Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1885-12-31

THE WORLDS DUST.
what Il Il, How It Is Made and the
Agencies That Make It.
Where the dust comes from is often
. wonder to housekeepers who find
that, no matter how carefully the house
be kept, the dust viii accumulate as
mysteriously as fluff in vest pocket.
A visible way to account for dust on fur
niture is to trace it to the last carpet
sweeping, but this is only one Of the
sources of house dust. It comes from
the ceilings, from the imperceptibly
slow disintegration of the walls, from
the decay of the furniture, from cloth
ing, from human bodies, from the
plants and trees outside, and even from
beyond the orbit of the earth, SO that
portion of the dust upon lady'a piano
may have just arrived on the earth from
a distance of untold millions of miles.
Various estimates have been made of
the amount of meteoric dust daily de-
posted on the earth by the meteors
which are necessarily arriving, and the
total, while relatively small, is absolute
ly very large.
From dust to dustmakers the transit
ton is easy and natural. Dustis merely
matter of any kind-mineral, animal or
vegetable-in small particles and dried,
so that it may be readily transported by
the wind from one point to another.
The two great dustmakers are air and
water. The action of the former is ex-
ceedingly slow, so that ages are required
for the conversion of stone into dust,
but if time enough be allowed the thing
will be done, little by little the particles
of the stone separating one from an
other, until finally the disintegration by
the action of the air alone is complete,
and the bit of flint or granite is con-
verted into little heap of dust But
far more rapid is the disintegration
when the air is aided by water. Water
is chemically great solvent, taking
up portion of each substance placed
in it, or over which it passes. This
solid matter it seldom retains as a per-
manent solution, but generally, by evap-
Grafton, deposits elsewhere in fine
powder, which needs only a little sun
and wind to convert it into dust.
Something more than three-fifths of
the rain which falls over England and
Wales sinks into the ground and goes to
feed the springs from which, in dry
weather, except in the neighborhood of
snow-clad mountains, all brooks, streams
and rivers derive their whole supply of
water, and as these increase in volume
the farther they flow, it is evident that
they must receive their supplies not only
at their source, but at various points
along their course. The river Thurn,
for instance, starts with flow of four
teen cubic feet of water per minute; but
a quarter of mile from the spring
head, though it has not been joined by
any visible tributary streams, the flow
has increased to thirty-one cubic feet, at
a distance of five miles and half it has
increased again to three hundred and
twenty cubic feet, SO that other, and
perhaps many small springs, must have
been discharged into it. Now, all rum
ming water, whether it flows above or
below ground, has some power of wear
ing away it's channel. Flowing at the
rate of about three inches a second, it
will remove fine clay; at double this
speed it will remove fine sand; attwelve
inches it will sweep away fine gravel.
and at three feet it will roll along stones
as big as an egg; while mountain tor
rents which have dwindled to mere
threads, swell in few hours to such a
size that they will carry before them
sand and rocks, and trees, will sweep
away bridges, and bury meadows ten or
fifteen feet deep in rubbish. Then, again,
mere dribble of water flowing perpetu-
ally over limestone rock will in time pro-
duce results such as seem quite out OF
| proportion to its size; and we may in
| fact safely affirm that even the most
sluggish stream wears its bed more or
less, in one way or another, either chem
ically or mechanically. 1t is by gravel
and sand, though they look SO much less
important than the powders, that the
chief work is done; but much depends
upon the inclination and subsequent
rapidity of the current, as well as upon
the nature of the rocks with which it has
to deal. Even rivulet, when flooded,
will transport from one thousand to
three thousand tons of gravel in a day,
and during the rainy season in India,
when every river and mountain torrent
are swollen, when for days and nights
together nothing is heard but the crush
of trees and powders and great masses
of earth and rock, three to four thou
sand feet in length, fall from the noun
tain side and are ground to sand and
mud in the boiling waters, the channel
of every stream, great and small, is en-
larged, and enormous quantities of min
eral matter are carried down to the
ocean. One river in Bengal removes a
depth of ninety feet of stone and earth
from its bed every year, and the Ganges
brings down in the same time more than
enough solid material to build up forty
two great pyramids
No small part of the worlds dust is
made by the winters cold. A rain falls,
the rock are porous, and in every crack
and Granny the water penetrates; then
comes a cold spell, the water in
the rocks freezes, swells with irresisti-
BILE force, and in every direction a
thousand tiny riffs are made, which are
increased in size and made more num-
erous by subsequent winters until the
solid rock is blown away by the winds.
Glaciers are wonderful agents for
transporting earth and stone from
place to place, and not only do they
carry huge masses of matter about,
but they also act as grinders and pol
ishers, thus converting large quantities
of the hardest stones into fine dust.
Icebergs also act in the same way, and
almost to the same extent. Plants con-
tribute to the formation of dust by their
power of disintegration. All plants
require more or less silica in their
composition, and when the substance
of the plant is again received into its
original constituents the result is silica
in the dust. The vegetable acids OF
plants have also a solvent power on
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