The Savannah morning news., 1902-07-23
ITEMS OF INTEREST,"


medieval custom which survives as
an official institution in England. wes
held recently, when the coins minted
during the reign of King Edward were
for the first time tested. 1t is held
in Goldsmiths' Hall, and formerly the
sovereign in person presided, but since
1870 the Remembrance has been chief
of the court He administered the
special oath used on such occasions
to the jury, composed of members of
the GoIdsmiths' Company After that
a representative of the Royal Mint
produced the pyx, or casket. containing
samples of all coins of gold and silver
minted annually. The coins were
taken unfortunately from each
Journey weight" sent to the Bank of
England. The trial lasted two or
three days, for, in addition to the
coinage of the United Kingdom, that
of several of the colonies was also sub
mitted for examination.
One of the oldest undertakings
ever taken in hand in British Columbia
was that successfully carried out in
Kootenay, when steamer was trans
ported from one river over a mountain
divide to another, says an exchange.
OF late years trade for steamers on
the Kootenay river has become demon
allied, and, as result, the steamer
owned by a private company has had
little to do. On the other side of the
watershed flowed the Columbia, and
into this river the steamer was taken
The course of the two rivers is pecu-
liar, and at one point, at rather high
altitude, they come close together
Some years ago the government under
took to build a canal, but ii was not
success, and the unused locks have
fallen into a state of disrepair. 1t was
by this course that the boat was taken
by means of massive derricks. The
short distance was successfully travel
ed. and to-day the steamer is making
a profit trading on the Columbia.
Sir Henry Thompson deprecates in
creased eating as means of keeping
up the strength of those who are ad-
vancing in years, and particularly OBJ
jects to the repeated and general use
of concentrated forms of animal nour-
ishment for the aged. Over-nourish-
ment in old age is apt to lead to pains
and aches due to the impairment of
excretion, and a long protracted course
of overlooking will end in an attack of
govt. Even artificial teeth are not to be
considered an unmixed blessing, for by
a provision of nature the teeth begin
to decay and become useless just when
the system begins to thrive without
much animal food of coarse fiber. In
digestion. says Sir Henry Thompson,
is mostly not a disease, but an admon-
ition. 1T is the language of the stom-
ach, and is mostly an unknown tongue
to those who are addressed" 1t means
that the individual has not yet found
his appropriate diet. There is no food
whatever which is wholesome in itself,
XNyhnIpSOn1n xph lie
so to the individual
An old discussion has lately been
revived by Prof. Karl Pearson, before
the Royal Society of London, says the
New York Post. The question at is
sue is as to whether mental activity
is dependent upon the size of the head
or has any relation to it whatsoever.
In former times scientific persons used
to collect their data on the subject in
a rather amusing way. One set of
controversionalists would get the meas
urements of the cranial development of
DaRiel Webster, Sir Walter Scott and
a number of other distinguished men,
all of whom had very exceptionally
large heads, and would argue from
these measurements that mans in
tellect is proportioned to the size of
his skull. Then the persons who main
tanned the other side of the question
would make a tour of the asylums,
and publish paper setting forth the
fact that they had discovered an equal
number of idiots who had still larger
heads. Prof. Pearson, however, has
gone about the matter scientifically,
and has sought to eliminate the errors
which arise when comparative meas
urements are taken from persons whose
ages, education and diet have all been
different. He confines himself to
homogeneous group of individuals of
practically the same social class,
namely, the student bodies of the Uni
versity of Cambridge and of other uni
verSities of Great Britain. The results
deduced have convinced Prof. Pearson
that mental capacity has no appreci-
able relation to the size of the head at
all.
Under the heading Canals in the
Moon Prof. Pickering of Harvard, dis
cusses in the Century Magazine the
markings on the lunar surface, not IN
like those on the planet Mars. and
comes to the conclusion that there are
no canals on the moon or on Mars. The
lines that are seen, however, are not
mere shadows, and the professor holds
to the theory that both on the planet
and the satellite they are evidences of
vegetation. On Mars the so-called seas
(of Proctor and others are green in
spring, gray in summer, and yellow
in autumn; on the moon gray and yell
lowish white are the only shades visi-
BILE, the markings merely darken and
fade out again. The difficulty is to
imagine vegetable growth on the moon,
where no water can exist except as
solid or a gas. Prof. Pickering thinks
there may be vapor and that the pro-
portion OF carbonic acid is probably
large. He remarks that several as
tronomers have now adopted the veg
citation hypothesis and that there re-
main comparatively few who are adj
herents of the old theory that Mars is
marshy planet, people by a race who
devote their lives chiefly to excavating
bitches and then filling them up again"
This view rather weakens the idea of
Mars being inhabited but there is too
little evidence on which to base any
opinion, except that Proctor, Nader,
Green, and others were rather too pre-
vious in their maps of Mars For that
the time is not yet
A Washington dispatch says: There
is an opportunity at the Department
of Agriculture for philanthropic and
healthy young men to get a sinecure
Dr. Wiley. the chief chemist of the
department, and a man of scholarly
research is just now looking into the
matter of the effect on foods of va
rious ingredients used for coloring or
havoring purposes. He wants fifty
young men of good habits and good
health to enter into confrac+ with