The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1901-08-09
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

| a
| tographic apparatus controlled by cleo
tricity has been successfully put into
operation in the National Bank of the
| Republic. The machine will take pic
| lures of 10000 checks in an hour. The
| pictures can be rolled on reels and
stored. 1t is claimed for the instru-
ment that it will perform what it
would take nine clerks TO do. and that
! there is no opportunity for mistake.
Prof. Marsh. of Wisconsin, in
! speaking recently of the peculiarities
of Lake Winnebago. said that it is re-
markable for it's shallowness. AL
though 1t is about % miles In length,
and ten or twelve miles in width, IL
has depth of only 25 feet. This is
due to the fact that lakes outlet is
constantly deepening, and that its in
let is gradually filling its bottom with
sandy or earthly deposit. But Win
nebago's shallowness makes Ii remark
ably rich in fish; indeed. ii is one of
the most productive known. Shallow
lakes always have more fish than deep
ones. chiefly, perhaps, because there is
more vegetation on the bottom of a
shallow one. Vegetation does not -four
ish in deep water.
Herr Kellner of Vienna, is reported
to have disclosed a process whereby
with incandescent lamp filaments. The
filament may be made by two meth
DDS. In the first the thread is made,
under great pressure, out of the pow
der of an infusible metal such as
thorium, which is then oxidized SUI
perficially by making it the anode in
an oXidizing electrolyte bath. 1t is
stated that the layer of oxide adj
hers strongly to the metal. The second
bmethod is to form the threads from
metallic oxides, which have the prop
erty of becoming incandescent at
comparatively low temperatures, and
using as a cementing material the
least possible, amount of cellulose dis
solved in chloride of zinc. Upon the
| passage of the current it becomes very
compact. resembling graphite.
Readers of Don Quixote may recall
how at the grand banquet prepared for
Sancho Panza on his installation as
Governor, says the Philadelphia Times,
that as each dish was put before him
an attending physician forbade ii on
some plea about it's affecting his
health, until Sancho was fairly mad
with hunger and disappointment
Something like this has grown out of
the spread of the germ idea. These lit
tie disturbers of joy are making every
thing that is good OF pleasant source
the microbe is that the glasses in which
soda water is drawn may communicate
typhoid. Still, considering among
| other things the way they are usually
washed and rinsed, it really looks as
If this rumor was rather started in the
| interest of those young fellows who
have numerous best girls but limited
pocket money.
The modern study of photography
has made us acquainted with many in
stances of a struggle for existence and
survival among rivers. The most care
full student of nature in former years
never dreamed that the great law ap-
plies to large streams separated from
each other by a range OF hills, and yet
recent investigation shows that the two
longest rivers in England-the Severn
and the Thames-are struggling one
against the other. The Cotswold Hills
lie between the valleys along which
they flow, and explorations lately made
show that the Severn has been eating
backward among these hills, where
softer strata underlie them, and has
thus succeeded in diverting to itself
some of the headwaters that formerly
flowed into the Thames. To put il in
this way is like endowing an inanimate
object with intelligent purpose, but the
more one studies nature the more evil
dence of an actual struggle appears.
According to a recent enumer-
| ation," says The Church Electric, "the
following are the number of Roman
clergy in the kingdom of Italy: Bishops
272; clergy having some ecclesiastical
charge, 0,465. The cathedral at Naples
has on its roll 112 priests: the Church
of ST. Nicholas at Bari, 100 priests; st.
Peters at Rome, 120 priests. This will
erfxr
only titularly employed in connection
with the sacred ministry, and yet, not
withstanding this great nominal con-
nectton, there are over LOG, 900 priests
in Italy who have no cures or any fixed
employment. 1t is not to be wondered
therefore that the traffic in masses
continues to flourish so vigorously, as
it affords to many men the only means
OF earning a trfffe. Masses for the re-
pose of the dead and for intentions
are eagerly bought at second hand
from the sacristans who, while retain
ing the greater portion of the fee, are
yet able thus to furnish their poorer
brethren with some subsistence"
The question of the destructiveness
of modern weapons of war has been
much discussed of late, and much ev-
idence has been adduced in proof that
the present army rifle, with it's ex-
tremely small bore, long range and rap
idity of fire, is not really so deadly as
we have been let to believe. In fact
the war in South Africa has furnished
more than sufficient proof that for
killing power the modern, up-to-date
Lee Enfield or Mauser is not in it with
the old Brown Bess'' of the fifties and
sixties, or the Chassepot and needle
gun of the seventies, with their COM
paratively short range and big bullet.
In line with the discussion, the exper-
fence of Sir William MacCormac, the
eminent surgeon who volunteered as
head of the ambulance corps during
the early part of the Boer war, is of
interest. In paper contributed to the
Congress of the British Medical Assoc
citation last week he said that 1.-THE
character of gunshot wounds had COM
pletely changed since his experience in
the Franco-P russan war (when he was
surgeon-in- Grief to the Anglo American
ambulanee). Not only was the sever
ity of the wounds diminished but they
were also less frequent. Only per
cent. of the wounded died. From this
it would seem that modern war is not
the dangerous game it is cracked up to
be.
During the past academic year the
degree of doctor of phiIOsonbv Uas