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12 RECORDS OF THE WAR A Mammoth Work Being Prepared at the War Department. ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY VOLUMES To be Thoroughly Colorless and Impartial. THE STORY OF A STORY HE BIGGEST LIT- erary work ever un- dertaken in America is the military his- tory now being pro- duced by Uncle Sam under the title of “War of the Rebel- lion, a Ccmpilation of the Official Rec- ords of the Union and Confederate Armies.” It is not only the largest his- tory ever published mm the world, but it has for its subject, as its name indicates, the greatest conflict of ancient or modern times. The preparation of this brobdignag work, it is announced, will be practically finished by the close of the next fiscal year. It was begun just twenty years ago, and in the process of evolution has assumed undreamed-of pro- portions; but the fact that it is now prog- ressing rapidly toward completion will be gure to excite renewed public interest in it. The whole work when completed will em- brace 120 huge royal octavo volumes of 1,000 pages each, and a gigantic atlas, and the ultimate cost will be something like $2,500,000. Each separate book in a set is three inches thick and weighs from 50 to 60 ounces, and the combined weight of an en- tire set will be 520 pounds, while the vol- umes, if set up in a row on a single shelf ef one’s library, would extend a distance of 80 feet. Eleven thousand copies will be printed, so that the edition will comprise 1,220,000 books of 1,000 printed pages, aggre- gating 1,320,000,000 pages of matter, ex- elusive of the atlas. Up to this date, 89 serial volumes have deen published and about $1,800,000 has Deen spent in all branches of the work, or about $20,000 per volume. This average may | ewhat reduced in the later volumes, pec, the main it is expected to obtain throughout. The printing and binding alone cost $10,000 per volume, while the previous reparation of each volume for the printer's Eanas costs an equal sum of $10,000. Plan of the Work. The completed work will embrace four series. The first series begins, as to sub- ject matter, with the formal official reports, both Union and confederate, of the first ‘seizures of United States property in the southern states, and then deals in =< lar nol 1 order with all the nuilitary Sones the field—scouts, skirmishes, faids, marches, battles, expeditions and @leges, together with the correspondence, orders and returns relating thereto. The atlas accompanying it will contain 150 tes of maps and plans, illustrating the ements described in the text. The gecond series will contain the official cor- fespondence and reports on both sides re- lating to prisoners of war and to state or political prisoners. The third series will eover matters not specially related to the treated in the first and second, as the annual and special reports of Secretary of War, of the general-in- @hiet and of the chiefs of the several staff es a cavemen yndence n state authorities; while the series will a the ne oe @mce, orders, reports and returns o: eonfederate authorities in the same line as of the Union officials set forth in the series. The first series, however, is the “piece de resistance” of the his- and will consist of 104 volumes or ‘The other three series together will up only 16 additional volumes. Ac- to the numbering originally mapped for the volumes of the first series, it appear that only 50 volumes were to be embraced in it; but some of 60 have been expanded into as many and five parts each, of equal size the others, and hence as a matter 0 the number of serial volumes in the series has been increased to 104. first serial volume treats of opera- Charleston and the secession of the southern states. The second takes Bull Run and other early actions of less ce. The third, eighth, nineteenth, and thirty-third numbers con- @ern the war in Missouri! and adjacent tes. The sixth, twentieth, forty-first, forty-seventh, sixty-Afth and gixty-sixth discuss the operations on South Atlantic and Gulf coasts. The battle Shiloh and other Tennessee, Kentucky and Liacstaatppt campaigns are detailed in serial volumes ten and eleven; the Peninsular eampaign is given In numbers twelve, thir- teen and fourteen, and the Vicksburg oper- ations are described in numbers twenty-one, thirty-six, thirty-seven and thirty-eight. ‘The invasion of Maryland and Pennsylva- Ria, culminating at Antietam in 1962, 1s set out in serial numbers twenty-seven and twenty-eight. Morgan's raid and number- Jess other raids are described in parts thir- ty-four and thirty-five. Gettysburg and the New York draft riots are narrated in num- bers forty-three, forty-four and forty-five, Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge are re- lated in numbers fifty to fifty-six, inclu- sive, and the Wilderness and Spottsyivania fm numbers sixty-seven, sixty-elght and sixty-nine. Five parts, numbers seventy- fo to seventy-six, inclusive, are devoted the Atlanta campaign under the head of 1. XXXVIIT, and three more, numbers ninety-eight, ninety-nine and 100, to the eampaign of the Carolinas. The operations ground Richmond and Petersburg from Page to the close at Appomattox are given the volumes formally numbered forty, -twe and forty-six, covering nine parts serial numbers. The final volume of the @eries preceding the general index, rum- bered fifty, or serial number 103, will be de- Yoted exclusively to operations on the Pa- @ific coast. An Impartial Record. The method of treatment pursued @hroughout is altogether impartial, non- artisan and colorless. The official docu- ments, printed and arranged 4n the natural order of the events they treat of,are allowed to tell their own “plain, unvarnished tale,” nd no comments, remarks, opinions or speculations whatever are permitted to in- 4 FS if tervene between the successive links of the | Rarrative. Nothing is printed in the vol- tmes except duly authenticated contempo- Faneous records of the war, and newspaper accounts and private reports are rigidly ex- | eluded. All records pertaining to the precise Period to be covered by each volume are gone over with the utmost care, and only Such matter is selected as should be print- ed. This matter is then copied and after- ‘ward compared with the originals, and sig- nificant memoranda are attached to the co- pies showing the particular files whence the | originals were taken, and the names of the Persons who copied them. Then the matter thus copied {s compiled and arranged chron- clogically according to days and even hours, | ‘when there ts a point to be observed. where- Upon the whole is properiy headed through- out, supplied with a title page and sent to the public printer. When the proofs come back, every page, report and message is dil- | sort being had frequently | to the original documents in case of doubt | igently verified, @r perplexity. Finally each volume is in- — bound and made ready for distribu- in. Col, Robert N. Scott. Fhe story of this story of the waz—the - .THE EVENING STAR, SATURDAY, JANUARY 27, 1894-TWENTY PAGES. most extraordinary history of the most ex- traordinary war on record—is full of inter- | est to every reader of books. The manner of its publication is in many respects unique, and some of the methods employed are pe- culiar to itself. The first definite steps to execute the gigantic work were taken in 1874, when Congress passed a law providing the necessary means to enable the Secretary of War to begin publication; but some es- sential preliminaries were gone through with ten years before that date. The prep- aration of the records for public use was set in motion. in 1864, under a resolution of Congress, by Adjutant General E. D. Town- send, U. S. A., who caused copies to be made of reports of battles on file in his of- fice, and devised measures for the collection of Gen. Townsend first outlined the plan on which the records are printed, although the scheme he had in mind contemplated the publication only of the more important military reports. Until 1877, however, the work was prosecuted in a desultory way by various subordinate offi- cers in the War Departent. Then the Sec- retary of War, Geo. W. McCrary, perceiving that the undertaking needed the undivid- ed attention of a single head, detailed Lieut. Col. Robert N. Scott of the army to take charge and devote himself exclusively to the work. Under the act of 1874 the first crude scheme of publication was enlarged so as to include not only the more import- ant battle reports, but also all the official documents of real historical value bearing on the subject that could be obtained. Col. Scott systematized the plan and laid out the minute program that has since been scrupulously followed. He was the organiz- | ing genius of the whole great history, and | before he died in 1887, after ten years’ en- | thusiastic and unremitting service, he had | compiled the material for thirty-six volumes or sixty-nine serial parts, although only forty-two parts were issued in his lifetime. Lieut. Col. H. M. Lazelle of the army served as Col. Scott's successor for two years, and then, by an act passed in 1889, the preparation and publication of the rec- ords were ordered to be conducted under | the direction of the Secretary of War by | board of three persons—one an army offi- | cer and the other two civilian experts. The | beard of publication thus constituted, con- | tnuing unchanged to the present time, con- | sists of Maj. George B. Davis, judge advo- cate of the U. 8. army, as the military member, and Leslie J. Perry, esq., of Kan- sas, and Joseph W. Kirkley, esq., of Mary- land, as civilian experts. The scope of the board’s duty is to decide upon and arrange | the matter to be published, to correct and | verify the orthography of the papers used, and occasionally to add needful notes of explanation. Maj. Davis has proven him- | self to be admirably qualified for his posi- tion as head of the board. He exercises a general supervision of the official records from which the history is made. Mr. Perry has fal charge of the prepara- tion of the s¢cond series, relating to prison- ersof war,and is assisted by two ex-confed- | erate generals—Gen.L. L. Lomax of Virginia | and Gen. John B. Erwin of South Carolina. Mr. Kirkley is the technical expert and historical wizard of the combination, and without question knows more about the war records than any other man living, | having made an exhaustive study of them for thirty years. One of his particular func- tions is to carry each volume through the press and look after the accuracy and veri- fication of every record and statement therein contained. Every available source of first-hand in- formation is ransacked, and contributions of official papers that do not happen to be on file in the department are being recover- ed from all parts of the country. Many of these papers are autograph messages and reports written by the officers in command of the various armies and divisions engaged in the struggle, and altogether they form a priceless collection. Mr. Marcus J. Wright serves in the capacity of special agent in the recovery of missing records, and (en. A. P. Stewart of Mississippi, corps com- mander of the Army of Tennessee, is con- stantly engaged in examining and editing the archives of the dead confederacy, in addition to other ex-confederate and Union | officers. The bulk of the confederate ar- chives was obtained by the government on the fall of Richmond. Immediately on the confederate evacuatiof the Union troops took possession of the dozen odd buildings in whpich they were stored, but unfortunate- ly some important papers were never filed there, some were destroyed and some re- mained in the hands of scattered individ- uals. Joseph W. Kirkley. The first volume of the first series was issued in the early fall of 1880, and since then, as stated above, 88 other serial parts have been published, coming up to volume 43, as originally plotted. The first vol- ume of the second series is now ready for the public printer, and the remaining vol- umes will be in shape within a few months. | The atlas is also well advanced. It is is- sued in parts of five plates each, which are engraved in New York under contract. Twenty-three of these parts are now pub- lished, and the remaining seven will be ready soon. A force of clerical assistants, constituting an independent bureau of the War Department, and ranging from 39 to 70 in number at different times, has been employed since the beginning upon the mechanical features of the work of pre- paring text. The number now engaged is 30, all of whom are thoroughly trained and ial with the ramifications of the sub- | ject. Of the whole 120 volumes, and of the ac- companying atlas of 30 parts,so Maj. Davis states, those now unfinished will be ready for publication by the close of the next | fiscal year, ending June 30, 1895, and the | task of printing these will then receive the concentrated attention of the board, who will, as heretofore, directly oversee the pro- cess as it goes forward at the government | printing office. The conclusion of the his- tory will doubtless be a great event in the | book world. The distribution of the printed volumes as they come out is conducted on an unusual plan,in accordance with a law of the Forty- seventh Congress, passed in 1882. Of the | 11,000 copies ordered to be printed, 1,000 are set aside for the various executive depart- ments, 1,000 are reserved for distribution by the Secretary of War among army officers and contributors to the work, 8,300 copies are being sent to such libraries, posts, or- ganizations and individuals as were desig- | nated to receive them by Senators, Repre- | sentatives and delegates: of the Forty-sev- enth Congress, and the 700 copies over are for sale at the War Department at 10 per cent above the bare cost of printing, the proceeds to be covered into the treasury. leone Senator was permitted to designate twenty-six addresses for the reception of | the forthcoming volumes and each Repre- | sentative and delegate twenty-one, the ad- dresses holding good for the entire set, until the publication is complete. An interesting fact concerning the dis- tributees was developed by an inquiry re- | cently instituted by the war records office, | from which it was learned that of the orig- inal beneficiaries 500 have, by reason of | death or removal, ceased to receive the sets |intended for them. As a result, there are | on hand 500 sets, beginning with Vol. XXX, | which are not available for distribution on | account of the lack of earlier volumes. As the stereotyped plates have been preserved, | it will_be easy to issue a reprint at slight cost. The department, therefore, recom- mends that authority be given to reprint ” copies of volumes I to XXX, with a view to their new distribution. ular interest in the work all over the try_is reported to be steadily increas- nd the war records office is now suf- from a deluge of inquiries respecting the cost books can be had at the department by pur |ehase at from oy to So ceais per volui nd means of obtaining copies. The | wun bound in black cloth, and $1 extra per vol- ume if bound in half-Turkey. None can be had free on application. The eighty-nine Leslie J. Perry. serial parts already published for $56.10 in cloth. The atlas, plete, will cost $12, or 40 cents being thirty parts. Supplemental to this vast mass of war records, now nearing completion, will be the “Naval Records of the Rebellion,” which is about to be begun on a plan similar to that of the army records, though on a much smaller scale. It will be seen on comparison that the “War of the Rebellion” surpasses in size any other work on a single subject extant, in this country or abroad. Encyclopaedia: of course, do not figure in such a compa! son, strictly speaking, nor do bound volumes of continuing magazines and _ periodicals; but even waiving this distinction, the pres- ent work stands pre-eminent in point of bulk and number of volumes and amount of printed matter. The British Museum not long ago received a Chinese encyclopaedia in 2,000 volumes or thereabout, but it is to be remembered that a Chinese book printed from blocks cannot be likened to a modern European or Ameri- can book, and, besides, the field covered by the prodigy in question is so wide that no comparison can properly be drawn between it and a work confined to one subject. Though very expensive in its production, the “Records of the Rebellion” does not ap- proach some other notable works in cost. Its actual cost, including printing, Is fig- ured at $227 per set, whereas “The Account of Egyp' produced at the order of Na- poleon I, cost 100,000 francs per set. This excessive cost, however, arose from the fact that the work was most gorgeously illus- trated with elaborate engravings on steel, colored by hand. - can be got when com- part, there DECLINE OF MATERNITY. Large Families of Children Rare Among the Upper Cl Ella Wheeler Wilcox in the Philadelphia Press. ‘The general impression of the public seems to be that maternity 1s on the de- cline. The profession of the mother is in disrepute, and much concern is felt in con- sequence by the world at large. Extensive families of children are the exception, cer- tainly among the upper American classes, Our wealthy society people do not produce numerous offspring. A life of absolute lux- ury and pleasure is not conducive to such a result. Then, too, malpractice by skilled “specialists,” dearly bought and paid for, can account for many a childless woman of fashion, without doubt. Late Marr‘ages. The late marriage of American women, which has superseded the youthful reveries So prevalent in the days of our grand- mothers, is still another cause. The girl who weds at eighteen takes marriage and maternity with the never-thinking mind of youth. The young woman who remains single until she is well into her twenties has had time to look about her, to think and ponder, to weigh the consequences, to see results, and however deeply she may be impressed by nature with maternal in- stincts, she is burdened with the experi- ences of her friends, and avoids a repeti- tion of them in her own case. We might quote improper dressing of the body as one cause for the decline of ma- ternity, but when we look upon the corset- ed waists and bouffant hips of belles in the days of our grandmothers we fear the ar- gument would not hold. The highly strung nervous temperament of American women renders childbearing so serious a matter that many avoid ma- ternity—out of sheer fright. In no other country in the world is the experience attended with so many dangers to health, and consequently to happiness. Men who note this fact from observation are averse to seeing their wives pass through the ordeal; and the great expense which is entailed by a large family of children is also a most important factor in | withholding men from becoming fathe! Gifted people, or those of high mental e1 dowments, are frequently childless, or the parents of noticeably mediocre offspring. Children of Brainy People. This is a source of surprise and regret to the unthinking observer,who says, “what a strange pity that the people gifted with brains and blessed with money should pro- duce no children, while the hard-working middle-classes and the very poor are so prolific.” But let the fault finder dig deeper into the subject and he will change his leas. When the seed is planted in the earth it produces a plant—the plant produces a flower, the flower. fruit, and the fruit seed again; yet the effort of horticuitural science is to produce a seedless fruit—deliclous to the eye and palate, but useless beyond that. Nature achieves this result frequently in human beings. The exceedingly common- place man in some past generation has been distinguished only as productive origi- nal seed. His sons and daughters were sturdy plants, The grandchildren—less nu- merous—were fair flowers; from these flowers developed some one more piece of fruit—a culmination of all the most remark- able qualiti»s of past generations—a genius, to startle, please or uplift the world. He achieves the object for which he was sent into existence; through him- self, not through his offspring, is he to be- stow benefits upon the world. He is the extreme development of human culture— a seedless fruit. All that is strongest and best in his na- ture he gives to the present time. He is a splendid lover, friend and companion—but he is not meant for propagation. At most his children will be but pale weak shoots of the present tree. He is the grand cli- max in the harmony which nature has been composing for generations, and his children will be but faint echoes of it. American Men and Women. The highly educated American men and women are all more or less culminations of former generations. Talent is becoming almost universal amongst us; and as a consequence large families are diminishing. Meanwhile I see no reason why there should be such public concern over private matters of this kind. Save in the cases when malpractice has abetted a crime—an unpardonable crime for which the mother and the physician must be called to ac- count hereafter—the world is not going to suffer through this decline of maternity among the upper classes. Out from the ranks of the poor and unlettered will spring statesmen, or actors, musicians, poets, scholars and reformers, who shall keep the great machinery of the world in motion, and who shall in their turn, ac- cording to a natural law, die without note- worthy offspring, and give place to others to rise from unlooked-for resources. Did great brain produce greate® brain; did genius produce greater genius from one generation to another, the earth would soon groan under the oppression of tyrants of colossal intellectual power, as it now groans under the tyrants of inherited thrones and fortunes. It is well for humanity at large that genius cannot be entailed. Time is doing away with thrones, and may God speed the day when great wealth, too, shall reach its limit with each generation, and a mo- nopoly of human rights become an impossi- bility. From Puck. —“Why so sad, deah boy?” “I feah that I let me patwoitism y with me judgment lawst night. nm hundwed that Mitchell would Reggie. METEORIC ODDITIES Queer Freaks With Which the Weather Bureau Has to Deal FROM ALL PARTS OF THE COUNTRY Frost Feathers and Anchor Ice. ELECTRICAL PHENOMENA Written for The Evening Star. HIS IS A FREAK winter. With tne snow line 500 miles north of where it or- dinarily is during January, the entire winter wheat region has been bare. Lack- ing its accustomed warm and fieecy blanket, that import- ant crop has been ex- posed to destruction by the always possi- ble sudden cold wave. people all over the country Meanwhile, have been sending to the weather bureau reports of out-of-the-way meterological phenomena unusually varied and peculiar. There have been showers of angle worms in New York and showers of snails in Ohio. A box full of the latter, to furnish proof, was sent to Washington by express. They were about the size of pinheads, and on examination they proved to be land snails. Instead of falling from the sky, they must have been brought out of the ground by the wet. Worms and small toads are fetched out of the earth under like con- ditions, appearing in great numbers after storms, and thus give rise to stories of rains of those creatures. Spring showers of what used to be taken for sulphur occur in Washington every year. When the sky clears the gutters are found choked with yellow stuff. Under the microscope, how- ever, it is quickly seen to be vegetable. In fact, it is merely the pollen of pine trees blown from forests many miles distant. Difficult Pa: Be People in all parts of the United States are constantly reporting such freaks to the weather bureau, with demands for explana- tions. Often the puzzles thus propounded are too difficult for Uncle Sam’s profes- sional prophets to solve. Take a simple blizzard for example—the blizzard of the true and original type, familiar to dwellers between the Mississippi river and the Rocky mountains. Why is it that toa per- son caught in one of these storms it seems as if the wind came from all directions at once? It blows straight in one’s face, no matter which way one turns. Science has not been able to undo the riddle. Then there is another kind of wind, very warm and dry, which blows at times over the eastern slopes of mountain ranges in the northwest. It is called the “chinook,” and it will take up and remove several feet in depth of snow within a few hours without seeming to melt it. Precisely how this is accomplished nobody knows, but the snow disappears. A very extraordinary phenomenon which occurs on mountain summits is the forma- tion of what are called “frost feathe This happens when the air seems clear, though after a while the coat of the ob- server becomes covered with tiny frost crystals. The atmosphere, in fact, is filled with these crystals, which accumulate upon projecting points. On such points they pile up horizontally in thé teeth of the wind, forming exquisite feathery outgrowths which a touch will destroy. The biggest one on record, twelve feet in length, was developed upon a chimney on Mount Wash- ington, where these curiosities are found in greater perfection than anywhere elise. In deep loamy or sandy soil, when the temperature has fallen below freezing,often are noticed beautiful litue columns of ice projecting upward one er two inches above the surface of the ground. They are prob- ably forced up by the gradual contraction of the soll. Sometimes they will push good- sized stones out of place. Anchor Ice and Blood Showers. By no means so readily accounted for is the so-called “anchor ice," which occa- sionally forms in the bed of a rapid stream. Of course ice ordinarily forms first on the surface of water, but in this case the water at the bottom congeals while the stream flows over it. One theory is that the whole depth of water being cooled to below 52 degrees the more quiet layer at the bottom freezes sooner than that which is swiftly moving above.. This explanation is not deemed satisfactory, however. The fact that ice ought to float cannot be got over so easily. No fewer than twenty-one showers of blood have been recorded during the pres- ent century in Europe and Algeria. These phenomena excited widespread consterna- tion in ancient and even in comparatively recent times. They were regarded as dire warnings and portents. Nevertheless they are accounted for by very commonplace reasons. In 1670 a shower of this kind fell at The Hague and caused great excitement. A level-headed physician got a little of the crimson fluid and examined it under a microscope. He found that it was filled with small red animalcules, which proved to be a species of water flea. Doubtless they were brought from a great distance by wind and deposited with the rain. In March, 1813, the people of Gerace in Calabria saw a terrific cloud advancing from the sea. It gradually changed from a pale hue to a fiery red, shutting off the light of the sun. The town being envel- oped in darkness the inhabitants rushed to the cathedral, supposing that the end of the world was come. Meanwhile the strange cloud covered the whole heavens, and, amid peals of thunder and flashes of light- ning, red rain fell in large drops, which were imagined by the excited populace to be of blood. Analyses afterward made of the fluid showed that its coloring matter was a dust of an earthy taste. Probably this dust was ejected by an active volcano, carried a great distance by the wind and vith the . ere etea asta of ink in the city of Montreal on November 9, 1819. Some of the liquid, collected and forwarded to New York for analysis, was discovered to owe its hue entirely to soot. The explanation of it was that there had previously been im- mense forest fires south of the Ohio river, the season being remarkably dry, and the sooty particles from the conflagration had been conveyed by strong winds northward, so as to mingle with the rain when it fell. Vegetable Matter in the Air. In 1824, in a district of Persia, there was an abundant shower of a nutritious sub- stance strange to the people. Cattle and sheep devoured it greedily, and bread was mad2 from it. It proved to be a kind of lichen. Large quantities of vegetable ma- terial are always floating in the air. As- tronomers have frequently mistaken such organic bodies for rece en nd they the field of the telescope. They were finaly discovered to be mostly the feathered seeds of plants carried by the breeze. Having been the first to find this out, W. R. Dawes of the Royal As- tronomical Society adjusted the focus of his instrument so as to examine the seeds, which proved to belong to many different kinds of plants, such as thistles, dande- Hons and willows. “Water Spout and Tornado. Small marine fishes are sometimes found scattered about on dry land far from sea. ‘They are transported by storms, which at first take the form of water spouts, suck- ing up the finny creatures, tcgether with a portion of their native element, and car- rying them shoreward. Showers of frogs and the larvae of aquatic insects are pro- duced in a similar fashion by tornadoes. Just as the water spout is often trans- formed into a tornado on reaching and passing over the land, so the “cyclone twister” will sometimes suck a pond Ory in passing. In fact, the tornado and the water spout are the same thing. The lat- ter is capable of destroying the largest ship, Doubtless many vessels have been | destfoyed in this way, no one surviving to tell the tale. The water spout usually travels at the rate of about thirty miles| an hour, or as fast as an ordinary express’ dr train. Its mighty column, joining the clouds with the ocean, is mainly vapor, as is judged from the fact that physical laws would not permit the water to be sucked = to a greater height than thirty-three feet. Tornadoes are the most extraordinary and among the most destructive of atmos- pheric }"_;10mena. It has been reckoned that on a® average each of them costs one life. That apa etal deo foe in 1890 wiped out $3,250,000 worth of property and 135 lives. The funnel-shaped cloud which does the damage runs at a speed of from forty to eighty miles an hour. i like an immense balloon, black as night, sweeping its neck round and round with terrible fury, and tearing everything to pieces in its path. Its track is always from southwest to northeast, the width of it being rarely over 300 feet. Warning of the storm’s aproach is given by a still and sultry air, with a lurid or greenish sky. =e feel depressed without knowing why. Electric Phenomena. This gas that covers the surface of the earth, by which we live by breathing, is a wonderful element. The electricity which pervades it, though employed for various useful purposes by man, is a mystery yet. Some of its phases are astonishing and be- yond explaining. For example, there is the most intense form of it known, termed globular lightning. It takes the form of spheres of dazzling brilliancy. Such spheres were seen playing about during the great Louisville tornado. People on board of ships have often observed balls of fire “as big as barrels” rolling along the surface of the ocean. These spheres are apt to burst with deafening reports. Tubes of glass made by lightning are of- ten found in sand. The electricity passes into the ground and melts the silicious ma- terial, forming little pipes, the inside diam- eter of which represents the “bore” of the thunderbolt. Such tubes measuring as much as twenty-seven feet in length have been discovered. No doubt exists as to the method of their manufacture, inasmuch as | people have sought for them and dug them up still hot from places freshly struck by lightning. Attempts have been made to re- produce them artificially, by passing a powerful current of electricity through finely powdered glass. In this way eae nearly an inch long and as big as a - ing needle have been obtained. From the comparative size one gets a notion of the enormous energy developed by lightning. It is understood that several tubes are made by a single stroke. Damage by Lightning. Lightning does a great deal more damage and is much more fatal to human life than is generally imagined. It kills sixty-nine Persons every year in France. In this country it has been reckoned to destroy twenty-two lives annually, but this is prob- ably an underestimate. By a single flash 2,000 sheep were wiped out on one occasion in Ethiopia. In New Grenada is a place, near the gold mine of Vega de Supia, where no one will willingly dwell on account of the frequent strokes of lightning. A stroke at Brescia, August 18, 1769, exploded a magazine containing 207,000 pounds of gun- powder, wiping out a great part of the town and 3,000 lives. A long list might be given of similar fatalities nearly as disas- trous. Before the invention of lightning conductors churches and other lofty build- ings were constantly struck. One of the most interesting of electrical phenomena is the so-called St. Elmo's fire. It appears in the shape of brush-like dis- charges from metal+points in the rigging of ships and elsewhere. These are termed by sailors “corpse candles.” If three of them are seen at sea it signifies that the vessel will be lost, while a single one means a continued storm. However, the supersti- tion varies considerably. In a passage of his “Commentaries” Caesar says: “About the second watch there suddenly arose a thick cloud, followed by a shower of hail; and the same night the points of the spears of the fifth legion seemed to take fire.” Co- lumbus on his second voyage beheld several corpse candles playing about the mast of his ship. He sent a man aloft to fetch one down, but it could not be grasped some- how. The St. Elmo's fire is said to give out @ sort of roaring sound like a port fire. Sand Storms in the West. In some of the desert regions of the west—notably the Painted Desert of Ari- zora—those prankish phenomena called “sand storms” are frequent. Sometimes they rise seemingly to the clouds and ob- tain a diameter of fifteen or twenty feet. A spot of ground becomes excessively heat- ed, causing the air above it to ascend. This occasions an influx of the atmosphere from all sides, but unequally, the result be- ing a gyratory motion visible in the sand or dust raised into the air. ‘In other words, a sort of natural chimney is created, through which there is ea powerful up draught. Such whirling columns have a very weird appearance as they move hither and thither, sometimes many of them at once, across the desert. One might im- agine them to be animated by evil spirits, and it is no wonder that people in India call them “devils.” A peculiar phenomenon observed in va- rious places, but most perfectly among the mountains $f the Brocken in Germany, is the so-called “Brocken spectre.” It is an enlarged shadow of the observer cast by the sun, near sunrise or sunset, upon the fog wi@rh enveiops him. Its enormous size makes the apparition rather startling. Pre- sumably it is due tothe fact that the shad- ow is thrown upon the particles of moist- ure suspended in the air all along to the Umit of vision. One of the most wonderful of atmospheric freaks at this wintry season is the “silver thaw,” which clothes the trees in shining ccats of ice, every twig sparkling in the sunlight. Yet few take the trouble to in- quire how this comes to pass. It is very simple. At the beginning of a thaw the air, laden with water, passes over the boughs and twigs, and the moisture it con- tains is frozen upon them. Every year stories of great hail stones are circulated in the newspapers. me as big as ele- phants are said to have fallen in India, and they have been fairly well authenticated. Unfortunately, however, these were doubt- less aggregations of hail stones partly melted together. RENE BACHE. +04 LIVELY FIGHT WITH A BOAR. Two Men Kept Busy for Two Hours, the Result Being a Draw. Milton D. Hollister of East Glastonbury, Conn., and his hired man had an experience the other morning the memory of which will likely abide with them the remainder of their lives. Among Mr. Hollister’s farm belongings, says the Hartford Courant, was a large boar. On Sunday the fellow got out of his pen and the owner and his hired man hurried out to drive him back into his quar- ters. The brute ‘was as stubborn as any of his kind and showed a disposition to go whither he liked—anywhere except in the direction the men wished him to go. Mr. Hollister was armed with a five-tined fork, and the hired man was also armed, and it may be that the not over mild prodding with the fork maddened the animal. At all events he turned upon his pursuers, and for a long time—thought to be fully two hours —it was a question which would be masters of the situation. ‘The hog would give his attention to one of his men, the other rushing to his assistance only to be himseif pursued. At one time Mr. Hollister thrust the tines of his fork into the hog’s wide open mouth, but the brute never faltered, bearing up against the sharp points with such force as to push Mr. Hollisier down. The hog was up- on him in a moment, tearing away at his clothing, which he completely riddled on the side where he gave most of his attention, in the end bruising the side quite severely. The | hired man had, meanwhile, been getting in some lively work, and finally succeeded in | drawing upon himself the fury of the mad- dened brute. The first serious mishap was when Mr. Hollister’s hand strayed into the hog’s mouth and he was severely bitten, the thumb and part of the hand being partly crushed. The hired man kept the boar at bay while some attention was given to the wound, and in the end was badly bit- ten himself. "The men were getting decid- edly the worst of the fight when deliverance came in an unexpected way. The battle- ground had been in a part of the yard around one side of which a stone wall had been laid several feet high and even with the land. His hogship had not observed | this point of danger, and in one of his rushes he missed his footing and went headlong over this embankment, rolling over and over as he went down the incline. The men were completely “tuckered out” and did not attempt to renew the battle, retiring in as good order as their nerves and general dishevelment would permit. Mr. Hollister will carry his arm in a sling for some little time to come, but it is safe to say that neither he nor his hired man will need these trifling reminders to keep the battle fresh in mind. ———_+e+____. A Broker's Humor, From the Kansas City Journal. Broker—“I hear that you have gone into the drug business,” Broken—“That's a mistake; I’m looking up snaps in silver mines.” ver mines! Well, if they're not a on the market I don’t know what is.” GOLD AND SILVER Trouble for the U. § Treasury Caused by Makers of False Coins. THEIR BUSINESS FLOURISHES Minting Counterfeit Silver in Bed Rooms. HOW GOLD IS LOST HOUGH THE BUSI- ness of counterfeit- this country has been brought practically to an end, the coining of false silver and gold-—more especially the former-is a more flourishing in- dustry now than ever before. The imita- tion of gold pieces is done chiefly on the Pacific slope, where the yellow metal is commonly handled as currency. In the east there is comparative- ly little of it in circulation, and for that Teason such of it as passes from hand to hand is closely scrutinized. No really first- rate counterfeit of a gold coin is at pres- ent extant, says Chief Drummond of the secret service. The game practiced by a gang captured in Chicago the other day was wholly new. ‘They made money by clipping double eagles in a manner as ingenious as it was novel. The process consisted in slicing off a rim from each $20 piece, as a tire might be re- moved from a wheel. The corrugated edge, called the “reeding,”"being removed in- cidentally, the mutilated coin was then re- reeded in a machine. Thus its appearance was perfectly restored, only the diameter being altered. Nothing wrong with it was discoverable by the casual observer. Of course, the faces were unaltered. ‘The persons engaged in this remunerative enterprise, for the sake of prudence, con- tented themselves with moderate profits. ‘They took care not to rob any single coin of more than $1 of its intrinsic value. Nevertheless, they were caught after hav- ing treated and restored to crculation 600 double eagles, representing $12,000. Five hundred dollars worth of them reached the treasury at Washington last week, for- warded by a Chicago bank which desired paper money in exchange. That financial institution had not noticed anything wrong about them. Of course, they will be re- deemed as so much bullion, to be after- ward melted and reminted. Sweating Gold Coin. In their aim for modest gains these peo- ple imitated sweaters of gold coin, who are usually satisfied with stealing about 75 cents’ worth of metal from each $20 piece. Employing the electric battery, this pro- cess removes a thin coat from the entire urface of the double eagle, which, to the average individual, has as good an appear- ance as before it underwent the operation. It is only the trained eye that takes note of a suspicious brightness, while to the touch the normal irregularities seem to be smoothed down. A method preferred by other criminals is to cut a hole in the edge of the coin, through which a part of the metai from the interior is taken out by boring. The cavity is then filled with lead and the place where the opening was is concealed with a coating of gold. This is a sort of “drift” mining on a very small scale, but yielding sure results, the ore be- ing 90 per cent pure. False Silver Coins. While the counterfeiting of gold is not conducted on an extensive scale, the busi- ness of making false silver coins is going on continually all over the United States. The attractiveness of the industry consists largely in its simplicity. It requires little skill and no apparatus worth mentioning. Anybody can make a plaster-of-paris mold from a cartwheel dollar and thus turn out likenesses of the coin, using a mixture of base metals as raw material. Recipes for mixtures suitable for the purpose are pass- ed about in penitentiaries and other penal institutions. In fact, petty counterfeiters are mostly educated in prisons. Having learned the trade while in durance vile, new apprentices start in for themselves as scon as they are set at liberty. In this wey chiefly has knowledge of the art been spread. Criminal Immigrants. The immigrants whom Uncle Sam so hos- pitably welcomes to these shores are very commonly criminals in esse or in posse. Many of them find ccngenial employment in imitating the natioral currency. This applies particularly to Italians. Two-thirds of the foreign counterfeiters in this country are of that nationality. They do the work largely in their bed rcoms, melting the me- tallic com>osition in a pot on the stove and filling the molds with a pewter ladle. The “stuff” is shoved to a great extent by ven- ders of peanuts and fruit. They enjoy ex- ceptional facilities for getting rid of bogus dimes and quarters. In dealing with these Peddlers one does well to scrutinize one's change closely. Recently a number of such peripatetic merchants were brought to jus- tice in Chicago. The district attorney there procured some of his evidence by handing a dollar to a banana man in pay- ment for a ten-cent purchase. The entire lot of silver returned to him was counter- feit. ‘The Boodle Carrier. A safer method, commonly adopted by the Italians for passing bad silver, is that in which the boodle carrier figures. His title sufficiently describes the part he takes in the performance. Following along behind the man who acts as “shover,” he keeps the latter supplied with a single coin at a time. The “‘shover,” having got rid of one, meets his confederate at the next corner and re- ceives another. If caught, he has no other counterfeit money in his possession and can plead ignorance. No wonder that these sons of Italy get rich and return to their native land after a few years, to spend the rest of theiy lives in the pursuit of elegant leisure. Missouri has as many petty counterfeiters as any state in the Union, but in that part of the country this business claims the at- tention of native Americans almost ex- clusively. False money is largely circulated in the south, where almost anything that bears a reasonably close resemblance to the national currency is readily accepted. Dangerous Counterfeits. Several dangerous silver counterfeits are in general circulation in this country at present. The most successful of them all is the “hard dollar,” as it is called. It is such a perfect imitation of the original coin that | its appearance will deceive an expert on close examination. Even the acid test it withstands. Though a couple of grains | Mght, abrasion might be supposed to ac- | count for that. In short, there is no way of | proving it bad except to cut deep into it and ing paper money in}. namely, nine-tenths silver and one-ten' copper, the et price of the white metal having fallen to so low a point. Thus, if the di form of the bad piece were faithfully reproduced after the original, it would not be distinguishable from the lat- ter. Up to date, howev: of this profits. The being great, proportion- ate gains are the false currency must hands ordinarily before getting into circulation, it was doubtiess untrue. Will the Gold Supply Be Exhausteat The two most eminent living writers on the precious metals, Suess and Soetbeer, have recently published a very alarming statement. It is to the effect that the total amount of gold dug out of the earth annually suffices only to supply the pres- ent demand for that valuable substance for use in the arts. Not a bit of the new product of the mines is available for coin- age. Trinket use and waste in manufacture exhaust the whole yield. If this is correct, then gold must va3ish from circulation be- fore long, because the output of the gold mines of the world is diminishing rather than increasing, and there are few fields left to explore. But Uncle Sam's metal- lurgists say tnat it is not so. The writers quoted fail to consider the fact that the gold employed in the aris is utilized over ao pe! ‘gain. It goes through a sort of Articles of jewelry often disappear, but are seldom lost. When through accident they pass out of the possession of the well- to-do, they go to the poor and sharp-eyed, who sell them or pawa them. Some jewel- ry is lost by fire and some in the sea, an@ these losses are absolute and hopeless; but Jewelry otherwise is certain, practically all of it, to find its way sooner or later to the | Pawnshops or into the hands of dealers in old gold. Thus it is melted up eventually and pao grog — = other shapes. This is at erm e “invisibi " of that metal. Tepe ad Causes of Loss. There are.a number of unavoidable causes of loss of gold. The first and most impor- tant of these is by abrasion. Jewelry loses much weight in that way, especially rings, which are usually 18 carat, and are worn rapidiy. Coins suffer much less, but still considerably from wear. All gold leaf is @ total loss to the gold stock of the world. Where used for decorative purposes it is never recovered. It is not employed for filling teeth nearly so much as formerly, ‘porous gold” being substituted. But, of course, the gold utilized for teeth is a total loss, and in the aggregate it is enor- If it be supposed that the average dwelier in cities of this country has 50 cents’ worth of gold in his or her mouth, which is placing the figure very low, it will be seen how great is the waste in this —— wpe ye generation takes many millions of dollars’ worth of the metal from the world Some gold is iost in remelting, though all Possible means are taken to reduce it to the lowest possible figure. Not only are the floors swept and the dirt treated for the recovery of the yellow substance, but the wooden planks are burned eventually with the same object. Even the shoes of each man who works with the metal are subjected to the chemistty of fire, yielding @ sma!l “button” of the precious material. At Tiffany's workshop in New York each artisan engaged in polishing gold stands in front of a big funnel, with a wide mouth. which has a strong suction éraft. This draft takes in all dust and floating particles from the air. It swallows the filaments ground from the buffing wheels, and these, with whatever else has been caught, are deposited in a receptacle, form- ing a sort of felt. This felt is scraped out, Pressed into bricks and burned, being thus made to yield the gold it contains. Inci- dentally, the workmen get pure alr. Commercin! Bricks. The gold that fs utilized at the mint for making commercial bars, so called, is sup- posed to be set aside for employment in the arts. These bricks are :99-1,000 fine—that ts to say, as nearly pure as can be. They are sold to jewelers and others. But, as a mat- ter of fact, they are used money to a large extent by jewelers and bankers, They can be got of any size from $29 up, stamped by the government with their exact value. Thus they are made to serve as big coins, Manufacturing jewelers find it convenient to utilize the ordinary money gold in their work, and they do so t® a great extent, because the proportion of nine-tenths of gold and one-tenth copper is always the same and they know just what it will do in metallurgical work. Great Nugeets. The National Museum has recently placed on exhibition gilded casts of many of the greatest nuggets of gold ever found. The biggest nuggets have come from Australia, and these are also the purest. They run up as high as 992-1000 fine. Greatest in size was the “Welcome,” found at Ballarat. It weighed 2,218 ounces and was worth some- what over $41,000. Next comes the “Pre- cious,” found at Berlin, New South Wales— valued at $30,340. It the scales at 1,770 ounces. The “Viscount Canterbury” weighed 1,121 ounces and fetched $22,000. The “Viscountess Cant ” weighed 884 ounces and was valued at $16,000. On the claim of a man named Schiemm, at Dun- nolly, two great nuggets were found, one “Beauty,” found at Bendigo, weighed ounces and was valued at $4,400. The “Needful,” found at Berlin, weighed four ounces more than the last and brought about $100 more. For many years geologists have been disputing as to how nuggets of gold are formed, but the mystery remain’ solved today. All of these masses precious metal were long ago melted turned into coin, because it did not have so much money lying idle. likenesses, embalmed into casts, remain to inspire with enthusiasm the hopeful pros- pector after wealth that is to be picked up in chunks. Sge fee —_—_———_—= Some Animal Sutcides. From the &t. Louts Globe-Democrat. “Animals sometimes commit suicide,” said B. F. Taney to the corridor man. “It is not common, but there are a number of well- authenticated instances, and two of are known to me personally. We hed canary birds which had been mates several years. They occupied the cage and exhibited unusual signs tion for each other. One day the male died, and for two or three days the female bird manifested every sign grief. She refused f she would bathe, but hid in a corner of the cage One morning her bathing cup was eet One morning her ing filled with water as ‘usual. ‘The eirl attended the bird left the room for a minutes, and when she returned the had its head thrust down under the wa’ and was dead. It seemed to be @ plain of suicide. The other instance was me by a friend of mine, and was of a dog whose master had died. the animal refused to leave the was finally found drowned in a by, although he was an expert nal | conclusion therefore was ‘comtnitted suicide.” Th util —__—___-e+- —__—— then apply the acid. Obviously, it would scarcely be practicable to employ this meth- | od of inquiry with every “plunk” that one handles. This piece, which may be consid- ered the finest coin counterfeit ever pro- duced, was struck with dies and afterward pleted in silver. Of the latter metal it has (a cern § worth 20 cents. In imitation silver | powdered glass is ordinarily utilized to give the requisite ring. An Accidental Discovery. Credit for the work of art above describ- | ed must be given to one William G. Hard He owned to having manufactured and | passed 10,000 of his dollars, nearly all of | which are now in circulation and are like- ly to remain so without detection. He might still be engaged in producing them | but for an accident. One day a letter car- | rler was going his rounds, when he saw a silver piece fall upon the pavement as if | from the sky. He ran and grabbed it, but | dropped it instantly, because it was almost |red hot. This occurrence led to the dis- cov of Hard's workshop, in which he | Was engaged in running an opposition to | the government mints. One of his fresh- | made coins dropped out of the window of his laboratory just in time for the postman | to grab it. Police raided the place, and this | admirable artist is now doing time in the | penitentiary. | It has been suggested many times the Doubling Up. Mulcahey?” Mr. Mulcahey.—“Thot Of'm not. Wan has to be savin’ these tolmes. What's th’ use av burnin’ two candles whin yez kin git as much light out av wan!” CF Dandruff is due to an enfeebled state of Hall's Hatr Renewer aulckens the mutritive, bealing and preventing the cae tune tions of the skin, Use ef @audrut.