The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-08-01
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

OOO. II contains ltUUO POUNDS weight VI
silver, and the regal arms of England
are worked upon it with exquisite skill.
with flowers, BIRDS and vines sur
rounding them.
Not many women have owned more
strenuous pets than the baby rhinoc-
eras which amuses Mira. Cook, wife of
the governor of North Borneo, a Brit
fish possession. The Governors house
is near a jungle which is filled with
wild animals. Out of this tangle of
underground a baby rhinoceros stray
ed one morning to frolic in a cumber-
some fashion on the well-kept lawn
which surrounds the house. Native
servants captured him without much
difficulty, and when they had tanned
him presented him to Mrs. Cook,
An amusing story is told of the
browning of the rose queen of a coun-
try district near Paris, The selected
qszxn, as one of the formalities of
awarding their dover, was asked by
the Mayor for the name of her fiance.
Il have none" she replied. Notified
that a sweetheart was indispensable,
the young lady added, timidly: Il
thought the municipality provided ev-
erything necessary" Straightway a
young swain presented himself as an
aspirant, and being as promptly ac-
cepted all things became regular and
in order.
People who have experienced ex-
treme cold say that 1t is very similar
to extreme heat Any one who has
ever picked up a piece of intensely cold
iron knows that the touch burns and
blisters almost as badly as If the metal
was red hot. This natural law has been
made use of by clever chemists to
cause cold to produce the same effect
as heat. One has actually cooked meat
by placing it in an atmosphere of 100
to $50 degrees below zero, Fahrenheit.
When the meat was removed it was
placed at once in alright cans. 1t
was afterward eaten and found to be
very palatable.
"A novel head for a golf club has
made it's appearance in Canada.
Whether or not expert golfers will ap-
prove of it remains to be seen. In
the head of the club is a slot, in
which there is a weight adapted to
move toward and away from the strik-
ing face of the head. Thus, when the
ball is struck, the weight comes in
contact with the wall of the slot next
to the striking face, and imparts an
additional impetus to the ball. The
idea, though by no means a novel one
in mechanics, is certainly new in it's
application to a golf club. 1t is claim
ed that a player using a club of that
kind would have an advantage over
another player using an ordinary club,
but it is doubtful if he would, for the
same idea was long ago applied to
baseball hats, and very few but the
inventor ever tried it.
"A telepherage plant has recently
been established in Cuba, says the
Baltimore Sun. 1t was necessary to
handle immense limestone in a reg
ion where tropical rains frequently
caused the rivers 70 rise to such an ex-
tent that bridges were swept away,
and where it would not pay to main
tain a construction equal to every
flood, if it were possible to do so. In
such a situation II was easy to show
the value of telepherage, and a plant
was constructed, which has done all
that was claimed for it, There is a
double track with solid steel curves
and the telephers make a speed of Is
| miles an hour, each with its load of
/ limestone. Four trains are in use, and
| load of 1,200 pounds it transported
per train. There are eight curves, and
a grade of per cent. is attained.
| There is a loop terminal at each end
of the line, so that an endless pro-
cession of trains can be kept up, and
the loading and unloading proceeded
with at a high rate of speed. The
capacity of the lire to transport ma
| terial runs up into very large figures,
| for, while the capacity of any indi-
| vidual telepher is small, the succession
| is at such short intervals that the work
| is almost inceSSant. This condition
| suits tropical work in many ways and
| adoption of the system in other trop-
| ical places seems assured.
| Concord, Mass, is the home of the
American lead pencil according to a
| recent census bulletin. The first one
was made there in 1912. The war with
Great Britain and the consequent in
| terruption of imports, did much to
| stimulate the inventive genius of the
American colonists, and to give a start
| TO infant industries. The lead pencil
| was one of the incidents. The scarcity
of pencils, and their consequent high
price, inspired cabinetmaker named
William Monroe to try his hand at
making them. His cabinet business
was very dull, also, in consequence of
the war. So he procured a few Jumps
| of black lead and pulverized it in a
spoon and encased it neatly in wood
went back to his trade. But as he did
not like to be beaten, he experiment.
ed every day for a few hours, in an
effort to reach more satisfactory re-
suits. After four months he got a bet
ter mixture of lead, and on July 2,
1872, he went to Boston with thirty
pencils. They found a ready market,
and his purchaser urged him to make
more, and agreed to take all he made
at certain price. So he worked for
eighteen months making pencils. Then
his graphite gave out, and he could
the war he resumed business, doing his
mixing himself in a little room in his
own house, to preserve the secret of
his trade. In ten years he had ac-
| quired considerable skill and supplied
much of the home demand. There
are now five pencil factories in the
United States.
"A movement of electric ions or
electrons can take place in metals,
| says an exchange. 1t then produces
heat by collision with the molecules
of the metal, and a magnetic field by
the motion of the charges. In a
| liquid the energy of motion is con-
| sumed in the splitting up or "ironiza-
ton" of neutral molecules. Every
| current of heat is associated with a
| transportation of ions, and here the
| whole field of thermo- electricity is en-
| tered. In the vacuum-tube, ions move
with less restraint. Negative electrons
are shot off from the cathode with the
! velocity of light, or something very