Creston, Iowa.
Please inform us through Our Curiosity Shop how to polish sea-shells and prepare them for sale.
Subscriber.
Answer.—According to Cooley, one of the highest authorities on processes employed in the arts and manufactures, the surfaces of certain shells which have a natural polish should be first cleansed by rubbing with a rag dipped in hydrochloric acid (obtainable at any drug store) till the dull outer skin is removed. They must then be promptly washed in warm water, dried in hot sawdust, and polished with chamois leather. But shells destitute of natural polish may be either varnished or rubbed with a mixture of tripoli powder and turpentine, applied by means of a “wash-leather” (split sheepskin dressed with oil), and afterward with fine tripoli alone, and finally a little olive oil, the surface being brought up with vigorous use of the chamois leather. But there are shells which must first be boiled in a strong solution of potash, then ground on wheels, sometimes all the way through the outer stratum, to show an underlying one, after which they are polished with hydrochloric acid and putty powder. This last process better be left to men who make a business of shell-grinding; for it is said that “shell-grinders are almost all cripples in their hands,” owing to the dangerous nature of this operation.
STATES WITH COMPULSORY EDUCATION.
Stecoah, N. C.
Name the States and Territories which have compulsory education laws; and show how their attendance and non-attendance compare with the same in other States and Territories.
J. L. Crisp.
Answer.—Arizona, California, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Vermont, Wisconsin, and Wyoming have compulsory education laws, requiring every male child between certain years—usually 8 to 14—to attend school not less than a specified period—usually twelve weeks each year. The Illinois law did not come into effect until the present school year, and in several other States these laws were not passed in time to affect the statistics of 1880, so the following table gives the total number of children of school age in none but such States as had compulsory attendance laws before 1880. It gives not the average daily attendance, but the total enrollment of pupils in the public schools: