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How They Make Stetl Pens. A French paper, Chronique Indmtrv- elle, tells how the great steel | en manu factories turn out these useful little ar ticles. Yet, after all the work of min ing, reducing, and tempering the metal, and its many'manipulations, *9 recorded h< re, how cheap they are, and how dear they would be but for the great aid that machinery gives to the hand of man 1 The steel used comes to the factory in sheets about two feet long by one foot three inches wide, and 0.004 inch thick. They are cut into bands of dif-. ferent widths, according to the dimen sions of tbe pen required, the most usual widths being two, two and a half, and three inches. The bands are then heated in an iron box, and annealed, when they are passed on to the rolls and reduced to the desired thickness of the finished pen, thus being transformed into ribbons of great delicacy, about four feet long. The blanks are then stamped out from the ribbons by a punching machine, tool of which has the form of the pen required. The blanks leave the die at the lower part of the machine, and fall into a drawer, with the points already formed. They are then punched with the small hole, which terminates the slit, and prevents it from extending, and afterward raised to a cherry-red heat in sheet-iron boxes. The blanks are then curved between two dies, the concave one fixed, and the convex brought down upon it by mechanism. The pens, now finished as regards their form, are hardened by being plunged, hot, into oil, when they are as brittle as glass. After cleansing by being placed in a revolving barrel with sawdust, they are tempered in a hollow cylinder of sheet-iron, which revolves over a coke fire after the manner of a coffee roaster. The cylinder is open at one end, and while it is being turned, a workman throws in twenty-five gross of pens at a time, and watches care fully the effect of the heat on the color of the pens. When they assume a fine blue tint, he pours the pens ore, a large metal basin, separating them one from another, to facilitate the cooling. After this process, which re quires great skill and experience, comes the polishing, which is affected in receptacles containing a mixture of fine sand and hydrochloric acid, and made to revolve. This operation lasts twenty-four hours, and gives the pens a steel-gray tint. The end of the pens between the hole and the point, i- then ground with an emery wheel in 'volving very rapidly. There only rmnains to split the pens, which most important operation, being by a kind of shears. The de is fixed, and the upper mes down, with a rapid motion, slightly below the edge of the fixed blade. To give perfect smoothness to the slit, and at the same time make the pens bright, they are subjected to the operation of burnishing by being placed in a revolving barrel almost entirely filled with boxwood sawdust. Carlyle’s Religion. He was a Calvinist without the the- Wogy. He had been bred in a Calvin- ^tic home, and was by nature firmly and ardently religious. His conviction was intense as to the broad fact of the Divine government of the universe and as to tbe Divine origin of a moral law—the right reading of which was essential to human welfare, the reve lation of which lay through experi enced fact—and generally as to the spiritual truth of religion. He flung away the whole of miracle and the supernatural; it is as certain as math ematics, he said, that no such thing ever has been or can be. The natural was far more truly wonderful than the supernatural, aud all historical relig- were bona fide human efforts to lain human duty. On the other , he rejected scepticism as to and wrong, and as to man’s re- to his Maker. He rejeot- materialistic theory of at intellect is a phenomenon at conscience is the growth nvenience ; he would have say to utilitarian ethics. It sary to pursue this into fur- It is the Christian relig- theology, miracles and arlyle said that the ed his real convio- bottom of all his man’s doings hlch he was r day, lug. It oother Valuable Clips from Demorest. A Cureall. Dr. .iseuiav, » French physician, is now in this country with a remedy for most of tbe ills to which flesh is heir. Disease, according to him, is due to the presence in the body of morbific germs. Kill those germs, he says, and you cure the disease. Hence he recommends the use of phinic acid, a preparation of pure carbolic acid. Dr. Durant, of New York, cured Edwin Booth of a dangerous tongue malady with pure carbolic acid. It is soon seen what value Dr. Declat's phinic acid will have in curing dis ease, for physicians are now every where testing it. The Dead of China. Jn view of the myriads of human beings which have lived in China from time immemorial, scientists say that every ounce of soil must have passed through the bodies of human beings in that empire not only once but hundreds of times. .China is a densely populated country and its records are very, very ancient. If all born were still alive they would cover the country completely and extend miles into the air. It is a suggestive idea that the soil of every populous country must represent the m> riacis of animated beings who once lived and loved. A Novel Cure for Smallpox. A boat which was conveying sixteen Chinamen sick with the smallpox, to an hospital in San Francisco Bay, suddenly upset. The Chinamen were thoroughly drenched in cold salt water, and it was a full hour before they could be placed in comfortable quarters. The physicians and attend ants of course supposed that they would all die, but to every one’s aston ishment they all got well. If China men with the smallpox are cured by the application of cold salt water, may it not show that the previous treat ment was all wrong. The people of San Francisco would very willingly dump all Chinamen, sick and well, into the bay, and would not cry much if they never got out of the water. Eleotrio Light Stook. The speculative craze of the day in England and America is in the stock of electric light companies. In Lon don alone over $10,000,000 has been invested in this manner, and the shares of electric light companies in this country must represent double that amount of money. It was always thus. Every invention intended to benefit tbe race is at first neglected and then over appreciated. When railways became popular in England the shares reached fabulous figures. The first successful cables represented high values, and now there is an over estimation of the value of electric lights, yet undoubtedly in large cities they are destined to replace gas and will return handsome profits on money legitimately invested. Hydrophobia. Three physicians of Milan, Italy, declare they have discovered a cure for hydrophobia. So confident are they that if a pecuniary reward is offered sufficiently large, one of them will allow himself to be bitten by a dog in the presence of witnesses so as to test the value of the antidote. They ask that a fund shall be raised to test this important matter publicly. In the meantime an \merican physician declares that he has successfully treated hydrophobia by giving medi cines which brought on profuse per spiration. There ought to be prizes for antidotes to maladies which are dangerous or are usually considered incurable. Hydrophobia is the result of specific poisoning and there should be some way of neutralizing the virus. Tree Planting. 93,000 acres of land have been planted with trees in KanSfts under a new law relating to arboriculture. This is done to supply wool to the future generation, and, if possible, to increase the moisture of the atmos phere. This example ought to be followed very extensively, for, since the country was settled, the waste of woodlands has been enormous. Im mense sections of the earth’s surfaoe are barren to day, because of the re moval of the ancient forests, and the drought and freshets of this country are, in a great part, due to the same cause. Every farmer and land-owner should regard it as a duty he owes to his country and posterity to plant more trees than he outs down. Then every municipality, every State, and the nation Bhould oombine to enoour- age tree-growing, and to oheok the reckless cutting down of wood. Antiquity of the Amerloan Man. How long has man been on this planet? i? a question often asked, but the answer is always unsatisfac tory, The remains of implements and articles used by human beings have been found in strata hundreds of thou sands of years old. Ages must have passed since the savage man first emerged from a semi-brute condition. Mr. Wlgglm, of Waverly, New Jersey, found on the top of the Alleghany mountains in Perry County, Penna., a piece of metamorphic limestone upon which was cleaTly visible tbe print of the right foot of a human being. Tbe impression is about au inch deep and shows the five toes and the perfectly formed fiot of a man. This piece of stone has been sent to tbe Smithsonian institution. The rock is of great an tiquity and must have antedated the oldest memorials of Egpyt. It cer tainly is the earliest trace of man in America. Mysterious Tracks in Stone. The discovery of tracks in the quarry at the State Prison at Carson, Nev., created quite a flutter among the local scientists, and brought up several emi nent gentlemen from California to examine them critically. Dr. Hark- ness brought materials for taking pho tographs, and also traces of them on canvas showing their direction and mutual relations. They will be poured full of plaster of Paris and exact casta made of them. Professor LeConte, of the State University of California, spent some time in examining the tracks, and he informs the Reno Ga zelle that, while they are very inter esting, they teach nothing new. There are the tracks of the mammoth and another track which he thinks is that of a man. He says some persons are entirely convinced that they are hu man, but he is more cautious. While he believes them to be sd, still there are doubts. The track is so large, be ing nearly twenty inches, that it sterns impossible that any human being ever' lived with a foot capable of making such an imprint. If it was a foot it was wrapped up in something soft and pliable, or wore a sandle of some sort. The peculiar outline of tbe human foot is distinct. The curved outride, the heel bending inward, the broad ball and wide front, with the inward curve at the hollow on the inside of the foot, are still there. The Professor says he looked carefully to see if it could be Ihe footprint of a bear or some other animal, but found no marks of claws or toes, which would be part of a bear track. He tried to imagine an animal which stepped with his hind foot into the track of its fore foot and made Buch an impression, but he found nothing to indicate it. Being a|ked if it might be a foot wrapped in bark or skins as a defence against cold he thought not, because if it were cold the mud would be frezen and there would have been no impression. It could hardly be that the foot was wrapped to keep the body from pressing it into the mud, as snow-shoes are worn, for then the out line of the foot would not be preserved. On the whole the human track is a puzzle. One tning remarkable about it is tbe distance between the linesaof the tracks made by the right and left foot (the straddle), which is about eighteen inches. The length of the stride is that of a common man, being less than three feet, but the size of the foot and the distance between them were those of a giant. -It will be con sidered carefully by men of science, and no doubt more light will come. The track of the mammoth is about Buch a one as would be made by the one in Prof. Ward’s collection, now on exhibition in San Francisco. The professor thinks the prints were prob ably made in the soft mud on the bank, perhaps near the mouth of a river, and soon after a spring flood came down and spread a layer of sand on them, which was followed in years by the large deposit which became the rock now seen there. The profes sor assigns the tracks to a period at least as far back as the glacial epoch, and thinks perhaps they belong to the pliocene. There seems to be no grea significance In the fact of finding hu man tracks (if they are human) with those of the mammoth, because it has been long known that man appeared on earth before the mammoth became extinct. Still the discovery is very interesting to science, and may lead to important results. It may beBaidof the “belle of the ball,” that when she bows an assent to an invitation to dance, “she stoops to concur.” It is said Mr. Slssendorf always trembles when his wife sings in ohuroh with prayerful earnestness, “Oh 1 for a thousand tongues.” Cangenlal Friends. A irhort Story With a Moral. Simpkins hail been out over night at a little party, and this morning did not feel exsctly up to (he store. Per ceiving a tendency in the wife of his bosom to be huffy about tbe ten o’clock breakfast, ami ostentatious in her man- n* r of displaying the holes in the heels of the children’s stockings, he took his hat and went un to “Maliuda’s.” Malinda is one of those blessed spirits who make tolerable the thorny track of life to tbe men whose tender natures suffer from the coldness and uncon geniality of their spouses. “Ah, Jaggars, you’re a man to be envied, your wife is one in a thou sand.” * Jaggars, who was down on his knees hunting the baby’s stockings out of tbe pile of dirty clothes in the bot tom of the china closet, assented blandly. “Things are as bad as ever up at your house, I suppose, George?” said Malinda, pausing in her perusal of the afflictions of Alticidora Multiflora, or The Bold Buccaneers of Bussora. “Worse,” groaned George, “they’re beastly, they’re ferocious, they’re hor rid ; that woman has no more concep tions of the art of amusing or enter taining a woman than a—a, ichthyo saurus.” “It’s plain to be seen,” responded Malinda, soothingly, “that if you ever do enjoy youself it will have to be aw&v from her.” The entrance of Mrs. Simpkins, who came over to borrow some yeast cakes, interrupted the seance, and Simpkins, deprived of his opportunity to bask in the sunshine of sympathy, went oft - to the store. That night when Simpkins entered his parlor he started back in horror. A cold sweat broke out on his marble brow, and bis slim shanks trembled beneath him. Had pademo- nium broken loose, or was he bewitch ed. He backed helplessly out of the hall and looked at the number—242. All right. He must be sick, and this sight which met his eyes was the phantasmagoria of a violent fever. The neat Brussels carpet, the pictures, the statuettes, the piano, where were they? This was what he saw: A sanded fleor, two deal tables, three eucher decks, a checker board, a billiard table, lemons,sugar, and a demijohn, flanked with tall glasses, and Pickens, and Bostwick, and Warren, and Wilson, and saints above, it was the pretty bar maid from the “ Cove’s Retreat, or the Sailor’s Delight,” up street. ‘Come in, come in! said Pitkins, waving his hand hospitably, “free blow, won t cost you nothin’.” “Jolly feller, Simpkins’s wife,” said Bostwick, approvingly, “love her like a brother a’ready ; no, like a sister, I mean ; no, that ain’t It either; hanj? it what is it I do mean, anyhow ?” “Have some tonic, ol’ feller?” hic coughed Warren , “you’re welcome to an’thing thre’s ; no stinginess ’round here.” “Wish you well,” said Wilson, bow ing with immense gravity ; “wish you well, friend, whoever you are ; no mat ter what’s your ’ligion or politics, I wish you well.” The pretty bar maid smiled malic iously; she had Mrs. Simpkins best lace tie in her pocket. “ No need to go out in the cold to seek congenial society now, Mr. Simp kins, you’ve got the spice of life at home.” It took two policemen three hours to clear that house, and cost twenty- five dollars to get the tobacco spit cleaned up from the floor and repaper tbe walls, and it was half-past eleven before Mrs. Simpkins could remove from the door of her room the bureau, the baby’B crib, the coal scuttle, and the slop jar, with which she had barri caded herself and her precious darlings from the congenial friends of the part ner of her bosom. When the boys in tbe streets shout “congenial spirits” after Simpkins now it makes him mad. Mrs. Browning s Marriage. “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship” was written in twelve days by the invalid. It contained several allusions to liv ing poets; and among others, to Mr. Robert Browning, whose “Bells and Pomegranates” was referred to in these lines: Or from Browning Home "Pomegranates" which, If cut deeply down the middle, Show a heart within hlood-tlnotured of a veined humanity. Pleased with this compliment, the poet called upon El’zabeth Barrett, in order to have an opportunity of thank ing her personally. Fate oftentimes takes the shape of accident. The poet* ess was never at home save to a few intimate friend*, and a new servant, who opened tbe door for Mr. Brown ing, mistaking him for one of these, unhesitatingly ushered him into the invalid’s room, where they met for the first time. Previously, when she had finished that magnificent poem, “The Dead Pan,” which teaches us strange mysteries of melodies, and flows fervent, free and pure, like, a great crystal stream clown the swift sweet current of sound into the vast voiceful sea of profound thought, Eliz abeth Barrett sent the manuscript to a friend, in order to have his criticism, who in turn showed it to Robert Browning. The poet was much im pressed by it, and wrote a letter to his friend full of enthusiastic appreciation which found its way into Elizabeth Barrett’s hands. This incident no doubt [caved the way to a friendship between them which afterward result ed in one of the happiest of unions. This part of her life’s story reads more like fiction than fact, but fiction were colorless beside such reality. Mr. Barrett refused his consent to bis daughter’s marriage. Shv - as his favorite, the object of his pric•* *s well as his love ; he it was who 1. <ped to form her mind, and store it v. ith the riches it contained ; he could uot en dure the idea of a severance. Alto gether the idea of her union was pain ful to him, and from the day of her marriage to the end of her life he re fused to be reconciled to her, notwith standing her appeals to h1s affection. However, she now loved in her thir- ty-niuth year, and for the first (ime, and fora conception of the great depth and sublime fervor of this new affec tion which broke over her still life, and suddenly woke her to a nobler conception of humanity, to a clearer vision of that subtle soul-power which binds heart to heart, we have only to turn to those most glorious “S mneta from the Portuguese.” In these we see and feel that her heart has over flown from very force of its happiness, and has broken out in rapturous songs which chain us with the unbreakable and unbroken spell of deepest har mony, tremulous with all the glow and fire of ardent and pure affection, flesh as morning, sublime and sweet as the direct aspirations of a mind rapt and overwhelmed by the first ecstasy of virgin love, and full of a music never before equalled, never since exeelled. Perhaps there are no two lines in the English or any other language which with such simplicity and force express so much as these : 1 $ laid tbe grave for tby sake,and exchange My near sweet view ol heaven for earth with And they help to show us and make us comprehend, as far as rve are capa< ble, the new spirit which awoke in her. Two years after her interview with Mr. Browning, Elizabeth Barrett w as literally assisted from her couch and married to the poet, and immedia- ately after tbe ceremony^hey depart ed for Italy. “Our plans were made up at the last, and in the utmost haste and agitation, precipitated beyond all intention,” she writes to a friend ; and further adds: “Perhaps it has struck you that a woman might act more generously than to repay a generous attachment with such a questionable gift and possible burden as that of un certain health and broken spirits; to which I can only say that I have been overcome in generosity as in all else, though not without a long struggle in this specific case; also there was the experience that all my maladies come from without, and the hope that, if unprovoked by Euglish winters, they would cease to come at all. The mild ness of the last exceptional winter has left me to hope everything from Italy ; so you see how it all ended.” Nothing Stale in These. No matter how good natured a man may be, he will Invariably get mad when he discovers that there is no towel in the room, and is compelled to dry his face on the bed quilt. Grammatics!. Remember, though box in tbe plural makes boxes, Tbe plural cf ox should be oxen, not oxea; And remember, though fleeoe In tbe plural la HeeoeB, Tbe plural ol goose Is not gooses nor geeses; And remember, though bouse In the plural Is houses, The plural ol mouse abould be mloe, aud not mouses, Mouse, It Is true, In the plural Is mloe, But tbe plural of bouse should be houses, uot hloe; And loot, it Is true, lu tbe plural Is feet, But tbe plural of root should be roots, and uot reet. “It resembles a walk in the open air on a Sunday morning,” is the tribute of a Berlin crltio to Longfellow’s po etry. Why Mr. Longfellow’s best ef forts are like going to get shaved is not so plain iu this country.