Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1899-07-06
FACTS AND FIGURES, SSxk&

Field rats are esteemed as a table
delicacy in Cuba.
Wooden legs are used by over 1,000,-
900 English-speaking men.
The Sandwich Islanders estimate the
beauty Of women by their weight.
About 10000 umbrellas are left in
London public conveyances every year.
There are more than 10000 mud ca
bins in Ireland which contain only q
single room.
Thursday Island, in the Torres
Straits. exports $500, 600 worth of moth
er-of-pearl annually.
japanese do not care much for no.
vels. Among 1000 new books printed
last year only 462 were works of fic
ton.
Owing to the difference in the aver
age death rate, 1t may be said that
three Englishmen live as long as five
Russians.
Among the 3,405 newspapers printed
In Germany, 68 are in foreign languages
including SO Polish, 10 Danish and sew
en- French journals.
In Germany new houses are being
supplied with floors made of compress
ed paper. They are soft to step on,
Dor no dust.
In FIJI there is curious sea worm
which arrives in myriads on the coast
full of them as to resemble vermiclli
soup. After laying their eggs nothing
is left of them but empty skins.
The weights of classes of students
before and after examination have
hnaD m Of Inv
tigation. In high classes, where nat
urally the examination was most felt,
several pounds were lost, showing how
the mental strain was felt. In lower
classes the loss was not so great.
Tobacco was discovered In San Do
mingo in 1899; in Yucatan, by the
Spaniards, in 1920. 1t was introduced
into France in 1860, and into England
in 1883.
What is probably the most venerable
piece of furniture in existence is now in
the British Museum. 1t is the throne of
Queen Hatsu, who reigned in the Nile
Valley some 1000 years before Christ.
A German biologist says that the two
sides Of face are never alike; in two
cases out of five the eyes are out of
line; one eye Is stronger than the other
right ear is generally higher than the
left.
Some of the wooden churches of Nor
way are fully 700 years old, and are
still in an excellent state Of preserva-
tion. Their timbers have successfully
resisted the frosty and almost Arctic
winters because they have been re-
peatedly coated with tar.
ThA fan t1,ak .1,a a1zt4 -
elephants are so rarely found in any
part of Africa is explained by an ex-
plorer VINO states that as soon as the
bones become brittle from climatic in
fluences they are eaten in lieu of salt
by various ruminant animals.
One of the strangest streams in the
world is in East Africa. 1t flows in the
direction of the sea, but never reaches
it. Just north of the equator, and
when only few miles from the Indian
| Ocean, it flows into a desert, when II
suddenly and completely disappears.
War correspondents were employed
as far back as the time of Edward H.
Scribes, specially commissioned, were
sent up with the English army which
invaded Scotland at that time. But, In.
credible as it may sound, not one oil
the London newspapers was specially
represented at the battle of Waterloo.
Silicon carbide crystals or "carbor-
undum." as it is called, is to great
extent to replace diamonds in the pro-
duction of finely graduated scales
Small, fiat hexagonal crystals are chos-
en-, from one-half to one milli-meter In
size. They are mounted in a steel hol-
der by means of drop of shellac. II
is stated that the lines are much more
even than those produced by dia.
mond. They have been examined and
magnfied fifty times and found to be
still sharply defined