The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-01-03
tcons,nued from Page I've,


 of the British Aeronauticai Society. Review strongly emphasizing Eng lands peril from this source
 Of he brothers. Wilbur Wright was the most fortunate. On october 6 he, with a passenger in his aeroplane. re- mained in the air one hour four mi1u- tes and twenty seconds. Since then Wright has taken a passenger for still longer trips. Orviile Wright. after many successful flights at Fort Myer. Va, was dashed to the earth on Sep tember 17 and seriously hurt by the breaking. of a propeller blade. Lieu tenant Thomas E. Selfridge was killed. Count Zeppelin of Germany in his great 400-foot dirgible airship on July made twelve-hour flight and travel ed 250 miles reaching q maximum height of 2,500 feet The airship later was wrecked by an explosion. even while the world was congratulating him on his achievement The contribu- tions which poured in from the Counts sympathizers all over Germany he de- voted to building another dirgible, in which he made several successful Voy- ages
 American also was brought to the attention of the world because cham pionship victories at the Olympic Games held at London In July. John J. Hayes. New York youth. won the Marathon race. Dorando, the Italian runner. being cou1ted out because he had to be helped over the line in faint ing condition. Hayes's time was hours 45 minutes 1-5 seconds At a race held in Madison Square Garden in November, however, Dorando defeated Hayes: time 2 hours A minutes 20 2-5 v.f.. xwwf.1 tinguished tn emselves in the Olympic Games were Ralph Rose, in the shot put; Melvin W. Sheppard. in the i.50o- meter race; John J. Flanagan. in the hammer throw, and Martin Sheridan, in the free style and Greek Style discus
 throws.
 The Roll of Misfortnnes. s The year was not charactized by many great labor disputes. the result. no doubt, of the financial depression. In Canada 5000 sh op men Of the Cana dian Pacific were ordered out on strike on Aug. 1. Trouble did not cease un- til Oct. 1, when it was settled under the Dominion Labor Act. Strikes in the Lancashire cotton mills in Septem- Der threw f30.00O out of employment. The Paris strikes last summer were quickly broken up by the police. Neither were the catastrophes of 1908 to be compared with those of other years within recent date. There was nothing to compare with the San Fran cisco earthquake. In the United states the chief disasters were the great for est fires of the North and the storms and floods of the South, The forest fires. which ravaged large areas in nearly all the States between New York and Minnesota. proved espe- cially destructive because of the drought. In the State of Michigan alone the loss was estimated at S10,- 0O0,OO Entire towns were wiped out in the Northwest. Fires in Canada destroyed a great quantity of valuable timber and the town of Fernie, and cost the lives of hundreds who could not escape. The total loss in Ameri- can timber is estimated at $S5.00O,000.
 Disastrous floods visited Georgia and the Carolinas late in August. working special havoc in Augusta and bringing ruin to thousands of acres of cotton. Other calamities resulting from ele- mental causes were the fire Qn Jan. 13' at Boyerstown, Pa, in which 200 lives were lost; an earthquake on Jan, 15' followed by a tidal wave, at Gonaives' Hayti; fire at Portland. Me, on Jan. 24 destroying the city and county buildings, with loss of s1.000.000: a tornado on Feb. 14. which destroyed three Mississippi towns and killed twenty people. and a fire in Bahia. on March 13, destroying $l.OOO.OOo worth of property.
 Two hundred were drowned on March 23 when the Japanese ship Lusu was sunk. On March 26, sixty miners were entombed in the Union Pacific mines at Hanna, Wyo., by an explosion. A fire in Chelsea. Mass. on April 12. de- stroyed many public and private build ings, causing damage amounting to 5000 900 and resulting In the death of twelve and the injury of fifty. Floods in Rankow on April 1S caused the loss of 800 lives.
 A series of tornadoes which swept Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama and 1Georgia, on April 23, caused the death of $40 people and the loss of $12.OOO,OOO property. On May a fire destroyed two blocks in Atlanta, Ga. causing property loss of $1.500.0O0. On June typhoon destroyed a pearling fleet off West Australia with the result that forty ships were lost and 27O men drowned.
 About 300 miners were killed as
 result of an explosion of gas in the
 Rikovski mine, Russia, on July 2. On
 the same day fire caused by fire
 works in Cleveland killed seven. On July 5 one-third of the city of Port au Prince. Hayti. was destroyed by
 fire. typhoon in Manila Bay on
 July l6 upset pleasure launch, drowning twenty-five Fire in the elevator and freight warehouse dis
 trict in Chicago destroyed property
 valued at over s2O0O.O0O and caused the death Of eight. On August IS seventy men vera entombed by an ex plosion in the Maypole mine, at Wal
 gram, England. When the British
 ship Duncan foundered off the coast
 of Japan on August 26 fifty-two lives
 were lost. Fire in the business part
 nf New Orleans on August 30 destroy I'd property worth $2,000,0O0. Fire on September 4 practically wiped out the
 mining camp of Rawhide. causing a
 loss of $750,O and making 5000 peo
 ple homeless.
 On November 6 15o were lost in the
 sinking of the steamer Taish on the
 Japanese coast. On the 18th a storm
 caused the loss of score of lives and S3 cod. .000 of property at Cape Town. In tha 95tb fhe sfea annshfp Sardinia