The daily morning Astorian. [volume] (Astoria, Oregon) 1883-1899, 1889-10-19
ED. WRIGHTS DISCOVERY.
The Great Hypothesis of Shrinkage
How 1t Developed From His Experience


Ed. Wright returned yesterday from a
seven weeks trip east, during which ne
travelled 1900 miles; he was in two col
lisions and had several narrow escapes,
but the luck that surrounds newspaper
man stood him in good stead and he
escaped unhurt.
During his visit to Dubuque, Iowa, and
Potosi, Wisconsin, and the valley of the
Connecticut, in which latter place he
spent his youthful years, he says he was
surprised to see how everything had
shrunk up, and he has written a little
book on this matter of shrinkage.
That the globe is slowly shrinking as it
cools is conceded by all scientific persons.
That all things shrink with age after an
irving at maturity Is, however, equally
true, although it is not mentioned in sci
entific textbooks, and, in fact, has never
/ been formally asserted as a scientific
truth prior to this monograph. Wright
presents his theory of universal shrink
age as a hypothesis and not an estab-
lished fact. The evidence in support of
| it is, however, so convincing that few
persons will be able to doubt its truth.
His attention was called to the subject
while on his recent visit to Connecticut
to see his grandmother. He was at the
time visiting his native town in the val
| ley of the Connecticut, which he had left
when he was twelve years old, and had
never before revisited. During all these
years he had preserved a most lively rec
objection of his birthplace. He remem
bered that the house in which he was
| born was an immense frame building
about the size of the D. r. d n. dock.
| He could plainly recall the wide street of
| the village, lined with imposing editices,
among which lowered the vast Congrega-
| tional meeting house, which was one of
the largest buildings on the continent.
Separated from his fathers house by
broad meadow hardly less than mile
wide was majestic river IN which
Wright was accustomed to battle his
| youthful person, and from which he
| drew with his juvenile hook and line
"shiners" and dace of the average weight
of from one to two pounds. The most
perfect photograph could not have fur
nished a more truthful and vivid picture
of his native village than the one he car
ried in his memory for half century.
On revisiting the place this summer he
was at once struck by the enormous
shrinkage that everything had under
gone. The ancestral mansion had shrunk
to at least one-half of its original size,
and was now small wooden cottage.
The wide street had become q mere
country lane. The imposing residences
of judge Smith and of deacon Brown
were not much larger than the Wright
mansion, and as for the Congregational
meeting house. it had shrunk so much
that, instead of holding the ten or fifteen
thousand persons that Wright distinctly
| remembers to have seen within its walls
on Thanksgiving day, it could now hold
not more than six or seven hundred.
Furthermore, the majestic river had be-
come mere brook, and the shrlnkage
of the meadow had brought it within
stones throw of the house.
Such extensive changes as these natu-
rally filled him with astonishment,
mingled with the scientific desire to in
vent a hypothesis to account for them.
Of the facts there could be no possible
| doubt, for not only did he possess re-
markably good memory, but also the
| skill in accurately measuring distances
and magnitudes by the eye, has often
challenged the admiration of his friends.
| There was q tremendous shrinkage in
land. water and buildings, and it was a
priOri probable that it was due to one
and the same cause.
Now, he knew that the gradual cooling
of the earth was causing constant
| shrinking in its circumference, but 1T
was hardly probable that the rate of
| shrinkage should be the same over every
| square mile of the earth's surface. EYi-
IDENTIFY the rate of shrinkage at his native
| town had been exceptionally rapid, and
| this explained the great changes which
| had taken place i'll the width of the
street, the meadow, and the river. The
shrinkage in the size of the houses had
kept pace with the shrinkage in the land,
and that it was due to the came cause,
namely, gradual process of cooling,
which Is the concomitant of age, was
hypothesis which Wright lost no time in
| formulating.
This theory is briefly as follows: Loss
of heat in nearly all material substances
is followed by reduction in size. The
earth decreases in size as its internal
| fires grow less fervent, and buildings,
whether of wood, brick or stone. must
| shrink, for the reason that heat, being q
mode of motion, and the component
parts of a house being immoYable, the
latter inevitably grow cooler the longer
| they remain at rest, and as they grow
cooler they shrink. The process may,
from reasons which We DO not as yet un-
derstand, proceed more rapidly in one
place than in another, but it is every
where in progress. This theory enables
us to understand why the ancients called
buildings gigantic the remains of which
now appear to US those of comparatively
small buildings. Indeed, Wright has
calculated that the pyramids of Cheops,
provided Mariette Bey is right in giving
them the age Of 1000 years, must have
been nearly one third larger at the time
they were built than they now are.
This hypothesis is undoubtedly one of
the most remarkable of modern contri-
buttons to science, and the more one
studies it the more it becomes evident
that this hypothesis supplies a manifest
want which nearly all men feel when, af-
ter many years, they revisit the home of
their childhood.
The Verdict Unanimous.