The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-11-12
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

Travellers who visited or passed the
Cape Negro country OF Africa, often
heard from the natives Of plant that
was part spider, and that threw It's legs
about in continual struggles 10 escape
1t was the good fortune Of Dr. WelWitsch
10 discover the origin Of the legend.
Strolling along through a wind-swept
tableland country, he came upon plant
that rested low upon the ground. but
haC two enormous leaves that blew ana
twisted about IN the wind IKE serpehtS
~ tact, IL looked. as the natives had SAID,
ike gigantic spider. Its stem was four
Ieet across and but foot high. II
had but two leaves in reality. that were
six or eight feet long, and split up by the
wind SO that they resembled ribbons.
This is probably the most extraordinary
tree known 1t grows for nearly, II not
quite a century, but never upward beyond
about foot, simply slowly expanding
until IL reaches the diameter given, look
ing in its adult state like singular stool
on the plain, from ten feet to eighteen
feet in circumference
M Ducharte recently made known to
the French Academy of Sciences the Ie-
suits or an experiment made by NJ. Max
lme Lecomte IN Congo upon tree OF the
genus Musenga. Upon making missions
IN the trunk of it, and placing a pail at the
foot of the tree. more than ten quarts
Of pure water collected in thirteen hours
Inc gorlllas, 1t seems, are in the habit
of Stacking their thirst at these hidden
FOUNTAINS, and regulate the flow of liquid
At VIII by pulling off different sized
branches. Many years ago DR.. Wallich
found in the province of Martaban. At
rlca, a plant belonging 10 the same nat
ural order, whose soft and porus wood
discharged, when wounded, a very large
quantity of pure and tasteless fluid
which was quite wholesome, and was
used as a beverage by the natives. This
plant was named BY DR. Wallich the
water vine and has been placed in the
genus PhytOcrene, which signifies plant
FOUNTAIN These plants form a remark
aple exception to the usual character Of
the order, which embraces species that
produce milky juice-such, for example,
as the celebrated COW tree, or Palo de
Naca, Of South America, which yields a
coplous supply OF a rich and wholesome
milk, as good as that of the COW, and
used Tor the same purpose.
In the Victorian State Forest, on the
slopes of the mountains dividing Gipps
Land from the rest of the Australian col
ony OF Victoria, grow the highest trees
in the world the noble gum trees of the
genus eucalyptus. These trees range from
$50 to 800 feet in hight. one of the huge
trees that had fallen was found by actual
measurement with a tape, to be 4S6 feet
from the roots to where the trunk had
been broken off by the fall, and at that
point the tree was three feet in diameter.
A cedar tree recently felled near Acosta,
washington, measured 46l feet in hight
ana seventy feet in circumference. DR..
James gives some interesting particulars
OF these gum trees. The eucalyptus glob-
uIous grew forty feet high in four years
in Florida, with a stem a foot in diameter.
Trees OF the same species in Guatemala
grew 100 feet in twelve wears and had a
stem diameter of nine feet Other species
also attain enormous sizes-eucalyptus di-
VersicolOr is known to grow 400 feet high,
and trees have been mea assured 800 feet
long without a branch. Boards twelve
feet wide can frequently be obtained. In
1860 monster petrified tree was found in
Baker county Oregon II was Just 666
feet long, and at the butt was quite sixty
feet in diameter. Amber-like beads of pet
rifed gum adhered to the sides of the
trunk for a distance of 100 feet or more.
Prof. Bunge, in the course of a paper
on iron as a medicine. read before the
German Congress of Internal Medicine,
has been Ventilating some ideas which
are as much matter of general science
(and therefore extremely importanD as
they are details connected with the ply
siclan'S domain, says London Public
Opinion He is strong on the point
that iron should reach our blood through
the medium of our food, rather than
| through the druggists specialties. Iron,
as everybody knows, is a food element
absolutely essential for the proper con-
stltutlOn of the body. 1t is as rigidly de-
manded by the plant as by the ami
NAL; and it is from plants that Prof.
Bunge shows we should chiefly receive
our iron supply. Spinach he tells us. Is
richer in iron than the yOlk of eggs,
while the yolk contains more than peef.
Then succeed apples, lentils straWbcr-
RES, white beans, peas, potatoes and
wheat these substances being given in
the order in which they stand as re-
CARDS the plentifulneSs of their iron con-
stituents Cows milk is poor in iron, but,
as balancing this deficiency in the food Of
the young mammal, it is found that the
blood of the youthful quadruped con-
tains much more iron than the adult.
Thus, in a young rabbit or guinea pig
one hour old, four times as much iron
was found as occurs in these animals
two and half months old.
"A writer in La Revue Scientifigue sug-
gests that the French Sahara, uDon the
southern edge of Algeria, may be profita-
ply used for the breeding of ostriches.
The Barbary ostrich was once greatly
priced Tor its pumage and the ostrich
feather houses of Paris made their repu-
tation by the curling of these plumes
The wild Barbary ostrich is nearly ex-
tinct, so there are no more plumes of the
sort to be had and the Partisan houses
have lost their monopoly of ostrich feath-
er curing. Indeed, a large part of the
business has been transferred to other
countries, notably the United States 1t
is estimated that the world uses an
nually about $20,C000 900 worth of ostrich
plumes and the writer in La Revue Scien-
tihgue says that in view of the early adop-
ton of European dress in the east, espec-
tally in China and Japan, the demand for
this sort of personal adornment is likely
to increase. He urges. too, that the in
creased use of ostrich feathers throughout
| the civilized world is likely to protect
other birds of fine plumage from destruc-
| tion and he calls upon the various socie-
| ties interested in the protection of such
birds TO aid in making ostrich plumes
more fashionable than ever. 1t is believ-
least $50 900 ostrichs domesticated and
bred for their plumage and the writer
says that there is no reason why north
ern Africa should not become quite as i'm
portant a region in this industry. The
Sahara, it is explained, is by no means
the exclusively arid and sandy waste that
the popular imagination makes it, The
ostrich cannot exist in the absolutely dry
portions of the Sahara, but there are large
areas which are not, properly speaking,
GASES but they do produce considerable
vegetation. 1t is upon these areas that
the French people are urged to undertake
ostrich farming. There have been two or
three unsuccessful experiments to this
end in Algeria upon the edge of the desert
but they have failed for reasons that
would not necessitate failure in other
parts of the desert. 1t is true, the writer
admits, that the Sahara can probably
never maintain a large European popula-
ton, but he notes that it is the GASES and
not the less fertile parts of the desert
that are particularly unwholesome for
Europeans. He believes there is a large
field for immigration in parts of the
French Sahara that are suitable for ost-
rich farming and urges that the war de-
partment should aid in establishing the
industry; that the natives could be di-
rected by French immigrants and Paris
could recover something like her monopo-
~