The Savannah morning news., 1901-06-16
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

square centimeter at the cathod, says the
Electrical Engineer. 1t appears that
when an anode of head is used the electro
motive force Is about OIL volt. The depo-
sition of lead may be utilized for plating
objects with lead or for separating lead
and silver, the alloy being used at anode
in solution of nitrate saturated with
chloride; the silver remains behind I'M
dissolved. Coherent deposits of lead are
also obtained. although with more diff
Guilty, from alkaline solutions.
AS the newly discovered rays will
penetrate many substances hope is en-
tertained that they may be utilized to
reach the retina of persons whose sight
is impaired. According to Mr. Fourier
d'Albe rays which penetrate opaque bod
les may reach an optical nerve cut off
from the outer world by turbid humors
or integuments. Others have made a
series of experiments in this matter. but
practically useful results are much in
terfered with by the rapid fatigue" of
the eye. After a few exchanges the SUBJ
ject is unable to say which of two pack
cts, one filled with sand and the other
with a. radium preparation, contains the
active element, though at first the lat
ter produces general luminosity in the
eye. 1t appears certain that none of
human eye, though they do in the eyes
of some animals.
students of the subject agree that
spiders as a rule are harmless. Some of
them are venomous, but seldom danger
Gus to human beings whose blood is in a
healthy condition. The several varieties
of house spiders are very inoffensiye. 1t
is better to have house full of spiders
than full of flies A close acquaintance
with the domestic flykillers lessons ones
antipathy to them. The tarantuia is the
most feared, but he does not equal in size
the mygale spider of South America,
whose legs when extended span space
of II inches. THE muscular strength of
these spiders is great and they have
fangs," says the Pathfinder, IAN inch
long. They sometimes capture birds by
lurking silently about and suddenly
springing on them. They do not use a
web for entrapping, but they make strong
cables of the web for hanging up birds,
frogs and insects after they are killed"
United States Consul Hughes, at Co
burg, Germany, reports under recent date
that there is a great demand in Germany
for the so-called Italian blood orange"
The popular idea is that this fruit is col
ored, not by nature, but by injections
of some artificial vegetable dye. To dis
cover the truth or fallacy of this belief,
several weIl-known German chemists have
been experimenting, first to find out from
the blood orange itself If it's color is
due to. artificial means, and, secondly, to
change the common italian orange into
a blood orange by injections of different
kinds of coloring matter The expert
ments, however, have not been attended
with success. 1t was found that no sim
gle injection of any solution would color
more than one part of the orange, and
that if several injections were made, the
fruit was likely to decompose very quick
ly. The theory was then advanced that
the coloring was produced by watering
the roots of the trees with blood-red
vegetable solution. 1t is needless to say
this experiment was as barren of results
as the. first. The orange with red meat
is natural product, and can be propa-
gated by planting slips from the tree
that bears it.
AT little dinner of few old-timers
in this city the other night, says the Phil
adelphia Times, one of the speakers said:
What has become of the old-fashioned
boy? The one who looked like his father
when his father carried the sort of POM
posity which was like the divinity that
was in it's break-o' day. The boy who
wore a hat which threatened to come
down over his ears. The boy whose trou-
sers were made over from his fathers,
by his mother, or aunt, or grandmother
The boy whose hair had a cowlick in it,
before and was sheared off the same
length behind. The boy who walked with
both hands in the pockets of his trou-
sers, and who expectorated between his
L
gether. The boy who wore boots, run
down at the heels. The boy who never
wore knickerbockers or a roundabout
coat. The boy whose chirography was
shaped by the gymnastics of his tongue
The boy who believed his father was the
greatest man in the world, and that he
could have been President if he had
wanted to be. The boy who was his
mothers man when the man was away
from home"
The question of operating cars upon
tracks by means of storage batteries is
by no means so simple as many regard it.
The storage battery will propel cars and
such cars have advantages over other
self-propelling vehicles, but where the
trolley system is possible there is no oc-
casion for the storage battery, for the
reason that the cost of transporting the
battery is too considerable. According
to the Electrical Review there can be lit
tie doubt in the minds of those who have
closely studied the engineering features
of electric traction that the accumulator
is of vital Importance in traction work.
provided 1T is installed in the generating
station or in substations and not on The
moving cars, Only in the streets of the
greater cities is there any real ground
for objection to the overhead trolley, and
in these the traffic is so dense and the
patronage is SO large that dividends may
be earned upon conduit systems in which
the fiXed charge for interest is relative
ly high. This leaves as a field for the
storage battery car practically only GER
tain short and little Travelled lines in
cities where municipal considerations pre-
vent the installation of an overhead sys-
tenn, and where the underground system
would be too expensive in practice.
AT a recent meeting of the Royal So
ciety. Mr.. Francis Cox mentioned that
while he had been rummaging among the
archives kept in the parliament building,
at Cape Town, he had come across an old
Dutch. map, dilted 1854, which showed the
course of the Nile from its correct source
to It's moath. This, on the face of II,
would seem to prove that the Dutchmen
had anticipated the explorers Spoke,
Baker, Stanley, Schweinfurth and others,
by something like a couple of centuries
II is, however doubtful that the map in
question was founded on contemporary
eous exploration. Much Of the carto-
ot.t.x 80 h. 3D.