Telescopes were invented in 1590.

The first steel pen was made in 1830.

The telephone was invented in 1861.

The Chinese invented paper, 170 B. C.

Ben Franklin used the first lightning rods in 1752.

The phonograph was invented by T. A. Edison in 1877.

Stained glass windows were used in the eighth century.

The first illumination with gas was in Cornwall, Eng., in 1792.

Spectacles were invented by an Italian in the thirteenth century.

St. Peter's church at Rome was begun in 1415, and opened in 1626„

Daguerre and Nieper invented the process of daguerreotype in 1839.

The first illumination by gas in the United States was at Boston in 1822

The first complete sewing machine was patented by Elias Howe, Jr., in 1846.

The first, electric telegraph, Paddington to Brayton, Eng., was put into operation in 1835.

The first musical, notes were used in 1338; they were first printed in the fifteenth century.

Umbrellas were not seen in England until 1768, when Gen. Washington was thirty-six years old.

A minister in England made $50,000 by inventing an odd toy that danced by winding it with a string.

The great wall of China, built 200 B. C, is 1,250 miles in length, 20 feet high, and 25 feet thick at the base.

Glass mirrors were first made by Venetians in the thirteenth century. Polished metal was used before that time.

It appears that on the Santee river, in South Carolina, they were manufacturing cotton by machinery in 1790.

The different shot towers in this country, such as that in Philadelphia, were put up as early as 1808 to the height of 180 feet.

Printing was known in China in the sixth century. It was introduced into England about 1474, and into America in 1536.

Pins date to 1543 in France, and were made in England in 1626. Before that time they used thorns and clasps in place of pins.

Burnt brick are known to have been used in building the Tower of Babel. They were introduced into England by the Romans.

The man who invented the return ball, an ordinary wooden ball with a rubber string attached to pull it back, made $1,000,000 from it.

The first cigar-ship was a steam pleasure yacht built in the shape of a cigar from the design of Mr. Ross Winans. It was launched on the Thames in 1886.

The longest fence in the world is in Australia - one thousand two hundred and thirty-six miles. It is made of wire netting, and its object is to keep out rabbits.

The longest span of wire in the world is used for a telegraph in India over the river Ristuah. Its length is over six thousand feet, and it is stretched between two hills twelve hundred feet high.

As large a sum as was ever obtained for any invention was enjoyed by the Yankee who invented the inverted glass bell to hang over gas jets to protect ceilings from being blackened by smoke.

Every one has seen the metal plates that are used to protect the heels ana soles of rough shoes, but every one doesn't know that within ten years the man who hit upon the idea has made $250,000.

The common needle threader, which every one has seen for sale, and which every woman owns, was a boon to needle users. The man who invented it has an income of $10,000 a year from his invention.

The Great Wall of China was completed B. c. 214 by Chi-Hwang-Ti of the Tsin dynasty. Every third man of the whole empire was employed on the work, and half a million of them died of starvation.

The screw propeller of the steamship "Umbria," is twenty-four and one-half feet in diameter, and weighs thirty-nine tons. Its four blades are made of manganese bronze, and the metal in them cost over $16,-000.

The use of granite and flint broken to pieces one or two ounces in weight to form roads, was recommended by John Macadam, a Scotchman, in 1819; the plan was adopted, and he received $50,000 from the British government, and was appointed surveyor-general of the Metropolitan roads.

Paris claims the finest theater in the world. It is of solid stone, finished with marble floors, and covers about four acres of ground. La Scala, of Milan, has the largest seating capacity, while the Auditorium, at Chicago, completed in 1889, seating seven thousand, ranks second in that respect.

When Catherine of Russia was on the throne, an ingenious peasant presented her with a marvelous watch, which is at present being exhibited in St. Petersburg. In size and shape it somewhat resembles a chicken's egg. When wound up to the proper pitch it plays religious chants, accompanied with scenic effects.

The Chubb lock was named after its inventor, a London locksmith. In addition to the usual tumblers, it had an extra one, which fixed the bolt immovably if one of the ordinary tumblers was lifted a little too high.

The inventor of the roller skate has made $1,000,000, notwithstanding the fact that his patent had nearly expired before the value of it was ascertained in the craze for roller skating that spread over the country a few years ago.

The highest monument in the world is the Washington monument, being five hundred and fifty-five feet. The highest structure of any kind is the Eiffel Tower, Paris, finished in 1889, and nine hundred and eighty-nine feet high.

The American hunting dagger or bowie-knife was named after its inventor, Colonel Jim Bowie, who, born about 1790, fell at Fort Alamo in the Texan war (1836). Its curved, double-edged blade is ten to fifteen inches long, and above an inch wide.

They were making cannons in 1814 at the Fort Pitt works, Pittsburg, to be used by Commodore Perry on Lake Erie. It was many a year before we began to make copper and brass out there, say in 1850, after we had developed Lake Superior copper.

How old do you suppose silk is? It was spun in China two thousand six hundred and forty years before Christ, and Isaiah seems to refer to it when he says: "They that work in sirokott or fine flax, and they that weave network, shall be confounded."