Hand County press. (Miller, Dakota [S.D.]) 1882-1893, 1888-01-26
AT FULL SPEED.
RATES OF MOTION OF THINGS c.
lESTtAl AND TERRESTRIAL.

A Seventh Rate Star Travels Tw. Hun
dred Miles Fer Second-Itaiiwny Train's
Slow race-speed of Thought-Travei
of fTides-Elcctricity.
The radical origin Of speed seems TO he
I'm the direction of extending, increasing,
doing well, having room. There could
not well bc "A more striking illustration of
these last phases Of tie word than 1880
Groombridg;e tearing hcatlong through
space nj the rate Of 200 miles in second.
Quite a seventh rate, star, too, although
the best on rccorsi 50 fur. IL is speed
which goes as ms, j beyond the grasp Of
imagination rs II v1,s,rips the swiitness
OF our nerve messages, which only do n
trlfic OF the twelfth Of mile in the same
lima The only way 10 yet some idea Of
No. lS30's gait OF going Is to 20 to work
somewhat TINS; The f;l,tcSt running now
made by English railways is perhaps the
Great Northcra's 105 miles from Gran
than in ilS minutes; but trains have
been driven 100 miles an hour; double it,
and We coycr in an hour what this par
ticulgr bat 10y no means bright star does
In second. Then we must multiply the
800 mikes an hour velocity by sixty, and
then again increase that sixty fold more
before we come up with 1880 Groom
bridge. lie goes 9SS times as fast as
sound, So times faster than a poor Mar
tint Henry bullet, and he can give the sun
Gn his Journey toward Hercules 19J miles
a secc..d and lick easily. One begins to
feel sorry for the sun worshipcrs.
SOMETHING SLOW.
1t IL n relief, after this, TO think OF
something slow, such as u French express
or the creeping of the blood corpusclcs
through the capillaries Of the rctina,
where they give those curious specters
that ut times annoy good sight; IL takes
them an hour TO move foot. Snnils are
race horses TO this, doing six good, long
PAGES in the same time. Burckhardt's
best camcls Of the IIcdiaz took ten hours
to cover III miles. After all Is said ard
done, lost and won, the speed of ''thc boat
race is but some thirteen miles an hour;
n common house iiy In its sauntcring
flight goes third faster. a drop Of rain
falls at the rate Of twelve yards a second,
and u man can throw stone at the rate
Of about thirty-six miles an hour. As
quick as thought Is "a well worn old say
ing; but that may mean but a jog trot old
gait, too--witncss The legendary Scot who
was told joke in the coach at Berwick,
and when he got TO Nottingham slapped
his leg In triumph and said, II hae 1t
noor' at the rate OF a hunt was n
phrase OF our forefathcrs, generally used
I'm bud sense, though, Of things that
were going wrong. But what can horse
do, after all7--some forty miles an hour
for short distances; and such names as
Eclipse and Flying Childers were given
before the Scotch limited or the Wild
Irishman were dreamed OF.
A greyhound can go at the rate OF
about flfty-seyen miles an hour. -Four
carrier pigeons Of Count Karoly's flew
from pesth to Paris in 1884 ut the rate OF
III miles mn hour, kept up for seven
hours: but swallows are computed TO do
1j0 and swifts as much as 200. Ariel,
who rode upon the curled clouds aud
drank the air before him, might DO men
toned here, and that--perhaps IL was no
more than threat Of putting "A girdie
round about the earth in forty minutes
WAS dangerously near the later discovered
crime Of disrespect to the equator, which
takes twenty-four hours, at ], 0i0 miles an
hour, to every turn. In very high old
astrological time the brag might have
brought that tricky spirit" within the
blasphemy laws. Tides do not give land
lnbl,ers, or sailors either, very high no
tion Of speed but whewell has calculated
that in the North Pacific the tide commo-
tion travels at the considerable rate OF
1880 miles an hour, while surface tenn
pest wave moves but fifty. But the COM
motion Of a proper earthquake, like that
Of Granada, in December, 1884, beats the
tides hollow. The shock reached Green
wich in seven minutes, being some S,S40
miles an hour.
HOW SOUND TRAVELS
An American ice yacht will skim along
ut seventy miles an hour, Just beating the
eagle and the packages in the postofiicc
pneumatic tubes. Sound, which travels
but some l, ,l08 feet in second through
temperate air, Is sent along eighteen times
Us fast rs that, or about four miles sec
ond, through white pine timber. The fine
old fashioned house ghost was no; much
of gadabout, being Of Il domestic and
even mopsh turn, and we do not know
what the usual speed of bran new
spook IL, Sut it ca: scarcely exceed that.
II we only admit that the builder OF n row
of houses, or u big country hcdsc, puts,
accidentally or Of purpose, the timbers OF
one room or dwelling end on TO those Of
another, the noises of haunted house
NOulti tdSiis tAuistiHtu W tiC Shltiioi
ability shown by deal scantling for con-
veying sound from distance, and many
au innocent poor spook would be let of
free
II IS not quite modest TO speak about
ourselves in all this wonderful company;
but modesty, after all, Is but secondary
quality, aud we are individually, each one
of us, nolens volens, waltzing round the
sun at the rate Of eighteen miles a second.
This leads again TO 1880 Groombridge,
who, SO far rs the observations Of astrono-
mcrs have yet gone, yields only to comets,
Hallcy's, when near the sun. going thirty
seven miles further in the second. But
the big comet Of 1913 bent that consider
ably, reaching a speed OF 325 miles q
second Passing by solar eruptions greater
speed must be sought in far more tcnuous
essences. The electric current ia an over
heated wire travels ., 800 miles in q second
Of time, and still, like Speed, servant to
Valentine, IL IL ''chi,iden for being too
Slow The electric light seems To our
instruments just to beat that Of the sun
the drum in the old song says, II doubt
it''--flitshing lSS, 900 miles in n second,
and the greatest velocity ever measured by
crawling man is that Of the electric dis
charge OF Lcydcn bottle through slen
der copper wire. which was computed Il
be 2s9, 900 miles a second. Satur
day Review.
Whales Beeoming Numeroos.