Vol. 6. 



GENESEE FARMER. 



123 



GREATEST IRON MINES IN THE WORLD. 



In Newcomb, Essex county, N. Y., in one mine, 

 there is sufficient ore within two hundred feet of the 

 surface to make eighty million cubic feet of iron. — 

 Two other mines, within two miles, are nearly as 

 extensive as this; and at all, the ore may be quarri- 

 ed out to the open day like flagging stone. To in- 

 crease the value of these mines, they are in the 

 midst of a wilderness of wood, and situated directly 

 upon a great water power. The western states 

 abound in lead and copper; the coimtry south of Lake 

 Superior in copper and silver; the southern states 

 in gold. Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, with 

 many others, in inexhaustible beds of coal, associa- 

 ted also with iron ore, and all these in a country 

 rich in the great staples of the vegetable kingdom. 

 Well may we inquire, what country abounds so 

 much in the elements of prosperity as our own? — 

 And let us rejoice that these elements are neither 

 owned nor controlled by a despot, but belong to the 

 people.— Quar. Jour. 



CINCINNATI PORK. 



Under this head, a writer in the London Mark 

 Lane Express offers the following remarks: 



" It is strictly within my private cognizance that, 

 during several months past, a number of provision- 

 curers, headmen, and experienced workmen, have 

 left some of the curing depots in Scotland and Ire- 

 land for Cincinnati, for Louisville, and a few of them 

 for places as still more remote as St. Louis, Missou- 

 ri. By these a better system will soon be intro- 

 duced; and believe me, sir, if you knew, as I do, the 

 mingled acuteness and energy of the American char- 

 acter, you would think with me, that nothing but 

 encouragement is required to induce them to push 

 their improvements — in grotvth as well as in cure — 

 to the utmost attainable pitch of perfection. There 

 are not wanting men of business, natives of the old 

 country, who can make Americans alive to the par- 

 ticular markets in Great Britian, where varying 

 modes of preparation are respectively held in favor. 

 Go on with your movements of one-sided liberality, 

 and as soon as the virgin soil of the Mississippi is 

 fined down from the exuberant luxuriance that in 

 some places unfits it for the general production of 

 wheat corn, then will you have not pork alone, but 

 beef, corn, and every important article, the produc- 

 tion of which forms at present, the life and subsis- 

 tence of the better portion of your population, pour- 

 ing in where they are not wanted, to the certain in- 

 ducement of some tremendous social revolution. 



COL. H. S. RANDALL'S MERINO SHEEP. 



Last season we noticed the enormous clip of the 

 merino sheep of Col. Henry S. Randall, of this vil- 

 lage. This season we learn that his Paular stock, 

 including two rams, averaged over six pounds of 

 well washed wool per head! A three year old ram 

 sheared 13 lbs. 3 oz., (the heaviest fleece, we be- 

 lieve, ever" taken from a three year fold Merino in 

 the U. S.,) and a yearling 8 pounds 8 oz. Many of 

 the ewes sheared 6, 7, and 8 pounds per head, and 

 one the unparalleled weight of 9 pounds 1 oz. Col. 

 R. received the first premium on rams, and the first 

 and second on ewes, at the State Fair, at Pough- 

 keepsie, (1844;) and the gold medal of the Society, 

 for the best managed and most profitable flock of 

 sheep, at the annual winter meeting of the Society 

 in Albany. Cortland against the \vor\d\—Gortlaivd 

 Democrat: 



A MAN GROWN BY GUANO AND ELEC- 

 TRICITY. 



The New Haven Courier tells the following cap- 

 ital story : 



" A citizen of this place, while recently on a tour 

 in the State of New York, was induced to make him- 

 self one of the audience of an itinerant lecturer, 

 who was holding forth upon the efficacy of electri- 

 city as applied to vegetable productions. 



In the course of this harangue, guano was inci- 

 dentally alluded to as a powerful agent in quicken- 

 ing the growth of plants ; and the eflFects of this 

 and electricity were displayed in such glowing lan- 

 guage, that the auditory soon imagined themselves 

 standing in the midst of a field, and endeavoring to 

 measure the height of the grain before it was out of 

 reach. The whole assembly were in a fine state of 

 enthusiasm, and swallowed down the wonders re- 

 vealed to them with opened mouths and starting 

 eyes, when a plain-looking old farmer arose, and, 

 with apparently much diffidence, begged to confirm 

 the lecturer's statements, by the relation of an inci- 

 dent which he had recently witnessed, and to which 

 he was a party. 



" I have," said he, " a very bad boy, named Tom- 

 my: he's given us a good deal of trouble, and having 

 tried various methods to reform hira without success, 

 I told my wife that it w^ould be best to try some- 

 thing that was new, and rather more severe. Accord- 

 ingly we agreed to shut him up at night in the barn. 

 Weil, one night while Tommy was roosting with 

 the cattle, and I was in bed, there came on a tre- 

 mendous thunder storm. It lightened sharp enough 

 to put out a man's eyes, and the thunder never waa 

 beat. Feeling rather uneasy about the boy, I got 

 up early in the morning, and went out to see how ho 

 fared. As I was going to the barn, I met a man 

 most eight foot high coming towards me. I had ne- 

 ver seen such a tall critter in all my life before, and 

 I began to feel sorter scarible at having him about 

 my premises. 



"Hallo!" says I, as soon as I could speak, *' who 

 are you, and what are you doing in my barn-yard ?" 



The strange looking animal answered in a little 

 squeaking child's voice, "Why father, it's me — 

 don't you know Tommy ?" 



"You!'" says I; "whj', Tom, hoAv on airth did 

 you get stretched out so long in one night ? Why, 

 you're growed as tall as all out doors, don't you 

 know it ?" 



"Why, yes, father," says he, " I s'pose I have, for 

 last night I slept on them bags of guano you put in 

 the barn, and that and the lightning together just 

 did the business." 



EFFECTS OF DRINKING COLD WATER. 



Dimness of sight, syncope, spasms of the chest 

 and stomach, staggering, imperceptible pulse, and 

 laborious respiration. Sudden death, says Thom- 

 son, has often been observed to be produced by 

 drinking large draughts of cold water. Indeed, this 

 effect of cold upon those who have suffered much 

 previous heat, thirst, and fatigue, has long been 

 known. Quintus Curtius, in particular, gives a 

 very interesting account of the fatal effects which 

 the army of Alexander the Great experienced on 

 reaching the banks of the river Oxus, after a fatig- 

 ung march through the sterile and burning sands of 

 the desert. Those who indulged in drinking freely 

 of the stream died immediately; and Alexander, the 

 historian remarks, lost more men by this means than 

 he ever lost in ha.tt\Q.— Medical Times. 



