The morning call., 1893-06-18
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

Ptccini wrote over two hundred operas.
The venom of the cobra, if swallowed,
is harmless.
Tennessee was originally organized as
the State of Franklin.
The greatest university is Oxford. It
has iwenty-one colleges and five halls.
Daniel Lambert, the fattest man ever
known, weighed 739 pounds.
Three hundred thousand earth globes
could be stored inside the sun.
Good players of the harp are said to be
the scarcest of all musical performers.
The first record taken by American as.
trOnomers of an eclipse was on Long
Island. on October q. 1850.
In Middle Smithfeld, Pa, there is a
chestnut tree, the trunk of which measures
nineteen feet in circumference, breast
nigh.
Paper manufacture is one of the chief
industries of C0rea. The paper is made In
the most primitive manner from the bark
of tree which is indigenous to the coun.
try. and which is closely allied to the null
berry.
A Florida hunter lost his boots in a
novel manner recently. He fell asleep on
river bank, laying his boots within con-
venient reach. He was awakened by a
strange noise, and to bis horror beheld
his last boot disappearing down an ali
gators jaws. The monster swallowed
both of them.
Bauxite. or aluminium ore. seems TO have
been first discovered in Pike County, Ga,
in 1887. although the exact locality is un-
known. In 1889 chemist at Fort Wayne,
Ind, analyZed a piece of rock sent from
the Dykes limonite banks, Cherokee
County. Ala. and found it to be bauxite
containing 80 per cent of aluminium.
A fsh-dealer in Brooklyn has large
glass tank filled with big fish in his win
dow. A bird of the stork species stand
perpetual!y on a bar thrown across the
tank, and watches the movement of the
carp and eels with intense interest but as
he is loaded with small dead fish every
morning he never tries to capture the Iiv-
ing one.
A piece of genuine japanese LACQUER
costs the native artist almost a lifetime to
perfect, and Is produced by hundreds of
thin coats of lacquer laid on at consider.
able intervals of time, the value consisting
rather in the labor bestowed than in the
quality of the material used. First-class
lacquer work can scarcely be scratched by
a needle.
The name Veragua appears for the first
time in history in Columbus letter from
Jamaica, July Z, 1903. to Ferdinand and
Isabella. Columbus took the name from
the natives, who applied 1t to the country
east of Admirals Bay, but in the early
part of the sixteenth century the name of
Neragua was given to the whole coast Of
Central America.
In the cemetery of Marietta, GaIena.
there is an in fant grave that attracts the
attention of visitors to that place. There
is no headstone, but resting on the top Of
the grave is a glass box containing the
playthings the little one had amused itself
with just before its death. There are dolls,
rubber and china, a rubber ball, rattler
and other toys.
The water spider, which spends most of
its time under water. carries bubble of
air for breathing on the under side OF its
body. and when this air is exhausted it
comes to the surface for more. 1t is en-
abed tn carry the air bubble because the
under side of its body is covered with tiny
hairs set so close together that the surface
film of the water does not pass them.
though the air does. and thus the air is
imprisoned among the hairs.
The three travelling cranes in the
Worlds Fair Machinery Hall operated by
electricity which have been used In plac-
ing exhibits. can pick up pieces of ma
chinery to the weight of fifteen tons, carry
them to anv place in the building intended
and set them down TO within ten feet of
the place intended for them. After all this
Work is done the cranes will carry around
passenger car in which visitors will be
taken from one end of the long building TO
the other.
1t is believed. according TO P. l.. SIM
monds, L. L. S., that there are five times
as many insects as there are species of all
other living things put together. The oak
alone supports 450 species of insects, and
200 kinds make their home in the pine.
Forty years ago Humboldt estimated that
the number of species preserved in coilec-
tions was between 10000 and 10000, but
scientific men now say that there must be
more than 100000 without taking into ac
count the parasite creatures. Of the 35 600
species IN Europe. however, not more than
$500 are noxious or destructive. There are
more than 100000 kinds of beetles.