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DR. CHAPMAN'S SERMON
A SUNDAY DISCOURSE BY THE NOTED
PASTOR-EVANGELIST.
Subject: Two Hundred Fainting Men
Every Person is Called Into the King-
dom of God For a Purpose—We Shall
Be Made to Account For Work Undone
NEw York City.—The following schol-
arly and readable sermon has been pre-
pared for the press by the popular pastor-
evangelist, the Rev. Dr. Wilbur Chap-
man. The subject of the discourse is “Two
hundred fainting - men,” apd it was
preached from the text, “Two hundred
ahode behind, which were so faint that
they could not go over the Brook Besor.”
I. Samuel 30: 10. ; :
In some respects we are reminded in
this story of the celebrated charge of the
Light Brigade, possibly because there were
600 of David's soldiers, and perhaps be-
cause they fought valiantly and won a
great victory. While the rank and file
would not compete with the men who
fought at Sebastapol or Inkerman, for
they had been a discontented lot in their
homes and in their service, yet there were
some really great soldiers among them, and
they were as ready to die as were those 600
illustrious men who made the gallant
charge not many years ago. ;
At the time of the text David was liv:
ing at Ziklag, and he and his men had
been away in battle. The battle has been
waged, the victory has been won and they
are homeward bound. They have camped
for the last night, and to-morrow morning
they will be with their loved ones. The or-
cr is given to break camp and forward
march, and when they came to the hill
where before them they could naturally
see Ziklag the first man shades his eyes
His face grows
pale and he begins to shudder, for Ziklag
is in ashes, and as they come nearer their
wives and children and all their property
have been carried away. They are about
to turn upon David and stone him, but
when he agrees to go after the enemy they
turn away from the ruins of their homes
and start in hot pursuit. They reach the
Brook Besor, and then find that they have
in their company men who are not able to
go on, some because they are old,, others
because they were crippled, and still oth-
ers because thev were ill. The number
comprised 200. In order that they might
move more rapidly and battle more suc-
cessfully all the heavy trappings were left
with the 200 at the Brook Besor, and 400
men pursued the enemy. They overtake
an Egyptian, who is left by the wayside
as good as dead, and when they give him
some refreshments and promise him that
they will not let him fall into the hands
of the enemy. neither will they put him to
death themselves, he tells them the direc-
tion that the enemy has gone, and pursu-
ing after them they come suddenly upon
them. They have been intoxicated with
their great success, and although the bat-
tle was fierce for a little while victory be-
longs to David and his men. Their wives
and children are theirs once more: most
valuable treasure also is taken, and they
have turned their faces back to the Brook
Besor. Suddenly some one in the company
begins to talk of the distribution of the
plunder, and they have about decided that
the 200 fainting men shall have nothing
when David, with all the kingliness that it
was possible for him to assume, declares
“25 his part is that goes out to the battle
so shall his part be that tarries by the
stuffs. They shall share and share alike,”
and then he turned to the Brook Besor
and saluted his men. Every old soldier
and every weak man received as much of
a reward as if he had been in the front of
the fight. :
There is an impression abroad that the
rewards for the Christian are given to
those who have rendered conspicuous ser-
vice; great preachers, great philanthro-
pists. great martyrs. This is not so ac-
cording to the text; neither is it true ac-
cording to the teaching of the Bible. Re-
wards are not given for the amount of noise
made in the world, nor for the amount of
good which we are supposed to have done,
but whether we have worked up to our
full capacity. :
You doubtless remember Plato’s fable
of the spirits that returned to this world
each to choose a body for its sphere of
work. One took the body of a king, an-
other a poet. still another of a philosopher,
and Ulysses came with great disappoint
ment because all that was worth having
was taken. when some one said the best
is left. You may choose the body of a
common man and do a common work and
receive a common reward, and this he did.
Tvery man is called into the kingdom of
God for a purpose. There is no question
about this. Just as in the makin of a
great locomotive every piece must be con:
structed by an exvert and every bit of
work must be marked with the name of
the workman, so that if the engine should
break in Jerusalem or China the failure
could be traced to the proper source. God
expects every man to do his duty, and for
every one in all the kingdom He has a plan
of course. We are not all expected to
perform the same mission. Paul has an
illustration of this in First Corinthians,
the 12th chapter. where he is describing
the body where he says, ‘Ye cannot say
to the hand, I have no need of thee, and
if the body were an eye where were the
hearing, etc.,”” but each performs its own
mission, the uncomely parts receiving the
greatest attention from the head. -So every
one of us has a work to do. If we leaveit
undone we shall be called to a strict ac-
count.
There are two kinds of work illustrated
in the story of these soldiers and the 200
fainting men. One kind is marching forth
under the gaze and admiration of the mul-
titude, the other is just tarrying by the
Brook Besor taking care of the stuff, and
vet it has its reward.
11.
How often the field to which God calls
us seems to us to be exceedingly small.
The business man who has gone to his
office all this while, and goes through the
round of commen tasks from morning to
night, from one week’s end to another,
year in and year out, chafling oft times be-
cause he is doing so little and yet forget-
ting that he can be “not slothful in busi-
ness, fervent in spirit serving the Lord,”
and because he does complain so much is
missing his opportunity to do what the
preacher never could do. The invalid upon
her couch racked with pain and filled with
complaint because her voice is never heard
in the congregations of the people, won-
dering why she ever lived, and crying out
against God because she has suffered so in-
tensely, thereby missing her opportunity
to give a testimony which no one else
could give but the invalid.
One of our honored old ministers a week
ago was plunged into great sorrow by the
news of the death of his son. He had died
by his own hand. When the news was
broken to the father it seemed as if he
would fall, when suddenly remembering
the comfort which he had ever given to
others he cried aloud, ‘Though He slay me
yet will I trust Him,” and he never
through all his ministry preached a better
sermon. The mother in her home bound
to her children, for while the chain may be
silken it is still a chain, chafling because
she can make her influence felt so little in
the world, and yet forgets that she is
doing what every angel in the skies would
like te do, having an opportunity placed
inher hands to mold a soul for eternity in
the direction of the lives of her boys. If
you find yourself in a discouraged position
do as Paul did, make the best of it, for we
remember what he said when he writes to
the Philippians, “But. I would ye should
understand, brethren, that the things
which happened unto me have fallen out
rather unto the furtherance of the gospel;
so that my bonds in Christ are manifest in
all the palace, and in all other places.
Philippians 1: 12-13. There are those who
say if I were only in a more enlarged
sphere I would be brave and true, but this
is not at all certain if you are not brave
and true where you stand to-day.
“Justewhere thou art lift up thy voice,
‘and sing the song that stirs thy heart;
Reach forth thy strong and eager hand
To lift, to save, just where thou art.
Just where thou standest light thy lamp,
'Tis dark to others as to thee;
Their ways are hedged by unseen thorns, -
Their burdens fret as thine fret thee.
“Out yonder, in the broad, full glare
Of many lamps thine own might pale
And thy sweet song amid the gear
Of many voices slowly fail;
While these thy kindred wandered on
Uncheered, unlighted, to the end.
Near to thy hand thy mission lies,
Wherever sad hearts need a friend.’
First—Perhaps you are where you are
because you have not filled full that posi-
tion, and God will never call you to a
higher place until’ you have ove flowed
where you are. Mourning and fretting be-
cause you are not where you want to be
does not make things better. The bonds
are only tightened by the fretfulness. Two
birds in two cages in a room give an illus-
tration. One dashing itself against the bars
because it is imprisoned, injuring itself
and stopping its song; the other singing
as if it would outsing the lark in the mead-
ows, and moving thereby its mistress to
oven the cage and set it free. He who does
the best he can where God has placed him
has put his foot on the round of the ladder
that leads up to higher things.
Second—Usefulness is not the primary
object for the Christian. We say, Oh,
that we might be more useful,” but first
rather let us desire to be more holy. for
that is God’s will. There is nothing bet-
ter for the most of us than sorrow or dis-
appointment or trial because these things
shape character. There is little merit in
being good when everything about us
makes us good, and usefulness is the result
of character, is to character what the fra-
grance is to the rose. The gardener does
not aim first for the fragrance, but
to make the rose perfect, and the fra-
grance takes care of itself. If you study
the sermons of Whitfield, Wesley, Spur-
geon and Moody you may wonder why
these sermons produced such mighty ef-
fects. It was because the power was In
the messenger rather than in the message.
To be right with God, to be holy, to be
like Christ, is our first duty, and through
the door of holiness we pass to usefulness.
In the early painting days of West,
Morse, the philosopher, entered his studio.
He was painting his masterpiece of “Christ
Rejected,” when he said to his friend,
“Tet me tie your hands and paint them in
the picture,” and if you have ever seen
this picture you have seen the hands of
Morse painted in the stead of Christ. If
vou are in bonds for Christ’s sake this very
thought will take from you the sting of
living possibly out of sight and doing only
common things as you have done in other
days, yet the time will. come when you
will be free. ;
Perhaps there are those here who are in
bondage because they have never yet be-
come Christians. In the old Water street
mission there came one day a man bowed
down with sin until he stood little more
than four feet high, like a veritable dwarf,
but when he bowed at the altar an
yielded himself to Christ he stood up as
straight as an athlete. Perhaps this is
what you need. Sighing for peace, you
have not found it, searching for pleasure ib
has eluded its grasp. Oh, come to Christ
to-day, for He may set you free. ;
Then discipline may free us. Rawlins
White, the old martyr, was decrepit and
bowed with age, but when he stepped into
the fire suddenly these bonds were snapped
and his body was as straight as it had ever
been in the days of his youth, and it may
not be when sorrow came to you and
your heart was almost breaking, when the
flames of affliction took hold upon you that
God’ was but seeking to free you from
bondage and lead you out into a larger
field of service. The thing from which you
shrank away He meant for your edifica-
tion.
A dear friend of mine with whom I trav-
eled recently said, “I was but an average
Christian until one day God came unto my
home and took my daughter, and then in
the midst of my sorrow I yielded
myself to Him, gave Him my time and
my money and everything that I had, and
I stepped out into a life of blessing such as
I had never known, and I would not give
the last twelve years for all my life before |
put together.” ‘And then, too, we shall be
free when we see Him. For the man
whose sphere has been most circumscribed
here will doubtless find when he stands in
the presence of the King that he was but
in a preparation for a mission among the
saints at which the very angels might weld
stand amazed.
117,
If all these seem like hardships to us and
we have been without comfort, then let us
wait until the day of reward shall come.
The mother who has had a hard time with
her children, just wait and do your best.
When Charles Wesley comes to judgment,
and all the hosts that have been won to
Christ by His power of music come, it will
be a great day, and when John Wesley
comes to judgment with all the souls of
Methodism with him it will be a marvelous
sight, but higher than the throne of either
Charles Wesley or John will be throne of
Susana Wesley, their mother.
_ The old preacher who has been discour-
aged oft times because his church was so
small and his work so apparently insignifi-
cant, needs only to wait until that great
day, and when that old minister who
preached in Falkirk stands in His presence
to say possibly to Him, “Master, I had but
a little field,” he will hear Him say, “But
you led Robert Moffat to me,” and as
Joseph Parker said the man who added
Robert Moffat to the church added a conti-
nent to the kingdom. And when the old
English minister whose field was very cir-
cumscribed, whose name is not generally
known, stands in His presence to say,
“Master, I did the best I could, but my
church was small,” He will say to him,
“But you led Charles Spurgeon to Christ,
and Spurgeon led a multitude.”
When Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn
came up the River Thames they had a
great entrance into the city of London.
Fifty barges followed the Lord Mayor.
Officials were dressed in scarlet. Musicians
chanted upon the banks of the river, and
she who was to be the queen clad in gar-
ments of beauty, walking upon velvet, en-
tered Westminster Abbey, and the service
was a great one, but it is as nothing com-
pared to the end when the rewards are
given to those who have simply been
faithful.
TI was sick, He will say, “and ye visited
Me,” and the young Christian Endeavorer
will say, ‘But, Master, when?” and He
will answer, “it was when you walked
through the wards of the hospital and gave
a flower to this one and a cup of cold
water to that one.” “I was weak and ye
helped Me,” and this business man will
say, “But, Master,when?”’ and He will an-
swer, “It was the coin you gave to the man
in the crowded streets of the city yester-
day, and who but for that coin would have
starved.” And to the mother who has
cared for her children, and the business
man who has faithfully performed the task
of his business, and the father who has
been true in his home He will say, “Inas-
much as ye did it unto the least of these
ye did it unto Me.”
So you see it is not at all a question
as to where we have labored or how small
our experience has been, but have we done
our best. If so, we shall receive a reward.
SOUTH HADBILLSTOBURN
FINANCIAL FACTS OF THE CONFED-
ERACY SOUND LIKE ROMANCE:
The First Currency Was Shabby Looking
Stuff, Printed on Inferior Paper, and
the Work of the Engraver Was Badly
PDone-Greed of Speculators.
The financial history of the Confed-
erate States will never be written.
The story of the unsuccessful effort
of the Southern republic to create and
maintain a currency would read like a
romance in this practical, cold-blooded
age.
At the beginning of our Civil War
the South had just closed a decade of
exceptional progress and development,
and her cotton product alone was in
such general demand that it would
have been easy to utilize it in a way
that would have strengthened the new
Government and given it a fair start.
According to experienced financiers,
the cotton stored on Southern planta-
tions and in the warehouses ian the
fall of 1861 might easily have been
purchased by the Government for six
per cent. Confederate bonds. It could
have been shipped to Europe before
the Federal blockade became efficient,
and during the following three years it
would have yielded the enormous sum
of $1,600,000,0C0.
And this money, mind you, would
have been gold, the only curréney that
is worth anything to a new nation
forced to fight its way from the very
first.
The Southern hoople were patriotic
and unselfish, as a rule, throughout
their long struggle, and in the early
days of the Confederacy all classes
gave it their encouragement and sup-
port in every possible way.
The first Confederate currency was
shabby looking , printed on in-
ferior paper, afl work of the en-
graver was so badly done that un-
scrupulous persons in the North found
it easy to turn out counterfeits, which
soon flooded the entire South. .
But the people welcomed it because
it was the money of the Confederacy.
They knew very little about Mr. C. G.
Memminger, the Secretary of the
"Treasury,) but he had been selected by
President Davis, and that was enough
for them to know.
So-there was a currency craze from
the beginning. Ilverybody wanted the
new, crisp bills, and the prophets of
evil kept their forebodings to them-
selves:
For some time the new money held
its own. During the early months
of 1861 those who came from the North
and from Europe spent their gold and
silver freely in Richmond and other
Confederate cities.
If anybody anticipated the rapid de-
preciation and collapse of the currency
he wisely held his tongue.
In 1861, from January 1 to May 1, it
depreciated five per cent.; by October
1 ten per cent. and by December 1 it
had lost twenty per cent.
In 1862 it took $2.50 in this money
to buy $1 in gold on the 1st of Sep-
tember.
In 1863 it was down to three for
one February 1, and twenty-one for
one December 15.
In 1864 it went down to twenty-three
for one, September 15, and after At-
lanta’s capture and destruction it de-
preciated rapidly until the shoppers
during the Christmas holidays found
that $51 in Confederate currency was
only equal to one little gold dollar.
In 1865 it went down in a hurry.
January 1 it was sixty for one; April
1 it was eighty for one. By April 28
the cause was hopeless. A dollar in
gold then commanded $500 in Confed-
erate bills. On the 29th of the same
month it stood $800 for $1. The next
day it was $1000 for $1, and on May
1 a dollar in gold brought $1200. the
i last actual sale.
Shortly after the fall of Savannah, in
December 1864, the month’s pay of a
Confederate private soldier would .only
buy him a pound of meat. A decent
hat was worth $200; a nice suit of
clothes $600; a bushel of wheat from
$40 to $50; a drink of good whisky. $10,
and a horse several thousand dollars.
Before the final collapse of the cur-
rency in Richmond, beef, pork, and
butter sold for $35 a pound, and flour
brought $1400 a barrel.
Just before the surrender at Ap-
pomattox a private soldier’s pay for a
month was equal to only 33 cents in
gold. : ,
The mistake was made all through
the war of turning out Confederate
currency in vast quantities.
The people could have done without
hundreds of millions of dollars in this
money if the Government had found a
more satisfactory way of distributing
It,
When the currency became more
worthless every day the speculators
were more active than ever.
They sprang up suddenly everywhere
in the South—a gang of greedy, heart-
less fellows, and through their extor-
tionate methods they accumulated im-
mense fortunes.
A remarkable aristocracy of the new-
Iy rich leaped to the front. Many of
these speculators were without money
or credit in 1860. In 1864 they were
rolling in wealth. Georgia alone had
fifteen millionaires, according to Con-
federate values.
The greed of the speculators caused
indescribable suffering among the
masses. Articles needed by every
household and by the soldiers in the
field were purchased in great quanti-
ties by sharp traders, who ran prices
up to fabulous figures. They tried to
get hold of all the salt in the Confeder-
acy and fix the price to suit themselves,
In Georgia their scheme was not suc-
cessful. Governor Joseph HE. Brown
was determined to protect the people
and tle soldiers. He seized the salt
held above a reasonable price and sold
it to the poor at the lowest possible
figures.
The Legislature also took hold of the |
matter and established a salt bureau
for the benefit of the people. This bu-
reau operated extensive salt works, but
the people were never afforded ade-
quate relief, though the Legislature ap-
propriated $500,000 at a time to buy
salt for them and the Governor seized
it right and left when the speculators
charged too much.
Some speculators were not oppressive
or offensive. They let the necessaries
of life alone and dealt in diamonds,
gold and silver coin and greenbacks.
They were to Le found in cvery
Scuthern town of any size, and their
extravagant and showy mode of living
made it evident that they had prcs-
pered. :
It was unpopular to buy specie and
greenbacks, rnd those who got rid of
their Confederate currency in this way
kept their transactions very quiet.
In some localities it was considered
almost treasonable for a man to ex-
change Confederate currency for the
currency of the enemy, and in more
than one instance the purchysers were
forced to leave the State.
Never in the State’s history were
there so many poor people. They were
generally the families of the soldiers
at the front, and the Legislature ap-
propriated millions of dollars for their
relief. 3 A
Frequently the depreciation of Con-
federate money worked great hard-
ships.
In some cases men tendered Confed-
erate bills in repayment of gold, or
other sound money, borrowed a year
before the war.
This was shamefully fraudulent. It
was very like robbery to force a cred-
itor to accept rag money when flour
was $1400 a barrel, and sometimes the
creditor would refuse to take the trash
in place of the gold which he had
loaned as an acccmmodation.
But the debtor had the advantage.
All that he had to do was to point out
the creditor as a disloyal citizen whose
guilt was clearly proved by his refusal
to take the cutrency of the new Gov-
ernment.
It has always been the fashion to get
off jokes and witticisms at the expense
of Confederate money.
Some years ago Colonel Henry D.
Capers wrote several chapters of a
history of this remarkable currency.
The Colonel is inclined to look on the
humorous side of life, and in his exag-
gerated way lie published a statement
to the effect that, after running the
printing presses all day to supply the
Government with money, the "toilers
in the press room were allowed to run
off bills all night to pay them for their
work.
Things were not quite that bad; but
it must be admitted that the Govern-
ment’s constant inflation of the cur-
rency was a very serious blow to the
Confederacy.
However, it may not be amiss to re-
mark that 'our patriotic forefathers,
although successful in their struggle
for independence, made no effort to
redeem their Continental shinplasters.
“Too much of it,” was their excuse,
and they certainly had good grounds
for their opinion.—Sunny South.
Spectacles and Climate.
Dr. Hull, of Pasadena, reads a need-
ed lesson to Eastern physicians who
are indifferent to or ignorant of the
powerful influences for evil of eye-
strain upon the general system, and
who send their patients to California
instead of to the home oculist. “It is
surprising,” he ‘says, “how many neu-
rasthenics cross the continent in search
of health who have uncorrected errors
of refraction, which are the largest fac-
tors in their breakdowns.” The “glare
of the sun” in this land of sunshine
compels them upon arriving to seek the
local oculist there, who, in relieving
eye strain relieves also the stomach
trouble, the headaches, the insomnia,
depression of spirits, spinal exhaustion,
ete., for which they came. Even when
there is such organic disease as pul-
monary tuberculosis the cure is hast-
encd, complicating symptoms relieved
and life made more enjoyable by this
aid.—American Medicine.
- How to Drink Water.
A beginning of kidney trouble lies
in the fact that people, especially
women, do not drink enough water.
They pour down tumblerfuls of ice
water as an accompaniment to a meal,
but that is worse than no water, the
chill preventing digestion, and indi-
gestion being an indirect promoter of
kidney disease. A tumbler of water
sipped in the morning immediately on
rising, another at night, are recom-
mended by physicians. Try to drink
as little water as possible with meals,
but take a glassful half an hour to an
hour before eating. This rule persist-
ed in day after day, month after
month, the complexion will improve,
and the general health likewise. Wa-
ter drunk with meals should be sipped,
as well as taken sparingly.—Good
Housekeeping.
Something About Gardeners.
A skilled gardener commands easily
a salary of from $1500 to $2000 a year.
There are a dozen such men in this
city, who have ten or more assistants,
and who devote their own time only to
the highest branches of the gardening
art—to making orchid seedlings, to
grafting and to originating new species
of flowers. These men write for horti
cultural magazines and get their pho:
tographs in horticultural papers. Some
of them have whole boxes full of med:
als and ribbons from various flower
shows. As a rule they are foreigners.
They serve, in learning their art, an
apprenticeship that is much lenger
than the course of a medical college or
a law school.—Philadelpbia Record,
i WHY MT. PELEE EXPLODED.
Gases Produced by Inrush of Sea Water
Upon Lava.
The fearful loss of life at Martinique
- and the suddenness of the destruction
| seem mysterious to most people, and
are scorcely to be accounted for by
any of the text books relating to vol-
canic phenomena.
But yet there appears to be-a simple
and scientific explanation of all that
occurred there in those few fearful
minutes. Al geologists admit that the
common cause of violent volcanic erup-
tions is the generation of steam at
enormously high pressure by water
coming in contact with very het lava
at great depths, and that the gases
and “smoke” ejected are chiefly steam
and cinders or ashes.
But the surviving eye witnesses of
the volcanic eruption at Martinique
speak of the “tornado of fire’’” which
suddenly swept over the city and
killed most of the people and instantly
set on fire the buildings and shipping;
and also of the suffocating vapors that
immediately killed most of those that
escaped the outburst of flame. This
fire can be fully explained by.the dis-
cociation of the oxygen and hydrogen
cf the water that came in sudden con-
tact with intensely heated lava within
the volcano.
As it was probably sea water, the
chlorine of the salt would also be sep-
arated as a gas. These gases, escap-
ing with great violence, and in vast
volumes, mixed with steam, would
eject the hot stones and cinders and
then instantaneously explode in the
open air, causing the intensely violent
outburst of hot flames that swept
down the mountain and over the town,
for such a mixture of oxygen and
hydrogen is among the most explosive
of all known gases, and it produces an
Intense heat.
If chlorine were present, as was
doubtless the case, it would also form
an explosive mixture with the hydro-
gen, generating hydrochloric acid gas.
This is an exceedingly suffocating gas
—deadly if inhaled in any considerable
amount. It is always produced when
sea water comes in contact with highly
volcanoes near the sea.
The burned condition in which most
of the dead and wounded were found,
and the evidences of suffocation in
other cases, prove conclusively that
this separation and explosive reunion
of the elements of sea-water were the
immediate causes of the “whirlwind of
flame” and the sudden destruction of
life. The vast explosive flame doubt-
less reached the city before the stones
that were ejected by the same out-
burst of the gases could fall there.
The writer, in teaching geology dur-
ing many years, has always applied
this explanation to other violent vol-
canic eruptions, like that of Krakatoa,
in opposition to the text books, but
the eruption at Martinique proves its
correctness most completely. At Kra-
katoa no'eye witnesses were left alive
to tell what happened.
A similar explosive effect, on a small
scale, is produced when a small quan-
tity of water is thrown upon the very
hot coals in a furnace. The hydrogen
separates from the oxygen of the
water and then explodes with an out-
burst of hot flames. Instances have
occurred when terrible explosions have
been produced by water accidently get-
ting into blast furnaces and other very
hot furnaces.
In all such cases great volumes of
hydrogen are liberated, and mixing
with the air explode very violently,
with the production of very hot flames.
In a volcano the hot lava and the
water are in unlimited quantities and
under enormous pressures, far beyond
any that can be produced artificially.—
A. E. Verrill, Yale Universitv. New
Haven.
Germ-Carrying Pigeons.
An epidemic of scarlet fever, start-
ing in Cincinnati, has spread in the
last few weeks through a number of
towns in Ohio, and the he:lth authori-
ties, after taking extraordinary pre-
cautions to confine the disease within
the limit of its first ravages, were
puzzled to understand the means by
which it was carried elsewhere.
They made an investigation and have
now come to the conclusion that much
of the contagion was spread by tame
pigeons and doves which carried the
contagion from place to place.
The evidence on which this theory
is based is that scarlet fever spread
under strict quarantine from a house
on the roof of which there was a large
pigeon cote. The only live stock about
the house not quarantined was the
pigeons, which flew about the neigh-
borhood.
If they didn’t carry the disease germs
the authorities don’t know how the
fever was spread.—New York Sun.
Dust-Borne Disease.
In the discussion at the recent con
gress of surgeons in Berlin on the first
aid to the wounded on the battlefield
it was brought out by Burns, Bartels
mann and others that the danger in
modern warfare is not so much from
primary inflection by the small-caliber
projectile of rapid-fire rifles as from
secondary infection by contamination
of the wound from the clothing or the
dust of the battlefield. The effect cf the
field svwrgeon is, therefore, more to ex-
clude septic and tetanus germs than to
disinfect the wound. But to come
nearer home, the danger of dust is em.
phasized by the report that New York
City has over 450 street sweepers on
the sick list with diseases due to the
inhalation of infectious dust. A num.
ber of infections are so commonly
conveyed in dust as to merit the desig-
nation of “dust diseases.” Of these
cerebro-spinal meningitis is of frequent
occurrence
mouths.
American Medicine.
‘western United States—Mt.
heated lava deep within the crater of
in cities during the spriog |
Prilg | . law school.—Philadelphia Record.
i
that an analysis of a sample of mineral
dust from the Martinique eruption—
dust which fell on the ship Alesandro
del Bueno, which was at the time about
one hundred miles distant from the
island—gave results as follows: Silica,
53.34 per cent.; sesqui-oxide of iron
and aluminum, 30.68 per cent.; calcium
oxide, 10.77 per cent.; magnesium oXx-
ide, 4.12 per cent.; sulphur, 0.7 per
cent.; phosphorus, a trace. The pow-
der is highly magnetic.
There is a plant in Holland known ag
the evening primrose, Which grows tc
a height of five or six feet, and bears
a profusion of large, yellow flowers, so
brilliant that they attract immediate
attention, even at a great distance.
But the chief peculiarity about the
plant is the fact that the flowers, which
open just before sunset, “burst into
bloom so suddenly that they give one
the impression of some materialagency
A man who has seen this sudden
blooming says it is just as if some
one had touched the land with a wand
and thus covered it all at once with a
golden sheet.
Says the National Geographic Maga-
zine: Glittering snowfields and vast
glaciers now cover the summits of the
mighty volcanic mountains of the
Shasta,
14,350 feet; Mt.. Ranier, 14,525 feet;
Mt. Hood, 11,225 feet, and other noble
peaks. One of the most remarkable
of these extinct volcanoes is the well-
known Mt, Mazama, in Oregon. The
crater of Mt. Mazama is now occupied
by a lake five to six miles in diameter.
The lake is 6239 feet above the sea, is
1975 feet deep and sufrounded by al-
mest vertical walls, towering 900 to
2200 feet. This is the only crater lake
in the United States.
‘We are in the habit of seeking the
shade of a tree as a means of getting
ccol, but that is not the only power it
has of reducing the temperature. On
the same principle that a lump of ice
will cool a glass of water a tree will
cool the air around it, because its own
temperature is uniformly about forty-
five degrees; that is to say, the tem-
perature of a tree as a body. This is
little understood, perhaps, but it is a
recognized scientific fact, and it adds
much force to the argument in favor
of planting trees in cities. A clump
of trees is capable of making a ma-
terial reduction in temperature. The
woods, therefore, are cool, not only
because they are shady, but because
the trees are constantly fighting off
the heat.
The scientific cause of a tornado’s
destructive effect is not generally un-’
derstood. The effect is produced by
different air-pressures. The normal air-
pressure on all surfaces at sea level is
17.7 pounds for each square inch, or
about 2117 pounds for each square
foot. The pressure in the centre of a
tornado, in the dark “funnel,” is one-
fourth lighter; that is to say, about
520 pounds lighter. Now, before a
tornado reaches a house, the air-pres-
sure on every square foot of wall, in-
side and out, and of roof and floor, is
2117 pounds, and as this pressure is
exerted in every direction, it is not
appreciable. But when the tornado
comes the pressure on the outside of
the house is suddenly reduced to the
extent of 529 pounds, while the inside
pressure remains unchanged. The in-
evitable result is an explosion from
the inside. The walls and dcors of a
house under these circumstances are
always blown outwards, not inwards.
When Mountain Climbing Began.
Now that Cecil Rhodes has estab
lished the poetry and romance of the
Matoppos it is worth recalling how
very modern is this love of mountains
and mountain scenery. Even till the
eighteenth century was more than halt
told their rugged grandeur was re-
garded with superstitious awe on the
one hand, and with entire indifference
on the other. For Europeans the Alps
stood as typical; yet it was not till
31786 that the summit of Mont Blanc
was reached by Jacques Balmot,
tempted .by the reward offered by M
de Saussure, who himself made the
expedition the following year in silk -
coat, silver buttons and smart shoes.
—so little was mountaineering under:
stood. But it was not till after 1851.
the year when Albert Smith, having
climbed Mont Blanc, gave a popular
entertainment at the Egyptian Hall
concerning his experiences that the
great rush of tourists to Mont Blanc
and the Alps began. Whereas be:
tween 1786 and 1850 there were only
fifty-seven ascents. and then mostly
for scientific purposes, from 1852 te
1357 tbere were sixty-four ascents,
and ihe Alpine Club, started in 1858,
became an inevitable corollarv.—Lon-
don Chronicle.
Something About Gardeners.
A skilled gardener commands easily
a salary of from $1500 to $2000 a year.
There are a dozen such men in this
city, who have ten or more assistants,
and who devote their own time only te
thre highest branches of the gardening
art—to making orchid seedlings, to
grafting and to originating new species
cf flowers. These men write for horti-
cultural magazines and get their pho-
tographs in horticultural papers. Some
cf them have whole boxes full of med-
als and ribbons from various flower
sliows. As a rule they are foreigners.
They serve, in learning their art, an.
apprenticé®hip that is much longer
than the course of a medical college ot