chinolene, one of the coal tar products, and scientists say that it is only a question of time when all alkaloids known, and probably others not now known, will be made from coal tar. It would take a good-sized book to even begin to give an idea of the commercial products alone of coal tar. Nearly every known color, except cochineal red and indigo blue, is made, and the latter was produced after nine years of experiment by the eminent German scientist, Byer of Munich, but the manufacture was so expensive that it has never been done except for scientific purposes. The logwood and madder dyes of our grandmothers' days are rarely seen in the market now, owing to the cheapness with hich they are manufactured. Red ink, which formerly was made almost exclusively from carmine, is now made from eosine, one of the numerous coal-tar progeny.

COAL PRODUCTION OF THE UNITED STATES. Compiled from the Report of the Eleventh Census, covering product of 1889. Weight expressed in short tons of 2,000 pounds:

Total product, 1889, short tons, 140,730,288, equivalent to 125,652,056 long tons of 2,240 pounds.

THE WORLD'S COAL-FIELDS.

AREA IN SQUARE MILES.-China and Japan, 200,000; United States, 194,000; India, 35,000; Russia, 27,000; Great Britain, 9,000; Germany, 3,600; France, 1,800; Belgium, Spain, and other countries, 1,400. Total, 471,800.

The coal-fields of China, Japan, Great Britain, Germany, Russia, and India contain apparently 303,000,000,000 tons, which is enough for seven hundred years at present rate of consumption. If to the above be added the coal-fields in the United States, Canada, and other countries, the supply will be found ample for one thousand years. Improved machinery has greatly increased the yield per miner, and thus produced a fall in price to the advantage of all industries.

THE WORLD'S FINEST HARBORS.

San Francisco may fairly claim to have the most capacious natural harbor of any of the world's great trading marts. It is also one of the very safest. It is entered through the Golden Gate, a passage a mile wide and thirty-five feet deep at low tide-admitting the largest ships afloat without danger of grounding. The landlocked bay of which this harbor is part is fifty miles long, and averages five miles in width. There all the shipping of the entire globe could anchor in perfect safety. Port

Philip bay, the chief harbor of Victoria, Australia, is larger than the bay of San Francisco, being about thirty-eight miles long by thirty-three broad, but its very breadth, with its surroundings, leaves it exposed to storms from certain quarters. Port Jackson, on which Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, is located, is a magnificent harbor, completely landlocked, extending inland in some places fully twenty miles, and having ample depth of water for vessels of the heaviest burden. The harbors of New York City, Rio Janeiro, Brazil, and Havana, Cuba, are capacious and secure. Next come those of Boston, Norfolk, Va., Portland, Me., Halifax, N.S., Copenhagen, Constantinople, Hong Kong, Yokohama and Nagasaki. The great ports situated on the banks of rivers, such as London, Liverpool, Glasgow, Lisbon, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Quebec, Shanghai, Canton, Calcutta, etc., are not included in the definition of harbors as here considered.

CONDENSED POSTAL INFORMATION.

LOCAL, or DROP LETTERS, two cents for each ounce at all letter car rier offices, and at other offices 1 cent.

LETTERS to any part of the United States or the Dominion of Canada, 2 cents for each ounce or fraction thereof.

LETTERS to Great Britain or Ireland, or the Continent of Europe, 5 cents for each half ounce.

LETTERS may be registered by paying a charge of 10 cents.

POSTAL CARDS costing one cent each can be sent to any part of the United States or Canada. They may be sent to Newfoundland, Great Britain and Ireland by adding a 1 cent stamp.

PRINTED MATTER: 1. Printed Books, Periodicals, Transient Newspapers and other matter wholly in print, in unsealed envelopes 1 cent for each two ounces or fraction thereof.

2. Printed circulars may bear the date, address and signature at this rate.

3. Reproductions by electric pen, Hektograph, and similar processes, same as Printed Matter.

ARTICLES OF MERCHANDISE, SEEDS, CUTTINGS, ROOTS, and other mailable matter 1 cent for each ounce or fraction thereof.

ALL PACKAGES of mail matter not charged with letter postage must be arranged so the same can be conveniently examined by postmasters. If not so arranged, letter postage will be charged.

ARTICLES OF MERCHANDISE may be registered at the rate of 10 cents a package, subject to proper examination before registration. The name and the address of sender must be indorsed in writing, or in print, on each package offered for registration.

ANY PACKAGE may have the name and address of the sender, with the word "from" prefixed on the wrapper, and the number and names of the articles may be added in brief form.

POSTAL NOTE, payable to bearer at any money order office designed by the purchaser of the note, must be for an amount under five dollars, and will cost three cents.

MONEY ORDERS: The fee for a money order amounting to $10 is 8 cents; $10 to $15, 10 cents; $15 to $30, 15 cents; $30 to $40, 20 cents; $40 to $50, 25 cents; $50 to $60, 30 cents; $60 to $70, 35 cents; $70 to $80 dollars, 40 cents; $80 to $100, 45 cents.

HANDICRAFT AND INVENTION.

Toiling-rejoicing-sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begun,
Each evening sees it close;

Something attempted, something done,

Has earned a night's repose!

LONGFELLOW.

TRIUMPHS OF SKILL AND GENIUS.

Telescopes were invented in 1590.

The first steel pen was made in 1830.

The telephone was invented in 1861.

The Chinese invented paper, 170 B. C.

Ben Franklin used the first lightning rods in 1752. The phonograph was invented by T. A. Edison in 1877, Stained glass windows were used in the eighth century. The first illumination with gas was in Cornwall, Eng., in 1792. Spectacles were invented by an Italian in the thirteenth century. St. Peter's church at Rome was begun in 1415, and opened in 1626. Daguerre and Nieper invented the process of daguerreotype in 1839. The first illumination by gas in the United States was at Boston in 1822.

The first complete sewing machine was patented by Elias Howe, Jr., in 1846.

The first electric telegraph, Paddington to Brayton, Eng., was put into operation in 1835.

The first musical notes were used in 1338; they were first printed in the fifteenth century.

Umbrellas were not seen in England until 1768, when Gen. Washington was thirty-six years old.

A minister in England made $50,000 by inventing an odd toy that danced by winding it with a string.

The great wall of China, built 200 B. C., is 1,250 miles in length, 20 feet high, and 25 feet thick at the base.

Glass mirrors were first made by Venetians in the thirteenth century. Polished metal was used before that time.

It appears that on the Santee river, in South Carolina, they were manufacturing cotton by machinery in 1790.

The different shot towers in this country, such as that in Philadelphia, were put up as early as 1808 to the height of 180 feet.

Printing was known in China in the sixth century. It was introduced into England about 1474, and into America in 1536.

Pins date to 1543 in France, and were made in England in 1626. Before that time they used thorns and clasps in place of pins.

Burnt brick are known to have been used in building the Tower of Babel. They were introduced into England by the Romans.

The man who invented the return ball, an ordinary wooden ball with a rubber string attached to pull it back, made $1,000,000 from it.

The first cigar-ship was a steam pleasure yacht built in the shape of a cigar from the design of Mr. Ross Winans. It was launched on the Thames in 1886.

The longest fence in the world is in Australia-one thousand two hundred and thirty-six miles. It is made of wire netting, and its object is to keep out rabbits.

The longest span of wire in the world is used for a telegraph in India over the river Ristuah. Its length is over six thousand feet, and it is stretched between two hills twelve hundred feet high.

As large a sum as was ever obtained for any invention was enjoyed by the Yankee who invented the inverted glass bell to hang over gas jets to protect ceilings from being blackened by smoke.

Every one has seen the metal plates that are used to protect the heels anu soles of rough shoes, but every one doesn't know that within ten years the man who hit upon the idea has made $250,000.

The common needle threader, which every one has seen for sale, and which every woman owns, was a boon to needle users. The man who invented it has an income of $10,000 a year from his invention.

The Great Wall of China was completed B. c. 214 by Chi-Hwang-Ti of the Tsin dynasty. Every third man of the whole empire was employed on the work, and half a million of them died of starvation.

The screw propeller of the steamship "Umbria," is twenty-four and one-half feet in diameter, and weighs thirty-nine tons. Its four blades are made of manganese bronze, and the metal in them cost over $16,000.

The use of granite and flint broken to pieces one or two ounces in weight to form roads, was recommended by John Macadam, a Scotchman, in 1819; the plan was adopted, and he received $50,000 from the British government, and was appointed surveyor-general of the Metropolitan roads.

Paris claims the finest theater in the world. It is of solid stone, finished with marble floors, and covers about four acres of ground. La Scala, of Milan, has the largest seating capacity, while the Auditorium, at Chicago, completed in 1889, seating seven thousand, ranks second in that respect.

When Catherine of Russia was on the throne, an ingenious peasant presented her with a marvelous watch, which is at present being exhibited in St. Petersburg. In size and shape it somewhat resembles a chicken's egg. When wound up to the proper pitch it plays religious chants, accompanied with scenic effects.

The Chubb lock was named after its inventor, a London locksmith. In addition to the usual tumblers, it had an extra one, which fixed the bolt immovably if one of the ordinary tumblers was lifted a little too high.

The inventor of the roller skate has made $1,000,000, notwithstanding the fact that his patent had nearly expired before the value of it was ascertained in the craze for roller skating that spread over the country a few years ago.

The highest monument in the world is the Washington monument, being five hundred and fifty-five feet. The highest structure of any kind is the Eiffel Tower, Paris, finished in 1889, and nine hundred and eightynine feet high.

The American hunting dagger or bowie-knife was named after its inventor, Colonel Jim Bowie, who, born about 1790, fell at Fort Alamo in the Texan war (1836). Its curved, double-edged blade is ten to fifteen inches long, and above an inch wide.

They were making cannons in 1814 at the Fort Pitt works, Pittsburg, to be used by Commodore Perry on Lake Erie. It was many a year before we began to make copper and brass out there, say in 1850, after we had developed Lake Superior copper.

How old do you suppose silk is? It was spun in China two thousand six hundred and forty years before Christ, and Isaiah seems to refer to it when he says: "They that work in sirokott or fine flax, and they that weave network, shall be confounded."

Out of Sussex Co., Eng., William Penn took seven hundred of the best mechanics, millwrights, carpenters etc., and brought them to the United States. The first county he struck, at the mouth of the Delaware, he named in their honor Sussex County.

Glass paper or cloth is made by powdering glass more or less finely and sprinkling it over paper or calico still wet with a coat of thin glue; the powdered glass adheres as it dries. Glass paper is very extensively employed as a means for polishing wood-work.

It was only one hundred and six years ago that a committee was appointed in Philadelphia to inquire into the process of coloring leather as practiced in Turkey and Morocco. They paid an Armenian whom they found 100 and a gold medal to give them the information.

The largest anvil known is that used in the Woolwich Arsenal, England. It weighs sixty tons. The anvil block upon which it rests weighs one hundred and three tons. Altogether six hundred tons of iron were used in the anvil, the block and the foundation work.

The process for making Bessemer Steel was invented by Sir Henry Bessemer in 1856. It converts fused pig iron into steel by blowing air through it and clearing it of carbon, and then adding enough carbon to make steel. Another kind of Bessemer steel is made from inferior pig iron by a modified process and is termed Basic steel.

The telephone is an instrument designed to reproduce sounds at a distance by means of electricity. Professor Graham Bell's articulating telephone was produced in 1877. Communication by telephone between New York and Chicago (1,000 miles), was opened in 1893, between Paris and Marseilles (563 miles) in 1888, and between London and Paris in 1891.