The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1892-09-24
ITEMS OF INTEREST.
Whalebone is $1,000 a ton.

IHere are oak trees IN existence IOUU
years old.
Every fifth boy in India is at school, but
only every fifteenth girl.
Faraday first practically used gutta percha
as ali insulator for wires in 1S47.
Plautus is said to have written the first
OF his comedies when he was % years old.
The Offices and workrooms of the Lon
don Times were lighted by electricity in
1878.
Toledo and Damascus blades were popu-
lar in the middle ages and sold for their
weight in gold.
The cost of onp-man sea-diying appa-
ratus for depth Of 200 feet is estimated 10
be only S575
In 1890 there were go electric railways
with 5000 cars going 1888 miles and carrying
100000 passengers daily.
The first elevated road in Great Britain
will be in Liverpool. The road is already
in the course of construction.
In Corea sheets OF paper pass Tor money;
one sheet brings one quart Of rice, or twenty
sheets piece of hemp CLOTH
The longest canal in the world is the ona
extending from the frontier of China to 81,
Petersburg. Ii measures in all 44Z2 miles.
A hunting horn in Limoges enamel. made
in 1880. and believed to have formerly be-
longed to Horace Walpole, was sold recently
for S3l, 500.
stick with tube in the end OF which the
handle Of a dart is placed, the throw stick
remaining in the hand.
Bricks made OF plaster Of paris and cork
are now. used in the construction of powder
mills. In case Of explosion they offer slight
resistance and are broken to atoms.
If the atmospheric pressure is fourteen
pounds to the square Inch, as usually reck-
oned, the man OF average size Is constantly
subjected TO pressure OF 5000 pounds.
1t has only been eighty-one years since
the first tomatoes were introduced into
America. The original plant was cultivated
as vegetable curiosity at Salem, Mass.
The proposed underground electric rail-
ways for London, II sanctioned, will be 10
feet under the Thames, IS feet beneath
Regents Park and 50 feet below Oxford
street.
Investigation Of raindrops leads to the
conclusion that some of the larger drops must
be more or less hollow, as they fail when
striking to wet the whole surface inclosed
within the drop
If tie sun gave forth sounds loud enough
to ri ch the earth such d.. Instead OF
reaching US in the space OF eight minutes as
light does, would only arrive after period
OF nearly fourteen years.
The new university of Chicago will in
ciude in IFS departments school of cleo
tTical engineering. A school of arts will be
will be prominent featOre.
Crystallized nitrogen is.one of the greatest
chemical curiositieS. BY cooling nitrogen
gas down to 367 degrees below the freezing
point and then allowing it to expand solid
snow-like crystals are formed.
The new subIreasury building at San
francisco has an electric burglar alarm in
stalled between the rows of prick so that
any interference with either the bricks or
cement Will cause an alarm 10 sound.
An eminent physician believes that saw
age races have better color perception than
civilized. or 100 Indian boys he found none
color blind another group of $50 had but
two, while none OF The girls were found 10
be color blind.
Forty thousand pounds was the cost of
the armchair presented by the citv of Aags-
burg to the EmperoI Rudolphus III Of Ger
many about the year 1875. The chair,
which is of steel. took the artist about
thirty years to make.
The tramways of London consists of III
miles OF line, but these are shared up by
several eompanies-the North Metropolitan
owning Al miles, the London nearly o. the
London Street above IS, and five other COM
panies Al miles between them.
Aluminium, or an alloy OF that metal, has
been used for the construction of lifeboat
al StralsuDd. AS is we'll known, the metal
is remarkably light for its strength, but il
remains to be seen how the boat will stand
sea water. as the air OF the sea seems to TX
ercise corroding effect upon aluminium and
aluminium alloys.
The Rone0 and Potenza section of the
Southern Italian Railway has to pierce
through the ApPnnInes, aud one OF the tun-
nels which is now in progress is IL C66 feet
in length. At the close of March this tunnel
had been pierced for length of 2233 feet.
Some progress has also been made with the
appTo aches in the tunnel.
Experiments on a considerable scale are
being made in the German army with
aluminium as means of lesSening tn
weight which the men have TO carry. This
Is the case, for instance, in the First Regi-
ment of the Foot Guards, In which ten
men out OF every company have received
the various articles of their equirment
either bound with or constructed of alumni
nun.
English oak is scarce, lots offered for sale
nowadays commanding large prices. At
sale OF some oak trees in Burghley Park re-
Gently from $50 to $50 each were paid for
trees. Half dozen of the best trees sold
for ES1, ESQ, En-, 966, e64 and e5l. On
tree, containing 1900 feet of lumber, sold for
ESQ. year ago an oak was sold for e1l0-
nearly $500.
In the West of England particularly on
the borders OF Dartmoor and EXmoOT, there
are spectators who earn considerable in
comes by notwithstanding. A middleman
"Ho OouSul w al Tue IdDDitS III a district
on the eastern side of Dartmoor and sent
them to dealers in the Midlands and
London earned in few years a sufficiently
large sum TO enable him to retire and live in
house of bis own building.
A Frenchman has recently made impOr-
tant advances in the work of photographing
colors. One of his plates gives view Of
stained glass window containing red, green,
blue and yellow; others show a group of
flags, partly colored paroquet aud a plate
Of oranges with poppy lying on the top
The shades Of the objects, as we'll as tbei
colors. are faithfully Reproduced.