The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-07-21

FOREIGN GOSSIP.

1T Is believed by the engineers and
officials of the enterprise that the Man
chester ship canal will be opened Tor
traffic along its entire length, from
Liverpool to Manchester, by next Feb
ruary or March. If the practical COM
pletion is retarded beyond that date 1t
will likely be by legal rather than en-
cheering dificulties.-N. Y. Sun.
"A hot-water fountain is now in
operation in Paris The water that
feeds the fountain passes through a
coil of copper tubing three hundred
feet long. BY dropping sou in slot,
tets of gas are turned on and ignited
By this means the water is heated
For each sou one is entitled to eight
aiters 1t is expected that this foun-
tain will be a great assistance to the
poor. and, il successful, others will be
built.
Denial is made in ST. Petersburg to
the unfavora bic reports recently pub
1ished in Great Britain and elsewhere
regarding the prospects Of the coming
harvest in Russia. and to the statement
that the government would. In copse-
uuence. prohibit the export of rye.
The present condition of the crops. al
though unsatisfactory in the govern
ments of Podolia, Kieff, and Cherson,
IS excellent in practically all other dis
tricts.
japanese gardens are the most
fairylike of places. Iou see in them
tiny trees and Towering plants, ponds,
bridges. summer-houses, lanterns-here
dwarf pines SIX or eight inches high,
but one hundred and twenty-five years
old: there others one foot high, but
FIVE hundred years old. In the garden
of Yeiiugin-withint the temple grounds
there are many peory plants, mostly
old. but one is one hundred years old,
and is eight feet high-quite tree.
There is in Spain river called
Tinto, which has very extraordinary
qualities. Its waters. which are as yell
low as the topaz, harden the sand and
petrifv il in most surprising manner.
Il a stone falls into the river and rests
npon another they both become per
fectly united and conglutinated in
year 1t withers all the plants on its
banks as well as the roots of trees,
which it dyes Of the same hue as its
water. No fish live in its stream.
There is no dOu bit that South Africa
IS regarded at present as the most prom
Using field for development in the pro-
duction of the precious metals. The
continued extension of mining opera
tons in the Transvaal, and the more
recent rediscovery of the ancient gold
fields of Mashonaland and the Mata-
belle country, seem to be drawing
miners and mining -engineers from other
countries in considera bic mum berS, and
the movement is likely TO continue for
some time to me.-Engineering and
Mining Journal.
A story comes from Irkutsk, the
capital of eastern Siberia, of a dog
seven months old that has suddenly de-
veloped the faculty for making sounds
so like human voice that a person in
the next room could not tell the differ
ence. The dog seems to have no com
prehension of the meaning of the
words he utters, but he readily repeats
anything thati is said to him in a shrill,
boyish-sounding voice. Some days he
seems to lose the faculty or to be disin-
plined to exercise Il. but on others de-
lights to say anything he is told.
Gen. Dodds says in his report on
The Dahomey campaign that the Lebel
rife gave entire satisfaction. The car
tridges We're in no way affected by the
voyage ont or by the climate of Daho-
mey. Smol1eless powder and the old
Kind were used in the way of expert
5ment in several engagements. The
smokeless powder proved by far the
more satisfactory. The old powder
drew the fire of the enemy instead of
masking the detachment using it, and
the troops using the smol1eless powder
suffered much less than the Others