Jackson County sentinel. (Gainesboro, Tenn.) 1914-current, 1921-11-17

Greenland ana OtheT Arctic ana
Alpine Regions Among Freaks
Without Dust We Would Have No
Rain and coIorlng Of Our Sunsets
Would Be Almost Entirely Lost.
Washington, d. C-"The falling Of
thick coating Of dust upon steam
or in the Yellow sea and the attendant
darkening of the atmosphere so that
sailing was difficult, recently reported
In news dispatches, Is not such an
uncommon occurrence in that part OF
the world or even in mid ocean,"
says bulletin of the National Geo
graphic society from Washington, d. O.
Besides the dust fall ON the ocean,
which on the face of II seems joke.
there are sometimes yellow rains In
the Yukon and red SHOWS in Green
land and other arctic and alpine re-
gions," the bulletin adds.
~The yelloA rains, so called because
the ground becomes covered with pc
culiar fine yellow deposit, are usually
found to be caused by the pollen Of
pine trees, growing miles and miles
away, which is caught up by the winds
and carried until their fury has abated,
and then dropped The red snow
seen in the arctic is made by wind
placed deposit of the motile algae,
ChlamydOmOnas, in the nuclei Of
which are red pigment spots. Other
kinds Of algae sometimes reproduce
in such numbers that they form the
greenish deposits seen in fresh water.
Beautiful Sunsets Due to Dust.
"Dust, however, that bane of the
housekeeper and the curse Of the auto
mobile tourist, plays vital part In
our lives. Though It sometimes seems
TO suffocate us, without 1t we could
have no rain, as the vapOr would not
cOndense and without its power Of
refractlon our daylight would not be
SO bright, and the coloring Of our
sunsets would be almost entirely lost.
"The loess Of northern China, fine
yellow powder brought by the winds
from the desert regions beyond and
deposited In places several hundred
feet In thickness, has been titled for
thousands of years, without any arti-
fetal fertilization and without signs
of exhaustion. Beds Of volcanic dust
are to be found In Kansas and Ne
braska today, In some places as much
as 80 feet In thickness, though there
were no volcanoes In the past and
none at present within hundreds of
miles Of the deposits. The wind Is
the culprit or benefactor.
steamers out In the middle of the
Atlantic often have their sails red
dened with dust blown from the Sa-
hara, and sometimes the rains of
southern Europe are colored by dust
from the same source. In 1901 four
lays Of March winds are believed to
nave spread over central Europe
about 100000 tons Of Sahara dust,
most Of Il falling south Of the Alps,
but some Of II being carried as far as
the Baltic sea.
"Wind-blown dust also gives rise to
;ome interesting phenomena. When
lust falls on glaciers or deposits Of
snow near the mountain tops, every
lust particle melts its way through the
&c, sometimes several inches In
depth, and If there are q great many
Of these dust wells the mountain
climber must watch his steps. Use
was made of this knowledge by en-
gineers In melting SHOWS preliminary
to the building Of the New Bergen
railway in southern Norway.
No Mountain Peak Above "Dust Zone"
"It Is probable that no mountain top
Is high enough above the earth to be
entirely free from some dust, espe-
cially that thrown out during volcanic
eruptions. In a great explosion, such
as that Of Krakatoa In 1886, dust Is
shot into the upper atmosphere rather
than picked up by It Dust particles
from Krakatoa travelled around the
world, some Of II completing Its first
NIP In Is days Before this giant
SHOOK the world with its mighty up
heaving we were ignorant Of the winds
that prevailed at over ten miles above
the earth,s surface. The dust so
colored these upper reaches that
canny scientists were able to trace up
per wind movements, to record them
upon their charts, and to tell us that
mighty air streams are flowing 20
miles above our heads
Long before meteorologists realized
the part played by the dust In the up
per atmosphere following volcanic ex-
plosions, they recorded as phenomenal
and inexplicable certain dense. dry
fogs that neither abundant rains nor
fierce winds drove away. Today we
can easily explain that because we
know that the fog was really dust
In the atmosphere high above the
rain and wind clouds. In some places
these fogs' made the sun invisible
until It had risen high above the hori-
zon and colored and reflected the
light of the new moon until 1t ap-
pezred as bright as that OF the fun
moon at midnight
Beneath the earth's surface the