The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 15, February 18, 1897

LETTERS FROM OUR YOUNG FRIENDS

We have had a very large and interesting mail this week from the young friends of The Great Round World.

We take pleasure in acknowledging and publishing R.R.'s graphic and clever description of the fire near Wanamaker's in Philadelphia, Helen Z.C.'s pleasant chat about a Chicago suburb, and Seymour U.P.'s nice little note from Saranac Lake.

We also acknowledge the receipt of relief maps for the competition from Adrian Van A. and Harriot M., of Brooklyn.

Dear Editor:

I have just arrived home from school. I wish to tell you of the very large fire down-town. I go to school about one block from where the fire was. The fire started in a grocery store belonging to Hanson Brothers, about 7:30 o'clock. This grocery is No. 1317 Market Street. From there the fire spread to an umbrella store, which had the numbers 1309 to 1313 Market Street. From there a spark set fire to Wanamaker's store; it started there in the large clock tower, which soon after was a mass of flames. It fell with a loud crash soon after. The fire spread to the woodwork of the City Hall, where it was soon put out.

Wishing your magazine years of success, I am

Your reader,        R.R.

Phila., Jan. 25th., 1897.

Dear Editor:

I like The Great Round World very much, and anticipate their coming.

I receive them from my auntie of New York City. She reads them first, and then sends them to me.

They are very enjoyable, and as I am just in the interesting part of school, they help me very much. Perhaps you would like to know where Maywood is. It is a suburb of Chicago.

A very pretty place, and so much nicer than living in the city, because here we have fresh air and green grass.

Would you not rather live in the country?

We have a park here which is kept in order by the town authorities. This winter they have flooded it, and made a very nice skating pond, which is free to all.

So after school hours we boys and girls have a bonny time.

Hoping to receive an answer, I remain,

Yours affectionately,    Helen Z.C.

P.S.—These "Sylvia's Caramels" you speak of in No. 3 are what we call "Fudges."

They are very nice. We make them often.

Maywood, Ill., Jan. 25th, 1897.

To the Editor of The Great Round World:

I am an enthusiastic reader of your most interesting little paper, and would like you to send me a "Who? When? and What?" chart.

I am up in the mountains for the winter, and there is fine skating and tobogganing here, and I have also a fine big snow house. We belong to the "Pontiac Club," and can therefore skate whenever we want. Wishing your paper much success. I remain

Your fond reader,      Seymour U.P.

Saranac Lake, N.Y., Jan. 22d, 1897.

In reply to questions from Miss Lena Penn:

George du Maurier died in London, October 8, 1896, of heart disease.

There is a statue of Hans Christian Andersen in the market-place of Copenhagen. He was the author of the famous Fairy Tales which have given so much pleasure to so many millions of children.

If there are any statistics of the population of the earth since Adam, we are unaware of them.

The population of the earth, estimated in 1891, was 1,487,900,000.

At the death of the Emperor Augustus, the population of the earth was estimated at 54,000,000.

Dear Mr. Editor:

My father receives your little paper, The Great Round World, every week. I like it real well, and all the rest of the people and children I have let take one of the copies liked it so well I let them take more copies. I think it a very nice little paper, and wish you success. I send you the following extract, taken from "Wit and Wisdom," showing that the X-rays are not a recent discovery altogether.

Thomas C. Scott.

Binghamton, N.Y., Jan. 25th., 1897.

"Dr. Milio, the celebrated surgeon of Kieff, while on a visit to St. Petersburg, explained the means he had invented for illuminating the body by means of the electric light to such an extent that the human machine may be observed almost as if skin and flesh were transparent. The Moscow Gazette asserts that to demonstrate the feasibility of his process, Dr. Milio placed a bullet inside his mouth, and then lighted up his face, upon which the bullet became distinctly visible through his cheek. Dr. Milio did not propose to lay bare all the secrets of the flesh, to explore the recesses of the heart, or to perform any miracles, physical or metaphysical. But he claimed to have discovered a new and effective way of dealing with gun-shot wounds: first, by means of electric illumination, he discovered the precise situation of the bullet; next, by means of magnetism, he proposed to extract the bullet, provided always that the bullet contained some portion of steel. Against leaden bullets his system is powerless, and he therefore intended to represent to the International Committee, which met at Geneva, the desirability of recommending an admixture of steel in the manufacture of all future bullets. Dr. Milio's experiments with bullets containing only a slight admixture of steel are said to have been thoroughly successful."

Dear Thomas:

Your letter is very interesting.

It has long been known that it is possible to see through matter if we only knew just how. The X-ray has shown us the way.

The Editor.

To the Editor of The Great Round World:

In your edition of Jan. 21st, 1897, you wrote of the swallowing up by the sea of Robinson Crusoe's Island, or the island of Juan Fernandez. Now I have always heard this island called "Robinson Crusoe's Island," and I think the reason is, that Alexander Selkirk was cast away there, and on his adventures the story of Robinson Crusoe was written by Daniel Defoe. But I have read "Robinson Crusoe," and the island as described by him cannot be the Island of Juan Fernandez, but must be one of the Windward Islands in the Caribbean Sea, off the mouth of the great Orinoco River in South America, and I think is the Island of Tobago; this best fits the careful description of Daniel Defoe.

In Crusoe's first exploration of the island he says:

"I came in view of the sea to the west, and it being a very clear day, I fairly descried land,… extending from the W. to the W.S.W.... It could not be less than fifteen or twenty leagues off."

There is no land situated W.S.W. from Juan Fernandez. W.S.W. from the island of Tobago lies the great island of Trinidad. When Crusoe attempts to sail around the island he says:

"I perceived a strong and most furious current."

This could be no other than the current from the mouth of the great Orinoco River.

But what settles the matter is that after Crusoe had taught Friday to speak English, he had a conversation with him, in which Crusoe asks Friday:

"How far it was from our island to the shore, and whether the canoes were not often lost. He told me there was no danger; no canoes ever lost; but after a little way out to sea, there was a current and wind always one way in the morning, the other in the afternoon. This I understood to be no more than the sets of the tide, as going out or coming in; but I afterward understood it was occasioned by the great draft and reflux of the mighty river Oroonoko, in the mouth of which river, as I thought afterwards, our island lay; and that this land which I perceived to the W.S.W. was the great island Trinidad."

I like your Great Round World, Mr. Editor, but I like Robinson Crusoe, too. I like to know just where he was cast away, and hope if I am right you will tell other boys who read "Robinson Crusoe" the true place, where Daniel Defoe describes poor Crusoe as living all those weary years.

Edgar B.

Aged twelve years.

Chicago, Ill.

My Dear Young Friend:

After the very careful work you have done on Robinson Crusoe, and the evident affection you have for him, it seems a shame to have to tell you that no such person as Crusoe existed.

As we told in The Great Round World, No. 11, a Scotchman named Alexander Selkirk was put ashore on the island of Juan Fernandez, and lived there four years and four months.

When he was rescued and brought back to England, he wrote an account of his life there.

An English writer named Daniel Defoe saw this book of Selkirk's, and thought it would make a wonderful story if it was well handled. Selkirk's was a mere statement of what had happened to him, and while intensely interesting, was not written to amuse people.

Defoe created an imaginary person, whom he called Robinson Crusoe, dressed up Selkirk's facts to suit the purpose of his story, and wrote the wonderful and undying story of Robinson Crusoe.

His geographical facts, no doubt, were purposely altered from Selkirk's, and were made as graphic as possible, in order to add the semblance of truth to his story. In the early years of the seventeenth century geography was very little understood. The connection between Selkirk's sufferings on Juan Fernandez, and the adventures of Robinson Crusoe have always been so thoroughly understood that, as you read in your Great Round World, the island of Juan Fernandez has been called Crusoe's Island, and Selkirk's cave and hut, Crusoe's.

 

The Editor.

Editor Great Round World.