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Find a collection of facts, otherwise known as Things Worth KnowingThings That Are Misnamed
Catgut is gut of sheep. Baffin's Bay is no bay at all. Arabic figures were invented by the Indians. Turkish baths are not of Turkish origin. Blacklead is a compound of carbon and iron. Slave by derivation should mean noble, illustrious.
Bell Time On Shipboard
Time on shipboard is divided into periods of four hours--from midnight to midnight--and the lapse of every half hour is marked by one or more strokes of the bell--from one stroke for the end of the first half hour to eight strokes or, in nautical la
Things Worth Knowing
A Cure For Love
Take twelve ounces of dislike, one pound of resolution, two grains of common sense, two ounces of experience, a large sprig of time, and three quarts of cooling water of consideration. Set them over a gentle fire of love, sweeten it with sugar of fo
A Dollar Saved A Dollar Earned
The way to accumulate money is to save small sums with regularity. A small sum saved daily for fifty years will grow at the following rate: Daily Savings. Result. Daily Savings. Result. One cent $ 950 Sixty cents $
A Lady's Chance Of Marrying
Every woman has some chance to marry. It may be one to fifty, or it may be ten to one that she will. Representing her entire chance at one hundred at certain points of her progress in time, it is found to be in the following ratio: Between the ag
A Mistaken Idea
The old adage. Feed a cold and starve a fever. is characterized by the Journal of Health as very silly advice. If anything, the reverse would be nearer right. When a person has a severe cold it is best for him to eat very lightly, especially during
Accent And Pronunciation
Accent is a particular stress or force of the voice upon certain syllables or words. This mark in printing denotes the syllable upon which the stress or force of the voice should be placed. A word may have more than one accent. Take as an instance
Wise Facts
A Branding Ink
A waterproof branding ink, good for marking sheep: Shellac two ounces, Borax two ounces, Water twenty-four ounces, Gum Arabic two ounces, Lamp Black sufficient. Boil the Borax and Shellac in the water till they are dissolved, and withdraw them from th
A Certain Cure For Drunkenness
Sulphate of Iron five grains, Magnesia ten grains, Peppermint water eleven drachms, Spirits of Nutmeg, one drachm, twice a day. This preparation acts as a tonic and stimulant, and so partially supplies the place of the accustomed liquor, and prevents
A Cure For Cancer As Used By A New York Physician With Great Success
Take Red Oak Bark, and boil it to the thickness of molasses, then mix with sheep's tallow of equal proportion. Spread it on leaves of Linnwood green, and keep the plaster over the ulcer. Change once in eight hours.
A Gelatine Mould For Casting Plaster Ornaments
Allow twelve ounces of Gelatine to soak for a few hours in water, until it has absorbed as much as it can, then apply heat, by which it will liquify. If the mould is required to be elastic, add three ounces of Treacle, and mix well with the Gelatine.
A Gold Plate For Small Articles Without A Battery
Digest a small fragment of gold with about ten times its weight of mercury until it is dissolved, shake the amalgam together in a bottle, and after cleansing the articles, coat them uniformly with the amalgam. Then expose them on an iron tray heated
Curious Facts about Authors
A Carouse At Boileau's
Boileau, the celebrated French comedian, usually passed the summer at his villa of Auteuil, which is pleasantly situated at the entrance of the Bois de Boulogne. Here he took delight in assembling under his roof the most eminent geniuses of the age;
A Composition With Conscience
Lully, the composer, being once thought mortally ill, his friends called a confessor, who, finding the patient's state critical, and his mind very ill at ease, told him that he could obtain absolution only one way--by burning all that he had by him
A Hard Hit At Pope
Pope was one evening at Button's Coffee-house, where he and a set of literati had got poring over a Latin manuscript, in which they had found a passage that none of them could comprehend. A young officer, who heard their conference, begged that he m
A Learned Young Lady
Fraulein Dorothea Schlozer, a Hanoverian lady, was thought worthy of the highest academical honours of Goettingen University, and, at the jubilee of 1787, she had the degree of Doctor of Philosophy conferred upon her, when only seventeen years of ag
A Pretty Compliment
Although Dr. Johnson had (or professed to have) a profound and unjustified contempt for actors, he succeeded in comporting himself towards Mrs. Siddons with great politeness; and once, when she called to see him at Bolt Court, and his servant Frank
Science Experiments
A Fountain Which Acts By The Heat Of The Sun
In the annexed engraving, Fig. 7, G N S is a thin hollow globe of copper, eighteen inches diameter, supported by a small inverted basin, placed on a stand with four legs, A B C D, which have between them, at the bottom, a basin of two feet diameter.
A Hundred Different Names Being Written On The Cards To Tell The
particular Name any Person thought of. Write on ten cards a hundred different names, observing that the last name on each card begins with one of the letters in the word INDROMACUS, which letters, in the order they stand, answer the numbers 1 to 10
A Lamp That Will Burn Twelve Months Without Replenishing
Take a stick of phosphorus, and put it into a large dry phial, not corked, and it will afford a light sufficient to discern any object in a room when held near it. The phials should be kept in a cool place, where there is no great current of air, an
A Liquid That Shines In The Dark
Take a bit of phosphorus, about the size of a pea; break it into small parts, which you are to put into a glass half full of very pure water, and boil it in a small earthen vessel, over a very moderate fire. Have in readiness a long narrow bottle, w
A Luminous Bottle Which Will Show The Hour On A Watch In The Dark
Throw a bit of phosphorus, of the size of a pea, into a long glass phial, and pour boiling oil carefully over it, till the phial is one-third filled. The phial must be carefully corked, and when used should be unstopped, to admit the external air, a