Entries from July 2006 ↓

The people of this neighborhood are very much alarmed over the fact that a monster snake has been seen at large on the outskirts of the town for a number of days, and it is feared that somebody will be attacked by the serpent before it is killed or captured.

The monster was first seen about three weeks ago by Justice Veltor. Since then it has been seen at intervals by I. W. Valentine, superintendent of the Baptist Union Sunday School, and by Dr. Oliver Jones. The latter chased the snake into the woods in an effort to capture it, but was unsuccessful.

All agreed that the snake is about fourteen feet in length, with a body as big around as a pail. Its head is diamond-shaped, and the top is surmounted by a crest that is shaped like a crown.

Some time ago, Dr. Wood, a resident of this place, died, but before his death he liberated a number of large snakes which he held captive. The snake which has been seen is believed to be one of them. The monster is referred to by the people hearabouts as the “King of Snakes.”

[tags]Ann Arbor Register, September, 1895[/tags]

The manufacture of transparent leather has for some time past been accomplished by different methods, but experiments show, as reported in the Magazin Pittoresque, that, for simplicity and effectiveness, the method described below is reliable: After the hair has been removed from the hide, the latter, tightly stretched upon a suitable frame, is rubbed with a mixture consisting of one thousand parts glycerine of twenty-six B, two parts salicylic acid, two parts picric acid, and twenty-five parts boric acid. Before the hide is absolutely dry it is placed in a room where the rays of the sun do not penetrate, and it is saturated with a solution of bichromate of potash; when the hide is very dry there is applied to its surface an alcoholic solution of tortoise shell, a transparent aspect being thus obtained, and the leather is very flexible.

[tags]Ann Arbor Register, June, 1895[/tags]

Gibbon [English Men of Letters Series], by James Cotter Morison. London: Macmillan. 1878.

PG 18851

Thanks to Sankar Viswanathan for post-processing this text.

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A tornado swept over Steele county, Minn., doing immense damage. It centered at Belle Plain. Hail stones from 4 to 6 inches in diameter fell, breaking all glass fronts in the business places, all the windows in dwellings and churches. Smaller buildings were unroofed and overturned. Horses standing on the streets were knocked senseless. The corn crop in that region is totally destroyed.

[tags]Ann Arbor Register, August, 1895[/tags]

“Mars is signalling a dark star.”

The world to which this news was flashed from the Central Observatory on the Himalayas had long been dull and stagnant. Almost every scientific discovery had been made thousands of years before, and the inventions for their application had been so perfected that it seemed as if no real improvement could be made in them. Methods of conducting human affairs had been brought into such good shape that everything went on as by machinery. Successive Defenders of the Peace of the World had built up a code of international law so complete that every question at issue between nations was settled by its principles. The only history of great interest was that of a savage time, lying far back in the mists of antiquity, when men fought and killed each other in war. The daily newspapers chronicled little but births, marriages, deaths, and the weather reports. They would not publish what was not worth talking about, and a subscriber often found at his door a paper containing little more than the simple announcement, on an otherwise blank page–”Nothing worthy of note has happened since our last issue.” Only one language was spoken the world over, and all gentlemen dined in blue coats with gilt buttons, and wore white neckties with red borders. Even China, the most distant nation of all, had fallen into line several thousand years before, and lived like the rest of the world.

To find a time of real excitement it was necessary to go back 3,000 years, when messages had first been successfully interchanged with the inhabitants of Mars. To send a signal which they could see required a square mile of concentrated light as bright as the sun, and experiments extending through thousands of years had been necessary before this result could be brought about by any manageable apparatus. Signals from the plains of Siberia had been made nightly during two or three oppositions of the planet, without any answer being received. Then the world was electrified by hearing that return signals could be seen flashing in such a way that no doubt could exist about them. Their interpretation required more study than was ever expended by our archæologists on a Moabite inscription. When success was at last reached, it became evident by a careful comparison of the records that the people of Mars were more successful watchers of the stars than we were ourselves. It was found that a row of four lights diminishing in intensity from one end to the other, and pointing in one direction, meant that a new star was showing itself in that direction. Some object of this sort had been seen every two or three years from the earliest historical times, but in recent times a star had often been signaled from Mars before even the sensitive photographic plates and keen eyes of our Himalayan astronomers had discerned it.

Ordinary comets were plentiful enough. More than 25,000 had been recorded, and the number was still increasing every year. But dark stars were so rare that not one had appeared for three centuries, and only about twenty had been recorded in astronomical history. They differed from comets in not belonging to the solar system, but coming from far distant regions among the stars, and in being comparatively dark in color, with very short tails, or perhaps none at all. They were found to be dark bodies whose origin and destination were alike unknown, each pursuing its own way through the immeasurable abysses of space. It had been found that a certain arrangement of five lights in the form of a cross on the planet meant that one of these bodies was flying through or past our system, and the head of the cross showed the direction in which it was to be looked for.

We have not any new kind of olives, but a new way of preparing them for use, that is, slicing them before they are bottled. Instead of paying for a lot of stones and serving the olives whole, now one may buy them all cut in rings, very pretty for garnishing dishes, very handy to help oneself to instead of a cold, slippery oval object sure to roll away unless very securely prodded with an olive fork; and it is very much more easily and gracefully eaten, since a ring may be severed, whereas a whole olive had to be lifted to the lips and nibbled, and then the stone discarded as deftly as possible. It is a wonder we have not had stoned olives before, since comparatively few have a chef at hand to stone them neatly, nor a cooking school teacher to impart the information. To be sure stuffed olives, the heart of pimentoes or celery, have been fads of fashion, but not everyone likes these combinations.

The dark, purple-red, ripe olives are softer in texture and much esteemed for the table as more easy of digestion than the green; in fact, they are given freely to children, who do not always chew their food properly, and to older folk who have not the best of grinders with which to divide the firm green olives into minute particles.

A blessing, indeed, in these rushing days is the sliced olive, a very handy adjunct to the salad garnishing, and eleventh hour entertaining, whether a mid-day luncheon or a mid-night supper.

A New England scientist says there’s going to be dickens to pay if the rest of the United States continues to cart away granite and marble from the land of the Pilgrims and Puritans. “It is not unlikely,” says he, “that the equilibrium of the earth is already considerably disturbed, and that we shall shortly feel a pronounced wobble. Of course, if there is to be a wobble anywhere we would prefer it in New England, but perhaps the outlook is not so desperate as at first glimpse. The summer rush of people to the White mountains, Bar Harbor, Newport, and a thousand other New England summer resorts must in a very great degree restore the weight which existed before there were quarries in New England. And there is another thing. It is computed that there were in the Western hemisphere, when Columbus set foot on it, not more than 1,000,000 human beings. There are now, at a very low estimate, 101,000,000. These 100,000,000 of additional persons have increased the weight of the western hemisphere some 5,000,000 of tons, in the roundest of round numbers. Surely there is an opportunity for a wobble in this state of affairs, and we ought to be conscious of it by this time. If there has been no wobble an explanation should be demanded. Some men of science should rise to tell us why we don’t wobble.” Nothing is more dreadful, says the Buffalo Courier, than the uncertainty when and where the commotion will begin. Probably only those who are holding to the car straps at the time will keep their feet.

[tags]Ann Arbor Register, May, 1895[/tags]

The Recitation, by George Herbert Betts. Boston, New York, [etc.] Houghton, Mifflin Company [c1911]

Thanks to Sankar Viswanathan for post-processing this book.

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