EIGHT million baskets of peaches are expected from Delaware and Maryland this season. THE Pool of Bethesda has, according to the quarterly statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund, been authoritatively discovered. IN the whole sky an eye of average power will see about 6,000 stars. With a telescope this number is greatly increased, and the most powerful telescopes show more than 60,000,000. Of this number, not one out of each hundred has ever been catalogued. THE oldest newspaper in the whole wide world is the _King Pau_, or _Capital Sheet_, published in Pekin. It first appeared A.D. 911, but came out only at irregular intervals. Since the year 1351, however, it has been published weekly and of uniform size. Now it appears in three editions daily. ON an average each Englishman writes forty letters a year, each Scotchman thirty, and each Irishman sixteen. The average Italian only posts six, and the American twenty-one. It must be remembered that in the country letter-writing is a rare pursuit, and that the bulk of letters are written by business men. THE tomato is, perhaps, used more as a relish than for its nutritive value. Uncooked, it forms the prince of salads, and it is one of the most appetising, palatable, and popular vegetables we have. Violent heat destroys the delicious flavour of this half fruit, half vegetable, so when you cook them, be most careful to use only moderate heat. SAVING THE BUFFALO.--The buffaloes on the American prairies were thought to be nearly extinct, thanks to the reckless destruction of big game in recent years; but a happy find has been made of a herd nearly one hundred strong in a remote and uninhabited part of Texas. To prevent any danger of their annihilation, an expedition of trained huntsmen is being sent to Texas to drive the buffaloes into a given enclosure, where the breed will be carefully preserved. THIRTEEN thousand boxes gone astray, thirteen thousand umbrellas left in railway carriages, sixty-seven thousand different items of property lost on the railways of the United Kingdom during the single month of August, 1887! The railway companies are not responsible for this property, but to their credit be it said, they afford every facility for its recovery. POPERY IN PORTUGAL.--A correspondent in Oporto describes the Romish ceremony of washing an image of Christ in Lisbon, and adds--"If those who are drifting Romewards could only see the depths of greed, hypocrisy, and deceit to which the Church descends in these countries where she holds sway, and how immorality, infidelity, and spiritual darkness rule among the people, from high to low, they would surely hesitate to introduce Popish mummeries into free England."