The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-06-21
SCRAP BOOK FOR TO-DAY


 Good Old Summer will arrive in these parts to-day.
 MT. SoIst1ce, who is MT. Summers advance agent, will land on the Paci- f1c Coast at about 5 p. m. and travel swiftly across the country, reaching the Atlantic little after sunset. or about by the clock. Crossing the pond, he will reach Europe early to- morrow, morning. Seven-1eague boots and wireless telegraphy haven't much on'' MT. $. Solstice in the mat ter of speed.
 Thus will the season of fans-palm- leaf, baseball and electric-be formal ly 1naugurated.
 For those who do not view the ar rival of MT. s. Solstice with any de- gree of pleasure, there is offered this pleasing and scientifically accurate statistic:
 MT. w. solstice, the advance ogent of King Winter, will to-day make the circuit of South America and other countries Of the southern hemisphere, carrying with him a large and com p1ete line of snows, frost, 'overcoats, pneumonia, wooIen underwear, coughs, colds and b1izzards. Luxur- ious liners for South America, Austra- l5a and South Africa depart at fre- quent intervals from ports on both ponds.
 A so1stice, viewed scientifically, marks the time when the sun is at it's greatest distance from the equator, and Is so called because Old Sol then appears to have tired of his job, and to be standing still. This, however, is only apparent. There are two so1stices in, each year, never less and never more. Astronomers have count ed them many times, and cannot pos sibly be mistaken. The Summer sol stice is when the sun seems to enter the tropic of Cancer, in the northern hemisphere.
 The Summer solstice marks the longest day of the year, although to- day and tomorrow will be of equal length in Canada and the extreme northern states, and there will be a difference of only about minute in the remainder of the continent.
 Among the later Americans the of- f1cial arrival of Summer attracts lit tie attention, but it used to be a, great day for the real Americans, and some Indian tribes continue to celebrate the Summer so1stice with feasts, orgies and sun dances. Most celebrated of these festivities is the Shoshoni sun dance. Around a sacred post dedf- cated to the sun the redskins danced for days, until fatigue and exposure caused them to drop in their tracks. The dancers who could persist for a stretch of seventy-two hours, without rest, became the heroes of the tribe, and nothing was too good for them.
 A literary centenary that is not without local interest, especially to Scotchmen, will be celebrated to-day in Edinburgh, marking the Tooth an- niversary of the birth in that city of William Edmonstoune Aytoun. Scot tish poet, humorist and essayist. From 1889 till his death in 1865, Aytoun was on the staff of Blackwood's Maga- zine. The work which his repu- tation as a poet principally rests is @"The Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers Originally published in Blackwood's they became inm ediate1y popular, and the collection in book form has pass ed through more than a. score of edi- tions. His humorous papers dealt principally with the foibIes and fol- lies of the day, and so have no general interest to the readers of this genera ton. Aytoun remained a bachelor until fifty, when he married Miss Kim near. Grief over the death of his mother is said to have hastened his end, which came in August. 1865.
 The first permanent settlement of the English in America was founded at Jamestown, Va, in 1907 by Capt.
 
 Pocahontas episode, who died in Lon don 282 years ago to-day, June 21. 1881. Smith, the son of a tenant far mer, was also born on the twenty-frst of June, in 1879. The remains of the founder of Virginia lie buried in St. SepuIcheres Church, Snow Hill, Lon don. That Smith had in him the ele- nnents of real leadership, and is enti- tied to rank in history as the founder of Virginia, there is little doubt. but the iconoclastic historians of the pres ent allege that he was a confirmed TO- mancer, snot to say a monumental liar, and that most of the adventures he described never happened. or did not occur in the romantic way In which he set them down for posterity. At the time of his death, which occurred on his f1fty-second birthday, Smith was contemplating History of the Sea- in which work his romantic gen. jus would doubtless have found much to r6Vel in.