Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1905-01-25
QUEER 5ToR1E

London paid S15O,OOO,OOO on June "a
| to take over her waterworks from pri-
vate corporations. The water is held
in 122 reservoirs, and the filtration
works cover 143 acres.
The smallest island inhabited in the
world is that on which the Eddystone
| lighthouse stands, for at low water
it is only thirty feet in diameter. At
high water the base Of the lighthouse,
which has diameter Of only little
over twenty-eight feet, is completely
covered by water
Close to the shore Of Eastern river
in West Dresden, Me-, there is an APP
pie tree which has few equals. 1t
stands thirty feet high, measures ten
feet and three inches around and
spreads fifty feet. It's owner, Mr..
Ham, has gathered in some years thir-
ty bushels of apples from this tree,
which is said to be more than one
hundred years old.
Snakes may almost be said to have
glass eyes, inasmuch as their eyes
never close. They are without lids,
and each is covered with transpar-
ent scale, much resembling glass.
When the reptile casts it's outer skin,
| the eye scales come off with the rest
Of the transparent envelope out Of
which the snake slips. His CLASSY eye
scale Is SO tough that it effectually
protects the true eye from the twigs,
sharp grass and other distractions
which the snake encounters in its trav-
els, yet it is transparent enough to al
low the most perfect vision. Thus,
if the snake has not glass eye it
may, at any rate, be said to wear eye
glasses.
A Havre fsherman's wife drying
Goldfish caught by her husband on the
coast of France noticed that one fish
had hard substance inside. On in
vestigation she found in the fish a
golden bracelet. How the ornament
came into it's strange receptacle Is, Of
course, not known; but it is coniec-
tured that it must have slipped from
the wrist Of some fair passenger lean
ing over the bulwarks Of a trans-At,
lantic liner, and been seized by the
cod on reaching the water. AS the
shoals Of Goldfish have only recently
left the Newfoundland Banks and are
just beginning to make their appear
ance in French waters, it is probable
that the bracelet has traversed the
Atlantic in the fishs interior. Per.
haps it's owner will come forward to
claim it.
T.. V. Coville, in the National Geo
graphic Magazine, gives an interesting
account of how the Indians of the
desert obtain drinking water from the
barrel cactus. 1t was among the des-
ert hills west of Torres, Mexico. The
Indian cut the top from plant about
five feet high, and with blunt stake
Of palo verde pounded to pulp the
upper six or eight inches of white flesh
in the standing trunk. From this,
handful by handful, he squeezed the
water into the bowl he had made in
the top Of the trunk, throwing the dis
carded pulp on the ground. By this
process he secured two Or three quarts
of clear water, slightly salty and
slightly bitter to the taste, but Of far
better quality than some Of the water
desert traveller is occa sionally COM
PEELED to use. The Papago, dipping
this water up in his hands, drank it
with evident pleasure and said that
his people were accustomed not only
to secure their drinking water in this
way in times Of extreme drought, but
that they used it also to mix their mea5
preparatory to cooking it into bread.