Daily press. [volume] (Newport News, Va.) 1896-current, 1909-04-25

One night q professor OF mathema
tics was at work IN the little stud,
looking over the lake at the Univer
sity Of Wisconsin. He was theoris
whose main aim in life WAS the spec
ulation as to what a particular sort o.
curve will DO il It ever encounter
another particular sort Of curve on q
dark night somewhere just this side
of iniinity.
And his name, not unknown among
other such theorist, was Charles sum
ner SlIchter.
To MIN. thus studying the manners
and customs of irrational curves came
another professor. from the agricui
tural department OF the same univer
sity, one c. /. King. He, too, had his
hobby and it was the study of AGA
demic particles Of soil under the IN
fiuence OF academic particles Of water
What King wanted to know from
Slichter was the precise mathematical
formula for determining how much
water would reach the acre OF pota-
toes In the northwest forty. when one
inch OF rain fell on the 500 acres just
north Of your farm: and similar prob
lens.
The first thing bona fde. anti-f'ar-
rios theorist does when he Is given a
new problem. il to find out what the
Germans have done. Slichter looked
up what the Germans had done and
he was very much panied to find that
they had done very little. He could
not even agree with their estimate oil
the amount of water there was under
the earth. in the first place. He cor
rected that amount until he had
brought 1t around to neat 5d5,0OO..
900 cubic yards--onc third OF the vol
ume OF all the waters in all the ocean
on the surface OF the earth.
But that was merely a spin up a
side lane. The real road he was fol-
lowing led to an Introduction and pos
sible acquaintance with those millions
and millions of cubic yards OF water
that had been hiding themselves in
places like California, and Kansas and
Colorado and Arizona. so successfully
from the sight Of man.
OF course he did not know II HIM
self at that time. He did not guess
It at all. any more than he guessed
that a few years would find him max
ing the plans for $350.000 pumping
station. which would catch and har-
ness 10000, 900 gallons Of those waters
in one way in one place alone. like
Garden City. or that he would be as
sisting cities with more drinkers than
drink, like Brooklyn. to overtake
other miiilons OF gallons that were
running away underground to the sea-
\ All that he saw before him at that
time was a perfectly beautiful theo-
retical overwhelmingly the study
of ideal motion-abstract, unimpeded
motion-like the motion Of heat; pure
force-but complicated by problems
In the influences of other forces. The
piotted curves" Of that ideal under
ground liquid in the presence OF other
underground and overground forces.
look exactly like a snapshot OF three
or four tons of fireworks exploding in
mid-air.
Here he found the Germans sadly
inadequate. and as for America
when he looked to see what studies OF
this kind had been made OF under
ground waters in America he found
the total results amounted to just ex-
actly nothing No measurements OF
underground water had ever been
made in the United States.
In Bed Of Arkansas River.
The next thing he knew the long
coat and derby were left behind. and
the professor found himself In brown
corduroys riding up the dry bed Of
the Arkansas river in western Kansas
He was in an open buggy. and a cow
boy was driving.
His one link with his past was In
his pocket ut was a slip OF paper.
deliberately hieroglyphed with equa-
tons. which were the theoretical an
swers of Prof. Schiller to the hypo-
thetical questions Of frof. King.
One glance at the lay Of the land
convinced him that he had come to
the right place at which to put his the
cries to the test. He began by study
ing. not the water itself. but the ma
terial which contained 1t. This was
not the mere mathematical jag It may
seem at first sight. These under
ground rivers which he wished to
study are not the cavern bound
waters Of night" the poet sings about.
but the "seepage waters" They are
not bodies Of water held as In a tank
Or reservoir under the earth. like a
lake., nor even free moving streams.