Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 June 1891 — Page 4 Advertisements Column 2 [ADVERTISEMENT]

! it occurred to him that the little rear j room where the books were kept opened into a back yard so surrounded | by high walls that no sunshine came ( into it from one year’s end to another. An upper room, well lighted, was immediately prepared, and his clerks had uniform good health ever after.

“While digging in the side of a steep bluff," reports a Nebraska contemporary, “William Isaac of Scitoria unearthed a portion of a skeleton which is a remainder of the wondrous forms of animal life represented in ancient times. The bones and teeth were found imbedded in solid clay at a disance of fifty feet from the top of the bluff. The teeth measure across the end fifteen inches, and weigh twentyfive pounds apiece. The bones found are proportionally long and heavy.

Heat and dynamite do not harmonize. A laborer at Tidnish. N. Y., placed seventy-five pounds of dynamite before a stove in a shanty, to make it “thaw out.” ■ As this process would take some time be went to his home, a mile away, for a rest and a smoke. On arriving there he heard a distant explosion. It is supposed to have been caused by the dynamite, which must have thawed, and gone at once to work, as the stove and the shanty have not since been seen.

Very few people know what wonderful feats of engineering have been accomplished in the Andes. It appears that the highest inhabited place in the world is G alexia—a railway village in Peru, 15,635 feet above the sea, or within 100 feet of the summit of Mont Blanc. Near it a tunnel, 3,847 feet long, is being bored through the peak of the mountain, 600 feet above the perpetual snow line. The railways of the Andes exhibit some of the most marvelous results of engineering skill which the world contains.

In Switzerland a Sunday law has been enacted applying to all railroads, and steamboats, and tramway companies, and postoffices. Working time must not be more that twelve hours a day, even on occasions of increased traffic. Engine and train men must have at least ten hours of unbroken rest, and other employes nine hours. They must also have fifty-two days off yearly, and seventeen of these must be Sundays. No reduction in wages is to be made for such rest days. All freight traffic on Sunday is prohibited, except live stock.

The first sign of the hatching of a snake, according to Dr. Walter Sibley, is the appearance of a slit at the part of the eggshell which happens to be uppermost. The young reptile’s snout appears at the crack, and after a time the head protrudes, and may remain thus several hours before she body and tail are hatched. If disturbed, the head is withdrawn into the shell, while fully hatched snakes often seek their shells as a safe retreat. These infants are smooth and velvety to the touch, with eyes open from the first, and begin to hiss at the age of a few days.

Attached to a freight train passing through York, Pa., the other day was a car containing a number of horses, one of which leaped from the car when about two miles from that "city. He described several somersaults on the ground, arose, and, finding the way to the track, trotted after the fast receding train until he came to a culvert, through whjchhis forelegs went. The brute tried in vain to extricate himself. He was held fast until word could be sent to Brill Hart’s station, a short distance away, where a gang of railroad men were working. They immediately went to the spot and removed the animal, which was badly though not seriously, injured, thus averting a horrible railroad disaster.

Seven beautiful young girls were landed at the barge office, New York, the other day, from the steamship Majestic. They were accompanied by their father and mother, and all came from Fifeshire, Scotland, and their name is Harrison. The most remarkable resemblance between the sisters exists. The oldest is nineteen years old and the youngest six years, and the hair of all is of a beautiful goldenred tint. Their skin iu like rich velvet, with a complexion suggestive of peaches and cream. The interesting family were admired by all who saw them, and they were voted the handsomest girls that ever came over in the steerage. They were very well dressed and were bound for Urban a, Ohio, where their father, who is a stonecutter, will secure work.

A few mornings ago, on arising, residents of Nashville, Tenn., were surprised and somewhat alarmed to find the ground cowered with a yellow deposit, resembling powdered sulphur, which for a time it was supposed to be. The substance was soon found, however, to be the pollen of pines, carried by the winds from a strip of pine forest, extending from Louisiana through North Carolina to Virginia. The force of the winds is 60 great and pine pollen so light that the latter is sometimes carried from the pine regions to Chicago in snch vast quantities that the waters of Lake Michigan for miles out' side the city limi'f3 are covered with a thick, yellow scum. This pollen, although minute in the present age, in prehistoric times was of great size, spores of some species of lycopodiums and selagenellas, which are allied to the coniferre, having a diameter of one-sixteenth of an inch, and composed almost entirely some of the E iropean coal beds.