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SOMEWHAT STRANGE. ACCIDENTS AND INCIDENTS OF EVERY DAY LIFE. Queer Facts nnd Thrilling Advcn lures Which Show That Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction. In the peninsula of Abeheron, formerly belonging to Persia, but now a part of Russia, there is a perpetual, or, rather what the natives call au eternal sacred fire, which is known to have been burn¬ ing continually for more than 2,000 years. It rises from an irregular orifice of about 12 feet in depth and 120 feet square. The flames, which are constant, rise to a height of from 6 to 8 feet, un¬ accompanied with smoke or disagreeable smell, waving back and forth with the wind like a field of golden grain. A mah registered at a Madison (Ga.) hotel a short time ago. He engaged for a room and retired, and after sleeping dreamed some time had a dream. lie that he was on a railroad train that was going at a good speed, when he dis¬ covered that another train was coming toward his on the same track, and a col¬ lision was inevitable. The conductor called out, “Jump!” and at that mo¬ ment the dream stopped, but the dreamer did not—he jumped out of the second story window. Be fortunately escaped injury. A curious instance of the recovery of a lost ring in a root of celery occurred some years back in Sweden. A lady, when planting celery in the garden the in Spring, and while dibbling holes for small plants with her linger, uncon¬ sciously dropped the ring into one of the holes. A plant was duly inserted in the hole, and doubtless through the lost ring, and as the root grew the ring must have become imbedded in its substance. The ring had been given up for lost until the following winter, when the mystery was cleared up by the ring making its appearance in the soup at dinner in a portion of the celery. M. Brain, a Paris bootmaker, has an ingenious fashion of catching appropriate persons who manifest an intention to any of the goods exposed for sale out¬ side of his shop. Whenever he goes to his dining-room for meals he ties the out-of- door selection of boots and shoes to an electric wire, which communicates with an alarm. Recently an intending thief was caught in the act of trying to annex a pair of “elastic sides.” The alarm sounded and the bootmaker was on the alert in time to point out the fast-disappearing culprit to a policeman. of boots M. Brain lost several pairs before he tried the “electric bell arrange¬ ment.” The tiny village of Lamphey, in Wales, possesses a unique railway trains sta¬ tion. Less than half a dozen stop •there during the day. There being in¬ sufficient work to occupy the time of the station master and his assistant, a novel arrangement has been made. Adjoining the station bouse is an office where printing is carried on by the assistant, under the able superintendence of the the station master. Here one sees timy tables set who, up three and printed four young man, or every day, exercises also the fuuc tioa of porter. The work turned out from the little office embraces all the necessary priuting for the line of rail on which Lamphey is situated. A five-year-old colored boy, 2t feet high, weighing forty-five pounds, difficult who reads readily at sight Bible the most in other passages in the or any book put before him, is creating aston¬ ishment at Camden, Ark. His articula¬ tion is perfect, every word coming out clear and distinct. He never saw the % ' inside of school, and his parents and a gtandparents are ignorant., full-blooded Africans. He was born in Claiborne Parish, Louisiana, November 2, 1887. His powers were first discovered by his father, whom he astounded by picking up a Bible and reading therefrom to such an extent that the ignorant and super¬ stitious parent fled and has not since been seen. Benjamin Franklin Coleman is the name he bears. A young man in St. Louis was recently married, and among music the box. wedding His house pres¬ ents was a nice •was entered by burglars the other night, and as they were rummaging tried through the parlor one of them to open the music box, thinking, presumably, something that it might be a jewelry case, or of that sort. His efforts started the box to playing, and the owner was aroused from his slumbers by hearing the strains of “Auld Lang Syne” pealing forth from his parlor. He got his gun, started to investigate the cause of the untimely music, and entered the parlor just in time to see the burglars beating a hasty retreat. Nothing was taken from the house, and he thinks that the music box saved him from a considerable loss. A young lady of Wilcox, Penn., had a beautiful gold watch of which she was unduly proud. various The occasions, timepiece and was few ex¬ hibited on a days ago when some admiring accidentally friends were examining it the watch slipped from their fingers. A cry of dismay disappear went up when with the party saw in the watch a gulp the yawning mouth of a dog which sat at their feet looking expectantly upward and good naturedly wagging its tail. ceived Poor doggie choice imagined that he had re¬ with a morsel, and looked the pleased fly, but his it feat of catching his it on proved to be death warrant. He was summarily despatched, and at the post-mortem the watch was recovered none the worse from the mis¬ hap. The sensation which Mary's lamb caused when it followed her to school one day was not a circumstance to that caused by the recent visitation of a wild¬ cat to a school in Hamburg, Conn. The school visitor, an elderly gentleman named Hayden Gray, had just finished the duties which devolved upon him in his official capacity when a wildcat jumped through one of the windows, followed shortly afterward by a dog. The children climbed on top of settees in one corner of the room. The dog slunk under a stool, and the school visitor, with more alacrity than dignity, scrambled to the top of the teacher’s desk, and sought Miss Alice Griswold, the teacher, to join Mm. It was a game of puss in the corner with everybody in the corner but the puss and the plucky iron Miss Griswold, who seized a heavy poker and dispatched the intruder. accomplished A peculiar at case Geneva, of ear-piercing Ohio, t he other was day at the winter quarters of Walter Main's circus. A large lioness called Nellie has been suffering from what animal trainers term • ‘eye-shutters,” the optics of the beast becoming closed from a scaly substance appearing just over the eyelids. As the lioness is a young and valuable one the circus owner has employed every means to prevent Nellie's loss of sight, ’but without avail. As a last experiment, the brute was securely chained and a local jeweler, after cutting a J-inch hole in each of the beast’s ears, inserted two gold rings about the size of a silver dollar, which it is expected will exterminate the “shutters.” During the brief operation the lioness roared loudly and taxed the strength of the chains that held her. The jeweler, who re¬ ceived $100 for his rings and services, was as nervous as a dentist’s patient. Assistant Postmaster Muller tells a story about one of his friends on Price Hill, says the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette. The man was very nervous, and especially about crossing Mill Creek bottoms, and one night, while walking there, met a stranger, who in the dark¬ ness apparently did not see him, and the two collided. The Pigce Hill man had gone but a few steps after this when he missed his gold watch, and, drawing his revolver, he rushed after the retreating form of the man who had collided with him. “Here,” he exclaimed, “you’ve got my watch. Give it to me.” The stranger protested his innocence, but in vain. The Price Hill man held up his gun, and the watch was handed over. After administering a caution to the stranger, and threatening to call the police, the Price Hill man continued his way, and got home safely. There he told his wife the incident, and she re¬ plied that he had left his watch at home that morning. The man jumped up and pulled out the timepiece he carried, and saw a face that he had never seen before. He advertised for the man he had robbed, and returned the watch with a satisfac¬ tory explanation. “I owned one of the finest bulls ever brought to Kentucky,” said J. B. Esk¬ ridge, a prosperous farmer living near Versailles, Ky. “He was the most beautiful animal that I ever saw, was as gentle as a lamb and as tame as walked a pet dog. About three months ago I out in the cornfield where ho was graz¬ ing. As soon as he saw me he came running towards me with lxis head lowered to the ground and bellowing with all the strength of his lungs. I saw that he was mad and tried to es cape, but he caught me before I could get to the gate. The corn rows were high, and when he struck me I got down between them. His horns couldn’t reach me in that position, and then he began to cut me with his ‘hoofs.’ Fortunately my son saw me, and with a pitchfork drove the maddened animal away. An hour later the bull was found dead. He had gone to a creek that ran through the field and held his head under the water until he was strangled. It, was suicide and nothing else.” The smallest missionary vessel afloat recently left San Francisco for the Gil¬ bert Islands. She is 50 feet long, 14 feet wide and 6 feet deep, San is a Fran¬ two masted schooner, was built at cisco, and her name is the Hiram Biug ham. She was paid for, however, by the American Board of Foreign Missions, of Boston, and is registered m that city. The Rev. J. Walk up, who commands her, is a captain, as well as a missionary, who has passed twelve years of his life among the Gilbert Islauds. Internally the vessel is all cabin, as the crew is com posed entirely of the missionaries who intend to work among the islands, and the vessel is designed for a sort of tender to the big missionary brig, Morn¬ ing Star. It is built, therefore, to run in nnd out among all the channels and harbors where the large vessel cannot go, and an odd feature about it is a ten horse power gasoline engine and at¬ tached screw, so the vessel can navigate the narrow channels by steam in a calm. At the head of the extensive wide¬ ning of the St. John’s River, in Volusia Township, Florida, that is known as Lake George, lie two or three swampy islands. One of these has a few acres of ground that stand high enough out of the water to encourage orange trees and other remunerative growths and also to afford room for a cabin. The cabin is occupied and the trees are cultivated by a queer old fellow who has built a^ long ramshackle bridge from dry land to a little dock that stands in the sedge close to the main channel Here the steamer stops on his signal to take oranges and letters or to deliver flour and other groceries. He is a hermit who seldom ventures to the mainland. Passengers on the river steamers occasionally see his him busied about the little shed on wharf, an extraordinary figure iu a home spun suit of brown, with a patch his of startling white on the seat of trousers and an indescribable hat that may have once been “plug,” but that has been chopped and banged resembles and battered and unroofed until it the week of a Napoleonic chapeau indifferent more than anything else. He is to criticism, however, for he lives apart from men. His* nearest neighbor is a lighthouse-keeper, who would have to hunt for him with a telescope. Some affect to believe that in his younger days he was a pirate. A royal heart on the auction block is the strange and gruesome spectacle into which will rouse even blase Paris unfeigned interest in a few days. It is said to be the heart of the unhappiest of all French princes, the dauphin son and of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, it has been preserved for ninety-seven years in a jar of spirits, where it was placed by the famous surgeon, Pelletan, who nade the autopsy in the authentic. temple. The history of the relic is The only question is whether the boy who died in the temple in 1795 was the real dauphin or a child who had been substituted for the prince. When the boy died Pelletan and the three col¬ leagues were assigned interval, to make while a post¬ his mortem. associates During an window chatting, went to the Pelletan removed the heart from the body, wrapped it in a handkerchief and slipped it into hi* pocket. He preserved the relic in a vessel of brandy until Louis XVIII. became king in 1817. Then he offered to give the heart to the king for royal burial. Louis neither refused nor accepted Pelletan’s offer. Pelletan then sent the relic to the sacristy of the arch¬ bishopric of Paris. In 1810 the people of Paris sacked the archbishop’s the palace and Dr. Jules Pelletan, son of sur¬ geon, saved the royal relio at the risk of his life. He has recently died. The heart in its reliquary is to come to the hammer. RELIABLE RECIPES. Gum arabic and gum tragneanth in equal parts dissolved in hot water make the best and most convenient mucilage you can keep in the house. Tea or coffee stains of long standing may be removed by rubbing washing the cloth A with glycerine, washing leaves after the linen once. clean second as as before. Kerosene is good for cleaning brass as well as for woodwork. Moisten a cloth with it, and rub the brass thoroughly; dipped then polish with dry flannel in whiting. Kerosene is also excellent for the rubber rollers of the clothes wringer; rub them with it occasionally, and you will not be troubled with them stioking together. Roast Turkey.— An ordinary turkey, weighing eight or ten pounds,requires and thorough at least two hours for proper cooking, for which The Poultry Yard gives the following explicit little directions: in if you are likely to have time the morning, prepare your fowl over night by singeing and removing pin¬ and feathers, washing inside and out, rubbing both with a clean cloth until dry.. Mix a litlJe pepper and salt and rub the entire ii%ide of the turkey before putting in the stalling, or should dressing, as it is usually called. This be made of stale bread cvu«l>s—about three cup fuls—to which is a a |ed a small teaspoon¬ ful of pepper, svft 4 o amount of pow¬ dered sage or % ■ marjoram, salt, and a little salt piedi pork, chopped size very fine, or a )f butter the of an egg, if the latter i* preferred. Use warm water to mix the whole to the con¬ sistency of thick hitter; heat up an egg and stir into it at last, and proceed to stuff the breast with half or more of the dressing. Sew up the opening with a coarse thread and needle, tying the skin over the end ot the neck. If you have skewers of wood or iron pin the wings to the sides of the fowl closely, and pin the neck onto the back. If you have ifo skewers use twine to tie down the wings, etc. Put whatever dressing is left into the body, sew up the vent, forcing tight. the legs down and tying them very pint of Put in a dripping pan with a water, and once in fifteen or twenty min¬ utes baste the turkey with the gravy. The frequent basting "in is of great import ance, as it keeps the juices and allows thorough cooking without burning or drying the meat, Turn often enough to have the whole a rich brown when done. For the last basting of each side, dredge with flour and but¬ ter freely. It gives the crisp, frosty look so desirable and appetizing. For the gravy, wash in the morning, and set to ,boil in a saucepan the liver and gizzard. When done chop or mash the liver very line and put in the dripping pan when the turkey is done, and place the pan on the stove tipped a little, so that one cor ner is free from the gravy. Into this corner put a large spoonful of dry flour, carefully mixing it with the butter on the top "of the gravy. When it is well saturated stir it into the gravy and let it boil up once and pour into the tureen. Dish the turkey in a large, warm platter, breast up, ready for the carving knife, the gizzard on the platter. Catarrh and Its Cnre. Most of our population catarrhal have affections some general ideas of of the nose and throat, hut very few except those who have lost their hearing from it have any conception of its intimate causal relation with deafness. The popular idea of catarrh is that it is a condition of more or less constant discharge of offensive mucus from the hose. This is so only in the most aggravated and worst forms of the disease, and fortunately is rare. Properly speaking, catarrhal affections of the nose and throat are simply condition an en¬ larged, swollen and thickened of the lining membrane of the nostrils and back part of the throat. This thick¬ ened condition of the mucous membrane in the nose is usually production accom¬ panied by an increased of mucus which often drops and backward into the throat, by increased moisture in the back of the throat, excites the continuous little hack¬ ing cough to dislodge it and clear the throat. These patients are very subject to what are called “colds in the head,” with complete closure of the nasal pas¬ sages. The reason their colds in the head are so severe is because a very slight swelling of the inside of the nostrils, which is always the condition in this acute disease, occurring in a nose already much narrowed by a chronic permanent enlargement of its lining membrane, A to¬ tally obstructs the nasal canals. very common but unhealthy remedy for tem¬ porary or permanent occlusion of the nose is to snuff a solution of salt and water through the nostrils. Unfortu¬ nately, this practice has been too often thoughtlessly recommended by family physicians. If the habit is is prolonged, used will the condition for which it surely be aggravated. A much better so¬ lution to use in the nose, and also as a gargle in acute sore throat, instead of chlorate of potassium, is com mon baking soda, a teaspoonful in a cup of warm water. What ever solution is used iu the nose, it is a great mistake to forcibly snuff it into the nostrils from the palm of the snuffed hand, as is too commonly done. If it is too forcibly, it is forced into the upper part of the nasal cavity, where it is very irritating, often causing headache and irritation of the eyes. The best and sim¬ plest way to use the soda solution is to bury the nose entirely in the cup of fluid, and then gently suck the solution into the nose, at the same time holding risk the of mouth widely open. There is no choking if the mouth is open and the head thrown forward, ae it necessarily is in doing this, for all the fluid will run out through the mouth.—[Popular Science Monthly. “SWEET BY AND BY.’ INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT A FAMOUS HYMN. Tho Author Is an Illinoisan—Story of the Sacred Song’s Inception. Mrs. M. L. liayne, a writer on the staff of the Detroit Free. Press, contrib¬ utes to our contemporary the following interesting article concerning the home and life history of the author of a hymn which millions have sung—“The Sweet By and By”: S. Fillmore Bennett, the author of “The Sweet By and By,” lives in the Town of Richmond, Ill. At the time of writing the poem, however, Dr. Bennett w as a resident of engaged the Village in the of ElKhorn, publica¬ Wis., and was tion of sacred music. He was associated with a musical composer who had fits of melancholy and depression. On one of these dark outlooks he came into their place of business, silent and dejected. “What is the matter now, Webster?” asked his partner. “Oil, nothing—it is and of no by,” consequence answered —it’ll be all right by Mr. Webster. “Then,” says Dr. Bennett, “the idea came to me like a flash of sunlight, and I responded instantly: ‘The Sweet By and Bv;’ why wouldn’t that be a good subject for a song?” answered, indifferently. “Perhaps,” he be discouraged. I “But I was not to turned to my desk and wrote the original form of the poem. “sweet by-and-by.” “There’s a land that is fairer than day, And by faith wo can sue it afar, For th Father waits over the way, Toprepaie us a dwelling pi ce there. “In the Sweet By-and-By, Beautiful Shore— We shall meet on that In the Sweet By-and-By, Beautiful Shore. We shall meet on that “We shall sing on that Beautiful Shore, The melodious songs of the bloat. And our spirits shall sorrow no more— Not a righ for the blessing of rest! (Chorus.) “To tho Bountiful Father above, We will offer the tribute of praise, For the glo ious gift of His love, And tho blessings that hallow our days, (Chorus.) “When I had it completed I handed it to Webster. As he read it he lost his indifference and his face brightened friend with who enthusiasm. Then he asked a had stepped in to hand him his violin and he improvised the melody. In a few moments he had written out the notes for tlie four parts of the chorus, and in thirty minutes from the time I had taken my pen to write the words, four of us were singing the hymn. Within two weeks we heard the children singing it on the streets.” There are only two of those who as¬ sisted at the birth of this inspirational song who are now living—Dr. Bennett and S. E. Bright of Fort Atkinson, Wis. These two have been many times wit¬ nesses of its wonderful popularity, and everywhere the notes of its plaintive music was to them as a breath of their native air. This is the brief and simple story of the inception of the song which was con sistent with the life and sentiments of its author, who, when an attack was made on his religious belief, thus forcibly and modestly defended himself and his friend: “When I claim that every man’s relig¬ ion is something sacred to his own soul, and something no man has a right to personally question, i feel compelled to say that the hope and longing of every ‘The immortal soul, as expressed in Sweet By-and-By,’ firm was conviction not to us and a ‘painted lie,’ but the faith of both of us, and to both creation would have seemed a farce unless associated with a belief in a Supreme Being of infi¬ nite love, and an immortal existence for man beyond the grave.” interesting pri¬ Dr. Bennett, in a very vate letter, says: dream devote “When a boy my was to my life to my pen, but an education was the first object, a hard thing for enough one to gain unaided. Before I knew to teach I began teaching. I was about 18, and sensitive as a girl. My book qualifi¬ cations were meager. I had plenty of pupils much older than myselL I had never looked in the algebra—to study it. ‘Could I teach algebra?’ came the ques¬ tion from these. ‘O, yes! But let us wait a week before we organize a class.’ the That night I walked bought eight miles algebra. to nearest village and an Thereafter 4 o’clock of the winter morn¬ ings, I was at the lonely seboolhouse studying algebra by the light of a ‘tallow dip,’ kerosene not having been invented. I took my class through the book—and they never knew the secret. That is about the way I have worked all my life. When I was younger I desired to publish a volume of poems, but never hau the money to do it. Thus I escaped the critics and probably conserved my repu¬ tation. “You inquire about ‘The Sweet By and By.’ As to how it was born. I only know the externals, as given life here¬ with. There are phases of the of the soul unseen—like that are profoundly, the of sweetly real, but scent a rose. We may watch the unfolding of yet—the a rose¬ bud, but we cannot know—not primal fact behind the visible miracle nor the alchemy of God that works in the fact. I have often been drawn from bed bv a dear demon who cried, ‘fi rite! Write!’ I have—on one occasion— written nine hymns in a single night, but never came anything to me just as did ‘Sweet By-and-By.” Yes, I have heard it sung in many places and under many circumstances—but someway, under no circumstances that were inap¬ propriate. It oftenest gives comfort at the grave. It is the funeral hymn of Free Masonry—the higher orders—in America. I have received many a letter from the mourning that made my heart very tender, and humble. Well, the universal heart of humanity loves to think of and sing of a sweet, blessed re¬ union with those who have laid down the burden of earth-life—w hether it can demonstrate it or not. It is atavism of the soul to the type of its primal inno¬ cence and communion with God. ‘Would you like to hear how the little hymn sounds in Chinese? A New York journal published it in the Chinese characters and an interlineal translation, whi<9 ^.- , .hentic. I will t.ran Jse: “TEo'eUT* -- is fairer than day, Jay hin gwb«», .w yut jaw wall me shaw, And by faith we can see it afar, bong Yaw sun dock gwa chinong yip geen, For the Father waits over the way. Foo cheo yun hoy hen boon gong'jip gav, To prepare ns a dwelling place there. . Gwv hoi ehoey gin die juck we on goey. In the sweet by-and-by Dow how 1 iy dork win ' gwong, We shall myi-t on that beautiful shore, Go ehi dan bit joy chop wall me shaw, I'i the sweet by-aud-by, Dow how lay d ck wing gwong, We shall meet on that beautiful shore. Go chi dan bit joy chop wall me shaw.” The Western Union Time Service. The five foot time-ball to be dropped at the World’s Fair will be made of can¬ vas on a steel frame. It will be wound up each day to the height from which it is to fall, and it will be set and electric¬ ally connected in such a manner that tho breaking of the circuit at 12 noon will release it. The cable by which it will be controlled has already been laid, con¬ necting the new observatory with the en¬ tire Western Union Telegraph system. Within thirty days it will be in opera¬ tion, the touch of a button at the Wash¬ ington end of it instantaneously trans¬ mitting notice of the hour over 550,000 miles of wire. When that button and speaks the whole country will listen, the hands of 70,000 electric clocks all over the United States will point There to the 7,000 cor¬ rect minute and second. are such clocks iu New York City alone. All railways, factories and industries of every kind pay attention to this signal. Three minutes before noon each day all the Western Union lines are cleared of busi¬ ness, every operator takes his finger/rom the key, circuits arc opened, and at tho instant when the sun passes over the seventy-fifth meridian the spark of intelli¬ gence is flashed to all parts of the coun¬ try. It requires less than one-fifth of a second to reach San Francisco. The 12 o’clock signal sent from Wash¬ ington indicates 11 a. m. for Chicago, 10 a. m. for Omaha and 9 a. m. for the Pacific coast, the United States being divided into four perpendicular strips and each strip setting its clocks by th» time of the meridian which Bisects it from north to south. Thus each strip is only one hour liter than the next strip to the east. The Western Union Com¬ pany earns about $1,000,000 annually from its electric-clock service, charging $15 a year for setting each clock at noon daily. The time sold thus profitably it gets from the Government for privilege nothing, but anybody can have the same instrument free of charge by putting an Captain and a wire into the observatory. charge, is McNair, the naval officer in anxious to furnish time-ball service to individuals and concerns in every sea¬ port city, only demanding as a condition that he shall have a return wire furnished him, in order that he may publish Such time- cor¬ rections in the newspapers. balls would enable mariners to correct their chronometers. It was chiefly for this purpose, iu fact, that the time ser¬ vice was originally established.—[Wash¬ ington Correspondent of Boston Trans¬ cript. _ Extinction ot the Cormorant. Thc rapidity with which a species is wiped out is startling. Some time ago Dr. Leonhard Stejnegerof the Smithson¬ ian, undertook an expedition in search of Pallas’s cormorant. Away out on the extremity of that long arm of Alaska which terminates in a string of islands Pallas’s cormorant had its home. Dr. Stejncger found nativeswho remembered the cormorant. They could recall the taste of the great bird, which could fly but short distances, and which fell a prey to them almost as easily as a barn¬ yard turkey' might. But when Dr. Stej neger offered what to the Aleuts was a fabulous price for just laughed one specimen and said of Pallas’s cormorant they hadn’t it was impossible. for thirty A cormorant Within the been seen years. memory of living whale-hunters there were plenty of Pallas's cormorants on the Commander Islands. Before the orni¬ thologists realized it the species had passed out of existence. Specimens thau of Pallas’s cormorants are to-day rarer even those of the great auk. Of only three stuffed specimens is there any rec¬ ord. One of these is in the British Museum, another in the museum at St. Petersburg, the third in the Leyden Museum. There are no eggs.—[Boston Transcript. Two Remarkable Epitaphs. The two most remarkable those epitaphs of Daniel in the United States are Barrow, formerly of Sacramento, Cal., and that of Hank Monk, Horace Greeley’s stage driver. The former reads as fol¬ lows: “Here is laid Daniel Barrow, who was born iu Sorrow and Borrowed little from nature except his name and his love to mankind and his hatred for redskins: Who was nevertheless a gen¬ tleman and a dead shot, who through a long life never killed his man except iu self-defense or by accident, and who, when he at last went under beneath the bullets of his cowardly enemies in Jeff Morris’ saloon, did so in the sure and certain hope of a glorious and everlast¬ ing morrow.” Hank Monk’s epitaph reads thus: “Sacred to the memory of Hank Monk, the whitest, biggest-hearted the West, and best known stage-driver of ill of who was kind to all and thought none. He lived in a strange era and was a hero, and the wheels of his coach are now ringing on the Golden Streets.”— [St. Louis Republic. Valuable Timber in Dismal Swamp. A report is being circulated to the ef¬ fect that a Baltimore syndicate, the new owners of the famous Dismal Swamp Canal that connects the waters of the Elizabeth in Virginia and the Dismal Swamp with the Pasquotauk in North Carolina, propose to improve the water ways and develop the timber lands, which are very valuable and include tracts of cypress and other trees of large size. With the exception of the main Jericho Canal and a few smaller passages and Lake Drummond, some ten miles in the interior, the swamp is piactically im¬ penetrable on account of the dense growth of cane brake.—[New York W’orld. POPULAR SCIENCE NOTES. It is said that two French scientists have lately discovered an entirely new property of Faraday’s disk, and that the result may be an important improvement in the dynamo. Children’s clothes can be made unin¬ flammable by adding to the last rinse water two ounces of pulverized alum. that all A prominent English chemist says children’s dresses should be thus treated. Aluminum is found combined with 195 other minerals, and, therefore, consti¬ tutes a large part of the crust of the earth, but until recently has been very expensive because of the difficulty of separating it. One of the latest applications of the heating properties of electricity is to the drying of lumber for planing Canada; purposes. this At a large mill in Ottawa, method has been tested with such grati¬ fying results that a Dumber of electric drying kilns are now being erected. A new' antidote for carbolic acid poison¬ ing has been discovered by an Italian physician. The patient is dosed with a strong solution of sulphate of soda, which forms with the acid a harmless mixture. Inhalations of ammonia are used to hasten the action of the soda. The Largest Telescope In the World. —The Ycrkes telescope, which will be the largest in the world, will be made by the firm of Warner & Swasey, of Cleveland, O., the builders of the great Lick telescope, the contract having recently been made. The new telescope is to be the gift of Charles L. Ycrkes, of Chicago, to the Chicago University. The gift will also include au observatory, in which the telescope .vill be university placed, the entire amount given to the for this purpose aggregating $500,000. Work on the new instrument will bo pushed to completion as quickly as possible. It the is the wish of the company to have telescope entirely finished in one year. The Yerkes telescope will have an object glass of forty inches clear aperture, and the total length of the tube, with its ac¬ cessories, will not be less than seventy five feet. The instrument complete will wei^fi sixty tons. The instrument will be provided with all the complicated such motions which are necessary on a large telescope. The machinery afford¬ ing this variety of movement can be op¬ erated by the hand of ihe astronomer, or by electric motors, at the will of the observer. In design and general con¬ struction the Yerkes will be similar to the Lick, although it will he 25 per cent, more powerful than that instrument. The construction of the new telescope will necessarily be undertaken in sections. It would require an ordinary six-story building to afford room for its second building as a whole. As it is, tthe and third floors of the large shops will be partly removed in order to make room. THE BODY AND ITS HEALTH. Rise Early. —The excellence of early rising and its inspiring influence themes on for both the body ai/d mind have been poet’s song and the sage’s sermon. Early rising promotes cheerfulness of temper; opens up new capacities delight of enjoyment which the and channels of to sluggard must be insensible. It increases the sum of human existence by sfeu 'ng from indolence hours that would be utter¬ ly wasted, and, better still, unquestiona¬ bly conduces to longevity. All long livers have been early risers. Now, the habit of retiring to bed at late hours will hardly admit of early rising, therefore the necessity of refraining from t!ie one in order to secure the advantage of the other. From six to eight hours and are doubt gen¬ erally held to be sufficient, no on the average are so. Our sleep is reg¬ ulated much by the season. In winte f people lie longer, on account, as the say,of its being too dark to get up early] There is some plausibility and in the weather reason, but the system in cold dark is more prone to sleep than in light and sunny times. Invalids need generally plenty of bed rest, but they should pro- cure it by going early to bed. There is more health and strength to be found in the practice of seeing the sun rise than in looking at it in any other part of the day. The Yosemite Valley in Winter. Snowstorm follows snowstorm. Winter has spread his icy mantle over the Yose¬ mite. The mighty cliffs and domes look down upon the valley as in the summer months, but it is with forbidding state¬ How liness and with threatening aspect. changed the scene and different the at¬ tractions! The smiling vale is no d longer gay with gorgeous bowers at bright with green meadowlands; no longer is it resonant with the hum of busy insects, the murmuring lullabies of slumbering streams and the joyous songs of summer birds; zephyr no longer whispi rs to the pine fronds as he floats softly t irough the forest, and echo no longer repeats the exclamations of glad visitors. The Merced rolls its swollen current flooding impetu¬ ously through the valley, many an acre of the meadowiand—for rain well as snow has fallen; the woods hoarse with protesting against snow-slide the fierce-, ness of the storm blasts; the holds the beholder in awe as it races with the waterfall in its downward plunge, and slabs of talus and unshapely chunks of rock loosen their hold of their parent cliff as water and weather do their work and are washed with din and head¬ long speed down into the valley. It is tiue that such terrifying storms do not occur with frequency', but one such was witnessed by Mr. Hutchings and his family during the winter of 1867, when they were the only residents in the val¬ ley. On that exceptional occasion the rain poured down incessantly for ten suc¬ cessive days; all the meadowiand was covered with a surging flood; large trees were Yosemite swept over the ridge into of the Upper and shivered ftag nents on the granite rocks, and pines and cedars were blown down and piled in con¬ fusion upon each other by the windstorm that followed the rain.—"[Californian.' ,'hiefly The famous cylinder-shaped hats married are iadies. appropriated by young in their so young ladies have turn adopted hats smaller in the crown. All twisted boring tools are of Ameri¬ can invention.