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MISSISSIPPI'S GREAT WALL, j An Interesting: PrcIilstoricNWorlv the Origin. of Which Is a Myistery. One of the scientific puzzles oWLe state of Mississippi is the ''Brundvwhie stoue wall.*' It has long been a problem that is yet unsolved. Some time ago Mr. Thomas Watson of Hazlehurst-sent Governor I.ongino a pencil drawing of an immense pile of stone in the southeastern portion of Claiborne county, suggesting that the stone might be utilized in building the new capitol. In a letter which accompanied the drawing Mr. Watson stated that these stones, piled high on each other, cover an area four miles square. Each stone is ti feet long, 3 feet wide and 2 feet thick, and they are joined together with an excellent quality cf cement. Xo man knows how they came there, ^ey may have +1fA?* tKAitcon/^c nf TT?"V1 T*C TJio I VCVU nitric IV/l lUvuouuuc V*. builders, tlie Jacksoa News thinks, were some prehistoric race?it could not be otherwise. This structure is supposed to be a continuation of the great Chinese wall, which seems to begin below Raymond, in the southern part of Hinds county, and which is traceable through Copiah. It is broad enough to accommodate two or three wagons abreast and is one of the wonders of the world. "Mention of this remarkable exhibit," says the Hazlehurst Courier, "has elicited no little comment?in fact, has brought a letter to Mr. Watson frcr.i the warden of the United States penitentiary at Leavenworth. Kan., and also a letter to Dr. T. B. Birdsoug from another distinguished source, it being known that the latter some years ago investigated the matter. Mr. Watson, however." says The Courier, "has given the subject more patient thought and gone over the ground more thoroughly than any one else, and him The Courier is-; indebted for the following facts: "He calls it the 'Brandywine stone wall' and says this wonderful and massive structure or parts of structure of masonry done in stone, which have withstood the ravages of time for perhaps aiany thousands of years, still stand an enduring relic of a prehistoric civilization and a knowledge of the art of building jaot inferior in many respects to the present day. TiNese stone buildings lie for the iC-ost part buried in the earth in the sontfife^stern j.>ortion of Claiborne county and lying .against the Copiah county line on the slopes overlooking the valley of the Brandy wine creek from the west side. "These walls run from northeast to southwest They are built of white or grayish white stone of immense size, weighing from two to tbyee tons, measuring from 6 to 8 feet ic length and 3 feet wide by 2 feet thick. These blocks or slabs are laid in a very fine quality of cement and as perfectly aS brickwork. The joints are perfect and ver.p close. "At one place the wall is. exposed by the earth being washed away to a width of 60 feet and a length of 90 feet. This exposure has the appearance of a brick hearth. , "At another place the stone has been quarried for domestic use to a depth of three layers of slabs, which is 6 feet, a width of 24 feet, or eight blocks, and , ? n-f o"\ nr 1 .">0 feet. The ?* *V.UblU V* ? v ? . length of this wall as indicated by the croppings is about 1,000 feet. "At another place about 500 yards away from the place just mentioned is a wall jutting from under a slope for a , distance of nearly 2,000 feet. This stone- 1 work is exposed in a great many places orer an area of four miles. j "The sides and angles of the blocks of ? stones are so perfect that they resemble i pressed brick. The tops of these walls are perfectly horizontal and without regard to the unevenness of the earth's . surface. The seams between the tiers , are perfectly straight, and each block of , stone is perfectly horizontal in position, and these blocks are smoothly dressed on ] the edges and ends, while the broad sur- ( faces are rough, showing a broken sur face brought down to a love! plane, but not dressed. They are heid so lirmly together by the cement that it is with j great difficulty that they are broken up. "A personal inspection of these great < structures as they lie partly buried In the earth would relieve the minus of the , most skeptical of all doubt of their not being the work of the hands of man. , "In all that is above mentioned in | 3 connection with numerous cavings in of , the earth's crust, which represent the ] existence of underground caverns, abundant evidence is found to bear out the : theory of the existence of a great buried I city in that locality. ' "The information above given is vouch- t ed for by other parties who have visited . the scene in recent years and bears out the theory advanced by Mr. Watson. . Truly there is work for the scientist here."?New Orleans Picayune. Odd Cent Prices. j Analysts of human nature vainly seek ] an adequate explanation of the species of , mesmerism that odd cent prices exercise ] on buyers. Department stores have long 3 used them to whet the proverbial femi- nine appetite for bargains, but the cus- ] torn is now so widespread among Vi o fforo Q c frv J <JAUimcia, iiauriuaoucio cllxka uauv*^ merit consideration. What are the caricaturists ar-' vor.ny a liners, who have , poked no o; fun at the gentle sex foi ] yielding to subtle fascination of 9S \ cents and to do when men's suits ] are offered for ??9.99, hats for $1.07 and < ties for 23 cents? Alas for the manu- \ facturers of humor, cruelly deprived of ^ one of their chief sources of revenue! j Seriously, however, the spread of the odd < cent idea is to be deprecated. It has a \ catchpenny savor that is antagonistic to ] dignified trading and suggests the street ] hawker. Fixed prices in round numbers , accord best with straightforward meth- ods of selling goods.?Clothier and Haber- { dashers' Weekly. j lite Sovereigns of Europe. Physically many of the sovereigns of Europe would couu *:<ler tv2 general ] classification of "squa../." TL_ 3ew king i of Italy is 5 feet 3 iuchcs tall, but still be 1 is not the shortest sovereign. The czar < of all the Iiussias ire rvvly 5 feet 2 inches, i The Prince of Wales is o feet 4 inches. \ Pictures of him give the impression that ] he is a much taller man, but that is be- i cause his royal highness knows how to j pose before a camera. In a group he st~ 1 lects a position in the rear line. where he ean staud on a box, or else he steps to j one end of the front line and a little in i advance of the others. Perspective does \ the rest. lie weighs 2" pounds in spite x of all precautions ;:nd 'vutvs" be ean , take. He wears ;>u 1>1^. collar, has a ( chest measurement <?:" inches, a 34 s inch length < t arm. a wni>t 43 or 44 , inches and a :musers le-.; uf ',) ) inches. ^ The fat kind's ]>:;;:? h.-lonrs to the king ? of Portugal. \vh" is feet ?'? inches- . tall and weighs ob'S pounds.--Aigoaaut. ( DISMANTLED. London. Jan. 6.?The British bark Beechbank, Capt. Bucdianan. from San Francisco Aug. 16, b^pard to Queens- 1 town, was spoken on Jan. 3 in latitude r 36 north, longitude 38 west, with loss a of foretop mast and main top gallant P yard. k / ? BOOKSjTTO BE THROWN AWAY The British; Masesm U'ikclr to Set a Br.d Kxaugple. The BtrirteU mnsviju!.; which possesses the largest collect ioni* W hooks in the worid, UbCally estimaud ai -.000,000 volumes, and owns besides fs'.oOO volumes of manuscripts. iinds irse-if cramped for room c-r?thre.uonetl with. such a condition. and a. bill has passed a second reading iu the oiouse <>? lords authorizing the trustees ol* the muse art to distribute the bound volujmes of lieucqmpers and to destroy such books and ?pamphlets as they shall deem useless. It is needless to say thattthe proposition to sequestrate or destroy any portion of the British museum meets with strong and immediate opposition. It is urged that the example and precedent set would be very bad ones, since every great and growing museum, including a library, may reach the present,condi tion of the British museum. The library of congress, for instance, which receives copyrighted books, as does the library of the British museum, may some time reach what somebody may believe the necessity of aai enlargement of its premises or the reduction of its stores. For this reason tie British museum cannot afford to set the precedent of destruction. While it is not proposed to destroy the bound files of newspapers in the British museum, but to distribute them to various localities, it is claimed that to take anything out of London is, in the British islands, equivalent to hiding it, and a thing hidden is a thing lost. If ic is desirable to preserve these newspapers for the public use forever, Loudon, which is the center and capital of the British empire in a greater and wider sense than Washington is the capital of the United States, should be the plactyof their preservation and keeping. It is urged that there exists no sufficient reason for the destruction or distribution of any portion of its collections: that the museum has not yet occupied all of the 13 acres on which it stands; that a separate building or buildings might be erected for the reception of the art collections, for instance, but in any event the library should be kept intact forever. However the question may be decided in the case of the British museum, the i?resent is the time to say that no collection of newspapers, once made for the public use, ought to be destroyed or made unavailable. The State Historical society of Kansas has made a great collection of the newspapers of the state. The newspapers mailed to the society by the publishers are carefully preserved and bound in volumes and keDt in what are hoped to be fireproof receptacles, where they are open to the inspection and reference of all. The point is sought to be made that the newspaper volumes constitute to the state a well nigh priceless possession, which should on no account be lost, frittered away, scattered or destroyed. Singular as it may seem, the preservation of a file of new papers is a work requiring such care, patience and attention that, it is seldom attempted except by those whose special business it is. Of many leading newspapers no files exist except those kept in the office of publication. Of the hundreds of thousands of people who subscribe, pay for and regularly read newspapers not one in many thousands attempts their preservation. When, therefore, any public library undertakes the daily and weekly preservation and arrangement of any newspaper and the binding of the same at suitable intervals into volumes, it has undertaken a most useful work, the result of which should be kept forever. Such a bound volume is a book; in fact, it is a book of books. It is such a history and picture of its own time and locality, of manners and men, in its own place and corner of this world, as is not and cannot be found elsewhere. It embodies not the labors of one historian, but of hundreds of chroniclers, story tellers and artists who work every day to note down what they see and hear and discover and apprehend. It is a perpetually proceeding narrative which enlarges, explains, amplifies and corrects itself as it goes along. The difference between a newspaper and the historical or other narrative in the shape of a book is the difference between an oil painting, made perchance from the scene by the imagination or the broken memory of the arttet, and a kodak snap shot or other picture drawn in an instant by the sun and on the spot. What would be given now for daily newspaper pictures of the building of the pyramids, drawn as the progress of Convention hall is recorded now? A consideration of the value of the bound newspaper volume shows that all the rest of the_museum, could be more easily spared. ?Kansas City-star. ' - - Galtssha A. Grow. It has been suggested that some appropriate honor be paid to Congressman Gniusha A. Grow of Pennsylvania at the coming celebration at St. Louis of the Louisiana purchase. He is the author of the homestead law, enacted in 1S54, which did so much to develop the west i>y making home getting easy. "It is difficult," says the Washington Times, "for the present generation of Americans, surrounded by the modern conditions, with a fierce competition in Ihe struggle for existence, to realize that :here is in congress today a man who is a link between the infancy of the nation and its present giant proportions?between the crude industrial conditions of the dawn of the century, now In its twilight, and the highly organized machinery of the country's commercial 'orces. In his personality and record the Hon. Galusha A. Grow is that link. If he lives until 1003?and his remarkable ritality and enthusiasm indicate that he will?he will occupy a unique and conspicuous position in the celebration of the freat event at St. Louis in that year." Won by the 3Ionkey?. Monkeys are very amusing creatures, but one hardly thinks of them as useful in educational work. However, their aid has lately been sought by the London school officers, with admirable results. It seems that in one of the school districts ffiere were not as many children reported by the parents as being of school age as he officers knew there ought to be, so to iscertain the real number they called in :he monkeys to help them in this way: Two monkeys were gaylv dressed, put in a wagon and. accompanied by a brass jaud. were carried through the streets of :lie district. At once crowds of children nade their appearance. The procession was stopped in a park, and the school )fficers began their work. Distributing sweets to youngsters, they took their james and addresses. They found out :hat 00 parents kept their children from school. This ingenious method brought o school about 200 boys and giris.?Inlian Witness. ? THE IOQUA ABANDONED. San Francisco, Jan. C.?The steamer oqua, which went ashore on Duxbury eef Friday night and which was bandoned bv her crew vesterdav. was ulled off the rocks by tugs today. She ? now being towed to this city. , THE , Mutual Life INSURANCE COMPANY ; ' -ofNew York :.?;r Leads all Other Companies in North and South Carolina in Old and New Business. r. * - r Life is a Chance Life Insurance "is aCertainty when you insure in the MUTUAL! 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