Jasper County Democrat, Volume 4, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 January 1902 — QUEER STORIES [ARTICLE]

QUEER STORIES

Bees visit 3,000,000 blossoms to gather a pound of honey. South Australian apples are now sold In European markets from 5 to 10 cents each; choice ones even higher. Taking the distance as the crow flies, Sydney, 10,120 miles, is the most distant of large cities from London. The largest egg laid by any European bird Is that of the swan; the smallest that of the golden-crested wren. The Amoor, the great stream of China and Siberia, Is 1,500 miles in length, but for nearly nine months In the year Is ice-bound. The largest hospital in Europe Is at Moscow, which has 7,000 beds, 9t> physicians, 900 nurses and cares for about 15,000 patients annually. Germany furnishes about seveneighths of the world’s supply of coal tar dyes, Its incomes from this source being over 125,000,000 a year. The greenfinch Is the earliest riser of the bird family. It sometimes begins to pipe at one o’clock on a summer morning. The blackcap comes next and then the blackbird. An acres of land will give 1,500 pounds of rose petals, from which five ounces of the attar may be distilled and this quantity has a market value of from $45 to SBS. The rose water, a by-produfct, amounts to 300 gallons the acre, worth from 75 cents to $1 a gallon. Mrs. Charles Conover, of Nanuet, N. Y., while sitting in a chair on a piazza during a severe thunderstorm, was shocked into unconsciousness for seven hours. After making an examination, it Is reported that the village doctor found that the shock had turned Mrs. Conover's heart upside down. Mrs. Conover Is apparently as well as ever. Sections of old water pipes of cypress, that had been underground and in use for nearly a century, were recently exhumed at New Orleans, and, to the surprise of all, the wood was perfectly preserved and as hard as when laid. They were part of the first water-works system of the city, and It Is thought the wood was from trees 100 years old when laid. In Lahore there Is, or was, a massive building made only of bricks and mortar, but the builders, who erected It In about 320 B. C., understood their business so well that the fabric defied the engineering efforts of four successive governments to remove It. India, too, can show plastered buildings white and shiny like marble and as Braooth and polished as glass.