Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1909-08-13
Odd Items of Interest

In India there are nearly twenty-siS
million widows.
Brazil grows more coffee than any other
country in the world.
| Out of a total of eighteen south pole
Expeditions nine have been British
| AT a rose competition recently, sixty
nine entirely new varieties OF roses were
exhibited.
The first airship annual entitled "All
the Worlds Airships." is to be published
, in England in October.
| On the shores of Cape Cod there were
during a period of twenty years following
1881 as many as 1000 wrecks of vessels
carrying precious cargoes of human be-
ings and of freight.
| Residents of the cork regions of Spain
heat the bark in kettles with spouts,
through which issues a gas that is used
as an illuminant. The refuse is sold as
| the Spanish black pigment.
| Post houses Roman roads were
| erected every five or six miles Each of
| them was constantly provided with forty
horses and a hundred miles day was an
easy journey. Any one using these posts
must show mandate from the emperor.
A sum of $500 was paid at Christie S
rooms, London, for a set of ten Chippen-
dale mahogany chairs. the backs pierced
with shell and carved with foliage and
| conventional scrolls, which at one time
We're, it is believed in the possession of
Marie Antoihette.
American apples containing the San Jose
| scale are refused entry a +. German ports,
but this precaution is criticised as super
| Hamburg have been shipped to England
and Denmark without having caused a
| spread of the pest.
Watermelons are a mixed with-pumpkin
hybrdization, as to get thick, tough
rind to stand shipping and to make them
larger and fuller While the rind i'm
proves, the meat is damaged. The old
fashioned watermelon with its thin, brit
tie rind which cracked under trumb pres
sure or split when knife was stuck in, is
past and gone, for such are no good in a
day of commerciaism. A genuine water
melon is a hard thing to handle, for it
cracks as easily as an egg; it often splits
itself in the patch.
In an illustrated description of the game
| of tennis "Smplicissimus'' says: Like
all good things lawn tennis is of English
origin. Marie Stuart while a prisoner,
was compelled to beat carpets which were
hung over a rail Not contented with this
humiliation her sister. Queen Elizabeth,
once threw dead mouse at the unfortu-
nate Marie while the latter was beating
carpets. The little defunct rodent was
he rail. and was returned to her by
a,;J 10, I,
and thus the game of tennis was origi-
mated"
BY the means of new piece of appara-
tus designed principally for the plumbers
use great deal of trench digging may be
avoided. 1t is called a pipe-forcing jack
and by digging ditch long enough to
| take the jack and start the first length of
| pipe it is possible to lay almost any length
! of service pipe. This means tnat the jack
will save the user the expense incurred in
| digging the trench and refilling 1t when
| laying service or pipelines. The jack is
capable of driving pipe up to four-lnch
diameter, and as great a length as $50 feet
of 2k-inch pipe has been forced through
the ground by it
| During the South African war trooper
on outpost duty one night felt so desper-
ately tired that he thought he would
have five minutes nap. Unlacing his
helmet on dock he lay down, and was
soon in a sound sleep. Waking suddenly.
he mistook his helmet for one of the enc
lmy, drew his sword. and dealt it a severe
blow Then, perceiving his mistake, the
| trooper picked up his helmet, which he
| had cut in two. and gave thanks tc
Heaven that he had taken it off before
LAYING down. For" he solloquized
had my head been inside that, it's ter
to one a dead man l would have beer
seeing myself at this moment
Plans of far-reachng importance are or
foot in Texas looking to the employment
of convicts. A large cotton mill is to be
Established to be run by water power anC
operated by the prison inhabitants, ant
the Rusk penitentiary pipe works ano
iron furnace are soon to be reopened on 8
large scale. The new state railroad, from
Rusk to Palestine, a distance of thirty
mles,sfis nearing completion and will be
run by convict labor. If the cotton mil
venture is success, other mills will be
established by the Lone Star state, an6
all its convicts will have something to dc
which will make them self-supporting in.
lstead of burden on the taxpayers.
Seismometers. or seismographs. as they
are more generally termed. are instru
ments for detecting or measuring tn,
Earthquake shock or wave. Some of the
modern ones are extremely delicate and
sensitive, so sensitive, in fact, according
to Milne, that If the solid column o.
Masonry communicating with the rocky
floor be pressed with the hand, the seis
mograph which rests on the masonry
will be effected, and the horizontal boon
or pendulum will be set in rapid vibra
:, ton. If two Milne seismographs provided
with horizontal pendulums be put on higl
buildings opposite each other on one o
, London's traffic streets when crowded
, with heavy drays, they will show tina
: the tops of the buildings bend over slight
ly toward each other.