The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-05-08
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

last year % pei CChL. ANSSAN
ed the required percentages and 81 per-
cent. fell short of it. OF those who
passed the examinations rs per cent.
were and IS per cent. were not appoint
ed.
The cries of sea birds, especially
seagulls, are very valuable as fog sig
nails. The birds cluster togetehr on
the cliffs and coast, and their cries
warn boatmen that they are near land.
Some years ago in the Isle of Man
there was fine for shooting such
birds.
"A strange tale is told of hawk at
the menagerie in Central Park, New
York. Two birds live in the same
cage. and some time back one of
them developed a tupor In the leg. Inc
other bird thereupon attacked the tu-
NOR with it's claws and succeeded in
lancing it.
There is trouble in the kingdom of
Cambodia. The kindly king, just to
please his 5000 wives, ordered, their
pictures taken, so that the palace might
be papered with them. Now the queens
are fighting each other because some
OF the photographs have been skyed,
and no one Is satisfied with the pic
lures.
The hands of all the clocks in the
Transvaal, the Orange River Colony,
Rhodesia, Cape Colony and Portuguese
East Africa, were moved recently at
midnight and standard time, based on
longitude from Greenwich, was estaD-
lished throughout South Africa except
in the territory under German juris-
diction.
The consumption of whisky In
Scotland is on the increase, according
to statistics compiled by the English
Society for the Study of Inebriety. The
per capita consumption now Is 1.S0
gallons per year, as against 1.76 gal-
Ions forty years ago. Half OF the per-
sons who died from intemperance IT
Scotland last year were women
The banks in Honolulu began last
month to give American silver i'll ex-
change for Hawaiian coins, and the
latter will soon have disappeared, ex-
cept from the cabinets of collectors.
The Hawaiian curio dealers, with Yam
kee shrewdness, are keeping a reserve
fund of the coins, knowing that they
will be able, after while, to sell them
at premium.
In the Far West the cow men and
ranchers tie their ponies to about any
thing when they visit one of the little
frontier towns, and these are often
queer-looking places. West Point, Neb.,
is now going to buy block of land In
her center and put up hitching posts on
it so that the sorrowful ponies need
not take up the entire apologies for
sidewalks all day.
-Long-distance telephony makes
good progress. st. Martins de Grand
has just succeeded in ringing up Nice
on the telephone and speaking through.
The distance is $50 miles. Telephone
lines will soon be opened between Lon
don and Brussels and between Paris
and Rome. On the latter line the
charges, it is understood, will be IS.
4d. for three minutes conversation
from 6 a. m. to 9 p. m, and is Sd. after
that.
The age of tree is determined by
the number of rings of wood its trunk
contains. The woody fiber is slower in
growing in winter than in summer, and
consequently distinct rings are formed,
each representing a year. By means
of these rings the gigantic cross-section
Oh u GdlIOTuld lTCc, 1,O4l years OtOg 10
used at the New York Museum af Nat
ural History as history chart, and as
such it shows in q novel way the Sc
quence of events in the last thousand
years.
The Canadian government has is
sued census bulletin, which gives sta
tistics as to agriculture in Alberta, AS
siniboia and Saskatchewan, which
compose the Northwest Territory. The
total area of these territories is $780,
96S,117 acres. OF this area, 1899 per
cent. Is unimproved. Field crops, ex-
elusive of hay, occupy SO per cent. of
the improved land, but only fair be-
ginning has been made with fruit trees
and vegetables. The area of land in
wheat, oats, barley, rye, corn, peas,
potatoes and other field roots in 1891
was 194,773 acres, an increase in a de-
cade of 1893 per cent.
Divorce is difficult in Russia, both
by reason of the laws delay and the
cost of actions, but the annulment of
marriage for informality is simple and
easy. In some parts of the empire the
marriage service is enacted with this
contingency in view. The certificates
may be left undated, or the ages of
the contracting parties omitted. In
some parts of Little Russia, a relative,
during the ceremony, gives the bride
a slap, to prove in case of need that
she has married under compulsion.
Women who succeed in obtaining
separa ton from their husbands on the
ground of informality are received in
to society. are allowed to marry
again, and may even be separated
again without loss of position.
1t was not until the autumn of
1870 that the first diamond was found
on the present site of Kimberley, says
a writer in the Cosmopolitan. There
was a shallow, circular depression,
known as Dutoitspan, on the edge of
which farmer named Van Wyk lived
in a cabin plastered with mud This
hut had no architectural pretensions.
but, in its way, it went beyond the
luxury of Fifth avenue, for the mud
with which it was daubed was sprin-
killed. with diamonds. One day Van
Wyk's children prospected the plaster
ing of their home and extracted
several gems. The farmer and his
friends began digging at the spot from
which the mud had been taken and
found more diamonds. Miners swarm
ed in, and a new camp, called Dorst-
fontein, sprang up. In June, of the
next year. the Kimberley mine proper
one of the four great deposits that
form the present Kimberley group
yielded its first diamond.
MN. Billaidon and Don have devised
the following instrument for determin-
ing the speed of proiectiles. The