The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, January 2, 1898, Page 23

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, JANUARY 2, 1898. | i \ T is just about a quarter of a cen- we learn from Mr. aymond’s memoir of B. I that Barnett. Isaacs red, energetic you started for the diamond fiel ing with him.as stock in trade stout heart, a fixed determ h 1 to mak ron and a keen trading tinct, this jatter: being by far his valuable g He « 1 also seket onate re- [ from & few friends. on the €ve of his departure from on pre- s 1him with a wat years erward, when many times a million- still preserved in perfect going ¥ a time have looked t partir same a light e struck ne going.. Doubt- 1es of which the tick, | Barnett v mile. ot | pair or b His plan to turn back when He was very If on leavin, hdd teft import- made no differ- for , not s or ne notion ctung to indeed, he had unwittingly d man. In that case, the lid not hold good, and Jarney 1 retrace his steps to give away an rt bout this u he found he pers behind, it he would | new arri | shanty MADE Arrived at the diamond fields, young Isaacs took the name previously adopt- ed by his brother Harry, and was henceforth known to the world as Bar- ney Barnato. In these young days he dealt in anything which brought grist to the mill, from wool, feathers, mealies and garden vegetables to diamonds. The Dutch farmers soon found they had a tough nut to crack in the i. Bit by bit they came to rving to get the v began to respect him instead, and when the day came that Barney stood for Kimberley in the Cape Parliament, the memory of clear-headed, honest ways secured im the Dutch vote solid and placed him at the head of the poll. But it was ) ing the business of a kopje wallopper, already adopted by his brother Harry, that Barney owed his introduction to immense wealth. A kopje wallopper bought diamonds from the sorting tables of the different kopjes (small hills) and turned them to the best profit he could. Just about this time Barney fell in with Louis Cohen, and they com- menced a brief partnership. Cohen had 100 as capital, Barnato sixty boxes of cigars. Walking together near the dia- mond camps one day Barnato spied a well situated office. “Well, Lou,” he said, . “how would that do for an office for the two of us?” “It would cost too much,” said Co- hen. “Well, let’s inquire what would be.” Cohen went in and found the place to be. a tiny, unfloored, corrugated iron ut 8§ feet by 6, and the rent a guinea a day. the rent “It is ridiculous to think we could | pay that,”” he said to Barnato, I do not know,” replied Barney. “The sltuation is good. Why not pay a guine shillin The result was that they took the of- Co- | fice and divided it by a partition. Hen sat in ‘the front box and bought | and sold diamonds by day, while Bar- ney went in for the outdoor work. Very hard work it was, too, carried on un der the heat and glare of the South African sun, to which he was not yet acclimatized. At night they slept on the earthen floor at the back of the shop, with just a blanket to cover them. Some- times Cohen must have pulled his ARAYS TURNE ON THE CUPBOARD | HE latest the and, perhaps, one of eful applications of s the examining of ations for the pur- ascertaining the presence of adulteration. ts having this end in view been made by Miss t herlaboratory on Sutter sults have been sati 3 hest degree. In the scope of her experiments Miss schman has covered nearly all the most Experimen 1y factory \ufactured food products on- the narket and presence of foreign every instance been | staple articles of | ar, flour pictures SSAry 1o 1 3 ence of for- | €ign ‘matter hough to ‘the eye the | art the Ives appear :perfectly | pure | In miaking these eéxaminations - Miss hman proceeded in ctly the r as in maxing radiographs fferent par articles to be e ere plac- | on top of a s tive plate and given | rief exXposure to the-X rays The | n developed and thé print | showed all-the djfferentiation - objects photographed. From what is known of the the X ray there is no reason why this should be other: Most fodd pre- parations capable of being adulterated are of a vegetable nature, The adul- terations.used are in most instances a Tnineral natire. As is already well | Known, substances offer ance to the X rays whilé minerals oppose them most for- cibly, human body. ed tion of m this it must follow that when | two, composed of thousands of Il particles, are mixed and both | Eived the same exposure to the X ray | sult will be that the plate is af- more in some places than in | In the finished pictures there | a perfect impression of the min- | bstances, while the vegetable | scarcely be séen. i ances ca This is most apparent in the radio- raphs of flour. * A teaspoonful of pure r put on a sensitive plate and spread out to a thickness of not more AT, sixteenth ¢ an inch, after a short‘exposure to the rays, will yield imperceptible image. The rouhding. of the different Jumps of flour iilshow as'a light tone spread over a white surface. But let there be so uch: as -one grain’ of sand in the ful-of flour and-it iill stand out in lack. with startling distinctness, | If’thére are.a hundréd grains they will show'as a hundred round, black dots, | But suppose the flour is adulterated With”white:'clay, starch or chalk. In 1at case each will yield a different im- | préssion. . The ¢lay will appear as jag- | dark as the spots “The starch will show ystal formation ‘very little dark- erthan thé flour itself and the chalk will show as large, round lumps almost dark as the.clay. : Tt makes no_difference whether the R.qulterations are present singly or in | combination, all will show, and ih al- most exact proportion.. Sand, clay, | starch and chalk in equal proportions, nifxed with a certain quantity of flour, will “all show distinctly in a radio- graph. . To be sure there will be jum- D bles in certain spots, where the differ- ent minerals overlap, but it is possible to detect each and every one with the aid of a small magnifying glas In one of the experiments 1 Miss Fleischman a small he ground coffee, known to be pur > by placed beside a spoonful of suspicious soffece. To the eve and taste both of these specimens were exactly alike. Even a strong magnifying glass showed nothing foreign. Both would have passed anywhere for pure coffee. But what a difference there was to be seen in the radiograph. The pure coffee stood out in clear, perfect grains and appeared as a moderate gray on | AND a day if you can make thirty | MILLIONS 'METEORIC RISE IN THE WORLD OF WEALTH OF BARNEY BARNATO, WH;) WENT TO AFRICA A PEDDLER DIED A DIAMOND KING. we have ever differed about except | one.” i “What is that?" asked Cohen. | “Why, when we slept together in | that hut you used to pull the blankets | off me every now and then, and I | Wwas too much afraid of you to tell you | of it.” | During the thirteen months which Cohen and Barnato spent together | they had a very rough time of it, prac- | ticing every economy and becomingex- pert cooks. - Sometimes the business looked like collapsing, but defeat was unknown to the energetic Barney. He kept his eyes wide open instead. found the ss and The started ing, out early, giving ly, but every he did calling it well, place of his and a gr set them on their legs. After a time th his brother of financiers was laid. envy and despair of the youthful cou- ple. He drove round the camp with an aged yellow pony, and had a first- class connection. “We must get the old chap's practically day Barney t | nignt pa: | his ears open ana nd night work. it his and scarded yellow pony, har- | 1, could be bought for £27 bought him the next morn- the horse the reins. He did his work slow- stopping at former owner. This smart bit of work brought Barnato and Cohen a good connection at deal of money and fairly partner’s blanket off, for Barnato in | he invested in a new and sprightly later days said to him: he and when Barney saw “Lou, I will forgive you everything | spirits r He made inquiries, elder Barnato took into partnership, and the first small foundation of the great firm | But the times | were by no means easy, and the One man, a diamond dealer in a | brothers devoted all their energies to comparatively large way, was the | the accumulation of money. It was | | All at the office, and at d from bar to bar, keeping learning all there cus- as to be learned. tomers somehow,” said Barnato. He was becoming highly popular, “Easier said than done,” rejoined | too, owing to his fistic and dramatic his friend. But Barnato's keen eye was fixed on the man and his seedy-looking ani- mal. He noticed that the pony needed no driving, and that it stopped at cer- tain places of its own accord. By and by, as the dealer’s wealth increased, | abilities. a real bent for acting. The character of Matthias in Bells” he made his | ist on a visit to England, He could take a turn at the gloves with the best of them and had “The own, and a good story is told of a South African colon- who said STORY OF THE GREATEST FINANCIAL SUCCESS OF THE CENTURY. HOwW HE MADE MANY MILLIONS AS A STOCK SPECULATOR that he didn’t care to see Irving in “The Bells” at the Lyceum, having already seen Barney Barnato at Kim- berley. | Three years after Barnato's arrival | he had amassed about £3000 and with this he bought four claims well situ- ;amd for working in .the Kimberley | mine. By this move he left off merely dealing in diamonds and started dig- ging on his own account. From these | claims he obtained the wonderfnl yieid of two to two and half carats a ton. Soon after Barney's purchase the yel- low ground, known to be diamondiier- ous, gave out and revealed an under tratum of dense blue rock, varying in | hardness, but apparently of great thickness. The formation appeared to | be voleanic, but on examination no dia- monds seemed to be forthcoming. There were many troubles incidental to mining, and the combined circum- stances caused a number of men to sell their claims for what they could get or abandon them altogether. Some of the miners even sarcastically remarked that should a few odd diamonds be found they had been dropped by. them during hurried sorting." But Barney Barnato bought up all the interests he could get hold of. He somehow anticipated Pro- fessor Roentgen and his X-rays, and managed with his eagle eye to see | the white surface. The suspicious cof- | | fee was at once shown to be adulter- | ated. It was filled with irregular dark ‘Where there was any good coffee it was plainly in- | dicated. Some of the dark spots could | be seen to be bits of grain and the darkest ones were plainly chicory. | This was proven by making a radio- | 8raph of some chicory on a plate by it- self and comparing the two images. For some reason not easily explained cHicory offers great resistance to the X rays. Or it may be that the chicory used was adulterated before being put into the coffee. Tea is frequently treated with sul- phate of copper, to give it both weight | and color. But even this form of adul- teration is readily discernible by | means of the X ray. Pure tea and coppered tea of the same quality | Here is a menu of seaweeds known to be edible: spots of different sizes. s Alaria Esculenta (Served cold Sporophyls, bolled. VIANDS Rhodymenia ¥ Chondrus Cr (Comu Cartagheen.) ponica. Chinese, tget chay.) DOOOOAOODOHOVODAO00D Blanc Mange of Gracilaria Confirivoldis. BEucheuma Jelly. gl different pictures. The pure tea, be- ing simply a leaf of vegetable fiber, 1 freely permitted the X rays to pass through, while the film of copper in the adulterated tea offered strong re- sistance. The result showed only a faint image of the pure tea and an al- most black image of the coppered tea. Sugar is most commonly adulterated with white sand. This is absolutely imperceptible to the naked eye, but in | a radiograph each grain shows black and distinct. This is, perhaps, the easiest of all the examinations to make by means of the X ray. Other foreign substances will show in sugar much | article is adulterated. sible to conceal them. tinctly as in“flour or sugar. cheapness and rapidity. placed side by side yielded two entirely | [afntatetutatntatotutnatutatutetutatutet=xs OQQQDQOOODOQOQODQQQQQg o the same as in flour, but they are sel- dom used because it is almost impos+ Baking powder itself offers consid- erable resistance to the X ray, but the presence of alum, chalk or starch can be plainly shown, although not so dis- The great value of . Miss - Fleisch- man’s plan of making analysis is its While it will not give the exact proportion of the Jdifferent foreign substances in a cer- tain food product, it is possible to as- certain by it whether or not a certain A dozen differ- GOOTOLOO0CIOVOO0TOO0V0T o ent speciments of flour can be placed on one plate and all exposed and de- veloped at the same time. The result, which can be reached inside of ten minutes, will show at a glance just what Is adulterated and what is pure. —_——— THE AGE OF ANIMALS. As far as naturalists have been able to discover, the elephant lives to the greatest age of any of the animals with | which we are familiar. It takes twen- ty-five to thirty years, and sometimes longer, for elephants to complete their growth. It is recorded that certain | specified animals have lived more than 150 years, but the statistics on sub- Jects of this’ sort are necessarily in- complete and therefore unreliable. The lion is supposed to live forty years, although it is claimed that one kept in the Tower of London attained in his natural condition. The horse is a short-lived animal, but when carefully kept and allowed to spend a great deal of its time in pas- ture, it has been kncwn to live past the age of 40 vears.’ The trouble with horses is that they are fed.for hard work, consequently their feet and their Eighteen to 24 years is a very high average age for digestion wear out. horses to attain. Cows live eighteen or twenty years, but they have very little value toward the latter portion of this period, save in exceptional cases. heid on and | the age of 70 years. It Is not supposed that he would have lived to that age IN A DECADE. down into the blue rock. When experts | If said “There are no diamonds” Barney said “There are,” and went on buying and digging. In a very short time his investment of £3000 was bringing in £1800 a week. . In 1881 he launched his first venture— the Barnato Diamond Mining Com- pany—with a capital of £115,000. This was but a step in the amalgamation of all the interests in the mine. Barnato plainly saw what a saving could be ef- fected if all the claims were worked as one whole, and for this end he strove with might and main. He gave | the unheard of sum of £30,000 a claim | to one man, but the price brought him | not only the claims, but great notorie- | ty and public confidence. He was nick- named in the district a “Diamond King”—a name also shared by Ceci! Rhodes of the De Beers mine—and the time was drawing near when these two men, after being at cross purposes with one another, were to unite their forces and control the diamond output of the world. In the early days of development, when uncertainty as to the future of the Rand existed, Barnato never lost faith. ‘“Wait, have confidence as I have,” was his advice. So in time of depression he steadied the pulse of th disheartened, buoyed up the weak anc held on his way. All his most rosy ex pectations. turned out to be correct, and the gold output from the Rand rose million after million as the few short sed by. success did not change his good nature. He was blithe, merry, good-humored, witty and bright to the | end. Among his peculiarities was that of seldom carrying money about with | him. Many a time he would turn| around to his friends and say: “Oh, lend me 5 shillings.” “No, Barney, cer- tainly not,” one and all would reply. “Five pounds, with pleasure, if youi like.” His three forms of recreation were | boxing, horse-racing and theatricals. | His great love for acting brought him into close sympathy with the profes- | sion. On one occasion while he was driving from Johannesburg he fell in | with two traveling companies, each | going in opposite directions. One was | under Lionel Brough's management. | Brough had with him certain props and | scenery which he could not sell at| Johannesburg. Barnato offered to put them up to auction on the open veldt. It was looked upon as an excellent bit of fooling, and both companies turned out to enjoy it. Barnato conducted the sale in monologue, making the whole thing more ridiculous by appealing to the company to let him get a word in edgeways. Then he immediately knocked the lots down to himself at a high figure. To the astonishment of the gathering, at the end of the sale, he handed Brough the amount at which he had bought the things, and hen gave them to the other company. In 1895 he commenced to build a great mansion in the most aristocratic thor- oughfare in London. He seems to have regarded it with superstitious dread, for passing by one day with a friend, he remarked: “Yes, there it is, but I don't think I shall ever live in | Ay A sadly prophetic utterance, which in a moment of aberration Bar- nato put beyond all doubt. It was work that killed the million- aire, not worry as to the future. He said he had none. But he could not find time to get through all his work, and he could not bear to the end to let one detail slip from his grasp; he must know all that was going on. His health broke down under the strain. *“Why don’t you give up now, Barney; what are an extra five millions to you?” a friend said to him when the first signs of ill health showed themselves. But to give up his active life was like be- ing buried alive, besides, as he said, when his boys were grown up ana he was no more, he would have them to point to his photo and say: “Ah, that dad of ours, he was a clever little chap, he was.” SEAWEED AS COMING —I‘ HERE is a possibility that with- in the next year or so we will have seaweed on our tables as a regular articlé of diet. Not as a heavy | food, on which to do a big day’s work, however, but more as a relish as we now use lettuce and radishes. That seaweed is capable of being used as an article of food we have only to go to the Chinese for proof, for these people have been eating the stuff for cen- turies. Californians have always appreciated the algae from the standpoint of the beautiful. Most visitors to our coast | carry away an album with pressed sea- | weeds. But now it is being regarded | | culenta, THE DINNER DIoH seriously as a novel dainty for epi- cures. An analysis of the kelp shows that the nutritious matter contained is small, but the gelatinous, slightly sharp flavor is said to be delicious when. one's palate becomes educated to it. Like oysters and olives, which delicate viands some|people ‘care for naturally, some acquire the taste for, after painful effort, ard most people have thrust upon them, the connois- seurs will have to educate the palates of the people before they can thor oughly appreciate the seaweed. Should the taste for this unique food assume large proportions, California could undoubtedly compete with Japan: in supplying the markets, as the edible variety grows in profusion here. The Chinese dry the kelp, press it in- to thin round cakes, which are then put into water and boiled. They be- come soft and expand so that when ready to eat they are about - three times the size they were before boiling. They are either eaten alone or served in conjunction with chicken or meat.’ Nor is China the only place where some’ variety or the algae is used as a com- mon article of food. The Alaria Es- commonly called Bladder- locks, is regarded both in Scotland and Ireland as a very toothsome dainty; it is accorded the same degree of respect that the French bestow upon frogs’ legs. It is usually eaten raw or plunged * in boiling water and then removed immediately, serving it either hot or cold. While there seems every possibility that the seaweed will be given a place on our menus, it will never become a staple article of food, owing to its indi- gestibility. Dr. William A. Setchell of the University of California, who is professor of botany and a well-known contributor on seaweed subjects to scientific journals, said that there was not a single variety of seaweed that contained encugh nutritious substance to make it highly valuable as a food, but that if properly prepared the weed might tiekle the palate at the expense of terrific labor on the part of the di- gestive organs. Professor Setchell has just returned from collecting seaweeds in the vicinity of Fort Ross. He was accompanied on his tour of investiga- tion by C. P. Nott, assistant in the bot- any department. Together they suc- ceeded in securing eighty varieties, among them the kind that is used in the manufacture of iodine. I Professor Setchell recounted that the Scotch lady with whom he and Mr. Nott boarded at Fort Ross was ex- tremely fond of the Bladderlock va- riety, and was very anxious that they should find some of it, as she 'had not tasted any since she had left Scotland. Perhaps the variety that will gain the greatest hold on a certain portion of the community is the Fucus vesicu- losus, which is said to be the most efficient remedy for obesity. One au- therity on algae says that were this variety used as the basis for an anti- fat remedy it would mean thousands of dollars to the manufacturer and a proportionate falling off in flesh among those afflicted with a superabundance of fatty tissue. It is predicted that before long sea- weed will be put on bill of fares in the principal restaurants here, alongside the place of honor held by frogs' legs, ‘Welsh rarebit and sparrows’ tongues.