The Savannah morning news., 1903-04-07
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

curator at Harvard University; eleven
for S. P. Langley of Washington, and
one for Prof. Van der Walls of Am
sterdam.
The Pope has the largest and most
costly wardrobe in the whole civilized
world. Three large rooms at the Vat
lean hardly suffice to contain the
Pope's wardrobe, and a special body
of servants is told off to keep it in or
der. Each day in the year has it's
appropriate garment, which varies in
color, weight and value, according to
the season.
Platinum, which is Indispensable in
some instruments of precision, and is
useful in the arts particularly, because
when imbedded in glass it does rot
crack it by unequal expansion, is still
much more valuable than gold. Nine
tenths of the worlds platinum (aDout
$500 pounds) comes from the Ural
mountains, which enables Russia to
control the price.
Fresh air tablets are a preparation
discovered by a French scientist. 1t
was while investigating acetylene that
he discovered that he could combine
certain chemicals into a tablet which.
on being dropped into water dissolved
and gave forth pure oxygen. These
tablets will be exceedingly useful in
closed carriages, a submarine boat, or
mine, or anywhere else where the air
has become vitiated.
After studying and photograph
ing more than 100000 pairs of ears of
persons, including those of 1000 in
sane and 800 criminals, and those of
300 animals, an English criminOlogist
is forced to conclude that the ear gives
no clew to personal traits. This is a
hard blow to so-called scientists who
think they can pick out the enemies of
society by the angles at which the lat
ter wear their ears.
-Suppuration at the roots of teeth
is treated by electric rays by DR.. Ste
bel, of Munich A powerful electric
light is focused upon the bony cavities
of the jaw, setting up irritation, in
credsing to violent Inflammation, and
layer of tissue comes away. The
suppuration ceases, the loOseness of
the tooth disappearing. The operation
is difficult, but is reported to have
been successful in fourteen cases.
A Dublin Qreland) workman has
produced a novelty in the shape of a
kettle, cup, saucer and spoon made
out of a farthing. TIE hammered the
bronze coin till he had obtained very
thin sheet of metal, from which he
fashioned a complete and workable ket-
tie, with a swing handle, removable
lid, etc, together with a cup, saucer
and spoon. He can boil water in the
miniature utensil and pour it through
the spout. The weight of the kettle,
cup, saucer and spoon is forty grains.
The weight of a farthing is forty
eight grains.
In this cosmopolitan city, says the
New York Tribune, there doubtless
are Icelanders. though they are the
last people one would think of as i'm
migrants. But these hardy men of
the North do come to this continent in
numbers, and it is an illustration of
how much thicker blood is than water
that they should go to the same re-
gion where most of the people of the
Scandinavian peninsula settle. All
this comes out in the news that the
University of Manitoba gives two
courses in Icelandic, and that the Uni
iversity of North Dakota is likely to
give such COURSES and possesses am
Icelandic library. There is an lee
landic Lutheran Church, which is I'M
der the control of a synod which in
cludes Manitoba, Minnesota and the
Dakotas.
This tale comes from Kansas, a
state of which one is prepared by long
experience to believe anything: In Sa-
lima the other night a man was awak-
ened by the honking of wild geese. He
took his gun and went out and found
a big gander walking along the street,
while the air was filled with others
flying in every direction. This item
may sound fishy to those not familiar
with an annual occurrence in Kansas.
Every spring the wild geese, going
North, are attracted by the electric
lights kept burning in most of the
towns. When they get within the
radius of the lights they become con-
fused and fly aimlessly about, and Of
ten large numbers of them are killed
by sportsmen. Perhaps nowhere else
in the world can wild geese be shot
by night in the midst of large towns
and villages.
Prof. Marchand of Marburg, who
has accumulated the largest number
of brain weights ever known, has pub
lished a book which gives a thorough
analysis of 1859 cases. The average
weight of the brain of a male child
at birth is $50 grammes and of female
1853 grammes. Though Prof. Marchand
shows a certain relation between stat
ure and brain weight, the relation is
inconstant. He concludes that the les
ser weight of a woman's brain is not
alone dependent on her smaller stature,
as a comparison of persons of both
sexes of the same stature shows that
the male brain is invariably heavier
in a growing child. Until the stature
is seventy centimeters the brain weight
increases proportionately to body
length, irrespective of age or sex
Thereafter, the male brain begins to
outstrip the female The maximum
brain weight is usually attained at
about the twentieth year in males, the
average being about 1400 grammes. In
a female the maximum is usually about
the seventeenth year, with an average
of 1881 grammes.
Some of the remedies used by our
ancestors ought to have been sufficient
to scare away any disease without
their application. Here are a few of
them: "A halter wherewith any one
has been hanged, if tied about the
head, will cure headache. Moss grow
ing upon a human skull, if dried and
powdered and taken as snuff, Ms no
less efficacious." DIR. Samuel Turner,
who wrote on diseases of the skin, no
tees a prevalent charm among old
women for the shingles; the blood of
a black cat, taken from it's tail, and
on the part affected. The
chips of a gallows tied on a string and
worn around the neck are said to have
cured ague. Spiders, as may readily