Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 January 1884 — FACTS FOR THE CURIOUS. [ARTICLE]

FACTS FOR THE CURIOUS.

Ik om gtortia Oaliioaia are 1,380 tree*, none mmmumg kw.than six fees in diameter. The dog, which fe apparently tormented by the notes of a soprano voice, remains undisturbed by those of a bass voice. A thermometer, plunged in the snow to the depth of four inches, will mark aine degrees more heat than at the surface. * The -9&rm soil of the Siberian coast never u v* * to a depth of more than cwo feet even during the greatest heat of summer. Small sponges often fix themselves to living shells, and Dr. Johnston tells os that he once met with a sponge on the back of a crab, which walked about quite unconcerned with its light burden, though it was many times larger than itself. The sea-urchin has several movable spines. Each spine looks very knowing, and apparently makes its own little excursions without regard to what the other spines ara doing. In large specimens, where claws can be seen round the HtdMa, the effect is very oomioal. In one tigress was reported toEMTaukd 127 people in one year, and Itonnd a public road for several weeks. la another case, a single tigress caused the desertion of thirteen villages, and 250 square miles of country were thrown out of cultivation. Government reports show that in Lower Bengal about 2,000 persons are killed every year by wild animals, nearly half of whom are victims of the ferocious tiger. Enervating drugs are freely used in cigarettes to disguise the poor quality of the tobaooo. Opium and valerian are especially mentioned. What is called “Havana flavoring” has grown to be an important article of commerce. Thousands of barrels of it are sold everywhere. It is extensively used in manufacturing certain kinds of cigarettes. It is made from the tonoa-bean, which contains a drug oalled mellolotis, a deadly poison, seven grains of which will kill a dog. The immense herds, now aggregating 20,000,000 which roam over the pampas of the Argentine Bepublio and oompnse, with the sheep, most of the wealth of that oountry, are all descended from eight oows and a bull which two Portuguese brothers, named Goes, took to the Spanish colony there in 1553. It is only within a few years that any effort has been made to improve the much-de-preciated stock of the country. As yet only a few cattle near Buenos Ayres have been crossed with short-horn breeds. Leeches are among the curious pests which swarm in the moist places of a Malay jungle. Directly the earth trembles with a man’s step, the leeches stretch themselves out in savage thirst, By some means they manage to make a lodgement on his body. He may not feel them at first, but when, at his journey’s end he strips for a bath, he finds a soore or more of the little blood-suck-ers fastened to his legs and gorged with their sanguinary dinner. He puczles his head in vain to discover how they managed to get up his trousers-legs.' But on resuming his journey, he ties his trousers tightly round the ankle, places them in his boots, whioh he anoints with'lime-juice, an abomination to the little pests. Only in this way may they be kqpt off the person.