Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The west shore. (Portland, Or.) 1875-1891 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 1, 1883)
308 THE WEST SHORE. December, 1883, THE DIGGERS AND THEIR DEMON. The country around Bloomer Hill, just across the river, opposite Cherokee, was made hideous lately by the recurrence of that savage custom among the Indians known as their burning. To observe this ancient custom, which they regard with superstitious sanctity, about $0 dusky sons and daughters of the forest prepared their soup, gathered their wood and made all arrangements for the burning, which took place about 12 o'clock. This place, Bloomer Hill, has been for years the Indian burying ground, and It is esti mated that thousands have been buried there. At sunset they sprinkled the graves with flour and yelled as none but an Indian can until exhausted. ' The next evening, after being refreshed with grass hopier, angleworm and acorn soup, they manu factured their demon. The materials used in con structing his satanlc majesty were bones any kind and feathers promiscuously gathered. He was about four feet high, and looked as much like the " devil before day '' as can be imagined. AIout dark they built a large fire and kept it burning until about midnight with wood gathered for that purpose. Then commenced the sacrificial offerings, which consisted of wearing apparel and provisions, which they suppose will be wafted by something like " presto change " to their friends in the happy hunting grounds. After burning about 500 pounds of flour, several squaw-loads of bacon, numerous red handkerchiefs, breeches and shirts, they listened to a long and, of course, elo quent harangue from a venerable buck. They then appointed a committee to escort their im provised demon into the circle, where he was given a warm reception. He was brought within reach of the fire, and amid the most terific howl ing unceremoniously precipitated into the flames. This was the signal for the most unearthly ming ling of whoops, groans, female shrieks and general uproar, which closed the barbaric scene. Enter jiriit, Ckict, Cat, Their appearance so near together in the same field is considered something surprising and sig nificant. It is thought by some that they may throw new light upon the origin of comets and the laws by which they are governed. Both com ets are being observed with much interest at all the American observatories. OUR HOLIDAY VISITOR. From out impenetrable space there comes to us a brilliant guest for the holidays. It is the great comet of 1813, returned to keep the appointment made for it by astronomers at that time. It was discovered early In the fall by Professor Brooks, at the observatory in Rochester, N, Y., at which time It presented a nebulous mass with a starlike nucleus of the eleventh magnitude. Recently it suddenly biased up into great brilliancy, as though tome great Internal commotion had occurred, or It had received a sudden addition from other bodies so far out in the realm of space as to be invisible even to our powerful telescopes. Its brilliancy was magnified fifteen times In two or three day. In a few week it will be visible to the naked eye at its present rate of approach, and will shine brightly in the evening sky during the holidays and for a few weeks thereafter, reaching perihelion on the twenty-fifth of January. It 1 be a spectacle seldom witnessed, for though not quite so large as the comet of 188a, Its appearance in the evening Instead of the morning sky will enable every one to see it. A few nights after the tint one was discovered, Professor Swift observed another in the same neighborhood. The Indica tioru ore that these two comet will crocs each others orbiu Q their progress toward the tun. ADVANTAGES OF PRAIRIE LAND. There is one advantage enjoyed by the farmers of eastern Washington which, it seems to us, has not been given the prominence it has deserved in presenting the claims of the country to people who are seeking homes in the new Northwest. And the advantage we allude to is that of being able to raise a crop of wheat or other cereal the first season of land breaking. If the settler can get located on his land early enough to break the prairie in April or May, he may raise a good crop of wheat or other grain that very first season, and thus save himself the great expense of purchasing these necessaries through an additional twelve month. And this is also true of all kinds of garden vegtables. In the prairie countries east of the mountains the raising of a very meager crop of "sod-corn" is the very best that a new settler can do the first year, the toughness of the fresh- turned sod making other seeding or cultivating than that by chopping with an axe or heavy hoe utterly impracticable. And in those regions the settler on new prairie land is compelled to wait until the fall of the second season before realizing anything in the shape of crops for his labor. In stances are not wanting in this county of Spokane where twenty and twenty-five bushels of wheat to the acre have been realized the first year of settle ment and cultivation, and we may state that these instances are so common a to be passed without remark by the older settlers. . The season of 1883 has been an extremely dry one for this section, but drouthy and unfavorable as it has been, the yield of wheat on spring turned sod has been fifteen bushel and upward to the acre, a yield not often exceeded on the best tilled lands of Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois. It is possible that some of our really superior advantages are so common-place as to cause them to be known and enjoyed without remark, and we may sometimes forget to give them the' prominence their merit entitles them io.Spragui Herald. THE SPIDER'S WONDERFUL WEB. In a lecture at the Lowell Institute, Professor Wood dea!t with the phenomena of spider life. The female is larger and much fiercer than the male, who while paying his addresses is in con stant peril, frequently losing some of his legs. In one tribe the female is 1,300 time a large as the male. The spider thread 1 made up of innunv erable smaller threads or fiber, one of these thread being estimated to be one two-millionth of a hair in thickness. Three kinds of thread are spun. One 1 of great strength for the radiating or spoke lines of the web j the cross lines, or what a sailor might call the ratlines, are finer and are tenacious, that is, they have upon them little speck or globule of a very sticky gum. These peck are put on with even interspaces. They are set quite thickly along the line, and are what, in the first instance, catch and hold the leg or wing of the fly. Once caught in (hi fashion the prey is held secure by threads flung over it ion what in the manner of a lasso. The third kind of silk is that which the spider throws out ina ' mass or flood, by which it suddenly envelop, an, prey of which it is somewhat afraid, as, for aw. pie, a wasp. A scientific experiment once drew out from the. body of a single spider 3,480 yardi of thread or spider silk a length a little short of three miles. Silk may be woven of spider's thread, and it is more glossy and brilliant than that of the silk worm, being of a golden color. An enthusi astic entomologist secured enough of It for the weaving of a suit of clothes for Louis XIV. TELEGRAPHING IN CHINESE. Owing to the peculiarity of the Chinese charac ters, each of which represents a word, not a letter, as in our western tongues, the Danish Telegraph Company (the Great Northern) working the new Chinese lines have adopted the following device. There are from five to six thousand character! or words in ordinary Chinese language, and the com pany have provided a wooden block or type for each of these. On one end of this block the char acter is cut or stamped out, and on the other end is a number representing the character. The clerk receives a message in numbers, and takes the block of each number transmitted and stamps with the opposite end the proper Chinese character on the message form. Thus a Chinese message tent I in figures is translated into Chinese character! again and forwarded to its destination, ine sending clerk, of course, requires to know the numerical equivalent of the characters or have them found for him. THE BEST CLIMATE. Mr. F. B. Foltz, of Indiana, after having tpent six weeks traveling with his wife on the northwea coast has seen no place that compare with the Willamette valley. He contrast the climate this wise. He savs in the East you have to teed your stock six month in the year j here scarcely any at all. There the cold is long and eximw in the winter; here the climate i very tempera not havine seen any ice here yet this season, r says our people tell him that in the tw" the heat i not extreme, and that me d.s cool and pleasant so that people can spend th sleeping and resting. In the East such is not the case. There the nights are extremely sultry I"" sleepless and restless In the heated season. he compared our beautiful timber io .oc - Hey of the middle States. He rather own an acre of land in me valley than in Illinois when it comes to 1 The oil is as good, the climate better, the timber and water unexcelled anywhere, di', 0' matter of a few year, when an acre of will be worth as much a in Illinois. The 1 F farm would be divided up into farm hundred and ixty to two hundred acre, w productiveness of the land increased more a hundred fold. Salem StaUsma. The best photos, all styles and sTtes, areuV ... .. X . .m. nf First Hreet. M- oy Aoen. (jaiiciy wt tmvn Morrison and Yamhill To obtain the most artistic view of .1,. P.,ifio VnrihweaL eo to Davidson, " corner First and Yamhill. He has the only com plete assortment in this state.
