"WISE WORDS.
. A straight line is the shortest in mor
als, as in mathematics.
Silence is the wit of fools and one of
the virtues of the wise.
Every man's ability may be strength
ened or increased by culture.
Until the vine-leaves of youth are
faded, .who knows their value of sweet
ness? What are the best days in memory?
Those in which we met a companion who
"WW truly such.
The State needs citizens, but she needs,
above all. self-supporting citizens. And
that system of education is most politic
and most perfect which best meets and
fulfils the higher requirement. .
Wondrous, indeed, our human nature
is. He has no right to think that he can
enter hopefully on life who is not full of
reverence before his own humanity; who
does not deeply feel its wondrousness.
Some favorable event raises your
spirits, and you think good days are pre
paring for you. Do not believe it. Noth
ing can bring you peace but yourself.
Nothing can bring you peace but the
triumph of principles.
Making Ice in the Tropics.
.In the tropical climate, far distant
from high mountains, as neither natural
snow nor ice can be obtained, recourse
is had to the cold generated by evap
oration and the comparative coolness of
the air a little before daybreak to man
ufacture ice in large quantities, and thus
to supply a most grateful luxury at a
moderate price. Ice is thus simply man
ufactured in a largo way at Benares,
Allahabad and Calcutta, in the East
Indies, where natural ice has never been
seen.
On a large, open plain an excavation
is made abmt thirty feet square and
two feet deep, on the bottom of which
sugar cane or maize stems are evenly
strewed to the height of about eight
inches. On this bed are set rows of
small, shallow, unglazed earthen pans,
so porous that when filled with water
the outsides are immediately covered
with a thick dew oozing through them.
Toward the dusk of the evening, the
pans, previously smeared with butter,
are filled with soft water, generally
boiled, and let remain there during the
night.
In the morning, before sunrise, the ice
makers attend and collect from each pan
a crust of ice, more or less thick, that ad
heres to its inner side, and it is put into
baskets and carried without loss of time
to the common receptacle, which is a deep
pit in a high, dry situation, lined first
with straw and then with old blanketing,
where it is beaten down and congeals into
a solid mass. Tne crop of ice varies ex
tremely, sometimes amounting to more
than half the contents of the pan, at other
times scarcely a pellicle. Clear and se
rene weather is the most favorable for its
production, whatever may be the sensible
heat of the atmosphere. The cold gener
ated by the rapid evaporation round every
part of the pan is the cause of this con
gelation. In this way ices are secured
for the table, when the heat in the shade
is very commonly above 100 degrees.
A King of the Cowboys.
An Ogalalla (Neb.) letter contains the
following: The presiding genius of this
town is Tucker, who runs a combination
saloon and gambling-house. When any
of the cowboys get hard up they go to
see Tucker, lie gives his money liberal
ly and freely to his friends. Tucker is a
tall, fine-looking man, with an intelligen
countenance, lie affects long hair, a la
Buffalo Bill, and prides himself on his
fighting abilities. If a drunken cowboy
is disposed to have a shooting matinee or
xough-and-tumble exercise he can always
be accommodated by applying to Tucker,
who guarantees to do up the anxious in
dividual in short order. When any dis
turber of the peace tries to invade the sa
cred precincts of the Cowboy's Rest, as
Tucker's saloon is affectionately called,
the gentlemanly proprietor give3 him hia
advice to either tight or have a drink.
The festive and belligerent cowboy adore3
Tucker on account of his generosity and
grit, and he would stand by this popular
border gambler through thick and thin.
Any other man than Tucker would be lia
ble to have hia saloon completely demol
ished two or three times a week, but he
always remembers his friends; no hungry
man was ever turned from his door, and
the cowboys, who have had substantial
evidences of his good-will, never forget
the kindness. Tucker his many imita
tors, but he is the typical border paradox
of gentleman and ruffian, and no man can
compete with him in shrewdness or pop
ularity. Showers on Top.
It is generally believed that the dis
charge of artillery tends to dispel clouds
and mists in the immediate neighbor
hood. A French electrician combats
this theory, and maintains that the effect
of a series of sufficiently violent detona
tions would bo to compel the clouds to
discharge their moisture. He even goes
so far as to say that it would be perfectly
possible to produce a fall of rain in this
way. He suggests a method by which
he believes this often highly desirable re
sult might be brought about. His plan
is to send up one or more baloons
freighted with panclastic or some other
equally explosive compounds. They are
to be connected with a battery on the
ground by means of a fine wire, and when
they attain the necessary altitude that
is, when they enter the cloud-zone the
spark is to be transmitted. The detona
tion will follow, and a refreshing shower
will be tne result. Farmers and others
who suffer heavily from the effects of a
prolonged drought will probably be anx
ious that the French savant's system
should be given a trial, no method hith
erto devised for obtaining rain having
proved quite efficacious.
Bank Note Paper.
The bank note paper on which Ameri
can legal tender, national bank note
currency and government bonds are
printed is made entirely at Dalton, Mass.
If you should happen to stop at the pa
per mill, with proper introduction and
credentials, you may perhaps be allowed
to handle a sheet of crisp paper, where,
as the wet, grayish pulp is pressed be
tween heavy iron cylinders, bits of blue
and red silk are scattered over its face
and silken ribs laid on its service. You
may go beyond into the counting room,
where each sheet, as it comes from the
drying room, is carefully examined,
counted, and then returned to the paper
cutter to be divided into smaller sheets.
If you trace this paper still further, you
will find that from the cutter's hands it
passes again into the counting room, and
is separated into packages containing
1,000 6heetseach, the amount recorded in
a register and then packed in bundles and
stored in fire and burglar proof vaults to
await shipment to the United States
Treasury. From the pulp room to the
vault the precious paper is watched and
cruarded as carefully as though each sheet
were an ounce of gold. Its manufacture
Is one of the greatest secrets connected
with the government's money making.
From the vaults of the paper mill at Dal
ton to the guarded store rooms of the J
treasury at vv asningion is a journey oi
several hundred miles. In the capacious
vaults of the treasury building among
gold, silver, copper and nickle coins,
bullion, paper currency and official
records you will find thousands of pack
ages of the bank note paper made at Dal
ton. It comes in little iron safes, such
as are used by the Adams Express com
pany, and each package and every sheet
is carefully counted before the manu
facturer and express company are relieved
of further responsibility. The paper that
arrives to-day may lie in the treasury
store room for years, or it may be sent to
the bureau of engraving and printing to
morrow, to return in the course of a
month's time a legal tender or bank note.
Fanny Little Ones.
A father found his son playing on the
front steps.
"Edward," he sad, "what do I see?
Are you not disobeying your grand
mother, who just told you not to jump
down these steps?"
"No," said Edward, "no, indeed;
grandma didn't tell us not to, papal She
only came down to the door and said, 'I
wouldn't jump down these steps, boys,'
and I shouldn't think she would an old
lady like herl"
"Oh, mamma," said little Julia on her
return one day from school, "I'm in the
squeal to Germany 1"
"The 6queal?" asked her puzzled
mamma.
"Yes, 'em, the squeal," said Julia,
opening her geography to confirm hei
assertion by pointing to a division in her
text book, entitled "The Sequel to Ger
many." "Arise with the lark, and with the
lark to bed," read a little boy from hia
First Reader; then he' stopped a mo
moment and contemplated the picture of
a lark at the head of the lesson.
"Mamma," he said, "that lark's toe
nails are so long I'd be afraid to go to
bed with him."
A little miss asked her father when he
was writing a sermon: "Papa, does God
tell you what to write in a sermon?"
I After a little consideration the parent re
i turned an affirmative answer, but he was
completely nonplussed by the further
question: "Then why do you scratch it
out?"
There was a great parade of soldiers,
and little Mary, aged eight years, went
to the door with her pet dog, Gyp, to
see the procession move by. Like all
little dogs. Gyp was saucy and began to
bark. Mary ran upstairs to her mother,
exclaiming:
"Oh, mamma, come downstairs; I'm
afraid Gyp will bite the army."
A Horrible Catastrophe.
Probably the most horrible catastrophe
ever precipitated by an earthquake was
that of Lisbon, on November 1, 1755.
The inhabitants first experienced a slight
rumbling, something like that heard
j after the firing of heavy artillery. They
started up in alarm all over the great
city, but before many could reach the
doors there came' a terrific shock that
hurled the largest and strongest build
ings to the ground, killing those in the
street that had escaped the first shock.
The effect of the disturbance was no
ticed in a remarkable way on the water.
Almost immediately the sea withdrew,
leaving the large harbor dry; then in a
wall of sixty or seventy feet it came
rushing in with tremendous force. Comb
ing and roaring it dashed upon the ruins
and terrified crowds, and in a few mo
ments over C0,000 bodies were carried
out to sea or left lifeless among the rains.
Many more were drowned in the lower
part of the city, that had settled so that
houses were covered permanently with
over 600 feet of water.
This earthquake was felt over the entire
continent of Europe, and the tidal waves
that it caused swept across the Atlantic
in a few hours to the West Indies, occa
sioning damage on those shores. Care
ful calculation has shown that the area
affected bv the disturbance, equaled 175,
000,000 cubic miles.
M. Do Lesseps commends the French
man for living on ceteals, eight pounds
of which cost no more than one pound of
the Englishman's roast beef, and for buy
ing American cottonseed oil at three
cents a pound, purifying it and selling it
back to America as olive oil at $3 a gallon.
SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL
Yellow pine, hard finished in oil, rivals
In beauty any wood that grows, is as J j-eg(.jyg without considerable opposition,
susceptible of as high a degree of polish, , A gha Qck Qf an eartnqake having
and is almost as indestructible. Even j been xperienced iQ Massachusetts in
hot grease will leave no stain upon it. 1755 th wag forthwitll attributed to
The probability is that it will be more the evil influences of Franklin's light
and more used for decorative purposes. - ningrod3. A Boston clergyman preach
The supply of trees which yield gutta ed them .Q 1770 as uimpiou3Con.
percha has not kept pace with their de- trivances to prevent the execution of the
struction and some anxiety is felt upon th f hosT E , t 1826
tne suDjeci. mere a g'un umauu
for the gum, as it is applied to an in
creasing number of purposes, and the
attention of the authorities is called to
the matter.
Urooklyn nas tne largest un-Dox iac-,
tory in tne, country, a. leaiure is me
manufacture of decorated tin-ware. This
consists of, tin plate on whose surface
there is a picture or other design. The
work is done by a tin -lithographing
press similar to that employed upon
paper. The decorated ware costs but
a trifle more than the plain, and is in
great demand.
An ingenious microscopist has bepn try
ing to compute the amount of infusorial
life inhabiting the bricks of old build
ings long exposed to the weather. The
principal forms he has discovered consist
of large bacilli and vibrios, some of the
latter being peculiarly marked by longi
tudinal lines. He found myriads of these
organisms in a single deep-seated micro
scopic cavity,
A leather dealer, who has been over
looked the ihin-uo.savs that French
and looked the thing up, says that French
calfskin is better t'aan ours chiefly be
cause of a better method of skinning the
animals. "Here we use knives. In
France they make a hole in the skin,
insert the nose of a bellows and actually
blow the skin from the flesh. Conse
quently their skins never show a scratch
and have no weak places. Of course,
there is a good deal in the tanning, but
not all."
Professor Douglas, of the Michigan
State University, it is said, produces
amateur cyclones at will. He doe3 it
by suspending a large copper plate by
silken cords. This plate "is charged
heavily with' electricity, which hangs
down like a bag underneath, and is ren
dered visible by the use of arsenious acid
gas, which gives it a green color. The
formation is a miniature cyclone, as per
fect as any started in the clouds. It is
funnel-shaped and whirls around rapidly.
Passing this plate over a table, the five
cent cyclone snatches up copper cents,
pins, pith balls and other objects and
scatters them on all sides.
Water Power in America.
The extraordinary development of
water power for economic purposes is an
American idea. In no other country has
it been so extensively and so successfully
utilized. This will be apparent by con
sidering some of the rivers that have
been dammed for the benefit of mankind,
and the force which they furnished re
duced to the standard of horse power:
The Passaic ac Paterson, N. J., 1,000
horse power; the Merrimac at Lowell,
10,000, the Mohawk at Coaoes, 14,990;
the Androscoggin at Lewiston, 11,000;
the Housatonic at Canaan Falls, 3,000;
the Mississippi at the Falls of St. An
thony, 15,000; the Oswego st Oswego,
4,000. The sum total of these is 75,000
horse power, as estimated at a given point
on each river. But this is used over
again on an average of not less than
three times. Thi3 would show a larger
total of 225,000 horse-power. There are
also very many smaller streams in all the
hill sections of the country which are
utilized and may funish, used and un
used, power equal to the last-named total
of 225,000; thus giving a grand total of
500,000 horse-power, distributed over a
wide extent of country and supplying, in
their way, the wants of CO, 000, 000
people.
But thes3 are only the minor powers,
so to speak, of the hills and valleys.
The grand dominating power that could
absorb them all and still have room to
give hospitable refuge to four times as
many remains to be noticed. It is the
Niagara river. From data furnished by
the United States Lake survey bureau in
1875, it appears that the average flow of
the river above the falls is 10,000,000
cubic feet per minute. Converting this
into horse-power under a head of 200
feet and we have a grand aggregate of
3,000,000 horse-power a mighty force
that would supplv the economic wants of
200,000,000 of people. Industrial News.
An Interesting Comparison.
The fifteenth annual report of Colonel
Carroll D. W right, the chief of the Mas
sachusetts bureau of statistics of labor,
contains interesting figures concerning
working people and their wages in the
Bay State and in Great Britain. In Mas
sachusetts it appears that the average
number of working dajs in a year is
309.29. In Massachusetts the working
hours per week are 60.17, but in Great
Britain only 53.50. For comparisons in
a general way, the following table is
given of the general average weekly wa
ges paid to all employes in each of the
industries compared.
ureat
Britain.
$8 85
4 89
4 37
4 16
7 21
4 11
4 89
6 71
4 60
2 84
2 72
7 93
6 94
5 51
4 67
12 60
6 9U
7 40
5 52
Haas.
Agricultural implements.. . . $10 25
Artisan's tools 11 83
Boots and shoes 1163
Brick 8 63
Building trades 14 99
CarpetiafcH 6 08
Carriage and wagons 13 80
Clothing 10 01
Cotton goods 645
Flax and jute goods 6 46
Food preparations 9 81
Furniture k 11 04
Glass 12 28
Hata fur, wool and silk.... 1101
Hosiery 6 49
Liquors malt and distilled. 12 87
Machines and machinery. . .
Metals and metallic goods.. .
Printing and publishing. . . .
Printing, dyting, etc., cot
ton textiles
11 75
11 25
11 37
8 67
4 94
8 5!i
5 67
4 86
3 &t
Stons 14 39
Wooden goods. 12 19
Woolen goods 6 90
Worsted goods. 7 33
The Introduction of Lightning-Rods
As a matter of course, the new dOC
trina rvf "KVonlrlin onA Yiia nllipa wfta Tint
an engineer in the employment of the
British government recommended that
all lightmng-iods should be removed
from public buildings as dangerous ex
pedients, and in 1838 the governor-gen-
eral and council of tte East India com
pany ordered that all lightning-rods
should be removed from public build
ings, arsenals and powder-magazines
throughout India, and only became re
conciled to their restoration after a large
magazine and coming-house, not fur
nished with a conductor, had been blown
up during a storm.
Franklin was so much in earnest in
reference to his invention that he sent a
friend at his own charge through the
principal towns of the Mew England col
onies to make known the powers and
virtues of the lightning-rod. In the
"Poor Richard" for 1758, a kind of al
manac or manual which he was at that
time publishing, he gave specific in
structions for the erection of his rods.
The second conductor which he himself
! " TCl LTh 7w
constructed was placed upon the house
of Mr. West, a wealthy merchant of Phil
adelphia. A few months after this had
been erected a storm burst over the town,
and a flash of lightning was seen to strike
the point of the conductor, and to spread
itself out as a sheet of flame at its base.
It was afterward found that about two
inches and a half of the br&ss point had
been dissipated into the air, and that im
mediately beneath the metal was melted
Into the form of an irregular blunt cap.
The house, nevertheless, was quite un
injured. The sheet of flame seen at the
base of the conductor Franklin correctly
ascribed to the ground having been very
dry, and to there not having been a
sufficiently capacious earth contact under
thoso circumstances. He nevertheless
Bhrewdly, and quite justifiably, assumed
that in this case nature had itself pro
nounced an unmistakable verdict in favoi
of his invention. Popular Scienct
Monthly.
Three Heals a Day.
An English writer gives some much
needed advice as to the times and fre
quency of meals. In his opinion the
present usual practice of three meals a
day has good reason, as well as custom,
in its favor. When work of any kind is
be.ng done, whether mental or bodily,
the intervals between taking food should
not be so long as to entail demands on
the system when its store of material for
the generation of force is exhausted. An
ordinary full meal, in the case of a
healthy man, is generally considered to
have been completely digested and to
have passed out of the stomach in four
hours. A period of rest should then be
granted to the stomach. Assuming that
two hours are allowed for this, the in
terval between one meal and another
would be six hours; and this accords
with the experience of most men. Dur
ing rest and sleep there is less waste
going on, and especially during sleep
there is a greatly diminished activity of
all the functions of the body. The in
terval, therefore, between the last meal
of one day and the first of the next may
be longer, as it generally is, than be
tween the several day meals. Assuming
that breakfast be taken about 8 or 9
o'clock, there should be a mid-day meal
about 1 or 2. The character of this
must depend on the nature of the day's
o. cupation and the convenience of the
individual. With women and children
this is generally then- hungry time, and
the mid-day repast, whether called
luncheon or dinner, is the chief meal.
So it is with the middle and laboring
classes, for the most part. But for mer
chants, professional men and others,
whose occupation take them from home
all the day, this is inconvenient, and,
moreover, it is not found conducive to
health or comfort to take a full meal in
the midst of a day's work. There can,
however, be no doubt that much evil
arises from attempting to go through the
day without food, and then with ex-
hausted powers sitting down to a hearty
I meal. Something of a light, easily di
gestible, but sustaining character should
, be taken toward 1 or 2 o'clock.
An Opium Joint at the Hub.
An opium joint has been discovered
in Boston. . It is managed by Ameri
cans, and is much more luxurious than
those run by Chinamen, although not
eqaling in elaborate appointments the
place in New York depicted so artisti
tically in a recent paper in one of the
magazines of that city.
Men and women, some of comfortable
social position, some long given to dissi
pation, here inhale the drug on couches
and divans, there being several general
rooms, and one floor devoted to private
chambers, where sometimes one women,
sometimes two together, and occasional
ly a man and women together, can in
dulge this dreadful appetite without be
ins seen by others. One young woman
is" described who had quite lost her
will power, and left her home for days
together to smoke opium.
The attendant said he did not see how
the establishment could be interfered
with; the authorities might shut it up
as "a disorderly house" "but that
wouldn't be very true, would it?"
Venison was formerly so plenty in the
San Francisco market that it sold for
three to six cents per pound; now it
costs from ten to fifteen.
THE QUEEREST OF METALS.
Interesting Facts About Platinum
and Its Peculiarities.
A party of gentlemen were discussing
the subject of assaying and refining the
piecious metals, says the New Yorkun,
when Mr. D. W. Baker, of Newark, gave
some interesting facts about platinum.
"Our firm," he said, "practically does
all the platinum business of this coun
try, and the demand for the material is
eo great that we never can get moro
than we want of it. The principal por
tion, or, in fact, nearly all of it, comes
from the famous mine3 of the Demidoff
family, who have the monopoly of the i
production in Russia. It is all refined
and made into sheets of various thick
nesses, and into wire of certain commer-,
cial sizes before it comes to us; but we
have frequently to cut, roll and redraw
it to new forms and sizes to meet the
demands upon us. At one time it was
coined in Russia, but it is no longer ap
plied to that use. We have obtained
some very good crude platinum ore from
South America, and nave renned it suc
cessfully, but the supply from that
source is as yet very small. I am not
aware that it has been found anywhere
else than in Columbia, on that continent,
but the explorations thus far made into
the mineral resources of South America
have been very meagre, and it is by no
means improbable that platinum may
yet be discovered there in quantities
rivaling the supply of Russia. 1
"A popular error respecting platinum
is that its intrinsic value is the same as
that of gold. At one time It did approx
imate to gold in value, but never "quite
reached it, and is now worth only $8 to
$12 an ounce, according to the work ex
pended upon it in retting it into required
forms and the amount of alloy it con
tains. The alloy used for it is" iridium,
which hardens it, and the more iridium
it contains, the more difficult it is to .
work, and, consequently, the more ex
pensive. When pure, nlatinum is as soft
as silver, but by the addition of iridium
it becomes the hardest of metals, ine
great diffiiculty of manipulating platinum
is its excessive resistance to heat. A
temperature that will make steel run
like water and melt down fire-clay, has
absolutely no effect upon it. You may
put a piece of platinum no thicker than
human hair into a blast furnace where
Ingots of steel are melting down all
around it and the bit of wire will come
out as absolutely unchanged as if it had
been in an ice box all the time. No
means have actually been discovered for
accurately determining the melting.tem
perature of platinum, but it must be
enormous. And yet, if you put a bit of
lead into the crucible with the platinum,
both metals will melt down together at
the low temperature that fuses the lead,
and if you try to melt lead in a platinum
crucible you will find that as soon as the
lead melts the platinum with which it
comes in contact also melts and your
crucible is destroyed.
"A distinguishing characteristic of
platinum is its extreme ductility. A
wire can be made from it finer than from
any other metal. I have a sample in my
pocket, the guage of which is only one
two thousandth of an inch, and it is
practicable to make it thinner. It has
even been affirmed that platinum wire
has been made so fine as to be invisible to
the naked eye, but that I do not state as
of my own knowledge. This wire my
son made."
Mr. Baker exhibited the sample spoken
of. It looked like a tress of silky hair,
and had it not been shown upon a piece
of black paper could hardly have been
seen. He went on :
"The draw plates, by means of which
these fine wires are made, are sapphire
and rubies. You may fancy for your
selves how extremely delicate must be
the work of making holes of such ex
ceeding smallness to accurate guage.too,
in those very hard stones. I get all mj
draw plates from an old Swiss lady in
New York, who makes them herself, to
order. But, delicate as is the work of
boring the holes, there is something still
more delicate in the processes that pro
duce such fine wire as this. That some
thing is the filing of a long point on the
wire to enable the poking' of the end of
it through the draw plate so that it can
be caught by the nippers.
Imagine "yourself filing a long taper
infr point on the end'of a wire only one-eighteen-hundredth
of an inch in diame
ter in 'order to get it through a draw
plate that will bring it down to one-two-thousandth.
My son does that without
using a magnifying glass. I cannot say
positively what uses this very thin wire i
is put to. but something in surgery, I be
lieve, either for fastening together por
tions of bone or for operations. A newly
invented instrument has been described
to me, which, if it does what has been
affirmed, is one of the greatest and most
wonderful discoveries of modern sci
ence. A very thin platinum wire loop,
brought to incandescence by the current
from a battery which, though of great
power, is so small that it hangs from the
lapel of the operator's coat is used, in
stead of the knife, for excisions and cer
tain amputations. It sears as . it cuts,
ftrevents the loss of blood, and is abso
utely painiess which is the most aston
ishing thing about it. I am assured that
a large tumor has been cut from a child
while the operation was being performed,
and that without any anaesthetic having
been administered.
"Our greatest consumers of platinum
are the electricians, particularly the in
candescent light companies. I supply
the platinum wire for both the Edison and
the Maxim companies, and the quantity
they require so constantly increases that
the demand threatens to exceed the sup
ply of the metal. Sheets of platinum
are bought by chemists, who have them
converted into crucibles and other forms.
Tea, says the Chinese, is a drink which
relieves thirst and dissipates sorrow.