Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1910-02-12
GLEANiNGS AND GOSSIP.

| Difficulty is being experienced by Japa-
nese banks is finding employment for
their deposits. The first bank is said to
have 100000 yen ($43OO,OOO) lying idle and
| the Mtsui bank 100000 yen ($3, 1900, 0O0).
| The first trust in the United States to
pass the 500 100000 mark in capitalization
was the United States leather company,
organized in 1898. Its capital stock COM
| bned with an issue of bonds amounted to
| $13S, 100000.
| In point of commercial value, the silver
product of the United States last year
was the smallest since 1871. Mint bu-
reau figures give the gold value of the
| So 600 ounces fine produced in 1909 as
| $2S,01O 100, making the price 52016 cents
an ounce.
Plongastel-Daoulas is a little Breton
| community in which marriages are cele-
| brated but twice a year, on 1.-The day of
the kings and ''the day of the great in
dulgences." On January II, 2S couples
wearing the costumes of their ancestors
We're married at a single ceremony by a
venerable priest. On going from the cere
mony the husbands We're given much
drink The brides turning up their skirts
to escape the mud, ran to Civ last
look at the pullets destined for the we'd
ding feasible Cri de Paris.
The latest step in conservation is the
| introduction of a bill by Delegate Wick
ersham of Alaska providing for national
coal reserve. The principle is that of the
national forests. He suggests that
Congress set aside in perpetuity ma
6 of tl,o
| best coal-bearing lands in Alaska, a
board of three experts being appointed
| for that purpose. The national coal re-
serve may be augmented by the recov-
| cry of private coal lands, obtained i'm
properly or fraudulently from the United
States.
Writing in Science on DR.. Nishikawa,
whose recent death is announced, Prof
Bashford refers to this Japanese savant' S
remarkable discovery of a process of
| making perfectly spherical pearls. The
| usual pearl owing to the method of
growth. is only hemspherical. DR.. Nishi-
kawa was a member of the imperial fish
cries bureau in Toxic and during the
last ten years of his life made a special
study of pearl production. AS a result
pearl oysters, which had secreted spheri-
| cal pearls We're recently exhibited at the
university of Toxic.
Wonderful as are the functions of the
eye the ear appears to be a yet more
marvellous instrument. People with good
hearing do not appreciate the ineXplicable
delicacy of 1.-THE little instrument that Ma
ture has implanted on each side of their
heads. But anatomists appreciate with
out being able to understand it. There
is hardly any trouble with the eye that
they cannot adjust, but not so with the
ear. When it's fairy mechanism is
tangled and out of tune, it is often i'm
possible to restore its functions. 1t is the
greatest mystery if the human organism.
Detroit Free Press.
One of the great banks of the old
world is the State bank of Russia, but
this institution differs very greatly from
the banks of England. ireland, Germany,
and France and many other of the great
banks of the world from the fact that 1t
is owned entirely by the Russian govern
ment. This bank receives and distributes
the entire revenue of the Russian empire.
1t was founded in 1860. The capital Is
fixed at 5O,0OO,OOO rubles. (Ruble equals
equals SIS cents.) The banks head Is at
ST. Petersburg. though it has about loV
branches. The limit of it's currency issue
is 30O0O0,O00 rubles in excess of the gold
on hand.
For hundreds of years the British ex-
chequer kept accounts by means OF
notched sticks of elm wood called tallies'
a plan that strongly resembled Robinson
Crusoe's mode of keeping his calendar on
the desert island. In the reign of George
III an inquiry was made by some revo-
lutionary spirit as to whether pen. INK
and paper could not be substituted, but
the whole civil service rose against the
innovation. 1t took many years to get
the sticks abolished. And when they
were privately and confidentially burned
in stove at the House of Lords in ls@f
the paneling of the room caught fire ana
both houses were reduced to ashes.