The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-07-19
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

Madrid IS very Disappointing city IN
appearance The palaces of the grandees
are dreadfuIly diIapidated. The French
knocked them about so when they invad-
ed Spain that it is almost imposs, bic TO get
an IDEA of what they were like IN their
PALMER days. There are a few magnifi-
cent buildings but these are the excep-
ton. Tie mobiles are poor, and can no
longer hold a candle to the once unrivaled
Spanish grandees. The upper classes do
not go in very largely for educatio and
are often curiously ignorant. They look
upon Madrid as the center of The uni
verse, and very seldom leave their native
land. The city abounds in slums, where
there are labyrinths of narrow old streets
bordered by the most uninViting novels
Here one sees wild looking individuals IN
the tattered rags and begger gypsies in
gaudy battered finery. These sIums are
the happy hunting ground of the fero-
cious mobs which are the bane of Madrid
"A new Pompeii was discovered some
time ago at Pyrene, in Greece, says the
Argonaut, and the work of excavation,
which was abandoned for time on ac-
count of lack of funds, or some such rea-
son, has been taken up again with renew
ed Vigor. The whole plan of the little
town, which has been preserved almost
as marvelously as Pompeii is being laid
bare. Up to the present time no Greek
town has been so well excavated, it is
said. All the streets are intact with
their rows of houses on each side A Tenn
pie of Minerva has been discovered, found
ed, legend says, by Alexander the Great
and there are great hopes that soon the
theater will be unearthed. In Switzer-
land, too, archaeolOgists have been at
work. At Geneva workman engaged on
repairing the Tour de Tile came across a
bronze sword in excellent preservation.
From the description the weapon seems to
date from the latter part of the Bronze
period. 1t has now been deposited in the
local archaeological museum.
of the many extraordinary drinks regu-
larly consumed the blood of living horses
may perhaps be considered the most so.
Marco Polo and Carpini were the first to
tell the world of the practice of the Tar
tars and Mongols opening the vein in
their horses necks, taking a drink, and
then closing the wound again. As far
as can be seen, this has been the practice
from time immemOrial. A writer in Tit
Bits tells of a Wine nabitually consumed
in China which is made from the flesh of
lambs reduced to paste with milk, or bruis-
cd into pulp with rice, and then fermented.
1t is extremely strong and nutritious, and
powerfully stimulating to the physical or
ganism. The Laplanders drink a. great deal
of smoked snow water, and one of the ma
bonal drinks of Tonquinese is arrack flaw
ored with chickens blood. The list would
scarcely be completed without mention Of
absinthe, which may be called the ma
tional spirituous drink of France. 1t is
8 horrible compound of alcohol, anise, cor
lander, fennel, wormwood, indigo and sui
phate of copper. It is strong nasty and
a moral and physical poison.
In the latter part of the Mesozoic age
there was a great inland ocean, spread
ing over a large part of the present CONT
nent. The lands then above water were
covered with a flora peculiar to the times
and were inhabited by some of the ami
mails which later distinguished the Ceno-
znic age, says the Popular Science Month
ly. In the seas were reptiles fishes and
turtles of gigantic proportions, armed for
offense or defense. There were also oyster
like bivalves. with enormous shells, three
or four feet in diameter, the meat Of which
would hare fed many people In time this
great ocean, swarming with vigorous life
disappeared. Mountain ranges and plains
gradually arose, casting forth the waters
and leaving the monsters to die and bleach
in tertiary suns AS the waters remain
ing divided into smaller tracts they gradu-
ally lost their saline stability. The strong
er monsters gorged on the weaker tribes
until they, too stranded on rising sand
bars or lost vitality and persisted as the
waters frcshened. In imagination we can
picture the strongest, bereft of their food
supply at last and laundering in shall
low pools until all remained mired or
starved. 1t would be interesting TO know
how much of the great creta ceous ocean
forms part. if any, of the vast oceans of
to-day.
In a communication about tobacco, in
the current number of the Scientific
American, Prof John w. Mallet, of the
things. Ignorance of easily ascertainable
scientific facts is, however, common
enough, as is often illustrated by the
brown, oily material formed in the nico-
tine though in reality this is merely the
tar produced by the action of heat on the
woody fibre of the leaf. Nicotine when
pure is a eolorless fluid of somewhat oily
consistence and strong, peculiar, penetrat-
ing odor, but it darkens on exposure to
air and light becoming first yellow and
then brown, so that il looks, in this dark
ened condition, some thing like the tarry
matter which soils a smokers fingers or a
handkerchief through which tobacco
smoke is eXhaled, or is often noticed as
deposited in the stem of a pipe. This
tarry deposit has nothing essential in
common with nicotine, and contains but
traces of this alkaloid, when any az all. A
part but only a small part (about one
seventh in the experiments of Melsens), of
the READ nicotine OF tobacco is V0atlZed
without decomposition; the remainder is
burned and destroyed in the process of
smoking. The sensational statements oc-
casionally made in regard TO arsenic, cop
per, etc, as present in the paper wrap
pers would be at once seen to be grossly
improbable If it We're but remembered that
the wrapper of a single cigarette weighs
little more than half grain, and that in
such a minute quantity of thin delicate
white paper there could be introduced but
intinitesmal amounts of such foreign
adulterants without the presence becom-
ing perceptlble to common observation by
the senses, aside from the positive scien-
tific evidence that they are not present.
One of the little sunfish in a gallery
tank on the fresh-wator side at the aqua
rum is building nest in which to deposit
its spawn, says the New York Sun. In
nature the sunfish would make its nest
in the sand or gravel in a shallow spot
near the edge of the water, tanning cut
the gravel with its tail and carrying the
pebbles out in its mouth. There is no
sand in this tank-Sand in an anna riuu1