The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-07-21
FOG
By WAKEFIELD GRAPH RICHARDSON

The fog Is thick on Wrangel Island If of tart shape. 1t could be cut in hves like common custard pie, in sixes like rhubarb. or in sevens like mince. For that matter. 1t could be eaten also favored with fennel, mint or rosemary or whatever odor might be floating in the atmosphere l said eaten, l should have said tasted, for like mama, it Is too precious to be eaten. It can be slipped like nectar or absorbed like marshmallow, but eaten it osLnot be. 1 have never had this delectable yiand approach my palate. but l iniagine that in taste 1t somewhat resembles Gold smiths gooseberry fool.
 On Wrangel Island the inhabitants breathe nothing but fog. They smack their lips over a bumper of fog. They sip fog. They go out in the morning when the dew is on the grass and wash their hands and faces in fog. They bathe in fog Going up to a fog bank, they dive between its creamy layers and sliding far away on even keel, emerge from the misty depths. bub- bling with excitement and gurgling with merriment. They mount a church splre and leaping off they do not dive too deep and strike their heads against rock bottom--claim that it is the finest sport in tho world They come up scouting froth. Indeed their orators spout froth, their pettifoggers spout froth, their clerics spout froth. Some of the best sermons l ever heard were preached in Wrangel and they were composed entirely of-fog. So ethereal, so mystic, so obscure, they taught by suggestion, they appealed by inuendo. The matter was so gossamery, so tenuous, 1t was spiritual treat.
 Mothers there feed their children on fog as we do ours on post toasties. Their curriculum at school Is fog-the subjects fog, and the fog is industrious ly garnered into foggy brains to fit them for the foglife awaiting them. If is interesting to see the little darl- ings pirouetting through the mazes of calisthenics in figures of frost-reek. They medicate with fog--nothing so soothing to an inflamed membrane-fog plasters, fog unguents, fog emetics, fog gargles Fog is the only water sup ply. You snatch a handful, clap 1t in your mouth; 1t trickles down your. hot throat into heated stomach-delight- full
 At Wrangel the. public buildings are built of fog The exchange, the mar ket. the parliament house--all of fog. one day I was sitting in the latter drinking in speech by Lord Gucken- helmer No sooner had he concluded. than to my astonishment the walls of a sudden, like the rift in a fog dog, silently but swiftly disintegrated, and quickly parting glided off into space. This quality is certainly very conyen- lent in a panic. The doorways are of mist-they open at a breath and you immediately find yourself in the great world without leaving your chair.
 Tine people in Wrangel have sleep ing porches attached to their villas and the bedding is made of fog. One layer makes a sheet two a coverlet and four a blank ket. At Christmas tide they often hob-nob with a goblet of fog nog favored with d single drop of Jamaica rum. They even pay their debts with fog-it is their only cur rency. If a pesky creditor calls and pre- sents his bill. they say--here take your dew, Delightful realm. which no mos quitoes assail, no flies infest. The air
 s too gross for them to breathe. If build fire at the base. when they slowly exllale and mount to heaven.
 But leaving Wrangel and coming to America-what of fog? Ii Is not confined