Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 December 1875 — Page 1

HORACE E. JAMES, Proprietor.

VOL. VIII.

THE FAMILY THANKSGIVING. BY N. V. CARTER. The royal home-day of the flying year, Whate’er may be the weather: When scattered households, with a gladsome cheer, Are all once more together: When hearts, forgetting care, are full of joy As summer lands of glories, And in their overflow give time employ With olden songs and stories. What golden visions of the day of yore Send thrills through all their being! The circle as it never will be more, The sights that charmed the seeing! , Parents are in their prime again in nays With gladness running over. And children, little, happy at their plays, As lambs in fields of clover. And grandsires, grandmas, long since gone to rest, Their lips death’s white lips pressing, Made rapture for young hearts, so sweet, so blest, With words and deeds of blessing! Sunshine comes streaming up from olden days To sweeten love’s communion, T"o cheer them when they go their chosen ways, After this glad reunion. Around the table older hands have spread They take their wonted places, On ample dainties feast, when grace is .said, With thanks on alf their faces! Or, if perchance they see an empty chair, Though not a word be spoken, Their hearts turn heavenward, and they pray that there The circle be not broken! And then together as of old they kneel Around the fireside altar, ■ Give thanks for mercies, pray, come wo or weal, In faith they may not falter; But, evermore, as comes and goes such day, Through love and holy living, They all may press with growing joy their way To God and Heaven’s Thanksgiving. —Peterson's Maaazine.

BACK FROM THE DEAD.

It was the day before Thanksgiving. "The first snow of the season had fallen, and the apple trees before Deacon Brown’s old red farm-house bent wearily under the damp weight upon their leafless branches. In the low kitchen mysterious “ doings” were going on. Mrs. Brown was up to her elbows in a great bowl of flour, from which her inimitable doughnuts were to be manufactured. Nobody else in Rasherville could make such doughnuts as Mrs. Brown—so crisp, so rich, so sweet that they fairly melted in one’s mouth. The children which Thanksgiving Day always brought together around Deacon Brown’s hospitable table appreciated them in a way which reflected the most sincere and substantial praise on the skill which could make such delectable goodies. I warrant more than one juvenile’s mouth watered at the prospect of to-morrow’s feast, as Mrs. Brown mixed her doughnuts that day. “Be spry, now,” to Roxy, her assistant, in cheery, pleasant tones, which were just suited to the pl amp, good-natured face of . the deacon’s wife. “Be spiy, now, or the pies won’t bake so’s.to be or jest precisely the right color by the time we want the oven for the cake. Ptinkin pies alters ought to be the color of the shell, you know, Roxy, an’ we’ll hev to hurry ’em up a leetle, we’ve such lots o’ work to do. I’m awful thankful Thanksgivin’ don’t come more’n once a year, there’s alters so much to be done.” And then Mrs. Brown laughed in such a pleasant, hearty way, as she proceeded to prepare some of her ■doughnut mixture for ' * rolling out,” that I am sure, if you could have heard her, you would not have thought her very much cast down because there was so much l to do, or in the least disturbed with the labor Thanksgiving Day entailed. On the whole, I think Mrs. Brown thoroughly enjoyed it “Them pies are done,” announced Roxy, after a peep into the oven. “Are, hey?” said Mrs. Brown, with a patronizing nod and a smite at Roxy, as she plied her rolling-pin energetically. “You may set ’em by the north winder to cool, and then put in the cake. It’s all ready. If it stan’s much longer I’m afraid it’ll be heavy, an’ if there’s anything in this world I do hate more’n another it’s to hev cake heavy as lead.’,’ Roxy proceeded to take out the deliciouslooking pies and by the pantrywindow. Then the cake was put to bake. “ There, now, Roxy,” said Mrs. Brown, peremptorily, “you jest set down an’ rest yourself a minnit. There’s nothing else to do till I get these doughnuts ready to fry, an’ I know you’re jest ready to drop.” “I ain’t much tired. Miss Brown,” demurred Roxy, “ an’ if there’s anything to do ” “ But there ain’t jest now,” answered Mrs. Brown. “ Ain’t I boss here, Roxy Stone?” with acheery littlelaugh. “Wall, I thought so,” as Roxy made reply that “she s’posed she was.” “ Then do’s I tell ye, an’rest yerself a little.” So Roxy sat down, and Mrs. Brown kept on rolling out her doughnuts and talking. “I can’t make it seem’s es Jamie was really going to be married to-morrow,” she said, patting out the dough. “You see, he’s so much younger’n any of the rest of the children that somehow I can’t make it seem as es he’d ever get big an’ be married. I’ve alters considered him as the baby, you know,” and Mrs. Brown laughed again, a pleasant, mellow laugh that was good to hear. “And I’m the baby yet!” said a voice in the doorway, a voice like Mrs. Brown’s, and James came into the kitchen —a tall, good-looking young fellow, with his mother’s face and eyes. “Lawfulsakes! How you scart me!” exclaimed Mrs. Brown w’ith a proud, motherly smite. “ I didn’t know you was anywhere about.” “I came in to see how the pies and cakes were getting along. You know I’m always interested in them,” he said, laughingly. “ There’s the pies,” said Mrs. Brown, with a motion of her hand toward the pantry, “ an’ the cake ain’t done yet.” “They’re too tempting to be looked at,” said J ames, smacking his lips. “ Walt till to-morrow, mother mine, and see what becomes of your pies.”

THE RENSSELAER UNION.

“They was made to eat,” answered Mrs. Brown, giving her energies to the twisting of her doughnuts into the proper shape of that article of food. Nightfall came down over the gray New England landscape. In the pantry, where the pies had been set to cool, were {>ans of crisp, brown doughnuts and oaves of amber cake and flaky tarts with ruby jelly quivering in each cup of crust. Ana in the woodshed two great turkeys were being robbed ot their bronze coats after having lost their heads. To-morrow was to be Thanksgiving and James Brown’s wedding day, and it was to be kept in the best style known to Rasherville, Mrs. Brown declared. “ Dear me sus!” said Mrs. Brown, folding her plump arms across her chest and dropping into the great rocking-chair by the window, “ I’m e’namost tired to death.” The morrow dawned pleasantly. The sky was clear as a bell, and the air keen, frosty, sweet, like a draught of wine. They were early astir at Deacon Brown’s. Breakfast was dispatched, and then began the bustie and confusion of preparing for the expected guests. James harnessed up his horse and drove off to Mr. Stanley’s, where he knew a rosy-cheeked girl was waiting for him. It was the last time, he thought, -as he hitched his horse by the gate, that he should ever go there to see Susan Stanley. When he came again, if Susan was not with him, he should ask for Susan Brown. His heart was full of tender little memories of long, sweet walks under the starlight, and kisses at the gate, and whispers so low that only themselves and the night winds heard them. Now those walks and talks were over, and they were about to set out, hand in hand, upon the journey of life. “A good wife is the best thing a man can have except a good mother,” Deacon Brown had said to him that morning and James was just old-fashioned enough to believe him. There were services at the church at ten o’clock, and directly after they were over James and Susan were to be married. The old church was filled to overflowing on that clear Thanksgiving morning, and many thankful hearts were there, for earth had been very bountiful and lavish of her blessings, and the good people of Rasherville were not of the kind to be unthankful for God's favors to them. Services were over at last, and James and Susan came forward and stood before the white-haired man of God. Mrs. Brown was close by and Deacon Brown was looking on with fatherly pride. The Stanleys w’ere there too, feeling just as much pride in blushing, half-frightened Susan as the Browns did in the youngest son of their large family. Ana there, on that day so full of happy, thankful memories, the “twhin were made one flesh.” Mrs. Brown cried and laughed and wrung Mrs. Stanley’s hand, while people crowded up with congratulations for the newly-married pair. “The dears!” exclaimed Mrs. Brown. “Howhan’some they looked together—didn’t they, Miss Stanley?” “ The best-lookin’ couple I’ve seen in a long time, if one on ’em is my own da’ter,” answered Mrs. Stanley, with fond pride in her eyes. Kind, motherly hearts! She had found a new son to love, and Mrs. Brown a new daughter, and there was quite room enough for them in their affections. The hand-shaking and well-wishing were over at last, and Deacon Brown “ bundled” Mrs. Brown into the old red sleigh, with as many more as could ride, and drove off home, followed by the Stanleys, who were to take dinner with them. 1 wish I could tell you about the dinner and do it justice, but I quite despair of doing that. Such crisp-baked, juicymeated turkeys never graced a Thanksgiving table before, 1 feel assured, because Mrs. Stanley whispered to the delighted Mrs. Brown that “ She never see the beat in all her life,” and Mrs. Stanley had seen a great many fine Thanksgiving dinners and was considered almost as much of an authority on the subject as Mrs. Brown was, therefore was quite capable of judging, and her opinion must go a good deal further than mine. The young generation of Browns and Stanleys, peeping in at the open doors of the dining-room, wondered how long it would be before they got big enough to sit down with the other people and not be obliged to “wait.” On such occasions as this, to “ wait” was to suffer martyrdom The delightful, savory odors of nicely-browned turkeys, the bubble of sparkling cider and the busy clink ot knife and fork were simply tantalizing. Mrs. Brown’s pies and cakes and doughnuts and the many other good things her skill had prepared-for the (fccasion were admired and praised till she was perfectly satisfied that her efforts had proved eminently successful, and Thanksgiving had lost none of its old, time-honored character from failure on her part to do it justice. “If God is willing,” Janies said, very reverently, as he and Susan stood together after dinner in thg empty sitting-room, “we will live to see many Thanksgiving Days as pleasant as this one.” “ I hope so,” Susan answered, and then he kissed her, “If God is willing!” You see James had another old-fashioned way clinging to him j 11 It was to not forget that God has something to do with us, albeit he lived in modern times when creed and theory would almost lead one to believe that people could get along without God well enough. \ “ To-morrow’s Thanksgivin’, but somehow I can’t seem to enter into the speret of what such a day ought to be,” Mrs. Brown said, as she sat before the fire in the November of 1866, much the same as she had sat there in the November of four years before, and she wiped her glasses which had grown dim with the moisture of tears. “ 1 know it don’t seem like Thanksgivin’ season,” Deacon Brown answered sadly, “still we to be thankful for what we have enjoyed.” “ O dear! O dear!” cried Mrs. Brown, breaking down completely, and folding hqr arms upon the arm of the rockingchair she laid her head upon them and sobbed. “I can’t be thankful when I think our boy’s gone—all the one we had left to love and care for us in our old age. I try. not to think of it sometimes; but I'

RENSSELAER, JASPER COUNTY, INDIANA, DECEMBER 2, 1875.

can’t shut my eyes ’thout seein’ him lyin’ in the grass, dead or dyin’. Poor boy! Poor Jamie! I know he thought of you an’ me, an’ Susan, and I wake up in the ‘night thinkin’ how like as not he kep’ callin’ for us when he died, an’ we couldn’t see or answer him, an’ the poor boy had to die all alone, so fur away from home. O my boy!—my boy!” and the sorrowful woman rocked herself to and fro in her grief as. many another Northern mother has done, aye, and Southern mother, too. “If he was fur away from us, an’ his earthly home,” Deacon Brown said, solemnly, “he was jest as near to God as he would have been here in the house where he was born. ’Twan’t but a little ways from the battle-field to his everlastin’ home. I’m comforted to think of that, Rachael.” “ I know all that,” sobbed Mrs. Brown, “ but I loved him so!” “ Don’t cry, mother.” Susan got up from a cradle where she had just laid a chubby, red-cheeked baby down to sleep, and came to Mrs. Brown’s side. “We can’t help having sorrowful thoughts for James, and wishing that God could have spared him to us a little longer; but there’s one consolation —he’s better off than we are, and we shall meet him in heaven. When I think of that I can’t help having thankful thoughts,” and she bent down and kissed her mother-in-law’s wrinkled face. “I know!” Mrs. Brown said, wiping her eyes. “If it wan’t for that thought I don’t know what I’d do. I miss him so sometimes. So does father, though he don’t say so much about it.” “So do we all,” said Deacon Brown, with a far-off look in his eyes. Perhaps he was looking with eyes of faith to the land beyond the river where he believed his boy was waiting for the loved ones left behind. “ 1 guess, on tlw whole, we’d better do somethin’ toward gettin’ up a dinner tomorrow,” Mrs. Brown said a half hour later. “ ’Twon’t do to let the custom drop, you know; an’ mebbe ’twill liven us up a little,” she added with a sigh. So they went to work, and ere long the kitchen was full of all kinds of savory odors. You would have missed the old, cheery laugh of Mrs. Brown had you been these. The shadow of war lay over that household as over thousands of others, and where, of old, laughter rang and happy voices echoed, tears fell ana W’eary faces told of heavy hearts. “ There, the baby’s waked up,” Susan said, as a crowing voice came through the kitchen door. “Hear him talking to his grandpa.” “Bless his dear little heart!” Mrs. Brown exclaimed, with quite as much pride and tenderness in her face and tone as there had been in Susan’s. “We shouldn’t know how to get along without him, should we? He’s about all the sunshine we’ve got left now Jamie’s gone.” I think he looks more and more like James,” said. Susan. And so they worked always talking and thinking of “Jamie.” Did they make pies or beat up cakes, Mrs. Brown was sure to tell how much he liked them; and if they spoke of baby Susan was ready to tell of some little trick or look or gesture which reminded her of the husband she had lost. Thanksgiving Day dawned beautifully bright ana clear. There were services at church, as usual, and Deacon Brown harnessed up old “Steady” and filled the old red sleigh-box brimming full of hay; “ For how,” he argued, “could a horse feel thankful standing out in the cold, if he had nothing to eat?” Susan could not help crying when she remembered that other Thanksgiving Day four years before. Now everything was so changed. An unknown grave held the brightest part of her life, and hopes that had been bright and full of promise had §one down with the murky sun on that readful battle-day when James Brown fell, fighting in his country’s defense. I am afraid there were many hearts in the congregation that day full of such or similar sorrowful thoughts as those which rose up in Susan’s heart or expressed themselves on Mrs. Brown’s kind old face; for there were many graves in Rasherville Cemetery where soldier-boys were sleeping, and many, many more on the battle-fields “down South.” At length the sermon was ended and the congregation broke up. Deacon Brown drove up to the gate to leave Susan, Mrs. Brown and the baby, before driving old Steady around to the barn. ” “ It’s purty slippery,” he said. “ Le’me carry the baby, an’ ol’ Steady can go round to the barn alone. He knows the way as well as I do. Git up, Steady; gee there—so!” Steady started off obediently and Deacon Brown unlatched the gate and went up the path, carrying the baby. “ Somebody’s been here,” said Mrs. Brown. “ Here’s a track in the snow that don’t belong to father.” “ Sam Pringle, likt mough,” said the Deacon, opening the door. “He said he was coming after the cow, but he didn’t git ’round afore we went, an’ I wan’t agoin’ to wait for him.” “ We’ll go right into the kitchen till it gits warm in the other room,” said Mrs. Brown, and led the way. The pantry door was open. She went and looked in and started back with a little cry of astonishment. “ Somebody's been here an’ e’t half o’ one o’ them punkin pies, true’s you live. Who could it ha’ been, d’ye s’pdse?” “ Who do you think?” said a voice. They all started and looked around them at the sound of the voice, but saw no one. It was strangely like onb they used to hear. I “ I don’t See anybody, but I’d ha’ been willin’ todeclar’ ’twas James, es I hadn’t known belter. Eatin that pie is list like one o’ his tricks, for all the world. Like enough it’s son Lemuel come over a’ter somethin’ an’ hid on purpose to s’prise us. Is that you, Lemuel?” called Mrs. Brown, expecting to see her eldest son step from behind Some door in answer. “No, it ain’t Lemuel, but it’s me, mother,” answered a voice from the hall, and a thin, worn face looked m upon them with a greatgladness shining over it. “ My G f, d! it’s James,” and Susan held out her arms toward the husband who had come back to her from the grave, and

sank down, faint and white, upon the nearest chair. “ Yes, Jamie’s come back to you,” he answered, folding his arms about her and kissing her again and again. “ You thought I was dead, didn’t you? I’m not, you see.” “My boy!” Mrs. Brown cried, her old face all beaming over with sudden, hard-ly-comprehended happiness, while tears ran down to see you again—never! But God is good to us—so good!” and she sobbed out her joy upon her baby's breast. Though twenty-five years haa gone by since first he lay iipon her breast, he was her “ baby” still —would always be. And Deacon Brown, with his arms full of the struggling, squirming specimen of humanity, bundled up in white flannel, looked on, hardly comprehending his eyes or ears. “ Haven’t you any welcome for me, father?” James asked, coming toward him. “ Yes, yes,” said the old man, with a terrible winking and blinking, which failed to keep back the tears in his eyes. “An’—here ’tis!” Whereupon he deposited in Jamie’s arms the crowing, kicking grandson, of which he was “ proud as he could be,” according to Mrs. Brown. “ It’s the best welcome I can give you, my boy,” the old man added, wringing his boy’s hand in a way that was as eloquent as any words could have been. I can’t tell you much about that Thanksgiving. It was too sacred. I can only say that no other Thanksgiving under the old homestead roof ever came up to that in true, thankful happiness. Late into the night light shone from the windows of the old red farm-house, where Lemuel’s folks and Joseph’s family and Rachel and her husband were gathered about the hearthstone, summoned feome to givewelcome to the dead who was alive again. And James told over and over the story of his capture after being wounded, and his life in a Southern prison, and how, just as he was about to give up all hope of living to get out of it, relief came, and he was among a lot of exchanged soldiers. Deacon Brown read a chapter from the old Bible and prayed before they separated. It was a short and simple prayer, but it had a world of thanksgiving in it. And every heart there joined in the Amen. — Rural New Yorker.

The Career of a Railway King.

The Freie Pres»e, of Vienna, gives details respecting Dr. Strousberg, who was arrested at St. Petersburg after failing for nearly £1,000,000. Strousberg is of Jewish origin, his full name being Baruch Hirsch Strousberg. Born in 1828, in humble circumstances, at Neidenburg, in East Prussia, he went to London in 1835, after the death of his father. Here he was received by his uncles, who were commis-sion-agents, and was shortly afterward baptized a member of the Church of England. Gifted with great intelligence and energy, he more or less educated himself, and entered journalism. In 1848 he went to America, where he gave lessons in German, but finally realized some money by buying a cargo of damaged goods ana selling them at a heavy profit. With this capital he returned to London, in 1858, and founded several newspapers, but six years afterward he went to Berlin, where he was for seven years the agent of an English .insurance company. In 1864, however, Strousberg began to think of improving his fortunes and, having made acquaintances at the British Embassy, by this means came to know some English capitalists, with wnom he contracted for the construction of the Tilsit-Insterburg Railway. Within six years Strousberg was making a dozen lines, among others those of Roumania. He had over 100,000 workmen m his pay and had launched out into other vast enterprises. At Hanover he established a gigantic machinefactory; at Dortmund and Neustadt he had smelting works and iron factories; at Antwerp and Berlin he built entirely new quarters; in Prussia he bought ten estates; in Poland an entire county; in Bohemia he paid £BOO,OOO for the splendid domain of Zbirow, where he established railway carriage works which employed 5,000 workmen. Meantime he built a palace for himself in the Wilhhlmstrasse at Berlin, which in decoration, luxury and accommodation surpassed that of the Empemr himselt. In it were to be found works by the first German and French artists—Delacroix, Meissonnier, Gerome and others. Nor was his charity on a less splendid scale. In winter he caused 10,000 portions of soup to be given daily to the poor, in addition to £2,000 worth of wood. When the famine broke out in East Prussia he sent whole trains laden with corn and potatoes to his suffering fellow-countrymen. Of course such a man had his own organs in th,e press, and was chosen to represent the nation. Yet he took from the Moscow Bank, which he founded, 4,308,000 roubles', and it is hinted that his future is not altogether unprovided for. No greater collapse than that of Strousberg has probably occurred in the financial history of the country save, perhaps, that of Law.—Faria Uor. London Times. —California papers are publishing the docket of a Tuolomne County Justice of the Peace who held office in 1850. The following is an extract from his minutes of the case: “N. B. Barber, the lawyer for George Work, insolently told m& there were no law for me to roo) so; I told him I didn’t care for his book law but that I was the law myself. He continued to jaw back; I told him to shut up but he wouldn’t ; I fined him SSO and committed him to goal for five days for contempt of court in bringing my toolings and dissions into disreputableness and as a warning to unrooly persons not to contradict this court.” —The freedom with which female pickpockets ply their trade in Boston is ex citing a good deal of attention. The number of losses and the comparatively few arrests are a commentary on the carelessness of lady shoppers arid laxity of police skill. We do not doubt that from twenty to thirty pockets are picked every day when the ladies are out shopping in full force. A few arrests and sentences ot the Recorder Hackett style might be of some service.— Boston Commercial Bulletin.

The Origin of Mountains.

Mountains have been explained by two widely-different suppositions. One is that they are due to sediments deposited under water from the erosion of a wasting continent which by upheaval have become mountains. The other is that they are due to uplifts, as the result of lateral Sressure caused by shrinkage of the earth’s xterior. For the last fifteen years or 4 more these conflicting views have each been held by geologists of undisputed authority; ana “ when doctors disagree who shall decide?” is the old question which remains still unanswered. This uncertainty in all moral reasoning, when we have to balance probabilities, is a great source of discomfort to the youthful student; and perhaps in no department of human inquiry is this more true than in the field of science, for what is highly probable to-day may be shown in the light of advancing science to be highly improbable to-morrow. And in reply to the oft-repeated question of the young student: “ What is the use of learning as truth today what may be rejected as error tomorrow?” it may be said that all the successive theories of advancing science are stepping-stones which may eventually lead to the undoubted truth. We see use in taking the first faltering and ill-advised steps in any avocation, though we soon rejects these for others more conducive to the end desired. Without attempting a decision, we propose in this article only to state some of the main points in the arguments pro and eon, and leave all to decide for themselves as to which is the more reasonable. We would naturally conclude that, if mountains are due to lateral pressure, they would be formed by the uplifts or elevations of the earth’s crust. But this is seldom the fact, for several reasons. According to Prof. Dana, many if not all the mountains have their origin in the bending down of the crust. As the crust subsided, the trough was kept full of water, which continually deposited sediment. This deposition about kept pace with the rate of subsidence. In this manner many of our mountain ranges were, in the earlier ages, taking the initiatory steps in the process of mountain-making. As the crust subsided and was covered to a great depth with an accumulation of eroded material, it would be weakened by the earth’s internal heat. An addition of several thousand feet of sediment to the surface would bring a given degree of heat so many thousand feet nearer the surface. This would often be sufficient to soften or melt the sustaining crust, which would then yield before the lateral and vertical pressure combined and Cause the crusts on the sides of the trough to fold over and approach each other above it, thus crushing the sedimentary beds into a narrower space, with the necessary result of elevating the crushed and folded strata in the middle.

The Appalachian chain illustrates the that one mountain system may be formed by several successive depressions, accompanied with the deposition of eroded material. Prof. Hall attributes the cause of mountain-making to sedimentary accumulations, which, by their weight, are sufficient to cause a depression in the crust. Thus, by the addition of 40,000 feet of sediment the crust would sink the same number of feet. Then, by a subsequent elevation of the crust, the accumulated strata would be raised into a mountain, independent of lateral pressure. He just reverses the idea of Dana, by making the subsidence a consequence of sedimentary accumulations, instead of the accumulations a consequence of subsidence. To this Dana objects, because “ the earth’s crust would have to yield like a film of rubber to have sunk a foot for every added foot of accumulation over its surface, and mountains would have had no standing place.” Another reason why the elevations due to lateral pressure do not produce the high mountains appears in the fact that, when a senes of strata is sharply bent upward —forming an anticlinal—the outer strata are fractured and strained apart, while the strata which are bent downward—forming a synclinal—present to the surface a firm and compact mass. This can be clearly shown by making a sudden bend in a walking-stick. The fibers of the outer curve will oe torn asunder, leaving a splintered and ragged surface, while on the inner curve they will become unusually dense and firm. The fractured edges of the anticlinal curve are in a favorable condition to be worn away by water, while the compact surface of the synclinals, though forming the valleys where the greatest amount of running water would act upon it, suffers but little erosion. The consequence is that the elevated strata are worn away even below tliC level of the original valleys, and the latter become the elevations. This can be proyed by noticing that the strata visible ori the sides of most valleys and hills are not parallel to the sides, but are nearly at right angles to them. The mountains 'formed by depressions of the crust were far more common in the early history of sedimentary deposit, for the crust w‘aa thi-ii comparatively thin, and hence more yielding to lateral pressure. But after the crust became thickened beneath by the cooling of the earth, and more rigid by the accumulation of strata above and by previous plication and solidification, the mountains formed were largely due to uplifts of very wide extent carrying the stratified deposits with them. Our Rocky Mountain system was formed by these uplifts in the tertiary age, and it is probable that coral island subsidences in the Pacific Ocean accompanied the continental elevations. .The adherents to the accumulation theory—among whom are Hall and Hunt on this continent, and Scrope and Lyell in Europe—have noticed that in mountainous districts the elevations are less than the aggregate thickness of the strata, while in non-mountainous sections the heightscorrespond to the thickness of the strata. If the latter were equally true in mountainous districts, the Appalachian Mountains would aitain a height of 40,OOOTeet. Mr. Hall holds that these barriers are due to original deposition of riiaterials and not to any subsequent forces breaking up or disturbing the strata of wnich it is composed; and that upheavals and contortions of strata are only accidental and | local. In this view he is sustained by ‘

SUBSCRIPTION; *a.OO a Tear, la Advance.

Montlosier and Jukes. He also claims that the direction of mountain elevations is determined by accumulations along thw sides of oceanic currents or shore lines. Dana, on the other hand, considers the northeast and northwest trends of most of the mountain and shore lines on the globe to be the result of cleavage in the earth’s crust, and to indicate lines of weakest cohesion, like cleavage planes in crystals. The accumulation theory supposes that after a vast amount of material has been deposited in successive strata under water a great continental upheaval brings the whole mass high and dry above the water line; and the present mountains are the stratified deposits which have escaped denudation by the action of frosts and floods. We have good illustrations ot this process of erosion in the Missouri River Valley, where the elevated land is being constantly washed away, forming deep ravines and abrupt ridges, and is carried into the muddy Missouri and deposited in the deltas at the mouth of the Mississippi, thus adding constantly to the territory of Louisiana. As Egypt is said to be a gift of the Nile so Louisiana is a gift of the Missouri. The effects of erosion on a small wentft ranteww nn the sides of deep railroad cuts, where miniature mountains and valleys are formed by the washing of water as it runs down their slopes. ( Prof. Le Conte opines that these opposing theories result from the loose use of the word mountain. He treats the whole subject under the two heads of mountain formation and mountain sculpture, and claims that the true mountain chain or the convex plateau which constitutes it is due only to foldings of the crust and that those elevations which are left by the erosive action of water are not mountains but simply sculptured continental elevations. The effect of shrinkage and of erosion can be fairly seen, on a small scale, by the following artificial contrivance: Take a well-filled bladder, or toy rubber balloon, and cover it completely with several successive coatings of tallow, glue, plaster of Paris, or other substances that will harden after they have been put on in a plastic state. These will represent the stratified crust. Then, by withdrawing some of the air from the bladder, which will. aujjjßk to contraction of the nucleus, the crust will become rigid, furrowed and fractured by lateral pressure, like the crust of the earth. Now, by allowing a well-regulated stream of water to flow over the surface of this, we can see many of the phenomena of erosion, like those apparent on the earth’s surface.— Scientific American.

The most astonishing crop the plains ever produced was the one of “Bill” heroes. If an ambitious frontiersman named William chanced to see an Indian or kill a few bison, he at once took unto his name an addition, and became a character. But let it not be supposed he was a hero among his companions. To them he ever remained plain Bill, or, at the best, with a Jones or Brown added, as the case might be. I remember one riarticular teamster whose name was William Hobbs. He could nqt have placed a. bullet from his carbine in a bam door at 100 paces. And yet, without any provocation whatever, he seized upon the word California and wore it, although that wonderful State had never, to my certain knowledge, been favored with his presence. This man had not been cut out for a hero. His becoming one was in direct violation of nature’s laws. He was fat, short of wind, red-faced and timid as a hare. As the frontiersmen expressed it, having

never lost any Indians, he could pot be Induced by any consideration to find one. However, by lying in wait for tourists and correspondents, he often managed to get business as a guide. He had aonned a suit of buckskin made in St. Louis, and would state to the gaping stranger : “ My name’s California Bill here; over tAw it’s ’Pache, on ’count of my fightin’ the tribe.” He could not have told one of the latter from a Digger; yet spon the Eastern papers came back with thrilling descriptions of this noted scout and Indian-slayer. “Lon muscles wrapped in buckskin, piercing eyes, a dead shot at redskins,” etc. And yet I have known this dead shot to miss, four times in succession, a bison at fifty yards; and on one occasion, having mistaken a Mexican herder for an Indian, he fled so fast and far that he lost ‘ hat and pistol and ruined his horse. After this he was fain to go East and perambulate Broadway in long hair and dirty buckskin, and be heralded by openeamouthed newsboys as “Forny Bill, the feller what chaws up the Injun nation.” These specimens are also apt to. fall upon some cheap story-writer, who embalms them as heroes, and gives them the entree of saloons and hotels. But when forced back by want to the haunts of the frontier, the breeches of skin, broad hat, and swagger are put away, tad the usual garments of the plain adopted. Out there; where the poverty of spirit lurking beneath is known, a lion’s skin does not change the Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill, whom I met oftgn on. the plains, much more fairly deserved their names. The former I knew first as teamster, then bar-tender and finally scout. He certainly knew more about the plains than anyone I ever met. Wild Bill, during the years that I was cognizant of his actions, filled at intervals the positions of scout, 'saloon-keeper, refugee and Sheriff. The number of persons J knew him to kill was five, three at Hays land two at Abilene. It seems as if such med as Bill were designed by Providence to act as a sort of carnivore for keeping down the increase of their species. In all of my residence upon the frontier, during which time sixty-two graves were filled by violence, in no case was the murder other than a benefit to society.—A. W. IFcftd, in Harper's Magazine for November. —The Hannibal (Mo.) Courier says by a judicious system of levees along certain portions of the upper Mississippi River 40,000 acres of land can be reclaimed that will be worth $1,440,000. —The fattening of cattle as a business has increased in all the Western and Southern States during the year, according to the department report for Octobers

NO. 11.

The “Bill” Heroes.