An astrologer in the reign of Louis XI. of France, having foretold something disagreeable to the king, his majesty, in revenge, resolved to have him killed. The next day he sent for the astrologer and ordered the people about him, at a given signal, to throw him out of the window. The king said to him: "You pretend to be such a wise man, and know so perfectly the fate of others, inform me a little what will be your own, and how long you have to live." The astrologer, who now began to apprehend some danger, promptly answered, with great presence of mind, "I know my destiny, and am sure I shall die three days before your majesty." The king, on this, was so far from having him thrown out of the window, that, on the contrary, he took particular care not to have him want for anything, and did all that was possible to retard the death of one whom he was likely soon to follow. _Stone Barometer._ A Finland newspaper mentions a stone in the northern part of Finland which serves the inhabitants instead of a barometer. This stone, which they call Tlmakiur, turns black, or blackish gray, when it is going to rain; but on the approach of fine weather it is covered with white spots. Probably it is a fossil mixed with clay, and containing rock-salt, nitre or ammonia, which, according to the degree of dampness in the atmosphere, attracts it, or otherwise. In the latter case the salt appears, forming the white spots. _Crinoline in 1744._ Addison, who wrote a good deal about female fashions in the "Spectator," very much ridiculed the hoop-petticoat, which was so large, about the year 1744, that a woman wearing one occupied the space of six men. _Pagoda-shaped Head-dresses._ The head-dresses of the ladies in 1776 were remarkable for their enormous height. Fashion ruled its votaries then as arbitrarily as in our day. The _coiffure_ of a belle of fashion was described as "a mountain of wool, hair, powder, lawn, muslin, net, lace, gauze, ribbon, flowers, feathers and wire." Sometimes these varied materials were built up tier upon tier, like the stages of a pagoda! _Preserved in Salt._ We are told that Pharnaces caused the body of his father, Mithridates, to be deposited in salt brine, in order that he might transmit it to Pompey. Sigebert, who died in 1113, informs us that a like process was employed upon the body of St. Guibert, that it might be kept during a journey in summer. The priests preserved in salt the sow which afforded a happy omen to Æneas by having brought forth a litter of thirty pigs, as we are told by Varro, in whose time the animal was still shown at Lavinium. The hippopotamus described by Columna was sent to him from Egypt preserved in salt. _Luxury in 1562._ The luxury of the present time does not equal, in one article at least, that of the sixteenth century. Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, the queen's ambassador at Paris, in a letter to Sir Thomas Chaloner, the ambassador at Madrid, in June 1562, says—