4.34= 
AMERICAN AaRICULTUHIST. 
[November, 
fox should be paid $5, and have the thanks of the neigh- 
bors. The fox wag ehot, and if you Avish to know the 
person who shot him— why use your eyes and find him. 
The I>octoi""s Coi-respoMflleiice, 
I had supposed that my young; friends' qnestions about 
insects would stop as eoon as cooler weather came. We 
have had a good deal of insect talk the past season, but 
it is because my young friends send me specimens, and 
ask about them. After all, there is nothing about which 
there is so little known, even among- older persons, as the 
changes of insects, and perhaps the space could not h^ive 
been better used. Hei-e at the end of the season are 
several who wish to know 
ABOUT THE DRAGOK PLIES, 
and as the correspondence is already long, I will make a 
talk about them in a separate article, on another page. 
Generally I expect that my yonug friends will look to 
Aunt Sue for their instructions about fancy-work, but as 
Sarah E. "W. asks about a kind, of which I have seen 
considerable, I will answer her. Her inquiry is about 
ORNAMENTAL SPRUCE WORK, 
or fancy articles made from spruce twigs, from wliich the 
leaves have fallen. The- material generally need is the 
Fig. 1.— CHAIE MADE OF SPKUCB TWIGS. 
email shoots of the Norway Spruce, as that is very com- 
mon in cultivation, though I do uot see why those from 
our native White or Black Spruce would not answer as 
well. The twigs are cut, and laid away to dry; when 
quite dry, the leaves will fall off themselves, or by a little 
Bhaking. To make them up, soak the twigs in warm 
■water, until so softened that a pin will pass through them 
easily. Common pins of different sizes are used for put- 
ting the pieces together, and if one has a pair of pliers or 
email pincers, and cutting nippers, such as are used for 
cutting wire, the work may be done all the easier. The 
work being put together while the twigs arc soft, will 
need careful handling at first, but when they dry, the pins 
will be held firmly. The articles that may be made, will 
depend upon one's fancy or ingenuity; veiy pretty frames 
may be made, for small photographs, either to be hung 
up, or in form of an easel, with a support at the back, so 
that the frame will stand on a shelf or table. Very pretty 
miniature furniture may be made in this way, of which 
the chair (fig. 1) is an example ; by selecting the twigs 
with buds upon them, the beauty of the work will be in- 
creased. An ingenious person can work up the material 
into a great variety of pretty forms. 
WRONG IN MY JAPANESE. 
In some talk in August last about the markets in Japan, 
I mentioned a large radish in common use as " diakon." 
A young Japanese, through. " F. M. G.," informs me that 
the name should be daikon, from dai, large, and k&n, 
root. I thank the young Jap., and though the mistake 
occurred so long ago, make the correction Emma C. 
o 
DIATOMS TVfAG'VIFlED. 
W.— Of course, the Phiz-Phiz Falls exist only in the 
imagination of tlie artist Here is something that did 
not turn up in any of the youngsters letters, but I think 
it may interest you. Some time ago a box of powder for 
POLISHING SILVER AND OTHER METALS. 
was sent me, with the request that I would try it. I 
opened the box and found an almost pm-e-white powder ; 
I felt it between my fingers and found it very fine— al- 
most impalpable^ as those powders are called, the parti- 
cles of which are so flue _ ^ 
that they can not be felt. 
Somehow the powder 
seemed like an old ac- 
quaintance. I smelled of 
it— no odor— I put some 
upon my tongue — no 
taste. I then looked at it, 
taking, to help my old 
eyes, a microscope that 
would magnify several 
hundred times, and then 
I knew all about the 
powder. Figure 2 f^hows 
what I saw in the least bit— less than you could 
put into a mosquito's eye — provided you should try. 
These were some of the most common forms, but there 
were others, all l)eautjfully carved and marked, and as 
transparent as glass. If you were to guess what these 
forms are, you would probably say that they were the 
shells of some minute animals— and that is what they 
were at one time supposed to be. It is now known that 
they are uot from animals at all, but from plants. It 
would be very diflBcult to describe these little plants so 
that you could understand much about them. 
THEY ARE C,U:>LED DIATOMS 
by naturalists, the name being from a Greek work mean- 
ing *'a separation,"' as some of them break up in a curi- 
ous manner. They live in both salt and fresh water, and 
the study of them requires the most powerful magnify- 
ing glasses. The living part of the tiny plant is a 
brownish jelly, and this has the power of forming for 
itself a sort of frame-work to strengthen and protect it ; 
this is not of lime, as with some minute animals, but a 
shell, as it may be called, of pure eilex, or flint. Many 
large plants have their stems strengthened by this min- 
eral substance ; the straw of our wheat, and other grains, 
contain a great deal of it, but the diatoms contain so 
much that when it dies, it leaves a cast or frame-work 
of silex— which is the same as quartz, crystal, and flint- 
showing its shape, and this cast is often marked in such 
a delicate manner that they are among the most beautiful 
of objects for the microscope. You will perhaps think 
then, that to make a polishing powder like that sent 
to me, they have only to catch a great quantity of these 
little diatoms, let them die, and use thuir flinty shells. 
Not eo— and here comes the most curious part of all. 
THE POWDER IS FOUND ALREADY PREPARED I 
In immense quantities too, for sometimes the layer is 
several feet thick and extends for a great distance. One 
of the wonderful beds of this substance is in Virginia, 
the city of Richmond is underlaid with it, several feet 
below the snrface, the bed is in some places 30 ft. thick, 
and is known to be some 50 miles in extent. " How did 
they come there?''— You may well ask that question. 
As deposits of a similar kind are forming now at the 
bottom of the sea and of fresh waters, there can be little 
doubt that the places where Richmond and Petersburgh 
now are, were once under water, and that these little 
diatoms lived in this water, died there, and their coats 
gradually gathered to form this great mass. The largest 
of these objects is not more than the one-hundredth of 
an inch across, while most of them are much smaller — 
so small that they can only be seen by powerful glasses. 
"What length of time it must have taken this deposit to 
form land ; the numbers of diatoms that must have 
lived and died to make it, are beyond computation. 
— •-• — *•■ » ■ 
Aiint Sue's Puzzle-Box. 
METAGRAM. 
From a word of six letters find suitable words to fill 
the following blanks : 
Smith was going (by ), with his 
'family: he had no .but he took with him, three 
animals, a , a , and a . One day, 
after , he took his brother by the , and to- 
gether they strolled by the 
a , pointed out to him the - 
said he could climb it with 
very much, but disliked the - 
pointing to a ( ), said, 
I might then have some ," 
His brother, who was 
— of his vessel, and 
He liked the Captain 
exceedingly, and 
, " I wish he were there, 
which made his brother 
_. C. M. G. 
TRANSPOSED AVIARY. 
(Example.— 7iw^ 071,— pigeon.)— 1. Chod fling. 2. Drug 
bin himm. 3. Finger shik. 4. Hinge lating. 5. Girl 
tans. 6. One pig. 1. No calf. 8. Slow law. 9. Ant's 
heap. 10. Drag tripe. Isola. 
NUMERICAL ENIG3IA. 
I am composed of 34 letters : 
My 25, 12, 5, 3, 19, is a flower,— a pet name. 
My 22, 15, 27, 11, 24, is a garden plant. 
My 6, 16, 13, 10, is a sound. 
My 1, 20, 4, 21, 18, 34, is a superior. 
My 9, 33, 28, 31. is a mcasrirc of length. 
My 14, 8, 13, is to obtain. 
My 29, 23, If}, 32, 17, 25, is a defense. 
My 7, 26, -30, 2, is a particular taste, a kind of tartness. 
My whole is a stirring motto. Willie. 
NINE CONCEALED FRUITS, 
We began our search for Tim Horan, getting Ed to as- 
sist us by asking Fred to see Mr. Cole, Monday or Tues- 
day, and by giving the Neivs a description of the way Mr. 
Spears said the cur ran through the street on a double- 
quick step, each moment crying "catch me if you can," 
when plump came Dan against him and cried "Stop! 
run either way and you are caught and good for the jug ; 
rap Ed if you dare, but before you rap, please remember 
each strike will add to your penalty." But Tim gotaway 
and is still at large. Hope. 
ANSAVERS TO PUZZLES IN THE SEPTE3IBER NUMBSK. 
CosiPOUND Cross Word.— Frederick— Georgiaua. 
Diamond Puzzle. 
P 
ERA 
T O IT G n 
P 11 U S S I A 
OUSEL 
LID 
A 
DECAPlTATIONa 
1. Cliide, hide. 
2. Drail, rail. 
3. Sally, Ally. 
4. Dream, rearn. 
5. "Wliarp, harp. 
6. Yearn, earn. 
7. Enorm, uomi. 
Biblical Enigma.— AVisdom is better than rubier. 
I'LTzzLE.— Dictionary Cdi-ct-ion-ar-y). 
Alphabetical Akithhettc— 123)63455 (556 
Keij.—" Guy flowers." 
Concealed Square Word. 
SALEM 
ABIDE 
L I 51 I T 
E D I L E 
METE 11 
Pl— A piano-forte maker 
says that, of all manufactured 
things, pianoa bear the noblest 
character, since they are 
classilied as being grand, up- 
right, and square. 
Concealed rnovERB.— a irood anvil does not fear the 
hammer. 
Metagkam.— " Tows," in whicli may be found— wot, tow, 
own, won ; town, wout, tow, ton ; now, not, no ; on ; and I 
DOTTELE ACKOSTIC. 
L— ouis —A 
0— thie — L 
r- hri — C 
1— mill — O 
S— cot — T 
A— methys— T 
Stncopatioks. 
1. R:ipid, raid, 
i!. Resin, rein. 
3. Negro, Nero. 
4. Beset, beet. 
5. Range, rage. 
6. Farce, face. 
AkaCtRams.— 1. Fiiranthesia. 2. Governess. 3, Outrage- 
ous. 1. Brunettes. 5. Embroidered. C. Complaints. 7. 
Charitable. 3. Barbecue, 0. Balustrade. 10. Dislocated. 
Enigmatical BorquET.—l. Bachelor's Buttons. 2. Holly- 
hock. 3. Golden Rod. 4. Jonquil. 5. Sweet Pea. 6! China 
Aster. 7. Heart's Ease. 8. Monk's Hood. 9. Bn.ttercup,v 
Blank Reveksale.-I. Go, og. 2. "War, raw. S. Room, 
moor. 4. Was, saw. 5. Rat, tar. 
Send coynmvnicatioits intended for Aunt Sue, to Box 111, 
P. {?., Sivoklyn^ 2^. Y., and not to 245 Broadway, 
Tlie metric System of lYIeasures 
and TFeig^bits. 
Wlien I had finished the talks with my '• Correspond- 
ents," I thought it seemed rather long, but when I re- 
membered that I bad promised to say something about 
the Metric System, I found it would have to be etill 
longer, so I thought that on the whole, it would be better 
to put this metric matter in a separate article. I told 
you something, last month, of the beginning of the 
measures and weights we now use, and how they started 
with the rude and uncertain standards of grains of bar- 
ley (barley corns) and of wheat. We have three different 
kinds of weights, three sorts of liquid measuies, and so 
on. The awkwardness of this is seen when we have to 
convert one of these into another, sucli as cube measure 
into liquid measure, or Troy into Avoirdupois weight. 
In view of thie, and the difficulty of fixing a standard, 
by which we may be sure that a measure or weight isrighi^ 
our scientific men have long been trying to make a 
change for the better. Several plans have been talked 
of, but the majority of those who have studied the mat- 
ter are in favor of that established by the French, which 
is called 
THE METRIC SYSTEM, 
because the metre is unit or starting point. The name 
metre is from the Greek and means " measure." It is a 
measure of length, and one great beauty of the metric 
system is, that from the metre, all other measures, solid 
or liquid, and weights also, are derived. The system is 
sometimes called the "Decimal System," and It is a 
