OCR Text |
Show -I" E6? INDEPENDENT. D. C JOHNSON, Fobllahar. 8PBINCVILLE, . . . UTAH Th toot who rocks the boat Is too often the one tared after the upsetting. up-setting. Solomon's temple has been found, but the plumbing is reported to be in bad condition. The man -who invented postal cards Is dead. The postmistress ought tc gira him a monument. What a national calamity it would be if the earthquakes in California had ruined the prune crops! ' There is no danger that the czai of Russia will disarm. If he ever does his own subjects will get him. A Denver scientist has rediscovered the planet Eros. He should be the next man to have a go at the north pole. Water is not so cheap after all, when William K. Vanderbilt finds himself him-self compelled to offer $50,000 for a small pond. Apparently the train robber sees nc need for nlm to go west to grow up with the country. Illinois is good enough for him. Alfonso Is. indeed, leading poor old Spain a merry pace for progress. He is said to have learned to swear and to drink highballs. Now that Yohe and Strong are safely away from American shores a strict quarantine ought to be established estab-lished against them. Some of the chauffeurs have apparently appar-ently decided that it involves an unnecessary un-necessary waste of time to go back and pick up the dead. The water in Great Salt Lake ha3 fallen six feet during the past eight years. There must be a hole In the bottom of the old thing. Lord Kitchener is called the bra-est bra-est man in the British army, but has never been able to summon up courage cour-age enough to get married. Women have been mobbing women In the streets of Paris of late. And all over the matter of schools and religion. re-ligion. How the hair must have flown. A Buffalo man was held up and robbed in his own back yard. This ought to be some consolation for those who are held up at the summer resorts. When a preacher takes a woman by the band, and says, "We missed you last Sunday," she feels that her faithful faith-ful attendance at church has not been in vain. The cholera epidemic in Egypt Is so virulent that people die in five minutes after being stricken. These microbes must carry double-barreled shot-guns. The warning that the Egyptian sphinx is crumbling to pieces gives American, multimillionaires a iew op- portunity o contribute to a relic restoration res-toration fund. ; In a dispatch from New York Gates's wealth is said to be only 120.000,000. This . Is ridiculous. He wins more than that much every week at poker alone. A great drawback to women making an unqualified success in business life Is their inability to look on calmly while those who owe them large sums are doing the Dives act. The esteemed Cleveland Plaia Dealer says there is only one rhyme for "month," and gives it as "oneth." How about millionth, billionth, trill-onta, trill-onta, and so on, neighbor? Sarah Bernhardt admits that she is 68 years of age. But it must be said for her that she has not yet arrived at that point in life where most women wo-men begin to grow too stout. Rose Coghlan has declared, in the Montana district court of Lewis and Clark county, her intention to become a cltlien of the United States. We need all the good-looking citizens obtainable. ob-tainable. ' Whether the Baldwin-Zeigler expedition expe-dition has been temporarily suspended or permanently abandoned, the north pole must do more or less dodging to keep out of Lieut. Peary's way in his final dash this season. Since Kipling wrote "The Vampire" how many men, after a quarrel in which they were, of course, to blame have made sarcastic referenct, either mental or oral, to "a rag ani a bone and a hank of hair?" The grave diggers in one of Chicago's Chi-cago's cemeteries have struck. Still, the situation isn't as serious as it might be. Since the advent of the automobile scorcher it frequently happens hap-pens that there isn't anything left to bury. When Gens. Botha. Dewet and De-larey De-larey reach .London, King Edward will grant them an audience. Had some such meetings been held before the South African war. Instead of after, the world might have been spared a sorry spectacle. Dr. C. D. Bourcart has declined to be the Swiss minister at Washington, preferring to remain in London, where he is now stationed. All right for the doc! Let's bar out Swiss cheese. Another of the girls who strewed flowers before Lafayette when he last visited this country is dead. There are only & few thousand of them left. One of the eastern poets asks: "How will it be when spring comes back again?" It will probably be cold and raw and hard to stand, as usual. Great Britain intends to make South Africa pay the lion's share of the cost of the recent war. The lion's hare in this case is understood to mean the entire shooting matca. Russell Sage has just celebrated his eighty-sixth birthday by treating himself him-self to an extra piece of pie and working work-ing an hour and a half overtime. Not until an automobile vanquishes a thoroughly equipped coal wagon next winter can it be said that It has passed through an endurance test. Marr swing Tale af Tragedy on the Fpsntier of Texas A cowboy who was riding through the chaparral not far from the Rio Grande, in Zapata county, Tex. heard the cry of an infant. Rather astonished he halted and listened lis-tened with interest. Only a few moments mo-ments passed belor the cry fell upon his ears again -with such distinctness that he feit confident of being able to locate the direction of the sound. He rode under the trees and to his surprise there was not a man or v Oman, Om-an, to be seen. He noticed some charred sticks and tin cans, and fearing fear-ing that the bandits had fled and were watching him from ambush he was about to pull his pony back into the thicket when he wa3 startled by a loud shriek that appeared to have come from the skies. "I could hear my heart beating," he says, "and I hardly dared to look up, for I fully expected to see nothing less than a mother with a babe in her arm flying through the air above the tree tops." Before he could push back his sombrero another tender appeal greeted greet-ed his ears, and the next moment the surprised cowboy was looking at a little lit-tle babe suspended between the topmost top-most boughs of a large mesquite tree. The cowboy suspected that a great crime had been committed by some inhuman monster. As he stood up in his saddle and stepped into the forks of the mesquite he muttered: "I wish I had the cowardly wretch or Cruel mother by the throat who tied this poor thing up here and left it to die of thirst in the hot sun and be devoured de-voured by buzzards." When he stood in the forks of the tree he could look into the child's eyes. It struggled to raise its little arms and began to coo In its rescuer's face. The tender-hearted cowboy felt a great lump rising in his throat and his hands trembled, but he managed to cut the bands that bound the infant to the branches and then he took it in his arms and quickly quick-ly descended to the earth. While the cowboy was in the treetop his curious performance in connection with a small bundle had been noticed by a comrade who was riding th range a short distance away, and he rode straight to the mesquite grove. The cowboys stripped the little sufferer suf-ferer naked, and after bathing it with water from their canteens, they poured a few drops down its throat. It was evidently tired and sore, and the moment mo-ment that it felt cool and comfortable it fell asleep in Swinger's arms. Conors suddenly sprang to his feet, exclaiming, "What is that lying over there?" Walking to the object he glanced over, it and then turned towards to-wards his friend with a grave face. "The devil has been to pay here. Swinger," he said. "This is a skeleton." skele-ton." He had hardly finished speaking speak-ing before he saw another heap of white bones. Then for the first time the cowboys noticed that the earth was torn up, and upon closer examination examina-tion they soon discovered fragments of flesh, clots of blood and shreds of clothing. Both men were now closely scrutinizing scrutin-izing the ground. One found a broken gun and the other 'discovered the tracks of Mexican hogs. They retired to the shade of a mesquite, mes-quite, and from the evidence that was before them these practiced plainsmen read all the horrible details of cne of THE VOLTAGE OF LIGHTNING Enormous Power of a Bolt Is Almost Inconceivable. Few people have any understanding of the disruptive power of a severe bolt of lightning. The figures quoted convey little even when one is told that at the present time the limit of carrying power of an electric plant is electricity at 40,000 volts, one-tenth of that of a heavy lightning bolt. Perhaps Per-haps a truer conception is to be gained from the story of an old Long Island resident who admits being very fond of squirrel huiting, and sars;. "In a piece of clear woods near where I lived several years ago was an enormous enor-mous white ( ai; tree four feet through at the stumn. ai:d spreading over naif an acre of ground. Under certain conditions, con-ditions, I could always count on finding find-ing a fox squirrel In that tree, and I knew every limb of it. "One morning after a tremendous thunder storm. In which we all had noticed a mighty thunderbolt, I visited vis-ited this tree. Only a pile of broken brush-wood, and thousands of little splinters scattered all over the ground for the distance of several hundred the most harrowing tragedies that ever occurred on the frontier of Texas. The cowboys of Texas know the Mexican peccary or wild hog. He is a small, lean razor back, bristling with rage and fury from the moment of his birth in some dark cavern until he is filled with lead or cut to shreds. His head is large and ! is ponderous jaws are literally full of long, sharp tusks. Some of them are curved, and with these he can make a frightful nvjise and cut off a man's leg or slash a dog into two pieces at a single snap. He is a living allegory of courage, audacity audac-ity and rage. Every inch of his little body Is full of pugnacity and the devil. At any and all hours he is ready to Cght anything from a rattlesnake to an elephant. Whenever his wicked little eyes fall upon an object that moves he charges it, whether it is a mouse, man or tiger. Not satisfied with killing, kill-ing, he tears the body of his prey to shreds, snaps his tusks, covered with blood and foam, over the bones, and then crushes them to splinters. The cowboys looked at the white skeletons. The bones were yet wet with blood and scarred with the marks Oi tusks. They read that a man and a mother with one little babe had stopped under the mesquites on the previous day to rest and make coffee. They were doubtless familiar with the Country and it ia now known that they were traveling on horseback, for two ponies were found in the vicinity of the battleground some days later. The man and woman were suddenly attacked by a prow-ling band of peccaries. pec-caries. The man helped his wife and baby into the forks of the tree, and doubtless would have joined them if he had not been prevented by something some-thing that is not written upon the battlefield. bat-tlefield. He may have stumbled, or he may have had to take a Tew steps to reach his gun. He may have been dragged down by the tusks of a hundred hun-dred hungry grunting beasts. At any rate, he fought on foot. His gun was empty and. the barrel had been bent. Did the mother sit in the tree and see her husband fall? Did she see the little lit-tle furies swarm over his body, snapping snap-ping their tusks and tearing his flesh to shreds? Did she see some of them crushing his bones, while others gnawed at the bark of the tree in w hich she sat pressing her babe to her breast? She must have seen all of that and more. Is there not here a study for an artist? Who can depict the mother's face or tell her emotions? Night came on. The mother felt herself growing weak from terror and the exertion necessary to maintain her position In the tree. She could see a bunch of peccaries fighting over the bones of her husband, while others were gnashing gnash-ing their bloody tusks and tearing the bark from the trunk of the mesquite. She pressed her babe to her breast and renewed her cries for help. She had shouted and screamed until her voice could hardly rise above a whisper. whis-per. Her feeble cries only served to enrage and increase the efforts of the savage beasts thirsting for her blood. Her appeals for aid only helped to swell the number of her foes. Hour after hour passed and the fury of her tormentors did not abate. Her limbs were growing weak and her throat was burning from thirst. More feet all around, marked where this giant of the forest had stood. Some explosive effect had torn the roots out until there was a hole . in the ground eight feet deep and ten feet across. "That one bolt of electricity had torn that tree to pieces In a way that ten woodmen working an entire week could not have accomplished." NEW MEN IN THE SENATE. Pettus of Alabama Explains Why They Are Set Back. The venerable Senator Pettus of Alabama Is one of the most genial and popular, as well as one of the most influential members of the body to which he belongs. To an acquaintance acquaint-ance who was congratulating him upon the completeness with which he had suppressed in debate a bumptious new Senator, the Nestor of the Senate explained: ex-plained: "Well, sun, it's like this. When a new Senetah assuahs the Senate of tae United States that he knows mo' about the pending question than all the rest of them put togethah, they believe him. When he repeats than once her baby nearly slipped from her grasp. If it had fallen amongst those mad beasts she would certainly have followed it. With true motherly devotion she resolved to save her child, though she might perish. Summoning all her strength, she quickly tore her dress to shreds, anA after wrapping the babe in one of her skirts, she swung it between the swaying sway-ing boughs of the tree. She bound the babe so securely that It would have remained in the tree though rocked by a storm. What happened to the mother? Either one of two things. She may have fainted or she may have grown so weak that she could not maintain her hold upon the boughs of the tree. She may have gone to death more horrible t-ian any ancient martyr ever suffered, moved by a heroic resolve. Looking down upon the swarm of hungry hun-gry peccaries gnawing at the trunk of the tree, may it not have occurred to this tortured mother: "Perhaps if I should give them my body my flesh and blood would appease their hunger and they would go away and spare my darling." The heroic mother, with Spartan courage, may have deliberately deliberate-ly thrown herself into the jaws of the merciless beasts, hoping to save her babe. The cowboys thought of all of this while they were examining the deep ring cut about the trunk of the tree by the sharp tusks of the tireless peccaries. pec-caries. The mystery remains to be solved. The cowboys took the little baby boy to the home of a good woman who is childless, and they said to her: "Here is a little kid we found out in the chaparral. We want you to raise him for us. Whenever you want any stuff call on us and we will put up. Here is two twenties for starters. Call him Mesquite. His mother was graded stock, sure. We w ant to make a congressman con-gressman out of him." Englishmen Serve the Sultan. There are several Englishmen in the army and navy of the Sultan of Turkey. Among them are Lieutenant General Blunt Pacha, who served throughout the Crimea in the Fourteenth Four-teenth foot; Gen. Atkinson Pacha, Frost Pacha and Vinnicombe. Pacha, who have drifted from Armstrong's or from Woolwich to the arsenal on the Bosporous; Cap't. Harty Bey, who was an assistant engineer in the royal and is now a post captain in the Ottoman Otto-man navy, and Vice Admiral Woods Pacha, who was second master of a gunboat in the Mediterranean, and then became teacher of English at the Turkish naval academy. Charity of Italy's King. The king of Italy was unpopular at the time of his coming to the throne because of the stories of his extreme economy, but has lately shown that, though be is circumspect in his expenditure, ex-penditure, he is liberal and benevolent. benevo-lent. He gives largely to charity, both organized and individual, and in his social life seems ready to make any, outlay that is necessitated by his position. po-sition. The model of the amateur artist Is seldom as bad as she is painted. that assu'ance next day about an en-tiahly en-tiahly different question, theih acquiescence acquies-cence is tinged with incredulity. When, on the thuhd day, he renews il about a thuhd question, theih suspicions sus-picions ah aroused. And when, on the fo'th day, he says the same thing about a fo'th question, unrelated to any of the othahs, they know he is a liah." On Sure Ground. A well-known artist overheard a countryman and his wife ridiculing hi3 picture, which represented a farm scene. He was so indignant that he at last interposed with the remark: "That painting is valued at a hundred hun-dred pounds. Allow me to ask if you are familiar with works of art?" "Not very familiar with art," replied re-plied the farmer, "but I know something some-thing about Nature, young man. When you make a cow that gets up from the ground by putting her fore feet first, you do something that Nature never did." Our thoughts in time are weaving the garments we must wsar In eternity. H I TRAVEL IN TURKEY (Special Letter.) T tho hnnr nf annset ySk I stepped from the train In Es- platform to listen to the call of the muezzin, whose words rolled forth in full rich tones and then in quavering notes, as he leaned over the lofty balcony of the nearest minaret. min-aret. , Qulckl;. our thoughts traveled backward back-ward to the days of Osman, the founder found-er of the Turkish dynasty; for here we were in the center of what was Osman's first little kingdom and what was destined to becorre the nucleus of the Ottoman empire. In the little village yonder Osman visited a pious sheikh and long courted the daughter daugh-ter Malkhatoon. And to the northward north-ward a few hours by wagon we had passed not fa- from it on the railroau was the place where the future conqueror con-queror had his famous dream, so often told to-day by the proud Osmanh's, as the Turks of the Ottoman empire (all themselves. It was the dream that won him his bride and foretold a d6minion extending from Caucasus to Atlas, from Taurus to Haemus. .This was a good starting point for ffie brainy, intrepid expansionists, I thought, as I looked away over the .fertile plain extending to the southward south-ward and then back upon the hills to ve north. For Homer tells us that 'his plain and the hills, once covered ith greater forests ti;an they can 5 oast to-day, sent hardy Phrygians nd strong, beautiful horses to the Trojan war. It was to the grain fields fit the plain, to the springs and rich pasturage of the hills, and to the gold-dust-bearing rivulets flowing into the Sangariin that Midas turned for the sources of his wealth. And the country is still a wholesome place for man and beast, or would be under a thoroughly modernized government. x " ' . iAa TTTn t TURKEY'S FAMOUS MOSQUE. The houses of the people were just such as we were destined to see throughout th3 length of Asia Minor. The poor inhabitants lived in one-story one-story houses built of sun-dried bricks, and no plaster or painted wood relieved re-lieved the dingy mud color of exterior or Interior. The well-to-do traders and land owners, however, put up sub- t3atial two-story poAises, The daz-ik'mg daz-ik'mg whiteness of these dwellings, their many windows, their interior cleanliness ,and the walled gardens often surrounding them make ihe better bet-ter quarters of an Anatolian city attractive at-tractive even to the critical Occidental sojourner. A short walk brought us to the khan, which proved to be a building of the better class without the usual protecting pro-tecting wall. To our delight we found bedsteads in the upper rooms to which we were shown, and when a small table was brought into the larger room of the two, covered with a white cloth, and set with separate plates, knives .and forks for the four of us, we heartily congratulated ourselves our-selves upon being entertained in a khan kept a la Franka, es the natives -4 f--" i .c-j - s A Picturesque Ruin, would say. A good meal of poached eggs, madzvn, or curded milk, most excellent wheat bread, .white butter made from sour milk or cream, and rice cooked in cream was soon served. After an Interesting call from the Armenian pastor of the Protestant church in the town,' we slept soundly and were ready to start when the engine en-gine whistled at sunrise the next morning. Under the blessing of the morning call to prayer, the train steamed away from the little station and we were soon gliding across the northeastern corner of ancient Phyrgia and out upon the limestone plateau of Central Asia Minor to the city of Angora. Although the city had no less than 25,000 inhabitants and the Armenians constituted at least a third of the population, pop-ulation, the Protestant sect was weaker weak-er than in many places, was too poor, in fact, to own a church, so that we attended services next day in a large upper room near the pastor's house. Both men and women for the most part wore the European costume, with the exception of fezes on the heads o: the men and shawls thrown round the heads of the women. The sermon was intended to calm and fortify the minds of the people, who were much excited over the joint note of the powers pow-ers and the rumors of massacres to come. There were many wealthy Armenian merchants and land owners in Angora before the massacres; but they were Catholics or Gregorians. Indeed, this city was the great Catholic stronghold strong-hold of tao lntTlor. These sects, how- ' jrf til ! ? 'iv f. I f S ( I m s ft ever, were no less obnoxious to the Turkish government than the Protestant Protest-ant nation, wherever the members were wealthy. And by the way, sects are always called nations by the Turks, because the government rules the infidels through their church organizations. or-ganizations. This old city of Northern Cappado-cia Cappado-cia was for several years an awful warning to the Osmanlis of what was to be expected from the rapid progress of the Giaours in education and commercial com-mercial power. The fine houses in town belonged to the Armenians and the land in the country round about was coming into their possession. Where the Turks, the Faithful, had been masters, they weie now but servants, ser-vants, and the Giaours were hearing it whispered, "This thing must not be." Certainly the old Orient was not so slow-going after all. There was politics poli-tics enough and to spare, and the daily conversations of the people lost some of their monotony and gained spice from the varying passions of the crisis. OUR RICH MEN GENEROUS. Gifts to Leading American Educational Institutions. If the commencement season jusi past has not been unparalleled in the matter of munificent gifts for educational educa-tional purposes in this country, the volume of such benefactions has certainly cer-tainly been large enough to bring unwonted un-wonted joy and gratitude to the hearts of many college presidents and others who have been striving with noble and sincere purpose to enlarge the scope and usefulness of their several sev-eral institutions. Cornell University is richer by $500,000 than it was a few weeks ago, and Bryn Mawr by nearly tne same amount. Mt. Holyoke rejoices in a gift of $40,000, Rutgers in $50,000, the University of Pensylvania in $300,-000, $300,-000, and Chicago University in $1,000,-000 $1,000,-000 or more. To all these and other institutions thus happily remembered, hearty congratulations are extended and best wishes for a prosperous and successful future. America has reason to be proud, not only of her public school system, which extends its benefits bene-fits to all, but for her ever-increasing and expanding group of higher schools of learning, which, thanks to generous endowments, are every year becoming more accessible to young men and women of limited means, but large ambitions am-bitions for knowledge. Leslie's Weekly. Longed for a Pretty Face. A native of Dublin, but a resident of London, arrived in Philadelphia a few days ago. His last stopping place was St. Petersburg, where he spent several weeks. He says he is delighted to get here again, as he is longing for the sight of pretty faces, which in St. Pe tersburg are as rare as they are plen tiful here. On one occasion, in company com-pany with a friend, he walked the entire en-tire length of the Nevski Prospekt (four miles), the Chestnut street of the Russian capital, and during the stroll saw but two pretty women. And Russian ladies, he declares, do not dress nicely. He explained these two facts by saying that they wrere mainly Tartars, and was somewhat nonplused when innocently asked by his cynical listener: "Aren't all women tartars? -Philadelphia Telegraph. Preferred the Khalifa. Just before final arrangements were perfected for Kitchener's expedition against the khalifa, there having been many exasperating delays, Lord Ed ward Cecil, who was the commander's afd-de-camp, said: "Well, if anything goes wrong again I shall ride straight out into the desert with two days ra tions and try to find the khalifa. I take it that in the circumstances he will be pleasanter company than the general." "Consumptive" 100 Years Old. Dr. Harry Helfrich of Altoona, Pa., last week celebrated his one hun dredth birthday. At 30 they said he was going to die of consumption, but to-day he sleeps, eats and digests well, has a first-rate memory and never wore spectacles. Dr. Helfrich still at tends to office patients and works in his garden a couple of hours daily. Last Lafayette Flower Girl. The last of the Lafayette flower girls of Morristown, N. J., is dead. She was Mrs. Mary L. Morrow, 90 years old. and she well remembered the great general's visit to Morristown In 1825. She was then 13. With fifty other girls she was selected to carry flowers for the festival and her com panions made her their queen. Looks Back on Long Life. John R. McVicar, who celebrated hU eolden wedding anniversary in Bos ton a few days ago, was the first white child born north of the arctic circle. He was born at Fort Resolution, Great Slave lake. January. 1828, and was christened by Sir John Franklin. Choice Paintings for America. Senator Clark will shortly remove to this country the famous Preyer collection collec-tion of paintings which he bought last rwpmher at a cost of $375,000. The pictures are at present in Vienna. PaDer Coal a New Discovery. Pmer coal is a form of lignite found near Bonn, in Germany. It splits nat urally in films as thin as paper. Advice Is seldom welcome; and those who Want it the most always like it the least. Lord Chesterfield. WOBK-OF INVENT0ES INGENIOUS DEVICES TO TIME AND LABOR. 8 AVE Cuban "Cigarette Cartridge" May Appeal to Smokers Convenient Barb-Wire Stretcher Causa of Volcanic Vol-canic Explosions. Cuban "Cigarette Cartridge." Smokers who enjoy a small cigar or cigarette better than a large cigar may find the "cigarette cartridge" shown It the accompanying drawing to their liking. It is the invention of Alfred Leblanc of Havana, Cuba, and the idea is to provide small cartridges of tobacco, to-bacco, ready to be inserted in a non- Cartridge Inserted In the Holder Ready for Use. combustible holder, the cartridge being be-ing thrown away after the contents are burned. The holder consists of a metallic or rsbestos tube, with a coiled spring mounted at the base of the opening and air ducts leading from the mouth- p'ece to the outer end of the tube. The outer end is fitted with a conical cap having slanting sides to hold the tobacco to-bacco in the cartridge against the pressure of the spring inside the tube. The cartridges are to be furnished in quantity, either loaded or empty as tn smoker may desire. To place a charge in the tube the outer cap is removed and the cartridge cart-ridge inserted and pressed downward until the spring is contracted, when tne cap is replaced. The cigarette Is then lighted through the perforation in the cap and the smoke drawn through the air ducts to the mouth. As fast as the tobacco is consumed the spring forces the ashes out of the cap and renews the supply of the weed in proximity to the air ducts. When the cartridge has been emptied the cap is again removed and the emptr tube thrown out. The tubes are macs with a slight taper toward the rear eno, m order that the spring may slide the tobacco to-bacco from the tube without clogging. Barb-Wirt Stretcher. A barb-wire stretcher which weighs only 12 ounces and can be carried in the pocket is the invention of CoL James H. Birch of Plattsburg, Mo., formerly member of Congres3 from the 4th district. The features claimed for this device are Its simplicity, cheapness and effectiveness. With a bar of wood inserted in the ring to give the necessary leverage the wire can be drawn as tight as a drumhead and securely fastened in that position, the weight of the body being used to keep the lever In place, while both hands are left free to drive the staple. A staple-puller is a valuable feature of the device. Water Supplies In Texas. The flow of Texas rivers has been studied by the hydrographie parties of the United States Geological Survey. Sur-vey. Daily records of water heights and frequent measurements by current-meter of the velocity and volume of water carried by each stream are made. The economic value of such hydrographie surveys is well illustrated illustrat-ed by two examples. The flow of the Brazos River at Waco was the lowest on record during the past season and the Waco dam, with a head of 30 feet, developed only 130 horse-power. Th minimum flow of the Colorado was found to be only one-fifth of what wa popularly estimated at the time thJ bonds were issued for the dam at Austin. Aus-tin. The comparatively small cost of such surveys repays taxpayers and investors in-vestors a hundred fold. New Idea in Reporting. According to Electricity, a novel departure de-parture in boat race reporting was in troduced by F. B. Howard, the agent of the Associated Press in Poughkeep-sie, Poughkeep-sie, N. Y., with the co-operation of the Hudson River Telephone com pany. Mr. Howard and Manager Rup-!sy Rup-!sy of the telephone company were on board of the judge's boat at the finish, with a telephone connected by under water cable with th telegraph station of the Associated Press at the finish line on shore. In this way the positions of the crews crossing the line and the official time were tele phoned to the shore, and immediately telegraphed all over the country. The telephone was also used to receive the progress of the crews as they came down the course, and this information was megaphoned from the judge's boat to the yachts anchored in the neighborhood. It was a very clever arrangement, and successfully carried out. Colored Underwaist-A Underwaist-A useful garment is a colored waist to wear under a shirt waist. It may be made of thin silk, any of the lawns or muslins, or it may be of some of the mercerized materials that are a little heavier. These waists are to be worn under the white or the iices shirtwaists on cool days. They give a pretty tint that is somewhat indefinable. inde-finable. Any favorite color may be worn under white or tan linens. Some girls have three or four of these under waists. Causes of Volcanic Explosions. In the Archives des Sciences Physiques Physi-ques et Naturelles M. Brun sets forth a iheory of the causes of volcanic explosions ex-plosions based on the experiments of M. Gautier and himself. A few of his results, only, can be referred to here. They have a direct bearing on the phenomena phe-nomena lately displayed In Martinique. Hia experiments at Stromboli showed that the lava flowing from the crater , was at a temperature not above 1,2M degrees C, and that the explosion arise in the superficial layers. Those of M. Gautier prove that all rocks of th earth's crust when heated above redness give off gases, principally hydrogen. hy-drogen. The hydrogen is the principAl cause of the explosions. Heated to about 1,000 degrees in the crater, it becomes explosive the moment it s mixed with air. A rock containlnf a 4 per cent constituent of water 1s shown by calculation to give off enough hydrogen to throw twice its weight for a distance of three mi'.es. The results quoted indltate the rain lines of the theory proposed. For its full development the original paper must be consulted. The Tuberculosrs Bacillus. According to cable telegrams Prof. Behring has just printed a book in Berlin proving that the bacilli of human hu-man and bovine tuberculosis are identical, iden-tical, the seeming difference between them resulting from the capacity of the bacilli to accommodate themselves to the organism in which they live. The writer announces that he has successfully infected cattle with virus from human beings, producing in this way fatal animal tuberculosis. He also declares that he has rendered cattle immune to tuberculosis by vaccinating vac-cinating them when they are young. Further reports of these experiments will be anxiously awaited. ftsf -' T. -, Tdes the Poultry Roost. 'The illustration -shows a novelty which will recommend itself to the poultry keeper for two reasons first, because it will prevent the fowls from crowding each other off the roosts, and, secondly, owing to the provision it makes for bringing a vermin destroyer de-stroyer within close proximity to the fowl while roosting, without the latter lat-ter touching it. These devices can be brought into use in connection with the roosting poles already in position in the henhouse, and consequently there is no expense for changing the Prevents Crowding and Carrie a Vermin Destroyer. roosts. The invention is a simple one. consisting of a single piece of wire. which is formed into a loop near one end, with the shorter end formed into a screw to aid in inserting it in the wooden roost. The longer end is not bent to its final position until after the screw is inserted in the wood, when the loo6e end is twisted into the location shown, below the roost. It is an easy matter to attach a small rag or a piece of sponge to the depending depend-ing end, which can be saturated from time to time with any liquid vermicide. and the vaporizing of this. liquid will serve not only to keep the vermin from crawling over the roosts, but drive the lice from the bodies of the fowls, as the odor will permeate the feathers when the birds are on the roosts at night. The inventor of this device is John H. F. Eversz, of Walla Walla. Wash. Prepares Solid Foundations. It is not entirely new to render loose soil, such as sand and gravel, stable enough for building purposes by im pregnating it with thin fluid cement, which binds wTith the sand and forms a sufficiently hard concrete mass to serve as a foundation; but this process is always dependent upon certain conditions. con-ditions. Thus, for instance, the soil must contain no water, because the water fills out the interstices of the sand and renders the penetration of the cement difficult, and, in addition to this, the water still further dilutes the cement, which is thin fluid already, so that it is impossible for the cement to bind and form a good foundation. Now comes a Russian inventor with an apparatus to exhaust the water from the soil simultaneously with the forcing forc-ing Into it of the liquid cement. This enables the cement to be properly distributed dis-tributed and also renders it possible to force it into the soil with less pressure pres-sure than when a single forcing tube was used. As seen in the drawing the two smaller tubes pour the cement into the sand, while the larger central pipe is connected with a suction pump or other exhaust apparatus. ThU draws the water from the soil and ai-lows ai-lows the liquid cement to replace readily, also serving as an indicator to show when the soil has been impregnated im-pregnated by drawing the cement into Impregnating Sand With Llo.uTd Cement. the tube after the water has been exhausted. ex-hausted. The pipes have pointed heads to aid in their insertion in the earth. Nicolas Schietkiewics of SL Petersburg, Peters-burg, Russia, has the patent on this apparatus. Black Silk Cloaks. Long half-fitting cloaks of black unlined 'taffeta, silk or peau de soie, faultless in outline and effect, are worn over gowns of white liberty satiu foulard, white pique, veiling, mohair, etamine, etc The greater portion of these garments are open down the front, others are slightly double-breasted double-breasted and at the top of the wrap are little square-fronted jackets of lace or embroidery not much deeper than a decorated yoke. Other black sMk coats worn over white dresses are in box-plaited three-quarter style with flowing sleeves and costly guipure laco collars enriched with applique designs de-signs in black velvet cut work. Air. "I tell you," 6aid the landlord of the summer resort near the top of the mountain, "a man can't get too much of this pure air." "No!" gasped the tenderfoot, who was unused to the elevation. "I fun't . get half enough of it!" After all," there Is no nerve food p"perior to good luck. vil |