The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-03-21
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

80 4 Y MUS sup tlciGs uEtdytn the QE-
parture of the excursion train an hour
and ten minutes and caused the disar-
rangement of the schedule of the Santa
Fe Railroad from Kansas City to Albu-
querque, all because she stopped at a
dry goods bargain counter.
Portraits of Emperor Menelik and Of
Ras Maconnen will be exhibited at the
next Paris salon by M. Paul Buffet. the
young artist who went to Abyssinia in
stead of Rome on winning the 10000 franc
prize last year. He tried to paint a por-
tralt OF Queen Taitu, but after posing for
one day she refused to continue, as she
could not sit still long enough.
An Australian newspaper. which is ap
parently in possession of inside informa-
ton concerning the best way of reaching
the Alaskan gold fields, informs it's read
ers that the real starting point for the
Kiondike is Spokane There the traveller
takes a canoe, by which he voyages TO
Vancouver, B. c. At the latter point he
takes sailing vessels direct to Dawson
City,
-Philaes ruins are doomed, the con
tract for the great dam across the Nile
valley at Assouan and at Assiut having
been given to an English firm. The AS
SNNSNA- N&AAA Will NC VI SOIlu 20
feet higher than the river bed at its low
est point, 5000 feet long, and must be
completed in five years. The work will be
paid for in annual instruments of $500 900,
extending over thirty years.
"A remarkable case came before the
Cheshire England coroner recently. An
old woman named Ellen Ladson, who died
in poor part of the town from pleurisy,
hn c1rIfa - -.
ness stated that deceased had literally
lived on tea and tobacco, smoking as much
as half an ounce of the latter per day.
She very rarely ate any food. The ver-
dict was death from natural causes.
Charcoal is the great italian fuel, Ma
pies alone consuming 10000 tons of wood
charcoal, at a cost of from SIG to $40
per ton, the national consumption being
100000 tons. By the new Blundell process
OF manufacturing charcoal from peat the
peat coal can be produced for s. and sold
at profit from 81 to IS cheaper than the
wood product, and a company with a
capital of $4,000 has purchased the pa
tent and will establish works at various
points. The machine takes the peat from
the bog, reduces it to paste, eliminates all
impurities and foreign matters and forces
out the paste in the shape of a tube from
three to five inches in diameter, which is
cut in lengths, dried and used at once for
fuel, like wood, or burned in iron retorts
six hours TO make charcoal. Three tons
OF peat make one of charcoal, which emits
more heat than ordinary charcoal gives
out no smoke or unpleasant odor and is
free from carbonic acid gas
The utilization of wind in the genera
ton of electricity thus far has been re-
stricted for the most part to outlying dis
tricts, where a regular supply of current
was impossible or imprac ticabe In these
cases 1t has been combined successfully
th'storage batteries, which were charged
during the working hours of the mill and
made available during the night for the
lighting of houses and outbuildings
new form of windmill has been suggested
for which much wider employment is
expected by its inventor. 1t is not circu-
lar, like the ordinary windmill, but con-
slsts of four arms with a solid, shutter
like arrangement on each. These shutters
swing on hinges. While the wind is driv
ing two of them it lifts the other two so
that they offer the minimum of resistance
10 the air pressure. 1t is claimed that
this machine costs only one-fiifth as much
as the ordinary windmill to put up and
gives a great deal more power for a given
sail area 1t costs hardly anything be-
yond the first outlay for the installation
of the plant, as anyone can do the small
amount of oiling, which is the only atten-
ton subsequently needed. The inventor
says that with mill having shutters sew
en- feet long he can get enough current to
light a good-sized building, and furnish
all the power necessary to take the place
of hand labor in clothes washing and iron
ing, diswashing, knife-cleaning and many
other domestic tasks.
The old proverb that what is one
mans meat is another's poison is well
illustrated by a fact recently reported in
Nature by correspondent. Some wheat
which had been poisoned by soaking in a
solution of strychnine, and which was in
tended for killing sparrows, after having
been kept for some time in cardboard
boxes was found to have become infest-
ed with weevils. On examination it was
found that the boxes were full of weeyils
and their eXcrement, and the wheat was
more than half eaten. Strychnine was
found to be present in the wheat which
the weevils had eaten, and in apparently
still larger proportion in their excrement
so that ii had evidently passed through
the digestive apparatus unchanged When
we consider that so little as from half
loid is sufficient to kill a strong man, the
difference between the roles PLAYED bv
the alkaloid becomes very striking. 1t is
not as if insects were universally proof
against the action of poisons, as this is far
from being the case. An instance quoted
from the same source carries the matter
still further. 1t has been found that the
weevil Anthonomus druparum can feed
with impunity on kernels containing hy-
drocyanic acid while the same acid adj
ministered to caterpillars of Deiopeia pull
chella caused them quickly to die. al
though they were quite unaffected by the
poisonous principle of the Calabar bean
known as eserine It appears, therefore
that what is one insects food is another
insects poison, and vice versa.
lit is asserted that a Galcian school
master named Jan Szczepanik, who is at
present in Vienna, has discovered an cleo
trical teleoptical apparatus Of wonderful
capacities AT present he keeps secret the
exact construction of this machine. simplv
saying that it resembles a telephone case
If picture or any other article be placed
before the box containing the instrument
a spectator situated at another box con-
nected with the first one by a wire, no mat
ter at how great a distance away will ba