The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1892-08-03
Stems Of Smterest.

Seventeen and fifteen years were the
respective ages of young couple who
eloped and got married at Edgefeld,
S. o., one day last week.
Creole. Colo, is not yet nine months
old, but 1t has population Of 5000 souls,
two morning papers, one evening and
four weekly publications
A large cave was recently discovered
! in Montana which contained the bones
of hundreds of animals that had fallen
into 1t and we're unable to escape.
A new electric heat alarm consists in
the employment of column of mer-
curry, which by its expansion above a
certain point completes the circuit and
rings an alarm.
The exact site Of the famous Black
| Hole of Calcutta, long supposed to be
| lost, has lately been rediscovered in the
course of excavating the foundations of
buildings in Old Fort William.
The mischievous rodents known as
jack rabbits have caused great damage
to the orchards in the state of Washing
ton, and measures for the determination
Twenty-one churches and chapels in
England were struck by lightning last
summer. An authority declares that 70
per cent. of the lightning conductors
now in use are in an unsatisfactory con-
| dition.
Thirteen sheep and three lambs are on
their way consigned to the agricultural
department at Washington-a fact that
presents considerable interest for the
agriculturally minded. They were ship
ped from Persia, and an attempt is to
be made to introduce their breeding into
| this country.
The recent high water at Marion, O.,
and vicinity has afforded the fish in the
bigger streams good opportunity to
ascend the smaller, and they are found
in abundance, and with little effort can
be caught with hook or hand. Catfish
of all sizes are found almost as numer-
Gus as the English sparrow and are
caught with ease also carp weighing
five and SIX pounds are found in the
Milestone river in that county. Along
the smaller streams and in bitches bas-
ketfuls Of various kinds are reported to
have been caught.
OF rattlesnakes there are at least dozen,
| probably fifteen, different kinds, all inhab-
itants of America exclusively, where they
range from the northern United States
down to Patagonia The common or
banded rattlesnake extends from Maine
to Texas. Once generally abundant, it is
happily now rare animal, save in the
more thinly inhabited districts of the
southern and western states. 1t may at
tain length Of five feet, with large tri-
angular and flattened head 1t feeds on
rabbits rats and squirrels, and is for the
most part a slow and sluggish animal,
waiting quietly till some prey approaches
it. This sluggishness makes it the more
dangerous, as it may be stepped upon I'm
awares with most fatal result. But it
never either attacks spontaneously or pur-
sues a retreating enemy.
The Rich brothers, who are known
throughout Maine as the crazy evangel-
lists of Piscataquis county, have been
landed in Bangor Jail. On May 30 they
broke up religious meeting at Sanger
vile because the exposition of the Cos.
pei on that occasion was not according
to their ideas, and day or two later at
funeral, when the officiating clergy.
man remarked that the deceased was a
good woman and was then in heaven,
one of the brothers jumped up and de-
clared that she had gone in an entirely
different direction. That was the last
straw, and the evangelists will suffer
sixty days Of martyrdom in a place
where more attention is paid to the
making of brooms than to theology
Tesla's experiments with high FIRE.
quency currents before the Royal insti
tuition have laid such hold on the imagi.
nation of the English, who, as Tesla
says in a recent letter to friend in New
York, care the most enthusiastic people
in the world in scientific Matters that
crowds flock daily to the Crystal Palace
to see the high pressure demonstrations
given at the electrical exhibition. Many
people find it hard to believe, without
actually seeing it, that tube carried in
the hand, without any wire connection
whatever, will fill a room with beautiful
light and high pressure discharges with
their dazzling and exquisite effects OF
color and light, and the illumination OF
wireless vacuum tubes promises to be
indispensable at any afternoon party
Jumatsu Matsuo, native of Nagasa
XII, Japan, now residing on Rochelle
avenue, Wissahickon has built an en-
ormous kite, shaped like an owl, which
he intends flying from the hillside OF
Manayunk avenue. The kite is made OF
split bamboo frames, covered with rice
paper, and requires tail forty yards
long to steady the aerial monster, He
has two miles of string an eighth of an
inch thick to hold the kite. After the
kite has reached the height required
he will send up on the string several
mechanical objects to within a yard OF
the kite, which will again return to the
ground. If the owl proves a success he
intends on the Fourth of July to have
one made like a ship, without tail OF
string, using gas balloons attached &c
each mast, and when at certain height
the ship will leave the balloons and