The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1893-04-14
OF GENERAL INTEREST.


-Apropos of cards, skat, the great
German game, is almost unknown in
this country, outside of the German res
idents. Yet it is game of such scien-
tific profundity that it has a bibliogra-
ply of its own. There is an encyclo-
poedia of slxat, innumerable treatises on
its principles, syntax and prosody,
and. in fact, a literature of this one
game which in itself makes a respect
able library.
Connected with the United States
lighthouse equipment are 254 fog sig
mails, 372 day beacons, 60 whistling
buoys, IS bell buoys and 4,143 other
buoys. OF these last there are several
kinds, the principal ones being known
as spars, whistling, nun, can and bell
buoys. The spar buoys are generally
made of wood, the others of iron. There
are also number of bells and whistles
used as fog signals to indicate the prox-
unity of land.
&C. j. Bosnian, of Valparaiso, Chill,
proposes to sail from that city to Chica-
go in seventeen-foot velocipede screw
propeller boat His course has been
mapped out along the coast of Chill
southwark and through the strait of
Buenos Ayres, thence along the east
coast, across the Caribbean sea and the
gulf of Mexico to New Orleans, and on
up the Mississippi to the Illinois river.
He hopes to exhibit himself and his
boat at the worlds fair.
According to an old legend the
baby's dimples mark the spot where
angels fingers touched the child in
bearing it from Heaven to earth, but
the doctors have different explana-
ton. They say that dimples probably
result from defective development of
muscle. When the muscle is called into
use the defective portion fails to re-
spond, and hollow is left, into which
the flesh and skin of the cheek for ex-
ample, fall, and thus the dimple is
formed.
Since the great caves of this coun-
try were turned into show places a
close watch has to be kept on visitors
to prevent their annexation of stalac-
tites, cave acorns," gypsum crystals
and other curious and beautiful forma-
tions. Not even the broken stalactites
lying about the floor can be appropri
ated, for these are gathered and sold
by the owners or lessees of these holes
in the ground. The slabs cut from
cross sections of stalagmites are beauti-
full when polished, as they show con-
centric bands of brown, yellow, gray,
cream and greenish white, like agates.
To most people cemeteries are
mournful places. There are several
thousand Germans in the eastern dis
trict of Brooklyn who do not find them
SO, for it is their custom on Sundays
and holidays, in pleasant weather, to
go out to Cypress Hills or Evergreens
with lunch baskets and bottled beer
and have a right pleasant time. Their
children tumble about the grass and
enjoy the flowers and the birds and
they never injure the headstones. Prob
ably to these picnickers the burial
ground serves all the purposes of a
park, for Prospect park is a long way
from the big German quarter of the
city.
Bob, the strong, silken-haired Es-
kimo dog brought from Behring sea
around South America by the United
States ship Yorktown, seemed to be-
lieve himself at home in his own Arctic
regions on reaching New York. He
was delighted with the snow storm
that came on the day after the ship
reached the navy yard, and spent
large portion of the day ashore running
about in the snow. Bob is thoroughly
good natured and on the best possible
terms with his shipmates He had
hard time in the ships two passages
through the tropics, and tried to keep
cool by lying in the iron-shod water
yvavS on deck