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


and are constructed either in wood or
metal. Battery current is not started
until the receiver is taken off the hook
of the individual Apartment called up.
During the last few years the
United States government has been in
stalling a number of storage batteries
for coast defense service. One of these
is Willard battery of 64 cells, INSTALL
ed in easement at Fort Perry, Plum
Island, Conn. The elements of this
battery are of 800 -ampere- hour ca
pacity, and are placed in lead-lined
tanks on racks and insulated with
glass petticoat insulators. The batteries
are used for lighting purposes, as
we'll as for operating small motors in
the various mechanisms employed in
this service.
Mr.. Clayton of the Blue Hill -observ-
atory has suggestive paper in the
Popular Science Monthly on the in
fluence of rainfall on commercial and
political affairs. Every severe financial
panic in the United States has been
closely associated with a protracted
season of deficient rainfall. The out
break of the Boxer war in China was
at least partially due to the impover-
ishment of the people by drought A
Revolution. The Russian saying that
January and February are two invin-
chile Generals was exemplfied by the
disastrous Moscow campaign of 1912. In
the year 81 B! G. Caesars legions in
Gaul were defeated on account of their
scattered stations and the stations
were placed wide apart because a.
scanty harvest had made this dispo-
sition a necessity. These are only a few
OF many examples that might be cited.
Electrical waves are not limited in
their scope. They are cosmical things
in the truest sense of the word, affect
Ing and emanating from the world it.
self, which is only big magnet when
all is said and done. Indeed, there is
no adequate reason for limiting the
idea of these cosmical waves to earth
alone. They may extend through all
srace, and possess a diffusion as wide
as that of light waves themselves. One
can appreciate the difficulties of har-
Messing them in mans service, and one
can realize that the construction of
apparatus calculated to catch the
waves, to arrest and guide them in
long distance flights, may be task
requiring infinite pains and possibly
the invention of expedients not yet
available. The possibilities of electrical
transmission can hardly be strained.
Before another Christmas we may be
able to flash greeting to friends across
the sea without recourse to the already
existing mode of telegraphy.
Massachusetts is still talking about
some way of obviating the voyage
around Cape Cod, says the New York
journal of Commerce. The canal that
pears the name of that Cape has never
made much progress; private capital
mas been reluctant to engage in it, and
the state has not been forward to vote
the money of the taxpayers for it. The
project now under consideration. to
connect Taunton and Fore rivers, is
considerably more ambitious than the
humble, but SO far immaterial, project
or a ditch across the sands of Cape
Cod. This Taunton Canal would cost
some sos, 100000, according tozestimates.
lt would shorten the water route from
New York to Boston very much more
than the other route and its advocates
believe that its value would be enough
greater than the other to Justify the
greater expense. Tt would have four
teen locks, so that it's transit would
not be very rapid, and the people of
Massachusetts, may find it as difficult
to make up their minds on their canal
question as the people of this state
find it TO decide what to do with the
Erie Canal, or whether to do anything.
The sentiment of the age leans decid-
edly toward the railway instead of
the canal and yet there never were
so many ambitious canal projects on
hand as there are now, including those
completed in recent years.
1T has been said that theJewish race.
owing to the special features of the
dietary laws, are not so liable to can
Ger attack as are their Christian neigh
bors, says the Scotsman. A Jewish
medical man writes in the Lancet that
all Jewish meat is washed and well
sprinkled with salt as soon as it is re-
ceived, while Jews partake freely of
smoked and picked meats. The writer
also states that he could enumerate
many cases of cancer among his
friends and patients, most of whom
have never tasted pigs flesh at all.
Hence the need of caution in setting
forth views concerning the cause of
terrible disease. Let US wait patiently
for science to accomplish what it is
day by day striving after, namely, to
detect the actual cause of the ailment.
This will be done by investigation of
the features of the disease, and when
once the microbe of the ailment has
been separated and identified, we can
then look with some degree of conf
dence for the conditions that favor its
appearance and development Other
wise, we may dive off into the wilds
OF unverified speculation without pro-
ducing other result than that of alarm
ing and mystifying the public If one
man asserts excess of salt to be a
cause of cancer, another suggests ex-
cessiVe use of aerated waters A third
tells us that tomatoes cause the all
ment, fourth that the use of ordl-
nary flesh foods develop it-and so on.
unverified views all. and, as such, of
no service to humanity whatever.
"A medical journal notes curious
fact regarding the use of red light in
respect of its mental Influences saws
the Scotsman. At Lyons, where small
pox was treated with red light the at
tendants as well as, the patients became
highly excited. The patients demanded
to be let out into the ordinary day.
light while the nurses had to be pro-
vided with blue spectacles before they
could discharge their duties. A simi-
lar effect is noticed in the case of peo-
pie who work among red glass Peo-
pie who require to execute their daily
task in this light, as in the case of GER
tain Photographic manipulators in fac
tories, have been observed to develop
periods of brain excitement. The case
OF the proverbial red rag and the bull
VIII occur to everybody as an
instance of the mental or
nervous provocation which arises
when red color is shown
Then also we employ red as a danger
signal, a fact that is not without its
sata