palmetto tree, which was utilized so largely in the battle of New Orleans. A shell (if it did not explode earlier) would lodge in a bed of fibre and little water could leak through. The fibre would hold the shell so tenaciously as to form a waterproof pro tection. After passing the beautiful cocoanut plantations we reach the pimento walks near Falmouth, which quickly arrest attention. The pimento berry is known to commerce as allspice. It is supposed to be a combination of all the spices. There is no pimento to be found in commercial quantities anywhere in the world except in the Island of Jamaica, although this fact is not generally known. Banking on their knowledge, shrewd operators have tried to "corner" the market, but invariably it has proved to their own disadvantage. Pimento is one of the most difficult things in commerce to sell. At times the demand is great and high prices are readily obtained. Again the prices decline heavily, without apparent cause, and buyers hold off entirely, fearing prices will drop still lower. If one is forced to sell, hardly any price in reason can be obtained, and very heavy losses result. There is invariably a heavy loss in weight owing to the drying out of the berries. In a year this sometimes amounts to twenty-five per cent. Speculators need to be very cautious. The pimento is not an attractive tree even when in full bloom. It has a small yellowish blossom, but exhales a most unpleasant odor. (Begun in issue March 16. To be continued.) How Locomotives Fish EASY SCIENCE 8 519 Would you believe that locomotives are good fishermen, and manage to haul in trout and eels and other wriggling, squirming things? "How Fish. Some en How Locomotives can that be?" Well, watch an engine taking water. The hosebag is a hollow fishing-rod through which fish are often sucked without bait into the tender-tank. gines carry over 4,000 gallons of water-enough to make a fine aquarium, so far as size is concerned, for the fish to frisk about in. When the tank is cleaned out a number of fish are always discovered, some of them dead, others very much alive. The engine has such splendid fisherman's luck because its drinking water is likely to come from springs, ponds, or canals. AN N English mathematician says if a contractor undertook to remove the sea at a cost of one penny (two cents) per thousand tons-a very reasonable rate--the bill would be 10,000 times the amount of the English national debt, which is now £613,024,673, or $30,000,000,000,000 and over. If the sea were piled up in a round column reaching as far as the sun, it would be 24 miles in diameter. If The Size of the Sea. you could sell the sea at two cents per thousand gallons, it would bring you $775,000,000,000. If you were to pump it dry at the rate of 1,000 gallons per second, it would take you 10,000,000,000 years. Let a half-dollar piece be the dry land on this earth; then a quarter would be the size of the sea, or a ten-cent piece the Pacific and a three-cent piece the Atlantic. The dream of telephone makers is a cable telephone. If it is true that a Frenchman named Germain has invented a "shouting telephone," it A Shouting Tele- looks as if the time were not so very phone. far off when Bobby in New York can talk to Papa in London. "The shouting telephone," or as it is better known, "the high speaker," is not a brandnew invention, but perhaps M. Germain's instrument shouts more loudly than American 'phones have succeeded in doing. By this new method you would not need to hold the receiver to your ear. A $2,000 Mouse Being born with a silver spoon in one's mouth is tame compared to being born in a nest made of twenty one-hundreddollar bills stolen by mice from a miser's hoard. The house in which this $2,000 nest was built was valued at $10. The Fastest Vessels Afloat 521 In a few months England will have two torpedoboat destroyers that will make thirtyfive knots, or three knots more than any vessel in the world. The vessels The Fastest Vessels are improvements on the "Turbinia" an account of which appeared in THE GREAT ROUND WORLD. They will carry six turbines each, four for use in steaming ahead, two when backing water. It looks as if the time would come when oil and turbines would take the place of coal and screws. What a change that will make. "Pink-Whiskered Mike" is the name of the only ourang-outang in captivity. He is now in the Kansas A Rare Monkey. City Zoo. Although he was taken from the station to his new home in a closed rubber-tired carriage, he caught cold. So he was given a quinine pill (which he thought was going to be a peanut) and wrapped in hot flannel. The quinine gave him a headache and he cried all night like a croupy child. Mr. Bostock, Mike's keeper, once owned "Tess," a famous ourang-outang, who died as the result of a cold contracted in a sleeping-car. Mike was bought for a string of beads in Borneo three years ago, and came to this country on a transport which had carried our soldiers to Manila. He is twenty inches high, wears stockings and long trousers, and has a round head, the ears of a child, orange hair, a flat nose, and a prominent mouth. Except for his short thumbs and big toes, Mike's hands and feet are like ours, and although but three years of age, he has a fine pair of "pink" whiskers. At the New York Spring Cycle Show one of the Features of the Spring Cycle Show. The features was a "parade of tots.' tare wheel without assistance, but who was nevertheless a crack rider. At the Chinese booth Chinamen in American dress sold ordinary American wheels. One woman had on exhibition 9 century medals, 2 pacemaker sashes, and 17 Century Road Club handle bars. Another woman was the owner of 17 medals, 23 badges, 3 sashes, 2 pictures, and 15 bars. SPECIAL NOTICE ABOUT HISTORIES. Bound Part IX, which covers the period from January 5 to March 30, 1899, is ready for immediate delivery. The books are bound uniformly and correspond with the eight preceding parts. In ordering please specify whether regular (green), red, or light blue cloth is wanted. |