The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-05-12
OF LARGE SIZE.
Some of the Big Things of the
 World.

SS ASxAxSSS S@eAse
 Some of the Big Things of the
 World.
 Books.
 The highest price ever paid for book was s24. .75o for an original copy of the Psalterium, published by Faust and Schoeffer in 145s. It was bought in lsos by Bernard Quoritch of Sir John Thorold. in England. The next highest price was $19. 500 for a Masarine Bible, published at Mentz in 14so. bought by Quaritch of Thorold as above.
 The most costly pubuicr.ion ever is- sued by the United States Government was the report of the Wilkes expedi- tion to the South Seas and around the world. which was accompanied by famous naturalists. The publication was limited to an edition of 100 copies, which was never finished. It cost $242.4S0. exclusive of the expenses of the expedition. Eighteen volumes quarto and eleven folio. with atlases and maps, were finished up to 1861, when Congress refused to give any more money for the work.
 The most extensive history Is that of Gibbon, covering the events of the world for 1.20o years.
 The largest history ever published is "the War of the Rebellion" issued by the United States in 120 octave volumes of 1000 pages each. with a gigantic atlas in thirty parts. The books Oc- cupy thirty feet of shelf room and weigh one quarter of a ton. The series, limited to 11,000 sets. was in course of publication for over twenty years. Each volume cost an average of $235,00
 The most extensive local history is H. V. Bancrofts series of twenry-four volumes, devoted to the Pacific coast States and countries.
 Queen Victoria had the largest bound book ever made. It is eighteen inches thick and weighs sixty-three pounds. It contains the jubilee addresses of congratulation.
 Eggs.
 The most valuable eggs in the world are those of the great aux, Or gare fowl. Only sixty-eight are known to be in existence. and a single one has sold for $500. America has two of these eggs. Edward Bidwell has photograph ed sixty-four out of the sixty-six Flu ropean specimens, Ind obtain repre- sentations of some of them from sev- eral points of view, to better display their peculiar markings. No two of these eggs are exactly alike, and many vary to a remarkable extent. Skins of the great aux are still more costly than the eggs. The one in the Natural His tory museum in Central Park, New York, cost $650 in 1870. Ugly and un- gainly as he may appear in the eyes of some the great aux with his oplshdid plumage, must have been in life a magnificent sea fowl. There is some thing pathetic in the aspect of blrd so powerless to escape from or resist the assaults of man. and whose flesh and eggs afford such irresistible spoil. Driven to isolated and remote skerries, deprived of the power of flight-a pe- culiarity paralleled only by the Pen- guins of the Southern seas--laying but one solitary egg in the. year, there Is little wonder the garefoWl should have rapidly become extinct when once it's favorite haunts had been discovered, which. unluckily for it. lay not far le- moved from the teeming fishing grounds. Yet, although it outliVed it's epoch, and would be reckoned stupid in comparison with it's more alert wing ed congeners, it need not be commis- erated on it's inability to fly, for no bird was ever more admirably suited to it's environment. Awkward on land, and scarcely able to shuttle along with out falling, remove him to his proper sphere, the ocean waste, and what transformation scene ensues. The ian guage of the poet, the Oarage of his wings" acquires a new significance, for these hitherto useless members be- nnWerfnl na6dlaS naftlO aidlnD the strokes of his broad Hanged feet to drive him through the surgiEg hil- lows. It Is on record, moreover, that his diving powers were lit,le short of marvellous; small chance indeed, would any finny deniZen of the deep have to escape that arrowy pursuit and elude his powerful beak.