Gilpin observer., 1914-12-31

| experiments conducted By Prof. Robert
| Kennedy OF Glasgow, Scotland. In May
a two-wheeled gyroscopic motor car cre-
ated considerable excitement in London.
1t is the invention Of Paul Schilowsky.
An innovation known as twilight sleep"
is announced to have worked such a
change In obstetrical methods that child
birth has been robbed almost entirely OF
its terrors. The new system developed at
| the Womans hospital of Freiburg, Ger
many, is described a slight slumber
| induced by an injection of n combination
of two drugs. scopolamin and morphium.
On January 2S the first wireless mes
| sage without relaying. transmitted be-
| tween Hanover. Germany and Tuckerton.
| on the lower New Jersey coast, came In
I one leap distance of 4,062 miles. On
| February II the expedition led by Capt.
]. Campbell Besley returned to New York
after six months exploration in hither-
| to unknown Andean region. The party
discovered n lost Inca city and brought
back valuable collection. Later In the
same month the antarctic expedition led
| by DR.. Douglas Mewson arrived at Ade-
laide. Australia, after two years spent In
| scientific exploration. On April 49, DIR.
Alexis Carrel. Nobel prize winner and
| eminent for his contributions to exact sci
ence. announced that he had operated
| successfully on the heart of an animal by
suspending the circulation Of blood sew
| era1 minutes. On May 10, ex-President
Roosevelt returned home after an explor-
ing trip of eight months through the Bra
lillian wilderness. He announced the dis
| covery of a river, which was chrlstened
Rio Roosevelt, and afterward rechristened
Rio Teodoro. On November 4. at the Brit
| fsh embassy in Rome. Prof Domenico
| Argentieri, an Italian priest of the Apruz-
| zi. made good his claim to have devised
| small portable wireless telegraphy ap-
| paratus capable of receiving messages
| from 81
| 1.250 miles. On January 2, at Dayton,
| Ohio, Orville Wright gave a public de-
| monstration of the automatic stabilizer.
| his new aeronautical invention. On Feb
| ruary T. the German aviator Tngold made
| record Of more than thousand miles,
| remaining aloft sixteen and half hours.
| thus breaking all previous records. In
April a new aeroplane height record was
| made by Linnekogel, at Johannisthal. He
| reached an altitude of &c. .564 feet. In May.
| a Zeppelin dirigible flew for thirty-six
| hours without stop over Germany, at an
average Of about fifty-two miles an hour.
| On July IA, German aviator at Berlin
ascended in a monoplane to n height OF
5000 feet, and thus broke the record. The
| flight from Norway to Scotland was made
by Gran. July 30. in four hours and ten
minutes.
The use of aircraft in the war has not
| been greatly sensational. but 1t has been
SUFFICIENT to modify warfare to an appre-
ciab1e extent. Most of the aeroplanes of
the belligerent nations are not fighting
craft. but the dirigibles of the Zeppelin
| type belonging to the German war equip
| ment are regarded as battleships of the
| air. and terrible results have been ex-
pected when this formidable sky squadron
| should get into action. Thus far. most of
| these military adjuncts have been used for
| scouting purposes, and as such they have
proved TO be especially effective. The
| rapid advance of the German forces into
France at the beginning of hostilities was
| made possible by these air scouts. which
| served to point out the way with infalli-
BILE accuracy. In the attack on Louvain
and other Belgian cities German aircraft
rendered effective service by directing ar
tillery fire by means of searchlights and
burning material dropped among the Bel
gian troops. That the Zeppelin airships
are capable of doing great damage was
made evident at the siege of Antwerp.
Casualties on Land and Sea.
Early in January the second phenom-
email storm Of the season added largely to
the destruction of property along the
ocean front of New Jersey and Long Is
| land. On January II. Japanese vol
cano on Sakura Island burst suddenly in
| to activity and destroyed three towns and
killed more than a thousand persons. Dur
Ing performance at moving picture
theater at Surabaya, Java. 70 women and
children were burned to death. The
steamer Monroe. from Norfolk to New
York city, was rammed by the Nantucket
during a night fog off Cape Charles. jan
uary 30. and Al persons were lost. On
March "A more than n thousand persons
lost their lives during storm which
| flooded several towns in Southern Russia,
and about the same time many persons
were killed by an earthquake at Akita,
Japan.
On March 81 the sealing steamer
I ~ o..
in the Strait of Belle Isle and II of
her crew were frozen to death. The
same day the steamer Southern Cross
and her crew disappeared. On April
2S an explosion in mine shaft at
Eccles. w. Va, caused the death of 1s0
| miners. Early in May Sicily was vis-
tied by series of shocks which did
great damage along the eastern coast.
| The steamship Empress of Ireland was
struck by the Norwegian collier Stor-
| stad in the st. Lawrence river, May 90.
and sank almost Immediately, more
| than a thousand passengers losing their
! lives. May 90 Capt. Robert A. Bartlett OF
the Stefansson arctic expedition returned
| to st. Michael. Alaska, with the news that
! the Karluk sank. January II. after having
been crushed by ice, and that her crew
| was marooned on Wrangel Island. On
| September z. eight members of this crew
were found by rescuing party. On
June 10 more than two hundred miners
were lost by an explosion in coal mine
| near Alberta, Canada. A fire at Salem,
Mass, June 25. destroyed half OF the city.
| including several thousand homes and
| many large Industrial establishments. In
| this month"; also. American consuls In va
rious Chinese cities reported that floods In
southern China had destroyed the crops
and made 100000 persons homeless On
| September IS the Francis IL Leggett
| collided with an unknown vessel of
| the Oregon coast and 72 of her passen-
| gers and crew were lost. In October
an earthquake In Turkey destroyed
more than 1000 persons In few min
utes.
Edisons great electrical plant at
Orange. N. j.. was destroyed by fire on
December ..
Notable Events.
Early in january the firm of i p