~STRD Bellefonte, Pa., Oct. 13. 1899. in r——— LEFT ALONE. It's the lonesomest house you ever saw, This big gray house where I stay, I don’t call it livin’ at all, at all, Since my mother went away. Four long weeks ago, an it seems a year, “Gone home,” so the preacher said, An I ache in my breast with wantin’ her, An my eyes are always red. I stay out of doors till I'm almost froze, ’Cause every corner and room Seems empty enough te frighten a boy And filled to the doors with gloom. I hate them to call me in to my meals, Sometimes I think I can’t bear To swallow a mouthful of anything, And her not sittin’ up there A-pourin’ the tea an passin’ the things An laughin’ {o see me take Two big lumps of sugar instead of one An more than my share of cake. I’m too big to be kissed, I used to say, But somehow I don’t feel right, Crawlin’ into bed as still as a mouse, Nobody saying “good night.” An tuckin’ the clothes up under my chin An pushing my hair back so— Things a boy makes fun of before his chums, But things that he likes, you know. There’s no one to go to when things go wrong She was always so safe and sure. Why, not a trouble could tackle a boy That she couldn’t up and cure! There are lots of women, it seems to me, That wouldn’t be missed so much— Women whose boys are about ali grown up An old maid aunties and such. I can’t make it out for the life of me Why she should have to go, An her boy left here in this old gray house, A-needin’ and wantin’ her. I tell you, the very lonesomest thing In this great big world to-day Is a boy of ten whose heart is broke ’Cause his mother is gone away. —Toronto Globe. THE WARNING OF MARY VINCENT. The young girl paused at the door. Then she frowned impatiently and turned the knob. As the door opened she found herself in a plainly furnished room, the floor covered with linoleum, the walls hung with maps. There were three long windows at the upper end and in the right hand wall an open door. ‘Is that you, George ?’’ a voice called from the inner room. Mary Vincent did not reply. She felt all her reluctance come back to her. “Why don’t you answer me, George?” There was the sound of a chair pushed back, and then a tall young man stood in the doorway. “I—I beg pardon,’ he cried as he step- ped forward. ‘I thought it was my some- what tactiturn office boy. Please take a chair.” Mary Vincent howed gravely and sat down. At the actual encounter with this formidable young man her courage seemed to return. “You are Mr. Henry Tennis,” she said, half interrogatively. “At your service,” he answered and bowed. “My name is Mary Vincent,’’ she mur- mured. If she had expected he would look surprised ; she was disappointed. There was a little pause. ‘‘And to whatdo I owe this visit?” he courteously asked. The girl hesitated. “For me,’ she said with an effort, ‘‘this is a very disagreeable mission.” She look- ed toward the open door of the anteroom. “Weare quite alone,’, said Tennis. “I have come,” said Mary in a low voice ‘‘to warn you against my father.” “Your father!” ‘‘My father, Abner Vincent.” *‘Go on,”’ said Tennis. ‘He has told us, my mother and me, that you were to let him have $20,000 to advance one of his schemes. Do not give him the money. The schemeis a visionary one. My father is a romancer.”’ She paused and moistened her lips. ‘My mother and I thought you should be warned. We felt that your youth and y-your inexperience appealed to us. Do not give my father the money.’”” She paused again. ‘‘Of course this warning will be held confidential 2” ‘‘Sacred,’’ said Tennis. Mary arose to go. “One moment,” he added. ‘May I ask how your father happened to talk this matter over with you ?”’ “He has a habit of boasting,’ said Mary. ‘He is always on the verge of some great fortune winner. He told us that with your money his latest scheme could be launched. Sometimes we feel sure he is only romancing. This time his details were too perfect to admit of doubt. He told us so many particulars about— ahout you.”’ “May I ask what he said?” inquired Tennis gravely. “You will not feel offended? He said you were young and quite inexperienced, that you had just come into a lot of money, that you were flinging it carelessly right and left and that you would never miss thesum you had promised him.” ‘‘Are you quite sure I am the person he i added Tennis. uite sure. Mr. Henry Tennis, i Mohican building.’ y pias “And your father looks upon me as a lamb, eh?” “I think I understand what you mean. Yes. He said—I want you to clearly ap- preciate the light in which he regards you —that you were, to use his own rather rude expression, ‘easy picking.’ 7’? Tennis laughed softly. “Thank you very much, Miss’ Vincent,’ he said and extended his hand. She placed her own—a little reluctantly—in it. “I assure you I appreciate the sacrifice you have made. Your warning will not be wasted. Iam sure I shall profit by it in more ways than one. Good day. As her graceful form disappeared in the elevator cage Tennis turned back into his office. “Well, by Jove!” he murmured. He slowly resumed his seat at his desk and _ pulled the directory to him. Ina moment he had found this name: Vincent, Abner; promoter. Res. 2120 Millside avenue.” Then he carefully copied the address on a card, * * * * * * * Six weeks later Abner Vincent and his wife and Mary were sitting on the porch of their modest little cottage. It was early twilight, and the shadows were deepening beneath the vines and the maples. “I can’t understand it a bit,” Abner was saying in his fussy little voice. ‘‘Here’s young Tennis been coming round more’n a month every night or two and pumping me all about that new aerostatic company until I guess there isn’t a fresh question left for him to ask me. Seems perfectly satisfied, too, but somehow he fails to put up the $20,000. By George if he doesn’t come to time pretty soon I'll give some other fellow the chance, or I’ll bring out one of my other schemes. But I want Henry Tennis. If isn’t his money alone— I want his name.”’ ‘‘Are you always so particular about the names of your—your victims?’ asked Mary with a sarcastic intonation she couldn’t suppress. ‘‘Mary,’’ said her mother in a soothing voice. “Victim !”’ repeated her father queru- lously. ‘‘Henry Tennis a victim. I guess not. Why, there isn’t a shrewder or more successful investor on the street. If Henry Tennis goes into a thing, there’s money in it. And from the very start, from the very moment he sent for me to come to his office, he’s seemed all wrapped up in my latest idea. But he doesn’t put up the money.”’ ‘‘Father,’’ said Mary, trying hard to con- trol her voice, ‘‘what did you mean by saying that Mr. Tennis was young and in- experienced and a reckless prodigal ?”’ “Did Isay that?’’ queried the old man. ‘You did,’’ replied Mary, a ring of in- dignation in her voice; ‘‘you said he was ‘easy picking.’ ”’ ‘‘Well, that,”’ shuffled Abner, ‘was just a figure of speech. I must have said it before I really knew him. But hush, I think he is coming up the street,” Henry Tennis stepped lightly through the gateway, hat in hand. ‘‘Good evening, all,’ he cried with the easy air of an old friend. ‘‘Ah, Mr. Vin- cent,”’ he added, ‘‘if the ladies will excuse us, I want just a word or two on business with you.” . ‘‘Certainly,”” cried the little man, bustling up. ‘‘This way, Mr. Vincent,’’ and he led the caller into a lighted apart- ment. It wasn’t a long interview. When the men came back to the porch, Tennis did not take the chair that was offered him. ‘‘Perhaps Miss Mary would enjoy a little stroll,” he said, looking toward the dark corner of the porch where the girl’s white dress faintly glimmered. “I guess she would,’”’ said the father, and there was a nervous energy in his tone that seemed quite unusual. The girl hesitated. Then she arose and got her hat, and the two went down the street together. ‘‘Miss Mary,’”’ said Tennis presently, “I want to confess to you that I am an ar- rant fraud. I have been coming to your home on the pretense of business with your father—for it was a pretense. Can you guess what really brought me? Mary, when you went out of my office that event- ful morning I made up my mind that you shouldn’t go out of my life. Will you be my wife ?”’ The girl was silent. ‘Put your hand in mine, dear, if it means yes.’’ ‘And now,’’ said Henry a moment later with an ecstatic sigh of satisfaction, ‘‘and now for another confession. Do you know that up to the day you came tn see me I had never even heard of your father ?”’ ‘‘Henry ?’’ cried the startled girl. ‘‘Was it all father’s romancing?’ “I guess it was. But when his romanc- ing ended mine began.” ‘‘How undutiful you must have thought me, how forward ! But father had angered me 80. And—and my warning was all thrown away ?”’ ‘Thrown away !”’ cried Tennis. ‘‘Not a bit of it. It warned me of the utter emptiness of a bachelor’s selfish life. Why, my dear girl, there’s nobody looking ?”’ And on the porch Abner Vincent was saying in his querulous voice: *‘I never was so disappointed. When he told me that it was Mary and not the company, you could have knocked me down with a feather.” ‘She loves him,”’ said the mother softly. ‘‘She’d better !"’ cried Abner. ‘‘She’ll never get another such chance. And the $20,000.” He paused and sighed. ‘Did I tell you how he intends to invest the $20,000.” ‘‘No,’’ said the mother. ‘‘He’s going to settle it all on Mary.”’— Cleveland Plain Dealer. A Songless World. The New England Farmer Complains that He no Longer Hears the Birds as of Yore. An old New England farmer sat recently at the door of the homestead. ‘‘Seventy years ago,’’ said he to a Boston Globe re- porter, ‘‘when I was a boy and came down in the morning the air rang with the song of birds. On every tree there was a chorus of songsters. The woods were full of game. In those days we never heard of paris green, with which to drive the bugs from the potato vines and squashes. A simple ‘scare- crow’ served the purpose of keeping the crows from the corn. For the rest, when the fields were once planted they grew un- disturbed. Now there are next to no birds. The air is tuneless. But tor every vegetable there is a bug. The bulk of the farmer’s time is spent in fighting bugs. Paris green or sprays of deadly poison are a daily neces- sity. The world seems dead to me. The birds are gone and I feel no more at home.’’ From all parts of the country come re- ports of the alarming decrease in the num- ber of birds. Careful estimates show a diminution of 4.6 per cent. in the past 15 years for the whole country, and of from 60 to 70 per cent. in Rhode Island, Con- necticut and Massachusetts. Game birds are scarce, song birds are yearly dying out and birds of prey are gradually disappear- ing. Unless measures are promptly taken to avert the threatened calamity many of the most interesting and valuable species will soon be extinct. Do we realize what this means? A de- crease of bird life means more than the loss of beautiful songsters. It means the deple- tion of agricultural interests. Birds are the natural allies of the farmer and the gardener, for they feed unceasingly upon the harmful weeds, insects and small ro- dents which destroy the crops. Republican Financiering. The unfinished Philadelphia City Hall has already cost several million dollars more than the magnificent Capitol of the nation at Washington. It has cost $17,- 000,000 more than the new Congressional library building, one of the finest structures in the world. The entire country was amazed over the developments in the con- struction of the Tweed court housein New York, and yet our City Hall has already cost $9,000,000 more than the Tweed court house. What the end will be no men can foretell. But all honest men will agree that there is no excuse for the continued existence of the public buildings commis- sion, and that it should be abolished at the earliest practicable moment.—Philadelphia Press (Rep.) A MESSAGE TO GARCIA. In all this Cuban business there is one man stands out on the horizon of my memory like Mars at perihelion® When war broke out between Spain & the United States, it was very necessary to communicate quickly with the leader of the Insurgents. Garcia was somewhere in the mountain fastnesses of Cuba—no one knew where. No mail nor telegraph message could reach him. The President must secure his co-operation, and quickly. What to do! Some one said to the President, ‘‘There’s a fellow by the name of Rowan will find Garcia for you, if anybody can.” Rowan was sent for and given a letter to be delivered to Garcia. How ‘‘the fellow by the name of Rowan’’ took the letter, sealed it up in an oil-skin pouch, strapped it over his heart, in four days landed by night off the coast of Cuba from an open hoat, disappeared into the jungle, & in three weeks came out on the other side of the Island, having traversed a hostile country on foot, and delivered his letter to Garcia, are things I have no special desire now to tell in detail. The point I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia ; Rowan took the letter and did not ask, ‘‘where is he at ?’’ By the Eternal ! there is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college of the land. It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this and that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal toa trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies : do the thing—‘‘Carry a message to Garcia !”’ General Garcia is dead now, but there are other Garcias. No man, who has endeavored to carry out an enterprise where many hands were needed, but has been well nigh appalled at times by the imbecility of the average man —the inability or unwillingness to concentrate on a thing and do it* Slip-shod assist- ance, foolish inattention, dowdy indifference, & half-hearted work seem the rule; and no man succeeds, unless by hook or crook, or threat, he forces or bribes other men to assist him ; or mayhap, God in his His goodness performs a miracle, & sends him an Angel of Light for an assistant. You, reader, put this matter to a test: You are sit- ting now in your office—six clerks are within call. Summon any one and make this request : ‘‘Please looked in the encyclopedia and make a brief memorandum for me concerning the life of Correggio.”’ Will the clerk quietly say, ‘‘Yes, sir,”” and go do the task ? On your life, he will not. He will look at you out of a fishy eye and ask one or more of the following questions : Who was he? Which encyclopedia ? Where is the encyclopedia ? Was I hired for that? Don’t you mean Bismarck ? What’s the matter with Charlie doing it? Is he dead ? Is there any hurry ? Shan’t T bring the book and let you look it up yourself ? What do you want to know for? And I will lay you ten to one that after you have answered the questions, and ex- pained how to find the information, and why you want it, the clerk will go off and get one of the other clerks to help him try to find Garcia—and then come back and tell you there is no such man. Of course I may lose my bet, but according to the Law of Aver- age, I will not. Now if you are wise youn will not hother to explain to your ‘‘assistant’’ that Cor- reggoi is indexed under the C’s, not in the K’s, but you will smile sweetly and say, ‘Never mind,’’ and go look it up yourself. And this incapacity for independent action, this moral stupidity, this infirmity of the will, this unwillingness to cheerfully catch hold and lift, are the things that put pure Socialism so far into the future. If men will not act for themselver, what will they do when the benefit of their effort is for all? A first-mate with knotted club seems necessary ; and dread of getting ‘‘the bounce’’ Saturday night, holds many a work- er to his place. Advertise for a stenographer, and nine out of ten who apply, can neither spell nor punctuate—and do not think it necessary to. Can such a one write a letter to Garcia ? “You see that book-keeper,’’ said the foreman to me in a large factory. “Yes, what about him ? ‘Well, he’s a fine accountant, but if I'd send him up town on an errand, he might accomplish the errand all right, and on the other hand, might stop at four saloons on the way, and when he got to Main Street, would forget what he had been sent for.” Can such a man be entrusted to carry a message to Garcia ? We have recently been hearing much maudlin sympathy expressed for the ‘down- trodden denizen of the sweat-shop’’ and the ‘‘homeless wanderer searching for honest employment,’’ & with it all often go many hard words for the men in power. Nothing is said about the employer who grows old before his time in a vain at- tempt to get frowsy ne’er-do-wells to do intelligent work; and his long patient striving with “help” that does nothing but loaf when his back is turned. In every store and factory there is a constant weeding-out process going on. The employer is constantly sending away ‘‘help’’ that have shown their incapacity to further the interests of the business, and others are being taken on. No matter how good times are, this sorting continues, only if times are hard and work is scarce, the sorting is done finer—but out and forever out, the incompetent and unworthy go. It is the survival of the fittest. Self-interest prompts every employer to keep the hest—those who can carry a message to Garcia. I know one man of really brilliant parts who has not the ability to manage a busi- ness of his own, and yet who is absolutely worthless to any one else, because he carries with him constantly the insane suspicion that his employer is oppressing, or intending to oppress him. He cannot give orders ; and he will not receive them. Should a mes- sage be given him to take to Garcia, his answer would probably be, ‘‘Take it yourself.” To-night this man walks the streets looking for work, the wind whistling through his threadbare coat. No one who knows him dare employ him, for he is a regular fire- brand of discontent. He is impervious to reason and the only thing that can impress him is the toe of a thick-soled No. 9 boot. Of course I know that one so morally deformed is no less to be pitied than a physic- al cripple; but in our pitying, let us drop a tear. too, for the men who are striving to carry on a great enterprise, whose working hours are not limited by the whistle, and whose hair is fast turning white through the struggle to hold in line dowdy indifference, slip-shod imbecility, and the heartless ingratitude, which, but for their enterprise, would be both hungry & homeless. Have I put the matter too strongly? Possibly I have ; but when all the world has gone a-slumming I wish to speak a word of sympathy for the man who succeeds—the man who, against great odds, has directed the efforts of others, and having succeeded, finds there’s nothing in it : nothing but bare board and clothes. I have carried a dinner pail & worked for day’s wages, and I have also been an em- ployer of labor, and I know there is something to be said on both sides. There is no excellence, per se, in poverty ; rags are no recommendation ; & all employers are not rapacious and high-handed, any more than all poor men are virtuous. My heart goes out to the man who does his work when the ‘‘boss’’ is away, as well as when he is at home. And the man who, when given a letter for Garcia, quietly takes the missive, without asking any idiotic questions, and with no lurking intention of chucking it into the nearest sewer, or of doing aught else but deliver it, never gets “laid off,” nor has to go on a strike for higher wages. Civilization is one long anxious search for just such individuals. Anything such a man asks shall be granted ; his kind is so rare that no employer can afford to let him go. He is wanted in every city, town and village—in every office, shop, store and factory. The world cries out for such : he is needed, & needed badly—the man who can carry a message to Garcia.—By Elbert Hubbard in the Philistine Magazine. A Bride With Some Good Points, cow, and the man in return promised to go | to church. Some years ago, in an agricultural dis-; Now, unfortunately, the man was deaf, trict, there lived a farmer who wanted to | and on the Sunday following, when the sell one of his cows." There was not at that | viear gave out the banns of marriage be- time a weekly paper in which he could ad- | tween J oseph So-and-So, bachelor, and vertise, so he resolved to follow a local | Sarah So-and-So, spinster, the farmer took custom, and ask the vicar of the parish, | jt for granted that the vicar was giving out when giving out his notices at church, to | particulars of his cow, and shouted out : advertise the cow. Ld ‘‘You might as well say, while you are “Yes, farmer,’’ said the vicar, “I should | about it, that she is a most gentle creature, be willing to oblige you, but you don’t at- | and entirely free from vice.”’ tend my church.”’ Presently, however, they struck a bar- gain, that the vicar should advertise the ——You ought to take the WATCHMAN "yo, Bop The Wind Swept Island of San Nicolas. About seventy miles off the coast of Southern California lies the island of San Nicolas—a veritable desert, wind swept to such a degree that one might well imagine that the furies are guarding the island. San Nicolas, which is twelve miles long and four or five wide, has no harbors, the anch- orage being merely alee under the low hills; the fact that the wind blows directly offshore making it impossible for vessels to anchor here only at certain seasons. On this island, which has been the cen- tral point of a romance and tragedy of much interest, deserted and alone, Maria Better Than Nothing, the wild woman of San Nicolas, lived twenty years—long enough to forget her people and even her language. The story is as follows: For centuries the island had been inhab- ited by a race of hardy mariners who have left their monuments in large shell heaps and mounds that cover many acres. Less than one hundred years ago, the Franciscan fathers determined to take the natives away from the inhospitable island and pre- vide them with homes around the various missions, where they could also be comfort- ably converted. With this object in view, a vessel was sent to the island, and after much difficulty the Indians, now reduced to about one hundred, were collected, tak- enaboard, and deserting thousands of im- plements which their ancestors had used for centuries. When the vessel was about to sail, one of the women discovered that her child had heen left behind. But it was blowing a gale and the vessel could not hold, so the captain sailed away, whereup- on the frantic mother dashed into the sea and swam back to the shore, making her way successfully through the surf. The captain promised to return for the woman, but soon after his vessel was wrecked, and no attempt was made to rescue the poor In- dian woman until twenty years after, when a priest determined to make an effort to learn whether she was alive. He enlisted the service of an otto hunter, and several Indians, who in a small schooner, known as ‘‘Better Than Nothing,’’ set sail for San Nicolas. They landed on the island, and very soon found evidence that some one was living there, but avoiding them. To make the search perfect, the men formed a line across the island at certain distances apart, which resulted in the discovery of the wild wom- an. She was sitting bya brush hut in a canon, about which was a windhreak of whalebones and various material. She smiled and spoke to the Indians in a lan- guage they did not understand, but they fell on their faces before her as though to worship her. She offered them food and readily consented to go with them, and was taken aboard the schooner with a tame o$- ter. She was dressed in the skins of birds, over which was a garment of sealskin. She was named Better Than Nothing after the vessel, and by signs succeed in telling some Indians on the mainland something of, her history. At first she had mourned the loss of her friends; then the dogs killed her baby, and she wished to die and was sick for a long time. She was taken to Santa Barbara where Indians from all about were brought to her to see if they could understand her language but without avail. She lived with differ- ent families at Santa Barbara, but civiliza- tion proved disastrous to her, and in less than three months she died. Her remark- able dress of feathers was sent to Rome as a curiosity, and the remains of the unfor- tunate woman found a resting place in the sanctified ground of the mission. San Nicolas has proved a veritable treas- ure house for the archeologist, and tons of stone implements have been taken from va- rious mounds on the island. One of the most remarkable shell mounds in the world is found here, being it is said nearly a mile long and ten feet in average height. On its wind swept surface innumerable objects have been found, exposed during previous hurricanes, with the bodies of Indians fac- ing each other, having been buried in a sit- ting position with hands clasped over the head. With many remains were buried such personal effects as mortars, ollas, flutes jewel boxes, charms, flint spearheads, and almost every article needed by a hunting and fishing people, all formed from shell, bone or wood. Fishing lines were made of kelp; sinkers of stone with a grove worn around ora hole in the centre; the hook was of elegant design and bore the barb up- ‘on the outside. One of the greatest curiosities on San Ni- colas, after all, is the wind. It tosses the sand dunes into the air like wraiths and keeps them continually moving and shift- ing. It bas buried a stone house and so threatened another that the lone herder on the island often deserts it for shelter among the rocks near the sea-lion rookeries, fear- ing that it will be blown into the sea. For two successive years the writer as guest of Commodore Burnham, of the Santa Catali- na Yacht Club, made the attempt to reach this inhospitable island. The first time the yacht was blown away; the second, the party was able to land, but owing to the terrific wind was glad to leave. Approach- ing the island presented a flat and barren appearance, and the yacht finally came to under the lee of strange cliffs that rise from the sea, while to the north a long spit of sand extends to the east. In some places the cliff is worn by the combined forces of water and wind into marvelous shapes and is everywhere difficult of ascent. Somesail- ors have a superstition that the strange winds that blows from the island is from souls of natives, who resent this intrusion and the robbing of their graves. The yacht’s party soon had an experience with the wind. A black fog cloud came sweeping down over the island and the wind blew a hurricane, dissipating the fog and blowing until two o’clock in the morn- ing. Theland was madein a heavy sea—a dangerous operation. The single inhabi- tant, a French herder, was standing on the sands, looking a typical Robinson Crusoe. He had a big hat strapped on under his chin, an old-fashioned shot gun over his shoulder, a cane in his other hand. Two half-hreed shepherd dogs crouched near him. He evidenced no desire to hear from the outer world; his one wish was for beans, which, unfortunately, could not be gratifi- ed. He had a small fortune at hand in the antiquities which he could pick up, but he was undoubtedly loath to despoil the graves though not averse to pointing out the skeletons which had been uncovered here and there. Everywhere the wonderful evi- dence of the wind was apparent. In one canon the writer photographed a section that seemed to have almost heen carved by Titanic hands. There were great faces,im- possible forms of animals, delicate lacelike tracery, all creating a weird effect. Reaching the summit after a hard climb over cliffs of yellow, blue, white, green and other shades a mesa was found, almost per- fectly level, extending for five or six miles. Not an object broke the level that appear- ed to be covered with small polished peb- bles, arranged in windrows, that in the gale were blown about and raised into the air with the sand cyclone that accompanied them. For several miles the barren mesa, from which strange canons reached down to the sea in every direction, was followed. One object of the visit was to locate the spot where Maria Better Than Nothing liv- ed, but it was evident that the isle of winds was ever changing; named after St. Nicho- las, it should be mild and gentle, but the reality is a veritable fury. The island seemed to be in the grasp of innumerable sand glaciers, which instead of moving down move up and were ever shifting in the wind. The canon in which the so-called wild wom- an is supposed to have lived is visible. A more deserted spot it is difficult to imagine —a river of sand winding up from the dis- tant sea and covering everything. Here and there rise strange tree-like shapes that resemble the trunk of spectral trees, and which but add to the weirdness of the scene. Everywhere were evidences of former oc- cupation. Some of the party dug into the mounds, where curious stone slabs marked perhaps the graves of the ancestors of the wild woman. Pearl fishhooks, bones pipies and a flint spearhead were found, standing possibly just where they had been left; and tons of implements have been taken from the surface of the sand dunes. In one canon, a remarkable drapery of sandstone is being worn out by the wind. In others caves were found, one with strange hieroglyphics painted on the stone. Every- thing here tells of desolation and death; the sands strewn with the bones of a lost race, the deep canons filling up with the deadly sand that conceals the remains of unnumbered people who lived here in the past. The wind does not always blow at San Nicolas. The summer is the season of winds; in winter days and weeks follow when the island is at peace and the sand dunes seem sleeping. But fierce winter storms come suddenly, and the island is not in good favor among the navigators of the Pacific.-—Scientific American Riches of South Africa. The Diamond and Gold Mines Have Produced Vast Wealth, and are not Exhausted. Much of the recent rapid development of Africa, especially in the southern part, is due to the discovery of extremely valuable mineral deposits. The most valuable of these are gold and diamonds, though the iron, coal and other mineral deposits give promise of great value. The Kimberley diamond mines, which are located in Brit- ish territory, just outside the boundaries of the Orange Free State and about 600 miles from Cape Town, now supply 98 per cent of the diamonds of commerce,and have been in operation about 30 years. It is estimated that $350,000,000 worth of rough diamonds, worth double that sum after cut- ting, have been produced from the Kim- berley mines since their opening, and this enormous production would have been greatly increased but for the fact that the owners of the mines formed an agreement by which the annual output was so limited as to meet, but not materially exceed, the annual consumption of the markets. So plentiful is the supply and so comparative- ly inexpensive the production that dia- mond digging in other parts of the world has almost ceased since the South African mines entered the field. Equally wonderful and promising are the great Witwatersrand gold fields of South Africa, located in the South African Re- public, better known as the Johannesburg mines. The Dutch word Witwatersrand means literally “White Water range,’ and the strip of territory, a few hundred miles long and a few miles in width, to which it is applied was but a few years ago con- sidered a nearly worthless ridge, useful only for the pasturage of cattle and sheep. In 1883 gold was discovered, and in 1884 the value of the gold production was about $50,000. It increased with startling ra- pidity, the production of 1888 being about $5,000,000; that of 1890,$10,000,000; 1892, over $20,000,000; 1895, over $40,000,000; and 1897 and 1898, about $55,000,000, in each year. This wonderful development has attracted great attention to South Africa and drawn thither thousands of people in the hope of realizing quick fortunes. Development, however, showed that the mines could only he successfully worked by the use of costly machinery, and while they have been extremely productive where machinery has been used, they were not of such character as to make hand or placer mining profitable, as was the case in Cali- fornia. The gold production in the *‘Rand’’ since 1884 has been over $300,000,000, and careful surveys of the field show that the “in sight’’ probably amounts to $3,500,- 000, while the large number of mines which have been located in adjacent territory, particularly in parts of Rhodesia, give promise of additional supplies, so that it seems probable that South Africa will for many years continue to be, as it now is, the largest gold-producing section of the world. Recent discoveries lead to the belief that these wonderfully rich mines are the long- lost ‘‘gold of Ophir,”’ from which Solomon obtained his supplies, making ‘a navy of ships in Ezion-Geber, which is opposite Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea in the land of Edom; and Hiram sent in the navy his servants, shipmen that had knowledge of the sea, with the servants of Solomon; and they came to Ophir and fetched from thence gold and brought it to King Solo- mon.”’ Asked for a Raise. Were Refused, and Evicted From Their Homes. The town of Arnot, Tioga county, with its 3000 inhabitants, which only a short time since was all bustle and activity, is now practically dead, as far as business is concerned. Eight hundred miners are thrown out of employment. The strike that commenced over three months ago is ended and the ten per cent. asked for has not been granted and all men are discharg- ed aud notified to vacate company houses. Sheriff Johnson and Deputy Lloyd have been busy for the past two days evicting those who did not comply with the de- mands of the company. Thirty-six fami- lies were evicted. All of the company’s personal property is to be sold and the mines closed indefinitely. Forestry in Europe. Many of the countries of Europe derive a good share of their prosperity from forestry. In Germany 1,000,000 people are support- ed by forestry, and 2,000,000 more by manufactures of which forest products form the principal material. The little Duchy of Baden derives a net annual revenue of $667,000 from 240,000 acres of public forest. The kingdom of Wurtemberg de- rives a net annual revenue of $1,700,000 from its 418,000 acres of public forest. The kingdom of Saxony, which leads all other countries in forestry, from its 430,000 acres of mostly spruce forest, and mostly on poor mountain land, derives an annual net in- come of $1,900,000, being $4,50 per acre. ——If you want fine job printing of every description the WATCHMAN office is the place to have it done. nt
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers