The farmer and mechanic., 1903-09-08
EDITORS AND OTHERS SHOULD
BE SEEKING AFTER TRUTH
Capt Ashe Tries to Find Out Why Water From One
Mountain Spring is Cold and Another Hot
Raleigh Taxes--PrCe Of Cotton.

To the Editor: one Of the papers read
before the North Carolina Press Conven-
ton last May was uncommonly good.
The author inculcatcd that the editor
should busy himself seeking after truth.
1t was an excellent idea, and admirably
enforced 1t made quite an impression or
me. So all this pleasant summer the idea
has not departed from me: and the other
afternoon several gentlemen being on the
porch drinking III the beauty Of the lovely
scene, l enqulred how did 1t happen that
the spring on Junalueka was 50 very cold.
All eyes at once were turned on Juaa-
luska and one Of the gentlemen began to
explain. Well SAID he, 1T is not a
local stream. 1t comes from 4 great dist
ancc. Its source is higher than IJunalu~ka
l think ii must come from up about Hud-
sons Bay-pasSes under the great lakes
somewhere and finally rises through some
Of the assures IN the rocks to the top OF
Junaluska. 1t is astonishing how full the
cart is" he continued ''of streams. You
can't dig a well, hardly, without hitting
one You can't bore down two or three
thousand feet anywhere, but you viii get
an artesian well, the water spouting up
above the surface; which shows that its
source is above the ground somewhere
Why" said he. you know the Mississippi
runs up hill. Its mouth down at the Gulf
! is farther away from the centre of the
earth than its source up in Minnesota is.
The waters Of the Mississippi run up hill,
to all ntents and purposes. And the
source of the Spring up on JunalusIla is
still farther north-Where there is a sup
ply of the coolest water.
Presently, some one, as a sort Of reply
to that argument, cnQuired how did he ac-
count for the hot water that gushcs up
in fifty bold discharges at the Hot Springs
just west of Asheville.
"Oh," he remarked that water no
matter what It's source, dcscends in its
| course to such a depth into the bowels
| of the earth that it gets heated. At some
| distance below the earth's surface say a
! hundred feet, the temperature becomes
| Interchangeable; and then every hundred
| feet you go down, the temperature rises
one degree. So if you go far enough
down, you will get boiling water
"Well, then" said the Doubling Thomas,
| why don't the stream on Junaluska get
| hot?' Very dubious the response came:
4 expect it did come out hot at first;
! but it has been running so long and has
all the time been so aWfully cold that it
| chilled the hole 1T comes through, and now
| retains the original temperature it started
with
Another gentleman now took a hand
! and said eff the temperature of the
| earth, beginning hundred feet below the
surface, increases one degree Tor every
hundred feet rs you go down; then begin
| ming five thousand feet down, it increases
| one degree for every hundred feet that go
go up. SO if the tempera ture of the earth
! is say 20 degrees at about sea level,
| inside of Junaluska where the temperature
keeps on diminishing until you get to
! the top-and it being 5000 feet high. its
| interior ought to be so degrees lower than
about sea level: or somewhere in the
neighborhood of 90 degrees. And" he re
marked you know there are some noun
! tains even In the hot ATTITUDES whose
| tops are always covered with snow and
| ice; and to be sure their lnsides arc
frozen as hard as rocks.
For myself. I thought there was some
thing in this latter view of the case; but
l was reminded of General Clingman's dis
| cussion of the causes of the great cloud
bursts some fifty years ago, when about
twenty cloud bursts occurred almost sim
utaneously in region twenty by thirty
miles, covering about the same locality
where that one occurred four months ago
when destroyed the Pacolet Mills. The
| General, who was an earnest investigator
Of such phenomena always seeking tn,
truth, visited the scene and got at the
bottom facts. He found that wha
amounted to a great lake of water wa
discharged in a minute by the atmosphere
at a point less than fifty feet in circum
ference. Now, how did that immense mas
of water manage to collect at one poin
in the air and fall instantaneously? Th
General set up half a dozen theories il
succession, and finally wound up with a,
admission that none of them would hol,
watcr-at least would not hold all tn