The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-10-15
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

ed by George Washington. About fifteen
feet Of its top was broken off and the
trunk split for distance of ten feet from
the fracture. Every visitor to Mount YER
non remembers this magnificent tree. Be
fore the storm 1t was nearly forty feet
nigh. At its base the tree was about two
feet thick, gradually tapering to a diane
ter OF eight inches. The tree was shown
by the broken limbs to be dying, but its
loss through the storm is none the less I'M
fortunate. The part broken off has been
carefully laid away. The wood will be used
In making miniature souvenirs, while the
leaves will be pressed and given away to
visitors.
The window dresser for a big State
street firm in arranging a display of
mourning goods recently used as a cen
terpiece the wax figure of a young widow
dressed in the sable habiliments of woe
The proprietor sent for him. See here,
said the latter that black-goods win
dow won't do. You've rugged up a dunn
my in mourning who wears smile as
broad as a French joke and who looks as
radiant as the dawn of pay day." well,
said the artist, I'm not advertising
trouble; I'm bidding for business. When
the women pass that window and see how
beautiful how charming, how dangerously
alluring our dummy looks, the widows
will tumble over each other to buy our
goods, and the girls will go right away
and get married in order to fall into line
for a chance" His wages were raised on
the spot.-Chicago Times-Herald.
The queen, remarks the London Tele-
graph, has outlived: 1. All the members
of the privy council who were alive in
1887. 2. All the peers who held their til
ties in 1887 except the Earl of Darnley,
VINO was 10, and Earl Nelson, who was
IA in that year. 8. All the members who
sat in the House of Commons on her ac-
cession to the throne, except Mr.. Glad
stone, Mr.. Charles Villiers, the present
Duke of Northum berland the Earl of Mex
borough and the Earl of Mansfield, and
Mr.. John Temple Leader. 4. Her majes-
ty has seen eleven lord chancellors ten
prime ministers, six speakers of the House
of Commons, at least three bishops of eV-
| cry see and five or six of many sees, 1--WE
archbishops of Canterbury and six arch
| bishops of York. and five commanders-in-
chief. 5. She has seen five dukes of Nor
! folk succeed each other as earls marshal
and has outlived every duke and duchess
and every marquis and marchioness who
bore that rank in 1897. 6. She has out
| lived every member of the jockey club
and every master of foxhounds that -four
ished in 1897. T. She has seen seventeen
| presidents of the United States, ten vice
roys of Canada, fifteen viceroys of India
and France successfully ruled by one
king, one emperor and six presidents of a
republic.
An invention of great interest to nu-
mismatic collectors was recently patented
by F. Erdel, a school teacher in viii
lage near Nuremberg, Bavaria. He pro-
| poses to make exact copies of coins by
using tinfoil and makes such imprints
| permanent by a layer of gelatine or
| similar transparent layer, which is spread
| over a small glass plate. The gelaune
| spread on the glass is first softened by
water a piece of tinfoil the size of the
coin is then placed upon it and the coin
| is pressed upon the tinfoil. This causes
| the tinfoil to adhere to the gelatine, while
! the coin falls off, when turned around, or
| it may easily be lifted up with needle.
| The back of this cast may be either COW
| cred by pasting paper over it, or another
| glass plate may do the same service. On
! the inside of the other plate a similar
| imprint of the reverse of the coin may be
| exhibited, so that both sides of the coin
| may be copied that way if necessary
and the imprint shown on both sides.
| A number of antique coins which are
| unique, or which exist only in very few
! specimens, may be thus reproduced in
| large quantities and exhibited in muse
! ums, numismatic collections and even
| purchased by private amateurs who
| could not afford to ever obtain an origi-
| nal. The inventor of this process has
| also taken out a patent for employing
| this method of reproducing raised metal
| surfaces on relefs in the making of glass
| signs, showing, for instance, in plastic
| reproduction the medals received by in
| dustrial enterprises at exhibitions. This
/ process would be vastly superior to mere
| painting upon glass, for the imprint of
| the coin leaves nothing to be desired in
| IA wa " Of shows n
! brilliantly.
The fable of the barnacle goose has
long been discredited and almost forgo,-
ten; but other fictions of zoology are
longer lived, says Our Animal Friends
| We often hear to this day that a living
| frog or toad has been found by quarry
| men Embedded in solid rock, where II
must have lain since the formation Of the
| rock, countless ages ago. These state
| ments have been widely believed, and
| even men Of science have endeavored to
account for them by saying that the fros
and the toad are animals of singular
| powers of sustaining life under untoward
| conditions; that they hibernate during
| each winter, and that on being enclosed
| in the rock perhaps when actually hiber>
| mating they have simply continued their
! long sleep until the time of their release
| OF course, the explanation is absurd; for
even in a state of Information, the wear
| and tear of life though reduced to the
| lowest possible amount, still continue. ana
must within a measurable time exhaust
| the animal economy unless nutrition be
| supplied. Besides, all animals-and the
| frog is no exception-have limited term
| of life, beyond which their existence cam
not endure; so that the very idea of an an
| imaPs surviving under any conditions
| through period many thousands of times
longer than nature allows to it is simply
| absurd. No doubt frogs have been found
| by workmen when removing rock from
| quarries, and no doubt the men have firm
| ly believed that the frogs had been i'm
| bedded in the rock; but then, the workmen
| must have been mistaken. There was no
need, therefore, of a cruel experiment to
| prove what was already certain; but the
| certainty has nevertheless been estab-
| lished by several cruel experiments The
late DIR. Rutland was at pains to bury /,
number of frogs alive Some of them were
lmmured in stones; others in plaster; ana
the result was that none of them survived
the second year of their sepulture.
|