Bringing Home Our Dead 483 The government has brought the bodies home that they may rest in their native soil. The majority of the dead will be buried by their families and friends, and those which are unclaimed will be laid to rest in the National Cemetery at Arlington. As the coffins were unloaded from the ship each dead soldier was saluted by the men of the 13th U.S. Infantry, who formed the guard of honor. It was an impressive sight and one which will not be forgotten by those who witnessed it. PUBLISHERS DESK Part II, History of the World, Supplement to THE GREAT ROUND WORLD, is sent free with this number. It will be followed at short intervals by the balance of the chapters. Every subscriber is entitled to a copy. Some friends do not appear to understand clearly that every bound part of THE GREAT ROUND WORLD History from Nov. 11, 1896, can be furnished immediately on demand. The various parts are shown on the third cover page. Please specify whether green, red, or blue cloth binding is desired. Loose copies of the paper can be supplied, with few exceptions, from Nov. 11, 1896. But in the exceptional cases where a particular number cannot be supplied loose, it can be obtained by ordering the special part in which the particular number is bound. Subscribers may exchange loose numbers, in good condition, for a bound part, on remitting 35 cents for binding and 10 cents for postage. They are kindly asked to prepay charges on the loose numbers sent for exchange. The GREAT ROUND WORLD Reference Atlas which has been advertised from time to time, can still be had. Price, 25 cents. It contains 36 maps, by W. & A. K. Johnston, Edinburgh, in colors, which cover the entire world. EASY SCIENCE 80 Early Spring Are you on the lookout for the first spring flowers? Perhaps you think the dandelion is the first comer, but it is not. The hypatica appears in early April, it may be in the midst of snow patches. You will know it by its purplish white flower. Other early visitors are the bloodroot, that smells so sweetly, but fades so quickly; anemones, saxifrage, spring beauty. yellow violets--the round-leaved and the downy yellow; Dutchman's breeches, its white blossom tipped with creamy yellow, its foliage blue-green; squirrel corn, with heart-shaped greenish-white flowers tinged with pink; the mandrake, whose lemonlike fruit can be eaten in July-if you like its queer taste; alder and willow catkins-"pussy willows; how many of these and how many more lovely heralds of the summer can you find? When the hypatica A School for Automobile Cabmen 485 first shows herself the frog chorus begins and grows louder as the weeks go on. The first song of spring is said to be either that of the bluebird or the Pickering frog, as the small, shrill, first-of-April " jugurum " is called. This frog leaves his swamp in July to become in autumn a tree-toad with a bird-like voice. It will not be long before the bluebirds will be nesting in the cedars and the red-winged blackbirds drawing endless buckets of water from squeaky-handled pumps. A School for Cabmen. Did you know that the first horseless carriage was invented one hundred and fifty years ago? It was shown to Louis XV of France by a man named Vaucauson. It moved slowly around the courtyard by means of a big clockspring. The king was pleased with the curious vehicle, but thought it too queer to be used in the streets. In Paris, the home of the automobile, there is a school for automobile cabmen-an open-air school, and one in which the youngsters would enjoy taking a short course for the fun of the thing. A good-sized field is covered with mounds of earth, pools of water, stones, blocks of wood, broken bottles and all kinds of rubbish. Here the cabmen are taught to steer their carriages without puncture or breakage. Wouldn't you like to see the Class for Beginners at work? From the newspaper accounts of several bad accidents to automobiles in New York City, it would be a good plan to start a school in a Harlem lot, setting up Elevated Railroad columns at short intervals. About Pearls. When you are catching trout, keep one of your eyes wide open for mussels. The tenth one you open may hold a pearl. Years ago the Empress Eugenie paid $2,500 for a pearl found in a New Jersey brook; the stone is now valued at four times that sum. Mr. George F. Kunz, of Tiffany & Co., New York, says the moundbuilders had bushels and bushels of pearls, large numbers of which have been dug up, unfortunately ruined by their long burial. De Soto, the Spanish explorer, took 850 pounds of fine white pearls from the Indians. Not long ago Arkansas children used pearls for playthings. One day a young man found some fine specimens on the shores of Murphy Lake, sent them to a jeweller and received so large a check that a pearlhunting company was formed. A pink pearl from Black River, in the same State, brought the finder $35 -and the purchaser $300. A Missouri farmer scooped up in one shovelful two hundred pearls, some as large as peas. Mr. Kunz remarks that most pearlfinders are wasteful; they destroy the crops by throwing away the meat and shell, and open small mussels, which rarely contain pearls. The oyster without a pearl should be returned to the water. Button factories help to destroy pearl-making by dredging sea and river bottoms with great scoops, and throwing away oysters that don't wear jewelry. The finest pearl of modern times was ruined by the finder, who boiled it to open the shell. Perhaps you know Mr. Oyster uses a pearl as we do a bandage. If you cut your finger, you wrap it in cotton. If a grain of sand gets into Mr. Oyster's shell, he covers it with Where the Caribbean Breaks 487 that smooth, beautiful coat we call a pearl. The Chinese put sand in the shells to hurry matters; but often the oysters succeed in getting rid of the nuisance. A Frenchman has hit on a better plan. He bores a hole in the shell and fits in it another bit of shell; this cannot be got rid of; result, a pearl. Where the Caribbean Breaks. FOURTH TRAVEL PAPER. VARIOUS TYPES OF PEASANTS-WASHING DAY-LEPERS -MARKET PRODUCE--SUPERSTITIONS. No pedestrians walk more gracefully than the natives of Jamaica, and the steady, swinging gait of men and women, at the end of a ten-mile walk under the tropical skies, causes general surprise. More than a few New York belles driving toward the hotel have coveted the elastic grace of some of these daughters of toil. Behold the procession heading for the market place. Here, as at all other markets along the coast, there is much confusion. Conversation is carried on at a high pitch. Usually seller and buyer are talking excitedly at the same time. The one who has the greater power of endurance invariably comes off victor through exhausting the other party. What may be termed "pigeon English" is spoken. Most of it is unintelligible to the traveler. Occasionally, like a gleam of light through a rift in the clouds, one hears |