The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-01-17

i to read on trains; in a hurry to be read ! as one catches a trolley car. This story | is different from that species of hop
 skip and-jump connection.
 l The scene of the story is laid in a 1 suburb of London, Brockhurst.
 An elderly scientist had foolshly mar
 ried a young beautiful girl much too 1 young for him; hence he had a hard time | of it, but did not seem to care very
 much. This wife had a twin sister, who
 while looking exactly like the young wife of the scientist, had entirely differ i ent kinds of ways. The young wife got i tired as they are said to sometimes do
 with old husbands; the other twin was i located and through a force of dramatic | circumstances the unmarried twin was i fostered off on the old scientist as his
 wife while the wife took a trip about the country in her search for fresh air" and
 a few other things. Complications natur- ] ally arose. For in this work of arrang- ] ing the scheme, also furnishing the young
 wife with money and the drug she now 1 craved, a young physician had been
 mixed up and had incidentally fallen, of l course, in love with the beautiful young | wife; which was worrying, as one can easily see. For the wife now that she ] had a chance at the aforesaid fresh l air etc, had found other more interest
 ing habitues of the fresh air than the young doctor who had helped her breathe
 better
 This above is the complication or motif, l one would say. of this novel with a thou sand-and-one ramifications.
 If one really cares for a specimen of l first class workmanship as sent forth 1 by the English writers who excel Amer l ican writers so much in that line of work, By Their Fruits will please. It is
 interesting, really all the way through
 the book.
 , But one cannot finish the book in a i sitting. A great many readers don't care
 to peruse a book at the rate of 50 miles
 an hour anyhow.
 The New York World Almanac, 1909
 The following is a very interesting | piece of data taken from the New York ! World Almanac for 1909, recently from the 1 press.
 The estimate of Prof Lester F. Ward 1 of Brown university after dividing into 1 periods tLe 72,00O.000 years, the age of the
 earth we live on, and stating that the
 age of written language is 5000 years goes 1 on to state:
 Whatever theory we may adopt as to
 the particular way in which life began. ! it is at least certain that in some way i it did begin about as soon the condi- 1 tions of the earths surface became such as to permit its existence. And we may l well accept Professor Lowells view, shared by many others, that for the orig 1 ination of life much higher temperatures
 were required than those which common | ly prevail at the present time although | after having once originated, owing to | the slow rate at which the planet cooled | it easily adapted itself to much lower tenn | peratWes.
 ''The human race is supposed to have | existed between 2oo,C0O and 10000 years | let us say one-quarter of 1,000,oo0 years. 1 It has been conscious of it's existence only 1 about 10000 years, and really alive as a l psychic being less than 5000 years. The | most that 1t has accomplished of any | value to itself has been done within 2o00 | years and it's great work within 2C0 | years. In a word, relatively speaking. | man has just begun to exist His golden 1 age as Saints Simon said is before him
 and not behind him. His history Is but l the threshold of the psychozoc age. The 1 whole of that immense period lies before ! him. The conditions of existence on this 1 earth are now at their optimum. Abund- l ance of air and water, heat and light
 great variety of surface. soil. climate, l mineral resources and all the materials l and forces of nature ready to yield to the l magic wand of science. These are no in 1 dications that these conditions will change | in an entire geologic epoch. These favor ! able conditions are certainly liable to last as long the tertiary period just | closed has lasted namely about 100000 I years'-and we have only so far used up ! about 325.00O of the 100000 coming to us 1 Great consolation that; no need for work ! at all.
 1 The World Almanac is full of Valuable l data, a book useful to the student and searcher after facts and figures. 1 "Reminiscences of a Ranchman," by Edgar Beecher Bronson (The Mo- Cure Co.,, now Doubleday, Page 6 Company.
 The book stores of this country. most