millions. While throughout all the vast interior of the country,
notwithstanding the marvelous multiplication of farms, farm products
are higher than in 1860, and nearly all manufactured goods that enter
into general consumption are lower. In the same brief period the
assessed taxes on real estate and personal property have mounted from
$12,084,560,005 to $16,902,993,543.

EARTHQUAKES.

  LAY, Col.

  Please tell us the cause of earthquakes. Are they due to internal
  convulsions of the earth or to atmospheric disturbances?

  JACOB SLONEKER.

_Answer._—According to that eminent physicist, F. W. Rudler (see
his contribution to the Encyclopedia Britannica on “Earthquakes”),
“even at the present day, after all that has been written on the
subject, but little is known as to the origin of earthquakes.” The
general opinion of investigators is that these agitations proceed
from within outward, and are not of atmospheric or other external
origin. True, Professor Alexis Perry, of Dijon, France, thought he
had discovered relations between the ages of the moon and these
recurrences, which seemed to sustain the theory of Zantedeschi, that
the liquid nucleus of the earth responds to the moon’s attraction in
tides, somewhat as the ocean does: but the theory that the earth has
a liquid nucleus covered with only a thin, solid crust, is losing
adherents continually. The theory of vibration communicated by
meteoric impact has been advanced as accounting for some earthquakes.
Another theory is that earthquakes are caused in some instances
by steam from water rushing into the bowels of volcanoes, or from
explosions of pent-up gases, generated by chemical decomposition of
minerals. Others believe that many of these phenomena are due to
magnetic disturbances, following eruptions in the sun. The prevailing
opinion still is that whatever their origin, whether of one cause,
or various causes, the vibrations of every earthquake can be traced
to a focus within the earth, and that this lies directly beneath the
point of greatest disturbance on the earth’s surface. After the great
shock at Naples in 1857, Mr. Mallet, aided by the Royal Society,
by determining the wave paths of the shock at twenty-six different
stations, was able to locate the focal depth of the earthquake at
about five and a half miles; and Dr. Oldham, by observations on the
wave effects of the earthquake which occurred at Cachar, India, on
Jan. 10, 1869, found that the focus of disturbance must have been
about thirty miles below the surface. This is very near the maximum
depth at which any earthquake is likely to originate, if we accept
the reasoning of that most eminent of all investigators of this class
of phenomena, Mr. Mallet, of Dublin, Ireland. There are credible
records of between 6,000 and 7,000 earthquakes between 1606 B. C. and
1842 A. D. Professor Fuch’s more careful observations of recent years
show that there were probably many times that number of unrecorded
ones, since he registered ninety-seven during the year 1875 and 104
during 1876. In view of this fact this subject appears to be one of
the most interesting problems of nature and is attracting growing
attention, which, it is hoped, will presently lead to definite,
satisfactory conclusions.

SOUTHEASTERN DAKOTA.

  PLANKINGTON, D. T.

Having seen questions in THE INTER OCEAN inquiring about Dakota,
and seeing no answers from this county, I concluded to write and
tell what I know of it. Aurora is the fourth county from the eastern
boundary and the third from the southern. It is considered by all
who have traveled over it as one of the finest in Southern Dakota.
The county is forty-eight miles long and twenty-four miles wide. In
the northwestern portion are situated the “Wessington Hills.” These
extend from northeast to southwest as far as the Missouri. Among them
are beautiful broad valleys and lakes of clear water. The climate
is all that can be desired. Last summer the days were warm and the
nights invariably cool, so that after a hard day’s work you could lie
down and rest sweetly. The past winter here, as in all other parts
of the Northern States, has been very cold and stormy. One month,
however, would take in all of the very cold weather. One foot would
cover all the snow that we have had this winter. The soil is a black
loam, varying in depth from one to six feet. The shallowest we have
found on our land is eighteen inches, and the deepest four feet. It
is very productive. Last year the crops yielded as follows: Corn
from 25 to 60 bushels per acre, wheat from 20 to 40 bushels, oats
from 50 to 80 bushels, barley from 30 to 60 bushels, rye from 40
to 60 bushels, flax from 7 to 22 bushels, buckwheat from 10 to 30
bushels, potatoes from 100 to 300 bushels, and all other vegetables
yielded enormously. The way this county is filling up is wonderful.
One year ago last fall there were only about 150 people in the
county, and to-day there are between 450 and 500, and scores more
coming on every train. If emigrants continue coming as they have done
for the last eighteen months, this county will soon be filled up.
Spring has already opened out with us, and farmers are putting in
their wheat and barley. Plankington, our county seat, which hardly
had a name eighteen months ago, is to-day a fine little village of
over 700 inhabitants. With early and deep planting this country will
grow almost anything.

  THOMAS JACKA.

INCOME OF THE CZAR.

  FORT WAYNE, Ind.

  Will you inform us through Our Curiosity Shop from what source the
  Emperor of Russia receives his income of $25,000 a day?

  S. S. COLEMAN.

_Answer._—The annual income of the Czar of all the Russias probably
averages a great deal more than $25,000 a day. The crown domains
comprise more than a million square miles, covering an area exceeding
that of all our New England, Middle, and Southern States. These
include cultivated lands, pastures, and forests in different parts
of this vast empire, which embraces in its despotic arms more
than one-sixth the entire land surface of our globe. Besides the
revenue from the above estates, the Czar derives a large income
from gold, silver, copper, and other mines in Siberia. The actual
total of his immense revenue from all these sources is not stated
in the government budgets or finance accounts, the crown domains
being considered the private property of the imperial family. In a
British consular report of 1867 the total income of the imperial
family is estimated at £2,450,000 sterling, which is an average
of about $33,500 a day. The imperial contributions to charities,
schools, theaters, etc., are estimated by the same authority at about
£450,000, leaving a net sum of £2,000,000 a year to “keep the family.”

GETTYSBURG AND WATERLOO.

  RED OAK, Iowa.

  What was the most destructive battle of the late civil war; and how
  did it compare with the battle of Waterloo as to numbers engaged
  and loss of life?

  INQUIRER.

_Answer._—The heaviest losses suffered by either side in any single
battle of the late war were at Gettysburg. The numbers engaged and
the losses are stated differently by different writers. Before
the Committee on the Conduct of the War, General Meade, the Union
commander, said: “Including all arms of the service, my strength
was a little under 100,000—about 95,000.” Understanding this to
include General French’s 7,000 men, who were by a blunder kept idle
at Frederick, and about 4,000 more of French’s force, who had been
detailed for special service—none of whom were brought into this
battle—it would appear that Meade’s force at Gettysburg was about
84,000 men of all arms. This corresponds very nearly with General
Humphrey’s statement that the Army of the Potomac in this action
comprised 70,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry, with an artillery
force of 300 guns. Of the Confederate forces, General Humphrey says
that General Lee entered Pennsylvania with 85,000 infantry, 8,000
cavalry, and a due proportion of artillery. Greeley’s “American
Conflict” says: “Lee’s army, carefully counted by two Union men
independently, as it marched through Hagerstown, numbered 91,000
infantry, with 280 guns and 6,000 cavalry, while not less than 5,000
cavalry under Stuart advanced into Pennsylvania without passing
through Hagerstown.” The Union loss was 23,190, of whom 2,834 were
killed, 13,713 wounded, and 6,643 missing. The Confederate loss is
not officially stated. It is estimated by one writer (in the American
Cyclopedia) at 5,000 killed, 23,000 wounded, and 8,000 unwounded
prisoners—a total of 36,000, which is evidently an exaggeration.
Greeley’s “American Conflict” estimates Lee’s loss at 28,000, of whom
18,000 were killed and wounded, and 10,000 were unwounded prisoners;
while J. Watts de Peyster, in Johnson’s Cyclopedia, estimates Lee’s
loss at 31,600—18,000 killed and wounded, and 13,600 missing,
which includes the unwounded prisoners in our hands. In the battle
of Waterloo, the French army under Napoleon I. (according to P.
Nicholas, in Haydn’s Dictionary of Dates) numbered 71,947 men and 246
guns, and the allies 133,661 men of all arms and 260 guns—English,
under Wellington, 67,661; Prussians, 66,000 men. The loss of the
allies was 22,976: of whom 4,206 were killed, 14,539 wounded, and
4,231 missing. The French loss was 18,500 killed and wounded, and
7,800 prisoners, total 26,300; but other accounts, including some
French writers, make their loss about 30,000, the figures given in
most English and American cyclopedias.

FRAUDULENT HOMESTEAD AND TIMBER CLAIMS.

  LACROSSE, Wis.

  Is it not the intention of the pre-emption, homestead, and
  timber-culture laws to encourage actual settlement and improvement
  of the country, and are not these laws constantly used to encourage
  fraudulent speculation, to the disadvantage of bona fide settlers?

  CITIZEN.

_Answer._—Undoubtedly the laws mentioned were enacted for the benefit
of actual settlers, and not for the enrichment of speculators. The
following communication from Samuel Huckins, Esq., of Hartford, D.
T., just received, may be taken as an expose of the actual use made
of the laws in thousands of instances: “I have been a reader of your
worthy paper from the first year of its publication, and as I live
away out here in the far West I take a great interest in the doings
of Congress in regard to the public lands, of which THE INTER OCEAN
has so much to say. Now my theory and belief is, and always has been,
that the public lands should be given to those who will cultivate
and improve them—actual settlers who will make for themselves and
their descendants a home—and not throw this munificent gift of the
National domain into the hands of land-sharks and speculators.
Every person taking a claim, and those now holding claims under any
of the different acts of Congress, should occupy and cultivate such
lands according to the spirit and intent of the laws granting them
the same. I think Congress made a very grave error in giving persons
who had filed their entries of land under the homestead act the
privilege to pay $1.25 per acre for it instead of residing on the
land five years, thus giving those who never occupied the land, and
probably never will, a great advantage over the first settlers on
homestead land, who, in order to hold their claims, had to make the
required improvements and have an actual residence. I believe from
my personal knowledge that three-fourths of the land acquired under
the above act passed into the hands of capitalists and speculators.
The bogus homesteader would go to some money lender and get enough
money to prove up on his land—say $200 for 160 acres and $50 or $100
besides—giving a deed or mortgage on the same as security. In this
way the poor, honest home-seeker is cheated out of the land. There
are a great many claims out here, especially timber claims, held by
persons who have not fulfilled the requirements of the law, but as
the law is now administered they can hold them with impunity. A great
share of the land now covered by timber-culture claims on file is
in reality far more effectually covered with rank weeds than with
growing timber. Under the present system this law is of little value,
and keeps off the sincere home-seeker, who would improve the land
and help to build up schools and churches, and make for himself and
family a much needed home.”

ASSASSINATED ON GOOD FRIDAY.

  CHICAGO, Ill.

  Please decide whether President Lincoln was assassinated on Good
  Friday, and settle a dispute.

  CONTESTANT.

_Answer._—President Lincoln was assassinated on Friday, April 14,
1865, which was Good Friday.

THE DISCOVERY OF MEXICO.

  CRAB ORCHARD, Ill.

  Who discovered Mexico?

  FELIX M. BURDETT.

_Answer._—The first knowledge of Mexico that reached the Spaniards
otherwise than by vague and uncertain stories of natives of the West
Indies came through two expeditions fitted out by Diego Velasquez,
who made the first European settlements in Cuba. The first of
these, under the command of Cordova, sailed from St. Jago de Cuba,
Feb. 8, 1517, and landed on the shores of Yucatan and Campeachy.
The second, commanded by Grijalvo, landed at various places on the
coast, but returned without penetrating into the interior or making
a settlement. It carried back such reports of the high civilization
and great wealth of Mexico, learned through the natives, as served
to intensify the determination of Velasquez to explore, and, if
possible, conquer the country. He fitted up a fleet of eleven small
vessels and placed them in command of Fernando Cortez, who set sail
from Cuba, Feb. 10, 1519; landed near the present city of Vera Cruz,
on March 4, and became the first actual explorer of the country, and
the founder of the Spanish dominion in Mexico.

TITLE OF PRINCE OF WALES.

  HEBRON, Neb.

  1. What is the origin of the title of the Prince of Wales? 2. Who
  pays the cost of the dinners given at the White House, and what is
  the annual expense on this account?

  JAMES KNOX.

_Answer._—1. On the conquest of Wales by Henry III. of England, he
bestowed the principality of Wales and earldom of Chester on his son,
afterward Edward I., as an office of trust and government. In 1343
Edward III. invested his son Edward, the “Black Prince,” with the
principality, and from that time the eldest son of the reigning King
has borne the title of Prince of Wales. 2. The President pays the
expenses of entertainments given at the Executive Mansion out of his
annual allowances, and the amount so expended is a private matter.

J. C. CALHOUN—WHIG PARTY.

  VOLGA CITY, Iowa.

  1. Why did John C. Calhoun resign the office of Vice President? 2.
  Who was his successor? 3. What caused the death of the Whig party?

  H. C. DAVIS.

_Answer._—1. Calhoun aspired to the Presidency at the end of
President Jackson’s first term. This led to a personal alienation
and final violent rupture between the two. Calhoun was elected Vice
President along with Jackson in 1828, but he resigned the office in
1831 for the above reason, and in order to accept the United States
Senatorship vacated by Mr. Hayne when the latter was elected Governor
of South Carolina. 2. Martin Van Buren, of New York, succeeded Mr.
Calhoun. 3. The growth of the Free Soil and Abolition parties in the
North killed the old Whig party.

GREAT FIRES OF HISTORY.

  FREDONIA, N. Y.

  How did the loss of lives and property in the great fire in Chicago
  compare with the losses in what are distinguished as the great
  fires of London and Moscow? Give a list also of the other principal
  fires recorded in history, and oblige

  A CONSTANT READER.

_Answer._—The loss of life and property in the willful destruction by
fire and sword of the principal cities of ancient history—Nineveh,
Babylon, Persepolis, Carthage, Palmyra, and many others—is largely
a matter of conjecture. The following is a memorandum of the chief
conflagrations of the current era:

In 64, A. D., during the reign of Nero, a terrible fire raged in Rome
for eight days, destroying ten of the fourteen wards. The loss of
life and destruction of property is not known.

In 70, A. D., Jerusalem was taken by the Romans and a large part of
it given to the torch, entailing an enormous destruction of life and
property.

In 1106 Venice, then a city of immense opulence, was almost wholly
consumed by a fire, originating in accident or incendiarism.

In 1212 the greater part of London was burned.

In 1666 what is known as the Great Fire of London raged in the city
from Sept. 2 to 6, consuming 13,200 houses, with St. Paul’s Church,
86 parish churches, 6 chapels, the Guild Hall, the Royal Exchange,
the Custom House, 52 companies’ halls, many hospitals, libraries,
and other public edifices. The total destruction of property was
estimated at $53,652,500. Six lives were lost, and 436 acres burnt
over.

In 1679 a fire in Boston burned all the warehouses, eighty dwellings,
and vessels in the dock-yards; loss estimated at $1,000,000.

In 1700 a large part of Edinburgh was burned; loss unknown.

In 1728 Copenhagen was nearly destroyed; 1,650 houses burned.

In 1736 a fire in St. Petersburg burned 2,000 houses.

In 1729 a fire in Constantinople destroyed 12,000 houses, and 7,000
people perished. The same city suffered a conflagration in 1745,
lasting five days; and in 1750 a series of three appalling fires:
one in January, consuming 10,000 houses; another in April destroying
property to the value of $5,000,000, according to one historian, and
according to another, $15,000,000; and in the latter part of the
year another, sweeping fully 10,000 houses more out of existence. It
seemed as if Constantinople was doomed to utter annihilation.

In 1751 a fire in Stockholm destroyed 1,000 houses; and another fire
in the same city in 1759 burned 250 houses with a loss of $2,420,000.

In 1752 a fire in Moscow swept away 18,000 houses, involving an
immense loss.

In 1758 Christiana suffered a loss of $1,250,000, by conflagration.

In 1760 the Portsmouth (Eng.) dock-yards were burned, with a loss of
$2,000,000.

In 1764 a fire in Konigsburg, Prussia, consumed the public buildings,
with a loss of $3,000,000; and in 1769 the city was almost totally
destroyed.

In 1763 a fire in Smyrna destroyed 2,600 houses, with a loss of
$1,000,000; in 1772 a fire in the same city carried off 3,000
dwellings, and 3,000 to 4,000 shops, entailing a loss of $20,000,000;
and in 1796 there were 4,000 shops, mosques, magazines, etc., burned.

In 1776, six days after the British seized the city, a fire swept off
all the west side of New York city, from Broadway to the river.

In 1771 a fire in Constantinople burned 2,500 houses; another in
1778 burned 2,000 houses; in 1782 there were 600 houses burned in
February, 7,000 in June, and on Aug. 12, during a conflagration that
lasted three days, 10,000 houses, 50 mosques, and 100 corn-mills,
with a loss of 100 lives. Two years later a fire, on March 13,
destroyed two-thirds of Pera, the loveliest suburb of Constantinople,
and on Aug. 5 a fire in the main city, lasting twenty-six hours,
burned 10,000 houses. In this same fire-scourged city, in 1791,
between March and July, there were 32,000 houses burned, and about as
many more in 1795; and in 1799 Pera was again swept with fire, with a
loss of 13,000 houses, including many buildings of great magnificence.

In 1784 a fire and explosion in the dock-yards, Brest, caused a loss
of $5,000,000.

But the greatest destruction of life and property by conflagrations,
of which the world has anything like accurate records, must be
looked for within the current century. Of these the following is a
partial list of instances in which the loss of property amounted to
$3,000,000 and upward:

                                                Property
  Dates. Cities.                               destroyed.

  1802   Liverpool                             $5,000,000
  1803   Bombay                                 3,000,000
  1805   St. Thomas                            30,000,000
  1808   Spanish Town                           7,500.000
  1812   Moscow, burned five days;
           30,800 houses destroyed             50,000,000
  1816   Constantinople, 12,000
           dwellings, 3,000 shops                   .....
  1820   Savannah                               4,000,000
  1822   Canton nearly destroyed                    .....
  1828   Havana, 350 houses                         .....
  1835   New York (“Great Fire”)               15,000,000
  1837   St. Johns. N. B.                       5,000,000
  1838   Charleston, 1,158 buildings            3,000,000
  1841   Smyrna, 12,000 houses                      .....
  1842   Hamburg, 4,219 buildings,
           100 lives lost                      35,000,000
  1845   New York, 35 persons killed            7,500,000
  1845   Pittsburg, 1,100 buildings            10,000,000
  1845   Quebec, May 28, 1,650
           dwellings                            3,750,000
  1845   Quebec, June 28, 1,300
           dwellings                                .....
  1846   St Johns, Newfoundland                 5,000,000
  1848   Constantinople, 2,500 buildings       15,000,000
  1848   Albany, N. Y., 600 houses              3,000,000
  1849   St. Louis                              3,000,000
  1851   St. Louis, 2,500 buildings            11,000,000
  1851   St. Louis, 500 buildings               3,000,000
  1851   San Francisco, May 4 and 5,
           many lives lost                     10,000,000
  1851   San Francisco, June                    3,000,000
  1852   Montreal, 1,200 buildings              5,000,000
  1861   Mendoza destroyed by
           earthquake and fire,
           10,000 lives lost                         ....
  1862   St. Petersburg                         5,000,000
  1862   Troy, N. Y., nearly destroyed
  1862   Valparaiso, almost destroyed
  1864   Novgorod, immense destruction
           of property                              .....
  1865   Constantinople, 2,800 buildings
           burned                                   .....
  1866   Yokohama, nearly destroyed
  1865   Carlstadt, Sweden, all consumed
           but Bishop’s residence,
           hospital, and jail;
           10 lives lost                            .....
  1866   Portland, Me., half the city          11,000,000
  1866   Quebec, 2,500 dwellings and
           17 churches                             ......
  1870   Constantinople, Pera suburb           26,000,000
  1871   Chicago, 250 lives lost, 17,430
           buildings burned, on
           2,124 acres                        192,000,000
  1871   Paris, fired by the Commune          160,000,000
  1872   Boston                                75,000,000
  1873   Yeddo, 10,000 houses                      ......
  1877   Pittsburg, caused by riot              3,260,000
  1877   St. Johns, N. B., 1,650 dwellings,
           18 lives lost                       12,500,000

From the above it appears that the five greatest fires on record,
reckoned by destruction of property, are:

  Chicago fire, of Oct. 8 and 9, 1871        $192,000,000
  Paris fires, of May, 1871                   160,000,000
  Moscow fire, of Sept. 14-19, 1812           150,000,000
  Boston fire, Nov. 9-10, 1872                 75,000,000
  London fire, Sept. 2-6, 1666                 53,652,500
  Hamburg fire, May 5-7, 1842                  35,000,000

Taking into account, with the fires of Paris and Chicago, the great
Wisconsin and Michigan forest fires of 1871, in which it is estimated
that 1,000 human beings perished and property to the amount of
over $3,000,000 was consumed, it is plain that in the annals of
conflagrations that year stands forth in gloomy preeminence.

LOSS OF THE LADY ELGIN.

  CRETE, Ill.

  When was the Lady Elgin lost, on Lake Michigan and how many persons
  were lost, and saved?

  JOHN MILLER.

_Answer._—The steamer Lady Elgin was cut to the water’s edge by a
sailing vessel named the Augusta, heavily loaded with lumber, which
struck her amidships, during the night, Sept. 8, 1860. She sunk
almost immediately. Carrying an excursion party from Chicago to
Milwaukee at the time, she had about 400 passengers on board. The
disaster occurred about twenty-two miles north of Chicago, nearly
off Glencoe. Many of the passengers and crew got on rafts and
portions of the wreck, and drifted toward the land. Some of these
came ashore between Glencoe and Evanston; but the most of them,
after getting within hail of the beach, despite the best efforts of
citizens and students of Evanston and Winnetka to assist them, were
swallowed up in the breakers and carried out into the lake by the
terrible undertow. Men with ropes around their chests plunged into
the breakers, seized exhausted, drowning men and women, and were
dragged in by main strength of men at the lines. Conspicuous among
these noble men was Mr. Edward W. Spencer, of Rock Island, Ill.,
then a student at Garrett Biblical Institute, who saved fourteen or
fifteen passengers, persisting until he was utterly exhausted; an
example of heroism which was suitably commemorated afterwards by the
presentation of a memorial watch and chain, given him by citizens
of Chicago and Evanston. Of the total list of passengers only about
one-fourth were rescued; 297 perished.

AUSTRALIA.

  COLMAR, Ill.

  What are the area and principal natural features of Australia, and
  the nationalities and chief occupations of its population?

  CHARLES L. BRICKWELL.

_Answer._—Australia, often spoken of as an island, is about ten
times the size of Borneo, the largest island of the world properly
so called, and is nearly half the size of South America. To be more
specific, it measures about 2,500 miles from east to west, and 1,950
from north to south, containing an estimated area of 3,000,000
miles. This is about the same as the entire extent of the United
States, exclusive of Alaska. Along the east and west coasts the
country is broken, rising at no great distance from the sea into
a succession of mountain ranges; but the vast interior is almost
as level as a gently undulating ocean-bed, which it evidently was
at no very distant period—geologically speaking. It seems to be
for the most part a great sandstone basin, rising toward the coast
in nearly every direction. The mountain range in the southeast,
known as the Australian Alps, rises to a height of 7,000 feet; the
granite and syenitic mountains on the west coast range from 800 to
3,000 feet in elevation, and those along the coast of Queensland,
and along the greater part of the north coast, from 1,000 to 4,000
feet. There are immense quantities of coal in Eastern Australia,
rich gold mines, some silver, and an abundance of iron, copper, and
tin. The broken and much of the mountainous regions are well wooded,
but the interior is comparatively naked, and much of it wears a
parched look, like the dry, treeless plains of Eastern Wyoming and
Colorado, which are available for flocks and herds the most of the
year, but not cultivable with profit without artificial irrigation.
There are millions of acres of fine agricultural and grazing lands
without entering this interior basis to any great distance; and the
governments of the several provinces are offering liberal inducements
to settlers. Few of the rivers of this vast country are navigable
to any great distance, although several of them may be made so for
a large part of the year by slight improvements of the channels.
Conspicuous among the latter are Murray River, 1,100 miles long;
the Roper and the Victoria. The regions beyond the seaboard are not
likely to develop rapidly until means of transportation are extended.
The railroad mileage of Australia is only a little over 4,042 miles,
or about the same as that of Minnesota, which is thirty-six times
smaller in area and began to be settled much later. The telegraph
lines measure over 30,000 miles. The climate of the Southern half
of Australia is quite similar to that of Southern Brazil or Cuba,
and that of the greater part of the rest of the continent is a good
counterpart of that of Southern Europe. The total population of the
five provinces of Australia, by the census of 1881, is as follows:

  New South Wales                          751,468
  Queensland                               213,525
  South Australia                          279,865
  Victoria                                 862,346
  Western Australia                         29,708
                                         —————————
      Total                              2,136,912

The above does not include aborigines, estimated to number 80,000.
The increase by immigration is not rapid. The population is mostly
of British origin, but it embraces also nearly 10,000 Polynesians
and 25,000 Chinese. The chief occupations are agriculture, grazing,
mining, building, and commerce. Manufactures do not flourish, the
colonies being dependent almost entirely upon the United Kingdom for
manufactured goods. The chief exports are wool, hides, preserved
meats, copper, lead, coal, and gold. The total quantity of gold mined
in Victoria alone, from the discovery in 1851 to the end of 1880,
amounted to 49,500,000 oz., valued at $990,000,000. The government
of the several provinces is similar to that of the provinces of the
present Dominion of Canada before their union.

ALDERNEYS AND JERSEYS.

  SCOTT, Ind.

  What is the difference between Alderney cattle and Jerseys, if any?
  Where did the breeds originate? Your answer will settle a dispute.

  A SUBSCRIBER.

_Answer._—Alderney, Jersey, and Guernsey are small islands in the
British Channel, just off the coast of Normandy, France; from which
the first, an isle of about four square miles in area, is separated
by only a very narrow strait. Jersey, about sixteen miles off the
coast, is a much larger and more fertile island, being about eleven
times the size of Alderney. While the cattle of the three islands
are all believed to have come from one common Norman stock, and pass
under the common name of the Alderney breed, the Jersey cattle have
been greatly improved by careful in-breeding, and are better milkers
as to quantity, though not as to quality, than the native cattle of
Alderney. Few cattle are exported from the latter island, while a
considerable number of Jersey cattle are exported to England and this
country, where nearly all the representatives of what is known as
the Alderney breed are Jerseys. It would not be correct to speak of
Alderneys and Jerseys as distinct breeds.

LOTTERY MATTER UNMAILABLE.

  SHELL ROCK, Iowa.

  Is it unlawful to send letters to lottery companies and lottery
  agents through the mails?

  A SUBSCRIBER.

_Answer._—Postal regulation 674 declares “No letter or circular
concerning lotteries, so-called gift concerts, or similar
enterprises, offering prizes,” etc., “shall be carried in the mail.
Any person who shall knowingly deposit or send anything to be
conveyed by mail in violation of this section shall be punishable
by a fine of not more than $500 nor less than $100, with costs of
prosecution.” Section 674 instructs postmasters and employes of the
railway mail service to withdraw letters and third class matter
addressed to lottery companies or agents from the mails and refer
them to the proper officers for prosecution of the person mailing the
same.

THE HIGH SEAS.

  UNION GROVE, Wis.

  1. What is meant by the “high seas” in article 1, section 8, of
  the Constitution of the United States? 2. Are the Great Lakes
  regarded as high seas? 3. If a crime were committed on any of the
  Great Lakes, where would the criminal be tried—in what court? 4.
  What persons are meant in the first clause of the ninth section of
  article 1 of the Constitution?

  ROBERT ROBERTS.

_Answer._—1. By the “high seas” is meant the open sea: that is the
waters outside of the civil jurisdiction of any country, which the
law of nations limits to one marine league, or three geographical
miles from shore. 2. The Great Lakes are regarded, beyond the limits
above designated, as high seas. 3. In the event of crimes committed
on the high seas, parties charged therewith are subject to the
jurisdiction of the Federal or United States courts in the district
which the vessel first enters after the commission of the crime, or
in the district where the offender is found. The courts of States
bordering on the great lakes have jurisdiction concurrent with that
of the United States courts where it can be shown that the crime
was committed within their limits, which extend to the central line
of the lakes bounding them. 4. In the clause of the Constitution
which reads: “The migration or importation of such persons as any
of the States now existing shall think proper to admit shall not
be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year 1808,” etc. The
word “persons” was understood to mean African slaves. This form
was adopted to avoid the use of the word slave in the Constitution,
the very thought of which was repugnant to Washington, Adams,
Jefferson, and other fathers of that instrument, whether from North
or South. The slave trade, in conformity with the above clause of the
Constitution, was promptly abolished in 1808.

UNIMPROVED LANDS—IMMIGRATION.

  GANGES, Mich.

  What proportion of the areas of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois,
  Iowa, and Nebraska is still unimproved Also, please state the
  number of immigrants arriving in this country in 1882.

  H. H. H.

_Answer._—1. The census of 1880 gives the following statistics of
improved lands embraced in farms in the several States above named,
opposite which we place the total area of each State in acres:

               No. of     Improved        Total
  States.      farms.      acres.         acres.

  Ohio        247,189    18,081,091    26,278,400
  Michigan    154,008     8,296,862    37,705,600
  Indiana     194,013    13,933,738    23,264,000
  Illinois    255,741    26,115,154    36,256,000
  Iowa        185,351    19,866,541    35,856,000
  Nebraska     63,387     5,504,702    49,187,200

From this it appears that nearly one-third of Ohio, more than
three-fourths of Michigan, about two-fifths of Indiana, a little
more than one-fourth of Illinois, about three-sevenths of Iowa, and
almost nine-tenths of Nebraska remained unimproved as farm property
at the time of the last census. In settled States, the number of
acres included in cities, towns, and villages, in roads, lakes, and
navigable streams, will reduce the proportion of “unimproved acres”
by about 2 per cent of the total area. The statistician of Indiana
computes that there were in 1879, 249,686 acres, or 1⅛ per cent
of the total State area, embraced in roads outside of cities and
incorporated towns. 2. The total immigration into the United States
in 1882 numbered 788,992.

LAW AGAINST CRUELTY TO ANIMALS.

  ROSCOE, Ill.

  Please publish in Our Curiosity Shop in condensed form the law
  of this State to punish cruelty to animals. A person in this
  neighborhood, remonstrated with for cruelly beating his horse with
  a pitchfork, retorts that “a man has a right to pound his own
  horse.” Let us know the law for such cases.

  A SUBSCRIBER.

_Answer._—Chapter 38, section 50, of the Revised Statutes of Illinois
says: “Whoever shall be guilty of cruelty to any animal in any of the
ways mentioned in this section shall be fined not less than $3 nor
more than $200, viz.: By overloading, overdriving, cruelly beating,
tormenting, mutilating, or cruelly killing any animal; by cruelly
working any old, maimed, infirm, sick, or disabled animal; by failing
to provide any animal in his charge or custody with proper food,
drink, and shelter; by abandoning any old, maimed, infirm, sick, or
disabled animal; or by causing or knowingly allowing the same to be
done.”

EMANCIPATION IN JAMAICA.

  SHULLSBURG, Wis.

  In what year and by whom were the slaves of Jamaica emancipated?
  Also state the circumstances under which they gained their freedom.

  RICHARD IVEY, M. D.

_Answer._—In 1807 the British Government abolished the slave trade
in all British vessels and in British waters. The agitation against
slavery was kept up in Parliament from that time, growing more and
more irresistible every year, and spreading out into the farthest
provinces, until in 1832 the negroes of Jamaica revolted, under
the belief that emancipation had actually been decreed and that
their masters were holding them in slavery against law as well as
against natural right. The atrocities to be expected in a servile
insurrection ensued; hundreds of lives and millions of property were
destroyed. When the terrible tidings reached England it added new
fuel to the emancipation agitation, already at white heat, and in
1833 the famous English emancipation act was passed. The government
apportioned £6,161,927 among the owners of the slave population, of
309,338 persons; and after four years apprenticeship all of these
former slaves became absolutely free.

BARNBURNERS AND HUNKERS.

  GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.

  How and when did the political nicknames “Hunker” and “Barnburner”
  originate in the State of New York?

  J. H. P.

_Answer._—The Democratic party within New York State became badly
divided soon after the inauguration of Mr. Polk, in 1845, owing to
the slights put on Governor Silas Wright, of that State, to whose
immense popularity Polk really owed his election. Wright could not
carry all his friends over to Polk, as is shown by the fact that he
was elected Governor by 10,030 majority, while Polk carried the State
by 5,106. This, however, decided the electoral count in his favor.
Polk was really a weak man, and showed it in nothing more than in his
jealousy of Wright and annoyance at the general ascription, of his
election by the organs of both parties, to Wright’s influence. He
tendered Wright the choice of places in his Cabinet under constraint
of the general wish of the party, and knowing that this statesman
felt bound to retain the high office to which the people of New York
had exalted him. Wright declined, but asked that Azariah C. Flagg,
of New York, be made Secretary of the Treasury, and he understood
the President to promise this; yet afterward the latter declined to
make the appointment, and gave the portfolio of Secretary of State to
ex-Governor Wm. L. Marcy, of New York, who was by no means friendly
to Wright. The Collectorship of New York, it was understood, would be
given as Governor Wright and ex-President Van Buren should request,
but here again the President disappointed them. All this reminds us
forcibly of the divisions in the Republican ranks in the same State,
due to the Garfield-Conkling feud. The trouble rankled, and the
Democratic party became divided into two pronounced factions before
the election of delegates to the next gubernatorial convention. There
were the administration Democrats, calling themselves Conservatives,
and the “sore-heads” of those days, stigmatized as Radicals, because,
among other things, they were affected with anti-slavery, or
“free-soil” sentiments; whereas the administration party was strongly
pro-slavery. In the Democratic State Convention, held at Syracuse
early in 1847, the latter faction, by political manipulation, secured
the organization of that body, and decided nearly all the contested
seats in their own favor and made the State ticket and the State
Committee to suit themselves; in other words, “carried off the hunk,”
and fairly won the nickname of “Hunkers.” The other faction, led on
by Governor Wright’s friends, Mr. Van Buren, Colonel Samuel Young,
Michael Hoffman, and others, refused to support the ticket, and as a
consequence the Whigs carried the State by over 30,000 majority in
the gubernatorial election. One of the Hunker orators likened the
Wright and Van Buren faction to the Dutch farmer who burned his barn
to rid himself of the rats, and thenceforward the name Barnburners
was fastened on them, and the two nicknames, Hunker and Barnburner,
were bandied back and forth until after the latter joined with the
Liberty party, in 1852, to support Mr. Van Buren as the Free Soil
candidate for the Presidency. There is no difference of opinion as
to the origin of the term Barnburner as above given, but Webster’s
dictionary defines hunkerism as hostility to progress: “Bartlett’s
Americanisms” defines “Hunkers” as a name given to a faction of the
Democratic party because of devotion to old principles, from the
Dutch “honk, place, post, home;” while others insist that the term
grew out of the triumph of the administration faction at the Syracuse
convention referred to above, which led them to imagine that they
were “all hunk,” as the New York boys exclaim in certain games when
they have reached their goal or “home” without being intercepted by
the contestants on the other side of the game. Hunk, in this sense,
is evidently a corruption of the Dutch “honk” or “home,” handed
down by the Dutch children. As the Hankers did “carry off the hunk
at Syracuse, did imagine themselves all hunk,” and were “hostile to
progress,” either or all of the above explanations may be accepted
without doing violence to history, whatever the consequences to
philology.

COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE.

  CLINTON, Mich.

  What is meant when it is said “the House went into committee of the
  whole?” Please explain the whole subject.

  SUBSCRIBER.

_Answer._—Messages from the President and other matters of great
importance are usually referred to a committee of the whole House,
where general principles are digested in the form of resolutions,
which are debated and amended until they get into a shape that
meets the approbation of a majority. These resolutions, after being
reported and confirmed by the House, are then referred to one or more
select committees, where they are reduced into the form of bills or
joint resolutions. It is found that the sense of the House is better
learned in committee, because in all committees everyone speaks
as often as he pleases. No gag law can be applied in committee by
moving the previous question. The form for going from the House into
the committee of the whole is for the Speaker, on motion, to put
the question that the House do now resolve itself into a committee
of the whole to take into consideration such a matter, naming it;
to which the deliberations of the committee must be confined. If
determined in the affirmative, he leaves the chair and takes a seat
elsewhere, as any other member, and the person appointed chairman
seats himself at the clerk’s table. The Speaker usually appoints
a chairman, but the committee has full power to set him aside and
select its own chairman. In case of the committee’s getting into
violent disorder the Speaker, who is clothed with authority to call
in the Sergeant-at-arms, if necessary, to enforce order, may take
his chair, and at the tap of his gavel every member is required to
take his proper seat, such action having the effect to dissolve the
committee. Cases of this kind are rare. Usually when the committee is
ready to rise the chairman rises, the Speaker immediately resuming
the chair; if the business is unfinished, the chairman of the
committee reports progress and asks permission for the committee to
sit again, which the House may or may not consent to. If the business
is finished the chairman tenders his report.

SAMUEL ADAMS, THE GREAT ORGANIZER.

  CARBONDALE, Ill.

  Give a short biographical sketch of Samuel Adams, of revolutionary
  times.

  CHARLES L. H.

_Answer._—Samuel Adams was one of the very first who organized
measures of resistance against the encroachments of Great Britain on
the rights of the colonies. He drew up the famous petition of the
General Court of Boston to the King, in 1764, against taxation on
trade. He was elected a Representative in the Massachusetts House of
Representatives in 1765, was chosen Clerk, and served in that body
ten years. It is said that he was the first to suggest the congress
of colonial delegates that assembled in New York in 1765, and was
the father of the non-importation agreement of 1789, intended to
check the use of British manufactures and other foreign imports and
foster home manufactures and, still more, a spirit of independence.
He was Chairman of the committee that waited on the Royal Governor
and Council in 1770, on the day after the Boston riot and massacre,
and demanded the removal of the troops. He was one of the signers
of the declaration of independence: was one of those who matured
the plan of the Continental Congress, to which he was a delegate
from Massachusetts from 1774 to 1782, and signed the articles of
confederation, which were the constitution of the country until
replaced by the present Federal Constitution. He was Lieutenant
Governor of Massachusetts from 1789 to 1794, and Governor from 1794
to 1797. He was born in Boston Sept. 27, 1722, graduated at Harvard
in 1740, and died in Boston Oct. 2, 1803.

ORIGIN OF THE CAUCUS.

  CHICAGO, Ill.

  Can you tell us the origin of the American caucus?

  JOHN ALLEN.

_Answer._—The origin of the term “caucus” is traced back to the
Caucus Club, Boston, of revolutionary days. This club was composed
mainly of persons engaged in ship-building. It was one of the most
radical opponents of British oppression. It and the Merchants’ Club
of the same period, used to meet before elections and agree on
candidates for town and provincial offices. “Caucus” is believed to
be a corruption of “caulkers.”

THE YORK SHILLING.

  CHICAGO, Ill.

  To settle a dispute please inform us through Our Curiosity Shop
  whether the United States ever issued a coin called the “York
  shilling?” Was there not a coin of some kind called a York shilling?

  READER.

_Answer._—The United States certainly never did mint any such coin.
Neither did New York itself before the adoption of our present
Constitution, under which individual States are not permitted to
coin money. Most of the original thirteen States had issued bills of
credit during colonial times, which had depreciated in the several
colonies in different degrees, according to provisions made for their
redemption and other incidents. In New England, after the adoption
of the Federal decimal system, the pound in paper currency was worth
only $3.33⅓ and the shilling 16⅔ cents, equal to six shillings to
the dollar. This standard prevailed also in Virginia, Kentucky,
Tennessee, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Mississippi, Alabama, and
Florida. In New York the paper currency pound was worth only $2.50,
and so the shilling was reckoned but 12½ cents, equal to eight
shillings to the dollar. This last is the “York shilling,” a money of
account. The only coin that ever passed by that name is the Spanish
real, known along the Ohio and Lower Mississippi as “a bit,” which,
until a few years ago, was current through the country at 12½ cents,
the value, as above shown, of the New York paper currency shilling of
the olden times. In Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland
the pound was worth $2.70, making the shilling worth 13½ cents, or
7s. 6d. to the $1. In Georgia and South Carolina the pound was worth
$4.20, and the shilling 21-3/7 cents, or 4s. 8d. to the dollar. Such
was the force of habit that, long after the old colonial paper money
passed out of use, people continued to buy and sell and keep accounts
in pounds and shillings; and schoolboys were required to familiarize
themselves with the rules for reducing the several State currencies
to Federal currency.

THE GREAT NAPOLEON’S DEFEATS.

  CHICAGO, Ill.

  1. Was Bonaparte repulsed at Acre? 2. Was he forced to leave Egypt?
  3. Did he make a disastrous retreat from Moscow? 4. Did the Duke
  of Wellington suffer defeats parallel to those endured by Napoleon
  Bonaparte?

  THOMAS WILSON.

_Answer._—1. In 1799, after laying siege to the stronghold of Acre,
Syria, for sixty-one days, Napoleon Bonaparte resolved to raise
the siege and return to Egypt, where his presence was demanded by
the threatening state of affairs, which culminated at last in the
great battle of Aboukir, in which he defeated Murad Bey, for the
second time, with great slaughter. There is no doubt that, although
victorious over the Ottoman and Egyptian armies, the almost utter
annihilation of the French fleet by the English and Turks in the
famous naval battle of the Nile, some months before this, and the
menacing state of affairs in France, made it prudent for Napoleon
to take advantage of the prestige of this victory to retire from
Egypt, leaving the government of the country he had conquered to
General Kleber, who soon after this totally defeated the Ottoman
army, 70,000 strong, before Heliopolis. Not until after Kleber
was assassinated and months of the unwise administration of his
successor, General Menou, did the insurrection fomented by the
English, and finally assisted by an English naval and land force,
compel the French under Menou, to withdraw from Egypt, nearly two
years after Bonaparte himself had returned to France. Taken all in
all the French expedition into Egypt, planned by Napoleon Bonaparte,
although distinguished by several brilliant exploits, must be
regarded from a political and military standpoint as a failure. 3. So
was the expedition to Moscow, which, after a succession of victories,
ended in a disastrous retreat in midwinter, forced upon the French,
not by arms, but by threatening starvation and other results of the
burning of Moscow. 4. The Duke of Wellington, although several times
compelled to retreat before French armies during campaigns in the
Netherlands and in Spain, never suffered any disasters comparable
with those inflicted on Napoleon; neither did he ever exhibit, even
at Waterloo, where, with the allies, he had double the strength
of the French army, such marvelous generalship as made Napoleon
Bonaparte for many years more than a match for all the powers of
Europe combined, the arbiter of all their thrones.

FUNDED AND FLOATING DEBT DEFINED.

  IROQUOIS, D. T.

  Explain the terms “floating debt,” “funded debt,” and “sinking
  fund.”

  QUERIST.

_Answer._.—“Funded debt” is government or corporation indebtedness in
the form of bonds or other evidences of money stipulated to be paid
at stated intervals, and usually bearing interest payable annually or
oftener. “Floating debt” is indebtedness, such as unsettled accounts,
scrip in the nature of due bills, etc. not funded. A sinking fund
is money set apart out of taxes, earnings, or other income, for the
redemption of government or corporation bonds or other specific
tokens of indebtedness.

ARTIFICIAL INCUBATION.

  FAYETTE, Iowa.

  I am very anxious to learn how to make an incubator, or have one
  made, for hatching chickens by artificial means. Will you oblige
  myself and other readers by giving such minute directions that a
  carpenter can make one by following them?

  E. J. ALLCOTT.

_Answer._.—Similar requests are made by C. A. Brace, Esq., of
Persia, Iowa; L. R. S., Cameron, Neb.; Q., of Elk Grove, Wis.,
and several others, some of whom desire to know what success has
attended experiments in artificial incubation with modern apparatus.
Conflicting reports as to this latter question, together with the
fraudulent methods taken by some persons engaged in vending pamphlets
that cost the publishers not to exceed 8 cents a copy, containing
directions for making apparatus of this sort, at the extortionate
price of $2, and selling ready-made incubators at exorbitant prices,
has made caution advisable in treating this subject. Reports received
within the past six weeks from twenty different persons, who have
experimented with incubators, indicate that in about twelve cases
out of twenty the average success is encouraging, and in the cases
of the others the average results are quite discouraging. It is very
certain that in a climate incident to such sudden and extreme changes
as ours success demands skill and constant attention. None but
absolutely fresh eggs must be selected, a temperature hardly varying
from 103 deg., and a proper degree of moisture must be maintained,
with sleepless vigilance. Let the eggs be chilled even for a few
minutes and the consequences are disastrous. For a comparatively
inexpensive incubator make a box 4 feet long, 3 feet wide, 6 inches
deep, outside measurement, with a tight board lid and a zinc bottom;
using boards 1¼ inches thick, nailed or screwed together. This is
the heater. Of the same kind of boards make an egg-drawer 4 feet
long, 2 feet 11½ inches wide, 5 inches high, outside measure, and 4
inches deep on the inside, with slats nailed in crosswise, instead
of a board for the bottom. The slats better be of inch-thick lumber,
not more than 1 inch wide, and set one inch apart. Over these slats
on the inside tack a piece of coarse sack the full length and width
of the box. Draw it tight and tack it securely to the slats and the
ends of the box. Next make a frame 3 feet 7 inches long and 32 inches
wide, using inch-square strips for the end pieces and inch-wide
strips of half-inch thickness for the sides. Strain stout muslin over
this frame and tack it firmly. Lay this, muslin side down, on the
coarse cloth in the egg drawer. This is to support the eggs. Next
bore twenty half-inch holes in each side of the egg drawer, 1¾ inches
apart, and as close to the frame with the muslin bottom as can be
done and yet allow this frame to slide easily underneath twenty slats
a half-inch square each, which must be run through the box from hole
to hole, to keep the eggs in position. Arrange the eggs between these
slats, resting on the muslin of the muslin frame. It will be seen
that by moving this frame about two inches backward or forward the
eggs can be turned half over. Make a box of precisely the same length
and breadth as the heater, but eight inches deep instead of six.
Nail on a tight bottom of inch flooring stuff; bore twelve half-inch
holes in this bottom, into which insert as many tin tubes of the same
diameter, seven inches long, for ventilators. Fill all the space
between the pipes with sawdust to within about an inch of their tops.
Next set the egg drawer on top of this ventilator box, and set the
heater, the first box described, on the top of the egg drawer. Take
common inch-boards, one foot wide, and nail one on each side and
across one end of this pile of boxes, driving the nails along the
lower edge of each board into the ventilator box, and along the upper
edge into the heater box; raising the latter off of the egg-drawer
barely enough to let the latter slide easily back and forth between
the heater and ventilator.

As the incubator stands now, the egg-drawer is protected from the
cold, underneath, by the ventilator box with about six inches of
sawdust: but it must be similarly protected on the sides and top.
Set this nest of boxes, as now arranged, on a couple of trestles
made of pieces of scantling, four feet eight or ten inches long,
with short legs eight inches long, and build another box 27 inches
high (outside) around them, long enough and wide enough to form a
sawdust chamber 8 inches wide along both sides and the back end of
the incubator, and rising 8 inches higher than the top of the heater.
Next get two tin pipes, 12 or 13 inches long and about 2½ inches in
diameter, seamed together, as solder melts; also get two such pipes
about 6 inches long, and two elbows. Bore a 2½-inch hole through the
sawdust-box and the heater-box entering the latter about 9 inches
from the front and 2 inches below the lid, and slide one of the
longer pipes through these holes. Attach one of the elbows and one
of the 6-inch pipes outside. Put the other pipe into the heater from
the opposite side, about 9 inches from the back end of the heater.
Two kerosene lamps, set on brackets, on the outside of the sawdust
box, with their chimneys thrust up into the short pipes, will supply
all the heat that is required for hatching the eggs. If the lamps
smoke, drop them low enough to admit a little air to enter between
the chimneys and the inside of the pipes. Opposite where each of
these tin flues enters the heater, bore three three-quarter-inch
holes through the top of the heater, nine or ten inches apart, in a
line about three inches from the side. Slide six tin tubes of the
same diameter, fifteen or sixteen inches long, through these holes
to within a half-inch of the zinc bottom of the heater. Now fill
the sawdust chamber around the incubator and on top, putting earth
instead of sawdust just around the hot-air flues, to avoid fire. As
the zinc directly under where the hot-air flues enter the heater is
apt to get overheated, it is best before covering the heater with
sawdust to lay a piece of zinc or tin, about a foot square, on the
zinc bottom as an equalizer of the temperature. Keep a thermometer in
the egg drawer to test the temperature. This drawer will hold about
250 eggs.

This is the incubator; directions for using it will be given
hereafter.

M. A. Bevard, Derby, Iowa—General Hull took part in the revolutionary
battles of White Plains, Trenton, Stillwater, Princeton, Saratoga,
and Monmouth. 2. Aaron Burr died on Staten Island.

INTEREST ON NOTES.

  WASHBURN, Wis.

  1. Will a promissory note draw interest if it is not so specified
  in the note? 2. Will a note made payable one year after date, with
  interest at 7 per cent, draw interest after the note becomes due?

  A. E. R.

_Answer._.—1. Such a note will not draw interest until after due and
payment has been demanded. It will draw legal interest from date of
such demand. 2. Such a note will continue to draw interest at the
same rate if payment is demanded at maturity and payment is withheld.

NEW YORK IMMIGRATION COMMISSION.

  BARNARD, Ill.

  Who was the first to propose Castle Garden for the benefit of
  foreign immigrants? Is the board of management a National or a
  State organization? How did it originate?

  ANNA SIERLE.

_Answer._—The pitiable condition in which immigrants were landed
in New York, the cruelties inflicted upon them in many cases in
overcrowded emigrant ships, the extortions and downright frauds
practiced upon them when they were put ashore like so many cattle,
and left to shift for themselves in a strange city, without language
to make their wants known, began to attract the attention of humane
public officers and merchants of that city at an early day. The
outrages multiplied, and the importance of providing some remedy
grew with the rapid increase of foreign immigration, which swelled
from 22,633 for the whole United States in 1831, to 104,565 in 1842.
The Legislature of New York State was appealed to, and on May 5,
1847—in which year the rate of foreign immigration more than doubled
upon that of 1842, the total number received rising to 234,968—it
created the present Board of Commissioners of Emigration of the
State of New York, which has been in successful operation ever
since, and has proved one of the most beneficent institutions of the
land. It consists of nine members, six of whom are appointed by the
Governor with consent of the Senate, while the other three are the
Mayor of the city and the Presidents of the German Society and the
Irish Emigration Society. All of these serve without compensation.
The law makes it their duty to provide suitable quarters for the
reception of alien passengers arriving at New York; to care for the
sick and helpless among them; to protect them from extortion, fraud,
and impositions of any kind; to aid those who wish transfer to the
railways and other transportation routes to the interior of the
country; to assist such as wish to remain in the city to obtain work,
and, in general, to give them trustworthy information and advice,
and guard their interests. For this purpose they were authorized to
collect of vessel owners $2.50 for each passenger, until 1871, when
it was reduced to $1.50.

In 1855 the city of New York leased Castle Garden to the
Commissioners for an immigrant landing depot, and it was opened for
this purpose in August of that year. It occupies the extreme southern
point of the city at the junction of the North River, or Hudson, with
the East River. A more convenient, healthy, an every way desirable
station could not have been selected. The immigrants are brought here
directly from immigrant vessels, in tugs or barges, and received into
rooms properly heated, lighted, and ventilated. Bath-rooms, lunch
counters, with provisions at reasonable prices, suitable sleeping
quarters, and other conveniences are all found within the building,
and are conducted under strict superintendence. The names of such as
have money, letters, or friends awaiting them are called out. Clerks
stand ready to write letters for them in any European language.
There are railway offices where tickets are sold them by thoroughly
responsible clerks, who can talk with them in their native tongues.
Responsible brokers exchange their foreign coin and currency at par
market value. There is an employment bureau to find work for those
who do not care to go any farther. A physician is in attendance, and
the sick are properly cared for in a temporary hospital until they
are transported to the immigrant hospitals on Ward’s Island.

In view of the fact that about two-thirds of all the foreign
immigration to the United States land at New York, it is, indeed,
a noble institution that meets these strangers with such generous
provisions for their wants. According to an article in “The American
Cyclopedia,” of the 5,033,392 immigrants arriving at New York between
May 5, 1847, and Jan. 1, 1873, for whom commutation money was paid
by the vessel-owners, “all of whom received protection, advice,
and information from the commissions, 1,465,579 were provided and
cared for out of the immigrant fund, for a greater or less period
during the five years subsequent to their arrival; 398,643 received
treatment and care in the institutions of the commissioners; 449,275
were temporarily supplied with board and lodging and money relief in
the city of New York; 349,936 were provided with employment through
the labor bureau at Castle Garden; 53,083 were forwarded from Castle
Garden to their destination in the United States, or returned to
Europe at their own request; and 214,642 were relieved and provided
for in various parts of the State of New York,” all out of this
immigrant fund. In 1872-3 bills were introduced into Congress to
supersede this New York Emigration Commission by a National bureau,
but the movement excited great opposition, not only in New York, but
in other quarters, and it ended in failure.

DERIVATION OF SIRLOIN.

  GALENA, Ill.

  Is it true that an English king knighted a roast of beef as Sir
  Loin, and that this was the origin of the name sirloin for a
  certain cut of meat?

  A SUBSCRIBER.

_Answer._—It is true that the great lexicographer, Dr. Johnson,
gave credence and currency to this etymological nonsense, and that
subsequent lexicographers, down to Webster and Worcester, parrot-like
repeated it. But both of our distinguished lexicographers rejected
this popular tradition of a silly freak or pun of James I. or
Charles II. as of no etymological value, and agree that sirloin,
which appears in Johnson’s dictionary for the first time with this
orthography, is derived from the French surlonge, that is, “upper
loin.” In the old English dictionaries, such as Ainsworth’s and
Cotgrave’s, the English word was spelled surloin, and both Webster
and Worcester, while giving sirloin as the usual orthography,
recommend surloin, and authorize it as the preferable spelling.
Skeats’ Etymological Dictionary, Oxford, 1882, vocabulates this word
thus: “Sirloin, an inferior spelling of surloin, q. v.;” and under
surloin says: “Frequently spelled sirloin, owing to a fable that
the loin of beef was knighted by one of our kings in a fit of good
humor.” The king was naturally imagined to be the merry monarch
Charles II., though Richardson says (on no authority) that it was so
entitled by King James I. Both stories are discredited by the use
of the original French surlonge in the fourteenth century. Indeed,
Wedgewood actually cites ‘a surloyn of beef’ from an account of
expenses of Henry VI. But Richardson had the authority of Dean Swift
for referring the pun on surloin to James I. In “Polite Conversation”
Swift says: “But, pray, why is it called a sirloin? Why, you must
know that our King James I., who loved good eating, being invited
to dinner by one of his nobles, and seeing a large loin of beef at
his table, he drew out his sword and in a frolic knighted it.” Which
Swift, in all probability, intended to be taken as a legend, and
nothing more.

NORTH CAROLINA GOLD MINES.

  Give us some information in regard to the extent of mining for the
  precious metals in North Carolina.

  MALCOLM MCMANUS.

_Answer._—There was a time when gold mining in North Carolina was an
important industry. The earliest record at the United States mint of
gold produced in this country was in 1804. In that year a deposit
was made at the mint of gold found in North Carolina. Small amounts,
not exceeding an annual average of $2,500, were received from 1804
to 1823, after which there was a steady increase, as follows: In
1824, total amount received at mint, $5,000; in 1825, $17,000; in
1826, $20,000; in 1827, $21,000; in 1828, $46,000; in 1829, $134,000.
During this last year $2,500 was received from Virginia and $3,500
from South Carolina. A Southern “gold fever” set in, and hundreds of
people went to prospecting all along the Appalachian Mountains, so
that in the next year, 1830, the mint received $212,000 from Georgia,
$204,000 from North Carolina, $26,000 from South Carolina, $24,000
from Virginia, and $2,000 from Tennessee and Alabama. The total
amounts of precious metals from the mines of the South, deposited at
the United States mint from 1804 to 1881, was as follows:

  From Virginia           $ 1,689,797.00
  From North Carolina      10,750,468.64
  From South Carolina       1,429,751.55
  From Georgia              7,869,282.60
  From Alabama                220,892.25
  From Tennessee               86,511.61
                          ——————————————
    Total                 $22,046,703.65

Various causes conduced to the decrease of mining in the South
before the discovery of gold in California, but this latter event
drew away the best miners and most experienced, most enterprising
capitalists engaged in the business, so that the gold product of this
region became insignificant. A revival of mining has set in in North
Carolina, yet the products of the Carolinas and Georgia in 1881 was
only about $275,000.

MEERSCHAUM—SEA FOAM.

  GILMAN, Ill.

  Is meerschaum a product of sea foam, as some persons declare?

  W. C. DUCKHAM.

_Answer._—Meerschaum is a German word, compounded from _meer_,
sea, and _schaum_, foam. It is the name of a fine clay composed of
magnesia, silica, and water in equal parts. When fresh from the pit
it is soft and makes a lather like soap, which gave rise to its
name. After being molded into pipes, these are boiled in oil or wax
and baked until hard.

STATE GOVERNORS.

  ZANESVILLE, Ohio.

  Please give the names and politics of all State and Territorial
  Governors. Also, their salaries and dates of expiration of their
  terms.

  A SUBSCRIBER.

_Answer._—The following is a full list of Governors of the several
States and Territories, with their salaries and the times when their
terms end. The politics of Governors is indicated by running the
names of Republicans in Roman, and of Democrats and Fusionists in
italics:

  ———————————————+———————————————————————————+————————————————+———————
     STATE.      |      Governor.            |  End of term.  |Salary.
  ———————————————+———————————————————————————+————————————————+———————
  Alabama        | _Edw. A. O’Neal_          | Dec. 1, 1884   | $3,000
  Arkansas       | _James H. Berry_          | Jan. 2, 1885   |  3,000
  California     | _George Stoneman_         | Jan. 4, 1887   |  6,000
  Colorado       | _James B. Grant_          | Jan. 9, 1885   |  5,000
  Connecticut    | _Thos. M. Waller_         | Jan. 3, 1885   |  2,000
  Delaware       | _Chas. C. Stockley_       | Jan. 31, 1887  |  2,000
  Florida        | _Wm. D. Bloxham_          | Jan. 6, 1885   |  3,500
  Georgia        | _H. D. McDaniel_          | Nov. 3, 1885   |  3,000
  Illinois       | John M. Hamilton          | Jan. 12, 1885  |  6,000
  Indiana        | Albert G. Porter          | Jan. 12, 1885  |  5,000
  Iowa           | B. R. Sherman             | Jan. 14, 1884  |  3,000
  Kansas         | _George W. Glick_[7]      | Jan. 9, 1885   |  3,000
  Kentucky       | _L. P. Blackburn_         | Sept. 5, 1883  |  5,000
  Louisiana      | _S. D. McEnery_           | May 19, 1884   |  4,000
  Maine          | Frederick Robie           | Jan. 7, 1885   |  2,000
  Maryland       | _W. T. Hamilton_          | Jan. 2, 1884   |  4,500
  Massachusetts  | _Benj. F. Butler_[8]      | Jan. 2, 1884   |  4,000
  Michigan       | _Josiah W. Begole_[9]     | Jan. 1, 1885   |  1,000
  Minnesota      | L. F. Hubbard             | Jan. 7, 1884   |  3,800
  Mississippi    | _Robert Lowry_            | Jan. 5, 1886   |  4,000
  Missouri       | _T. T. Crittenden_        | Jan. 12, 1885  |  5,000
  Nebraska       | James W. Dawes            | Jan. 8, 1885   |  2,500
  Nevada         | _Jewett D. Adams_         | Jan. 2, 1887   |  6,000
  N. Hampshire   | Samuel W. Hale            | June 3, 1885   |  1,000
  New Jersey     | _Geo. C. Ludlow_          | Jan. 15, 1884  |  5,000
  New York       | _Grover Cleveland_        | Jan. 1, 1886   | 10,000
  No. Carolina   | _Thomas J. Jarvis_        | Jan. 1, 1885   |  3,000
  Ohio           | Charles Foster            | Jan. 14, 1884  |  4,000
  Oregon         | Zenas F. Moody            | Jan. 1, 1887   |  1,500
  Pennsylvania   | _R. E. Pattison_          | Jan. 18, 1887  | 10,000
  Rhode Island   | A. H. Littlefield[10]     | May 29, 1883   |  1,000
  So. Carolina   | _H. S. Thompson_          | Dec. 30, 1884  |  3,500
  Tennessee      | _Wm. B. Bate_             | Jan. 15, 1885  |  4,000
  Texas          | _John Ireland_            | Jan. 15, 1885  |  4,000
  Vermont        | John L. Barstow           | Oct. 4, 1884   |  1,000
  Virginia       | _W. E. Cameron_[11]       | Jan. 1, 1886   |  5,000
  West Virginia  | _Jacob B. Jackson_        | March 4, 1885  |  3,700
  Wisconsin      | J. M. Rusk                | Jan. 5, 1885   |  5,000
                 |                           |                |
    Territories— |                           |                |
  Arizona        | Frederick Tritle          | Feb. 6, 1886   |  2,600
  Dakota         | Neh. G. Ordway            | May 22, 1884   |  2,600
  Idaho          | John B. Neil              | July 12, 1884  |  2,600
  Montana        | J. S. Crosby              | Aug. 4, 1886   |  2,600
  New Mexico     | Lionel A. Sheldon         | May 5, 1885    |  2,600
  Utah           | Eli H. Murray             | Jan. 27, 1884  |  2,600
  Washington     | Wm. A. Newell             | April 26, 1884 |  2,600
  Wyoming        | William Hale              | Aug. 3, 1886   |  2,600
  ———————————————+———————————————————————————+————————————————+———————

FIRST FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.

  CEDAR FALLS.

  Tell us who brought forward the first fugitive slave law.

  P. G. KLOCK.

_Answer._—In the constitutional convention of 1787 Mr. Pierce Butler,
a delegate from South Carolina, moved the adoption of clause 3,
section 2, article 4 of the Constitution, which reads: “No person
held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof,
escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation
therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be
delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor
may be due.” The first law to give effect to this constitutional
provision was prepared by a committee of the Senate appointed in
November, 1792. This committee was composed of Mr. Johnston, of
North Carolina; Mr. Cabot, of Massachusetts, and Mr. Read, of
Delaware. In December Mr. Johnston reported a bill which was not
entirely satisfactory. Mr. Taylor, of Virginia, and Mr. Sherman,
of Connecticut, were added to the committee. On Jan. 3, 1793, Mr.
Johnston reported a bill, which, after several days’ consideration,
was passed without a single dissenting voice. On the 4th of February
following, this bill passed the House by a vote of 48 to 7. We cannot
give the text of it, but it gave slave-masters and their agents
summary power to seize, hold, and return fugitives from slavery
to their former bondage, whatever laws the States in which they
were found might pass to the contrary, the matter being one under
jurisdiction of the United States courts.

THE WORLD’S PRINCIPAL TIN MINES.

  ALTONA, Ill.

  Where are the principal tin mines, and of what is this metal
  composed?

  JONATHAN TREXLAR.

_Answer._—Pure tin is an elementary metal, as much so as lead, iron,
silver, or gold. The principal tin-producing country is England.
The Phœnicians traded with England for tin 1,100 years before the
Christian era. There is reason to believe that they got tin from
Spain also; but England was depended on for nearly all the tin used
in Europe until this ore was discovered in Germany in 1240. It was
discovered in Northern Africa, in the Barbary States, in 1640; in
India in 1740; in New Spain in 1782. Tin was mined in Mexico before
the Spanish conquest, and used in T shaped pieces for money, and
in a bronze composition for sharp tools; the principal mines being
at Tasco. Peru has valuable mines of this metal, so have New South
Wales, Australia, and Banca, and Malacca in the Malay peninsula. Tin
has been discovered in Pennsylvania, Missouri, California, and other
States of the Union, but not in quantities to tempt capital to engage
in mining it. The chief tin-producing countries are the following,
arranged in the order of importance: England, about 10,000 tons a
year; Malacca, about 8,500 tons; Australia, about 6,000 tons; Banca,
about 4,000 tons, and Billiton, about 3,000 tons. Both of these
last-named places are islands of the Dutch East Indies.

THE ZERO POINT OF THERMOMETERS.

  O’KANE, Neb.

  Why was not zero on thermometers placed at the freezing point
  instead of 32 degrees below?

  M.

_Answer._—Zero is placed at freezing point on some thermometers,
although this is not the case on the Fahrenheit scale, the one in
common use in England and the United States. When Fahrenheit graded
his thermometer he supposed that there was no greater degree of cold
than had been observed in Iceland, or discovered by experimenting
with freezing mixtures. This point he marked zero; i. e., empty
or nought, as denoting the absence of all heat. It is 32 degrees
below freezing, and corresponds to the cold produced by a freezing
mixture composed of snow and salt, or sal-ammoniac; from which
it has been inferred that this was the test used by Fahrenheit,
the instrument-maker of Amsterdam, who introduced this scale into
common use, and after whom it is named, but who never actually
divulged the secret of his process. It is now known that this is
an arbitrary point, far above the lowest temperature in the polar
regions and several hundred degrees above the greatest cold produced
by artificial methods. In the Reaumer thermometer, generally used
in Germany, and the Centigrade thermometer, commonly used in France
and by scientists of all nations, zero marks the freezing point of
distilled water at the sea level, or under an atmospheric pressure of
14.73 pounds to the square inch. To reduce Fahrenheit to Centigrade,
subtract 32 and multiply by 100/180, or 5/9. Conversely, to reduce
Centigrade to Fahrenheit, multiply by 9/5 and add 32.

THE REPUBLIC OF SOUTH CAROLINA.

  RIVERSIDE, Cal.

  I noticed in the _Century_ for December, 1882, page 172, that Chief
  Justice Rutledge was “President of South Carolina from 1776 to
  1778.” What form of government had South Carolina at that time?

  J. M. BAHER.

_Answer._—In 1776 South Carolina, in a Constitutional State
Convention, of which John Rutledge was a member, took on the form of
an independent republic, and soon after Rutledge was made President
and Commander-in-chief of the State forces. He held this office until
1778, when he was succeeded by Rawlins Lownds. The constitution was
modified March 19, 1778, and thereafter the chief State executives
were known as Governors.

OLD-TIME FALCONRY—HAWK’S BELLS.

  PANA, Ill.

  In Barnes’ History of the United States, in the narrative of
  the discovery of Cuba, it is stated the natives bartered their
  valuables for “hawk’s bells.” Please explain the term “hawk’s
  bells.”

  A SUBSCRIBER.

_Answer._—Falconry, or hawking, was a favorite sport with the
nobility and gentry of Europe down to the first half of the
seventeenth century, when the introduction of fowling pieces of a
light and elegant pattern and the art of shooting flying gradually
replaced it. Hawks were trained to mount and pursue game and bring
it to their masters and mistresses, coming and going at the call of
the latter with marvelous docility. The hawks were tricked out with
gay hoods and held until ordered to pursue “the quarry,” or game, by
leathern straps fastened with rings of leather around each leg, just
above the talons, and silken cords called “jesses.” To each of these
leathern straps, or “bewets,” was attached a small bell, shaped in
most cases like the nearly closed sleigh bells of the present time.
In a flight of hawks it was often so arranged that the different
bells made “a consort of sweet sounds.” Bells of this description,
but of the cheapest kind, were among the most popular trinkets used
by the early explorers and traders in bartering with the natives of
America.

SOURCES OF BRITISH REVENUE.

  SYCAMORE, Ill.

  As England receives little or nothing from a tariff, where does
  the money come from to pay the expenses of the government? Who are
  taxed and who are not?

  R. A. S.

_Answer._—It is a mistake to suppose that the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland derives “little or no revenue from tariff” or
custom dues. The following table shows the sources of the national
revenue for the year ending March 31, 1882:

  Customs                                    £19,287,000
  Excise                                      27,240,000
  Stamps                                      12,260,000
  Land and house tax                           2,725,000
  Income tax                                   9,945,000
  Postoffice                                   7,000,000
  Telegraphs                                   1,630,000
  Crown lands                                    380,000
  Interest on advances and Suez Canal shares   1,219,262
  Miscellaneous                                4,136,019
                                             ———————————
      Total                                  £85,822,281

Here is the sum of £19,287,000, or almost $100,000,000, received from
customs, as against $220,410,730.25 collected from the same source
in the United States. 2, The inland revenue, composed of “excise,
stamps, and taxes,” is so distributed as to touch pretty much
everybody.

KANSAS GOVERNORS AND SENATORS.

  SHERMAN CITY, Kan.

  Please give the names of all the Territorial and State Governors of
  Kansas, and the names of Senators from the first.

  INQUIRER.

_Answer._—The Territorial Governors of Kansas were A. H. Reeder,
1855; (John L. Dawson, appointed but declined), Wilson Shannon, 1857;
John W. Geary, 1856; R. J. Walker, 1857; J. W. Denver, 1858; Samuel
Medary, 1858. The following is a full list of the State Governors:

  Charles Robinson                        1861
  Thomas Carney                      1861-1864
  S. J. Crawford                     1864-1869
  James M. Harvey                    1869-1873
  Thomas A. Osborne                  1873-1877
  George T. Anthony                  1877-1879
  John P. St. John                   1879-1883
  George W. Glick                    1883-1885

The several Senators in Congress have been or are:

  James H. Lane                      1861-1866
  Samuel C. Pomeroy                  1861-1873
  E. G. Ross                         1866-1871
  Alexander Caldwell                 1871-1873
  Robert Crozier                     1873-1874
  John J. Ingalls                    1873-1885
  James M. Harvey                    1874-1877
  Preston B. Plumb                   1877-1883

Senator Caldwell resigned March 24, 1874, during investigation
for bribery, in securing his election, and was followed by Robert
Crozier, appointed by the Governor to fill the vacancy. Senator
Crozier was succeeded by James M. Harvey, elected by the Legislature
for the remainder of Mr. Caldwell’s full term.

REPUBLICS AND PRESIDENTS.

  BARNARD, Ill.

  Is President the title of the highest officer in every republican
  government?

  ANNA SIERLE.

_Answer._—Yes, unless we take into account the pigmy republics,
or semi-republics, of San Marino and Andorra, the former a rough,
craggy mountain among the Appenines, with a total area of 21 square
miles and a total population of 7,816 persons, and the latter an
isolated valley in the Eastern Pyrenees, shut in between the two
great, jealous powers, France and Spain, with an area of about
300 square miles, and a population variously estimated at from
4,000 to 12,000. Andorra is governed by “the Sovereign Council” of
twenty-four members, which elects one of its members to be Syndic for
life, the chief executive of the State. San Marino is governed by
“the Sovereign Grand Council,” composed of sixty members, of whom
one-third are nobles. There are two heads of this mammoth republic,
called, “Captains Regent,” one chosen from the nobles and the other
from the “bourgeoisie,” or common people, each holding office for
only six months.

THE TAY BRIDGE HORROR.

  MOUNT VERNON, Iowa.

  Were there ever any bodies found after the disaster of the great
  bridge over the Frith of Tay? How long had the bridge been built,
  what were its dimensions, cost, and particulars of the calamity?

  C. N. WARREN.

_Answer._—The enormous but ill-constructed bridge across the Tay at
Dundee, Scotland, was authorized by an act passed in 1870. Work was
begun in June, 1871. It was much injured by a gale Feb. 4, 1877, but
was pushed forward and declared to be completed Aug. 30, 1877. It was
tried on the 25th of the following month, and opened for business on
May 31, 1878. Twenty lives were lost in its construction, and it cost
£350,000, or about $1,750,000. It was 10,612 feet long, and rested
on 85 spans, some of which were 90 feet above low tide. At about
7:15 p. m. on Dec. 28, 1879, less than seventeen months after it was
first opened to traffic—while a North British mail train was crossing
in the midst of a fierce gale—the structure gave way, leaving a gap
of 3,000 feet. The train plunged into the surging sea, and not one
of the ill-fated passengers escaped. There were between 75 and 90
persons on board; exactly how many was never ascertained. Forty-six
bodies were recovered up to April 27, 1880. After the official
inquiry Mr. H. C. Rothery declared that “the bridge had been badly
planned, badly constructed, and badly maintained.” A new bridge, of a
much more substantial character, is now in process of construction.

CAN A SOLDIER ENTER A HOMESTEAD.

  FORT PEMBINA, D. T.

  Can a soldier in the regular army take up a homestead or
  pre-emption claim, and get some other person to make the
  improvements required by law on either of said claims? By answering
  this question you will settle a dispute and greatly oblige,

  HENRY BROWN, Serg’t Co. B, Fifteenth Inf.

_Answer._—Soldiers now in the regular army may perform certain
preliminary acts relating to homestead entries, but they cannot
perfect title to such land until their terms of service have expired.
See instructions in “Copp’s Land Owner,” vol. 2, p. 133, and case
of Charles Harris, “Land Owner,” vol. 6, p. 190. The soldier or
his family must reside on the land at least one year, under any
circumstances, before he can acquire title.

POPULATION OF PEKING.

  CHICAGO, Ill.

  Please state what is the population of Peking, China, and settle a
  dispute.

  DAVID MCGOWAN.

_Answer._—According to the “American Almanac,” which in turn refers
to the famous “Bevolkerung der Erde,” of Gotha, edited by Messrs.
Behm & Wagner, the population of Peking in 1880 was 500,000. Until
within a comparatively recent date the estimates of the population
of that city never ranged below 1,000,000. Cyclopedias generally
estimated it at 1,500,000, and some of them as high as 2,000,000.
Messrs. Behm & Wagner have carefully revised their former statistics
of China, and have reduced their estimate of the total population
of the country fully 55,000,000. The Almanach de Gotha gives the
population of Pekin as uncertain, estimates varying between 500,000
and 1,650,000.

HEBREW NOT A LIVING LANGUAGE.

  RAPID CITY, D. T.

  A Jewish gentleman and myself have had an argument, he asserting
  that Hebrew is a spoken language at the present time. I am of the
  impression that Hebrew ceased to be a spoken language during the
  seventy years’ captivity in Babylon, while he declares that he has
  seen a Jew, directly from Jerusalem, who could talk nothing but
  Hebrew. Can you give us any light on this subject?

  H. H. J.

_Answer._—Hebrew, like Latin and classic Greek, is a literary, and
not a colloquial language. The precise time when Hebrew ceased to
be the living, vernacular language of the Jews is not known. Some
learned Hebraists maintain that they lost the living use of the
Hebrew during the Babylonish captivity, but the weight of argument is
in favor of the belief that they retained the partial use of it for
some time after their return to Palestine, and lost it by degrees. No
decisive evidence, however, shows exactly when it became a virtually
dead language; although there are satisfactory reasons for declaring
that it gave place to a corrupted form of the Aramaic language,
a mixture of Syrian and Chaldean or Babylonish speech called the
Syro-Chaldaic dialect, several hundred years before the Christian
era, and that more than a century before this era it ceased to be
used even as a written language and was thenceforth studied only as
the language of the sacred books, by the learned.

ABANDONMENT OF HOMESTEAD.

  OWATONNA, Minn.

  To settle a dispute, please state whether a person who has “filed”
  on a quarter section of public land, under the homestead laws, and
  has let it go back to the government, can make another homestead
  entry?

  OLD SUBSCRIBER.

_Answer._—According to “Copp’s Public Land Laws,” as the law allows
but one homestead privilege, “a settler relinquishing or abandoning
his claim cannot thereafter make a second entry; but where an entry
is canceled as invalid for some reason other than abandonment, and
not the wilful act of the party, he is not thereby debarred from
entering again, if in other respects entitled, and may be allowed
credit for fees and commissions already paid, on a new homestead
entry.” Such a claimant must be prepared to show that he did not
voluntarily abandon his first entry.

PHARMACY LAWS AND TRAINED DRUGGISTS.

  HODGES PARK, Ill.

  What States have pharmacy laws, and what is the proportion of
  trained druggists in this country?

  A SUBSCRIBER.

_Answer._—Probably all the States have pharmacy laws; that is, laws
regulating the compounding and sale of drugs, but these are loosely
administered in most States, the laws themselves being radically
defective. Most prescription clerks pick up their knowledge of
pharmacy between errands and “by practice,” as it is called, without
even an elementary knowledge of chemistry or any systematic course of
training. There are in all fourteen schools of pharmacy in the United
States; 1 in San Francisco, 1 in Chicago, 1 in Louisville, 1 in New
Orleans, 1 in Baltimore, 1 in Boston, 1 in Ann Arbor, Mich., 1 in
St. Louis, 2 in New York City, 1 in Cincinnati, 1 in Philadelphia, 1
in Pittsburg, 1 in Nashville, and 1 in Washington. All told, they
had only 1,347 students in 1880, of whom they graduated but 186.
There are 284 retail drug stores in Chicago, and it is estimated
that there are more than 1,600 in the State and about 25,600 such
stores in the United States with twice that number of persons
compounding medicines; so that it is a clear case that comparatively
few druggists and prescription clerks are properly educated for their
duties.

AGNOSTICISM.

  ARTHUR, Ill.

  Be so good as to define the word “agnosticism,” as used in
  theological or religio-scientific discourses. I have examined
  several dictionaries and one encyclopedia, and have failed to find
  the word.

  E. J. A.

_Answer._—Agnosticism is a sort of supernatural knownothingism. It is
true that this word is not defined in either Webster’s or Worcester’s
unabridged dictionaries, except in the supplements to the latest
editions, and does not appear in the regular order of subjects in
the popular encyclopedias. It is derived from a Greek word that
signifies “to know not.” Agnosticism then, as used by Herbert Spencer
and his disciples, is the doctrine that, professing ignorance of the
supernatural, neither asserts nor denies the existence of a personal
Deity, and claims that such doctrine can be neither proved nor
disapproved, because of the insufficiency of the evidence furnished
by rational and material nature to warrant a positive conclusion:
or, as others say, because of the necessary limits of the human
mind. Agnosticism is opposed both to the positive assertion of the
skeptic, who denies the existence of a personal God, and the opposite
declaration of the Christian church, or dogmatic theism, affirming
such existence.

PTOLEMY PHILADELPHUS.

  Give a brief sketch of Ptolemy Philadelphus, a celebrated King of
  Egypt, often referred to in books and lectures.

  F. F. SLOAT.

_Answer._—He was the son of that able general of Alexander the Great
who, after the death of that monarch, became King of Egypt under
the title of Ptolemy I. Ptolemy II., surnamed Philadelphus, was
distinguished for his love of learning, patronage of men of letters
and artists, and encouragement of trade and all the arts of peace.
He founded the famous library of Alexandria, the greatest treasury
of ancient learning, and through his efforts the Hebrew Scriptures
were translated into Greek by seventy eminent Hebrew scholars. This
is what is known as the Septuagint version of the Holy Scriptures. He
reigned from 285 to 247 B. C., a period in which the Egyptian Kingdom
reached the highest point of military glory, prosperity, and wealth.

AN INCUBATOR SUCCESS.

  VESPER, N. Y.

For the benefit of readers of THE INTER OCEAN I will give my
experience with an incubator that I built last June, the materials of
which cost $5.50. It holds 234 eggs at a hatching. It took me three
days to build it. As a test trial, about the 15th of June I placed
nine dozen of eggs in the incubator, and in due time I obtained
86 per cent of chicks as the result, which I considered extremely
satisfactory. About the 10th of July I made another trial, using this
time eleven dozen of eggs, and the result was 87 per cent of chicks.
About 6 per cent of the eggs from these two trials which did not
hatch were found on examination to be unfertile, leaving 7 per cent
with dead chicks in the various stages of maturity. These two trials
proved satisfactory, even beyond my most sanguine expectations. On
the 15th of January I procured 204 eggs from the farmers, and placed
them in the incubator for my third trial, but, owing to the extremely
cold weather during the time the eggs were laid, they had become
chilled before being gathered, and, as the result, I only succeeded
in getting forty chicks, or a little less than 20 per cent. To avoid
a second failure, I determined to wait until the cold weather was
over before securing eggs for my next hatching.

  D. A. ROWLAND.

NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILWAY.

  SANTA BARBARA, Cal.

  How far west of St. Paul are the cars now running on the Northern
  Pacific Railroad? What is the name of the present western terminus?
  How many miles are completed from the west end? When is it expected
  to be completed?

  E. S. SHEFFIELD.

_Answer._—The company is now running trains with Pullman sleepers
and dining-room cars to Livingston, 1,030 miles west of St. Paul. It
is also running trains from Portland to Second Crossing, 527 miles.
From Livingston to Second Crossing passengers are carried by stage as
follows:

From Livingston to Bozeman, 25 miles, 4 hours.

From Bozeman to Helena, 108 miles, 18 hours.

From Helena to Missoula, 130 miles, 22 hours.

From Missoula to Second Crossing, 80 miles, 16 hours.

The total distance from St. Paul to Portland is 1,900 miles, and the
time 180 hours. The fare from St. Paul to Missoula by rail and stage
is $47.10. The road is to be completed this year.

AMERICAN LITERATI.

  OCONTO, Mich.

  What literary characters has our country produced during this past
  century?

  CARRIE STROUD.

_Answer._—There is space here to mention only a few of the most
prominent American writers of this century. First in poetry stand
Bryant, Prentice, Sigourney, Willis, Holmes, Longfellow, Whittier,
Morris, and Miller. Among the most conspicuous historians are Irving,
Sparks, Lossing, Bancroft, Cooper, Motley, Prescott, Parkman, Parton,
Ramsay, and Greeley. Among novelists, Cooper, Irving, Hawthorne,
Holland, and Mrs. Stowe hold the front rank, although there is
a legion just behind them, some of whom press close upon them.
In the field of essayists, literary, political, theological, and
metaphysical, the catalogue of noted names is too long to admit of
personal designation.

THE ASHTABULA HORROR.

  COTTAGE, Iowa.

  Was there anything in the death of Mr. P. P. Bliss in voluntarily
  remaining with his wife at the time of the railway accident at
  Ashtabula that justifies the charge that he committed suicide? Give
  particulars.

  M. L. PERCIVAL.

_Answer._—Mr. P. P. Bliss, the popular composer of sacred lyrics, and
evangelistic vocalist, perished at Ashtabula, Ohio, in the terrible
railroad disaster consequent on the fall of the Ashtabula bridge on
the night of Dec. 29, 1876. Two engines and eleven cars, with about
160 passengers, were precipitated into the creek, seventy feet
below. The wreck immediately took fire, and before help could reach
the scene more than a hundred persons had perished through the fall
or the flames, or were so badly injured that they afterward died. A
terrible snowstorm and intense cold added to the sufferings of the
survivors. In the midst of this scene of horror and distraction Mr.
Bliss and his wife both lost their lives. It is by no means certain
that Mr. Bliss could have escaped if he had abandoned his wife. If he
could have done so, but perished in the effort to rescue her, such an
act was heroic, and none but an idiot would class him with suicides.

STATESMEN AND MARTIAL HEROES.

  OCONTO, Mich.

  Name five of the greatest American statesmen of early times, and as
  many or more of their greatest successors; also name the principal
  military and naval heroes of our country, and oblige several
  readers.

  CARRIE STROUD.

_Answer._—Five of the greatest American statesmen concerned in the
founding of this Republic were Washington, Franklin, Hamilton,
Jefferson, and John Adams. Seven of the most distinguished successors
of these grand men were DeWitt Clinton, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay,
William H. Seward, Abraham Lincoln, Thaddeus Stevens, and Charles
Sumner. Twelve of the ablest generals this country can boast are
Washington, Gates, and Green, of the revolutionary war; Jackson
and Harrison, of the war of 1812; Scott and Taylor, of the Mexican
war, and Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas, and Meade, of the war
for the Union. Ten of our greatest naval heroes are Paul Jones, of
the revolutionary war; Perry, MacDonough, Porter, Decatur, Hull,
Bainbridge, and Chauncey, of the war of 1812, and Farragut and
Porter, of the last war.

PUBLIC LANDS IN WASHINGTON TERRITORY.

  GLORIETA, N. M.

  Is there any government land open to pre-emption or homestead in
  Washington Territory. If so, is any of it suitable for agricultural
  purposes?

  MONTEZUMA.

_Answer._—Out of an estimated area of 44,796,160 acres of public
lands in Washington Territory in the beginning, only 17,757,033
acres, or about one-third, had been surveyed up to June 30, 1882, and
a considerable part of this third is still open to purchase or entry
under the general or special land laws. In Washington Territory,
California, Oregon, and Nevada there are great areas of timber and
stone lands for sale under the law of June 3, 1878, at $2.50 per
acre. The “Desert Lands Act” of March 3, 1877, provides for the
sale of certain lands which can be cultivated only by artificial
irrigation, at 25 cents an acre. After deducting these tracts,
mineral lands, coal lands, and saline lands, there are still millions
of acres of lands in Washington Territory subject to pre-emption and
entry under the homestead law, and much of this land is well adapted
to agriculture and grazing.

OLDEST SETTLEMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES.

  PARKERSBURG, Iowa.

  1. What was the first European settlement made in the United
  States, and what was the name of the first child of European
  parents born in this country? 2. What is the length of the Niagara
  River, and what large islands are there in it?

  HOMER L. FORBES.

_Answer._—1. The oldest permanent European settlement within the
present limits of the United States was made at Saint Augustine,
Fla., in 1565. Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, Captain Francisco
de Coronado, and Don Antonio de Espejo, explorers of New Mexico,
occupied, temporarily, various points in that region between the
years 1540 and 1583. The latter of these took possession of a native
pueblo, or town, called Tuoas, or Taos, in the latter year, or
thereabouts, and named it La Ciudad de Santa Fe, which was identical
in site with the present capital of New Mexico. Forts, colonies, and
missions were established in various places in New Mexico by Juan de
Ouate, who was sent there for that purpose between 1595 and 1590.
The next at Jamestown, Va., in 1607, and the next at Albany, N. Y.,
in 1614. It is not known who was the first child of European parents
born within the United States. 2. The Niagara River is thirty-three
miles long. There are no large islands in it except Grand Island and
Goat Island, but there are numerous smaller ones.

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS.

  CHICAGO, Ill.

  What was the seat of government during the revolutionary war? Who
  took the place of President, as head of the government?

  JANE EVANS.

_Answer._.—There was no permanent seat of government. The articles of
confederation provided that “Congress shall have power to adjourn at
any time within the year and to any place within the United States,
so that no period of adjournment be for a longer duration than the
space of six months.” When suffered to have its own way Congress
sat, during the war, in Philadelphia, but the “red coats” were as
keen to go to Congress as the average modern politician, and the
patriots, to avoid a row over contested seats, adopted a sort of
methodistic itinerancy, minus the method. Congress was in session
at Philadelphia in December, 1776, when, seeing that the British
were likely to force themselves upon the hospitality of that city,
it adjourned to Baltimore. It returned to Philadelphia, but after
the American defeat at Brandywine, Sept. 11, 1777, it adjourned to
Lancaster, and then to York, Pa. From the first session to the last
the Continental Congress met as follows: At Philadelphia, Sept. 5,
1774, and May 10, 1775; at Baltimore, Dec. 20, 1776; at Philadelphia,
March 4, 1777; at Lancaster, Pa., Sept. 27, 1777; at York, Pa., Sept.
30, 1777; at Philadelphia, July 2, 1778; at Princeton, N. J., June
30, 1783; at Annapolis, Md., Nov. 26, 1783; at Trenton, N. J., Nov.
1, 1784; at New York, Jan. 11, 1785, which continued to be the seat
of Congress until the adoption of the Constitution of the United
States. There was no executive head of the United States under the
articles of confederation. These provided that Congress should have
authority to appoint a “Committee of the States,” to consist of one
delegate from each State, to sit in the recess of Congress. The
President of Congress came the nearest to being an executive chief,
but he and the above committee, the “Board of War,” and certain other
special committees or boards were each charged with the execution
of law according to specific provisions in the act itself. Of these
Presidents of the Continental Congress the following shows the names
and the time of their election:

Payton Randolph, of Virginia, elected Sept. 5, 1774.

Henry Middleton, of South Carolina, Oct. 22, 1774.

Peyton Randolph, of Virginia, May 10, 1775.

John Hancock, of Massachusetts, May 24, 1775.

Henry Laurens, of South Carolina, Nov. 1, 1777.

John Jay, of New York, Dec. 10, 1778.

Sam Huntington, of Connecticut, Sept. 28, 1779.

Thomas McKean, of Delaware, July 10, 1781.

John Hanson, of Maryland, Nov. 5, 1781.

Elias Boudinot, of New Jersey, Nov. 4, 1782.

Thomas Mifflin, of Pennsylvania, Nov. 3, 1783.

Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, Nov. 30, 1784.

Nathaniel Gorham, of Massachusetts, June 6, 1786.

Arthur St. Clair, of Pennsylvania, Feb. 2, 1787.

Cyrus Griffin, of Virginia, Jan. 22, 1788.

FIVE SUNDAYS IN FEBRUARY.

  CHICAGO, Ill.

  In 1880 February had five Sundays. When will this occur again? This
  question was asked in one of the Chicago dailies recently, and
  received several different answers, none of which were right, or I
  am in error.

  INQUIRER.

_Answer._—Usually this event occurs every twenty-eight years, or at
the close of each solar cycle of twenty-eight years; but owing to
the fact that the year 1900 will not be a leap year (for reasons
explained in Our Curiosity Shop not many weeks ago), it will be forty
years before February contains five Sundays, or not until the year
1920.

FORMING STATES OUT OF OTHER STATES.

  FAIRFIELD, Ill.

  Can a State be formed out of part of another State? If not, how was
  West Virginia organized within the original limits of Virginia?

  BYRON.

_Answer._.—Article 4, section 1, clause 1, of the Constitution
of the United States declares that “No new State shall be formed
or erected within the jurisdiction of any other State; nor any
State be formed by the junction of two or more States, without the
consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of
the Congress.” The erecting of West Virginia into a State was an
incident of the late war. While the convention in session at Richmond
resolved to take Virginia out of the Union, the Unionists of West
Virginia called a convention that assembled at Wheeling May 13,
1861, composed of delegates from twenty-five western counties of the
State. This convention passed resolutions denouncing secession and
providing for a convention of all the counties of Virginia adhering
to the National Government. Delegates representing forty counties
convened in Wheeling on June 11, repudiated the acts of the rebel
convention, and on June 20 elected Francis H. Pierpont Governor
of what they denominated the “reorganized State of Virginia.” A
Legislature was elected, which met in Wheeling on July 2. This body
elected two United States Senators to take the place of the Virginia
Senators which had gone over to the Confederacy. It also provided
for an election, to be held on the 24th of the following October,
to decide upon the formation of a new State, the eastern part of
the State being in possession of the rebels. The people, by a large
majority, declared in favor of a new State, and, at the same time,
chose delegates to a convention to meet at Wheeling Nov. 24, which
convention framed a State Constitution, which was ratified by the
people May 3, 1862. May 13 the Legislature—which claimed, it must be
remembered, to represent the whole State of Virginia, as it certainly
did represent all the loyal part—approved the formation of the new
State under the name of West Virginia, and Dec. 31, 1862, provided
for its admission to the Union. It was held by distinguished jurists
that the government at Richmond having placed itself outside of the
Constitution by the treasonable act of secession, the only legal
legislative body within the State was the one in session at Wheeling,
which consented to the organization of the new State, and that the
terms of the Constitution contained in the clause above quoted had
been met. When Virginia was reconstructed she was admitted on the
understanding that West Virginia was a separate State.

A BRIBE-PROOF PATRIOT.

  HAVANA, Mo.

  Who was it who, when the British tried to bribe him, said: “Poor as
  I am, the King of England is not rich enough to buy me?”

  FLORENCE WYATT.

_Answer._—It was General Joseph Reed, a delegate from Pennsylvania
to the Continental Congress. When approached by one of three British
commissioners, Governor Johnstone, with an offer of £10,000 and the
most lucrative office in America, if he would use his influence to
reunite the Colonies to Great Britain, he answered: “I am not worth
purchasing, but, such as I am, the King of Great Britain is not rich
enough to buy me!”

MASON AND DIXON’S LINE.

  GRANGER, Mo.

  What is Mason and Dixon’s line, and what were the provisions of the
  Missouri compromise? Who were responsible for its repeal?

  R. E. GLOVER.

_Answer._—Mason and Dixon’s line is the concurrent State line of
Maryland and Pennsylvania. It is named after two eminent astronomers
and mathematicians, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, who were sent
out from England to run it. They completed the survey between 1763
and 1767, excepting thirty-six miles surveyed in 1782 by Colonel
Alex. McLean and Joseph Neville. It is in the latitude of 39 deg. 43
min. 26.3 sec. Missouri was admitted to the Union only after a long
protracted and violent discussion, growing out of a provision in the
State constitution sanctioning slavery. A compromise was finally
effected by which the new State was admitted with slavery, with a
solemn agreement that there should be no more slave States formed out
of territory north of the parallel of 36 deg. 30 min., the southern
boundary of Missouri. In political discussions Mason and Dixon’s line
was understood to mean both of the above lines and the Ohio River,
or, in other words, the boundary between free and slave territory
the country through. When Kansas was thrown open to settlement the
Southerners were determined, despite the Missouri compromise, to try
to make Kansas a slave State. Their Representatives in Congress,
with the exception of a few Whigs, united in favor of a repeal of the
compromise. With the help of the Douglas Democrats in the North and
several pro-slavery Whigs, they carried their point. The consequence
was the bloody struggles between the free-State and pro-slavery
men in the early history of Kansas, which was practically the
inauguration of the war of the rebellion, although the latter did not
burst into full flame until after the election of President Lincoln
and the secession of the Southern States.

RATES OF INTEREST COMPARED.

  FREEPORT, Ill.

  Please give your readers a comparison of the rates of interest in
  England and the United States for several years back.

  A. BORROWER.

_Answer._—Of course rates vary greatly in this country with locality.
Where opportunities for profitable investment are in excess of
capital, as in the Western States, rates are higher than at the
great money centers. The following statement of the average rates of
interest in New York City for each of the fiscal years from 1874 to
1882, inclusive, is taken from the report of the Comptroller of the
Currency:

            Call loans,    Com’l paper,
  Years.     per cent.      per cent.
  1874          3.8            6.4
  1875          3.0            5.8
  1876          3.3            5.3
  1877          3.0            5.2
  1878          4.4            5.1
  1879          4.4            4.4
  1880          4.9            5.3
  1881          3.8            5.0
  1882          4.4            5.4

The average rate of discount of the Bank of England for the same
years was as follows:

                                      Per cent.
  Year ending Dec. 31, 1874             3.69
  Year ending Dec. 31, 1875             3.23
  Year ending Dec. 31, 1876             2.61
  Year ending Dec. 31, 1877             2.91
  Year ending Dec. 31, 1878             3.78
  Year ending Dec, 31, 1879             2.50
  Year ending Dec. 31, 1880             2.76
  Year ending Dec. 31, 1881             3.49
  Fiscal year ending June 31, 1882      4.01

MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT.

  COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa.

  Are there any lady members of either House of Parliament? How many
  members are there in each House, and what are their titles?

  J. A.

_Answer._—There are seven peeresses in their own right entitled
to seats in the English House of Peers. These are the Baroness
Emma Harriet Tyrwhitt; the Baroness Augusta Mary Elizabeth
Cavendish-Bentwick; the Baroness Angela Georgiana Burdett-Coutts; the
Countess Anne S. Leveson-Gower (Duchess of Sutherland); the Baroness
Mary Elizabeth Boscawan; the Baroness Susan North; the Baroness C. E.
H. D. Willoughby. Besides the ladies the House of Peers contains in
all 509 members, viz.: Six princes of the blood; 3 archbishops; 20
dukes; 18 marquises; 114 earls; 26 viscounts; 24 bishops; 225 barons;
16 Scottish representative peers, elected for each Parliament; 28
Irish representative peers, elected for life. There are also 10 minor
peers, who will be entitled to seats when they attain their majority.
The House of Commons is composed of 639 members, of which 489 are
representatives of counties, universities and towns in England and
Wales; 60 are Scottish and 103 Irish representatives. The title of
honorable is given to members of the House. Some of them have titles
in their own right, as Lord Elcho, Earl Bective, Viscount Galway,
Right Honorable Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, and so on.

BONE DUST AS A FERTILIZER.

  ALMOND, Wis.

  How are bones treated before being used for fertilizing purposes?
  For what crops is bone-dust most used, and on what soils?

  SUBSCRIBER.

_Answer._—First, they are generally boiled for the oil and glue
or gelatine in them, which do not materially affect their value
as fertilizers. They are then ground or crushed, without being
previously burned. In this state this fertilizer is known as bone
dust, and is sown broadcast at the rate of 50 to 100 pounds to the
acre, as a rich manure for pasture, turnips, and small grain lands.
In Cheshire, England, where the fine red sandstone loam had become
comparatively sterile before the first of this century, through
deficiency of phosphoric acid in the soil, caused by constant
pasturage in dairy farming, they resorted to the use of calcined bone
and bone dust, with the effect of doubling the product the first
year. There they often lay on a half ton to a ton to an acre, which
serves as a good dressing for sixteen to twenty years. The best way
to ascertain whether a soil needs bone dust is to experiment for a
year or two with a small plat of ground. The result will determine
better than a chemical analysis whether a bone dust dressing will pay.

THE AGE OF SANTA FE.

  ATCHISON, Kan.

  Is Santa Fe the oldest of American cities, as the Santa Fe papers
  claim?

  A SUBSCRIBER.

_Answer._—Cabez de Vaca, a Spanish adventurer, was in New Mexico
with his shipwrecked party as early as 1535. General Coronado, with
a large military expedition, conquered the Zuni and Moqui towns, or
pueblos, in 1540-41, and kept a journal, still in existence, which
identifies the regions he overran as undoubtedly a part of this
Territory. Don Antonio Espejo left Zacatecas in 1581 according to
some authorities, but late in 1582 according to others, and visited
what is now Santa Fe County, New Mexico, in July of 1583. He gave a
fuller report than had ever been given before of the pueblos of this
region, in which he estimated the population of the province of Taos
as 40,000. The principal pueblo in this province was Tanos, afterward
known as Tegra, and still later as Santa Fe. As an Indian town Santa
Fe may be older than any other town in the United States, but as a
European settlement St. Augustine, Fla., still carries the palm of
antiquity, having been founded in 1565.

JOAQUIN MILLER’S REAL NAME.

  CHICAGO, Ill.

  What is “Joaquin” Miller’s real name, and what were the real and
  assumed names of his divorced wife? The Chicago _Herald_ says his
  name is Henry F. Miller, which I think is incorrect.

  A. STEELE.

_Answer._—The real name of “Joaquin” Miller, author of the “Songs
of the Sierras,” is Cincinnatus Heine Miller. His divorced wife’s
maiden name was Minnie Theresa Dyer, and her literary pseudonym was
“Minnie Myrtle.” It is said that the name “Joaquin” was given to Mr.
Miller by “the boys” in his early California experience, when he was
“roughing it,” from a real or fancied resemblance to a noted Spanish
highwayman, and he adopted it as a pseudonym.

THE BLACKHAWK WAR.

  BATTLE CREEK, Mich.

  Who was the commander in the Blackhawk war? State some of the chief
  facts as to that war.

  V. H. LUCAS.

_Answer._—By a treaty made with certain chiefs of the Sacs and Foxes
at St. Louis in 1804, the Indians ceded all their lands in Illinois
to the United States for the paltry annuity of $1,000 and goods to
the value of $2,234.50. In a treaty made in 1822, covering various
matters, a clause was introduced confirming the cession of 1804.
Still the government did not demand actual possession of these
lands. In 1830, Keokuk, Black Hawk’s rival, negotiated a treaty in
which the government recognized him as the head chief of the Sacs
and Foxes, and in which he clearly ceded all the lands in question.
Black Hawk, who had always opposed any cession of territory to the
whites, was not present at this convention, and he and his followers,
constituting a minority of the tribe, but really representing the
portion most concerned, the actual occupants of the great village at
Rock Island, protested against the validity of this and the previous
cessions. Black Hawk declared that the treaty of 1804 was made by
only four chiefs, that they signed it under the influence of liquor,
and had never been authorized by the tribe to cede lands. It was not
so easy to explain away the clause in the treaty of 1822, but he
characterized it also as a fraud, signed without full understanding
of its intent. As to the convention of 1830, he denied the authority
of Keokuk’s band to deed away the lands east of the Mississippi.

Returning in April, 1831, from the winter’s hunt in the North,
Black Hawk’s band found that their chief’s former friend, an Indian
fur-trader at Rock Island, had purchased of the government the
ground on which this ancient village stood, in the forks of the
Mississippi and Rock River, and with his associate speculators were
preparing to cultivate the Indian field of some 700 acres adjoining
the village. It seems marvelous that Black Hawk could so far restrain
his people as to persuade them to submit to a compromise by which
they yielded possession of half this field for the season to the
speculators. But the latter were not satisfied, and both parties
soon grew irritated. Governor Reynolds, of this State, was asked
to interfere. Soon after the militia were called out. On the 7th
of June General Gaines, of the regular army, commanding at Fort
Armstrong, on Rock Island, summoned the Indians to a council, when
he commanded them to leave the east side of the Mississippi. Black
Hawk refused; but as the State militia, to the number of about 1,600,
under command of General Joseph Duncan, drew near, he saw that his
few hundred warriors would be overwhelmed, and on June 24, during
the night, the Indians deserted their village, which the Americans
a few days later utterly destroyed. On June 30, Black Hawk and his
party signed a treaty by which for the first time he individually
joined in the relinquishment of the lands in dispute. The next
winter found him and his band in a destitute, starving condition,
owing to their being driven from their cornfields at a season when
it was too late to plant elsewhere. In the spring, in defiance of
the treaty, he and 368 warriors with their families, crossed the
Mississippi and passed up Rock River, to plant corn, as they said,
in the Winnebago country, in Southern Wisconsin. General Atkinson,
in command of the regular troops at Fort Armstrong, warned them to
return. Governor Reynolds again called out the militia, and placed
them under command of General Samuel Whiteside. Nothing serious
occurred until the 14th of May, when the rash conduct of a party of
275 volunteers under Major Stillman provoked a fight with some sixty
of Black Hawk’s warriors, near the mouth of the Kishwaukee a few
miles south of Rockford. The whites were panicstricken and fled with
the loss of eleven men. So slow had been the movement of the militia
that already their time of enlistment had nearly expired, and, not
liking this taste of Indian war, they became mutinous, and had to be
discharged. General Atkinson could do little with his mere handful of
regular troops, so he intrenched his company at Dixon and remained
there, while Black Hawk’s followers, re-enforced by a few Winnebago,
Ottawa and Pottawatomie braves, roamed over the country committing
outrages on defenceless settlers, a number of whom were killed.
Affairs grew serious. Governor Reynolds called for 2,000 militia. In
July the regulars and militia, all under the chief command of General
Atkinson, drove Black Hawk up Rock River and across to the Wisconsin
River, where General James D. Henry, the chief hero of this war, in
command of a brigade of Illinois militia, overtook him at Wisconsin
Heights, and inflicted the first serious punishment the Indians had
suffered. Over fifty warriors were killed, and the entire body of
them was badly demoralized. Escaping across the Wisconsin with great
loss, they fled, leaving their dead and dying, and abandoned articles
along their trail. The whole army followed in hot pursuit, and on
Aug. 2, General Henry again struck their main force and drove them
into the Mississippi at the mouth of the Bad Axe. Here the regulars
and the rest of the army joining in, soon cut them to pieces. General
Winfield Scott took command five days later, on Aug. 7, 1831, and
not long afterwards negotiated a treaty of peace. Black Hawk and two
of his sons, with several of his principal warriors, were held as
hostages for a time. After detention at Fortress Monroe until June 5
of the next year, he was released. During his captivity he was taken
to all the principal cities, where his fate elicited a good deal of
sympathy. After his return he lived peaceably with his tribe in Iowa
until his death, Oct. 3, 1838, in the 70th year of his age. He was
buried at Iowaville, Iowa.

THE BERMUDAS.

  GENESEO, Ill.

  Please give a concise history of the Bermuda Islands.

  MRS. M. H. PIERCE.

_Answer._—The Bermudas were discovered successively by Juan
Bermudez, a Spaniard, in 1522; Henry May, an Englishman, in 1593:
and Sir George Somers in 1609; the discovery in each case being due
to the shipwreck of the discoverer. Sir George established the first
settlement shortly before his death. In 1612 these islands were
granted to 120 persons, an offshoot of the Virginia Company, sixty of
whom, led by Henry More, and followed by fugitives from the civil war
in England, commenced the cultivation of the soil, which soon yielded
rich crops of tobacco. Later the salt lagoons furnished the chief
article of commerce. The government consists of a Governor, appointed
by the crown, and a privy council of nine members, appointed by the
Governor. The House of Assembly is composed of thirty-six members,
elected by the people. The acts are revised from time to time, being
passed for a limited period.

LIVE QUESTIONS FOR DEBATE.

  WEST PILOT, Iowa.

  Will you please give some live questions for debate in a lyceum?

  WILLIE G. SPRINGER.

_Answer._—Should an international copyright system be established?
Should the government establish postal savings banks? Should
literary ability be acknowledged and encouraged in this country, as
in England, by grants or pensions from the government? Should the
election of President and Vice President be by direct popular vote,
instead of through the electoral college?

GIVE FOWLS GOOD FOOD AND EXERCISE.

  NEBRASKA CITY, Neb.

  What is the matter with my fowls? They do not seem to be sick, but
  they are languid and do not lay or seem to have any ambition.

  AMANDA.

_Answer._—Perhaps it is because they are too closely cooped and have
not sufficient exercise. Give them plenty of sunlight; keep them dry;
bury a share of their grain in their dusting-place so that they will
have to scratch for it; scatter the rest of their food so that they
will have to exercise in order to get it and can not eat too fast;
give them a variety of dry and cooked food, including cooked meat and
vegetables in the morning and grain at night; and the probability is
that you will see a marked improvement.

THE SULLIVAN-HANFORD MURDER.

  CHICAGO, Ill.

  When did Alexander Sullivan shoot Francis Hanford, the Chicago
  school principal? When did his trial take place and before what
  Judge? Was the Judge impeached for his course on that trial? Is it
  certainly so that this is the same Sullivan who is now at the head
  of the Irish National League of America? One friend says it is and
  another says that this latter Sullivan is a New Yorker.

  INQUIRER.

  ST. HELENA, Neb.

  Is the Alexander Sullivan, of Chicago, elected President of the
  Irish National League, recently organized in Philadelphia, the same
  man who some years since killed Francis Hanford, the Chicago school
  principal? Why was that Sullivan acquitted?

  JOHN MARTIN.

_Answer._—Alexander Sullivan shot Francis Hanford, Principal of
the North Side High School, Chicago, on Aug. 7, 1876, under the
following circumstances: In an anonymous paper read that afternoon
in the City Council it was charged that Mrs. Alexander Sullivan had
procured the appointment of her husband, as Secretary of the Board
of Public Works, through undue influence over Mayor Colvin. It was
also charged that she was the moving spirit in a corrupt ring that
dictated the management of the public schools. Mr. Sullivan was told
that the author of this paper was Mr. Hanford. At 7 o’clock that
same evening, himself, wife and a younger brother drove up in front
of the Hanford residence as that gentleman was sprinkling his grass
plat, while Mrs. Hanford sat on the door-step looking on. Sullivan
demanded an immediate retraction; after a few words he knocked Mr.
Hanford down. A scuffle ensued which ended in Sullivan’s drawing a
revolver and shooting Mr. Hanford dead in the presence of his family.
He afterward claimed that during the fracas, when Mrs. Sullivan came
up to separate them Mr. Hanford had struck her. On the trial the
prosecution claimed that if this were so, the blow was not directed
or intended for Mrs. Sullivan, but came about in Mr. Hanford’s
efforts to protect himself from Sullivan’s attack. The first trial
of Sullivan began Oct. 17, 1876, and ended Oct. 27 in a disagreement
of the jury. The public was greatly exasperated, and, believing that
the disagreement of the jury was due to the rulings and charge of
Judge McAllister, there was a loud call made by the most respectable
citizens of all classes for his resignation. When the news reached
the Board of Trade such a scene was witnessed as seldom occurs in
such a place. By unanimous consent all business was suspended. In
ten minutes a petition was prepared, asking Judge McAllister to
resign at once. In half an hour it had received 500 signatures, and
by night there were 1,200 names appended, all of members of the
board. The Judge treated this petition and the unanimous condemnation
of the press with silent contempt. Sullivan’s second trial opened
Feb. 26, 1877, before the same judge, and closed March 9 with a
verdict of acquittal. Judge McAllister was never impeached before
any legal tribunal; but at the bar of public opinion he suffered the
condemnation of the intelligent, order-loving element of the entire
country. This Alexander Sullivan is now the President of the newly
organized Irish National League of America.

SECURITY OF NATIONAL BANKS.

  DOWNSVILLE, Wis.

  Are the notes and deposits of the National Banks well secured? What
  is the rate of loss suffered through these banks?

  S. S. C.

_Answer._—The currency issued by National banks is amply secured
by the deposit of registered bonds of the United States with the
Treasurer of the United States. The Comptroller of the Currency
makes frequent inspections of these institutions, and whenever the
market value of the bonds thus deposited falls below the amount of
the circulation issued for the same, he is authorized to demand
additional security in United States bonds or money to the amount
of such depreciation. National bank notes are all printed by the
government, and furnished to the banks only in such quantities as
they are authorized to circulate. As a consequence there can be
no over issues. In case of the failure of a bank to redeem its
circulating notes, the holders may present them for payment at the
Treasury of the United States, where they will be redeemed. The
government is protected against loss by holding a first lien on
all the assets of such banks. Depositors in cases of failure do not
always realize the full amount of their claims, but the history
of banking shows no parallel to the excellence of this system in
respect of the small proportion of loss suffered by depositors. The
loss to all creditors of the United States National banks from the
passage of the act of Feb. 25, 1863, to Nov. 1, 1882, amounted to
only about $400,000 per annum on an average capital of $450,000,000,
and annual deposits averaging $800,000,000, so that the average
loss to depositors during a period of nearly twenty years was but
one-twentieth of 1 per cent per annum.

GOVERNORS OF IOWA.

  ANAMOSA, Iowa.

  Please give a full list of the Governors of this State from the
  organization of Iowa Territory, with the years that they were in
  office.

  SUBSCRIBER.

_Answer._—The Territorial Governors of Iowa were:

  Robert Lucas          1838-41
  John Chambers         1841-46
  James Clark           1846-46

Iowa was admitted into the Union as a State Dec. 28, 1846, since when
its Governors have been:

  Ansel Briggs          1846-50
  Stephen Hempstead     1850-54
  James W. Grimes       1854-58
  Ralph P. Lowe         1858-60
  Samuel J. Kirkwood    1860-64
  William M. Stone      1864-68
  Samuel M. Merrill     1868-72
  Cyrus C. Carpenter    1872-76
  Samuel J. Kirkwood    1876-78
  John H. Gear          1878-82
  Buren R. Sherman      1882-

The above does not give the names of the Governors of Missouri,
Michigan, and Wisconsin Territories at the dates when what is now
Iowa was attached to those Territories. After Missouri became a
State, in 1821, Iowa was left without any civil government. From
1834 to 1836 it was attached to Michigan Territory, then embracing