Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1904-12-29
BIOGRAPHIES OF OLD
SURPRISING BITS or INFORMATION
THEY IMPAIRED.

Contained In an eighteenth Cen
| fury Publication - Two Curiosities
That Were Located I'm France.
For score of years after geogra-
I, phies began to be introduced into the
! schools Of America they depended
I largely on the use of a globe to make
| clear the divisions of the earth. 1t
was not long, however, before nearly
every book was accompanied by an at
/ las. and this continued customary to
about 1850
Jedidiah Morse was pioneer among
American authors Of school geogra-
plies. The earliest rival to contest the
field with Morses books was small
volume of questions and answers com
piled by Nathaniel Dwight and pub
lished at Hartford in 1895. Below are
some of the curious bits of information
the volume imparts:
Q. What are the Russian funeral GER
emonies? A. They are singular. The
priest prays and sprinkles the corpse
| for eight or ten days. 1t is then bur-
| led with passport to heaven signed
| by the bishop and another clergyman,
which is put between the fingers of the
deceased, and then the people return
to the house whence they went and
drown their sorrow In intoXication.
This they commonly do for about forty
days, during which time the priest
says prayers over the grave.
Q. Are there any lakes in Scotland?
| A. There are many, but two are very
remarkable. One near Lochness is on
the top of hill almost two miles high.
| This lake is small but it has never
| been sounded, nor does it ever freeze
| About seventeen miles distant is an
other lake which is frozen all the year
| @. What are the persons and charac-
tiers of the Scots? A. They are gener-
| ally lean, rawboned and have high
cheekbones, which Is a characteristical
| feature.
@. What are the diversions Of the
| Scots? A. They are all of the vigor-
Gus. athletic kind-such as dancing,
| golf and curling. The golf is a species
of ball playing performed with a bat
and a ball, the extremity of the bat
being loaded with lead, and the party
which strikes the ball with fewest
strokes into a hole prepared for the
purpose wins the game.
Q. What are the customs and diver
customs existing in Ireland peculiar to
this country. These are their funeral
bowling and presenting Ieir corpses in
| the streets to excite lie charity of
strangers; their convivial meetings on
Sunday and dancing to bagpipes, which
are usually attended with quarreling.
q. What curiosities are there in
France? A. A fountain near Grenoble
emits fame which will burn paper,
straw, etc, but will not burn gunpow-
der. Within about eight leagues of the
same place Is an inaccessible mountain
in the form of pyramid reversed.
Q. What do you observe Of the inhab-
itants of Guinea? A. They are chiefly
| pagans and idolaters. In Ego, where
the people are governed by king who
is not absolute, when they are tired Of
him deputation waits on him and in
forms him that it is fatiguing for him
to bear the burden Of government any
longer advising him to take a rest. He
thanks them and retires to his apart
ment as if to sleep and directs his wo-
| men to strangle him, and after he ex-
pires they destroy all things which be-
longed to him or to themselves and
then kill one another. His son sue
ceeds to the government and ON the
same terms.
Q. Give concise description Of the
Giages and Annians? A. The first in
| habit a part of the Kongo coast; the
latter live in the Macao. The people
are cannibals. They kill and eat their
| firstborn children, and their friends
who die are eaten by their relations.
| The king Of Macao resides in Monsol,
where there is a market in which hu-
man flesh is sold, although other meat
exists in plenty. They esteem it lux
ury, and it is said 100 prisoners or
slaves are daily killed for the kings
table.
One geography that had a marked
individuality Of its own was a thick
little volume. mostly in verse, entitled
1.-The Monitors Instructor" published
at Wilmington in 1904. In the prose
portion of the book are several curious
paradoxes.
Here is one Of them:
Three men went on a journey In
which, though their heads travelled
twelve yards farther than their feet,
all returned alive, with their heads on.
The solution explains that IF any
person should travel round the globe
the space Travelled by his head will ex-
coed that his feet travelled" by about
the number of yards mentioned.
Cummings Geography, 1914, apollo
gizes in it's preface for adding another
Ito the number Of biographies, already
| so great as to obstruct rather than pro-
| mote improvement" During the pre-
vious decade Lewis and Clark had
made their journey across the CONT
| nent, and we now find mention Of the
"Stony mountains" 1t was a number
| of years before the name Rocky was
substituted for Stony. Concerning the
| Andes. in South America, we are told,
these amazing mountains, in compar-
ison with which the Alps are but little
hills, have assures in some places a
mile wide and deep in proportion, and
there are others that run underground
and resemble in extent a province"
Adams Geography, 1913, is divided
into three parts. The following is
from part 2:
"a mountain is vast protuberance
| Of the earth.
"The White mountains are the high