The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-02-16
ITaMs OF INTaREsr.

IHE COLD mas Deen excessive IN SJ. E6t6FSOurGt
and for weeks wood fires have been burned in
the squares and streets of the city in an effort
to maze necessary outdoor business endurable.
The streets have however. been practically de-
serted The double windows in the stores and
houses are mostly iced over and frozen up,
From North and Central Russia temperature
of go to $50 below zero is reported which is 90
below the average. In Siberia it has fallen to
45s below zero.
ONE OF the most remarkable finds of gigantic
human remains of which we have any record.
says the St. Louis Republic, was that made at
Palermo, Sicily, in the year 1916, when an entire
skeleton Of unheerd-ot proportions was IN
earthed by some marble Quarrymen. These
mammoth remains measured exactly "a feet
from head to foot, and feet inches from
point to point of the shoulders. A stone ak
buried with the Old-time giant may still be seen
at Palermo in section " of the st. Isorent
museum. 1t is made Of a bluish-looking fine
grained bowlder, and appears to be about 2 feet
8 inches long by ! foot broad and 9
inches through in the thickest place.
musty, rusty looking tag attached
to the relic informs the visitor that it weighs
f1fty-two pounds. but the general verdict is that
It could not weigh over thirty thirty-flve
pounds. The skeleton was burned by a mob in
the year 1862 during the prevalence of the black
death at Palermo, the ignorant, superstitious
people believing that it was connected in some
mysterious way with the death-deaing distem-
per. The skull of this giant according to Able
Ferregus, was largely excessive of the baskets
sayd to hold the bushel, being fitted above and
belowe withe teeth to the number of sixty -toure
the each Of which would have weighed two
ounces" Cavalier Scroy claimed to have found
skull on Teneriffe that had sixty teeth
OK.Is A POPULAR American abbreviation
meaning all right used not only in current
talk but serious business. as In the marking OF
documents, etc. 1t is plausibly held by the
Brooklyn Eagle that in early colonial days the
best rum and tobacco were imported from Aux
Cages, in San Domingo. Hence the best of
N o NJ ms n hea 10 AFnv
Cages or o. K. The term did not, however,
pass into general use until the presidential cam
paign OF 1925 when the very much supposed
llllteracy or Andrew Jackson, the democratic
candidate, was the stock in trade OF his whig
oppone nts. Seba Smith, the humorist writing
under the name of Major JACK Downing
dorssd his a' papSPs O. K 'S HndSr the
impression that they formed the initials OF
ION Korrect." 1t is not impossible that the
general did use this Endorsement aad that it
was used by other people also. But Mr.. Parton
discovered in the records of tbs Nashville court
of which jackson was judge before he became
President, numerous documents Endorsed 0. R..
meant lg order recorded. He urges, therefore,
that /: was a record of that court with some
belated business which Mai. Downing saw
on the desk of the presidential candidate. How
ever this may be, the democrats, in lieu Of de-
nying the charge, adopted the letters o. K. as a
sort of party cry and fastened them on their
banners,
A NOVEL SAFETY LOCK has bean invented by q
Swedish engineer. says the New Orleans Times
Democrat. Wishing to close an isolated cottage
situated in forest, he suspended behind the
door pendulum, whose bob was hollow on one
side and beveled at the other. In q position of
equilibrium, the hollow part is situated in
front of the aperture Of curved channel that
deoouches behind the door If o person blows
strongly into the aperture the pendulum will
begin to swing, but whatever tho force of the
breath, the amplitude will be very slight
r. at the moment the pendulum is passing
! through the position OF equilibrium, after
complete oscillation, one blows again, the oscIla
| ton will become pronounced. After this has
been repeated several times, there will be- finally
| communicated 70 the pendulum an amplitude
| such that the bob will abut against lever, so
placed that a slight movement will bring it into
unstable equilibrium, and 1t will fall upon a
| spring bolt, and the door will open. But II the
| duration Of the oscillation OF the pendulum
! (which is absolutely invisibel were unknown
| one might keep on blowing for q week withous
| reaching any result. The lock is so arranged
| that with a little practice the door can be IN
locked at the fourth oscillation. If a person
! knowing the system but not the period
| wished to unlock the door, and was de-
ceived by an eighth In the duration of the
! interior pendulumls oscillation, the fourth
| blowing would produce an effect exactly con-
trary to the first and the pendulum would STOP
| The two intermediate blowings would have pro-
| duced no effect. For an error of a sixteenth the
/ fourth blowing would arrive at the moment at
| which the pendulum was at the end of its travel,
| and the effect would be null. The principle
| In bell ringing, Bell ringers, causing minimum
| force to act at q given moment set in motion
| and ring the largest bells.
| A SCIENTIFIC PAPER describes how the process
OF freezing is carried on in natures alchemy.
By means Of two Thermometers it is first ascer-
tanned that the temperature of the water at the
surface and at the bottom is respectively IS"
and 45o. A cold wind sweeps over the surface
of the water, 80 that the temperature is
speedily reduced to, say, 44e. By this reduction
in temperature it contracts and becomes specif-
ically heavier, sinking and displaoing the COM
below, which rises to the sur
face, becomes cooled below 44s and immedi-
aitely falls, displacing the warmer water at the
bottom, which, in turn, gets cooled and falls,
at place being again supplied by lighter and
warn err water. And so the cooling and sinking
processes go on, the upper thermometer WAYS
| denly the magic point Of 39o is reached, when
all movement at once ceases. The upper
layer OF water is still exposed TO the
| falls in temperature. but still retains its
| place. The upper thermometer now shows that
| the water which surrounds it is being rapidly
reduced in temperature, but the lower one
remains stationary at 390. AtthiS temperature
water is heavier than at any other, and there,
like q stone, it remains at the bottom, and as it
is fully protected from outward Influences by
the superintendent water, its temperature re-
mains very much at the same point. The water
on the top, however, having nothing to protect
it,, gets cooler and lighter every moment
Down the thermometer goes to so IS" and $50
and then slight breeze rpples the
surface, and the next moment a thin sheet of
ice spreads itself .over all. The ice, however
is colder and lighter than the water, so that it
floats on the surface, and acts as a blanket,
protecting the comparatively warm and heavy
water below from being cooled. So that even
during the severest winter only comparatively
thin superficial layer of ice is usually formed
and the greater part Of the water remains IN
frozen at the bottom.