The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-06-02
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

Duties on articles imported into
Guadeloupe are collected under several
categories: First, customs duty, this
being the regular French tariff; Sec
ond, octroi duties; third, quay duties,
and, fourth, statistics duty. The oc-
troi duty is styled tax for the benefit
of the communes."
Porto Rico has a strong disposition
to devote itself to practical matters.
An automobile line for the benefit of
tourists is making regular trips across
the island from San Juan to Ponce. A
plan is under consideration to place
powerful automobiles, drawing trail
ers on the same road for freight pur-
poses. Many fine roads are under con-
struction in the island, and the slow
bull carts hitherto used to carry
freight will soon disappear.
of the last two hundred grand
viziers of the Sultan of Turkey not
more than twentyfour have died nat
urally. One hundred of them were
poisoned and thirty-six of the others
were either beheaded or drowned in
the Bosphorus. OF the remaining forty
the cause of death cannot be traced.
One of the ViZierS was only four hours
in office, and another occupied the posi-
ton for only ten minutes, being stran-
gled at the end of that time.
"A dispatch from Berlin, says:-One
of the most interesting demonstrations
of the international Aeronautic Com
mission, in session here last week, was
that of Professor Assmann's rubber
balloons, with automatic registers, for
recording phenomena in the highest
attitudes, where they finally explode
through gas pressure. After the ex-
plosion a parachute safely lands the
apparatus. The professor sent up three
ballons May 90 in the presence of the
commission the apparatus of two of
which was found. One of the balloons
registered an altitude of 10000 metres
(about 10 miles,, the highest attained
by a balloon. The temperature was so
degrees, Fahrenheit. below zero.
The engineering instinct of beavers
while proverbial rarely fails to call
forth fresh enthusiasm when their
work is Investigated by competent and
skilled mechanics. A case in point is
the work of a colony of beavers in Ell
Paso County near Palmer Lake, Col
crado, and described in the Scientific
American Supplement. This colony,
which is Variously estimated at from
thirty to fifty members, was driven
away from their old dam by the con-
tlnued persecution of the settlers, who
wanted to use for irrigation the water
winch the beavers impounded by their
Dam After repeatedly repairing their
dam which was Intentionally broken.
the colony decided to transfer their ac
tlvities to more secluded spot They
nnally migrated to a point about two
miles upstream, where nature had
zone much to minimize the labor of
constructing new dam. Ia a very lit
tie While new dam 500 feet long
was build of brush and dirt. Some
anglers who wanted to catch the trout
IN the new lake back of the dam. set
lire TO the brushwood and burned out
much OF 1t. Prof1ting by experience
When the repairs were made, the con-
struction of the dam was altered so
that water would flow over the ton of
the dam for its entire length. thus
avoiding a possible second burning
This dam is absolutely level on ton
is about 500 feet long and inc1oses
about fifteen acres of water.
In cleaning material for the dam
some trees as large as a man't leg were
cut down with system and neatness
ana at all times supply of material
pair work
Under the title, "A Dive Into the
Sea of the Talmud," Henry Iliowiz;
writes in the May Era: Yam-Hata1-
mud' THE Sea of the Talmud,' as
some of the thousand and one autbors
of that most bewildering of Oriep+oI
literatures call it, is an ocean wherain
the whale that entertained Jonah in
It's stomach for a few days is consid-
ered one of its smaller creatures
larger nsh is the one which a Tai
mudic voyageur CHANGED to pass in a
ship in the heart of the mighty wa
ters: frying with the velocity of a
discharged arrow, the vessel consumed
three DAYS and nights in it's passage
between the upper and the lower fins
OF That monstrouS prodigy. "And we
were sailing with the wind" adds the
narrator. Another specimen of that
kind, having been killed by one of
those small marine creatures of whom
the big ones are in dread, was thrown
ashore with appalling results. For IFS
carcass destroyed sixty cities; sixty
other cities lived for three months on
the monsters meat. while the popuIa-
lions of sixty more settlements looked
out for their future wants by putting
goodly quantity of that fish in salt:
from the fat Of one of its eyeballs three
hundred watts were filled with oil and
from its bones were, year later. the
sixty ruined cities restored. Danger
Gus as this appears, things would look
much more serious had not Providence
In the beginning emasculated the Lee
viathan and killed his mate. lest an in
crease Of that prodigious species should
undo the world. The female Levia-
than. however tiIra f,,ata -
Behemoth. who eats up the grass Of
thousand mountains In a single day,
has been preserved I'm salt for the en-
joyment of the Elect IN the blassed era
10 come. As 20 the eyes Of the living
Leviathan. they equal In dazzling bril-
lance the splendors OF the rising sun.