282 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



legislation, commercial geography, and one 

 of the modern languages. Careful attention 

 is paid to design. 



Embroidering by Machinery. The re- 

 cent invention, at Arbon, of a new steam 

 machine for making embroideries threatens, 

 says Consul Byers, of St. Gall, to revolutionize 

 some of the most important manufacturing 

 interests of the Swiss Republic. Eastern 

 Switzerland, with St. Gall as a center, has 

 been for a hundred years the headquarters 

 of the embroidery industry of the world. 

 Embroidery by hand alone had been prac- 

 ticed when the present hand-machine was 

 brought into use in 1827. Under the former 

 system the technical skill and readiness of 

 hand of the Appenzell women were marvel- 

 ous, and the embroidery made by them be- 

 came famous all over the world. At the 

 present day possibly not five per cent of the 

 embroideries are made exclusively by hand. 

 The Schiffli steam machine, invented about 

 fifteen years ago, produces a low class of 

 goods of inferior quality. For the more re- 

 cently invented Arbon machine its owners 

 claim that it will at least triple the product 

 of the hand-machine, that it can produce 

 goods cheaper, and can turn them out of bet- 

 ter quality than the old method, and do it 

 without so much wear and tear to the mus- 

 cles of men and women. 



The Pnnir. The puma (Fells concohr of 

 Linnaeus), known also as the panther, painter, 

 cougar, American lion, and by several other 

 names, is, according to Mrs. Frederick W. 

 True, the only large, unspotted native Amer- 

 ican cat. It varies much in color, and is 

 from five to seven feet long. The area over 

 which it ranges extends from New Eng- 

 land and British Columbia to the straits of 

 Magellan. On the Atlantic coast the species 

 has apparently not been found in New Hamp- 

 shire, Rhode Island, New Jersey, or Dela- 

 ware. No mention appears of its having 

 been found in Michigan or Indiana. It was 

 extirpated in Ohio before 1838, and probably 

 more recently in Indiana and Illinois. With 

 these exceptions, and Nevada, there are re- 

 corded instances, more or less numerous, of 

 the occurrence of the puma, since the begin- 

 ning of the century, in every State and Terri- 

 tory of the Union. Regarded as a species, 



the puma possesses in a remarkable degree 

 the power of adapting itself to varied sur- 

 roundings. It endures severe cold during 

 the winter in the Adirondack Mountains and 

 other parts of our northern frontier, and 

 hunts its prey in the snow. It is equally at 

 home in the hot swamps and canebrakes and 

 along the river-courses in our Southern States. 

 In South America it inhabits the treeless, 

 grass-covered pampas, as well as the forests. 

 In the Rocky Mountains it ascends to the 

 great altitudes at which the mountain sheep 

 are found ; and it is also met with high up 

 on other ranges. It selects for its abode 

 such spots as afford some shelter, but is 

 found in the thickets and copses rather than 

 in the great forests. It seeks its prey chiefly 

 at dawn and twilight and under cover of 

 night, but sometimes also hunts by day. Deer 

 are its principal quarry, but it also preys upon 

 the smaller mammals and on wild turkeys. 

 Of the larger domestic animals, such as the 

 horse and cow, it attacks only the young, but 

 it will carry away a full-grown sheep from 

 the fold, and in South America often preys 

 upon the llama. It does not ordinarily at- 

 tack men, but is disposed to flee from them 

 when surprised ; but such attacks have been 

 known. Like the cat, it scratches the bark 

 of trees, purrs when satisfied, and has been 

 heard to mew. 



Influence of the Indian Trade. As to the 



effect of the Indian trading post, Mr. Fred- 

 erick J. Turner says, in a paper on The Char- 

 acter and Influence of the Indian Trade in 

 Wisconsin, of the Johns Hopkins Historical 

 and Political Science Series, that, giving him 

 iron and guns and a market for furs, it tend- 

 ed to prolong the hunter stage ; leaving the 

 unarmed Indian at the mercy of those who 

 had bought firearms, it caused a relocation 

 of tribes and a demand for the trader by 

 remote and unvisited Indians, made the sav- 

 age dependent on the white man's supplies, 

 and gave the Indians means of resistance to 

 agricultural settlement. On the side of the 

 white man, the Indian trade gave both French 

 and English a footing in America, invited 

 exploration, and fostered the advancement 

 of settlements as long as they were in exten- 

 sion of trade. In Wisconsin the sites of the 

 principal cities are the sites of the old trad- 

 ing posts, and those earliest fur-trading set- 



