impervious to water and not easily
cut up by traffic.
The Bongo people have an iron cur
rency having the shape of a spade, with a
handle and IN anchor-like end to it. This
they call loggo colluti. The largest iron
coin circulating here are of the size and
shape of a large plate. being one foot in
diameter. These treasures are piled uD in
tine warerooms of native merchants just as
silver or gold bars in other lands. For ten
iron plates of two pounds weight each the
love-1orn Bongo swain buys his inamoTata
OF her papa. When he can't get ten of such
iron plates he has to be satisfied with an
elderly beauty.
The manufacture of new disinfectant
and deordorant called Sauridon has been
commenced at Marybill. Eng. 1t is resi-
dual product of uncommon kind of
blackstone shale, which is composed Of
animal and vegetable remains, is remark
ably light, and yields a large proportion ofa
heavy volatile oil. The oil is extracted by
distilation, and the residual product is re-
duced to grains of different sizes, varying
from fine powd der to the size OF pea. The
powder is claimed to have an instantan-
eous effect upon obnoxious matter, while
also being tasteless and colorlesS and harm
ess to all animal life