The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-10-30
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

IA AdSpOlSSs says the New L OTh llIHes'
They are sent from here all over the
country, and outside to Japan and Cuba,
though none have gone to Cuba recently.
There are ten times more poles than
there were in New York city four years
ago." says c. H. Lilly, who has known
all there was to know about the f1agpole
business for twenty-eight years. There
is not a business building put up nowa>
days" he says, that does not have a
not counted a dozen flags above the
Harlem to Fordham, and now there are
at least 250. In one piece the poles run
up all the way to IS and 100 feet. the
pole on the produce exchange is 100 feet.
and the old Mutual Life Insurance build
ing had a 100-foot pole. These are excep-
tional. The majority of the tall poles do
not exceed 9S feet. The village pole IS
usually or always the liberty, or topmast
pole, in two pieces" The shorter poles
are made of spruce or ash, but the talies5
ones of the toughest white or Norway
pine. The gilt top to fagpoles are more
or less ornamental. A salamander figures
on the poles topping some of the big fire.
proof buildings. Occasionally a hagpole
is artistically built into the corner of a
building.
An interesting catalogue was recently
published by Hagenbeck of Hamburg
and the real value of a menagerie can be
pretty closely estimated by this price list
He quotes hippopotamus at $500, an
African rhinoceros from $3.50 to SO, 900;
female elephants, according to age, $1,000
to $500; male elephants, with tusks two
feet long, $1,000; a pair of African lions
from the Sahara only. $3.50; a Nubian
lioness, $780, a trained group of wild ami
mails, consisting of two pairs of Nubian
lions and two male Bengal tigers, $1,000;
IL L
Sumatra tigers, 81, 500; pair of jaguars
$3.50; a female Japanese leopard, with a
cub, $500; an African male leopard, $780,
a black panther, 800; pair of full-groNn
wolves, $50; a gnu $500; large male
polar bear, $500; large brown bear, Sj0
pair of zebus, $50; an alligator, ten feet
long, 800; a boa constructor, % feet long
$3.50; Somah ostrich, $175; a pair of
Borneo apes, S100, and a baboon, $25. The
greatest increase in price from former
lists is in the case of the giraffe, a male
specimen of which is now worth s., 200
while only two years ago Such specimen
might have been had for $500 or $3.50
Scarcity of these animals, as we'll as the
Inaccessibility of the Egyptian Soudan,
are responsible for the increase in the
price of the CRATES.
The United States coast and geodetic
survey has recently completed an i'm
portant work, says the Baltimore Herald.
With infinite patience and enormous labor
it has measured the thirty-ninth parallel
of latitude from the Atlantic to the Pacific
ocean. This task has been ac-
complished with the greatest pos
sible scientific accuracy. The meas
ured line begins at point on
the Atlantic coast ten miles below Little
Egg Island lighthouse, south of Cape
May, and extends across the continent to
a point six miles north of Punta Arenal
lighthouse on the Pacific coast. The thir-
ty-ninth parallel was not only surveyed
and marked, but actually measured from
end to end. Besides, the surface meas
urements were corrected for the "sea
level at very step of the way, and the
final result is the arc of a spherical cir
Gle of the earth al the level of the sea-
The uses for this base line are many. 1t
will be the starting point of all accurate
surface and coast surveys in this coun-
try. By means of it the circumference
of the earth may be calculated and when
the earth'S radius to the thirty-ninth par
allel is known, it will be the yard-stick
by which to measure the heavens 1t was
by such measurements that Astronomer
koenigSberg, of Berlin, calculated the
diameter of the earth and estimated the
distance to the fixed star sixty-one Cygni
When is it stated that the measurement
of this arc in America shows that the
Koenigsberg arc was III feet too long
and that of Sir Andrew Clarke, of Glag-
cow University, was ninety-eight feet
too long, the fact appears that all astro-
nomical measurements will have to be re-
vised to fit the new standard. This base
line" is signal triumph of American
scientific achievement, and, though it
has cost the government a round 81, 100000
it will prove to be worth the labor and ex-
pense involved.
Toward the middle of the seventeenth
century one of the strangest of popular
follies took possession of the usually posi-
tive and hard-headed Dutch, says an ex-
cnange. At that period Holland had
grown from small beginnings into riches
and luxury. With a taste for vivid colors.
the merchants of HARLEM began to CEN
ter their admiration upon tulips. Gar
dens were laid out, new varieties sought.
emulation became rife and a mania
spread over the people. New forms.
shades and combinations wee in
troduced into the market. and fortunes
were made and spent on these lowly flow
ers. Bulbs reached fabulous prices. and
the only similar craze in more recent
times seems to have been the sale of the
Famous peachblow vase in New York citv
at the Morgan sale. This latter. how
SN0l' was COlilHeu 10 a rev cOnnOiSSeurS-
while the tulip craze swept an entire
slow-going practical Dutch community.
one bulb of choice variety was equivalent
to a competence for an entire family
whereas in HARLEM living was cheap'
In contiguous city, for one plant was
given two carts of grain, four carts of
barley, four oxen, twelve sheen. 1000
pounds of cheese, complete suit of fine
clothing and a silver goblet. Another
bulb sold for 1900 forms, or about AZ 900
OF our money. Once there was in Haar-
lem left only two bulbs of a certain nrized
variety. For one was offered and refused
the equivalent in our currency of 81 $40
besides splendid coach and pair with
their trappngs. Another refusal was az
twelve acres of valuable land ON the
registers of another city to-day can he
seen the record of the sale of 100 tuIins
for the benefit of an orphanage. which
brought in the amazing sum of-in our
country-S36,0O0. The spread of this craze
is study in psychology. Finally. when
gambling in tulips began, when brokers
bought and sold long and short " tbe
government decreed that debts thus con
tracted should he exacted in the usual
manner. Soon thereafter prices sudden
ly fell, and the mania died a natural
death. 81