The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-01-13
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

TIE oldest university in the world is the Uni
versity Of Fee, which IS to-day the principal
western seat of Mahometan theology.
-Four years ago says the New York Tribune.
Joseph Mativin, who has farm near Stan
wood, Wash. discovered peculiar head of
grain in Geld of barley. Since then he has
been propagatinR 1t, until now he has consider
able land sown to this strange grain, which
yields about 100 bushels to the acre. The
grain is of a deep brown color, resembling
scorched wheat grain, and is similar TO wheat
in form. The bran or shell is thin and tough.
The grain is not lit for milling purposes, and
brewer who examined IL said that it was use
less for brewing purposes. 1t makes, however,
excellent feed for chickens aud hogs.
The cultivated and impecunious gentlewomen
over the sea. despite their conservative ira
ditions. display more originality in taking up
odd lines of work and in elevsting commonplace
callings to artistic and successful professions
than do the American wage earners, who press
and jostle along in the overcrowded fields of
woman's work, says the New York Sun Mill
merry fruit and flower farming, poultry rearing
and business OF all kinds are taken up by these
titled danes of high degree, who realize the fu-
tity OF earning a living by the more intel
lectual pursuits, The Woman's Tea Company
of London is composed entirely OF gentlewomen
who import their own tea, blend, pack and sell
it themselves In the heart OF fashionable Bond
street. The tasting room Is a pretty parlor
where one is served with a cup of tea by a gen
tlewoman in a waitress cap and apron. The
company employs sixty women agents and owns
its own tea fields. In Paris q baroness and q
company OF ladies make and sell for charity ell
manner of pure and delicately perfumed soaps,
toilet waters dentifrices, powders etc. II is
quite the thing to have the soap stamped ike
letter paper with the crest, initials or armoriai
bearings Of the owner, aud to have many tin
little cakes, called lswntennis soap, just larry
enough for once using. On a fine day there is
long row of carriages waiting while their owne
ers make their purchases and chat with the
baroness, who ia always present, supervising the
BUSINESS.
PERHAPS no birds spend more of their lives on
the wing than parrots and pigeons, the lat
ter being also among the most graceful and
rapid of the inhabitants Of the air, says Sports
Adeid In New Zealand a species Of parrots Is
found that, finding its food entirely on the
ground, has lost the power OF fight. It differs
ticular, and in being almost voiceless Among
recent breeds of pigeons is the parlor tumbler,
which has not only lost the power of flight, but
! has nearly lost that Of walking as we'll Its
| queer motions when il attempted TO walk have
| given it its name-the tumber. las thick as
| the hair on a dogs back expresses nothing in
| Mexico, for the Mexican dog is utterly devoid
| OF hair on his back or anywhere else. The hot
| climate having rendered it Superfuous mother
nature kindly Invested him of it. Nor does 1.-THE
little busy bee improve each shining hour" in
| that country. On the contrary, IL soon learns
! that, as there is no winter there, there is no
| necessity for laying in store of honey and de.
| generates into thoroughbred loafer. "As big
| as a whale" might be rather small as there is a
| species of the Cetacean genus hardly three feet
| long "As cunning as a fox" would have sounded
| idiotic to the discoveries Of Kamschatks. They
found foxes in large numbers but so stupid be
| cause they bad never seen an enemy that they
| could be killed with clubs. The birds of a
| feather" that flock together do not belong to
| the penguin family as they entirely desti-
| tute of feathers having for covering a KIDD OF
stiff down. Another penguin popularity is
that it swims not on, but under the water,
never keeping more than its head out, and,
when fishing, coming to the surface at sucn
brief and rare intervals that an ordinary OBJ
server would almost certainly take 1t for fish.
Ducks swim the world over, but geese do not
In South America a domestic species.is found
that cannot excel an ordinary hen in aquatic
accomplishments. It has lived SO long In a
country VIII re water is only found in wells that
it has lost its aquatic tastes and abilities en-
| tirely. "AB awkward as a crab does not apply
on some OF the South Sea islands, for a crab is
| found there that not only runs as fast as an
average man, but climbs trees with the ease of
school boy,
OF ALL the routes across the United States
| TO the Pacific coast, says the New York Sun,
there is not one that has not done more or less
TO familiarize the travelling public with what is
the more abundant is this weed, which has
added phrase TO our language by giving its
name TO the soil upon which it thrives-often
when nothing else of vegetation can endure te
side it. To speak OF q roach Of country as sage
brush land" Is to present picture to the mind
OF man familiar with the far west. Throus h
that phase such Q man sees . treeIess. parched
plain or bench of dull. baked looking earth
dotted with thick -stemmed, dry. dannel-like,
dust-covered shrubs of q greenish, whitsh
brown appearance. These grow as garden
or so above ground. The land which is
distinguished by their presence in greater
or less quantities. is that part of the
Which receives the least t-'A rainfall 1isio a
major part of 1t was once know as the Great
American Desert. The sage brush is known to
scientists as drten,tsid frtdenidtd. Most per-
sons who are familiar with il think of it as an
ordinary weed of small size, as have described
1t, and even so high an authority as the ENJOY
clopasdia Britannica" refers 20 it as growing in
most persons to know that il sometimes grows
TO such proportions as to provide a section of
country with trees Of its own wood, producing
trees, instead Of mere weeds. Prof Eiwood
Mead, the state engineer of Wyoming, while ex-
plorng the northern end of central parts Of that
state last summer, came upon district where
the sage brush thrived thus gigantically Many
of the sage trees that he saw were eighteen
feet high, with trunks at least foot in diane
ter This was in the Big Horn basin, east of the
National Yellowstone park and northeast
of the Wind river Indian reservation, where
the No Wood river joins the Big
| Horn. Prof. Mead returned to Cheyenne en-
thusiastic in his praise of the basin now little
known except to the stockmen whose cows
range there. It is as big as some of the older
states, and will provide plenty of water for irri-
| cation from the tributaries of the Big Horn
river. Several very large irrigable tracts have
been surveyed already No railroads yet reach
| the district, but the Burlington and Missouri
railroad is building to Sheridan In the county Of
that name and has employed its agents to 'spv
| out the land" beyond. Prof. Mead had never
| seen such big sage brush as he discovered there
but since his return he realizes the truth of
| Solomon's assertion that there is no new thing
under the sun because he has been informed
that, at some point In California, the same weed
grows to such proportions that the people cut
it for cord wood"
POWDER.