Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 170, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 July 1910 — THINGS YOU MAY NOT KNOW [ARTICLE]

THINGS YOU MAY NOT KNOW

Peat will be the only fuel used in a great German’ electric power station. During 1909 Chile produced 18,179 tons of copper, as against 19,463 tons in 1908. Switzerland’s greatest industry, the entertaining of tourists, brings her over '525,000,000 a year. A web filament two and one-quar-ter miles long has been taken from the body of a single spider. The rudder of the transatlantic liner Olympic weighs one hundred tons, being the heaviest ever built.. Astronomers discover an average of three comets a year, but few of them’ are visible to the unaided eye. Germany’s students are jealous of foreigners, and are endeavoring to shut them out of the universities. From the whole of the world’s surface, the sun sucks up about six thousand cubic tons of water per annum. The tourist in London has his choice of 3,288 omnibuses, 4,825 hansoms, 3,650 four-wheelers, to say nothing of hundreds of taxicabs. Life insurance has made great progress in Japan, and there are already 42 companies operating there, nearl.” one-fourth as many as in England. At a recent meeting of the Royal Society of Medicine in London, a warning was sounded against the reckless use of radium. Even the re puted favorable effects of radium in the treatment of cancer were sharply criticized. In Canada’s fiscal year closed March 31, the government revenue somewhat exceeded $100,000,000, an increase <-i $4,000,000 over 1906-1907, the previous record year. It exceeded the estimate by $2,500,000. Customs receipts were $3,000,000 more than ever before and $13,000,000 more than in 1908-1909. According to the Canadian Electrical News, the Long Sault Development Company, in conjunction wtih the St Lawrence Power Company, proposes to build a 4,500-foot dam 45 feet high across the St. Lawrence river at the head of the Long Sault rapids and to build an electric plant to develop 600,000 horse power. The scheme will cost $20,000,000.

In an address recently made by Prof. John W. Whitehead of Johns Hopkins university It was pointed out that out of 220,000 miles of railroad in this country only' a thousand miles have as yet been electrified. He called attention to the fact that the elec trlficatioh of the elevated railroads in New York resulted in increasing the capacity of the roads 50 per cent. A blackbird has selected a strange position for nesting at Winchester. On the bridge spanning the Great Western railway station is an incandescent gas lamp, the by-pass of which is always alight. The bird has built its nest inside the lamp and has five eggs, and it may be seen going and coming from the nest with the utmost unconcern. The light is turned on at dusk every night and large numbers of people are continually passing the spot.—London Daily Mall. Explosions are often caused in flour mills and breweries by nails or other iron particles that find their way into the grain and strike the steel rolls of the mills, producing sparks, and igniting the finely pulverized material about them . Recently a large melting concern that had been troubled by many such explosions installed a set of electro-magnets over which the grain Is passed before being prepared for shipment to the breweries. All iron panicles in the grain are thus picked up by the magnets. The name "grasshoppers” has been given to the railroad florists. There is some significance in the name, too, for these men Just jump from one railroad la.wn to another and keep them good condition. They are especially busy at this time of the year in Pennsylvania in fixing up the station grounds and rights of way for the summer months. Each division has a certain number of men that look after the lawns and see that ttey get the proper attention.—Philadelphia, Record. That military training strengthens the power of the' will was shown by recent experiments in Austria. To determine what effect the fatigue resulting from a long -march might have u lion the shooting efficiency of trained soldiers, the Austrian school of musketry recently had a cyclist detachment of 50 men, all over two years’ service, do 65 miles in eight hours, the return journey being against a strong wind. Before and after the march they each fired ten rounds at a target representing, a section of 26 men in skirmishing order lying down at 500 paces. Before the march the detachment made 40 hits on 19 figures; after the march, 38 hits on 16 figures.

‘I noticed in a paper the other day,”’, remarked a suburbanite, ‘‘a story about a young couple who went to housekeeping on the 30th floor of an office building to escape visits from a crabbed old aunt who couldn’t reach them there because she was afraid of elevators. That reminds me of a friend of mine who bought a house, high on a hill afld half a mile up a wood road from the highway. ‘What do you want with such a hermitage as that? I asked him. ‘Well,’ he replied, ‘to tell who my friends are. If anybody has the courage to toll up that hill to see my family, I'll know he or she Is a real friend, who sincerely wants to see us, and not just a caller who dropped In because It was convenient.’”—New York Tribune.