Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1908-09-24
SOMETHING FOR EVERYBODY

dress.
A large Baptist church at Santa
Rosa. Cal, was built from the wood Of
a single California redwood tree.
Fireworks were originated in the
thirteenth century by the Florentines,
and later were popularized in Rome.
The estimated worlds production of
lead in 1907 was 964,91O metric tons,
as compared with 96S,174 tons in 1906.
The 350,OoO.0Oo-odd tons of coal min
ed in the United States each year, If
piled together, would make a cube hav-
ing sides ia yards long.
Rejected by the British War Office,
an arial torpedo, the invention of a
Swedish artillery officer, has been pur-
chased by the German army.
The sale of land reclaimed by the
Federal reclamation service is expected
more than to repay the S6O,OoO,O00 ex-
pended to date by the Government.
Tobacco was successfully grown I'M
der government supervision in Ireland
last year; but as the crop has not yet
been marketed, the financial result will
not be known for some time.
A louisiana man has invented a ma
chine for measuring and recording the
measurements of lumber. Planks pass
ed through it engage a roller attached
to a registering device on the side.
French scientists are studying a pc
culiar movement Of the sands along
the northern coasts of France, Bel
GUM and Holland. A fine sand orig
mating on the coast of Normandy has
been found as far away as Denmark.
Experiments are being made in
Europe with microphone for the dis
covery of the presence of shoals OF
fish. The instrument is sunk into the
water, and the constant tapping of the
fish against it as they pass warns the
fishermen.
After lying buried for three centu-
rieS. a firkin containing one hundred
weight Of butter has been dug up in
Fallagherane bog, County Tyrone, Ire
land. by farmer The hoops and
slaves of the firkin. which was twelve
feet under ground, collapsed when lift
ed up, but the butter. of pale yellow
color, is in a perfect state of preserve
ton.
About three hundred specimens of
the SteinbOk are under protection on
the southern slope of Monte Rosa, but,
apart from that, the animal is nearly
extinct in the Alps. 1t breeds slowly,
and the efforts of the government in
its behalf have helped little. In two
places private herds have lately been
established, and it is hoped thus to
prevent the extinction of the steinbok.
Many excellent voices are ruined,
according to n communica ton which
DR.. Weiss has made to the French
Academic de Medicine, by practicing
in too small a room. A public singer
must throw every intonation of his
voice a distance of thirty or forty
yards, he says, but a student practicing
in q small room is only able TO throw
it a yard or two, and the consequence
is that the voice, instead of expanding.
becomes telescoped.
Labiche. the French dramatist, was
once asked to support as a candidate
for the academy a certain literary
mendicant, but he hesitated for a long
time, and yielded only when he was
told that if the ambitious author
should fail to be elected he would die
of it. Failure, nevertheless, did come,
and the following year, when a sec
ond vacancy occurred, Labiche's vote
was once more solicited in the mans be-
half. NO" shouted Labiche in vehe-
ment Indignation, II will not vote for
q man who does not keep his word. He
did not die"
William Redmond, the Irish leader
in the British House of Commons, re-
Gently in a genial mood and in play
full allusion to the titles of nobility
and knighthood recently conferred, ask
ed whether, "as a matter of general
convenience and in order that honor
able members might know how to adj
dress their colleagues with becoming
respect, 1t could be arranged that hon
Orable gentlemen who had Joined tne
titled classes should wear rosettes for
at least one month after the confer
ment of the title" No minister was
bold enough to answer.
Australia. the land of odditis, ami
NAL, vegetable and mineral, has few
more curious creatures than the giant
cranes-often five and six feet in
height, with beautiful blue-gray plum
age-which are called native compan-
ions These huge birds mate for life,
and, as mates, are singularly and
touchingly devoted to one another
Among their practices, that of dancing
together. Is the most remarkable To
and fro and up and down, beneath a
scraggy tree near creek or water
hole a pair of these curious birds may
be seen in the hour of dawn footing it
gravely in sort of grotesque minuet
The death of Ira D. Sankey recalls
the story told by him to a Tribune re-
porter many years ago to illustrate the
the fact that some people are beyond
the power of the evangelist and remain
unmoved in the presence of the great
est demonstration. "A newspaper man
told me-" Sankcy said, that he had
sneaked in at the great women's meet
ing which we held in Madison Square
Garden, from which we endeavored to
exclude all men. He got into the top
gallery, and from there looked down.
and was enthusiastic in his description
of the ten thousand women singing and
waving handkerchiefs in unison, l
asked him. what impressed him most
at the meeting, and the reporter said,
Seeing ten thousand bonnets, and no
two alike New York Tribune.
The term sublime porte" which
has stood so long for the center OF
the ruling power in Turkey, is merely
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