THE OKAPI. & Newly-Discovered Animal «£ trfff K4444K444444 1 he heart of Africa, near the er Somllki, by which Lake Ed rd and Albert Nyauza are con •ted and British East Africa i> and the Congo Free State •d from each other, a new nui -3 / Spllll HEAD OF THE OKAPI, mal lias been discovered which lias attracted unusual attention among zoo logists. Stanley, at tlie time of his second journey in this region, had heard from the natives of a peculiar striped animal that was neither ante lope nor zebra, and yet as large as a horse. He never had an opportunity of seeing this creature, a fact that he ascribed to his caravan, which was so large that a wild animal would flee be fore it. Sir Harry Johnston, the Brit ish plenipotentiary in Uganda, was more fortunate, lie received from the natives two dark-brown striped hides, which lie sent to England. Mr. Philip L. Slater, the well-known secre tary of the London Zoological Society, gave it as his opinion that the animal might be considered a new species of zebra and christened it accordingly Johnston's zebra (Equus Johnston!). Soon after Johnston received from an officer named Ericsson, stationed in the Congo Free State, not far from the Seniliki Uiver, a complete hide with the hoofs, together with two skulls. With this material it was finally as certained that the new animal was a ruminant related, perhaps, to the gir affe, but still more closely related to the Tertiary genera of Halladothcrium and Samotlierium Boissiori. The gir affe family, of which these fossil ani mals and the newly-discovered crea ture are members, is distinguished from all extinct and living ruminants in so far as the space between the eye tooth and the first molar is greater than the similar space in any other animal, and that the eye tooth is pro vided, not with a single, but with a double crown. Eye teeth and incisors arc found only in the lower jaws in most ruminants. Moreover, all camol oparfls have an elongated neck and long forelegs and somewhat shorter liind legs, so that the spinal coluinr. slopes down sharply to the tail. The okapi is perhaps one-third the size of the giraffe. At least tills would seem to be the relative size from the hides sent by Johnston to London. The hair of the okapi is short and straight, as in the horse. Nowhere is the hair very long, with the possible exception of the forehead, where it projects in the form of a short, bushy growth over each eye. The neck, the hindquarters and the crown of the head are a dark chestnut brown; the face is white and has a fox-red stripe on each cheek. The deer-like ears are a bright reddish brown, moderately long and tuftless. The forelegs from the car]ills to the shoulder are ringed with white. The rear members are THE OKAPI--A NEWLY DISCOVEUED ANIMAL. similarly marked, but the stripes are extended up the hind-quarters to the very tail itself. Johnston estimates the number of the okapl in the forest of. Semliki at "2000 or 3000. The animals have an elongated upper Up, which may possi bly serve as a means of prehension, since the food taken consists of foli age or trees and bushes. The animal Is beyond a doubt a surviving species ■of an old extinct genus closely related to the Halladotheriuin and Samothe riuni of the middle Tertiary, and may possible be related to the now extinct many-toed ancestors of the horse.—Scl «ntilic American. Since 1798, when the Boston dispen sary was founded, it has treated 1,- 544,583 patients. In New Orleans within a year sev enty-eight persons died from the ef fects of gunshot wounds. What King Edward VII. Will Wear. Some dryasdust lias fislied up in England an old drawing oy Sir George Nayler, at that time Garter King at Arms, showing George IV. as he ap peared in his coronation robes, and this, it is said, lias been approved by King Edward VII. as correctly illus trating the garments he will wear when ho is formally crowned in West minster Abbey next summer. This is supposed to show that Ed ward VII. will emulate the splendor which attended the coronation of (Jeorge IV. rather than the modest' displays made by William IV. and Queen Victoria. The crowning of the fourth George cost $5,000,000, his man tle of crimson velvet and ermine alone costing SIO,OOO, while the coronation of Queen Victoria only entailed an ex penditure of $1,500,000. First in importance among the gar ments the King will wear is the.im perial or dalmatic robe. It is a three cornered mantle, fashioned like a cape. One syie is about three and a half yards iti length, to cover the shoulders and hang down in front; the other sides slope into a train reaching about a foot upon the ground. The dalmatica was anciently worn by persons of the highest rank; it also signifies a part of the attire of an archbishop, and is shaped like a "Y" and decorated with small crosses.— Xew York Herald. A Now Spring-Wheel. An English Inventor lias devised a wheel for bicycles, automobiles, in valid carriages and the like, which lie claims makes unnecessary in a large TO OBVIATE PNEUMATIC TIKES. degree the use of pneumatic tires. Ilis latest design is shown in the accom panying illustration. The wheel is constructed of Sheffield steel, with an ordinary cushion tiro and twin-spring spokes, "having perfect lateral rigid ity without vibration." The idea evi dently is to tak? up the vibration in the wheel itself, instead of in the tire, with the thought of dispensing with pneumatic tires, with their liability to puncture. New Hlooklinfcse* In Sontli Africa. This is a blockhouse near Aliwal N'orth, South Africa, and is one of the new stone blockhouses erected for the protection of railway lines. It oulj requires seven men to garri son it, and they are at present supplied by the Third Royal North Lancashire. These blockhouses are less than a mile apart, with guar Is between. jg Burial Monuments p | DI North flirica. f| IN North Africa are found two great burial tumuli or mausole ums, •which date even before the Roman occupation, and were, no doubt, built by the native kings of Mauretania and Numidia. The first of these, shown in the engraving, is 80-CALLED TOMB OF THE CHRISTIAN, SUPPOSED TO BE THAT OP .TUBA 11.. LOCATED 3 0 MILES FROM ALGIERS. situated near the coast of the Medi terranean. about thirty miles from Algiers, and was at that period near the ancient port of Caesarea (now Cherchell). It stands upon a high hill in the narrowest part of the Sahel range, and thus dominates the sur rounding territory. Its form is that of an enormous cylinder resting upon a square foundation and surmounted by a cone-shaped part which is built up of a series of steps reaching to the sum mit. At the base it measures 1!)7 feet in diameter, and its present height is 102 feet, but it must have been over 120 feet high originally. This monu ment remained an enigma for a long period. The Arabs called it Ivbour lioumia, or Tomb of the Christian, on aecouut of the cross upon the northern panel, which was still preserved, and their imagination invented many leg ends in which wore associated buried treasure, fairies and sorcerers. These legends excited the Pacha Salais-Rais (1552-1550) to try to And the hidden tteasure, and lie had the monument THE FIRST SEVEX-MASTEI) STEEL SCHOONER. Length over all, 39 j feet; beam. 50 feet; moulded depth, 34 feet 5 inches; displace inent. 10,000 tons; deadweight cargo capacity, 7500 tons; height mainmast, stei: to truck, IS2 feet; total sail area, 40,617 square t'eet. cannon::dcd; but, although he made a large breach in the western side, he was not able to lay bare the chamber containing the riches. The first regular excavations -were made in lStio-OO by Berbrugger and McCarthy under Napoleon 111. They cleared away a part o' the outer wall, and made soundings to find an internal cavity, l>ut it was only after four months that it was found. By a tun nel under the south panel they arrived in a vast gallery, admirably preserved, aud thus discovered /the internal ar rangement of the structure. Unfortu nately nothing whatever was found in this vault. The gallery, chambers and corridors are paved with large flags and built of well-cut stone. The body of the monument is solid, and consists of rough stone and tufa blocks, irregu larly placed and joined by a mortar of red or yellow earth. It was found that the monument had been entered once, or perhaps several times, for the pur pose of pillage. The stone doors were broken, and whatever objects it con tained were carried off long ago. Primitive Flr« Dcpurtmcnt. Japanese dwellings being of the flim siest kind are particularly liable to de struction by lire, and the tire depart ments might therefore be supposed to have been well developed. But they are not, being the one thing in which Japan has not advanced. They are, indeed, woefully Inefficient. Hand engines that can lie carried by two men and buckets comprise the whole outfit. Valuables are not kept In the dwellings. In every village there Is a massive tower, with iron doors and window shutters, and in this building the inhabitants store what ever they possess of value to save it from loss by tire.—New York Herald. gOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCj I A SEVEN-MASTED STEEL SCHOONER g oooooooooaoooooooccooosooc The development of the multi-masted merchant schooner, which has ad vanced with such rapid strides during ti»e past few years, is one of the most remarkable features in the shipbuild ing Industry of the Atlantic Coast. The latest of these giant schooners is the great seven-masted vessel shown in the accompanying illustration. It lias been built from designs by B. R. Crowinshield, of Boston, the designer of many small and very successful racing craft, and of the ninety-footer "Independence." Unlike her prede cessors, the new schooner is to be con structed throughout 0? steel. There are three complete decks, which will be of steel plating, the upper deck, forecastle and poop-deck being wood covered. A collision bulkhead will be worked in at a suitable distance from the stem. The lower masts throughout the ves sel will bo built o" steel, with lapped edges, flush butts, and stiffening an gles extending inside for the full length. The masts are all 135 feet in length from the mast step to the top of the upper baud, and they have a uniform diameter throughout of thir ty-two inches. The top masts will be ot' Oregon pine. They will be fifty eight feet in length over all. tapering from eighteen inches in diameter to ten inches, except the foremast, which will be sixty-four feet iu length and twenty inches at its point of greatest diameter. The booms of the first fivo masts will bo forty-five feet in length by fourteen inches in diameter, the spanker boom oeing seventy-five feet in length by eighteen inches in diam eter. The total sail area of the lower sails and topsails will lie 40.017 square feet. The total cost of the vessel de livered will be about $250,000. Waves Furnish Knoys Wltli Light. Man has long since succeeded ia pressing the running waters—the rush ing brook and the majestic stream— into his service, but he dae3 not yet avail himself of the unlimited power wasted by the mighty, lestless s a. 110 still fails to gather any transmissiDio power even from thD ijiincasuiubl? force of the tides. Lately M. Gehre, a German cng'.n eer, has invented a buoj whose merit cjnsists in that wave ae'.ioa lights it electrically. The apparatus needs 11J attention for months at a time. Uvea the lightest waves generate the while the heaviest storms fail to put It out. Furthermore, in this device, wave action also operates a large bell, three resounding strokes being given before every flash of the light. Theue buoys are now being largely employed in the shallow waters along the Ger man coast. Dnemlei of the Jeweler. The jeweler is liable to suffer frora the most violent of all solid poisons, diamond dust. Cataracts and loss of sight are common ailments among those who set jewels. An electrical typewriter has been invented with which twenty perfect carbon copies can be struck off at out* time. 'DR. TALMAGtTS SERMON SUNDAY'S DISCOURSE BY THE NOTED | DIVINE. Subject: Salvation For the Morally Ship wrecked Yield Not to the Force of Immoral Gravitation Helpfulness of Kellj;ion—Door of Mercy Swings Wide. [CopyrlKht, ISWI.) WASHINGTON", 1). C.—ln this discourse Dr. Tnlmage depicts the struggle of a man who desires liberation from the cn i thvallment of evil and shows how he may be set free; text, Proverbs xxiii, 35: | "When shall I awake? I will seek it yet again." I With an insight into human nature | such as no other man ever had, Solomon I in these words is sketching the mental I process of a man who has stepped aside | from the path of rectitude and would like j to return. Wishing for something better, he says: ''When shall 1 awake? When shall I get over this horrible nightmare of iniquity?'"' But seized upon by un eradieated appetite and pushed down hill by his passions he cries out: "I will > seek it yet again. I will try it ones more." About a mile from Princeton, N. «T., there is a skating pond. One winter day, when the ice was very thin, a farmer liv f ing near by warned the young men of the danger of skating at that time. They all i took the warning except one young man. He, in the spirit of bravado, said, "Bovs, one round more." He struck out on his i skates, the ice broke and his lifeless body 1 was brought up. And in all matters of I temptation and allurement it is not a | prolongation that is proposed, but only just one more indulgence, just one more sin. Then comes the fatality. A,as, for the one round more! "I will Beek it yet again." Our libraries are adorned with elegant literature addressed to young men, point ing out to them all the dangers and perils of life. Complete maps of the voyage of life —the shoals, the rocks, the quicksands. But suppose a young man is already ship l wrecked, suppose he is already oh the ' track, suppose he has already gone astray, 1 how can he get back? That is a question I that remains unanswered, and amid all I tlie books of the libraries I lind not one j word on that subject. To that class ot ' persons I this day address myself, j You compare what you are now with ! what you were three or four years ago, ! and arc greatly disheartened. You are | ready with every passion of your soul to i listen to a discussion like this. Be of good I cheer! Your best days are yet to come. I offer you the hand of welcome and res cue. I put the silver trumpet of the gos i pel to my lips and blow one long, loud blast, saying, "Whosoever will, let him come, and let him come now. Ihe church of God is ready to spread a ban quet upon your return, and all the hie ! rarchs of heaven fall into line of ban : nered procession over your redemption. ! Years ago, and while yet Albert Barnes I was living. I preached in his pulpit one ! night to the young men of 1 hiladelphia. ! In the opeuing of my discourse I said, O ' Lord, give me one soul to-night! At the close of the service Mr. Barnes intro duced a young man. saying. '*l his is the young man you prayed for.' J»ut I ?ee now it was a too limited prayer. I offer no such prayer to-day. It must take _m a wider sweep. "Lord, give us all tnese souls to-day for happiness and heaven. So far as God may help me I propose to show what are the obstacles to your re turn, and then how you are to surmount those obstacles. The first difHcultv in the way of your return is the force of moral gravitation. .Tust as there is a natural law which brings down to earth anything you throw into the air, so there is a cor responding moral gravitation. I never shall forget a prayer I heard a young man make in the \oung Men's Christian Asso ciation of New York. With trembling voice and streaming eyes lie said: "O God, Thou knowest how easy it is for hie to do wrong and how hard it is for hie to do right! God help me! ' lhat man knows not his own heart who has Dever felt the power of moral gravitation. ' In your boyhood you had good RSSO i eiates and bad associates. Which most J impressed vou? During the last few years i you have heard pure anecdotes and im i pure anecdotes. Which the easiest stuck i to your memory? You have had good hab i its and bad habits. To which did your soul more easily yield? Hut that moral gravitation may be resisted, .lust as you mav pick up anything from the earth and hold it in your hand toward heaven, just so. bv the power of God's grace, a fallen soul may be lifted toward peace, toward pardon, toward salvation. The force of moral gravitation is in e>ery one of us, but also power in God's grace to overcome 1 that force. j The next thing in the way of your re ' turn is the power of evil habit. I know 1 there are those who say it is very easy for i them to give up evil habits. I cannot be ' lieve them. Here is a man given to intox | ication, who knows it is disgracing his ■ family, destroying his property and ruin i ing him body, mind and soul. If that : man, being an intelligent man and loving his family, could easily give un that habit, would he not do so? The fact that lie does not give it up proves that it is hard to give it up. It is a very easy thing to sail down stream, the tide carrying you with great force, but suppose you turn the boat up stream —is it so easy then to row it ? As long as we yield to the evil in clinations in our heart and to our bad habits we are sailing down stream, but the moment we try to turn we put our boat in the rapids just above Niagara and try to row up stream. A physician tells his patient that he must quit the use of tobacco, as it is de stroying his health. The man reolies, "I can stoo that habit easy enough." He quits the use of the weed. He goes around not knowing what to do with him self. He cannot add up a column of figures: he cannot sleep nights. It seems ns if the world had turned upside down. ITe feels his business is going to ruin. Where lie was kind nnd obliging he is scolding and fretful. The composure that characterized him has given way to a fret ful restlessness, and he has become a com plete lidget. What power is it that has rolled a wave of woe over the earth and shaken a portent in the heavens? He has quit tobacco. After awhile he says:"l am going to do as I please; the doctor ' docs not understand mv case. I am going back to my old habits." And he returns. Everything assumes its usual composure. His business seems to brighten. The world becomes an attractive place to live in. His children, seeing the difference, hail the return of their father's genial dis- I position. What wave of color has dashed blue into the sky and greenness into the mountain foliage and the glow of sapphire into the sunset? What enchantment has lifted a world of beauty and joy 011 his BOU' ? He lias resumed tobacco. The fact is we all know in our own ex perience that habit is a taskmaster. As long as we obey it.it does not chastise 11s. But let us resist it and we find that we are lashed with scorpion whips and bound with ship cahle and thrown into the track of bone breaking Juggernauts, j In Paris there is a sculptured represen tation of Bacchus, the god of revelry. He is riding on a panther at full leap. Oh, how suggestive! Let cverv one who is speeding 011 bad ways understand he is not riding a docile and well broken steed, but that he is riding a monster wild and bloodthirsty and going at a death leap. I have also to say if a man wants to return from evil practices society repulses him. The prodigal, wishing to return, tries to take some professor of religion by the hand. The professor of religion , looks at him, looks at the faded apparel j and the marks of dissipation, and instead | of giving him a firm grip of the hand of- I fers him the tiD end of the longer fingers of the left hand, which is equal to strik ing a man in the face. Oh, how few Christian people under stand how much gospel there is in a good, honest handshaking! Sometimes when you have left the need of encouragement and some Christian man has taken you heartily by the hand have you not felt thrilling through every fiber of your body, mind and soul an encouragement that was just what you needed? The prodigal, wishing to get into good society, enters a prayer meeting. Some good man without much sense greets him bv saying: "Why are you here? You are about the last person thai I expected to see in a prayer meeting. Well, the dying thief was saved, and there is hope" for you." You do not know anything about this, unless you have learned that when a man tries to return from evil courses of conduct he runs against repulsions innu merable. We say of some man, ''He lives a block or two from the church, or half a mile from the church." In all our great cities there are men who are 5000 miles from church—vast deserts of indifference between them and the house of God. The fact is we must keep our respecta bility though thousands perish. Christ sat with publicans and sinners, but if there come to the house of God a man with marks of dissipation upon him people are almost sure to put up their hands in horror, as much as to say, "Is it not shocking?" How these dainty, fastidious Christiana in all our churches are going to get into heaven I do not know unless they have an especial train of cars cushioned and up holstered. each one a car to himself. They cannot go with the great herd of publi cans and sinners. 0 ye who curl your lip of scorn on the fallen, I tell you plainly that if you had been surrounded by the same influences instead of sitting to-day amid the cul tured and the refined and the Christian you might have been a crouching wretch in stable or ditch covered with filth and abomination! ■ It is not because we are naturally any better, but because the mercy of Cod has protected us. Those that are brought up in Christian parentage should not be so hard on the fallen. 1 think also that men are often hin dered from returning by the fact that churches are anxious about their member ship, too anxious about their denomina tions, and they rush out when they see a man about to five up sin and return to Cod and ask him how he is going to be baptized, whether by sprinkling or immer sion, and what kind of a church he is going to join. Oh. despise not parental anxiety! The time will come when you will have neither father nor mother, and you will go around the place where they used to watch you and find them gone from the house and gone from the field and gone from the neighborhood. Cry as loud for forgiveness as you may over the mound in the churchyard, they cannot answer. Dead! Dead! God pity the youngman who has brought disgrace on his father's name! God pity the young man who has broken his moth er's heart! Better that he had never been born. Better if in the first hour of his life, instead of being laid against the warm bosom of maternal tenderness, he had been coffined and sepulchered. There is no balm powerful enough to heal the heart of one who has brought parents to a sorrowful grave, and who wanders about through the dismal ceme tery rending the air and wringing the hands and crying: "Mother! Mother!" Oh, that to-day, by all the memories of the past and by all the hones of the fu ture, you would yield your heart to God! May your father's God and your mother's God be your God forever! This hour the door of mercy swings wide open. Hesitate not a moment. In many a case hesitation is the loss of all. At the corner of a street I saw a tragedy. A young man evidently doubted as to which direction he had better take. His hat was lifted high enough so you could see he had an intelligent forehead. He had a stout chest ana a robust develop ment. Splendid young man! Cultured young man! Honored young man! Why did he stop there while so many were going up and down? The fact is that every young man has a good angel and a bad angel contending for the mastery of his spirit, and there were a good angel and a bad angel struggling with that young man's soul at the corner of the street. '"Come along with me," said the good angel; "1 will take you home. I will spread my wings over your pillow. I will lovingly escort you all through life under supernatural protection. I will bless every cup you drink out of, every couch you rest 011, every doorway you enter. I will consecrate your tears when you weep, your sweat when you toil, and at the last I will hand over your grave into the hand of the bright angel of a Christian resurrec tion. I have been sent of the Lord to be your guardian spirit. Come with me," said the good angel in a voice of unearthly symphony. It was music like that which arops from a lute of heaveu when a ser aph breathes on it. "Oh, no," said the bad angel, "come with me. I have something better to of fer. The wines I pour are from chalices of bewitching carousal. The dance I lead is over floors tessellated with unrestrained indulgence. There is 110 God to frown on the temples of sin where I worship. The skies are Italian. The paths I tread are through meadows daisied and primrosed. Come with me." The young man hesitated at a time when hesitation was ruin, and the bad angel smote the good angel until it departed, spreading wings through the starlight, upward and awav until a door swung open in the sky, and forever the wings van ished. That was the turning point in that young man's history, for, the good angel tlown, he hesitated no longer, hut started on a pathway which is beautiful at the opening, but blasted at the last. The bad angel led the way through gate after gate, and at each gate the road became rougher anil the sky more lurid, and what was pe culiar, as the gate slammed shut it came to with a jar that indicated it would never open. Past each portal there were a grinding of locks and a shoving of bolts, and the scenery on each side of the road changed from gardens to deserts, and the .June nir became a cutting December blast, and the bright wings of the bad angel turned to sackcloth, and the fountains that at the start had tossed with wine poured forth bubbling tears of foami'.g blood. And on the right side of the road there was a serpent, and the man said to the lad angel, "What is that serpent?" And the answer was. "That is the serpent of stinging remorse." On the left side of the road there was a lion, and the man asked the bad angel. "What is that lion?" The answer was, "That is the lion of all devouring despair." A vulture flew through the sky. and the man asked the bad angel, "What is that vulture?" The answer was, "That is the vulture waiting for the carcasses of the slain." And then the man said to the bad an gel, "What does all this mean? I trusted in what you said at the street corner; I trusted it all. Why have you thus de ceived me?" Then the last deception fell off the charmer and he said, "1 was sent from the pit to destroy your soul. I watched my chance for many a long year. When you hesitated that night at the street corner I gained my triumph. Now you are here. Ha, ha! You are here! Come, now, let us fill the chalice and drink to darkness and woe and death! Ilail. hail!" Oh, young man. will the good angel sent forth by Christ or the bad angel sent forth by sin get the victory over your soul? Their wings are interlocked this moment above you, contending for your soul, as above the Apennines e;vgle and condor fight in midsky. This hour de cides eternal destinies
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers