The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 6, 1898, Page 20

20 THE SAN FRANOCISCO OCALL, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1898. GETTING BUGS TO KILL BUGS. Strange Way in Which California’s Tiny Fruit Pests are Destroyed by Science. Professor Koeberle relates hit extraordinary experiences in trying to discover parasites that would destroy the cottony cushion scale, the horse fly, the Japanese beetle and other pests of farmers N a modest little house in Oakland lives Professor Albert Koerbele. He is as retiring .as his house, which stends away from the street as far 1s it can, and is surrounded by es and shrubs, some one of which has the exact perfume of plum blossoms, the first plum blossoms that come in the East before all the snow is gonme. Professor Koerbele has just come He has been there ssion for the Hawalian Gov- He knows as much about s any man in the United States one of the finest collections of ales, parasites and beetles rom M great deal in Mexico d. “Qut there we ies of banana. I fexico was a very spi mbered that in fir 1 banana about a foot long. The Hawaiians raise bananas to send to the United so the Government wanted me to get some better kinds. ‘I have been four months in Mexico selecting many s to grow in the islands. Some of mereial value and some ornamental. There were dozens of pill boxes on the table which, when opened, proved to be filled with specimens—bugs. One ! d out of the open box and the or put it back as tenderly as a cat p a venturesome kitten back into its nes “They are my friends.” He looked around at the c s of dried “Since I was a little boy they have been my pleasur I had to werk days, but at night 1 would go out into the grass and the wc d hunt for them. Sun- I :nd in the woods; it spoke, the professor opened boxes containing the most gorgeous butterflies and beetles, glittering like jewels. In Ceylon the men, as well as wo- men, wear the gorgeous beetles mount- ed in gold. It was Professor Koerbele who, ten years ago, found the vedalia, a lady 00000000000000000 Experimenting With the Pests. ‘”fifipci*wmflfrw,/ bug which destroys the cottony cush- ion scale. Ten years ago the citrus in- dustry of California was seriously threatened. * It seemed for a time that all the oranges and lemons would be annihilated by a small white scale which sapped the tree and killed the fruit. Eventually, too, the trees them- selves died. Scientists from Washington were ex- perimenting to find something—any- thing to stop the ravages of this scale. The trees were washed with solutions sure to destroy the yellow-whitish oarse dust under which the tiny fly- e scale lived. The scale only laughed, if it had any humor, and went,on multiplying in the orchards. “Give me three years’ time and my expenses and I will destroy the scale,” d Professor Koerbele, on offering his ervices. ‘You cannot do what we have not done,” sald those in authority at Wash- ington. But the fruit raisers sald, something to kill the scale.” “We want The result was a compromise, and with little expense besides actual railroad’ fares, Professor Koerbele started for Australia. “I had been in Africa and South America and Mexico, but I had never seen this particular scale,”” he ex- plained. “I had never been in Austra- lia. In its own country I knew ‘this scale had a parasite to destroy it, be- cause in all nature there never was and never will be any insect which destroys other insects or the vegetation to any appreciable extent but will have' its corresponding deadly enemy. For every destructive scale that grows a para- site to destroy it grows right along be- slde it. Look at these different scales.” The professor brought out a box, to the top of which were pinned bits of wood or leaves, on which were specimens of scale. “Do you see the very small holes in the scale? These are’ the holes the parasite made, for under every scale the parasite to destroy it lays its eggs. These hatch and before they fly away eat most of the scale Insects.” Knowing this fact, Professor Koer- bele set to work on his problem to de- He went to Australia, but had not money enough to go inland, so he went to work in the Batanical Gardens of Sydney. Soon he had saved up some money and then stroy the orange pest. went inland and lived among the “black fellows™ for months. He knew. what trees the scale would be sure to live on and the only trouble was to find the tree. He started a hatchery at once, and tried breeding the different insects, so as to study them. At last he discovered the California scale, the orange pest. = He watched it to see what parasite would feed on it. He discovered that it had more than one enemy. Which one could best be taken to California was the problem. Under his “house tree,” for Professor Koerbele lived just as the black na- tives do out of doors, he experimented. His neighbors came and sat like black statues, at a little distance, watching everything. They became interested and gave a great deal of assistance, for the savage is a master of woodcraft. But none of the parasites the pro- fessor discovered seemed to thrive well. One day a big black bushman, who had been sitting on his haunches, mo- tionless, -as only a savage can sit, be- gan to lose some of his calm. As. he watched . Professor . Koerbele looking into his hatchery, where a good many of his best specimens were dead in spite of his care, the black fellow became too excited to keep quiet any longer. ‘“‘Boss, poor fellow me, poor fellow me.” 0000000000000000000000000000000000000 FIGHTING FOR LIFE ON WMT.” ACONCAGUA. Edward Fitzgerald, the Famous Mountaln Climber, Recounts His Thrilling Experiences While Scaling the Highest Peak in the Western World. Speclal to the Sunday Call. DWARD A. FITZGERALD, the most famous mountain climber, says that a mountain climber faces all the perils of an Arctic explorer, and one other. In additlon to the terrors of intense cold, ice flelds, snow bliz- zards, torrents and treacherous crevasses which the Arctic traveler must meet, a mountain climber is also compelled to resist the fearful effects of reduced air pressure. No man s better fitted to tell of these difficulties | and perils than Mr. FitzGerald. A num- ber of vears ago he traveled the “Alps from end to end” with Sir Martin Con- way, In 1894-95 he explored the New Zealand lps and gave his name to a famous pass, hitherto undiscovered, afterward writing a book on his adven- tures. Less than two years ago he ven- tured on a still more difficult feat, and his party succeeded In reaching the summit of Aconcagua, the highest mountaln in the western werld, and rivaling the peaks of the Himalavas, Aconcagua, with its glant sister, Tu- pungato, rises from the backbone of the South American continent, midway between Argentina and Chile. Its sum- mit is nearly 23,000 feet above the level of the sea, a height greater even than aeronauts have commonly dared to venture in balloons. It Is not only in- accessible in altitude, but it is far from the base of suppliés in a wild, sparsely séttled country. Indeed, it took Mr. FitzGerald no less than two weeks of diligent research and exploration to discover where Aconcagua really was and the best way of making the ascent. The mountain had been attempted be- fore, but no explorer had been able to get within thousands of feet of the summit. In making his inquiries Mr. FitzGerald met with many peculiar and amusing difficulties, owing to tae dense ignorance of the natives or their un- willlngness to tell what they knew of the great mountain. They assured him that this peak was Aconcagua, that that peak was Aconcagua, and they finally declared that Aeconcagua reached so high above the clouds that no man might see the summit. As might be expected, Mr. FitzGerald is a man of astonishing vigor of body and determination of will. He is an merican by birgh elthough hig. father | was a British subject, and he has trav- eled with all the pertinacity of a genu- | ine English wanderer. He is now only 27 years old, in the very heyday of sturdy manhood, and he has won fame as a hunter, fisher and athlete as well as a climber. But in spite of all his vigor and daring, he and his party of trained Swiss mountaineers were near- ly defeated on the vleak slopes of Aconcagua. At thelr first ascent they did not suc- ceed’ In getting the mule train higher than 14,000 feet, leaving a distance of nearly 9000 feet, or a mile and three- fourths, to be traversed on foot—9000 feet straight upward and several miles by the roundabout courses which they were compelled to follow. The party pressed upward from this base camp, day after day, often driven back by the cold and by exhaustion, but persistent in their attempts, until they were final- ly successful in reaching the summit. The worst difficulties which they met were in breathing, in pr?pflr]ng food and in sleeping. “At one of our high altitude camps,” sald Mr. FitzGerald, “I undertook to light a fire, but at this altitude it was not an easy task., We had to use quan- tities of paper and kindling and then succeeded in getting only a faint blaze. There was no way of obtaining water except by the melting of snow or ice. Mr, Vines, my companion, went to col- lect the snow just back of the tent, while I gave myself to the exhausting work of blowing the smoldering wood into a flame, filling my lungs with smoke while they were craving oxygen, I thought that Vines had been gone a long time, and upon looking up I saw him perched on a narrow ledge, baek of the tent. Presently he arose with great difficulty and came toward the fire. The tent was held down by numerous guy-ropes fastened at the end with stones, it being impossible to drive stakes into the hard surface of the mountain. I watched Vines painfully raise one leg over the first rope, then stop breathlessly, exhausted, Then he lifted his leg over the next one and /again paused to rest. And so he pro- ceeded until he reached the fire. I think it must have taken him fully 10 minutes to walk a dozen yards. Indeed, we had difficulty in keeping the guy-ropes of our tent adjusted, owing to the fact that we could.not lift our feet high enough to-get over them. ‘“We had brought the necessary light, nourishing foods, such as are given to invalids, in our commissary depart- bottle of port wine mixed with egg, a bottle of red wine, brandy, coffee and kola biscuits, besldes our Instruments and extra helmets, gloves and sweat- ers—about seventeen pounds to the man. We found the port wine and egg the most suitable for our use, although we could not always keep even that on our stomachs. We tried to heat cof- fee over a Russian furnace, in which spirits of wine were burned, but we nearly always found it difficult to get the water.to boil, and once the whole furnace blew up with a terrific report, sprinkling us with boiling spirits . of wine, and nearly blindineg us. Several nights we went to bed sick, owing to the impossibility of getting warm food. Few people can appreciate the terrible despondency which follows such an ex- perience. “During the entire trip in the higher altitude I suffered most acutely from nausea, and from the inability to catch my breath, my throat being so dry from continued breathing = through the mouth that I was obliged very often to cough. This would stop my breath- ing and end in an unpleasant fit of choking. Even -our .most seasoned guides were overcome frequently. One night one of our Swiss porters, a pow- erful mountaineer named Loehmatter, fell {ll with terrible nausea and faint- ness, and we had to let him suffer, there being no way of relief. ? “But eating ‘was only one of otr troubles. Bleeping was even a greater difficulty. Our - tent “had a peaked roof three and -a half feet from the ground, and the floor was securely sewn to the sides, so as to prevent thy wind from getting under it. When al of us were in it we were compelled to lié olose together, and when one of us turned every man in the party was awakened. e tent was air tight, and befors morning the air often grew so stuffy and foul that we could scarcely breathe, and yet we dared not open the flap for fear of the intemse cold. An- other really serious difficulty was the roar of snoring which went up from the sleepers. A man could not get enough oxygen by breathing through the nose, and when he was asleep he natuarally allowed his mouth to drop open. The result was one prolonged and dread- ful snore, which kept us all w:fi( e by turns. During several nights I'do not think I siept more than an hour or two, and that toward morning, when we should have been on the road upward. Often when we crawled out in 'the morning the cold seemed absolutely un- ment, but frequently we could not eat | endurable. I have seen our men sit' 8Yen ‘thgpe, £o _#\ fown gnd ery ke children, 8o discours “Yes, you are a poor fellow.” “No this like Jesus Christman.” He_ po! excitedly _to Professor hat, a green-lined tife. 8. 'No good you,” and he pointed con- temptuously to the dead bugs. “You know?" queried rbele. 3 “You bet, heap Jou bet! Oh, boss eat. No good then. “Can you show me ‘Doss eat? <! “Poor fellow me, poor fellow me, :htmlcd ;’ha“ native, eying the sclentist's at longingly. “Will_some tobacco do?” Professor Koerbele had no other hat and was a good way from town. The black fellow grinned to his ears. “Good fellow you, good fellow you. You follow me. I show you.” For nearly twenty miles he followed the man. The bushman did not seem to take any bearings or even watch the sun. He knew what he was after, however, and at the end of the trip he pointed out a tree to the professor. The “boss eat” had made the scale very scarce, but it was there, and so | i BROUGHT FROM EGYPT TO KiLL ‘THE CUT-WORMS. aged were they by the terrible rigor of the climate and the inabllity to sleep or eat. ‘““While Mr, Vines and the guide were making the attempt on the summit of Aconcagua they encountered most ter- rible perils. They were nearly 22,500 feet above the level of the sea, and they were so worn by lack of sleep and loss of food that they were in no mood to cope with the difficulties of the trail. Vines told me that he was oppressed with an almost irresistible desire to turn and run back, and when they halted they dared not remain long in one plage owing to the overpowering lassitude .that seized upon their lower limbs and numbed them so they dis- trusted their ability to return. Vines finally devised the scheme of resting while standing. He and the guides spread their legs wide apart, grasped the top of their ice axes, which were firmly rested on the ground in front, and leaned -forward until their heads rested on their hands. In this position they gasped violently ten or twelve times, finally securing endugh oxygen to supply them for a few more steps. It was . curfous how the lack of air seemed to affect their ability to move, As goon as their lungs were well filled the sensibility came back to their legs and they were able to walk » “During one of the trips I remained behind, and when Vines and the guide returned that evening I could hardly recognize the two men, so terribly worn and exhausted did they look-mVlBeI tot- tered and shook as if recovering from a long fit of fever. beard and mustache wefe a mass of ice frozen hard to his helmet. He did not notice mx greetings or ulations; he did not answer when him if he reach e summit, He crawled into ;ll:a tf;nt. : rl,y having mhh ‘t;':dpnu s _sleeping bag over lers, such was his exhaustion. 7 ————— In China’ horses “are ' 'mounted on'the Haht sidg was the little red ladybug which was the ancestor of those who came to Cali- fornia to settle. g It is an insignificant little bug to look at, quite like the clean little thing children hold in their hands while sing- ing to it to “Fly away home, your house is on firs, your children will last the professor came home At with the ladybug and all her family padked In wet moss. He got the steward to put the box in the great fcehouse of the ship along with the green vegetables and other eatables. It was two years from the time that Professor Koerbele had said he could Kkill the scale in three years. At Washington he prepared a hatch- ery and bred new ladybugs them acclimated before ghey were turned loose in California orchards. His boast was not a vain one, for cot- tony cushion scale has very nearly dis- appeared in California. “Now I have been working for five years for the Hawallan Government. The coffee plant scale took me to Ha- wall. The plant grew well, but micfo- scople scale came on the stems and sucked the sap so the berries fell off. ““The Government sent for me to come 7! to Honolulu and offered me a good salary while I was hunting for & para- site to destroy this scale. I knew the scale and had brought some specimens of it back with other things from New Caledonia. I had been out there and got acquainted with a man, a convict, who went about with a ball chained to his foot and his right arm chained to his waist. I did not like to see him in that condition. He was & man who was well educated and a great natural- ist. He could have done splendid work, for he was an observing man. To save time I wrote to the convict in New Caledonia and described the scale. He had worked some with me. He found the parasite and sent it to me in the larvae state on ice. “] bred a great many, and now the raising of coffee is next to sugar in the islands in importance. Last year they exported $22,000 worth, where five years ago there wnshscurcsly enough for e use and that was very poor. h?“lniow about my beetles. I think they are the most interesting part of my collection. They are not pretty to look at, no?” The sclentist's eyes brightened at his boxes of black beetles. e looks a very young man when he is talking. Any one who lives with nature keeps “the dew of his youth.” to get “Look at the heads of the beetles. Every one has a_shovel, you big one I got in Egypt and the smaller ones in Mexico.” The big one was nearly as large as a hen’s egg and black and hard. The others were half the size and smaller. ‘“These beetles kill the cut worm and the horned fly,” he went on to explain. “In Hawail the cattle are driven mad and to their death by a small pestifer- ous fly. A gentleman who has a range of 72,000 acres and well stocked sent for me. “‘Can’'t you get rid of this fiy?" he askéd. *“I studied the fly and watched its habits. I found that its eggs were al- ‘ways laid in fresh manure. “Out in Egypt I spent hours watch- Ing this big beetle. He would discover some manure. Then he would some- how call his friends, for they would come running. Then each Wwould set to work and roll up a ball bigger than himself. He would push it along back- ward till he came to his hole, push it in and then hurry back for more till the last bit had been carried away and burfed. Thus they prepare the places to lay their eggs and they breed all the ear, “Now you see this exactly was what I wanted. I went to Egypt and got my beetles and turned them loose. early all the horned flles are cleaned out of Hawall now because they have nothin; to lay their eggs in.” R “And the cut worms?” I asked “The cutworms Rave been so bad in ‘the islands that the people could raise very few vegetables. “I brought some toads from Mexico and frogs from Egypt.” The professor laughed and I was sure there was something funny connected with the toads or frogs. “You know the Hawalilans are very simple and they had never been ac- customed to toads. They were terribly afrald of them. The frogs, though, they liked, because they sing so sweetly. They are very fond of hearing the frogs sing. They proved more -useful for their music though than to eat cut- worms. I tried the beetles and they were much better. All beetles, though, are not allke. There is the Japanese beetle.” He went to his pile of boxes and took out one. “Here is the Japanese beétle from his eggs up. ‘The beetles are eating all the yoses. the beetles have eaten all the flowers, the beetles are Kkilling the young trees, the beetles are attacking the sugar cane. Why don’t you kill the see. This beetles?” Every one in Hawall com. plained to me. “Now in Japan this beetle breeds only twice a year, but in Hawalil it breeds every six weeks. They were increasing in Hawali and destroying everything— bugs, insects and vegetation. They were very ravenous and destructive. “I watched those hungry beetles. I sald to myself, What can I do? Nothing eats them and they eat everything. I thought of it daytimes and dreamed about beetles at night. “Then I went to Japan. The beetles come out at night. I, too, was out at night. I was getting discouraged, when one morning I carried a dead beetle home. He had tiny red specks on him. Next day in his®joints came a kind of cotton, and next day this cot- fon was green. I put a beetle in with the dead one and I found he got the red spots and was_dead. I was too glad to think, but I put in a handful of beetles. They all got the tiny red spots and died. I can show you one.” Under a microscope I could detect tiny red spots. “It is a fungus,” continued the pro- fessor in explanation. ‘“We have never heard of-it before. Nothing has ever been written of it and we cannot re- produce it except in the one way. There is a spore or seed and it always kills the beetles.” “Sort of a microbe?” “That is just what it is.. Tt produces a disease which is always fatal to the beetles. “Of course I took the dead beetles back to Hawail and inoculated live ones, which I set free over the islands. Soon dead beetles were everywhere. Now the Japanese beetle is of little consequence in Hawalil.” “How about the San Jose scale?” “It can be destroyed. They have parasites to kill it, but npot enough. They ought to breed the parasites faster. “Five years ago there were so many ‘that not much grew on the islands ex- cept sugar cane. I have not leéft one enemy of vegetation in Hawaii* now. HELEN GRA’ B *“There’s something decidedly “’f'“?- about that Miss Le Claire, the new star, “Is that so? I hadn’t noticed it.” & “Then you are not very observing. 8She doesn’t claim that she belongs to an old and aristocratic Southern family.” Not long ago & Frenchman died, and a clause_{n his will sets forth his desire to be convéyed to his last resting place In & motor car arranged as a hearse. SOME OF THE BUGS THAT ARE SAVING THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA MILLIONS OF DOLLARS ANNUALLY BY KILLING FRUIT PESTS. UG KILLS® .HORN FLY 8 Fever has been imitated by swallow- ing tobacco, the tongue whitened by chalk and the cheeks heated by rub- bing. The appearance of ulcers is ob- tained by gluing a plece of the skin of, a frog to the parts supposed to be atf- fected and keeping it moist with red dye and water. Genuine ones are cre- ated by the use of corrosives,and their healing prevented by the application of irritants. Making the nose bleed, pricking the gums to show actual spitting of blood, eating roughly powdered glass to pro- duce internal hemorrhage, making soap pills for epileptic frothing at the mouth, 4 feigning insanity and lying rigid to simulate catalepsy are tricks familiar to prison officials. Even doctors may sometimes be de- ceived by impostors, who display so much ingenuity in the art of deception. Those who gorge shellfish for the sake of getting nettlerash, who put stuff in their eyes to inflame them and even thrust a needle down to the lids of the eye to get a cataract furnish a few of the forms of imposition resorted to at times, either to evade punishment or to escape military service. Such decep- tions are known to have been kept up through fearful ordeals of torture with ter cause. 0000000000000 0000000000C0000000000000000000000000000000 TRAGIC FATE OF A NIECE OE HOHENLOHE. Ma}rlcd @Against the Wishes of Her Royal Relatives and Misfortune Followed Her Daughter to a Suicide’s End ih Detroit. Special to the Sunday Call, N a garret situated in the poorer quarter of the city of Detroit, Mich., was found on Tuesday, No- vember 1, the dead body of a mid- . dle-aged woman. On a table by her side was a letter in which the lady, after declaring her intention of com- mitting suicide, divulged many inter- esting and pitiful particulars of her birth and life. She had been most reserved in her conduct toward her neighbors while an occupant of the house, but some thought she was of better birth than her very ordinary situation would lead one to believe. This opinion was accen- tuated by her majestic appearance and especially by the refinement and ele- gance of her manners. Nothing more concerning her was known than that her name was Amelia Sonnabend and that she was a native of Germany. The suspicions, however, of the neighbors were verified by the contents of the suicide’'s last testament. According to this document the de- ceased was a daughter of an eminent German Princess and the niece of which was exerted by her relatives the Princess finally resolved to wed the plebeian. Thereby she sacrificed all rights to name and title, to wealth and lifelong friends for the humble position of a wife of a poverty-harassed pro- fessor.” On the last day of April of 1857 she becar > Mrs. Lauchert. Years o. poverty and distress fol- lowed her action. Her brother, Prince Clodwig, who is one of the richest men Prince Clodwig Hohenlohe, the Im- perial Chancellor. The following par-| tiulars of her birth and parentage are furnished by a gentleman of this city, who received them from the lips of the sulclde’s mother: The Princess Amelie Hifzabeth was a younger sister of Clodwig, Prince of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfurst, Duke of Ratibor and Corvey. As & young girl she was very beautiful, and the charma of her face and figure, combined wi the sunniest of characters, won her reputation which was not confined only to the royal German courts. As is the custorh among the European nobility the Princess was betrothed by her parents, while yet very young, to a certain Prince of Layn-Wittgensteln, The sequel proves that the parents in this case reckoned without regard of the young lady's heart, she grew to the estate of young womanheod she began to receive that education which is consldered essential to wsuccess in h:blonn,bl}f society. Among her instructors was a certain Richard Lauchert, a professor of art. He was a man of most prepossessing appearance, of unusual elaquence, com- bined with a suavity that one usually attributes to the old cavaliers. ‘Some- thlng in him touched the g)flll!\ heart of the young Princess. eloguent was her love that the professor could not help but see that he had made captive the heart of his fair and noble D\sfl. ot intimidated by the chasm that is sald to exist hetw’een blue u‘:’:} fl:— beian blood Lauchert gave, himself full u;;:gn to show that he, too, had been _Dgepite the tremendgus op) AMELIA SONNABEND, Daughter of a Ger- man Princess and Niece of Clodwig Hahenlohe, Imperial Chancellor. From a photograph. in the whole of Germany, was appealed to in vain. Children came to the pair, and among these was a daughter, Ameih., who was born in 1858. It is she who died by her own hand on these foreign shores. It was & most unusual and interest- ing sight to the passers-by to see the high-bern mother wheeling her little child about on the streets of the city of Gotha, where the professor had taken up his abode. Apparently there was no difference between her and the com- mon fol that jostled her. In time the young Amelia grew up a perfect image of her mother. She had two brothers, one a lieutenant. of the Nineteenth Field Artillery, who is still stationed at Erfurt, near Gotha, and ‘who now supports his widowed mother on his meager pay; the other is a for- and a continual source of pain to his gray-haired mother. In eourse of time Amelia was wooed and won by a young actor, Ernest Son- nabend. The marriage occurred at Hildburghausen, in Thuringia, a most historic spot. Sonnabend was attached to the theater of the Duke George of Saxe-Meiningen, and was a young man of most promising talent. Unfortu- nately, previous to his marriage he had led the usual actor’s life and had run rather deeply into debt. After his mar- rlage, finding himself unable to satisfy his creditors, he resolved to escape them by leaving the country. His wife, Amelia, left her parents and her native land with him, never again to see its beloved shores. The young pair came to New York, where they believed a newer and happier life was In store for them. After battling with the language Son- nabend sought a position on the boards at all the theaters of the metropolis, but his efforts proved unavailing. Fi- nally he relinquished his favorite call- ing and sought to earn bread for him- self and wife by some other means, He became a solicitor for German books and periodicals and thereby managed to exist. In 1804 he died of consumption at a public hospital, leav- ing Amelia, his wife, and his three daughters with hardly any means to battle for themselves in a strange land and among strange people, The unfor- tunate lady succeeded in living from hand to mouth up to the present year, but misfortune upon misfortune over- whelmed her, and she determined to end her life. And so it is the body of a niece of one of Germany's millionaires, the daughter of a Princess of the bluest blood of tha empire, will be buried in the potter's field and a wooden slab will be the fragile depository of her sad life his- tory. S ——— i —— Last March, says La Nature, we no- ticed a memoir by Waltemath of Ham- burg, in which he wnnounced the ex- istence of a second moon revolving about the earth, and perhaps about the first moon. This moon has béen seen, it was said, at Wiesbaden on Febru- ary 5 and seen in China by three Gere man officers, but names and dates were not given, perhaps for good reason. It was to pass again over the sun's disk on July 30 or about that time. We do ‘l:::l:me:hgo hear of a serious obser- o S new celes! this is not all. eYhacy,, Dy The English Mechanic, for July 29, tells us that a third moon, larger ¥han the second, should pass over the sun also about July 30. We have to do, de- cidedly, with a whole crowd of luna- . We should not be surprised to learn soon that, with a telescope of fee- ble power and a powerful imagination, certain persons haye seen the second and third moons. Being in such a fair way of discovery they may be able to endow tha earth with five sateilites like Jupiter, or with eight like Saturn. Let ueh_mattersy