The Daily Astorian., October 21, 1877, Image 2

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Astoria, Clatsop Co., Oregon.
I. C. IRELAXD, -
PUBIIMBEK.
A Vintage Song1.
BY E. D. R. BIANCIARDI.
Once more the year its fullness "pours
To cheer the heart of toil;
Once more we take with gratitude
The blessing of the soil.
I hear the children laugh and sing,
They pull the grapes together;
And gladness breathes from everything
In this October weather.
The winter days were long and dark,
The spring was slow to come;
And summer storms brought fear and doubt
To many a humble home.
But rain and sunshine had their will
And wrought their work together,
And see! we heap our baskets still,
In this October weather.
My heart has had its winter, too,
And lain full bare and gray;
I did not think a spring would come,
Much less a summer day.
How little did I dream that life
"Would bring us two together,
And I should be a happy wife
In this October weather!
Doubtless the frosts will come again,
And some sweet hopes must die;
But we shall bear the passing pain,
And smile as well as sigh ;
INor let us cloud with tears of ill
This golden hour together;
JFor God is in His garden still
In this October weather.
Anton and Beatrix.
AN INCIDENT OF THE ERZ GEBIRGE.
Anton and Beatrix were betrothed.
Beatrix made lace, and Anton was a
.miner.
"Why art thou above grourftl, Anton?"
she said to him one morning when he
looked into her mother's cottage. "Art
thou flying about to find hay and feathers
for our nest? Nay, it will be built the
sooner, if thou wilt steadily ply thy
pick."
'" 'Twould be long before thy bobbins
would build it," answered Anton, with a
smile, which had a good deal of contempt
mixed with its kindness. "Cheer up,
Trix, thou shalt not long contiuue at that
beggar's trade."
So having spoken he went upon his
way, and left Ills sweetheart wondering
what be meant.
But she could work while she won
dered; and she did not forget to do so.
Indeed, she was almost always at work.
She goi.up with the sun sometimes be
fore him, with the birds; and after he had
-gone down, sho lighted her candle and
still worked on. Patiently she stuck her
pins into her pattern, and then plied the
dangling bobbins witha deftness which
made fingers and bobbins blend in a
shimmer, like that of the wings of buz
zing bees. When awake she scarcely
ever ceased from her labor except to per
form her sacred duties, or to carry in the
product of her toil to the laceman's in
the nearest town.
"Sly child,thou wilt have to eat huttcn
mucli" her mother said to her. "Thy
cheek is pale and pinched, thy eyes are
growing dim. Anton will slight thee."
"Nay," Beatrix answered, "if I need
arsenic to make me pleasing in his sight,
lie may een leave ;me. .1 will not meddle
with such unholy things. He must just
take or leave me as the good God and
honest toil have made jne."
"But why dost thou labor so hard?"
asked the mother.
"I would fain help to keep the house,"
replied her daughter.
"Nay," quoth the mother, "though 'tis
little that thy pillow earns thee, it well
pays thy clothesand coffee and potatoes."
"I would take something in my hands
besides my pillow, when I go to sit down
in Anton's house," said Beatrix, wTith a
.blush.
It was little she saw of her lover at this
time,and when he did come to see her he
behaved so strangely, that in spite of his
affectionate caresses she could not help
suspecting sometimes that he wished to
take back his plighted trdth. He looked
with undisguised contempt . on the cot
tage and its furniture, its scanty food
and all its humble ways, and talked as if,
should Beatrix become his bride, she
would be a beggar's daughter lifted to a
throne. And yet he was more shabbily
.dressed than had been his wont, and had
less money to spend; since now he very
.seldom went down into the mines by day.
Almost all day long he either slept or
wandered over the mountains, chasing,or
pretending to chase,the bear, the chamois,
and the lynx. Every night, a little while
before the clocks struck twelve, be went
abroad but whither he went no one could
tell. Her lover's strange behavior often
made Beatrix very sad, though none the
slower for that reason did her fingers ply
the bobbins. Night and morning beside
her bed, and in the church (to which An
ton now never came) she prayed the good
God to hold her lover in his sheltering
hand, for if he were taking to murderous
ways, or going mad, and so they should
be separated for life, she thought that she
would go mad also.
The fact is that Anton went every night
to meet Kobold, and wandered with him
in the bowels of the earth. When Anton
was an industrious miner, Kobold had
come to him as he plied the pick in a
lonely working, and scoffed at his sim
plicity for toiling so hard to earn so
little.
"Come with me to-night," the goblin
had said, "and I will show thee where
the land for many a mile is'' made of
metal, which may be had forthe trouble
of picking it up. Mine it on the sly thy
self, or make a good bargain with others
out of thy knowledge, as may best please
thee, 3Ir. Honest Miner."
Anton went, and beheld alight which
made him eagerly inquire of the tricksy
sprite how he could find his way to the
spot again. But Kobold answered, "Oh,
this is nothing come to our trysling
place to-morrow night, and I will show
thee iar greater wonders than these."
And Anton had gone, and night after
night he went on going, similarly be
guiled, for Kobold kept his promise in
showing each night a greater wonder than
that of the night before.
In this way, neglecting his business",
his friends, his sweetheart, and his God,
Anton had seen vast hidden stores of all
kinds of ores silver, tin, copper, anti-
.mony, bismuth, and who knows what be
sides ; and the more lie saw the less in
clined to work with his own hands he
was, the more eager to take his ease and
pleasure whilst the inexhaustible treas
ury that had been revealed to him should
be worked for him by others' brains and
brawn.
"Show me gold" he said to Kobold,
"that I may at once take of it to gratify
my desires, and have means io hire
drudges to work my mine. Show me
gold, and give me the clewr to that and
all the rest that thou hast shown me, and
I will trouble thee no more."
t "Come again to our trys ting-place to
morrow nighf,for the last time," answered
Kobold, "and I will show thee gold."
Iufatuated Anton was by this time in
rag, and often very hungry. He had
sold his gun, his tools, to supply him
with daily bread latterly very little of
it. But buoyed up by his golden hopes,
he carried his head as if he had been a
kaiser, provoking the mirth of his neigh
bors, who had come to look upon him as
a poor fool, since nothing had come of
his mysterious midnight excursions.
Beatrix grew sadder and sadder at the
thought of him. Very rarely did she see
him now, since, as I have said, he had
given up going to church, and latterly
also coming expressly to visit her; but
each time she did see him he looked
poorer and wilder than before.
It was on a Saturday night that, he was
to meet Kobold to be initiated in the se
cret of the gold. He had to pass Be
atrix's cottage on his way to the trysting
place, and as he drew near, he noticed
that her light was still burning. Beatrix
rested on a Sunday, and with the pros
pect of a holiday .before her, she could
affoid to sit up later than was usual with
her, although recently her hour of retire
ment had drawTn nearer than before to the
stroke of twelve. This was the motive
for her lengthened work she had begun
to fear that Anton would soon become
utterly destitute, and she wished -to save
him the degradation of begging his bread
from door to door, by laying up a little
hoard for him.
While she plied her bobbins with this
benevolent puqwse thinking regpetfully
of bygone Saturday nights cheered with
anticipations of seeing her lover, reverent
and respected, at the church on the mor
row Anton thought of her in a very dif
feient manner.
"Am I not a fool," he said, "to throw
myself away upon so poor a girl? There
is not a princess in all Europe for whom
I shall not be a worthy match when I am
master of my wealth- Nay, but Beatrix
is a jjood girl I will not break her heart.
Shall I stop and bid her cease from her
absurd industry dazzle her with a reve
lation of the riches in store for me? But
no, it will be better to wait and find how
I feel when -I have got them. I will not
commit myself. Still I will peep in at
her as I pass it is long since I have seen
her."
He peered in through the cottage win
dow, but drew back in alarm when Be
atrix raised her head. She got a glimpse
of his face, however, and sighed to think
how haggard it, once so handsome, had
become how little love for her there
seemed left in it.
She put away her work, said her sad
prayers, and went to bed3 whilst Anton
hurried on to meet the goblin.
Again Kobold was true to his word.
He led Anton into a vaulted hall that
blazed with gold. The fretted roof and
the floor were of native gold; the columns
of the corriders that stretched away not
into gloom, but an unfading brilliance,
reflected from some invisible source of
light were of glittering quartz, enclos
ing, not nuggets,but huge blocks of gold,
which gleamed through them like gold
fish through crystaline water, or rather
like suns radiating dazzling splendor
through -most pellucid.suramer air.
Anton now fairly lost his head, and
danced with delight. When he came to
himself, he was lying outside the moun
tain, at the place of tryst. The Sunday
morning sunshine had awoke him. It
seemed pale and cold in comparison with
the subterranean radiance which flashed
back upon his memory. At the thought
of that he arose from his hard couch, and
leaped again for joy, although his heart
sunk for a moment when he remembered
that, after all, he had forgotten to secure
the clew.
"But what matters that?" he sai9,
"Kobold will give it to me when I meet
him here again to-night."
He had forgotten also that the goblin
had promised to meet him there the J
mgnt ueiore jot utc uuir um.
The bell was chiming its silvery "Come
to prayers" when Anton passed the
church on his road home. Worshippers
were trooping in ; amongst them Beatrix,
on whose kind face shame struggled with
pity when she acknowledged the saluta
tion of her disreputable looking lover.
"Ha, ha!" thought Anton, "the proud
minx will be glad, if I let her, to worship
at my feet to-morrow sticking her pins
into paltry, penny-winning pillow, when
I have but to prick the ground, for gold
to gush up in streams unstaunchable !"
At midnight Anton was again at the
trysting-place. Less and less patiently
he waited ; but no Kobold came. More
and more despairingly he sheuted:
"Kobold ! Kobold ! the clew, the clew!"
At last a mocking voice, sounding as
as it came from miles away, replied :
"I showed thee thecgold; I promised
not the clew."
A peal of far-off scornful laughter fol
lowed, and then again the stars shone
silently upon the silent mountains.
For a time Anton wandered like an
Azazel in the wilderness. At las.t he
crawled, almost naked, and cold and hun
gry, to the threshold of the cottage of
Beatrix's mother. The pitying 'woman
took him in. When mother and daugh
ter had nursed him into sanity once more
of mind and body, Beatrix gave him a
pick and a shovel, a drill and a powder
horn, which she had purchased out of her
savings from the earnings of her despised
lace pillow. He once more descended
into the bowels of the earth, but only to
blast and prize out homely iron-stone;
and Kobold must have been little inclined
for mocking laughter unless he chose
to deride himself if he knew what a
pair of peacefully joyous hearts were
beating in unison in Anton's hut, when
the mountain church-bell chimed on the
first -Sunday after the humbled miner
had proudly won, as a prize too good for
him, affectionately exultant Beatrix for
his faithful bride. Charles Camden, in
Bay of Best.
In Germany. Rent is cheap, and a
comfortable room, well furnished, may
be had for four or five dollars a month.
We must "pay for everything," however.
The service of a woman to take care of
the room costs about fifty or seventy-five
cents per mouth. Fires are extra. Can
dles or lamps and matches we must fur
nish, and even soap. But one soon be
comes accustomed to the ways here, and,
knowing how to economize, gets along
cheaply and comfertably: The rooms
are generally arranged in suits or "flats."
A whole flat will be rented by some one,
who in turn lets out single rooms to
others. We must, therefore, have a key
to our room, a key to the flat, and one
for the lower outside door. As they
have not yet learned the art of making
anything like a Yale lock, or small keys,
but make them as large as our old-fashioned'
barn-door keys, we shall find it a
little inconvenient at first, carrying
around everywhere with us a pound or
two of cast-iron; but we are consoled on
seeing every one else do the same thing.
When one, on coming homelateat night,
finds himself locked out at the lower
door, and has forgotten his key, all he
can do will be to arouse the inmates of
his flat," when. his landlady will throw out
the door key, done up in a shawl, to in
sure its being easily found.
Axl Work and No Play. It is unfair
to expect your boys and girls to work
hard at home while they are attending
school. To acquire an education is at
this jjeriod the business of their lives.
If reluctant to learn their daily lessons,
they should sternly be obliged to do so.
They should be taught alike, that from
this there is no possible escape and that
beyond it nothing is required of them.
The rest of the day is theirs, and they
should be permitted, in all innocent
ways, to pass it as they list to frolic
and play, the prerogative and necessity
of youth, whether in the lower or higher
animal creation. But through fear of
creating habits of laziness, parents too
often exact labor of their children after
study hours, and thus, while yearning
for play and needed recreation, under
these circumstances work becomes abso
lutely repugnant to them. "This is the
way to make Jack a dull lad, and to es
tablish the very habits that it was intend
ed to avoid for a boy that works reluc
tantly is only happy when that work is
finished, and he is thus tempted to slight
and skim it over, that he may the sooner
be released. In this way not only are
habits of laziness created, but of negli
gence, and of a deep-seated dislike of
work, which often cling through life.
Swallow's. In Sweden, the swallows,
as soon as the winter begins to approach,
plunge themselves into the lakes, where
they remain asleep and hidden under the
ice till the return of summer, when, re
vived by the new warmth, they come out
from the water and fly away as formerly.
While the lakes are frozen, if somebody
will break the ice in those parts where it
appears darker than the rest, he will find
masses of swallows cold, asleep, and
half dead; which, by taking out of their
retreat and warming, either with his
hands or before a tire, he will see gradual
ly vivify, again and fly. In other coun
tries they retire very often to the caverns,
under the rocks. As many of these ex
ist between the City of Caen and the'sea,
on the banks-of the river Orne, there are
found sometimes during the winter piles
of swallows siaspended in these vaults,
like bunches of grapes. We have wit
nessed the same thing in Italy; where as
well as in France, it is considered very
lucky by the inhabitants when swallows
build their nests on their habitations.
Texas . A careful reading- - of our
Southern exchange papers justifies the
opinion that the Southern States will
unite in favor of the "Texas and Pacific"
at the called session of Congress,and that
this issue, so important to them and the
whole country, -will be made paramount
in the organization of the House. Phila
delpJiia Press.
Bridging the Bosphorus.
Captain James B. Eads, engineer of the
iron bridge at St. Louis, and who has s
successfully planned and constructed the
jetties at the delta of the Mississippi river,
has also made elaborate plans for a grand
iron bridge across the Bosphorus, con
necting Pera European Constantinople
with the Asiatic shore. This project of
the distinguished, engineer is now tor the
first time made public through the cour
tesy of Sir. A. O.Lambert, civil engineer,
who has been largely connected with the
great works of railway and bridge con
struction in several countries of the Old
World, and also in Nebraska, Montana,
Idaho, and particularly in the Southern
States. Mr. Lambert, in conjunction
with Captain Eads, drew the plans, made
the calculations and assisted at the sur
vey. It will be seen that the work, when
constructed, will be the most important
of the kind ever completed, affording to
the Turks, if that day ever comes, a ready
back door out of Europe, in which they
took up their residence some 400 years
ago.
"The bridge will be about G,000 feet
long over a mile will have fifteen
spans; will be 100 feet wide, and save the
masonry and flooring, will be built of
iron. The height of the roadway above
the surface of the water will be 120 feet,
thus affording ample passage-way be
tween the arches for ingoing and outgo
ing ships. The greatest feat of engineer
ing will be the bold central arch 750
feet span over an eighth of a mile. This
is the longest span, ever contemplated,
and its construction will necessitate the
most careful lobor and no small outlay
of money. In order to accomplish this
single portion of the work alone two
great caissons will have to be sunk in
over 100 feet of water, and this can only
be done by coffer-dams and special con
trivances in their completeness yet un
known to engineering. The current at
the points where these piers will rest is
very strong, coming through the Darda
nelles from the Sea of Marmora and rush
ing to the Black Sea. The two central piers
constituting the back-l;one of the bridge
will be fifty feet thick, of solid granite
blocks locked together with iron braces.
A side view of this bridge will present
below the highest points of the arches an
intricate system of reinforce braces. It
is in this part of the construction that
great iugenuity, nice mathematical cal
culation, and delicate mechanical skill
must be employed. By an invention of
Captain Eads a new feature will be intro
duced, so that a train of cars or any other
heavy burden will not superimpose its
weight at any one point over which it
may be at the moment, but will Jae dis-
tnbuted throughout the 0,000 feet of the
support, thus )ractically making it an
easy task to build an arch of 750 feet.
This is accomplished by uniting all the
main bracing from pier head to pier head,
aud connecting the mindr rods, so that
the whole forms a complete system, mak
ing one brace dependent on the other.
The action of heavy - weights, of troops
marching to a common step, of rapid lo
comotion by the cars is thus instantly
communicated through every foot of the
supports, and erery part is made to do
its duty. The magnitude of the under
taking may be understood when it is
stated that the main piers will be two
hundred and seventy feet high from the
foundation to the summit. The aggre
gate height of the fifteen piers would
make a single pier of halt a mile in
height, or eight times the altitude of the
ball on the top of St. Paul's Cathedral,
London.
It is estimated that the cost of con
struction will not exceed $25,000,000, and
the time to complete it six years. JSF. Y.
Times.
Turning the Tables. There is a story
of a -noble lord who once gave his friend
a golden snuff-box, in the cover of which
an ass's head was painted. Not much
flattered by this present, and wishing to
turn the tables on the author of the joke,
the recipient took out the ass and insert
ed instead the portrait of the lord. The
next day at dinner he, as if by accident,
put his box on the table. The lord, who
wished to amuse his guests at the ex
pense of his friend, made mention of the
snuff-box, and aroused the curiosity of
those around him. A lady asked to see
it. It was passed to her. She opened
it and exclaimed, "Perfect I it is a strik
ing likeness. Indeed, my lord, it is one
of the best portraits of you that I have
ever seen." The lord was naturally much
embarrassed at the joke,which he thought
was so hard upon him. While he was
jeflecting upon the offensiveness of it, the
lady passed the box to her neighbor, who
made similar remarks about it. The box
thus went around the table, each one ex
patiating upon the resemblance. The
nobleman was much astonished at this
course of things ; but when it came to his
turn to look, had to join in the laughter,
too, and confess that his friend had got
the best of him.
Another nephew named Ward was
playing with a Mexican sixpence, and
put it up his nose. He attempted to get
it out again, but it worked its way farther
in, and gave him a great deal of pain
He went and complained to his father,
who held him firmly, and extracted the
coin with a pair of pincers. The boy was
indignant because his nostril was lacer
ated, and ran to his mother to tell her of
his sufferings. He said :
"Mother, father is getting to be awful
mean." . . ,-..',
"Mean, child? What, are you talking
about?" ' '
"Yes, I say mean, and I stick! to it. He
tore my nose all to pieces because he was
afraid he would lose that sixpence ! I
wouldn't be so mean for anything 1"
Harper Magazine.
Science.
The protective value of trees in thun
der storms was considered by M. Du
Moncel in a paper lately communicated
to the Paris Academy of Sciences.
Trees, he said, were all conductors of
electricity, their conductivity increasing
with the quantity of liquid they con
tained. An ordinary house, howeverj of
fered from sixteen to twenty times as
much resistance to the transmission of
electricity as an ordinary tree, and there
fore the tree might be considered a pro
tection to the house if it equalled or ex
ceeded the house in height. On the
other hand, when a house is wet by rain
its electrical conductivity is so much
augmented that the author thought? the
protective value of the tree might then
depend solely upon its excess in eleva
tion over the housetop. Although trees
may thus shelter houses to some extent
it is very dangerous for individuals to
take refuge under a tree in a thunder
shower, as has been repeatedly demon
strated by many of the numerous light
ning accidents this summer.
Dr. Elliott Cones, of the United States
Army, desires medical officers in the
military service, and other persons who
may be interested in zoology, to co-operate
with him in preparing a history of
North American animals belonging to
tbe mammalia. His circmar, which is
issued from the surgeon-general's office,,
suggest that observers should make out
lists of the 'animals found in specified
localities, with particulars as to the num
ber of each species, when they come and
go, and the places they frequent. Infor
mation is especially wanted in respect to
many species which are small and ob
scure, and observers are asked to direct
their attention to the habits of squirrels,
hares, rats, mice, moles, weasels, gophers
aud bats. Almost any intelligent person
who is interested in natural history, and
resides in the country, can add to the
sum of scientific knowledge by aiding in
this work.
Some experiments lately recorded in
Prance contradict the prevalent opinion
that copper when taken into the system
with food is highly poisonous. These
experiments were made upon dogs. which
could take as much as two drachms of
metallic copper, or its oxides, a day,. '
without prejudicial effects. "In many
instances," says the report, "the animals
gained in weight. Small doses of the
acetate, such as may be found in food
that has remained for twenty-four hours
iu a copper vessel that is not 'enameled,,
do not produce any of those violent effects
in dogs that are usually attributed to
them in the case of man." However, we
do not think too much care can be taken
to keep copper out of food intended for
human consumption.
Mr. Henry Gillman writes from Waldoy
Florida, to the Naturalist, that the beau-
tiful and varied lizards, so numerous in
that State, have the chameleon-like ca
pacity of changing color, in spite of any
thing that has been said to the contrary..
He asserts that they possess the power in,
a remarkable degree, and describes a
lizard which was of a yellowish-browm
hue when upon the ground, but assumed
the dull gray color of a fence rail when
gliding along it, and changed to an olive,,
and then a bright emerald green as it
passed under the foliage of those, colors..
When this lizard returned to 'the ground,
its original yellowish-brown was re
stored. Some cartridges on a table in an apart
ment in Paris were exploded recently by
the concentrated rays of the sun falling
upon them through a window glass, in
which a peculiar formation, described as.
an eye, made a burning lens. The Lon
don scientific journal, Nature, says that
similiar accidents are commoner than we
suppose. In Algeria, forests are some
times set on fire by the concentration of
the solar rays' through drops of rain-water
on the leaves; while in Europe, the.
beams passing through the panes of sta
tionary railway carriages occasionally
ignite the dried plants or leaves near the
track.
One hundred and seven photographs,
were taken, in the Arctic regions by the
recent British expedition, and about fifty
sets of these pictures have been prepared-,
for distribution to foreign governments
and institutions, so it is quite probable -that
some of them will come to this
country. They include views of the Pal
ffiocrystic Sea, and ofthe cliff of pure
.coal, twenty-five feet Wick, which was
discovered near the winter quarters of
one of the ships. This coal is particu '
larly important in relation to Captaint
Howgate's proposed colony near the
North Pole.
A stuff surgeon of the British Army,
Dr. Joseph J. Pope, read a paper on
clothing before the Domestic Economj
Congress, lately held at Birmingham, in
which he maintained that white clothing
would really be the warmest' in winter,,
having due regard to the conducting
power and thickness of the material of
which it is made. He thought that peo
ple had been led to wear dark clothes
principally from motives of economy in
the use of soap and water.
The fourth comet detected by astrono
mers this year is that which bears the
name of the late Professor D'Arrest, of
Leipsic, who originally discovered it on
June 27, 1851. Its period of revolution
around the sun is about six years and
a half, and it is the faintest periodical
comet known, being so dim that observ
ers failed to find it at its return in 1864.
It was first seen this year on the 8th of
July, by M. Coggia, of Marseilles.
m
And now comes the honest historian
and declares that Brigham Young did not
have a good-looking wife in the lot..
Nineteen and not one handsome onel
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