its way to England, cutting down its first victims at Dorset, in August, 1348.  Thence it traveled slowly, reaching London early in the winter.  Soon it embraced the entire kingdom, penetrating to every rural hamlet, so that England became a mere pest-house.  The chief symptoms of the disease are described as “spitting, in some cases actual vomiting, of blood, the breaking out of inflammatory boils in parts, or over the whole of the body, and the appearance of those dark blotches upon the skin which suggested its most startling name.  Some of the victims died almost on the first attack, some in twelve hours, some in two days, almost all within the first three days.”  The utter powerlessness of medical skill before the disease was owing partly to the physicians’ ignorance of its nature, and largely to the effect of the spirit of terror which hung like a pall over men’s minds.  After some months had passed, the practice of opening the hard boils was adopted, with very good effect, and many lives were thus saved.  But the havoc wrought by the disease in England was terrible.  It is said that 100,000 persons died in London, nearly 60,000 in Norwich, and proportionate numbers in other cities.  These figures seem incredible, but a recent writer, who has spent much time in the investigation of records, asserts that at least half the population, or about 2,500,000 souls, of England perished in this outbreak.  The ravages of the pestilence over the rest of the world were no less terrible.  Germany is said to have lost 1,244,434 victims; Italy, over half the population.  On a moderate calculation, it may be assumed that there perished in Europe during the first appearance of the Black Death, fully 25,000,000 human beings.  Concerning the Orient we have less reliable records, but 13,000,000 are said to have died in China, and 24,000,000 in the rest of Asia and adjacent islands.  The plague also ravaged Northern Africa, but of its course there little is known.  The horrors of that dreadful time were increased by the fearful persecutions visited on the Jews, who were accused of having caused the pestilence by poisoning the public wells.  The people rose to exterminate the hapless race, and killed them by fire and torture wherever found.  It is impossible for us to conceive of the actual horror of such times.

MIGHTY HAMMERS.—­An authority on scientific subjects give the weights of the great hammers used in the iron works of Europe, and their date of manufacture, as follows:  At the Terni Works, Italy, the heaviest hammer weighs 50 tons, and was made in 1873; one at Alexandrovski, Russia, was made the following year of like weight.  In 1877, one was finished at Creusot Works, France, weighing 80 tons; in 1885, one at the Cockerill Works, Belgium, of 100 tons, and in 1880, at the Krupp Works, Essen, Germany, one of 150 tons.  The latter being the heaviest hammer in the world.