The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1885-05-12
ABoGUs BOMB.
How a Soldier Broke up Card Play
ing in His Tent.

ing in His Tent.
Wellsboro Agitator.
We were lying in winter quarters, ana
had days and days Of nothing to do.
did not play cards, but my terminate did.
He also had three special friends who
PLAYED, and their meeting place was in
my tent. There they met day after day
in the morning, in the afternoon and
i'm the evening until late at night. Our
tent was built for permanent quarters.
In one end we made a door eighteen
inches wide by three feet high. On the
opposite side was a fireplace built out
side Of small sticks, like stone work, and
covered inside with clay mortar.
The boys. rs usual, were at their cards.
took a friend into my counsels, and we
procured a shell which had blown the
load out without bursting. We fastened
into this shell a long fuse. I then told
my friend to go away several rods to an
empty dry goods box, and strike upon it
so as to make it sound like the booming
of a distant cannon. "Hark ?! said one.
u
battery on the left We may have other
business than card playing by daylight"
Just then "boom - went the old dry
goods box, and instantly l dropped the
shell, with the burning fuse, down the
chimney. The shell fell upon the fire
and rolled under the bunk on which the
boys were sitting. Tch-tch--tch-wen
the burning fuse. The boys thought it
was a message direct from Lees battery.
Two tried to jump through the door at
the same time, and blocked up the mar
row door 50 that neither was able to get
out. A full evacuation of the tent was
finally effected, and a retreat made-not,
however, i'm good order. No one was
killed. but the boys waited behind dis
t9nt trees for more than 80 mortal min
utes. momentarily expecting to see the
tent blown to atoms. After awhile these
heroes came together, and in council of
war they held on the field of fright it
was decided that they had been the vic
TINS of fraud. But there was no more
card playing in my tent.
@
How the Earth is BuiIt up by AIete-
ors.
From the New York Evening Post.
Dr. Kleiber, of st. Petersburg publish
rs in the Astronomische Nachrichten the
results Of Investigations by himself and
DIR. Keller on the amount by which the
earlh's mass is increased each hour by
the meteors falling upon the globe from
space The original memoirs, which are
printed in Russian, have not reached this
country, bat the summary referred to is
extremely interesting. Observations by
Professor Schmidt of Athens, and 9TH
ers, have shown that on an average a
single observer will see about ten mete-
ors per hour. This is a number which
depends upon experiment simply. A
single observer does not command the
whole sky above his horizon, but only
some twenty-three per cent. Of it. Pro
fessor Newton, of Yale College, has
shown that about 1880 times as many
meteors fall on the whole earth in an
one horizon. Combining these separate
deductions, it follows that 10x100x10,
lG0x23 (or abont 450, 600 meteors fall on
the surface of the whole earth each hour.
1t is to be remembered, too, that only
such meteors as would be visible to the
naked eye are included in this enumera-
ton. Every astronomer knows that
there are vast quantities of extremely
minute telescope meteors in the heavens.
One can hardly work for two or three
hours without seeing at least one meteor
in the very small field Of view Of the tele-
scope. The number given above, then,
is clearly a minimum. Professor Alex
ander Herschel has shown that the aver
age weight of a meteor may be taken as
five grams, whence it follows that the
earth receives hourly not less than 1850
Kilograms, or 4, $50 pounds of foreign ma
terial deposited upor- it from the celestial
space.