The Portland daily press., 1897-11-23
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PERSONAL AND PECULIAR.

WIN the exception of January, til
month of October, 1897, showed the larg
est lire loss of the year, the destruction
OF property by burning in the Unite,
states and Canada during the thirty-on
Gays OF last month amounting 70 $11 1857,
9oo. This was So, 800, 000.in excess of tn
loss 1or October, 1896, but 100000 les
IMAM the loss for October, 1895. The ag
Rregate fire loss for 1897 is still below tina
OF tne hrst ten months of either of thu
Two preceding years.
| When Andrew d. White, now United
States ambassador at Berlin, was on,
minister to Germany nearly twenty year
ago. he received some queer letters from
Americans asking for his influence il
their behalf in court circles. Perhaps the
funniest of ali was an epistle from an ole
| lady living in the " est. who inclosed ir
her letter four pieces of white linen. each
some six inches square. "We are going
TO give fair in our church, she wrote,
and am making an autograph Quilt,
| l want you to get me the autographs OF
the emperor, the empress, the crown
prince and Bismarck, and tell them to be
very careful not to write too near the
edge OF the squares. as q seam has to be
allowed for putting them together
An American geography. printed in
1912 contains this interesting informa.
ton: California is wild and almost
unknown land, covered throughout the
year by dense fogs, as damp as they are
unhealthful. On the northern shores live
anthropophagi and in the interior are
active volcanoes and vast plains of shift
Inc which az.
columns to inconceivable heights'' The
DOCK adds that some of these statements
would seem incredible were they NOT 40
we'll authenticated by trustworthy travel.
lers.
1t is expected that work will be re-
stunned within sixty days on the great
Rio Verde irrigation enterprise, which is
to redeem 200, 900 acres of the finest land
in the Salt River valley of Arizona. OF
the one hundred and fifty miles of canals
That will constitute the system, twenty
Two have been dug, and large amount
OF work, costing altogether $500. 0O0 has
Deen done at or near the head Water
will be secured from the Verde river.
above the old Fort Mcdowell reservation,
the storm waters Icing stored In several
immense reservoirs. and drawn into the
4 .ASNNA - oAio Soi1ehi ny IA61u5. Ol u lOnQ
tunnel already constructed. The canal,
which will be of about 10000 miners in
ches capacity, will skirt the northern
edge of the Salt river valley, as close a 5
is possible to the mountains, gaining
water power in several places Fran
cisco Call.
Or all postal service, that in East India
is the most difficult. There are four
thousand packages monthly which do not
reach their destinations, ION account OF
not bearing any address. The multitude
OF Hindoo dialects is another difficulty
the postal officials have to contend with.
and the postrnen are exposed TO consider
able CANCER from wild beasts.
A tame" wildcat from the northern
Minnesota woods has been sent to a
Chicago man. Tho cat, which is as large
as good-sized bulldog, was captured
when SO small it's eyes had hardly opened
by Trapper James Wilson, whose log
cabin is situated in the wilds of the M in
nesota woods surrounding Sturgeon Lake,
and he trained it for thirteen months,
feeding it cooked beef milk and bread,
and today, in its new Chicago home, ii
plays about the office in amusing gentle
ness, stands gravely in the window gaz-
ing with wondering eyes out upon the
street, or starts in it's brisker moods on a
wild career of leaping about the office.
A jump of seven foot partition is not
quite the limit of it's endeavors, and a
spring of ten or eleven feet from the top
of desk to a distant stack of boxes,
landing without causing the pile to topple
over, is one of its prettiest feats.
Mining for ice may become an import
ant industry near Bismarck, N. D., in
the near future. According to the state.
ment of a western paper, an immense bar
in the Missouri river constitutes natural
torehouse which will take years to
empty During last springs breakup the
ice gorged at this point, and a subsequent
rise in the river washed away the cakes
of ice at the top of the pile and covered
those at the bottom with a sand bar many
feet in thickness. A short time ago one
of the governments steamers, while
making deep excavation for some seien
tific purposes at a depth of eighteen or
twenty feet, came upon an inexhaustible
supply of last years ice. The steamer
when 1t returned was fully supplied with
blocks, three or four feet square, and
clear and blue as that produced by artiti-
cial means.
Bernard Williamson, an Englishman,
got himself into trouble last week bv
trying to photograph the Notifications
at Fort Monroe. He was indignant
when he was escorted off the reseryation
He thought he had been mistaken for a
Spanish spy.