The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-11-10
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

| bell buoy which at frequent intervals and
automatically strikes it's own number, thus
enabling the captain of any vessel within
| hearing distance to know his position on
the darkest night or foggiest day Three of
| these buoys have been placed in Boston
harbor, and are soon to be tested by gov
eminent officials.
The board of visitors to the naval
academy at Annapolis noted with surprise
that officers and cadets do not salute the
colors by removing their caps, but simply
touch them after a formal fashion APP
parently modelled on foreign custom. La
dies are saluted in the same way. The
! board thereupon recommended that the
| national colors be -saluted by uncovering
the head, and that ladies be recognized
in the manner usual among gentlemen.
-"TH wager you never saw a chicken
like that" said Jacob Hope, of Ninth
street, above Hilbert, as he dived into a
cage and sought out o notified pullet, says
the Philadelphia Record. He would have
won the wager for the pullet has the
head Of a snake, as well developed as any
serpent that ever wriggled. 1t has no beak
at all, but in its stead is mouth, from
which darts back and forth, with all the
snakes characteristics, red singer. To
prove the strange resemblance Mr.. Hope
reached into a glass case and brought
about seven feet long, which he affec-
tionately twined about his neck 1t was
hard to tell which head looked most snake
like. Another odd feature of the pullet
is its lack Of toes and claws.
No less than 1920 tons of African ivory
came last year into the market of Lon
don, Liverpool and Antwerp, whence the
civilized world derived its supply, says the
New York Tribune. OF this total II $50
tons represent fresh importations, the bal
ance being drawn from old stock. Now,
the average yield of a single elephant is
about thirty pounds of ivory, so it is clear
that over 1900 pachyderms must have
been slaughtered last year to meet the de-
mand 1t is roughly estimated that Africa
cannot contain more that coo elephants,
so that at the present rate of humiliation
we are within easy view of the extinction
of the entire species. Experts are agreed
! that the only means to prevent this is the
domestication of the African elephant Di-
rectly the native and foreign hunters be-
| come convinced that one living elephant Is
worth a dozen of tusks they will be as
| keen to preserve the animal as they are
now to eXterminate him.
There is an old lady lying in the Penn
sylvania hospital with broken leg, who
once sat for the figure Of life-size paint
! ing of Queen Victoria, says the Philade1-
! phia Record. She is Miss Blanche Suily,
and her father was Thomas Sully, in his
| time a famous painter of portraits. In
! 1887 he went to England with a commits
! sion from the st. Georges society to paint
| the portrait of young Queen Victoria.
! He took his daughter with him and as
| she was very nearly of the same stature
/ as the queen she sat for the figure in her
! fathers picture of Victoria, thus saving
! the latter the annoyance of long sittings.
/ -;+t S111Ix
! quite intimate with her majesty, and
/ brought back with her to this country
/ many delightful memories of her royal
! friend. The picture of the queen was
\ placed in the rooms of the Society of 81.
| George, al Thirteenth and Arch streets,
which is still called St. Georges hall. and
remains there yet, judged by all who had
seeen the original as an excellent likeness.
Sully died in 1872, at the advanced age of
80 years.
Recently two healthy and robust ply.
sicians, aged 26 and So years, were select
ed by the imperial German health bureau
to undergo an Interesting experiment III
order to ascertain whether aluminium
is poisonous or not These two gentle
men, in order to test the non-poisonous
| properties of aluminium, volunteered,
| every morning for one month, to swat
low fifteen grains of aluminium tartrate
| with their lunch. At the end of the trial
neither OF them had lost flesh or appetite
| or experienced the slightest discomfort
| during the entire period of their metallic
/ lunch 1t was found that the metal is not
adapted, however. to contain for long
! period brandy, whisky or wine. After a
time these liquids turn turbid, and al
though perfectly harmless are not invit-
ing, to say the least although for TWO
or three days journey they are not APP
| preciably acted on when carried in alum
inium TASKS. A correspondent writing In
| the London Electrical Engineer on the
| subject states that he has used cast alum
inium cooking utensils for over twelve
months and that they have given both
the cook and the consumer every salts
| faction without any fear of poisoning, as
when copper utensils were employed. Den
tai plates are also now made of alumni
| ium, which, besides having only a frac-
ton Of the weight of a gold plate, possess
the additional advantage of producing no
disagreeable taste in the mouth
THE Natural bridge of Virginia has
always been regarded as a great wonder
and justly So" said E. r. Paine of Boze-
! man, Mont, to the Washington Post ''but
there is a far greater one in Idaho near
the Bay Horse mine, which is known to
very few people, and they have never paid
any attention to it, except to make some
exclamation of wonder when they first saw
it. There is a tunnel through a granite
mountain. The tunnel is little over a
mile long, is wide enough for a double
track railroad to pass through and is
straight. The walls of this natural tun-
nell are nearly as even as they would
have been had it been blasted through by
men. OF course, it has been formed by
erosion, but how is a mystery. Scientific
men can explain it, just as they can ex-
plain any cave that has an entrance at
either end. but it does not satisfy those
who see it, If a railroad should ever be
built through that country the natural
tunnel will be found exceedingly useful"
Baron de Bay, French archaelogist
has been digging up the Kurgans, or old
| turtle-back burying mounds, near Tomsk
in Siberia. Some of these, dating from
| the Russian conquest of Siberia, contain
beads, earrings, knives with artistically-
carved bone hats, copper kettles, rings,
bracelets and ornaments of silver. The
oldest mound was five or six centuries old.
The mounds that were built only 800 years
ago showed a much poorer stage of civil
ization, very few metal objects being