The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-02-13
ITEMS OF INTEREST.


| an old monastery some dire prophecies
| regarding the present year. The first is
| the order Of Cistercians Q54D- The monk
/ prophesies that Paris viii be entirely de-
4 stroyed this year, and VIII never be re-
| built He also announces a series Of
| calamities and wars for 1886. Another
] Frenchman foretells a great war, lasting
two years to begin this year.
Before the close OF the present college
year, says the New York Tribune, the
! Harvard Memorial Society, organized last
/ May, viii place three bronze tablets. four
! feet in hight by three and a half feet in
! width, on the front of Massachusetts hall
| opposite Harvard hall. On each of the
! TWO side tablets will be inscribed the
| names OF eleven noteworthy Harvard
] men. and on the center tablet will be
/ given the main facts and dates in the his
/ Tory OF the old hall itself. 1t is also
| the intention of the society to put up, if
/ possible, few bronze tablets about one
| ana haf feet in width, inscribed with
| the names Of famous Harvard graduates,
| under the windows Of the rooms which
/ they once occupied. How many of these
last tablets will be placed on the old
DuIlqngs IN the yard will probably de-
\ pend on the amount of money that the So
clety obtains before next June.
"A correspondent of the Boston Tran
script thus describes Georgetown, British
Guiana: I'm the hotels are managers and
overseers drinking 'syyizzles' and playing
| billiards.. The cigarette is universal. Ev-
| half asleep. No signs of a struggle for
| existence. They live on nothing and for
| nothlng IN particular. Business is good,
II IS SAID, but there are no signs of IL.
| Clothing is inexpensive, and they wear
| little. The heat is terrific, and they drink
| 'SwizZleS' and smoke Backward and for
ward plies the ferryboat from the east
| to the west coast of the Shiny Demarara
Ships of every kind sleep beside the docks
| In the distance loom the smoking chin
neys of the sugar plantations. Peace and
| plenty is written on all. The blue shad-
ows sleep on the streets. and the buck
| sters sleep in them, lulled by the buzz of
| the droning beetle in the leaves above
| them. 1t is the hour of the midday 81
esta. Toward evening the seawall is alive
| with people-a strong dyke of massive
| stone against which the sea beats in vain,
| sending up huge bursts of foam to startle
yon two lovers from their reverie as hand
| in hand, in Guianese style, they languidly
sun"
Certain microscopic shells were so nu-
merous at one period of the worlds his
tory, when the district round Paris was
| under water, that they formed mountains
| by settling down on the bottom of the sea.
| These shells, the only remains of the ami
mails which inhabited them, are now
| quarried to build French towns. In 9TH
| er parts of the world not only are cities
built of the stone formed of these tiny
| shells, but they stand on soil composed
of the same material. In North America
there are layers of closely compressed
shells, each one almost invisible to the
naked eye, which are as much as twenty
feet thick. Berlin is built upon one of
| these beds of animalcuae, more than
fifty feet thick. 1t is said that 10000 of
the shells under Berlin would only oc-
cupy the length of an inch, and the
weight Of each is hardly the millionth
OF miligramme, a nulligramme being
.Ol54 of grain. It would require no few
er than l,lll5C0,0O0 to weigh a gramme,
and every cubic foot of the soil on which
Berlin is built contains 100000 900. Such
soil, especially as many of the ANIMAL
| a iG Wa n I'M in fo1
and collapses often occur. Limestone
and chalk, also mainly composed of these
substances, are extremely common, and
there must be hundreds of cities, towns
and villages built on swelling downs
which consist of nothing but animal re-
mains.
I'm answer to a correspondent who asks:
What is the most curious material out
of which time-piece has been made" a
London journal prints the following rather
interesting item. Bread, we think is the
most curious material out of which a
clock has ever been constructed. There
was, and may may still be, in Milan a
clock made of bread. The maker was a
native of Milan, who devoted three years
of his time to the task. He was very
poor, and being without means to pur-
chase the necessary metal for the making
of, clock, he set apart regularly por-
tion of his bread each day, eating the
crust and saving the soft part. To solid
ify this he made use of a certain salt,
and when the various pieces were dry
they became perfectly hard and insolu-
bic in water The clock was of good size
and kept fair time. Another strange clock
was exhibited some years ago in Liver
pool. 1t was constructed of pins. but
tons, and all sorts of odds and ends by
a pauper named Mercer. The maker of
this extraordinary time-piece thus de-
scribes 1t himself: The back and the front
of the clock were made from iron bed
laths, while the barrel was part of a
large brass ferule, the ends being brass
buttons hammered out. The barrel ar
Dor had originally been the blade of a
shoer1aker's anvil; the main and several
other wheels were nothing more nor less
than suspender buttons from the maker s
own trousers, while the cog teeth were
portions of by-gone knitting needles. The
teeth of the center wheels had been boot
rivets. In the dial there were 100 separate
pieces.
The anatomy of the yawn is a branch
of science that has been neglected, says
the New York Evening Sun. A yawn is
either natural of artificial Among the
natural are the things called gaps .
which are not true yawns at all, but must
be carefully distinguished from them. The
artificial article has a humber of pur-
poses. Sometimes it is assumed as a hint
man who talks politics in the presence
OF women, or talks shop, tells an old
story, or makes himself a general null
sance. Women have habit of yawning
in the face of male individual who
talks enthusiastically to them about other
women. This is one of the most artificial
of yawns. 1t has not even the pretense
of reality about it. The most essential
! difference between the real yawn and the
assumed one, is that the former is con-
tagious, and the latter is not One has
only to indulge in this physical act un-
Willingly, in a street car, to see it pass
up one side and down the other The ma
jority of those who follow the first ex-
ample, do it without noticing where the
initiative came from, or that they are fol-
lowing it. On the other hand an artf-
fetal yawn begins and ends with the Der-
son who perpetrates it. 1t has none of
| the subtle initiative of the real article
| Next to being able to understand a yawn
the most important social ACCOMPLISH
ment is to be able to stifie one This can
be done only after long practice. Where
this art has not been attained to, the
best thing TO do is not to apologize. Sucn
an explanation is an insult to the intellf-
gence of the person spoken to. A real
soul-felt yawn must be lived down. it
cannot be explained away. Say nothing
and your neighbor may obviate all trou-
bic by initiating you. In that case, one
transgression offsets the other.