The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-06-07
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

accepted theory that the tiger after lurking
IN ambush. springs on TO the unsuspecting
victim and, tearing savagely at the throat,
| eagerly drinks his blood This method of at
tack may sometimes be adopted but il is far
more often the exception than the rule. In APP
proachlng his prey the tiger makes the best
! possible use of cover but when further con
ceaIment is impossible he will course a deer
or other swiftfooted animal with extraordi-
nary speed; A sudden dash OF E01 yards in
the open is nothing uncommon and the
writer mentions the case Of one tigress, with
whom he says he was at one time intimately
acquainted who used to catch hog or deer al
most daily on perfectly open and burned up
PLAIN. Small animals are, for the most part
olspatehed with blow OF the paw but in the
case OF the more bulky. the experienced user.
leaplug on the back OF his victim. grips the
neck In front Of the withers with his jaws, one
Iorepaw clasping the shoulder OF the animal
ana the other fully extended under the throat.
Should he be unable to crush the spine with
his Jaws, he will then jerk the head back VIC
lently and thereby break the neck. Il have
examined says this correspondent. hun
dreds OF animals killed by tigers. and have
never yet detected Injury to the blood vessels
OF the throat, but invariably marks atJriOuta-
Bile to the above mentioned method" In re-
moving his prey the tiger frequently displays
almost phenomenal strength and activity In
one case cited. q young tigresS leaped up
perpendicular rock some SIX feet nigh, with
man weighing nearly eleven stone IN her
la&s, and on another occasion male tiger
dragged an exceptionally large buffalo up a
bank at least ten feet high.
few years ago the person who might give
utterance to the idea that any but human be-
ings possessed reasoning powers, would have
been considered guilty of rank heresy, says
the Philadelphia Ledger. But with advanced
enlightenment, there are thousands who have
been driven TO the belief that the creator has
not bestowed the divine light" upon man
alone, but upon animals as well, even insects
coming in for share of that force, which is a
grade higher than instinct. Close observers
are continually making public examples
which show that that class of animal life
which has been designated as the lower or
ders' when compared with the humankind
accomplish results the working out of which
can scarcely be aScribed to instinct alone.
This reasoning faculty is especially noticeable
among dogs, while many other animals eYinCe
power of thought, Of ability TO reason.
really remarkable In a communication to
| the Academy of Natural Sciences some time
ago Prof Mehan related an incident that
came under his own observation which.
while not conclusive evidence of reason
| ing power in insects, yet is strongly
indicative of it, During a light spring
shower the professor took shelter under a
large linden tree in full bloom. While there
he noticed an unusual number of bees buSily
at work among the flowers Of the linden,
while tree of another species, close at hand,
also in bloom. had no bees about It, The rea-
son was quickly apparent to him. The de-
serted tree was light foliage and the rain
poured through freely, while the linden had
heavy foliage and in such abundance that the
rain was Shed almost as perfectly as from an
umbrella. The bees were evidently aware OF
this, Tor they came and went directly TO and
from the linden ignoring the other tree en-
ttrely. He assumed, and seemingly correctly,
that this could not be purely instinct, but
was the result of reasoning, of d low order
perhaps, but still line above an inward
impulse, unconscious and involuntary, which
guides to the performance Of an action with
out thought OF improvement in the method"
Mount Ararat has two tops, few hun
dred yards apart, sloping, on the eastern and
western extremities into rather prominent
abutments, and separated by snow valley
or depression. from so to 100 feet IN depth"
Thus in the Century for June write Messrs
Allen and Sachtleben, the two young Ameri-
cans who made a bicycle tour round the
world. Inc eastern top, on which we were
standing, was quite extensive, and 80 to 40
teet lower than It's western neighbOr. Both
tops are hummocks on The huge dome of
Ararat, like the humps on the back Of a
camel. on neither one of which is here vest
lge OF anything but snow There renamed
just as little trace of the crosses left by Par
rot and Chodzko as Of the ark itself. We re-
membered the pictures we had seen in our
nursery books, which represent this noun
tain top covered with green grass. and Noah
stepping out OF the ark in the bright warm
sunshine, before the Teceding waves, and
now we looked around and saw this very
spot covered with perpetual slOw. Nor did
we see any evidence whatever of Ii
former existing crater, excerpts, perhaps, the
snow filled depression we have just men
/
snow field, and the freezing atmosphere
which chilled US to the bone, to remind us
that we were on the top OF an extinct volcano
that once trembled with the commissions of
subterranean heat The view from this tow
ering hight was UNNECESSARILY extensive and
almost too grand. All detail was lost-all
color, all outline; even the surrounding
mountains seemed to tie but excrescent
ridges OF the plain. Then, too, we could
eaten only occasional gllmpSeS. as the clouds
shifted TO and fro. At one time they opened
bpnpnfh cal a hn Arnc I1r,-
with its glitterlng ribbon of silver at an abys-
nal depth below. Now and then we could
| descry the black volcanic peaks OF Ali Chez.
| forty miles away TO the northwest and on
the southwest the low mountains that OBJ
scured the town of Bayazid. OF the eau
cas- IS, the mountains about ErZerum on the
west, and Lake Van on the south and even
of the Caspian sea, all of which are SAID to he
in Ararat horizon, we could see absolutely
nothing
Some OF the most successful and remark
able engineering enterprises have been
claimed to owe their existence to circum-
stances which, when considered in them.
selves. seem far too trivial to have produced
such important results, says Casters Mag
azine. Though opinions be divided as to the
first transmission of power by electricity,
for example. 1t has feen strenuously main
tanned in some quarters that accident pure
and simple, was the cause of the great dscov-
cry, and an interesting story has been told
I
Ces. 1hls is to the effect that at the Inter
national Exhibition at Vienna, in 1873 the,
Gramme Company exhibited two DYNAMO
machines for plating purposes One Of these
machines was in motion, and workman who
| noticed that some cables were trailing on the
! ground thinking that they belonged to the
| second machine, placed them in its terminals
| 10 the surprise OF everybody this second
| machine Immediately began to turn and il
! was then discovered that the first DYNAMO
! was driving the secopd 1t would be strange.
| indeed. II there were not other versions of
| this story and, accordingly. we find several
| somewhat different accounts from ali
| of which, however, 1t would appear that
| the. development OF any measurable power
in a machine taking its supply of electricity
| from a primary dynamo was sometbfn,
wholly unexpected and correspondinQlv start
ling. Close y analogous is the narrative Of
the origin of one of the most successful foun
dry blowers now in use, according to which
the inventor was attempting TO construct n
water motor which persistently refused to 60
round when the water was turned on In the
determination to learn what was wrong n belt
connection was made with line shaft so thar
the motion of the machine might be studied
by the same means reverse motion was
given 10 It, and the way in which it threw the
water. and, after the water had been ev
| hauste1. drove current Of air. suggested an
entire change of purpose and the machine
was finished and put on the market MS n
blower instead of as a water motor and tbou
sands have been built since The story, often
told, with various modil cations Of detail
serves as an additional illustration of the facf
Inventors ont sf,, l,1.,.,