Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1880-11-17
Hot Weather.

.
his ulster aud laid his plush cap OF
the table, | don't regard II even a'
pleasantly warm I've been out into
tho sun oil day trying to got some
heat into my system, aud tell you'
gentlemen, in confidence I'm abil
chilly ylt,'
Ever seen 1t any warmer at this
season Of tho year = asked the re-
porter
'Wunst, | seen II IN the spring OF
1914 20 hot that you'd think this
weather was an Ice box, ! wa'
building telegraph line In South
America, and what do you think we
used for poles =
Iron, perhaps,
Iron Iron wouldn't stand q
minute. Why tho works of my watch
melted and ran down my leg, aud II
felt cool, too, because II was liquid
No, sir, iron wasn't no more use than
ice. We couldn't use wood cause IL
caught fire rs soon as exposed, 80 we
used salt, We just sgulrtcd n stream
Of salt water straight up through a
six inch nom'c, The heat evaporated
the salt water and lett q inst class
column Of salt. Then We made 1t the
right hcigh, by cutting it of sullici.
cptly at the bottom
IIow could you run your wire 7
Didn't We just p'n,ed it the way
we wanted it to 90 from the top OF a
hill, and the expansion run it right
along from column to column. That's
what I call warm weather, that is.'
'uow fast did the wire seem to got
about eighty miles an hour We
built seven hundred miles OF telegraph
in one afternoon.
How did you keep up with it,
How could you keep ahead and get
your salt columns up fast enough 7
sWell, sir, that was The simplest con-
trivance that ever was. We had two
parallel bars of railroad iron and
wagon that just fitted the bars. We
riyeted n cross-plece to the fur-ard
ends, and fastened the wagon to it.
Them bands expanded lensthways at
the rate of n hundred and fifty miles
an hour, and carried the wagon right
along ON its own tracks. We could
head off the wire, get up a pole, and
bitch on wire and ketch up with the
end in no time. I'm sayin' gentle
men, it was hot in that vicinity
But the men couldn't climb one of
those columns 2
of course they couldn't-wouldn't
hold 'em.'
How did they take the half hitch
around the insulator Did you squirt
them with the stream 2
Not we. You cant squirt a man
up that way: besides the water was
bilin' hot. We had four thousand
tons of quicksilver, and it'd raise
man to the top of one of them poles
at the rate of a thousand miles
second. That's want l call hot
Now, I'm just shiverin'.'
'You must have gagged the guam
tity of mercury pretty close to stop
in the right plaoe?'
oh we got it after awhile. The
first five men went up five or six hun
dred miles md one of them had to
wait until the following winter to get
back We sent him grub and things
by the quicksilver communication un.
til b. was froze down, and we PAID
hin, double wages while he was gone.
Didn't the wire melt 2
Melt, OF course it did
Then the line didn't stay upF
Deed it did, and that's just what
made it stay up. You know heat
rises, Now when We took bitches
around the insulator, we left the wire
slack, SO when il melted it arched up
instead of bellyin' down, and it could
not fall any morn bridge. The
funniest thing in the whole business
was that when we got through we
had railroad. Them bars of iron
made smashn' good road-for sum-
mer travel.
Not for winter, too 7
Wasn't worth nickel for winter.
When cool weather came on, they
contracted 50 there wasn't morn a
yard or yard and a half of the road
left
Didn't the telegraph wire contract,
too Z
Some, but not much. It frightened
a good deal but stayed where it was.'
Didn't it break z