Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1873-04-27
BORING MOUNTAINS WITH SUN.
BEAMS.

The railway tunnel through the Alps at
Mount Gems was bored mainly by the
force of solar heat as direct power, and
wholly (including light) as direct and in
direct power. This passage through the
highest mountains in Europe is so conven-
lent, not only to the people Of France who
live On one s ide of the Alps, and to those OF
Italy who live on the other side, but to the
travelling aud business world, that the en-
terprising Germans are about to make an
other railway opeping through the Alps at
st. Gothard, that will be longer and more
expensive than the Mount Gems Tunnel.
Prof. Mohr, German scientist, has recent
ly discussed this interesting subject, and
we rely on him for the following facts,
which we can make more ineligible to un-
scientific readers by using common words.
l. The universe is filed with rays of
heat and light, which vibrate among the
heavenly bodies perpetually without loss or
gain. When these rays light on any heav-
emily body they pass, first, into common
sensible heat, which, being absorbed, the
rays are reflected as cold and invisible.
2. OF the inexhaustible supply of these
rays in the universe our sun receives at
every instant Of. time as much as he radi-
stes back again.
3. A portion of his rays fall on our earth,
where they are converted into sensible
heat.
4. By means of this sensible heat water
in the ocean and elsewhere is converted into
vapor that may be visible or invisible.
The heat in all vapor is latent or chemi-
cal motion.
5. Aqueous vapor has lees specific gravi-
ty than air, lis lighter, it ascends and rep
resents lifted weight. In this operation
heat is changed into motion-the ascent of
water which has weight into the air higher
than the tops of mountains.
G. The expansion of the air during
which heat is converted into mass-motion)
causes the watery vapor to spread over the
surface of the earth.
Z. By the condensation Of this vapor,
chemical motion escapes as sensible heat.
The loss OF latent heat converts the aqueous
vapor into water, and in an atmosphere so
cold that the water drops on mountains
as snow, and forms glaciers.
s. Warm winds from the Mediterranean
and Africa acting on the glaciers in the
Alps, and from the Gulf of Mexico and
the Southern Atlantic and Pacific, acting
on snow and ice in the Rocky Mountains,
develop motion in frozen water; and gravi-
tation, with the utmost freedom OF motion
between particles of water in running down
hill, bling the water back to its starting
place in the ocean, sEith plenty of mud,
end the debris of plants and animals with
it, to form new rocks in the depths of the
ocean.
9. The mass motion of creeks and rivers
when checked by any resisting object, is
converted back into heat.
10. Man arrests a part of this motion by
means Of large water-Wheel, and by the
aid of crank and connecting rod, transmits
the motion to the piston rod of an air COM
presser.
IL. In COMPRISING air we simply accu-
muiate motion as force or tension. Such
compressed air yields its force again with
out loss except in the friction of the ma
chimes driven. Friction develops heat, and
the lost motion is in that form.
II. This compressed air is precisely like
steam in a common boiler. 1t drives steel
drillirg tools which cut deep holes into
rock for the well known operation of blast
ing powders.
IS. In ordinary drilling in the slow prog
ress of tunnel work, human muscle does
the drilling; but in the Alps science uses
sun-beams for that purpose.