Entries from August 2006 ↓

A few weeks ago a number of well-known residents of Butte left here on a prospecting expedition to the Big Hole country, says the Inter Mountain. Among the number were W. D. Clark and Thomas J. Howard. They are men of unimpeachable veracity, who number their friends by the hundreds in this city. This latter statement is perhaps made necessary by what is to follow. The gentlemen returned to Butte last evening, and to-day filed for record a location notice of the Catalpa lode claim, which the notice says is located three miles south of Divide station on Fleecer mountain, a portion of country that has not been prospected very thoroughly on account of the large amount of snow in that locality during the summer months. The remarkable part of the locating of this claim is the statement of the locators that they discovered a tunnel fully fifty feet long, which had been driven into the mountain apparently several years ago. In prospecting along the side of the mountain the men found several pieces of good-looking copper ore in a hollow which they first supposed had been a buffalo wallow in the days when those animals roamed the prairies of the Big Hole country. The prospectors, believing that there was a lead somewhere in the vicinity, began to dig in the mountain side. After an hour’s hard labor they were considerably surprised to find the earth suddenly yield to the blows of the pick and a big hole loom up before them. They cleared away the earth and entered a tunnel about six feet high and four feet wide, walled in with blocks of stone. The top of the tunnel was protected by large flat stones, and for about twenty-five feet there was not a break in the primitive timbering. About twenty-five feet from the mouth of this tunnel the prospectors came to a spot where the earth had apparently broken down the stonework, and after clearing away the debris the men were enabled to go in about twenty-five or thirty feet further. Here they came to a ledge, which was carefully examined, but as to what was discovered there the men will say nothing, except that they found some implements made of stone which had apparently been used in driving the tunnel.

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

The Jest Book (published 1865), by the editor of Punch Magazine Mark Lemon, contains 1,711 Punch-quality humorous stories, poems, and epigrams. Here are a few…

LXV.–A LATE EDITION.

It was with as much delicacy as satire that Porson returned, with the manuscript of a friend, the answer, “That it would be read when Homer and Virgil were forgotten, but not till then.”

LXXV.–EPIGRAM.

LXXXI.–A GRAVE DOCTOR.

Counsellor Crips being on a party at Castle-Martyr, one of the company, a physician, strolled out before dinner into the churchyard. Dinner being served, and the doctor not returned, some one expressed his surprise where he could be gone to. “Oh,” says the counsellor, “he is but just stept out to pay a visit to some of his old patients.”

CXXV.–IN SUSPENSE.

The sloth, in its wild state, spends its life in trees, and never leaves them but from force or accident. The eagle to the sky, the mole to the ground, the sloth to the tree; but what is most extraordinary, he lives not upon the branches, but under them. He moves suspended, rests suspended, sleeps suspended, and passes his life in suspense,–like a young clergyman distantly related to a bishop.

See what I mean? Punch quality.

In many museums may be seen in the most perfect state of preservation in amber fossilized remains of plants and animals, says the Gentleman’s Magazine. The science of Egypt, in its highest development, did not succeed in discovering a method of embalming so perfect as the simple process taking place in nature. A tree exudes a gummy, resinous matter in a liquid state. An insect accidentally lights in it and is caught. The exudation continues and envelops it completely, preserving the most minute details of its structure. In the course of time the resin becomes a fossil and is known as amber. The history of fossil insects is largely indebted to the fly in amber. And to the preserving properties of amber we owe, likewise, our knowledge of some of the more minute details of ancient plant structure.

The coasts of the Baltic are and have been from the days of the Phoenician traders the great source of the amber of commerce. It occurs in rolled fragments, in strata known to geologists as oligocene. These are tertiary rocks of a date little more recent than those of the London basin and equivalent to the younger tertiary series of the Isle of Wight. The fragments of fossil resin were washed down by the rivers from the pine forests of the district along with sediments and vegetable debris. In them are found most perfectly preserved remains of the period, as well as of insect life. Fragments of twigs, leaves, buds and flowers, with sepals, petals stamens and pistils still in place, occur. A recent genus, dentzia, has been recognized by its characteristic stamens; the valves of the anthers of cinnamomum are seen in others. In one specimen the pendent catkin of a species of oak is seen as distinctly through the clear amber as if ti were a fresh flower. And, besides the insect and plant remains thus sealed up in amber, stray relics of the hight fauna of the forest have also been met with.

Fragments of hair and feathers have been caught in the sticky resin and preserved. Among others a woodpecker and squirrel have been recognized in the Baltic amber.

[tags]Ann Arbor Register, March, 1896[/tags]

Coryell Bartholomew, the Jackson aeronaut, proposes to go over the falls of Niagara on a trapeze attached to a bar between two balloons. The contrivance resembles a huge dumb bell. The connecting shaft is 100 feet long, and each sphere is 40 feet in diameter, leaving 20 feet between them. The contrivance will be ballasted so as to keep from sailing into the air as it floats down the river, but when the precipice is reached the ballast will be gradually released. At the bottom of the falls Bartholomew expects to sail away. If no obstacles develop, the trip will be made in August, 1896.

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

Honolulu advices contain a copy of a letter sent by U. S. Minister Willis to the Hawaiian government, demand that reparation be made James Durel, an alleged American citizen, of Negro and Indian blood, who was arrested last January and charged with treason. In refutation of the demand the Hawaiian government will prove that Durel aided the queen; that he furthered the conspiracy to reseat the queen, and that his demand of $25,000 is exhorbitant. Hawaii is viewing this action of Minister Willis with serious apprehension. They fear that it indicates active hostility toward them on the part of the American administration, and that it is designed to encourage and lead the way to a series of similar demands from Great Britain, and perhaps other powers, which would be ruinous to Hawaii to comply with.

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

A case of insanity of a curious sort is just now exciting considerable interest among the medial fraternity of London, says an exchange. A negro was found the other day in a gentleman’s house at Willesden and could give no account of himself because of severe fits of laughter which convulsed his frame. He was taken to the nearest workhouse and ever since has done nothing but laugh.

He has not uttered a word in the interval, and what is his name or where he came from is unknown. He laughs continuously from morning till night and at meal times he swallows his food like lightning in order, apparently, that he may continue his fit of mirth with as little interruption as possible. When he goes to sleep his sides shake with laughter, and in the morning the moment he opens his eyes his capacious mouth opens, too, with a loud guffaw.

At first it was thought he had adopted this means to escape from being tried on the charge of attempted burglary, but the physicians who have examined him unite in pronouncing him insane, and say that his cure is doubtful. The chances are, it seems, that he will literally laugh himself to death.

This form of insanity, though rare, is not unknown to medial science, though the mania is generally of a transitory nature. There are several cases on record of grave personages, who had rarely been seen to smile, suddenly breaking into a habit of uncontrollable and contagious laughter. Dr. Clouston tells of a solid, prudent business man who one day startled his family by a fit of laughter which lasted so long and was so hilarious that every one in the room had to join in.

From time to time after that he would be seized in the church, in the train or in the streets, and whenever he started all who heard him would have to follow. It was the first symptoms of mania. Very soon delusions and the most outrageous conduct supervened and then–the asylum.

[tags]Ann Arbor Register, March, 1896[/tags]

The red men of the west have many curious legends concerning the rivers, lakes and mountains of that region, none more weird than that which is told concerning Rock Lake, Washington. Since time out of memory the Indian tribes of that vicinity have believed the lake to be inhabited by a sea monster, which never grows old, and whose chief diet is Indian flesh. According to the legend, no Indian ever entered its waters and returned therefrom alive, no matter whether the rash act was committed by approaching its margin for a drink, for a plunge and a swim, or for a canoe ride upon its placid bosom. All of the Indians of the northwest know of the terrors of Rock Lake, and each and every one would prefer death than to touch its waters. The last Rock Lake horror, according to the legend, was in 1858, when a whole band of noble red men were sent to the happy hunting grounds by the monster.–St. Louis Republic.

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

Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions, by George S. Boutwell. 1859.

Fourteen lectures on educational topics important to mid-19th century America.

Thanks to Martin Pettit for post-processing this book!