AMERICAN NOTES.

Grey River Argus, Volume X, Issue 837, 3 April 1871, Page 2

AMERICAN NOTES.

The thermometer has been as low as eight degrees below zero in Sierra county this winter. A Yolo county farmer has raised five crops of wheat from one plowing, sowing and harrowing. A thirteen year old girl on the Cowlitz river, Oregon, wears the belt as the champion bear killer. The owners of the different churches in Calbis, Maine, refuse to allow their bells to be rung in case of fire. There are more than seven hundred quartz mills in the States and Territories usually designated as the Pacific Coast. The French citizens of San Francisco, after giving about 180,000 dollars to the cause of their native land during the war, have just made up about 12,000 dollars more as their latest contribution to the French Relief Fund. Such liberality is worthy of all praise. Mrs Frances Rainor, living near Sarahsville, Noble county, Ohio, ig 103 years old. She has possession of all her faculties, and can thread a needle with all the dexterity of a young woman. She often goes visiting her neighbors, sometimes walking a mile to pay her visits. Mrs Rainor came from Augusta county, Virresides, 36 years old. : The North Paoiflc Railroad is bein« pushed forward rapidly. On the Ist of December a mile and a half of track was laid, and the contractor expects to lay two miles a day. The engineers have discovered vast veins of coal on the line of the road, In the valley of the Missouri, sufficient to'furnish fuel for locomotives over the woodless portion of the route. The Central Pacific railroad is receiving considerable freight for San Francisco from coal and metal mines east of the Nevada basin. On Tuesday last ten car loads of coal from Wyoming came through aud six car loads of copper and silver ore from Ogde and the Nevada mines. The Utah silver mines promise to furnish a large quantity for reduction in San Francisco.

The several sub-divisions of the Union Pacific railroad are to be dispensed with and the road constitutedinto two divisions. The first vill embrace that port from

Omaha to Cheyenne, which will be the terminus of the two divisions which has lately been at Laramie. The western division extends from Cheyenne to the junction proper, with the Central Pacific, at Oregon, eight miles west of Ogden. The principal point of the western division will be at Evanston, Wyoming, where extensive railroad shops are being completed. .. . . ...',. ........

Tha Postmaster-General has within a few days transmitted to the British Post Department a cheque upon London for L26,251 13s 3d. costing 141,000 dollarsjn currency, it being the difference in postage between the two countries for the five quarters, fifteen months, ending December 31, 1869. The balances due to the French Government are much larger, and will be paid as soon as the account can be properly made up. When we get back to specie payments arid have the ability to sell as cheaply and carry freights as low" as other nations, the starting of American steamship; lines will be in order. Mrs Shelley's fearful creation, Franken-

stein, will presently take its place among the possibilities, if science and surgery continue to advance. An instance of surgical skill is on record at Canton, 111., which surpasses the most intricate achievements of the French schools. Some years ago, a girl near Canton was attacked with an ulcer which destroyed, the whole face, and rendered her an object of loathsome horror. When the disease had stopped, the eyes, forehead, and general frontal bones were completely bare, and death seemed the only resource for so fearful a deformity. The unhappy victim firmly contemplated suicide, and only the kindly interest of a Dr Wright prevented her. The physician set about a cure, and, with the aid of a dentist, first supplied teeth and the missing upper jaw. When these had been firmly grown together, he began the work of making an entire new face. First, an upper lip was made by taking a piece of the neck ; the undiseased part of the % forehead was drawn down and formed the nose, and other parts of the physiognomy restored in the same way. This was, of course, a work of time, each step having to be taken separately, and then left unmolested until the parts grew together. The long and delicate operation is now, however, fully completed, and the girl can enter any company and give no indication of ever having suffered from a terrible deformity. The census returns makes the popula- >... ,tion of California less than 560,000. Probably it is quite 600,000. The reports of the County Assessors to Surveyor-General Bost give the number of registered voters at nearly 150,000. At this rate about one-fourth of our population are voters ; but ten per cent, must be deducted from v the registered list for deaths and removals, leaving 135,000 voters — a larger number |\ of votes than has ever been actually , polled. According to the Surveyor's. General's repoit for 1870, the taxable of the State are 252,401 ,337 dollars. I This is nearly 8,000,000 dollars less than : he real values as returned by the Census ( vgents for San Francisco alone. As the \ roporiion of assessed to real values roughout the State is probably not ' \ , Sre than one-fourth, it is safe to assur )e , \. .t the true value of property iD Cali JT \ >ia is not under 1,000,000,000 dollars \ V *£ A S^TS by th r S I cens "'S of 1860 at I 974,613 doUaw. Tln^ the increase 1 . je last decade ha? been nearly five *-f l «i y?* * lth ™ period occurred deafcrn^e floods aad droughts, and a large transfer 6f population from our mining count ies to other States and Territories. Now that the railroad era has begun, that manufactures are increasing and town* multiplying, we may anticipate lor the coming decade a still greater s degree of prosperity than the above figurea suggest. Ejarry Meiggs, after'completing what is known, as the Ariquipa Railroad, under a coniasacs involving 20,000,000 dollars, has taken a contract to construct the Puno and Arroyo .Railroad, which is, as we understand it, an extension of the former road over the Andes to the high tab! c lands on the other side. Practically, i J . j 8 the construction of a railroad from the Pacific to the head waters of the Am- AZOTI The ascent of the Andes is accomr m-i^a at the height of 16,000 feet. T .£?"«£, tract for this work is let to T vfli^s at about 60,000,000 dollars Tb ,3 -Peruvian Government ar c negotiated . .oming in duty free. TjJ^J Jet ; aa obtained in New Yor , mi. r>JL™;«». p2, tSw - or the sale of Central :■ . £*fi,2? ? T/ bonds in New York v™u ™ ir^ Uet f j Btatements of nßinea&ot && z*& . atid conr i€ctions> It appearg &om tMa statement t j, at the ea r n ings of the Central^ P/acific Railroad since the main line i: *??<P ut * n operation, were over 18,000,000 ' dollars, and that of this sum 10,000,000 dollars were net earnings over expenses of operating the road. When these expenses had all been paid and the interest i>n the bonded debt— that is, we suppose, on the first niortgage-rthere was still a surplus of 6,000,000 dollars. The work to construct a railroad over the Andes, crossing at the elevation noted, is one of the greatest ever undertaken in the world. But there is one remarkable incidental advantage. The chronic condition of the South American Republic has been that of revolution. Peru has its share of them. But it now has complete exemption, because Meiggs absorbs all the revolutionary material. No Chinamen are employed. The work is all given to the natives of the? country. If any idle conclave of fellows become noisy and obstreperous, and threaten mischief, Meiggs forthwith hires them, and sets them 'to, work- on his railroad. The wages are not very large — oaly a few shillings, a day at the most. But laborers qaj-n, enough to : keep them comfortable, and so lpng. as they work their pay goes, on. No work, .no pay. In4tang and the mixed races, who are led astray by the inflammatory appeals of the revolutionary chiefs, . have ——no time for that business now ; they arc* all off helping Meiggs build his railro^ The country enjoys peace. A railway contractor furnishes a safety valvs for -agnation. All the explosive enexgjr-ofFthe dangerous classes is drawn off *nd utilised in the vast work of buildj»g_ a. railroad over the Andes. " There is a tradition tha,t<in itss earKer I days a Calif ornian paper appeared' with this paragraph .WVTe have *o w in our type, as there, is none in tke Spanish alphabet. YVe have sent to, the Sandwich Islands for this letter^in the meantime yve must use tvv©, Vs,'" The " tradition is a part o£- iistoiy.? 1 The paper alluded to was Tke- Calif ornian, and was published injMonterey. When the Americans occupied that town in, 1846, they found an old fount of tvne and a press belonging to the Mmf^ Ine Spams fount contained no tsp& Walter Colton, Chaplain in the Kawv' and Dr R Semple — afterwr^ the founder of Benicia— with this . arterial started The oalifornian, and ' m fi rs t number a paragraph almost - tdea4)fcal with the one quoted appeared. r £h&mif ornian was subsequently remove^ te> S an FranCisco. During the win'^ after the dis . covery of gold rtw, Bnited with the Star & paper publish . edby Sam Brannan, F and the project of the. unity, under the ™.&rnentof E. C. Eemble and Edwd. Gilbert (who was subsequently one of the first Congressir^ irom this State, and killed by Ger^ral J. W. Denver in a duel near the city), became theAlta California, which has /developed into the present journal of that name.