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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.