The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-07-04
ITEMS OF INTEREST.


flour, quick malt brewers grits, husks
for mattresses, cellulose made of pith
for jacking cofferdams of battleships,
alcohol Bourbon whiskey, degermin-
ated brewers meal, paper stock pre-
pared from the shells of the cornstalk
bolted corn blades with stalks and
cobs, varnish, cob pipes, larger beer,
British gum, fancy table syrup. pop
corn, table grits, salves, laundry
starch, cornstarch for cooking, fru-
mentum, flaker hominy, gum paste,
corn oil, vulcanized corn oil, oil cake,
grape sugar, gluten feed, glucose. con-
fectioners' glucose and confectioners'
paste.
The Royal Observatory at Green
witch, which sets the clocks of the en-
tire civilized world and keeps . strict
surveillance of the heavens at all
times, received the annual visitation
| of the Board of Visitors yesterday,
says the London Mail of recent date.
The annual report was read and the
visitors inspected the entire estaD
liShment In the work of photo-snap-
ping the heaven the chart is now COM
plete, with the exception of one plate
This would have been snapped at Z
O'Clock this morning but for the cloudy
weather. 1t will be nine months be-
fore the heavens will be in the right
position for snapshotting again. Two
young men have been busily engaged
on the negatives, counting stars with
the aid of microscopes. In this way
PIP, 507 stars were counted in the year,
and only the balance of an estimated
100000 remain to be licked off.
"A writer in Forest and Stream tells
us of the methods the thrush adopts
in teaching his little ones to sing.
Find" he says, "a family of wood
thrushes and carefully note what takes
place. The old male thrush will sing
the sweet song in loud, clear, flute
like notes once, and then stop to list
en- while the young birds try to imi-
tate the song. Some will utter one
note, some two. Some will utter
coarse note, others a sharp note. After
awhile they seem to forget their les
son and drop out one by one. When
all are silent the old thrush tunes up
again and the young thrushes repeat
their efforts, and so it goes on for
hours. The young birds do not ac-
quire the full song the first year; so
the lessons are repeated the follow
ing spring. 1 take many visitors into
the woods to enjoy the first thrushes
singing school, and all are convinced
that the song of the wood thrush is
matter of education pure and SIM
pie"
The heaviest man in the world, of
average hight, yet weighing more than
61S pounds, died in San Francisco last
week, says the New York Herald. He
was Henry Morris Cannon, who for
some years had kept a saloon on Mar
ket street. He succumbed suddenly
and without warning of heart disease.
A native of Zurich, Cannon was there
numbered among the foremost athletes,
and as wrestler met many men in
the arena. 1t was ten years ago that
he began to grow to abnormal proper
lions. but in that time his weight APP
peared to increase with alarming rap
idity, till at the time of his death it
had reached the phenomenal figure of
613 pounds. Cannon came to America
five years ago, landing first in New
York, where he lived fox two years.
Since then he has been 4 resident of
San Franciso, where he was engaged
to exhibit himself to a curious public.
Cannon was 50 years of age; his hight
was feet 1912 inches; circumference
of wait, Sc inches; chest, y inches;
thigh, 81 inches; calf, 80 inches. De-
ceased leaves a widow. He was an en-
thusiastic member of the San Fran
cisco Schuetzen Verein.
-Mojave Desert in the summer time
is probably the hottest place on the
earth. The air, which has been drain
ed of its moisture by the ranges near
the sea. sweeps over the desert and
becomes so hot that it strikes the face
like a blast from a furnace. During
the hottest season of the year a man
can go but a few hours without becom-
ing insane. man who went out with
a surveying party wandered away some
distance and was soon out of reach of
water. When he was found a few
hours later he was naked and was
holding his clothes above his head and
wading about in an imaginary lake. He
died before medical aid could be Sc
cured. During the hottest months in
the year the thermometer registers as
high as 1877 degrees in the shade, and
seldom does it go below 10 degrees.
Sometimes after people die of the heat
their heads crack open over the tops
they are so parched. In such weather
sandstorms sweep over the desert. Then
no life is safe. Even the desert birds
fall down and die.
The chief. smoke inspector of Shelf
field, England, has been interviewed
regarding the best method of stocking
furnaces to restrict the amount of
smoke produced says the New York
Sun. Sheffield lies in a valley and
uses soft coal entirely. Smoke is one
of the principal troubles of the NUM-
cipality, and the chief smoke inspec-
tor is an expert If anybody should
be well informed on the subject it is
| he. Inspector Nicholson gives it as his
| expert opinion that the only success
full and scientific method of stocking
| consists in firing lightly and often
| Then the coal is all consumed in the
| furnace and not sent up the chimney
| in the form of smoke, wasting fuel and
| annoying folks outside as well. 1t is
| ing principle. The stoker loads up the
right-hand side of the furnace, and
the gases given off curl around to the
| red-hot left and are consumed. Then
the other side is dealt with on the
| same principle with a similar result.
| The only person who objects to this is
! the stoker, who has to work twice as
hard as he would by going straight
! ahead on an unscientific basis. In spite
! of the stoker's objection, though, it is
| the expert opinion of the Sheffild in
| spector that furnaces equipped with
modern improvements and fired on
| this principle will give forth little or
no smoke even when loaded with soft
coal.
The Railway and Engineering Re-
view has the following: Some years
ago Mr.. Jerry Sullivan, then of the
Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, told
of blowing a hear orr of a c,,l1,ar+