Show fremont island Is landin in the great salt lake has a remarkable beach a mile long which is covered with bright polished pebbles some of these sto stones nes are purple black others bale gray green red and snowy white while a deep yellow predominates as a golden setting for the darker colors A mute who had been wandering about the country for several years was taken recently by the authorities of an eastern city to an hospital for the insane A depression was found in his skull and when a portion of the bone was removed the roans power power of speech was restored he said that a horse had kicked him four years ago when he was as in the Au strain cavalry aud since that time he had been dumb scientists have found that the starch in trees is is converted into sugar in the fall and that in the spring this sugar is is changed back to starch this they hey he be lieas accounts for the fact that a tree may get safely through a winter and then be frozen at a comparatively high temperature temper ture in the spring the store up sugar helps the trees to resist cold during the winter but a cold spell after a period of warm weather in the spring catches them when this sugar has been re converted into starch and they freeze citizens citizens of the little wisconsin town of biot a hunch that once each year everyone should make a systematic effort to get his business affairs in shape and find out exactly where he stood financially to this end the commercial club instituted a it pay up week in which citizens were urged to pay all of their financial obligations gat ions the club undertook to explain the benefits that would result irom from such a move movement rhent and encouraged everyone in the town who owed money to put the idea into gratice pr atice the scheme proved very successful arid and now various other wisconsin cities are considering si its adoption A son of charles dickens the novelist is an M P in the new south wales parliament that body contains a member named willis who is remarkable not only for the prodigious length of his speeches but also for the short snappy sentences in which he delivers them mr dickens followed him in debate one night and the first words of the vor vonne ingest cst son of the novelist were my fachet created the historic phrase barkis is willin but if he wy was here tonight he would probably have altered it to willis is barking this happy hit brought down the house the galleries joining in the general laughter in arizona is a strange petrified for or est covering hundreds of square miles most ol of the trees are prostrate giant logs are scattered all about and the I 1 ground is covered with chips of agate amethyst smoky topaz and stones of all the colors 0 of the rainbow here are large and beautiful masses of purple crystals and cross sections of wood showing the bark and veins the agate is said to rival in beauty the finest onyx in the market in chalcedony park are more hugh petrified trees than can be found in any other one place in the world this beautiful petrified wood was long ago used by the indians for jewelry and for arrow heads spear heads and other implements ments in one part of the forest hugh stone logs may be seen projecting from fi orn clay bluffs bluds proving that years ago 11 the trees must have been overturned by some convulsion of nature W and covered with earth and mineral water which in the course of censures cen tures turned the wood into stone some logs may be seen imbed dedin deCin rock clefts the first state to abolish slavery within her borders was vermont which adopted a plan for gradual emancipation in 1777 bedre she had joined the union and in 1800 slavery in that state had entirely ceased the new massachusetts constitution adopted in 1780 contained a clause declaring decla that 4 all men are born free and equal and have certain natural essential and inalienable rights among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and li liberties betties which had the effect of freeing all the slaves a very small number then held within the borders of that state in 1780 there were slaves in pennsylvania and in that year their gradual emancipation was provided for by legislative enactment sixty four of these were still living in bondage however in 1840 rhode island and connect dicu ticu t followed the example of pennsylvania vania and the former had but five slaves left in 1840 and the latter seventeen new york passed a gradual emancipation act in 1799 at which time she had upward of slaves and slavery was totally abolished in the state from july 4 1827 in 1850 there were still persons living in bondage in new jersey although the state had adopted the gradual emancipation ci plan in 1804 the census ol of 1810 showed that there were no slaves held in massachusetts new hampshire or vermont new hampshire haying having emancipated the few slaves held in the state between 1800 and 1810 in new york and new jersey large number of slaves who could not beheld be held in those states were nefariously sold to southern slave dealers by unprincipled owners notwithstanding the fact that thai each state had adopted at the time lime of emancipation of slaves by the census of 1860 it was shown that slavery was cratl deiy abolished north of mason and dixons line the heat of summer in death valley california Cal fornia is intense and the dryness of the air remarkable cedars fall apart tables warp into curious shapes and wet clothes dry in the sun as a rapidly as before a red hot stove meat dipped in brine and hung in the sun becomes anred in an hour eggs kiy be roasted in the sand and a humane being deD deprived rived of water but for a short time lime becomes lusane the thermometer often registers 67 1 degrees in the shade and the air strikes the face like the blast of a furnace birds which try to cross the valley during the hottest days fall and die overcome by the heat in a part of nevada grows a tree which the indians call the witch tree because it sends out a phosphorescent scent light which is so great thit that it can be seen a mile away in a dark night A person standing near can see to read by the light its foliage resembles that ol 01 the bay tree ol of california its luminous property is caused by a gummy substance ahio h covers c oscr its branches this is 13 thought to be a parasitic growth and can be rubbed off with the hand the tree vows grows to a height of six or seven feet beet with a trunk six or ediht inches in diameter the indians will never approach the tree even in the daytime |