The most famous of all the brazen heads was that of Roger Bacon, a monk of the thirteenth century. According to the legend, he spent seven years in constructing the head, and he expected to be told by it how he could make a wall of brass around the island of Great Britain. The head was warranted to speak within a month after it was finished, but no particular time was named for its doing so. Bacon's man was therefore set to watch, with orders to call his master if the head should speak. At the end of half an hour after the man was left alone with the head, he heard it say, "Time is," at the expiration of another half hour, "Time was," and at the end of a third half hour, "Time's past," when it fell down with a loud crash, and was shivered to pieces; but the stupid servant neglected to awaken his master, thinking that he would be very angry to be disturbed for such trifles: and so the wall of brass has never been built. _Crucifix of Columbus._ Mrs. General Hefferman, of Animas City, is the possessor of a very interesting and valuable relic, it being no less than the veritable crucifix which Columbus held in his hand when he landed in America, of which she has ample documentary evidence, if one accept the witness, viz: the Catholic Church. It has been in the possession of the missions and churches of Mexico and California since a very early date; and even if originally a fraud, it would nevertheless be almost as interesting, from its great age and as a work of art, as though what is claimed for it were actually true. Mrs. Hefferman holds it in trust for a religious order to which her mother belonged, and sacredly believes it a genuine relic, as claimed. The crucifix itself is of carved wood, of what kind no one is able to determine. The image of Christ upon it is of carved ivory. The expression of agony depicted on the countenance and in the drawn muscles and sunken flesh, as well as the delineation of the anatomical structure, are triumphs of artistic skill which could not be surpassed, if equalled, by the best artists of the present day.—_Durango (Col.) Record._ _Scipio's Shield._ In 1656 a fisherman on the banks of the Rhone, in the neighborhood of Avignon, drew to shore in his net a round substance in the shape of a large plate, thickly encrusted with a coat of hardened mud. A silversmith who happened to be present bought it for a trifling sum. He took it home, and upon cleaning and polishing it, found it to consist of pure silver, perfectly round, more than two feet in diameter, and weighing upwards of twenty pounds. Fearing that such a massive and valuable piece of plate might awaken suspicion, if offered for sale entire, he divided it into four equal parts, each of which he disposed of at different times and places.