Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1873-04-03

inviting our merchants and our Snlpp1ng
The railroads that cross the continent
connect Asia with Europe. Every sec
ton of the country is busy with the
labOrs of peace, and the industrious
throng of active citizens are true to the
republic and to each other. The con-
sciousness that we are a united commun.
ity, founded by Washington, and saved
from destruction by the devotion of Lin
coin and Grant, will deepen in strength
with each Presidential term; and in
union we shall find prosperity and peace.
-Harper's Weekly.
Something about Snow, Hail and Ice.
Snow is one of the many objects which
absorb and are warmed by the solar heat.
On sunny day you may see the submits
Of the high Alps glistening with the
water of liquefaction, while the air above
and around the mountains may be many
degrees below the freezing point. The
same thing happens to the snow upon
your house-roof. The sun plays upon it,
and melts it. The water trickles to the
caves, and hangs in drop. If the caves
are in the shade, or in declining sunshine,
or the air intensely cold with a brilliant
sun, the drop, instead Of falling, con-
geals. An infant icicle is formed. Other
drops and driblets succeed, which both
thicken it at the root and lengthea it.
The drainage from the snow, after sun
shine is gone, continues to produce icicles
until the flow of water is stopped by the
frost. In the Alps, DR.. Tyndall tells us,
when the liquefaction is copious and the
cold intense, icicles grow to an enormous
size. Over the edges (mostly the south
ern edges of the chasms, hangs coping
of snow, and from this depend, like sta
lactites, rows Of transparent icicles, ten,
twenty, thirty feet long, constituting one
of the most beautiful features Of the
higher crevasses. But an icicle would be
incomprehensible if we did not know
that the solar beams may pass through
the air, and still leave it at an icy tenn
perature.
Hail is another form of water. which
we cannot regard with indifference when
the heavens are pelting US with solid mis-
slles. have seen a whole city, covered
with stout red tiles, unroofed by single
haiistorm. What became of the windows
1t is needless to state. Glaciers were in
request for weeks afterwards. Like
rain, hail is formed when two or more
strata of clouds overlie one another, but
with difference IN their respective physi-
cal conditions.
Hail is produced during tempests,
when the temperature, very high at the
surface OF the earth, decreases rapidly at
loftier attitudes. In that case the upper
clouds consist of icy particles, the middle
strata of watery vesicles below the freez-
ing point, and the lower strata of vesi-
cles above the freezing point. Usually
those clouds travel in different directions,
and hail is produced when conflict of
opposing winds compels a mixture Of
clouds of such different temperatures.
The rain drops resulting, instantly frozen,
have the time during their fall to increase
IN size by the condensation of water on
their surface, and not seldom by combi-
nation, to unite into large and destructive
hailstones.
The formation of hailstones is always
rapid. The clouds from which they fall
are never spread over a very wide area
Sailing before the wind they pound and
riddle strips of land often less than mile,
and rarely ten miles, wide, although the
length of the strips passed over is some
times considerable Hailstones have been
picked up weighing more than half a
this weight, on credible authority, has
been very much exceeded. On such oc.
casions, it is not surprising that trees
should be stripped Of their leaves and
branches, the larger animals mutilated
small deer" and game killed outright
The greater the development of electricity
in tempest, the greater is the tendency
OF downfall of hail. Hail occurs prin-
clpally IN summer ana in the afternoon;
namely, under the meteorological condi-
lions that have just been mentioned
great heat at the surface of the soil, rap
idly diminishing higher up in the air, with
strong cloud-evaporation under the action
OF the sun. Nevertheless, as the simple
conflict of an upper very cold wind with
very hot one raised to the same lofty
region, may bring about the formation of
han, 1t sometimes falls in winter, and
sometimes in the night, but those are the
exceptions rather than the rule.
As water, during its metamorphosis
INTO snow, assumes beautiful star-like
form, SO does the dissection of ice, by
heat, prove that it possesses a similar
structure. The architecture of the ice
over which we skate is quite as wonderful
as the flowers of the snow. All our lake
$3.50 DNAie VI StdES
interlaced. To see them, take slab Of
pond ice, and place it in the path of a
concentrated n-beam But ice and
water are so OFFICIALLY alike, that unless
the light fall properly upon the flowers,
you Will not detect them. Catching the
right angle of illumination, from separate
spots OF the ice little shining points are
seen to sparkle forth. Every one of those
points is surrounded by beautiful LIQUID
mower with six petals, lying in all cases
parallel to the surface of freezing. The
central spot is vacuum. Ice swims on
water because, bulk for bulk, it is lighter
than water; so that when ice is melted it
shrlnks IN size. The liquid flowers can
not then occupy the whole space of the
Ice melted. A little empty space is
formed in the center of the flowers, and
this space, or rather its surface, shines in
the sun like Furnished silver.-AU the
Year Round
When three 1rishman dug a ditch,
Tor which they were to receive four dol
lars, the trouble was how to divide four
among three and have it equal. One of
them remained quiet and the other two
at last deferred to his judgment, as he
mao been to school and knew arithmetic,
10 make the division. He did it at once,
saying: Its aisy enough! Shure there's
two for you two, and two for me, too"
"begorra, said one of his co-laborers,
what great thing it is to have learn