The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-06-24
ITEMS OF INTEREST.


There is talk Of erecting at the en-
trance to Sydney Harbor. as a monu-
mental tribute TO the triumph of fed
Grafton, a colossal statue Of Australia
Facing the Dawn" sort of rival to
Liberty Enlightening the World"
from the island in New York Bay.
Funds. however, have not been forth
coming, and now it is reported that
one of the principal advocates of the
project has written TO Lord Rosebery
suggesting that a contribution from the
G3,O0O,000 left by Cecil Rhodes to pro
mote the consolidation of the English
speaking people might be legitimately
allocated to this purpose.
-Of the '25S men of the graduating
class of Princeton this year sixty-nine
members will study law, AS will go into
business, % will enter medical schools
and 10 will study for the ministry.
There are 1856 Republicans in the class
and 80 Democrats; while three declare
themselves anarchists. More than
hundred are Presbyterians, one is
Christian Scientist, one a Mohamme-
dan, one Latter Day Saint and one
a transcendentalist. Scott was voted
the favorite author, with Dickens
close second. LOngfellow is the favorite
poet, with Burns next. History is the
faVorite study, baseball is the favorite
sport, and Vassar the favorite woman's
college.
Peter Sands of Castle Valley COM
pleted recently tour of the world. OF
the peoples he conversed with the Chi
nese most impressed him, says an ex-
change. This is what he says on this
topic: They tell you the French are
economical and ingenious. They point
out to you how the French train rats
ITO clean the flesh from bones that are
used in manufacturing, and they de-
clare this people, when they kill rats,
use their skins for gloves, their furs
for caps, their bones for toothpicks
and their tendons for gelatine. All that
may be true. But in certain parts of
China they have trained gulls that fish
for them, and a good gull will fetch
its master from so to 100 pounds of
fish a day. They have trained cats
that kill little birds for them-30 or 40
birds, maybe, to an animal. And they
have trained dogs that, day in and
day out, work like Trojans keeping
the crows out of the rice fields"
Very few people are acquainted
with the peculiar fact that the ma
jority of Russian Jews, even those re-
siding iii this country, still use the
Jewish method of date-reckoning in
stead of the Christian, says the Boston
Transcript. Thus in writing a Jewish
letter, the writer would invaria bly, place
on the date line in Hebrew characters
the year 566I-or rather, 661-for the
first figure is dropped similarly to the
first two by the ordinary method. But
the most peculiar part of the date line
c 40 inst g IL
name of the month, the writer writes
the name of the chapter of the Penta-
teuch. which he. like other Jews, is
supposed to read that week. To avoid
CONFUSION, the reader must be ac-
qualnted with the fact that the Jews
divide the Pentateuch into fifty-three
chapters, and not into 1S3 as the Chris
tians do. One chapter is read on the
Saturday of each week of the year
save one, when two chapters are read.
AS The chapters are named in most
cases after their first words, and as
some of the Hebrew words possess the
attribute of containing two or more
words in one, to translate some of the
date lines into English would be some
thing like this: Chapter, In the Des-
ert, 661;" Chapter. And l Besought,'
66l; Chapter, Balak, o61;" Chap
ter, Judges, Sol" etc. In order to in
dictate the exact day of the week, some
Jews place one of the first seven letters
OF the Hebrew alphabet before the
chapter. thus: DAY b, Chapter And
He Called $751;" The letter b thus
designates that it is the second day of
that week.
Not even the sponge can escape the
efforts of the breeder. If the govern
ment succeeds even measurab bly, in it's
efforts, there Will be a stock farm of
sponges on the Florida coast some day,
where a man can go and buy eggs or
young sponges as he would buy hens
eggs or calves now. Some time
ago DR.. H. F. Moore began
experiments at Sugar Loaf Key.
about twenty-five miles east of Key
West, and at several places in Biscayne
Bay. Several thousand sponge cuttings
were planted at these places under a
variety OF conditions. The chief prob
lem confronting the experimenter in
this Held is to find some ready means
of attaching the cuttings to a durable
support, capable of resisting the action
OF salt water and the ravages of the
toredo and animals having similar de-
structive habits, and, which at the
same time, will not have an Injurious
effect upon the growing sponge. The
cuttings live and their cut surfaces
heal without difficulty About six
weeks after the plants were made they
were examined, and, under favorable
conditions, it was found that about 95
per cent. of the sheepswool cuttings
were alive, healed and apparently
healthy. In several cases, where the
plants were made in places exposed to
very strong currents, many of the
pieces were torn loose from their sup
ports, while others had been killed by
rough action of the currents. The cut
lngs from yellow sponges suffered a
much greater mortality than those
made from the sheepswool sponge. but
whether this be due to the more deli
cate nature of the animal or to the
accidental conditions under which they
We're planted is not yet determined.
So far as has been discovered, the more
valuable sheepswool sponge seems to
possess greater hardness than it's cog
ener.
The possibility of extracting from
seawater the gold it contains suspend
ed within its mass has always formed
fascinating problem, not to the chem
list only, but to the commercial specu-
lator as we'll says the London Chron-
icle. Everybody admits that an i'm
mense quantity of the precious metal
must be held in solution, as it were.
IN the ocean of the globe but that il
would pay mankind to be at the ex-
pense OF securing it, is, of course quite
ahother matter. Still it is quite likely
that despite the scientific difficulties in
the way of extracting the oceanic gold
many mouths will water at the state,
ment made bV Prof Taunton - Ts