Buchanan’s Journal of Man, Volume 1, Number 2, edited by Joseph Rodes Buchanan. Published March 1887.

Bookp(h)ile

The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, Volume 23, Issue 3.

Volume Bookp(h)ile

A correspondent of a Coldwater paper gives the following particulars concerning the strange disappearance of Ottawa Lake, in Bedford township, Monroe county.

For some days past Ottawa Lake has presented a very exciting scene. The occasion was this: Those living near the lake observed for some days previous that the ice on the lake was falling. Soon they discovered that the fish were crowding to the holes in the ice where they watered their cattle. They increased in numbers, large and small, the former having their mouths wide open, and so exhausted that the people caught them with their hands.

As many teams daily visited the lake, hauling stones from the shores for building purposes, the news soon spread to a distance all around. The work of quarrying and hauling stones was soon abandoned, and in a short time scores of teams and hundreds of men might be scene on an about the lake. The men with hand-spikes, crow-bars and axes, were busily engaged in cutting and raising huge pieces of ice, and then stooping down and lifting the fish, some of which were dead, some alive, and some frozen fast in the ice, for the water having departed from the lake by some subterranean passage, the vast sheet of ice lay on the bottom.

For three days immense quantities of fish were carried away, principally pickerel and bass, while vast quantities of white fish were left to rot on the ice and in the mud–for mud and ice is all that is left of Ottawa Lake, numerous pieces of ice being left standing on edge, like so many grave stones. The lake, or rather its bed or grave-yard, presents a novel scene. Some say the water will soon return by the same source by which it departed, bringing a fresh supply of fish with it, for Lake Erie is supposed to be its headquarters. It will be well if it does, otherwise sickness may be feared in the burying ground of Ottawa Lake. In the meantime the farmers will greatly feel the loss of the departed waters.

About seven years ago, I am told, this lake departed in the same way, and old men say it departs and returns periodically.

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.

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.

The women in the Neudorf convent prison were all so kindly in their ways, so peaceful and good-humored, they differed so completely from our preconceived ideas of criminals, that we were puzzled to imagine what could have brought them into prison, says a writer in the Cornhill Magazine. We had never a doubt that their offenses were of the most trivial nature and we said so. The superior gave us one of her odd, humorous smiles.

“Did you notice that woman in the corridor?” said she. “She is Marie Schneider.”

That insignificant-looking little woman who had stood aside with a gentle, deprecative smile to allow us to pass, Marie Schneider? Why, in any other place one would have set her down at once as the hard-working wife of a struggling curate, so throughly respectable did she look. And she is Marie Schneider, a European celebrity with more murders on her conscience than she has fingers on her hands!

“And you let her stay here?”

“We have nowhere else to put her,” the inspector, who had joined us, replied, “and we don’t hang women in Austria.”

Nor is she, as we soon found, the only notoriety in the place. One of the prisoners is a delicate-looking girl, with large brown eyes and golden hair–a type of beauty almost peculiar to Australians. She has a low, cooing voice and a singularly sweet, innocent expression.

“What on earth can that girl have done to be sent here?” I whispered.

“Done,” the inspector replied, grimly, “set a house on fire in the hope of killing a man with his wife and five children.”

The girl must have had extraordinarily sharp ears, for, though we were standing at some distance away, she heard what he said, and she gave him a glance such as I hope never to see again in my life. It was absolutely diabolical; had there been a knife within reach the man would have died on the spot. Yet only a moment before she had been looking up into my face with a smile an angel might have envied.

Several of the prisoners are in the convent for killing their own children; some for killing, or trying to kill, their husbands; others for stealing or embezzling; others, again, for no more serious crime than begging. There are all degrees of guilt there, in fact, and all ages, from girls of 16 to women of nearly 80. And they all live together on terms of perfect equality; for there are no distinctions of rank there–no one is better or worse than her neighbor. When the convent door closed behind them they have done, for the time being, not only with the outside world, but with their own past. They start life afresh, as it were.

1. The reference appears in a story about Jesse Pomeroy, who has appeared on Odd Ends before.[back]

Sponges of the common sorts are so well known that people long since ceased to admire their curious and interesting structure. There are some rare species of sponges, however, such as the “glass,” “lace” and “tapestry” sponges, that are so exceedingly beautiful that the presence of such a specimen never fails to excite expressions of admiration. The delicate “Venus flower basket” belongs to the family of glass sponges, and is rightly regarded as a wonder by all who have had the privilege of owning or viewing it. This curious “flower basket” is found in the deep sea near the Philippine islands and in no other place in the world in numbers sufficient to make fishing for them a profitable industry. This species of sponge looks like delicate threads of glass woven into a curious, beautiful and intricate pattern, some specimens being of such exquisite loveliness that one can scarcely believe that it is simply the skeleton of a variety of sponge. This sponge is composed of an immense aggregation of minute “spicules,” running lengthwise from end to end, with numerous cross bands at right angles. These bands an cross bands are set with numerous five, six, nine and twelve pointed spicules, some of them filled with dozens of holes, which can only be seen with a microscope, because they are so exceedingly fine.

The fact cannot be disputed that no single factor in modern life is doing so much to degenerate our young womanhood as this mad race on the part of girls, impelled by necessity or not, to go into the business world, says the Ladies’ Home Journal. These may sound like strong words to the ears of some, but to those who are really cognizant of the immensity of the evil results that are being wrought they will simply fit the case and not go beyond it. In altogether too many of our commercial and industrial establishments, stores and factories, the men into whose hands is given the power to employ and control girls are not fit, from a moral standpoint, to herd swine. And yet thousands of our young women are allowed to go from their homes to work under the influence of these men and in the atmosphere vitiated by them. And why? Simply because it is considered more “respectable” to be employed in an office, store or factory than to be engaged in domestic service. The very word “servant” has a taint about it that the majority of young women dislike and from which they flee. But what else are they in business establishments than servants, pure and simple? There can be no difference by an imaginary one. That is all. Far less leniency is shown in our business houses to women employes than is shown, as a rule, in our homes to domestic help–infinitely less.