Jasper County Democrat, Volume 17, Number 87, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 February 1915 — SCRAPS [ARTICLE]

SCRAPS

Siberia alone takes up one-ninth of all the land on the globe. Erosion of river banks is prevented by an interlacing of bamboo laid on them* in Sumatra. A giraffe immediately after its birth measures six feet from its hoofs to the top of its head. Telephone troubles in ,the tropics are largely due to the Wires 'becoming covered with air plants. The Pacific ocean is said to be more favorable for long distance wireless transmission than the Atlantic. Malaria is common in India, and one-sixth of the world’s supply of quinine is consumed in that country. Vesta coal mine No. 4 of California, Pa., which has been.worked for ten years, has produced in that time 14,000,000 tons of coal. About, 200 tons of wood pulp are absorbed in a twelve-month supply of tickets for the London-county council tramcars.

The Turkish empire is composed sf many mixed races. It includes Greeks, Slavs, Albanians, Armenians, Jews and Circassians. More than 7,500,000 books are lent by London public libraries in a year, the juvenile readers taking considerably more than 1,000,000. A new telephone convenience consists of a pencil on a string and spring, which keeps it out of tho way, but always ready for immediate notes. ‘ V < The hottest region on the earth is thought to be the part of Persia bordering on the Persian gulf, where there is a record of 100 degrees for forty days, The first public* playground was established in Boston in 1886. Since that time the playground movement has spread all over the country. In 1864 Chicago built her first public playground.. Two deeps in the Atlantic and seven in the Pacific have depths exceeding 4,000 fathoms, forty-six soundings in depths greater than 4,000 fathoms having been recorded up to the present time. Professor Omori, the Japanese authority, has estimated that 99.8 per cent of the deaths in the great Messina earthjuake of 1908 been prevented if the buildings had been properly constructed.

The storage of oil for fuel purposes is a new feature in the trade of the port of Manchester. Hitherto the bulk of the oil stored on the banks of the Manchester ship canal has been for illuminating and lubricating purposes. Charles B. Duborrow, a Philadelphia bank clerk, holds the mileage record for swimming during the last summer and fall. He made 604 miles during the season in short swims of from one to three or four miles in the Deleware river, which he crossed 202 times. A parasite which destroys the dreaded San Jose scale has been discovered, and is now being used in Pennsylvania, where It has been highly successful in combating the ravages of the pest which has done such to American fruit and nut trees. The parasite Is the Chalcld fly, which comes from the same part of China from which the San Jose scale first came. There the Chalcld fly has effectively checked the scale.

Arctic explorers often report the discovery or flowers blooming In Icebergs. The explanation of this is as follows: It appears that some animals carry on their feet a growth of. moss, which is deposited on the ice while it is attached to the mainland in polar regions. In time this decays and forms a shallow soil in which the seed of buttercups and dandelions often find a lodging, borne - by currents of, wind that doubtless caught them up in some southern clime. These take root and bloom when the great gleaming iceberg floats out to sea, and . is carried southward, where the soft winds melt the surface and give the plants the moisture they need. . . j