ASCENT Ur A DRAGON BALLOON. $ BRITISH WAR BALLOONS | WATCH THE EDERS. I I 1 Remarkable Battlefield Wori: Dons by Mounted Telegiap l ers. sfcM>K)Ooie!OiofoiDO(««soKaeK KS&OK**! i ill W DISPATCH from 11 t 112 '*B Cape Town /I / Ja states that tbe 11 British troops j \ (*/ / lyjT aj have aa impor- V«jrV\/fj4£) JiL taut auxiliary in -" r the military balloon, and the defence of Lady- V j\ smith \va3 con siderably facili ~ tated thereby. The balloon was in telephonic communication with tbe camp, and kept a watch on the 15oer movemonts during the night. The brilliant work performed by the signaling corps of tbe United States army during the war with Bpain caused special atteution to be drawn to that branch of the service. An interesting comparison will be aflbrded by the study of the opera tions of the sigualers of the British army in the hostilities in the Trans vaal. The latest information received is to the effect that a complete balloon ing corps from England is on tbe FEAT I.J THE FIELD. f-cene of action. The great Napoleon regarded military balloous as of "no strategical importance." He was accompanied by a ballooning corps during his second campaign in Egypt, but ths wagons containing the acces BALLOONING TRAIN IN THE FIELD. nories fe.ll iuto British bands, and this calamity no doubt influenced bis opinion. Ho-arever, bince those days military balloons have done B° o, lw - ork oa many occasions, and it is cou- lidently expected that their ailvent in the Transvaal will afford many lessons in the possibilities of ballooning in warfare. The British balloon division is fully equipped for the work it is to per form. The chief work which it will be expected to execute may be summed up as follows: First, to discover the whereabouts of tbe Boers hidden in cover; second, to make observations an<£ to take photographs; third, to TOWER CONSTRUCTED BY IiOYAL ENGI NEERS WORKING WITH THE KALLOON DIVISION. carry dispatches. Invaluable infor mation concerning tbe enemy's movements will be telephoned from the men in the car to those below. Tbe balloon, too, will render ex cellent service for map-making pur poses. Photographs will be taken vertically downward that will she w every detail of the country and the position of the Boer forces. It is only a matter of practice for skilled surveyors to become efficient in judg ing distances and heights from a bal loon car and in making accurate sketches and maps. The British military balloons now going to the front hold about 10,000 cubic feet of hydrogen. Each balloon will carry two persons—one in the car and the other in the netting. These balloons are made of gold beaters' skin, which is far suporior in every way to silk. Each balloon will be placed on a wagon and drawn by twelve horees to the sceuo of opera- tions. xiio B ad will be conveyed in wagons drawn by a steam traction engine or by four horses. This gas is stowed in steel cylinders, 110 cylinders being required to fill ono balloon of 10,000 cubic feet capacity. Hitherto one cause of great concern in the ballooning operations has been the difficulty of obtaining a balloon sufficiently steady to ensure the mak ing of acourate observations. It lias also been feared tbat the difficulties attending the manufacture, handling and conveyance of the gas might prove insurmountable. In order that this may not prove a stumbling block in the Transvaal, the British army is being also furnished with equipment for the rapid erection of observation towers. The care of these iR entrust ed to the Royal Engineers, a section of the British army whose operations have always been distinguished by excellence of work. One of the illus trations shows one of these towers after it has reached a height of 110 feet. It will be seen that the ob servation posts afford every facility for reconnoitering the movements of the Boer army. The results of the TELEPHONING FKOM A WAR BALLOON. observations made by balloon or tower will be communicated to the general staff headquartei s by means of tele phone and telegraph lines, to be erected by the telegraph battalion of the Koval Engineers. This battalion has seen long and honorable service. In the erection of temporary lines it has maile a record for speed, stability and efficiency. Galloping across a plain, horsemen may be seen, im paling their specially constructed posts at regular distances. With a speed that is almost incredible, other horsemen follow, unreeling the coils of wire; others, with an agility and skill hitherto confined to circuses, pursue them, standing on saddle to adjust a wire to the insulator, drop ping into their seat, only to repeat the operation a few yards further on. The illustrations show that this line is not as primitive in construction as one might suppose. lialcil Money. But speakiug of cotton—strange how the subject sticks to one—l once asKed a small farmer iu Georgia, "Why do you raise cotton year after year? It seems to me it's the hardest thing in the world to raise; it requires more care than anything I know of; has to be plowed ofteuer and looked after more carefully; why don't you raise something to eat?" And the man with the two-mule farm laughed and said, "I'd know you was from the North just by that fool speech. Be cause I owe for my laud. I have to have money every year to run this farm. I can borrow money on my next crop of cotton. And the man who lends me the money can keep his eye on my crop from the time the seed is in the ground till it is loaded on the cars. His security is all right. But if I goto him in the spring and tell him I ain't going to raise any cot ton, but only corn and garden truck, he can't keep track of no such perish able security as that. He won't lend me a cent. So if I want any money I've got to raise cotton." And I made what haste I could to swim ashore. It is so easy, son, for us to tell people 2000 miles away just what they ought to do. So much easier than it is to go there anc doit.—Robert Burdette, in the Los Angeles Times. Secret Drnwera Deafened by K Woman. "Most people seem to think," said a maker of furniture, "that secret drawers aud hidden receptacles iu furniture only exist in novels and plays, but this is by no means so. I very frequently take orders for such items, and I employ a clevsr womau designer, who shows positive genius in planning places of concealment, which no amount of tapping or meas uring could reveal. Iu most cases, even were the hollow receptacle dis covered, the woodwork around would have to be cut away, so complex are the fastenings. Most of the orders come from women—and rich people, of course—and I have no doubt that a desire to hide articles from too curi ous servants dictates the orders." "Barker humbly says he is but an instrument iu the hands of destiny." "I knoT he talks that way; but, all the same, he thinks destiny has its hands full when it is using him."— Indianapolis Journal. SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. Lieutenant Maury has calculated that if au iueh of rain fell over a fifth part of the surface of the Atlantic, it would mean an addition to its volume of ItfiO million tons of water, and that if the same amouut of water evapor ated from the ocean, it would leave 1G million tons of sea-salt, J*C aiding to the state geologist of fndiaua, the natural gas supply of that state is decreasing iu pressure, and its quantity is limited. In five years all the pipe lines have been extended towards the heart of the field, and the centre is now reduced to an area of less than 150 Bquare miles. Iu this centre the pressure has diminished from 264 pounds in 1895 to 181 pounds in 1898, and the average rock pres sure of the entire field has been re duced from 191 pounds in November, lfc97, to 173 pounds in November, 1898. The average pressure at which salt water overcomes gas is stated at between 130 and 150 pounds to the square inch, and this necessitates the a andonment of the well. A strange complaint which has lately been prostrating large numbers of Parisians has been attributed by med ical men to a rather peculiar cause. This is the presem e iu their patients' morning rolls of salts of lead, depos ited on the floors aud walls of the ovens in which they ha\e been baked. According to the medical theory, tho extensive use of old timber in place of other fuel that so largely obtaius iu France is dii e.-tly responsible for this condition of affairs. As a result, the Paris council of hygiene has is sued au edict forbiddiug the employ ment by bakers of wood from c'd bouses, disused railway sleepers or wooden paving blocks for their fur naces. Such timber is usually impreg nated with sulphate of copper or creo sote, and poisonous volatile salts are .iable to rise from it when heated. Last spring a plan was proposed at tho Harvard college observatory for the construction of a telescope of tiu iisnal length for photographing the Stais and plan ts. Anonymous don ors have now furnished tho means d>y ivhich this experiment may be made, »iul it is expected that a telescope .laving an aperture of twelve inches m I a length of a hundred feet or note will soon be ready for trial at Cambridge, 'the exhibit of the Har .•ard observatory at the Paris exposi tion will lepresent the work of the United States in astronomy. Among he < o.lection of photographs of heav enly bodies will Ie the stellar charts ind photographs of stellar spectra pro duced with the aid of the great photo graphic telescope now in South Amer ica. There also will be au exhibit of j;lass photography illumined by elej irk'ity. Another mechanical prodigy haa Oeeu added by the Hoston Elevated Hailroad company to its magnificent equipment. This is a now steel shaft reported to be the largest ever cast —to form part of a new vertical cross compound engine, which is being put I i pla e iu the company's central power station, au engine of four thousand horse power, at ordinary speed. The ihaft is t\\enty-eight feet in length, over all, in lies diameter in the centre aud weighs in its finished state about seventy-five thousand pounds; as a rough castiug it was uiuch heavier, of course, a hole fifteen inches in diameter having to be bored In the centre. In the journals, which ire each fifty inches in length, leav ing a length of some twenty feet be tween the c< utren, tliediameteristhii ty .11 lies. Ihe \ ast propoi tio is charac ."erixing all the other features of this mdertaking will be further under stood w hen it is stated that the fly •vheel i asting weighs seventv-flve tons. Miii ; ni II in and Maximum of .Sleep for Man "The old rule of eight hours' sleep s sheer nonsense," said a New Ot ic ans physician, chatting after office hours. "Natural sleep is something dint can't be regulated by any formula. L'lie body takes what it needs, be it much or little, and the necessary amount varies with the individual. Iu a general way 1 would say that four hours is the miuimum and ten hours the maximum for ptople in fair health. Either more or less is a pretty surd nign that something is out of gear— lisually something in the brain. I have two patients who sleep only four hours aud keep in tolt rably good con dition. Both are lniddle-nged men, uid neither of them works very hard, l'hey arj simply so constituted that aature can repair its losses in four hours of unconsciousness. In mauy other peeple nearly three times as long is required; the nerve cells work more slowly—why, nobody knows. The queerest case that ever came under my personal observation was that of a bookkeeper of this city, who used to sleep two or three hours a night through the week and on Suurtay would catch up iu a twenty-four hour uap. That is no exaggeration, but au a tual fact well known to all his inti mates. He seemed to be nble to store away nervous energy as a camel stores water. His general health during the twelve or fifteen years I kuew him was excellent, but he finally died of an atta k of pneumonia.—New Orleans Times-Democrat. An Kclto of the Pant. He—How do you like yonr new au tomobile? Is it hard to manage? She—Oh, no. The only trouble I have is that somehow I can't break myself of saying, "Get up!" when I want to start the thing, and "Whoa!" when I want the machinery to stop. Automobile Magazine. The gold yield of Brazil is con stantly increasing. THE CREATEST MOOSE HEAD. ftoinantic History of an Enormous Speci men in Tacoma. A moose head whose antlers meas ure from tip to tip nix feet six and a half inches, a head on which from tip to tip a board could be placed, the tallest of men lie down and not be too tall tor the length of it—in fact, the LARGEST .MOOSE EEAD IN THE WORLD. largest moose head in the world—is the property of W. F. Sheard. of Tacoma, Wash. It has forty prongs, and its immense fanlike antlers are enormous in their width as well as iu height. The marvel is that any neck could have carried such a burden. Its history is unusual and tinctured with the romantic superstition of the Canadian Indian. For many years the Indian tribes around Tort Selkirk and the mouth of the Stewart River, in the northwest territories of Canada, had told among themselves the tale of a mighty moose, a "hi-uh moose," that for years and years had haunted the district of the Stewart River. Many years before, when this gigantic animal had first appeared, their fathers had endeavored to kill it; for days they had tracked the beast through the pathless forests. Easy to track it was, for the immense antlers, said the Indians, made a path through the foliage of the trees wider than a man was high, aud the marks of his huge prongs on the bark v/eie certain indications of his path. But nobody was able to kill him. Gradually grew up around this huge, mysterious auimal a superstitious reverence that he should escape all bullets and arrows and evade ad pitfalls. In October of 1897 an Indian-French half-breed, untroubled by supersti tion, legends or scrnples, came into the post and reported that for four days he had followed the "hi-uh moose," aud had killed it near the headwaters of the Stewart River, two hundred or three hundred miles froo Dawson City (Klondike). This was in the dead of winter. Finally a party of whites went out from the post and brought the moose iu. The next year the head was sent down the Yukon to Tacoma, Wash., where W. F. Sheard, a skin merchant of that city, bonght it, and in his pos session this unique and magnificent trophy remains. Midway Between Pole and Kquator. A big shaft of granite will soon be erected by the Government cf tho United States at North Pe:ry, Me. The purpose of the election 13 to mark the geographical spot which is mid way between the North Pole and the Equator. On the stone is the insn-ip tion: "This stone .narks latitude 4c degrees north, half way fro_a the Equator to the Noith Pole." The shaft will rise near Noitn Perry's sol itary church, and will be the most curious sight in the vicinity. The people of the village —500 in all—ait so taken by surprise that they can dis cuss little else than the oddity of tlu Government's proceeding in so dis tinguisliing their settlement. Tht North Perryans are not precisely mei of science. Most of their time is de voted to working iu lumber camps anc guiding parties of hunters, aud per haps not one of them has ever dreamer he has been living iu a town buil' upou such a site. Ou the day of the Mr' N ~* ITr.is S*otr iwrw jldtitudr 5 df§': • v \ Inorlh, hdlKwdy V ' I from the Cqudtor . to th' Nor?H-polr SHAFT TO EE ERECTED AT NORTH PERRY, MK. "unveiling" North Perry will take a holiday end celebrate their new hon ors with a picnic. M llfK-ulnnge Stopped the 1)1111. The water wheel in the Water ford grist mill suddenly stopped one day, and three muscalonge, weighing about five pounds each, were found wedged in the sluiceway, shutting of) the water.—Meadville (Penn.) Demo crat THE GREAT DESTROYER. SOME STARTLING FACTS ABOUT THE VICE OF INTEMPERANCE. v Ti« the Little Things That Count—Where There la l>re|i ami Conatant l>i Inking There Can lie Mo Happloeaa—Drunken nt.rfa la Mostly Acquired,>iot Hereditary Just n little here and there, boys, Suoh a trilling thing, you think; Sixpence for a yellow novel. And another one for ilrink; A little spent In the curd room, Threepence for a cigar. But O, do you ever think, boys, 'TIs the little things make or mar? Just a little while from home, hoys, And ah! your unwary feet Will be lured to slu-atalned by-paths l'liat lead to ruin's broad struet. It Is just the first wrong thought, boy.", Just n few vile words, ah me! And your current of life Is changing, You are drifting out to sea, Where no human hand can save you, Itudderless, and lost. Don't you think those boasted pleasures Are bought at a fearful cost? 'TIs the little things that count, boys, That make up the mighty whole. 'TIs the little thoughts and deeds, boys, In the balance against your soul. —Our Yuung l'eople. Merriment aa l.eiated to Drunkarda. When Dr. Thomas J. Hlllls asserts that whiskey contaius all the constituent ele ments of food, ho probably speuks from medical knowledge. But when he states that whlskoy makes hundreds merry for every ten it makes miserable, he knows not whereof ho talks. One diunkard may feel exceedingly merry, but he is sure to muko everybody within bis sphere of influence miserable. Where there is deep and consistent drink ing there can be no happiness. Air. II ill is seems to think that all drunk ards are hereditary drunkards, and that they drink because they are unable to ab btaln from it. Generally speaking, w« are an Intern perate nation, but the intemperance of nineteen raou in '.weuty is not hereditary. It is acquired. There are men wbo achieve drunkenness deliberately and periodically. Others have drunkenness thrust upon them. The periodical drunkard is a prey to circumstances. If he happens to be a rich man either joy or sorry will arraign lilm at the bar. it he is a laboring man ha gets druulc on pay days, because the task of earning his money is over and ho seeks the relaxation which on penniless da'Vs he Is unable to purchase. But whether a man be a periodical or an habitual drunkard, he Is sure to cause misery. Dr. Ilillis inveighs against ministers and ultra-temperate physicians, who "assem ble In a moral blockhouse, deaf to the bugle of common sense.' 1 The excessive use of whisky has nothing to do with common sense. As a medicine it is a line thing for snake bites. As a merriment producer it is a failure through out the world. As a misery maker It is perfection.—New York Jourua 1 . The Woe oi Kllgtuml. The drink evil coutiuues to be one of thi! most pressing questions of the day in the United Kingdom. From the latest statis tics it appears that the consumption of whisky last year was the greatest yet reached, the population having swallowed more than a gallon per head of liquor known by that name. The London Lancet, In referring to the British death-rate from intemperance, directs attention to oae of Its most painful features—the Increase of alcoholism aaiong women. The deaths from chroulc alcoholism iu the year 1897, as compared with the year 1978, In men show an increase of 82*,$' percent., those of females of HaJj percent.; and the deaths from cirrhosis in men an Increase of twelve per cent., and those from cirrhosis in fe males or twenty-six per cent. The amount of disease, caused by liquor, which falls short of a fatal termination is necessarily a matter beyond all power of calculation. "Statesmen," the Lancet says, "may create tor themselves theories that exteuuute a national vice which yields the exchequer so many millions sterling a year: but, speaking from a medical point of view, we must point out that it is disgraceful and disastrous." Villitinoua Decocr.iona, In New York City alone three chemical laboratories manufacture concoctions foi the adulteration and coloring of beer, whose sales annually aggregate several hundred thousand dollars. Of American beer which was made in dif ferent parts of the country ami tested by 3ur Department of Agriculture, according '.o their report of 1887, six bottles out ot twenty-six contained salicylic acid, and jne out of two forelgu bottles which was made in Bremen and Inbelled "Kaiser." l'ho same report contains the result of the analysis of seventy samples of Ameri can wine, eighteen of which contained sal icylic acid aud thlrtesn sulphurous acid. In the composition of fifty other samples ot sweetened California wine, hardly a trace wus found of grape juice. The Criminal Inebriate. In an able address on State medicine be fore the American Medical Association at Columbus, by Dr. D. 11. Brower, of Chicago, oeour the following passages: "An Im portant factor In the cause of crime Is in temperance. Fully fifty per cent, of the criminals arrested iu Chicago are ine briates, and the police reports of New York show about the same proportion. Ferrl has shown beyond question that In Franco crimes lucrease aud decrease with the more or less abundant vintage, and we may safely attribute at least some of the In crease of criminality aud pauperism Iu the l*nlte<l States to the Increase of Intemper ance; and it may be estimated that alco holics are the direct or Indirect cause of probably seventy-five percent, of all crime committed." No Good in It. There is no real good that comes to one from the use of iutoxicants as a beverige. Most men who drink will admit there Is no good In it. The.' may insist that there Is no great harm, but at the same time ac knowledge that there are no beneficial re turns for the large Investments of time aud money. The supposed benefit to one's health, or to Ills social and business stand ing, cau readily be shown to be In fact no benefit at all Wlilaky and Collins. A writer in the Century tells of a man in Buenos Ayres who traded Iu whisky and coffins. "I remember," says he,"the tiers of whisky barrels ranged on end, on one side ot the store, while on the other side, and divided by a partition, were the colflus In the same or'der, of all sb.es and In great numbers. The unique arrange ment s-eemed in order, for as a cask was emptied u coffin might be filled," The Crusade In Bri«r. No one wants to be a drunkard. Total abstinence Is the only absolutely safe course. The man who calls himself, a "moderate drinker" deceives nobody but himself. Wine may multiply the flow of words, but it never increases the purity of thought. Alcohol, in eveu moderate quantities, tends to produce an appetite that become* imperious Iu Its demands. Some surgeons will not undertake to perform operations upon persons who have been addicted to drink.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers