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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (May 2, 1901)
THE OMAHA DAILY BEE: THURSDAY, MAY 2, 1001. 0 OIL MINGLED WITH OZONE Great Bom !a the 8Ucdird Fluid Biuthern Cilifomio. in LOS ANGELES A CITV OF DERRICKS More Matter Painped (Hit of tlir Hnrth There Thnti 1 Dux In the Klondike 1'nliiiUiiii I, mill Vnttics. Next to & gold discovery there is nothing that caa cause cuch a stampede as the finding of oil. Tho oil (ever Is a sort of mental germ dlicase, and when tho bacillus nets Into a man's mind ho casts his steady golns business habits to tho winds anl rushes off on a search that terminates only when he hag struck It rich or has worn himself out in a fruitless chase after this wlll-o'-the-wlsp. This la tho situation In a largo part of southern California today. There has been an Influx of boomers, oil prospectors and adventurers of all hinds that outdoes the record of Klondike or Capo Nome. Towns have sprung up on the baro sandhills and barn advanced in a few months to tho rank of cities. All over the region between the coast range and the Sierra Madre moun tains, and from Siskiyou to San Bernardino, thousands of outfits arc at work putting down wells, while the men who have used up their available cash In acquiring claims are busy with pick and shovel trying to dig down to tho oll-bearlng sand or are looking for somebody to stake them to carfare back cast so that they can float a company on the strength of their few acres of sagebrush. Men who valued their en tire worldly possessions a few months ago nt a few hundred dollars, ore now rated at hundreds of thousands; over the whole movement there Is the glamour of oil that Is worthy to be ranked with the fuel of Aladdin's 'lamp In Its fortune-giving poten tialities. The oil excitement has made some big changes in southern California within the last year or so. It has transformed I.os Angeles from a quiet, pleasant residence town. Into a city of derricks, with the smell of coal oil In tho air, and with a big pe troleum exchange In which fortunes can be won and lost as readily as they can In Wall street. Los Angeles U the only part of the region In which the .development has reached anything Ilka Its maximum point, and this restricted district Is flowing more than 1,000,000 barrels a year. CliniiKPK lit the Town, The man who leti Los Angeles ten years ago and returns there today will tlnd it lm- posslblo to recognize the town. The rlchost finds In this district have been made within the city limits. The boom was started by two men who dug a well with pick and shovel at the corner of Patton and State streets, near tho Second Street park. When their strike was followed by othera on the other side of tho city everybody who owned a lot In tue proved district decided to take a try at oil hunting. Men who owned houses In the residenco portion of the city caught tho fever nnd proceeded to disfigure their lawns with derricks and lengths of oil plpo, On some of the streets of Los Angeles one will ee an ugly black derrick In front of every house, whllo at least half the rcsl dences have a second derrick In the back yard. As a consequence of the fact that the land In the city Is spilt up Into many small holdings, no territory over had a more rapid development than this Los Angeles, sec tion. Wells have been put down In some cases not moro than fifty or seventy-five felt apart. This naturally followed from tbelfact that every man' was eager to de velop his land as far as possible, and when his neighbor drilled two wells within the space of an ordinary city lot, ho wjs com pelled to do llkowlso in self-defense. The result of this Is that tho oil sand Is being rapidly drained of Its brown Quid and the life of the local Industry has undoubtedly been shortened. It will make a great rcc ord while it lasts, however, for down to the present time the Los Angeles district has to Its credit more than 7,000,000 barrels of oil, and tho city has firmly established itself as the headquarters of the Industry In southern California, having a flourishing oil exchange which docs a business in oil stocks of more than 1100,000 a month, although It Is run on a very conservative basis, being controlled by some of the leading business men and oil experts of the city. Oil Under the Ocean. Probably nowwhere else in the world Is there such a picturesque oil field as ex lsts at Suramcrland, In Santa Barbara, where the wells have been pushed right out Into the Pacific and oil Is being pumped from beneath the waters of old ocean Itself. The town Is situated beside the ocean on tho sides of steep hills. Between tht bills and the water there la a narrow strip of level land a quarter of a mllo wide and a mile long. Five years ago a man named Williams sunk a well on tho beach In front of the town and struck oil, and started what is known In California as "the beach rush," which has covered the narrow level strip in front of the town with a forest of derricks. A year after this discovery J. B Tredwell built an oil wharf out Into the ocean and sunk a well from it. He drilled through tho first oil sand which Is less than 100 feet below tho surface, and struck a second oil bearing stratum, which has proved more profitable than tho first one. Mr. Tredwell now has over 1,200 feet of oil wharves carrytng a dozen wells, and his example has been followed by other pros pectors until the coast waters for a mile or mora break under piers, which carry hundreds of derricks. Up to date tho Sum merland wells have not produced as large a flow as those in some of the other sec tions, but on the other hand the cost of drilling Is less and It Is not necessary to go down more than 200 feet to reach the .'ower bearing stratum. It Is a noteworthy fact that the further out from shore a well Is drilled Uio thicker the oil stratum Is found to be, and as the coast waters aro comparatively shallow tor a long dis tance out It Is probable that within a tew years thero will be oil derricks halt a mile or more out to sea. One great advantage of the Summorland district Is that the oil can bo loaded directly from the wharves on which It Is produced into tank vessels. It sells for 11 a barrel at the pier. Kern lUver District. At the present time the liveliest section of the California oil fields Is tho Kern river district. Tho first discovery In this section was made about six miles from Bakersfield, In May, 1693, at a depth of only sixty feet Later in the same year the "Discovery Well" was put down to a depth of 350 feet, and began producing oil at the rato of thirty barrels a day, This started tho rush to Bakersfield, and since that time thousands of wells have been sunk. Most of them yield a flow of from twenty-five to seventy-five barrels per day, although hundred-barrel gushers have, been found not Infrequently. The oil stratum is of exceptional thickness, In many places from 300 to 500 feet through, This premises a long period of productivity which will make the total return from each well extraordinarily profitable. A number of experts who have examined the field have estimated the probable flow of oil at from 130,000 to 200,000 barrels per acre. The topographical situation of the Kern river field I peculiar. It lies at the souths ern end of the San Joaquin valley, Just above the Junction of the Sierra Nevada and the Coast range. Thus the field Is. surrounded on three sides by mountains' which form a basin filled with shale and oil-bearing sand, which Is held by strata of clay above and below. This situation has Impressed every oil expert who has visited the region and It Is a fact that practically every well that has been put down within this basin "Inside the dish pan," as they say In Bakersfield has been a profitable producer. A Hcmarkalile llrvlvnl. Bakersfield is the center point of the Kern river excitement, and It Is In all re spects a remarkable place at present. It waB considered a dead town In California up to tho time of the oil discoveries. Th land was about as unpromising for agri cultural purposes as could be found within the limits of the state aud the Southern Pacific flallroad company, which held most of It, was glad to dispose of It at the rate of 12.60 per acre. Even after the first discovery tho railroad company did not awake to the value of the bonanza which It held, nnd sold a good many Acres at this price, which It would be glad to buy back now at (1.000 apiece. Hundreds of acres that the Southern Pacific let go at from 12.50 to 17 have changed hands four or five times since then, always at a rising scale, which now reaches from 11,000 to 110,000 per acrd. A good many fortunes havo been made In tho Kern river field, within the last twelve, months and some of the richest men In that section today are men who worked In dry goods shops and grocery stores for 130 a month no longer ago than last year. For Instance, the biggest firm In Bakersfield district Is Cbanstor & Canfleld, and the head of the firm, "Joe" Chanslor, now the mou prominent figure In California oil operations, is a young man about twenty- eight or twenty-nine years old, who has made a modest fortuno of something like 115,000,000 within the last year and a half. It is said that Chanslor was working as a clerk In n Los Angeles grocery store when he became Interested In' tho oil fields tn the Ventura, county district about two years ago. He had no money with which to take up land and sink wells, but he managed to raise 13,000 on a note by promlstng to kIvo the lender one-half of the proceeds. The three thousand sufficed to put down three wells, two of which were profitably productive, while tho third was a gusher. It Is said that within a year of the time he borrowed the money Chanslor paid the man who loaned It to him 1178,000. which represents a very good rate of Interest even for California. Chanslor and his partner were among tho first prospectors of the Kern river dis trict. They bought up as much land as they could secure and were among those who obtained land from tho Southern Pa cific at 12.E0 an acre, which they would not part with for less than 110,000 an acre. Chanslor. owns some of the finest wells In the Kern river district, and is In a fair way to become, one of the richest men In the country. ffict of the Dciiion Inrtliditlng the Berlirm TeWphtn Patent. COMPETITION IN TELEPHONE BUSINESS Opposition Comiinnle Sprenillns: Hnp- ldl- In the Unat Bleetrlcal I'reumtren Point on Artl llclnl llltiinlnntlon. Fortune In Value. There are hundreds of stories less re markable than this only In degree going the rounds In Bakersfield, and the town Is mad with oil excitement. It Is a lively town nowadays In which every Und of s gambling game Is run wide open. Day la1 borers arc receiving 110 and 112 for ten hours' work and hotel prices make the Wal dorf-Astorla seem cheap by comparison. Nobody In Bakersfield believes that the oil lands have reached the limit of their real value, as yet, and a great deal of land spec ulation Is going on. So welt Informed man as Mr. C. A. Canfleld said recently that 130,000 per acre was a conservative estimate for the real value of the land within the proved district. Should tho production of the wells come up to tho es timates of the oil experts who have exam ined them, the value of the territory at ready exploited will amount to something like 1SOO.000.000. There Is a side to the California oil dis coveries which renders them of widespread Importance. This Is the probability of the future development of oil as fuel. None of the oil taken from the California fields Is refined for Illuminating purposes, but a wide field of usefulness Is being found for It as a substitute for coal, for beating and steam making purposes. Already the Southern Pa clfic and Santa Ke railroads are using it In nearly all their locomotives In California as fuel. These two companies alone nro using 100,000 barrels of all n month for this pur pose and the Santa Fe road recently placed an advance order for 1,250,000 barrels for future delivery. In addition to this the sugar beet factories and other manufactur ing plants of California, are rapidly rejilac Ing coal with oil, and Its uses for Ibis pur pose aro likely to create a steady and strong demand for all the oil that can be produced In the California fields tor many years to come. The great difficulty that has here tofore retarded the (ndustrial development ,of California has been the high price of fuel. Coal costs on the average about 16.50 a ton. under present conditions oil sells at from 11.00 to 11.25 per barrel, and 14.50 worth of oil will do the work of a, ton of coal, and tn the opinion of many person will do It better than the, coal itself. The oil, therefore, promises to make Its own market nnd to prove of the greatest lm portanco to the whole Pacific coast region in encouraging Its industrial development and making It one of the great mamitac turmg centers pi tne united statesr OUT OK TUB OIIDI.NABY. The magnitude of tho oneratlons carried on Incldenta Iv bv David Rankin, tile Mis sourl cattle king, may be Imagined when H Is remembered that nt his ranch In Atchi son county this year he will Dlant 10.000 aefea of corn nlone, employing about 250 men and utilizing 600 nones. Ireland lost by emigration last venr 45. 23 souls, an Increase over 1!30 of 3,347. Over S3 per cent or tnese were netween tne ages or is ami sa. ui tne toiai numoer or emi irrnnls 37.765 came to the United States Orcat Britain received 6,060, New Zealand st, cunada 473 and Australia Nt. There are 7.400 members of the New York nnllee force for all the boroughs 7.36S. to be exact. The number of arrests made by the New York nouce last year was 13S.87.- or an average oi ociween eigmeen ana twnntv for each oollceman. In 1S90 the ex, penses of the New York police departrrsnt wore jll.WiVXJU. inis year mcy are in, The nrlvate letter books of Robert Mor rls, the financier of the revolution, which were lost for several ceneratlons. were brought to light In Washington recently nnd havo been deposited In the congres sional library. Another acquisition by the library is the original manuscript setting torin tne various uecrees ay wnicn me titles wcro conferred on Columbus by the pope tor ma discovery oi America. A mammoth black walnut tree on th farm of K. P. Oaus In Williams county Ohio, has hint heen sold for 14.000. Severn lumber dealers have examined chips from this tree, nnd all have declared It to be the finest specimen of that kind of wood they ever saw. i ne tree was eignt teet in diani etei forty feet above the atumn nnrl ox tended seventy. three feet from the butt to tne nrsi umo. Consul Warner reports from llplc that a new niBwuiu oi mreot car advertising wa started In that city on January 1 last. In every street car are nung copies of a bl weekly newspaper, a Journal which eon tains advertisements, railroad time table, a lew jour, una nonce oi tne performance to be given nt tne different theaters. The newspapers are fastened on racks which are hung upon hooks In the comers of the cars, xne passengers nave tne privilege 01 taking the papers down and reading them Persons traveling by rail over any of the first-class eastern lines can scarcely help nottctns tho tastefully-kept lawns and grass niata aiounu tn passenger stations, Few travelers have known, however, that the railway companies employ professional gardener and a lane force of assistants who do no'lilnr nut attend to tne beautlfr Ins of the' company's srounda. Andrew R Carson, head gardener of tho Pennsylvania Railroad company, has Just died In Phila delphia after & continuous service of thirty years. He, was retired under the pension rulo or the company on January 1, 1S00. Ho was susceeaeu vy. nis son. joseprt u. car son, who is now In charge of the depart men i oi tunuiiuiio saiuciims. NTI1E FIELD OF ELECTRICITY Electricians declare that the recent de cision of Judge Brown of the United States Ircult court for the district of Massachu setts, that the patent Issued November 17, 1S91, to Emlle Berliner was Invalid and dismissing the suit brought by the Ameri can Bell Telephone company against other companies, Is a great victory for the lndc ptndent telephone field. In speaking of the decision Charles A. Brown, in the West ern Electrician, says: "In respect to the Interests Involved, tho suit surpasses any prior patent suit. It the lalms of the American Bell Telephone company regarding this patent had been sustained It would have given that com pany or Its successors the absolute monop oly of all forms of telephone transmitters now In commercial use. Some form of transmitter Is absolutely essential to the carrying on of the telephone business. By controlling, therefore, this essential detail of telephonic apparatus, the American Belt Telephone company would have been put n complete control of the telephone busi ness of tha country as It Is now carried on. When It Is considered that throughout tne nited States there havo grown up. In the seven years since the expiration of the fun damental telephone patents, vast Interests Independent of the American Bell Tele phone company Interests which have cov ered the whole country with a network of Ires and have established exchanges In many of the Important cities of the coun try, as well as a multitude of small towns the Importance of this decision may be ap preciated. Since the expiration of the fun- amcntal Bell telephone patents the growtti f telephony has far oxcccdcd all Us groavth prior to that time. There Is hardly a farm ing community In tho country which has not Its system of private lines. "The decision will have the effect of re lieving tho apprehension of manufacturer nd Investors who are Interested or likely to be Interested In Independent telephone nterprlses, on the score of any funda mental patent controlled by the American Bell Telephone company at the present time, and will give a decided Impetus to new telephone enterprises, so that It may be looked upon with certainty that there will bo more development of the telephone Industry In the Immediate future than there has been even In the past. It must not be forgotten, however, that the Amerl can Bell Telephone company still controls a vast number of patents upon telephonic apparatus, probably reaching 2.500. It Is possible that, having failed In Its etlort to control the telephone situation by one hroad. underlying patent. It may now be the policy of that company to harass Inde pendent telephone company enterprise by a multiplicity of suits upon subsidiary pat ents. There Is none of these patents, how ever, which can bo a cause of great appre hension on the part of the Independent tele phone interests at the present time." Telephone Competition. According to the last annual report of the Belt company there were 1.5S0.000 In struments out In 1899, whereas In 1P0J therj were 1,050,000. As each station hns two In struments, a receiver and a transmitter, that would mean. If all were in use. 1.000, 000 subscribers, or perhaps slightly less, as many havo more than one set. If one Is to accept the figures of Judge Thomas, the president of the Independent Telephone As eoclatloc of the united States, the opposi tion musters already 1,500,000 subscribers In rome 5,000 or 6,000 companies or co-oper olive concerns. Judge Thomas has stated that while there are now 2,500,000 sub scrlbers here, 7,500,000 stations could be maintained at reasonable prices on the ex isting basis of population, and he believes that figure can now be reached In five years, In other words, by 1905 the telephone In vestment In this country will easily have passed 11.000,000,000. The tjuestlton Is. how much of this vast amount of new work shall bo Bell, and how much shall be secured by the Independents. The Bell telephone apparatus proper In thl&jcountry Is all made by one concern, which has factories tn New York and Chicago. There are already at least seventy recognised makers of Inde pendent apparatus, mostly In the west, and It Is predicted that the number will hava doubled before the year is out. Some of the Independeat manufacturers have al ready equipped large exchanges, among which may be mentioned those at St. Louis, Pittsburg, Baltimore, Atlanta, Cleveland Rochester, Tcrro Haute, Indianapolis and other cities, and they have contracts ahead for very heavy work. Open-AIr Telephone. The nearest approach to wireless teleg raphy In point of convenience of communt cation Is the open-air telephone, for use in tne public streets, wnen tr.ls nas come into use you can Jump off a afreet car at any corner, call up "central" and talk with your pastor or your best flrl and have It all over In a second. William Gray of Hartford, Conn., the In ventor of the regulation booth telephone has concocted the scheme, and fifty of the machines are now being put together by the Gray Telephone Pay Station company, One will soon be put up for trial on one of the street corners in New Haven. It the device proves as successful as its in- venter imagines that It will, tho Introduc tion of the machine throughout the United States will depend only on the consent of the municipal authorities. This outdoor telephone Is of the height and shape of1 a police or fire alarm box. The slender Iron post that bears the box and the box Itself have a white aluminum finish. The sides of the box bear the blue bell, the emblem of the telephone pay sta tion. The door can bo unlocked by dropping 1 cent In the slot, and the coin can be re covered upon the opening of the door. In side the box Is a mechanical pay station telephone with the slots for dimes, nickels, etc., and on the Inside of the door bangs a telephone directory. The receiver la attached to tho back by a short arm, and beside It hangs the trans mitter. .Connection with the central office Is made In the usual way, and when cen tral gets the person wanted and the money Is deposited conversation may proceed. The door of the box Is on beveled binges and shuts Itself by gravitation after the telephone has been used. It Is apparont that such street stations will make telephoning so easy that there will be a general demand for their Intro duction. Of course, they cannot be put In without the consent of the local authori ties, and they, may bo regarded as an ob struction In the street, although they will take up no more room than fire alarm or police telephone boxes. It Is suggested that the telephone call box may supplant both of these, and make them no longer necessary, as It Is Intended to permit the police to use the boxes free for messages to station houses and even permit tho free use of them to anybody who wants to communicate with the police. EJIectrlrnl Pressure. Until very recently It was not deemed safe to transmit power In the form of elec tricity at a greater pressure than 10,000 or 15,000 volts. Between Niagara and Buf falo a voltage of 11,000 Is now employed, but this wltl be doubled before many weeks. Tho pressure on the Folsom-Saeramento line In California Is 11.000 volts. A line In Colorado which operates machinery In mines near Canyon City tcansmlts Us cur rent at 20,000 volts. The two most remark ablo transmission plants In this country and probably In the world, in point of volt ages, are tho3e at Tcllurlde, Colo., and the line from San Bernardino to Los Angeles, Cat. The former Is short, but carries tho current at 40,000 volts. This pressure was adopted as a regular thing after a scries of tests In which n voltage of 50,000 was successfully sustained for thirty-seven con secutive days. The San Bernardino line, though, while worked at only 33,000 volts, Is olghty-thrce miles long, and carries no less than 10,000 horse power. On tho whole, electricians regard It the boldest achieve ment in electrical transmission yet re corded. ' Within the next few months an even more notable success will probably be an nounced from California. A corporation which now controls several power houses and Is supplying current to towns and min ing districts tn Yuba and Nevada counties, has nearly completed a lino to Oakland and San Francisco that will be 110 mites In length. On some of Its existing lines the company Is transmitting at 16,000 and 24.000 volts. But the transformers will be capable of giving 40,000, 50,000 or 60,000 on tho Oakland route. Operations will begin at 40,000 volts, and the higher pressure will be resorted to as soon as the losses which result from an Increasing "load" ex ceed 10 per cent. The line Is being con structed with, a view to standing 60,000 volts regularly. The chief requisite to the safe handling of high voltage Is good Insulation, Just as mere strength Is to a steam pipe carrying fivefold greater pressure than another. A few years ago electricians would have stood aghast at the Idea of employing 60,000 volts In actual service. But It will probably not be long before they try to beat even this astonishing record. These figures afford a basis of comparison for a new plant which is about to be opened in Minnesota. It supplies St. Taut with electricity from Apple river, twenty-sovcu miles away. The four dynamos utilized have a collective capacity of only 4,000 horse power, but the current, although gen erated at SOO volts, Is transformed up to 5,000 volts for transmission purposes only. When It gets into St. Paul It Is trans formed down again. It will be observed that the pressure here employed Is at pres ent equaled or surpassed In very few In stances In the world, and exceeds that to be tried at Niagara tn the near future. Arllllrlnl Illumination. Dr. Louts Bell, In lecturing on electrical Illumination before the New York Electrical society, said that the question of artificial illumination was one about which there was a great deal of popular misconception. More Illumination falls from being too bright than from not being bright enough. One of the fundamental principles of Illumination Is that the source of lighting should be unobtrusive. This Is the direc tion In which most artificial lighting errs. Instead of helping the vision It often hin ders it. for the reason that a bright point of light In the field of vision causes the pupil to shut up and protect Itself, reduc ing the amount of light, so that one canno' see wth anything like the convenience which the degree of. light would seem to Indicate. When Hell Gate In the Nrv York harbor and the entrance to the sound wero lit by large lamps surmounting high' towers there were constant complaints from tho pilots of various boats that the lights bothered them. The authorities re torted: "That cannot bo, wo are giving vnti fine Illumination. V. So thev were, but they were giving It frfrm radiants so. bright that the eyesight of the pilots was dazzled and they could not- see the surrounding objects. Tho highest Artificial brilliancy In ccrrmerclal use comes from the arc light. which may give anyvhero from 20,000 to 60,000 candle-power per square inch In cer tain parts of Its arc. Somo estimates have run as high as 100,000 candle-power per 6quaro Inch of radiant surface. The direction of illumination Is of th greatest Importance. It should come always from cither above or from the side. Light reflected from snow la peculiarly severe, and often produces a species of Inflammation resulting In snow blindness This comes, not from Its great brilliancy, for It Is not even bright as the sunlight, but because It strikes upward from tho enow, entering the eye from an unfamiliar direction, and probably concen trating Its strength on the part of the retina least able to withstand that par ticular source of pounding by light rays. It has been found that blackening tho lower eyelids with burned cork will arrest the development of snow blindness. In speaking of the Nernst lamp, Dr. Bell ex plained that tho principle Involved In its operation Is that of the formation of an electric arc, heating to an enormous degree a thin pencil or slip of highly refractory material, which becomes conducting, and rising to an intense temperature, gives out a great deal of light. Dr. Bell expressed the belief that In six months or a year the Nernst lamp would become quite a common sight In this country. conomtj the California Prune The Cnlifornia Prune calls for recognition not merely as a relish but as a substantial addition to the daily food. At prices now prevailing it Is as cheap an article of sus tenance as can be purchased. You get substantial value for all the money you pay out. You do not pay provision prices for 75 water as you do In purchasing meat or other provisions or fruits. A 25-lb. box of prunes In a family, besides enabling the housewife to prepare many delicious dishes, will save double their cost In meat, to say nothing of doctor's bills. If, especially in the diet of children, prunes were substituted for one-half the milk and all the sweet cake and candy, our children would be far more healthful than they now are. The proof that you are getting this prune is tne orana of the California Cured Fruit Association, as displayed below. PRUNE 6AUCC Try this recipe for "Prune Sauce" which iron a prize in California Prize Prune Cooking Contest a few weeks ago: "Tnlio about two pound of cured prnnea, 'oh thoroughly. Then put tho prunes In nn enrthenwnre dish and cover with cold v filer, nddlng eunr to, ult the tout.. Let them ntnml for thirty hours. Then they are rent!)- for the table," Be aura and nd for book containing IOO raclpea for preparing prunes In every way, which were obtained In a prli. con teat participated In by the very beatcooU and chefs of California. This book to gether with a " Prune Primer," which will delight th little folks, will be sent free Address CALIFORNIA CUKIiD PHUIT ASSOCIATION San Jos, Cal. Klectrlcnl .Vote. Montreal, which has enloved nbout the cheapest electric lighting rates In America, becauue of the keen competition between two rival companies operating water powers. Is to have a 123,000,000 combination of all the lighting and power companies In the city, and ltn effect on the lighting rates is awaited witn interest. A Missouri editor has had erected. equipped and connected with his printing office an extensive system of -telephone lines, going not only to nearby towns, but also to numerous rarmnouses. ids original object was solely to gain news moro easily for his paper. The enterprise haH doveloned until now he lias an extensive rural tcle- pnone system. Some 300.000 miles of electric wire wero In use for telephony In the United States In 1S39. with i.OOO.uuO telephone Instruments and 400.0W stations. It Is estimated that the capital employed in this Industry In tho United fitatPH approximates 1100.000,00"). The telenhones of the whole worlrl o Ywtl- mated to number 1,500,000, with 1,750,000 miles or wire. Tne telephone service n this country thus approximately equals iniii oi hii oiner couninrs comnined, in 1876 there were 200 Instruments working In curope ana an in tne i iiiieii states. According to the Electrical World W. S, TlnrnMt nnri l ft. rSnnilhiil nt Xffll...n..vAA Wis., are the Inventors of a device which permits the calling of any subscriber on a party telephone Hue without disturbing the other subscribers on the same line. Tho apparatus la called the multiplex teleslg. It Is said to bo possible by the use of the new device to maintain on one rlmnli telephone service, station signaling on rail roads, police and flro signaling, messenger Borvice, cic. a numuer en suomarine mines may be placed In circuit and nnv of them cxpiouea witriout atiecung me others. The electric searchlight that is to b In stalled on the electrlo tower of the Pan American exposition at Buffalo, N", y nays Electricity. Is designed to attract much at tention. The searchlight, which la a thirty Inch projector, will bo the most wonderful light of Its kind ever erected, nnrl i win operated on the 30-foot level of the electric iucr. tn urucr iu inure uennitey locate this 360-foot level It may be' further pointed out that It 1 tho level at which the tower makes the last contraction, und this Is only thirty-one feet below the extreme apex or highest point of the tower nnd statue of the Goddess of Light that will surmount It. Tho beam from this senrch llcht will flash throuch the uirv n.i. . brilliancy that will cause It to be seen for u ui.i4iii.-i3 ui hi i-uni tiny miiea. Indigestion Is tho direct cause of dlseate that kills thousands of persons annually. Stop the trouble at the start with a little Prickly Ash Bitters; it strengthens tht stomach and aids digestion. Colorado 'Will llanir Murderer. DENVER. May 1. The bill restoring ennl tal punishment by hanging for murder In uoioraao Decames a taw witnout the gov ernor's signature, the time In which h could veto It having expired last night Under the law. which becomes effeetlvi July 1 next, the Jury will fix the penalty In muracr cases. CALIFORHf Cubed fruit 50CIATI0" "It Sved My Life." , t Jt .. Vlllard. III., Aujuit 1, 1900. I was In bad health thli spring and could not lit up In bed for four weeks. Vfhsn I wa conllned my child died. Whtn I bt jan to sit up I felt jo weak and had sueh tmibla palm In my back and hips. I hid kldnty trouble, heart trouble and falling of tht womb. I alio had hysterical spells. I was In a bad condition whtn I rtetlvtd your " Ladles' Birthday Almanac" and read tht advertliertitnt of Wine of Cardul end Thedford's Black. Draught. Since April 20th, I have taktn four bottles el Wine of Cardul and three packages of Thedford's Black.Drauijht. I fttl like a new person now. I an do all my work and ran walk out to lee any of my neighbors. I bcllevt I would have been In the grave had It not been for Wine of Cardul. IT SAVED MY LIFE. Mm. ALICE DAVIS. It ii well that women are more patient than men. Few men could bear the bitter pangs, the agony and diitreii that women endure. Thousands of women have come to look upon sutTcrinj aj a duty of their itx. But there are many instances of this heroic fortitude which wiNEo'Cymui now renders unnecessary. Women need no longer suffer for modesty's sake. Wine of Cardul brings relief to modest women in the privacy of their homes. Many of the best homes in this city are never without this great medicine. It cures "whites" and falling of the womb and completely eradicates these digging periodical pains. Mrs. Davis' cure shows you conclusively what you may expect h you follow her example and take Wine of CarduL . Thedford's Black-Draught aids Wine of Cardui by regu lating the stomach and bowels. When you ask your druggist for these medicines, be sure you get them. It was Wine of Cardui and Thedford's Black-Draught that saved Mrs. Davis' life. Never take a Substitute. ftn.'r.L'VK11"' addresaTlnr symptoms, "Th. Ladies' Advisory Department," The Chattaaooga Medicine Company, Chattanooga, Tenn. Another Bee "Dot" Contest Starts May 8th $1,500.00 in Prizes and a Bull Pup. This Will Keep 'Em Guessing Can You Add Correctly 4& TV fa fc. ' w ' Prizes for the Nearest Correct Sum of All the Figures. 6' C The above is a suggestion of what it is like. $ We guarantee that every one sending us the correct sum of the figures will get a prize. nv it Wait for the Figures May 8th