The Savannah morning news., 1904-05-18
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

much larger than the export
"A committee of the French Cham
Der of Deputies is investigating the
dangers from lead paints. White lead
in paints is declared to be poisonous in
large degree to the jewellers in
houses painted with it. Zinc white is
suggested as a desirable substitute.
India is seriously being urged to
follow in the footsteps of Canada,
South Africa, and New Zealand in ac-
cording preferential tariff rates. TO
Great Britain. The foreign trade OF
India is S6S3, 900 annually, three
fourths of the imports being from
Great Britain.
The pipeline from the Baku petro-
leum fields on the Caspian sea to Ba-
tum, on the Black sea, $50 miles, will
be completed during 1905, and VIII
double the transportation facilities for
oil. A part of this line, lab miles at
the eastern end, has been in operation
for several years.
The sand used in making glass for
cut glass articles is quarried rock that
has been crushed. The cutting opera
ton consists of three stages. The ar
ticle is first roughed with sand and
steel grinding wheel. 1t is then smooth
ed by a stone cutting wheel, and is
lastly finished by wooden polishing
wheel.
The recent report of DR.. G. I.
Deane, that the total output of the
California oil wells last year amount
ed to over $4,000 900 barrels only par
TALLY represents the important in
huence and value of the industry. Its
true significance is pointed out by j.
w. Harrison, a prominent local coal
dealer, who says it practically dis
places 100000 tons of coal as fuel.
The engineers of the last few years,
in relaying tracks, instead of start
ing true circle curve with the sudden
lift of the outer rail that causes the
jolt and lurch that travellers know,
have laid a Slight parabolic curve from
point a hundred yards back on the
straight track, and have elevated the
outer rail imperceptibly along that
curve to the maximum. The result of
the device-in practice quite new-has
been the humiliation of curves as re-
CARDS a passengers sense.
A work of great interest to sports
men which is on the point of publica-
ton is The Master of Game" by Ed
ward Ills grandson, Edward Duke of
York. This is the earliest English
work on hunting, and it will now APP
pear in print for the first time, edited
from the manuscripts by Mr.. and Mrs.
Baltic Grohman, with notes glossary,
bibliograph ETC., and a "foreword"
by President Roosevelt. The illustra-
lions, which are to be numerous, are
taken from French INNS, and the
text and modernized rendering of it
will be printed in parallel columns.
King Edward is one of the subscribers.
One of the results which will prob
bly, follow the transfer of the title of
the Panama Railroad to the United
States will be a reduction of fare. The
old company charged $40 in gold for a
| trip across the isthmus, distance of
forty-seYen miles, with baggage. The
charge for trip without baggage has
been 81, much above railroad rates in
the United States The railroad had
no competition and charged all the
traffic would bear The government
now owns the railroad, and will doubt
less be content with lower fares. Last
year the net earnings of the road were
| $917 900, and the surplus was 100000,
after deducting fixed charges. The
charge of 81 in gold for telegraph
message of ten words between Colon
and Panama will also be reduced to
more reasonable figures.
In the year 1900 two famous col
lections of Oriental, chiefly Arabic,
manuscripts, were brought to this
country; one, the private collection of
a well-known Arabic scholar. Count
Landberg, was secured for Yale Uni
versity; the other, which originally had
been in the library of a Mohammedan
purchased by the publishing house of
E. ]. Brill at Leyden, through Count
Land, was acquired by Messrs. John
and Robert Garrett and deposited in
the library of their alma mater
CPrinceton). A third collection was
acquired by Mr.. Robert Garrett during
the last winter, also from the Brill
house, and is at present in Princeton.
AS to numbers, there are between 800
and 900 manuscripts at Yale, and 1878
at Princeton.
"A writer in the Chicago Chronicle
says that fish have their own language
"a vocal one, too--and he declares that
the old idea that they are completely
dumb is no longer tenable. AS a mat
ter of fact. he says, there are many
that utter loud sounds, and he men
tions among them the drumfish, which
is so named because OF the deep BOOM
ing noise it makes; the squeteague,
which croaks like a big bullfrog; the
sea robin, which utters a loud "quawk!"
when caught; the puffer. which grinds
it's teeth and chuckles: the rabbit fish,
the trench fish and the cow fish, and
also the porpoise, which, while not q
true fish, looks like one and is known
as puffer and as a putting pig because
of his ability to puff so loudly that a
school of porpoises can be heard miles
off when the day is calm. To this list
says the Baltimore Sun, a small Bal
timorean who went gudgeoning out at
Stommer's run the other day, thinks
that gudgeons should be added. He
said that the fish bit like 40" and that
he and the two grown-ups who were
with him brought back over 300 of the
little sinners as a result of their days
work. But the fish cried" so, he SAYS.
when the hooks were taken cut of their
mouths that he could hardly stand it.
1T has been ascertained as the re-
suit of experiments conducted by Prof.
Zoleny of the University of Minnesota
that the diffusion of odors through the
atmosphere is much slower than is
commonly supposed, says the New York
Times. The professor has investigated
this phenomenon eXperimentally and
he finds that 1t takes the odor of am
monia at least an hour and a half to
make its way to the opposite end of a
glass tube about five feet long. With
the idea of throwing some light on the
character of odors-that is, whether or
l.. Il