The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-06-22
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

I
Gallon declares that the patterns on
| the finger tins ara not only interchangeable
I throughout life but that the chance OF the
niger prints OF two persons being aAAe IL
4 less than one in sixty-four billions
| Besides hundreds Of bells weighing
/ from 1000 to $500 pounds, Nankin, China,
/ has four bells which each weigh 59vJ
I pounds. They are nearly twelve English
/ feet each in hight, and are almost twenty
/ three feet in diameter, The metal in these
| monsters averages abdqt 81 inches in
| thickness throughout, beng about inches
on the lower lip. or rim. In Pekln there
| is a chime Of seven bells, each Of which
weighs 10000 pounds.
| According to the MOhammedan belief,
| the ravens which Noah took with MIN on
| the ark were both pure white. When the
| ark had been riding the pillows of the flood
/ for thirty-three days one OF the three 81
RATES. died chow there happened 10 be three
| aboard will be explained at some future
/ time(, and the carcass was thrown over
| board. No sooner mad il struck the water
| than the ravens pOunced upon II. For this
/ Noah cursed them, and since that day they
/ have been coal black.
Here's the food placed on board big
| Cunarder for a voyage across the Allan
tic: 20 600 pounds of fresh beef, 1000 pounds
OF canned beef, 10000 pounds OF mutton
/ l,4OO pounds of lamb, 800 pounds of veal,
/ 800 pounds of pork, $500 pounds of fresh
/ fish, 10000 fowls and 400 chickens. Eggs are
/ used at the rate of two per minute during
/ the voyage, and oranges are consumed at
/ the rate Of three per head and apples two
| and three-Quarters per head per day. All
| who cross the ocean are not expected to
/ get sea sick.
| Some Frenchmen were boasting of their
! affairs of honor" when one of them, a
Marseillais. declared that he had inflicted
! upon an antagonist the most dreadful fate
that a duellist had ever met. How was
| it?' asked everybody. II was at a hotel
! and / CHANGED to insult a total stranger. 1t
| turned out that he was a fencing
! one or the other of US he declared, IN
| fearful wrath, will not go out of this room
aliver so let It be- l shouted in response;
| and then I rushed out of the room, lock-
ed the door behind me, and left him there
| to die!'
Riots on the part of the operatives of
| the cotton mills in Central Russia are in
| creasing with terrible frequency, due to
| the necessity on the part of the masters
| to cut down wages The disturbances have
| eliminated in the destruction Of the great
spinning mill at Tekova, and in the mas
sacre and frtghuul mutilation OF the
| Scotch manager and his English assist
ants, his wife and children barely escaping
with their lives over 1900 soldiers have
| been billeted for several weeks al the
| big Jarosavi factory, not far off, where
| doubtless similar scenes would have oc-
| Cured had it not been for the presence of
| the troops.
| 1t has been long believed that some. if
| not all, high-grade ancient tools of steel
| were tempered in human blood, and a re-
| cent discovery in a ruin of Syria substan-
| tiates the belief. In the remains or an
armorer's smithy was found parchment,
| written in Syriac characters, giving direc-
| lions for making the famous Damascus
! blades" The recipe reads as follows:
| Let the workman be furnished with a
! slave of fair frame, and let the Ethiopian
| he bound shoulders upwards, upon the
block with his arms fastened underneath
! with thongs His head and neck
projecting over and beyond the edge of
the block. Then let the master workman
! cOld-hammer the blade to a thin, smooth
edge. Next let 1t be thrust into a fire of
cedar wood Goals until the color of the
| blade be red like the rising sun. Then,
| with a quick motion let him pass the
| blade six times from the hilt to the point
| thereof through the most fieshy portions
| of the slaves back and thighs, or suf-
| hcient number of times to cool II until
the color is purple. Then with one stroke
| 1t will sever the neck of the slave and not
receive nick, whereupon II may be cooled
! in the blood flowing from his body" Could
high art be more horribly disgraced? asks
| the St. Louis Republic.
! The most wonderful cannon on record
| are those which are described by Bry
| done, whose travels in Sicily and Malta
won well-deserved renown toward the end
| of the last century. Many facts and
| stories he recounts that seem strangely
/ Old World to us, though the date is little
| more than 100 years ago, so grandly did
! the French revolution transform Europe.
/ Malta was full of wonders more or less
| drOll while the knights held 1t, but moth
| ing equaled the stone guns. Everybody
| knows that the fortifications were cut out
| of solid rock, but Brydone was right in
| saying undI a Klnd OF ordnance used to
| defend them that was unknown to all the
world besides. AS we understand his de-
| scription, the knights left a great block
! of stone where they followed out an en-
brasure in the cliff, which afterward they
shaped and bored in the form of a gigan-
| tic mortar. These engines contained
! whole barrel of gunpowder. That SHOW
! eled IN, they plugged 1t with a great piece
! of wood, fitted exactly to the bore, as a
wadding, and loaded up with cannon balls
! shells and other deadly materials About
/ these cr1ar9, av,1
| ed the spots where a hostile ship was
! most likely to approach. THE mouths of
some are six feet wide. and they are able
! TO throw 10000 pounds weight of balls or
! stones" The range is not stated, but the
| falling projectiles covered an area of 800
| square yards.
The greatest explosion of gunpowder the
world has even known, says McClures
| Magazine, took place at the Du Point works
near Wilmington Del, on the seventeenth
day OF October 1880. With their usual eau
! tious policy the Du Points have never stat
| ed Just how great a quantity of powder ex-
| ploded at that time, but II is certain that
| three magazines and three mills in the
| upper yard were blown up, one after an
other, and safe estimate will put the
quantity of powder exploded at $50 tons In
! the explosion 10 men and one woman were
instantly Killed, while % men and women
were injured, some fatally. The explosion
| occurred a little after O'Clock in the af-
ternoon 1t began in the magazine for hex
| agonal powder the kind used in large guns
ana the most dangerous, being made not
In grains, but in reddish, six-sided cakes
about an inch and half in diameter and
an inch thick with a small hole in the
| center. These cakes look like nothing so
| much as the nut on a wagon wheel At the
Tune of the explosion cakes of powder were
! being packed into large wooden boxes lin
| ed with tin, each box being about 2 feet
! square: The tin Innings projected above the
| tops OF the boxes about two inches and
| When box was packed were folded down
| over tin cover fitted closely uDon the
| cakes OF powder. 1t was the duty of one Of
! inc Workmen, VIM. Green, to solder these
! TN edges down upon the tin cover. a hot
| IRON being used for this purpose. On the
| uay IN question what he had feared came IN
| pass a felloW-workman, William McCar
yey, was bringing him the hot irons from
a charcoal brazier about % yards distant
| Green stood just at the door of the one;
| magazine, and all around him were nm
| covered boxes filled with hexagonal now
der ready to be sealed Just what hapnen-
| ed VIII never be known for neither Green
| nor McGarvey was left to tell the storI,
But the probability is that one of the sol.
uerlng irons was a little too hot and Nv
! touching particle of dirt on the nm co,,o y
| produced the deadly spark O'ei
Awarded