The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1891-02-19
SNOW, HAIL AND STEAM.
SOMETHING ABOUT THE,p
III MANY PECULlARITIES. 0
Snow and Hail Arc tho Self-same Thinp VIII,
Slight Variation In Formatlon-Steam rs
is Nothing Moro nor Less than
Simply Likewise. II

railing snow IL THIS latitude, saws
tho Philadelphia Times. seems as LIGHT
as the down from ducks breast. As
they SEQ it in some countries, how
ever. it is not SO light nor so harmless
in its descent. Snow and hail are tho
same thing, with the exception that
the former is made slowly ana the
latter quickly. Vapor slowly acted
upon by current Of cold air produces
snow. while an extremely cold curren +
suddenly introduced into heavy mass
OF vapor produces hail. In some
countries it is very common for these
extremes Of heat and cold to come
together in the atmosphere, and the
result is hailstorms that are sometimes
very destructive.
In India the falling hailstones are
seldom smaller than walnuts, and
sometimes they are as large as pump
kins. But what would you think of a
hailstone as large as cooking stove?
There is an account of one, we'll
vouched for, that fell in Hungary on
May S, 1882, measuring three feet in
length and nearly two feet thick. A
block Of hail fell in England, in 1919,
which a local newspaper described as
''of irregular shape and nearly twenty
feet in circumference"
OF course all exceptionally large
hailstones are simply aggregations of
smaller ones that happen to come to-
gether in their descent and freeze into
one mass while passing through a
stratum of very cold air.
But if you want to learn how utterly
weak the efforts of the poets are. in
their descriptions of 1.-The beautiful
snow," just use microscope to view a
snowflake. 1t is made up of many
patterns, all symmetrical and incom-
parably beautiful. There are perfect
six-pointed stars and plates of many
exquisite forms studded with needle
shaped crystals. Then there are pris-
matte forms emitting delicate rays
comprising all the colors OF the rain
bow.
The halos that we sometimes see
round the sun and the moon, with the
faint blending of prismatic colors, are
caused by tho light falling on strata of
either vapor or snow particles at high
attitudes. The best authorities seem
to think that these strata are neces-
sarily snow, because they are certainly
above the level at which the tempera-
ture would naturally convert vupor
into snow.
Did you ever see steam? Almost
anybody that has seen locomotive, or
even teakettle, would probably char
acterize the question as absurd. New
ertheless, you can't see steam. The
white substance that you see near the
spout of teakettle for instance, is
exactly the same substance that was
first put into the kettle-water. What
is commonly thought to be esca ping
steam is simply mass of little glob-
ules condensed from steam by the air
into which the steam escapes. Steam
is as transparent air. 1t is really a
gas evolved from water. A cubic inch
OF water expands to vast proportions
when converted into gas or steam, as
we usually call it, and this expansion
makes the power that drives the loco
motive and which would burst the tea
kettle if it were not for the open spout
and the safety valve lid.
Here is something about steam that
possibly you don't know. 1t doesn't
need Matchmaking substance to gen.
crate steam. Snow, ice and water
give off water at every temperature.
Steam used for propelling locomotives,
for example, is generated rapidly bv
the combustion of coal or wood and
the quick expansion produces the pow
err. Steam naturally escaping from
ice or water at a temperature of saw
sixty degrees is precisely the same as
that which coal or wood heats up to
the boiling point.
OF course you know that water be-
gins to freeze at thirty-two degrees
above zero, but do you know that ice
will form naturally, under certain con-
ditions. at a temperature Of forty-five
degrees above zero? In parts of In
dia, where freezing temperature is
rarely experienced, the natives secure
ice in this way: On layers of straw
they place shallow, porous, earthen
pots, which they fill with water early
in the afternoon. These porous pots
reduce the temperature of the water
by absorption before night. The
freezing point is then reached bv
radiation, which intensifies the cold
bringing the temperature to thirtv-
two degrees or lower.
In this way ice is secured in large
quantities in thickness more than AN
inch and then these layers are frozen
into blocks by water poured over
them. Thus we see that the moor
heather Of India, OF whom we hear so
much. know thing or two that even
some OF us highly enlightened people