The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-08-19
ITEMS OF INTEREST.


in Canada are speeding after their herds
on bicycles. The cattlemen considered
Moseley crank when he resolved to fur
nfsh his herdsmen with bicycles instead of
tough bronchos, and now the men say that
they have done better work on bicycles
than on horses But they are still of the
opinion that in the long run horses will su-
persede the wheels. The COW ponies will
again be called into service when the deep
snow renders the use of wheels impossible
But the Montreal Daily Star says that al
ready one of Moseley's men has pronounce
ed this bicycle experiment "a fiat failure"
He attempted to rope steer with the end
of his lariat tied to the handle bar of the
bicycle, and the beast yanked him into the
adjoining county.
"A medical journal makes the frequency
of suicide by carbolic acid text for the
insistence that doctors and medical officers
of health should urge the introduction of
non poisonous disinfectant for house
hold use, says the Atchison Globe. An in
vestigation of the tables of suicide cases in
the United Kingdom shows that at the
present time suicide with carbolc acid
promises to outstrip the united poisonings
by oXalic acid, opium, laudanum, prussic
acid, cyanide of potassium and strychnine
AT one time laudanum, morphine and
opium were the favorite poisons but now
carbolc acid has taken their place, and
according to the returns for 1894, the latter
caused more than twice as many suicidal
deaths as the three former combined. In
the period 1875 the suicides by carbolic
acid were O.09 per cent. of all the suicides
with poisons; in 1S66-70 they were per
cent; in 1S71-75 $50 per cent; in 1860
7.93 per cent; in 1875, 1881 per cent; in
1SS6-9O, 15.49 per cent, and in 1S91-94, 2801
per cent. 1t is doubtful whether this disin-
fectant ever would have got such a hold
on the public but for two facts-t was
practically the first in the field and it was
cheap.
The city of Niagara Falls has more
factories making chemicals by electricity
to-day than any other in the world, SAYS
the Chicago Inter-Ocean The plant for
manufacturing chlorate of potash is the
first to introduce this industry into the
United States. The uses for this product
are continually increasing. From ave to
six million pounds are annually imported,
a large portion of which is used in calico
dyeing as an oxidizer. 1t is also employed
in the manufacture of parlor matches,
blasting powder. and some of the smoke
less powders. 1t is taken incidentally for
various ailments. The salt commonly
called muriate of potash is found in large
quantities in Stassfurt, in Germany and its
shipped to this country in bags containing
240 pounds each. 1t is dissolved in wooden
tanks, pumped up to storage tanks, and
is led from them through pipes to cast
iron, porcelan-lned, electrolyZing tanks,
divided by porous partitions into positive
and negative compartments. The chloride
solution is kept circulating from the posi-
tive to the negative compartments, being
electrOlyzed in its passage, and evolving
chlorine gas at the positive pole, and form
ing caustic potash at the negative pole.
The gas is led into the negative compart-
taTha wit
potash, forming hypochloTite and chloride
of potash 1t is then led down to tanks
containing lead steam coils and evapor-
ated to the concentration point of chloride
of potash when cold From here it is run
boiling hot to tanks, where it is allowed to
cool. Little of the chloride crystallizes
with the chlorate, as the two salts form
at different densities. The chlorate crys-
tails are raked out and dried and packed
in kegs holding a hundred pounds. The
mother liquor is pumped back to the stor-
age tanks to be used over again in the
cells.
Many amusing experiences have been the
lot of the scientists who have been manip-
ulating kites for scientific purposes, says
the Chicago News. Large birds are al
ways interested in the strange devices
floating in the air and cannot quite make
on twhat they are. Promptly by shary
curiosity, they hover around the floating
kites and subject themselves to the dan
ger of becoming entangled in the silken
string and being dragged down to earth.
No bird, however, has ever alighted on a
kite or attacked one. While one scientist
was flying a train of five kites, a coupe
of years ago large, silver-tipped eagle
came suddenly out of the higher air and
swooped round and round the first kite,
looking against the sunset sky like huge
silver ball AS the train of kites was pull
ed in the eagle followed. visiting one kite
and then another, seeming uncertain just
what TO do In few minutes, when he
seemed to have decided that they were not
good to eat, and he knew nothing about
them anyway, he Indignantly flew off and
was lost to view. Another experience was
had with a stork that came from the New
Jersey side of the Hudson and flew
straight for the queer object in the air. He
apparently had made up his mind to go
straight through il, but changed and dived
underneath. He went around and above
it, and through a glass il could be seen
that he cooked his eye at the intruder in
a comical manner. He started away a few
hundred fete, changed his mind and came
swooping back He finally reluctantly
went away, mystified over this queer addi-
ton to the inhabitants of the air While
kites were high in the air one March flock
of geese flying in the B-wedge flew over.
They invariably stopped, broke up and
lowered above the queer object, and at
last slowly reformed and flew away. While
the larger birds all come from nights above
the kites. the small birds of the air will
alight on the string holding the kite and
sway to and fro.
Within a few days the patent Office will
grant title in discovery which may fair
ly be considered as being the most re-
markable since the X-ray, says the Min
eral Collector. II is for a substance that
is harder than the diamond, and the in
ventor is Moissan, the French savant
whose experiments in the line OF diamond
making by artihce have obtained such
wide publicity. The utmost secrecy has
been maintained in regard to the matter
but investigation reveals the fact that
the substance in question Is a carbide OF
titanium-that Is to say. compound OF
carbon with the metal titanium. There
can be no doubt that It's production in
quantities will revolutionize many indus
tries where abrasives are employed and
IL D.