Chapter 7

Nevertheless, I was confident that it existed somewhere, and that its discovery would constitute the crowning glory of the present century, if not of all modern times.

Thanks to the beneficence of that band of ministering angels who have their bright abodes in the far-off capital of Minnesota, just as the agony of my anxiety was about to culminate in the frenzy of despair, this blessed map was placed in my hands; and as I unfolded it a resplendent scene of ineffable glory opened before me, such as I imagine burst upon the enraptured vision of the wandering peri through the opening gates of paradise.

There, there for the first time my enchanted eye rested upon the ravishing word "Duluth."

If gentlemen will examine it, they will find Duluth not only in the center of this map, but represented in the center of concentric circles one hundred miles apart, and some of them as much as four thousand miles in diameter, embracing alike in their tremendous sweep the fragrant savannas of the sunlit South, and the eternal solitudes of snow that mantle the ice-bound North.

I find by reference to this map that Duluth is situated somewhere near the western end of Lake Superior; but as there is no dot or other mark indicating its exact location, I am unable to say whether it is actually confined to any particular spot, or whether "it is just lying around there loose."

But, however that may be, I am satisfied that Duluth is there or thereabout, for I see it stated here on this map that it is exactly thirty-nine hundred and ninety miles from Liverpool, though I have no doubt, for the sake of convenience, it will be moved back ten miles so as to make the distance an even four thousand.

Then, sir, there is the climate of Duluth, unquestionably the most salubrious and delightful to be found anywhere on the Lord's earth. Now, I have always been under the impression, as I presume other gentlemen have, that in the regions around Lake Superior it was cold enough, for at least nine months in the year, to freeze the smoke-stack off a locomotive.

But I see it represented on this map that Duluth is situated exactly half-way between the latitudes of Paris and Venice; so that gentlemen who have inhaled the exhilarating airs of the one or basked in the golden sunlight of the other may see at a glance that Duluth must be a place of untold delights, a terrestrial paradise, fanned by the balmy zephyrs of an eternal spring, clothed in the gorgeous sheen of ever-blooming flowers, and vocal with the silvery melody of Nature's choicest songsters.

As to the commercial resources of Duluth, sir, they are simply illimitable and inexhaustible, as shown by this map. I see it stated here that there is a vast scope of territory, embracing an area of over two million square miles, rich in every element of material wealth and commercial prosperity, all tributary to Duluth.

Look at this map; do not you see from the broad brown lines drawn around this immense territory, that the enterprising inhabitants of Duluth intend some day to enclose it all in one vast corral, so that its commerce would be bound to go there whether it would or not? And on this map, sir, I find within a convenient distance the Piegan Indians, which of all the many accessories to the glory of Duluth I consider the most inestimable.

For, sir, I see vast "wheat-fields" represented on this map in the immediate neighborhood of the buffaloes and the Piegans; and though the idea of there being these immense wheat-fields in the very heart of a wilderness, hundreds and hundreds of miles beyond the utmost verge of civilization, may appear to some gentlemen as rather incongruous, as rather too great a strain on the "blankets" of veracity, to my mind there is no difficulty in the matter whatever.

Here, you will observe, are the buffaloes, directly between the Piegans and Duluth, and here, on the right of Duluth, are the Creeks. Now, sir, when the buffaloes are sufficiently fat from grazing on these immense wheat-fields, you see it will be the easiest thing in the world for the Piegans to drive them on down, stay all night with their friends, the Creeks, and go into Duluth in the morning.

Sir, I might stand here for hours and hours and expatiate with rapture upon the gorgeous prospects of Duluth as depicted upon this map. But human life is far too short and the time of this House far too valuable to allow me to linger longer upon the delightful theme. Nevertheless, sir, it grieves my very soul to be compelled to say that I cannot vote for the grant of lands provided for in this bill.

Ah, sir, you can have no conception of the poignancy of my anguish that I am deprived of that blessed privilege! There are two insuperable obstacles in the way. In the first place, my constituents for whom I am acting here have no more interest in this road than they have in the great question of culinary taste now perhaps agitating the public mind of Dominica as to whether the illustrious commissioners who recently left this capital for that free and enlightened republic would be better fricasseed, boiled, or roasted; and in the second place, these lands which I am asked to give away, alas! are not mine to bestow.

My relation to them is simply that of trustee to an express trust. And shall I ever betray that trust?

Never, sir! Rather perish Duluth! Perish the paragon of cities! Rather let the freezing cyclones of the bleak Northwest bury it forever beneath the eddying sands of the raging St. Croix.

NATURE'S WILDERNESS COMPASSES.

Some Simple Facts Concerning Woodcraft Which Will Enable Wanderers in a Forest to Get Their Bearings and Find Their Camps.

With the coming of vacation time, men's thoughts turn to woods and streams, and there is a general rush for "the tall timber."

That many will wander far afield and lose themselves in "trackless forests" is inevitable, but there is a sure way of finding oneself which is well worth remembering, for it is a serious matter to be actually lost in dense woods.

Find a mature tree that stands apart from its fellows. Even if it is only slightly separate it will do. The bark on this tree will be harder, drier, and lighter in color on the south side. On the north it will be darker, and often at the roots it will have a clump of mold or moss.

On the south side of all evergreen trees, gum which oozes from wounds or knotholes will be hard and amber-colored; on the north side this gum is softer, gets covered with dust, and is of a dirty gray.

In fall or winter, trees which show a rough bark will have nests of insects in the crevices on their south side.

Hardwood trees--the oak, the ash, elms, hickories, mesquits, etc., have moss and mold on the north. Leaves are smaller, tougher, lighter in color, and with darker veins on the south; on the north they are longer, of darker green, and with lighter veins. Spiders build on the south sides. In the South, air plants attach themselves to the north sides. Cedars bend their tips to the south.

Any sawed or cut stump will give you the compass points, because the concentric rings are thicker on the south side. The heart of the stump is thus nearer to the north side. All these things are the effects of the sun.

Stones are bare on the south side, and if they have moss at all, it will be on the north. At best, on the sunny side only a thin covering of harsh, half-dry moss will be found.

On the south side of a hill the ground is more noisy underfoot. On the north side ferns, mosses, and late flowers grow.

If you are on a marsh, small bushes will give you the lesson; then leaves and limbs show the same differences. Almost all wild flowers turn their faces to the south. There are many other signs that will aid the lost person, but you will find these enough.

ALL KINDS OF THINGS.

Great Fortunes of To-day Compared With the Wealth of France Under the Bourbons--The Dangers of Dust, and the Eccentricities of Electricity--The World's Babel of Languages--Amusing Anachronisms Perpetrated By Authors and Artists--A Pin Scratch That Helped Nelson--With Other Interesting Items Gathered From Various Sources.

FRENCH MILLIONAIRES OF OTHER CENTURIES.

GREATER EXTRAVAGANCE TO-DAY.

Prior to the Seventeenth Century No Frenchman Had an Income That Touched the Seven-Figure Mark.

Tales of the magnificent extravagances of France under the Bourbons have led a wondering later age to think that never since has gold been lavished upon luxury with so free a hand. But a French writer, the Vicomte Georges d'Avenel, has taken the trouble to make comparisons, and he has found that the incomes of to-day are relatively much larger than they were one, two, and three hundred years ago. The New York _World_ has summarized from the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ M. d'Avenel's discoveries:

For purposes of exact comparison M. d'Avenel estimates all fortunes and incomes of bygone times in terms of their equivalent value to-day, not as mere nominal sums. Up to the end of the sixteenth century, he shows, no one had an income of $1,000,000.

Louis IX in the exceptional year of the crusade of 1251 spent $775,000. After the Hundred Years' War, in 1450, Charles VII's budget was $212,000. In 1516 Francis I, who was noted for his taste for luxury, had only $259,000 for his person and his court.

Napoleon III's civil list amounted to $5,000,000, but Louis XIV had less than $4,000,000 for all expenses of an extravagant court.

Richelieu and Mazarin derived tremendous incomes from their privileges, Mazarin leaving by will nearly $40,000,000 to the king, who refused it and let it pass to Mazarin's eight nephews and nieces.

Except these three no person up to the time of the Revolution enjoyed an income of $1,000,000, and the revenues of Richelieu and Mazarin were subject in fact to charges really connected with the state.

The conclusion of this investigator is that the very rich of to-day are six times as rich, or those of equal fortune are twelve times as many, as the richest men of the old régime; and they are ten times as rich, or twenty times as many, as the rich princes of the feudal period.

SERIOUS EXPLOSIONS ARE CAUSED BY DUST.

GRAVE DANGER LURKS IN SUGAR.

Particles of Cork Floating in the Atmosphere of Linoleum Factories Must Be Kept from Unprotected Lights.

Almost every kind of dust which is composed of inflammable material will explode when touched by a flame. For instance, the house-maid who uses the contents of the sugar bowl to light the fire knows that nothing burns more easily than powdered sugar. Proprietors of large sweetmeat factories have learned that there is danger from this source.

Some years ago an English inspector of mines conducted a number of experiments on the explosive power of coal dust. A disused shaft one hundred and fifty feet deep was chosen for the purpose. Samples of dust from different collieries were collected for the purpose. When two hundredweight of dust was emptied down a shaft and a charge of gunpowder fired, the result was startling.

Huge tongues of flame, sixty feet in height, shot up from the mouth of the shaft, and enormous columns of smoke rose high in the air, forming a great black pall over the scene of the explosion.

Coal is the carbonized remains of tree mosses. Oddly enough, these mosses were the big forefathers of the moss we know as lycopodium, which in a powdered state is used to produce flash signals. This will help to give an idea of the intensely inflammable nature of coal dust.

In the manufacture of linoleum no unprotected lights are allowed in the mixing department. This is on account of the great danger of exploding the cork dust floating in the air. An additional danger in linoleum making is that the mixture of cement and cork dust has the unpleasant property of spontaneously igniting if left in a warm place. It is, therefore, customary to mix the material a sackful at a time in order to reduce the risks of an explosion.

SOME ECCENTRICITIES OF LIGHTNING BOLTS.

TARGETS OF HEAVEN'S ARTILLERY.

Belief That the Electric Fluid Never Strikes Twice in the Same Place Is Shown to Be Wrong.

Among the duties assigned to the students of the Agricultural College at Guelph, Ontario, is that of gathering statistics concerning loss and damage from lightning in the province. The results thus obtained seem to show the value of lightning-rods, if properly adjusted, and the desirability of having trees standing near buildings. Summarizing the last annual report from the college, the _Free Press_, of London, Ontario, gives out the following novel facts:

As to the question does lightning strike twice in the same place, the report says that there may be warrant for the idea in the fact that where lightning ever strikes there is very little left to be struck a second time; but where a barn has once been struck and another barn has been erected on the same site, that second barn is just as likely to be struck as the first, and, in some instances, more likely.

The statistics compiled by the college show that in the five years since 1901 ninety-four trees were struck by lightning, as follows: Elm, 28; pine, 17; oak, 9; basswood, 7; maple, 7; ash, 4; poplar, 4; cedar, 3; apple, 3; hemlock, 2; willow, 2; spruce, beech, chestnut, balsam, hickory, butternut, and fir, 1 each.

The number of cattle killed in the same period was 114; sheep, 64; horses, 46; pigs, 4. Total, 228.

Barns struck, 179; other buildings, 66.

LIVING LANGUAGES ARE STILL A BABEL.

MODERN CONFUSION OF TONGUES.

Linguists Attempt an Impossible Task if They Try to Master the Hundreds of Languages Still Spoken.

Language is, of course, a wonderful telegraph system between minds; but what a multiplicity of codes! The living languages to-day number eight hundred and sixty, to say nothing of five thousand dialects. This is a Babel indeed.

Europe has eighty-nine languages; Asia, one hundred and twenty-three; Africa, one hundred and fourteen; America, one hundred and seventeen; and the islands of the Pacific and Indian oceans have four hundred and seventeen.

Probably the most remarkable linguist the world has ever known was Giuseppe Caspar Mezzofanti, who was born at Bologna in 1774, created cardinal in 1838, and died at Rome in 1849. The list of languages and dialects which he acquired reached the astounding total of one hundred and fourteen.

It would be interesting to know what system was pursued by Cardinal Mezzofanti in the study of languages, but little light is now obtainable on this subject.

The most famous linguists of antiquity were Mithridates, King of Pontus, who is said to have been thoroughly conversant with the languages of the twenty-five nations over which his rule extended; and Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, of whom Plutarch says that "she spoke most languages," and that "there were but few of the foreign ambassadors to whom she gave audience through an interpreter."

THE FLIGHT OF TIME CAUSES MANY ERRORS.

PAINTERS AND WRITERS MIX DATES.

Artists Have Portrayed Abraham Threatening Isaac with a Blunderbuss, and Romans Smoking Pipes.

Whether it be due to ignorance or careless impatience, it is true that many of the greatest writers and painters have been guilty of the most surprising anachronisms. Thus Shakespeare introduces cannon into the play of "Hamlet," and in "Julius Cæsar" reference is made to the striking of the clock, though striking clocks were not invented until fourteen hundred years after Cæsar's death. Schiller, in his "Piccolomini," refers to lightning-conductors--at least one hundred and fifty years before they were invented. Instances might be added almost indefinitely.

The anachronisms of painters are more noticeable, as a rule, than those of writers. In "The Fancies of Fact" is the following compilation of blunders by artists:

Tintoretto, in a picture of the Children of Israel gathering manna, has taken the precaution to arm them with the modern invention of guns. Cigoli painted the aged Simeon at the circumcision of the Infant Saviour; and, as aged men in these days wear spectacles, the artist has shown his sagacity by placing them on Simeon's nose.

In a picture by Verrio of Christ healing the sick, the lookers-on are represented as standing with periwigs on their heads. To match, or rather to exceed, this ludicrous representation, Dürer has painted the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden by an angel in a dress fashionably trimmed with flounces.

The same painter, in his scene of Peter denying Christ, represents a Roman soldier very comfortably smoking a pipe of tobacco.

A Dutch painter, in a picture of the Wise Men worshiping the Holy Child, has drawn one of them in a large white surplice, and in boots and spurs, and he is in the act of presenting to the child a model of a Dutch man-of-war.

In a Dutch picture of Abraham offering up his son, instead of the patriarch's "stretching forth his hand and taking the knife," as the Scriptures inform us, he is represented as using a more effectual and modern instrument; he is holding to Isaac's head a blunderbuss.

A French artist has drawn, with true French taste, the Lord's Supper, with the table ornamented with tumblers filled with cigar-lighters; and, as if to crown the list of these absurd and ludicrous anachronisms, the Garden of Eden has been drawn with Adam and Eve in all their primeval simplicity and virtue, while near them, in full costume, is seen a hunter with a gun, shooting ducks.

Another famous mixture of periods occurs in a picture of the Crucifixion, by Fra Angelico. In the foreground are a Dominican monk, a bishop with a crozier, a mitered abbot, and a man holding up a crucifix.

A PIN SCRATCH LED TO NELSON'S VICTORY.

DISCOVERY OF THE FRENCH FLEET.

The Noting of the Distress of a French Maid by Sir John Acton Had a Strange Result.

The good points of pins have been generally appreciated, but never did a pin point to a greater result than the one that made possible Nelson's great victory of the Nile on August 1 and 2, 1798.

It was at this fight that Nelson, with his usual intrepidity, forced a passage with half of his fleet of fifteen vessels between a small island, near Aboukir in Egypt, and the French line of battle, while the other half attacked the enemy in front, completely defeating the French fleet and capturing or sinking thirteen of its seventeen ships.

The part that the pin played in the story came about in this way:

Sir John Acton, then commander-in-chief of the land and sea forces of Naples, happened to be in his wife's dressing-room at the moment she was preparing for dinner.

Lady Acton's French maid was also in the room, and was so startled at receiving a letter from her brother, a sailor in the French navy, whom she had believed to be dead, that she ran a pin into her mistress's flesh.

Apologizing for her carelessness, the maid stated the cause of her surprise. With carefully suppressed eagerness Sir John Acton offered to read the letter while the maid continued her duties. The maid gladly consented.

Having read the letter, the commander-in-chief left the house in search of Lord Nelson, who had in vain been seeking the French fleet. He found him and imparted to him the contents of the letter. It gave all the information the admiral had so long endeavored to obtain.

Setting sail immediately, Nelson came up with the French, and the victory of the Nile was the result.

HOW COLUMBUS WAS MISLED BY PARROTS.

MISSED DISCOVERY OF MAINLAND.

The Fate of the Most Important Exploring Expedition in History Was Decided by a Flight of Birds.

A flight of birds, coupled with a sailor's superstition, robbed Columbus of the honor of discovering the continent.

When the great Italian navigator sailed westward over the unknown Atlantic, he expected to reach Zipangu (Japan). After several days' sail from Gomera, one of the Canary Islands, he became uneasy at not discovering Zipangu, which, according to his reckonings, should have been two hundred and sixteen nautical miles more to the east.

After a long discussion he yielded to the opinion of Martin Alonzo Pinzon, the commander of the Pinta, and steered to the southwest.

Pinzon was guided in his opinion solely by a flight of parrots, which took wing in that direction. It was good luck to follow in the wake of a flock of birds when engaged upon a voyage of discovery--a widespread superstition among Spanish seamen of that day--and this change in the great navigator's course curiously exemplifies the influence of small and apparently trivial events in the world's history.

If Columbus had held to his course he would have entered the Gulf Stream, have reached Florida, and then probably have been carried to Cape Hatteras and Virginia.

MORE NUTRITION IN GRASS THAN POTATOES.

VALUES OF STOCK-RAISING FOODS.

One Hundred Pounds of Hay Produce a Better Effect Than Six Times That Weight of Beets.

The relative values of different foods in stock-raising are shown by the following table, in which the given number of pounds of the various articles named produces the same effect as one hundred pounds of hay:

Beets, white 669 pounds Turnips 469 " Rye Straw 429 " Clover, red, uncured 373 " Clover, red, dry 88 " Potatoes 350 " Oat Straw 317 " Alfalfa 89 " Buckwheat 78.5 " Corn 62.5 " Oats 59 " Barley 58 " Rye 53.5 " Wheat 44.5 " Oilcake, linseed 43 "

Hay, it will be seen, is rated as being more nutritious than potatoes or beets.

GREAT FORCE USED TO WRITE LETTERS.

ENERGY SPENT IN LITTLE WAYS.

Every Time the Typewriter Key Is Pressed, Several Ounces of Manual Power Are Used.

If a man realized at the end of the day how much energy he had expended in normal and almost unconscious physical activities, he would be thankful for the chance to sleep. The writer who pushes his pen over the paper for several hours at a stretch would doubtless think he had worked hard if he had excavated a well in the same time; yet it is believed that the sum of the energy he uses daily in writing would be enough easily to dig a well. The following figures are quoted from _Answers_:

Our daily expenditure of force is simply enormous, but it seldom strikes us that we keep on expending force without noticing it. The stoker of a locomotive, when on duty, is said to shovel coal at the rate of about one ton an hour. Presuming that he works at this rate forty hours per week, it is obvious that in the course of a single year he lifts over two thousand tons of coal.

Typewriting is not hard work, yet let us see how much energy it takes to write forty letters on a machine. Every time a key is pressed to print a letter a few ounces of force is used, and every time the carriage is returned to begin a new line between one and four pounds of force is requisitioned. Forty letters, averaging twenty-six lines each, would mean about twenty thousand pounds of force expended. Perhaps this never occurred to you before.