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About Grant County news. (Canyon City, Or.) 1879-1908 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 25, 1880)
Burled for Forty Days. "We are not told whether the Seven Sleepers who retired to a cave iu Ephe sus during the reign of the Christian killing Emperor Decius, and only woke up 155 years afterward, when Theodo sius II was on the throne, made any special preparation, but probably they did not. Perhaps it was not necessary. Those were stirring times for members of the new faith; and they had little op portunity to grow obese. But as a rule, to fast successfully it is said to be neces sary for a man to abstain beforehand, and reduce himself most carefully to the required condition by a long course of preparation. Pre eminent at this art of suspending animation for an art it be comes are the Easterns, and most won derful stories are told of tue natives of India, which, whether their powers are due to narcotics or any other process, the seem to open urj if true a wide field of medical study.' One of these Indian stories, not easily accessible, but of con siderable interest on account of the known veracity of the witnesses, will probably be read with interest at the present time, and is inserted here. The author of it was one Hon. Capt. Osborn, and the notes made of his statement, hero subjoined, come from an almost unique copy printed for private circulation. "Hunjeet Singh had heard from a seyd or fakir, who lived in the mountains, that the latter could allow himself to be buried when in a condition of apparent death, without really teasing to live, seeing that he understood the art of be ing brought back to life on being ex humed after several months had passed. To the inaharajah this appeared to be a rank impossibility. In order, however, that he should be convinced one way or the other, he ordered the fakir to be summoned'to the court, and caused him to undertake the singular experiment, under a threat that no means of precau tion would be wanting toward the dis covery of fraud. The fakir consequent ly caused himself to appear in a state of apparent death. When every spark of liie had seeinngly vanished, he was, in the presence of the maharajah and the nobles who surrounded him, wrapped up in the linen on which he had been sitting and on which the seal of llunjeet Singh was placed. The body was then depos ited in a chest, on which Runjeet Singh, with his on hand, fixed a heavy padlock. The chest was carried outside the town and buried in a garden belonging to the minister; barley was sown over the spot, a wall was erected around it and senti nels posted. On the fortieth day, when the chest containing the fakir was dug up and opened the man was found cold and stark in precisely the same condition as that in which he had been left. With much trouble he was restored to life by means of heat applied to the head, afllation in the ears and mouth, rubbing the body, etc. The minister, Rajah Dhyan-Singh, assured a friend that he had this fakir, whose name was Haridas, for a period of four months under the earth at Jumineo in the mountains. On the day of his burial ho had caused his beard to be shaved off, and when he was taken up again his chin was just as smooth as on the day when he was con signed to the earth a proof, as would seem, of suspended animation. It is re lated that the fakir in question toon a purgative some time before the burial display, and for several days afterward lived onlv on a scanty milk diet. On the day of the interment it is said that instead of taking any nourishment, he swallowed 30 yards of a strip of linen of the breadth of three lingers, which he immediately drew up again, his object being to clean the stomach. However wonderful and perhaps laughable these operations appear to many, it is plain that these people must have a singular control over the different organs of their bodies, and more especially over their muscular contractions. When all the npppssarv preparations have been accom plished, the fakir closes all the openings of his body with stoppers made of aro lavs his tongue far back i,;u flirnfifc. crosses his hands 1U J.nJ - 1 on his breast, and suspends ani ntinn bv means of holding his breath. On his being brought back to life one of the first operations is, iy means oi tue fr lvaw the tonerue awav from wk of the throat: a warm and aro matic paste made of meal is then placed on his head, and air is blown ltfto his ,rwl I'ntn the ear-holes, from which the wax stoppers have been removed, the stoppers in the nostrils -being pres ontly forced out with an explosive noise. This is said to be the first sign of a re turn to life. He then gradually com mences to breathe, opens the eyes, and recovers consciousness, continuous fric tion of the body being carried on all of the time. "Here is a further curious statement of opinion on the subject of Indian sto ries from an equally rare source, the lit tle pamphlet of Sir 'Claude Wade, pub - lished in 1837. 'I Avas present . ' he writes 'at the Court of Runjeet Singh when the fakir, mentioned by the Hon. Oipt Osborn, was buried alive for six weeks; and, although I arrived a few hours after his actual interment, and did not consequently, witness that part of the'phenomenon, I had the testimony of Runjeet Singh himself, and others of the most credible witnesses of the court to the truth of the fakir having been buried ir fimm? nnd. from inv having been myself present when he was disinterred and restored to a state of perfect vitality roifinn sn Close tO mill as to render any' deception lmposaiuiu, I ' ;4- firm liAlief that there was no conu- in -nducinfr the extraordinary nOu'oii T lifive to relate briefly state what I saw, to enable others j.- f fiin wAiorhfc due to my evi- dence, and whether my proof of collu- sion can, in their opinion, be detected. On the approach of the appointed time, according to invitation, I accourpanied Runjeet Singh to the spot where the fakir had been buried. It was in a square building, called a barra durra, in the middle of one of the gardens adjoin ing the palace at Lahore, with an open veranda all round, having an enclosed room in the centre. On arriving there Runjeet Singh, who was attended on the occasion by the whole of his court, dis mounted from his elephant, asked mo to join him in examining the building to satisfy himself that it was closed as he had left it. After our examination we seated ourselves in the veranda opposite the door, while some of Runjeet Singh's people dug away the mud wall and one of his officers broke the seal and opened the padlock. When the door was thrown open nothing but a dark room was to be seen. Runjeet Singh and myself then entered it. in company with the servant, and a light being brought, we descended about three feet below the lloor of the room into a sort of a cell, where a wooden box about four feet long by three feet broad, with a sloping roof, contained the fakir, the door of which also had a padlock and seal similar to that on the the outside. On opening it we saw a figure inclosed in a bag of white linen, fastened by a string over the head, on the exposure of which a grand salute was fired, and the surrounding multitude came crowding to the door to see the spectacle. After they had gratified their curiosity, the fakir's servant, putting his arms into the box, took the figure out, and closing the door, placed it with its back against it exactly a? the fakir had been squatting (like a Hindu idol) in in the box itself. Runjeet Singh and myself descended into the cell, which was so small we were only able to sit on the ground in front of the body, and so close to it as to touch it with our hands and knees. The servant then began pouring warm water over the figure, but as my object was to see if any fraudulent practices could be detected, i proposed to Runjeet Singh to tear open the bag and have a perfect view of the body before any means of resuscitation were employed. I accordingly did so; and may here remark that the bag when first seen by us looked mildewed, as if it had been buried some time. The legs and arms of the body were shrivelled and still, the face full, the head reclining on the shoulder like that of a corpse. I then called to tho medical gen tleman who was attending me to come down and inspect the body, which he did, but could discover no pulsation in the heart, the temples or the arms. There was, however, a heat about the re gion of the brain which no other part ex hibited. The servant then commenced bathing him with hot water and gradu ally relaxing his arms and legs from the rigid state in which they were contracted, Runjeet Singh taking his right and I his left leg to aid by friction in restoring them to their proper, action, during which time the servant placed a hot wheaten cake about an inch thick on top of the head a process which he twice or thrice repeated. He then pulled out of his nostrils and ears the wax and cotton with which they had been stopped, and after great exertion opened his mouth by inserting the point of a knife between his teeth, and while holding his jaw open with his left hand, drew the tongue for wafd with his right, in the course of which the tongue flew back severul times to its ' curved position upward, in which it had originally been, so as to close the gullet. He then rubbed his eyes with ghee (or clarified butter) for some seconds, till he succeeded in open ing them, when tho eyes appeared quite motionless and glazed. After the cake had been applied for the third time to the top of the head the body was violently convulsed, the nostrils became inflated, when respiration ensued, and the limbs began to assume a natural full ness; but the pulsation was still faintly perceptible. The servant then put some of the ghee on his tongue and made him swallow it. A few minutes afterwards the eye-balls became dilated, and recov ered their natural color, when the fakir recognized Runjeet Singh sitting close to him, and articulated in a low sepulchral tone, scarcely audible, "Do you believe me nowV" Runjeet Singh replied in the affirmative, and invested the fakir with a pearl necklace and a superb pair of gold bracelets, and pieces of silk and muslin, and shalls, forming what is called a khelat, such as is usually conferred by the princes of India on persons ol dis- . ..f I 1 tinction. 1 share entirely in tne appar ent incredibility of the fact of a man be ing buried alive and surviving the trial without food or drink for various periods of duration; but, however mconibatible with our knowledge of physiology, in the absence of any visible proof to the contrarv, I am bound to declare my be lief in the facts which I have represented, however impossible their existence may appear to others." London Telegraph. What English Soldieks Eat. It will be interesting to our army men to learn the details, just published, of the rations of the British soldier in the field. A pound of bread, a pound of fresh meat, half a pound of fresh vegetables, three-quarters of a pound of flour, and, at the discretion of tho commanding offi cer and medical staff, a pint of porter or half a gill of spirits, form the daily ration. As it is not always practicable to obtain bread, fresh meat, or fresh vegetables, three-quarters of a pound of biscuit,' flour, or rice, are to be consider ed eouivalent to the ration of bread; a pound of salt meat or three-quarters of a pound ot preserved meat may oe suubu tuted for the fresh meat ration, and two ounces preserved vegetables, one ounce compressed vegetables, or a quarter of a i nf onions or leeks mav take the place of fresh vegetables. Onc Hundred Dollar ttees. D. A. Jones,a member of the Canadian Parliament, recently returned to his home at Beeton, Ontario, from tho island of Cyprus and the Holy Land. His visit there was for the purpose of securing queen bees from those coun tries. His apiaiy iuuReeton is very largo and he has others in the United Slates. He has also established an apiary in Lirnica, Cyprus, which is now in charge of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Benton. Writing from Palestine to a friend in this city, Mr. Jones said of his journey: "I have been delighted with with my trip through these parts on account of finding a very superior race of bees a race I feel sanguine, when tested, will prove a boon to America; and as I am the first to import them, I hope to get enough to America to get the race estab lished there in purity. There appears to be but one race of bees in the Holy Land, but they vary in color and in some other respects, and on this account I have procured some from almost every part. These I obtained in the valley of Sharon, Jerusalem, and all about the hills of Judea, also east to Jordan nnd the Red Sea, were sent on mules, cam els and asses to Jaffa, thence by steamer to the apiary atLarnica. Those I got on Mount Lebanon, in Herman, Damascus, and in fact in all the northern part of Syria, were taken to the coast and shipped at Beyrout for Larnica. Just now (April 15) I am getting a supply from northeast of Damascus2, near Pal myra, and they seem very fine. I have also received a number of bees for Prof. Cook, of Lansing, Michigan, for exami nation under the microscope. I have with me a stock of small vials filled with alcohol, into each of which I place a few bees. These excite the curiosity of the natives, and they watch my every move ment. The dangers of travelling are very great, as I am forced to go to dis tant points, quite out of the ordinary routes, to carry out my object. If my losses are not too heavy, Twill surprise the bee-keepers of America with this new race of bees. I find it less difficult to secure bees here than it would be in or dinary seasons, as the crops were a failure in Palestine and Syria last year, and starvation makes some more willing to sell their bees than they otherwise would be. If I ever get out safe from these tribes I will have no desire to return, even should I find a superior race in some otherlocality. I will hire the native in stead to come to me, and let them run the risk of having fine bees for me to se lect from, and pay them such sums as will induce them to perform the work. In fact, it will be quite impossible to ever no more than to get a lew siocks 10 breed from, as the cost is so great. In some instances each bee could not be got and laid down safely in America for less than $100. All I have will surely average that sum." Mr. Jones brought with him 200 hives. He placed them on exhibition in London before his departure for this country. They were visited by the Baroness Bur-dett-Coutts, Sir John Lubbock, Mr. Terry, of tho British museum, and John Hunter, of the Times. Upon arriving in New York, Mr. Jones said : 'Notwithstanding, I have gone to the antipodes for my pets, I cannot safely venture any opinion on them yet. Iam the first man in the country who has selected Cyprian and Holy Laud bees in their native abode, and comparatively little is known of them. The queens are strong, hearty be s, able to go long distances, and maintain thoir own against a supe rior force. All that I may say further would be only conjecture. It will take time to test the superiority of their breed as honey producers over that of the Italian or Ligurian queens." Mr. A. H. K. Blood, of Massachusetts, was the first beekeeper that introduced Cyprian queens into the hives of this country. His were received three years aco from some friend traveling in tho .i t r l 1 A Holy Land. There were few in number. Beekeepers who inspected them believed that they promised much. Next year a Fort Plain beekeeper introduced the Cyprians into his apiary, and they pro duced such results as to cause a sensa tion among beekeepers and to lead to the trip of Mr. Jones. The Cyprian queen is lively and of a very light yellow color under its body. This often approaches a straw color. She is ferocious vnen attacked, and resists vehemently. Her workers are much more hardy tnan the black bees. It is said that in Cypress she will live for six- vonrs. The Italian uueen s existence i i.minpi1 f.n t.hvftB or four vears. Her other noints are vet to be tested. Her drones also are superior to the ordinary Tfriliim drnnfis. Besides the Italian queen, the little black, large brown and gray queen bees firn natives of this country, and have thrived ever since they were brought out by the Pilgrim fathers. A good queen ti;n sunn o(i(T in n dav. Queens are hatched in fourteen days, workers in al out twentv-one days, aud drones in about , twenty-four days. Among riw cii.wmcfnl liopfcp.Gners of this Clio auv vucoiux mv- j eonnfrv sirn General Fitz John iM.f,. i,ou hiu nniarv in Mor- ristown. Col. Landreth, and S. L. M. Barlow, Esq., of Glen Cove. There are apiaries on the tops of large buiHmgs m this city, and in the yards oi many buu urban residences. Bees find mauy feed ing grounds in this vicinity. There are so many raro trees, plants and flowers cultivated here, that tho honey gathered is rich in color and sweetness. iw v h'rh in iho. citv. It is necess ary for them to pass over the' tops of toll houses and escape injur thousands passing along the streets. the Yet they often drop to the sidewalk and add to thoir store from syrup, molasses, sugar, and other sweet substances. The yield of honey this year will not be so large as it has been in former years. In California, which is a largo honey pro ducing country, the crop this year will not be one-half as large as the crop of 1878. Tho yield from counties in this State will be much smaller than during former years. The bumblebee stores her honey in the ground, and beekeepers get at it only with difficulty. When it is collected it brings fancy prices. The Baroness Burdett-Gouts, who js president of the British beekeepers' association, has written to a merchant in New York for information as to the man ner of hiving bees and storing honey in this eountrv. The Primv of Wales has 4 an apiary. Buoyancy of Viator, Another terrible steamboat slaughter! t 1 I 1 J 1 1 .1 1'reseuce ot nimuanu asiigur. Knowieuge of the special giavity of the human body would have saved much ot tins frightful oss of life. There was loose wood enouffli auout tne uoat to nave noateu en times the number of passengers on the ill-fated vessel, if it had been used with judgment. The human body weighs about a pound in the wafer, and a single chair will carry two grown per sons. That is, it would keep their heads above water, which is all that is neces sary when it is a question of life or death. The burning, vessel was close to shore, the water was calm and warm, and all these passengers might easily lave jumped overboard and paddled aughing ashore, if they had only pos sessed and used the simple knowledge that one finger placed upon a stool, or a chair, or a small box, or a piece of board, would easily keep the head above water, while the two feet and the other hand might be used as paddles tb propel toward the shore. It is not at all neces- sary to Know now to swim to oe aoie to ceep from drowning m this way. A lit tle experience of the buoyant power of matter, and faith in it, is all that is re quired. We have seen a small boy who could not swim a stroke propel himself back and forth across a deep, wide pond by means of a board that would not sustain five pounds. In fact, that sometime small boy is now writing this. Children and all others should have practice in the sus taining power of water. In nine cases out of ,ten the knowledge that what will sustain a pound weight is all that is necessary to keep one's head above water will serve better in emergencies than the greatest exportness as a swim mer. A person unfamiliar with the buoyant power of water will naturally try to climb on top of the floating object on which he tries to save himself. It it is large enough that is all right. But it isgcnerully not large enough, and half of a struggling group are often drowned in the desperate scramble of a life and death struggle to climb on top of a piece of wreck or other floating object, not large enough to keep them all entirely above the water. This often happens when pleasure-boats capsize. All imme diately want to get out of the water on top of the overturned or half-filled boat, and all are drowned except those whom the wrecked craft will wholly bear up. If they would simply trust the water to sustain ninety-nine hundredths of the weight of their bodies, and the disabled boat the other hundredth, they might all be saved under most circumstances. An overturned or water-filled wooden boat will sustain more people in this way than it will carry. It would keep the heads above water of as many people as could get their hands on the gunwale. These aro simple facts, easily learned, and may some day save your life. Irenlon jy.J.) Gazelle. Trees and Health. Everybody knows that treos take the carbonic acid thrown out in the breath of men and animals, separate it into component parts carbon and oxygen give duck tne latter to uc used over again iind work up the former into wood and fruit. It is also coming to be generally understood that forest trees do im portant service in prompting rain falls, and in helping to retain the burfuce water for springs, streams and general use. It is also known that certain species, planted in malarial locali ties, help to render the latter healthy by somehow using up the deadly mi asma. It would now appear that trees growing near drains carry off the sewerago water. A gentleman whoso cess drain was constructed just liko his neighbors', and in the same kind of soil,' has found it unnecessary to clean it out, whilo the others had to be cleaned out frequently. An examination showed thnt threo .at large trees, whoso roots had pene trated into the vicinity of his second or waste, cess-pool, were clearly the channels through which the waste all escaped. Whether it was changed into plant-food, as is likely, or was exhaled through the leaves, in either case it was disposed of with equal satety Detroit Free Press: Six medical New York experts examined a man as to his sanity, and were evenly divided. After they had wrangled about it for a week it was discovered that they had examinee the wrong person altogether. A Frenchman's Idea of "Our Girls." Here is a Frenchman's description of the American girl: "Chic to the roots of her hair, shockingly independent, bufc nevertheless a truly virtuous girl. She loves pleasure, dress aud expense; shows her moral character in all the nakedness of truth, just as she is, so as to deceive no one; she knows that she makes men love her, and likes to make herself loved without ceasing to be virtuous. Nevertheless, she will flirt with some man for a whole winter, and dismiss him forever in the spring. Then she will immediately pick out another. Her means of fascination are riches, which never sleep. She goes about alone; she travels alone, or, when it suits her better, with a gentle man friend. In him she has an un limited confidence; theirs seem out wardly to be a conjugal intimacy. But it is only permitted to tho elect to de- . pict his feelings. Ho may talk about love from morning till night, but he is never permitted . to kiss even the tips of her fingers. She seeks excite ment and pleasure as much as possible until she gets married; afterward she will have a baby every year, will pas3 days alone, and spend her nights in listening to talk about perfected machinery, inexplosive petroleum, etc. Then she will allow her daughters to enjoy the same libery whioh she her self knew so well how to enjoy without abusing. Since nothing unpleasant or scandalous ever happened to her, why should not Mary, Eanny or Jenny be 'equally discreet and equally well able to take care of themselves.' Moreover, there is the law of obligatory marriage to regulate everything in case of disaster it is the security of families, a mutual insurance policy against 'fire.' She creates- French fashions; the Parisians detest her; the women of the provinces les provinciales) despise her; men of all nations fall madly in love with her, but do not marry her unless she be colossally rich. She has a checehire vcrmeille, less bright than golden hair; black eyes, at once frank and bold, and a patent waist, which all other women are forbidden to imitate. In a carriage she reclines upon the cushions as she would do in a hammock in a poise perfectly natural and voluptuous. She walks firmly, and compels all eyes to drop before her gaze. She thinks a great deal about herself and very little about others. She is like a wild plant planted in a hot house, which finds Europe too narrow for it, and boldly stretches its arms out through the glass panes of its house, without troubling itself concern ing the frailer plants which grow around it.. If she were better understood and less criticsed, she would be valued at her real worth. Schoolboys aud Headaches. Prof. Treichler has delivered a lecture before the German Association of Natur alists and Physicians which contains a fact of some interest to teachers. He says that headache in schools decidedly increases, until in some schools, and notably in Nuremburg, one-third of tho scholars suffer from it. He believes thut the cause is over intellectual exer tion, caused partially by the adoption of too many subjects, but principally by the- tendency to demand night-work. The brain is then freshly taxed when its cells are exhausted. We begin to hear the same complaint in England, es pecially from London schools, and are empted to believe that in some of them an imperceptible but steady in increase m the amount of night-work demanded has been ccoinpr on, which is passing a safe limit. It does not hurt the quick, and it does not hurt the stupid, but it does hurt the boys and girls who want o fulfill all demands, and have not quite tho quickness to do it. The usual quantity of Latin, for example, to be learned at night has withm the last hirty years more than doubled, while the pressure from parents upon the children to learn it has increased in dearly the same proportion. The in creased crowding of schools explains much, but it does-not explain this head ache, which is not suffered by the boys 11 ti mr in proportion to tueir ni-neaitn. ine Sjyectator. Cut noweis. The following hints, though contain ing nothing novel, are apt to be forgotten by those who in summer cull the choicest nowers lor nouse decoration: Flowers decay much sooner when tied in bunches than when arranged loosely. Too little air and too much water are the bane of most species. The moisture furnished out flowers should be rain water of moderate tem perature. "When gathering flowers use a pair of sharp shears, or a knife of woody plants, such as roses, cameHas, spireas, deutzias, fuschsias and the like. It is far better to Rather your nowers than to let them fade upon the plants. A cool room is best adapted lor Keep- ing nowers iresns staie Louacuu-Bmuu will wilt flowers. Take away each flower as it fades or it will destroy the others. Hot water will often restore flowers to freshness even when every petal is drooping. Place the stems in a cup of boiling hot water; let them remain until each petal has become smoothed out; then cut off the clotted ends and place them in water of moderate temperature. Ammonia added to the water also revive them quickly. When going for wild flowers or ferns carry a close-fitting tin, box, in which, have wet sponge and a basket, the smaller flowers shut in the box, and the stems of larger flowers in serted in the pores of the sponge which, you carry in the basket. Flowers should always be transported in air-tight boxes.