The Caucasian. (Shreveport, La.) 1900-192?, 1911-04-27
TIMELY BREvITIES


orators are women.
officers of the civil service in New
South Wales must insure their lives.
Because Of faulty packing and grad
ing American barrel apples are losing
favor in German markets.
Radium bearing minerals recently
discovered in the Mount Painter field
in South Australia are to be mined.
The great volume Of China's book
printing is still done from stones and
blocks on thin paper and on one side
only.
A pistol so small that it may be held
in the mouth and discharged with the
teeth has been invented by a Berlin
artist.
Dissections of the human body are
not yet allowed in China, hence the
demand for western medical works,
with plates.
Platinum is now more than twice as
costly, ounce for~ounce, as pure gold.
Yet~it should not be inferred that gold
IS becoming cheap.
The cottonwood tree is rich with gas.
and experiments are being conducted
with the view of extracting it and
burning it from holder.
Mechanism sensitive to sunlight is
made to light and extinguish a gas
lantern for buoys that the United
States government has adopted.
Not long ago one could get land for
the asking in the Argentine. Now ag-
ricultural property within 300 miles of
Buenos Aires brings from $50 to $50
an acre.
Traffic is suspended on the Peking-
Mukden railway in Manchuria owing
to dangers from the plague. Serum is
being freely sent from Germany and
Austria.
"England's first skyscraper' is the
name that had been applied to an in
surance company's building which is
being erected at Liverpool, to be $50
feet high.
Subjected to various tests for more
than two years. some cinder concrete
walls at Columbia university, built for
that purpose. seem to be as substantial
as when erected.
Sweet potatoes are rarely seen in the
United Kingdom and are not found in
the retail stores. The absence Of this
toothsome tuber is generally comment
ed upon by American visitors.
Despite its proximity to the United
States, Honduras is one of the least de-
veloped countries in the world. The
hotel accommodation and the means of
transportation are indescribable.
There has been invented in British
Guiana a process for literally powder
ing sugar cane. the idea being to ex-
port the product to the United States
for refining to dodge the duty on sugar.
In northwestern Spain there are sew
eral mines of arsenic pyrites from
which white arsenic is now being man
ufactured The principal mine, the
San Jose. is located near Castro del
Rey.
No less than eighteen American uni
versities and colleges are now giving
courses in the subject of life insurance,
while in fifteen others there are gener-
al courses given in which life insur-
ance forms part.
A Danish musician named Schmidt,
who maintains that nerves" can be
cured by means Of soft melody, treats
patients by making them lie fat on his
grand piano while he plays dreamy
music to lull them to sleep.
John Heissenberger of New York, a
member of the Manhattan Cremation
and Provident society, directed in his
win that my remains be- cremated
and my ashes strewn by my children
over farm lands at least fifty miles
from New York or any other large
city
The discovery of new star in Jan
uary by an Oxford university man has
the old speculation as to the
causes of new" star Astronomers
know that the stars are formed by the
of bodies hitherto unseen, but
are ignorant as to how this is brought
about.
The unique one mule tramway. with
It's pale blue wood seat. straight back
box cars. seating twelve persons.
which has been a leading curiosity of
Curacao for twenty-seven years and
the only railway in the island. is about
to give way to a modern gasoline
motor car system.
After having been married to him for
twenty-three years the wife of Maui
rice Hewlett, the novelist, now takes
up the perilous vocation of giving fly
Ing lessons While her husband is
performing flights of rhetoric indoors
this plucky woman performs outdoor
flights with an aeroplane.
Nina Turataviloff. peasant woman
It Telev. in the Caucasus. is probably
The Oldest person in the world Re
eently she celebrated what she claims
was her one hundred and sixty-ffth |
birthday. Though she is now quite in
capable of using her limbs, she is stin
n possession OF her mental faculties.
As the Mexican laborer wears a style