Ballou's Monthly Magazine, Vol. XXVII, No. 1 — page 93: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Ballou's Monthly Magazine. 97 CURIOUS MATTERS. AN AMBITIOUS JOURNALIST.—An adventurous London journalist, who is going to Abyssinia in advance of the expedition, tried to nigrify himself recently with tincture of iodine. Thus transformed, he took a quiet walk in the sun- shine (of course in a walled garden), and was rather surprised to find himself photograph- ically tattooed with an exact reflex of the trees and flowers around him. FRUIT FLAVORED AT WILL.—A gardencr of Gand has, after many trials, succeeded in giv- "ing any kind of fruit the flavor he pleases while it is still on the tree. Let us take an apple, for instance; he pricks it rather deeply in four or five places with a large needle, and then lets it dip four a while in a bowl containing a liquid possessing the flavor he’ wishes to communicate. After a few seconds this will have penetrated into the pulps; and this operation being repeat- ed two or three times, at intervals of eight or ten days, the apple is left to ripen on the tree, and will subsequently be found to have acquired the taste of strawberry, raspberry, cloves, etc., according to the liquid employed. THE DEATH RatE.—Professor Loomis, in opening a course of medical lectures in New York, said that the improvements in medicine have increased longevity seventy-one per cent in Paris in sixty years; that one hundred years ago the death rate was one in twenty, and is how one in forty, and that there is a greater difference in the average longevity between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in London than there was between a year of general health in that city and a year of cholera. A curious Watcu.—During the reign of Catherine IL., of Russia, an ingenious Russian peasant, named Kalubin, constructed a musical watch to performa single chant. The machine was about the size of an egg, within which was a representation of the tomb of the Saviour, with the Roman sentinels on watch. On light- ly pressing a spring, the stone would be rolled from the tomb, the sentinels fall down, the angels appear, the holy women enter the sep- ulchre, and the same chant which is sung on Easter eve be accurately performed. A curious Suneiass.—A wonderful doctor, with a wonderful sunglass, is at work. By the Simple use of a sunglass and the rays of the sun, he has effectually removed life-long de- formities from the faces of a number of per- sons; but little pain is caused. A gentleman in Windsor, one-half of whose face was badly discolored from his birth, was made to rejoice in a whole clean face; and a young lady who suffered from an unsightly excrescence on her chin, was similarly relieved. A mole burned with an actual little blaze, and then disappeared with a slight “ pop” or explosion, The patient felt little or no pain after the first momentary “singe.” Another man writes that the doctor’s glass cured him of an obstinate cancer. It had been twice removed by surgeons. Burned out by the doctor’s glass it stays out, or, at least, it has stayed out for upwards of a year. SINGULAR TREE.—In the Island of Goa, near Bombay, there is a singular vegetable called “the sorrowful tree,” because it only flourishes in the night. At sunset no flowers are to be seen, and yet, after half an hour the tree is full of them. They yield a sweet smell, but the sun no sooner begins to shine upon them than some of them fall off, and others close up; and others continue flowering in the night during the whole year. AN UNDERGROUND Forest.—The Megregor (Iowa) News learns that Captain Appleman, who lives on a point of land nearly the highest in Fayette county, east of Clermont, while sinking a well, a few days ago, through heavy clay at the top of a hill, at the depth of twelve or fifteen feet, came upon the top of a forest, the trees, many of them, standing upright in the solid earth. The trees were small, about fifteen feet in height, and standing ina position showing that the earth by which they were submerged had been gently and gradually de- posited around them, else they could not have maintained an erect position. AN INTELLIGENT CAT.—The owner of a cat lately taught him to trade mice for meat, re- ceiving from his master a piece for every mouse presented. One day a mouse was brought and laid down before the clerk, who did not happen to understand the arrangement. Tom, deter- mined not to be baulked of the reward, carried the captive up stairs and laid it before his mis- tress, who, not liking such a present, scclded him for bringing it into the house, and threw it out of the window. The cat then ran down stairs, went out and found his mouse, and kept it until night, till his master came home, when once more the mouse was brought in, and kitty claimed his reward and received it, EOC SOOKS.COnN