The Louis L'Amour Lost Treasures Project
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
General History, Notes, and Oddities
|
[The
next few notes are on Native Americans.] 
1.Stagefright |
-- |
Topophobia |
|---|---|---|
2.Fear of walking |
-- |
basiphobia |
3.Fear of the dead |
-- |
necrophobia |
4.Dread of being ill |
-- |
nosophobia |
5.Fear of crossing street |
-- | dromophobia |
6.Of people |
-- |
anthropophobia |
7.Of falling downstairs |
-- |
climaphobia |
8.Of stealing |
-- |
kleptophobia |
9.Of snakes |
-- |
thanatophobia |
10.Of hydrophobia |
-- |
lyssophobia |
***********
Noah Webster invented but one word, “demoralize”.
***********
The Montana Stranglers wiped out a gang of stock thieves
that operated in eastern Montana and the Dakota badlands between 1882 to 1884. Hired 28 “Indian Territory” cowboys. Split into groups of 7 and $5,000 offered for the group with the best score. (James Fergus was one of the employing cattlemen) Within 3 months every known or suspected cow thief was liquidated. Scarface Moseley and Humpty Jack found dead in their shack near Glendive and the report was turned in a day before they were found dead. They were alive when report made. So swift, secret that no more than 15 persons, all cattlemen and 4 outsiders, knew who they were. SplayFoot Harnett, Turkey Williams, Bronco Charlie and Half Breed Jack were others. Miles City and Billings papers also covered. Began in summer of 1884. Total hung or killed: 63. (Stranglers said to be Texas or border ruffians.)
***********
Only Devil’s Bible in existence in Royal Library in
Stockholm Sweden. Huge volume written on 300 prepared animal skins. Legend says work done in one night with help of Satan who gave the copyist a portrait of himself for a frontispiece.
***********
AMNE MACHIN:
Suspected of being world’s highest mountain. In
Tibet. Guarded by fierce Ngolok tribe and their barbaric queen. Sighted at more than 100 miles by Asiatic explorer General Pereria in 1923, on trip from Peiping to Lhasa. Strange animals and strange people said to roam the steppes. Joseph Rock, hermit explorer, photographed it from 75 miles, estimated it more than 28,000. Flyers have estimated it more than 30,000 ft. Rock had been to headwaters of Yellow River where no white man had ever been before. OPERATION MYSTERY MOUNTAIN...possible title. Mountain called [Named?] for God said to dwell there. Vast unexplored area. [Operation Mystery Mountain was published as Tailwind to Tibet]
**********
URANIUM: A ductile, white, radioactive, metallic element, source of radium, helium, ect.. Found chiefly in pitchblende.
URANINITE: pitchblende, a dark, greasy mineral of complex character containing uranium, thorium, radium, lead, and the rare gases argon and helium.
MONAZITE: a brownish or brownish red mineral, a phosphate of cerium and allied metals, usually containing thorium.
THORITE: A brown to black mineral.
BYON: yellow brown clay called ruby earth in Burma. The Mogok ruby fields are surrounded by a crystalline limestone formation.
In Nebraska it takes 15 acres to raise one beef critter
in a year. In the sagebrush country, 50 to 100 acres. The average man drinks a little over a ton of water in a year; a bushel of corn drinks ten to twenty tons; a pound of beef, directly and indirectly, requires 15 to 30 tons.
Nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium are the three great plant foods; soil also contains magnesium, sulfur, iron, carbon, and other minerals.
The action of heat and light enabled the plant leaves through a process called photosynthesis to take in oxygen and carbon from the air, and manufacture starches and sugars for cellulose, the backbone of growing things.
It is estimated that one inch of soil was laid down every 500 years; in some places it took 1,000 years.
100 lbs. of sand will absorb 25 lbs. of water;
100 lbs.
of clay will absorb 50 lbs. of water;
100 lbs. humus will absorb 200 lbs. of water.
9,000,000 acres of good land has been virtually
destroyed by wind erosion and serious damage reported on 80,000,000 more.
**********
An octopus swims backwards but walks forward.
**********
The amorohophallus is the largest flower in the world.
Grows in warm damp forests of the East Indies and produces a flower 8 feet in diameter and 15 or more feet high.
***********
In the vicinity of Yule Bay in New Guinea the natives
use large spider webs for fish weighing up to 3 and 4 lbs.. These webs are six feet in diameter, large mesh, varying from an inch at outer edge to 1/8th at center. Spun by a spider size of hazelnut with legs making all about 2 inches long.
***********
Women have used luminescent bugs as ornaments and even
fish in bowls. Confined in gauze and put in hair or the belles of Costa Rica fastened with tiny chains or cords.
***********
Ants and beetles used in primitive surgery. Forcing
wound shut, and then letting an ant take hold. The body is clipped off, but the jaws remain. Used by natives in many places, also by surgeons of France and Italy several hundred years ago.
***********
Bees frequently used in warfare. By Richard Coeur de
Lion, Henry of Lorraine, in modern India and German East Africa. Used by Richard at seize [siege] of Acre.
***********
TINY CAMERA: A microcamera smaller than a package of
cigarettes, weighs 9 ozs. and takes a dozen snapshots on 16 mm. film. A rotating focoplane [focal plane] shutter connected to a counter that tells number of exposures taken. Fixed focus lens insures sharp pictures at any distance. Daylight loading done with a tiny film cartridge you send to the factory for processing. Prints you get back are larger that the camera itself.
***********
A deer, when startled or surprised if there is nothing
to prevent him will invariably run up wind.
***********
A lung fish can live out of water for three or four
years.
***********
First elephant shown in U.S. on August 30th 1797 at
Salem, Mass.. Imported from India on ship “America” captained by Nathaniel Hawthorne, father of the writer. Elephant’s name was Old Bet.
***********
A woman lights a match by striking it away from herself;
a man strikes it toward himself.
**********
When a woman inspects her fingernails she looks at the
whole hand, and a man doubles up his hand and looks only at the nails.
**********
A woman looks around a room before settling her eyes on
any one corner. A man looks directly at the corner.
**********
A woman looks over her glass at the man opposite. A man
looks into his glass. [These last two seem sort of strange since the factoids do not suggest anything interesting in the corner or the glass. Possibly the point is that for men making eye contact might not be done lightly because of the inherent “challenge” of it, whereas women are more social, unthreatened and unthreatening.]
***********
Temperature usually drops about three and a half degrees
Fahrenheit for every 1,000 feet up.
***********
In Australia you can tell direction by looking at an ant
hill. The white ants of northern Australia build hills that all point north and south like the needle on a compass.
***********
Technically, a show girl is a tall girl five feet seven
inches or more weighing 130 lbs. and up [and] who is required to parade? A chorus girl is smaller in size and required to dance.
***********
A hard-boiled egg will spin nicely, a soft-boiled egg
not so well and a raw egg can’t be spun at all.
***********
A sound pistol has been invented that kills and paralyzes. Ultra sonic pistol that will kill a dog at 60 ft.. Will paralyze a human for 20 minutes. Power for the pistol consists of a gas and compressed air chamber designed to vent its force through a super sonic (inaudible to humans) whistle opening whose diameter is that of a lead pencil. Human voice vibrates at 400 cycles a second. An ultra sound machine that will vibrate at 450,000 vibration.
Developed by H.D. Von Jenef.
***********
There were 104 passengers on the Mayflower.
***********
Women can sing higher notes than men because their
vocal cords vibrate from 200 to 800 times a second...twice as fast as those of men. (Comment by myself: this will be no news to husbands.)
***********
Many Negroes were both free and wealthy before the Civil
War, two being Cyprien Richard who owned a plantation valued at $250,000 and Thomas Lafon who owned New Orleans real estate valued at $500,000. [That’s roughly 7 and 14 million dollars in today’s money.]
***********
The Chalchihuith [Chalchihuitl] turquoise mine in the Cerillas hills
near Santa Fe, New Mexico which was first worked by prehistoric Pueblo Indians who mined with stone hammers and axes is the oldest mine in the U.S..
***********
Football is 130 times more dangerous than boxing.
***********
Drums, cymbals, castanets, horns, lutes, flutes, and 3
varieties of bells, po hung, te chung, and pien chung, are the instruments in Chinese orchestras.
***********
The fastest trip ever made from New York to Frisco
around the Horn in a sailing vessel was 89 days.
***********
The only time the U.S. government was ever out of debt
was for a short period during Andrew Jackson’s second term. On January 1st, 1835, 1836, and 1837, the Treasury had funds on hand to meet all outstanding indebtedness on presentation.
***********
There are 206 distinct bones in an adult human body.
***********
In August, 1913 the color Black had a run of 26
successive wins on the roulette wheel at Monte Carlo. In January, 1910, the red won 27 times in succession.
***********
Half the art of stalking lies in locating the game and
seeing it before it sees you. About a fourth knowing what the animal is doing or going to do. The rest lies in selecting the route of the stalk with the habits and senses of the animal in mind.
A sheep, for instance, can see like an eagle, and above
all the stalker must stay out of the sheep’s sight. The sheep also has a fairly good nose but poor ears. The caribou and grizzly see very poorly but have an acute sense of smell. The caribou doesn’t seem to hear very well, but all bears have ears like bats.
***********
Deer are creatures of habit. They get up from their beds
about an hour before dawn and feed toward water, usually taking a down sloping route. After the morning drink they browse back toward the vicinity from which they started. Once there some will laze around, but by mid morning most of them are bedded again and remain so until about 3:30 pm at which time the routine is repeated.
**********
Meandering deer wander and stop frequently and when
leaving danger they move in a straight line. Whitetails see better out to the side, but will not notice you unless you move.
**********
The best time to still hunt are mornings up to about
9:30 and afternoons from 4 pm until dark.
**********
The whitetail will usually, when driven, head for a
ridge or high ground, cross it, and then sneak back along the hump, sometimes to circle the spot from which it was frightened.
When moving about a whitetail will regularly leave
droppings about once every hour and when fresh there is quite a glossy shine to it.
**********
When food is plentiful during the open season, deer will
bite off the tender shoots and leaves of trees and shrubs from about knee high to eye level. Whitetails like apple, white cedar, acorns, alder, dogwood, maples, sumac, and mountain laurel to name a few.
**********
A deer whey lying is best seen by the flicking of its
ears while lying in its bed. They are often detected by the white rump patch and chest.
They prefer to lie on little tables of plateaus, fairly
open and commanding the rising land below.
**********
When startled a whitetail will leap for cover, run a few
hundred yards and then circle back, part way, anyhow. Some crafty old bucks will sit tight and allow the hunter to pass very close, and then when danger is past, he will try to sneak away.
Often their curiosity will cause them to follow you for
awhile before turning away. It pays to watch your backtrail.
**********
A deer’s love of home is surprising. Unless driven away
by hunger or unduly disturbed a deer will often live its entire life within two miles of where it was born.
**********
With a road and topographical map it is easy to plot the
areas where you will be likely to find deer. It is better to take an extra day for scouting before the hunt.
Look for runways, evidence of recent browsing, droppings
and tracks and saplings with shredded bark where bucks have polished their antlers and lastly, beds.
Once you get the habit of looking for sparsely timbered
spots below the ridges, along the benches and knolls and atop hillocks in rolling country, it is easy to find their mashed down beds. A deer likes a view, it also likes a place where breezes naturally drift by carrying scent of any danger.
**********
In fair weather a fresh bed on dry leaves or grass will
be damp from the body moisture when the animal departs. This will cause the leaves or grass to twist and curl as they dry out, a process that usually takes the best part of a day. If a deer is not alarmed when it rises it will usually urinate near the bed another reliable sign.
**********
If a morning’s hunt proves unprofitable on one slope,
choose another for afternoon as the deer may be working farther afield.
The poorest time to hunt is during a rain or snowstorm
for they keep to their beds usually.
**********
When the moon is full and the weather fair deer often
feed at night, stirring hardly at all by day. If the moon is full there may be no deer activity at all during daylight hours.
***********
Floyd Haynes, of High River, riding Skipper, a
thoroughbred, won the 30 mile cross country Midnapor Alberta race in 1 hour. 41 minutes 18 1/2 seconds. (Under a stock saddle and carrying a required 200 lbs..)
***********
Since the war [WWII] car thieves discovered a new way to get
the all important title. They buy wrecked cars from salvage yards for $50 or $100. The wreck may not have much else but it does have license plates and a title. Then they switch with a stolen car, change the motor number to match the one on the title of the wreck and attach them to the hot cars.
***********
Pistols have been concealed in canes, watches, fountain
pens and the handles of table knives and forks. The latest taken from a Nazi soldier is a gun belt buckle. In a split second after the wearer presses its starting button, while pretending to adjust his belt, the tiny gun swings into position and fires two .32 caliber bullets.
***********
The Great Eastern, built in England in 1854 to 1858 was
largest vessel of her time, and the greatest normal passenger capacity of any ship known (4,000). Always unlucky. Many accidents. While being broken up in 1888, a skeleton was discovered in a compartment in her double hull. As the man had been sealed during construction, many people believed his remains had caused the jinx that plagued the ship throughout her 30 years of existence.
***********
Monasteries and convents outlawed in Mexico in 1868, the
Convent of Santa Monica in Puebla was closed and made into apts.. Only the Church of Santa Monica remained in one corner of the structure to continue services. Rumor persisted the nuns still were concealed in the building. It was not until 1934 when an investigator happened to press a secret button, that when pressed automatically opened the wall and revealed a secret door, that they were found. Managed to keep secret and live in the convent for 66 years. By opening panels in their walls and looking through a grill they were able to attend mass, looking into the church of Santa Monica. Friend provided food, their dead buried in crypts. The nuns were always 24 in number.
***********
Vacuum tube scientists at Ithaca, New York recently
learned of a new tube that radiates as much energy as the biggest broadcasting stations. At the rate of 1,000,000,000 cycles per second. Assembled researchers at the GE research lab were told that waves from the new “magnetron” heat up everything near the lab transmitter, including humans, who run a fever when standing near it. The intense radiation’s have heated eggs and lead pencils so quickly as to make them explode with a loud report. The magnetron’s 50,000 watt output is the most power ever produced at the billion cycle frequency, roughly 1,000 times as much as a standard broadcasting station. [This note relates to what we now call microwaves.]
***********
Every few minutes throughout each night of the year, a
peculiar form of sheet lightning flashes in the region around the mouth of the Catatumbo River in Venezuela. Scientists have never discovered the cause of the centuries old phenomenon known as Catatumbo lightning which so brightly illuminates the sky that it can be seen for over 200 miles.
***********
Carpet is roll goods with a continuous design and may be
bought in any length and varying width.
Rug made in a definite size with a border like a framed picture.
A real Persian has 350 knots to the square inch, or even
more in some cases. Silken prayer rugs often have 1,000 knots to the square inch.
Wilton the best carpet like the velvet, woven on a loom
invented in 1801 by Jacquard.
Axminsters on a loom invented in 1867 by Halcyon Smith.
Wilton best, Axminster less expensive, Velvet next. [This information on rugs may have played a role in “The Golden Tapestry” in Louis L’Amour’s Lost Treasures Volume One and the Jacquard Loom is mentioned in the novel No Traveler Returns in its role as one of the earliest “computers.”]
***********
LOUIS
L'AMOUR'S LOST TREASURES
Home | What Is Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures?
THE NEW BOOKS
Lost Treasures Volume One | No Traveler Returns | Lost Treasures Volume Two
Bonus Materials In Finished Works
WEB SITE EXCLUSIVES
LT + Beyond the Post Scripts in Books | Story Fragments
Pieces of Louis' Mind | Exclusive Photos and Scans
About Lost Treasures | Frequently
Asked Questions | Contact Us
Copyright Notice | Terms
of Use Agreement
The
Official Louis L'Amour Web Site
Home | The
Louis L'Amour Trading Post | About
Louis | Louis
L'Amour Community
The Official
Louis L'Amour Discussion Forum