Rubber trees are reported found growing in Manatee County, Fla.

Japan proposes to build up her commercial navy by giving subsidies to ship builders on every ton above 1,000, and to ship owners for ships of 1,000 tons that can make ten knots an hour, the subsidy being increased for every 500 tons additional burden or every knot additional speed.

Rosa Bonheur began to work seriously at painting when she was about fifteen, and donned male attire so that she could go about without attracting attention. She wore it so naturally that no one ever suspected her of being a girl, and found it so comfortable that she has worn it ever since to work in. She and Mme. Dieulafoy, the wife of the explorer, are the only two women in France who are legally authorized to appear in public in men's clothes.

A device for permitting the unsophisticated guest to blow out the gas in his bedroom at the city hotel without inconvenience to himself or anybody else has been devised. The gas burner is made of a metal having great expansive and contractive properties. The gas is turned on in the regular way and a small screw is turned which admits a small flow of gas through the burner. The gas is lighted, and the heat expands the metal and automatically opens a valve permitting a full flow of gas. The gas can be turned off in the ordinary way, but if the gas is blown out the metal contracts, closing the valve, and all the gas that escapes is the very small quantity admitted by the screw valve.

A movement is on foot in Europe having for its object the securing of a complete census of the inhabitants of all the civilized countries of the world. With this end in view the several governments are to be approached with the request that they will endeavor to decide upon a mutual date for counting the people under their various jurisdictions. Heretofore the different countries have taken their census on different dates, and it has been impossible to obtain accurate statistics in regard to the world's population at any one particular period. It is suggested that the last year of the present century or the first year of the coming century would be the most appropriate date for obtaining statistics.

Of the 376 suicides who ended their lives in New York last year, by far the greater number were divorced people, says the Medical Review. From a table prepared for the year 1895, it is shown that there were in Germany during that year 2,834 suicides of men either divorced or separated from their wives and 948 suicides of widowers, as against only 286 suicides of married men. It is also shown that 343 women separated from their husbands and 124 widows died by their own hands, in contrast with 61 married women and 87 unmarried. In Wurtemburg, to every million inhabitants, there are 1,540 lunatics among divorcés or women separated from their husbands and 338 among the widows, while there are only 224 among unmarried women. There are 1,484 lunatics among the men who are divorced or separated from their wives, 338 among the widowers, and only 236 among the bachelors.

The quarterly list of American tin plate works, which was published in the Metal Worker a short time ago, shows that on July 1 there were thirty-six complete tin plate plants rolling their own black plates in actual operation in the United States and three in course of construction. The active plants possessed an aggregate of 179 tin mills, having an estimated yearly capacity of about 5,500,000 boxes of tin plates. In addition to these establishments there were thirty-one tin plate dipping works, without rolling mills, possessing an aggregate of 169 tinning sets. At the end of June the production of American tin plate is estimated to have been going on at the rate of over 4,000,000 boxes yearly. During the last quarter the New Castle Steel and Tin Plate Company, of New Castle, Pa., has completed large extensions to its works, making it an eighteen-mill plant. This gives the United States the largest and most complete tin plate works in the world. Its annual capacity is three-quarters of a million boxes.

The Moniteur Vinicole has recently published a statement showing the wine production of the various countries of the world. From this statement it appears the yield in France amounted in the years 1895 and 1894 to 587,127,000 gallons and 859,162,000 gallons respectively; in Algeria to 83,549,000 and 80,124,000 gallons; Tunis, 3,956,000 and 3,936,000: Italy, 469,555,000 and 539,000,000; Spain 379,500,000 and 528,000,000; Portugal, 43,890,000 and 33,000,000; Azores, Canaries, and Madeira, 4,620,000 and 2,640,000; Austria, 66,000,000 and 88,000,000; Hungary, 63,030,000 and 46,103,000; and Germany, 80,190,000 and 110,000,000 gallons. In Turkey and Cyprus the production last year amounted to 52,800,000 gallons, and this compares with an average yield of 40,000,000 gallons. In Bulgaria the yield was 26,400,000 gallons; Servia, 17,600,000; Greece, 35,200,000; Roumania, 68,640,000; Switzerland, 27,500,000; the United States, 89,700,000; Mexico, 1,980,000; Argentine Republic, 29,700,000; Chile, 33,000,000, Brazil, 7,700,000; Cape of Good Hope, 2,420,000; Persia, 594,000; and Australia, 3,300,000 gallons.

The Historical Museum of Hesse Cassel, in Germany, says the Carpenter and Builder, contains a most remarkable collection of curiosities. It is in the form of a wooden library, composed of five hundred and forty volumes of folio and quarto sizes. The books are made of the different specimens of trees found in the famous park of Wilhelmshoehe. On the back of each of these singular books is pasted a large shield of red morocco, which bears the popular and scientific names of the tree and the family to which it belongs. Each label is inlaid with some of the bark of the tree, the moss and lichen, and a drop or two of the resin, if the tree produces it. The upper edge of the book shows the tree in its youth, cut from a horizontal section, with the sap in the center and the eccentric circles. The same method prevails with the lower edge, showing the changes that have taken place. The interior of the book, in the shape of a box, contains in manuscript the history of the tree, with numerous hints as to its treatment, capsules filled with seeds, buds, roots, leaves, and so on.

The inner sides show the diverse transformations which take place from bloom to fruit.

Orders for large quantities of aluminum have been received within the last few weeks by the Pittsburg Reduction Company from the principal foreign nations for the equipment of their armies. The contracts aggregate about fifty tons a month, Russia being the largest consumer.

According to the return published by the Minister of Agriculture, the consumption of horseflesh in Paris has decreased slightly in the last year, being only 4,472 tons, as against 4,664 tons for 1895-96. This was the meat derived from 20,878 horses, 53 mules and 232 donkeys slaughtered during the twelve months; but a very strict supervision is exercised, and 575 of these animals were condemned as unfit for human food. The flesh of the remainder was sold at 190 stalls or shops, and, although the fillet and undercut made as much as 9d. a pound, the inferior parts sold for 2d. or less, and most of the meat was used for making sausages.

According to La Propriété Industrielle, 5,372 Austrian patents were granted in 1896 (5,215 in 1895). Of these, residents of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy received 2,070 (2,031 in 1895), Austrians coming first with 1,813 (1,683 in 1895), Hungarians second with 254 (347 in 1895), while residents of Bosnia and Herzegovina secured 3 patents (1 in 1895). Among foreigners the following show an increase over 1895: United States, 394 (335); Great Britain, 355 (313); France, 244 (243); Switzerland, 94 (79); Belgium, 66 (48); Sweden and Norway, 60 (40); Italy, 50 (45); Russia, 47 (40); Australia, 32 (10); and Netherlands, 26 (18). A decrease is shown by Germany, 1,887 (1,950); Denmark, 10 (17); Canada, 7 (14); and Spain, 6 (10). The total number of Austrian patents granted to foreigners in 1896 was 3,302, as against 3,184 in 1895.