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i S 5: The Kin9 c gian it -4 4W and His family. : Tbl I'.nlor of m. kirsn.. W try rropoura to Make VUlt to tint I nltml Mutra. XLj kf 1 uyrrrrrrrrrrrrwrrrrrrvik T7""I.'G LKOl'OLI) of Belgium Is t n,)t 0!lJy royal pn-sonage jL. 1 contemplating n visit (7 to this country. It Is on t lit cards that ho King of Slam and his family uro to Journey to the United THE SIAMESE KING'S States some time In the near future. If the ruler of this strange country does pay us a visit It will be with all the accessories of Oriental splendor. THE QUEEN OF SIAM IN NATIVE COSTDME We do not have to go back many years to find Slam almost, If not quite, as exclusive to European influences as China is to-day. One of the most remarkable illustra- t I I" THE KING OF SIAM tions of the changes which are taking place in the Orient is furnished by the Crown Prince of Siam. who is now a student at Oxford University and i I i r ii liiimi i ii ii i ;. ; i Oi l . . ' n1oiit to puMhH a book on the war of the i'tillxh MicccHHloti. I'liya ('haroou Uajn Maltrl, who s coming lien? as first Knvoy Extraor dinary and Minister I'lcnipotciitlnry from Slam to thp United States lu order to pave the way for his royal master's visit, ha had a career prob nhly more remarkable than any of tin other diplomatist lu Washington. Cousin of his King as ho Is. In hat been rrinep, priest, beggar and Anal ly not only l'rlnce again, but one of the most trusted advisers of the throne. 1'hya Charoou Is about thirty-seven years old. Like most Siamese he Is below medium size, according to our EIGHTEEN CHILDREN, BY HIS standards, but is of fine physique, deep chested, muscular and straight. lie will be a particularly gorgeous Minister. In Siam his collection of jewelry is no finer than that of many other men of high rank, but Siam has been amassing gems for many genera tions. He has emeralds, rubles, pearls and sapphires sewed into some of his ceremonial costumes. Besides these he has his more personal jewelry; dia monds, pearls, in rings, pins, belts and pendants. With all his decora tions on, chief among them blazing the blue-white diamonds of the Order of the White Elephant and the pris matic gorgeousness of the Chinese Crown, he is literally a dazzling cen tre of radiance. His home in Bangkok is a spacious palace by the river side, filled with retainers and slaves, who serve him, his several wives and their numerous children. The carvings and bronzes and other works of art would furnish a museum. He has a separate slave for each detail of service especially trained and the bearer of the betel-nut box would never be expected to carry the parasol, or the steersman of the ceremonial boat to tend a door. Not always has Thya Charoon lived thus. Slam is the home of the most rigid Buddhism, and the envoy is a pious Buddhist. By the precepts of that religion as practiced in Siam, every nobleman must serve in the priesthood a certain time. The King himself has been a priest. Thya Charoon spent his allotted time as a novitiate in one of the monasteries, where he became so Imbued with the IN ROYAL ATTIRE. From Harper's Weekly. religion that he donned the yellow robe of the mendicant, renounced his riches and begged 1iis food from door to door. . ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuUr ft d f5 Euriositicsof Ichthyology. n ct TlIK study of Ichthyology Is at tended with greater practical t'dtllcultles than Is that of any (. other branch of natural his tory, and on account of this It Is far behind Its ulster sciences In the de gree of completeness to which It has attained. Land animals may be tracked to their most secret lairs, pa tient research will reveal the most VARIOUS WIVES. From Harper's Weekly. cunningly hidden nests, but it is im possible to pass beneath the waves to watch the habits of "all that dwell therein." "The way of a fish in the sea" is almost as much a mystery now as In the days of Solomon, and what is known but shows the extent of the unknown. Suppose that a visitor from some other planet were to come on an ex ploring expedition to our earth, but that his vessel could come no nearer than several miles, while our atmos phere was opaque to his vision and unfitted for his respiration. Under such circumstances his position would not be unlike our own in regard to the FIG. 1 BONES OF A "SEAL FISH.'' (Therobromus callorliini.) sea, and it may be perceived that In either case the knowledge to be gained must be scant and fragmentary. The astral explorer might capture a few of the lowest animals in his nets and dredges; he would probably obtain some worms, but he would be unlike ly tp take a bird, quadruped, man or any other thing that has the power of locomotion. For the same reasons the investigation of the sea has been slow and unsatisfactory, and but little has been made out of even the common est fishes. Many species and some genera are known by single specimens, and in several instances these have been found by what appears to be the purest chance. Quite a number of rare specimens have been obtained from the stomachs of other aquatic animals. The greater number of fishes are carnivorous and most of them are voracious feeders, greedily swallowing anything of a suitable size that presents itself. A shark's stomach sometimes contains a remarkable assortment of objects, and sometimes rarities are discovered, for sharks are more intent on the quan tity than the quality of their food There is a genus of fish called the Tarletonbeanea, In honor of Dr. Tarle ton II. Bean, a distinguished ichthy ologist, but of it only three specimens are known to exist. Of these, one was taken from the stomach of an Albacon off the coast of California, one came from a Sebastodes miniatus, and the third was blown on board of a boat during a storm. A still stranger example is that of the "seal fish." In making some in vestigations into the .life of the fur seal a few years ago, it was necessary to determine the character of the food on which it subsists. To do this, the stomachs of numbers of seals were opened and their contents examined and in them the remains of a new kind of fish were found to very com mon. Nothing but the bones (Fig. 1) have been found, but these in such numbers as to show that there mnst be vast quantities of these little fish, itlthough up to the pre.ent time no one has Been one In life. The iten Is the great home of aquatic life, but the frexli waters well repay '. V.'" n,- -'if C --L , lw - . , - r . j riO. 2 TTPIILOMOLQK RATtlBtTXI. (Drawn from life.) research. The "lung fishes," that can breathe atmospheric air, and thus avoid polluted waterB, or the mud fishes, that are captured by digging them up, are interesting variations 'rom the general rule, but the subter ranean species are most wonderful. The blind fishes found In our great limestone caverns and those from the ditches of the rice-fields are fam iliar, but the secrets of "the waters under the earth," are not yet made plain. A few years since a station was established by the United States lsh Commission at San Marcos, Tex as. An artesian well was bored, and a flow of 1200 gallons of water per min ute obtained at a depth of 188 feet. The boring was through almost solid limestone, the "log" of the well show ing that one tunnel some two feet In diameter was pierced, but the flow- has brought up numbers of living or ganisms, all new to science. So far four species of shrimps and a sala mander have been described, but these have been abundant. Dr. James E. Benedict, of the Smithsonian Institu tion, described and named the shrimps, and Dr. L. Stelner, of the same estab lishment, did the same for the sala mander. He gave it the name of Ty- phlomolge ltathbuni, In honor of Mr. Richard Rathtbun, the assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Institu tion. The accompanying illustration gives an accurate conception of this strange animal. Its head Is large and pro longed forward into a flattened snout in which is the mouth. The eyes are covered by the skin and are visible only as two black specks. Behind the head the external gills form festoons about the neck, their vivid scarlet making a sharp contrast with the dingy white skin. The four legs are in two pairs, the anterior ones having four fingers, or toes and the posterior ones Laving five. It terminates in a flattened, eel-like tail. Scientific American. New Ue For the Lamp, Hot water bags have grown to be a positive necessity in the household of late years, one great advantage of this being that they retain the warmth for an extended period of time. But the heat will eventually diminish be yond the point, where the water bag is useful, when the water must be re newed. As this cannot always be done conveniently it has occurred to Sam uel A. Gotcher that the water might be constantly maintained at the re quired temperature by an arrangement attached to an ordinary lamp. He has applied the thought in the manner shown, simply connecting two bags WATER HEATEB FOB THE FEET. with a coil of pipe in conjunction with the flame. As the latter can be readi ly regulated it is easy to vary the temperature to suit requirements. The inventor does not confine himself to the use of the heater for indoor pur poses, but applies the same principle to the heating of foot-warmers in carriages and sleighs, obtaining the heat from a lantern carried on the dashboard for lighting the roadway. Greeu an Unlucky Color. "Abelief of this kind prevails strong ly with regard to a certain sept of one of the great Highland clans. A lady who married the chieftain some years ago resolved to uproot what she called a foolish superstition, furnished (or induced her husband to furnish) in different shades of green an entire w' just added to the family man sion. Within six months the lady de serted her husband and home, and died abroad soon afterward under very tragic circumstances. Needless to say, the popular belief as to the un luckiness of green survives unshaken. Notes and Queries. Lmj j fV" TV? Nnw.v K A A number of the Western rnllrcnd have taken to growing the catalpa for t! purposes. One company has set out lGo.tKX) of then' trees lu the last few years, and another road recently planted ".",000 for the tame purpose. The Investigations which were car ried on In the Hawaiian Islands under the auspices of the United States Fish Commission during the past sumnyr were very successful. The fishery methods, laws and statistics were care fully studied, and large and important collections of fishes were made. Up ward of 300 species were obtained, among which are many species new to science. The coke ashes from gasworks are now being made Into bricks. Tho pro cess of manufacture Is very simple, says the London Engineer. The ashes are reduced to a fine powder, mixed with one-tenth part of slaked lime, ami after the addition of water, plugged until tho mass form a stiff paste. Then it 13 treated like ordinary clay, and formed into bricks by the use of suita ble presses. The bricks are then stacked, protected from rain, and dried in the air, no artificial heat being used. One of the chemical papers reports an experiment by which an artificial asphalt was produced, which closely resembles the natural substance. Fresh herring and oily pine wood were distilled in an Iron retort and the pro duct was condensed lu a Llebig con denser. The experiment seems to con firm the theory that asphalt and pe troleum are the products of a natural distillation, by which the remains of early forms of animal and vegetable life have been transformed iu tho heated crust of the earth. It was formerly supposed that life could not exist in the ocean depths because there was a lack of oxygen there, but recent discoveries have shown that there is always an abund ant supply of oxygen even at the bot tom. Frofessor Nutting says that the cold water of the polar regions, charged with oxygen from the atmos phere, creeps along the bottom of the ocean toward the equator, from both north and south, and thus carries a supply of the life-giving element over the whole floor. It is this world cir culation, he says, that keeps the ocean from becoming too foul to sustain life. Five of the leading cement makers of England recently visited the United States to look into our method of mak ing cement, and they went back sat isfied that England cannot hold her trade In that commodity except by promptly adopting American machin ery. It seems that we produce ce ment at less than one-half the cost of the English article, and do it in eight hours, whereas in England It takes three weeks. The process used here Is a secret, but one feature of it is a rotary roasting mill which simplifies and cheapens the work. These mills are springing up all over the States. Good Wages and Honor. There is a manufacturer of artificial flowers in Brussels who keeps thirty girls constantly at work without the necessity of having an overseer. This strange state of things was discovered by an American traveler who takes much interest in economic questions, and an expression of his surprise brought from the manufacturer an explanation that is as creditable to him as it is to the girls. Before he engaged his employes he learned that other factories were paying girls twenty cents a day, and that a woman could not live decently on less than fifty cents a day. So he determined that no one in his establishment should receive less than fifty cents a day, and .that he would trust to their loyalty and honesty to do good work without any "boss" but himself. The result, he says, more than justifies this, to say nothing of any other way in which the matter may be looked at. To Koune tho Mntd. Somnolent domestics are no longer to enjoy just one more turn, if house wives will only avail themselves of tho "Servant's Morning Call" outfit re cently placed on the English market. This novelty consists of an ordinary bell placed in the domestic's bedroom, a push located outside the door of the room, or at some distance from the bed, and an indicator in the mistress' room. The idea is to force the maid to get out of bed to stop the ringing of the bell, which continues until the push Is operated, when, of course, there Is no excuse for going back again. Soundlea Fonder Next. The chances of smokeless powder seem seriously compromised by the recent invention of the Roman Gener al Gilletta. Thanks to the latter's "acoustic telemeter" it Is now possible to ascertain the exact spot whence the firing proceeds. Manchester Guardian. ty j i