The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-08-16

j MS requires q lloLiLAl- ~ hdS just
completed a fitting. He assemblies the
massive parts. His assistant turns a
crank and so rapidly does the quick
screw act that the block is opened in
a few seconds. This particular block
is of a 13-inch gun, which is forty feet
in length. and which is n OF the four
for the Kearsarge. In the yard nearby
are perhaps a dozen finished II and
Pinch guns for various b~attleships.
There are TO be twenty-four in the new
lot. and ii will be several months be-
fore the are ready. The delay, IL ap-
pears, is mainly as to h gun r
riages. These guns will all be sent to
the proving grounds at Indian Head
to be tested by firing shot and shell
against armor.
Hot summer-tide as IL is the flow
Of visitors to Washington never ceases.
Most of these merely drift from place
to place. looking more or less aimlessly
at the sights" The Corcoran art GAL
lery is closed until September 18th; the
bureau of engraving and printing I'M
til the war is ended"
IN THE SMITHSONIAN.
One of the most attractive of all the
sights is the bird room Of the Smith
sonian, and in particular the birds Of
paradise. OF these there are fully 100
varieties. 1t is a little odd to note
that some of the handsomest are des-
ignated as the "footless' bird OF para
disc. This is a mere survival of a
myth. When Europeans first procured
from the natives of the Pacific Stands
the skins of these birds there were no
feet. The natives told the too credu-
lous explorers that these birds had no
feet, but lived only in h air. The
greatest naturalist then gave the birds
the name of ~"footless-" The natives
after killing the birds had cut off the
feet.
The most beautiful bird is, however,
not a bird of paradise, but the Argus
pheasant, SO termed because of the
hundred or more "eyes'' on it's plum
age, both on wings, which are i'm
mense circles, and or tail which is
two yards long. The male struts, in
turkey gobbler fashion, bringing the
big wings up to their full shread and
extending the two tail plumes in a
sweeping curve of Incompatible beau
ty:
Another curiosity is the bower
bird" which makes on the ground a
runway, arched e with grass and
twigs, and carpeted with leaves orna-
mented with all kinds of wildly color
ed objects, glass, shells and feathers.
Under this bower the birds run. The
female is quite like a large thrush,
while the male is b~lue-black.
More curious still is the collection Of
insects which simulate other insects
or leaves n twigs. There is n in
sect which perSOnateS another which
is particularly obnoxious to birds and
reptiles. Others look precisely like
leaves Until these insects ire seen
and studied it is impossible to believe
there is in nature such strange mimic
ry. 1t is nearly all for protection.
MODEL RAILROADING.
Millions Of people pass yearly along
that great artery of travel, the Penn
sylvania railway, but very few, rela-
lively speaking, have the pleasure of
sitting IN ear platform of the Obser-
walton car of the Congressional Linn
ited," one of the finest trains in the
world and of seeing r~ailroading in all
it's perfection. The engine has driving
wheels seven feet six inches in dame
ter, and pulls the six long and heavy
Pullman cars with ease and without
a jolt or jar between Washington and
New York in five hours and fifteen
minutes. The Pennsylvania is the ideal
railway. AS a railway official put it,
sit has the best things first" There
are four tracks, two VI and two down,
two for passenger and two for freight
trains. AS night comes on the sema-
phones and the block signals glow.
Left in the rear they look like a dis
play of fireworks. The speed of the
train siackens lightly and a moment
later the water from a track tank is
pouring into the tender, the speed be-
ing at the time something like thirty
miles an hour. A track tank is a
trough eighteen inches wide and a foot
deep, and half a mile long. The engine
thus drinks as it flies. 1t resumes it's
high speed again directly it leaves the
track.
IN NEW YORK.
And here is New York. How natural
it is. Just as you saw it ten, twenty,
years ago. AS far as the eye can
range the streets are torn up. There