Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 August 1893 — NOVEL ARMY RAFT. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

NOVEL ARMY RAFT.

MADE OF-INFLATED OX HIDES AND VERY BUOYANT. The Useful Invention of a Russian Army Officer—The Hides of the Beeves Slaughtered to Support an Army on the March Utilized as Boats to Cross Streams. Substitute for Pontoons. A Russian'engineering journal publishes some details describing a novel method of crossing rivers upon rafts

supported by inflated ox hides. Some interesting experiments were recently made by the Russian military authorities which shoWed that the system will be of great service to an army'in the field. Leather bags made from ox hides are each susceptible of supporting a weight equal to two or more men upon the surface of the water. Droves of cattle that accompany an army to be slaughtered for food furnish a ready supply of hides necessary in the construction of floating rafts. Although the subject may he somewhat technical, it seems interesting to know how ft is possible to make these air sacks in the field. When the ox is killed the head is cut off close up and a slit made in the skin of the chest. Then the skin is cut above the knees and the legs unjointed at the knees. The skinning commences at the neck and by means of incisions at the proper places and taking out the internal organs during the process the hide is generally drawn off intact. To close the openings of the hide, small slits like but-ton-holes are made through both thicknesses near the edge. Then the hide is turned, the hair inside. Wooden pegs are put through the slits and the openings wound with Beverq] turns of beef tendons, which are held in place by the pegs. The skin is again turned, the hair outside. Before closing the last opening, a hollow bamboo peg is introduced in the leg and # the hide inflated with a bellows or the mouth. The raft timbers are 11J to 12 feet in length and 2 to 3 inch*es in diameter. The inflated hides, four to eight in number, are tied to the corners ofthe raft. Figure 3 represents such a raft transporting Russian troopß. Oar locks are made to support the oars. Tho raft is floored for transportation of infantryiand artillery.,' An air sack made of ox hide weighs about twenty-five pounds, and can carry a weight equal to the animalthat it was taken from. A raft stip-

ported by four hides will carry tea men and rise six inches above the water. With six hides it will carry twenty men and project three to four inches above the water. Four of

these men can do the rowing. The hides can be used as soon as made into air sacks, but to preserve them any length of time they should be well salted and dried for three or four days in a ventilated shed and the fresh side coated with a mixture of tallow and tar. These inflated hides are so buoyant that a large number of soldiers and pieces of artillery can be transported across rivers and other bodies of water, and at much less labor and expense than is involved in carrying a heavy pontoon bridge.

SLAVERY DAYS IN NEW YORK. The Captain of a Successful Trader In Lire Freight Was Four Times Mayor. On the turn from the seventeenth to the eighteenth century slave-deal-ing was an important and well-thought-of industry, or, in the more elegant phrase of one of the gravest of New York historians, “a species of maritime adventures then engaged in by some of our most respectable merchants. ” The Dutch are credited with having brought the first cargo of slaves to the northern part of America —from their possession on the Guinea coast to the Virginia plantations—and, according te Harper’s, a regular part of the business of the Dutch West India company was providing African slaves for use in the American colonies. The profits of the business, even allowing for the bad luck of a high death rate, was so alluringly great that it was not one to be slighted by the eminently go-ahead merchants of New York, and the fact must be remembered that as a business slave-dealing was quite'as legitimate then as is the emigrant traffic of the present day. Young John Cruger has left on record a most edifying account of a voyage which he made out of New York in the years 1698-1700, in the ship Prophet Dapiel, to Madagascar Jpr, the purchase of .live freight, and the' featiment of the comrhuhlty in the

premises is exhibited by the fact that the slave-dealing Mr. Cfuger was elected an Alderman from the Dock Ward continuously from the year 1712 until the year 1773, and that subsequently he served four consecutive terms as Mayor. In addition to the negro slaves there were many Indian slaves held in the colony. For convenience in hiring, the law was passed November 30, 1711, that “all negro and Indian slaves that are let out to hire within the city do up their standing in order to be hired at the market house at the Wall street slip.” Probably the alarm bred of the so-called negro plot of 1741 was most effective in checking the growth of slavery in this city. Certainly the manner in which the negroes charged with fomenting this problematical conspiracy were dealt with affords food for curious reflex tion upon the social conditions of the time. After a trial that would have been a farce had it hot been a tragedy, Clause w%s coqdemned to be “broke upon a wheel,” Robin to be handed in chains alive, “and so on to continue without any sustenance until he be dead;” Tom to be “burned with a slow Are until he be dead and consumed to ashes, ” and so on. However, everything depends upon the point in view. In that strong, stomached time judicial cruelty to animals met with universal approval, and, as to slavery, the worshipful Sir Edward Coke but a very few years earlier had laid down the doctrine that pagans properly could be held In bondage by Christians, because the former were bond slaves of Satan, while the latter were servants of God.

A Strange American Island. The strangest bit qf land north of Flprida lies quite near ruined Fort Caswell. This is Smith’s Island,, or Bald Head Island, which, by reference to a map, will be found to project nearer the Gulf Stream than any other land on this continent. The result is that it is sub-tropical, the palmetto reaching a height of thirty feet or more, and growing in profusion, while the oliv # e and myrtle are abundaut. A greater peculiarity is that frost does not affect vegetation on the island. The island is about four miles long and three wide. On it is a lighthouse, built in 1817, and a life-saving station' Extending across it is a heavy earthwork, built by the Confederates in 1861, now a vast line of sand bank. The place is a hunter’s paradise six months in the year. The island was recently purchased for $25,000 by a Chicago man, who will build a hotel and use the great forest of live oak and palmetto for a game preserve. Tnis island is a bit of Florida anchored off the North Carolina coast For two centuries wrecks have occurred along this stretch of coast, and looking seaward there are many signs of partially submerged blockade runners which came to grief. ■Money 1s frequently exposed by the washing away of the beach. One night in 1864 a party landed there, and digging a bole, hid in it $175,000

in gold. Ever since this has been searched for. The pilots say there are grounds for belief that just after the war the money was dug up by a man who lived in in that section, but others do not believe this, and it is only a short while since several persons from New York, Washington, Philadelphia and Norfolk made search for the treasure. They used divining rods and explored hundreds of places on tho island, working day and night.—Washington Star.

Egg-Stealing Hens. In Captain Bendfre's “Life Histories of North American Birds, ” the hen of the Canada grouse is reported as a confirmed egg-thief. A number of these birdsiwere observed in captivity to rob one another’s nests frequently. Two hens had their nests near together, about two feet apart, and as each laid every other day, one nest would be vacant while the other was occupied. The hen that laid last would not go away until she had stolen the nest-egg from the other nest and placed it in her own. A hen was once seen to attempt to steal an egg from another nest twenty feet distant. She worked for half an hour or so, but did not succeed in moving the coveted egg more than eight feet—the way being uphill. The egg escaped her and rolled back a foot or two so often that she gave up the task In disgust. One evening. the observer found one hen on the nest, and knew that she was beginning to set, as all the other hens had gone to roost. Slipping his hand under her he found three eggs, the nest-egg, an egg she had just laid, and one stolen from a neighboring nest. He took two out and held them before her, when she placed her bill over one and tried to pull it out of his hand. As he refused to let her have it, she placed her bill over the remaining egg and pushed it back out of sight, as much as to say, “You have two, and that is all you can have.” She pleaded so hard for the other eggs that he took them away with much reluctance.

A South African Household. Olive Schreiner thus describes a typical South African household: “The father English, the mother half Dutch with a French name, th'e governess a Scotch woman, the cook a Zulu, the housemaid a Hottentot, the stable hoy a Kaffir, and the little girl who waits at table a Basuto. * Death, taxes and the sprays from a street sprinkler are.all hard things to dodge. Press.

THE WAY THE BEEF IS SKINNED

RAFT CONVEYING SOLDIERS ACROSS A RIVER

AN INFLATED HIDE.