The World's Encyclopedia of Wonders and Curiosities

Everything a Victorian found astonishing, gathered into one enormous volume — burning springs and buried cities, freaks of storm and flood, the habits of bees and the manners of nations, filed under headings like “Curiosities Respecting Man.”

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Spirit Rappings. the Man-Turtle: Hammond

He brought forward Mr. Howley and sat him in a chair fronting the audience. He then held before the gentleman's eyes a small glass ball, and after a little delay the subject seemed to be completely absorbed in the contemplation of it. Turning again to the students Dr. Hammond said: "You see I begin in the way serpents charm birds. The serpents fasten their steely eyes on those of the birds and fascinate the poor things until they fall an easy prey. Now you will see in a minute how this young man will follow the ball wherever it goes." And so he did. Whichever way Dr. Hammond moved the ball the young man went after it. Nothing stopped him. Chairs, tables, doctors, stood in his way, but he stumbled over them or by them, and kept on after the ball with his eyes riveted on it as if his very life depended on his getting as near it as possible. Suddenty Dr. Hammond hid it and told him it was gone. He stopped, dazed, and looked as if he had lost something very precious. While he was in this state he was handed a bottle of soda-water and told it was a young lady. He took the bottle in his arms and immediately began to make love to it. He caressed it and said tenderly, "Will you have me? Do. I love you dearly. Oh, do have me." As he walked up and down Dr. Hammond took a lance and stuck the blade into the flesh of the young man's hand, telling him it was a bouquet, and the young man admired the imaginary flowers, showing no symptoms of pain. Suddenly he was told that the bottle was an old woman, seventyfive years of age, and he quickly dropped it, exclaiming, "I don't want to have anything to do with her." He ate lemon for strawberry, and asked for more; stripped off his coat and made a dash for a man he was told had called him a liar; waltzed, sang, cried, smelt water, and said it was "beautiful cologne," and proved himself an utterly pliant subject.

The next subject was Mr. David Wright, who accepted a book for a bird, and sang the "Sweet By-and-By" to it. When told it had escaped through the hall he made a rush for it among the students as if they had not been present. He made frantic efforts to climb a pillar and was furiously pursuing the bird when called back. He preached as an orthodox clergyman, then as a colored minister, changing his accent and his manner as quickly as the order was given to him, and did a number of other things, much to the amusement and astonishment of the audience. The next subject, a Mr. Wilson, acted Macbeth, reading the vision scene with good effect; preached, told funny stories, said he was Colonel Bob Ingersoll, repeating parts of that gentleman's lectures; got drunk on water, rolled in agony when told he was sick at the stomach, and created much merriment as a clown in a circus. Mr. Pritchitt, the last gentleman, stripped off all his clothes with lightning rapidity when told he was infested with rats. He delivered a lecture on electricity when told he was Benjamin Franklin. He stripped to fight at an imaginary insult, rode a chair for a horse with the same seriousness and intensity he would a live equine. He became an organgrinder, a ballet-dancer, a violinist, and numerous other characters. Dr. Hammond touched his nose with a cork and he roared with pain. The next instant he danced with delight at being assured that it was on again and in good condition. Dr. Hammond told him that his clothes were on fire, and he pulled them off, rushing almost nude to the opposite side of the amphitheatre. Dr. Hammond frequently put his fingers on the left temple of the different subjects and instantly arrested their power of speech; then he would touch the right temple and the subject resumed his discourse. At the close of the experiments, Dr. Hammond started two of the subjects going at the same time, and the result was most ludicrous. The lecture was a most interesting and entertaining one and occupied two hours in the delivery.

ARTIFICIAL ICE FACTORY. -The factory of the Georgia Ice Company, at Atlanta, has on the ground floor, a boiler 50 fect long and 4½ feet in diameter, containing 150 feet of 3-inch pipe. The boiler is kept filled with aqua ammonia, which is separated by the steam heat into ammonia, gas, and water. The gas, leaving the water in the boiler, forces its way through a 6-inch pipe outside the building to the roof, three stories up, where it passes into 15,000 feet of coiled pipes, in which it is converted into liquid by cold water thrown over it in fountain jets. This liquid passes into 15,000 feet of three-quarter inch pipe, arranged in vertical sections 30 feet high and 3 feet apart, and its sudden liberation into these pipes turns the liquid pure ammonia into vapor, and the sudden expansion makes the pipes intensely cold. Now, above these hundreds of vertical pipes are innumerable little fountain jets throwing spray all over the pipes, the spray freezing gradually, forming an immense icicle of pure ice around each pipe. The gas next goes into 15,000 feet of absorbing pipe, and, being cooled by water running on the pipes, it is met by water forced into the pipes, and thus converted back into aqua ammonia, which goes into the big boiler, and is used over again. There is no waste, the same ammonia being used and reabsorbed any number of times. The water used for the spray is drawn from a well 75 feet deep, on the premises, and the large plocks of ice (which are loosened from the pipes by a little hot steam) come out pure and clear, and entirely free from any odor or obiectionable taste. After the pipes have been stripped, about five weeks are required for a new lot of the requisite thickness to form. But, of course, the pipes are never all stripped at the same time, the ice towers being in all stages of formation. The factory has a capacity of 35 tons per day, but 20 tons keep pace with the demand, and it isn't stored, but cut every day as it is delivered, and it sells at from $10 to $12 per ton.

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