The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 9, 1899, Page 23

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, JULY 9, 23 -om his flocks and “'kraals > in the saddle, a hastens apace. Tha be t half his tir his end s moment may that will announce most interesting has come upon the world's stage dur- ing the century. And a bloody tragedy will this ect be, as have been most of th became more 1 of the seventeenth ce ortance began to b the attitude o Bosr may appear to sent several hun- ots, most desirable of Nantes, 168 dred French Hugue equal to Britain's This process of admixture two months’ Boers not tc where on the face of the Cape Colony pa sed permanently un- der the British flag with the capture of Baird in 1806, by them under sh at Majuba though it had been held 5 until restored to Holland by with fair prom- i suffered long under Company, the rule of their X srs soon became far heavier than that of the old taking possession prociamation the oppression hit profit of the E - forward there is free trade and a very one may buy from 1 and come and go ch are found make their payments in hard < from the representative of nment sounded well would have about to come would not have to be policy outlined by General Craig CURIOUS SOUTHE L4 IS THE ONLY GROVE IN THE WORLD OF THIS PECULIAR SPECIES. »odchoppers ent beauty to -ape along that hough it has been since the grove was pecles given a name no definite steps have ever s thrived and grown a scovered and the s an Diego—the corporate lim- the grove of pir ordinance setting apart the as a park reservation, thers {s not a member of the Council so 1 specimens of the 7 ., which in spite of winds from the ocean and the buffeting BT R N R 4 m-t{/g/fg 0666600886808 0688888600000000000HPEPPLVOOCICEEOBDBIOEH The hardy men of the Transvaal can “trek” : no longer. 206066 e » whe PPCSC OO DDHG > e o salarfes, which consumed more than two-thirds of the whole revenue. All trade with countries east of the Cape was reserved for the Engiish East In- dia Company and heavy duties were imposed on all goods brought from the West in other than English bottoms. The Government fixed the price at which the farmers should furnish sup- plies to the garrison and ships of war calling at the Cape, and further large issues of paper money were made. Op- pressive | onal laws, tyrannically enforced, abridged the liberties of the colonists and kept them in a state of sullen discontent. An influx of 5000 British settlers in 1820-21 was followed by a decree requiring all offictal docu- ments to be published in English and all proceedings in the courts of law to be in that language, and then that all memorials and petitions addressed to the Government should be in English or have a trapslation attached. The outside Circuit Courts were done away with and all criminal cases required to be taken to Cape Town. In no other colony has Great Britain ever pursued such harsh measures as were had in dealing with the Boers. The reduction of the value of the paper money, much of which had been issued by the Government, to three- elghths of the face of the notes, and making English silver legal tender at that rate of exchange, caused a loss of some $4,000,000 to the colonists, most of which fell upon the farmers in the outlying settlements. A military police, composed of Hot- tentots under English officers, was.an- other great cause of complaint. Finally the last straw came in the shape of the emancipation proclamation putting an end to slavery in the colony after December 1, 1834. The reat Trek” began in 1835. The Boer farmers, almost to a man, left Cape Colony and sought new homes in the unexplored regions to the northeast. It was proposed to pay the colonists for thelr slaves set free. A commission fixed thelr value at about $15,000,000. Of this amount the home Government cut off two-thirds actually and the rest practically, by requiring each claim to be proved before a comm »n in Lon- don, and payment then to be made in 31 per cent stock. The farmers vould not well make the PPPOPVEPOPPOOEO6O06696 hand of England begins to close. gold and can fight. Will he win, or is the day near n he shall at last fall before his old, bitter foe? long journey to Lohdon, and, selling their claims for a small fraction of their face, forswore allegiance to the British crown, abandoned everything they could not readily carry with them and “outspanned” into the unbroken wil- derness. The exodus began in 1835, and for the next three years party after party of Boers, numbering from ten to fifty families, carrying all their belongings in huge wagons drawn by ten or twelve span of oxen each, poured from Cape Colony across the Orange River and then over the Drakensberg Mountains into the more inviting country of Na- tal. Sir George Napier, then Governor of Cape Colony, in a p: amation issued in July, 1838, set forth the principle which has governed the attitude of the British Government toward the Boers ever since. It invited the Boers to re- turn, and at the same time informed them that her Majesty’s Government was “determined not to permit the cre- ation of any pretended independent States by any of her Majesty's sub- jects, which the emigrant farmers con- tinued to be.” The Boers protested, then resisted, but were overpowered, and in 1843 Natal was proclaimed to be a British province. They spread out over what is now the Orange Free State and some of them crossed the Vaal River and blazed the way for a larger emigration that was soon to follow. British aggression followed them into the Orange country, and in spite of the warnings of Pretorious, their leader, that the Boers would resist or “trek again, in 1848 the country between the Orange and Vaal Rivers was prociaim- ed to be British territory, under the title of the Orange River Sovereignty. The Boers gathered and fought, but were beaten in the battle of Boomplatz, near Bloemfontein agd most of them “trekked’” across the Vaal, to join their companions, leaving their farms to British emigrants from Cape Colony. Again they formed a new republic, the independence of which was formal- 1y recognized by the British in January, 1852, by what was called the Sand River Convention, which “guaranteed in the fullest manner on the part of the Brit- ish Government, to the emigrant farm- ers across the Vaal River, the right to manage their own affairs and govern PPP9PPICPOPOPIOIPIPIOPCO The British surround them and the i The Boer- has CREE R 2 X X7 LR R R aceording to thelr own laws, without any interference on the part of the British Government, and that no ¢ achment should be made by the said Government upon the terri- tory north of t Vaal River.” The Boers prospered in their new themselves, home in spite of dissensions among themselves and ‘troubles th their na- tive ighbors, and in 1877 the idea of g them to the British Crown anne again took definite shape. r Theophilus Shepstone, on behalf of British Government, came Into the on a visit of inspection, and af- few of the inhabi- hoisted the Brit- the coun ter consulting with tants, on April 12, 18 ish flag at Rustemberg, not far from Pretoria. An interval of peaceful but strong pratest against this violation of the Sand River Convention wag follow- ed in December, 1880, by an uprising of the Boers, led by such men as Kruger, Joubertand others, whoare still leaders in Transvaal affairs. The British gar- risons in the towns were besleged and hen a strong force was sent from Natal, under Sir Evelyn Wood, to their E tance, the Boers met them at the border and in four succ ve engage- ments, defeated them with terrible loss, especially of officers, and at small cost to themselves. At Majuba HIlI, the last and most dis- astrous engagement to the British of this seven weeks’ war, they had every advantage of position, on the summit of Majuba Hill, where they were attacked on February 26, 1881, by an inferior force of Boers in three columns. Out- flanked and surrounded, the whole Brit- ish force, among whom were the mous Gordon Highlanders, broke and fled in utter rout, leaving many dead on the field. A peace dictated by the Boers, reaffirming the guarantee of 1852, was forced from General Wood, who withdrew his forces. The Transvaal Government has no standing army, and, with the exception of four volunteer organizations of 1200 men, know little of marching in line and drilling, but they have some 38,000 able men ready for service on short notice, as was seen by the promptness with which the Jamieson raid was ended in 1896. In the last three years they have expended some $8,000,000 for arms and ammunition, all of the most improved patterns. Boers Defeat Gordon Highlanders on Majuba Hiil Since the discovery of the rich gold flelds within their borders, bringing in a large influx of forelgners, mostly British, and the gradual cutting them off from any further ‘“trekking” by British annexation of the country to the west and north of them, they have seen the inevitable and prepared for a last and long struggle. They may be successful for a time, but with a large disloyal population in their midst and the might of the British Empire against them from without all around, cut off. completely from all communication with the outside world, the result is a foregone conclusion. Whether in two or ten vears, the Brit- ish flag will ultimately triumph, the Transvaal will have passed and the Boer will follow. RN CALIFORNIA PINES ———6—9—0—0—9 o—&— LOVES THE SEA AND WILL GROW ON BARREN SANDSTONE CLIFFS. disloyal to the city as to vote against the adoption of the ordinance. This pine tree was first made known to the world by Dr. C. C. Parry, a noted botanist and member of the Mexican Boundary Commission in 1850, who, finding it was a new species, dedicated it to the veteran American botanist, Dr. John Torrey, who may be called the father of botany in America. This plant, 0 fa the United States is concerned, practically confined to the locality near La Jolla, though It is sald that a few scat- tered trees are found near San Pedro, in the mountains of Lower California and on Santa Rosa Island. The tree is known to the world only through San Diego. For Grove of Pinus Torreyana on Santa Rosa Island. a_number of years a_wanton destruction of the grove near La Jolla had been going on, more than one-half of the trees being cut down for firewood. Doubtless this will now that th and is to be set apart as a park reservation. The wild seedlings do not bear trans- planting. A few years ago the County 3oard of Supervisors, with a praisewor- thy desire to preserve to posterity a few of these trees, had a dozen removed to ° the Courthouse grounds in San Diego, but to-day not onme is living to tell the tale, The seeds do not germinate readily, and only painstaking care can them over the first three months. they are safe, and a sturdler grower Is r be found. That they love the shown by the tenacity with whic a is h they cling tc the crumbling sandstone over- the beach. Some day California will awake to the fact that here is the tree to reforest the barren coast hills. There has been a great demand on the part of Huropean botanists and horti- culturists for seeds of this pine, and they have been largely. cultivated in’ FEurog more for their rarityg however, than for their beauty. The Pinus Torrevana is a small tree twenty or_thirty feet high and twelve to fifteen Inches in dlameter. The leaves are crowded at the ends of the thick branch- lets in the axils of lanceolate, ltronfly fringed braots, very stout, elght to twelve inches long, young sheaths fifteen to lines” long, old ones six lines lon (a line is _one-twelfth of an {neh); cones ovate, four to four and one- half inches long by three and one-half inches thick, patulous or defluxed on pe- ducles an inch long; umbo short and stout or sometimes elongated and inflexed; seeds oval, ejght to ten lines long, twice long as the wing which encloses the geed. The Pinus Torreyana is fifty miles from any other species of pine. In many egpects it resembles the historic Pinus Dinea of the anclents, which has, been cultivated from time Immemorial. In a paper read before the San Diego Bociety DP Natural History November 2, 1883, the discoverer of the Pinus Torrey- ana, Dr. C. C. Parry, tells how he found the rare and interesting pine tree. He d: “In the spring of 1850, when con- nected with the Mexican boundary sur- vey, my attention was first called to a eculiar species of pine growing on the acific Coast at the mouth of the Sole- dad Valley, San Diego County, by a cas- ual inquiry from Dr. J. L. Le Conte, the distinguished American entomologist, then staying in San Diego, asking ‘what pine it was growing near the ocean beach @t that locality? Not having any speci- mens to show, he simply mentioned at the times its dense copes and its long, stout leaves, five in a sheath. Not long after an opportunity offered the writer for a rsonal 1n\'est1%€ltlnn. having been or- ered by Major W. H. Emory to make a geological examination of the reported coal deposits on the ocean bluff above Boledad. “In making a section of these strata 1t was necessary to follow up some of the arp ravines that here debouch on the ocean beach, and here m( attention was taken up bf' this_singular and unique maritime plre, which, with its strong clusters of terminal leaves and its dis- torted branches loaded Gowa with pon- derous cones, was within easy reach of botanical clutch. From the notes and collections there made a description was drawn up dedicating this well-markel new species to an honored friend and in structor both of Le Conte and the writer, viz., Dr. John Torrey of New York, as Pints Torreyana, Parry. Though sixteen years have passed since Dr. ua read that paper before the Flis- torical Soclety, it was only within the past few weeks that steps were taken to set apart the pueblo lands upon which the Pinus Torreyana stand for park purposes. An electric road may soon be running to La Jolla, and it is not uniikely that an extensfon of the road will be built to the ““Torrey pines.” hangin, CORNSTALKS FOR NATIONAL DEFENSE P& UNITED STATES NAVY WILL CARRY A FELT OF CELLULOSE ARMOR. NEW device in warship construction has been found, which, it is belleved, will make the American navy, ship for ship, the superior of any other in the world. Curlously enough, the ma- terial for this improvement comes, not from our seaboard products, but from the waste of Western farms. Its value ltes in the fact that it will prevent a vessel's fighting ability from being destroyed even ter she has been pierced in a dozen places. Mr. Lewls Nixon, formerly a Unlted States naval constructor, and who 18 now engaged {n bullding warships for the Gov- ernment at Ellzabethport, N. J., says of the new inventlon: “The value of some light substance that will preserve the stability of light armored vessels by displacing water that might enter after a projectile has been appreciated by naval constructors ever since we began to build steel armored vessels. “To meet this need the French orig- inated the use of cellulose, which, when fired into, swells- up under the influence of water and prevents further inflow. After various trials it was adopted In our navy. Thus, in the Columbia, the Tne NEW BATTLE SHIP» -MSCON.EXN s S——0——6—0——0——@ 5—0—0—0—4———9—0—0——4—6——6—6——6— & —4—0—¢ PREVENTS WATER COMING IN WHEN PIERCED BY PROJECTILES. @400 New York and the Olympla, there are protective decks of ample strength to keep out the shells of any vessels they are liable to engage, while their stability i3 protected by belts of cellulose several feet thick along the edges. N hly satisfactory No thorou; cellulose material for this purpose was discovered, however, until the pith of cornstalks was utilized in its manufacture. Corn pith is a perfect obturator. It absolutely prevents water from coming In by the opening made by an S-inch shell. When chemically treated it 1s thoroughly fireproof and in every way It meets the requirements of the situation. ““For keeping out water, a cellulose belt of three feet may be said to be about as eficient as a 6-inch belt of steel, so that we cap protect our stability, when we have & good protective deck back of it to rotect the vitals, with 100 tons of cellu- [ose, where we should require 1000 tons of armor.” The use of corn pith for this purpose yas suggested several years ago by Pro- fessor Mark W. Mersden, who had ob- served its remarkable absorbent quali- tles. He brought the matter to the at- tention of the Cramps, and at their sug- gestion devised an apparatus for separ- ating the pith from the stalk. In 1895 the naval authoritles were induced to make a test of the new product. A 230-pound projectile was fired through a steel coffer packed with cellulose three feet thick. The shell made a hole a foot in diameter through the structure. The water was immedlately turned on and continued for an hour. At the end of that time not a drop had come through, and the packing at the hole in the rear of the plate was not even dampened. Three factories now in operation are employed in turing out the product. The rgest of them {s at Owensboro, Ky. he others are at Rockford, Ill., and ter, Pa. Since the whole process of this manu- facture {s a new one, the machinery by which it is carried on had to be espe- clally devised. The problems which it presented baffled the inventor for some time, but he has at length succeeded in perfecting machinery which make it pos- sible to turn out the finished products on a large scale. The stalks must be well ripened before cutting, and must be thoroughly cured. After stripping off the ears the farmer hauls the stalks to the factory, where they are paid for at the rate of $3 per dam ton. The piles of stalks, just as they come to the factory, are fed into big cutting machines, which chop them into short lengths. Elevating shafts carry them to the roof of the factory, where they pass over great screens with fans to separate the leaves and lighter parts. An ingenious machine, with upright knives, strips off the “shive,” the hard outer portion of the stalk and the tough fibers that run lengthwise of the stem. Only the soft inner portion is left. From the stripping machines the whol mass falls upon long traveling strips o canvas. The_ elastic nature of the pith causes 1t to bound up and down on the canvas until it falls’ off into a receptacle prepared for it. The Chngr!(‘d up stalks and leaves go on to the end of the travel- ing curtains, where they are dumped into cribs. The pith goes next to the compressor, where it is packed to about one-fourth its former bulk. Even then it is so light that only about three tons can be packed into_an ordinary freight car. The other roducts are carried away for mixture ntod the prepared food in which they are us or a new industry the cornstalk busi- ness is remarkably active. By the end of a decade the statistics of the cornstalk industry will probably be counted in mil- lions, and its influence in adding to the prosperity of the great corn bel{ should be very marked. Corn Pith Used for Armor.