The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-06-05
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

towns respectively will be able to hold
converse with Paris and French towns
ether than those on the Liverpool list.
This plan has been devised in order
to connect towns in England and
France which have trade interests in
common.
I'm the fine mineral cabinet of John
w. Campbell of Sellwood. Ore, is an
agate in which is printed the face of
an Indian woman. The face and part
OF the figure are so clear cut and dis
tibct that there is no question about
them. The agate was a very common
appearing specimen when picked up on
the Siletz Indian reservation. He saw
that there was something below the
rude surface, and he had that side poll
ished, when the face made is appear
ance. MIR. Campbell says that the face
is natures photograph. The sun
caught the face and figure of the In
dian woman as she was walking along
the beach and fastened it on the agate. "
The close connection between de-
cayed teeth and diseases of the diges-
ton is pointed out by a writer in Guys
Hospital Gazette. The presence of free
acids in the mouth is particularly
harmful These many come from va
from the acid fermentation of the car
bo-hydrate food lodged on or between
the teeth at the gums, and due to the
action of micro-organismS present in
the mouth. Normally the saliva is
alkaline, and any acids produced in
the crevices of the teeth are thus neu-
tralized and decay prevented. There
are two conditions under which the
saliva Is unable to neutralize the acids
nrnd1Ipad Inaa11xr vyha 4
is deficient in aIkalinity, and CD when
1t is deficient in quantity. AS to the for
mer, it is well known that the saliva
becomes less alkaline or even acid in
any condition of prolonged gastric di-
gestion, a phenomenon which occurs in
nearly all cases of dyspepsia. More
over, the teeth when decayed further,
tend to keep up the state of chronic
dyspepsia by rendering mastication i'm
perfect. A vicious circle is thus estab-
lished. To obviate this form of dental
disease the teeth should be washed
frequently with a solution of which one
of the ingredients is bicarbonate of
soda. This may prevent one of the
most disagreeable results of the disease
facial neuralgia.
The first machine-gun of any note
was the Calling, writes Sir Hiram
AdA4Ill III pei w SCAly. uG
inal Calling had ten barrels placed in
a circle, with a breech mechanism so
arranged that by turning a crank these
barrels were successfully fired, the
cartridges being placed in a small hop
per situated in the top OF the gun. The
Hotchkss was a similar gun, having a
similar arrangement of barrels, but
totally different form of mechanism.
The Hotchkiss system, however, was
used for a larger type of ammunition
than the Calling. The French mi
trailleuse had thirty barrels. They all
were loaded at the same time and all
fired simultaneously. The recoil was
so great that 1t had to be mounted in
the same manner as a field-piece, on
a heavy carriage, requiring six horses.
The apparatus was clumsy, difficult to
operate, and had comparatively slow
rate of fire. The Nordenfeldt gun con-
slsts OF a series Of barrels arranged
side by side. like organ-pipes. The
Nordenfeldt gun generally has five bar
rels, and the mechanism is worked by
lever. the cartridges falling down
from hopper on the top of the arm
into position, where the mechanism
thrusts them into the barrel, fires them.
and extracts the empty case. This
gun is of great simplicity. and for
time went into extensive use. The
hand-worked machine gun, however,
has given place to a totally different
form of arm having but one barrel, and
is known as the automatic gun, which
was one of my own inventions.
The late w. B. Fasig owned to
dread of the ''1S" hoodoo. says the
American Horse Breeder. On one oe-
easion when one of Fasig's horses
CHANGED to be number IL on the score
card, he positively refused to yet one
cent on her. and she won. 1t is well
known that he would not allow the
number Is to be used on any score card
at any meeting where he was in charge,
and would not have anything to do
with anything wherein the number ap-
peared Among the running horsemen
it is considered "a hoodoo to name
horse after any one, Chat is to say, it IS
a hoodoo to the man whom the horse
is named for), as so few men can resist
having a little bet on their own name
sake, just from sentiment. There is
3-year-old now running that is named
w. B. Fasig, and in his first three or
four starts this year he has met with
the proverhial hard luck ;hat so often
followed his illustrious namesake in
his own racing ventures on the trotting
tracks. In fact this same colt has
been expected to win more than once
but did not. He started in a race on
Wednesday, the 18th day, and although
he had virtually nothing of any class
to beat, was at the odds of to /, and
won as he pleased, with the second
horse a couple of lengths back, the
third horse eight lengths further back
and the rest coming the next day." II
is a queer coincidence that the "13'
hoodoo should repeat on the running
track, as it were. and shows that the
time to back a horse is when he looks
to have a good chance, regardless OF
numbers or fancied supers-itions.
In an editorial summary the Lon
don Electrician gives some of the
hypothesis which have been proposed
for the explanation of comet tails. 1t
says: "Fitz Gerald has suggested that
the Maxwellian light pressure exerted
by solar radiation on the molecules of
a gaseous cometary envelope might be
the cause of the observed curvatures
of the appendages A difficulty. how
ever, arises from the small absorp-
ton of radiation by gases, and Arr
henius has suggested that condensed
particles of matter should replace the |
molecules of Fitz Geralds hypothesis |
On the basis of this hypothesis |
Schwarzchild has calculated the re- |
pulsion exercised by the suns total |
radiation on a single particle and com |
pared that force with the suns grav- |
itational attraction. He estimated that |
on particles of the most favorable |
size the radiation pressure might reach |
a magnitude about twenty times the |
gravitational attraction. AS a mat |