Alaska sentinel., 1908-08-20
SOMETHING FOR EVERYBODY
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1
 Louisiana has seven million acres of swamp land, which are at present total ly useless.
 The irrigated districts of Egypt com prise 5,340,000 acres and support 10.- 100000 persons.
 It is computed that the dew falling fin England is equal to five inches of rain each year.
 Government experts are investlgat- ing seaweed with the object of deter. mining its economic value.
 The cost of repairs on a wooden rail- road car is about S1O0 a year, much more than that of a steel car, and the wooden car is out of service by reason of repairs six to one as compared with the metal ones.
 Cape Colony, South Africa, has a deficit of S9,500,OO0, accumulated dur ing the last four years, and which, says MT. Merriman, the premier, will likely be S12,0O0,OOO by the end of 1908. The unpaid Government railway debt brings the present true deficit up to about S15,OOO,0O0.
 The Chinese have undertaken to nurse their forests, and the officials of the Celestial government have engaged a Japanese expert from Tokio to act as head master for the proposed school of forests at Mukden for term of four years, with two Chinese as his assist ants.
 Prof. D. c. Jackson of the Massachu- setts Institute of Technology, has been retained by the Massachusetts highway commission to make a report regarding the telephone situation with special reference to the practicability of a re duction in rates and a higher efficiency of service.
 "Neatness is essential on the links, said II. J. Whigham, the golfer, at a | dinner in Chicago. "At Shlnnecock Hills one day I played behind two young and pretty girls. Overriding them, heard the younger say: How many holes on this course. AileenT' Nineteen, dear said Aileen, Including the one In your stocking"
 Simultaneously with the organization of pigeon postal service in the French Kongo, where the climate makes both ordinary and wireless telegraphy im- possible, 1t Is announced that the Brit ish government has replaced the pigeon post by wireless telegraphy In both the naval and the colonial service, and that this years budget contains no appro- priation for pigeons.
 O'Connell had got a man of at one time for highway robbery and at an other for burglary; but on the third occasion. for stealing a coasting brig. the task or noodwinking the jury seem ed too great for even his powers of cajolery. However, he made out that 1 the crime was committed on the high seas and obtained an acquittal. The prisoner lifted up his hand and eyes to heaven and exclaimed: May the Lord long spare you, Mir. O'Connell-. to mel"
 The reason why the stomach and in- testines do not digest themselves was once thought by Weinland, a German experimenter, to be that they defend themselves by anti-enzymes, or anti ferments. pr. Nandor Klug of Buda- Pesth now reports these anti-ferments not to be found, but that the mucin present in the inner half of the gastric mucous membrane resists the digestive action of the trysin and the gastric juice. The digestive organs, therefore, protect themselves by the mucin they secrete.
 The population of Japan to-day is just about 50,0OO,000. The exact fig ures for 1907 are not yet available, but the estimates just published are based on the average growth of the last thirty years and may be taken as fairly ac- curate. In each of the five-year periods for which figures are shown, over the past twenty-five years, the population has increased, roughly speaking, by 100000. To-day the estimate is that there are 49,267,744 native-born Japanese in the territory ruled over by the Mikado.-Pall Mall Gazette.
 When the members of the British h. stitution of Electrical Engineers paid a visit of inspection to northern Italy lately, they were interested in a device used to protect the overhead transmits sion lines of an electric traction sys- tem from lightning discharges. The device consists of jets of water, which form permanent earth" at the Mon begno generating station on the Valtel- lima line. The electric resistance of the jets was said to be sufficient to pre- vent a serious loss of current, while not too great to enable them to serve for protection against lightning.
 It Is said that moon blindness" in a horse is caused by wolf teeth'-two small surplus teeth just in front of the