Notes and Events.

Manawatu Herald, 23 June 1892, Page 3

Notes and Events.

There -is said to be a volcanic area forty miles square in extent in Lower California that is a veritable fire land. Every square rod of the territory is pierced by a boiling spring of spouting geyser. Tn the Blue Mountains, Jamaica, a wild strawberry, supposed to be an escape from gardens, is found very abundantly at elevations of 4,000 to 6,000 feet. The fruit is re gularly gathered and sold in King- ■ ston market. The great high bridge of the Southern Pacifio Railroad over Pecos Canon is remarkable for three things. It is the highest bridge in the country, being 328 feet above the river bed, it was constructed in six months, and only one man was kille 1 in the course of its erection. The great war between Chili and \ Peru is already ancient history, crowded out of mind by the more recent civil war in Chili, but a traveller who has just returned from South America states that on the battlefield of Tarapaca, in the desert, the dead are still lying just as they | fell. There were 4000 of them, and j nearly 1000 horses are left unburicd, '

idi 1 the tho Chilians, .wlio^ were marching through a horrible regior? of drought and death, and had no time to dig sepulchres. But it never rains on Tarapaca, and the sun has dried the corpses and the nitrato in the soil lias preserved them, and upon the phiteau 5000 muinruiej lie in ghastly confusion, with their broken sworus and bayonets all as fresh looking as on tho day of that memorable W.tle. There -is no bird or beast or insect in tint horrible desolation, and if nobody interferes with the relics they will remain the same for centuries.