Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-08-13
CURIOUS CONVERSATIONS.

-Earls are dying off at the rate of 20 per
annum.
There are 10 varieties of wild fruits
| growing in Montana,
| Alaska contains six volcanos which are
in constant eruption.
| -Beefsteak and black coffee are said to
have reduced a lady of ls2 pounds to 14O.
! Chinese truck farmers at Oregon City
hire men for their work at 30 cents Il day
| Among the exiles in Siberia are 45 COM
| positors who were sent there for working on
Nihilist papers.
M. Grebault, French Egyptologist, is
busy opening 16O sarcophagi recently dis
| covered ut Thebes.
"A new mineral has been discovered in
! Texas which is said to be seven times
| stronger than any other when made into
| wire.
-Arcturus is $50, 900 times as large as the
sun and IL 500 900 times as far away from the
sun as the earth. Its diameter is 100000
miles.
The pilgrimages to Canterbury, which
Chaucer has immortalized in verse and
which have been discontinued for so many
centuries, are being revived.
1t is estimated that each year IN New
York City 5000 women find themselves
without work, but unable to work.
"A Partisan electrician has succeeded in
forcing yiolets by the aid of his battery, and
recently sent a bunch of these hedglings,
only four hours old, to the Empress Eugene.
There is boy in st. Clair county, Ill,
whose hair curls just three days before
storm. He is called the "Boy Barometer
and is In constant demand by the surround
ing population.
Herring and smelt have been 70 thick
in the Del Norte, Cal, bay this week that
boy walked across at the mouth of the Elk
river on top Of the fish, barely wetting the
tops of his shoes.
"A curious fact in the early history
of pins is that when they were first sold in
"open shop" there was such great demand
for them that code was passed permitting
their sale only on two days in the year-the
1st and I'd of January.
"A statistician has computed that man
might add $500 year to his income by saw
ing the clippings of his hair every time it is
cut and having 1t manufactured into soft
pillows, mattresses, etc, No hair is SO soft
as that Of human beings.
Railway statistics show that the Amer
lean takes 27 railway trips year, the En-
glishman 10, the Belgian II, the Frenchman.
the German, Swede, Norwegian and the
Spaniard each, while the Turk, the Swiss
and Italian take but each.
"A recent outbreak of smallpox in Aar-
hus, Denmark, went unbeeded by the local
physicians, who failed to recognize the true
character of the disease until three persons
| lay desperately ill, one in q restaurant
where lot of soldiers from the garrison ate
their meals.
I'm Australia there is manufactured q
| hat which is said to resemble the panama
hat very closely. 1t is made from the unex-
| panded leaves OF native plant, which are
immersed IN boiling water, and then dried.
The fiber obtained by this treatment Is
plated as in South America.
Banning explorers have found mighty
mass of moving ice in deep canyon ON
| Grayback Mountain, Cal. The formation is
about 25 feet thick and 60 feet wide. I'M
mense rocks have been pushed from their
beds b y the moving of the great ice mass
and lie on top of it. Sun does not reach the
| ice more than one hour day.
An Amager (Denmark) farmer, going
to town with his load of cabbages, ran into a
troop of mounted artillery marching out to
drill, and scattered panic in the ranks. The
war horses ran away, leaving the guns in the
road, and one of the artilleryman, who fell
off, was dragged along by the stirrupS The
farmer, who was as badly scared as the rest,
was made prisoner ana fined
One of the earliest and most annoying Of
insects is that midnight marauder, the bed
proofs that this domestic pest was quite
common in the armies of the world at least
120 years before the Christian era, and that
he was ever a sea rover, as the fleets of that
day had their timbers stocked with this
breed of nocturnal prowlers.
1t is estimated that the British mines
will be exhausted in less than 500 to 500 years.
It Is further calculated that, drawing upon
only one of her fields, the Westphalia, Ger
many will not exhaust that before the end
af hd tvs an frrrsr- ht1t hat
the beginning of the year 1900 the big coal
fields of Bavaria and Aachen and the SiIes-
ian districts will be entirely used up.
One of the most amusing of Democratic
blunders was that made by the Tennessee
Legislature. 1t passed an election law re-
quiring registration and secret ballot and
making it applicable to counties of $4,000
voting population, instead of those having
a total population of that number. There
Is no county in the state which has $4,000
voters, and hence the law is dead letter.
-Leavenworth is excited over the ap-
proach of the first Chinese wedding in Kan
sas. The bride-Miss Young Lee-has been
q teacher in the Chinese schools at san
Francisco. She arrived in Leavenworth the
other day wearing yellow China silk dress
made in the latest mode, and is said to be
pretty and intelligent. She is going to
marry Joe Lee, a laundrymGn employed at
the post, and she is already favorite with
the officers.
-Inere Is vast DeQ OF pure rock salt IN
the Colorado Desert, and the Southern
Pacific Railway, in laying their tracks to the
salt mines, crossed point where for 5000
feet they were obliged to make fill and
ballast the track with beautiful Jumps of
pure salt crystals. Millions of grasshoppers
and legions of giant centfpeds fell into this
salt when it was in Il liquid state, and now,
after having reposed there for thousands Of
years, are found perfectly preserved
"A curious and interesting calculation
has been made by Prof Rogers, of Washing
ton, d. c., on the dynamic power of coal.
According to the professor, a single pound
of good steam coal has within it dynamic
power equivalent to the work of one man
for one day. Three tons of the same coal
represent a mans labor for period of 20
years and one square mile of seam of coal,
having depth of four feet only, repres entS
as much work loo 900 men can perform
in 20 years.
In digging out the colossal statue of
Rameses ii. 9 feet and inches of CONSOLE
dated Nile mud had to be removed before
the platform was reached. This platfo I'm
was laid 1881 years before Christ, in the
reign of Rameses. Hence, 81 inches of this
consolidated mud represents century,
there having lapsed 3,2l5 years since then.
Under the platform depth of 30 feet of
Nile mud had to be penetrated before sandy
soil was reached, and, according to this, TO-
OoO more years must have elapsed. Pieces Of
pottery were found there that show the
Egyptians to have possessed enough civili-
Zation to form and bake vessels of clay l3 900
years ago.
RHYMES AND RHTNkLEs.