Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-03-19
CURIOUS CONVERSATIONS.

and lost them.
The total product of the silver mines Of
the world from the wear 1900 to the presens
time has been about 400, 900 900 pounds.
A Government building in every town
where the postofice receipts aggregate 5000
annually means 18 eco specimens OF architec-
ture.
-Biddeford papers bring interesting ac-
counts of u cat that drinks coffee at break
fast and of a child years old who writes
poetry.
If geologists be correct, New Zealand
is fragment of q continent which sank be-
meath the waters as the new world rose. 10
is relic of bygone age.
"A woman Of Portsmouth, O., who has
been toothless for a long time, is developing
third set of natural teeth. She has now
on her lower Jaw two fully developed teeth.
In England, out of every 1000 marri-
ages that take place, 139 are those of widow
ers, remnrryIng; while of the wives out OF
every 1000 women marrying. SO are widows.
"A place of pilgrimage is to be obliter-
ated. The J3 trees planted by Alexander
Hamilton, as symbolic of the ID original
States of the Union, are to fall under tho
auctioneer's hammer.
"A great bee-keeper of Hampshire de-
clares that bees do not succeed oany extenS
in the storing of honey whenever there are
wars and dissensions in Europe, whether
Her Majesty's troops are engaged or not.
Newfoundland is very nearly 800
miles across at its broadest part, and q little
over 400 miles long. Its people are peculiar,
as all insular folk are. but very rugged,
hardy, honest and hospitable to degree.
The ionesses, tigresses and female leop-
nj m Oorip Uit n.
Paris National History Museum are subject
to NERVES." and frequently have TO be
treated with large doses of bromide to calm
them.
Far up in the mountains of CeYlon
there is a spider that spins web like bright
ye!lowish silk, the central net of which is
live feet in diameter, while the supporting
lines, or guys, as they are called, measure
sometimes 10 or II feet.
Fish do not seem to exist below four
hundred fathoms 1.-TWO thousand four hun
dred feet) with the exception of the shark,
which has beer caught at greater depths. in
which only creatures of very powerful frame
could resist the pressure of the water.
AT one of the Russian exile stations,
Werchoiansk, in Siberia, it is not an
common thing for the thermometer. in De-
cember and january, TO stand at $50 below
zero. The extreme of SO below zero has
been more than once registered there.
"A wealthy hermit who dwelt near
Springfield, o., has started for Western
Indiana with cart made of old buggy
wheels and shafts, 70 which he himself was
harnessed as though he was a horse. A large
dog accompanied him as bodyHguard.
IT We first lay down the sun, and then
place the earth one inch from it, that being
the relative distance; then, If we inquire
at what distance to put the nearest fixed
star, using the same scale, we will find that
it must be placed at a distance of IL miles
There is in Rutherford, N. c., terrapin
which was picked up in 1910 by Mr.. NJ. 5. Nc
Curry, of Golden Valley, and the date cut on
the shell. The same terrapin has been
found and marked from time TO time. until
now it bears the dates $40. 1865 1875, 1876 1880
and 1891.
1t is dangerous to eat in any quantity
the honey gathered in region the botany
of which is unknown The reddish honey
stored by a Brazilian wasp is absolutely
poisonous, and the spring honey of the wild
bees of East Nepaul is rendered noxious by
collections from rhododendron flowers.
The Carthusian Mountain was named
after the Carthusian Monks by former
tribe of Indians who occupied it, and were
taught by the Fathers. 1t is now owned asa
summer resort by Senior Don Patrico Melmo,
a rich banker of Monterey, lucky Irish
man who I'm his native land was known as
plain Pat Mullens-
I'm the churches for colored people in
some parts of the South in the United
States, when collection is to be taken, the
box. instead of being passed from pew to
pew, is deposited upon a table in front OF
the pulpit and the brothers and sisters are
exhorted to come forward and put their
contributions into it.
In the old days, before the French
Revolution, favorite pastime at the Court
of the Grand Monarch was the attempting to
guess the identity of a person by the eyes
alone. Face and form were totally con-
cealed by mask and domino, and the ewes
were left to tell what tale they could. The
result was the merest guess-work.
Instinct teaches the hen that it would
be no good to warm only one side of her eggs,
and so when see feels that they are ''done"
on one side she turns them gently round.
Anyone yho has watched sitting-hens has
seen them rise every now and then and
shuttle about for a few moments on the nest.
That is when they turn the eggs over.
Government engineers have enumerated
no less than 126 rivers in the Mississippi
Valley, which, in their present natural
state are not available to stream navtga-
ton, but which might be made so at very
easonable cost. A two or three-foot navf-
CATION for nine months of the year might be
secured on a total of nearly 1900 miles, and
with a reasonable expenditure
Among the peoples of the globe the
Japanese, fu their use of tobacco, as in many
other things, would seem to De the most
as well as the most refined. The
rudest coolie or the coarsest farm laborer
equally with the lady of rank (the pretty
yeisha) and the Minister of state are con-
tent with the l<iseru, tiny pipe which does
not hold enough to make even Queen Nab
sneeZe.
Secretary Langley, of the Smithsonian
Institution, has been experimenting for
some time past with fire-fies from Cuba. He
avs that the light they give is the "cheap-
EST in the world-produced, that is to say,
With the least heat and the smallest ex-
)enditure OF energy-and he believes that q
uccessful imitation of it would prove
most profitable substitute for gas and
,lectricity.
I'm 1880 A. D., after 19 years of cease
ess labor and an expenditure of about
esOo, ,OOO the Chinese Governments finished
he wonderful porcelain tower at Nankin,
which stood for nearly four and a quarter
until 1856, the most marvellous
building ever erected by human hands, It
vas of octagonal form, $50 feet in height
With nine storys. each having a cornice and
gallery without
srs' garbs is the bandmaster's of the Life
iuards, which cost sl25. troopers of the
anne regiment costs 3d. A sergeant
OF the Foot Guards may well "swen
is chest" when he wears tunfc costing no
ess than s37 so, the total value of his "rig-
ut' being sl22 50. The cheapest uniform OF
II is that OF q private of an ordinary infantry
egiment, valued at S2l.
On the Sd of November, in the churches