DOMESTIC by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, Cal. · Apr 2, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 14.

DOMESTIC.

By Editor

—Six million Bibles were printed in 1895.

—An exploring expedition under the charge of Professor Hite, of the University of Pennsylvania, will sail for Labrador this season. Already over fifty scientists and students have engaged passage. The work of the expedition will be along the lines of zoology, geology, botany, and archæology.

—The new battle ship Iowa was launched on March 28 at the Cramp's Shipyard, Philadelphia. The ship will carry eighteen guns and five torpedo tubes, but while not so numerously supplied with arms as some others, four of her guns are twelve-inch rifles, making her a terrible engine of war.

—Field Marshal Yamagata, of Japan, the organizer of the modern Japanese army, and the man to whom is due the success of Japan in the late war, is now in this country on his way to Moscow to attend the coronation of the czar in behalf of his country. He is described as a small, gray-haired man, with the most polished and polite manners, in whom one sees the most advanced type of the Japanese race.

—The Roentgen X rays are still in the front rank of popular interest, and the latest material development must be credited to "wizard" Thomas A. Edison. Mr. Edison, by means of a fluorescent screen manufactured by himself, and the Crookes tubes, has succeeded in penetrating the human body with the naked eye, without the aid of photography. The subject stands between the tubes and the screen, and the observer looks through an eyehole in the center of the screen from a position behind it. When the subject stood near the ray, nothing but light was discernible. A step near the screen revealed the bones, and a step further away from the light showed the internal organs, minute examination being made by gauging the distance. Clothing offered no obstacle to the passage of the wonderful rays. The achievement is a marvelous one, and we await with wonder and interest the next advance.

—A despatch from New Orleans states that a force of 300 whites in the town of Palmetto gathered about the place of registration a few days since, and by threats prevented the negroes of the parish from registering for the purpose of voting. Several who did register were on the following night taken from their homes and unmercifully flogged. One negro refused to come out on the mob's invitation, and fired upon the crowd, killing one man, whereupon the mob returned the fire, killing two blacks.

—A few months ago it was announced that chemists had succeeded in reducing invisible air to a blue liquid capable of being poured from glass to glass like water. Lately a means has been found to produce this liquid on a large scale for commercial purposes, when it will be used for refrigerating purposes. It is explained that the process of liquefaction is arrived at by reducing the temperature of the air to a very low point, and consequently when the liquid is allowed to expand to a gaseous state, so much heat is absorbed as to cause a great fall of temperature in its immediate surroundings. Properly controlled it will be unsurpassed as a refrigerating agent. Its production will be by the aid of powerful compressing engines recently invented by Herr Linde, instead of the slow laboratory process.

—A bill has passed both Houses of Congress removing all naval and military disabilities from those who participated in the War of the Rebellion on the southern side, a move which should have been made long ago. Such action would probably have been taken fifteen years ago, had it not been for the stand of one or two prominent generals of the Southern Confederacy, who refused all advances. There is hardly a question but what a stronger government and a slow union would have resulted had no such disabilities been imposed even upon those willing to help build up the nation, as witness the course of Japan after its great revolution. Leaders in the rebellion were given prominent positions in the government, thus gaining their everlasting adherence and the friendship of their former supports.