“I dared not sleep,” said Skusik, “for fear the dirt would smother me while I dozed. Little handfuls sifted through. I brushed them away with the hand that was free. I counted off the hours until my mind became a blank. If they say they heard me shouting, I must have been out of my head.” Feather of Quail Does X-ray Work. While hunting in the Sierra Nevada Mountains recently, Doctor Barton J. Powell, of Stockton, Cal., met an old Indian who proved to him that an ordinary mountain-quail feather held before the eyes serves the same purpose as a powerful X-ray machine. Taking a feather from a quail he was plucking, the Indian held it before the doctor’s eyes and put his hand up to the light. The bones of the hand were plainly visible through the flesh. The Indian said feathers had been used from time immemorial by his tribesmen as an aid in setting broken bones. He added that any feather produced the X-ray effect to some extent. Doctor Powell has sent a bunch of the quail feathers to California University for experimental purposes. Millions for Italy’s Army. The cabinet council, at Rome, Italy, has sanctioned an extraordinary army appropriation of $80,000,000. When the new war minister, General Zupelli, succeeded General Grandi, he urged an additional appropriation to hasten military preparations, but the head of the treasury department at that time was unwilling to sanction it, as the enormous outlay might impair the national finances. The minister resigned and the cabinet was reorganized. General Zupelli repeated his request, explaining that the necessity was urgent. The council granted the demand immediately. Since August 1st, the extraordinary expenditure of the army and navy has amounted to about $205,000,000. Due to this, the Italian navy has been kept mobilized since the war broke out, while the army has been fully prepared for action. The country is in a position to place in the field 750,000 men, fully equipped for a winter campaign. Doomed to Blindness Girl Studies Hard. Slowly becoming blind, with perhaps a year before her sight is blotted out, Alma Krager, of Burlington, Iowa, a freshman student in the liberal-arts college of the State University, has announced her determination to spend the last days before blindness in pursuit of her studies at Iowa. The facts of her pitiful situation were disclosed following the visit of a Chicago specialist who made an examination of her eyes and predicted what is next to a fatality itself. Nothing can be done to save her sight, it is said, and total blindness is due within the coming year. The doctor’s verdict came as a hard blow, but has not changed the girl’s determination to spend her last days of sight in study here. Even now temporary blindness comes, yet she still holds her place well at the head of her classes.