202 SCIENCE SKETCHES. 
polishing up tin pans, and to looking into dark 
windows or down into deep wells, in search for the 
truth that is said to lie there. Then the law offered 
some curious anomalies. For instance, a sheep 
with the wool on went through the city gates for 
fifteen francs. If the wool was taken off, it was 
charged a franc per pound, and the sheep went in 
as mutton, paying five francs. It was, therefore, 
cheaper to take a sheep to pieces outside of the 
city gate rather than within. 
Again, there was a curious complication in the 
matter of bootjacks, — a humble article of domestic 
use, manufactured in the little village of Jonas, 
just mentioned. If these were sent in as house- 
hold furniture, each paid a franc, while, as wooden- 
ware, the charge was fifty centimes. 
With the millstone-trade the results were even 
more remarkable. One of the chief articles of 
export from Issoire, in its early days, was the 
stone used in flouring-mills. In the lower part of the 
city, close to the river Couze, there is an extensive 
quarry of a coarse, hard sandstone, most excellent 
for milling purposes. It had long been a saying 
with Issoire people, ‘‘ We send Clermont the wheat, 
and the stones to grind it.””. The Issoire millstones 
were not inferior to those quarried in Cantal, and, 
the distance from Clermont being much less, the 
Issoire millstone-cutters had almost a monopoly of 
the Clermont trade. 
In the early days of the octroi, however, the 
wagons which had formerly brought over manufac- 
tured goods in exchange for millstones were 
obliged to goto Issoireempty. Thus their owners 
