p. 110, para. 1 | Untitled article

Untitled article

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, January 28, 1868

Steam to the Rocky Mountains.—Travelers from the Atlantic coast can now make an uninterrupted railway journey to the eastern base of the Rocky mountains, the Union Pacific Railroad Company having completed 525 miles of their road west from Omaha, and expecting to reach Evans' pass, the highest point on the road, by January. The Central Pacific road has built over 100 miles east from California, across the Sierra Nevada; so that over one-third of the 1,830 miles between Omaha and San Francisco is already completed, and the whole road will undoubtedly be finished in 1870. The net earnings of the way business of the road the past season have been more than sufficient to pay the interest on the whole cost.

Minute Division of Particles.—A drop of water will take a perceptible blue tint from one millionth of a grain of indigo. Sea water contains silver only in the proportion of one part of silver to every 100,000,000 parts of water; and yet its presence is proved by chemical tests. A grain of gold may be divided into 95,000,000,000 parts, each visible under a microscope. Iron has been rolled into sheets so thin that it would require 200 of the sheets to make the thickness of note-paper.

National Debts.—According to Mr. Gladstone, Chancellor of the English Exchequer, the debt of Prussia is $215,000,000, or nearly $12 per head; of Russia, $1,395,000,000, or $23 per head; of Italy, $760,000,000, or $34 per head; of Portugal, $175,000,000, or nearly $40 per head; of Austria, $1,580,000,000, or $45 per head; of France, $2,400,000,000, or $53 per head; of Turkey, $255,000,000, or $115 per head; of Holland, $425,000,000, of $121 per head; of the United States, $8,000,000,000, or $100 per head; of Great Britain, $3,994,945,000, or $125 per head. The British people have never raised more than $370,000,000, of revenue in a year exclusive of loans. Our people raised a revenue in 1866 at the rate of $540,000,000.

The Atlantic Cable.—Within the past fourteen months, the rates for messages over the Atlantic cable have been very much reduced, putting its benefits within the reach of almost any one.

The cable was landed at Heart's Content, Friday, July 27, 1866, and since that date, communication across the Atlantic has never ceased. The line was open for public use Saturday, July 28, 1866, at a tariff of one hundred dollars, gold, for a message in plain language of twenty words, inclusive of address, date, and signature. Two hundred dollars was then charged for cipher or code messages of the same length.

Nov. 1st, 1866, the rate was made fifty dollars for a plain word message of twenty words, including address, date, and signature; one hundred dollars for cipher or code.

December 1st, 1867, the rate was reduced a third time, giving, free of all charge, five words employed for address, date and signature, abolishing extra charges on messages in code, making the minimum message ten words for twenty-five dollars, and granting the press an additional reduction of fifty per cent. on general and political news.