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Notes and Queries.
Brightening Silver Coins.—In
answer to F. C. D.’s query last week,
X. P. R. writes : For cleaning silver
coins that have been in circulation, I
have found nothing better than silver
soap. Apply with a brush, rinse well
in clear water, and rub with chamois
skin. This will not do for fine pieces,
. fur it removes the mint lustre. For such
pieces an experienced numismatist gives
the following recipe : “ Dip the coins
iu a strong solution of cyanide of potas
sium, remove immediately, wash in
running water and dry in boxwood saw
dust. This process will not injure the
finest proof. Cyanide of potassium is
one of the most deadly poisons, and the
solution should be 1 brown away as soon
an used. Copper and silver coins must,
be dipped in the same bath.” We
would recommend great care in the use
of this poison, and, if possible, do not
let the fingers touch the acid. X.
writes : Take half a cup of water,
add sufficient sulphuric acid to make
the water feel warm to the finger, about
three or four teaspoonfuls; heat the
coin pretty hot and drop into the cup,
leaving it one or two minutes; then
using saleratus, brush with a stiff brush
and dry in sawdust. Should the first
attempt not be successful, heat again
and leave in the cup a little longer.
Rice Production.—J. G. B. asks,
“Can you tell me about how many
acres are under cultivation for rice, in
this country ? Also, which State
raises the most of this cereal ?” The
census of 1880 reported that there were
174,173 acres in the whole country used
for the cultivation of rice. The prod
uct is given as 110,131,373 pounds, an
average product of 032 pounds an acre.
The largest area under this form of
cultivation was in South Carolina,
which had 78,388 acres and produced
52,077,715 pounds, or nearly half the
total yield of the whole country. The
acreage of Georgia was 34,973, being
about one-fifth of the aggregate, and
that of Louisiana nearly the same. It
is further represented that while the
-acreage in lice diminished nearly 20,-
900 from 1880 to 1881, the product in
creased about 11,000,000 pounds, which
would imply either unusually favorable
climatic conditions or improved methods
■of culture.
Ages of European Soveriegns.—
S. C. E. asks: “Will you kindly tell
je in the ‘Notes and Queries’ depart-
snt, the ages of Emperor William of
prmany, Queen Victoria of England,
king Leopold of Belgium, the Em
peror of Austria, the King of Italy, the
Pope of Rome, the King of Spain and
the Emperor of Russia. Also, can you
tell me the ages of the German, Aus
trian and Russian empresses, and the
Queens of Spain and Italy V” Emperor
William is eighty-five years old, Queen
Victoria is sixty-three, King Leopold
II. is sixty, Francis Joseph is fifty-two
King Humbert is thirty-eight, Pope Le~
XIII. is seventy-three, King Alfonso is
tenty-five and Czar Alexander III. is
•glit. The Empress Augusta' of
fmany is seventy-one years old, the
Ihstrian empress is forty-five, the
farina is thirty-five, Queen Christine
If Spain is twenty-four and Queen
largherita of Italy is thirty-two.—Ex.
fairer w ill be the weather during the
t seven days.
2. The space for this calculation oc
cupies from 10 at night till 2 next morn
ing.
3. The nearer to midday or noon th*
phases of the moon happen, the more
foul or wet weather may be expected
during the next seven days.
4. The space for this calculation oc
cupies from 10 in the forenoon to 2 in
afternoon. These observations refer
principally to the summer, though they
affect spring and autumn nearly in the
same ratio.
5. The moon’s change, first quarter,
Pious Sentiment.
The Old Church Bell.
Ring on, ring on, sweot Sabbath bell!
Thy mellow tones I love to hear;
I wus a boy when first they foil
In melody upon my ear.
In those dear da
ays, long past and gone,
When sporting here in boyish glee,
The magic of thy Sabbath tone
Awoke emotions deep in ino.
Long yours have gone, and I have strayed,
Out o’er the world, far, far away,
But thy dear tones have round me played
On every lovely Sabbath day.
When strolling o'er the mighty plain,
Spread widely in the unpeopled West,.
Each Sabbath morn I've hoard thy strums
Tolling tho welcome day of rest.
full and last quarter, happening during
six of the afternooii houis, i. e., from 4
to 10, may be followed by fair weather;
but this is mostly dependent on the wind,
as noted in the table.
6. Though the weather, from a varie
ty of irregular causes, is more uncertain
in the latter part of autumn, the whole
of winter, and the beginni ng of spring,
yet in the main, the above observations
will apply to those periods also.
7. To prognosticate correctly, especial
ly in those cases where the icind is con
cerned, the observer should be within
sight of a good vane, where the four
cardinal points of-the heavens are cor
rectly placed.—Leisure Moments.
Removing Clinkers from Stove-
Linings.
A correspondent sends to the Boston
Journal of Chemistry the following note :
Once in a while we see in the papers
directions for removing clinkers from
the linings of stoves. Prevention being
better than cure, I propose to show how
they can be prevented. Three years
•igo I put a new lining in a No. 3 Magee
heater, and no one would imagine, from
examining it to-day, that it had been
Upon the Rocky mountain's crest,
Whore Christian feet have never trod,
In tho deep bo.-oin of the West
I've thought of thee and worshiped God !
King on, sweet boll, L vo come again
To hear Lhycherished call to prayer;
There's less of pleasure now than pain,
In those dear tones which till my ear.
Ring on, ring on, dear bell! ring on !
Once more I’ve come with whitened head
To hear thee toll. The sounds are gone!
And ere this Sabbath day has sped
I shall be gone, and may no more
Give ear to thee, sweet Sabbath bell 1
Dear church and bell, so loved of yore,
Asd childhood’s happy home, farewell.
Look not through tho sheltering bars
Up >n to-morrow;
God will help thoo bear what comes
Of joy or sorrow.
Some people have a special talent for
giving advice. Wiiat a pity it is that
they have not a special gift for receiv
ing it.
My principal method for defeating
heresy is by establishing truth. One
proposes to fill a bushel with tares ; now
if I caw fill it first with wheat, I shall
defy his attempts.—Newton.
Bishop Simpson made a good point at
the laying of the corner-stone of a new
church recently, when he said: “One
answer to those who assert that Christi
anity is dying out is simply this—we
build more churches. The line of ar
gument cannot hold against the line of
action. Infidelity builds no churches,
esque. But more, on every crowning j
; summit stands a castle olden, looking j
’ seaward, with its hoary facades and |
battlemented towers—perhaps inhabi- |
ted, perhaps crumbling still slowly
away, as it has been crumbling for
centuries. At every lovely harbor is an j
old-world village, or a great town with i
clanking hammers, the one rich the '
other poor, but both dowered with j
those aspects of antiquity which are so
dear to the eyes of the cultured Ameri
can. There are villages along this wild
Welsh coast of an ancientness to be
equalled hardly anywhere else in Brit
tain—villages which in some cases have
undergone little change of aspect dur
ing the past five hundred years. Remote
from railroads, primitive in all their
ways, they are of the old world, olden.
Time has hardly disturbed them since
the days when London was a village
too, with thatched roofs and winding
lanes. In the caves and chasms hewed
in the cliffs by the long rollers of the
Atlantic thundering in a thousand
storms have been found traces.of prime
val man—his bones, his implements,
the bones of the beasts he ate—in great
abundance. The very land is older than
the land of the English, Scotch and
Irish. Ages before the solid parts cf
earth on which the rest of Britain was
built had risen above the wide waste
ot waters covering the world, this land,
now called Wales, stood alone in its
glory, an island by itself where strange
monsters dwelt, and misshapen birds
and reptiles, wandering, left the tracks
of tlieir feet, whfch are found to-day in
the solid rock where they were im
pressed countless ages ago.—Ex.
The African of the Future.
used more than a week. With a piece
of iron about half an inch wide, bent to founds no asylums, endows no univer-
HerschePs Weather Table.
Foretelling Weathej^'h rough-
out all the Lunatn^is of
Each Year, Forever.
I This table and the accompanying
['marks are the result of many years’
3tual observation, the whole being con-
Itructed on a due consideration of the
attraction of the sun and moon, in their
Bveral positions respecting the eaith,
Lnd will, by simple inspection, show the
observer what kind of weather will most
iropably follow the entrance of the
knoon into any its quarters, and that so
par the truth as to he seldom or never
[found to fail:
1If New Moon,
reach the whole lining, I scraped the
surface of the lining, shook down light
ly and then put on coal. Kindlings
will he repuired if the fire has been left
to get too low; hut it is better to do
this earlier, as it keeps a steadier fire
and takes no more coal. I think I can
explain it on correct principles. When
the fire is the hottest there are no ashes,
for as the heat has decreased the ashes
have formed and settled down against
the lining, and shaking does not wholly
remove them. If more coal is added
the heat is sufficient to fuse the ashes
on to the lining, and there it stays.
Each time this is repeated more ashes
adhere, and it does not take long to
spoil a lining. I scrape these ashes off
thoroughly the first thing, and none
adhere; and it seems that the lining
will never wear out. There is another
thing to he noticed. If one stirs a coal
fire at the top, in the centre, the fire
generally goes out, because the cold air
goes up through the centre; but by
scraping around the outside of the fire,
and leaving the centre undisturbed, the
air going up around the fire slightly
cools off the lining, and the coal in the
centre retains its heat sufficient to burn
up again quickly without kindlings, if
the replenishing has not been too long
delayed. The grate must he let down
often enough to prevent the accumula
tion of clinkers in the bottom.* Once or
twice a week I let down my grate, re
place it, and put in some wood, then
some of the liv^ coals on the top, when
it burns up immediately. I then put
on a liodful of coal and close the stove,
and liave a fire at once without the heat
having gone down, and so keep a good
fire all winter. This can he depended
on: that, scraping the ashes from the
lining before replenishing a fire—every
time—will effectively prevent clinkers
from adhering.
Progress.’
First Quarter,
Afo
Full Moon, or r „ i.,
Last Quartet- In Sutnm<> ’
In Winter.
happens
ght&'2a.m.Fair Frost, unless wind
south-west.
Id Ash wrs.Snow and stormy.
Kaln |
Stormy.1
91 if wind
ow U'e'st.
igh wind,
rain.
It is gratifying to note that the
colored people throughout the entiie
country are improving in every sphere
of life. In the Southern States with their
limited education vl advantages they are
making wonderful strides towards a
higher and better life ; they are to he
eventuall)^l^^|MMtiUum tillers of the
dud' ^fl^^^^^^^V^outhern Stale
sities. Unbelief provides no refuge for
the infirm and poor, nor furnishes help
nor comfort to those who weep.”
Th# surest way to excite sympathy
for any one, is to persecute him. He
may he in the wrong, but if lie is un
kindly or unjustly treated, although
there may he no 'approval of his prin
ciples or his deeds, yet the improper
treatment which he receives will excite
pity and call forth the condemnation of
candid minds. Hence, persons who are
ccnsciousof being in the wrong, often
try to make the impression that they
are persecuted and wrongfully treated,
to excite sympathy in their behalf.
However you may disapprove, never
persecute a wrong doer, for by so doing
you onty strengthen his hands. .
Christian Cripples : The Golden Rule
thinks there are a great many Christian
cripples. It says: “Some are without
arms; they have never helped any one
over the rugged places of life. Some
are without feet; they have never gone
an inch out of t heir way to serve others.
Some are voiceless ; they have never
even by a word, encouraged any one
who was cast down. Some are deaf;
tl^>y have never listened to the voice of
suffering. Some are without hearts;
they do not know what sympathy and
generous feeling are. What a proces
sion such characters would make if
they could he seen as they are, on the
street!”
Costly Rugs.
Where and How Made, and How
They Get to this Country.
When an American buyer arrives in
the heart of the rug-making country in
Asia he select^ the best agent lie can
find, and gives him an order for, say, 100
rugs of about the colors and sizes of
certain samples which he may find in
the bazars. The Turkish agent then
employs natives of the villages where
the kind of rugs selected are wanted,
giving to each a hag of gold, and in
structions to order four rug3. The sub
agent then goes among the families and
talks rugs with them, drinking many
cups of coffee and discussing the price
for days at a time. When a bargain is
concluded some money is furnished the
family for wool, dyes, and food, and the
agent goes away, sure that in the course
of a few months the rug will be ready.
Upon a carpet measuring 8x12 feet a
whole family will work for months.
The cotton or woolen threads which
form the groundwork or warp of the
fabric are stretched upon a huge frame
the width of a rug, and the family, or
such members of it as are able to work,
sit on the floor and tie knots in tiie warp
threads with the colored wool tufts,
tightening the finished fabric now and
then with a rough comb.
Professor Gilliam’s article in th©
February issue of the “Popular Scieno©
Monthly,” on tliestatus of the American
citizen of African descent as lie will be a
hundred years hence, has set some people
to thinking. The Professor’s deductions,
from the census tables, are that about
1980 the United States will 1 number
about 190,000,000 of colored people and
only 90,000,000 whites. This is the bald
statement. The non-thinker will hoot at
it and the negrophobistmay take refuge
in the theory of a “white man’s govern
ment,” but when the negro has a hun
dred more years in which to grow up with
the country and outnumbers liiA white
brother more than two to one, and out
numbers him too in every State of the
Union.
There is an old story extant some
where relating to one of the prisoners of
Dionysius,, the tyrant of Syraouse,. or
some other tyrant, who each clay noticed
the walls of his prison approach nearer
together. At first it was only a suspi
cion, next it was something more, then
it was confirmed, and finally it was a
fact. The walls approached closer and
closer, bringing with them, as their
worst terror, apprehensions of a slow
and terrible death, all too horribly real
ized at last. To the negrophobist and
teacher of a “conflict of races” this
negro question must present something
of the same aspect in a political sense.
Prof. Gilliam, a Southern man, is forced
to the ’conviction that, in a hundred'
years or less, the black man will domi
nate this land of the free and, if he chooses,,
dictate laws to his white brother and
lay down the conditions on which he
can stay in the country ! And this is
the output of that plant of twenty,
slaves in Virginia, and this the states-,
manship which endorsed it!
Bui what is to be done about it ?'
Nothing, so far as the main facts are
concerned. The negro has come to
stay, and the question now is as to the
best use to he made of him.. If he is to
outnumber and rule the country he
must he educated. Nothing seems
plainer than that. If this is to become
a great negro republic it should be a
creditable one. All other connecting
questions growing out of such, a state
of society are trifling compared with the
importance of that step. The educa
tion should not be merely that of “ the
three R’s,” but such as shall mako a
good citizen of the negro and redeem,
him from the character of machine
politician. That is liis present danger.
If now, while white influence predomi
nates, that feature of our politics can be
eliminated and the other engrafted on
the country, 1980 need have no terrors-
for the citizen of that day. We shall
still have “the best government on the
planet’’for our successor?, even if it
does not strictly realize the old idea of a
white man’s government.”
The Welsh Coast.
Romantic Scenes In the Oldest Land
of the British Isles.
Nearly three-fourths of the entire cir
cuit of Wales is seacoast. A great part
of this coast is rugged and dangerous,
hut there are frequently recurring har
bors of refuge easily and safely entered.
Steep and forbidding cliffs, with fronts
of iron, black, jugged, frowning, receive
the Atlantic’s rudest buffetings grimly.
The southern shore of Wales, from a
point just below Cardiff to the extreme
westernmost reach of land at St. Da
vid’s Head, is washed by an ocean whose
free sweep is unbroken straight across
to the coast of Newfoundland. At
various points the cruel cliffs are made
still more cruel by huge disjected
scattered about^at a dikanoo
mainland,
its
wi.
Each worker takes about twenty-seven
inches of the rug and works along this
strip. From two to four inches a day is
the speed at which the rug advances if
the family is large enough for the
whole width of the rug to advance at
the same time. A rug eight or nine
feet wide requires four persons, who
work side by side. The finishing of the
rug, smoothing, clipping, etc,, is a work
requiring skill and judgment. The
wages are small and the payment is ac
cording to the number of square feet.
The workers know certain patterns by
heart, and dye their own wools. The
old dyes have in some instances been
supplanted by aniline colors, which do
not keep tlieir tones, and fade without
giving to the rug the softness of tint
which JS the chief glory of a fino East
ern rug. So many merchants have re
fused to buy the carpets in which ani
line dyes have been used that the use of
them may eventually he stopped.
The rug-makers, as
in money, very
ligious, hut live coj
aroundj
Serviceable Hints.
In scouring tin ware, zinc or copper
vessels, use a little kerosene or bath
brick pulverized, and lime. Wash the
y ssel in hot water and polish with com
mon whiting.
An improved water lac varnish for
finishing wall paper and for similar pur
poses has been patented by Mr. George
II. Beck, of New York city. The com
position consists of the following ingredi
ents combined in about the proportions
stated, viz.: ammonia, one hundred and
forty grammes ; shelac, 907.15 grammes;
water, five thousand grammes; gelatine,
one hundred and thirty-two grammes ;
glycerine, sixty grammes. When the var
nish is ready for use, it may be applied
by rollers <ff by a grounding machine,
and will give the paper an even, rich
and water-proof leather finish, furnish
ing a surface that may he washed
warm or cold water.
Good Lights.—A very
ney cleaner can he
bit of sponj
chirnns
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