San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1895-12-13
OF GENERAL INTEREST.

Pens of hardened gutta-percha
have been repeatedly tried in this
country and England, but have not
met with success.
Some chemists affirm that the ideal
ink consists almost exclusively of gall
late of iron, and that the nearer the
liquid approaches this substance the
more perfect the ink.
Instances of old people only now
taking their first ride in steam railroad
cars are not particularly uncommon,
but fact that makes interesting the
case of Daniel Clifford, seventy years
old, of Bethel, Mich, who recently
took his first ride in the cars, is that
he helped to lay the track of the first
railroad built in that state. For some
reason he never rode over the road.
1t has been estimated that with
in the past seven years not less
than five hundred thousand horses
have been displaced by the troll
ley, and now the bicycle, which
has already become formidable com
petitor of the livery stable, is develop
ing for some of its riders greater speed
and endurance than have been shown
in the best recorded performances of
the race horse.
Capt Virgins, undismayed by the
loss of the Sjternen last summer, starts
on his twentieth voyage through the
Kara sea to the Yenisei. His ship is
the Lorna Doone, a six hundred-ton
steamer, which besides machinery and
agricultural implements, will carry
canned fruits, fish and preserves, and
seven hundred barrels of Aberdeen
herrings, for which very high prices
were paid on the last voyage.
If it is in doing things commonly
done by men heretofore that the
new" women get their title, there is
woman in Bowerbank, Me-, who
might put in a claim, though she is of
an old-fashioued sort. She has worked
n good-sized farm during all of this
year entirely by herself; caring for the
cattle, cutting and storing the hay,
harvesting the crops and hauling the
produce to market with a yoke of oxen.
In the Bangor, Me, municipal court
a woman was put on trial for thump-
ing her husband very severely on the
head the day before. The husband
was complainant. The woman was
fined three dollars and costs, but she
declared she had no money. There
upon the meek and loving husband
fished out his pOcketbook, paid the
money into court, and was triumph
antly led away by his much better half.
"A political situation that is prob
ably unique developed in the little
town of AGREE, near Albany, Ky. 1t
was the annual election of municipal
officers, and there were forty-two
voters on the list. When the balloting
took place it was found that only one
of the forty-two voters was properly
registered. That one was the candi.
date for mayor. He cast the only bal
lot at the election and duly elected
himself and a board of aldermen.
DIR. Schott does not think that the
maximum height of the waves is very
great. Some observers have estimated
it at thirty or forty feet in a wind of
the force represented by eleven on the
Beaufort scale (the highest number of
which is twelve); and DR.. Schott's
maximum is just thirty-two feet. He
believes that in great tempests waves
of more than sixty feet are rare, and
that even those of fifty feet are excep-
tional. In the ordinary trade winds
the height is five or six feet.
-Further trials have been made with
the Russian torpedo boat destroyer
Sokol. Under natural draught, with
the stoke holes open, she made 90 5
knots; with what is called natural
draught in British official trials, half
inch air pressure, enough to keep the
air pans moving, she made 26.7 knots.
In the recent official speed trial, which
resulted in a speed of 29& knots, the
steam pressure was only 100 pounds,
while her boilers are designed for 200
pounds pressure. She made then 81
knots with the tide.