The Calhoun chronicle. [volume] (Grantsville, W. Va.) 1883-1984, 1902-03-04
PURARS
E3S CIE=,NSlCBI

The United States Coast and Good
etic Survey now has four magnetic
observatories cooperating i'm the in
ternational magnetic work will con-
time during the period OF Antarctic
exploration. They are one at Chel.
tenham, Md. near Washington; anoth-
er at Baldwin. near Lawrence. Kan;
third ut Sitka. Alaska. aud fourth
near Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands.
Can YOU tell by the manner in which
rainwater eats its way down hill
side whether the soil was originally
covered with forest? If the tract was
once wooded can You. by the same
sign tell about how long il has been
clearedE Such observations are full
of interest. The rains make rapid
work i'm eroding newly cleared and
newly TILED land and hilsides; but the
prairie has reached state of compare
tive equilibrium.
The Imperial Academy of Sciences
of Vienna has botanical expedition
at work in Brazil. Word has been re-
ceived from it that the Rivers Nam
bre and Aguapihy, which flow through
an almost uneXplored country, hyrve
been navlgated in canoes. and that
large consignments have been shipped
for Vienna in the shape of living
plants and roots, herbarium specimens,
preparations in spirits, woods, fruits
and economic products.
The deepest of all borngs is at
Parnsdrowitz, near Ratlbor, in Silesia,
where the Prussion Government sunk
well 2003.34 metres below the sur
face (nearly 6573 fee0. The diameter
of the boring dminishes from O.O92
metre to O0G9. The upper part of the
well is lined. Observations of tenn
perature have been made every thirty
one metres throughout the depth and
the average depth corresponding to an
/ increase of one degree Centigrade in
the mean temperature is 34.1 metres.
The results are practically the same as
those obtained in the well of Schlade-
bach, situated near by, which is only
256 metres less deep.
New England rains are very I'M
steady, but in the long run reliable.
forty-eight inches n year is not a local
affair, but for the most part an impor-
tation. 1t comes barring a slight
Atlantic sprinkling along the COAST
from the Gulf of Mexico-a part of
the Gulf Stream shipped over land
/ by an especially directed southwest
wind. But the southwest wind is not
careful carrier. 1t spills it's load all
/ along the road up the Mississippi and
Ohio valleys, so that as you look at
n rain chart OF the country, you see
it rains most near the Gulf, n little
, less and less as you go away from it,
! till when it arrives in New England
/ only four inches on the average re-
main in it for the monthly allowance.
! The form of our satellite is that of
| an ellipsoid Of revolution with its
/ axis almost equal Theoretical consid-
| erations led various mathematicians,
/ notably Hansen, to the conclusion that
[ the longest axis was directed toward
| the earth. Professor Franz, director
of the observatory of Breslau, from a
/ series of precise measurements on
4 negatives taken ut the Lick Observn-
| tory. arrives at the result that the
/ difference between the axes is imper-
! ceptible. The subject has lately been
investigated by NJ. Mainka with the
/ heliOmeter and he concludes that the
I axis directed toward the earth is not
/ above four-tenths OF one per cent
/ longer than the other-a quantity Of
the same order as the errors of obser-
/ walton.