The Savannah morning news., 1901-01-06

scale you know how much there is of you
by comparison with other objects that
have weight and density.
When you stand outside of yourself
there seems TO be no reason why you
should have any weight The mind, which
is the most important part of you, does
not appear to have weight. is a matter
entirely outside of yourself; you cannot
increase or diminish il by any act of WILL
though sometimes in dreams you seem to
have Invested your body of the downward
pull. which you cali weight, and find your
self floating as easily as a mote in a sun
beam. 1t may be that this is sort of
recollection on the part of the matter
which enters into our composition of a
time when It was really not subject to this
Juggling called graYitaton and fioated
free. In our present environment, how
ever, this law of matter has us in full
control and we cannot escape it for the
smallest fraction OF a second. II oper-
ates steadily ALI the time and we are
obliged always to take il into account
But does the scale actually tell us how
much we weigh? 1t simply calculates
the balance between two forces that are
working against each other, the one
tending to drag us down to the centar
of the earth and the other to send us
spinning out into space. The pull OF
gravitation has the advantage by SO many
happy homes in q hurry and start on
journey from which we should never re-
turn-gong out into space to hobuob with
comets aud asteroids and other celestial
wanderers. This Old earth is a whirler
and twirler. II has more curves than
a baseball in the hands of an expert
pitcher. You have seen the experiment
OF swinging a pail of water over the
head without spilling the water. The
oortt rfxgsv, H..
swing.
1t is as if some giant were stationed at
the point of space where the center of
the earth Isl with a string upward Of
$500 miles in length attached to us, and
were swinging us around at the end of
it, This rate of circular motion Is approx
imately 1000 miles an hour. 1t is a pretty
rapid swing and the fact that on account
Of this rapdity we have considerable
tendency to take long jump several
thousand miles into space must make a
considerable difference in the pressure
when we step on the weighing machine
II the earth were to stop its whirling
some day for short time we should all
suddenly become heavy weights, and Il
is a question whether the ordinary weigh.
ing machine would be adequate to meas,
ure the tendency which our bodies would
nave to press toward the center of the
earth. 1t is plain, therefore. that we
should weigh a good deal more if il
wasn't for the giant swing given us by
the planet upon which we are Involuntary
residents.
In order so tell our real weight Il would
seem, therefore, that it is necessary to
calculate how much of the force of grav-
| itation is counteracted by this circular
motion and the constant tendency to fly
OH at tangent. But, after all this would
not really indicate our weight There is a
| law OF physics which tells us that matter
| attracts according to its mass. Now, sup
| pose that you We're to take journey to
| some world that had only 1-100th of the
mass of this; then, when you had stepped
/ upon the weighing machine and dropped
| in your penny, according to that Paw you
| would weigh but 1-1O0th of the amount
| indicated by the machines around Pitts
| hurg. If you weigh, $50 pounds here you
| would weigh but a pound and a hale
! there. You woud be decidedly in the
| feather weight class could repose com
| forably on the hardest board and with
| the same strength of limb that you now
| possess could leap over ten-story build
| ing or skip across a wide river
! 1t really looks as if we did not weigh
! anything at all and as if what we call
| weight was only an incident to our sur
| roundngs. We are citizens of the uni
| verse, but for the present we are living
| on the planet called earth, and we are
| adjusted to a certain amount of pull by
| our earth mother but if at any time we
| acquire the power to journey to other
| earths and other planets, the scales will
tell different story, though there may
| be no change in the amount of matter
composing our bodies. Our weight just
| happens to be so many pounds because
/ we live on the earth, instead of some 9TH
| err world or planet