Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-12-24
FACTS FOR THE CURIOUS.

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FISHES have been taught to come
when called by their names.
A FEMALE spider will suffer death be-
fore she will forsake her eggs.
A VERY slight declivity suffices to give
the running motion to water. Three
inches per mile in smooth, straight
channel gives velocity of about three
miles an hour. The Ganges, which
gathersthe water of the Himalaya mount
aims, the loftiest in the world, is, at $50
miles from its mouth, only 800 feet above
the sea, and to fall these 800 feet in the
long course of the river is said to require
more than a month.
If two cannons stand side by side on
height, one of which will send a ball a
mile and the other half mile, the two
balls, if fred together, will reach the
ground at the same instant, though at
first thought it would seem that the ball
which travels twice as far as the other
would take longer time to accomplish
it. This is because the horizontal force
OF the ball does not oppose in the least
the downward force Of gravity. If it
were thrown upward instead of horizon
tally the projectile force would be
opposed to gravity, and in proportion as
the direction came near to being vertical.
As horizontal force does not interfere
with the action of the force of gravity,
it follows that if ball be dropped at the
instant at which another is fred, both
will reach the ground at the same instant.
Suppose it takes three seconds for ball
to fall from the top of tower to its
foot. The ball projected horizontally
from the cannon, being operated upon
by the same force of gravity, will fall
just as far and will be on level with it.
Both balls fall farther and farther each
second, both being accelerated in the
same degree, because it is done by the
same force. The same holds true in all
cases. A bullet dropped from a level
with the barrel of a gun, paradoxical as
it may seem, will fall to the ground no
sooner than one which is shot from the
gun.
PROF. YOUNG, in discussing the suns
heat. says that if it were surrounded by
shell of ice one mile in thickness, the
inner surface touching the photosphere,
it would melt it's way out in two hours
and thirteen minutes. If the shell were
an inch thick and 1876, OOO, 600 miles in
diameter, it would be dissolved in the
same time. Or, if We could build up a
solid column of ice from the earth to the
sun, two miles and quarter in diane
eter, spanning the inconceivable abyss
OF SO, OOO, 900 miles, and then if the sun
should concentrate his power upon it,
it would dissolve and melt, not in an
hour nor minute, but in single Sec
ond one swing of the pendulum, and it
would be water seven more, and it
would be dissipated in vapor. An easy
calculation shows that to produce this
amount of heat by combustion would re-
quire the hourly burning of a layer oil
anthracite coal about sixteen feet Give
meters) thick over the entire surface Of
the sun-four- fifths of ton per hour on
each square foot of surface-at least
eight times as much as the consumption
of the most powerful blast furnace known
to art. It is equivalent to a continuous
evolution of more than 1000 horse pow.
er on every square foot OF the suns
whole area. As Sir William Thomas has
shown, the sun, if it were composed of
solid coal and produced its heat by COM
bustion, would burn out in less than 6,
600 wears.