Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 October 1881 — BITS OF INFORMATION. [ARTICLE]

BITS OF INFORMATION.

Thb length of the 'East River Suspension Bridge is 5,993 feet. 1 ' Thb nectarine is a native 1 of Persia. It was introduced into England in 1562. There nte seventy-two national cemeteries sor 1 the burial of the Union and Confederate dead. • ‘ In early times cotton Was spun by hand, but in 1767 Mr. Hargreaves, of Lancashire, invented the spinning jenny. Thb phrase “He’s a brick ” originated with King Agesilaus, who, on a certain occasion, pointing to his army, said : “They are the walls of Sparta. Every man there is a brick.” Steel needles were invented by the Spanish Moors, before which thorns or fish bones, with a hole pierced for an eye, wvie used. The first needles made in London were made in the reign of Henry VIII. by a Moor. Coffee was fix st sold in London in 1652 by a Greek, whose handbill read : “The virtue Of the coffee drink first publiquely made and sold in England by Pasqua llosee, in St. Michael’s Alley, Cornhill, at the sign of his own head.” The first book published in the North American colonies was, it is supposed, an “Almanac calculated for New England, by Mr. William Pierce, ” which appeared iu Cambridge in 1639. It was printed by Stephen Daye, but not a copy of it now exists.

Hercules was the son of Jupiter and Alemena, husband of Dejanira, and, alter his deification, of Hebe. He was the god of strength, and the_guardian of riches, on which account tithes were offered to him. He was also the guide of the Muses. Juno was the wife of Jupiter, at the same time his sister. She was consequently the Queen of the heavens. The iron crown of Italy is said to have been forged from the nails of Christ’s. cross. Charlemagne was crowned with this crown, and after him all the Emperors who were Kings of Lombardy; Napoleon 1., at Milan, May 26, 1895, put it on his head, saying: “God has given it to me; woe to him who shall touch it.” He founded the order of the Iron Crown, which still continues. Australia is a land of drought and Hood. The annual rainfall at Sidney lias varied from twenty-two to twentyeight inches. Lake George, nearOoulburn, Was, in 1824, twenty miles long and eight miles, broad. It gradually shrank till in 1837 it became quite dry, and its bottom was converted into a grassy plain. It 1865 it was a lake again, seventeen feet deep; two years later it was only two feet deep, and in 1876 it was twenty feet in depth.

Celluloid is made trom the cellulore obtained in cotton cloth or raw cotton. The cotton is treated to a weak solution of nitric acid. This has the effect of making pulp of cotton very muok lika paper pulp. After the acid has acted the pulp is treated to a copious waterbath that in a large measure washes out the acid. Then it goes through a partial drying process, and a large quantity of camphor gum is mixed withit, and it is rolled into sheets ready for the dryingroom, when it is dried on hot cylinders, the same as paper is dried. It cau bo softened by steam, but hardens again when it is dry. Celluloid, when ready for the market, burns as readily as ordinary sealing-wax.