Edwards County Leader from Kinsley, Kansas • 5

HOMESTEADS. IN THE ARCTIC SEA. put to the trouble and expense of a long contest, should they delay the matter for any great length of time. Especially is it to oe to the interest of all persons who, under the new rulings, may be in doubt as to whether they can hold their homesteads or not, to be satisfied on that peint as soon as possible. They should as soon as practicable come forward and make their proofs and state the facts just as they exist and rely upon the generosity of the government, in view of its past dealings with homesteaders, to allow them to squeeze through.

plying this time scale to the present case, we find that more than six hundred thousand years are necessary for this work. As the excavation was, however, through hard limestone rock instead of chalk, and as the mouth of the cave at Brixham is nearly one hundred feet above the present level of the creek, it i3 evident that the, time should be lengthened. But man was in Devonshire before these vallevs had been cut deeper than the mouths oi these caverns, and long before an inch of the stalagmitic floor had been deposited. Diminish the time involved in these facts and calculations in any reasonable manner as much as possible and still the time during which man has lived in is enormous as compared with our previous conceptions. Unless we admit that England was the cradle of the human family, the figurative garden of Eden, these facts only point to the antiquity of man in Devonshire, but do not fix the'true antiquity of the race.

H. D. Gakkisox. MAN'S ANTIQUITY. Geological Testimony that he Existed Mix Hundred Thousand Warn Ago.

Cor: expend, nee of the Chicago met. Hollywell, North Wales, July 31. In Devonshire, on the north shores of Torbay, are two celebrated caves, one situated in the outskirts of the village Brixham. the the other similarly located in the beautiful town Torquay. In both cases the caverns extend into the hills upon whose slopes they are situated five to six hundred feet, the chambers and galleries being very large, tortuous 'and irregular.

The cave at Brixhani, the mouth of which was completely closed by debris when accidentally discovered some years since, was most carefully explored under the auspices of the Royal Geological society, which appointed the able geologist, Mr. Pengelly, to personally supervise the operation. The cavern at Torquay, known as "Kent's cavern," is now being similarly explored by carefully removing its contents, amounting to many thousands of tons, under the same eminent management. The similarity in the contents and revelations of these caverns is remarkable. Confining our attention to that at Torquay, which is the more recent and important in its disclosures, its floor is found to be composed, first, of a layer from two to twelve inches thick of decayed leaves and other vegetable matter commingled with dust and fragments of limestone which have fallen from the sides and roof of the cavern.

Under this stratum of black mold and sometimes peering up through it is an extensive floor of granular stalagmite or quite pure carbonate of lime varying in thickness from a few inches to over five feet. Beneath the granular stalagalmite and at a distance of about four feet from the entrance to the cavern occurs a stratum of charcoal, ashes, bones, and fragments of wood covering an area of over one hundred square feet. Below the charcoal band, and where that does not occur, immediately in contact with the floor of the stagalmite, is a thick stratum of red clay mixed -with fragments of limestone (from the roof), scales of stagalmite, the whole amounting to about four feet in depth, and called the "cave earth." Beneath the cave earth occurs another floor of crystalline carbonate of lime, having a thickness in some places of over twelve feet, called the "crystalline stalagmite." Below the latter lies a deep stratum composed of fragments of limestone, red grit, quartz, and sand all more or less cemented together by carbonate of lime in the form of stalgamitie deposit. A Ships Crew Saved by the Adoption of Hobby. From CasfreU FamOy Magazine.

Now let me give you an instance of how the adoption of a hobby saved a ship's crew from scurvy. There were three of us altogether three full-rigged Greenland ships with a crew, all told, of nearly ninety men, and I myself made one in one of the three. The weather had been exceedingly mild for some weeks, and in the pursuit of our avocation we had bored our way many, many miles in through the ice, towards Greenland West. There, thinking he was sure of us, King Winter blew on us from the north with his icy breath, and lo! w-e were held as in a vise and thus remained for months, fully one hurdred miles from blue water. As time went on, the fear that we might not escape from oivr snowy prison increased, and the captain of our vessel very properly reduced our allowance of food.

Light was in plenty both night and day, for the sun never set; water we had enough and to spare: but, as I said, our provisions were stinted, and they were mostly salt. We Lad neither books nor games to amuse us; the solitude of our situation was more dreary than I can describe, for no living creature, bird or beast, ever came near us. Besides, we had nothing positively to do, and too much time to do it in. Taking exercise in a case of this sort is very mononon-ous, because you know you are merely taking it to keep body and soul together. It was a happy thought, then, of old Peter Noble, our spectioneer, which found vent in the following words: "Pitch away your pipes, lads; there is more to do in this world than smoke, and mope and mourn.

Let us make silver rings for our wives and sweethearts." "Bravo!" chorused his companions, "that's a capital idea; let us make rings for the dear ones at home, and when in happier days we look at them, we'll kiss the hands that, wear them, and our minds will revert to this dull time, and we will thank Him we are free, and in our own land again." Now the manufacture of these silver rinsrs was a very simple thing, but it required sometime unci a little thought besides; but it was a labor of love, and it kept the hands well employed. A shilling, a florin, or even a sixpenny-piece was softened in the fire, a hole was then bored in the center, and into this hole was inserted the point of a marlin spike this latter being The Newspaper Business. The San Francisco Golden Era quotes a brother journalist as saying that he supposed many people think newspaper men are persistent duns. Let the farmer place himself in a similar business position and see if he would not do the same. Suppose he raised 1,000 bushels of wheat, and his neighbor should come and buy a bushel, and the price was a small matter of only two dollars or less, and the neighbor says, "I will hand you the amount in a few days." As the fanner did not want to be small about the matter, he says all right, and the man leaves with the wheat.

Another comes in the same way until the 1,000 different persons, and not one of the purchasers concerns himself about it, for it is a small sum he owes the farmer, and of course that would not help him any. He does not realize that the farmer has frittered away all his large crop of wheat, and that its value is due him in a thousand little driblets, and that he is seriously embarrassed in his business because his debtors treat it as a little matter. But if all would pay him promptly, which they could do as well as not, it would be a very large amount to the farmer, and enable him to carry on his business without difficulty. The above comparison is too true of the difficulties that the newspaper man has to contend with. Cure for llard Time.

Prom the Boston Pilot. There are too many men and women employed in the manufacture of goods, and too few employed in the production of raw material. mills and workshops are crowded till the crowd overflows, and the streets are filled with idle and hungry people; at the same time the fields and farms are deserted, and inconsequence the whole people are forced to pay three prices for all sorts of food and clothing. The curse and disease of modern civilization is the formation of great cities and towns, where all the men and women live on the skill of hands and brains, making something out of something else on foreign countries or on our own half-tilled lands. The natural cure for this disease is to spread the labor let half the crowd leave the mills and workshops and go out on the farm lands.

Let every inch of soil on the continent be used for the production of food and clothing and timber and stone and coal and metal. Then the furnaces will roar day and night; the mill-wheels will never stop; there will be plenty of money, for money only represents material wealth; the schools will be full and the homes comfortable; travel will be cheap, clothing plentiful, flour and beef for every one, and a hundred kinds of sweet vegetables and comfortable fabrics now known only to the rich will be sold in the common market to the laborer's wife. This is no dream no fantastic picture held up in derision of the poor. This is the possibility this could all be made true and practicable this is the only lasting cure of the labor evil. Let every man study this for himself.

All wealth lies in the crust of the earth. In this country, embracing all climates, capable of producing all fruits, vegetables, and minerals under the sun, thousands are starving, and millions are only just able to live yet the rich earth lies untilled, unpeopled, while myriads crowd into the cities to prey upon each other, and to listen to the demagogues and the quack doctors. It will be answered to this that we already produce more than we can use. This is not so; we produce now more than we can buy at the high prices we pay while wages are so low. And, observe wages are low because there are too many hands in the towns, too much competition; and prices of living are high, because there is too little produced, too little competition in the fields.

Sew Regulations in Regard to "riov-Ins Up" on Homesteads Twenty-Ooe Heurehlngand Pointed Questions to be Proposed to Homesteaders. It is of course well known to all who have been familiar with the instructions and rulings of the general land office, that multitudes of persons who hare ever taken homesteads have hot strictly complied with the law in regard to establishing "a residence" thereon. Heretofore, homesteaders have, of course, solemnly sworn that they have resided on their homesteads as provided by law, but, as a matter of fact, such residences have been technical, rather than bona fide. It seems, however, the general land office commissioner has decided to put a stop to this loose way of doing business, as new blanks have been issued to the various offices, prescribing a new sort of emphatic and specific questions both for the homesteader himself and for his witnesses. For the information of the public, and especially for the information of homesteaders who have not yet "proved op," we publish belowthe questions which, under the new regulations, the must answer, and the questions for his witnesses are equally searching and pointed: QUESTIONS FOIt HOMESTEADERS.

Ques. I. What is your name? (Be careful to give it in fuil, correctly spelled, in order that it may here be written exactly as you wish it written in the patent which you desire to obtain.) Ques. 2. What is your age? Ques.

3. Are you the head of a family, or a single person; and, if the head of a family, of whom does your family consist? Ques-. 4. Are you a native-born citizen of the United States? If not. have you declared your intention to become a citizen, and have you obtained a certificate of naturalization Ques.

5. Are there any indications of coal, or minerals of any kind on the lands embraced in your homestead entry above described? (If so, state what they are, and whether the springs or mineral deposits are valuable. Ques. 6. Is the land more valuable for agricultural purposes? Ques.

7. What is your post office address Ques. 8. Have you ever made a homestead entry except for this land, No. (If you have, give, as nearly as you can, the date thereof and description of the land, and state whether the entry still subsists; or, if it has been cancelled, state the cause of it's cancellation.) Ques.

9. Have you sold the land or conveyed to any one your right and interest in the same? And if so, to whom and for what purpose? Ques. 10. Does any one except yourself claim the land under the homestead or pre-emption laws. Ques.

11. When did you first make settlement on said land? i Ques. 12. When did you first establish a residence upon the land? Ques. 13.

At the date you have given as being the date that you first established your residence upon the land, did you move thereon in person? Ques. 14. Up to what time have you resided on the land? Ques. 15. Was your residence upon the land continuous during the period named? Ques.

1G. If you had a family during said period of residence on the home-jtead, did your family reside thereon Ques. 17. What improvements have you made or do you possess on the land? (Describe them.) Ones. 18.

When was vnnr rinnse built? Great Armies Great Curse. What a curse to a Government a greal Army is, and always must be, in time of peace! The grand total of land and sea forces in France, according to the Journal of Military Sciences, is to-day, in round numbers, 3,600,000 men, equal to about one-tenth of the entire population of the country. There are in the Army, in actual service. 480,000 men; in the Navy, The first army reserve is the an iron 1001, rouna ana tapering, not unlike a steel for sharpening knives on, which is used at sea for unstranding ropes in splicing. Well, the coin, being adjusted on this handy instrument, had to be hammered gradually adown it, until the hole was supposed to be wide enough to admit the finger of the fair one for whom it was intended; this done, it had to bo filed, and afterwards nicely polished.

Of course there were big rings to be made and little rings. "My little Mary," said one sailor, as he hammered away and thought of home, "bless her heart, her little finger ain't thicker than a pipestalk." "Ah!" said another, "but my Sue is a fine lass; half a crown ain't a bit too big for her finger." Now the upshot of all this ring-making was that, first and foremost, there was thus much illegal defacing, for which I think her majesty would graciously forgive us, if told that the hobby kept our crew in health and spirits, and that the crews of both the other ships were down with, and some dead of scurvy. The interesting feature in this matter which alone induced me to visit and inspect these caverns is the fact that the relics of man are found imbedded in every stratum of this cavernous floor, even to the last one mentioned. These relic in the bottom stratum consist of rude flint spear points and flint daggers or knives. These implements found nearer the surface, as in the crystalline stalagmite, are better shaped, while in the cave earth are found many well-formed flint spears and arrow points, flint knives, bone daggers, bone needles, with eyes, etc.

Nearer the surface the weapons are more numerous and elaborate, and are associated with objects of ornament. Along with these implements of man are found a very large number of fragments of bones of living and extinct animals. Among the latter are the mammoth rhinoceros, tichorinus, the gigantic Irish deer, cave bear, cave lion, etc The question at once arises, how are No matter what is said to the contrary, the man who produces something useful can always sell or barter it to others who produce something else. Real wealth is not money, but the good things that money represents. Produce the good things rnd vou produce the wealth.

If every second, the hrst naval reserve, the second 40.000 men. The territorial army is 700,000, the territorial reserve, 700,000, making an aggregate of 3,590.000 men the entire strength, life-blood, and hope of the nation converted into military machines and potential food for powder. In Germany, Austria, Russia, even in Italy, tli3 same odious system prevails, and will prevail while one Government deems it necessary to be a standing menace to another. Why cannot each nation disarm? Why should not the prodigious martial force be exercised in the modes of peace? Why should the people, who have, as a rule, nothincr to field in America yielded its full riches of grain, cotton or minerals, it would then be time to consider the shortening of hours of labor and stopping the machines. But until there is no more power of producing raw material the true question is how to get the crowds from the cities and spread them at productive work over the fields? gain and everything to lose by war, be compelled to sustain in money and person a system wrhich they hate, and which op- Eresses them in every way? There can no true civilization where the people are compelled to maintain a condition that is pernicious and unnatural.

Louis Xapoleon's Boyhood. From Mme. Cornu Senior's Marital Mistakes. From the Courier- Journal "Romola:" You perhaps do injustice to the man who, "while retaining his love for his wife, confesses that he regretted his marriage." He may have regretted it as much on his wife's account as on his own. He may have been an honest man, struggling hard to support his family.

The man who has a thick nide and a thick head never regrets his marriage. He often loves other women as much as ne does his wife, and he never leaves off his vices for the benefit of his family. Dying between 40 and 45 years of age, he leave his family to the care of better men or perhaps the entire burden falls upon the shoulders of the poor woman whom he has "never regretted" marrying. The Rev. Collyer points to energetic men who have married early and done well, but anybody can point this asinine pulpiteer to many worthy, hard-working, industrious men who have married early and not done well.

The "energetic" men are frequently dishonest, as any observer knows. They are generally crowders, and often when they get in, somebody i3 crowded out. It is little satisfaction to a man of much heart to make his way by crushing his fellows. Louis Napoleon was an attractive child. He was mild and intelligent, but more like a girl than a boy.

He is a year older than I am; when we quarreled he used to bite, not strike. He used to say to me: "Je ne tf at jamais battue." liNon" I answered, "mais tu m'os mordue." He was shy, and has continued to be so. He hates new faces; in old times he could not bear to part with a servant, and I know that he has kept ministers whom he disliked and disapproved only because he did not like the embarras of sending them away. His great pleasures are riding, walking, and above all, fine scenery. I remember walking with him and Prince Napoleon one fine evening on Lansdowne hill, near Bath.

The view was enchanting; he sat down to admire it. "Look," he said, "at Napoleon; he does not care a farthing for all this. I could sit here for hours." He employed me a few days ago to make inquiries for him in Germany in connection with his book. Moequard wrote me a letter of thanks. Louis Napoleon added to it, in his own hand, these words: "Ceci me rappelle les bontes qu'avait Madame Cornu- pour le prison-nier de Ham Les extremes se touchent carles Tuileries e'est encore une prison." When the Duke of Reichstadt and his own brother lived, he used to rejoice that there were two lives between him and power.

What he would have liked better than empire would have been to be a rich, country gentleman in a fine country with nothing to do but to enjoy himself. The Growth of Children. An English scientific paper remarks as a curious physiological fact that although open air life is so favorable to health, yet it has the apparent effect of stunting growth in early youth. While the children of well-to-do parents, carefully housed and tended, are taller for their age than the children of the poor, they are not so strong in after years. The laborers' children, for instance, who play in the lonely country roads and fields all day, whose parents lock their cottage doors when leaving for work in the morning, so that their offspring shall not gain entrance and do mischief, are almost invariably short for their age.

The children of working farmers exhibit the same peculiarity. After sixteen or eighteen, after years of hesitation, as it were, the lads shoot up, and become great hulking broad fellows, possessed of immense strength. Hence it would seem that indoor life forces growth at the wrong period, and so injures." By way of comment on this the Scientific American says: "The inference is plausible, but is wide of the, mark. The children of the well-to-do 'are tall not because they are kept indoors, but because they are well fed and saved from severe exposure. The children of the poor are stunted not by too much sun and air, but because they are ill fed.

Give the first-class plenty of outdoor play with their proper diet, and they will be strong as well as tall; give to the laborers' children the food suitable to their years, and no amount of sun and wind will stunt them. On the contrary, they will not have to wait till age brings capacity to turn strong food to bone and muscle, and time to overcome the evil effects of the hard times in early life, but will grow from the first steadily and sturdily. A Way Passenger. From the Txmville Courier JuinuL He was a "culle'd tramp," and approached Capt. Jase Phillips as the train hauled up at Pewee.

"Is you de captin ob de "Yes," replied Jase. "Don't want fo ter hire any deck hands, duz ye?" "No, I'm not running a steamboat." "'Zact'ly! Mout I ride straddle ob de cow-snatcherto denex' landin' I'se bursted an' a long ways from home?" "Get on! All aboard!" and the negro straddled the "cow-snatcher." Ed Gilli-gan pulled out the throttle wide open, and the train had not gone more than half a mile before the engine collided with a cow, throwing it over the fence into a cornfield, and the negro after the cow. Next day, coming down, the negro limped up to Jase at the same depot and said: "Boss, I didn't ride fur wid you on dat cow-snatcher. Kaae you see de cow wanted to ride dar, too, an' dar wan't room fo bofe of us, so we got off togedder up here in de co'n field fo to rest. De next time I rides wid you I'll freeze to de tail-gates ob de wagon hit's safer." these fossils? The problem is, to a large extent, one of chemistry.

How long would the formation of such massive floors of stalagmite, deposited from water which still continues to drip from the ceiling of the cavern, require? In the calculation it must be remembered first, that the drip must be moderate, otherwise the deposite would be washed away, and secondly, that in these caverns evaporation which so much facilitates the deposition of stalactites under bridges is wholly impossible. The formation of the stalagmitic deposit is wholly due to the difference in temperature in the cave (always 51 degs. Fahrenheit), and that prevalent without. When the temperature of Devonshire was below this point, water slightly charged with carbonic acid, in percolating through the overlying limestone rocks, became charged with carbonate of lime; on entering the warmer cavern a portion of the carbonic acid gas escaped, and a part of the calcareous cargo was deposited as stalagmite. Fortunately in Kent's cavern, we have at a point where the stalagmitic floors are thickest a kind of time scale or guage.

On a rather large knob or boss or stalagmite, by the aid of a tallow candle, I easilv read this inscription: "Robert Hedges, of Ireland, Feb. 20, 1638," the letters about an inch in length, having been cut or scratched in with a knife. Although the "hard" waterstill continues to drip on his name, one hundred and ninety years have served to dim, but not to efface the inscription. The film over the letters certainly does not exceed the one-sixteenth of an inch in thickness. Putting aside the immense time requisite to the formation of all the other strata, it appears that the stalagmite floors alone at this rate would have required over 60,000 years for their deposition.

Enormous as this time seems the calculation is corroborated in a remarkable manner by independent evidences. Although caverns are situated more than seventy feet above the small streams on whose hillside they are located, it is certain that the bottom stratum in each case was washed in. The proof of this statement lies in the fact that the bottom stratum contains large quantities of flints, red grit and sand which the wall of the caverns could not have supplied, but of which the supply is found at the head of the streams. As water will not now, and robably never would, run up hill, it fol-ows that the beds of these streams were at or near the level of the caverns when these materials were washed in. The next problem, therefore, is, how long has it taken the rains of Devonshire to excavate in solid limestone valleys several hundred feet deep? How much limestone can the annual rainfall dissolve, and how much can it mechanically carry and push into the ocean? Prof.

Huxley has estimated that the Thames basin, which consists principally of soft clays and chalk, is deepened at the rate of about the one-eighth of an inch per century. Ap Ques. 19. What is the total value of said improvements? Ques. 20.

For what purpose have you used the land? Ques. 21. How much of the land have you broken and cultivated, and what crops, if any, have you raised? Another affidavit which the homesteader must take contains the following clause: And I do further swear that 1 nave not heretofore perfected or abandoned an entry made under the homestead laws of the United States: The new instructions also contain the following note: Note. The officer before whom the testimony is taken should call the attention of the witness to the following section of the revised statutes, and state to him that it is the purpose of the government, if it be ascertained that he testifies falsely, to prosecute him to the full extent of the law: TITLE L.XX. CHIMES CIIAPTEK 4.

Section 5,392. Every person who, having taken an oath before a competent tribunal, officer or person, in any case in which a law of the United States authorizes an oath to be administered, that he will, testify, declare, depose, or certify truly, or that any written testimony, declaration, deposition, or certificate by him subscribed is true, willfully and contrary to such oath states or subscribes any material matter which he does not believe to be true, is guilty of perjury, and shall be punished by a fine of not more than two thousand dollars, and by imprisonment at hard labor not more than five years and shall, moreover, thereafter be incapable of giving testimony in any court of the United States until such time as the judgment against him is reversed. Sec. 1,750, The effect of these new and rigid rulings will probably be to prevent some homesteaders from securing their patents, who could have done so under the old rulings, and the government undoubtedly means to put a stop to the loose way in which some persons have heretofore gone through the farce of proving up; but it may be that the government will look with roome degree of allowance upon those homesteaders who have lived up to the homestead law as closely as they have supposed that they were required to do. Be this as it may, we would recommend all persons, who riave had homesteads, for the requisite length of time, and who intend to prove up, to do so as soon as practicable.

Considerable inquiry is -now being made 'for homesteads, and several contests have recently been instituted; and parties who delay proving up and who perhaps have acted in good faith and done the very best they could to comply with the law, but who in eome respect may have been to do so ttrictlj, will be liable to be How Would it Work. A. Boon for Potato-Growers. Some sprightly woman suggests that we need a genuine woman's newspaper. It would be published and edited entirely by women, and women should do even the reporting.

The unique feature of this journal would be. that it would look at the world wholly from a woman's point of view, and present an antithesis to every other paper ever heard of. To nse the lady's language, "instead of telling what men think and do, and how women dress and look, it should be devoted mainly to telling how men dress and look and what women think and do." A paper of this kind would certainly make a sensation for a time. Influence of Flowers. A paper published in Berlin, Prussia, contains a full description of a potato-digger which has recently been invented and patented by Carl Guelich, of Beriin.

The writer, describing an exhibition of the rnachine at a Berlin potato-culture station, says that its success was a splen-did one. It accomplished the task of taking the potatoes out of the ground, bringing them to the surface, and freeing them from their tops and the earth with "overwhelming perfection," and in such a simple and practical way that a pair of light horses sufficed for motive power. The machine is said to save nearly two-thirds of the working power formerly needed to harvest a field of potatoes, so that twelve persons can accomplish the same work which formerly required thirty persons. Painful question by the Sultan: "Is this Turkey, or is it merely portions of England, Itussia, Austria and other What can give an air of refinement to the meanest place more effectually than flowers? I know a row of dingy-looking city houses, in front of which a few ragged, dirty trees drag on a miserable existence, but between the end house and a dreary, blank wall there is a tri-angular bit of ground, which i's literally carpeted with lilies of the valley whenever May comes round. They scent the squalid street, and not a single pair of leaves comes without its attendant spray of blossom..