The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1888-09-05
DELICATE MACHINERY.
BY PROF. DAVID SWING.

can be seen the implements - which
exact measure, superficial C solid, can
be made and by which weights can be
determined. When land is cheap q
sauatter can mark out farm by
streams or hills or clumps of trees, and
lac can guess that it is a mile and half
to the blacksmith shop, but when the
Government wishes To find base-line
from which to start out upon a survey
OF coast or prairie ii must have a most
exact mile or ten or twenty mile datum.
No ten-foot pole o. tape-line will meet
! the demand, because an error OF foot
in ten miles would become a serious de-
Walton before the engineers had passed
along from Maine 10 California. The
poles which the Government uses for
making such exact measurements are
! made for meeting all the demands of
temperature, and would fill circus
wagon with their bulk and numbers.
Wonderfully delicate are the bal
ances which are for weighing precious
metals and stones and the instruments
for finding the exact size of ball or
cylinder.
All these instruments and machines
are made necessary Ey the fact that
| "a
world eight thousand miles in diam
eter, but by the fact that he belongs to
a planet in which there is an infinite
sniallnoss as well as an infinite large
ness. Man must compass not only the
great oceans aud mountains bat also
the atoms which are in the air he
| breathes, the water he drinks, of which
atoms, # any are absent, his cheek will
grow pale and his body will tremble.
He must move ont in his career as the
surveyors for the Government move
out TO their task-with mind fully fixed
upon the value of atoms IS well as of
great bulks.
No two faces are alike, because ma
ture cannot arrange countless millions
OF atoms twice in one form. If the lit
tie bits of glass in the instrument cam
not fall twice alike, much less can the
microscopic parts which make up q
tree, or a face, or a human form, as
| sumo twice the one exact image.
Hence, no two minds are alike. The
passions and logical forces, the grada-
tons of energies which combine to
create a Webster, or Lincoln, or a De
| Stael, or Carlyle, will meet only once
In the entire history Of man. None of
these great ones will ever come back to
| the earth, because the parts which COM
bine to make n Byron or a Virgil are
numerous as the army OF XerXes, and
will no more assemble again than that
exact kind of army will at some time
invade Greece again led by duplicate
Xerxes.
Each mind feels certain wave of
unhappiness when il looks in upon itself
and marks how many wheels must be
IN perfect order to secure what is called
sanity. In such moments of introspec-
tioa the thought comes that not only is
| the thinker crazy but all men and
women are not little crazy; that per-
iect sense is impossible. A professor
in Chicago college walked into canal
in broad daylight. He was thinking of
something else than the canal and of
his good black suit of clothes. He en-
!oyed his scientific reverie, but he got
wet He had to retire to his home and
change the external wrappings of his
wise, pompous soul. The man who
was telling this story of the unfortunate
| professor walked out of railway car
ut the next station and left his valse In
the rack 70 go on and on and never 70
| he found. Thus while the canal wet
the clothes OF one rational being, the
railway carried away all the CLEAN shirts
OF another. A third man got off at the
first station to wait for the next train
TO bring him his railway ticket and his
| bunch OF keys. In an hour the ticket
and keys came, but his big valise had
been left behind and the trunk was not
| locked.
The persons designated as insane are
q little less rational than the average,
but in each person in the circle of ma
| tons there IS going on perpetual
struggle between what is called the
vital principle and the millions of
atoms-tho atoms being liable to stam-
| pede like herd OF wild cattle
Ii the physical condition of man is
improving in the civilized lands, much
of that advance comes from the new
| Importance that is attached to the small
things in the material kingdom. 1t
was once thought that air was air,
whether the thing was found in a base
ment and breathed over and over
| hundred times or was sucked in in the
mountains. Some people still think 50.
and four of these rational beings Will
A.NlN ave IIAlANo III ~ Nitot iitAt WIFI
the windows all down and will attrib-
ute their sleepy condition TO the tame
ness of the country along the road.
There is, however, large multitude
| Of persons who know that not all the
substance breathed is always air. Air
may be converted into some mixed gas,
| just as a glass of water may become
mixed with arsenic or morphine With
the air thus mixed, To breathe is 70 die
as surely as not to breathe.
Better health is coming from mans
| deeper study of the atomic empire.
The body and the mind are not
threatened 10y earthquakes and cyclones
only, but chiefly by the invisible atoms.
Men are often afraid to cross the sea
because OF the storm that may come,
but the tempes. in glass of whisky is
Ten times as dangerous, because the
body and soul are more at the mercy of
atoms than of shipwrecks and lorna
| does. Men who dare danger on the
battlefield and outliye a long and
bloody war, where cannon balls and