Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-02-02
CURIOUS CONVERSATIONS.

The average Southern pine lands cut
| 5000 feet of lumber to the acre.
Belgium is the first country to make
| hypnotizing an o1snse against the law Of
| the land.
Germany is par excellence the toy
producing country. There is q toy factory
in Silesia which has been going on for 80
years.
The natives of Costa Rica not only be-
| heve in mermaids, but pretend to have seen
them comb their sea-green hair and try the
effects of their coquetry on unWary Usher
boys.
Lady crabs are an important article of
/ food in the New Orleans market, but it is
rarely that they are seen for sale in the
North.
Die klag (''the wail'') of the Canton
Tessin Is the wandering spirit OF a mother
expiating the crime against the life Of her
child and appalling her hearers with the
prescn timenf of impending evil.
--Of all the creatures that God has made
"undcr the SUM-" as EccIesiastes would say,
the most remarkable, as well as the most
useless. is the tuatarra, a species OF lizard
known 20 exist only in New Zealand.
The rate of infant mortality is enor-
nous. In round numbers 100000 babies
never have chance 20 walk or run, and
5000 000 more never get old enough to go to
school.
"A peculiar animal was captured in
Oregon recently. 1t is not a coon, a polecat,
wildcat or cougar, but it looks like COM
bination of all four. Its teeth are lon" and
sharp and its tail somewhat resembles q
hogs ear.
-Thrushes and other birds crush the
shells OF land snails and extract their juicy
bodies, as do also raccoons and wood rats,
but woodland birds will not eat naked snails,
-because the slime them sticks to their
beaks and spoiis their feathers.
The o,ost beautiful crabs in the world
are procured in the neighborhood Of ths
Farallone Islands, off the Pacific coast.
They are called red rock crabs and speci-
mems sometimes sell in the markets of San
Francisco for from s. to $40 each, merely for
curioSities-
In the Ninth and Tenth centuries the
greatest Kings and Princes of Europe all
wore wooden shoes: not wooden boots like
those worn by some of the Germans, Hol-
landers and Frenchmen of to-day, but
wooden soles fastened to the feet with
leather thongs.
Twenty -four-carat gold is all gold; 22-carat
| gold has % parts of gold, of silver and of
copper; 1scarat gold has Is parts of gold and
! 8each of silver and copper; 12-carat gold is
half gold and has 81 parts of silver and 81
OF copper. Its specific gravity is about Is;
pure gold is -.
The cutting of hair as mourning OBJ
| servanee is OF very great antiquity, and
among the ancients whole cities and coun-
tries were shaved when great man died
The Persians not only shave themselves on
such occasions, but extend the same process
to their domestic animals
1t is curious fact that the "Arabian
Nights" and "Anderson's Fairy Tales" have
been translated into more different Ian
guages than anv other books, with five eX-
ceptions: The Bible, Thomas a Kempiss''
aud the maudlin romance of Paul and N1r-
ginia."
The head of cat was once thought to
contain stone that would undoubtedly
have been the most wonderful and most de
sirable treasure of ALL could it only have
had real instead of an imaginary existence,
for that man who was SO fortunate as to pos
sess this precious stone would have all his
wishes granted
up to within few years the Indians of
Alaska were accustomed to express their
grief for the death of any important person
age by human sacrifices, and the same prac-
tice is largely followed in some parts of A.
~rica. At the funerals of chiefs of the Florida
and Carolina Indians in former times 81 the
wives OF the defunct and his male relatives
also were slain.
In the neighborhood of the Bermudas
the sea is extremely transparent, 80 that the
fishermen can readily. see the horns OF lob
sters protruding from their hiding places
in the rocks at considerable depths. To en-
tice the crustaceans from these crann1eS
they tie a lot of snails in ball and dangle
them in front of the cautious lobster. When
he grabs the ball they hall him up.
"A seam OF natural coke, closely re-
sembling the manufactured article, has re-
tI,-h in Nau all
at the Bulli Pass Coal Mines. The coal
measure at this point covers an area of
about $50 acres and is g. in thickness. The
upper half of this seam is coal of char
acter differing but little from the ordinary
Australian Goals, while the lower portion of
the measure is a Natural coke
The Imperial train which has just been
completed for the German Emperor has cost
the Prussian eIchequer nearly 40OO,GOO
marks and has occupied more than three
years in construction. Its IL carriages, con-
nected by corridors include study hung
with real Gobelin tapestry from CharlotIen-
berg, n salon upholstered in white satin, q
nursery, reception room adorned with
rble statuary, an oak dining room, q
kitchen and bedrooms for several guests.
Not long since the people of Aehill, or
Eagle Island, lying of the coast of Ireland,
in County Mayo were accorded q privilege
rare in the annals of the human race
nothing less than the uncommon sight of a
stranded "devil-fish." The animal, although
yisibly shrunken and distorted measured
as follows: Length of tentacles, or long arm,
80 feet each; circumference of body, so feet;
circum ference OF tentacles near body, feet
each Only four other instances OF the
appearance of this strange monster in
British waters have been recorded.
In catalogue Of Mexican meteorites
prepared by NJ Antonio del Castillo, one
mass is mentioned which exploded in the
air and fell in widely dispersed fragments,
portions of it being found in three places at
the angles of a triangle whose two longer
sides were some So and 35 miles in length In
one of these places two plates of stone were
discovered, lying $50 yards apart, which
had evidently once formed one huge block.
Measurements and estimat1ons place the
combined weight of the two blocks at so
tons. In this one shower of "moon stones"
according to n. del Castillo's paper, not less
than $500 tons of rocks fell.