The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-10-27
ITEMS OF INTEREST.


ands. the oldest tree in that country ap-
pears to be the Brabourne yew, in Kent,
the age of which is estimated by De
Candolle to be 5000 years, and he attrib-
uted the same age 10 another yew, that of
Fortingall, in Perthshire.
The largest mirror ever brought to
America has been placed in the dining
room in the wing of the Hotel Savoy, of
New York city According to the Scien-
tifc American, it occupied the entire end
OF the room, being y feet high and 1872
feet long Several attempts had to be
made by the manufacturers to produce
glass of this size without flaws.
PROF. Franklin G. Robinson of Bow
doin College has invented a disinfecting
lamp which is attracting attention. The
value of formic aldehyde has been known
since 1894, but its production was too slow
for practical use. The new lamp forces
the fumes of methyl alcohol through a
platinized asbestos disk, evolving the al
dehyde so rapidly that large room can
be thoroughly fumigated in two or three
hours at a small expense.
A New York writer, who writes much
in the book line, and gets little for II,
has conceived the idea of free 4ime novel
coinage. He suggests that dnasmuch as
there appears to be a combination among
publishers, like that among bankers, to
enrich themselves out of the sweat OF the
producers of manuscript, the govern
ment, which owns printing office, should
take these manuscripts and make them
into books. THE publishers, he argues,
cannot get along without us any more
than the bankers can exist without mo
products of labor, but the publishers are
few and rich, while we are many and
Go 2 ha iCh
faces. They have set up their own stand
ard-set up what you might call Sold
standard in literature-and no other k1no
of manuscript will they coin into books
so to speak 1 have always supposed
there was no way of escaping their ty-
ranny, but the idea of making the gov
eminent minis establish price for silver
bullion con tainS an idea worth considera-
ton. 1t furnishes a key to the sltua-
ton between publishers and writers. If
people will raise a cry for a free gov
eminent press for the use of producers
of manuscripts, as well as a free mint
for the use of the producers of silver
if you will put on your banners the IN
spring motto, '16 authors to l publisher
you will find the toihng masses behind
you increased by all the writer's whose
work is rated by the publishers at the
silver standard"
The striking and puzzling problem OF
sending light vibrations over wire has
! been attacked by many clever scientists
without success; but German inventor
now claims that he has removed the
principal obstacles to its practical work
! ing This operation must not be con-
founded with that of telautography, in
which pictures, photographs, handwrit-
ing, ETC., are transmitted by electro
! chemical or other means. The problem
| which DR.. Ernst Huber says he has
| solved is: Is it possible to transmit over
one wire the images of objects in mo-
| ton, or even at rest, from a transmits
! ting station, to a receiving station, al
! which receiving station the exact repro
| ductiQn of the said objects, in motion or
at rest may be seen by an Observer Is
| it possible to so transmit these objects
| that any changes in their position will be
| simultaneously transmitted and seen at
| the receiving end? DR.. Huber replies to
| these questions in the affirma tive, and in
the system which he had made public
these results are claimed to be reached
by experimenting many of the features
of previous experimentation in the same
field with the Roentgen rays. The vibra>
lions of a Crooks tube are repeate
Simultaneously by the transmitting ap.
paratus, and an image of the same size
as the original projection appears on a
fluorescing screen on which the observer
gazes through magnifying lens. It Is
said that in this way landscapes, horse
races and the like may be seen at dis
tances limited only by the laws of nature.
According to the experiments of DR..
Bertram Thornton, says the Pittsburg
| Dispatch, the telephone promises to be
of material use in the education of those
deaf mutes who possess a fragment of
hearing power, and it has the following
important advantage over the single
speaking tube that is sometimes used :
Firstly, with 1t teacher can instruct a
group of children at the same time; sec
ondly, as it is not necessary for the
teacher to apply his mouth close to the
| transmitter, the pupils have a full view
| of his features, expression and lip move
| ments, which is not the case when he has
| to direct his attention and his voice to
the mouth of the speaking tube or trum-
pet 1t is well known that in most cases
/ of deafness the actual hearing part of
! the apparatus, so to speak, is capable of
| performing it's function, but the mechan-
| ism for collecting the sound waves and
| transmitting them to the cochlea and it's
| appendages is defective. This is also the
case in a large proportion of instances of
| deaf-mutism. In using the ordinary
| speaking tube, the voice of the speaker is
| increased in intensity to an almost pain
/ full degree, and the lips have to be placed
close to the mouth-piece. BY using the
|
at least equal to the most approved form
| of ear-trumpet is obtained at a distance
| varying from six inches to one foot from
| the mouth of the transmitter. Dr. Thorn
| ton has found this fact an immense help
| in the teaching of deaf mutes. He mem
| lions two cases in which the utility of
the telephone was markedly manifested.
| The first was that of a young woman
| with nerve deafness so extreme that il
was necessary to speak at the top of ones
| voice within two or three inches of her
! ear to enable her to hear With the tele-
| phone he was able to converse with her
in subdued voice with his mouth twenty
| six inches away from the transmitter. In
this case, she received some assistance
from reading his lips, though she was
! only beginner in the accomplishment
In another case, a man with a similar de-
gree of deafness was able to hear his
wife and another person conversing with
him in tones raised hardly above a whs-
per, they being inside the room and he
outside with the door shut. The value
of the telephone in deafness is not yet
half appreciated, and many progressive
tufc VlAv I