Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1899-03-04

1
was bringing. Before noon four
cen waterspouts were seen. Each
began with a rotary motion IN the
water, a large column, with mist cap
LOO to $50 feet deep, then gradually
Using for three or four minutes, the
clouds at the same time forming an
inverted cone which alternately dip
ped and rose until it met the cone
Of water. The column then remained
unchanged for some minutes, when.
getting out of perpendicular, it
parted in the middle, the TOD rising
and the bottom falling.
The strength of vision in savages
proves to be much less extraordinary
than was supposed. DIR. Beheim, on
visit to johannesburg, has tested
the sight of 1858 Kaffirs, Besutos,
Hottentots, Zulus and Bushmen, find
ing 1909 with normal vision equal to
that in Europeans, 257 with stronger
sight, and 81 with weaker. Phenom-
enonal vision was shown by a Kaffir
girl of fourteen. who perceived OBJ
jects at 80 feet away as we'll as nor
NAL white could at 20 feet.
In the Marconi system of wireless"
telegraphy, now in use between an
English lighthouse and lightship
II miles distant, vertical wires on
very tall poles are necessary at the
stations. Seeking to obyiate this
difficulty, a German experimenter
has connected the receiving and
transmitting apparatus to horizontal
wires about 100 yards long, running
parallel to each other, and has sent
messages 81 miles between such
wires.
Liquefed gases, at atmospheric
pressure, a4'e found to have these
boiling points, in Centigrade degrees
below zero: Sui phur dioxide, 10,
Chlorine, 33; ammonia, IS; carbon
dioxide, rs; nitrous oxide, IS; nitric
oxide, 1853, oxygen, 1888; carbon mon
'xide, 100; air, 1872; hydrogen, 236.
.. H
Despite the apparently cap1icious
distribution of land and water, the
idea that the earth has regular plan
says DR.. J. W. Gregory in a paper to
the Royal Geographical Society. dates
from the dawn of the geographical
science. Noticing the radiation of
he seas from the Levantine area to
Il boundless ocean, the early classical
geographers described the land as an
sland floating on vast sea, whose
'hannels converged toward the clas-
,ical hub of the universe. The same
'lan reappears in the mediaval
'wheel-maps," with spoke-hke areas
# land radiating from the center at
Jerusalem. Later geographers have
bought the earth :spheroid based
tetrahedron, others have de-
ribbed it as an oblate spheroid of
evolution, but recent discoveries
ave proven that it is not spheroid
any sense, being fattened at the !
'quator as we'll as the poles, and |
therefore, regarded as an ellipsoid, |
with three unequal axes. There is
good reason to believe now that the |
Earth is not even an ellipsoid, the
rorthern and southern hemispheres
icing unlike, and the earth therefore |
haped like a badly made peg-top. |
Prof. G.. Ell. Darwin has even said |
hat it more nearly resembles a pota-
. than an orange. There is evil
lence to show, moreover, that the
earth's figure is till more irregular
han a pegtop, and that it's shape
mas undergone series of additional
determinations. The north pole, it
may be added, is now known to shift
lis position, being influenced by move
nents of the atmosphere, the un-
equal melting of polar ice, and heavy
-nowfalls on the Siberian highlands.
H.
One of the most brilliant of Ma
lures effects the autumnal tints of
Ieaves-is little understood even now.
From laboratory experiments and OBJ