The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-03-27
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

"A large audience once gathered in Bal
timore to hear the late Prof. Sylvester
read a unique original poem of 400 lines.
all rhyming with the name Rosalind. He
had appended to the poem large number
of explanatory footnotes, which he said
he would read first. When at last he had
done so he looked up at the clock, and
was Mortified to find that he had kept the
audience an hour and a half before be-
ginning to read the poem they had come to
hear. The establishment on his face was
| answered by burst of good-humored
laughter from the audience. and then, aft
er begging all his hearers to feel at per-
feet liberty TO leave If they had engage
ments, he read the RosaIind poem.
Experiments testing the strength of
welded joints have been made at the en-
cheering laboratory of the University OF
Michigan. Common round iron was used
Three bars were taken at random; IL
inches, l inch and y inch in diameter
From each bar four specimens were pre-
pared, one solid, one lap welded, one fsutt
welded and one split welded. The results
show that only two specimens, both lap
welded, broke at or near the weld; the
fracture in one case was slightly orys-
talline and in the other fibrous The
strength in no case departed widely from
the strength of the solid parts 1t would
seem from these tests that with skilfully
made Yields we may expect to realize
nearly the full strength of the original
bar.
An improvement on the useful hot
water bag is the hot-water coil" this
coil being set on a rubber mat, which
communicates the heat TO the afflicted
part best if a cloth, moistened with tur-
pentine, is placed between it and the skin.
Two rubber tubes, each an eighth of an
inch in diameter. compose this coil and
they communicate with a little hot-water
reservoir, under which burns an alconol
lamp, that can be moved from place to
place easily. 1t takes but a moment to
fill the reservoir and the tubes and to
light the lamp, and only four minutes to
heat the water up to a temperature taat
| is almost blistering. In much less time
a gentle warmth may be attained, and by
turning the lampwick up or down the tenn
| perature may be lowered or raised on de-
mand, or it may be kept steadily at any
| desired point for hours.
-"Once in blue MOON is a saying
which is not merely fanciful expression
| for extreme rarity, but appears to be
| founded on fact, says London Tit-Bits.
Blue moons are very rarely seen, how
| ever, much more rarely than blue or green
| suns. The present writer was fortunate
| enough to see a blue moon several years
| ago, about the time when the atmosphere
was supposed to be impregnated with the
dust of the Krakatoa eruption. The color
| was like that of a hedge-sparroW' egg, a
pale, rather greenish blue, and it grad
| ually died away in some minutes after he
| first caught sight of it. Blue, or rather
| green, suns we're observed at Madras and
elsewhere about that time A green sun
was observed at sunrise by Hicks Pasha
in the Soudan just before the destruction
Of lie
| set on July 2S last off Cape Stat, Norway,
by Capt. Salveson, of the Ellida.
THE smallest dictionary in the world
is the legend upon the title page of a tiny
booklet owned by Michael ]. Donnelly of
| No. 10 Hikey street, says the Philadelphia
| Record. 1t was printed in Glasgow by
| Robert Maclehone, and measures one.fnch
| by three-quarters of an inch. The paper
| is very thin, and the type almost unde-
! cipherable with the naked eye. Under
| a magnifying glass the numbers SS4 loom
up on the last page. The little volume,
| according to the preface, comprises ''be-
sides the ordinary and newest words in
| the language, short explanations of large
number of scientific, philosophical, liter
! airy and technical terms" 1t is dedicated
| by the publishers to Mrs. Kendall, in ap-
probation of kindly encouragement given
| to the production of tiny articles, of
| which she has a unique collection. The
| tiny dictionary was picked up on the
| street by Mr.. Donnelly while in New York
He has refused several tempting offers
from collectors. who wished to pur-
chase it.
In talking over the minute factors Il at
have meant profit. or loss to manufaetur-
ers, some curious details were given me
| by experts, says a writer in Scribners
For instance, one clock manufacturer Of
| Waterbury, Conn, found that a certain
rival was doing a large trade in cheap
! clocks sent out to the wilds of Africa. He
! got hold of a sample clock, and, finding
that there was a heavy profit in the en-
| terpriSe, invested a large sum of money
in making still better clock, thousands
of which were shipped to the same mar
| ket. Strange to say, sales were very slow,
! while his rival, turning out a cheaper and
| far less accurate timepiece, was selling
| all he could make. Finally the eXplana-
ton came. Savages like noise. The clocks
| made by the original exporter had a par
ticularly loud and aggressive tick; his i'm
| tator made a better clock, but it was al
| most noiseless, and the savages would
| have none of it. The remedy was simple.
| The next shipment of clocks to the Guinea
coast licked louder than anything previ-
ously heard there, and all went well.
"A remarkable exhibition of the keen
ness of scent of the bloodhound was given
at the little town of Bronson, In Allen
county, the other day, says the Kansas
| City Journal. The town recently appro-
priated 800 out of the city treasury for
the purchase of one of these animals, the
| purpose being the detention and capture
of thieves who were operating in the
neighborhood, and test of the mounds
was considered desirable. At noon three
men started out on foot and walked four
miles into the country. Then they mount
ed horses and by circuitous route they
returned to the town. Six hours later the
hound was permitted to smell a glove
which had been worn by one of the men,
and the next instant, with deep howl
he caught up the trail and followed il
on the run. At one point the men had
walked for thirty yards on a fence, and
when the hound came to this point he car
ried his nose along the rail with hardly
any reduction of speed. Coming 20 the
place where the men had mounted, he
took up the trail of the horses and follow
ed IL into town, where in a crowd of more
than 100 men. he picked out the one whose
glove had been given him to smell
There is at present in the keeping Of