HUMAN HAIR. From Which Varlouf Colore and qualltlca Arc Obtained. i In a tour of investigation a Phila delphia Times reporter dropped in at a iMrs. Buch's. That lady win deftly plaiting a wig on a wooden block or (dummy. She was a little alarmed at (first, but when the scribe explained the object of his visit proceeded to de scribe the manner of obtaining hair in Europe and America. "You see, In Germany," aaid the lady, "there aro men going around .Ml the time among tho country girls to buy up their hair. They pay a silk handkerchief, or apron, and sometimes a couple of dollars. As a rule a girl's hair grows again every three years, but that varies considerably much with the person. Now my brother-in law's mother, who died here aged nine ty years of age a couple of years ago, used to have her hair cut twice a year. It was silver-gray and very valuable." "What is done with the hair after the girls sell it?" "There aro big factories In the largo towns. Tho hair is cleaned and sorted and then sold at prices varying with its color and quality. A good deal of it comes to this country. The most valuable shades are gray, blonde, and white. Ashen blonde is very dear. The true shade will bring |2O an ounce. The most expensive of all is gray. It is worth $lO to s.">o an ounce, according to its length. A lady bought a gray switch in New York the other day and paid $BOO for it- Black hair is the cheapest. Any hair can be dyed black." "Don't some of the hair used in the business come from the dead?" "Very little of it. It can always be known by the touch. It seems to be dead and dry, just like straw." "Do American women sell their hair?" "No; the people aro not poor enough. Now and then you see a wo man with a superb head of hair, worth $5O or $lOO, but she will not part with it. The convents supply us with a good deal of hair. The sisters sell it twice a year. Occasionally a little girl comes and sells her hair, but a grown woman never." "What Is this beautiful blonde hair?" asked the reporter turning over some in a box." "Why, that's Chinese hair bleached. Some of it is imported from China, and j then the Chinamen here in tho city sell us their hair. Theatrical people use it. A Chinese hair switch can be bought j for |1 or .50. There is a Chinese | laundry a few doors from lu re. The i laundry men sell us their hair very cheaply—only seventy-two cents a pound. It is so short it isn't worth much. When they sell us long hair we pay |'l to $5 a pound. The blonde bleached Chinese hair goes through a refining process; it is soft as silk—just feel it" "llow about the hair of colored pe.v pie ?" "Their hair is too short. Can't do anything with it in our line, unless it be to make up wigs and beards for the negro minstrels. It would be useful then, because it always stays in curl. The hair of negro women doesn't grow long; ten inches would be quite out of the ordinary." "Where elso do you get hair from ; besides Germany?" "From Naples. This is the poorest hair in the trade. It is coarse and ha roots growing on it. It is dyed a dark brown, but fades to reddish gray or black in a short time. It is dirty and unpleasant to handle. I have been told that it is hair taken from belies that have lain in the ground many years. That accounts for the long roots. The Swedes send us beautiful long hair. We pay |3 to an oun< for It." "Where does the best hair come from?" "From Paris, prepared by a man named I'elleray. His hair is always live, healthy hair, and every lxx is marked with his name." . A Phenomenal Atmosphere, The strangest feature of Monterey to Northern eyes, says a correspondent in Mexico, is the clearness of the air. at ch as that which male me, as I Stood on the Mount of Olives, think the Dead Sea within an hour's walk though I found it a day's ride. Among the strange aerial phenomena here I class the foot hills standing out AO prominently that you think you can nee round their corners and into the p interspaces between them and the sec ondary ranges. The most distant peaks, too, seem pressing forward to peep over the shoulders of those near er. Everywhere the lights and shades contrast no less than those of electric illuminators. On a whole, the atmos •pheric brilliancy surpasses whatever is known in the North as much as our 'Northern sky surpasses the London fogs, where men are forever doubtful whether their celestial luminary is tho sun or the moon. SCIENTIFIC! SCRAPS. A Chinese lawyer has hung out his shingle in Colusa county, Cal. lie is the pioneer "John" in the law line. The oldest system of shorthand ex tant was written dbout 1412, but the art is said to have been practiced by tho Greeks, and by Ennius tho Latin poet. Tho Corcoran monument to John Howard Payne at Oak Hill cemetery in Washington will be a fifteen foot shaft of Carrara marble, surmounted with a bust of heroic size showing Payne as he appeared in middle life. Kecrnt experiments with stringed instruments have shown that a much more sonorous tone can bo obtained with metal strings than those now in use. although tho labor of playing upon them is corresjHindenly increas od. Steel wires plated with copper or silver gave the best results. M. C. Grand'eury has published a pa per on the formation of coal,the result of his own investigations. Ho refers tho formation of coal to the decompo sition of the woody matter of plants, forming an organic paste, which sub sided in deep water, and became grad ually consolidated under vast pressure- Colleges in Colonial Times. Prof. Moses Coit Tyler, of Cornell university, lectured lMi'ore the General theological seminary, in New York <>n "The American Colleges of the Coloni al Times." There were established in America, said the lecturer, before the Declara tion of Independence, nine colleges Harvard, William and Mary, Yale, Princeton. King's or Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, Brown, Dartmouth and tjueen's or ltutgers. The church element entered largely in to them all. A wonderful fact was the establishment of Harvard when the wolf was still at the doors. The founders of those colonial colloge 9 were animated with the desire to pro vide learned ministers, learned laymen, and to educate the Indians, and with a love of higher education for its own sake. The methods attending their establishment were typified in the budding of Harvard, the patrons of which were not the wealthy few, but the mass of the poor. Gifts of money and of utensils even to a silver beer- D>wl and a jug tip pis 1 with silver— were contributed; and to these were added offerings of the peck <>f corn an nually, of meat and ewe lambs, and of everything that could Is- turned into money. Thus the colonial colleges grew up "out of the sacrificial generos ity of the heart of the per.pie." The colonial college, the lecturer continued, was a religious and educa tional garrison, founded ..n English nudes and governed bv right rules Punch and "flip" were forbidden, and any student out after p. m. was "ad judged guilty of whatsoever disorder might occur in the town that night." j At Harvard Mr-. Foster was made : stocking-mender at a salary of A'l2. Students were allowed a pound of meat and a pint of beer at dinner, and a half-pint of beer at night. F<>r 1 supper they could choose letween a half-pint of milk and a biscuit. They were given clean table-cloths twice a I week, and finally could indulge in the luxury of plates. Pudding was a deli cacy three times a week. Until 1731 corporal punishment was inflicted at Harvard. The president of tutors could administer public whipping in the hall, and overseers were called in on special occasions to witness the proceedings. This form of punishment degenerated into ear-liox ing in 1754, and then to a tariff of col lege sins, when profane swearing was valued at 2s. '*!.; sending for liquor, Gd., and fetching the same. Is. fkl. The marking system was introduced in 1761. The studies were largely in divinity, theology and the languages. I.atin was the speech of the recitation-roorn and the language of scholars. "Proba bly," saiil Prof. Tyler, "not a college president of to-day would have been capable of presiding at a college com mencement of colonial days." The results of these educational un dertakings. said the lecturer in conclu sion, were a class of superior men, whose influence was wholesome and conservative, and which especially was an education for political independence. Cornwallis said that the early estab lishment of Harvard college hastened American independence half a century, and Pitt gave testimony to "the solidi ty of reason, the force of argument am! the wisdom" displayed by AmerL can statesmen at the time, who were graduates of American colonial col. leges. Italy and China divide three-fourths of the silk production of the world* India and Japan divide one-seventh, Spain, Persia and the Levant have the rest. "TIIK MAGDALENA." A UomUrfnl Formallon Nature In Ww .tletleo A New Mexico correspondent writes: Di