| Show Fort Riley Kansas Texas is large enough to give all the population of the world standing room and it is said that if all the people peo-ple of the United States were crowded into Kansas California and Nebraska those states would not be more thickly settled than England is now It is proposed to run a fleet of electric elec-tric launches through the most picturesque pic-turesque portions of the Grand canyon of the Colorado The current will be supplied by dynamos driven by turbines tur-bines and will be conveyed to the launches by the overhead trolley system sys-tem It is positively asserted that mosquitoes mos-quitoes were unknown in Atlanta Ga before the railroad companies began running sleeping cars from Savannah into that city They avail themselves of the opportunity afforded them and are most apt to congregate there in September and October when they come by the thousand On the plateaus of our southwestern border states the most furious whirlwinds whirl-winds often fai to raise the sand more than a few fee above the level of the plain until suddenly perhaps an hour after the crisis of the storm great columns col-umns rise to a height of one hundred yards and swaying from side to side waltz about like tipsy giants The Xerebates s Agasslzii the grass eating turtle of the Mojave desert ifi the only creature of the turtle species that lives by grazing like a horse oran or-an ox The Xerebates is about ten inches in length when full grown and weighs from six to eight pounds To escape the intolerable heat of his desert des-ert home he often burrows into the sand and remains inactive for weeks A tramp with a bright idea arrived at Jerseyville Ills a few days ago He had no money and followed the railroad ties from Arenzville Just before be-fore reaching Jerseyville he espied a big patch of jimson weed and right here his originality cropped out He discovered that jimson weed seeds resembled onion seeds and he gathered gath-ered a good supply Arrived in town he obtained a couple of fine white onions on-ions and proceeded at once to sell his seed in small packages exiblting the onions as samples He did a thriving business and left town at night by rail well supplied with money The man b > told his story before leaving but no one has yet admitted that he was a purchaser It is reported that a natural bridge formed by a tree of agtIzed wood spanning a canyon fortyfive feet wide has been found at Chalcedony Park in Arizona It is supposed that the tree had at some remote time fallen when it became imbedded in the silt of some great inland sea or mighty water overflow The silt became in time sandstone and the wood gradually gradu-ally passed through the stages of mineralization until now it is a wonderful won-derful trep of solid agate Again in after years water hae washed and eaten away the sandstone until a canyon rtyfive feet in width has beep formed the fiintlike substance substances of the aatIz d wood having hav-ing resisted the erosion of the water flowI expect to see the profession of train robbery grow and prosper to an alarming degree this coming winter win-ter says an eastern sheriff All railroad men know that nothing is so easy as holding up an express car and as there are thousands of this class out of work all over the country coun-try it will surprise me if they do not band together to rob his former employers em-ployers Softer a train is stopped and the engineer and fireman cowedan easy matterthere is nothing in the way of a successful train i robbery The companies offer no inducements to the trainmen to risk their lives in defense of their property and as the large majority of engineers firemen and messengers have families dependent depen-dent upon them for support there seems noi reason why they should rush into danger by making a fight against the robbers The patent office at Washington has a collection of pens that illustrates the difficulties with which men had to contend I before they found a suitable instrument with which to write There are the styluses used by the ancient the instruments for writing on wax tablets one end sharp like an awl the other flat like a papercutter There are the brushes used by the Japanese and Chinese of the present day and quills of every variety together with an infinite number of steel pens But the m < ist curious are some quill pens with steel points They were made in an effort to do away with the constant necessity for the mending of the pena pen-a process that few could perform prpperly and that everybody hated The effort was very ingenious but unsuccessful un-successful because the points could not be made to stay |
