The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-12-05
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

After a litigation lasting fourteen years
the will disposing of a San Francisco es-
tate once worth $4,000 has just been sus-
tanned and litigation suspended because
the estate has been exhausted in paying
legal fees.
"A postal service has already been es-
tablished in connection with Khartoum,
and letters are finding their way to London
from that place in seventeen days. A new
stamp has been introduced for the Soudan,
bearing the name "Khartoum" and the
superscriptjon "Soudan Postage" in Eng
lish.
The fire tug Illinois has been launched
from the yards Of her builders, the Chicago
Shipbuilding Company, on the Calumet
river The Illinois is the first steel fire
boat built in the West, and has a capacity
Of twentyfour streams of water. which
can be thrown 200 feet high, the largest to
be five inches in diameter. She measures
11S feet over all
Persons who rely upon domestic filters
to purify wafer for household use will be
interested to learn that on the authority
of the state board of health of Maryland
such filters may steadily lose efficiency I'M
til they become first-rate culture beds for
bacteria, says the Sanitarian. An example
cited is that in the case of man in
Baltimore who sends the whote water sup
ply of his house through a large filter,
and subsequently puts his drinking water
through one of the small domestic filters
common in the market, A test showed that
on day when the city taps were running
$40 bacteria to the cubic centimeter the
large filter was delivering $500 bacteria in
the same quantity of water
We are often told, says a medical
journal, that in making tea, the water
should be poured on at the moment of be-
ginning to boil, if the vivacity of the in
fusion is to be preserved. The reason is
that every moment of boiling disengages
| the fixed air in the water in every bubble
that rises and bursts on the surface, I'M
| til the residum is devoid OF the inspiriling
element, free oxygen, as well as of the
! useful element, nitrogen. An exchange
! says: The proof of this may easily be seen.
| If fresh cold water be used the first time
! ii win lift the lid of the Kettle and con-
duct Itself in an uproarious manner, boil
| ing over, trying to put the fire out. 1t is
! when in this state that il is good for max
! ing tea. If you put it on the fire again,
/ you will find you cannot get it to boil over,
a second time still less third.
A meeting of scientific men, notes the
! Scientific American, has just concluded its
| labors at Bristol Eng, in connection with
! the British association for the advance
ment of science. The body was composed
of leading authorities on the study of ter
restrial magnetism and included some of
| worldwide reputation. Magnetic surveys
| of the United States are by law intrusted
to the coast and goedetic survey, so that
| the United States was represented by
1~Charles A. Schott of the survey. The ques-
! lions for elaboration before this body
! concerned the preparaho of a plan for a
! systematic magnetic survey of the entire
! globe, and the elaboration of the confer
! ence resulted in a general recommendation
| for that purpose. The principal work Of
! the conference centered in the wider ques-
| tons involving magnetic observations /;
/ their, al present, unsatisfactory distribu-
/ ton over the globe, and their inadequacy
( as regards numbers. The United States is
in position TO take most important step
| in the advancement of our knowledge of
! terrestrial magnetism by establishing and
maintaining a well-equipped magnetic OBJ
servatory on one of the Hawaiian islands.
Their position is unique, being central to
vast unexplored or rather magnetcally
unknown region and well adapted for the
/ special study of the notifications which
the diurnal and secular variations of the
magnetic needle are supposed to undergo
/ in consequence of a surrounding ocean as
contrasting with continental surface.
"A contributor to Forest and Stream
discusses the subject of the circulation of
sap in trees in an interesting way. He
says: Probably nearly out of every 10
believe that sap ascends in the spring and
returns in the fall. Although 1 have
never been able to find anything to the
contrary in any book l have ever seen,
| know from long and careful observation
that this is not so. The sap never de-
/ sends. 1t fulfils its Office in causing the
growth of the leaves and adding another
to the rings, which indicate the annual
! growth Of the tree. So soon as the leaves
| fall the sap begins to reascend. This can
be proved in various ways. Any farmer
who has cut a pile of hardwood in No
vember has noticed the sap flies gathering
around the ends of the sticks on warm
days. They are attracted by the sap
which can be seen issuing from the ends
+ of the sticks, which sap had already be-
! gun TO ascend before the sticks were cut
Any hunter who has set line of log
| traps for sable has noticed the sap flow
ing from maple sticks in warm DAYS in
! November. Partridges begin to bud in
/ November, and find something besides dry
twiSs, or they would not bud. But a still
more convincing proof is that in some
warm falls I have known maple syrup
to be made and sold in quantities of sew
eral gallons at a time. Pussy willows,
/ where growing in wet places often bloom
in warm November and December. One
can see that the buds on the horse chest
nuts are swelling in January. The sap
7 which is proved to be present in all these
cases is not the sap which went up in the
spring descending, but new sap, which
! is going up.
There is quite touch of romance, says
the New York Sun, in the long account
recently published in the London Times
of a fresh discovery of that rare New
Zealand bird, the Notorns Mantelli. In
1S47 Sir Richard Owen found among a
collection of bones sent to England by
William Mantell some portion of a large
birds skull, which, with that positive
genius he had for classification, he de-
cided must have belonged to an unknown
member of the Rallidae, or rails the
c,ass which includes such water birds as