Prof. C. A. Leveridge, of Crawford, N. J., makes a very interesting statement below, which we are pleased to transmit to our readers: “I have a number of sets of cabinet specimens, lithological minerals, representing the glacial and eruptive period, each set numbering 103 varieties and 160 altogether. A few of these came from the Centennial Exhibition, Philadelphia, 1876, and some of the foreign are quite scarce. They are interesting either for study or library, and make a fine appearance. They are all catalogued, named, numbered, and located, and each set carefully wrapped and packed in box. I have sold a number and have received many acknowledgments of satisfaction. They are just the thing for study, showing the coolings (crystallization), rubbings and scratchings by the ice period. I have used a number of jaspers instead of the rougher rocks, which I think is better. I sell a working set for five dollars, and a cabinet set for ten dollars. There is to me no profit, but I am an invalid and have these specimens, which have cost me a great deal of money.”
The family of President Garfield have been spending the holidays all at home together. Mrs. Garfield is busy arranging a memorial room, set apart to contain relics and mementos of her illustrious husband. The walls of it are covered with framed resolutions and letters of sympathy, and there will be tables and cabinets loaded with similar tokens. When the arrangement is complete, the room will be one of the most noteworthy spots on earth, containing as it will expressions of love and respect from people in almost every nation of the world.
The London demand for bonds of the late Confederate States of America has recently become stronger than at any other time since the collapse of the Confederate government. A large block was bought a few days ago in Baltimore, on orders from a London banking house, at the rate of nine dollars and seventy-five cents a thousand. The demand has resulted in placing in the market several thousand Confederate dollars’ worth of bonds that have been pasted on fire-boards and screens.
One of the inconsistencies of our civilization may be seen in this item: “A Nevada penitentiary convict says that he was sent to prison for being dishonest, and is there kept at work cutting out pieces of pasteboard to put between the soles of shoes in place of honest leather.”
The people of the oil regions of Pennsylvania were afflicted with the spirit of speculation in oil, near the close of 1882. Professional men, traders of every kind, women who had saved a few hundred dollars, and, indeed, all classes of people, some with large sums of money, and others with small sums, ventured to speculate. Oil went from fifty cents per barrel up to one dollar and thirty-seven cents, and then dropped back to seventy-six cents. The result is that a great many people in moderate circumstances have lost all they owned. To hundreds of men and women it has been as disastrous as if all their property had been consumed by fire. Moral.—It is wrong to speculate. It is dangerous every way, and, besides, it is gambling.