Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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THE WEEKLY LEDGER’: GAFFNEY, S. C., MARCH 26, 1896. SQUIRE RUFUS SANDERS. "Tromendius Confusionmont” In tho Rocky Creek Settlement. Old Ml sen Ilnsrltino Wont A-Flshlng and CuuRlitu Human Skeleton—A Town Man on Illn “Wheel" 1.raven Death and Itulnatlon. I \ Hit aint very frequent in this day and generation that the Rock}' Creek settle ment turns her self loose for a hVh heel time. But when the clay and hour have come to pass, and she does slip the bri dle, you can ' stand from un- and watch the fur fly. There- will be blood and hair in the greatest plenty, and the ground tore up as with a bear tight for miles around. White people, there was trouble last neck, and the. most loveliest strip of country on the broad Ixjsom of the earth went heels over appetite into the most gom leyest confusionment yon r or heard toll of or read al>out per haps. It would seem like everything c ome crooked and went twlstin—feet foremost, entawompused and wrong side up with care. \' Terrors of n Tiffht-Eye Thicket. In the beginnin to start with, bright and early Monday mornin old Misses Hasseltine took up a fool notion all of a suddent that it was jest about her time of year to go a flshin. Conse quentially she went outbehind the gar den and dug some earth worms and caught a few crickets and put cm in her gourd and lit out for Caney Branch. 1 was out to the lot tendin to the stock that mornin when the old lady eoine by our house, with her flshin pole in one hand and her bait gourd in the other, burnin the wind and splittin the big road wide open for Caney Branch. She was in such a tremendous big hurry to give them fish a chance to bite till she didn’t even slow up at the front gate, “The early worm fetches the fish, Rufus,” says she, in passin by, “and I told the girls to have the grease hot when I return back home.” It was then three days and nights that I never laid eyes on Mises Hassel- tine, but in the main time before the sun went down that day everybody in the whole settlement had hoard the news in regards to her flshin trip down on Caney Branch, and tho great gobs of sorrow and confusionment which filled that poor old lady’s cup to the brim, pressed dow n and runnin over. From general r.ppoarmonts and all the surroundin circumference of the ease, it would seem like the oh 1 lady got a bite when she want looki r it and caught somethin which she didn’t need in her regular business. In lishin and foolin around she had finally at last worked her way and wedged her self into a tight-cyc thicket in the most lonesonicst place on Caney Branch. And now presently it come to pass that she got her hook hung where as she set back and pulled and pulled till she pulled out a human skeleton. The thing was as natural as death, and every bone was there from skull to tors. Well, to be certainly of course old Misses Hasseltine didn’t go way o<T down there on Carney 1 .ranch by her lone self fis'nin for the bones of dead men, and she didn’t need any human skele tons to speak of on her string. Where as, she throwed down her flshin pole and dropped her bait gourd on the spot and tore out of there. And she didn’t fool oil no time pickin her way out neither. She jest naturally hit the grit, and hit it a movin. There was that tight-eye thicket, all around, a big cane- brake on one. side of the branch and a great mass of bamboo briars on the other. But old Misses Hasseltine she tore out of there. thoughts in times of sorrow and of trouble, but old Misses Hasseltine put me in mind of Sol Kddins and his dog that day. The last time I was out in Texas l went down to Hood county to see the Kddins folks, which Sol and me had come up as boys and girls together back here in the states. In them days Sol had a tremendous fast dog, and he went on to tell roe of how that dog jumped a jack rabbit and made him take a sycamore tree. “The rabbit couldn’t find no holler, i I!ufe, nnd he jest naturally elum that , sycamore tree,” says Sol to me. Now, as everybody knows, a rabbit couldn’t climb a scrubby black jack, | and hit bendin, to say nothin of a slick, slim sycamore, and I give out the facts accord in to Sol. “That mought sorter do with regards tothe common run of rabbits and dogs, ’ ; says Sol. “But in this ease that dog of i mine was so dost in behind the rabbit and heatin the ground so seandlous hot till the rabbit was jest naturally j blecdg d to dam that tree.” - ••Earth to Earth, Dust to Dust.” But in the main time the skeleton hit 1 want gone nowheres. The posse of citi zens in charge of the case finally at last come to the. conclusion that old Mises \ Hasseltine had caught the mortal re- ; mains of a certain colored individual j by the name of .lule Turner, which lie had come up missin one night last year, about the time, t hat Ben Chris Weaver's ginhouse got burnt up mighty strange and pecurious like. Andy Lucas was plum certain that onct upon a. time them bones had belt Julc Turner in the flesh, cause J;e had one game, leg which had been kicked by a mule, and there wr.s t he sear on one I shin bone of the skeleton. Old Mises Hasseltine couldn’t say ; what was what in regards to eoler, but she knowed it. was the skeletoi. of a inan. The old lady was so bad rattled | from the general nhod. till 1 raley don’t j think she knows anything for certain. | But, at any rates, the skeleton was turned over to the colored population, J and they put in and had a big fu- j neral the next day over at Binetop ; church wherein there was conic tall wcepin and wailin and ir.inshin of | teeth. .lule Turner’s wk’der she was there, nnd when the procession driv up with the skeleton she fell into a trance and didn’t wake up no more till some time that night. The Rcvrent L. M. Buller, colored (Long Meter Butler, as most everybody | calls him), made a few scattering re- , marks from the text: “There ".ill be u mighty rattlin in this valley of dry \ bones.” He didn’t preach nobody’s funeral for certain,but cut the ennonl so it would lit anybody’s skel ion in a I loose, general way. Then they sung a song ami went out DILL AliP ON WARS. Talks About tho Rough Expori- oncos of tho Sixties. Some Serpen Doscribcd-Ecc’s Army Cross ing tho Shenandoah by Torchlight- Stories Told by tho Soldiers Who Survive. “Confu ilonmeat" Confounds:!. But that, want all that come to pass in the settlement last week not by a whole tremendius big lot. A town man come through the set tlement ridin of a v. heel as he tailed it. One pleasant morning we were talk ing about war—war with England, war with Spain—and, as usual with old sol diers, our conversation drifted back to our late civil war. We cail it late, I reckon, because it is the hist war we had, but it is not so very late. Almost everybody down south who was en gaged in it is dead. A generation dies out in .'10 years, and it. has been S.") years since that war began. But there are | a few of us left, and we were talking I about the war like we used to talk i around t he camp fires, and I was asked what scene or battle or event had left i its most vivid impression upon my mind and memory. I knew very well, but I can go back to scenes and events that have lasted longer and been more per sonal. I remember when I had a fight at camp meeting on Sunday and got whipped by a country boy and nn* Sun day clothes were all torn and muddied and my father whipped me that night and the teacher got ready to whip me next morning and I showed him the red whelps on my legs and he let me off with a Calvinist,ic lecture on the sin of breaking the Sablath day. Well, the way of it was, I had got up on the hub of a watermelon wagon to look at the tempting fruit and the country boy pulled my foot oiT so as to get my place and I bounced him, but he was bigger and stronger and hn/d country boys to sick him on,and they didn’t, like my ruf fled town shirt, and he got me down and nolnxly wouldent part us, and I got tihe worst of it, and my Sunday clothes were all soiled and my face scratched and T had no friends and it grieved me for a month that I had been imposed on and whipped me besides. I watched for that boy to come to town, and at last he did come. I spied him on the other side of the square, and I got (ieorge Lester to hack me, and I everlastingly licked him and my father never knew anything about it, but I told my mother tha.t I had licked Tom Fountain, and she hugged me and kissed me and told me that it was wrong to fight, but somehow or other I kenw rhe was glad that I had whipped him. I remember yet how the big tears came in my mother’s eyes when she pulled uj) my pants and saw the marks on my legs that, my father had made, a.nd I la id my head in her lap and cried. Well, you see that was a war—a big- | gar war than I ever found afterwards, and has left a deeper impression. But about the late war I said that the r.'i'wt vivid and lasting impression on i :y m’i’.d was the midnight scene of our an y crossing the Shenandoah by torchlight, when we were going from Winchester to fight the first battle of Mananas. I stood on the hank and teries was still oozing down on his clothes. I believe that the battle of Malvern Hill was the worst on our boys of any that occurred during the war. It was a pity that we fought j it, for McClellan was already badly I whipped,and we couldn’tdo any more.” “It was not long after that,” Bald another, “when I saw the most sick- | ening sight that my eyes witnessed i during the war. You remember that Joe Johnston was wounded at the bat- ! tie of Seven Pines or at Fair Oaks, as | the Yankees called it. Well, the dead were buried very hastily, and in shal lower trenches than I ever saw. It had been raining for some time and 1 the water rose in the trenches before we could get them two feet deep and we had to tumble the boys in any how. About a month after that our wagon trains had to cross that field, not in one road, but in a dozen, and THE DARLING DOLLAR. Dominates Business, Politics, So ciety, and Even tho Church. Sam Jones rieads for IntelllRence and Independence Aiming tl>n Masse#— Put Character Above Chattels and God Above Gold. We are a comparatively new nation, in a new country, looking for new things, and expecting continually sud den earthquakes in business, social and political life. We are easily scared and easily stampeded, and easily turned into a craze after anything. We are like a drove of Texas ponies, we follow leaders through a swamp, over a wire fence, or out into the open plain. We go in droves. There are not live out of 100 democrats or republicans, who everywhere we crossed those trenches could give a good, sound, intelligent the pressure of the wheels would force ! reason for belonging to his party. He up a leg or an arm or a head, and you j is going with his gang. There are .<1 rui it ion A Plain CiiHO of Pu-dienrjr. About tho next news we got from the old lady Hasseltine she come up power ful suddent and unexpected like at the Buekalew place—the first settlement on this side of Caney Branch. And from what I can hear and pick up around amongst the women fojks, she had left the mainest part of her clothes down there on the branch—hangin around promiscuous in that terrible tight-eye thicket, the eanebrake nnd the bamboo briar patch. Of course, that, was nothin’ to me and none of my business, but mother told me that Sallie Wiggins told her that Rosebud Buekalew told her that the poor old soul had one, shoe on when she come up at the Buekalew place. And Bunk Weatherford was in the crowd which went down there after the skeleton, nnd Bunk says there was enough calico bangin’ around on the briars and cane and in that tight-eye thicket to make a new bed quilt. It was the followin Thursday before the old lady got well enough to return back home, and me and mother went over there .he next day to comfort nnd condole with her as best we could. “I had ketched three mud cats, four red pearchcs, seven hornyheads and one skeleton, Rufus, and it was then high time for me to take out and qtiit,” says the old lady to me, and right then she went Kwcatin great drops of perspira tion as big as your fist. *T had ketched everything in the waters of Caney Branch, from a. speckled trout to a blunt-tail moccasin, but up to that dnv I never had pulled on the line andennie forth with a human skeleton, and it was jest simply one too many for me. Of course, I knowed it wouldn’t bite lorsting, but tin? looRsand thethoughts ;>f the thing, Rufus, was more than I could stand. Naturally, of course, 1 tore out of that place. It was a plain •nseof pushency, Itufus. 1 washleedgcd to conic out from there.” I don’t make out like it was right, you understand, to think funny and seat term deat h everywhere he went. Old man Mart Mayo was gein to town in his ox wagon when he i.:i ttlu- thing down there in the old stage read. And bless gracious his oxen broke loose and run away ami spilt seven dozen eggs, four bu: hels of potatoes, eight pounts of fresh butter and one man. When old Mart recovered and eome hack to his senses sufiicicnt to seek that which was lost he found the remains of his wagon three miles do wn the road, and when he caught his oxen the next day they had hid out in a enne- bruk-e way over the Murder or:: k. Old Mises Simpkins she was out milking the cows that mornin when the town man rid by on his w heel, and about the next thing she knowed she didn’t know anything at all scarcely. She got to the bars ahead of the storm, but there she fainted and fell over in it, and when the. cows had all passed | over and they picked the good old lady up she was more dead than iivin. The doctors are still tendin on that ease. Little, Bunk Weatherford was. plowin in his new ground when the wheel man eome whizzin by, and from the general signs of destruction it is my private opinion that, him and his mule both got sheered and run away. They tore, down 14 panels of new fence comin out of the field, and Mises Weatherford maintains till yet that Bank came to the house runnin neck nnd neck with his mule. On his return hack late that evenin the town man stop|X'd oiT at the Cross Ronds to let the crowd see hie wheel. Andy Lucas was there as usual, and tanked up on “white ink” to about six bits in tlie dollar. And nothin would do Andy but he must ride Hie “dura thing.” So up he got and down he went. The “dum tiling" bucked, and when the natural-born horse trader picked himself up he w as entin dirt and spittin blood at the same time. But it would take more time and pa tience than the law allows to write out all the storms and troubles that eome to pass in the settlement last week. So I will close for this time in the best of health and spirits, hoping that this w ill find you enjoying the same general Messina. Rates Sanders. .u:0 men ford about brci that river. The ist deep to most lie Didn't Mind Whleli. “How much fur a photogrnf?” he queried as he entered the room at the head of the stairs. “My dear sir, you have made a mis take," replied tho occupant of the of fice. "This is a dental olliec, while the photographer is next door.” ‘‘Oh, you pull teeth?” “Yes, sir.” !v ; -, “How much?" ' .V;' ' ! "Fifty cents apiece.** "Well, go ahead and yank out one or two, It’s about the some to me.”—De troit Free Press. —No bandit fierce, no tyrant mad with pride, no eaverned hermit rests self-satisfied, who most to tiliuu or hate mankind pretend, seek an admirer ot would fix a friend.—Pope. saw 1 v.’i.tcr was of the soldiers and they held their puns and cartridges up high and it strained the little fellows like McOskcrnnd Jim Pinith nnd Zaeh Hargrove pow er' - diy to keep their footing and the water cut oi! their mouths and not wet their ammu nition. It was the 17th day of July. 1801, ami next morning the hoys a!! laid down on the hillside near Paris and went to sleep in their wet clothes and by noon resumed the march to Manassas. They had had a good wet ting, if not a good washing. The army left Winchester just at twilight. Not a drum was heard—not a camp fire put out.—not an alarm of any sort. “They folded their tents like the Arabs and silently stole away.” The enemy was left at. Martinsburg preparing for to-morrow’s battle and they never knew where we were until after the battle of Manassas was fought and won. It was old Joe Johnston’s first military strategy. But the crossing of that’river was the most historic and graphic scene that I had witnessed and brought vividly liefore me a pic ture I had seen when a hoy of Bona parte crossing the Rhine. It was a wild, weird sight and I had never seen so many men at once In all my life it seemed to me there were enough to w hip all creation, and they were eager to do it. Another one of the party said: “Well, I was in that same battle, and saw the killed and wounded around me, but it was not till next day that I came to myself and had to command a squad that was detailed to dig the trenches and to bury the dead. 1 shall never forget the field where the New York Zouaves lay dead, nor how thick they were upon the ground. They were dressed like Turks and had on turbans a.nd wide, loose pants and gaiters. They were large men to start on. and during the night had swollen up and their faces turned almost black, and it took about four of us to roll one into the ditch. Their faces were distorted, their clothing bloody, and I never re alized the horrors of war until then. We dident give them a full length apiece, but put the head of one be tween the feet of another and covered them about 18 inches deep." "The most horrid sight I ever saw,” paid another comrade, “was the battle field of Malvern Hill. Minie balls don’t mangle up the hoys like shell and canister. Our hoys were awfully torn up on the last day’s fight by the shot mid shell from t it; gunboats. The next morning after the fight 1 walked over the field, and there was hardly a complete man to !>“ found among the dead. begs and arms and hands and feet were seen scattered in all kinds of mutilated shapes and fragments. 1 saw one headless soldier sitting up right, his buck against a tree, Ids rifle clutched in rigid lingers, the muz zle on the ground, and not a sign of a head on his shoulders. A shell hod torn it away and left a. clean cut, ami the blood from his neck veins and or- could see scores of them sticking out after we had passed. It was an awful sight.” “Well, I don’t know what was the most impressive thing,” said another. “The scene in a field hospital after a battle was about as bad as anything. I shall jicver forget the night scene under the willows after the first battle of Manassas, when Dr. Miller was in charge and worked on the wounded boys all night long. It was close by a little branch and reminded me more of a hog killing at home alxnit Christ mas times than anything else. I w atched him cut off arms and legs and probe for balls until I was sick and had to turn away, and every time he got through with one man lie would look around for another and say ‘Next!’ just like a barber. What was wonder ful to me was the courage with which those wounded hoys endured the ptyn of the knife and saw. There was no ether or other anesthetic used, but they never uttered a groan.” The most pleasant memory 1 have of the war is of seeing Stonew all Jackson asleep. I never saw him awake. On the morning of the sixth day’s fightbe- fore Richmond I left that city aoout daylight with some ofiieial document that had to be delivered to Gen. Lee without delay. I rode hard for 12 miles to his camp, near Meadow bridge. lie and his staff were at breakfast under cover of a large square tent. The adjutant left the table and came to me before. I had time to dismount. As lie read the papers l saw a man lying down on the straw in the tent and one end of the breakfast camp table was over his head and shoulders. He was lying on his left side, his right hand was on his sword and his uniform was faded and soiled. A slouched hat was over his face and evidently he was asleep, while Gen. Lee and his staff w ere hastily taking their morning meal. My curiosity was greatly excited and I said to the adjutant: “Who is that man ?” "•Stonewall Jackson,” he replied. “He came in about daylight and pretty soon tumbled down and fell asleep. He is very much exhausted and Gen. Lee very few men w ho thoroughly under stand the tariff question or the money question, yet every old wool hat blun derbuss in the country and every old bum in the town will throw up his hat for his party and die for it on general principles. There are business lead ers, social leaders, political leaders and religious leaders. These leaders are often formed into circles, with a leader for their circle, and the circles follow the leader and the masses fol low the circle. There are 50 men in the United States who can control the business situation,and anequal number can be found who control and sliape the social, political and religious situa tion. Some years ago each of the great national principles, business, so cial, political and religious, had its i central idea and each supplemented the other in w orking out a great eivil- ; ization. The country in its business circle hunted for the dollar or its equivalent, in its social circle hunted for pleasure, literary, musical ami ar tistic, in its political circle hunted for the laws of good government, in its religious circle hunted for the laws of j God. The first developed business i thrift and industry, the second devel- ; oped mind and manners, the third de veloped national pride and ambition, | and the fourth developed character and j manhood, and thus our nation was ou the march to a great destiny; but in the | past 15 or 20 years, the central idea of the first has gradually become the ! central idea of an. and we have become | a nation of dollar worshipers. Every- j thing is now organized and regulated and controlled on the basis of the dol lar. In the days of Webster, Clay and j Calhoun, men w ere elected to office on j account of their ability and states- I manship. Now they are elected on ac- | count of their ability to plank down the cash to their political heelers and | ringsters, or because they are the can didates for certain rings and corpora tions, who plank down the dollars for them, an 1 the political conventions arc made up largely of political calves who are looking for a government teat to | suck and their expenses to the convcn- ! tions arc met by some corporation to get out. We are. not content to live in case and comfort, and acquire wealth gradually, but we are rushing for the dollar and tramping beneath our feet many who would survive a normal march for wealth. This conquest in tho world of dollars is over the blood and bones and victims of the masses. Napoleon Bonaparte, Peter the Great and Charlemagne never more truly marched over the blood ami bones of men, than those who are In a hurry to get rich have marched over the blood' and bones and homes of the dear ones' who are struggling for bread. In our great country, where wav ing harvest fields and plenty greet us. on every hand, let us build our roads* through the country, go back to our cuiiet homes, raise our children for God and our country, nnd, having food and raiment, let us be content, for “the life is more than meat, and the body more than raiment.” Let us put character above chattels, and God above gold. Dare to stand alone unbribable and unpurchasable. Be bigger than a dollar, broader than wealth, and high er than bank accounts. An aggregate of individuals makes a nation. All we need is enough individuals. Be one, my brother, or let ycur wife wear the breeches and cast ycur ballot. Sam P. Jones. ENGLAND’S OLD VOLCANOES. would not let him be disturbed and had ' that expects legislation in its own fa- the table set over him. Won’t you alight?" 1 said no and thanked him. As I rode aw ay I looked back at the pic ture. 1 would give anything for a photograph or a sketch of that scene. It was the only time 1 ever saw the blue light elder whose name and deeds are known all over the w orld. No wonder the poet, Palmer, was inspired to write of him at the battle of Antietani: “We see him now—the queer slouched hat cocked o’er his eye askew— The shrewd, dry smile, the speech so pat, so calm, so blunt, no true. The blue llpht cider knows ’em well: Says he; 'That's Banks! he’s fond of shell; Lord savo his soul—we’ll give him’—well, That’s Stonewall Jackson’s way. "Ah, maiden! wait and watch and yearn; Ah, widow, read with eyes that burn; Ah, wife, sew on, pray on, hope on— Thy life shall not be all fqrlcrn; The foo had better ne’er been born That sets In Stonewall’s way.’’ Another one of our party told of an vor, and these fellows gather in some big city, drink liquor, visit bawdy houses and carouse for three or four days, nominate the fellow that the bosses name, eome back home on rail road tickets that didn’t cost them any thing, and every old city bum or coun try jay w ill throw up his hataml die for the grand old party and the candidates j nominated. | Tho people arc like a herd of mules following an old gray mare. They will follow her out of the pasture into the j woods, as quick as they will follow her | out of the woods into the pasture. The perpetuity of tlie institutions of our country depends upon the intelligence | and independence of the masses. So i long as the ballot is in the hands of the masses, our politics will be dominated by the dollar. Our social life is also utterly sold out to the dollar. Intelligence, purity and e\eut at ( enterville in 1SG2, when two j worth are selling below cost on tin; New Orleans Tigers of Wheat’s batta!- j social market. Gold is at a premium, ion resisted an officer who was trying to ( Take a j’outh without brains, morals, arrest them for leaving camp one night j or business, will to him $1,000,000 and and abusing a farmer’s family. They ho fa king in society the next morning, knocked the lieutenant down, and when Walk through our cities, nnd you see finally subdued were tried by court u’.ar- here and there the advertisement: tial that afternoon and shot next morn ing at sunrise. “And here is Durrant,” he said, “who murdered that poor girl in the belfry, and that scoundrel Jack- son, who murdered Pearl Bryan, and that fellow Holmes, who killed half a dozen women and children, can get their eases put oil nnd put off for months and years and perhaps escape at last. And that is what is the matter with the jieople and why so many of these, lynchiugs take place ail over the country. There is really no just or overpowering reason for the wide dif ference between martial law and civil law. Quo may be too swift, but the. other is certainly too slow and too uncertain. Those Tigers hardly had time to write home, and say their prayers—martial law is almost as swift as lynching; the evidence no bi ttcraml the death penalty is for crimes less brutal and outrageous. Frank Davis was hung at Pulaski, Tenn., during tjio war—hung as a spy because he would not betray the. union soldier who gave him the information. The. noble boy lion. No DlfTerfiiU She—I weighed J21 pounds this morn ing. He—In your heavy winter coot, though? She—No, I held it on my arm.—Chi cago Record. “Business College, Day and Night Ses sions.” Our boys and girls have throw n aside their sterner text-books, have given up the idea of a thorough educa tion nnd are taking the nearest cut. to a ]>osition'to make the dollar. Our business men grow impatient in their legitimate business and resort to cot ton and grain futures and speculations of every sort down to t he greased deck, while our boys, restless under a good salary, watch the procession awhile and go to gambling in something them selves. This insane rush for the dollar has token our people from their quiet country homes Into the cities. Their children have been plunged into fast living, and sorrow and crime have fol lowed, illustrating the truth of the Books for I’ iks: “But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition." Not only have honesty, statesman ship, learning and virtue been sacrificed on the altar of the. dollar, but the said he would tlie first, and die he did. church itself is in great danger. Our There fa no nobler record in the annals I , M , 0 p lo lmvo deserted the country of the war than his; he was hung like j chapels and moved to tho cities. The u felon. 1 hey are raising money now cities pave built their great churches to build a inonuirent to him, and Mr. i and the officials have been elected uc- 1 homuH, of the Nashville, Chattanooga , cording to their financial ability, and tfc St. -Louis railroad, put down $50. „ ot according to their piety. The 1 hat s the kind of a man he is. Verily, bread of the preacher’s wife and chil- it is us Shakc8|H‘are said: i dron fa placed in their hands, and they Some rise by sin nnd some by virtue would thus buy out the very nervantof full. Bill Arp, in Atlanta Constitu- , (; u d nnd subsidize the pulpiL It takes a game chicken to stand on the empty dough tray and crow. It takes a hero to tight with the odds all against him. Not only has the dollar croze struck us, but it has almost stampeded us. Cry fire in crowded theater nnd the weaker will be trampled to death by the feet of those in the rush and hurry Real Cause of the Great Dikes Found Throughout the Kingdom. Sir Archibald Geikic, F. R. S., in a lec ture before the Glasgow Geological so ciety on “The Latest Volcanoes in the British Isles,” says that the subject was one which had occupied him closely for the last 20 and, more especially, for the last seven years. These islands of ours were especially fortunate in the wonder f nil j* complete record which they had within their borders of the history of olcanic action. He supposed there was no area of equal dimensions on the surface of the earth where the story of volcanic action had been recorded so completely and with such wonderfully voluminous details. From the earliest geological times they had an almost continuous record of volcanic eruptions along the western border of the European continent. There were once active volcanoes along a great valley between the outer Hebrides on the west and the mainland of Scot land on the east, and they extended from the south of Antrim through the line of the inner Hebrides far north into the Faroe Isles and beyond them into Iceland. The present Icelandic volcanoes were the lineal descendants of those which were in action in this country in tertiary times. The story of volcanoes in this country was to be. found by the side, of vol canoes in Iceland, and one of t he most prominent features of the modern vol canoes in this country was that they did not form mountains like Etna or Vesuvius. Their dominant feature was the production of great rectilinear fis sures, but there were also cones. Every one who had sailed along the shores of the Clyde were familiar with the dykes that rose up sometimes with singular prominence along the shores of Arran, Bute and the Cembrcras—great, wnl!- like masses of black roc!; through the sandstone. These dykes marked some of the fissures produced during the time of the early tertiary volcanic erupt ions. The eruptions appear to have begun with the formation of these fissures. They had them in Antrim, Mu!!, Rum, Canna, Sunday and Skye. The inner Hebrides were merely fragments of what may have been originally a vol canic plateau extending from Antrim in the south to the north of Skye. The successive overflows of basalt could be traced in layers in old river channels, and these layers had been repeated at least four times in the history of tho plateau, as shown in the islands of Canna and Sanday. From the beginning of the story to theend.theproductionof fuynres seems to have been the fundamental fact. There was great difficulty in fixing the age, but within the last few months in the course of their work in the geologi cal survey, they had eome across evi dence which would • liable them to spell their way along the dykes of the whole western highlands. The volca noes, however, belonged to a very re cent period—to a time actually young er than the soft clay of which London is built. The clay was there before the volcanoes began to bin " forth. Inclos ing, Sir Archibald referred ♦<* the sub ject of denudation or waste, which he described as one of themes; fa cinating departments of geology, and one which gave valuable aid in enabling them to determine the age of different strata, and there was. In* said, no place where the geologist could study that subject with more profit to hinu-clf and benefit to science than along 1 lie north shores of the Faroe islands, where Giere were the finest sea cliffs in Europe, some of them 2,000 feet in height.—Edinburgh Scotsman. A* to Fok Horn Sou ml v. In a communication to the French Academy of Sciences an explanation is given of some of the hitherto unac countable phenomena pertaining to fog horns. It has boon found in regard to acoustic signals, or sirens, that they are surrounded by a neutral zone in which the sound is not heard at tho sou level—u zone more or h distant, according to the height of the siren on the coast—and it has a mean width of about h,4(h> feet. On the near er side of this zone the sound is of course heard perfectly, but when it is traversed the sound weakens gradually until it become* scarcely percc. , when it. Increases again, and, on tho zone U ing left behind, the sound re- Mimes its full intensity. Experiments have been made on this lino with a steam vessel, by causing it to ap proach or recede from a lightship in different dlreetloiiM and in a straight line, in each course, according to the account published, the sound was dead ened almost, completely In a zone w hoso central line was about 15,000 feet from the siren.—Boston 1’oat.