The Savannah morning news., 1903-02-02
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

SSd leNel 10 osOOO IeeI.
The director general of elementary
schools in France has issued an order
forbidding masters to allow their pu-
pills to play leap-frog, FOUNDERS, hop
scotch and other games. An order of
that kind in this country would cause
the biggest kind of a sensation.
Last year the Austrian govern
ment made the first trials to cultivate
tea plants on the coast of Dalmatia.
IN the districts around the town of
Spalato. These experiments having
proven very satisfactory, further trials
are to be made in the course of this
year.
Canada claims to have coal beds
which will yield 1900, 900 tons of coal
annually for 5000 years. The Dominion
has also 1000 square miles of territory
which has not been yet explored. I'm
der these circumstances the Canadian
coal total may be susceptible of further
increase.
-Four trains are now being run
weekly between Buenos Ayres and
Mendoza, and the Transandine Rail-
way has also four weekly departures
for Chile in connection with Buenos
Ayres trains. A journey from Buenos
Ayres to Valparaiso or Santiago de
Chile can now be made in sixty hours.
Within three weeks during the
month of November a record was
made of upward of two hundred cor
porations, employers of labor, that be-
gan to furnish fuel to their employees
at cost, on account of the shortage in
coal. This was merely the beginning
of a movement that, as the colder
weather came on, became almost uni
Yersal.
Sir Clements Markham of England,
in an article in the London Geographic
cal Magazine, gives Nansen the credit
for removing the veil from the secret
of the Arctic regions. His discovery of
the Polar Ocean shows that there is
no longer any geographical reason for
going to the North Pole, except for
deep-sea soundings, as it is merely a
point in the ocean.
AT the end of last year the total
length of all the railroads in Europe
was 180,653 miles, as against 1913, 1877
miles in the United States. Germany
had $4,000 miles of railroads, followed
next by Russia with 1920 miles,
France with 30,120 miles, Austria Hun
gary with $4,000 miles. while Great
Britain occupied but the fifth place,
with 24.70O miles.
"A Roumanian contemporary is re-
sponsible for the statement that the
government has appropriated the sum
of 21,000 900 francs for improvements to
be carried out at several ports on the
river Danube. Over 100000 francs
were spent during the last few years
for harbor work on the Danube. Nav
igation on that river is growing more
important every year.
Switzerland is poor in coal, but
extraordinarily rich in water power,
and electricity in our little sister Re-
public is making great progress. A
Swiss engineer has calculated that the
five great railroad companies of the
country require but a motive power of
30,O0O-horse power per day, and he goes
on to say that this can easily be de-
rived from some great waterfalls.
The field of American financial in
vestment is expanding all over the
world. One of the large life insurance
companies has among its assets secur-
tiles from the following countries: The
Argentine Republic, Brazil, Great Brit
ain, France, Austria, Prussia, Hun
gary, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Queens
land, Russia, Servia, South Australia,
Sweden, Spain, Mexico and Wurtem-
berg.
Algeria has about a million and a
half palm trees, three-fourths of
which belong to the Mzabites or abo-
riginal inhabitants and the remainder
to the Arabs. The two tribes are now
at war, precipitated by the Arabs, who
are striving to get possession of all
the trees. Their depredations have
already caused damage to the amount
of at least 100000, in addition to much
bloodshed
Max Nordau, the famous sociolo-
gist of Vienna, says that the opening
of the Panama canal under American
ownership will transfer the tragic
scene of the worlds history from thu
Atlantic to the Pacific, and finally to
the Asiatic coast, where Anglo-Saxons
and Russians will have to decide the
momentous question of whether East
ern and Southern Asia shall be British
or Russian.
"A new telephone cable has just
been laid between Elsinore, i'll Dem
mark, and Helsinborg, in Sweden. The
new cable is intended for DemnaIk's
with Berlin, a connection which it is
under contemplation to extend to Brus-
sells and Paris. The telephone connect
ing Copenhagen-Hamb will ron
tinue to be by way of the Belt ca
bles.
"A young woman of the West, who
has an eye to business, says that the
best way to invest S. is to buy a calf
and turn it loose to hustle" for itself
on the range. 1t would be worth SIS
at the end of one year, and at the end
of three years it would be worth $685.
when she would sell it and buy seven
calves with the proceeds. These, in
their turn, would be worth SITS in f1ve
years, and with this sum she would
buy cows and soon have a fortune.
"A dealer in agricultural implements
gives three reasons why Chicago is
the center of that industry. First, it
is near the center of agriculture, and,
therefore, near the market for such
goods, so that high long-distance
freight charges are avoided; second, it
is near great forests of hardwood tim
Der, which is largely used in the man.
ufacture of agricultural implements
and tools; and third it is the best dis
tributing point for such things.
Scientific authorities of London,
where there has been of late a sort
of oyster typhoid scare, have been in
vestigating the various phases of the
oyster question regarded from the die
tetic point of view. Some of the re-
suits are curious. In certain researches