Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 February 1894 — Page 4

SOME OF THESE DAYS. Some of these days all the skies will be brighter - Some of these days all the hardens be lighten Hearts will be happier—souls will be whiter — Some of these days! Some of these days, in the deserts up springing, Fountains shall flash, while the joy-bells are ringing, And the world —with its sweetest of birds shall go singing— Some of these days ! Some of these days! Let us bear with our sorrow: Faith in the future—its light we may borrow: There will be joy in the golden to-morrow— Some of these days! —[Atlanta Constitution.

MARIA.

When Harris went up into the Pennsylvania anthracite mining regions, he was a strong, handsome young fellow of twenty-three, with rose-colored views of this life and sadly vague ones of the life to come. He came from a grassy New England village, where he had lived a frank, free, open-air life about as exciting as a pastoral. He had spent four years at Columbia College, which had opened his eyes a bit, and then he had gone up into big, black Luzerne County, teeming with two hundred thousand people, three-fourths of whom would better have been drowned at their birth like so many blind kittens, some pessimists thought. Words cannot describe the drear misery of a mining “patch” in Northeastern Pennsylvania, was an early conclusion of young Harris. You will come across group after group of black and dingy cabins, strung along like grimy huckleberries on a straw. Back of these looms the “breaker,” a gloomy mass of shadow, blackened by wind and storm that have ground the fine coal-dust Into the planking.' Culm-heaps, mountains of refuse coal and slate, hide tjie natural horizon, and present a sky-line that ig monotonous and uninspiring. Through the hollows, over trestles crossing the black swamp-land, out into the brighter world beyond the hills, crawl Jsytg trains of cars piled high with glistening coal.

It was at a cluster of huts in a valley like this that Harris was stat ioned. He had a room in an ungainly red frame structure where hum and eggs and raisin pie were the staple articles of diet, and which was endurable to him only because two-thirds of his time was spent beyond its pule. The name of this understudy for purgatory was the Mountain Glen Hotel, and it was presided over by one Mrs. Dwyer. Of he had no friends there. There was no one to interest him, and he had not yet learned to interest himself in common, everyday people, whom we often find to be uncommon and unique when we have once discovered the secret of really knowing. The whole world seemed dismally ordinary to Harris. Consequently, when he looked out of the window of his soapy, pine-floored boarding-house one evening, a few weeks after his arrival, and saw a slender female figure with a face t hat was moderately clean and immoderately pretty, he felt that he had made a discovery of some importance. In deference to the summer’s Columbian craze, he called that window for some time the lookout from the Pinta. The girl was Maria (Mah-ree-ah, if you please) di Manicor, and the brimming pail of water she was bringing from the well did not monopolize her attention. She saw Harris. At Columbia, Harris had learned how to look through a transit—if that is the proper expression—and, upon provocation, could talk about “backsights” and “vernier” with the air of a master. From this it will be gathered that Harris was a surveyor. He was more—he was a mining engineer and hod two letters tacked to his name to signify his prowess. Every morning he went into the mines, and, with the aid of a small Welsh boy and a big Hungarian laborer, he would perform prodigies of engineering skill which the layman will not attempt to detail. In the evening ho would stroll afiiong the culm-heaps and along the banks of the black, sulphurous stream of mine-water that flowed through the swamp-land on the outskirts of the village. Poor little stream! It was not much like his babbling New' England brooks. It could not have babbled if it had tried. It could only mutter or yowl. For three weeks Harris took these walks alone. Then he took them with Maria di Manicor. Then my story begins. * Harris could hardly have told how his acquaintance with Maria began. First a word or two at the village pump, when she went to draw water; then he came across her once or twice on his solitary evening strolls, until finally it was no longer once or twice; it was no longer a word or two. It was every evening, and they would wander through the swamp for hours. These walks had to be accomplished circumspectly. Harris and .Maria would start out separately and would return separately, but somehow or other they always managed to meet when well out of the village and beyond the peering power of curious eyee. Harris was a good young fellow—as goodness goes, nowadays. It did not occur to him that there was anything inconsistent, in his going to Hazelton to mail a letter to a girl in Keene, New Hampshire, and at the sama time to hunt through the shops for a pair of heavy gilt earrings with garish blue enamel for Maria. Nevertheless, he said nothing about Maria in his letters, and, of course, he said nothing to Maria about the New England girl. They did not talk much in their walks along the. edge of the stripping. He would ask Maria what she called this or that in her tongue and learned to jabber so fluently in the mongrel Italian dialect she spoke, that he thought seriously of buying a copy of Dante in the original if he ever got to a place where he could get so civilized a production. So it happened that Maria never told him of her betrothal.

For Maria was betrothed, and Harj ris did not know it; nor did he know i that the day was set on which she ! and Angelo Rossi, with their respectI ive parents and collective frfends, I were to go to Hazleton to purchase nine yards of purple cashmere, with a sufficient quantity of red velvet and ! silver and gold passementerie, calcuj lated to make a wedding gown that ; would be the envy of the settlement. Angelo worked on the “night shift,” j and earned a dollar and a quarter a i day. It was a good match, and, | besides, her fiance’s nocturnal oeeuj pation gave Maria her evenings to herself, ***** It was after seven o’clock, one j sweet, still evening in June, when Maria stole along behind the enginehouse and through a tqngue of swamp I land, where the naked tree-trunks lifted their knotty branches from the I oily, sulphurous ooze that had dried | the sap in their veins and had reduced | them to weird skeleton frames. She sat down wearily on a tree-stump ; at the edge of the swamp. Dark against the sun-stained glory of the ! west rose the black ridge of an immense culm-heap, and on its crest, silhouetted against the glowing sky, was the dark figure of a car, with mule and driver. Maria looked at the scene listlessly. The driver-boy stooped, pulled a bolt and the carload of refuse slate rolled, grinding down the slope. One big piece of rock bounded farther than the others, and fell at last with a ‘fchug,” on the treacherous, shifting sand of the swamp, and the slimy surfa'He closed over it with a grin. \. “Buon’ notte, Mkria rnia!” called a cheery voice at her side. The girl’s listlessness was gone at once. She turned to Harris quickly with a warning gesture, and he stopped a short distance away, standing, erect and good to see, on a little hummock in the swamp. She had risen to her feet, and was standing facing him on the projecting root of a fallen tree. They were separated by a shallow stream of black water flowing sluggishly over the quicksand. She began to speak at once. “Voy jmist Cjyijf with me,” she said; and then, before he had time to question, she plunged into her story, speaking rapidly, but in clear, low tones. She told him of her betrothal to Angelo Rossi; she told him how to-morrow was the appointed day for the purchase of the purple gown with its glittering accessories; how their secret could no longer be kept; how Angelo was beginning to suspect; how she hated him, and how she loved Harris more than all the world, more than the purple gown an’t were of finest silk and decked with rubies.

Then she disclosed her plan. So childlike and confident she was that Harris could not interrupt her. She showed him the contents of a bundle she had (under her shawl. It was a parcel of belongings she had taken from his room, innocently gleeful at the thought of how she had collected them without the knowledge of Mrs. Dwyer. The bundle was done up in a towel and showed evidences of haste and inexperience on the part of the compiler. There were a pair of overshoes, a handkerchief-case of paleblue silk, two white lawp ties, a bottle of bromo-caffeine, a tumbler of blue glass, enveloped in a net of yellow crochet-work with bows of pink “daisy ribbon,” and intended by Mrs. Dwyer for the reception of burnt matches. There were also two oranges, a clay pipe and a copy of “Edwin Drood.” Harris stood like a statue on the hummock. Maria went on with her story, speaking low and eagerly. Harris was not to go back to the boardinghouse. Had she not hero .all his most precious possessions? And in the bosom of her gown she hud sixtyseven dollars concealed, the sum set apart for her wedding equipment. With this tfiey were to cross the mountain to Hazleton, where they would take the train for New York. Once there—ah, then that dirty Angelo might plead! She would have a husband worth a thousand of him. Harris gave himself a little shake to make sure it was not all a horrible nightmare. “But, Maria, my little girl, you are wrong. Don’t you see it is all a mistake? Go marry Angelo. He deserves you more than I.” She looked at him a moment, and then, with a sob, turned away. She' saw in his face the truth he dared not speak. “ Oh, say not, say not you cast me off!” she moaned and stretched her hands toward him. But she felt no answering touch. He was looking at her with a little smile and whistling softly to himself. For a moment she was transformed from a - pleading angel to a demon of rage. She stooped quickly, picked up the bundle at her feet, raised it high over her head and flung it full in his face. The clumsy missile missed its mark, however, struck at his feet and rolled down into the pool of coal-dirt, that gave a hideous gulp and swallowed the bundle of bric-a-brac, as it swallowed everything else within its reach. But, ah! What was that? Did the branch on which she was standing turn, or did she lose her balance? A faint little cry of terror, and Harris saw Maria struggling knee-deep in the treacherous ooze. He sprang impulsively forward, but as his foot touched the surface of the swamp, and he felt the dead weight pulling it dow r n, he paused for an instant. Maria saw r the hesitation. “Go back! Go back!” she cried. “ It is not for me that you shall die! There is another! Save yourself for her! She is to have your love, not Maria!” The scene grew dim before the young man’s eyes. He saw r no longer the grim mass of the culm-heap, the writhing of the bare tree-trunks and the slimy surface of the swamps. A long, quiet New England street, the great elms, heavy with foliage, meeting overhead, and at a bend in the road, a tall, slender girl, holding her hand to him with a welcoming smile. The vision vanished as quickly as it had come; but it w 7 as enough. A moment before the murderous thought had* flashed upon him: “How easy to escape from.it all! A. minute’s delay, a mock struggle apainst the odds that grew greater

every moment, and then.—freedom.” I Now he cast the thougl** from him with revulsion. He glanced quickly I around. Was there no one to give him aid? Yes, there was the breakerboy on the ridge of the culm-heaps | who, though Beyond hearing, could j get a faint glimpse of the dim figures fifty feet below, and who now, with wild hopes of a row, was scrambling down the slope. And another. Deep in the twilight gloom of the swamp Harris saw approaching the tall, lithe figure of a swarthy miner. With a loud cry for help, the young fellow sprang toward Maria, who by this time had sunk in the quicksand nearly to her waist. She had stopped struggling and was waiting silently for the end. Hardly had Harris’s cry died away in the choking stillness,when another sound was heard—the sharp ring of a pistol-shot. The hiss of a bullet passed his ears, and Harris saw Maria give a sudden start, throw 7 up her hands and fall, face forward, in the black slime. Ah, Angelo! You are more used to dealing death with steel than with lead. A swift blow with the stiletto and the life you sought might have been deftly and quietly cut from the body, but with these clumsy porthern tools-no wonder your hand trembled, the bullet passed its mark and the w r rong life sacrificed to your hatred. The work is done now. It is well for you to slink stealthily away and leave the two alone together. * * * * * And so the purple gown was never bought nor the trip to New York taken. But the breaker-boy saw his “row” and more, too. For it was he who found Angelo Rossi’s body a day or two afterward on the mountainside, with a bullet wound in the temple to show how the Italian’s markmanship improved witn practice. Perhaps the only good that came of the whole thing was that Harris left the region and went back to New England, where he was much happier. For he was a good enough young fellow—as goodness goes, nowadays.— [New York Ledger.

MUSICAL GRASS.

Wonderful Effect* Produced by Cunning Fakirs in India. There yet remain certain corners of the earth where natural wonders of the exceptional sort await the inspection of the more adventurous and curiously inclined. One of these as yet generally unexplored' corners lies not far from the old temple caves of Bagli, in India. Here there is a lake in which is a small islet. Around the shores of the lake, and of the islet especially, is a dense growth of reed gruss. The forest surrounding both swarms with the deadly serpent tribes and other dangerous beasts of prey peculiar to the jungle. The islet itself is but a tiny one, and when "Viewed at a distance looks like a pyramidal basket of verdure, so overgrown is it w 7 ith the tall reeds. The only inhabitants of this isolated spot are the übiquitous monkeys, who rendezvous among a few mango trees that grow in the midst. This reed grass is seven or eight feet high and plumed at the top, the color effect of which is as of “a waving sea of black, yellow, blue, and especially of rose and green.” But the wonder does not become ‘apparent until the evening wind begins to blow. Then the gigantic reeds awake and begin to toss uneasily, and suddenly, in the general silence of the forest around, there is somewhere let loose a whole river of musical sound, first like that of an orchestra “tuning up,” and then a flood of harmony follows, and the whole island resounds as with the strains of hundreds of zEolian harps. It swells and deepens, filling the air with indescribable melody, now 7 sad and solemn as of some funeral march, now rising and trilling upon the air like the song of the nightingale, to die away into silence with a long-drawn sigh. Then again the sounds rise, clashing like hundreds of silver bells; then suddenly changing to the heart-rending howl of a wolf deprived of her young. A gay tarantelle follows; then comes the articulate sound of the human voice to the vague, majestic accords of a violoncello—and all this represented in every direction by hundreds of Responsive echoes. Let the wind but rise, the sounds pour and roll in unrestrainable, overwhelming energy—comparable to nothing but a storm in the open sea. You hear the wind tearing through the rigging, the swish and turmoil and thundering shock of the maddened waves. A lull, and the scene is changed to the dim-lit vault of a cathedral, throbbing to the long-drawn roll of organ notes, ending, perhaps, in the clangor of an alarm bell. And so it goes, until your ears ache and your head reels under the strain. On the opposite side of the lake you will see the fires of the superstitious natives, who congregate to bring offerings to the Indian god Pan and his hosts, who are held responsible for the sounds evoked. The cunning fakirs alone know better, but because of certain benefits that accrue to themselves from these reverential offerings, do not care to enlighten these bronze-faced devotees. The explanation is a very simple one. This reed grass is' hollow; it shelters a species of tiny beetle, and these tiny insects obligingly bore the holes in these innumerable pipes of the great god Pan. Then comes your fakir, and he, with his knowledge of acoustics—for the superior class of Hindu ascetics are deeply versed in natural laws—enlarges and shapes and finishes until each reed is a perfect lute, answering to a certain keynote in'the musical scale Tlx wind is the musician blows the pipes thus prepared with results as describ'd. Why the fakir should go to the trouble of atturiing the reeds is probably due to the habitual fostering of native superstitions by the Brahmins in control.—-[Pittsburgh Dispatch.

PRACTISING IT.

Bighead—l believe- in telling the truth in all circumstaaees. Sharpun—You are a liar and a conceited chump. Bighead—What do you mean, sir? Sharpun—l’m trying to practice what you preach.—[Truth.

GOWNS AND GOWNING.

WOMEN GIVE MUCH ATTENTION TO WHAT THEY WEAR. Brief Glances at Fancies Feminine, Frivolous, Mayhap, and Yet Offered In the Hope that the Reading May Prove Restful to Wearied Womankind. Gossip from Gay Gotham. New York correspondence:

TREET dresses are often made of velF vet; that is, the dresses which are HJk distinctly for pajHpk rade purposes, or Jr IS which are worn at the afternoon lecture, the matinee \ jr or at church. This, \ Jof course, does not \ I include the shopI a ping gown, for the n fj really elegant wom- |// an does no shopI I ping. She leaves ifw the purchasing of materials to her dressmaker and designer. Many ladies with trustee! maids

send orders through them or depend upon their selection. Nowhere except on horseback does a woman’s figure and style show to such advantage as on the street. Gowns for this wear are distinct from those for traveling or for the carriage. They are a distinct branch of outdoor gown. Under this general head is included the street or walking gown, the carriage dress, more delicate, longer and more elaborate and intended for the daily drive, or for calling when the closed carriage is

FOR AN AFTERNOON AT THE TREATER.

used. The traveling gown is extreme in its severity and the shopping dress is almost equally plain of cut. but may be made in a greater variety of colors and materials. Shopping trips are rare occasions with the wearer of the dress in the initial picture, but she nevertheless called it a shopping gown. Black velvet was its material and the panel was moss green satin embroidered with silk in a slightly pale shade. The bottom of the skirt as well as the edges that lie against the panels were embroidered with jet, as shown. The skirt was lined with silk, was three and a half yards wide, and a hemp cord came in the bottom hem. The lining of the bodice hooked in front and the embroidered yoke and draped plastron hooked over. The epaulette garniture was also fastened to the plastron and effectually hid the mode of closing the bodice. The epaulette collarette was slit at the shoulders in consequence. The yoke was also put in back and was finished by the collarette, which, as well as the edges of the bretelles, was embroidered with jet. It will be seen that the use to which the street gown is put is limited to oc-

FOR JOURNEYINGS.

casions not properly covered by either the traveling, shopping or carriage

MIDWINTER MILLINERY.

gown. In its construction the richest materials may be employed, while there must be more or le. s "severity of cut and finish. If velvet is used, it is better made with great simplicity, as with a coat having full skirts added a skirt clearing the ground and quite Elain. The coat should be doublereasted. or made in cossack fashion, fastening at the side. Cloth may be combined with fur or leather and may be shot with silk or in changeable basket effects. Silk may be used in combination with fur. A richness of material not permissible in the shopping

gown ana a simplicity of design not required in the carriage costume is the requisite medium. The shopping gown is either black, brown, or stone color. It may be as plain as you like and manifestly designed to avoid conspicuous modishness in any way. That you may not be mistaken for an ordinary person, however, the rustle of the silken lining must be very crisp, and the fit absolutely perfect. There must not be extraordinary braiding or finishing in the way of trimming. The matinee gown is a variety of the street dress, but it need not be either plain of cut or material. A particularly stylish example is to be seen in the second picture. Made of blue cloth its bell skirt is ornamented with three bands of marten, a fourth encircles the hips, the V points of the fur appear back and front, and collar and cuffs are likewise trimmed. The front of the skirt is oddly trimmed with satin ribbon, as shown. The carriage gown is of the richest materials and it may employ a startling fashion or design of color with perfect impunity. The present season compels the use of fur in so many cases that the elegance-of effect is usually made in the cloak rather than in the dress. The carriage gown of the warmer season may rival the house gown and the reception toilet for ornate and delicate effect. The traveling dress should always be plain, of course, and those materials which show dirt the least are at once the most sensible and fashionable. A model which is extremely plain and yet which presents an attractively novel cut of bodice is shown. The fabric used is brown woolen cloth

and the skirt is entirely plain. The double-breasted bodice buttons at the right armhole and its short fronts show the bottom of a chamois waistcoat. The leg-o'-mutton sleeves have wing epaulettes, bodice fronts, cuffs and skirt hem are finished with machine stitching, the only other ornamentation about the dress being a bit of feather trimming about the high collar. Besides these sorts of outdoor gowns there are dresses fdr especial occasions. Skating dresses are designed with an almost theatric view to effect. Gowns for wear at exhibitions of outdoor sports have all the elegance of the carriage gown and a suggestion of the skating gown in the bizarre effects sought. The church toilet is perhaps a class of gowns that should be given a place by itself. It may display all the elegance of the calling dress with a subdued effect in color. A pair of stylish walking dresses are pictured together. One of them is a cloth costume with a draped skirt showing an underskirt of moire silk and having wide revers of the same. The other includes a plain skirt of colored cloth and velvet bodice and sleeves. The bodice is trimmed with a broad, reverlike band of fur, and a jabot of creamy lace falls from the throat. If the overskirt must come, it can assume few prettier shapes than that of the first of this rair. Copyright, 189*.

CONTRASTED PROMENADERS.

TWO NEW COATS

FOR THE YOUNG FOLKS.

bell’s lullaby. In the porch sits little Bell, Singing lullabies. Dolly, in her loving arms, Stares with open eyes. With her head across the fence, Mooley stands to see—“ls she singing lullabies, Wonder, now. to me.” | SNOW FLOWERS. Most persons know that snow flakes are composed of small crystals in the form of stars of marvellous regularity and variety. They usually' offer three, six or twelve parts symmetrically disposed around an axis, and making equal angles. To observe them at ease, take snow flakes upon a black cloth, and you will notice that there are many hundreds of different forms. When the French savants went into Lapland in 1787 to measure the arc of the meridian destined to the establishment of the meter’s length, they saw the warm and humid atmosphere of their room transform itself instantly into snow flakes when they let in a rush of outer air. By blowing a soap bubble when the air is very cold and there is snow on the ground you can secure thousands of the frozen crystals, as varied in form as those which fall from the clouds.—[New York Times. a chipmunk’s lunch. He was named Bright-Eyes at once by the people who saw him taking his lunch. Fortunately for him, they were people who love animals, so they did not throw stones at him nor seek to hurt him in any way when he suddenly darted up from behind a bank near them and near a little brook. They just sat perfectly quiet and took his photograph in that curious camera, the ey r e. The chipmunk, who looked like most of his race, sat as still for a long time as if he were made of stone. His bright, dark eyes were constantly on the alert, though they did not move. His golden-brown body had a black stripe down each side, and his tail was gray and brown. After he had looked long enough to be satisfied that there was no danger, he ran to a tuft of common field grass and pulled off pieces to eat, holding them in his fore paws as he sat up. When he had nibbled a number of pieces, as fast as possible, he disappeared in a twinkling below the bank. In a few moments he reappeared with a small green apple in his mouth, at least it would seem small as we regard apples. It was just as large as Bright-Eyes’s head, and he evidently had lifted it up by digging his lower jaw into it near its stem. There it hung while Bright-Eyes took another survey to see that no danger was near. He laid it down and began to nibble off dainty bites, evidently relishing his dessert greatly. Once more he darted off, probably for a drink from the brook. A low, warbling whistle was given to lure him back, and presently he came and began again at his apple. But, alas! one of his observers gave a slight cough. It was very slight, but timid Bright-Eyes was frightened and ran away for the last time, leaving his dainty meal unfinished.—[New York World.

THE TALE OF A CHEETAH.

Probably every boy who reads this, or at least a big majority of them, have heard of the famous collection of lions and tigers and bears and wolves and other dangerous brutes that were shown here after amazing hundreds of thousands of people at the Chicago Fair by the tricks they performed under the orders of the fearless men and women who trained them, Not very long ago the writer of this belonged to that fortunate class which has come to be know r n as globetrotters, and while he was trotting across that part of the globe which men have mapped out as India he saw an instance of animal training and human pluck which he wishes to mention as worthy of comparison with the performance which created such a sensation here in New York. Of course he had often heard of the trained hunting leopards or cheetahs, as most people have who take any interest in the more exciting forms of the chase, but what he learned from personal observation as to how they were trained and broken was a real surprise. Perhaps, however, it is an error to speak of them being trained, for, in fact, they are not trained at all, and all that is done to them is to break them thoroughly and teach them absolute submission to their master’s will. The cheetah’s method of capturing his prey, which is almost always one of the smaller forms of deer, is to creep as near as possible to it and then with a bounding onset of extraordinary swiftness strike it down by leaping upon it. All this comes by instinct, but a cheetah caught before he learns to practice it in a state of freedom cannot be trained to accomplish it, and so they are never captured for hunting purposes until they are full grown. As a rule they are captured by entangling them in a mesh of sinews attached to the trees where they come to wet their claws and play. Once secured they are carried in a cart to the hunter’s house and there they are securely bound with thongs and ropes and undergo about as unpleasant an experience as any animal that is made to do service for man ever undergoes. He is fastened on top of a strong cot bedstead and starved almost to death, qft the same time being kept continually awake, The bed is placed so as to face the village street that he may grow used to the sight of men, and his owner and the rest of the family as well as any of their friends who may take an interest in the matter make pretended rushes at him with sticks and cloths, which they wave in his face. He is also scolded at continually by the women of the family, that being, sad to relate, considered by the unchivalrous men of India, the very best method of preventing anything from getting any rest, and under the influences of this combination of annoyances the poor cheetah becomes utterly and abjectly weak and tame. Then he is taken for a short walk, or rather a crawl, as by that time hd can

hardly drag ane leg after another. His walks are through the most crowded bazaars, and the people hoot at him and the dogs snarl at him, and he is generally given to understand that he is of no importance whatever. Now all this don’t take much pluck, but what follows does, for it is generally the case that when the cheetah is broken, and fed back to a state of robust health and hunting ability, he and his master sleep together in the same bed and that one blanket covers them both. Many of them are very [ large and savage, but they seem to [ thoroughly understand that any liberties they might take with their human bedfellow would result in a I renewal of their starvation and scolding by the ladies of the household and so they lie as quietly as a lamb might be expected to do. As they are generally' decorated with redtasselled caps that are fastened on with straps, and as they often sit up in bed with the sheet around their shoulders while their master is still dozing, the effect is supremely ridiculous, The only protection the man has is a little stick with a tassel of cords at its end, and if the cheetah grows very restless the tassel is dangled before its eyes and that soothes it back to quietude. Now and then one can find a man who sleeps with two or three cheetahs, but as a rule one is all that occupies his bed, and it is probable that all the boys who read this will agree that one is quite enough.—-[New York Mail and Express.

MUD AVALANCHES.

A Phenomenon that is Slowly Changing the Features ofthe Himalayas. Explorers are discovering thht mud avalanches are a powerful element in determining the physical features of the Himalayan regions. A number of travelers have observed the results of these great rushes of mud and rock, but very few have been so fortunate as to see them. Mr. W. M. Conway had that good fortune a while ago, and lias given a description ol one of these falling avalanches to the Royal Geographical Society of London. His party were traveling up the Gilgit valley adjoining the Himalayas, in the extreme northern part of India. Suddenly they heard a noise as of continuous thunder. They saw a huge mud avalanche sweeping down a steep gully between two mountains opposite them. The on-rush and weight of the mud tore from the sides of the gully masses of rock and rolled them over and over like so many pebbles. Each of the big rocks that formed the vanguard of the avalanche weighed many tons. The mass ol mud had a width of forty feet and was fifteen feet deep and moved at the rate of five miles an hour. In a few minutes the mass of stuff became shallower. The mixture was then half mud and half rocks and flowed faster. Now and then one of the larger rocks barred the way, and mud filed up behind it and finally swept it on. Looking up the gully, Mr. Conway could see that earth from its sides was constantly falling in the mud river and being swept along as a part of it.

All this material poured over into the gorge through which the river runs. It did not reach the river, but spread out and piled up on one side of it. Conway says that this accumulation of debris has piled up all along the valley to a depth of 500 or 600 feet, and that the Gilget river flows in a sort of canon built up by this accumulation. If the valley were filled up in this way to a depth of 2,000 or 8,000 feet more it would resemble the Pamirs, and all the deeply filled valleys that are characteristic of the Central Asian plateau. Conway says that mud avalanches have done all this working of filling up the valleys, and have done it with great rapidity. These avalanches show how rapidly, under the influence of moisture, cold and heat, the denudation, or crumbling of these stupendous rock masses of the Himalayas is going on. It is denudation that provides the material for mud avalanches. The levelling processes of nature are in continual operation and millions of tons of rock dust and fragments of rock are taken away from the upper portion of the mountains and deposited in the valleys.

African Pigmies.

Herr Stuhlmann, who has been with Emin Pasha, has given an account of the African pigmies which contains some scientific details not well-known. Their average height is about four feet, their head is round, nose flat, face very pragnathous, hair spiral, woolly, and brown; skin light brown with an indication of yellow; beard scanty, and body covered with a light down. Mentally they are cruel and cunning, with keen senses and thieving propensities. Their language has numerals, and is related to the Wambuba tribes. They wear no ornaments, and do not tattoo the skin, but occasionally bore two holes in the upper lip. They seem to Jhave some religious notions, as thef bury the dead in a particular position. They have also a form of marriage, and cannibalism is not general. Herr Stuhlmann thinks those dwarfs are the remains of a peculiar people who once extended over all Africa and even into Asia. They have childish characteristics, their skeletons are undeveloped, and apparently they are a case of arrested development.—[London Globe.

A Cane of Many Pieces.

There is a cane on exhibition'in Eureka that is a marvel of ingenuity. It is composed of no less than 804 pieces. There are forty-eight joints of a shark’s back-bftne, made fast together by means of a steel rod. These joints are all finished and ornamented with walrus tusk, vulcanized rubber, abalone shell, pearl shell, manzanita, inadrone, yew wood, mountain maOogany, hazel, myrtle, maple, oak, rosabush, redwood burhl and laurel busn. This unique novelty was designed and made by David Wilson. It is a valuable cane and its maker deserves great credit for his work.— [Eureka (Nev.) Enterprise. milch cows bring on an avencge