Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 July 1892 — OLLA PODRIDA. [ARTICLE]

OLLA PODRIDA.

Official Slang. —Official slang and political slang have a tendency to use the fewest number of words to express an idea and the fewest number of syllabtes to make the word. There is the use of the word “made” instead of promoted, “broke” instead of dismissed from the service, “got at” to mean that some one has been successfully induced to do something, “pull” to signify influence, favoritism and official friendship; “pulled” to sum up what happens when a squad of policemen make a number of prisoners at once from the same place; “fell down” to show that there has been a final failure in what was undertaken, “done up” in the sense of the demolition and crushing of some one. These are a few samples,. A little thought will enable any one to add a number of others. They snow the tendency of one class of public slang to brevity and sententiousnfess. Wood That Sinks in Water. — There are 418 species of trees found within the limit of the United States. Of these, sixteen, when perfectly seasoned, are so heavy that they sink in water. The heaviest is the black iron wood (Condalia ferrea), found only in Southern Florida, which is more than A per cent, heavier than water. Of jfie other fifteen, the best known is the Lignum vitae (Guaiacum sanctum), and the Mangrove (Rhizpora mangle). Texas and New Mexico, lands full of queer, creeping, crawling, walking and inanimate things, are the homes of a species of oak (Quercus grisea), which is about one and onequarter times heavier than water and which, when green, will sink as quickly as a bar of iron. It grows only in mountain regions, and has been found as fat westward as the Colorado Desert, where it grows at an elevation of 10,000. All the species heavier than water belong in Florida or the arid South and Southwest. Capacity of the Eye. —The capacity of the human eye for special training would appear to be even greater than that of the hand. A young woman employed in Bundle's Bureau of Press aings tells us of a wonderful faculty as acquired, which enables her to see certain names and subjects at a glance at the page of a newspaper. They are the names and subjects she is paid to look up through hundreds of newspapers every day. What the ordinary reader would have read column after column to find—and then might miss—she sees at what seems the merest casual glance at the sheet as soon as it is spread out before her. “They stand right out,” she said laughingly, “just as if they were printed in bold black type and all the rest was small print. I couldn’t help seeing them if I wanted to. When I begin to look up a r ew matter and drop an old one it bothers nre a little—the latter by being in my mental way all the time and the former to be hunted —but in a few days one disappears and the other apEears in some mysterious way. I can’t tell ow. I uqed to think bauk cashiers and clerks were a remarkable set of people, but I now find that the eye is much quicker than the hand, and is susceptible of a higher training.” A Lake of Boiling Water. —There is a lake of boiling water in the Island of Dominica, lying in the mountains behind Roseau, and in the valleys surrounding it are many solfataras, or volcanic sulphur vents. In fact, the boiling lake is little better than a crater filled With scalding water, constantly fed by mountain streams and through which pent-up gases find vent and are ejected. The temperature of the water on the margins of the lake ranges from 180 to 210 degrees Fahrenheit; in the middle, exactly over the gas vents, it is more than 800 degrees. Where this action takes place the water rises two, three, and sometimes as high as four feet above the general level of the lake, the cone often dividing so that the orifices through which the gas escapes are legions in number. The commotion over the gas jets causes a violent disturbance of the lake, great waves of the boiling water continually lashing the shores, and though the cones appear to be the special vents, sulphurous vapors rise with 'equal density over its entire surface. Contrary to what one would naturally suppose, there seems to be no violent action of escaping gases, such as explosions and detonations. The water is of a dark gray color, and, having been boiled over and over for thousands of years, has become thick and slimy with sulphur. “The Boiling Lake of Dominica” is justly reckoned as one of the greatest natural wonders of the world and is yearly visited by thousands of sightseers.