The Coming Oratorical Contest

A lively Interest is being awakened among the students of the several classes that are to particípate in the coming "battle of the orators." It will be remembered that this contest is to select an orator and altérnate to represent the University of Michigan in the contest of the Northern Oratorical League to be held this year at Northwestern University. The home contest is between the Literary and Law departments. The senior class of each department is entitled to two repres-entatives, the junior one, and the sophomore class of the literary department, one. When more candidates than the required number from each class present themselves, the representatives are to be selected by competent judges at preliminary rehearsals. The executive committee held a meeting last Saturday morning and decided that all who enter shall send in their names and the subjects of their orations not later than Mon- day, Feb. i. The orations must be handed in by Monday, Feb. 15, in order that the judges may have ampie time to pass upon the thought and composition before the preliminaries of Feb. 26. The final public contest of the class representatives occurs March 18 in University Hall, for first and second honors and the testimoniáis of $75 and $0 respectively. Contestants should send in their names and subsequently their orations, typewritten, to the vice-president of the Oratorical Association, Mr. A.J. Ladd, No. 6 South Ingalls street. - U. of M. Daily. The sweet girl Ktudents of Denmark, desirous that all the world should know of their collegiatp asvrirations. have determined to announce the tact by wearing students' cps in the fonil of a Imle round black hat vvith a black ribbon band aud Ihe university badge thereon. Consul Heath says that many of the houses iu Catania are built of the lava which poured fortb froni Mount Etna in great streains on the neighbonng clay beds. This mixture of elay and lava is now mixed and used to great advantage in building. It is estimatèd that the treastire lying idle in India in the simpe of boards of ornamenta amounts to $1 .350,000.000. A competent authciritv calculaten that in Anirista city alone thei-e are jevvels t tbe valueof $1,300.000,000. Says a manufacturer of artificial limbs, "Arevolution in the art of tuannfactnríng arms and legs will come, 1 think, with the introdut-tion ot aluminium, the lightest and strongest substance known." There are now fifty "tank" steamers plying between this country and Ëurope, carrying oil iu bulk. They caiTy about 5,000.000 barrels of oil annually