The Princeton union., 1896-02-06
THE TRUOrxEn ICE PALACE .
Winter Sports In the Mountains OF
Eastern California;

a #xau Ice pllace mas JuSCz DeeH eOIlplet-
ed at Truckee,s Cal. It is covered with
from two to ten inches Of solid ice.
"a toboggan slide adjoins 1t, and on
Christmas day. hundreds Of people shot
down the icy slides.
An ice palace is all very well, but
we do not think that it is calculated
to be good advertisement for Cali
fornia. In most of the northern hem
isphere, at the present writing, there
is superabundance of ice. People
are leaving their homes for the win
ter, but not in search of ice. There
fore, when they hear that an ice pal
ace is one of the attractions Of True
kee, CAL, they will be apt to revise
their Judgment of California.
But they would be in error. Cali
fornia's physical condition is most pc
culiar. Truckee is up on the very sum-
NIT Of the Sierra Nevada mountains,
in the extreme eastern part Of the
state. The mountains rise there, in
not many miles, from the fertile Sac
ramento Valley, where flowers are
blooming in the open air, to an alti-
5tude of 1000 feet. It is upon this
sharp ridge that Truckee sits-sticking
up like a sore thumb, which in some
other respects she resembles. Truckee
has hitherto been famous for her ''6O1''
vigilance committees, her shocking
treatment of the Chinese, and the fact
that she has faro banks and skin
games all the time wide open and in
full blast on her main. street. AS
Truckee is the first point in California
that the West-bound stranger strikes,
the peculiar conditions there generally
excite his wonder when he stops over
which, fortunately, he rarely does,
unless snOW-bound. In fact, dazed
Eastern man once remarked to fell;
low traveller in Truckee as they prone
naded the plaza well, what have
we struck?' to which a native affably
responded: Wall, stranger, we've jest
naturally struck hell And SO they
had.
Now that Truckee has sprung an ice
palace on us as one Of the added
charms Of California as a winter re-
sort, we may say that it is wide
spread belief among Californians that
there is a mistake in the state line
somewhere in the middle: of Lake Ia
hoe; that it ought to be. Strengthened
out; that when it is Strengthened out
Truckee will be found to belong to Ne
vada instead of California. San Fran.
cisco Argonaut.
Wa1tzinE Mice.
You have all heard Of singing mice,''
and some of you may remember an ar
ticle that we printed about them a
year OF two ago. But did you ever
hear of '.waltzing mice?' 1t seems
that there is a family of such little
creatures in Japan, not one family, Of
course, but regular Species with that
unique characteristic.
These mice are about the same size
as the common kind, but they are
speckled with white and black about
the neck: They have a habit of whirl-
ing around and around for hours at a
time, with only short stops, perhaps to
get breath. And they whirl in couples,
too, Just as human beings do, but
much more rapidly. Indeed they go
SO fast that they appear to be little
rings of black and white
1t is said that the ''waltzing'' mania
seizes them nearly always while they
are running land even when they are
attempting to escape from an enemy,
they will suddenly stop running and
go to whirling.
There is some reason for this, of
course, as there is for everything in
nature, but we have not heard what
that reason may be- 1t certainly is
very inconvenient trait, at times, for
it gives the pursuing enemy a good
chance to gobble them up.-Philadel.
phia Times.