Newport daily independent., 1906-04-20
ENGLLSHMAN WOULD DIG HOLE
 TWELVE MILEs DEEP.
Would Solve Many Questions Un- known to the Scientific Wor d. Estimated Cost $25, 100000
 and to Take S5 Years.

Experiments to be tried In the Wash ington monument by officers of the geo. logical survey to try to determine ths c0mpre ssiyeness of the earth'S mass, has awakened widespread interest n scientific circles, Coming as it does on the heels of a project broached by Charles Aigeynon Parsons, of England. so bore hole F miles into the earth. tbs scientific world has much food for speculation.
 Prof. Parsons estimates that to sink shaft 12 miles deep would cost S25. .000,- 900, and that it would require S5 years to accomplish it. This shaft, cut down into the earth, would represent the equivalent of a hole one foot deep in mass 666 feet thick. It would solve many questions that the scientific knoWl~ edge f the world has left unanswered, yet it would investigate only the crust and leave thousands of miles Of the fn- terior mass still untouched.
 The amount of compression at the globes center should. to some extent at least. define the character of the mass of which it Is formed. It is argued that the great m ass of the interior of the earth is solid. Against the contention that the planet. under q crust 2S miles thick, Is 8 mass of fiery liquid Is arraysd th, fact Of the known density of the globe That density in the earth's entirety is about 5.5 times the density of the water that covers three-quarters of the sur- facs.
 The assumption of a comparatively thin crust requires, according to Sir William Thompson, that this crust should have a rigidity possessed by DO known substance. The sun exerts such & strain upon the substance of the earth that the planet could not maintain it's shape as 1t does, he maintains, unless the supposed crust were at least 2,000 or 2,500 miles in thickness.
 There is gradual increase in the eten perature while penetrating the surface of the crust. This increase in some To- calities is as rapid as one degree for each 56 feet of descent; in others one degree for 75 to s5 feet.
 Tn the Comstock silver mines of Ne vada at q depth of 3,065 feet, water has a temperature of 170 degrees. Fahren- heit The deepest excavations in ths earth are at the Calumet and HecIa cop. per mines in Michigan, where the longest perpendicular shaft goes down 4900 feet, while one of the standing shafts Is more than 5000 feet in length
 There are in these mines 250 miles ot lateral galleries. Colossal engines arg required to ventilate the immense sub- terranean city and to keep the tempera- ture endurable in the lower levels All, deep mine borings prove how stupend- ous1y difficult would be the task of de- scending below the mile level,
 At the lowest rate of increase in ths temperature in penetrating the earth, the heat at the depth suggested by Mir. Par sons 12 miles down, would be 800 de 1rees Fahrenheit, This heat though far from the fusing point Of wrought iron 32S0 degreeS}, would render the use Hf tools, even if tfe lower borings of the shaft were constructed as they are in oil els difficult process. II would defy ,le most colossal 1cheme of artificial re- srigeration to render such depths avail. ,b,e for entrance by human beings.
 No considerations of commercial ben atjt enter into the plans of MT. Parsons V suggesting the Emile boring into the e.'ust of the earth It is a scheme purely " the interest of scientific knowledge.