Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 August 1892 — USEFUL AND CURIOUS. [ARTICLE]

USEFUL AND CURIOUS.

Steel rails IztSt eighteen years. Germany has a rubber street. Paper flower pots arc in demand. A machine makes 30,000 corkscrews daily. The world’s railways are worth $30,000,000,000. About 55 per cent, of property in America is insured. Germany sells $10,000,000 worth of toys in England annually. Peter the Great superintended the management of the first Russian newspaper. . The greatest distance covered by a steam vessel in one hour’s run is fixed at twenty-six miles. A typewriting machine which will print on the leaves of a blank book of any thickness is one of the latest inventions. The phonograph with a click attachment is made to announce the departure of trains in a station at St. Petersburg. It is calculated that within ninety years,at the present rate of increase, Australia will contain about 40,000,000 citizens. In Brussels and Antwerp SSO a year is the ordinary charge for telephones, and this is the highest rate current in Belgium.