p. 119 | SECULAR NEWS

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Apr 18, 1878

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 4, No. 15.

Read the full edition

SECULAR NEWS.

—Mexico has 3,000 miles of sea and gulf coast.

—A Pera dispatch says: "Twenty thousand refugees have been sent to Asia recently."

—Official returns show that last week the Russians had 53,000 sick in Europe alone.

—All the colliers in the Pennsylvania coal regions are working for the first time this year.

—The beach at Galveston is the largest and broadest in the world, extending twenty-five miles.

—There is an area of forty acres in North Carolina that has yielded over $1,000,000 in gold since the war.

—The last of the Granger laws, so popular in the western States a few years ago, was recently repealed by the Iowa Legislature.

—The bank of England has issued 94,000,000 notes in the last seven years. The notes placed in a pile would be eight miles high. If they were joined end to end, they would extend 15,000 miles.

—It is stated that within eleven years the public debt of Canada has increased from $93,046,051 to $174,675,834, and during the same period the excess of imports over exports has been $235,746,000.

—In the fire that recently occurred on the Lake Shore railroad, eight thousand pounds of mail matter were consumed, principally Chicago mails. There was also a large amount of valuable baggage aboard, and all was destroyed. Wm. M. Scott and daughter, of Erie, lost $5,000 in diamonds and wardrobe.

—Of the quota of twenty young men sent out by the Cherokee nation to be educated, four are at the Park High School, Tuskegee, Alabama. One is a full blooded Indian; the others are of mixed blood. Their expenses are paid by the United States, by warrants drawn directly on the United States Sub-Treasury.

—The body of Pope Pius IX was enclosed in three coffins before being deposited in the sarcophagus in St. Peter's Cathedral. The first was of cypress wood, lined and covered with scarlet velvet. This was enclosed in one of zinc, and this again in another of pine, painted red. The two wooden coffins were each made of a solid piece hollowed out.

—The emigration to Kansas is unprecedented in the history of the west. A Topeka dispatch of March 28 says: "Over 2,500 reached the State to-day. The season is fully a month in advance of previous years. Peach, apple and cherry trees are in full bloom. Winter wheat in the south-west is from eight to ten inches high, and spring wheat is above ground."

—An artesian well now in progress at Pesth, Hungary, has reached a depth of 3,118 feet. The artesian well at Paris, which has hitherto held the first place, is only 2,641 feet. The water at present issuing has a temperature of 161 degrees Fahr., and the operations will be continued till that of 178° Fahr. is obtained. About 175,000 gallons stream out daily, and rise to a hight of twenty-five feet.

—There have been fifty-six Atlantic steamers lost during the last thirty-seven years, in which 4,530 persons perished. Nine vessels were heard from after leaving port, four were burned, thirty wrecked, five lost through collision with other vessels, and two by collision with icebergs, two foundered and two were lost in the fog. Of nationalities, forty-two were British, five American, four French, four German, one Belgian.

—The Pope was over 80 years old at his death; the king of Holland is 60 years and 10 months; the Emperor of Russia, 59 years and 7 months; Victor Emanuel died comparatively young at 57 years and 9 months. The youngest sovereigns are the Emperor of Austria, 47 years and 4 months; King Humbert of Italy, 34 years; the Sultan, 33 years and three months; the King of Greece, 32 years, and the King of Spain, 20 years and 1 month.

—Political news from Central America is unfavorable. Costa Rica and Guatemala are both preparing for war. The president of Costa Rica has purchased a steamer in San Francisco and had her fitted out as a man-of-war, and has sent to Europe for a large supply of arms. He is determined, at any cost and by any means, to carry out his scheme of Central American Confederation, and the president of Guatemala is equally determined to oppose him.