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Hawke's Bay Weekly Times, Volume 1, Issue 39, 30 September 1867, Page 239

Dreamland.—The power which in our waking moments is employed in correcting the reports of the various senses by comparing them with one another, in examin*ng evidence of all the impressions made on the mind, and testing them by the analogy of its-past experience, appears in sleep to most cases, totally suspended. If, for instance, an impression is made on any one of the senses, the fancy immediately connects it with some cause which has produced the same sensation before, or has been considered likely to do so * philosophy of the ghost which is said to attend pork suppers. The weight of undigested food in the stomach is readily attributed to some externalcause, fancy combines all her ideas of the horrible, and represents a monster seated on our chest, or ready to crush us with some great weight. That this want of co-opera tion in the faculties is the cause of some ot the. most curious phenomena of dreams, is evident from many well-authenticated facts. Dr Beattie speaks of a man who could be made to dream anything by whispering in his ear. Dr Gregory relates of himself that, having once occasion to applv a bottle of hot water to his feet when he retired to bed, he dreamed that he was ascending the side of Mount Etna, and that he lound the heat of the ground almost in sufferable. Persons who have had a blister applied to their heads have been known to dream of being scalped by a party of .North American Indians. SJuch are some of the well-known phenomena of dreams, but there are others even yet more startling. Cassell’s Family paper. In the last published Part of the Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India there is good news for those persons who are looking forward with alarm to the time when all our coal shall be burnt up, in the fact that plenty of coal can be had in India for the digging. In the valley of the river Damod’dah, comprising more than. 1200 square miles, there are immense stores of mineral wealth, chiefly coal. Some of this coal is of such good quality that it will be used for the manufacture of gas without the admixture of English coal. Its excellence has lorg been known to the natives, who travel great distances to fetch it away. Dr Oldham, Superintendent of the Geological Survey of India, estimates that in the Jherria coal-field alone, which is not a sixth cf the whole, there are 4&5 million tons of coal.

A man in Chicago found recently, among a lot of. papers which he had purchased, the original parchment confirming the granting of 600 acres of land in the county of Sent, in the province of Pennsylvania, to Thomas Peterson.' The document is dated 1684, and is signed by WilHam Penn.—Home News.

On the curious subject of the sirloin of beef the following notes come from a correspondent of the Athenaeum :—“Your correspondent, ‘ J. D.’ says, ‘lt is very desirable that the old story about Charles 11. knighting a loin of be*ef should be consigned to the limbo of vulgar errors, and proceeds to quote data proving the story an anachronism.’ If ‘J. D.’ would read James I. for Charles 11. he might find that the anecdote had Bimply undergone the fate of most anecdotes, and'in lapse of time has been transferred from -granidsire to grandson, Asturi Hall, near Birmingham, claims the story for Charles the Second; but I .find in the Manchester Historical Recorder the following paragraph: ‘ 1617.' Kids James - the. First, in his progress . through Lancashire, came to Manchester, "and - attended divine service at the 'collegiate church.' He' was so. much gratified with; the good oheer set before him at ' Houghton Tower, near Blackburn, that he i knighted the prime joint Af beef, to be for , ' ever .called Sir Loin, .August 16,, 1617.’ ’ This, 8B ‘J: D.! may observe, is' three earlier than either datehe gives, viz., 1620,1623.” >