Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1885-09-10

laws are inadequate, what is to prevent the
nation from seiZing this monster by the
throat and throttling it. A rigid supervis-
ion of the factories, seizure of all polluted
food and wholesome fine and imprison-
ment would effect wonderful change in a
very short time. The immediate effect
would be slight rise in the price of whole
some food, but the result would be mark
ed improvement in the health of the whole
community. If it is in the province OF the
central government to guard our shores
from the invader how much more is it a
duty to crush the enemy that turks in our
midst. t.-PhHddelphi0 Call.
WORKMANSHIP the force which raised
the mountains had acted all at once and no
disintegrating action had afterWard taken
place, the Alps would have consisted on the
whole of one great folded mass, led up to
by number of lesser undulations, and ris-
ing at the centre into huge boss or elongat-
ed hogs back, which might, perhaps, be
more or less broken here and there by an
occasional dislocation. They would have
formed, not varied range of mountains,
but continuous ridge. From the pictu-
rescue point of view, such an Alps as this
would be practically worthless; it would be
nothing more than one gigantic down, with
out any variety, romance or mystery-a
mere dome of swelling rock, covered on the
summit by a curved sheet of monotonous,
dull and uninteresting snow. Fortunately
for the British tourist and the canny Swiss
hotel keeper, nature manged the thing in
different way. Frost and rain scraped
out the range, as fast as it rose, into jagged
peaks like those of Chamount, or precipitous
cliffs like those of GrindelWald. Rivers
curved out for themselves deep glens like
that of the Valals, and glaciers wore them
selves profound beds like that of the Mer
de Grace, or round lake basins like those of
Grimsel. The softer parts were cut away
by this ceaseless action of wind and rain
and frostand ice sheet the harder and more
crystalline portions alone were left behind,
Scared and weathered into fantastic shapes
as Jagged peak or craggy summit. The
final outcome of the process in the modern
Alps as we actually see them-rising here
into snow-clad bosses, jutting out there in
naked needles; traversed at one spot by
deeply cut torrents, sculptured at another
into beautiful valleys. "They remain"
saws Professor Geikie, "marvelous monu-
ments of stupenduous earth throes, follow
ed by prolonged gigantic denudation.' u
The whole mass is not nearly so high as it
would have been had erosion never kept
pace with elevation; but it is thousand
times more picturesque, more varied, more
wonderful and more dangerous. l add the
last epithets advisedly out of compliment
to the Alpine Club"
LIGHTNING IN TROPICAL CLIMATES
My experience confirms the remarks OF
DR.. Van Danckleman in Nature, respecting
the little damage done by lightning in trop-
ical climates. In the plains of India at the
commencement of the mOnsoOns, storms oc-
cur in which the lightning runs like snakes
all over the sky at the rate Of three or four
flashes in second, and the thunder roars
without break for, frequently, one or two
hours at time. During twelve years resi-
dence in India heard of only two human
beings and, think, three buildings being
struck, although in parts of lower Bengal
the population amounts to more than 6o0
to the square mile. / always attributed
the scarcity of accidents to the depth of
the stratum of heated air next to the
ground keeping the clouds at such height
that most of the flashes pass from cloud
to cloud and very few reach the earth The
idea is supported by the fact that in the
HymalayasatG, 6, ,00Ofeet, objectsare frequent
ly struck I have seen more than a dozen
pine trees which had been injured by the
lightning on the top of one mountain be-
tween 5000 and 5000 feet high. In the
British Islands thunder storms are said
to be more dangerous in winter than IN
summer, and such fact, if true, can be
explained by the very thin stratum of air
then Intervening between the clouds and
earth.- h.-Lontlon Nature.
A STORM OF BIRDs.-Said lighthouse
keeper at Atlantic City, New jersey, re-
member one night late in September there
was what we call dry fog, the kind that
CLEANS and looks bright sometimes without
light. 1 went out on the walk around the
light, thinking l heard a curious noise.
There were thousands of birds dartlng
about in the luminous fog, with the light
dancing on their backs and wings, so 1t re-
minded me of insects about a lamp. The
roar of their wings and their cries were
such that you couldn't hear yourself speak
or even think, and l hung on to the rail
almost crazy from the uproar But came
to mighty quick, I can tell you, for the first
thing | got a knock on the head, bird
taking me right aside of the neck; then,
as turned another struck me in the back,
and don't doubt but that I'd have been
fairly. bombarded off it if hadn't got in.
The birds kept it up all night, and in the
morning we counted over six hundred dead
at the foot of the lighthouse. They were
of all kinds-sparrows, hawks, robins and
mostly duck and snipe, birds that travelled
along the shore going south. You see, they
had seen the light, and getting confused ran
right into it,"
LAMP SHADES AND THE EYES.-PrOfes-
sor II. l.. Cohn describes long series of
determinations of the relative values of va
rious forms of lamp shades. The method
pursued was to measure the brightness of
white paper lying on table over which
the source of artificial light was suspended
at a given distance by means of a Weber
photomete. AS one would anticipate, the
general effect of shade is to increase very
greatly the illumination Immediately under
the light, and not modify it notably at an
angular distance greater than forty-five de-
grees from this region. The last section of
the pamphlet, which deals with the illumi-
nation requisite for the easiest use of the
eyes, is of the most general interest. Taking
as measure of the value of the illunina-
ton in this sense the number of lines which
can be read from newspaper in minute,
and as the unit of illustration that of nor
NAL candle at perpendicular distance of a
meter from the paper, he finds that the
best illumination is very rarely secured,
except Immediately under lamp provided
with a good shade, the author emphasizes
the conclusion that few school children
work in satisfactory light.
LoCUsTs.-California and Oregon are liza