The Mississippi valley, from the headwaters to the gulf, was roughly shaken up by an earthquake shock, which, while it did no serious damage, was quite severe in many places. At New Albany, Ind., a church wall fell in and crushed in an organ causing a loss of $2,000. In the vicinity of Gadsden, Ala., several persons were bruised by being thrown from their beds and several houses were partially wrecked. Near Charlestown, Mo., hundreds of chimneys were toppled down and windows in store fronts broken. The brick Methodist church there was also badly shattered and the plastering knocked from the walls of many dwellings. At Louisville, Ky., three severe shocks were felt and all the tall buildings are reported to have swayed like reeds. In Cincinnati the buildings shook as from a great explosion, and many people were flung from their beds. St. Louis, Mo., people were so badly scared that they left their homes and remained in the open air until numbed with cold. The public library building in Cairo, Ill., was badly damaged, and many chimneys were shaken down. A swaying of buildings and a loud rumbling noise were perceived in Cleveland. Cracks a foot wide were made in the walls of the capitol building in Jackson, Miss. Noises resembling thunder were heard in Nashville, Tenn., when the vibrations ceased. Michigan felt only a brief rocking with an almost imperceptible rumble, but not damage was done beyond the breaking of a few dishes. Reports show that the seismic disturbance was manifest in various other parts of Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi and Georgia.

Though “missing word” contests were declared illegal six months or a year ago in England and were supposed to have been definitely stopped, they are still being carried on. Unfortunately it is only the fraudulent ones that are now in existence. The “missing word contest” was so popular for many months after it was introduced that it has been kept up even against the law. It never attained any great popularity in this country. A sentence was printed with one word left blank, and the first person who supplied the missing word by mail got the chief prize, other awards being made up to a considerable sum. Each competitor sent in something like a shilling as entrance fee, and the total amount received in this way, generally an enormous sum, was distributed among the winners. That was the way the competition went when it was managed fairly. But the most of the the missing word games, if not all of them, are now running, are managed on no such principle. The periodicals now conducting them are generally printed somewhere on the continent, and are scattered broadcast on British soil. In many cases they are not periodicals at all, but merely circulars sealed up as letters giving the terms of the competition and the sentence to be completed. An instance of how one of these swindles works is that of a working man who sent three shillings abroad to a contest. A few days later he received in reply a letter marked “Private,” ostensibly from an employe of the foreign concern which offered in “revenge” to supply the missing word secretly for twenty shillings, or about $5. The deluded mechanic sent on the money and received the word. Shortly afterwards he got a letter from the company, saying that he had won, and that there were several hundred dollars standing to his credit. The only trouble was, so the letter ran, that another competitor had lodged a complaint and claimed two pounds. If he was willing to buy the man out, sending two pounds by postal, the prize money would be forwarded to him in full.

The working man started to pawn clothing in order to raise the money, when a friend suggested to him to have the company send the prize money minus the two pounds. He wrote to that effect. In answer came a letter stating that he need not send the money, as it had all been settled. But they had a charge on their books against him for “notarial and other costs of currency,” amounting to five shillings. Would he send that over immediately for expenses. Confidingly he did so, and never heard from the company afterwards.

The management of the Grand Opera House announces the engagement for three nights only. Nov. 11, 12 and 13, of Santanelle, the master of hypnotism, and the most talked about man of the day. His long successful series of entertainments in Detroit, covering 28 performances, caused the liveliest commotion rmoung men of learning, the newpapers particularly, and medical profession generally. Santanelli’s endorsement signed by 75 of 26 medical students from the Detroit College of Medicine and the Michigan College, pronounce him a man of honesty of purpose and thoroughness in all his claims. He is a mystifier of the deepest skill; many physicians and scientific men and women attend his interesting exhibitions, soley for what they may be able to gain in the study of hypnotism.

Prof. Samuel A. King, the aeronaut, made his two hundred and eleventh ascension on Saturday from Scranton. The balloon used for the occasion was the mammoth “King Carnival,” which requires 25,000 feet of gas for inflation. The story of the voyage can best be told in the words of the aeronaut himself:

“When I escaped the steeple,” he narrated last night, “I turned to salute the crowd, but I was traveling so fast that I guess they failed to see me. It was blowing a perfect gale. Seven minutes after the start I was on a level with the lower cloud strata, or 4,000 feet above the earth. Down below I could see nothing but woods and mountains. I was then rushing through the air at a terrible rate. I had never experienced anything like it before since my Boston ascension several years ago, when I made thirty miles in twenty-five minutes. In nine minutes from the start I got into the second strata of clouds and passed from sight. I then endeavored to keep the balloon down by allowing the gas to escape, so as to keep it from getting into the sunshine. The heat of the clouds, however, caused the gas to expand, and I passed upward again. Looking up I saw a mist, or haze. In a moment more I was above this again, and by making calculations I found that I was two miles up. At the juncture the expansion caused the gas to overflow, and I began to descend; nearing the earth I found nothing under me but woods and forests. The wind was howling through them, and the swaying of the trees produced a sound like a mighty roar. The idea of making a landing there was frightful, and so, throwing out ballast, I went up again. This time I went up into clear air, with nothing above me but the clear, blue sky. All this time I was rushing along at a glorious rate. At an altitude of three miles the sun was very hot, a circumstance which helped me to get rid of the chills which the wind had given me. After traveling on at this altitude about an hour and a half, I determined to make a descent. When I reached the clouds, the sudden coolness caused accelerated speed downward, and I had to throw out all the ballast I had to check it. Through the rifts in the clouds I could see that the country I was passing over was richly cultivated. I got the drag-rope and anchor ready. Presently I heard the noise of a river, which I took to be the Delaware, but which afterward proved to be the Schuylkill. I continued to descend, and at last came to the ground in a field. I threw out the drag-rope, which trailed along the tops of the trees, serving to break my speed. Reaching about thirty feet from the ground, I threw out my anchor, and, taking my collapsing cord in one hand and the valve cord in the other, waited to see what would turn up. Presently the force of the wind sent the balloon over till it touched the ground, uprooting the anchor, and the car, suddenly released, was thrown forward with terrific force toward a pile of fences. These I managed to clear, and then realizing the danger, I decided to use the collapsing cord, which slit the balloon open on one side from top to bottom. The movement of the car was, however, so rapid that in a moment it dashed against a long fence, which it knocked down like a piece of paper, and went away across a field, coming like a broadside against a tree. I managed to jump out just in time to escape the crash. It still continued to rock to and fro and in a little while the branches of the tree had torn it to pieces. Shortly afterward a crowd of countrymen came up and I found that I was in the grounds of the Perkiomen Company, three-quarters of a mile from Oak Station, Montgomery County. When I first touched earth it was ten minutes to two o’clock, so that I had made 140 miles inside of two hours. The country men helped me to pack up the fragments, and here I am again, as safe and sound as ever. But I have never been through the air at that rate, I can tell you, and the landing was anything but a pleasant experience. It is one consolation that, gale or no gale, I shall have no terra firma to encounter in my ocean voyage.”–Philadelphia Record.

Weston, the pedestrian, on his walk from Portland (Me.) to Chicago, a distance of 1,237½ miles, is “marching on” with a good prospect of success. He arrived at Syracuse (N. Y.) from Oneida, a distance of 28 miles, about nine o’clock on Monday morning. He says he is now 18 hours ahead of time. We have before published the conditions upon which Mr. Weston attempts this almost unheard-of feat, but the following brief resume of them will not prove uninteresting. He is to walk 100 miles in twenty-four hours during his journey, and has the privilege of trying five times to do it. He has made one attempt, starting from Dedham (Mass.) in which he failed, owing to injuries received from the crowd at Pawtucket. He will try again after leaving Buffalo. If he does not succeed in any of these attempts, he forfeits six-tenths of the stake, whether he walks the 1,237½ miles in twenty-six days or not. Six men in carriages accompany him to see that all is fairly done. The stake is $10,000, and he is confident of winning. Edward Payson Weston is twenty-seven years of age, five feet seven and a half inches high, and weighs 125 pounds. His walking dress, is a jacket, tight-fitting black pantaloons, stout brogans, with red tops, round top hat, and buff gloves. He is a canvasser by profession, and is to distribute on the road 30,000 copies of his little paper, The Time Table.

[tags]Peninsular Courier and Family Visitant, November, 1867[/tags]

[“The descendants of man will nourish themselves by immersion in nutritive fluid. They will have enormous brains, liquid, soulful eyes, and large hands, on which they will hop. No craggy nose will they have, no vestigial ears; their mouths will be a small, perfectly round aperture, unanimal, like the evening star. Their whole muscular system will be shrivelled to nothing, a dangling pendant to their minds.”—Pall Mall Gazette, abridged.]

What, a million years hence, will become of the Genus

Humanum, is truly a question vexed;

At that epoch, however, one prophet has seen us

Resemble the sketch annexed.

For as Man undergoes Evolution ruthless,

His skull will grow “dome-like, bald, terete”;

And his mouth will be jawless, gumless, toothless—

No more will he drink or eat!

He will soak in a crystalline bath of pepsine,

(no Robert will then have survived, to wait,)

And he’ll hop on his hands as his food he steps in—

A quasi-cherubic gait!

No longer the land or the sea he’ll furrow;

The world will be withered, ice-cold, dead

As the chill of eternity grows, he’ll burrow

Far down underground instead.

If the Pall Mall Gazette has thus been giving

A forecast correct of this change immense,

Our stars we may thank, then, that we shan’t be living

A million years from hence!

The song to which the little creature gave utterance again and again in our full view was as sweet and varied as the warbling of any bird. It most resembled that of the canary, but the melody of the nightingale was occasionally introduced. Every note was as clear and distinct, but withal so soft, so gentle, tender and pianissimo, that I can only compare it to the voice of a bird muffled by being heard through a down pillow. In the room was a canary, whose cage was suspended in one of the windows. He had settled himself to roost, and his head was under his wing, but at the sound of “Nicodemus’” serenade he awoke, and, listening attentively, and fantastically leaning alternately to right and left, peeped curiously down to the floor. I learned that the mouse and bird were intimately acquainted with each other, and that the former frequently visited his feather friend and stayed to supper. Accordingly, while we looked on with pleasure, “Nicodemus” climbed up the drawn curtains, entered the bird’s cage, and partook of the seed–the canary showing no symptom of disapprobation or disturbance, but merely from his perch peeping down on his visitor in a ludicrously quaint and odd manner. During his supper time, “Nicodemus” obliged us from the cage with several repetitions from his song, “The Chirper,” down below on the carpet, occasionally coming in with a monotonous contralto accompaniment, and sometimes emitting a sound like the squeaking of a corkscrew through a cork. The two little songsters, having done their best to please us, were rewarded with all that mice could wish for as components of a feast, and after selecting the portions they severally preferred, gracefully retired.–Popular Science Monthly.

A musician of this city has contrived an apparatus which he calls a “Pianautomaton,” and which is designed, as its name implies, for automatically playing upon a pianoforte any piece of music desired. The instrument is described externally as a box of the width and length of the keyboard to which it is clamped. Through a slot runs the piece of music which is to be played, and which has this peculiarity, that all the notes are perforated through the sheet. The box has a crank which sets in motion a magneto-electric apparatus and by its means a series of axial bars protruding below the box, strike the pianoforte keys and correctly perform the musical composition indicated by the holes in the paper. This contrivance rather belies its name in that music is ground out, as in the better known street instrument of humbler pretensions; but in another form, the apparatus is entirely self-acting, the insertion of the perforated paper causing a small lever to come in metallic contact, thus completing the electric current, the instrument then continuing to play until all the music paper has passed through the aperture, when the lever being no longer held up, the circuit is broken and the performance terminated.

The axial bars strike the key notes with four different degrees of strength, either with a legato or staccato touch, and with a suitable connection with the pedals, all degrees of musical expression are attainable. It is apparent that this instrument can be made to produce effects of execution which no living artist could think of attempting. For example, a chromatic scale in octaves, thirds, or tenths; or produce the effect as if four, six, eight, or more hands were performing. There is no hesitancy in “reading at sight,” and the variety of pieces need not be a limited repertoire, like a hand organ.