Democratic Sentinel, Volume 21, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 October 1897 — Current Condensations. [ARTICLE]

Current Condensations.

Gunpowder exerts a force of twentythree tons to the square Inch; nitroglycerin, 264 tons. “French paste,” out of which .artificial diamonds are made, is a mixture of best glass and oxide of lead. The feeling in Cape Colony over thf Jameson raid still runs high. A meet Ing of Dutch and English farmers in certain town not long ago was called to order in English, whereupon the Dutchmen left the room in a body. In a raid on the tramps in the Paris parks recently the new electric lanterns provided for the police were used for the first time. The result was quite up to expectations as far as the lighting powers of the lanterns were concerned. Two members of the Colorado Legislature have been renting their annual passes on the railroads to traveling men at ?15 a month apiece. In the case of one member, who,,.has a’ German name, the fraqd- Was discovered through one of his personal passes being presented by a man of palpably Hibernian nationality.’ The conductor could not reconcile the name and the brogue and held the man and the pass for Investigation, when the fraud was discovered. At the annual meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute of Great Britain recently American competition was one of the chief points of discussion. President Pritchard Martin spoke of the enormous output of the leading American steel works and pointed out that the Americans were outdistancing the British in the uses of steel. He Instanced the steel buildings being erected in nearly all the large cities of the United States, and urged lower freight rates, saying that the present cost of transportation was severely handicapping the British industry, as the rates, not only in America, but in Belgium and Germany, were greatly below the English rates. The observers at the Blue Hill observatory, near Boston, by means of kites raised h tliree-pound meteorograph to a height of 6,956 feet above the lull, thus breaking all kite altitude records. Two and three-eighths miles of piano wire were used, with throe Eddy kites hitched tandem. The kites passed through and beyond the clouds, and were only visible at Intervals between breaks in the clouds. The kites and instruments remained at the highest point half an hour and exerted a pull of from 110 to 128 pounds. The recording instruments showed that the air was very dry above the earth's surface. The ascension was mauaged by Messrs. Rotch, Clayton and Fergusson.