Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 February 1894 — MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. [ARTICLE]

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES.

A Gatling gun fires 5,000 shots in a minute. There are now 7,500 miles of electric railroads in this country. The smallest bird in the world is the golden-crested wren. Satisfactory gas pipes are now made of Manilla paper, coated with asphalt. .'- r . •_ It is estimated that one of the largest stones in the Pyramids weighs fully eighty-eight tons. In the Royal Aquarium of St. Petersburg are fish which have been on exhibition for 150 years. The brain of an ant is larger, in proportion to its size, than that of any other known -creature. It is estimated that the sunflower plant draws from the soil and exhales, in twelve hours, twelve ounces of water.

Fulton G. Berry, of Centreville, Cal. j has on his plantation a tree which, last season, produced 4,01)0 oranges. In Russian theaters, when the auditors desire to express disapprobation, they throw dead cats at the actors. The refuse hops, hitherto thrown away in breweries, are now converted into a good article of paper by a German chemist. The healthiest children in the world dwell in the Scottish highlands. They seldom wear shoes before they are twelve years of age. Water alone has been known to sustain life fifty-five days. If only dry food were taken, death would result in a cuarter of tliut time. In Japan a man can live like a gentleman for about $250 a year. - This sum will pay the rent of a house, the salaries of two servants and supply plenty of food. As a leaper, the kangaroo is ahead of all. It readily jumps from sixty to seventy feet. A horse has jumped thirty- seven feet, and a man twenty - five feet six and one-half inches. A student in an Ohio college was poor, but energetic and persevering. He tried to earn money enough to pay for hisseducation by selling moonshine whisky to his fellow-stu-dents.

Gold leaves so thin that 282,000 of them would make only an inch in thickness wore recently exhibited in Paris. Each leaf was so perfect and so free from holes as to be impenetrable by the strongest electric light. For forty years the principal of a young ladies’ school in Copenhagen has been respected as a lady. “She” lately became very rude to one of her pupils, and was arrested. After twn days’ incarceration it Was noticed that “she” needed shaving. Then it became manifest that the principal was really a man. A noted caricaturist in Vieuna. Hans Schliessman, draws such excellent likenesses that, when addressing notes to prominent men, he merely puts on each envelope the picture of F * man to whom he desires to senu the letter, with the directions of the section of the city where the man resides. The letter never goes astray. A London iuebriate died suddenly from alcoholism. At the inquest it was shown that the proprietor of the public house ho had chiefly patronized held an insurance policy on his life for SIOO. It is customary for inkeepers to thus protect themselves against the loss of profitable patrons.

Probably the largest submarine cable ever laid in the country was stretched under the East river, from the foot of Eighty-eighth street tc the foot of Eighth street, Hunter's Point, on Monday. The cable measures nearly a mile iD length, two and three-quarter inches in circumference and weighs twenty-one tons. It contains twenty conductors, each consisting of three fine copper wires. Seven of the famous “traveling stones" of Nevada were recently displayed in a hotel in Denver. When placed ou a table, within two or three feet of each other, they commenced approaching until all met ai a common center. A single stone, having be *n removed four feet fron the Other six, which were left in a cluster, returned to the bunch. Taken to a distance ol five feet, it re mained motionless.