The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-12-11
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

ITEMS OF INTEREST.
There has been noticeable falling on in
Paris in the sales OF photographs Of famous
men. The illustrated European newspapers
have hurt the business. Only seeond-class
dressmakers buy the pictures OF Famous Ge-
| male beauties.
Talk about the proposed bridge across the
| English channel has not been abandoned by
| any means. The projected structure between
| England and France runs in a straight line
| from the South Foreland to Cape Blanz Nez.
1t will consist of seventy-three sTans alter
| nately 1900 feet and .625 feet, with night
| OF l45 feet above high water.
Although King Humbert thinks OF abdicat-
| ing it cannot be because OF poor salary list.
His civil list or salary is the largest of all
| those paid by European nations to their res
/ pecttye soVereignS. Humberts CIVIL llst is
fixed annually at l450O,0O francs, nearly So
| 100000. The EuroI can SoFerelgnS VINO re
CelVe the highest pay below that of HumDerb
| are Emperor William. OF Germany. with a
| civil list of 12.0900OO francs, and Queen We
to-ia, with about 9,0C0 COO
The rulers of the miniature republic OF An
DORA decided recently that the country
| should possess a cannon, says the Chicago
! Inter Ocean. krupp. therefore, was ordered
| to manufacture one of the most modern type.
/ The great gun arrived at ITS mountain desti-
| nation a short time ago, and was placed on
the highest point in the country so that the
| citizens could see that the valley was well
| protected. A day was appointed to try the
| cannon, which was able to send ball eight
| cen kilOmeters just as the two artiilerymen
of Andorra were ready 10 fire it occurred to
one OF the prudent citizens that the shot
| might cause some trouble. The territory OF
| the republic OF Andorra does not extend over
| more than six kllometers. 10 direct the shot,
| therefore, toward the surrounding mountains
| would Re the same as firing at France or
| Italy, as the hall would necessarily fall on
the territory of one of these countries. A war
| might be the result. It was then decided to
| shoot the ball in the air, but some one sug
| gested that it would endanger the lives of too
| many people in its descent, and possibly bore
| great hole in the republic of Andorra Good
| council prevailed and the two artilerymen
| were commanded to unload the gun. The shot
| has not yet been fired, and the good repubIi-
| cans are uncertain what to do with the ex-
| penslve gun.
A swarm Of flies will make their appearance
at car window and easily keep pace with
| the train, says tie St. Louis Republic. even
though 1t lie rushing across the country at
the average speed of forty miles an hour
| They do this with such apparent ease that the
thought first struck the writer they had prob
ably been drawn into a sort of vortex. their
| flight seeming so mechanical and as though
| accomplished with such little exertion on the
part OF themselves. During the past sum
| mer this last thought was forever banished
| when bevy of the little insects that had
| been noticed flying about the car window
| we're seen to shoot off at right angles from
| the train to a distance of twenty or thirty
| yards, still keeping with the motion of the
| car and returning to the window as easily as
| though il had been stationary. To account
Tor TINS wonder in fight examine fiy's wing
You Will hnd that each is made up of two thin
| membranes between which the blood" yes
| sells, nerve fibres and veins ramify so as to
form strong but delicate frame work for the
| wing. 1t is believed that the fly is capable of
| making so strokes per second with this per
! feet organ of fight (Sir John Lubbock's bee
| made 40 strokes per second, and that that
| many strokes would carry him 200feet. This
| would make 1000 per minute. Letter time
than any railroad train ever made.
One of the pressing questions of the day in
| Africa relates to the preservation of the ele-
plant, which will become extinct there at no
| distant date unless means are taken to stop
the lndiscriminate 81 lughter now going on
There has been a prevalent notion that the
| African elephant is inferior to his Indian
cousin IN intelligence and docility. SAYS the
Inter Ocean but it does not seem to be
founded on solid observation. II is now
pointed out that the Romans and Carthagini-
| ans used the African beast to good purpose
| and Mr.. p. L. Sclater, of the London ZoolOgi-
cal Society, declares that they have had Afri-
can elephants in their gardens for more
| than twenty years, ana have found
them quite as intelligent as those
OF the ASlatlc species, although, perhaI s,
not quite as dOcile. young male African
now a bout IA years Of age, is daily engaged
| during the summer months in carrying
| childrenRnd other visitors about the garden,
| and there has never been an accident with
| him. Mr.. Sclater expresses the opinion that
| the African elephant should be preserved as
| the proper beast of burden to open out the
| trade routeSin the interior of the African
| continent, and suggests that a kheddah of
| Indian elephants and their attendants be
| transported to the east African coast and
that the Indian elephants be set to work to
| capture and tame their African brethren 1t
| is noted, moreover that Gen. Gordon just
| before the fall of khartOum wrote letter in
! which he strongly advocated the domestica-
| ton and use of the African elephant.
1t has always been the aim Of medical
science to prove with absolute certainty the
| existence of death and now that cremation
is gaining large numbers of advocates medical
| researches and experiments in that direction
| are more important thaa ever. The Lancet
| publlShed recently an account of experiments
made by Edward Harvard, who in some cases
| applied not less than ten different tests
| Among these eight denoted that death had
actually set in, while two spoke against the
| suppositiOn that life was extinct. Among the
| positive evidences adduced by the tests APP
piled by Harvard were total absence of heart
| throoS total absence OF respiration, uniform
| ity of temperature Of the body and the sur
| rounding atmosphere. noncontraction of the
muscle groups under the electric current, APP
| pearanc3 OF brown spots after subcutaneous
| injection OF ammonia. rigidity. etc. The neg
alive results obtained by Harvard were the
! fluid condition of the blood upon opening an
artery, but as In abnormal cases, the blood
| does not CONCEAL after death sets in, this test
| cannot be regarded as a reliable one. OF
greater Importance was the absence of another
| which is that when the fingers of a corpse are
held against an intense stream of light and
one looks through the space between two fin
| gers pressed together red line will be no.
| ticed in life. which is not the case in death
| In the case deserted by Harvard. however,
this line was still visible, although death was
| incontestible, decomposition having begun
| In another case this line was absent. while the
| lady was yet alive. Haward's experiments
! demonstrate that the condition of the
| blood and absence Of red line are not always
| reliable death signs. While CONCEALED blood
! ALWAYS denotes the existence of death fluid
blood does not always indicate that life Is not
yet extinct.
4 meteoric stone, which is described by
| Pltly as being as large as a wagon. fell near
| Egospotami in Asia Minor, in 467 B. c.
| About A. D. 1890 a stone weighing t. 400 pounds
fell in Mexico, and is now in the Smithsonian
Institution at Washington. The largest me-
teoric masses on record were heard of first by
Captain Rose, the Arctic explorer through
some Es1ulmaux. These lay on the west
coast of Greenland, and were subsequently,
found by the Swedish exploring party of 1870
one Of them. now in the Royal Museum OF
Stockholm, weighs over 80 600 pounds and
according to the San Francisco Call, it is the
! largest specimen known. Two remarkable
meteorites have fallen in Iowa within the
past twenty years. Feb. 10, 1875 an eX-
ceedingly brilliant meteor in the form
of an elongated horseshoe, was seen
/ fbrOnUhOUt Of