Professor Walters is not certain that he can induce the trees to stand the Pennsylvania climate, but he’s going to try. Unless they are treated chemically, they succumb usually to a temperature below twenty-seven degrees. When they grow properly they attain a height of 375 to 480 feet.
They have other values in addition to being mosquito exterminators. The oil has a fragrant perfume. From the eucalyptus rostrata, or red gum, Professor Walters says, a delicious beverage is obtained by steeping the blossoms in water.
The tree species planted at Langhorne recently are the amygdalina, or peppermint gum; the rostrata, or red gum, and globulus, or Tasmanian blue gum.
Saw Seven Distinct Suns.
Seven distinct suns, or solar reflections, were seen by Mr. and Mrs. R. M. King, of Oak Mills, Kan., and, as near as they can recall, the strange phenomenon occurred in March, 1855. Mrs. King is making inquiry through the press to know if any of the old-timers remember it.
The strange spectacle was first noticed at eight o’clock in the morning and lasted until noon. They were in a group, each sun having a circle around it, and wherever these circles intersected there appeared to be a small star. The phenomenon caused considerable consternation among superstitious people, some contending that it was an omen of an impending war or that the end of the world was near.
Aime Argand and the Lamp.
A lamp of some character has been used since a period so remote that no trace of its origin is to be found, but the lamp, as we understand it, was the invention of Aime Argand, a Frenchman, and he came about the effectiveness of this lighting apparatus in a most unique way.[Pg 60]
Argand never fairly lifted himself out of the rut of poverty, but lived and died poor, disappointed and neglected. He was born at Geneva, Switzerland, in 1755, but he was living in England in 1782, when his first lamp was produced. The main feature of his lamp was that the wick fitted into a hollow cylinder, up which a current of air was allowed to pass, admitting a free supply of oxygen to the interior as well as the exterior of the circular flame.