The Covington star. (Covington, Ga.) 1874-1902, November 25, 1885, Image 1

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ANDERSON Sc WALLIS, Proprietors ((£ren This Shall Pass Anay.” Cnee iu Persia reijjned a king Who upon his s gnet ling Grave l a maxim true and wise, Which, if held before hs eyes, Gave him counsel at n glance pit for ever , change and chance. Solemn words, and these are they n pveil this shall pass away.” Trains ol camels through the sand Brought him gems from Snmarcaudj Fleets of galleys through the seas Brought him pearls to match with these. But he counted not his gain Treasures ol the mine or main; ‘•What is wealth?” the king weult “Even this shall pass away." In the revels of his court, At the zenith of the sport, When the palms of all his guests Burned with clapping at his jesta^ He, amid his figs and wine, Cried : ‘ Oh, loving frieuds of mini Pleasure comes, hut not to stufj “Even this s. ell pas* away.” Fighting on n furious field, Once a javelin pierced his shield. Soldiers, with a lou 1 lament, Bore him bleeding to his tent. Groaning from his tortured side, “Pain is hard to boar,” he cried, “But with patience, day by day. Even this shall pa~s away.” Towering in the public square, Twenty cuoits in the air, Rose bis statue carved in stone. Then the king, disguised, unknown, i Stood before his sculptured name, Musing meekly, “VVImt is tame? Fame is but a slow decay— Even this shall pass away.” Struck with palsy, sere and old, Waiting at tlie Gates of Gold, Said lie, with his dying breath, “Life is done, but what is death?" Then, i“ answer to the king, Fell a sunbeam oil his ring, Showing by a heavenly lay, “Even tins shall puss awuy.” — Indianapolis JVews. “PAPA IS DRIVING.” I arrived at the station at the ap¬ pointed hour. I entered or rather was thrown by an attendant into the tar nearest to me. The door was quickly shut The whistle was blown and we were off. Curiously enough, the car was crowded. I formed the fifth passenger. Two of the corners were occupied, one by an officer and the other by a civilain. Faeing me was a woman, about thirty years old, neatly and modestly dressed, and beside her sat the most beautiful little child I ever saw_a little girl about six years old, with a flood of blond curls waving under her immense straw hat. Now and then the child would look through the window in the direction of the engine, and then her eyes seemed to wander in the infinite space that was unrolling itself before her. We came to a station. The train stopped. The little girl put her face to the window. “1 don’t see him.” she said to the lady beside her. “I Unn’r cou rim n , r .„„ SlK ,, T/ , . Th „ aoLhn face brier) t i iv ZTn or:r:\ ' f 11 ? b ih *J T llpS gWith, Came “ down u P°n 16 hands that came from the exte nor a nd we replaced the frame , o he opened wmdow. “Ah, papa! , neighbor i n with P T the , eXCla exuberant ‘ med and m y inno- llttle ; n joy of of her six years. t w as the engineer of our train, daughter !"V at and 001116 his wife, t0 s P eak to his little who were, seat m rent of me. We are going very last,” said the WC ™ au ' e must make up for lost time, replied the man. ' “Were you afraid ; ’ ea ’’-No:’ ° ne J ’ said the child, “because I 1 Knew that you were driving.” ! ‘Well, by-by,” said the man, as be pft ! '%-by. papa,” said the child, throw ing herself into his arms. The train started and gradually reached an extraordinary speed. I worship children, and I began to ex amine the little one in front of me. She was full of life and good humor. She amused herself with everything and nothing, cajoling with her mother, inquisitive with the window' severe with her doll She was carrying on a thousand different conversations all at once, and with a noise that was al most deafening, when suddenly the gentleman in the other corner exclaim “Decidedly , we are going too fast. he train wili surely run off the track.” “Oh, don’t be be afraid,” said the child seriously; “papa is driving.” The officer was reading. lie looked °ut of the window, and then resumed his reading without making any obser¬ vation. The other gentleman again began to talk. “This is certainly madness,” said ha Yes, madam,” he continued, address >ag the lady, “your husband is either drunk or crazy.” “Oh, sir,” said the lady, “my bus hand never gets drunk. You saw him a littte while ago. Certainly, the irtin is going at a furious rate. I d on’t fluUe uadeisUad. it,” ®lie Comnoton Star. COVINGTON, GEORGIA, WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 25. 1885. , The Officer closed his book and stretched himself along the seat. “I would advise you to do the same,” said he, with the greatest coolness. _ ‘-Lt you keep seated, your legs will be smashed. Remember the Versailles accident.” Certainly the train was running at a terrifying rate. What in the world could the engineer mean by such driv¬ ing. “I am afraid!” said the citizen, white with terror. Then the officer took me aside. “Here is my name and address,” said hft “If am killed or mo'rtally wound¬ ed in the accident to which we are running, and you escape, promise me now that you will carry these dis¬ patches without a moment's delay to the General whose name you wlU find by opening this envelope.” promised. The woman took the chid in her arms and covered her little face with tears and kisses. She seemed to wish to make a rampart of herself to protect the little one against the frightful smash-up that was momentarily ex pected. “I am not afraid,” said the child, smiling, • papa is driving.” And she alone among the passengers of the ear, and doubtless she alone among all on board the train, had faith and conli dence. We could hear in the other cars cries of terror and wailings of dispair, and, in spite of the mother, the child leaned out of the window in the back door and shouted out with all the force of its little lungs; “Don’t be afraid; papa is driving.’ Ah ! that sweet little girl, in the general terror, was a tower of strength with that sa cred love of a child for a father—an affection that nothing can break down, Gradually the train slowed and then came to a standstill. We were at a station. The engineer came to the door. “We have been going very fast.” said he, “but at all hazards we must get to Reims before the Prussians. That we must do at the risk of being blown up or smashed to pieces on the way. I’m told we are carying impor tant dispatches,” and he looked at his little girl with tears in his eyes. “Give me your hand,” said the of Acer. “You are a brave fellow. It is 1 who have the dispatches,” “En route l” then saiJ tbe tbe maD - an<1 he gave a parting glance at the fair form of his child as if to bid her farewell, But Jeanne was not afraid; and more over . nobody in our compartment was afraid any longer. We knew that we were risking our lives for our country, and that satisfied us. As for the train, it recommenced its furious race, This was in the month of Septem ber, 1870, on the Eastern line.-Cowr tier des Etats Unis. Shark-Fishing . ... in in Iceland. The U3Ual shark ' Gahmg 3eason of Iceland i3 fromJanuar r orFebuary tiU AugUSt DUriDg ^ WiQter months the sharks frequent shallow waterSi and are found about 20 miles from laad> ia 5 0 fathoms of water or thereabout9; in summer they seek deeper waters, and are caught 100 • ile8 o£E the ast, in a depth ol or so CO 200 fathoms. A hook, 12 to 18 inches long, baited with horse-flesh and seal blabber, weighted with an eight pound sinker and attached by a couple 0 f yarda 0 f strong chain to a 11-inch , ine> is used , an d is allowed to hang motionless about a couple of fathoms £rom tbe bottom. As soon a3 the ahark is drawn up to the surface, har poons and lances are struck into it, an d the spinal column is cut. Large hookg are flxe d into the body and chaing passed ruU nd it, and thus se cured it is cut open and the liver re moved The livers are brought ashore nn d stored in vats till the solid matters have se ttled to the bottom; the more fll|id portion is then melted in iron tg over an ope n fire. By this pro cegs jjver yields about two-thirds jtg bulk of a coar3 e, dark-colored oil. Q£ late years refiniug by steam has come int o use> and the liver is melted fregb ag poss j b le. By this means a ag obtained, Bghter-colored oil is bu t the yield is less. The crew of ves selg ^gaged j a shark-fishing are paid about 55s , a mon th, with a premium of ^ per barrel of liver; the captain gets 2s. 3d. per barrel on the first hun died barrels of the season’s catch, and 4d p er barrel on the remainder. To Cure Stooping Shoulders. Dio Lewis ifl his “Nuggets” advises the stoop-shouldered that he doesn't believe in shoulder braces, Nature furnishes the needed braces to keep the shoulders in position; and when you use the artificial these natural ones become weak for want of exercise. The beat way to cure stooping s ou ders is to carry a weight ou the e.i a half hour morning and evening. Make the weight large, There is no other single exercise so valuable as carrying weiuM on the head. A a < bag of sand weighing i- v .ritwen y qjfcW}' fiSWi® IfcAlPS* , Millions of Marbles. A few days ago, at, the office of the Custom Surveyor, a Minute reporter picked up an item which excited his curiosity. He was told that Charles Mayer & Co. paid about $150 duty on marbles imported from Germany. “An invoice of marbles,” said the leporter, “on which the duty amounts to that much, certainly must contain enough of these play-things to keep all the boys in the United States busy for some time.” “Well,” said Mr. Mueller, Deputy Custom-house Surveytr, “you count for yourself. The invoice sists of sixty cases, each case ing 1,000 gross of marbles.” Taking in consideration the differ e nce in the size of the marbles, that each case was said to contain 125(00 o marbles, this would make the entire inyoicQ consist of about g 000 000 or enough to give each school boy in the United States at least a marble or two. But as the firm referred to is not supposed to control the entire trade in marbles of the United States, the boys are entitled to a more liberal supply. If the stock just imported were held for the Indianapolis boys, a division would result in each boy getting about 750 marbles. It is not probable, however, that this supply would last much longer than the doz en or two of marbles which the aver age boy now manages to get away with each season, Marbles belong to a class of play things which cannot very easily be broken or otherwise destroyed, still disappear in a somewhat mysterious manner, and of the 8,000,000 which have just come across the ocean, forin ing a bulky, but not very valuable car go of one of our large ocean steamers. not many will be left in a year from now and a new supply will have to be ordered from Steinach, in Thuringia, where nearly ali the marbles come from. Steinach is in the Sonneburg District the principal industry of which is the manufacture of toys, mar bles being one of the main articles pro¬ duced. The trade distinguishes be tween two classes of marbles, the glass marble, which is the prettiest and most expensive article, themar bles with a porcelain finish and a painted surface, and the common stone marble. The glass marbles, ! SO me of which show very handsome designs, are produced in the glass works, while the other are made from the stone which has been ground into dust .—^Indianapolis Minute. A Mill Horror Recalled. January 10, 1860, the city of Law¬ rence, Massachusetts was smitten by a disaster which carried agony and death into scores of homes, and sent a t,,ri11 of s >' m P ath / tic h ^ror through the land. About o o clock , in the after n oon the operatives i in the Pemberton Mills felt swaying of the floors and the machinery began to run irregular / Before, however, the dreadful fact hat the buildiDg wa3 faffing could be thjul realized> the walls were bursti apartf the floors falling, and ratUi * looms and human beings were gwaIlo ed in a terrible phin ge of dgath> The first those in the lower gt . orieg knew of the catastrophe was a crasbino . through of the machinery them from the floor3 above . There wa3 n0 time , no way to escape. The building then caught fire, and gcores o£ wre tcbed, wounded beings o'! wgre burned t0 de ath. Hundreds citizens we re on the scene immediately ftfter the fa!]j and a n worked heroic ally> j^d all the fire engines in the city ’ gd on floods of water, but it was gometime be f 0 re the flames ware ex tinguisbed> an d all the injured could not be go t out of the building until tb e following day. Over one hundred p ersons were killed, and some three hundred others were more or less in j U red.— Inter-Ocean. a. no,,, Babj's F.c Doe stories are always in order, pro J A gentleman in specimen one « «»« TZTm of tl.c epaniel b,«d, ,vbicb 1, ot children, and .ten aDy visit his master’s house constitutes . t himself their companion, playmate and gua . A few days J lady with a ‘ . t 4 ago a o£lh| gentleman i, and in ‘ , day the chikl was on ‘ the floor to amtis > f or a ^ time, The dog took his place near fie i ^ usual. The day wasAmt a. d one, as the flies bail, aud the) lll < u e ,e the target of frequent attacks. T - rendered her restless. Doggie wa ed her for a few minutes, and then walking close up, with his nust oi drove away every fly as soon as paw ft baby’s face, and did it sc lit on the the irently too as not to disturb her in The dog’s actions attracted tht least mother ,md others attention of the who were filled •" jth fistiuusiiuient a' bis thoughtful Kindness This story has the merit of truth.— Chrofti 1 ^- A SULTAN’S DAILY LIFE. Manner in Which the Turk, ish Ruler Passes Time. A Sovereign Whose Food is Always Tasted by His Mother. The Sultan is accustomed to rise at an early hour, and after he leaves his seraglio and has eaten a slight break¬ fast—at times he only drinks a cup of black coffee—his secretaries bring him the portfolios containing the tele¬ grams, official correspondence, and re¬ ports which are ready tor Ins perusal, this occupation lasts till noon, when the dejeuner a la fourchette, which is generally the chief meal of the day, is served. If a visitor happens to have the honor of lunching with the Sultan, his Majesty will perhaps show him af¬ terward in person some of the sights of the park and gardens, of which he is very proud. There are aviaries of rare birds; the unrivalled collection of pigeons; the well-stocked menagerie; the stables containing nearly 200 hor¬ ses, some of which are presents from the Emperors of Russia, Germany, Austria, and the Prince of Wales; the great riding-school in which the* Circassian guards are accustomed to exhibit their prowess and feats of horsemanship; the lake on which the Sultan’s little daughters row them¬ selves in tiny caiques, to the great de¬ light of their father; and now and then some highly privileged gue9t is even permitted to witness a musical performance by the Sultan’s children in a miniature theatre provided for the purpose. At A o’clock the secretaries take away the papers and unfinished corres¬ pondence, for at that hour his Majesty generally puts spurs on his patent leather boots, and mounts his horse for a ride in the park. Sometimes he takes his gun (he has a fine collection of the best arms that Purdey, Holland, and Lancaster can produce), and shoots the wild fowl which decoys at¬ tract to the various lakes in abund¬ ance, or at a series of marks fixed at the side of the paths. If he does not care to ride, he drives in a pony-car¬ riage along the roads which traverse the grounds. His Majesty generally returns to the palace before seven, and it is at the dinner which now takes place that he receives his moat hon¬ ored guests. The service is strictly a la Basse; the table is covered with gold and silver candelabra and mas¬ sive epergnes filled with the choicest fruits and flowers. At the head of the table sits the Sultan in a large gilt chair, and behind him stands through¬ out the meal one of his interpreters. The cuisine is admirable and al¬ though Abdul Hamid only drinks wa¬ ter himself, wines of tbe most costly vintages are offered to those who share his hospitality. Through his interpreter his Majesty address s some remarks to each of his visitors in suc cession, and as a sign of special favor he will often help a lady sitting near him to water, salt, or fruit. The splendid band of the Imperial Guard plays during dinner, and the well trained Turkish servants who glide noiselessly about the room W3ar scar¬ let liveries and heavy gold epauletts. If there is any fault to be found in so magnificent an entertainment, it is that the viands are somewhat cold. The uninitiated would attribute this to the insufficient warming of the gold plate; but those who are behind the scenes of life in an Eastern palace know that every dish must, as a pre cautionary measure, be previously tast ed by the Talkie Ilanem the Sultana dowager—the venerable widow of Ab dul Medjid, to whom her son is devot edly attached, and who regards this particular duty in the light of a con genial labor of love, As soon as dessert . is . served - the .. Sul- q i tan rises and , quits ih. the rnnm room «ith with th» the — U any gentleman p * 1 Mm U, Mo. ■*, well ■ «.«» »«'“• dining- room is Inmietad ,3lire ,re.iante-chamber, cigaret passed tes , coffee, and rose-water are round. A conjurer, a amous singer, or a young tiger may possibly be in troduced for the entertainment of the guests The tiger somtimes proves a . i itl Ie restive, but it is never old , enough to do any real harm, and its antics and the terror they occasion are source 0 f much amusement Be- j ^ ^ the imperial carriages have I a ’ re adv conveyed the visitois back to ' again busy and V be Sultan i» big sect etarie>, and long after hg is till occupied in set .. knot£y po f jnts of internal admin dic ating cipher messages to < transla his _ envoys reading a { newspapere arti e /u understands o^Jy Majesty a ! cles • the last pondering over owin' IS cjmmimicatipa from Berlin 1 or Lon ion, c< nsidermiFtbe beT means of making matters smooth with “lit. ^ tie Said” at the Porte, or answering with diplomatic prudence some per plexing demand from a foreign Am bassador. It is often one o’clock be¬ fore he quits his post, and a few will be inclined to dispute his claim to be, at the present moment, one of the most hard-working and painstaking sover eigns in Europe.— London World. A Noted Duelist. Baron de Seu Malta, a Sicilian and a noted duellist, has fought forty duels, but in none of them has he been the challenger. It is told of him that dur ing a heated political canvass, in the course of a discussion in a public square with a first cousin, the latter called him by some opprobious epithet, The baron replied,— “You are a coward!” The cousin answered,— “Will you repeat that in five min¬ utes ?” “Assuredly.” The cousin went home and returned with a revolver in his hand. The bar¬ on went up to him and said,— “Guiseppe, seejierel. That revolver don’t suit your hand; the stock w«a never made for yon; for the life of you, you could not use the pistol.” As he ceased to speak he spit in his cousin’s face. The suddenness and strangeness of his speech and attack bewildered the cousin that he neither said nor did anything. The baron spit in his face again. Friends inter feered. The cousin challenged the baron On the eve of the duel, the baron’s aunt, who knew what an expert swordsman he was, begged him to spare her son’s life. He replied,— “Guiseppe shall return from the field without even a scratch.” The duel rook place. The cousin attacked furiously. The baron only parried. At last he turned his head and looked at his seconds, until his adversary became so weak that he could no longer hold his sword, when the seconds interfered and ended the duel. At an other time he was chal¬ lenged by the best broad-swordsman in Sicily, while he himself was not skil¬ ful with his weapon. The broad¬ sword was selected by the seconds. On the field the baron took his sword in both hands and rushed upon his ad¬ versary, using the weapon as if it were a club. His adversary retreated. They were put in positions again. The baron disarmed his adversary. A third time they were put in posi¬ tion; at the first pass the baron’s sword broke within eight inches of the hilt; his adversary kept on; the seconds did not interfere. The baron became furi¬ ous, rushed on his adversary, wounded him; then turned en he seconds and wounded every oi e of them, begin¬ ning with his own. An Eskimo Illumination. Lieutenent Schwatka says iu St. Nicholas: The first snow of the win¬ ter does not make good sf long snow blocks for the igloos, however deep it may £ad> and f rom f b e time there is enough of it, the Eskimo oiten have (Q wid( . £b ree or four weeks before it is fit for building. As it gets too cold in their summer sealskin tents before this time comes, the Datives generally build preliminary houses of ice, which singular as it may seem, are much warmer than the tents, but not as comfortable as the houses of snow. when the ice has formed to about six inehes ia thickness on some lake close by ^ £bey cu£ ou£ their big slabs of ice £or £be g j des o£ the house. Imagine an ort |inary-sized house-door to be a s i abo { ice a i )ou t six inches thick; then lake a half-dozen of these doors, and and then place them in a circle, join¬ ing them edge to edge, but leaning in slightly, and you will have formed your curious house of ice. Over this circular pen of ice—which you can imitate on a small scale with 1 a circular -i row of t upright . , . dominoes . , on e 8U, “ m0r sealskin Tt tent “ is lashed rota or. ..a Ic. hou,. I. coKpl.t. By and b, th,a “W”* „a and a dome dl.now put on, which glve s more height and consequently mor e comfort. Before these houses get covered in- j side with the black soot from the burning lamps, and before the snow outside has drifted up level with the rooft a nig , lt scene in a village of ice, and especially if the village be a large 0 ne and all the lamps be burning brill ianUV) is 0 ne of the prettiest views a stranger can find in that desolate land. If you could behold a village of cabins suddenly transformed into houses of gla3S> an d filled with Turning lamps, I it might represent an Eskimo ice vil li8ge a t night ---——- ! Waking Dp. j Parson:—“H ither drowsy weather this, Fayger Jones.” Farmer J.:—“Aye, Parson, so it b®; minds one o’ sermon time, don't jt?’ Punch. , VOL. XII. NO 2. - dOSSING A YOKE OF OXEN. - An Exciting Reminiscence of Life on the Farm. I Plowing Stumpy Ground Among Snakes and Yellow Jackets. When my memory goes hack to the good old days of “whoa-haw Buck,” ! 1 cannot help instinctively rubbing 1 sbin3 Tbe fir jt thin S 1 ever boss - j 0<J turo was a S e a o£ yoke n 1 of oxen, invested At the with ma - was a ,ar g 9 whi P. ornamented with a keen cl ' acker . and informed that I might ! shape the course of old Buck and Bright while our hired man guided the plow. I was young and inexperi¬ enced, and entered upon my new du¬ ties wi h a zeal well nigh amounting to enthusiasm, but at the end of the first half day, when 1 started for din¬ ner with the bark nearly all off the front part of my legs, and 4,000 splin .ers in the bottom of my feet, I felt hat a change had come over the happy scene, and was willing, in considera tion of some slight recompense to re¬ sign iny position of honor and trust, and accept a more humble and less re sp nsible office, where I would not be held to answer for everything that happened to the hired man. Oxen, w'hen drawing the plow in and that has not yet yielded to the gentle influences of civilization, are apt to pause occasionally for the pur¬ pose of meditating upon the good they are doing. They generally pause just at the moment the plow gets stuck against a stump, and when the hired man, who has been walking leisurely along after the team thinking about getting married, overtakes the plow and attempts to shove it right ahead with his stomach, the sky generally becomes a shade more azure, and the superincumbent atmosphere reeks with the fumes of overdone brimstone. At such a moment, the boy who Is driving steers needs great presence of mind. Unless he is quick and firm, be is liable to be slapped over before he can detract the attention of the hired man from himself to the steers. An experienced boy, as soon as he ob¬ serves that the hired man has been successful in driving the plow through the stump, will have a great deal of trouble with the whip in trying to bring them to right, in a way that will render it dangerous for the hired man to get very close to him. The chances are that he will get interested in the oxen, and confer upon them the favors he seemed about to shower up¬ on the boy. There were a few other small issues liable to crop out in the course of driving a yoke of oxen across a field of stumpy ground. One of them was the premature awakening of the snake that had lain dormant during the winter. As the plow shear rolled them up and then w'ound them around the bare legs of the hired man, lie of¬ ten expressed himself in a way that made me doubt his Christianity, and I always noticed that he did not beam upon me so graciously at such mo¬ ments as he did when the patriotic note of the dinner horn was wafted to ! is from the house. ' There was another experience, how- , ever, that sometimes fell to our lot. ! It was to ruthlessly break in upon the j domestic harmony and blissful repose | of a den of yellow-jackets. -1 am afraid [ my readers never saw a yellow-jacket, ! so I will inform them right here that it is a sort of a small, yellow wasp that can sting a few bars and then go right back and repeat fortissimo, The yellow-jackets always build their nests in the immediate vicinity of a small stump, and the hired man never found out that he had disturbed them until the plow was effectually set against the stump, when he bent all his energies to pull it out while the oxen were hpn bending ,„ n „ all all their thpir energies pnpr „ ip , to puli nnl , it it in, in j ^ .. n , ., 1P vp i l(iw i ai .k P u iv«rn working j - hired man, while a boy about my size „„ catrJlng „„ ,„ rgl „ frum „„ tral , , urp ,ui„ g . The oxen daall, broke the chain bmad them p,p„. „„j made their way t0 a place where they could stand in water something more thaQ knee deep, and that ended the work of that particular day, the rest of wbich was devoted to cremating the yellow-jackets’ nest-Blooming ton Through Mail. j One of the Original Members. “Do you belong to the Toboggan Club, Mr. Smith ? asked a little boy of a Saratoga resident who was sitting with the family on the porch of the Grand Union, enjoying the scene on the street below. • ‘‘Oh, yes,” Mr. Smith repl : ed, “I am one of the original members of the ■ club.” “I’d jest like to see you riding once,* went on the httle^boy enthusiastically.' “Ma says she neVer saw a ui3n o () down hill ps fast as you can .—New York iSuft, SCIENTIFIC SCRAPS. A prize has been offered by the Anti-Tobacco Society of Franco for the best essay on the liability or non¬ liability of smokers to contract chol ers M. Aime Girard, after careful ex¬ amination of the composition and ali¬ mentary value of the different por¬ tions of a grain of wheat, concludes that it i8 advisable to reject, as far as possible, the outer layers and reserve the farinaceous portions only foi hu¬ man food. Admiral de Jonquieres.of theFrench navy, has called attention to a remark¬ able phenomenon which may be wit¬ nessed at Papeete, in the Society is. lands. At this point there is hut one tide a day instead of the two which occur at other places on the sea. A microscopist, Mr. Spencer Moore, has shown that, the bacteria which produce or accompany “sweating of the feet” are identical with those pro¬ ducing chemical action in the soil. In the latter situation they reduce the sulphates to sulphites, and the phos¬ phates to phosphites, and in both situ¬ ations are instrumental in setting free ammonia. Lyeil estimated that the gorge of Niagara river was cut out in about 35,000 years, but surveys to determine the present recession of the falls indi¬ cate that the work may have been done in 10,000 years. During forty one years the average annual wear of the rock was 2 3-4 feet. Analyses have shown that the fallen h ave.s of maple contain four per cent, of valuable matter (soda, potash, lime magnesia, phosphorous and sulphur compounds), and poplar and willow five per cent, or more, and that conse¬ quently the trees constantly manure the surface soil beneath their branch¬ es. Other leaves examined contained about two per cent, of fertilizing sub¬ stances. Lieut. J. P. Finley, of the United States Signal Service, has found that the West is not, as is popularly sup¬ posed, the peculiar home of the tor¬ nado in the United States, such storms being much more frequent in the South. Of the 180 tornadoes which occurred last year within the bounda¬ ries of the Union, only 59 visited the Western States and Territories, while the Southern States had 105. The Western gales are, however, usually more severe and destructive than those of other localities. Caste in India. Caste, like a terrible nightmare, is firmly fastened upon the social life of India. It is not easy for a stranger to understand it. During a severe famine a man with his wife and child to a missionary for help. They had come from a distance and thin and pinched with hunger. was at once brought, but, hun¬ as they were, they could.not touch The child was on the ground for and eating the raw rice was scattered about the door. being given them, they corn to cook it, but devoured it be it was half done. They would lose caste by eating food jvrepared any one not of their grade. There four principal castes. The brali or priests, are the highest, consider it beneath them to labor, tend cattle or to milk a cow would be pollution. Formerly if a low-caste person touched them (even by acci dent) they could kill him on the spot with impunity. The people yield to them as superiors as a matter of course. A high-caste man came into a meeting, a whole bench was vacated, the occupants taking seats on the fl 00 r. The natives usually travel third-class on the rail way. These cars are so crowded there is 3 no r room °°“ to sif t. f This has a , tendency to , break , . mi i to drink. A high 8 caste man drlak water brooght employing b? „ o( clste . „y enpplf.d. a „.c„t, man ail can he .It on their while he pours the water into a made by their hands, from which drink without touching the Sometimes a low-caste man employ one of a higher-caste. latter does not eat with his eni but cooks and eats by himself. high-caste man will not drink water ^ 0 ______ g . .. belonging . , to a. each . caste lives by n eir v ages 1- ac 43 1 8 own s °P S ’ or Below the ^ regular castes are sou cases lose w o ave >ro _ en ver some rejected °f T* by n ®“ their 8 . rest sect, nctions. and are pariahs. There are manv sub among these. CooUes or job are often of this class. Off lines of railway they are employed traai *P°rt passengers.— Watchman Befip.to'-.