Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-11-25
CURIOUS CONVERSATIONS.

OUn1OOC OONOLNOh11O4N0
I'm shoes, third of an inch is q "size."
The King of Samoa gets $40 year;
his "adviser" 5000.
Seven thousand men in the British
army are over six feet high.
-Sunfiower stalks grow very large in
Kansas and are gathered for fuel.
China, with all her 400, 900, 900 people,
has only 40 miles of railroad, but is building
more.
-Lead-pencil wood-soft cedar-all comes
from Florida. and it will be exhausted in .
few years.
Glass is to be used as filling for teeth,
and especially the front ones, where 1t viii
be of advantage. rs less conspicuous than
gold, and in fact indistingutshablef from the
tooth surface.
The worlds population in 1890 was as
follows: Europe, $50, 200, 900; Asia s5o,ooO,ooo
Africa 127. 700 900; Australasia, 473O0 900; North
America, 50 $50 000 South America 36 420, 900;
total, 1,4S7, ,6O0, COO.
Last year French smokers consumed
1900 900 francs worth of cigars, 10, 900 Of
cigarettes, %. ,0C0 of SNUFF and 81, ,OO0, 900
worth of pipe tobacco. The greatest snuff
takers are old peasants and priests.
The latest thing in fre-fghting tools is
a gun which will fire a metal cap carrying a
small piece of strong cord to the top of the
highest building. The cord is used to pull
up a rope and the rope to pull up hose.
The waters of the Dead Sea will kill
every microbe, with the exception of gan
CREME and tetanus bacillus, and with this
discovery, the French savant who made it
hopes to render service to the French
hospitals.
In Persia one never buys a loaf of bread,
but pay cents for a sheet. And this sheet
is so thin that it can be thrown over the
shoulder of the man who sells it in the
streets, and who carries it as . tailor would
his cloth.
Teeth of brilliant whiteness have their
compensating defects, that color usually
going with teeth that are soft and particu-
larly liable to decay. Those Of yellowish
tint are less likely to cause their posSessOrs
trouble, expense and pain
"A number Of capitalists who believethis
is the beginning of an era when America
will make her own sugar are studying out
the prospect of profitable investment in
beet-sugar factory enterprises. One party
thus occupied represents capital of s., ,OO0,-
600.
"A remarkable invention has just been
announced in Vienna. 1t is complete
miniature apparatus for taking photographs
in rifle, the apparatus closing itself every
Time SnOb Is nreQ. T06 photograph Will
show the object aimed at in circular picture
in the center Of which is the shot.
The cost of the tunnel under the Thames,
about four miles below London bridge, is to
s4355,0OO. 1t is to be 200 feet in length and
26 feet in diameter, with the crown only
eight feet below the bed of the river as its
deepest part. The process of construction
is to be almost like that of the Hudson River
tunnel.
On New Year day at the capital city
of Thibet, Lh'asa, there begins u season of
festivity One of the entertainments is
called the Spectacle of the Flying Spirits"
The performers stretch an enormously large
rope made of hide all the way from the top
to the bottom of Mount Potala; then they
fasten grooved blocks of wood to their
chests and sail down the line like so many
swallows.
The Hindoos believe in seven mansions
of all created spirits, the earth being the
lowest of these, while the seventh and high
est is the seat of Brahma. The Moslem pill
circuits have been made round the sacred
stone of Mecca. The astronomers tell us Of
seven greater planets the alchemists dealt
with seven metals, and we all of US recog-
niZe seven days in each week
-Licorice root comes principally from
Asia Minor, and is the root of bush not
more than three or four feet high. The dried
roots are sent tc Bagdad and thence to
London and America. The black hcorice
stick in the drug stores comes mostly from
Spain, and is made of pure Juice mixed with
q little starch, which prevents it from melt
ing in warm weather. The word IIcor1ce
means "sweet root" ana is of Greek origin.
"A remarkable change is predicted in
the manner of giving the warning or guild
ing light to mariners, In England electric
lights experimentally turned vertically
toward the sky have given some extraor-
dinary results. The light of the Eddystone
Lighthouse can be seen 17A miles on a clear
night, but a vertical beam of light of far less
strong chance of it's surmounting an Or
binary fog.
Diamonds may have come to the earth
in meteorites. One which fell in Russia in
1886 contained carbon in q crystallized form
of the diamond, which suggests to Prof.
Huntington, OF Cambridge, an explanation
of the origin of diamonds: which has never
been satisfa ctorily explained Probably no
recent scientific discovery will prove so
generally acceptable to woman in every
CLINE and station as this, that diamonds
come from heaven
"A very curious fact, which greatly in
fiuences the lives of Australian aboriginals,
is that no black fellow believes in such
thing es natural death. Death by old age
rarely happens among the tribes. When too
old to accompany the rest in their wander
ings. or when the young men are tired of
from q club ends the life of the ancient
warrior or crone, and the body is buried
with many lamentations.
1t Is said that there was remarkable
stone near Nancledrea, Cornwall, and locally
known as the Twelve O'clock Stone" hav-
ing been, by supernatural power, IMPRESSED
with some peculiar sense at midnight" Al
though imTnovable during daylight, or, in
deed by human power at any other time. it
would rock like cradle exactly at mid
night and many u child is reported to have
been cured of some bodily weakness by be-
ing placed at this mystic hour on the
Twelve O'Clock Stone"
-'Americanite" is a new explosive of
yreat power. The principal ingredient is
and the others are secret.
It is insensible TO shock and can be exploded
1t will. 1t withstands friction and if ignited
With match simply burns like a candle.
General o. o. Howard says of it: 'The adj
'antage of being able" he says, ''to use an
explosive of a force equal to nitroglycerine
With safety, fired from any gun now in -ex-
stence and with terrific effect at extreme
ange, is evident. With such a powerful
agent the problem of coast defense is
esolved almost to one range, and our great
eaboard cities can be made comparatively
afe without excessive expenditure"
earn To