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REV. DR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE’S SUN¬
DAY SERMON.
Subject: “Tough Things m the Bible.”
Tsxt : which are some thitiys harrl
to be understoo i. ”—II Peter iii., la.
The Bible is tue most coam in saus 9 book
in all the world. But there are many things
in it which require explanation. It all de¬
pends on the mood in which may‘take vou come to this
grand old took. You hold of the
handle of the sword or its sharp edge. You
may tiplication employ on its mystsries the rule of mul¬
or subtraction. There are things,
as my text suggests, hard to be understood,
but I shall solve some of thsm, hoping to leave
upon all honest-minded people the impression
that if four or five of them can be explained,
perhaps Hard they may all be explained.
thing the first: The Bible says the
world was created in six days, while geology
says it was hundreds of thousands of years
in process of building. “In the beginning.
God created the heaven and the earth.”
“In the beginning. ” There you can roll
in ten million years if you want to.
There is no particular date given—no
contest between science and revela¬
tion. Though the world may have been in
process of crea’ion for millions of years,
suddenly and quickly, and in one week, it
may have been fitted up for man’s residence.
Just as a great mansion may have been
many years in building, and yet in one week
it may be curtained and chandeliered and
cushioned and upholstered for a bride and
groom.
You are not compelled to believe that the
world was made in our six days. It may not
have bean a day of twenty-four hours, the
day spoken of in the first chanter; it may
have been God’s day, and a thousand years
with Him are as one day. “And the evening
and tee morning were the first day”—God’s
day. “And the evening and the morning
were the second dav”—God’s day. “And the
evening and the morn ug were tlie sixth day”
—God’s day. Youand i living in the seventh
day. the Sa-ibath of the world, the day of
Gospel week, redemption, the grandest day of all
the in which each day raay have been
made up of thousands of years. Can you tall
me how a man can get his mind and soul into
such a blasphemous twist as to scoff at that
first chapter of Genesis, its verses billows of
light The surging Bible up from sapphire seas of glory ?
Monday, represents that light was created
on and the sun was not created
until declaring Thursday. Just think of it! a book
that light was created three days
before the sun shone! Why don’t you
know that heat and electricity emit light
independent of the sun? Besides that, when
the earth was in process of condensation,
it was surrounded by thick vapors and tin
discharge of many volcanoes in the primary
period, and all this obscuration may hav«
hindered the light of the sun from falling o:i
•the earth until that Thursday morning.
Besides that, David Brewster and Her.schel,
the astronomer, <and all the modern men of
their class, agree in the fact that the sun is
not light, that it is an opaque mass, that it is
only the candlestick that holds the light, a
phosphorescent atmosphere floating around it,
changing and changing, so it is no; to be at
all wondered at that not until that Thurs¬
day morning its light fell on the earth. Be¬
side that, the rocks in crystalization emit
light. There is light from a thousand sur¬
faces, the alkalies, for instance. The metal
ic bases emit light. There was a tioi9 in the
history of the world when there were
thou-ands of miles Beside of liquid granite has
flaming with light. burned that, it
been 'found that there are out vol¬
canoes in other worlds which, when they
were in explosion and activity, must have
cast forth an insufferable light, throwing a
glare all over our earth. Besides that, there
are the Aurora Borealis and the Aurora An
chalis. A book on physical science says:
“Captain Bonnycastle, coming up the Gulf
of St. Lawrence on the 17th of September,
1826, was aroused by the mate of tue vessel
iu great alarm from an unusual appearance.
It was a starlight night when suddenly direction the
sky became overcast. In the of
the high land of Cornwallis County an in¬
stantaneous and intensely vivid light, re¬
sembling the aurora, shot out on
the hitherto gloomy and dark sea
on the lee bow that was so brill¬
iant it lighted everything distinctly, even
to the masthead. The light spread over the
whole sea between the two shores, and the
waves, which before had been tranquil, be¬
came agitated. Captain Bonnycastle de¬
scribes the scene as that of a olazing sheet
of awful and most brilliant light—a long and
vivid line of light that showed the face of
the high frowning and land abreast. The sky be¬
came lowering more intensely obscure.
Long, tortuous lines of light showed
immense numbers of large fish darciug about
as if in consternation. The topsail yard
and mizzen ooora were ligated by the glare,
as if gaslights had been burned directly be¬
low them, and until just before daybreak,
at 4 o’ciock, the most My minute objects were
distinctly visible.” hearers, there are
ten thousand sources ’of light besides the
light Another of the sun. The thi
hard thing: story of
deluge and Noah’s ark. They say that from
the account there must have rained eight
hundred feet of water each day in order that
it might be fifteen cubits above the hills.
They say that the ark could not have been
large enough to contain “two of every
sort,” for there would have been hun¬
dreds of thousands and hundreds of thou¬
sands of creatures. They say that those
creatures would have come from ail lands
and all zones. They say there was only one
small window in the ark, and that would nos
have given fresh air to keep the animals in¬
side the ark from suffocation. They say
that the ark finally landed on a mountain
seventeen thousand fear high. They say they
do not believe the story. Neither do I. There
is no such story in the Bible. I will tell
you what the Bible story is. I must say that
I have changed my mind in regard to some
matters which once were to me very mvs
terious. They are no more mysterious. This
is the key to the facts. This is the story of an'
eye witness, Noah, his story incorporated
afterward by Moses in the account. Noah
described the scene just as it appeared to
him. He saw the flood and he fathomed
its depth. As far as eye could reach
everything was covered up. from ho
rizon to horizon, or. as it says, “ under the
whole heaven.” He did not refer to the
Sierra Neva las or to Mount Washington, if tor it
America had not been discovered, or,
had been discovered, he could not have seen
so far off. He ;< = giving the testimony of au
eye witness. God speaks after the manner of
men when he says everything went under,
and Noah speaks after the manner of men
when he savs everything did go under. An
eve witness. There is no need of thinking
that the kangaroo leaped the ocean the ice. or that
the polar bear came down from
Why did the deluge comer It came for the
purpose of destroying the outrageous inhabit¬
ants of the then thinly probably populated earth,
nearly all the population, very near
the ark before it was launched. IV hat would
have been the use of submerging North
and South America, or Europe, or Africa.
wbea they were not inhabited? And
as to the skeptical suggestion that
in order to have the water as deep as the Bible
states.it mu=t have rained 800 feet every day,
I reply, the Bible distinctly declares that the
most of the flood rose instead of falling. Be¬
fore the account where it sirs “the wm-
dow.s the of heaven fountains were of opened," it says,
“ail the great deep
were broken up.” All geologists agree
in saying that there are caverns in the earth
filled with water, and they rushed forth, and
all the lakes and rivers forsook their bed.
The fountains of the great deep were broken
up, and then the windows of heaven were
opened. It is .a strange thing that we should be
listed to believe in this flood of the Bible,
when geologists tell us that again and again
aud again the dry earth has been drowned
out? -fust open your geology and you will
read of twenty floods. Is it not strange that
infidel scientists wanting us to believe in the
twenty floods of geological discovery,should,
as soon as wa believe in one flood of the
Bible, pronounce us non compos mentis?
Well, then, another thing, in regard to
the size of the ark. Instead of being a mud
scow, understand, as some of these sceptics magnificent would have
us it was a ship,
nearly the as large as the Great Eastern, three
times size of an ordinary man-of-war.
At the time in the world when ship¬
building was unknown, God had this
vessel constructed, which turned out
to be almost in the same proportions
as our stanchest modern vessels. After
thousands of years of experimenting in naval
architecture and in ship carpontry, we have
at last got up to Noah’s ark, that ship lead¬
ing all the fleets of the world on all the
oceans. Well, Noah saw the animal crea¬
tion going into this ark. He gave the ac¬
count of an eye wintness. They were
the animals from the region waere he
lived; for the most mrc thsv were animals
useful to man, and if noxious insects or
poisonous reptiles went in, it was only to dis¬
cipline the patience and to keep alert the
generations after the flood. He saw them
going in. Thera were a great number of
them, and he gives the account of an eye
witness. They went in two and two of all
flesh.
Years ago I was on a steamer on the river
Tay, and I came to Perth, Scotland. I got
off. and I saw the most wonderful agricul¬
tural show that I have ever witnessed. There
were horses and cattle such as Rosa Bonheur
never sketched, and there were dogs such as
the loving pencil of Edwin Landseer never
portrayed, and there were sheep and fowl
and creatnres of all sorts. Suppose
that “two and two” of all the
creatures of that agricultural show
were put upon the Tay steamer to be I
transported to Dundee, and the next dav
should be writing home to America and giv¬
ing an account of the occurrence, I would
have used the same general phraseology that
Noah used in regard to the embarkation of
the brute creation In the ark—T would have
said that they w -at in two and two of every
sort. I would riot have meant six hundred
thousand. A common sense man myself, I
would suppose that the people who read the
lettw were common sense people.
“But how could vou get them into the
ark?” ask infid»I scientists. “How could
thev be induced to go into the ark? He
would have to pick them out and dri -e them
in, and «oax them in.” Could not the same
God who gave instinct to the animal inspire
that instinct to seek for shelter from the
Ho-veyer, nothing more than
ordinary animal instinct was neces¬
sary. Have vou never been in the country
when an Anrust thunder storm was coming
up and heard the cattle moan at the bars to
get in? and se°n the affr : ghted fowl go upon
the perch at noonday.and heard the affrights 1
dog and cat calling at the door, supplicating
entrance? And are you surprised that in that
age of the world, when there were fever
places of shelter for dumb beasts,at the mut¬
tering and rumbling and flashing and quak¬
ing and darkening of an approaching deluge,
the animal creation came moaning and
bleating to the sloping embankment reach¬
ing up to the ancient Great Eastern and
passed in? I have owned horses and cattle
and sheen and dogs, but I never had a horse
or a cow or a sheen or a dog
that was so stupid it did not know
enough to come in when it rained.
And then, that one window in the ark which
afforded such poor ventilation to the crea¬
tures there assembled—that small window in
the ark which excites so much mirthfulness
on the part of infidels. If thev know as
much Hebrew as you could put on
vour little finger nail thev would have
known that that word translated win¬
dow there means window course, a
whole range of lights. Those ignorant in¬
fidels do not know a window pans from
twenty windows. So if there is any criticism
of the ark, there seems to be too much win¬
dow for such a long storm. And as to the
other charge that the windows of the
ark must have been kept shut and con¬
sequently all inside would have perished
from suffocation, I have to say that
there are people in this house to-day wao.
all the way from Liverpool to Barnegat
lightnouse, and for two weeks were kept
under (leek, the hatches battened down be¬
cause of the storm. Some of you, in the old
time sailing vessels, were kept nearly a
month with the hatches down because of
some long storm.
Then in fide’s say that; the ark landel on a
mountain seventeen thousand feet high, and
that, of course, as soon as the animals cams
forth they would all be frozen in the ice.
That is geographical ignorance! Ararat is
not merely the name for a mountain, but for
a hilly district, and it may have been a hill
one hundred feet high, or five hundred, or a
thousand feet high on which the ark alighted.
Noan measured the depth of water above the
hill, and it is fifteen cubits, or twenty-seven
feet.
Ah! my friends, this story of the ark is no
more incredible than if you should say to me:
“Last summer I was among the hills of New
England, and there came on the most terrific
storm I ever saw, and the whole country was
flooded The waters came up over the hills,
and to save our lives we got in a boat on the
river, aud even the dumb creatures was so
affrighted they came moaning and bleating,
until we let them in the same boat.”
We are not dependent upon the Bible for
the story of the flood, entirely. All ages and
all literatures have traditions, broken tradi¬
tions, indistinct traditions, bus still tradi¬
tions. The old books of the Persians tell
about the flood at the time of Atariman,
who so polluted the earth that it had
to be washed by a great storm.
The traditions of the Chaldeans sav
t-iat in the time wnen Xisuthrus was King
there was a great flood,and ha put his family
and his friends in a large vessel ani all out¬
side of them ware destroyed, and after a
while the birds went f irfn and they came
back and their claws were tinged with
mud. Lucian and Ovid, celebrated writ¬
ers, who had never seen the Bible
described a flood in the time of Deu
caiion. He took his friends into a boat, and
tie animals came running to him in pairs.
Bo all lands, and all ages, and all literatures,
seem to have a broken and indistinct tradi
tion of a calamity which Moses, here incor
porating Noah’s account, so grandly, sc
.eautifu’ly, so accurately, so solemnly re¬
cords.
My prayer is that the God who created the
world may create 113 anew in Christ Jesus;
and that the Go i who made light three days
oefore the sun shone may kin Il9 in our hearts
a tight that will burn on long after the sun
nas expired; and that the Goi who or¬
dered the ark built and kept opea
more than one hundred years that the ante¬
diluvians might enter it for shelter, may
graciously incline us to accept the invitation
which this morning rose in music from the
T.iroae. saying; “Come thou and all thy
house into the ark ”
Another hard thing to be understood: The
story that the sun and moon stood still to
allow del Joshua to complete his victory. impossibility, Infi¬
scientists declare that an
dut if a man have brain and strength
enough to make a clock, can he not
start it and stop it, and start it again
and stop it again? If a machinist have
strength and brain enough to make a corn
thresher, can he not start it and stop it, and
start it again and stop it again? If God have
strength and wisdom to make the clock of
the universe, the He great machinery strength* of the
worlds, has not enough
and wisdom enough to start it and
stop it, and start it again and stop it
again? Or stop one wheel, or stop tweuty
wneels, or stop all the wheels? Is t ie clock
stronger than the clock-maker* Does the
corn-thresher know more than the machinist?
Is the universe mightier than its God?
But people ask ho w coul d th9 moon h i .-j been
seeu to stop in the day time? Well, if you have
never seen the moon in the daytime, it is be¬
cause you have not been a very diligent ob¬
server of the heavens. Beside that, it was
not necessary for the world literally to
stop. By unusual refractions of the suns
rays the day might hare been prolonged.
So that, while the earth continued on
its path in the heavens, it figuratively
stopped. Bible You must rdinember that these
authors used the vernacular of their
own day. just as you and I say the sun went
down. The sun never goes down. We pim¬
ply Besides describe what appears to the human eye.
that, the world, our world,
could have literally stopped without
throwing the universe out of balance.
Our world has two motions—the
one arouud the sun and the other on its own
axis. It might have stopped on its owa axis,
while at the same time it kept on its path
through the heavens. So there was no need
of stelier confusion because our world slack¬
ened lutions its speed its or entirely axis. That stopped in its of revo¬ the
on own is none
business Saturn, of Jupiter, or Mars, or Mercury,
or within or the the Dippor. Beside
that, memory of man
there have been worlds that were
born and that died. A few years ago
astronomers Associated Press, telegraphed, the through the
to all world—the
astronomers from the city of Washington—
that another world had been discovered.
Within a comparatively short space of time
astronomers tell us, thirteen worlds have
burned down. From their observatory
they notice first that the worlds look
like other worlds, then they became a
deep red, showing they were on fire; then
they became ashen, slio wing they were burned
down; then they entirely disappeared, shoiv
iug tnat God even the ashes were scattered. Now,
1 say, if can stare a world, and swing a
world, and destroy a world, he could stop
one or two of them without a great
deal of exertion, or he could by un¬
usual refraction of the sun’3 rays
continue the illumination. But infidel
scientists say it would have been belittling
lor other worlds to stop on account of such a
battle. Why, sirs, what Yorktown was for
revolutionary times, and what Gettysburg
was in our civil contest, and what Sedau was
in the Franco-German war, and what Wat¬
erloo was in the Napoleonic destiny—that
was this b ittle of Joshua against the five
allied armies of Gibeon. It was that battle
that changed the entire course of
history. It was a battle to
Joshua as important as though a battle now
should occur in which England and the Uni¬
ted States and France an 1 Germany an l
Italy and Turkey and Russia should fight for
victory or annihilation. However much any
other world, solar, lunar or stellar, might be
hastened in it errand of light, it would be
excusable if it lingered in the heavens for a
little while and put down its shoif of beams
and gazed o:i such an Armage l ion.
In the early part of this century there was
what was called the Dark Day. Some of
these aged men may perhaps remember it. It
is known in history as the “Dark Day.”
Workmen at noon went to their homes, and
courts and legislatures adjourned. No
astronomers have ever been able to
explain that dark day. .Vow, if God
can advance the night earlier than its
time, can ho not adjourn the night until
after its time? I ofton used to hear my
father describe a night—I think he said it
was in 1833—when his neighbors aroused
him in great alarm. All tue heavenly bodies
seemed to be in motion. People thought our
earth was coming to its destruction.
Tens of thousands of stars shooting. No
astronomers have ever been able to
explain that star shooting. Now, does not
your common sense teach you that if God
could start and stop teas of thousands of
worlds or meteors, he could start and stop
two worlds' If God can engineer a train of
ten thousand worlds or meteors, and stop
them without accident or collision, cannot
he control two carriages of light, an I
and by putting down down a golden brake stop the suu,
bv rvitfc'og a i iv>- brain ^ton the
moon? Under this explanation, instead of
being skeptical about this sublime passage
of the Bible, you will, when you read it, feel
more like going read: down on your knees before
God as you “Sun, stand thou still
above Gibeon, and thou moon in the valley
of Ajalon.” is the Bible statement
Then there that a
whale swallowed Jonah ana ejected him
up on the dry ground in three days. If you
will go to the museum at Nantucket. Mass.,
you will find the skeleton of a whale large
enough to swallow a mas. I said to
the janitor, while I was standing in
the museum: “Why it does nor, seem
from the looks of this skeleton that
that story in the Boo: of Jonah is so
very improbable, not.” does it!” “Ob, no," he re¬
plied, “it does There is a cavity in toe
mouth of the common whale large enouga
for a man to live in. There have been
saarks found again and again with an en¬
tire human body in them Beside that, t ie
Bible says nothing about; a whale. It says:
“The Lord prepared a great fish;” anl
there are scientists who tell us
that there were sea monsters in other days
that made the modern w.iale seem very in¬
significant. I know in one place in the
New Testament it speaks of the whale as ap¬
pearing in the occurrence I hare just men¬
tioned. but the word may juit as well be
translated “sea monster”—any kind of
a sea 533, monster. Procopious says, in the
year a sea monster was slam
which had for fifty years destroyed
ships. I suppose this sea monster that toolc
care of Jonah miy have been one oc the
great sea monsters that could have easily
taken down a prophet, and he c >uId have
lived there three days if he had kept in
motion so as to keep the gastric juice3 from
taking hold of him and destroying him,
and at the end of three days the monster
would naturaliy be sick enough to
regurgitate .Jonah. Beside that. my
friends, there is one word which explains the
whole thing. It says. “The Lord prepare ! a
great fish.” If a ship carpenter prepare a
vessel to carry Texan beeves to Glasgow, 3
suppose it can carry Texan beeves; if a ship
carpenter prepare a vessel to carry coal to
one of the northern ports, I suppose it can
carry coal; if a ship carpenter pre¬
pare a vessel to carry passengers to
Liverpool, Liverpool: I suppose if the it can Lord carry passengers fish
to and prepare'! a
to carry one passenger, I suppose it could
carry a passenger anl the ventilation have
been all right.
So all the strange things in the Bible
can be explained if you wish to
have them explained. Anl you can
build them into a beautiful anl health¬
ful fire for your heart a, or your can with
them put your immortal interests into con¬
flagration. But you had better decide about
th« veracity of the Bible vary soon. 1 want
this morning to caution you against putting
off making up your mind about this book.
Ever since 1773 there ba3 oeen great
discussion as to who was the author
of Junius’* Letters, those letters so full
of sarcasm and vituperation and power.
The whole English nation stirred ud with it.
Mora than a hundre.i voiumas written to
discuss that question: “Who was Junius!”
“Who wrote the letters of Junius?” Well,
it is an interesting question to discuss, but
still, after all, it makes but little prac¬
tical difference to you and to me who
Junius was, wnetner Sir Philip Francis, or
Lord Chatham, or John Horne Tooke, or
Horace Walpole, or Henry Grattan, or any
one of the forty-four men who were seriously
charge 1 with the autnorship. tint it is an
absorbing question, it is a practical question,
it is an overwhelming the authorship question of to you this
and to me.
Holy Bible—whether the Lord God of
heaven or earth or a pack of dupes,scoundrels
or impostors. We cannot afford to adjourn
that question a week or a day or an hour,
any more than a sea Captain can afford to
say: “Well, this is a very dark night. I
have really lost iny 1 bearings; there whether is a
light out there. don’t know
it is a lighthouse or a false light on
the shore, i don’t know what it is; but
I’ll just go to sleep and in the morning I’ll
find out.” In the morning the vessel might
be on the rocks and the beach strewn wit i
the white faces of the dead craw. The time
for that sea Captain to find oat about the
lighthouse is before he goes to sleep. Oh,
my friends, I want you to uu lerstand
that in our deliberations about this Bible we
are not at calm anchorage, but wa are
rapidly coming toward the coast, coming
with all the furnaces ablaze, coming at the
rate of seventy heart throbs a minute, and I
must know whether it is going to be harbor
or shipwreck. the
I was so glad to read in the papers of
fact that the steamship Edam h id come
safely into harbor. A week before the
Persian Monarch, plowing its way toward
the Narrows, a hundred miles out, saw sig¬
nals of distress, bore down upon the vessel, Bhe
and found it was the steamship Edam.
had lost her propeller. She had two
hundred passengers an board. The merc.ful
Captain of the Persian Monarch endeav¬
ored to bring her in, but the tow lino broke.
He fastened it again, but the sea was rough
and the tow line broke again. Then the
night came on Monarch and the merciful Captain think¬ of
the Persian “lay to,”
ing iu the morning he could give rescue
to the passengers. The morning came, but
during tbs night the steamship Edam had
disappeared, and the Captain of the
Persian Monarch brought his vessel into
harbor saying how sad he felt be*
cause he could not give eompleti glad
rescue to that lost ship, I am
that afterward another vesssl saw her and
brought her into safety. But when I saw
the story of that steamship Edam, drifting, but
drifting, drifting, I do not know where,
with no rudder, no lighthouse, n > harbor, in¬ no
help, I said: “That is a skeptic,that is an
fidel, drifting, drifting, drifting, not knowing
where he drifts." And then, when £ thought of
the Persian Monarch anchored iu harbor, I
said: “That is a Christian,that is a man wno
does all he can on the way,crossing the sea to
help others, c lining perhaps through safe a very and
rough voyage into the harbor, there
safe forever.” Would Cod that there mignt
lie some one to-day who would go forth
and bring in these souls that are drifting.
In this assemblage, how hundred, many a
score shall I say, or a or a
thousand?—not quite certain about the truth
of trie Bible, not certain about anything.
Drifting, drifting, drifting. Oh, how I
would like to tow them in. I throw you
this cable. Lay hold of that cable of the
Oospel. Lay hold of it. I invite you all in.
The harbor is wide enough, large eu vjzii for
all the shipping. Come in, O you wanderers
on the deep. Drift no more, drift no
more. Come into the harbor. See the
glorious lighthouse of the Gospel. “Peace the
oti earth, good will to men.” Come into
harbor. Gocl grant that it may be sail of
all of you who are now drifting in your uu
belief as it might have been said of the pas¬
sengers of the steamship Edam, and as it was
said centuries ago of the wrecked corn ship
of Alexandria, “It came to pass that t’ v all
•scaped safe to laud.”
A Colored Man Turning White.
Green Howell, of Millville, Ga., lias
a double claim ou the title of colored,
for lie is a full-blooded negro, but is
turning white in great ] mtches—a color
which natural all philosophy colors, tells us is a
blending of Greene freak was of
questioned as to the his strange There
naturo wrought white in skin. His are
two patches of pale on color, each about ear. that
lips are turning Caucasian ft skin. Beneath
of the average
the folds of his flannel shirt could be
seen the evidence of changing color.
His hands, further than several small
patches of brown, are as pale as those
of any white, and at a moment's glance
can be seen to be different from the
bleaching of the leper. His scalp is also
changed, aud is as pale as his hands.
Greene is a successful planter and
talks freely of his strange case. He is
about thirty-five years of age and of
medium height. His face and hair bear
out his story that there is no mixed
blood in his veins. He says that at the
close of the war he had two small
blotches on each hand, which remained
without change until four yeass ago last
April, when the skin on hi3 hands began
to turn a pale red and then white. fields
While at work ploughing the perspiration in the from
in summer, he says
his hands would be red, as if tinctured
with blood. Further than from the evi¬
dence of his eyes he was unaware
through any sensation of the change
which has been going on. There has
been no itch or smart, and several doc¬
tors whom he has consulted have assur¬
ed him that the variegated skin is entire¬
ly healthy. They all confess that they
are puzzled by his case. Greene says
his body is almost white, and his feet
are turning. He s>ys his father was
what is known as a “tender man,” that
is, he would blister under a hot sun.
Greene also blisteis when exposed to His the
hot sun for any length of time.
farm duties occupy his time. —Augusta
( Ga .) C/tron tele.
Cool-Air Drying.
A new American process for rapidly
drying timber, hides, wool, grain, and
other substances surcharged with moist¬
ure lias been attracting considerable
attention in England. It is called the
eooi dry-air process, and consists in
passing through the chamber contain¬
ing the moisture laden material a con¬
tinuous current of furnace-dried air
having a temperature between 80 and
90 degrees Fahrenheit. Tlie moisture
is absorbed by the air in so remarkable
a manner that oak logs are reported al¬ to
have been finished in nine days,
though natural drying would Lav • re
quired three or four yearn. The tem¬
perature is so moderate that delicate
fibers, fabrics, and chemicals are not
injured.
SCIENTIFIC SCRAPS.
ere is to be an electric meter compe¬
tition in Paris.
It is proposed in England to operate
dust and garbage carts by electric pro¬
pulsion.
Prof. Pasteur expresses the opinion
that in the future disease will be un¬
known.
Several large metal working establish¬
ments are welding by electricity.
From a general view taken in Eng¬
land, the natives appear to be increasing
in vigor, rather than degenerating.
A society has been formed for the
granting of premiums for the killing of
animals preying upon the eider duck.
It may be generally stated that tor¬
nadoes do not occur in the United States
west of the onc-liundre'lth meridian.
An institution has been inaugurated in
Japan, having a membership of 800, for
the furtherance of electrical research.
The latest storage battery is based on
tlie idea of storing hydrogen and oxygen
evolved during the process of charging.
Kustner’s observations on the aberra¬
tion of fixed stars tend toward proving
that the altitude of the pole is variable.
Ivauuff, that grows on the shores of
the Caspian, attains a height of ten feet,
with a diameter varying from two to
three centimeters.
“An inch of rain” means a gallon of
water spread over a surface of nearly two
square feet, or a fall of about one hun¬
dred tons on an acre of ground.
Carbon,when burned, is converted into
a kind of air known among chemists l)y
the name carbonic acid, which ascends
as it is formed and mingles wit l the at¬
mosphere.
The great improvements in the con¬
struction of apparatus, and the appli¬
cation of tlie microscope to lithology,
have resulte 1 in successful attempts at
the reproduction of all the modern vol¬
canic rocks.
During the recent fogs in London
plants are said to have suffered not only
from the absence of light, but from the
pores of their leaves becoming filial
up with the sulphurous sooty matters
contained in the fogs.
The Lehigh Valley railroad company
of Pennsylvania has just made practical
tests of a new electric and automat.c
brake. An emergency s’op brought a
train of 15 cars to a standstill within (>80
feet, the speed of the train being 111
miles an hour.
Dr. Robert Peter, chemist to the Ken¬
tucky Geological Survey, says that the
coal fields of that state are of very good
quality, and many of them would answer
admirably for the manufacture of coke,
while some of the splint or block coals
could probably be used without coking
for smelting ores.
A simple plan of stopping bleeding of
the nose has lately been advised. Grasp
firmly the nose with the finger and
thumb for (cn or fifteen minutes; by
thus completely stopping the movement
of air through the nose (which displaces
freshly formed clots) you will favor the
clotting of the blood, and will frequent¬
ly stop hemorrhage.
The Flora of Europe embraces about
10,000 species. India has about 15,000.
The British possessions in North Ameri¬
ca, though with an area near’y as large
as Europe, has only about 5000 species.
One of the richest floras ; ; ; that of the
CapcofGcod Hope and Natal, which
figures up about 10,000 species. Aus¬
tralia also is rich in species, about 10,
000 being already known. In the West
Indies and Guiana there are 4000.
A Feline Retriever.
i have heard all sorts of stories about
cats’ exploits, but i have only just nofl'
run across one of the felines that may be
called a retriever. Mr. Lloyd W. Har¬
mon of Eighth avenue las a vear-olu cat
that will bring 1 to him anything that h is
been in his hands as faithfully as the
best trained setter. Yesterday afternoon,
after testing Miss Kitty with various
reliable articles a penny was .sent span¬
ning across the floor. It lodged under¬
neath a rug, and puss was for a tew
moments unable to de’ect its where¬
abouts, I «ut she was r.s persevering as
any dog that ever wagged a tail and fin¬
ally located her game. When she had
accomplished this she looked around at
those who had been witnesses of her
prowess with a “Well,-haven't-I-caught
on’’ sort of expression, daintily inserted
her paw under the rug, and returned the
coin to her master. —JTetc York titar.