The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-12-02
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

The pneumatophor or oxygen rescue
/ apparatus. has found much favor in the
I sight of Silesian mine owners. At a re-
cent committee meeting of the Upper SIZE
/ star Berg aud Huttonmannische Nerein,
/ the subject of erecting depots for the nee
| essary storage of oxygen bottles was dis
| cussed. Il was stated that a large num-
! Der Of cOllieries in that district now pos
/ sess pneumatophors, the most important
| part of which is a bomb filed with com
pressed oxygen, which can only afford the
! required supply Of oxygen for a compare
| lively short time and must then be re-
! placed by new one. The bombs are fill
/ ed with large steel cylinders containing
! from 500 to 1.000 liters of oxygen by means
/ of special filling apparatus. II was decid-
/ ed that as all the large cOllierieS were
| provided with the necessary bombs, steel
! cylinders and filling apparatus in sutti-
/ cienJ number, or will be shortly, the es-
adjustment of a central store for supply
/ ing the small mines would meet the pres
ent needs. Many lives are reported to
have been saved through the use of this
device in fiery mines.
The Smithsonian Institution has just
come into possession of the Hauett Phil
lips collection of Indian implements and
ANTIQUITIES from the Potomac valley saws
the New York Tribune. 1t is reputed the
largest single collection of it's class in the
world, and its value is greatly enhanced
by the careful arrangement and record of
individual specimens. The collection con-
sists of over 2O,OO0 pieces principally spear
and arrow heads, stone knives, hammers
and ScraperS and fragments of pottery
and soapstone utensils. Mr.. Phillips had
made a lifelong study of prehistoric man
| in the Atlantic tideWater region In his
opinion, which is accepted as authority
! by the Smithsonian scientists, Washington
was not the first capital on the banks of
the Potomac. The site, owing to the great
! advantage in connection with stone quar-
rieS and the river fisheries was the head
| quarters of the great Algonquin confed-
eracy, the most powerful of the Indian
! n "a 10 Mt 10 mo- rF Z h
| these Indians that Capt. John Smith first
came in contact on his initial voyage up
the Potomac, and his memoirs contain an
account of light with the Indians in their
principal village on the site of what is
now Anacostia, a suburb of Washington.
The experiment of double rudders on
American warships has produced such al
together unsatisfactory results that those
now in use will be taken off at once, and
no more viii be tried. Two rudders, one
forward of the other were put on the
gunboats Helena and Wilmington, the re-
markably light draught of those vessels
| giving little room for attaching one good
| sized rudder, and as these vessels were
also designed for meneuvering in narrow
! river channels the twin steering eXpedient
was adopted to increase their obedience
| to the helm. On their sea trials these
| vessels were found to steer admirably at
| full speed, but when they dropped to four
| or five knots, which is deemed a good
| river rate, the men at the wheel lost oil
| control of them. and they would not be
| maze 10 respond to the helm. In SuDSe-
| quent trials the forward rudder was fas-
| tened straight astern, and Immediately it
! was found that the ship behaved admira-
! bly,. orders have therefore gone to New
| York, where the Helena is i'm dock, to
| take off the forward rudder and fill in the
| hole it occupied, and the Wilmington,
! which was on athe point of sailing for
| MontevideO, will be sent to the norfolk
! yard in a day or two for the same altera-
! tons, which will delay her at least twelve
! days.
! The comparative durability of different
! flooring materials has been the subject of
some careful and accurate investigation
! says the Boston Journal of Commerce. in
| these tests an ordinary iron rubbing wheel
was used, like that employed by stone
| workers for rubbing smooth surface on
! marble or sandstone and the SAMPLES TO
| be tested fastened to blocks of sandstone,
| laid face downward on the rubber wheel
| which revOlved at the rate of seventy-five
| revolutions minute, being supplied with
sharp sand and water. The blocks to
which the f1Oorings We're cemeuted were of
! equal weight, so that the rubbing was eff
! fected under nearly the same pressure in
| all cases. Curiously enough. the material
| which resisted best this severe trial was
| India-rubber thing which after an hours
| rubbing, lost only 1-64 of an inch of it's
thickness: and, next to this. English en-
| caustic tile gave the best results losing
| only u of an inch in an hours trea tment.
| The artificial stone. known as "granolith-
ic," was third losing "a of an inch; while
! North river blueStone lost 9-16 of an inch.
! All the marbles wore away very rapidly;
piece of marble mosaic disappeared entire
| ly in thirty-fiVe minutes while sold white
| Vermont marble lost three-fourths of an
| inch in an hour. Most of the wood floor
! tngs resisted abrasion better than the
marble; thus white pine lost only seven
! slXteenths OF an inch under treatment
| that removed nearly twice as much from
! solid marble, yellow pine about like white,
| and oak lost more than either of the pines.
One of the Edison light and power sta
tons in New York receives it's water sup
| TOlV tyVn
| end of the building. 1t was recently no
| tced That the supply from one of the
services was cut off. On investigation, the
| engineer of the watch found that there
| We're five cells and one small fish in the
| eel trap, installed alongside of the meter
| The cells We're very large, one of them
| weighing "a pounds, and measuring 20
! inches long and inches in circumference.
| AS the day was Friday. when the com
| pany's staff council has its regular meet
| ing, and when an electrically cooked lunch
| Is served the cells We're at once added to
| the stock of the commssary department
| and proved most acceptable. During the
| luncheon one of the officers of the com
| pany said he was reminded of a story
| which Edison gave to a credulous repor-
| Ter way back in the early DAYS of cleo
| trlc lighting, and which was duly turned
| into the newspaper office and printed The
reporter asked Edison whether the new
electric light was making any Roadway
| outsides of the states. ooh, yes" said
! Edlson, they are wild for it down in
| South America, and our folks can't get
!
! Madalena river there is a perfect craze
| for the light We are equipping all the
| larger towns near the mouth as quickly
! as we can, but at one of the small places
| far up the river, l heard the other day.
they said they We're not going to wait for
! US And they didn't. The river about
| there was infested with electric cells, and
! they caught thousands and thousands of
| these, and strung them together in con
Verter, and lighted the town that way"
Medical men say that there are few
things more mischievous in their perma-
| nent effects on the human system then
| the artificial dry air which is found in
| many apartments in the cold season and
| singers especially have much to fear from
! this cause. One of the principal reasons
| why people get into the habit of living in
| an atmosphere which is so hot as 10 san
| their strength and their power of with
| standing climatic influences is that thew
| take no measures to supply a proper pro
| portion of moisture to the air and if sucb
! measures were taken lower degree of
! temperature could be endured without dis
| comfort. This fact has been recognized
! by the builders of hot-air furnaces but
! the Vapor pan in the furnace is not gener
| ally effective. The moisture must he re-
/ stored to the heated air after ii leaves
| the furnace. Among the many devices "a
erect have M