Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Benton County, Or.) 1900-1909, 1902-06-17
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41S D. 40
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jave desert Is said to have piled up
sand In Santa Ana thirty feet.
Sir Robert Ball. professor OF mathe-
matics and astronomy at Cambridge
University, says America is doing more
and better work in astronomy than the
whole Of Europe combined.
The American Bridge Company, Of
Philadelphia, win construct twenty
steel bridges alsng the line OF the
Uganda Railroad in East Africa. the
cost to be about 100000.
The force known as heat Is OF great
importance. The earth Is hotter below
the surface and probably has q very
high temperature toward its center. In
some places not very far below its sur
face 1t contains highly heated rock.
which occasionally flows over the sur
face during volcanic eruptions. In 9TH
er places we find hot springs In connec-
ton with volcanic action.
One Of the peculiar industries Of Ire
land which has recently received a
fresh stimulus is the manufacture OF
poplin, a kind Of goods In which silk
and wool are so combined that the silk
constitutes the surfaces and the wool
the interior part. The silk comes from
China, but it is all dyed in Dublin, be-
cause they aver In the Irish capital that
there is some quality in the Dublin
water which insures q brilliance and
permanence Of color that has not been
attained elsewhere.
The charm of the yellow metal sell
dom asserts itself more clearly than in
the account given by Hugues LIE Roux,
French explorer, Of the method OF
collecting gold from the placer mines
of Abyssinia. The precious metal Is
found by the natives in small nuggets
and dust in the beds of streams. They
carry it to market in large quilts, which
are as transparent as tubes OF glass.
The brokers who buy the gold work it
up into the form of circles Of the aver
age size of a heavy lingering. But
these circles are not quite closed, be-
cause the purchaser always insists on
twisting them, like strings Of molasses
candy, in order to detect possible adul.
terations. Experienced fingers can tell
If the yielding metal possesses the ex-
act malleability Of gold.
If it were not for the countless tril-
lions Of dust particles that float, sep
arately invisible, in the atmosphere,
there could be no rain-drops, snow crys-
tails or hailstones. From a perfectly
dustless atmosphere the moisture
would descend in ceaseless rain with
out drops. The dust particles serve as
nuclei about which the vapor gathers.
The snow crystal is the most beautiful
creation Of the aerial moisture, and the
hailstone is the most extraordinary.
The heart Of every hailstone, as Arthur
Fl. Bell shows in knowledge, is a tiny
atom Of dust. Such an atom, with a
little moisture condensed about it. is
the germ from which may grow hail
stone, capable of Telling a man or
smashing window. But first it must
be caught up by a current Of air and
carried to the level Of the lofty cirrus
clouds, five or six, or even ten miles
high. Then, continually growing by
fresh accessions of moisture, 1t begins
its long plunge to the earth, spinning
through the clouds, and flashing in the
sun like diamond bolt shot from a
rainbow.