Crawfordville democrat. (Crawfordville, Ga.) 1881-1893, January 16, 1891, Image 6
Twilight Tales. Woods, fields and hill are clothed In gray. The twilight mists arise— A sim.de golden-pointed ray Eights up the western skies, And hienlh the shadow of the hill, Where spreads the forest, dark and still, A fairy-kingdom lies. The shadows hold for me a spelt A perfect witchery— The echo of the vesper troll Still sounds from tree to free, And voices that are low and sweet From every darkened nook rejieat A tale of love to me. Some voices tell the tale in rhyme, And o’er it reeiiu to fall The echo id tin vesper cliimes Bometlmcs a word is all. A single nano a whisper low Tell* ail the story, and I know Alone to me they call. I dare not penetrate the shade. Hut stand within the plain— While comes from that enchanted made. The musics! refrain. The voices vanish at Ihe day, Hot when the mists rise cold and gray, The tales are told again. — [Klavel Scott Mines, in the hedger. IN THE JAWS OF DEATHi “Were you ever in Hie jaws of death ?” Inspector McLaughlin of the Brook¬ lyn police stared at Ihe speaker in sur¬ prise, and then the smile on Ids feature* broadened into a positive grin as he answered, “I was once almost in the jaws of a shark, and they were beyond • doubt ‘jaws of death’ for any living thing that passed their portals.” “Will you please detail the eireum •tnnee* of your escape?” “Certainty. Outlie !tth day of De¬ cember, 1362, orders were received for the One Hundred and Seventy third New York Infantry, in which I vm second lieutenant, to start for the seat of war. We embarked in the transport steamer Continental, and was soon oil our way out to sea. The weather was cold and blustery. Our ing (lie night of the 12th inst. there was a heavy rain storm, and as I was pacing the dock in the morning 1 bap pened to notice, m the steamer rose and fell in the trough of the sea. water gleaming in the bottom of one of the lifeboats, as it swung to and fro on the davits just above tho steamer’s gunwale. “The thought flashed across my mind that it was rain water, and I ini mediately made preparation to indulge in the luxury of a soft-water butli, in which I was already enjoying myself in anticipation I mourned the gun Wafc st' j mncr. j|» 40k w*«; hands and prepared to i wash inv face, I leaned further for tvd wit.i my breast against the* life¬ boat. The steamer lurched suddenly and the lifeboat swung outward, and I, going with it, was thrown off my feet nml fell headlong into (tic sea. “The s'enmer being without a car¬ go was very high out of the water* •nd I falling from a considerable height plunged deeply into the sea. This, however, proved mv salvation, •a otherwise 1 should have infallibly been drawn into the propeller ami cut to pieces. \s 1 rose toward the sur¬ face. which I thought 1 would never Teach, 1 e mill hear the roar of tin* waters churned into foam bv the action of the propeller. When 1 fin¬ ally arrived at tho surface the steamer was about two hundred yards ahead of me. and dashing along at tho rate of twelve knots an hour. Flie crow i threw overboard a heterogeneous mass of objects, of which I managed to grasp a soap-box. •* *Mau overboard!'cried the watch, ■nd instantly all on board ship was turmoil and confusion. Of course* I every one on board thought the captain would instantly order the ship to be put about and the boats lowered ; but no. There was. lie said. ■ storm brewing, and to attempt such a tuaioeuvrr in the fa<v of it would In¬ to expose the steamer to aim »( certain destruction. “M\ captain, Holbrook, demanded that the ship In* turned back, aud at the same moment a private named O'Connor, in company with somo of the o.hcr men. stepped up to the pilot, pre-i'iUed a loaded nin-ket at his head, sap lug : 'Stfij'! her headway or 1 will blow your brains out,’ and the pilot allowed himself to be persuaded, l sometimes think, however, that that musket had something to do with the pilot'- piiesoenee. It was impossi¬ ble on account of the sea then running to put the ship 1110111. When her headway w-s finally stopped, she be¬ ing then st lea-t two miles ahead of me, *h« an to back water. "W ion they had arrived at the snot where they thought 1 Mss. they began to lower s boat, and tin* *iu>u in their e*gorn**-s, clumsily lowered one end of the bout more quickly than the other. The*consequence was that lie boat began to fill, a id catuc near sink. iog. This necessitated another dc.a> to b*i] cot. ■an'fl-tn Ihe meantime 1 was ill E DEMOCRAT, CE AW FORD VALLE, GEORGIA. "STJlz the marrow of my bones. My heavy uniform was water-soaked, and seemed to drag mo down. ‘•I had on heavy military boots, but had endeavored to divest myself of them, and had managed to get one half off. This filled with water, and rendered my position still more critical by keeling me over on one side, I was fast wearing out and tried to rest myself by bearing on the box, which, of course, sank and floated some yards out of my reach, I dipping beneath the wave*. I secured possession of the box again with some difficulty. The incident was repeated several times. “Suddenly, when almost overcome ! with 1 heard a sharp, whizzing coma, noise in the water, and to my horror I perceived a shark greedily eyeing me. lie swam nearer and nearer, swimming | leisurely around me in ever-decreasing circles, sure of his prey, and unwilling to jeopardize himself with an undue participation. I bail read in my child. hood tlmt those vultures of the sea could be kept off by noise; so every time lie got too close I splashed with desperate vigor, and he sheered off a little. “I wa* becoming exhausted, and, being paralyzed with cold, was about to surrender, thinking it was only a matter of time when 1 made u meal for him, when I heard a far-off bail from over the water. I turned to answer it, but was too weak and the husky murmur of my voice was swallowed up in the roar of the waters. Afar off* I saw the lifeboat, m the how of which was tho before mentioned and ever-beloved O’Connor. Suddenly ho shrieked out something and the men rowed eagerly in the di¬ rection in which he was pointing. Suddenly he bent over and picked up iny hat, which a wavo had washed froin my head. "As 1 saw this 1 groaned in an igo ny of despair, thinking they would naturally come to the conclusion that I was drowned. O’Connor, soldier and sailor, was made of bettor stulI, how ever, and again he scanned the sea anxiously, ll uli/.ing that it was my lust chance I waved my hands and shouted desperately. He saw me and instantly tho boat, was headed in my direction, This gave me new hope and with it came new streng.h to fight oil the hark, which was now in very dangerous pro^mity. .. . . ___, turn over >n In* back preparatory to making tin) fatal rush. 11c seemingly could not make up his iniml until the boat came alongside, and then lie was the sixteenth of a second too late, and as he leaned out of the water his steel jaws snapped In bullied rage as 1 wag drawn unconscious almost out, of his mouth. The boat’s crew say he fol¬ lowed the boat in its course toward the. ship and one of Ihe men had to fight him off with an oar. As it was, he very nearly capsized tho boat."—[New York World. Where Big Boulders Came From. Wherever the glaciers melted, they left an immense amount of “drift,”— thut is, gaud, gravel, and stones of ull sorts, which had been frozen in the ice when the glaciers were forming. The stones of the drift are of all sizes. Some are as small as pebbles, others as large ns small houses. There is one at Bradford, Massachusetts, which measures thirty feet each way, and weighs four and a half million pounds. There is another oil a ledge in Vermont which is even larger than that, and which must have been car¬ ried Gy the ice across a valley lying live hundred feet below where the stone now is, showing the ice was five hundred feet thick. Great boulders of trap-rock extend through Connecticut on a line running to Long Island Sound; and as some of the same kind arc found in Long Island, the glacier is believed to have crossed the Sound, carrying these rocks with it. An immense s'at no of Peter the Great, in St. Petersburg, stands on one of these glacier boulders of solid granite, which weighs three million pounds. One of the largest boulders in America is in the Indian village of Mohegmi, near Montville, Connecticut. The Indians cali the rock “Sliohegan.” Its top, which is fiat and as large as the floor of a good sized room, is reached by a ladder. Sometime* these bouUlers are found perched upon hare ledges of rock, so nicely balanced that, though of great weight they may be rocked by tie hand. They are called “rocking stones. - ’ Near the little Connecticut village of Noauk, on Long Island Sound, there is an immense boulder, called hv the people there "Jemimy's Pulpit.” It was formerly a rocking etone, but the rock has worn away be p,w p and it l 8 u uo longer Im? moved, —’St Nicholas. “blind knowledge. ” ^ The Remarkable Powers of Four Sightless People. They Tell Color by Touch and Easily Describe Strangers. A remarkable story of “blind knowledge” was told to a Pittsburg correspondent of the New York Son by an oil man who is operating in the U en Virginia petroleum fields. “Between Pone Town arid Statler’s ^ live ! {un four I>ostoflk,: blind ’ in persons—George, Monongalia county, Ma linda, Elizabeth and Beulah Tennant who can do sonic of the m Jst wonder¬ ful things 1 ever heard of. George can toll the color and breed of a horse or cow by feeling its hair; can thenze and complexion of a man af.er he has talked to him a few min »" s, describe his features quite area rafely and tell his age. This man was born blind, but he works on hi* farm inueij the same a* il he could see, ’ m i even drives , to mill with . his grain, h 9 distance of about a mile. “1 r|M he gn-ls , are less remarkable no J hey are known, either personally by reputation to everybody in Mm,on galia and Marion counties as ‘the ... blind , girls.’ . , , They „„ live in . modest a two-story brick farm house, where their parents lived before (hem. They go about their household duties much as other women do, sewing, cooking washing dishes, gpinning-for tie .Id fashioned wheel has not yet altogether disappeared from West Virginia—am* baking. Infant, they do everything necessary for their own comfort, and help some in the hilly fields of the homestead farm which was willed to them by their father. “George is married and lives with his wife and three bright-eyed dren, who can see as well as yotVcan, on one end of the farm. One. sister, who is not blind, stays most of the time with the three blie” girls. Their father was .a weli-to-do farmer and stock drover, considered wealthy by his simple neighbors, and lie sent them blind children away to school. They can and do read and write quite ree li ly, which is more than many of their neighbors with good eyes can do. Al together Noah Tennant and his wifu had ten children, half of whom wcj born blind. George was the first, . xt on • could see. Maiinda, ihe oldp -c-s-qZ i t*- blind gin-' was Born '"next, and the next was i»»y with good eyes, and so on—-every oilier clrld was born blind. One blind boy, Edward, died \ when lie was a young man. “Naturally I was very skeptical about the stories I heard of 'the blind girls’ and their brother George, and so wore my fellow oil men. However, they were vouched for by the most responsible people at Maiinington and Fairview, and one day five of us rode out onto Jake’s Hun to gee them our selves. We knew they had already leased their lands to Charley Ford, and the leases were held liy the South Penn Oil Company, but we thought an effort to buy their royalty would bo excuse enough to introduce us, and possibly we might get the royalty, too, which by recent developments about l air view, looks valuable. I was riding a tine Kentucky saddle horse, sorrel, which, though a fine saddler, was a •kicker’ in harness. One of my com¬ panions bestrode a bay Hambletonian. The others were riding livery horses of mongrel breed, one a gray, one chestnut brown, and one a sorrel. "We stopped first at George’s house, and he came out to the road to talk to us. We talked business for some time, | and then approached the subject of his j blindness, He didn't consider it very great misfortune, ns he was still ; able to work and enjoy life, ‘•Some one suggested he could not have the pleasure of knowing how things looked, but he said he had a mental vision and could tell colors hy touch, lie first passed his hand over the flank of mv horse and a little wav 1 down his leg. then went to his head i and rubbed his nose, ‘d'his horse’! said lie. *is a Kenlnekv sorrel, and is a 1 little vicious, He kicks sometimes.' j We were stupefied. He happened next 1 to get hold of the other sorrel, and at once toid its color, but said it was no , particular breed. We ail felt the two animals as he did. and could all detect a difference in the breed, but none of us could detect any similarity to indi j i cite the color. lie pronounced cor rectiy on ail of our horses, and then I turned his attention to ourselves, tell } ing us low wc looked, He was so accurate that we looked all around for j a confederate, but there was none, ! He explained that his parents ha 1 de j scribed people to Iiim and his blind i -isters and they came to detect differ ! cnees in tone, and breathing, and so on¬ “We then went to the brick house, * when the three blind women lived, and, as it was near dinner time, we begged to stay for dinner. I tell you it was astonishing to see those blind women getting dinner, setting the table, and all that. They were a lit¬ tle slow in their movements, and had a kind of gliding motion, keeping their j feet close to the floor and evidently on I the lookout for chance obstructions. They got us a very good dinner, and L we were greatly edified and enter Fy ned while disp08ing of it. They kjuamtances , li(1 they could easilv recogllize a c by the sound of their voices, even though they had not met several yea „ at a time, and could their intimates by touch. It ; the most remarkable family I ever ! ieard of. I have heard of the acute¬ i ness of the senses of touch, hearing, ! md smell of blind persons before, but neyer would havc be j ie ved they the color of ail animal if I ^ ^ udonc> „ vv> heard manv olliel remarkable about G Tennant’s powers, ,;. M , d tud if his wife wag ev ei. j* vM,tly \ ill ... t by her . breathing, , . . though ,, . o-, bought so ,. little 4a , of - .. it herself , ir to . I complaint. . . TT He could . , also , de- , i ,v- no t ai , y gHght lllaem of his sisters or ; „ds the same way. He could tell o£ hfa ( . hil(]ren from the other8 by rely touching . . . a finger .. s to ... the rosy e> k. You can verify these etate tfentg by reference to any resident of > place in that section.” Furious Hens’ Nests. That tho hen ha8 a tastc for the ^ n i qao in nest hunting is evidenced h y the many curious places she finds which to depo8 it eggs, Certain f of 0(ll . s wotlId always come into hou8( , to ]a) . f ag if they feared they nId l!lld profeetion nowhere else so vdl . There ig often wisdom in the , oice> or why does the hen go t0 tho a<h . hcap in tl ,e corner of an out-kitclr •H. and after scratching herself a nice little hollow, leave her eggs there?— ty>r the same reason that, troubled \ti v h verm!u, she destroys the parasites il?; wallowing in ashes. How wise, t|’en, to hatch her little ones, sweet X :jVI clean, and free from such added res t , hirken8 pe ttc d love the house, ;i . , ta ,. ( advantage of every open p, Once a large, long-legged I poster brought a timid pullet to the ......... t0 !ay hei . lirgt egg . n 0 coaxed ilc into the kitchen, step by step, ’ 1fclsJkj s f i- with- beak olid laws made a cosey’ nest among a pile of shavings, then, jumping out, “clnt, clnt, chitted,” as if he was urg¬ ing her to test the softness of the nest, an 1 then, while she was trying it, he 8t ,,. od j,er to the end, aud was as p ,., ud a8 8 | 1C was over the new-laid egg. the lien seeks {generally, however, her he own nest without help from liege lord, and he seems content to let havc her own way; so it is reason .ib; to suppose that our aforesaid timid pullet 1ms expressed tier fears to the rooster, her nat ural protector, and that he responded gallantly. AVe had a hen that, laid in the oven of an old tin¬ plate stove, as if she sought warmth for the birdies to come. Another nested in a cast-oil dinner pot; another in baby's cradle; another in ihe folds of a man’s coat; and, most comical of all was the lieu who us. d to go each day into a bedroom and,leave an egg on the soft, pluuip. newly’ made bed. When she got reatly to sit her mistress made her a Hi. f) straw nest in a box under the bed* 1 very egg hatched, as if in reward tor’ll * kindness. Frequently among th< humble people our lowly friends are made almost companions of; and they love back, and thrive according It always pays to treat with kind ness the dependent creatures around as —.[New York Tribune. Southern Phosphate Beds. At is well known, phosphates are veryy’xtensively used in this country and Europe in the manufacture of Hundreds of thousands of on * i are l: ‘ ed au,,niU1 -V* and the de ,u# b* * s >«>' casing. The most valu¬ able deposits in this country have Keen the beds in South Caroliana, but the talnietro state has found a new eoniji titor in Florida, where the vast deposits are richer and extend from Tal u ,0 ,>eare Ulver ’ about fift y miles south of Tampa, a distance of over hrce hundred miles, and with a so far as developed, of from fitly miles. [Chicago Herald, Care of Shoes. Th.re will be few persous who will ever ike t ie trouble, as they ought, to ire* out their shoes when not in n«e, po matter how costly they are. The text best thing, which also costs a h it* trouble is to button up a fine shoe Wien putting it aside in order to 1 e upper from getting out of i. ,She*, and Leather Reporter. SCIENTIFIC SCRAPS. Sulphate of copper is recommended for keeping posts and timber from de¬ cay. As an instance of the wonderful fe¬ cundity of vegetable life, it is stated that a si gle tobacco plant will pro¬ duce 360,000 seeds. No doubt exists as to the fact that many deep-sea animals do emit light, though the precise nature of the mechanism for its emission is not al¬ ways certain. Spraying fruit trees for destruction of insects, and of the fungus growths which produce mildew and rot, is to be more generally practiced another season than ever before. The Academic dcs Sciences has sub¬ mitted a new system of musical nota¬ tion in which 27 characters replace the 203 symbols now employed to represent the seven notes of the gamut : n the seven keys. The largest river of each of the con¬ tinents, including Australia, is: Eu¬ rope, the Volga: Asia, the Yetteisy; Africa, the Nile: North America, the Mississippi (including the Missouri), and South America, the Amazon and Beni. According to Weismann, every char¬ acter possessed by every animal is clue to the preservation in the struggle for life of minute accidental variations in the molecular structure of germplasm, which alone has adapted every being to its environment. The danger of infection from im¬ pure water is said to be only slightly reduced by filtration through sand, bacteria passing through at ail times, but in larger numbers just after the filter has becu cleaned and again aftst it has been used for some lima. Popular Science Monthly alludes to the belief of somo that as man in the savage stale has, for Hie most part, been largely, if not wholly, carnivor¬ ous, he will, with the progress ol civilization,become entirely vegetarian or use only tho products of animals, as eggs and milk, with vegetable food. Bones are necessarily more or less heavy structures, but liic bones of most birds, while their solid substance is exceedingly strong, are wonderful¬ ly lightened by the details of their ar¬ rangement, and still more by the fact that most of them contain not marrow but warm (and therefore light) air. S\j ii.Fi f r i- tv,, packing -TiT birds that the parts that grind the food and act as teeth are placed, not in the jaws, but in the center of the body— in the gizzard. These parts consist of small stones, which most birds swal¬ low for this purpose—all those, that is, which feed on grain and other sub¬ stances that require grinding. The most complex e animal tissues is the brain. The fibres of one single optic nerve have been counted under a microscope to the number of about 3o0,000. The number in the brain must therefore be immense. So with regard to cells; they are count¬ less. No method of science has been able to count the cells in a single square quarter of an inch of the outside cov¬ ering of the brain. Auituias and His Deaf Father. Dnn‘1 was the biggest liar in town and Dan’l always appealed to his father to verify his fearful yarns. DariTs father was old, a little deaf, and belonged to the Methodist Church. It was not'to be supposed that the old gentleman would indorse lies, aud thus the neighbors concluded. But here is how Dan’l got around his poor old dad. ‘-Went down ter t’ brook yesterday,” Dan’l would relate. “Caught tew hundred and four pk-k ’ril. say, didn’t 1 dad?’’ And the old man. benignant! t listening, would hear “four” and meekly reply, “Yes, Dan’l.” Then the able liar would edge around “back to” his father, and with the edge of his baud measure ofl the length of his arm before tiie eyes of his astonished guest. “Caught one pick Til, a whopper, longen that, say, warn’t lie, dad?” The old man would gaze upon the six inches of scrawny wrist and forearm as wily Dan’l whirled and measured tor his benefit, and humbly but firmly assert, “Yis, my son, sU'd say as how he was sum mat longer."—[Lewiston (Me.) Jour¬ nal. First Settler*. < f Virginia. Dr. Stephen B. Weeks of Johns Hopkins University. Baitimo e, has made a special study of the eaily Vir¬ ginia settlements under Sir Walter Raleigh. He maintains that it can be shown by legendary and historical evi¬ dence that the car.ie-r Ehiglisli settlers in the New World were not massacred, as is generally supposed, but were ab¬ sorbed by the tribes of Croatau In¬ dians. and that their descendants are stiff to be found in Nor;h Carolina. —[Boston Cultivator. Cutting a Bottle in Two with Twine. The other night, while sitting with gome friends in the clubhouse, 1 no¬ ticed a young man at a table near its, apparently tired of waiting for the waiter, strike the neck of the wine bottle a sharp, quick stroke will; Ins knife in such a manner that the bottle was broken squarely off just below tho cork as neatly and cleanly as it it bad been cut oft' with a diamond. “That was very well done,’’remark¬ ed one of my friends, ‘-but did you ever see a method some sailors have for opening a bottle of wine? Several years ago, when the Grand Duke Alexis of Russia was here, in com maud 6f a small fleet, I was invited over to visit the flagship—the Svet¬ lana—by one of the officers with whom I had become acquainted. While we were on the ship our host sent for some wine, and, learning that we never had witnessed the sailor’s method of opening it, he called ihree lusty fellows into the cabin to perform the operation. “One man held the ends of the bot¬ tle in his hands, while the second wound a piece of stout twine around it and pulled the ends violently and swiftly backward and forward, thus heating the glass by the friction. The third man then dashed some cold water upon the bottle, and the glass cracked with a snap. The man who held the two ends lifted them upright so quickly and dexterously that scarce¬ ly a drop was spilled. The bottle was converted, practically, into two glasses —one not unlike an ordinary tumbler and the other having the cork in the bottom of it.”—[New York Star. Celebrating the Elderberry. When the hitter principle in elder¬ berries is neutralized, which is very easily done, there i3 a piquancy and zest in the cooked fruit that everybody enjoys, and those who know how to proceed use the berries more and more, and even give the bush a corner in the home grounds, in order to have the fruit riper and plumper and more assured and convenient than if de¬ pendence is placed upon the wild product of the wastes, although the latter often yield enough for every¬ body, for there is no fruit that gives surer or better crop year after year. Good soil and clean increases size, and wo may expect to hear of varie¬ ties of superior quality when more at¬ tention is given to the fruit. As to -tAe- ktHeritcs^r-i^w*^ efeHDtttffffiT'lho perfected flavor, just as in the case of the finest cherries, which are bitter till fully ripe, when it is found that the bitterest then become tho most ex¬ quisite titillators of the palate nerves, after they have attained full ripeness —which cherries are seldom left to at¬ tain. Slow cooking of imperfectly ripe fruit advances the (fitter into enjoy¬ able briskness, and the method noted by Mr. Pierce of cooking partially in sugar, allowing to stand a few days, and then completing the cooking, is no doubt a very good one. But ripe elderberries cooked at ouce, with a lit¬ tle good vinegar or lemon acid and. sufficient sugar added, make a sauce or pie-filling that hardly any fruit ex¬ cels, if there is any that does.—[New York Tribune. The Shamrock of Erin. The Shamrock is, and has long been, the emblem of Ireland. The fact of its having been thus chosen is account¬ ed for as follows: St. Patrick, tute¬ lary saint of the Irish, was preaching to the rude islanders about the year 432. Somo of these had adopted the Christian faith, but the good apostle found it very difficult to render some of the dogmas of Christianity iniellig - ble to their untutored hands. This was especially true with the doctrines of the Trinity, of tin tri-une God. St. Patrick was preaching in a field, and. looking down, he spied a three-leaved Shamrock at his feet. Ho took the leaf, and holding it up to the view of iiis audience, exclaimed: “Behold a Trinity in Unity!” The islanders caught the idea, and henceforth the Shamrock was known a« the "Trinity flower.”—[Courier-Journal. Pennsylvania’s Anthracite Beds. By actual survey’ there are in the anthracite regions of Pennsylvania 472 square miles of coal. The amount of coal mined to the acre is about 60,006' tons, but the wastage is to great that well-informed owners and scientific miners assert that with careful meth¬ ods of mining, ihe product :o the acre could be increased one-half—that is to 90,000 tons. On the basi= of 75, 000 tons to the acre, an easy calcular tion will show that an annual average of 84,000,0““ tons, about the amount mined in I8t5, anl making allowance for what In- already been taken oat in the past fifty years, the coal of this anthracite legion will last 616 years— [Coitmicreia! Advertiser.