Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-12-12
CURIOUS CONVERSATIONS.
There will be So Sundays in 1892.

The City of Mexico has 329, ,535 inhab-
itants.
Electric light is to be used in all the
German factories.
Twenty tons of violets are used every
year by Cannes perfumer.
The pennyweight was the exact weight
of the old British silver penny.
Prof. Keeler says the suns heat will
warm the world for 100000 years yet.
The pin factories of the United States
make about Is, 900, 900 900 pins each year.
Paper matches are coming into favor,
and factory will De built shortly in
Michigan.
The largest steam shovel in the world
is at work in phosphate mines in South
Carolina.
The fayorite method of adorning build
ings during the middle ages was by means OF
mirrors.
The value of Kansas farm lands is said
to have actually increased "a per cent in the
past IL months.
Nearly all the best works of Persian
art are attributed to the time of the great
Shah Abbar, 1885,
More than $500, 900 worth of gold goes
into peoples mouths every year in the fill
ing of their teeth.
Copies of the Icelandic Bible printed in
1884 are still in existence. A banker of Lex
iDgton, Mo-, has one.
The Southeastern Railway in England
asked at the rate of s13, 900 per acre for
strip of its land at Bermondsey.
Three families in Eaton Rapids, Mich,
living side by side, have 43 children.
They could start school district of their
own.
The famous and venerable Magdalene
tower in Ireland is to be converted into
ventilating shaft for the sewers of DroS.
heda.
On the Maryland coast the other day q
whale was captured, in whose stomach was
f1ve-gallon demijohn of whisky with the
cork still in.
"A new substitute for glass has been an
nounced in Vienna. 1t is made out of colo
dion wool and has the same properties as
glass, except that it Is flexible.
Chinese gold miners in California do
not talk at their work, as they consider it
uniucky, and for the same reason they do
not like to be addressed by visitors. At
Rock Springs, Wyo, the Chinese miners in
the coal mines consider it very unlucky
to speak before breakfast.
The first iron ship has more reputed
birth places than Homer. Both the Clyde
and the Mersey claim prominence in this
iron vessel in 1916, which was not launched
till three years later. and it is said that
iron boat was worked on the Severn even as
far back as 17S7.
The loss of crockerv by the late earth
quake in Japan, in Aichi and Mino, the we'll
known centers of the porcelain manufacto-
ries, has been tremendous. The furnaces
1,@.- t. &
pected, therefore. that great rise in the
price of porcelain will ensue, as the fur
naces will not be completed before the end
of the year.
The kauri tree grows in Auckland and
the vast forests of this beautiful tree are
largely owned by a syndicate. Some Of the
trees are Is feet in diameter. The wood is
close grained and tough and is used for ship
building to large extent. 1t is especially
valuable because there are no knots in it,
and it is not unusual for 95-foot mast to be
without single knot.
Jefferson county, Ala, is taking the
lead of all other Southern counties, if not of
every county in the United States, in the
vigor which it is displaying in macadamiz-
ing its roads. 1t has already 10 miles of
macadamized roads, so more now under con-
struction, and contracts are soon to be let
for seven miles additional, which will give
that county total of 100 miles of frst-class
roads.
In cleansing the shore of Wenham Lake
the remains of an old iron works was dis
covered. The iron is what is known as bog
iron. and there are many evidences of its
having been smelted Wenhan Lake is in
North Beverly. near Salem, in Essex county.
The iron works referred to were certainly
not the first, nor the second, nor the third in
Massachusetts. They may have been built
about 100.
"A foolish fox was caught in very odd
way in Glastonbury, Conn.,, recently. He
had very long and bushy tail, and, maybe,
was extremely vain of it, for he swished it
from side to side instead of trailing it on the
ground. a pack of hounds chased him, and
to elude them he tried to bolt through a
barbed wire fence; but somehow that tail
curled itself about q barb and the fox was as
fast as if the jaws of n steel trap held him.
An hour later the hunters despatched him.
The municipal authorities of Toronto
recently ordered the police to make count
of the unoccupied houses in the city. The
citizens were not satisfied with the showing
made and a recount was ordered The Sec
ond count was completed the other day,
and it shows that there are 3,679 dwelling
houses and 554 stores vacant in the city OF
Toronto. 1t is not reported whether or not
the citizens are pleased with the revised
figures. The showing IS suggestive along
several lines.
Dry champagnes are of comparatively
recent popularity. even in New York Cham
pagne used to be esteemed q lady's wine,
and therefore properly sweet. There are
men not yet old who remember the time
when dry champagnes were not found even
in the fashionable clubs of the country, and
one well-known firm, perhaps the earliest to
make speciality of dry wines for the Amer
lean market, began to be recognized in this
country less than 80 years ago. Taste has
been educated with great rapidity, however,
on " hHOIn look sweet