Lititz Record

              RECORD.
An Independent Family Newspaper, Devoted to Literature, Agriculture, Local and General Intelligence.
VOIJ. I. L I T I Z , PA., F R I D A Y MORNING, J U K E 14, 1878. NO. 40.
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DROPPING CORN.
M A R Y B. C. SLADE.
Little Katie went with the gray old squire,
("Who was he?" Child, he was your grandsire.)
To the furrowed field, in the dewy morn.
"Now sing," said he, as you drop the corn,
'One for the black-bird, one for the crow,
One for the cut-worm, and two to grow.'' "
Crow and black-bird came fluttering 'round,
The cut-worm wriggled beneath the ground,
As Ave smooth kernels, every time,
Little Katie dropped, with the sing-song rhyme,
One for the black-bird, one for the crow,
One for the cut-worm, and two to grow."
The old squire covered the grain with soil.
"Now, see," he said, "they will have their spoil—
That's sure ; but still we shall get our share,
If you always count, as you drop, with care,
lOne for the black-bird, one for the crow,
One for the cut-worm, and two to grow*
When kernels sprout and the green blades grow,
The crow and black-bird and cut-worm know.
And woe for the corn-field in harvest days,
Unless little Katie in planting says,
"One for the black-bird, one for the crow,
One for the cut-worm, and two to grow."
Thus do we plant with our older hands,
In wider fields and o'er broader lands—
Since for good seed sown by the land or sea,
In the air or earth a foe may be,—
"One for the black-bird, one for the crow,
One for the cut-worm, and two to grow "
The "two to grow!" That is all I ask
As the seed-times bring me my planting task.
I know who leads to his furrowed field ;
As he wills I plant, at his will shall yield
"One for the black-bird, one for the crow,
One forthe cut-worm, and two to grow.''''
Wide Awake for May.
"OUR JIM."
The path was narrow and wound like
an interminable yellow snake along the
precipitous river slopes.
Sometimes it skirted a beetling bluff,
with the Stanislaus five hundred feet be-low,
tumbling among the limestone bor-ders
; sometimes it plunged into a gloomy
ravine or gulch, where the nut pine and
buckeye hid the brawling torrent dashing
heedlessly from its hidden source to the
river below ; again, the sunlight played
through slate-colored chaparral, and
danced upon the brown herbage of the
hillside, permitting a clear view of the
haze hanging over the far-away valley of
the San Joaquin. The blue-jay sounded
his discordant note among the young pines.
The woodpecker hammered industriously
upon the bark of the live-oak beside the
trail. A covey of mountain quail whiired
up from a bunch of manzanita, and then
ran cackling over the brow of the gulch
down to the noisy watercourse. Far down
those aisles of nature's cathedral sounded
the music of the feathered choir, mellowed
at times by the mournful plaint of the tur-tle
dove, sounding like the soft sobbing of
a soul bereaved.
It was a magnificent afternoon in au
tumn—one of those calm days that Cali-fornians
love to speak of when praising
"the finest climate in the world. "
"Hullo, stranger."
I glanced around, startled and nervous,
for the voice of a human being was the
last sound I should have expected to hear
up in this primitive solitude.
"Up here."
The voice was on my left, and turning
in that direction, I saw a man stretched
beneath a tall, heavily tasseled pine.
"Do you drink?"
The man held up a large flask, shaking
it, and causing the contents to dash invi-tingly
against the brown glass.
"You might as well," he continued,
"though it ain't the best in the market;
' way above proof, I reckon ; but you're
thirsty, and it's free. Tie your animal up
to that tree yonder, and take a seat. It's
more sociable."
I could not resist the generous hospital-ity
of the invitation, for it was even heart-ier
than the words ; besides I was thirsty.
Upon closer inspection I found that my
friend—for I instinctively felt that he was
my friend—was a man about forty years
of age, slenderly built, but displaying a
frame well knit and apparently inured to
hardship. His expressive face bore that
deep mahogany tint produced by constant
exposure to all weathers, and his hands
were calloused by hard labor. He was
leaning upon his elbow which was sup-ported
by a roll of blankets. A pick and
shovel, lying near a pan for washing gold
dust, revealed the probability that he was
a prospecter. Upon interrogation he ac-knowledged
the correction of my surmise,
and then, with a merry twinkle in his
bright, honest, hazel eyes, he added ;
"But the prospect isn't as bright as it
might be, stranger ; I haven't struck any
bonanzas to speak of."
"Are you searching for quartz?" I
asked.
"Yes—with gold in it," he replied, smi-ling
at his own addition to my inquiry.
"I'm a pocket hunter."
"A pocket hunter?"
' *Yes. You see there's what we miner's
call 'mill veins,' and there's 'pocket veins.'
The mill veins are expected to pay dollars
to the ton ; the pocket leads wouldn't pay
cents. 'Most always mill veins don't pay
for hauling, and pocket veins are as likely
to pan out big as not. This is the differ-ence
: A mill vein is thick and prospects
first rate, assays A 1. The hanging wall
is the right sort, and the vein cuts the
slate as it ought to. The foot wall throws
the lead in the right dip and angle. The
locators have the gift of persuading, and
a lot of San Francisco capitalists see it in
the right light—for the locators. A gang
of men go to work drifting and sinking.
A twenty-stamp mill scares the squirrels
out of their holes and frightens the crick-ets
in the chaparral. Pretty soon the first
rock is crashed, and the result don't pay
expenses. Then comes an assessment,
and more rock is crushed. Water fills the
lower drifts. Another assessment is lev-ied
to buy a pump. After that more rock
is crushed, and produces some of the rich-est
sulphurets that ever came out of a
mine. More assessments to buy concen-trators
to work the sulphurets. Then they
find rock that is rich enough to be reduced,
and another assessment is levied to put up
furnaces. By and by the trustees have a
row, and the creditors of the mine levy an
attachment. The attachment sticks and
the mine shuts down. Do you see that
blot on the hill across the river? Well,
that's a twenty stamp mill crushed by as-sessments
and attachments—crushed as
fine as the quarts in its o wn batteries.
They started out by calling it the richest
lead in Calaveras county, but somehow
they couldn't prove it, and now the swal-low
builds its nest in the rafters of the
hoisting works, and the hop-toad croaks
under the furnaces. Pocket hunting isn't
so gorgeous, but its a derned sight better
paying in the long run. You lay in a
stock of grub. You shoulder your pick,
pan, shovel, and blankets, and start out
on a long tramp You wash a pan full of
dirt here and a pan fall there. Maybe
you strike the color and maybe you don't,
but if you do you look at it and think.
You ask yourself, 'Where did it come
from?' It is free gold. It was once in
the rock. Where's the rock ? You look
around and find that the country slopes
down to where you found the little speck.
You go a little higher up and wash anoth-er
pan full. You keep on washing and
going higher up till the prospect is good
enough to justify running a cut into the
hillside. If you've gauged your prospects
right you'll strike the quartz. You won't
strike a mill vein, but you'll find a little
streak of quarts—'a thread,' we call them.
You follow your thread and find other
threads. You follow them all. By and
by these threads—prospecting first rate all
along—come together. A 'crossing'
comes in. What's a 'crossing?' Why,
it's some other substance cutting the vein
at a right or acute angle—dyke, or sand,
or granite, or maybe quartz If those
threads and that crossing come together at
the same point, you'll strike it sure. Ten,
twenty, or a hundred dollars to the pan.
The gold has settled into a pocket and
you've got enough to settle your grub bill
anyhow ; but sometimes you're struck by
lightning, and she pans out thousands.
As a general thing, though, its only hun-dreds.
I knew a man once down on
Christy's Bar who took out ten thousand
dollars in three pans of dirt. He'd worked
nine years on the same lead, and owed
every provision dealer from Reynold's
Ferry to Columbia hundreds of dollars
each. They wouldn't trust him any more,
and he killed rabbits when he was hungry,
or did odd jobs around Tuttletown for his
grub. He paid his bills and started for a
pasear in Egypt, I believe—he was struck
after pyramids and crocodiles from the
first time he struck the Bar. He'll spend
his pile and pawn bis jewelry to some
descendant of the Pharaohs to get money
enough to come back again. He 11 come
back flat broke, but I'd like to borrow his
credit in this section for a year or two—its
good, you bet. What did you say ? No,
we don't always strike it rich twice
on the same lead. That fellow I was tell-ing
you about worked his for a year after
and didn't get a color, so he quit for awhile
and went to Egypt before he eat and
drank UP the pocket lie'd found "
I had been so interested in the remarks
of the miner that I had not noticed how
long the sun had fallen. He called my
attention to the fact that night was ap-proaching,
and proposed that we move.
I acceded, and my companion rose, hitched
up his mud-stained red "ducks, " placed
his wide-brimmed slouch hat upon his
head, loosened a large navy revolver
which he carried in his belt, gathered up
his accoutrements, which he slung easily
upon his shoulders, took a shot gun from
behind a tree, and strode out upon the
trail, with a long, swinging, Indian st ride.
I untied my horse and mounted. The
miner turned and inquired :
"Where are you bound ?"
"To Sonora."
"Where from?"
"Cave City."
"You'll strike the stage road at Tuttle-town
about half-past six. It's a good
seven mile to Sonora from there, and your
horse is tired. Stay with me to-night."
"Where do you live?"
"At Jackass."
"Where?"
"Jackass Hill—on the Stanislaus, 'bout,
a mile from Tuttletown."
At this point same quail rose from a
neighboring thicket, and two reports from
the pocket-hunter's shot-gun answered
instantly. Three birds fell.
'•You'd better come, stranger," he con-tinued,
as he held his gun in rest and drew
the exploded caps from the nipples.
"There's part of your supper—quail on
toast—plenty of dry bread for toast at the
house."
I did not resist, and we traversed the
picturesque trail in the dying sunlight
together. He walked ahead, and the oc-casional
shots from his gun always
brought down the swiftly moving game.
He had soon piled two cotton-tail rabbits,
a dozon quail, and "half a dozen'doves upon
the pommel of my saddle. As he walked,
he conversed in a free, breezy manner
upon a variety of subjects. I found him
well informed in regard to standard En-glish
literature ; he often quoted very
apropos from Shakspeare, for whom he
had the devoted appreciation. He criti-cised
Byron, and accused Scott of plagiar
ism. He gave me quaint descriptions of
the habits of birds and animals native to
the section, oftentimes talking in an af-fectionate
tone to the various animals that
crossed his shoulder after we had jointly
agreed that there was more than enough
for supper and breakfast on my saddle.
"I love these little birds, " he said, "and
I wouldn't harm one of them for the
world, if I didn't intend to eat them after-wards."
He discoursed about the country around
us, and displayed a complete knowledge
of its geological characteristics. He gave
me an epitome of the local history of the
section, interspersed with pleasing anec-dotes
and tragic incidents ; and through
it all I perceived the true stamina of the
man's character—a deep and abiding love
for his fellow man in every condition and
under every circumstance. But what in-terested
me most ot all were his epigram-matic
character sketches. He seemed to
consider every man and woman in the
neighborhood a character—except himself.
"There's old Pat—Dave Patterson—one
of the best old men in the world ; but he
will travel round on hot summer days
rigged out in two heavy gray flannel
shirts and an overcoat slung over his arm.
Why does he do it ? Derned if I know.
Nobody knows—he don't know himself.
It's his way, I reckon. And there's Tom
Leach. Keeps a saloon down at the camp
—down at Tuttletown. He's got a heart
that's worth its weight in gold. Runs the
Democratic party in this precinct, pulls
wires, and sets up the liquor for the boys
when times are hard, and makes the can-didates
set 'em up in election times. He's
the little joker in politics hereabouts.
Patterson's his right—no he ain't either—
Gate's his right bower, Patterson's his
left. G-ale's another. Owns a ditch and
supplies 'goat ranch' to the people of thi
section. 'Goat ranch' is a kind of wine
he makes. It must be tolerably good—he
drinks it himself. There's my hotel."
He pointed to a large whitewashed
building on an eminence a. short distance
ahead. The stars were shining through
the cool atmosphere of the river canon,
and the crickets were chirping their even-ing
hymn as we stood before the wide-open
doors.
"Come in, stranger, everything here
is yours while you stay. I'll put your
horse up."
"Have you a partner?" I asked.
"No. Why?'
"How long have you been out prospect
ing?"
"Three weeks. Why?"
"Your doors are all open."
"What of it? I don't keep a bank.
Besides this ain't the place where thieves
abound. I never shut my doors, and any
man is welcome to all the comfort he can
find here whether I'm around or not.
Come in."
He threw his pack in a corner of the
kitchen and laid our game on the table. A
fire was soon lighted, and a candle jam-med
into a spice bottle being brought
forth revealed the rude but substantial
comfort of the pocket-hunter's residence.
A stove standing on three pieces of bal-saltic
rock, a table probably a half century
old, a cupboard in one corner, before
which hung two gaudy calico curtains, on
the shelves of which was arranged
various pieces of China ware in every
stage of incompleteness ; behind the stove
hung frying pans, griddles, pots, pans,
broiling-irons, and kettles ; the house had
once been lined with white-washed cloth,
but it had almost disappeared, leaving the
roof and rafters black and bare. The two
rooms adjoining were apparently sleeping
apartments, for each of them contained
three bunks plentifully supplied with var-iously
colored blankets.
I ascertained next day that the walls of
these rooms were covered with wood cuts
from the periodical pictorials, these artis-tic
adornments being interspersed with
charcoal caricatures of local import by
free-hand designers "unknown to fame."
My host made me seat myself in an old
arm chair, upholstered with goat skin,
while he plucked and prepared the birds
he had shot. We had not spoken for
several moments, and I was reaching
r<ji a wjiy or Maris Tnniu s ••Kougnmg
I t " lying on the table, when—
"Oh, Jim !"
The voice sounded shrill and querulous
from the next room.
"Yes, Dick."
The pocket-miner answered unconcern-edly,
and placed the cover on the steaming
pan of quails. •
"Oh, Jim !"
"What is it, Dick?"
"Is that you, Jim?"
"Yes, Dick." Then apologetically,
"It's Dick Baker, home again. He's
been on a spree, and he's come to me to
sober him up. He always does. He's
another character. You'll find him men-tioned
in that book—Tom Quartz, Dick
Baker, and—me."
"Oh, Jim!"
"All right,- Dick."
"I've got home."
"So I see."
"I'm worse this time."
"Are you?"
"A derned sight, Jim." [Sotto voce]
"Tick tock, tick tock, d—n the clock."
"Can I do anything for you Dick ?"
"Now, Jim, what's the use a talkin'?"
Yer know ye ken. Tick tock, tick tock,
d—n the clock."
"All right, Dick, I'll be there in a min-ute—
just as soon as I wash my hands."
Silence for a minute.
"Oh, Jim!"
"What is it,.Dick?"
"I guess I'm going to have 'em bad
this time. Tick tock, tick tock, d—n the
clock."
"I hope not, Dick."
"I say I am, Jim."
"We'll see about that, Dick Will you.
excuse the light a moment, stranger,
while I go in and look at my patient ?"
Certainly I would. So the light disap-peared,
and I could hear my friend's
kindly tones consoling the poor inebriate,
and that unfortunate individual's replies.
Then a clinking of glasses and a gurgling
sound. After which :
"That'll fix you, Dick."
"And I won't see 'em ?"
"Not to-night, Dick."
"Much obleeged, Jim."
"Not at all, Dick. Now, lay quiet and
you'll go to sleep."
"Will that stuff scare 'em, Jim?"
"Yes, Dick. Now go to sleep. I'll
wake you up early, and we'll go out and
see if we can't follow up that rich prospect
you was telling me about."
"Bully fur you, Jim !"
While we were eating our supper Jim
told me all about Dick Baker. He was
one of those docile creatures who obey the
slightest nod from one of a superior mind,
a mortal born without the spirit of ag-gressiveness,
lacking backbone—a dead
twig afloat on the restless stream of life.
' 'He works for me when I strike it; pounds
quartz or stands by the windlass," added
my host. "He's as affectionate as a tame
coon, and as simple as a child. He works
hard when he does work, but when he
ain't at work he's swilling California wine,
which is worse than the rottenest tangle-foot
you ever saw. I wonder why they
blow so much about our wine industry.
There ain't no sense in it.".
We were smoking our pipes, prepara-tory
to "turning in," when the treble
squeak in the adjoining room sounded
once more :
"Oh, Jim !"
"All right, Dick."
"Come here, Jim."
Jim hurried to Dick's bedside.
"I think I'm going to hev 'em bad,
Jim."
"Here's some more ghost-killer, Dick."
A gurgling sound.
"That's bully, Jim. Tick tock, tick
tock, d—n the clock."
"What's the matter with the clock,
Dick?"
"Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, d—n
the clock!"
My curiosity was aroused, and I walked
into the room where the two men were.
I found Jim holding the hand of a red-faced,
sad-eyed man, who had flung him-self,
half undressed, upon the bunk, the
abject impersonation of weary, imbecile
debauchery on the verge of delirium.
"What's that, Jim? Save me, Jim,
they're comin !" he whined, as my shadow
fell across the bed.
"Lay still, Dick; he's a friend of mine,"
answered Jim, stroking the matted hair
from his reeking forehead.
"Now, look ahere, Jim, you've always
been a square man to me, hevn't ye ?"
"I hope so, Dick. Now do go to
sleep.''
"I won't go to sleep, Jim. I've been a
slave ter slaves long enough, an' yer can't
play the little game no longer. You've
dealt a square game fur me ever since I
knowed ye down ter this present speakin',
but you've gone back on me to-night, an'
I'm goin' to play my hand alone after
this, I am. I lead manhood. What'll ye
do?"
"What's trumps, Dick?"
"Honesty, Jim."
"All right, Dick. You've shuffled the
cards, you've dealt them yourself and led
your trump without giving me a chance
to pass or order you up—you talk about
square deals ; but never mind, I play grat-itude,
and that's a right bower on man-hood,
and gather in the trick. I lead gen-erosity."
"I play toil, Jim—hard toil from day-light
to dark, day in and day out. I
plays toil, Jim ; what do you say ?"
"Tain't good, Dick. Generosity is the
left bower of gratitude, and I take the
trick. I lead truth, Dick ; that's the ace
of trumps, and you're euchered, old man."
The ' old man's" fingers clutched ner-vously
at the blankets ; he scowled and
gritted his teeth ; what absurd thoughts
were running through his delirium-threatened
brain were revealed in his next
sentence :
"Ye played a snake on me, Jim ; ye had
those cards in yer sleeve, and he played
'em when I wasn't watchin' ye. Else
why'd ye bring me a third party in ter
see me euchered ? Oh, Jim, ye ain't what
I thought ye was—yer like the rest of 'em.
Yer wussen old Daddy Scott, an' ye 11 be
swearin' at God next, like he does—tick
tock, d—n the clock! Jim, take her down,
she's droppin' red-hot, scaldin' drops of
bilin' water on my brain. Take her
down, Jim, take her down, or I'll smash
llvj,* . ' >
So we took her down.
"What'll I do with her, Dick?"
"Puther in a sack, Jim.'
We found a gunny sack and placed the
clock in it.
"Anything else, Dick?"
"Yes, Jim—sew her up."
We did as he directed. This "labor of
love" had scarcely been completed when
the clock began to strike. Twenty-one
strokes rang out before the clock ran down,
poor Dick leaning over the edge of the
bed and staring in mute astonishment and
terror at the sack during the operation.
As soon as the bell ceased the delirious
man shouted in his shrillest treble :
"Throw her down the shaft, Jim, throw
her down the shaft—she's full of 'em, she's
full of 'em, she's got'em herself; the
clock's got the jim-jams ; throw her down
the shaft, Jim, that'll cure her ; yer can't
taper her off, there's forty-one of them ;
it's the wust case I ever seed. Throw her
down the shaft an' she'll never have 'em
any more. Forty-one, forty-one! She's
a gone case, Jim."
We carried the sack outside, and Jim
administered another dose to his patient.
The latter was soon in a troubled sleep,
and we retired to a much needed rest. In
the intervals of the night I have an indis-tinct
recollection of partially awaking and
observing a ghost-like figure gliding to
and fro through the room, hovering over
the bed of Dick, and then disappearing.
It may have been a dream, superinduced
by that unfortunate imbecile's frequent
vague reference to things wild, strange
and unnatural. The next morning I
parted with my kind and hospitable host.
Since then I have become better acquaint-ed
with him, and find that he is fully en-titled
to the affectionate regard which all
who know him bestow upon him. They
call him "Our Jim," and love to dwell
upon "his way"—his Bohemian charac-teristics,
his philanthropy, and his genial,
quaint, whole-souled qualities.
MAJOLICA WARES.
THE BARE ART THAT "WAS KNOWN TO
THE SPANISH MOORS. ¡
The Italian enameled earthenware
which became famous under the name
of Majolica, was first produced in 1300
in a town in the duchy pf Urbino,which
was under the feudal sway of the Mala-testas,
who were lords of Pesaro. Ves-sels
of red cláy, such as has been long
in use, were covered with a thin coat-ing
of white earth obtained from the
neighborhood of Siena, and upon this
ground different colored patterns were
traced.
The vessels were then partly baked
and covered with lead-glaze, after which
they received a final' firing. This de-lineation
of colored patterns upon an
opaque white substance was the humble
germ out of which the splendid many-hued
majolica ware grew.
The colors employed were usually
yellow, green, blue and black; and the
soft lead-glaze, which was easily affected
by external influences, imparted to the
pottery that metallic iridescent lustre
which is the special characteristic of
majolica.
To the Spanish Moors, this art was
also well known; and some of their
beautiful masterpieces finding their way
into Italy, acted as a filip to the infant
art, which long swathed in rude and
ungraceful swaddling-bands. While it
was in this transient state, a new tin
glaze was discovered, and applied to
terra-cotta bas-reliefs by the famous
Lucca della Robbia, and the lordship
of Pesaro was sold to the house of
Sforza. The new feudal superior took
an extreme interest in the potteries,
and granted such special privileges to
the manufacturers, that in a short time
they succeeded in making Pesaro fa-mous
for the production of majolica.
Early specimens of the ware manu-factured
here are generally adorned
with Moorish arabesques and coats-of-arms.
Heads of saints are also a favor-ite
study, and so are the heathen god-desses;
while heads of the Popes and
Dukes of Urbina abound, the name be-ing
affixed, to prevent all mistake as to
the portrait.
I n the pottery of the Pesaro manu-factory,
the outlines of the subjects are
traced in black or blue, and are in gen-eral
correctly drawn; but the figures
are flat and hard, without a vestige of
the breath and freedom which gave
such admirable life and vigor to the
etchings on the &reek vases; all faults
in design or execution being atoned for
by the marvelous beauty and finish of
the glaze, whose iridescent splendor has
been equaled, but not surpassed, by
later artists.
The most beautiful specimens of this
ware are due to the genius of an obscure
artist, whose very name has been for-gotten,
who flourished in Pesaro about
1480. The dishes he made were large
and thick, and were intended not so
much for use as for display; as is shown
by holes in a projection behind, through
which strings "were passed in order to
suspend them from the wall. The
colors he used were blue and yellow,
and they shone with a rare and match-less
mother-of-pearl splendor.
At the end of the fifteenth century
tin enamel had come into general use,
and the potteries of the duchy of Ur-bino
had begun to manufacture a finer
majolica ware. The art may be said to
have reached its most palmy period.
The finest qualities of the old mezza
majolica ware retained in the new man-ufacture,
and far greater artistic skill
was displayed in the painting and orna-mentation.
All over the duchy of Urbino, pot-teries
of this ware flourished at Gubbio,
at Pesaro, at Urbino's and at Castle
Durante. From these workshops pot-ters
traveled with their secrets to other
parts of Italy and also to Flanders. The
majolica of Castle Durante is very
beautifully finished; and one of its prin-cipal
manufacturers, Piccolo Passo,
wrote a treatise upon the art of making
and decorating majolica.
Fsenza, which has given its name in
France to all soft pottery, also produced
much beautiful majolica ware. The
Faenza majolica has, like that of Ur-bino,
a rich marzacotta glaze, and some
of the more ancient specimens are
enameled in barrettino, a pale-blue
tint. The later Fsenza majolica is in
style very like that of Urbino; decor-ative
and embossed embellishments are
laid aside, and pictorial designs are
generally used.
THE GOLD OF THE WORLD.
The bulk of gold in the world steadily
increases, though the amount is but
roughly approximated. Ten years ago
it was estimated at about $5,950,000,000
in value. It must be greatly larger now,
though we have no fixed data for ap-proximating
the amount. But it may
be of interest to see what the bulk of
the smaller sum ten years ago would be
if it were all melted and run together.
Pure gold is more than nineteen times
as heavy as water, and a cubic foot of
water weighs a thousand ounces avoir-dupois.
A cubic foot of gold would
weigh then over nineteen thousand
ounces avoirdupois, and every such
ounce of fine gold is worth (according
to our coinage) somewhat more than
eighteen dollars—so that the- whole
cubic foot of gold would be worth a
little more than a third of a million of
dollars. A cubic yard of solid gold
would be worth twenty-seven times as
much as that, or over nine million
dollars ; and 660 cubic yards would con-tain
somewhat more than the $5,950,-
000,000 of gold in the world ten years
ago. These 660 cubic yards would be
contained within a room about 15 feet
high, twenty-four feet wide and forty-eight
feet long ; say, a good-sized par-lor
or a store of moderate size. ''But,"
says some one, "gold is so very malle-able
that even this small bulk of it
would gild over the whole earth. " But
he either overestimates the malleability
of gold, or, more likely, underestimates
the size of the earth. It takes 1,280,000
leaves of the thinnest gold foil to make
an inch in thickness, or about 15,333,000
to make a foot, or 46,000,000 to a yard.
A cubic yard of gold, then, could be
beaten out so as to cover 46,000,000
square yards, somewhat less than 10,000
acres, for there are 4,840 square yards
to the acre. Then, as there are 640
acres to the square mile, the whole 600
cubic yards of gold could be beaten out
so as to coyer about 10,000 square miles ;
that is, a tract only 100 miles s q u a r e -
less than the extent of Vermont, and
a little more than a fifth of either New
York or Pennsylvania.
—Nothing is more fatal to the true
prosperity and moral vigor of some of
our churches than the willingness of a
few rich members to pay all the bills.
Whole congregations grow selfish, ser-vile
and beggarly, because they are not
called on to share the burdens and
sacrifices of carrying on t h e common
affairs. Let t h e widow and her two mites
have a f a i r chance, or the church will
be to her no better t h a n an almshouse.
—Cristian Register,
f z r i e t i e s .
—America annually sends to Eng-land
4,000,000 cigars.
—A man at Cochesett, Mass., has
just been lined $5 and costs for assault
on his grandmother, who is 91 years
old;
—In the Gasconade river, Missouri,
the fish are dying by thousands from
eating the worms t h a t drop f r om over-hanging
maple trees.
—An institution in which young
women may live under kindly guard-ianship
and study art has just been es-tablished
in Rome under the patronage
of many distinguished English people.
•—In the suburb of Berlin is an enor-mous
garden from which, in April,
4,000,000 plants are sent to the schools
for illustrations in the study of bot-any.
—For the first time in Holland the
degree of Doctor of Medicine has been
conferred upon a woman, Miss Aletta
Jacobs. She will practice in Amster-dam.
—Not far f r om $20,000 a week in one,
two, three and five-cent pieces are sent
in to the fractional currency depart-ment
of the New York sub-treasury,
every week.
—Clouds gather about the tops of
mountains because the currents of
vapor dash against the sides and col-lect
at the top, and not owing to any
attraction.
—During the year seventy-four mil-lion
pages of tracts were distributed by
the American Tract Society, and the
receipts were over $400,000. The tracts
cost about $50,000.
—Nobody is convicted of murder out
in Deadwood. If his crime deserves
any notice at all, he is fined f r om $5 to
$10 for shooting at a mark within the
city limits.
—South Carolina supplies nearly half
the rice produced in this country.
Georgia is next, or nearly 7,000,000
pounds ahead of Louisiana. Nearly
all the rice comes from these three
States.
—Sometimes the sudden gleam of
t r u t h comes to us like a flash of light-ning
in a dark night, revealing to us
our true position and showing us a
thousand things in our path before un-suspected.
—Perhaps the British are the only
islands in the world whereof the inhab-itants
are, as a rule, utterly ignorant
of the art of swimming. Even of Eng-lish
sailors, very few know how to
swim..... ... -
—The Moniteur Universel of Paris is
to send an exploring expedition to
equatorial Africa, under the leadership
of M. P. Soleillet. One of the chief
objects of the expedition is to ascertain
what facilities the region offers for
commerce with France.
—Norway has some curious exhibits
at the Paris Exhibition. She has fish
skins tanned for gloves; eel skins pre-pared
for harness; shark skins, 10 feet
long and three feet wide, for various
purposes; and whale skins, 60 feet
ohg, for driving bands for machinery.
—A New York doctor in good posi-tion,
when on the witness-stand the
other day in a murder trial, could not
tell whether antimony was a mineral
or vegetable, and did not know wheth-er
the word he wanted to use was "su-dorific,"
or "soporific."
—The new edition of the Dictionary
of the French Academy contains 2,200
words and 28,000 lines more than the
edition of 1835. The academy found
itself compelled t o admit such innova-tions
as "telegram," "steamer," "tun-nel,"
and the like.
—An English writer says: "White
hair is so becoming to the face that
many women are never pretty till they
are old- the long reign of hair powder
which lasted through a century is an
immoral tribute to the beauty of old
age."
—Kwoh Sung Tao, the Chinese Am-bassador
to England and France, has
written a book of travels, which has
been suppressed by his Government as
giving too flattering a picture of civil-ization
outside of the Flowery King-dom.
—The Japanese have a record of all
earthquakes in t h e larger cities of the
empire for the last 1500 years. The
number of slight shocks is very large,
and there have been 140 destructive
earthquakes during that period. There
were 28 of these latter in the -ninth
century, and 16 have occurred in the
present century.
—From Chelse, V t . , comes a report
of a curious partnership between a tur-key
and a partridge. A turkey made
her nest about forty rods from the
barn, and soon after a nice partridge
selected the same spot for a nest, and
they occupied it in company, each lay-ing
an egg every day till the partridge
had laid thirteen eggs and began to sit.
She is still sitting, and the turkey lays
her egg daily in the same nest.
—Some boys in Markland, Mich.,
started a show in a cellar. The admis-sion
was two cents. The performance
ranged from recitations to somersaults,
and a feature was marksmanship of t he
kind t h a t killed Yolante. A ten-year
old boy held an apple on his head for a
large boy to shoot at; but the attempt
was a failure. Just as the marksman
took aim the target-boy felt the apple
slipping off, reached up to catch it, and
had a bullet-hole put _ neatly through
his hand. The wounded lad's mother
made a raid on the. show and closed it.