Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 December 1896 — Current Condensations. [ARTICLE]

Current Condensations.

An electric rock rests on the summit of Alpine Peak, California. It is so full of electricity that it is perilous to touch it. In Dijon, France, there is a poplar tree which flourished in the year 722. Its height is 122 feet and its circumference 45 feet. The fastest shorthand writer in the world is a young Dublin gentleman, George Bunbary. He can write 250 words in a minute. Wire hairpins were first used in 1545 and were invented in England. Before that time the hair was held in place by little wooden skewers. Powdered charcoal, if laid thick on a burn, causes the immediate abatement of the pain. A superficial burn can thus*be healed in about an hour. The only monstrosity mentioned in the Bible was the giant who had “six fingers on every hand and on every foot six toes, four and twenty in aIL” See 11. Samuel 2, xxi., 20. A nephew of Edwin Booth, Harold Van Buren Magonigle, has won the traveling scholarship in architecture offered annually by Mr. Botch, of P.oston. 'l’his prize entitles him to SI,OOO a year for two years, during which time he must travel abroad and study architecture. The question—ls a man the owner of his own teeth? —has come before a German court at Gera. A man who had been suffering for some time from toothache made up his mind to have the tooth taken out. The stump proved a difficult one to draw, and when it was out it was of such curious shape that the dentist declarod he would keep it as a curiosity. His patient, however, thought he would like to keep it himself, and claimed it; but the dentist, on the ground that a tooth, when drawn with the free consent of a patient is ownerless property as soon as it leaves the jaw, refused to give it up. The patient at once entered an action against the dentist. There are several springs along the range of the Allegheny mountains that are great curiosities. From these springs a very considerable current of air passes constantly, sufficient at any time to blow a handkerchief out of a person's hand, unless it is held very tightly. These phenomena have neve* been explained, but it is generally believed that they indicate caves, a iid that the breeze corn’s from the internal passages. The best known of these is called Blowing Springs, and is at the foot of Lookout Mountain, about six miles from Chattanooga. This is visited by a groat many curiosity seekers and scientists. Others not so well known are found in North Carolina and Georgia.