The Savannah morning news., 1904-01-13
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

1
| Jail last week and there was great joy
among the townspeople over the enter
prise of their native place. The prison
ers were led forth from the old jail
and put in the new and every one felt
| better. That night all the prisoners
escaped, with the exception of two,
and they said they would have gone
with the rest had not the weather been
so cold that they did not care to risk
| getting i'll.
In recent experiments on bacteria,
says Success, Allan Macfadyen, direc-
tor of the Jenner Institute, in London,
has found that some of these micro
| scopic plants will resume activity aft
er immersion in liquid air for six
| months. Evidently life under condi-
tons of this sort is potential rather
than actual, and exists only in virtue
OF the possibility of it's revival. Mat
ter that lives thus while frozen must
be, DR.. Macfayden thinks, 'in a new
and hitherto unobtained third condi-
ton, between life and death, and fur
nishes us with an absolutely perfect
! case of suspended animation" 1t is
evidently no longer possible to MAIN
tain that the low temperature of space
would have prevented the arrival of
living germs with cosmic dust, which
was suggested by Helmholtz, the great
German physicist, and others, as a pos
slble way in which life may have been
introduced or the earth.
The subject of the powder-.or, as
it has been called, the spirit of artil-
lery-cannot be overlooked in the ex-
animation of guns, says the Scientific
American. In the last few years the
use OF So-called Smokeless powders has
become universal. These are all nitro
substitution products. and their prin-
clpal Characteristic, from an artillery
point of view, is the fact that the en-
tire weight, or very nearly the entire
weight, turns into gas. In the older
powders only about so per cent of the
weight was gasified and the remaining
AZ per cent. was projected from the gun
IN the form of dust, and constituted
a considerable waste of energy. The
point not entirely satisfactory in mod
ern powders is their constancy in pres
sure and velocity, and stability in stor-
| age. 1t is a question whether under
the same conditions of storage they are
as stable and safe as the oldfashioned
| powder. Indeed. there is every reason
TO believe that they are not as safe or
as stable. and they are. watched with
| great care at stated times when stored.
incidentally, this powder gives little
or no smoke, which is usually, but not
always, an advantage,
The many visitors to London who
| flock here at this time of year will be
interested to hear that the Pyx Chap
ell, in Westminster Abbey, which has
hitherto been jealousy guarded from
the public gaze, is shortly to be
lighted by electricity and thrown open
for general inspection, says the Lon
don Chronicle. Here was formerly
OF
gala and the Kings money were
kept, and from this treasury in 1903,
While Edward l was warning in Scot
land, was stolen the G100,O00 which
was to pay the expenses of the cam
paign. The stone door, with seven
locks, had formerly a covering of hui
man skins, and one wonders if they
were those of the daring robbers of
Plantagenet times. The pyx, which
contained the standard pieces of gold
and silver used at the trial of the
pyx," first ordered in the reign of
Henry II, has been transferred to the
mint, and the regalia, since the restor-
alton, have been kept at the Tower.
The only object Of interest now to be
seen, in the chapel, if we except few
ancient chests, is an old stone altar,
and there is no longer any reason for
keeping it under lock and key.
There is going on at the present time
steady advance in the strength of
the metal used in guns, says the Sci
entic American. The elastic strength
of metal now commonly used in larger
guns is about $4,000 pounds per square
inch, and in the smaller guns it runs as
high as $4,000 pounds per square inch.
This, however, is used only as an ad-
ditional margin of safety, largely be-
cause the recou of guns when fired is
so great now, and the reaction thereby
set up in the carriage is so severe that
nothing would be gained by tightening
the gun. Tightening the gun would
only mean putting additional weight,
and perhaps weight greater than that
saved, in the gun-carriage and foun-
dalton. Many are of the opinion that
the advance in the strength of gun steel
should be pushed further, but it would
be hard to do this without lowering to
some extent the elongation asked for
in the metal at rupture. This now
runs in the neighborhood of Is to rs
per cent, and it could wisely be lower
ed for the sake of gaining harder and
stronger metal. because the entire OPP
Grafton of the gun is within it's elastic
limit. When 1t moves outside of this
and becomes permanently enlarged, a
comparatively slight enlargement
would give warning, and the gun would
be laid aside and not used any more.
Baron Diest an intimate friend of
the late Prince Bismarck, has just
published some "reminiscences of the
Iron Chancellor of special interest to
Americans, according to the London
Chronicle. When once on visit to
Dantsic, where he was entertained by
the merchant princes of that "Nurem-
berg of the North" Mr.. Bancroft, the
American minister at Berlin, replied in
German to the toast of his health,
as proposed in English, explaining that
ne made a point OF speaking only
German while he was in Germany.
But" said the Baron, IT have often
heard you speaking English with Bis
marck" Eyes" replied the historian
diplomatist, but that is uqite a diff
ferent matter, for Bismarcks way of
expressing himself in English is so
instructive, from a linguistic point of
view, and he uses so many wonderful
adjectives, that 1 have never attempt
ed to deprive myself of the pleasure of
hearing him speak English" The
truth is that Bismarcks English had
been mainly drawn from Shakespeare,
while most of his modern familiar
idioms, such as half seas over" and
the like, he had acquired from his
early intercourse with the late Sir