NOVEMBER, 1890.

THE Korean alphabet is phonetic, and so simple that any one can learn to read it in a day; nearly all the women in Korea can read.

The English crown is made up of diamonds, rubies, sapphires, pearls, and emeralds, set in silver and gold bands; it weighs 39 ounces and 5 pennyweights, troy; in it there are 3,452 diamonds, 273 pearls, 9 rubies, 17 sapphires, and 11 emeralds.

Of the entire human race 500,000,000 are well-clothed, that is, they wear garments of some kind; 250,000,000 habitually go naked, and 700,000,000 only cover parts of the body; 500,000,ooo live in houses, 700,000,000 in huts and caves, and 250,000,000 virtually have no shelter.

Leuwnhock, by means of microscopes, observed spiders no bigger than a grain of sand, which spun threads so fine that it took 4,000 of them to equal in magnitude a single hair; the fly spider, it is known, lays an egg as large as itself.

Among the most ingenious inventions lately exhibited is a machine for drilling square, oblong, or hexagonal holes, heretofore found to be impossible.

The kali mujah, or death-plant, of Java has flowers which continually give off a perfume so powerful as to overcome, if inhaled for any length of time, a full-grown man, and which kills all forms of insect life that comes under its influence.

Essen, Germany, has just finished the largest gun ever made; it is the property of the Russian Government, and is made of cast steel, weighs 235 tons, and has a calibre of 131⁄2 inches, and a barrel 40 feet in length; it fires two shots per minute, and each charge costs $1,500.

A new illustration of the distances of the stars is that it would take all the Lancashire cotton factories 400 years to spin a thread long enough to reach the nearest star at the present rate of production of about 155,000,000 miles per day.

There are nearly 5.000 dialects and 900 languages; the Bible, or the New Testament, is published in nearly 250 languages and dialects; the American Bible society has 242 different versions, and, last year, issued it in six new languages.

The light seen through the new eyepiece of the Lick telescope will be 2,000 times as bright as that seen by the naked eye.

When Sir John Herschel was defending the character of astronomical science in view of an error of nearly 4,000,000 miles in estimating the sun's distance, the correction was shown to apply to an error of observation so small as to be equivalent to the apparent breadth of a human hair at a distance of 125 feet.

A new albuminous poison of one hundred times the power of strychnine is extracted from the seeds of Abrus

The oldest of existing observatories is that at Pekin, founded in 1279, and still containing three of the first instru

ments.

The Arabian year is luna and in the course of thirty-two years each month runs through ail the seasons. The average cost of constructing a mile of railroad in the United States at the present time is about $30,000.

The oldest lawsuit on record perhaps is one now being tried in the highest Russian court at St. Petersburg; it was brought 300 years ago against the city of Kamanez-Podolsk, by the heirs of a dead nobleman, to recover many thousand acres of his estate, confiscated by the mnnicipality; the written testimony is said to weigh 45 tons.

It is not generally known that the custom of keeping birthdays is many thousand years old; it is recorded in the fortieth chapter of Genesis, twentieth verse: "And it came to pass the third day, which was Pharaoh's birthday, that he made a feast unto all his servants."

The greatest diving feat ever achieved was in moving the cargo of the ship Cape Horn, wrecked off the coast of South America, when a diver named Hooper made seven descents to a depth of 201 feet, and at one time remained under water 42 minutes; Siebe states the greatest depth to which a man has ever descended to be 204 feet, equivalent to a pressure of 881⁄2 pounds per square inch.

Taste is not equally distributed over the whole surface of the tongue; there are three distinct regions, or tracts, each of which has to perform its own. special office, or function; the tip of the tongue is concerned mainly with pungent and acid tastes; the middle portion is sensitive chiefly to sweets or bitters, while the back or lower portion

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confines itself entirely to the flavors of rich, fatty substances; this subdivision of faculties makes each piece of food undergo three separate examinations before it is admitted into full participation in the human economy.

It is a fact established upon the authority of travellers in different parts of the world that stammering is almost unknown among savage tribes.

The largest insect known to the entomologist, the Erebus strix of Linnæus, a noctuid moth of Central America, expands its wings from eleven to eighteen inches.

A house-fly is born fully grown and of mature size, and there are no little flies of the same species, the small ones occasionally observed being different in kind from the large ones.

Charts have been prepared showing that the eye has 729 distinct expressions, conveying as many different shades of meaning.

It is estimated that to collect one pound of honey from clover, 62,000 heads of clover must be deprived of nectar, and 3,750,000 visits from bees must be made.

The longest day of the year at New York is fifteen hours, at London sixteen and one-half, at Hamburg seventeen, at Stockholm eighteen and one-half, at St. Petersburg nineteen, at, Tornea, Finland, twenty-two, at Spitzbergen three and one half months.

The thickness of human hair varies from the two-hundred and fiftieth to the six-hundredth part of an inch; blonde hair is the finest, and red the coarsest.

DO NOT wait for a special day to be thankful. He who waits for Thanksgiving Day to be thankful will not be thankful when it comes.

THE EVENING LAMP.

00000000

How sweet is

the time

when the

HomeLamp is

lighted, and gath

ered around it the household so dear, from school and from play and from toil reunited, to rest till the sand man too soon will appear. Papa, now enjoying his moments of leisure, in slippers and easy chair drawn to the grate, is reading the Free Press and is beaming with pleasure on loved little tots who can stay up till eight. Mamma, -0 dressed

so neat

ly, beside him is

knitting the cunning

est socks for the baby's wee feet; and, learning their lessons. are quietly sitting the wisest of scholars the picture's complete. The clock on the mantel chimes "eight." Softly laying their playthings away and with footsteps so light, the tots go with mamma upstairs, sweetly saying, "I love oo, dear papa, I kiss oo; good-night!" The clock chiming "nine" sends the wise little scholars to rest busy brains and in dreamland to stray, and off go their shoes and their jackets and collars.

and lo! in a jiffy

they're sleep

ing away.

Now mamma

and papa enjoy

the perfection of rest for the body
and peace for the mind, till the

lamp, growing dim, is put out with affection, and left all alone and in darkness enshrined. H. C. DODGE.

PRINTING IN IRON.

JOHN FARRAR, superintendent of the iron company's foundry at Roxbury, has been experimenting with the transfer of writing from paper to cast

It was

iron, with interesting results. in the casting of the columns for the Crystal Palace, some years ago, that it was discovered what might be done in this way. The mould used was eighteen feet long, and contained two about which the

lengths of cores, metal was to run. of these cores a laid, that the dry sand, falling from the core and forming a scar on the surface of the casting, might be swept off the paper, and the paper itself burned.

Under the juncture piece of paper was

On this particular occasion a handbill advertising boots and shoes was used, and when the column was exposed to the sunlight, the letters of the words, "boots and shoes," were delicately printed in the iron in reverse order.

Superintendent Farrar was at once interested in this chance discovery, and found that, by writing backward upon the ordinary paper with copying ink mixed with a little powdered graphite and running very hot melted iron upon it, the plate bore the writing indented upon its surface. By writing. them backward he has in this way printed the ten commandments on a metal paste about 8 by 14 inches, the writing being of ordinary size, showing with perfect distinctness. Mr. Farrar says he does not intend to protect his invention in any way, but would be glad to see it developed and made. useful to the public.

PRAISE YOUR WIFE.

PRAISE your wife, man; for pity's sake, give her a little encouragement, it won't hurt her. it won't hurt her. She doesn't expect

it; it will make her eyes open wider and wider than they have for the last ten years; but it will do her good for

all that, and you, too. There are many women to day thirsting for a word of praise and encouragement. You know that if the floor is clean, labor has been performed to make it so. You know that if you can take from your drawer a clean shirt whenever you want it, somebody's fingers have toiled. Why don't you come out with it heartily: "Why how pleasant you make things look, wife," or, "I am obliged to you for taking so much pains." If you gave a hundred and sixteenth part of the compliments you almost choked them with before they were married; if you would stop the badinage of women you are going to have when number one is dead (such things wives may laugh at, but they sink deep sometimes), fewer women would seek for other sources of happi

ness.

A young man who has grit enough to follow these rules will have taken the first step upward to success in busiHe may be compelled to wear a coat a year longer, even if it be unfashionable: he may have to live in a smaller house than some of his young acquaintances: his wife may not sparkle with diamonds nor be resplendent in silk or satin, just yet: his children may not be dressed as dolls or popinjays: his table may be plain but wholesome, and the whiz of the beer or champagne cork may never be heard in his dwelling: he may have to get along without the earliest fruit or vegetable: he may

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have to abjure the club-room, the theatre and the gambling hell, and to reverence the Sabbath-day and read and follow the precepts of the Bible instead:-but he will be the better off in every way for this self-discipline. Yes, he may do all these without detriment to his manhood, or health, or character. True, empty headed folk may sneer at him and affect to pity him; but he will find that he has grown strong-hearted and brave enough to stand the laugh of the foolish. He has become an independent man. He never owes anybody, and so he is no man's slave. He has become master of himself, and a master of himself will become a leader among men, and prosperity will crown his every enterprise.

Young man! life's discipline and life's success come from hard work and early self-denial; and hard-earned success is all the sweeter at the time when old years climb up on your shoulder and you need propping up.

DO PLANTS THINK?

Do plants think? Mr. Ellwood Cooper, of Santa Barbara, California, believes they do, and here are some of his reasons for thinking so.

Through Mr. Cooper's garden there ran some years ago, a sewer made out of red-wood timber. This sewer was again cased by an outside sewer, which in course of time had partially decayed. Across the sewer there was built a brick wall many feet high, and in such a way that it was pierced by the inner sewer, which it enclosed tightly. while the outside sewer ended abruptly against the wall. As I said, the outside sewer casing had, in course of time, decayed, and a eucalyptus tree some sixty feet away had taken advantage of this, and sent one of its roots to the coveted spot in as direct a line

as possible. Here the root entered the outside sewer and followed its course as far as it could; at last it came to the wall, which shut off its course, and here it could get no further, the inside sewer being perfectly tight. But on the other side of the wall the sewer and its double casing continued and this eucalyptus tree evidently knew how to get there. Some three feet high in the brick wall there was a little hole one or two inches in diameter, and this the eucalyptus tree was aware of, as its big root began to climb the dry wall and face the sun and wind until it found the hole, through which it decended on the other side and entered the sewer again and followed it along as formerly. Was ever such instinct know before, or are similar traits in plants of daily occurrence, only we are not aware of them? How did the tree known of the hole in the wall? How did it know that the sewer was on the other side? Did it smell, and if it did how could it direct its root to go and find the place with such precision? There is, of course, another explanation of this curious phenomenon. The roots of any plant grow always and unerringly in the direction of its food, just as those of the eucalyptus tree did.

LOVING WORDS.

A LOVING word is always a safe word. It may or may not be a helpful word to the one who hears it; but it is sure to be a pleasant memory to the one who speaks it. Many a word spoken by us is afterwards regretted; but no word of affectionate appreciation, to which we have given utterance, finds a place among our sadly remembered expressions. Looking back over our intercourse with a dead friend or fellow-worker, we may, indeed, regret that we were ever betrayed

into a harsh, or hasty, or unloving word of censure or criticism in that intercourse; and we may wish vainly that we had now.the privilege of saying all the loving words that we might honestly have spoken while yet he was with us. But there will never come into our hearts at such a time, a single pang of regret over any word of impulsive or deliberate affection which passed our lips at any time.

We have reason to be on our guard in our speech in most directions; but we can be fearlessly free in our loving utterances. Apart from any question. of the good we do to others by our words of love, we are personally the gainers, for now and for hereafter, by every such word which we speak explicitly; and we are sure to be the losers, now and by and by, from every such word which we ought to have spoken and failed to speak.

HOW TO TELL THE DAY OF THE WEEK ON WHICH ANY PAR

TICULAR DATE OCCURS.

TAKE the last two figures of the year, as written in figures, and consider them as a single number. Add to this number one-fourth of itself, disregarding any remainder if there be such. Add the day of the month to this sum, and also the figure in the following list that represents the month in which the date occurs, observing that each figure in the list denotes a month from January to December: 3-6-6-2-4-0-2 5-1-3-6-1.

Divide the sum thus obtained by seven, and the remainder will be the number of the day of the week. If there be no remainder, the day will be Saturday.

For example try the present date, October 9, 1890. Take 90.-22.-9.3. The sum is 124, which divided by