Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 May 1880 — BITS OF INFORMATION. [ARTICLE]

BITS OF INFORMATION.

In the manufacture of tobacco, molasses, licorice, paste, a decoction of figs, and glycerine are used to impart a sweet taste. Common salt and other salts are used for flavoring, and nitrate of potash or soda is added to increase its combustibility. Anise and other aromatics are added for their flavor, and smoking tobacco has its odor, if not its taste, improved by the introduction of cascarilla bark. Cabbage and other leaves are often used to adulterate chewing tobacco. In cold weather, horses which have been driven rapidly, or have become heated from exertion, throw off great quantities of steam or vapor. The reason of this is that the heat thrown off from the body on coming in contact with the colder air is condensed in the form of vapor. The principle is the same as that which causes the windows of a close room to become covered with ice on a cold day in winter. The warm air of the room becomes condensed on the cold glass, and it is congealed in the form of ice.

Previous to the time of Queen Elizabeth stairs were all constructed on a circular plan, and were called turret or corkscrew stairs. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries staircases with wide, straight flights were first introduced, and were made the leading features in mansions of the Elizabethan style. They had usually massive oak balusters with carved panels and pendants. Staircases of this description are still in common use, but are lighter iu style, light cast-iron being used instead of oak balustrades.

The geographical center of the United States is at 95 deg.-471 min. west longitude, which is about the vicinity of Omaha. The center of population, con sidering the United States a plane surface, itself without weight, but capable of sustaining weight, and leveled with its inhabitants, in number and position such as they are found, and each individual being assumed to be of equal weight, and consequently to exert pressure on the pivotal point, directly proportioned to his distance therefrom, both north and south and east and west, is at a point forty-eight miles east and a trifle north of Cincinnati.