Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 June 1893 — THE WORLD’S WONDERS. [ARTICLE]

THE WORLD’S WONDERS.

Some Remarkable Facts Not Generally Known. Some butterflies iay over 100.000 eggs. Tortoises have been known to live 300 yean. There are forty-eight varieties «f the common fly. The Nile has a fall of only six inches in 1,000 miles. The speed of the falcon often exceeds 150 miles an hour. A teaspoonful of microbes contains over 4,000,000 individuals. The largest mammoth tusk yet discovered was sixteen feet. The earth receives only one two-bil-lionth of the heat of the sun. The lungs of the average jaan contain about five quarts of air. Daniel Lambert, the fattest man ever known, weighed 739 pounds. In one summer the descendants of a. single fly will number 2,080,320. The longest bridge in the world, ove the St. Lawrence river, is 9,144 feet. The catacombs of Rome contain the remains of about six million people. Rivers hold in suspension over onehundredth of their volume of solid matter. The highest falls in the world are the Ribbon Falls of the Yosemite—3,3oo feet. A speok of gold weighing the millionth part of a grain may be easily seen by the naked eye. The largest building is the Coliseum at Rome, 615 feet in greatest diameter and 120 high. The oldest monument in the world is the mound covering the Tower of Babel, erected B. C. 2247. The average weight of the male infant at birth is seven pounds; of the female six and a half. The most remarkable springs in the world are in California; they produce sulphuric acid and ink.

The highest mountain is Mount Everest in Thibet, 29,002 feet, or five aud three-quarter miles. The largest single fortification in the world is Fortress Monroe. It has already cost over $3,000,000. The oldest flute in the world is made of the thigh-bone of a sheep and was found in a tomb on the Nile. The highest tower in the world is the Eiffel, 1,000 feet; the next, the Washington Monument, 555 feet. The first wooden bridge, so far as known, was the Sublician Bridge at Rome, built in the Seventh century. A dollar loaned for 100 years, and compounded at 24 per cent., will amount in that time to $2,551,799,404. The Great Eastern was the largest ship ever built—6Bo feet long, 83 broad, 60 deep and 28,627 tons burden. The largest tomb in the world is the Pyramid of Cheops, 461 feet high and covering thirteen acres of ground. The largest theatre in the world is the Paris Opera House. It covers three acres and cost 100,000,000 francs. The highest inhabited place in the world is the Custom House of Ancomarca, in Peru, 16,000,000 feet abovethe sea.

The highest volcano is Popocatapetl, Mexico, 17,748 feet, with a crater a mile in diameter and 1,000 feet deep. The largest church in the world is St. Peter’s in Rome; the smallest, a church ten feet square in the Isle of Man. The most wonderful vegetable in the world is the truffle; it has neither roots, stem, leaves, flowers nor seeds. A thousand millions of the animalculae found in stagnant water do not collectively equal the size of a grain of sand. The canon of the Colorado is 300 miles long, and the cliffs on either side are from 5,000 to 6,000 feet above the water. The oldest statue in the world is of the Sheik of an Egyptian village. It is •believed to be not less than 6,000 years old. The earliest library was that of Nebuchadnezzar. Every book was a brick, engraved with cuneiform characters. The largest desert is the Sahara; 3,000miles from east to west, 1,000 from north to south; area, 3,000 square miles. The amount of air that a man will inhale in twenty-four hours will fill seventyeight hogsheads and weigh fifty-three pounds. The Brooklyn Bridge, the largest suspension bridge in the world, is, with its approaches, 5,989 long and cost $13,000000.

The longest single span of wire in the world is used for a telegraph line over the River Kistuan, in India. It is 6,000 feet long. If a man could jump as far, in proportion to his size and weight, as a flea, he could at a siugle leap, pass from St. Louis to Chicago. The first mention of the pipe-organ in history is in connection with Solomon’s Temple, where there was an organ with ten pipes. The largest Gothic Church in the world is Cologne Cathedral. Its foundation stones were laid in 1248, and the edifice was completed in 1880. The largest cut stones in the woild are in the Temple of the Sun,"at Baalbec. Many are more than 60 feet long, 20 feet broad, and of unknown depth. The largest bell in the world is in the Kremlin, Moscow. Its height is 21 feet, 4$ inches; its circumference, 67 feet, 4 inches; its weight is estimated at 443,772 hundred weights.