Chapter 15

The run from Paris to Marseilles, 585 miles, is made in 750 minutes, with only six stops. Many of the shorter runs, such as from Paris to Calais, to the Belgian frontier, etc., are at the rate of from fifty-eight to sixty-two miles an hour for the regular schedule.

Europe's Fast Averages.

According to a German authority, the average speed of the fastest trains in Europe is as follows: French, fifty-eight miles an hour; English, fifty-five miles an hour, and German, fifty-one. As a matter of experience, fast trains are hard to find in Germany, and the service in this respect does not compare with France.

It takes the fastest train 227 minutes to go from Berlin to Hamburg, 178 miles, which is 47½ miles an hour, and the "luxe" train, the one fast goer between Münich and Vienna, runs at only 45.60 miles an hour; but there are as a rule frequent trains throughout Germany and the service is good.

For all the rest of Europe the speed drops to about 30 miles an hour for express trains. Italy is surprisingly slow. It takes the express 965 minutes to go from Turin to Rome, 413 miles, or only 26 miles an hour, though the Milan-Rome express makes nearly 40 miles an hour.

Between Rome and Naples, 155 miles, there are only four or five trains daily, the fastest at 34 miles an hour, while it takes 920 minutes to go 439 miles on the best train from Rome to Brindisi, a rate of less than 30 miles an hour.

The express between Stockholm and Gothenburg, the two large cities of Sweden, barely makes 30 miles an hour. In the remaining continental countries the trains are even slower.

THE BEGINNINGS OF THINGS.

Sealing-wax in the present form was first noted in London in the middle of the sixteenth century. A sort of earth was used by the ancient Egyptians in sealing papers and documents. The Egyptians placed such earth on the horns of cattle, and upon it was stamped the seal of the priest. Thus were identified the cattle to be used in the sacrifices.

The diving-bell was not mentioned before the sixteenth century. Two Greeks in that century (1538) gave an exhibition before Charles V, descending into water of considerable depth in a large inverted kettle. They took down with them burning lights. The men returned to the surface without being wet. The light was still burning.

The Lombardians were the first to use effectual quarantine methods against the plague and infectious diseases, and mention of a quarantine is made in Lombardy and Milan in 1374, 1383, and 1399. Prior to that time Christian communities resigned themselves to the visitation of the plague, regarding it as a divine punishment.

J.H. Schultze, a German, obtained the first actual photographic copies (of writing) in 1727; and to Thomas Wedgwood is due the honor of first producing pictures on sensitized surfaces in 1802. Between 1826 and 1833 Louis Jacques Daguerre and Nicéphore Nièpce perfected the daguerreotype process, the first practical photography. Their discovery was communicated to the French Academy of Sciences in 1839.

The turkey is an American bird. Lucullus and the Epicureans did not know about him. He was found in his wild state after Columbus's time. About a hundred years after the discovery of America broiled young turkeys became great delicacies on the Frenchman's table.

A telegraphic line, consisting of twenty-four wires, each representing a letter, was established by Lesage, at Geneva, in 1774; and in the same year Bishop Watson made experiments over a two-mile wire near London. In Germany the invention is credited to Sommering--1809.

Cork was known to the Greeks and Romans, and was put to almost as many uses as at present, although there is no mention in Rome of linoleum, notwithstanding its Roman sound. Glass bottles, with cork stoppers, for wine and beer did not come into use until the middle of the fourteenth century.

Water-mills were used in the time of Julius Cæsar. In Roman times slaves were condemned to the corn-mills, which were propelled by treads. Afterward cattle were used. In the third and fourth centuries there were as many as three hundred cattle-mills in Rome.

Corn-mills are often mentioned in the Bible. The original corn-mill much resembled the modern druggist's pestle. Moses forbade corn-mills to be taken in pawn, for that, he thought, was like taking a man's life in pledge.

Joseph Henry was the first to construct electro-magnets in a useful form. In 1832, at the Albany Academy, he succeeded in ringing a bell over a mile of wire.

Wire was first beaten out by a hammer, but the artisans of Nuremberg, in 1350, began to draw it, which was the great step forward in that art.

The first camera-obscura was invented by Giambattista della Porta, an Italian philosopher, during the latter half of the sixteenth century.

The first cologne was called Hungary water, from the country of its invention. It was made from spirits of wine distilled upon rosemary.

Colored glass came from Egypt. The Egyptians carried the art to great perfection apparently before history begins to tell of it.

Buckwheat began to be cultivated in England in 1597. It had been brought into Europe from Asia one hundred years before.

Wall paper, with fancy colored figures, began to be used in 1620. The art was developed thereafter largely by the French.

A RESCUED POEM.

The Scrap Book Resurrects from Distressing Obscurity a Gem That Might Otherwise Have Been Lost to Posterity.

History records that in 1895 Langdon Smith, at that time connected with the Sunday edition of the New York _Herald_, wrote the first few stanzas of the following poem. They were printed in the _Herald_. Four years later, having joined the staff of the New York _Journal_ in the interim, Mr. Smith came across the verses among his papers, and, reading them over, was struck with a sense of their incompleteness. He added a stanza or two, and laid the poem aside. Later he wrote more stanzas, and finally completed it and sent it in to Arthur Brisbane, editor of the _Evening Journal_. Mr. Brisbane, being unable to use it, turned it over to Charles E. Russell, of the _Morning Journal_. It appeared in the _Morning Journal_--in the middle of a page of want "ads"! How it came to be buried thus some compositor may know. Perhaps a "make-up" man was inspired with a glimmer of editorial intelligence to "lighten up" the page.

But even a deep border of "ads" could not smother the poem. Mr. Smith received letters of congratulation from all parts of the world, along with requests for copies. The poem has been in constant demand; and it has been almost unobtainable. Here for the first time it is given to the public in a suitable position, with proper recognition--proof once more that the true spark cannot long remain hid under a bushel.

Mr. Smith has caught a note of deep interest. He has linked evolution to the theory of soul-transmigration--has translated Wordsworth's ode on immortality into the terms of science. "The glory and the dream" come, not from another world, but from the Paleozoic period, in which existed the most ancient forms of life of which traces still remain. And the author gives us glimpses of man in several geological periods, showing him, finally, as the cave man of the Stone Age; whence it is comparatively a short jump to the twentieth century--and Delmonico's.

EVOLUTION.

BY LANGDON SMITH.

When you were a tadpole and I was a fish, In the Paleozoic time, And side by side on the ebbing tide We sprawled through the ooze and slime, Or skittered with many a caudal flip Through the depths of the Cambrian fen, My heart was rife with the joy of life, For I loved you even then.

Mindless we lived and mindless we loved, And mindless at last we died; And deep in a rift of the Caradoc drift We slumbered side by side. The world turned on in the lathe of time, The hot lands heaved amain, Till we caught our breath from the womb of death, And crept into light again.

We were Amphibians, scaled and tailed, And drab as a dead man's hand; We coiled at ease 'neath the dripping trees, Or trailed through the mud and sand, Croaking and blind, with our three-clawed feet Writing a language dumb, With never a spark in the empty dark To hint at a life to come.

Yet happy we lived, and happy we loved, And happy we died once more; Our forms were rolled in the clinging mold Of a Neocomian shore. The eons came, and the eons fled, And the sleep that wrapped us fast Was riven away in a newer day, And the night of death was past.

Then light and swift through the jungle trees We swung in our airy flights, Or breathed in the balms of the fronded palms, In the hush of the moonless nights. And oh! what beautiful years were these, When our hearts clung each to each; When life was filled, and our senses thrilled In the first faint dawn of speech.

Thus life by life, and love by love, We passed through the cycles strange, And breath by breath, and death by death, We followed the chain of change. Till there came a time in the law of life When over the nursing sod The shadows broke, and the soul awoke In a strange, dim dream of God.

I was thewed like an Auroch bull, And tusked like the great Cave Bear; And you, my sweet, from head to feet, Were gowned in your glorious hair. Deep in the gloom of a fireless cave, When the night fell o'er the plain, And the moon hung red o'er the river bed, We mumbled the bones of the slain.

I flaked a flint to a cutting edge, And shaped it with brutish craft; I broke a shank from the woodland dank, And fitted it, head and haft. Then I hid me close to the reedy tarn, Where the Mammoth came to drink;-- Through brawn and bone I drave the stone, And slew him upon the brink.

Loud I howled through the moonlit wastes, Loud answered our kith and kin; From west and east to the crimson feast The clan came trooping in. O'er joint and gristle and padded hoof, We fought, and clawed and tore, And cheek by jowl, with many a growl, We talked the marvel o'er.

I carved that fight on a reindeer bone, With rude and hairy hand, I pictured his fall on the cavern wall That men might understand. For we lived by blood, and the right of might, Ere human laws were drawn. And the Age of Sin did not begin Till our brutal tusks were gone.

And that was a million years ago, In a time that no man knows; Yet here to-night in the mellow light, We sit at Delmonico's; Your eyes are deep as the Devon springs, Your hair is as dark as jet. Your years are few, your life is new, Your soul untried, and yet----

Our trail is on the Kimmeridge clay, And the scarp of the Purbeck flags, We have left our bones in the Bagshot stones, And deep in the Coraline crags; Our love is old, our lives are old, And death shall come amain; Should it come to-day, what man may say We shall not live again?

Then as we linger at luncheon here, O'er many a dainty dish, Let us drink anew to the time when you Were a Tadpole and I was a Fish.

A HOROSCOPE OF THE MONTHS.

BY MARION Y. BUNNER.

SECOND INSTALMENT.

What the Old Astrological Traditions Say of the Characteristics and the Destiny of Those Born Under the Sign "Aries," Representing the Period Between March 21 and April 19.

_Compiled and edited for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.

ARIES: THE RAM.

MARCH 21 to APRIL 19.

CUSP: MARCH 21 to MARCH 27.

The constellation "Aries"--the first sign of the zodiac, and the head sign of the Fire Triplicity--exerts its influence from March 21 to April 19, the period coinciding with the first month of the Roman year. It is a cardinal, equinoctial, movable, masculine sign, the positive pole of the Fire Triplicity, governing the face and head. The most typical attributes of its subjects are unfailing courage, intuition, and reason.

A person born during the period of the cusp, when the sun is on the edge of the sign, does not receive the full benefits of the individuality of either sign, but partakes of the characteristics of both.

Persons born under this sign are positive, obedient, yet with a faculty for commanding, paradoxical as this may appear. They are also inventive, original, determined, and executive. Once the mind of an Aries subject is made up, nothing can swerve him from the course he has determined to pursue. Before undertaking any new enterprise, his habit is to study the entire situation carefully, thereby discovering and profiting by many seemingly minor, yet in the end important, points which would probably have escaped the ordinary individual.

Aries people are good conversationalists, having keen intellects. Many fine writers, poets, lecturers, and teachers come out of this sign.

They are aggressive and excitable, oftentimes going to extremes in their excitement, and they are apt to show too much antagonism. They enter a fight to win, and nothing can induce them to back out of it. The Aries woman has the same fighting spirit, and stands by her friends to the end, no matter what the circumstances may be.

The subjects of Aries are easily angered, but the fire is quickly quenched, leaving behind no sting or grudge. They are generous, sympathetic, and kindly, and so much do they think of their friends that they will never acknowledge a comrade's faults. On the other hand, they never fail to see the failings of their enemies and to speak of them in no uncertain terms.

The traits of Aries people are perhaps more varied and peculiar than those of any other of the twelve signs. They are not naturally patient, yet they are extremely so with those they love.

The Aries man is usually well-built, strong, and tall.

According to some authorities, the short, broad-shouldered subjects are much more fortunate in making money than are the tall ones. They have intellectual eyes, a ruddy complexion. Their foreheads are broad at the eyebrows. The eyes are generally deep set. They are more than willing to work for what they want to secure.

The success of an Aries subject depends upon the way in which he uses his splendid energy, action, systematic endeavor, and finally upon his determination to stick at the work in hand and push it to completion.

Faults Are Impatience and Anger.

The chief faults of the Aries people are impatience, anger, selfishness, and fickleness, together with a tendency to extreme aggressiveness. The physical temperament of the subject will be nervous-sanguine if born in a southern climate, and bilious-sanguine if born in a northern latitude.

When Aries and Sagittarius people are united, astrologists declare that a happy domestic life is certain. The children will be physically fine, their nature still finer, and their intellect of the highest order.

Aries children should be very carefully and tenderly brought up. They can be readily managed only through kindness and love. In fact, Aries children seem to demand a constant expression of love. They crave a just appreciation of any little task they may perform.

It is most important that an Aries child be not overpraised, for in so doing his higher development is certain to be arrested.

The ruling planets of the month are Mars and Neptune, and the gems are sapphire, turquoise, and diamond. The astral colors are blue, white, and pink. An old rhyme says:

Those who in April date their years, Diamonds should wear, lest bitter tears For vain repentance flow.

Traditions of the Month.

For Aries people, Tuesday is the most fortunate day of the week, and June and July the most favorable months in which to bring any business transactions to a successful issue. It is well for an Aries subject to endeavor to carry out the most important business interests during these months.

The flower emblematic of Aries is the amaryllis, signifying unbending pride. The ancient Hebraic tribe over which the sign has ruled is that of Gad, and the ruling angel of the sign is Machidial.

In the old Roman reckoning, April was the second month, but it is counted in the Julian calendar as the fourth. The traditional derivation of the name is _omnia aperit_--"it opens everything." Among the Romans, this month was sacred to Venus. The first twenty days were given over to feasts, games, and equestrian combats. On the 21st, which was regarded as the birthday of Rome, the wine of the previous autumn was first tasted; on the 25th, the ceremony of the Robigalia, for the averting of mildew, and on the last three days came the "Dance of the Flowers."

The 1st of April has long been a day for the playing of practical jokes. According to an old tradition, this custom had its origin in the belief that it was on the first day of April that Noah sent his dove on its fruitless search for evidence of the subsidence of the flood. The dove got back without an olive-branch, but there is no evidence on which to base the belief that Noah regarded the failure of the bird's mission as a joke.

Singularly enough, the great day for practical joking in Hindustan is March 31.

It is usually in the month of April, too, that Easter falls. The word "Easter" is of Saxon derivation. Among the Teutonic races, April was called Ostermonath--the month of the east wind. Our Easter Sunday must be between March 21 and April 25. It is regulated by the occurrence of the paschal moon, or first full moon between the vernal equinox and fourteen days afterward.

Though it has long been the custom to make Easter Day the occasion of the celebration of the resurrection of Christ, there is no trace of such a celebration in the New Testament or in the writings of the Apostolic Fathers.

St. George's Day is the 23d of the month, and St. Mark's Eve, with its superstition about those who were doomed to die, falls on the 24th.

A good type of the aggressiveness, independence, singleness of purpose, and strength of character of the Aries people is the Rev. Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst. Bismarck was an excellent illustration of the dogged determination and fighting characteristics of the sign.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Scrap Book. Volume 1, No. 2, by Various