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FARMS OF INDIA
The Hindoo Cattle are all of the
Same Variety.
No Fences to the Farms™
The Wheat-Growing Area.
The people of East India are not
stock farmers, says Frank Carpenter in
the A merican Agriculturist. The
Hindoo peasants will have nothing to
do Avith pigs or fowls. The only ani¬
mals they keep arc horses and cows,
and the cattle all over India are of the
sacred cow variety. These are mag¬
nificent animals, of a dove or light yel¬
low color, possessing the aristocratic
air of the Avell- bred Jersey and the b.g
frame of the Holsteins and Shorthorns.
They have great humps upon their
shoulders, which rise fully six inches
above the rest of the back, and which,
strange to say, look by no means out of
place. The Hindoos worship these
cows, and I visited at Benares a noted
temple in Avhich a hundred sacred bulls
were prayed to every day. It was in
the center of the city, and it looked
more like a stable than a temple.
Imagine a stone court about the siza of
a barn-yard, with an immense low
band-stand in the center. Around
the court let their be a row of stalls
in which a hundred of ’ these
sacred bulls, with these big humps on
their backs and with silky cars hanging
doAfn like those of a rabbit, stand Avith
their heads toward the court. About
the court other bulls are moving, and
the sloppy, dirty stone floor is filled
with men and women having the dark,
handsame features of the Hindoos.
They hold up their hands before the
bulls and pray. Pretty girls feed them
garlands of bright flowers, and at the
edge of the court an old priest sits and
puts a red mirk on the forehead of each
worshipper as he goes out. Now and
then ithe 'bulls roar and stamp their
feet, but ai a rule they are as gentle
as pet rabfyts, and all of them are as
fat as bunker. The Hindoos bring
Avtfter from l ie Ganges and offer it to
them, and t icy AA’ould much sooner eat
tjicir grandfathers 2 than chew bcef-
slxok.
hoAvever, do not pre¬
vent these cattle as beasts
of bom Singapore to
Wat^’lSwin Boojpj'Kirty j n /w carts drawn by these
Voider-humped animals,
aajt, PWkes.der-buif , T ast in c tliem tho fieldl TJie 1 0u) saw 7 other men
'
b® f Mfte sacred' an use iu India is the
V L a° Sr is .which is as homely as
r a
tWi.jrn? t tr is beautiful. It seems
t issue"' cu ‘i ° f Cr0SS between the a-s
om rfi>ghf po potatous, and it has w
flayer w So horns, a neck which co 3
sti; * vei 7 j-om the shoulders, and a
bpdi bloated afl d ill-shapen.
Itsfikivd*^ covered with thin straggling
bribes bhWi haii; which looks more like the
of ,a hog than the hair of a coav.
Itfll ghts in wallowing in the dirt,
and ft is the most plebeian species of
tbtfgt'nfS* bos. The sacred cows are
milkeij, clarified and the butter made from them
is and used by the Hindoos for
COok ijor. A Hindoo will never use
lard tallow in any shape, and the
Sepoy mutiny was caused by the story
being circulated that the cartridges
which the native soldiers had to bite
were greased.
Ooc of the curious sights of India is
the farmer’s pleasure—buggy, It is a
sulky-like affair, made of bamboo fish¬
ing-rods and is covered Avith red cloth.
It is draAvn by one of those sacred
hulls, some breeds of which are famous
for their trotting qualities and ovhich
can almost make as good timo as the
average horse. The driver sits on the
shafts in front, and there is just enough
I00m Uil der the cover at the back for
one or tno people to sit cross-legged.
M hen a farmer wishes to travel from
from one part of the country to another
ne ge,s into one of these carts, and if
be is a wealthy man, he will have a
richly -colored blanket to put over his
bullock. I took a ride upon one of
ikem and found it as easy &3 any sulky
I have ever tried in America.
There are no fences about the farms
Cl ^ nd * a - ooden fences would be an
impossibility, even if they were needed-
due white ants are the great pest of
the country, and tlicsa will eat up any¬
thing wooden. India has a vast net-
A'ork of telegraph lines covering the
whole Peninsula, and the poles for
these are mads of galvanizad iron.
D-e ties of the railroads have to be
,na e iron, and such few fences as I
saw along the railroali were made ot
barbed wire fastened to sandstone
post!. The great wheat-growing dis¬
trict! of India are iu the north, and
in the northwest provinces about fifty-
seven per cent, of the couatry is med
for Avheat. The variety planted is not
as good as that of Australia or Cali¬
fornia, but it is good enough to find a
market in England, and the exports
continue to increase from year to year.
An Aerial Hunt.
I was standing on the bank of a
stream on the pampas, says the author
of “Argentine Ornithology,” watching
a great concourse of birds of several
kinds on the opposite shore, where the
carcass of a horse, from which the hide
had been stripped, lay at the elgc of
the water. One or two hundred hooded
gulls and about a dozen chimangos
were gathered about the carcass, and
close to them a very large flock of
glossy ibises were wading about in the
water, while among these, standing
motionless in the water, was one soli¬
tary Avhite egret.
Presently four cavanchos appeared,
two adults and two youDg birds in
brown plumage, and alighted on the
ground near the carcass. The young
birds advanced at once and began tear¬
ing at the flesh, while the two old birds
stayed where they had alighted, as if
disinclined to feed on half putrid meat.
Presently one of them sprang into the
air and made a dash at the birds in the
water, and instantly all the birds in the
place rose into the air screaming loudly,
the two young brown ca\ r anchos only
remaining on the ground.
For a few moments I Avas in ignorance
of the meaning of all this turmoil, when
suddenly, out of the confused black and
white cloud of birds the egret appeared,
mounting'Vertically upward with vigor¬
ous, measured strokes. A moment
later first one and then the other ca-
vancho also emerged from the cloud,
evidently pursuing the egret, and only
then the two brown birds sprang into
the air and joined in the chase.
For some minutes I watched the four
birds toiling upward with a wild zigzag
flight, while the egret, still rising verti¬
cally, seemed to leave them hopelessly
behind. But before long they reached
and passed it, and each bird as he did
so would turn and rush downward,
striking at the egret with its claws, and
while one descended the others were
rising, bird folloAving bird with the
greatest regularity. In this way they
continued toiling upward until the
egret appeared a mere white speck in
the sky, about which four hateful black
spots were still revolving.
I had svatched them from the
with the greatest excitement, and now
began to fear that they would pass
from sight and leave me in ignorance of
the result; but at length they began to
descend, and then it looked as if the
egret had lost all hope, for it was
dropping very rapidly, while the four
ravenous birds were all close to it.
striking at it ctuor* three or four
seconds.
The descent for last half of the
(
distance wa3 exceedingly rapid, and
the birds would have come down almost
at the very spot they started from,
which was about 40 yards from where
I stood, but the egret was driven aside,
and sloping rapidly down struck the
earth at a distcuce of 250 yards from
the starting point. Scarcely had it
touched the ground before the hungry
quartet were tearing it with their beaks.
Hypnotism in Surgery.
Dr. Rankin, at Muncy, uses hypnot¬
ism in his professional work. It, is a
good substitute for chloroform or ether
in performing surgical operations, and
j) r> Rankin resorts to his power of
hypnotism quite frequently. To put
a subject under his control is but the
work of a minute, and even less in some
cases> H e lays his hand upon the
temporal veins of the subject, speaks a
f cw word! to get the patient’s mind
running in the same channel as his own,
and m a remarkably short time the
pa ticnt is in a state similar to that pro-
duced by chloroform, except, when
hypnotized, the subject can understand
the words of the physician, and will
answer him if a question is put.
Cat's Eyes for Clocks.
At 12 o’clock, noon, the pupil of a
cat’s eye is nothing but a thin, hair-like
line; after that time it dilates, so that
by noticing the size and shape of the
pupil one can be independent in a meas-
ure of clocks and watches. — Puiladtl-
ph d mner .es n
SCIENTIFIC SCRAPS.
A great geological map of Franco,
commenced in 1852. has just been com¬
pleted. making 4$ sheets.
A method of expanding hoops and
wheel tires by heating them with the
electric current has been devised.
An analytical balance of variable
sensitiveness—alapting it to ordinary
weighings or delicatte determinations—
has boea brought out in Germany.
Since 18SU encouraging progress has
has been made, under an efficient su¬
perintendent, toward restoring the for¬
ests of Cape Colony, South Africa.
A new meteorological and volcanic
observatory is to be opened in Pompeii,
when there will be a congress of scien¬
tific men to celebrate the occasion.
Silence for ten days, speaking only
in whispers for ten days more, then
gradual return to the ordinary voice,
is a recommendation for stammerers.
Wisdom teeth, the mist variable of
all in sizj, shape, and general charac¬
ter, are said to show hereditary char¬
acteristics more strongly than any of
the other teeth.
A new industry has been started in
Sweden in the manufacture of paper
from moss. Paper and pasteboard of
different thicknesses up to nearly an
inch have already been made of it.
Claims are laid to the disco\ r ery of
the method of raising sugar cane from
seed instead of from cuttings. The
seeds were discovered by means of a
microscope, in the flower head of the
cane.
The appliance of hydraulic power to
the manufacture of steel seamless boats
is one of the latest things in England.
These boats are thought to be in every
particular superior to those made of
wood, and can be made at about the
same cost.
A further step toward the artificial
production of the diamond has been
made by passing an electric current
through carbon electrodes in a cell con¬
taining a fine whit3 sand and elec¬
trodes, the whole being under consid¬
erable pressure.
The depth of a sea about six miles
deep is reduced by 620 feet by com-
P"*' If the ocean were iuom-
pressiblc the level of the suriace woutil
be 161 feet higher than it is at pres-
ent, and about two million square
miles of land would be submerged.
A prisoner in Bohemia recently con¬
structed a watch eight centimetres (3J-
inches) in diameter, with no tools or
materials except two needles, a spool of
thread, a newspaper and some rye
straw. The wheels, posts and cogs are
of rye straw; the watch runs six hours
without winding and keeps good time.
Recent in vent ions with illuminating
reflectors have made it possible to make
the Suez Canal almost as light as day.
By means of the Mangin projector and
the strongest electric light, the danger
of a night passage has been reduced to
a minimum. The night traffic on the
canal is in consequence rapidly increas¬
ing.
An alchemist when experimenting in
earths for the making of crucibles
found that he had invented porcelain;
and a watchmaker’s apprentice Avh.le
holding a spectacle glass between his
thumb and forefinger noticed through
it that the neighboring buildings ap¬
peared larger, and thus discovered the
adaptability of the lens to the telescope.
Flowers and the Children.
There are but few children who are
not attracted by the beauty and ssveet-
ness of flowers. We have often watch¬
ed with great interest the seemingly
ntural tendency of young children to
admire flowers. Frequently we have
seen them gazing with rapture upon the
picture of a flower, and smelling it
with apparent disappointment that it
yielded no perfume. The child appears
to instinctively knOAV that a floAver is
delicate, innocent and pretty; and it
may be laid down as a general rule that
a boy that is brought up among flowers
will develop into a better man than one
who is a stranger to flowers.
If we could have our way, we would
adorn with flowers the homes from
which come our criminal classes. They
would not banish crime from the com¬
munity, but they would greatly lessen
it. Flowers make peop’e gentler, softer
and better, and the father and mother
who do not neglect to provide this holy
influence for their children are doing
them a service that perhaps the eterni¬
ties alone will tell the value of.—
EXTINCT MARINE MONSTERS
TEE PREHISTORIC KINC-S OP THE
OCEAN WORLD.
Gigantic Man-Eating Sharks Over
lot) Feet Long Which Prowled
About the Tertiary Seas.
If we may judge prehistoric man by his
modern representatives we may Francisco assume,
Nvrites C. F. Holder in the San
Chronicle, that shark fishing Avas carried
on at a very early day; so very early, in
fact, that not the slightest proof remains,
or even a remnant of the early Walton.
In geological maps of America, during
what is known as the tertiary age, Ave
find it occupying a much more restricted
area than at present. The Southern
States Avere largely under water, and
Florida was but ashoal beneath the waves.
Where the Atlantic then tossed and was
carried this way and that by currents,
now is found dry laud, covered Avith fer¬
tile fields and supporting a large and
vigorous human population; but that it
was once the bottom of the tertiary sea
Ave have abundant testimony. That man
existed at this time there is little doubt,
though satisfactory evidence iu the shape
of remains is extremely rare, and we eau
but refer to the fauna and flora of the
period to show that the assumption is at
least tenable. Man undoubtedly appeared
upon the globe Avhen it Avas ready for his
occupation, or rather when the conditions
Avere all favorable for his support. The
world in the tertiary time looked very
much as it does at present, comparatively
speaking. Trees, fiowers and animals
much like those of to-day flourished, and
Avith them undoubtedly were found hu¬
man beings. Having assumed this, and
knowing the animals which were then
living, Ave may easily understand some¬
thing of the habits of our aucient ances¬
tors.
Large svhales and fishes of all kinds
are ahvays of great value to rude tribes.
Their appliances arc few and simple, and
a large animal not only provides them
with food, but with clothing, sveapons
and numerous articles of domestic use.
So we may assume that tertiary men
were fishermen and endeavored to cap¬
ture game, large and small.
In the immediate vicinity of Charles¬
ton, S. C., from the bottom of the river
bed have been taken the remains of some
sharks so suggestive of gigantic size that
the modern man eater is dwarfed in com¬
parison. The remains consist of teeth,
huge deviated specimens, in some in¬
stances almost as large as a woman’s
hand, many times larger than those found
in large sharks of to-day. The writer
once had the teeth curiosity after to the arrange model a num- of
ber of these a
modern shark, and the result gave a fish
feetT^
been the dimensions of those monsters.
If a shark fourteen feet long is suf-
ficient at the present day to terrify any
0Qe the > wbat must bave of this b ® eu tertiary giant? °f
appearance it required deep
Like the great whales,
water to float it, and accident doubtless Avas only
attacked when by it became
stranded on the shoals. At such a time'
the fishermen may have put off in their
rude crafts and aided in its capture, per¬
haps fastening it with cables and driving
logs of Avood into its vulnerable parts.
To capture such monsters by any other
means must have been impossible. The
largest boats would hardly have withstood
the struggles that must have ensued after
au attempt at capture by spear or har¬
poon, assuming even that such weapons
Avere known. Once entrapped in shallow
water we can imagine that the sight must
have been a striking one; the enormous
fish, far more active in this condition
than a whale, beating the water with
blows of its powerful tail, making lrantic
and mighty rushes this way and that,
•uapping the great cables like threads,
capsizing the rude boats and spread¬
ing terror and destruction everywhere. '
Such efforts at escape naturally would
exhaust the strength of so powerful
an animal, and force it farther in
shore, and ultimately destroy it. Then
conies the cutting up process. Then
news of the capture was carried inland
and hundreds of natives came down to
the shore to secure their share. From
caves, brush houses and the rudest re¬
treats they swarmed, armed with rude
implements of various kinds clubs of
wood and stone and daggers of flint, and
other hard substances. Clothed in skins,
or perhaps not clothed at all, this rude
people must have presented a strange ap-
pearauce. We hear of our modern sav-
• ages wallowing in the blood of whales
which they have captured and delignting
in the butchery, and undoubtedly these
early men were no exceptions and the
scene of the capture was a literal
slaughter.
A man to one of these mighty sharks
would be almost unnoticeable, and avc*
can imagine that such a huge creature
must have been upon a continual forage
to appease its appetite. A moderate¬
sized whale would have been legitimate
prey, as our ordinary man-eaters of to¬
day have been kuown to swallow nearly
an entire horse. At this time many
strange creatures thronged the ocean,
and doubtless animal life Avas made muVi
more profuse than at preaeot.
Anv one who has seen a shark of large
size moving along beneath the surface
■ can realize the terror they produce iQ
•ill observer*!
The writer once hooked a shark about
fourteen feet in length. The brute was
towing the heavy boat at steamboat speed
through the water, my man crouching in
the stern, which was hi-h in air, while I
was engaged at the bow. in keeping the
line in the notch, a slip from which
would have tipped us over. We had
rushed up the channel for about half a
mile at this pace, when I chanced to
glance overboard, and there, about two
feet from the surface were half a dozen
man-eaters of the largest size swimming
along, keeping up with us, apparently
determined to see what became of their
friend. The appearance of these huge
fishes moving along so swiftly and with
such little exertion had an extremely dis¬
agreeable impression upfln me—one that
I never fully recovered from, as I have
never enjoyed sea bathing since, even in
northern waters. The attendant sharks I
judged were from ten to thirteen feet in
length, and the exact size of the monster
that towed us we never determined, as he
finally escaped by breaking the rope.
If these modern man-eaters are so
formidable, what must have been the
scene presented when a dozen or more of
these ancient giants were swimming
about, dashing here and there in search
of prey, turning upon their backs, ex¬
posing a mouth cavernous iu its immens¬
ity and armed ivith row after row of the
enormous teeth which we have as lega¬
cies of their greatness? Like many of
the great animals of /the time, these
sharks must have entirely passed away,
being represented by similar but smaller
forms. That they existed in immense
numbers and were the kings and mau-
rauders of the ocean world we have
abundant evidence. The various expedi¬
tions sent out by England, Prance and
Italy have dredged their huge teeth from
the deep waters of the Atlantic and
Pacific, which retained their lustre as
perfect as if they had been taken from a
shark of to-day. At South Carolina, at
the junction of the Ashley and Cooper
Rivers, thousands of these teeth have
been dredged in deepening the river, not
of one species alone, but of many, show¬
ing that there must have been a common
feeding ground for schools of these
giants, that perhaps engaged in Avarfare
among themselves, and so formed this
strange graveyard of teeth that thousands
of years later became through a rising of
the coast dry land.
Of the man-eaters of to-day the car-
charodon is the largest, a specimen hav¬
ing been captured in Australian waters
thirty-six feet in length; the jaw of this
monster is now iu the British Museum.
The largest shark, hoAvever, is the phin-
oden, which has a Avide geographical
range and attains a length of from fifty
to seventy feet, approximating that of
the great whales; but this huge creature
is not a menace to the other dwolers of
the sea, having small, harmless teeth,
and preying upon small pelagic or float¬
ing animals. Another shark called the
“bone shark,” is occasionally found oil
our eastern coast, ranging from twenty
to fifty feet. A reliable fisherman in¬
formed me that his father captured one
off the southern coast of Massachusetts
which Avas longer than this. The
schooner was sixty tons burden, and
when the fish Avas brought alongside,
and lashed, it was longer than the ves¬
sel, or between sixty and seventy feet.
The shark is also a defenseless creature,
relying upon small animals for food.
One hundred years ago a well-conducted
fishery for them was carried on on the
New Englad coast—the oil being ex¬
tremely valuable, while the other parts
were utilized in various ways. It is sup¬
posed that so many Avere kiiled at this
time that they have been nearly exter-
ininaied,and,doubtless,are fast meeting
the fate of the giaut sharks of the ter¬
tiary time.
Ah Ex-Reporter's Millions.
Rockefeller was once a newspaper re¬
porter, and less than two decades ago
was a business man of only moderate
means in Cleveland, Ohio. His attention
Avas attracted to the opportunities for
making money in the handling and re¬
fining of the product of the Pennsylvania
oil fields. He started a comparatively
small refinery, and from that grew the
most powerful monopoly on earth—the
Standard Oil Trust. How rapidly the
Standard has grown is shown by the fact
that in 1880 its capital was only $3,000,-
000, whereas it is now S90,000,000. .The
par value of the stock is $100 per share,
but it is quoted at $170. It pays dividends
amounting to 10 per cent, per annum.
Rockefeller owns more than a majority
stock, so thac something like
$100,000,000 of his fortune is represented
- a tbe q' rus t. He also has extensive
na tural gas interests in Ohio, and iu ad-
d j{j on j s a large owner of Government
bonds and th(J securities of railroais and
other corporatl0 ns.
One of the Best Shots on Record.
A shot worth mention is this: A
brigand entered a man’s sleeping room
in Mexico, stood at the foot of his bed,
co\ered him with a pistol, and then
spoke to him to wake him. The prime
motive of the visit avhs revenge, though
plunder would have followed. “Man,”
said the victim, “don't kill me in bed!
Let me offer a prayer!” Curious folks,
these Mexicans. Tiie brigand had the
nerve for killing forty men, but he hadn’t
the nerve to refuse a man a prayer, The
victim slid from his bed, drawing from
h ‘-' d111 h ' s l >“ d f Ti”' d i >“ if*. d 5l “ l “ *
-
single act The bullet . passed through
the nrigaud , heart. Thrs. rn view of .11
tJe circumstances, was an undeniably
meritorious shot .-New York Sun.
The universal language, Volapuk. is
uoav eleven years old. and ... it is asserted
that 5,000,000 persons are able to use it.