The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-12-17
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

load after carload of dried fruit.
The antiquity of the fan in the
East, particularly in Asia, extends
far back beyond the possibility of as
certaining it's date. In China and In
dia the original model of the fan was
the wing of a bird, and at one time
was part of the emblems of imperial
authority.
We have wisely taken to wearing
sandals" says physician in The
Philadelphia Record. II hope that be-
fore long we will learn the advantage
OF the wooden shoe, or sabot. Do you
know that a great many diseases are
due to leather shoes-due to the wear
ing all day long of tight leather that
is often, in bad weather, water soaked?
And do you know that by the wearing
of wooden shoes. which keep the feet
dry and which do not draw all those
diseases might be avoided? l have sew
eral pairs of sabots. and so have
my wife and children. They cost about
30 cents a pair, and keep the feet
dry, without cramping them or making
them unhealthy tender. I believe
that the wisest thing Americans could
/ do would be to take up the sandal
and the sabot, discarding altogether
the shoe of LEATHER
Bromide of potash powders are fire.
quently used. in cases of sleeplessness,
says an exchange. This drugs action
is TO depress the heart. making it
weak, so that the pulse becomes slow
er and feebler. If given promiscu-
ously and without due regard to the
health of the patient bromide of pot
ash may act as a slow poison. Under
II. -l,~ <rfxxa 80
taken without first consulting a doc
tor. There are many other remedies
for sleeplessness which one sees men,
toned in the correspondence columns
of some of the weekly magazines. None
of them are safe. Sleeplessness is too
serious a condition to be treated by the
domestic physician, and the sooner re-
liable advice is obtained the better.
One might go on indefinitely warning
against drugs which you may be TAX
ing constantly in utter ignorance of
the risks you thereby incur.
A commission appointed by the
French Ministry of Public Works has
recently made experiments to deter
mine the strength of concrete steel.
Bars six feet long and three-eight tbs
of an inch square were used. with
steel rod in each corner. The section
al area of the steel was / IL per cent.
of the whole area. In setting it was
found that the contraction of the con-
crete gave rise to initial stresses
amounting to a compression of 2.S5
tons a square inch in the steel and a
tension of "A pounds a square inch in
the concrete. Tested in tension. it was
found that the specimen stretched rap
idly to the elastic limit of the con-
crete after which tho stool a
the additional load until rupture &C.
Cured. The conclusion reached was
that under tension concrete steel acts
precisely like ordinary concrete up to
the usual breaking stress of the latter.
With higher stresses it can be loaded
until the extension equals one-fiye
hundredth- of the originals length when
hardened under water. When subject
ed to repeated tensile stresses the per-
centage of the load carried by the steel
increases until the concrete has only
70 per cent. of it's initial load.
Mr.. Percival Lowell has written to
a German astronomical journal sug-
costing that the spoke-like markings
of the planet Venus, which were a
characteristic feature of his drawings
made at Flagstaff Ariz., in 1897, are
not really present on the surface of the
planet, but that their appearance is
due to an optical effect produced by
the eye wandering from the dark in
dentations which are seen along the
terminator, and the smaller spots and
streaks, to the center of the disk TO
test this theory Mr.. Lowell has OBJ
served large number of artificial
disks, marked without his knowledge
and set up at distances such as to be
as nearly as possible under the same
observing condition as the planet.
These experiments tend to prove his
theory, but are not sufficiently decisive
to place the actual existence Of these
peculiar markings beyond doubt. The
fact that no two observers of Venus
have described or depicted its surface
markings in the same way renders it
highly probable that no observer has
obtained a really distinct view of them.
Under the best conditions of seeing
they are always exceedingly faint and
elusive. Prof. Barnard, one of the best
of authorities. has said that they can
not be seen distinctly enough ''for ro-
rational purposes"
AT the wells crude oil can be had,
say, for about 2 cents a gallon. says
an exchange. At distant points it comes
from cents gallon UP. If you can
buy ii at 3 cents this is equivalent to
paying about $50 a ton for first class
soft coal. 1t is on the average harder
to secure complete combustion of oil
than Of coal, and in practice there is
apt to be more waste of the liquid
than the solid fuel. The Navy Depart
ment experiments have shown that
coal at Eastern prices is more econom-
teal than oil would be even at cents
a gallon. Where coal is costly how
and nil jS 0haan tho Lot
be the less costly fuel Oil stoves.
burning refined oil are costly In oper-
alton, in proportion to the amount of
heat, though they are economical
where not much heat is required. A
pound of coal is generally called the
equivalent of two to two and q half
pounds of dry wood for heating pur-
poses. But cord of hickory wood
weighs nearly 4.500 pounds. while
cord of white pine weighs only 1000,
maple 1900 and oak $500. All dry
wood has the same fuel value to the
pound, but hickory is worth more than
twice as much as pine. A ton of coal
is worth in heating value about two
and half times as much as cord of
white pine. or one and one-third times
as much as oak.
The ways of the smuggler are
manifold, says a Paris dispatch to the
st. Louis Globe Democrat A trick
played on the customs authorities on
the German frontier will take some
beating. 1t was not at a railway sta
ton; 1t was simply at post in the
high road. Along came a covered
wagonette with merry marriage par
ty. On the front seat sat the bride
and bridegroom, the latter talking in