SECULAR NEWS | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Feb 21, 1878

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 4, No. 8.

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SECULAR NEWS.

—There is no free-school system in Utah.

—No more trade dollars will be coined except for export.

—The work on the Darien Canal Expedition is still being prosecuted.

—The New York police are working with renewed energy against the excise sellers.

—The oldest house in New England is said to be in Guilford, Conn. It was built in 1639.

—A strong tidal wave recently swept the coast of Peru. The Callao moles were severely damaged.

—The yield of gold and silver in the States and Territories during the year 1877 was $95,500,000.

—The king of Spain thinks of sending thirty boys, the sons of nobles, to this country to be educated.

—The public debt statement for January shows a decrease in the debt for the month of $1,668,076.53.

—The internal revenue returns of New York show a decrease in the manufacture of liquor and cigars.

—Although the new king of Italy is the fourth Humbert, he assumes the title of King Humbert the first.

—At Belfast, Ireland, about ten grain firms have recently failed. Their total liabilities are estimated at $1,000,000.

—The museum of Yale College has recently received from the Rocky mountains the nearly complete skeleton of a gigantic reptile. It is thirty feet long, and was found firmly imbedded in rock.

—An asylum for women and children, in China, was recently burned, and two thousand persons perished in the flames.

—North Carolina contains 1,025 distilleries, the largest of any State in the Union. Kentucky comes next with 754 distilleries.

—The continent of Africa contains over eleven million square miles—being three million more than the whole of North America.

—Five tons of rocks containing impressions of bird and insect tracks have been taken from Wethersfield, Conn., to Mount Holyoke Seminary.

—Monday morning, at six o’clock the Sacramento river was the highest ever known; it marking twenty-four feet and nine inches.

—Smallpox is raging in epidemic form at Fremont, Texas. Nine-tenths of the inhabitants have left the place, and the business houses are all closed.

—A farmer at Knights Landing, California, the last dry year took off 46,666 bushels of wheat from two thousand acres of land—over twenty-three bushels to the acre.

—In 1850, Minnesota contained but 5,000 souls, and had but 1,900 acres under cultivation. In 1877 it contained 759,000 souls, and nearly 3,000,000 acres under cultivation, of which nearly 2,000,000 were in wheat.

—It is estimated that England uses about 150,000,000 pounds of tea per annum—nearly all black. France uses but very little. America uses about 50,000,000 pounds per year, or about one-third as much as England.

—Six teachers, three ladies and three gentlemen, have left New York to become instructors in two national colleges for men and women in Honduras. Others are to be engaged from time to time, and the English language and the American system of education are to be used.

—During the past year the consumption of cotton reached the highest point ever attained in this country, while the value of our cotton fabrics exported has, despite low prices, increased $7,000,000 within two years, or from $3,090,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30th, 1875 to $10,080,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30th, 1877.

—The number of horses in Norway in 1875 was 151,903. There are consequently but 84 horses to every thousand inhabitants as against 227 in the United States, 225 in Russia, 176 in Denmark, 103 in Sweden, 98 in Austro-Hungary, 85 in Great Britain and Ireland, 82 in Germany, and 76 in France. The countries on the Mediterranean are still lower on the list, owing to the general employment of mules, asses, and oxen.

—An exchange says: “Russia leather is made in Connecticut, Bordeaux wine is manufactured in California, French lace is woven in New York, Italian marble is dug in Kentucky, Marseilles linen is produced in Massachusetts, English cassimere is made in New Hampshire, Parisian art work comes from a shop in Boston, Spanish mackerel are caught on the New Jersey coast, and Havana cigars are rolled up by the millions in Chicago.”

—It is stated that the most industrious and profitable manufacturing country in the world in proportion to its size is the platform over St. Anthony’s Falls at Minneapolis, Minn. It has sixteen flouring mills, one woolen mill, one iron works, one cotton mill, one railroad machine shop, two planing mills, one sash and door factory, one paper mill, one grain elevator with a capacity of 300,000 bushels, two machine shops, one mill furnishing shop, one carding mill, eight saw mills, having a capacity for sawing 1,000,000 feet per day, and the city water works, together with numerous offices and other buildings pertaining directly and indirectly to these various institutions.

—It is stated that the deepest artesian well in the world is now in progress at Pesth, and has already reached a depth of 951 metres (3,118 feet). The well at Paris, which is 547 metres in depth, has hitherto held the first place in such achievements. The work is carried on at the expense of the city, which has granted a sum equal to £40,000 for the purpose, with the intention of obtaining an unlimited supply of warm water for the municipal establishment and the public baths. The water at present issuing has a temperature of 161 degrees Fahrenheit, and the operations will be continued until that of 178 degrees is obtained. About 175,000 gallons of the water pour out daily, and rise to the hight of 35 feet.