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BLACK DIAMONDS. PASSPORTS IN FRANCE. ATOP THE SPIRE. ~ Their Origin a Riddle That 8c!onoe Seem* Unable to Solve Genuine black diamonds, although considerably more valuable than the ordinary white diamond, arc not used for gems, haying an appear ance po more attractive than a bit of stone or fragment of coni, being dark gray, brownish or black in color and opaque, without crystal line form. They are somewhat harder than the crystal or gem dia mond, being, in fact, about the hardest substance known and are found in irregular pieces ranging in size from one-half to 500 carats. The origin of the black diamond subject on which science re mains silent. They are found in hut one spot on the earth—an urea of not over 225 miles square, in Brazil. Here they are recovered from the gravel and washings of the river beds. No fine specimens of the gem diamond have ever been found in the black diamond fields. Yet—and this is the point over which science hah vainly puzzled— both black and white or gem dia monds are simply pure earbou, be ing of .practically identical compo sition. The gem diamond is trans lucent and crystalline in form, while • the other is not. The bluck dia mond is harder, tougher and not so brittle, and there the difference ends. Practically the entire output of black diamonds is used for tipping diamond drills, the precious bits of carbon being set in pieces of soft steel or iron. These diamond point ed drills ; will eut through any sub stance known and have eaten their wny through the hardest known rock down to a depth of G.000 feet. Ordinary! gem diamonds would be crushed gndcr the enorrabus pres sure it is ( necessary to put upon the drills when the bore has gone to a great depth. No sbbstance is known which could be used in place of the black diamonds for drill points used in boring,for mineral deposits, and should the supply become exhaust ed there would be no more deep borings, as there were none before the black diamond was discovered. The diamond drill is a decidedly expensive tool, as it is usual to place eight stones in each bit or drill point, and fair sized stones of three to four carats each are more satisfactory and economical in the long run than small ones. As the carbon is worth about $85 per carat, a single drill armed with stones of medium size would cost in the neighborhood of $2,500.—Hitr- per’s Weekly. The Marseillaise. The famous battle hymn known as thq "‘Marseillaise” is generally attributed to Jiouget de Lille, a French engineer officer, who, it is said, composed it in 1792 to cheer up- the conscripts at Strasburg. .. derived its. name from a body of troops from Marseillan marching into Paris playing the tune. The piece became instantaneously popu lar, and from that day to this it has never failed, wherever sung or played, to arouse the martial ardor of the hearers to the highest pitch. As an inspifation for fighting it is beyond doubt the most successful musical composition ever known. The author of the immortal piece was pensioned by Louis Philippe in 3830 and died in 1836.—New York American, Fish That Cannot Swim. More than ( one species of fish is met with that cannot swim, the mqst singular of which is the mal- tlie, a Brazilian fish,'whose organs of locomotion only enable it to crawl or walk or hop after the manner of a toad, to which animal this fish to some extent bears a resemblance. It is provided with a long, upturned' snout. Other examples of nonswim- ' ming fishes include the sea horse, an other most peculiarly shaped inhab itant of the $ea.. and. the starfish, of which there are many specimens, which walk and crawl on the shore and - locks, both being unable to Evciri. t Th* Kind That Wer* la.ucd In th* Time of Louis XVI. Thc^nysterioua cards of thc-Gmint' de Vergonncs eneh contained a brief history in cipher of those to whony they were given. ; De Vergcnnes was Louis XVl.’s ihiriistcr of foreign uf* fairs, and when strangers of u sus picious character were about to en ter France he issued to them these strange cards, which acted as pass ports, und were also intended to give information, concerning the bearer without his knowledge. In the first place, its color indi catcd tho nationality of the man who carried it. The person’s agej approximately, was told by the shape of the card. Af*fillet around the border of the card told whether lie was a bachelor, married or a vyid- Ower. Dots gave information as to his position and fortune, and the expression of his face was shown by a decorative flower. The stranger’s religion, was tokl- by the punctuation after his .name. If he was a Catholic it was a p^riocL if a Jew a dash, if he \vas a Luther an a semicolon and no stop at all indicated liim a nonbeliever. So a man’s morals, character and appearance were pointed out by the pattern of his passport, and the au thorities could tell at a glance whether he was a gamester or a preacher, a physician or a lawyer, and whether he was to be put under surveillance or allowed to go free.— Exchange. The Antiquity of Coal. It is thought that the earliest reference to coal is that, found in the writings of Aristotle and of Theophrastus, who lived about 238 B.C. There is evidence that coal was used in England as early as the year 852. According to Bishop Piylsey, Escomb and Bishopwearmouth. were two of the earliest coal mining set tlements. Newcastle coal 'appears to have come into notice about the year 1234, when Henry III. granted the inhabitants a charter authoriz- them to mine for it. The Chinese knew of and used coal, in the thirteenth century. The earliest reference to coal in Belgium is assigned to the year 1198, when a blacksmith at Liege is said to have been the first in the kingdom to em ploy it as fuel.’ Paris received its first coal from Newcastle in 1520. In Scotland coal was worked as early as the twelfth century.—Harper’s. Tho Lynn Man Got In. A shoe salesman from Lynn was very anxious to’sell to a large con sumer in Cincinnati. The buyer of the Cincinnati house, who had a bizarre sense of humor, bought ac cording to whim. When fhe sales man’s card came in lie kept it and sent out the office boy with a nickel to pay for it and break the news gently that nothing was doing. The office boy returned with another card. “What’s that for?” asked the ca pricious buyer. “He said you weren’t getting your money’s worth,” replied the boy. “He sells two of these cards for a nickel.” . t ... .. The Lynn man got in. — New York Sim. He Had the Last Word. 1 A lohTurcr wns annoyed,by a man in the audience who insisted on rising uni asking quesrtbtis. “Sit down. ou ass!” said a second man, lumping up. “Sit down, you too,” cried i third plan; “you arc both asses.’’ “Tin re seem to be plenty of asses 10U1 t'ori r*» lit mil in flip InpHirnt- aboui ronrglit, 9 pul in the lecturer calmly “but for heaven’s sake let us !h':i one at. a time;” “\V( ’.-.you go nn then,” said the first i . n. resuming bis seat.—Bos ton’! nscript. A Golf Story. Wilkins 1 whs an enthusiastic golfer, and when his*friend John son mot him coming away from the links a day or two ago he was in a terrible frame of mind. “What’s happened, old fellow?” asked John son amiably. “Everything’s hap pened!” growled Wilkins. “It’s enough to make one give up goff and go in for fishing. That ass Fitz- noodle has been‘running all over the course and actually crossed my tee juBt as I was about to make a lovely drive. What would you have done had you been in my place?” “Well,” he replied, with a smile, “seeing that he .crossed your ‘t’"l .think I would have dotted his ‘i/ ” —Exchange. Thrilling Incident In the Lit* of JarriM Freeman Clarke. . When James Freeman Clarke, the famous Unitarian .minister and uutbrir, was a young man.he visited Salisbury, England, liere the beau tiful cathedral lifts its spire 404 feet into the air. The spire is top ped by a bull, und on the ball stands a cross. From the ground the ball looks like an orange, but its diam eter is really greater thun a mun’> .height; , . : v- Workmen were repairing the spire. Mr. Clarke saw them crawl ing round the slim steeple in the f olden afternoon like bugs on a ean stalk. The impulse came to him to climb the spire and stand on thp horizontal beam of the cross. Accordingly at dusk, when the work men had left, the young American slipped in and made his way up the stairs to the little window which opened to the workmen’s staging. To run up the scaffolding to the ball was easy. Then came, the slightly more bulging curve of the ball. A short platform gave him foothold. He reached up. put his hands on the base of the cross and pulled himself up. To gain the cross arm was merely “shinning” up a good sized tree, and soon he stood on the horizontal timber and. reaching up, touched the top of the cross. After enjoying his moment of exaltation he slid to the foot of the cross and, with his arms round the post, slipped down over the great abdomen of the ball. His feet touched nothing. The little plank from which he had reached up was not there! Here was a peril and one for a cool head and sure eye. Of course he could not look down. The hug ging hold that he had io keep on the bottom of the cross shortened the reach of, his body and made, it, less than when he. had stood on the plank and reached up to the cross with his hands. He must drop so that his feet should meet the plank, for he would never be able to pull himself back if he should let him self down at arm’s length, and his fe^t bung, over empty nir. Now his good head began to work. He looked up at the cross and tried to recall exactly the angle at which he had reached for it, to make his memory tell him just how the edge of that square post had ap peared. A few inches to the right or to the left would mean dropping into vacancy. V Bending his head away back, he strained his eye up the cross and figured his angle of approach. He cautiously wormed hirnBelf to the right and made up his mind that here, directly under his feet must be the plank. Then he dropped. The world knows.that he lived to tell the tale. Nerve. “Bigbee has a nerve.” “Why so?” “1 threatened to sue him for the $100 he owes me.” “Yes?” “And be asked'me to sue him for $200 and give him the other hundred.” Sure of One Thing, Mark Lemon in one of his books tells qf, a fat little boy who passed, his instructor on the street without; bowing. “What has become of your man ners, sir?” cried the teacher, shock ed and frowning. “It seems to me- tliat you are better fed than taught.” “Yes, sir,” replied the boy solemn ly. “I feeds myself, sir.” Disadvantages of lllitoracy. When a soldier is confined in the guardroom for an offense a written copy of the crime is invariably band ed to the commander of the guard. A corporal having given an order, one of the jnon, seemed disinclined to obey, when; after having rebuked him sharply, lie shouted in angry tones, ‘‘It’s u good job for you, me lad, that 1 can’t spell insubordina tion, or,I’d shove you in the clink (guardroom) sharp,”—London Tele graph. A Criterion of Age.^ Birmingham—Your daughter is to marry a young man named Hill, I believe? Manchester—Yes. He belongs to one of the very oldest families in the country. Birming ham—I didn’t know that he came from a particularly old family. Manchester—Oh, yes. You often hear people use the expression, “As old as the Hills.” RHEUMATISM. Why It I* Wi*e Not to Ignor* ‘‘Grow- ing Fains’’ In Children. Acute inflammat ry rheumatism attacks people all ligos and Con ditions and is arcaded not Only be cause of the intense pain that ac companies it, but ulso biicuuso it pf- ten leuves behind it u permanently injured heart. This complication is especially frequent in children. Severe pain, with redness und swell ing of the joints, makes the diag nosis easy in most cases of inflam matory rheumatism in adults, but in young children these symptoms may be too slight to be observed, while at the same time the heart is suffering serious damage. So called “growing pains” may be the beginning of nn attack of acute rheumntism, or a child, al though it does not give up its play, may complain that there is pain in the soles of its feet when it stands. If these pains are accompanied by the least redness or swelling of any joint and if there is also fever the diagnosis of inflammatory rheuma tism is clear. The child should be put at once to bed and kept there nil through the acute stage of the disease. In this way the attack may sometimes be shortened, and the shorter it is the less danger there is of the heart being, affected. The medical treatment of the case should be in the hands of a competent physician. Fortunately there are today reme dies for the quick control of rheu matism that were unknown a few years ago, when it sometimes ran a course of many weeks. While the pain is severe, the clothing should be arranged with a view to the greatest possible com fort for the patient, The night dress should be. of soft flannel and should fasten all the way down the front, because the profuse sweats characteristic of this disease make frequent changes necessary. It is well to have a soft blanket under the patient, and the bedclothes must be light, as well as warm. Where the joints are much swollen and very painful the clothes will have to be lifted away from the body by a wooden cradle. The nurse must be deft and careful, be cause iii the acute stage the least clumsinessjnay cause the most acute agony, so that, even a heavy footfall is dreaded by the patient.—Youth’s Companion. WONDERS OF FLIGHT- r Deschapelles. Deschapelles, tho greatest whist player the world has ever seen, had but one hand and was an advanced Republican. His manual dexterity was remarkable, and it -was very in teresting to watch him with his one hand—and that his left—col lect the cards, sort them, play them and gather them , in tricks. Late in life, when he had developed into ardent republicanism, he was sup posed to have been mixed up in some of the attempts at‘revolution which broke out in the earlier days of the reign of Louis Philippe. His papers were seized, and it was prov ed that he had drawn up a list of persons to be disposed of. Among them was an elderly acquaintance, so'described :.“Vntry (Alphie) to be guillotined—Reason—citoyen inu tile. Vatry is a bad whist player.” Puzxllng A*rl*l F«»t* of .tho Graceful Blaok Headed Gull. , . „ l“Flight ia tho master ifeat of wild life, tub ( muster, physical fekt Jot ull,” writes Geoi'go Dewar in “Min iatures. ’ “Thcyo aro-foots of birds and insects—of plants, too—subtler than tlioso of tho wing, more mystic in tho doing. Thus tho way finder feuts uro tnoro curious and far harder to follow—tho means - by which tho emperor moth can dis cover where is tho empress, which wo huvo caught and impri^ned in a dark box; tho ineuha by which tho root of a tree knows its crooked, path round obstacles to food; the means by which tho Wreathing stem of tho bfuqk brydny! can recognize and correct its error after it has strotched out and felt for support in a vain direction, lb tlics'e there are feats of physical intelligence strangor to consider than, anything which th.n swiftest, deftest flier docs with its wings, f.t • • V : “But the feat of flight is the most brilliant of all animal accomplish ments. Its sure,' swift, easy,, tri.- umph, its grace, the siipremo beauty of its action—these make an ani mal’s flight matchless as a spectacle. All thut is athletic and all that- is aesthetic in movement here com bine. “A black headed gull is floating and gliding,' riot quite flat on the afr. The tip of ohe wing—say 'the right—inclines skyward, the tip' of the other earthward. Thus he moves forward, up or down or quite paral- .111 lei with the earth or water for. a little distance, wings full stretched and rigid. Then comes a very per ceptible change. No flap or stroke of the wing appears to be made for fresh progress, but the bird turns its body slightly, and with the body the full spread, rigid wings. The result is that the right wing now in clines earthward and the left sky ward, and so the bird proceeds for another twenty yards. “The turn is so slight, so easy, one can hardly irpagine the bird lias won through its new impetus. How can those wings in this smooth, lazy action have stirred the thin air enough to draw from it'sustaining force? And lioiv is it that with out a perceptible stroke the bird is not only upheld, but driven for ward, though not traveling with the wind? Perhaps we must seek an answer in the marvelous perfection of wing in a gull. The least move- m’ent of the tip of tliatwing—move-, ment we are not conscious of when the bird is swung' high abovq us— may serve the purpose of flight. The faintest touch of the wing tip may be a master touch.” Spails’ “Eyes." We arq all. familiar with the pe culiar structures - which the cqm- moh snail protrudes from .its head, as' it travels' "Along, ‘ seemingly 1 ex ploring the territory around by what we are accustomed to describe as eyes,” situated at the end of the “feelers.” But this is a misappre hension. It appears that, if the ends bearing the so called “eyes” are cut off, the sngil, after a little while, proceeds on its way ip ex actly the usual way, thrusting out its tentacles and behaving much as before. It is therefore doubtful whether this “eye”, has,any visual function at dll. It seems rather that the tentacles, by touch or in some other way,'inform the snail of the presence and character of neigh boring objects. Dresden Runs a Paper. Dresden appears to be the only town where the principle of munic ipal ownership extends to newspa pers.' On bis death some years ago the proprietor of. the leading. Dres- l'eri newspaper bequeathedQg]) his roperty to the town where he had (ill np bis fortune, and the muni- . ii-iiitv lias since run the paper on lines. The profits. . Hie. terms v 'i "" Confused Terms. The superintendent asked the Sunday school: “With what remark able weapon did Samson slay the I’ijilistihes?’-’ ; For awhile there was no nr wer. The superintendent, to revive the children's memory, commenced lap ping his jaw with t-he tip of his. finger, at the same time saying, “What's this?” Hu" I; thought a little fellow repl c.l ■;’■■■ omoeenrly: - uie of an ass, sir,”—f Yill h r nnthlv. George Eliot and “Romola.” George Eliot’s first arrangement with the publisher of “Romola” was for no less a sum than 10,000 guin eas. “As that is so very large a figure,” he said, “I must run it in fifteen numbers of the Corn- hill”. “No,” she answered; “it must finish in twelve numbers or the ar tistic effect of the story will be lost. I quite understand the necessity for its prolongation from a com mercial point of view, so we’ll say 7,000. guineas instead of the 10,- 000.” • And 7,000 guineas was ac cordingly paid for the copyright* Three thousand guineas ' seems a largo sum to give up for an artistic scruple, but she did it, . . , .. , i le) m The Stinging .Tree. , .The. stinging tree of Australia sora.ewhat resembles a gigantic net tle.' It has an unpleasant odor, and the natives and native animals are careful to avoid it. When a man is stung by the tree—or, to'put it more prosaically, pricked bv the tree’s thorn—the little, wound' gives him at first do pain whatever. But in a few minutes a thaddening pnin is set’ up; the victim shrieks •arid- rolls upon the ground. For months afterward when water touches the stung part great agony ensues. Dogs when stung rush about with piteous whines, biting pieces Of flesh from the place that has been stung. Keeping Up Style. Mr. Minks—That girl vvfts decent enough to black the stoves before going, I see. Mrs. Minks —No; T blackened them mvsolf, and it’s lucky 1 did. Mr. Minks—Lucky? Mrs. Minks.— Yes, indeed. Mrs. De Fashion and Mrs. De Style call ed right in the midst of it,” and so I just put a little more blacking on mv lace and went to Hie door and told them 1 wasn’t in. They said they’d call again. — Now York Weekly.