The morning news., 1898-12-19
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

at the White House, each time strictly on
official business. 1t is said by the Maine
mans friends that he has never asked the
President to grant him favor either IN
the matter of patronage or otherwise, mold
ing that the administration ought to con-
suit him regarding such matters in so far
as they affect the state of Maine This the
President has not seen fit to do.
Gen Garcia" says the Washington
correspondent of the Chicago Record,
chad an aged colored servant who was
born slave upon his fathers plantation
and was brought up with him from child
hood. The old negro had followed him IN
all his wars, and had shared his prison
cells, and sat beside the bed when the
general breathed his last Every time
his master groaned he would groan also;
and the death which came to the one VIII
| not let the other linger much longer. Inc
| faithful servant does nos care to live
now. His interest in life is gone, and no
one would be surprised if he died of grief
within short time"
Admiral Dewey's cabin aboard the
Olympia" writes John T. McCutcheon TO
! the Chicago Record, lis filed with pres
ents from his admirers, including souve-
Mrs of all kinds. Some of the most beau
| tiful of these are presents from Aguinaldo
The dictator has the greatest admiration
and respect for Dewey, and has a singu-
| lar habit of making an elaborate gltt
10 the admiral whenever the latter calls
| him down. That accounts largely for the
number of Aguinaido presents that adorn
| the cabin. In all the dealings Admiral
| Dewey has had with Aguinaldo he has
treated him with the greatest courtesy
when courtesy was called for, and with
| the greatest severity when firmness was
| the thing; but, in spite of the rebuffs,
| Aguinaldo's notes accompanying the pres
ents invariably refer to the admirable as
my honorable and illustrious friend
The relative merits of chlorination and
cyanide in the treatment of gold ores are
still much discussed in the journals de
voted to that interest, and while it is con-
ceded that each process has its peculiar
advantages and disadvantages it is also
admitted that neither is adapted to the
treatment of all kinds of iron ore. The
barrel chlornation plant is simple and of
moderate cost and for ores not contain
ing large percentages of silver or cop
per, or not having lime gangue, is con-
sidered an almost ideal process; the pre-
cpitated gold is clean free from other
metals, and requires little after manipu-
lation, regular yields of 92 per cent. of the
assay value of the ore treated being not
unusual. The disadvantages, however are
quite definite, viz, the need of the ore to
have thorough dead roasting before it
can be treated economically, and that any
silver contained in the ore must be lost,
or be recovered by some subsequent op-
) Grafton. The cyanide process can be work
ed with fairly successful results on some
unroasted ores, and on some that are
much more complex than those adapted to
chlorination; but the gold extraction rare
t Iy reaches S5 per cent. of the assay value,
2 and the bulk of precipitates requires a
resort to special appliances.
Some interesting details appear in the
} London papers relating to the boring of
7 coral reefs in the Pacific an enterprise
, undertaken under the auspices of the
Royal Society The bore hole at Funafuti
?, has been carried to about 700 feet, chiefly
in very hard dolomite-like coral rock. The
! drill operated from the deck of the ship
Porpoise, at place where the water was
about 100 feet Deep penetrated rapidly to
a total depth of 245 feet, passing through
sandy material composed of fragments OF
calcarious organisms, among which bits OF
3 | coral became more frequent in descending
= At the depth mentioned a piece of hard
coral was struck which could not be
= pierced, as the great length of the unsup-
a | ported pipe on the one hand and the loose
= | nature of the material on the other pre-
|
, On removing the ship to a spot ninety feet
-, nearer the middle of the lagoon the depth
was found to be the same, and the bore
carried 122 feet into the bed, at which
I, place, as before, there was sand TO the
depth of eighty feet, while the remainder
consisted of somewhat harder coral gray
= el. the Jumps ranging up to the size of G
a mans fist
t, With the evidences of Asiatic contact
d supposed TO be so strong in Central Amer
u lea. says the Popular Science Monthly
I one might have imagined that so useful
g device as the simple chopsticks would
" have secured footing. These two sticks
# held in one hand and known in China al
{, "hasteners, or nimble lads, are certainl!
k the most useful, the most economical ant
IS the most efficient device for their pur
II poses ever invented by man. Throughou
i that vast Asian region, embracing a pop
n ulation of 5O0,000,000, the chopstick is use,
o as a substitute for fork tongs and certail
= forms of tweezers. Even fish, omelet ant
O cake are separated with the chopstcks
e and the cook, the street scavenger and tn
Y watch repairer use this device in the form
n of iron, long bamboo and delicate ivory
It The bamboo chopstick was known IL
Il China 1000 b c., and shortly after thi
date the ivory form was devised. Thei
use is one of great antiquity in Japan, a
attested by references TO it in the ancien
records of that country. One may searcl
in vain for the trace of any object in tn
nature of a chopstick in Central or Soutl
America. Knitting needles of wood ar
found in the work baskets associated wit
ancient Peruvian mummies, but the chop
stick has not been found. Curious potter
rests for the chopstcks are eXhumed il
Is Japan, but even this enduring testimony il
it's early use is yet to be revealed in thi
country.
Examined casually, prima donnas seen
TO be the most enviable of women, say
" an exchange They earn large salaries
=, Three years ago Nine. Melba carried $500,
OCO out of America This winter Nine
Sembrich viii earn as much in three O
- four months as President Mckinley re
ceives in year. Nine. Eames earns NOR