The Savannah morning news., 1902-02-27
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

part of the crops in good years rot in
the field, because there are no means
OF transport or facilities for storage.
The Greeks, after exercising, al
ways anointed their bodies with per-
fumed oil, sometimes performing this
amounting three or four times day.
Peck at first meant basket or re-
ceptacle for grain or other substances.
The expression at first had no reference
to size.
"A shoe firm in Toledo, o., has
traced to the deDredations of mice
losses in greenbacks and other paper
money which have amounted to s20,-
600 in four wears.
The state in which there is the
least number of government pension
ers is Nevada, in which they number
only 275. There are 800 in Wyoming
and $50 in Utah.
Forty eight, thousand tons Of iron
were used in building the Forth bridge.
The Brooklyn suspension bridge cost
2,750, 600 more, but only 10000 tons OF
iron were used in building it.
The "Tyrfan Era" which prevailed
extensively in Syria for many ages,
began Oct 10, B. C. 125. 1t commem-
GRATED the independence of Tyre from
the yoke of the Syrian Kings.
Paris is the only city which pa
tronizes the arts on a large scale. 1t
has now offered $1,000 for the best
symphony or opera sent in before Dec.
!. 1903, and $1,000 more will be given
for it's performance.
Germany now turns out porcelain
violins and mandolins. The tone is said
to be better than that of wood instru-
ments, and they are unaffected by
change of temperature. A Meissen
manufacturer of okarinas and porce-
lain organs is the inventor.
Basil of Russia had no nose, hav-
ing lost that valuable member by a
sword cut during a fight with the Tar
tars. He had an artificial nose of wax,
fastened on with cement. On one occa-
sion, during court ceremonial, the
nose dropped off, to the terror of the
German ambassador and his suite.
The type of horseshoe common in
the Orient is a plate fitted so as to
cover the entire bottom of the hoof,
with a perforation in the center. The
weight of the average horseshoe is
three-fourths of a pound. The native
smiths usually cut these plates from
sheets of wrought iron and rudely
shape them for the purpose in view.
An account has been published in
Berlin of the average number of let
ters daily received by European
sovereigns. The Pope breaks the re-
cord, as his daily average OF letters
and papers reaches the enormous
number of $4,000 to $4,000. Thirty-five
secretaries are kept fully employed
with His Holiness correspondence
quota of one thousand letters and
three thousand newspapers a heavy
tax on his attention. The Car and
the German Emperor receive from six
hundred to seven hundred day; the
Emperor likes to answer many him
self. The King of Italy gets five hun
dred, and the young Queen of Hol-
land struggles under the daily burden
of between one hundred and one hun
dred and fifty letters.
An ancient burial ground has been
discovered on the ranch of Luiciana
Quintana, near Mesa Rico, in New
Mexico. about 200 miles southeast of
Las Vegas. Two stones were first
found that bore curious inscriptions,
and beneath these were found in shall
low excavations the bones of a frame
that could not have been less than
twelve feet in length. The men who
opened the grave say the forearm was
four feet long and that in a we'll pre-
served jaw the lower teeth ranged
from the size of a hickory nut to that
of the largest walnut in size. The
chest of the being is reported as hav-
ing a circumference of seven feet
Quintana, who has uncovered many
other burial places, expresses the opin-
ion that perhaps thousands of skele-
tons of race of giants long extinct
will be found. This supposition is
based on the traditions handed down
from the early Spanish invasion that
have detailed knowledge of the exist
ence of race of giants that inhabit-
ed the plains of what now is Eastern
New Mexico. Indian legends and
carvings also in the same section in
dicate the existence of such race.
II see in some papers that a new
way of cutting diamonds has been dis
covered" said a jeweler, according to
the Philadelphia Record. This will
stones. There are almost as many new
ways of cutting diamonds discovered
as systems to beat the bank at Monte
Carlo, and they are about as success
full. AS a matter of fact, diamond
cutting has been reduced to an exact
science. The two best known systems
are the brilliant and the rose cuts.
To obtain the greatest possible bril-
lance with the least waste, stones
are brilliant cut-that is, cut with a
fiat top, or table as it is called. Rose
cut stones are cut without the top ia
BILE and are fiat in back A bigger
diamond can be produced by rose cut
ting than by brilliant cutting, but il
will not possess half the briiliance of
the latter. Rose diamonds are used
largely in incrusted jewelry. There
have been lots of methods of diamond
cutting invented, but none will pro-
duce as fiery a stone with as little
waste in cutting as the brilliant
method. Stones cut by other methods
are valuable to collectors as freaks.
but usually they would be far more
valuable IL they had been brilliant
cut"
"A dispatch from Stony Creek. N.
Y. says: When Clark Tripp gets
back to work at his post as engineer
IN A. ID. Scribner's steam mill in this
village he will undoubtedly be the
flrst man who ever had a broornstIcIt
jammed through his neck from one
side to the other, and lived to tell
about II. One day last week Tripp
was sweeping the floor about his en-
glne. A piece Of the broom handle