522 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. ' 



tating himself on the pavement below, or clinging the cold night 

 through to the slender spire, with but ten inches of foothold. He 

 chose possible life to certain death ; but, when rescue came with the 

 morning, his eyes were sunken and dim, his cheeks yellow and 

 wrinkled, his curly locks as white as snow. Gabriel Petersheim had 

 won his bride at a fearful cost. , . 



Believing a fortune might be easily won in the oil-country, a 

 young Bostonian went there to enrich himself. One stormy night a 

 glare in the sky told him that an oil-tank was on fire a few miles off ; 

 and knowing that, after a time, the oil would boil up and flow over 

 the side of the tank, he made for a hill to witness the spectacle. 

 " She's coming ! " a man shouted. There was a rumbling sound, and 

 then the burning oil shot up from the tank, boiled over its sides, and 

 floated down the creek, destroying everything in its way, and setting 

 fire to a second tank. Curiosity getting the better of discretion, he 

 ran to the ground in the rear of the tanks, to get a better view, and, 

 in trying to avoid a pool of. burning oil, fell into a mud-hole, and stuck 

 fast therein. Struggling till he could struggle no longer, he lay back 

 exhausted, watching the billows of smoke surging upward and floating 

 away into space. Suddenly his ears were startled by the sound of 

 cannon-firing ; a column of flame and smoke shot up from one of the 

 tanks, and he was stricken almost senseless with the knowledge that 

 the "pipe-line men" were cannonading the first tank, to draw off the 

 oil, and so prevent another overflow. He tried to shout, but the 

 words would not come. A little stream of burning oil ran slowly 

 but surely toward him. He watched it creeping on until it was 

 almost upon him ; then in a moment all was dark. When he came 

 back to consciousness he found himself in his own room, surrounded 

 by " the boys," who had seen him just in time to save him. It was a 

 weary while before he was himself again, and then he was inclined to 

 doubt if he was himself, for his once dark hair was perfectly white. 



Instances have not been wanting of the hair being deprived of its 

 color in a few minutes. The home-coming of the King of Naples 

 after the Congress of Laybach was celebrated with much public 

 rejoicing. To do the occasion honor, the manager of the San Carlo 

 Theatre produced a grand mythological pageant, in which an after- 

 ward well-known opera-singer made his debut in the character of 

 Jupiter. The stage-thunder rolled, the stage-lightning flashed, as the 

 Olympian monarch descended on his cloud-supported throne. Sud- 

 denly screams of horror rang through the house ; the queen fainted, 

 and all was uproar and consternation, until the voice of the king was 

 heard above the din, crying, "If any one shouts or screams again, 

 I'll have that person shot ! " Something had gone wrong with the 

 machinery before the clouds had descended ten feet, and Jupiter had 

 fallen through. Fortunately, a strong iron wire or rope caught his 

 cloak, and, uncoiling with his weight, let him down by degrees. But 



