The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-07-06
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

The most remarkable piece OF ralluI am
ic painting ever attempted was a Two
thousand mile view OF scenery along the
Mississippi river. which was executed Uy
John Barnard. the artist who died az
This wonderful panorama. which gave
faithful and clear-cut pictures OF bluHs,
river mouths. FARMS prairie dells ana
wooded promOtories along the Father OF
Waters for a distance almost as great as
that which separates St. Louis from New
York, was painted on strip OF canvas Y
feet wide and nearly three miles long:
Nothing similar has ever been attempted
on such a gigantic scale; and, while Artist
Barnard was not known as the Michael
Angelo Of America he will long be re-
membered by the lovers of the curious IN
either art or nature as the man who paint
ed the largest painting ever known.
The only gold and silver bound dia-
mOnd incrusted book in the world was
lately enshrined in the holy Mohamme-
dan city Of lsnan-Ruza, Persia, says the
St. Louis Republic. The book is, of course,
copy of the Alkoran, and is a gift from
Abd-ur- Rahman, Emir Of Afghanistan-
/ The covers Of this unique volume, the sides
OF which are nine and one-half by four
inches, are of solid gold plates one-eighth
of an inch in thickness, lined with silver
sheets of the same thickness. The cen
terpiece, as well as the corners, are SYM
bOlic designs. wrought in diamonds, rubies
and pearls. The center figure is cres-
cent, with a star between its points, the
whole design being composed of 100 small
diamonds 167 pearls and 122 rubies. The
diamonds on each corner, which are al
I
the Orange-colored lacquer with which
they are fastened, are each worth about
5000. The book itself is on parchment,
entirely written by hand. 1t is valued at
$4,000. There is said to have been over
100000 visitors present in Isnan-Ruza the
day the holy relic was enshrined.
The wonder of the genus batrachia and
the greatest natural history oddly to be
found along the Atlantic coast of the Unit
ed States IS the swelling toad, a semi
| aquatic creature known to naturalists as
I hrrfr ,r1aa 1Qll fN1n O.
| public. 1t is occasionally met with from
| New York city to Jacksonville, Fla, but Is
most common along the coasts of Virginia,
| Maryland and North Carolina. When in
| its natural state the swell toad is about
| the size of large bullfrog, but looks more
| like a fish than II does like either a frog
or toad He is about six inches in length
/ and has the curious faculty of being able
| to swell to the size of Yale football, in
/ which state his legs, tail and head are
/ scarcely visible. Irritation appears TO be
/ the chief factor in causing these curious
/ creatures to inhale air until they swell al
/ most to bursting. The bellies of both the
/ males and females are nearly pure white
| and are covered with spines which give
| that portion OF their anatomy the appear
/ ance of a well-ripened "jimpSOn' burr.
/ Persons who understand the swell toad"
| and know what an irritable little rascal he
/ Is, catch him and rub the spines on his
! belly until he Swells up until he is utterly
! helpless. Another curious point about the
! creature is that as long as he Is Kept on
/ so as to reduce the swelling.
Genius, say some, is but a capacity for
| hard work This Is not the whole truth,
! says the New Science Review. There must
/ be work in accordance with law The miner
| who digs for gold on the seashore will
never find it, though he dig so laboriously
! but If he study gold and the geologic strata
| in which 1t lives he has begun to put him
/ self into harmony with law. Mere work,
| unless properly directed, Is like riding
Notwithstanding is energy and motion,
but no progress. For years Napoleon was
| living in miniature the battles he was to
! tight, aDalyzing strategic moves and posi-
| lions and training his mind to thus grasp
! a new situation on the instant. Won Moltke
| studied military topography of all Europe
and with marvellous foresight thought out
how to win. His victory was no triumph of
| mere fortune or special inspiration Ii was
| but the logical outcome of his trained mind
| and trained mind ever lights the torch
| of its own inspiration. Leonardo da Xinci
| always carried in his girdle his sketch-book
| in his walks in Florence constantly looking
| for picturesque faces. I'm the silence of the
| night" he would counsel himself, recall
| the Ideas of the things you have studied
Design In your spirit the contours and out
| line Of the figures you have seen during the
day" There Is theory held by scientists
| that genius comes from disease. Disease,
! insanity, depravity and other faings Of
| ten do occur as consequences due to over
| concentration or misuse of powers, but
| they do not create genius any more than
the VultureS of the plains create the car
cass upon which they feed. The genius. too,
being OF inner mental material, Is more
likely to show a flaw as Dresden china re-
| Veals a mar not noticeable in a red clay
flower pot In support of this disease theory
the most insignificant. commonplace all
| mentS of ordinary humanity, when found
| in genius, are magnified and exaggerated
| The weaknesses thus pointed out are, 1t is
worth noting. usually shown in the part of
| mind or of body where the genius was not
| exercised.
The following description of how Mr.
w 1. Chadwick photographed picture of
Queen Victoria through the eye of a
! beetle, and which appears in the Amateur
Photographer, VIII be read with interest
! The hemispheres on each side of the head
| of most insects are compound and fixed
| They do not move about in sockets, as our
| eyes DO A spider is provided with sim
pie eyes, but spider is not an insect. The
| eyes Of insects (hies. beetles, etc.) have
| their outer surface marked out in very
| regular divisions sometimes hexagons
| and sometimes squares. In the eve of a
| horsetly, dragonfiy or beetle they are hexa-
gon, and these heXagons are called facets
Each of these facets Tor cornea) is a lens
| OF perfect magnifying power the diameter
| of those of the beetle used by Mr.. Chad
| wick to make his photograph being 1900
OF an inch, and the focal length of each
| lens or facet being l-G0O of an inch. Behind
these lens as in our eyes, there descends
| slender pyramid or rod. the base of
| which is the cornea, and the apex point
! ing towards the interior, is received and
| embraced in a transparent cup, the interior
of which forms the retina, and is connected
| with the optic nerve so that the multiple
| images of the numerous lenses convey the
| impression of only one object, lust as the
Two retinal images in our two eyes con-
| Yey the impression of only one object, for
the length of those pyramid rods equals
| the focal strength of the lens or facet The
| number of facets in each eye OF the house
fly Is about 20CO; on each eye of the dra-
/ comfy there are about L, 600 These facets
| or lenses can be separated from the sIen-
! der pyramid rods and when dried and at
tached to a slip of glass may be viewed
under the microscope as a number of lenses
as shown in one of Mr.. Chadwick's photo
| graphs. When an object say the point of
a pencil, or any small object, is placed un-
der the preparation, the facets show null
| tiple images of the object, one in each ia
Get. Thus. in making the portrait of the
! queen, Mr.. Chadwick first obtained an en-
| craving, and copied this by reduction to
about one-fourth or fve-ffteenths diam
eter making a transparency and to ad-
just this under the beetles eve preDara
ton, and by each facet the image Is reduc-
| ed to 1-640 of an inch, and then enlarged
by projection on to Photographic pIate
| by means of one-fourth inch micro-pow-
er or objective. To show all the facets IN
| a lantern slide would make them too small
and in Mr.. Chadwick's photograph about
J 100 images of the queen are shown in the
lantern slide; in other words, Mr. Chad