The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-01-28
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

One Of the most noteworthy contractors
Of Boston is Mrs. D. Henry Cram She IS
Boston born and bred. the daughter OF
Z. ". Barry, and is a young woman OF
charming personality She IS a member
Of the Professional Woman League OF
this city.
St. Louis is feTcitating itself over the
statement made in the Journal Engineer
ing Societies that St Louis nad the pest
form OF municipal government so Iar as
II pertains 10 engineering matters o. any
city in the union President McAatn OF
the board Of public Improvements, ROW
ever, is not in harmony with this asser-
ton, and thinks that the impression has
bers Of the first board OF public improve
ments We're engineers Of above the aver
age qualifications.
A big snowslide in Califrnia covered the
Southern Pacific tracks for thousand
feet with snow from twenty 10 sixty Ieet
deep. The Union Pacific railroad runs Tor
many miles in the Sierras, close 70 OF
under oyerhanglng rocks and through
steep defles in Mountainous regions; and
for thirty-siX miles there are snOW-sheds,
supported by heavy timbers and rooted
with three-inch planks. with openings OF
two or three inches, to let smoke out and
bring light in. over or upon these I'M
mense masses Of snow slide down and land
II the canons below. At the points where
the Southern Pacific tracks were SO deep
" covered there were evidently no snCW-
sheds They cost the Union Pacific Sl0.oOU
per mile.
You wouldn't believe it possible TO blow
out a candle Of flame through a brickbat,"
remarked a celebrated physicist, whose
penchaanIt It is to give scientific research
ever, and it illustrates the all-pervasive
qualities of air. Most rooms are largely
Eein5illate9 through their w2ls, ana me
prlck ana mortar are merely very rudi-
mentary lungs, which take In and throw
out the atmosphere with little hindrance.
You may try the experiment yourself.
Place 9 II
brick and use two tunnels, with the far
ing ends on the opposite sides of the
brlckbat with the small end Of one in line
with your mouth and the small end Of the
other trained on the candle flicker. The
least hearty expiration will extinguish 1t
altogether. Try it and see"
The Inert gas only recently discovered
in the atmosphere by Lord Rayleigh and
Prof. Ramsay has been given the name of
argon.' This action of even chr.sten-
ing the new constituent would seem to put
at rest the dispute over the validity Of
the discOverers' claims. a more en-
phatic Importance has resulted from this
mysterious gas from Prof. Cook 5 eXper-
lments with the spectrum, which led to
the belief that it is truly an element
hitherto unknown m any way to chem
lstfy. Science seems 10 be Increasing
rather than decreasing these fundanenl
substances. The only attempt at sim
pEfcatiOn which has been even half sue
cesstul has been the effort of a Russian
chemist 10 separate the elements into
distinctive groups, according to certain
properties in common. Chemistry still
owes d great debt to evolution in her OBJ
legation to either reduce the number Of
seeming elements or seek some plausible
scientific explanation for their multiple
old time cars would look strange now"
SAID an old inhabitant of Indiana TO the
Indianapolis Journal. THE locomotives Of
hfty years ago We're much smaller than
now, and cost from $1,000 to $1,000 Now
they cost about 50 600. but they are several
times more powerful. The coal cars of
to-day carry thirty tons. The cars of
lnal period carried only seven and a half
tons, and nine tons overloaded a car The
journals Of that period We're two and a
half inches long and one and three quar-
tiers IN diameter. Now they are eight and
one halT inches long and four and
quarter inches in diameter There We're
no eleva tors In those days. and the wheat
ana Hour were shipped in barrels. Wheat
would be shipped east ia barrels and the
same packages used in shipping the flour
back TO this country. This made the coop
erage business good. The milers bought
the barrels with the wheat for the pur-
pose of packing the -four in them. I have
known trains to wait for a woman to
change her dress, but that is not the way
things are done now"
Generally speaking we say that the
curvature OF the earth is about seven
inches to the statute mile; more exactly,
ii is 699 inches to the mile. or T. 1852 inches
for geographical mile. Tie eve even
though artihcially assisted by the most
improved optical instruments, cannot pos
curvature, though the gaze be directed
from the highest known point This is
because the eye is not capable of compar-
ing nights and distances. Let Us make
a little experiment. Take down vo,~
globe and place q book against its side
You viii instantly see that there is but
very small point of contact between the
TWO. NOW let us suppose that the earth
IS as smooth as billiard ball and that
We nave mammoth book or other large
fiat surface, to press AGAINST its side Az
one HeOEr9n6ir31 mile he ,,f~ 81
contact the fiat surface used would
stand out nearly eight inches from the
earth; at three miles they Will lack six
rect OF touching; and at nine miles 81
feet, and so on, the number Of feet separ-
atlng the two surfaces at any given point
being equal to two-thirds of the SQUARE OF
the number of miles for any observable
distance.
Lord Kelvin estimates that the run
ming slow OF the earth in its daily rev
olutlon round its axis amounts to %
seconds per century. The main cause
OF this retardation is the friction. caused
by the tides, which act as a brake, the
action OF which has been CALCULATED BY
this eminent physicist to be equal to a
weight of 100000 tons applied to tba
equator. Other causes have also TO be
taken INTO account, as, for example, the
increase in the size Of the. earth due to
the falling on it Of meteoric dust which
II deposited at the rate Of one foot IN
1900 years, would produce the observed
retardation by itself. Such a phenomenon
as the annual growth and melting of
SHOW anu Ice at the poles IS caDable of
introducing irregularities into the prob
lem, the growth at the poles. by { bstreet-
ing water from the other parts Of the
ocean. acceleratfng the earths motion
and the melting by restoring the water
retaining il. Against the retarding forces
there has to be taken into account a
probable accelerat.on, due to the grad
ual shrinking Of the earth bv co6IinSt.
but this Lord Kelvin believes to he very
smSll-perhaps not more than 1-6GO0 ro'+
Of the retardatiCn due to tidal fricfior
Prof. Newcomb has declared. from astro-
nomical consideration, that the earth went
slow and lost seven seconds between. 1850
and 1882 and then went fast and GAINES
eight seconds between 1862 and 1872
changes Of rate eXplicable by POSSIBLE
changes in the earth's shape, SO slight AZ
to be quite undiscoverable. in astrononl-
ical observations.
It has been asserted that all the mil
lions taken from the lower levels of fhe
Comstock are due to a blast fired without
orders in the Crown Point mine. saws a
writer in the Overland Monthly and
know of at least three fortunes Of over a
million each accrued TO the owners of min
ing shares which they vainIy sought ~
dispose of at beggarly figures on the very
eve OF DEVELOPMENTS multiplying their
values by hundreds and thousand.
very many real estate owners
In San Francisco are in am
uence to-day because they could not
sell their holdings during the great d.