The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-12-05
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

tus family. and range from $50 to 800 feet
IN hight one Of them that had fallen
was round by measurement with tape
TO be 45o feet from the roots to where the
trunk had been broken OF by the fall. At
that point the tree was three feet in d.
ameter- The trees grow with astonishing
rapidity. a Eucalyptus Globulus planted
in Florida grew forty feet in four years,
with bole foot in diameter. Trees OF
the same species in Guatemala grew l2O
feet in twelve years. The stem of one
was nine feet thick. In 1860 a monster
petrified tree was found in Baker county,
oregon. 1t was 666 feet long and sixty
feet in diameter at the butt
1t is remarkable how well perfumer
learns to recognize a scent, says Pear
sons Weekly In testing a sweet-smell-
ing liquid he vets the base of his left
thumb with a little of il. Then he rubs
the place rapidly with his eight hand.
The alcohol in which the ESSENCE is dis
eVaporated and the substance, which
emiis the odor remaining, he can smell
IN IN IT'S purity. OF course. It is an easy
tnlng to recognize the principal odors
that are in use. but when several are
mixed, as is common, his task becomes
more difficult. Yet a skilled man can not
only tell you what three or four per-
fumes enter into the composition of the
one he is testing, but also, roughly, the
relative proportions Of each. 1t is easy
to tell the relative amount of wool and
cotton in piece of colored underwear
when you know how. Men who have
made the subject a speciality can do this
by holding the cloth in the light and
looking along it. The cotton and wool
can be distinguished by the difference in
their colors, which exists, although the
same dye was used for both. The I'M
trained eye could hardly detect the fact
that the cloth had two shades, but the
skill that comes from long practice
makes the thing simple. There are
many men, too, who are able to tell an
English book from an American book by
the smell. The books printed in England
in nearly every case have a pleaSanter
odor than those made in America. The
n IN M No nd hi ind linz
used has probably something to do with
1t. There are ways of telling who the
publishers of a given book are besides
looking at the title page. Somehow every
firm gives q certain characteristic look
to every volume which it issues, and
skilled man, in nine cases out of ten,
merely by looking at the binding and one
of the pages, can tell from whose presses
and bindery a work comes. This, of
course, applies only to the larger firms
and to books printed comparatively re-
Gently.
A recent report of Dairy and Food
| Commissioner Wells of Pennsylvania
names so many food products which are
adulterated as to raise query as to
what is not adulterated. says the New
York Post. Among the many impure
things sold are allspice. which often is
mainly composed of ground and roasted
| cocoanut shells; baking POWDER beef,
| VINE ana iron, prepared as tonic; but
| ter, buckwheat flour, candy, catsup, cider,
| cheese, cinnamon, cloves-the latter made
| almost entirely from ground cocoanut
| shells, the odor and taste of cloves being
| scarcely le-coffee-consisting
| chiefly of coffee screenings or damaged
| coffee, but sold at a high price as a pure
article; fresh Java made from wheat
| containing no coffee; Goldfish. not Goldfish
/ at all-merely cheap dried fish :
/ cream Of tartar adulterated with
/ Hour; haXseed adulterated with
| starch; fruit buffers such as
apple butter, peach butter, etc, very
| seldom pure, being adulterated with
nd apiH bo
is true. of grated pineapple; ginger adul-
| terated with ash rice hulls, rice -four,
and cayenne pepper; lard; maple syrup;
/ made from commercial glucose thinned
/ with about 20 per cent. of water; mixed
| spices, orange Juice, lemon OIL lemon
| phosphate. molasses, mustard, olive oil,
/ pepper, vinegar vanilla extract ali kinds
| of preserves, extract of strawberries and
tea To add to the deception few apple
i fruit jams, or timothy or other seeds are
| added to the. mixture TO represent rasp-
berry. strawberry. etc. The production
/ o1~artlnclal colors is particularly common
/ in CONNECTIONS. Indigo, tumeric, annatto,
| logwood and cochineal are used in great
| quantities, and are probably not harmful;
| arsenic, copper and leads are very delete
| rious, but are not now used as much as
| in former times before sanitary officials
made such persistent attacks on them.
| MIX and milk products are often colored.
| Annatto is very commonly used by dairy
men to give rich yellow color. In itself
| annatto is probably harmless but il pro-
! duces deceptive results.
Though the largest deposits of amber
| occur on the Baltic, says the Cornhill
| Magazine, Jumps are also found all over
| the region covered by similar forests at
about the same period, as, for example
on the east coast of England, in Sicily
| and the Adriatc in Siberia, Greenland
| the United States and Australia. But by
! far the greatest part. of all the amber
known comes from the Baltic coast be-
| tween Konigsberg and Memel, and L will
| say few words by and by on the mode
n aN fTlln in 1srrlf.
| age. Meanwhile l will touch lightly on
| its historical use for human adornment
/ 1t is probable that savage man first no
/ ticed amber when torn by storms from,
! it's native bed IN the sands by the seashore
and flung up on the beach with the pebbles
| and seaWeed. Perhaps the most likely
| thing to attract his attention to it in very
| early times would be its singular lightness
/ for a good sized lump weighs ever so
much less than almost any other stone
! OF the same size, except perhaps, pumice
/ If, having satisfied his curiosity at a first
| glance, he flung it down and broke it.
| he would be equally struck by its yellow
| color, like barley sugar: not of course
/ that barley sugar would be familiar to
/ the primeVal savage who first used amber
| Moreover he couldn't fail to observe the
! curious shell-like patterns with which it
| breaks-what science describes as it's
4 'conchoidal fracture" At any rate, print
| tive man soon learned to smooth and
| polish the Jumps for the decoration of his
| own person, and that primitive woman fol-
| lowed close in his steps is. to say the least
| the interments of the stone age we find
| amber ornaments laid on the grave with
| the dead in many parts of Europe In
! deed, owing to its clear, pale yellowscolor
/ amber is peculiarly becoming to the dark
| skinned races. and even at the present
| day a large part of the output of the Prus-
| sian beds finds its way ultimately to
| Central Africa and the South Sea Islands
! By the date of the bronze age, the use of
/ the pretty yellow resin 'in the arts.V as
! then understood, had become extremely
| common. Homeric chiefs rejoiced in am
| Der decorations carved cup of amber has
| been found in a tumul9s at Hove near
| Brighton, while amber hits, or pommels
| sometimes daintily inlaid with pins OF
| gold. have been taken from the barroNTs
at Hammeldon Down, in Devonshire; at
| Winterbourne, in Willis, and in MANY
| other places. Finds of this sort are fire..
| quent all over the continent. At Hall
| staff. our bronze age ancestors used pieces
of amber for inlaying the handles and
! scabbards of swords, while as to amber
| beads amber buttons or studs and amber
| ornaments generally, they occur too often
| in cemeteries of that time to call for
! separate mention.
Awarded