With Heaps of Wool, They Spin It by Hand

They Spin by Hand

1896

The hum of the spinning wheel is still a familiar sound in Block Island, quaint and interesting resort in summer and a miniature world in winter, in which the habits and customs are those of one hundred and fifty years ago. The island is fifteen miles off the Rhode Island shore and almost directly south of stormy Point Judith.

The heads of thirty Block Island families set sail in fishing boats the other day and pushed up the Thames River to Oakdale, where they left heaps of wool to be carded into rolls for hand spinning. The rolls will be spun and knitted into stockings and mittens for the protection of the hardy islanders against the bleak winter winds of the Atlantic.

There are times during the winter when the wind sweeps across the treeless land at a velocity of eighty-four miles an hour, and women take their lives in their hands when they venture out of doors. The isolation of the island is almost complete.

John Schofield established the first woolen mill in Connecticut near Oakdale, where the carding was done by power cards. In 1798 the Block Islanders began to send wool to the mill to be carded into rolls, and generation after generation have kept up the practice. Formerly many bags of grain accompanied the wool, and grist and woolen mills were kept running day and night, while the fishermen and farmers enjoyed themselves in the quiet Connecticut village until the work was done. — New York Herald.

A Bird's Long Journey

1878

During the great snow storm of January an adult female Louisiana tanager was seen to approach a house in Lynn, in which there were canaries hanging near the window. An open cage, with food was placed just out of the door, into which the bird at once entered and allowed itself to be captured. It was to all appearances a wild bird, and, though very hungry, was not in a wasted condition. This bird had its home during the summer months in the region between the Great Plains and the Pacific. In winter it visits Mexico and Central America.

The great snow storm of January, as is known, began on the Pacific coast of Mexico, passing north and east, with violent winds, progressing about 1,000 miles every twenty-four hours. It seems more than probable that the bird was caught in its vortex, prevented by the stormy currents of air from returning, and driven onward some four or five thousand miles to our inhospitable coast. —Boston Journal

A woman in St. Louis had her nose broken last week by the explosion of a toy steam-engine with which her children were playing.

Never strike a mustache when it is down.

Venice Angel Now Mounted on Ball Bears, A Weather Vane

1916

Modernized the Angel

Mounted on Ball Bearings, It Now Acts as a Weather Vane

There are many kinds of angels ranging in style from those we read about in the Bible to those who bring out talent on the stage. It has remained, however, for a writer in the American Machinist to discover a new type of the seraphic assortment. This angel is "ball bearing" and entirely unlike the common or garden variety of angels. It stands on top of the famous tower known as the Campanile di San Marco, in Venice, and swings to the wind like a weather vane.

The statue of the angel San Marco, which surveyed the old city of Lagunea since the sixteenth century, was found but little damaged among the ruins after the collapse of the tower. It was repaired and now stands again on the lofty height, but is supported in a very different manner from the old, for it now rests on modern ball bearings.

This method of mounting allows the statue to be turned around a vertical axis by the wind, so that it swings automatically into such a position that the angel always presents the smallest surface to the wind or storm. If one considers that the large wings of the angel, which are eleven feet high. project straight backward, it may be imagined that the difference of the wind pressure is considerable, whether the wind blows against the small front surface or against the side exposing the large face of the wings.

—Stevens Point Daily Journal, Stevens Point, Wisconsin, July 29, 1916, page 3.