New Gold Field.—A rich gold field has been discovered between the two rivers, Lava and Papanahoni, in Surinam. It is an open question whether this district of 20,000 to 25,000 square kilometres belongs to France or Holland. M. Condreau, the French traveller, who has been closely investigating the district, considers that it will be as productive as the gold-fields of Australia and California.
Mr. George Le Fèvre, of the Huguenot Church at Canterbury Cathedral, writes thus—"A large and valuable oil painting of a scene in the history of the Huguenots has been presented to the French Church. The subject is exceedingly appropriate this year, being the tercentenary celebration of the defeat of the Spanish invasion of England. The picture has been hung up in that part of the Crypt known as the Chantry of the Black Prince, and has been much admired by tourists, who are now visiting in considerable numbers."
By the steamship Oonah, which is the latest addition to the fleet of the Tasmanian Steam Navigation Company, there arrived at Melbourne on Saturday, April 28th, from Tasmania, the largest shipment of fruit for the London market which has left the Australian colonies—about 13,000 bushels of choice apples. The fruit will be transhipped into the cool chamber of the P. and O. mail boat Oceana, leaving on the 4th of May, and will be followed by another shipment by the Britannia, leaving on the 18th of May. This, we understand, closes the operations of the shippers for this season. Should the outcome of these shipments be as encouraging as the telegraphic news already received seems to indicate, there is every prospect of a very large export trade in this industry being established. We are informed that the parcel now arrived could have been very much increased had there been more room in the cool chamber of the Oceana. No doubt next season all the boats of the P. and O. and Orient Companies will make arrangements to take fruit, so that shipments can be forwarded every week.—Launceston (Tasmania) Examiner, May 2nd.
Further particulars of the floods in Mexico show them to have been of a most serious character. It is stated that, in the town of Silao, where the river overflowed its banks on the 18th of June, 1,500 persons perished. At Leon, over 2,200 houses were destroyed. In some districts it is declared that bodies were floating about on the waters as thickly as driftwood.
Dread of Comets.—A story is related showing the dread with which comets were regarded in the early part of the last century. A renowned astronomer predicted that a comet would appear on Wednesday, October 14th, 1712, and that the world would be destroyed by fire on the Friday following. The astronomer was correct, so far as the comet was concerned. A number of persons got into the boats and barges on the Thames, thinking the water the safest place. A captain of a Dutch ship threw all his powder into the river, that his ship might not be endangered. A number of clergymen, it is said, were ferried over to Lambeth, to request that proper prayers might be prepared, there being none suitable in the Church service. Sir Gilbert Heathcote, at that time head director of the Bank, issued orders to all the fire offices in London, requiring them to keep a good look-out, and to have a particular eye on the Bank of England.
A Millionaire Inventor.—We have more than once pointed out how simple inventions (observes a writer in Invention) often realize large sums for the fortunate inventor. Here is another illustration. The discovery of the perforated substance used for bottoming chairs and for other purposes has made its inventor a millionaire. George Yeaton, the inventor in question, was a poor Yankee cane-seater in Vermont. He first distinguished himself by inventing a machine for weaving cane, but he made no money out of it, as some one stole his idea, and had the process patented. After a number of years experimenting, Yeaton at last hit upon this invention, which consists of a number of thin layers of boards of different degrees of hardness glued together to give pliability. Yeaton went through a number of bitterly contested law-suits before he got his invention patented. He was wise in not paying others to manufacture his device. He formed a company, and to-day he has a plant valued at half a million dollars, and is in the receipt of a princely annual revenue derived from this invention.
The Fastest Train in the World.—The fastest train in the world is without doubt the "Flying Dutchman," which for many years has succeeded in knocking off the seventy-eight miles between London and Swindon in an hour and twenty-seven minutes. This is at the rate of fifty-three miles an hour. Exeter is 194 miles from Paddington, and is reached in four and a quarter hours, or an average pace throughout, including stoppages, of forty-five miles and a half per hour. The Prince of Wales has made some remarkably quick journeys on the Great Western. Not very long ago the North Western took him from Manchester to London in three hours and fifty-five minutes, but the Great Western had previously beaten this by conveying him from London to Swansea (216 miles) in three hours and fifty-three minutes, the average speed throughout that remarkable journey being almost fifty-six miles an hour. English trains are much quicker than those of the Continent. The speed of the American expresses is from thirty-five to forty miles an hour. The Chemin de fer du Nord runs its expresses at an average of thirty-seven, and the Paris and Mediterranean at thirty-four miles an hour. Some of the German expresses cover thirty-six miles an hour.
A Terrible Situation.—Mr. Ballou, in his recent wanderings under the Southern Cross, has found one more unpleasant item for reptile literature. In Sydney he heard the following snake story, the facts of which occurred not long before, near the town of Parramatta. In the family of a settler, who resided some half a league from the town, there was an invalid daughter, she being of an extremely nervous temperament. She was sleeping, one summer afternoon, in a hammock swung between two supporting standards in the shade of the piazza, when she was suddenly awakened by feeling something cold and moist clinging about her throat. She put her hand to the spot, and clasped the body of a snake just at the back of its head, and, with a horrified cry, wrenched with all her strength to pull it away. This was the first instinctive action of the moment, but so great was her terror that she speedily lost all consciousness of the situation. Her hand, however, still grasped the snake where she had first seized upon it, and with such a convulsive force that the creature was rendered powerless. The cry of the terrified girl brought the father from within the house, who instantly came to her relief; but in the fit which her fright had induced, her hand slowly contracted about the creature's throat with a force which she could not possibly have exerted when awake, and before her fingers were unclasped, by the aid of a bit of hammock cord, the reptile was completely strangled. Fortunately, the creature had not bitten the girl before she seized it, and after that it was unable to do so. It is said to have been four feet long, and of a poisonous species.
"I GAVE MYSELF UP TO READING THE BIBLE." (See page 194.)