Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 May 1896 — BITS OF KNOWLEDGE. [ARTICLE]

BITS OF KNOWLEDGE.

A single swallow, according to an an* thority, can devourfi.ooo flies in a day. Locomotives and steamship engines use a third of the coal mined in Eng* land. The eleven cables now in operation across the Atlantic have cost upward of £14,000,000. Down to the year 1880, Krupp had delivered to European nations over 16,000 cannon. The starfish has no nose, but the whole of its underside Is endowed with the sense of smell. Seventeen thousand patents for the manufacture of Ink have been taken out in Great Britain. Property to the value es over £126,000 is left In the railway carriages of Great Britain every year. Great Britain owns 2,670,000 square miles of territory in Africa, an area almost equal to that of the United States. The perpendicularity of monuments Is affected by the rays of the sun. The heat on one side causes the material to expand. Exposure to sunlight is one of the best disinfectants for clothing known. The light passing through glass will not do. China raises and consumes more ducks than any other country in the world. On some duck farms 60,000 a year are raised. Celery is invaluable as a food for those suffering from any form es rheumatism, for diseases of the nerves, and for nervous dyspepsia. ROMANCE OF A DIAMOND. A Russian Crown Jewel’s History of Murder and Bobbery. There is a famous diamond now in the crown regalia of Russia which has a most extraordinary history of murder and blood. How many murders were done for its sake before it came into the possession of the great Nadir, Shah of Persia, will never be known, but from that time until it was purchased for the Russian Empress, Catharine the Great, its story was one of crime. Nadir Shah was assassinated in 1747 by four of his officers whom he intended to put to death, and after they had done their work they hastily appropriated such of his jewels as they could easily conceal and decamp. One of the stolen gems was the Shah, which Nadir wore In his turban. The nobleman to whose portion fell the Shah fled into Afghanistan and was never heard of aguin. Four or five years later a jeweler in Bassora was visited by an Afghan, who offered the Shah, together with an emerald, a ruby and a sapphire, all ts great size, for sale at a very modest figure. The jeweler did not have the money at the moment, and made an appointment to meet the Afghan the next day, but the latter did not return. Four years later the jeweler, an Armenian, was in Bagdad, where he again mot the Afghan, and learned from him that the gems had been sold to a Jewish merchant for 65,000 francs. Shafras, the Armenian, enlisted the services of his two brothers, the three murdered the Afghan and the Jew, threw their bodies into the river, took the gems and made off. Somewhere in the desert between the Euphrates and Armenia, the oldest of the brothers murdered the other two, possessed himself of all the gems and went on to Constantinople. Fearful of attempting to sell the jewels there, he went by sea to prance, and, failing to find a buyer, visited most of the capitals of Europe, finally offering the diamond to Catherine the Great. She refused to buy at the figure he demanded, andi he at once disappeared, being heard from ten years later in Astrakhan, where he was seen by some of the Russian courtiers. He refused to negotiate save at Smyrna, and started thither, but was murdered on the way by the Russians, the gem secured and Bold to Catherine for $650,000.