The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-07-15
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

The government telegraph service Of Great
Britain operates about 5000 miles OF line and
handles nearly 81, 600 900 kilograms a year Last
year 5000, 600 kilograms we're handled In Lon
don alone.
A ST. LOUIS FIRM has started a new business
that Of selling ice water to cabmen, coachmen
and others. A l0-gallon can is supplied TO each
carriage which is filed with ice before starting
out on journey, the contents of which are to
be used both for the horses and occupants of
the carriage. Sponge's are used on the horses
heads during hot weather. and they are satu-
rated with water from the can as often as
necessary.
ALL lovers Of grewsome, uncanny and hor-
rlble tales well remember the story of Timor
and his famous pyramid of Skulls" The
butchery which resulted in the building OF that
horrible ediflce is recalled by the recent dscov-
cry near Nisch, Servia, of building wholly
constructed OF human skulls and bones. II is
in the form OF a square, about 16 feet hig i, aud
Is composed of ffty-six piles of death-heads
and crossbones, there being seventeen skulls
and as many pairs Of crossbones in each pile.
When or by whom it was erected is still mys-
terry.
TIE FACT has been often referred to In me-
chanical operations, says the New York Sun,
that a smooth disk OF steel driven at high
speed will cut in two a file held to the edge OF
the disk. 1t is asserted, however, that the prin-
eiple here involved has really failed of any
practical application or use save in one in
stance named by Richards. a we'll known en-
Rineer. who states that it was employed on a
certain occasion at one Of the United States
armories in preparing lennon, or reduced sec
ton, on the ends OF tempered steel ramrods
such as were used in loading the muskets Of
some twenty-five years ago. The material was
hard and could not be cut, in consequence OF
which resort was had to small wheels Of iron
about inchs in diameter and / inch thick.
These were driven at the rate OF some c, 900
revolutions per minute. melting or abradinR the
metal away instantly, at the same time draw
ing the temper, so that a screw thread could
afterward be cut on the end of the tempered
rod. re..-
I HAVE often heard the question asked why
| eight-day clocks are common and why clocks
| intended to run about week without winding
are not made to run seven days exactly, says a
| st. Louis Gtobe-DemocTdt writer. There is an
| excellent reason for this. The only way to
keep a clock going steadily that does not re-
| quire winding every dag is to select one day in
the week to wind it aud hence an eight-day
siderable Regularity, the experience proving
that IL is impossible to remember TO do it ex-
actly on the eighth day. AS result the
| spring is seldom allowed to run down and the
| point where it is the weakest is protected Ex-
| actly, the same principle can be found in
| watch, the spring or which is constructed to
run about thirty hours The man who winds
| ing seldom has any difficulty with it, while the
| man who winds up his watch when he feels
| like it and frequently let's it run down at night
| is liable to disconcert the most valuable time
keeper he can purchase. Many Office mon in
| order to insure regularity wind up their watches
| the first thing after opening their desk in the
| morning, and on the whole this seems q much
| more common'sense arrangement than the old
| fashioned and more erthodox plan Of winding
up at night. 7ro1s 7s
JAMNA CHADEp, the Syrian woman who is
suffering from leprosY and who is detained on
board the steamship Amsterdam at New York
to be returned to Europe, is slowly but surely
dying and 1t is doubtful whether she will live to
| reach her native land, says the Press Penned
up like an animal on board the steamship, she
passes the entire days and nights in solitude
No one goes near her, not even the men who
| prepare her food. The door of her cabin is
| carefully opened when 1t is zeal time and the
| dish containing her food is pushed in to her.
| The crew Of the vessel are ell afraid of con
| tracing the disease and steer clear of the
| portion of the ship Ain which she is
| located. The woman is In . very embarrassing
| position. She emigrated from Syria to the
| Netherlands and then embarked on the steamer
| for this port. Her only friends in the world
| her brother and sister-in-law, who accompanied
| her on the Amsterdam and were allowed to
land. The leper is now afraid that when she
| gets to Holland she will not be permitted to
| land, and may be shipped back to this country.
II she is allowed to land there she will be com
| PEELED to go to Syria and on arriving in the
| latter country, being without friends and suf-
| fering with the dreadful malady, she will be an
outcast- Not being able to work, there is moth
| ing in store for her but death from starvation.
The natural wonders OF Death valley have
probably been more infinitely and extensively
described by professional writer's than any
1 other spot they never saw, says the Omaha Bee
but one wonder there has in some way escaped
| these untraveed scribes. In 1888 some borax
! works were built on the east side Of the valley
4 couple OF miles or SO above the mouth OF
| Furnace creek canyon. The road thence to the
railroad led dowd the east side of the valley for
/ several miles, and then had to cross over to the
west side because no drinking water can be had
| on the east side below Furnace creek. More
| over, the land on the west side lies much bet
ter for a road. But now to get the wagons
across the valley was problem. However a
road must be had, and SO the workmen went
| about over the marsh where the
crust seemed to be thckest and sounded
1t with sledge hammers. They found the crust
| was mixture Of salt and sand, and eventually
| a route was decided upon. The road was then
| to be graded, and probably for the first time in
| the world a road Of the length of this ono was
| graded exclusively with sledge hammers Here
| was a stretch Of solid salt some eight miles
| across. In a sense it was level-there were no
hills or valleys. In another sense there was
scarce q level square inch on the whole bed, for
| the salt crust had probably. through the indu-
ences Of heat from above and Of moisture from
| below, been torn and twisted and thrown up
into the most jagged peaks, pyra-
mids and criss- crossed ridges i'm
aginsble. They were not high-none more
than four feet-but there was not level space
even for a mans foot between them. Every
step made was ragged point or edge of
some kind. Judging that the crust would sus-
tain the weight Of the wagons, the workmen
swung their sledge hammers day after day
until they had beaten down these pinnacles into
a smooth pathway six feet wide, 1t was, per-
haps the most laborious engineering work
ever done in the country, for the climate and
the location, far from civilized habitations
combined to retard the Efforts Of the workmen'
The roadway, when completed, led over what
may be properly called naturally formed
bridge of salt eight miles long-the only bridge
of the kind In the world.
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