The Savannah morning news., 1903-01-21
ITEMS OF INTEREST.
The hair of the head grows faster
in summer than in winter.

Last year the United States made
more iron than Great Britain and Ger
many, the two next largest producers,
/ combined.
If great cold turned our atmos-
phere to liquid air it would make a
sea thirty-five feet deep over the sur
face of the whole globe.
The ribbon looms operated in St.
Etienne, the greatest ribbon manu-
featuring city of France, are now sup
piled with electrical power.
of the land in Russia, as shown by
the government report, the nobility
own 1S1, 900, 600 acres and the merchants
| S6000,O00 while the peasants own but
! 81, 000, 900.
"A curious Characteristic peculiar to
the California redwood tree is that if
the head is cut off, by lightning a new
/ one will gradually grow out in its
place las shapely as the first.
A bacteriologist recently made mi
! croscopical examination of the wash
| ipgs from a woman's train worn on
| the streets of London, and found it to
contain 10,672,000 microbes of disease.
There has been a steady decrease
of the rural population of Ohio, Indi-
ana, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska and
each of the North Atlantic states, ex.
| cept Rhode Island, Connecticut and
Pennsylvania.
Foreign visitors to Japan's inter-
national exhibition, says a Kobe pa
per, will be we'll looked after in every
way. A hundred and fifty students
flCm the Foreign Language School are
to act as guides.
| To economic time in memorizing
a poem it should be read as a whole
that is, entirely through each time.
| Tests made in psychological laborato-
| ries show that to memorize one verse
at time takes one-fourth longer.
The nearest star, whose distance
astronomers think they know, is AL
| pha Centaur, and it is distant from
| us four light years-that is to say, its
| light is four years in reaching us, al
though travelling at $4,000 miles a
| second. This estimate places it $4,000
times as far away as the sun.
The west shore of the Hudson riv-
er, just above the Highlands, seems to
have been favorite resort for mas
todons. Three skeletons were dug up
from the swamps of Orange county
several years ago, and another has
just been discovered near Newburgh.
| The bones of the latter were scattered
over an area of 1000 square feet, at
depths varying from two to eight feet,
whereas the others were found close
together where the gigantic animals
had persisted.
The following is the percentage OF
illiterates among various classes who
come to the United States: Scandi-
navian, 0.6; English, IL Irish, 80;
German, Al; Magyar, is; Hebrew,
| 23.6; Polish, 1916; South Italian, SCI.
A law excluding illiterates would,
therefore, exclude more than a third
of the Poles; while it would affect the
immigration from the Scandinavian
races not at all. It would reduce the
German immigration only 4 per cent.
Our consul at Valparaiso says that
the vehicles most in use in Chile are
| heavy carts drawn by oxen. The
| Jokes rest on the head of the animal,
| just behind the horns, where they are
! fastened by strips of rawhide, and the
| Earring of the cart necessarily infiicts
| torture. Lighter carts with shafts are
used in the cities, and these are drawn
| by horses. Pack-horses and pack
mules are in common use in both town
and country. Altogether Chile is much
behind the age in mechanical appli-
| ances.
"A snowflake, like a hailstone, is
formed on a particle of dust in the
upper atmosphere. 1t begins it's ca
reer at the top of cloud many miles
| above the earth, and passes in its
| downward course through many at
mospheric strata, differing in their
temperature and the quantity of mois-
INture they contain. In a stratum of
warmer air it catches moisture and
when it enters a colder stratum below
the moisture is frozen, and so the flake
| grows until it reaches the earth. In
thawing air many flakes come together,
forming larger ones
A certain scientist finds what seems
to be unwarranted fault with the
Weather Bureau because its forecasts
OF the weather as published are not
accompanied by a statement of the
possible or probable error in the pre-
dlctlon. He cites the observations of
astronomers as an example, and con-
TENDS that meteOrologists should like
wise give the value of a possible I'M
1ulnllment. But the observations of
o9tloloIileTS go on record as a part of
the science, whereas the predictions of
the Weather Bureau give the proba-
Dlltles from day to day without ref
erence to the science of meteorology
itself.
The demand of fashion for birds
plumage has led to the creation of a,
new industry. Farmer Billings of
Brookdale, Penn, has taken a contract
TO furnish Chicago milliner with
crow heads at % cents apiece. 1t costs
something to get dead crow. he
cause it is an elusive bird. and am
munftion cannot be had for nothing
Billings, however, is an enterprising
SPECTATOR He has devised a scheme
by which maximum number of
crows heads can be obtained at small
expense. He has set up a chicken in
cubator in which are placed, as fast
as laid, the eggs of about 100 hen
crows that have been trapped. with
perhaps dozen cock crows. Within
fifteen days the little creatures are
Matched, and fortnight later thew
are ready to be beheaded 1t is I'M
derstood that the head of crow chick
is worth just as much as that of the
Oldest of the same species. At the uni
form rate of four for 81, dead. they will
pay the producer. Farmer Billings has
the only crow hatchery in the world
and he is justly proud of it.
"A horse will leave musty hav nm
touched in his bin, however hungry
hn