Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-09-26
CURIOUS CONVERSATIONS.

The enrolment Of girl students In the
Harvard Annex this year is over 800.
The catapult was invented in Syracuse
4o6 B. c., in the reign of Dionysius the Elder.
The sword of Henry the Pious. Duke OF
silesia, was six feet long and weighed 30
pounds.
Military maces, clubs with iron heads,
came into Western Europe in the seventh
century.
The ancient Mexicans used wooden
swords in war that they might not kill their
enemies.
There are but 100 colored voters In
North Dakota. There are 5000 in the city
OF Baltimore.
The legion was formed by Romulus, B.
c. 72o. II originally consisted OF 5000 foot
and 800 horse.
Egyptian bronze swords made B. @.
1900, were from two to three feet long, with
double edge.
Between 1880 and 1890 the eligible vot-
ing population in the United States in
The armor of horse and rider in the
fourteenth century frequently weighed as
much as 400 pounds.
The Federal census of 1890 returned
the adult white male population OF the
United States at 16, $40, ,3lI.
The youngest member of the British
House of Commons is % years of age; its
Oldest is on the shady side of 80.
"A French photographer has succeeded
in taking flying insect, the time of expos
ure being only 125OO of a second.
"A well-known Partisan physician il
authority for the statement that 40 people
are annually prepared for burial while still
alive.
In China the candle used in the taking
OF the 'yellow oath" is made from the fat
of criminals who have undergone the death
penalty!
The deepest bore-hole in the world is az
schladebach, near Kethan, Germany. 1t is
5,7S5 feet in depth, and is for geological re-
search only.
There are 100000 adult male in
habitants of the United States, and 100000
colored. Chinese and Indian inhabitants
above the age of 81.
Upward of 100, 900 pounds of snails are
eaten every day by the residents of the gay
French capital the snail market being the
busiest industrial mart in Paris.
The center of population in this coun-
try, which at the close of Jefferson's term
was 40 miles northwest of Washington, is
now u miles east of Columbus, Ind.
The white horse has been taken out of
the German cavalry, it having been proven
that it can be seen at such a distance as to
make it special mark for an enemy.
AT New Orleans there is a colored
woman who was a grandmother at the age
of 25 and French woman who was great
grandmother three months before her Ssth
birthday.
-Keyless watches, now so popular, have
long been known, but have not been in gem
eral use more than dozen years. Napoleon
]. was the owner of a wonderful specimen of
this species of keyless timepieces.
Experiments made at the gas plant at
International bridge, Ontario, gave a tenn
perature of 800 below zero-this with the use
of gas and water alone-nO chemicals OF
any kind having been added to the solution.
"A child born at Waucoma, Ia, on the
18th inst, has a smooth, round hole in its
back, near where the points of the shoulder
blades come together, through which the
action OF the lungs can be plainly observed
The needle is one of the most ancient
implements or instruments of which we
have any record. The oId-time needles
were unlike the modern luxury, they having
been made of wood, bronze, bone, etc., and
without eyes.
"A submarine eruption was recently
witnessed in the Mediterranean by Captain
Sibery, of the Clan Macgregor. The occur
renee took place between Malta and Port
Said, resulting in violent rolls and boiling
appearance of the sea.
"A shark recently washed ashore at
Midian, British Columbia. had two distinct
to be the rudiment of fin or flipper hang
ing to the under jaw. It will be mounted
and sent to the Worlds Fair.
Tine London police are giving up their
old buIl's eye lanterns which, up to the
present, have been their only means of
flashing the light of intelligence upon the
dark spots where criminalitY testers. Thew
are now supplied with little electric lamps.
-Snails are used as an article of food in
Austria, Spain and Italy as well as in Egypt
and the other countries on the Mediterra-
nean's southern shore. Hygienists claim
that they are very nutritive, containing not
less than IL per cent of nitrogenous matter.
The latest thing in the way of clocks is
a European invention warranted to keep
correct time for ten years without regula-
tion or winding. One placed in the railway
station ut Brussels by the Belgian Govern
ment. and sealed with tine Government seal,
has kept perfect time since 1886.
One of the most remarkable productions
of the Isles OF Chileo is the celebrated "bar.
ometer trees" which grow in great pro-
fusion in all of the salt marshes. In dry
W Weather the bark of this natural barometer
is as smooth and white as that or a syca-
more, but with the near approach of storms
these characteristics vanish like magic and
the bark turns black.
But one species of Yenomous bird is
known to the student of ornithological oddi.
ties-the Rpir N'Doob, or bird of DEATH"
paradox of New Guinea. Persons
bitten by the creature are seized by madden
ng pains, which rapidly extend to every
part OF the body. Loss of sight, commissions
ind lockjaw are the other symptoms which
follow in rapid succession.
Two natural objects seem to have fur
lished the model for the spoon to primitive
nan, the river or sea shell and the leaf OF
plants. In Southern China shell spoons are
till used that are closely reproduced in the
amiliar porcelain spoon of that country,
while metal spoons are found in India on
which are reproduced even the veins of the
caves from which they were copied.
1t is a remarkable fact that the specific
,ravity of hardened steel is less than that
If the unhardened, another singular point
,eing that steel, Of course, expands with
leat, and when it is allowed to cool slowly
egains its original size; but If 1t be cooled
only way in which it can be
although it contracts very much
1T does not quite reach the small size Of