The Savannah morning news., 1904-01-11
ITEMS OF INTEREST.


work, Don Quixote." 1t is to be an
international affair and the programme
will include the unwilling of statute
of Cervantes, an academic fete, a
medieval tournament and bulliight.
A dramatization of Don Quixote' will
be played and Sir Henry Irving will be
invited to take the part of Don Quixote
in the principal theater in Spain.
"A new form of X-ray apparatus
has been invented by DIR. Oudin,
prominent specialist of Paris, says the
Electrical Review. It's principal feature
Is the powerful effect which he pro-
duceS by concentrating the rays. The
essential part of the apparatus is an
improved Crookes tube, which allows
OF applying the X-rays to the treat
ment OF cancer situated in the interior
OF the body. The rays are collected
ana greatly concentrated by means of
tube having the shape of the finger,
with a protected extremity. The new
form or tube is said to give a radiat-
ing power which is fifty times that of
the ordinary tube. At the same time,
special precautions have been taken to
protect the tube so that in case it
should break the patient will not suffer
from the action of the spark which
might be thus produced.
Instances of Second sight" says
the London Chronicle, are numerous
in Scottish history, and Highland seers
are said to have foretold the fate of
Charles I. and the assassination of
the famous Duke of Buckingham.
The strange summons to James ".
and to the flower of the Scottish no.
bllity, proclaimed at midnight in
Edinburgh by a mysterious voice on
the eve of the invasion of England,
which ended in the disaster of Flod-
den, is described in "Marmion," but
the tale is given with extraordinary
detail by the contemporary Scottish
historians, and in more recent times
a strange story of dream clairvoyance
| is told in connection with Belling-
| hams murder of Mr.. Perceval. Eight
| or nine days before this occurred it
| is said that d Cornishman, a mine
| manager John Williams, dreamed of
| the murder with every detail, and
| when he awoke was SO strongly i'm
pressed with the reality of his dream
| that he was DESTROYS of travelling up
| to London to warn Mr.. Perceval of
his danger, but was dissuaded by his
| friends.
"A genuine albino blackbird has just
been shot near Catterick bridge, York
| shire. Scientific ornithologists have
clearly enough explained the physio-
logical nature Of albinsm in birds, but
| 1t is still a mystery, says the Pail Mall
| Garzette, what originates these phsyio-
| logical conditions, and also why it is
| that very ark-plumaged birds, such
as blaclSbirds, rocks, etc, are more liza
! Bile to albinism, pure or partial, than
| any others. it is strange; for instance,
l that &
notable that the last found in this
| country was obtained in Yorkshire
| (Sedbergh district. Last summer a
| perfectly white sand martin was seen
| by hundreds in the Bentham york
| shire) district and three or four in
other parts of the North of England.
! House martins, also barn swallows, are
liable to assume albinism, and many
records are preserved in Yorkshire. AS
| for pied" blackbirds, rocks, and such
like, they are as common as the pro-
verbal blackberries, whereas in the
whole of England there are probably
not more than two records of albino
| woodcockS.
Some precise information bearing
on the alleged decline of the American
| family is furnished in a diagram pre-
pared by the census office for the new
/
| Geographic Magazine. This shows the
average number of persons to a fam
lily in each state and territory. The
| average reaches, or slightly exceeds,
| five in Texas, South Carolina, Indian
| TERRITORY, West Virginia and Vir-
ginia-the negro population evidently
| bringing up the average in most cases.
| The other Southern states follow, ex-
| cept that Minnesota, with its great
1 inf Il A.. l..
| enth place. AS we come East or North
the size of the family declines. In
| Pennsylvania 1t is a little over. four
| and half. New York and the New
| England states are lower, Vermont
and New Hampshire scarcely exceed
ing an average of four to a family
Another diagram shows that the gen.
eral average has declined steadily in
successive censuses from Sc in 1850
to AT in 1900. The civilization acts
as a check upon the natural increase
of the race.
One of the most valuable minerals
of which the source of supply is very
little known, and is consequently very
limited, is that of platinum. In De-
cember, 1901, a discovery was made of
a platinum group of metals in the cop
per ores of the Rambler mine, in Wy
| oming. The uses of this metal would
| be greatly increased if it could be
| found in sufficient quantity to reduce
the present high price and to make
certainty of a sufficient supply to war
| rant further enlargement of it's uses.
For very many purposes there has as
yet been found no other metal that will
perfectly take its place. The conse-
| quence is that the price of platinum
| Keeps up almost equal to that of gold,
| and the demand for it has been some
| what increased in the last few years
| by the discovery of a use of osnlium.
| which occurs to a considerable extent
| in American platinum as the mineral
| osmeridium. The present known de-
| posts occur in three forms. First, in
! places, as eXemplified by those in the
| Urals, Colombia, Brazil and British Co
| lumbia. Second, in veins, as at Tilke-
| rode in the Hartz Mountains, Minas
| Gereas in Brazil, Santa Rosa insCaI-
| fornia, Beresoosk in Russia, Gauldual
| Canal of Spain and the Rambler mine
already mentioned. The third is by
dissemination in eruptive rocks found
| in Canada, also as native metal in
basic eruptive rocks.
The magnitude of the Panama
canal enterprise as an engineering I'M
dertaking, says the Philadelphia
Ledger, may be easily understood from
the statement of the officers of the
Engineer Corps of the American army
now on the line of the canal that,
though two-fifths of the work has been
I kA to-.