Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-10-26
CURIOUS CONVERSATIONS.

Coal mines employ 10000 men.
Hopkins University has $4,000 Their
mometer.
The Isle of Guernsey e1acts a tax from
all aliens.
In Japan every child is taught to work
with both hands
The room in which Napoleon L died IL
now stable.
Ten days per annum is the average
amount of sickness in human life.
"A ma1 in Steubenville yesterday found
a penny dated 1873 in an old sewer.
The British Isles comprise no fewer
than 1000 separate islands and islets.
The sunfower bears 1000 seeds, the
poppy 81, 600 and the tobacco plant 7O,5eo.
-Itis stated that 40, ,O0O, 900 of the Qusen's
subjects in India never know what it is TO
get enough to eat.
DR. Riley calculates that there must be
at least between 9,OOOOOO and 100000 in
scots In the world.
"A dog market is held every Sunday in
Paris where it is possible to buy all varie-
ties OF the canine tribe.
"A hotel with 6, 124 rooms is reported to
be the latest creation among Chicago's en-
terprises auxiliary to the Worlds Fair.
The smallest coal-burning locomotive,
five feet long, was built by Charles d. Young,
Denver boy Of ID. 1t weighs 235 pounds.
Electricity, theoretical and applied, il
being taught in the evening classes at sew.
eral scholastic and similar institutions in
Boston.
Ireland has only eight theaters-three
for Dublin, one in Belfast, one at Cork, ono
in Limerick, one at Waterford, and one for
Londonderry.
The highest viaduct in the world has
just been erected in Bolivia, over the River
Lea, 1888 feet above the sea level and zoos
feet above the river.
"A family in Reading, England, can
prove by local records that they and their
ancestors have paid rent for their house for
no less than 400 years.
AT recent New York reception the
wedding cake of the brides mother was
served. 1t had been kept for that purpose,
wrapped in branded paper in tin box.
"A piece of frogs skin not larger in di-
ameter than the rubber tip on lead pencil
has more pores in it than there are meshes
in the mosquito netting on a screen door.
"A cutlery factory at Meriden, Conn,
recently completed wonderful toy-a per-
pluCeTS,
shears, avis. etc. which is said TO weigh but
! lone-eighth of an ounce.
We ares familiar with the rush of the
express train as it rushes past US at the rate
OF 20 miles an hour, but light actually tray.
els Il, l79 $50 times as fast. The initial veloc-
ity of the shot from the 12pound bronze
service gun is only l., 769 feet a second.
The maximum of the inhabitants that
can be sustained on the entire land surface
of the earth, assert some scientific men, is
1894 OOO OOO. One of these prophets thinks
tnaI the maximum number OF the earths
population will be reached A. d. 2072
The death rate of English soldiers sta
toned in India in 1859 was SO per 1000. Since
that time certain changes in housing, food
water, clothes. ETC., have been adopted, with
the result that in 1886 the rate was Is. Is per
1000 and in 1888 it was As4 per 1000.
The comparatively rare metal giucin-
tum has been suggested as a suitable metal
for the construction of electrical apparatus.
1t is lighter than aluminium, resists oxida-
tion, possesses greater rigidity, and is even
a better conductor OF electricity than silver.
There are Ga countries where an in
vention can claim protection, or rather
where patent fees may be paid. Sixteen of
these are in Europe, eight in Africa, four in
Asia ~ In America and nine in Oceania. The
total price OF these GA official scraps of paper
amounts to the nice little sum Of SIS. .OOO.
Granite is the lowest rock in the earth's
crust 1t is the bed rock of the world. It
shows no evidence of animal or vegetable
life 1t is from two TO ten times as thick as
the united thickness OF all the other rocks.
1t is the parent rock, from which all other
rocks have been either directly or indirectly
derived.
The first high hat ever worn was car
ried upon the head of a nobleman whose
portrait appears among Albert Durer's mar
ginal illustrations of the celebrated prayer
book OF the Emperor Max1milian. In Jost
Ammann's "Book of Escutcheons," pub
lished in 1889, a high hat forms the crest of q
nobleman.
"A French scientist, who is now a resi-
dent of New York, after having for some
time been an assistant to Mr.. Edison, has
built musical clock which he proposes to
exhibit at the Worlds Fair. It is so COM
biped with a phonograph as to perform in
II hours Lohensrin, William TelI,- the
HuguenOtS and FAUST.
Experiments in instantaneous photog-
raphy have proved that shots not only
spread out, cometlike, as they fly, but they
string ont one behind the other to much
greater distance than they spread; Thus.
with a cylinder gun, when the first shot Of .
charge reaches a target that is 40 yards away
the last shot is tagging behind ten yards.
The smallest holes pierced by modern
machinery are l1OOO part of an inch in df-
ameter They are bored through sapphires.
rubies and diamonds by a machine invented
by one John Wennstrom, which makes
81 GOO revolutions minute. 1t is through
these apertures that the very smallest wires
are drawn, and until recently they were
pierced by hand.
The King of Siam has recently pre-
scribed a rigorous test for those of his sub
jects who claim to be endowed with the
mantle of prophecy. An enactment has
now been made providing that no prophet
shall be entitled to public confidence unless
he has the gift OF sitting unharmed in the
midst of a sea-coal fire for the space of at
hale