i J y - mO m you ever make the trip in a DID steamer plying between St Louis and New Orleans The height of the season of 1S97 has seen the usual pilgrimage of tourists and the belles and beaux of many a river town have crowded the decks and staterooms of the soft moving boats that float out from some city wharf and drp anchor only after many days THE CAPTAIN 1250 miles away At the very outset It Is interesting to watch the rousta bouts tumbling over each other in the haste engendered by the hoarse voice of the mate loading merchandise found for Southern ports They are a eurions study these roustabouts with their half clad powerful figures their song song cry of heave he ho o their jog tvt shamble and the reckless abandon with which their work is done They have no cares If they have any niiibi1fn it is to get the big steamer out of port lie lazily on the lower deeks or play craps or sit and watch 1e wkite foam of the river as the boat pfcmges forward on its way When the last barrel box and trunk is bestowed the big bell gives three laps the captain from the hurricane deck shouts Let her go there the gangplanks are pulled in the prow of the great steamer swings out and with a wide turn starts on its delightful pil grimage The captain is the patriarch And hero of the expedition You can iear his big voice at all hours of the night sometimes ovvr your head where he stands sentinel to see that all goes well sometimes from the lower deck where his vigorous and secular Anglo Saxon arouses the mate and his rousta bouts to duties engendered by new con ditions and ofteuer on the promenade deck where he talks politics with the men and relates the history of each point of interest a history which he has come to believe is faithful by rea son of its repetition Nobody knows Ktfza ar where the captain sleeps The hDOcftd buzz of his voice reaches your stateroom in the still night and you tteep off to sleep wondering if the cap tiH ever does retire When you wake Jn Hie morning there is the captain aain freshly shaven clean bright and heerful as ever with an appetite for bapafcfast that only equals your own BThile the Nile has been rolling along ages in the same channel the aissippi has oeen roaming au over iu tlley twisting hither and thither building up banks and then cutting through them and suddenly abandon ing the old channel for a new one It is dping the same thing to day The vast length of the Mississippi and its tribu taries measuring 9000 miles of naviga ble waters and draining an area of 1 244000 square miles must account In a Targe part for the great quantity of matter it cuts away but even when these facts are considered the estimate must still appear enormous It is stat efl by experts that the dirt carried down by tie Mississippi in a single year amounts to a solid mass one mile square and 1G3 feet deep This sedi ment is being constantly deposited along the shores and upon tb bars and islands that abound in this remarkable stream The atmosphere of lazy floating days on board a steamer crammed fall of Bnusual scenes flashes of exdtemoit grand and bewildering vistas of field and flood and verdure clad hills in which the beauties of the Hudson are duplicated reproduced and excelled with enough scenic luxuriance to cre ate a score of Hudsoo Rivers cannot be expressed or indicated upon a news paper page It is altogether unique and most of the people in this great bustling country will never bf able to enjoy the sensation in proper person The rafting industry is exclusive It is not carried on before a grand stand or in the presence of a multitude Its secrets are all its own and one uf these days the material exhausted this in dustry will disappear with all of its traditions and romances and with it will vanish from view the river types the sturdy logger the peculiarly north ern roustabout or rooster as he is fa miliarly known and the rugged cap tains who embody all the river lore and are walking encyclopedias of every thing that belongs to the history of this great stream since the first Canadian voyagers and hardy French woodsmen penetrated these wilds One of these rafting steamers is a sight to see It keeps its bows against the rear end of a mighty fabric of logs in a position to push it down stream A second steamer smaller in size Is fast ened transversely across the front end or bow of the raft and is pushed along er pnsbes the entire mass slowly and majestically down stream it soon be comes evident what the function of the bow iteamer is The tortuous course of the river requires a constant shifting zWk iflBnsp UNBECOMING HIIARITT in the head of the raft to keep it from going ashore or into cross currents and this is the duty of the assisting steam er Lying transversely across the river and attached firmly 1o the raft a few- revolutions of Its wheel pushes the front end of the raft away from a dan gerous bank and by backing water the head of the raft is dragged back into the channel away from threatening shoals The difficulties of turning and twist ing an invertebrate mass of logs in narrow and tortuous channels will be better appreciated when the actual size number sufficient to yield more than 2000000 feet of lumber Scores of freight trains would be required to transport the members of this inarticu late leviathan whose weight is almost beyond computation The passenger on a Mississippi River steamer is expected to spend most of the day in good weather on the prom enade deck with field or opera glass in hand viewing the delightful scenery About the third day one begins to take interest in the landings You want to know how long the boat will stop at the next town and whether you can run up into the city and stretch your legs You try it once or twice only to find that the Captain has hurried your return by a vigorous pull on the bell This is one of the Captains little jokes He doesnt mean it and as you wipe the perspiration from your brow he tells you how many points of inter est you might have seen if only you had not foolishly run back to the boat The old days of the passenger steam er industry are a vivid memory with every river veteran the high gambling days those when every inch of steam was put to the danger point in a race between two stately flowing palaces There is still lingering reminiscence here and there suggestions of those brilliant exciting hours when life was a reckless whirl for the deck hand and a thrilling experience for the passenger on a typical steamer The gamblers the grotesque dancers the singing roustabouts are nearly all gone but the odd characters who have furnished themes for many a captivating story still haunt the landing places that one passes in a trip down the Mississippi River 1mm gration Figures The highest immigration record ex cluding the arrivals of aliens not so classed is that- of 1S82 when the pro digious riumberof 788992 came follow ing the previous years 609431 till then unprecedented In 1883 there was a heavy falling off to 603322 and the de crease went on until 334203 was reach ed In 188G Then the tide again turned and with some variations another cli max was reached in 1892 when the fig ures were G230S4 the third highest mark and not far behind that of 1881 But then began another ebb with 02 917 in 1893 followed by 314467 then 27949S then by 3432G7 and now this year by an astonishing reduction to 230832 as shon by a special bulletin of the Treasury Department Substitute for Coal In the future we may be importing masut instead of exporting coal Masut is a by product in the distillation of raw petroleum It is also manufactur ed from a cheap brown coal found in Saxony There has been until recent- ly great trouble In finding a furnace suitable for burning rit It is now blown by steam into a special furnace on the principle of the Lucigen light and used without difficulty It is -10 or 50 per cent cheaper than coal and is 20 per cent better as a heat raiser Steam can be got up quicker and kept at a higher pressure and more work be done by the machinery From a t a ardr i f77vvr u tuti t jt m w a MM1tm of the raft is understood In length it is 1200 feet and thus equal to several average city blocks and its width is almost 300 feet More than half the raft is double decked meaning that it is composed of two layers of logs and it is estimated that not less than 10000 logs are included within its booms a 2A TYPES ON A MISSISSIPPI RIVER EXCURSION if naval point of view these are vitally important facts No sign of a ship un der full steam will be shown in the sky for masut is a smokeless fuel Russia and Italy are using it in their navies and Germany has lately made some valuable experiments At Kiel Wilhelmshaven and Danzig are tanks quiet and unresisting with its wheel motionless as a sort of cut water for the unwieldy expanse of logs But this is not its mission A telephone connec tion is established between the two steamers by means of wires stretched across the raft and as the rear steam DANCE ON AN EXCURSION STEAMER RAFTING ON THE MISSISSIPPI from which it can be pumped into ships Its specifis gravity being so much less than that of coal a ships buoyancy is greatly increased when the bunkers are filled with it Heavier armor or cargoes can be carried The heating capacity being greater the ship can travel faster or farther It is yet to be learned what improvements the Germans have introduced info their furnaces and what are the disadvan tages of masut Chicago Inter Ocean Perfume from Liivins Plants Capt Smee has discovered a method of gathering the scent of flowers as the plant is growing Ho takes a glass funnel and heats the thin end over a spirit lamp He then draws out the stem to a fine point This accomplish ed the funnel is filled with ice and placed on a retort stand the pointed end being placed in a small glass bot tle without touching it After this the stand and the funnel are placed in a greenhouse among the flowers whosG odors it is desired to collect Gradu ally the vapor rises from the flowers and in meeting the colder surface of the funnel condenses into drops on the outside of the glass From the point of condensation it trickles down until it drops into the bottle In a surprisingly short time a large amount of perfume is collected and it is claimed that 00 per cent of the contents of the battle is perfume the rest is water Strange to say this essence of the flower needs to be adulterated with sprits of wine Otherwise it would become sour and useless American Cultivator It Has Cost Millions The most expensive book ever pub lished in the world is the official history of the war of the rebellion which is now being issued by the United States Government at a cost up to date of 82300000 Of this amount nearly one half has been paid for printing and binding the remainder to be accounted for in salaries rent stationery and miscellaneous expenses including the purchase of records from private indi viduals In all probability it will take three years to complete the work and an appropriation of SoO0000 has been asked making a total cost of nearly 3000000 The work will consist of 112 volumes Ferguson It says here that no for eigner is allowed to be forty eight hours on Turkish territory without a pass Nixon It must be tough on the railroads that have to issue them Boston Transcript A man gets very little credit for what he does in this world but he gets lots of blame for what he doesnt A woman has to purse up her lips In order to carry car fare in her mouth CHINA AWAKENING She Pollows the Example of Her Civilized Sisters Says the San Francisco Argonaut Though industrial expositions have be come thus general throughout the world the latest announcement comes in the nature of a surprise China which uncounted centuries has shut herself within her wails self-satisfied and confident of the superiority of her civilization is about to hold an international industrial exposition and has invited the heretofore despised out side nations to exhibit their wares It is not of course intended to be an ex position on the lavish and extensive scale of those of the Western nations but it is to show to the Chinese at their own doors the labor saving mechanical contrivances by which America and Europe have made such rapid strides in material development The surprise with which the an nouncement is at first received is nat ural yet this move is in keeping with the more modern tendency of China It is barely ten years since willingness to accept outside ideas or to allow communication between the natives and outsiders beyond what was abso lutely necessary and forced upon China has developed yet in that brief period much progress has been made The difficulties to be overcome in in troducing these innovations are enor moushow much so it is difficult for those unfamiliar with the conditions to appreciate The Government is overburdened with a complicated and corrupt bureaucracy which is neces sarily conservative since change may curtail the illicit revenue of the office holders the people are fanatically sus picious of foreign influences and the cohesion of the different parts of the empire is so weak that revolutions are almost continuous The building of railways encounters these obstacles and there are besides the engineering difficulty of constructing bridges over great rivers and viaducts over net works of canals the economic difficulty arising from the fact that the new method of transportation will compete seriously with the business of the large proportion of the natives engaged in water transportation and will reduce the revenue of the mandarins from tolls on the canals and roads anu the even more serious ethnic difficulty re sulting from the worship of ancestors which holds it as sacrilege to disturb or remove the graves which dot the whole face of the land Despite these obstacles some rail ways have lately been built and others are in contemplation The first line constructed was in 1S7G connecting Shanghai and Woosung its port The next year however in deference to popular prejudice It was purchased by the Government and torn up A short railroad from the Kaiping mines to the Penung River had been in operation for some years for the transportation of coal In 1SSS it was continued down the river to Taku and thence up the Peiho River to Tientsin giving a total length of eighty five miles and in Oc tober of that year it was opened to gen eral traffic During the next few years this road was continued north along the Gulf of Pechili until now it has a total length of about 200 miles It is being pushed along the same line and is intended ultimately to join with the Chinese extension of the Trans Caspian Railway Another road is projected south along the coast to Shanghai In 1SS9 a royal edict was issued sanction ing a railroad from Peking to Hankow a distance of rout S00 miles but unan cial difficulties have as yet delayed its construction The progress in railways has been significant of the inclination of those in authority rather than on account of what has been accomplished The prog ress with the telegraph system has been more marked The difficulty ex perienced in communicating with the distant parts of the empire in 1880 dur ing the Russian war scare opened the eyes of the Chinese and gave an im petus to telegraph construction The system of lines now connecting Peking with the seaports and all the principal cites of the interior joins with the Russian system at its Amoor termina tion and with the British system at Port Arthur in Burmah and British India It has a network of 10000 miles In other directions too the adoption of Western methods is seen Chinese capitalists are learning and following the methods of Western finance as applied to industry joint stock companies have been organized for the manufacture of such articles as silk cotton wool glass and iron two large and well equipped steel plants on the Bessemer and Siemens Martin methods have been established at Han kow and the first bonded warehouse was opened at Shanghai in 18SS The convention recently entered into with Russia granting railway and even military privileges to that country on Chinese territory and making mutual concessions intended to extend the trade relations between the two coun tries offers further evidence of this general awakening and a treaty with France entered into a few years earlier grants similar though not so extensive privileges In the southeast Much of this work had been done be fore the war with Japan but the ex periences of that conflict will increase rather than curb the tendency Something He Forgot When Mr Jenkins went to his bed room at half past 1 it was with the de termination of going to sleep and with another determination that he would not be interviewed by Mrs Jenkins So as soon as he had entered the door and deposited his lamp upon the dress ing table he commenced his speech I locked the front door 1 put the chain on I pulled the key out a little bit The dog is inside I put the kitten out I emptied the drip pan of the r f rigcrator The cook took the silver to bed with her I put a cane under the knob of the back hall door I put the fastenings over the bath room windows The parlor fire has coal on I put the cake box back in the closet I did not drink all the milk It is not going to rain Nobody gave me any message for you I posted your letter as soon as I got to town Your mother did not call at the office Nobody died that we are interested in Did not hear of a marriage or engagement I was very busy at the office making out bills I have hung my clothes over chair backs I want a new laid egg for breakfast I think that is all and I will now put out the light Mr Jenkins felt that he had hedged against all inquiry and a triumphant smile was upon his face as he took bold of the gas tap and sighted a line for the bed when he was earthquaked by the query from Mrs Jenkins Why didnt you take off your hat -x Gold Is Not Everything His poor work calloused hands were despairingly entwined his emaciated form was bowed down with woe and the hollows in his careworn ehceka were slowly filling up with tears that ran down from dull tired eyes He was a young man whose early life had been spent amid careful home sur roundings under the influence of Chris tian teachings and now in this hour of dark despair and deep dejection whea reason tottered on her throne and fierco pain pangs assailed his flesh the habits of his youth were strong upon hi With -weary footsteps he crossed ther floor and from an oilskin pouch drew a Bible The last gift of my mother he mat tered before I came to this accursed place As he looked at it in his hand ho no ticed a certain bulkiness about it andl felt a heaviness he had never felt be fore A thousand wild conjectures flashed through his maind and many itt stances of where fond mothers had se creted treasures in the Bible presented to their departing son came to him at memorys beck Dear mother he murmured a big fat bunch of currency I suppose and with a half smile he opened the bulgiBgj Bible An hour afterward he recovered con sciousness Thank heaven he cried Joy does not kill Mother dear old mother by what divine inspiration did she gaze in to the future and see my hour of bitter est need Ill just send her a millioa dollars by the next mail And with a ravenous running gulp the young Klondike miner devoured one of the three apple fritters he had found in the Bible San Francisco Ex aminer Typical of Grant A story is told of Gen Grant whirf is illustrative of his tender and gentla nature On the day of a great review h turned wth eyes dim with tears from the slgfli ot nrs ou troops- ing I dont believe I can stand it Z dont believe I can stand it In the same spirit is the following souvenir The parade of the Grand Army which was part of the centennial cele bration was an occasion of wild excite ment to us We were not far from the balcony where Gen Grant reviewed the troops and therefore saw all that could be seen a seemingly endless pro cession of soldiers cannon and bras3r bands And how the people cheered But it puzzled us why the cheers were loudest and longest for the most forlorn stain ed and tattered old flags until we un derstood that the flags too were veter ans By and by the great show was over and Gen Grant was going away Ha did not seem at all gay I wondered why Dont you enjoy it Wasnt it nice to see all your old soldiers again I asked But they were not all there he aa swered gravely I realized what it meant to him to re view his old army Those tattered flags had been carried by men who went to death at his command Those dark stains had been the life blood of r men who died obeying Mm To others it had been a day of jubilee while h great heart had ached as he- thought fj the price of hi victories A ChilTsi Recollections of Grant in Current Lit erature Two Images Tlironjjli One Glass A certain wonderful mineral fouadl in Iceland possesses the strange prop erty of producing two images of a sin gle object On looking through it at a pencil for instance you will see tw pencils both of which will be cleariy defined The mineral is translucent and crystal like and goes by the name of Iceland- spar The mine in which it is found is located on the eastern coast of Iceland and is controlled by the Danish Government The spar is ex ceedingly valuable owing to Ks many uses in the sciences particularly for the manufacture of optical instruments and for experiments in polarization It brings about S27 a pound in the market and even at that price the dealers canr not supply the demand ID so lrity Youre not going to the Klondike region are you said the impecuniona mans friend No Dont like the climate It isnt the climate Its the stir face conditions There are too many mountain passes and no railway passes Washington Staiv A WonTerfn Example You say your next door neighbor has nerve That isnt the word for it He woko me up at 4 oclock in the morning antt insisted upon borrowing- my law mower Detroit Free Press aa w ifjiiw