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HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Herald, 1921-01-20, Page 6se a r i, Y rVeil This Cie <• rm .. 'tea of all teas'. If you do not use " a l.adaT send. tis a post card for a free ;sain.ple4 tai; >,K, ' ,,� e 'o n©w pa � and if brow use • Black,r, .: w ,l ` ' ;M A.d.dress Salada,Toronto 1 By EUGENE JONES. CHAPTER. IV. "S'hut up supposing! Two lives against three hundred --I want a fire man." The dispatcher mopped his face. "No use; none of 'em would go!" I turned about. There were a couple of firemen who were off duty loung- ing along the rail, "Volunteers! Will either of you fire for me?" But no voice answered. A sudden rage filled my veins. "Look Isere!" I yelled, "You bunch of white -livered apologies for men, I want -a fireman. Don't you under- stand? Don't you hear me? It's to save the Limited! It's to save the reputation of the division! Some- body's got tc. We may pull through all right—" Only silerje greeted me, su.lIen, shamefaced refusal. My eye- became blurred; the blood was pounding at my temples, my fists ,aching to strike out, to feel quivering flesh beneath them. Perhaps I was a little crazy for a rnoment-- Then a clear - vice from the door cut through the tension, a woman's voice. We turned. Shirley Winston stood there, and she was speaking to me, ignoring the rest contemptuously: "Mr. O'Kelley, you get ready. Get the line cleared. I'Il find you a fire- man in three minutes. Never fear! In three minutes!" Before I could answer she was gone, flashing off down the hail. Pap ..was already at the- key, his ,assistants taking his orders an the jump. I glanced at my watch and waited. Wire talk, stuttering fierce, flew in every direction. Freights were ordered to sidings, passenger trains stopped, backed, and shunted out of the way. The nerve force of the en- tire division trembled with sudden, feverish energy—energy which must; clear the line for a race against. death. ' In precisely four minutes I heard the shriek of my awn locomotive in the yards, a yvarning whistle for me ' to hurry. But still Pop delayed. "Just a moment," he begged. "Just a— There! Now go to it! Number one hundred and thirty-five is clear at Biltmore. Go to it and—God bless you!" How Shirley could be sure of find- ing a fireman. ready to take such chances was beyond me, All I knew was that the fate of three hundred people, the fate of Jim Duval, and the happiness of a girl I moved as a daugh- ter hung in balance. Old ninety-nine, the biggest oil! burner on the division, had been shunted to the main line. In fact, as I flung myself at the cab steps the drivers turned. I leapt for the throt-, tle, shoving the fireman aside. "Give it to her!" I yelled. "All she'll take!" Then, as the yard lights slip- ped past, my eyes rested for a second on the figure in jumpers bending over the oil valves. What the devil— "Shirley!" . She turned a soot -begrimed face to el me. "Yes," she said calmly enough. ' "Why not? I tried to find a fireman. There wasn't anybody, around. To hunt them up would have taken • time—" "'But think, girl, the risk!" She clenched her 'hands. "Risk? I lov; Jim Duval. Don't you understand? lines my life worth ' without him? If we can't save him. we'll save his momory from disgrace —save those people on the Limited. You go on and drive your engine. For- get a girl's firing for you. Anybody can fire an oil burner. Just remember those poor souls on the Limited—if you care for me, for Jim!" Never before had an engineerman been placed in such a predicament. To stop and hunt up a fireman meant certain disaster on the mountain; by going on I might be carrying this wo- man to her death. It was her life and mine against the Limited, her love and bravery against the fate of Jim Duval. I turned my eyes back to the flowing darkness, and asked the Lord to guard her, the wind whipping the words from my mouth ... Shirley firing for me! Shirley sharing the perils of a ]one locomotive chasing a runaway on the big grade! What a situation! When,When,we passed Biltmore we were doing sixty-five miles an hour: At Arden I could only judge the speed by the rush of wind. Lighted houses leapt out of the void, swam by; freights in the clear echoed the crash of our passing; old ninety-nine sway- ed, trembling in every fibre, gathered herself in ever-increasing effort and • hurtled on, a blacker spot in a black night. 'While behind me, silhouetted against the glow of the furnace, stood the slim figure of the girl, watching the steam and oil gauges. Toward us spun the track out of the tunnel of brelliance cast by our headlight. The green of semaphore lamps were passing jewels; now and then I caught a picture of a. white face pressed against a tower window. All the division knew! All the division were watching for us, praying for us! It was a race against time, a gamble with the Fates controlling that run- away. If the Limited should be held up ---I shut my lips and jerked the throttle back the last notch. We were doing eighty miles an hour. The engine rocked, screaming like a thing on the curves, righting herself with dizzy plunges. . Even to me, a veteran, that ride was the most hairbreadth I had ever undertaken. And the dangers were real enough. Once a tardy freight pulled into the clear with her caboose only three hundred feet in front of us. Splitting a switch meant instant death for both Shirley and myself, but delay meant an equally horrible end for the Limited on'the mountain. As t was, the runaway had a tremendous • What Is Ether? Of all the mysteries that have puz- zled science, none has seemed less easy of solution than that which con- cerns the ether of space. It has long been obvious to physi- cists that space must -be filled with something of a material nature. It . annot be seen, or felt, or perceived by any of our senses; but it must exist else how could energy be transmitted through it, We get light and heat from the sun. These are forms of energy, and so like- wise is electricity. Energy must have a vehicle for its transmission. We know that waves of light from the sun impinge upon the retina of the eye. They are called light waves, but, o£ course, there is no light without an eye. There is a substance that fills all apace: We Cannot perceive it because it has no mrlecular structure. It con- tains no atones. But we do know that 'it is elastic; it has waves of known. 'length and nnoasured velocity. This substance, called the `lumi- ntfernus ether," Is absoliite]y trans- lraiC°'.:t..is we may judge from. the fact that ° t;ht conies through it to us from vete et tiefathonu ble distances. If it % zre, m.^% up of tre a: -les., like Ina• terial bodies, such transparency would be inconceivable. It is called a "fluid," but it does not flow. Apparently it is stationary. The earth, travelling at a -speed of eighteen miles a second in its journey around the sun, does not disturb the ether in the slightest degree. If it did so, the light waves that come to us from the stars would be disturbed. What, then, is this strange interstel- lar substance that transmits the solar energy on which all terrestrial activity depends? Science believes that now, for the first time, it is able to give an answer to the question. The ether is the substance out of which everything in creation Is made. The rocks are made of it; the plants are made of it; you yourself are made of it. Material bodies of all kinds are cone - posed of molecules. These molecules are made up of atoms in various ar- rangements. tech atom contains a less or greater number of "electrons," which are revolving at enormous speed. 'Molecules differ; atoms differ; but the elections are all exactly the same substance. They are tiny packages of ether, start, yet I knew sever -o -seven to be. a slow engine. Therein lay ear hope, Coal-burning,with a small tender en- paeity, neither her boiler nor her fire- box would long sustain any great speed without a fireman to keep up steam, And there was another dan- ger, too—somewhere around -a curve we might find her stalled, whereupon our chances of escaping alive would be about equal to the proverbial snow- ball. How much cf this the girl compre- hended as she stood there over the oil jets, her slim young body braced, her hair flying loosa like living flame in the glare of the furnace door, $ had no means of telling. Yet surely she realized the odds against us! Surely the same knowledge which en- abled her to hold the -,team as steady as a rook just under the two hundred mark must have whispered of fearful possibilities! Was Jim alive or- dead? Was he helpless on the .runaway, unable to reach the throttle, or was he lying somewhere behind us by the track? What liad become of his fireman? Such were the questions pounding in my brain, pounding to the roar of the drivers. Trestles, cuts, fills, ' long stretches of glittering right of way whizzed past and were forgotten. Every moment or two the white- striped board of. a crossing. leaped like a speeding ghost out of the dark- ness, and I would reach for the whistle cord. We no longer could reckon time; the world became a dark place through which we thundered at a sickening speed, mindful only of what lay ahead. If a semaphore had been set against us, we could not have stopped! The fate of a division was riding that night,, and in the balance hung three hundred lives! (Concluded in next issue.) Ants That Keep Slaves. The ant is man's greatest rival. Ants have a social life, a power of combined effort, and a marvellous variety of ac- tivities that enable them at times to achieve something like an iudustrial cvilization. Before man knew enough to take to. agrculture some ants of America Isere farming the soil. In politics, also,'ants are advanced. They have tried every form of Government, including social- ism and militarism! Their nunliers are not soreat in this country, nor are they particularly 'fierce, but in South Africa ants are amazingly numerous and are a danger'to man. The red ant is a typical soldier; he does nothing but fight. He has very powerful jaws and is generally strong, yet he cannot get on without a slave to feed him! If he were left to feed himself he would die. He continually raids the nests of weaker insects "and brings them back as prisoners, thus solving the servant problem and keep ing himself well supplied with attend- ants. There is a species of ant in Aus- tralia called the bulldog ant, because of its extreme pugnacity. It will fight anything and everything. If one of these ants is accidentally cut in half, one half will actually fight the other half to the death. That ants should be able to kill a snake ivay seem incredible at first. When an enemy is sighted the alarm is given at -once and the whole com- munity, of ants arises in a body. They set •upon the reptile, striking their snipers into it at thousands of points. The attack is made with such splendid concentration and in such enormous numbers that the snake has no chance of escaping. When the snake is dead the ants will tear off the flesh in small pieces taking all away with thein ex- cept the bones and the skin. In the forests of Africa a dreaded insect is the bull -ant. Every kind of beast or reptile will flee before this pest. These ants march through the forests in a column about two inches wide and miles long. Any creature overtaken is at once attacked. Na- tives overtaken by them will seek re- fuge in the nearest river. Has the Earth a Tail? Opposite to the sun there is a very mysterious glowing patch, which is thought to be attached to the earth as a comet -like tail. The highest regions of our atmos- phere tmosphere consist of very light gases, and the impression is that some of these were driven away by the sun or by other means, and that they stream off from the earth into space just as the light gases do from the head of -a large comet. Naturally, such a theory has aroused much controversy, and has led to all sorts of ingenious suggestions. One of these is that a swarm of meteors (of the kind we know as shooting stars) keeps us company through space at a distance of about a million miles, or four times the distance of the moon. But a tailed earth is an ideal vehicle for imagfnatve flight, It might be argued that if our globe has a tall why should not the planets Mercury and Venus, and even Mars, have ono. Well, perhaps they have, for all we know to the contrary. dur earth's tail would be inuch more easily. seen by us because of its nearness and brightness, Poland, the recreated State, consists of 120,000 square miles, with a popula- tion of 21,000,000. Minard's Liniment Relieves Colds, etc. Anybody can Quit. The easiest thing to do with a job that you don't like is to throw it down and run away from It, But it requires no brains to do that. Anybody can quit. It takes character and stamina to persist against odds. We all enjoy swimming or floating with the current of popularity, Now and then a soul bolder than the rest attempts to stem the current slid to make his way' upstream. He finds it hard going, and he cannot persuade anybody to go with him. Ile suffers the penalty that attaches to being a pioneer and an innovator, It would be easy to give over the struggle. But an indomitable spirit forbids a surren- der. Cessation cannot be made to spell crev.tion. If you want to get anything done you have to keep moving. The rest cure is ,not a remedy for the dis- eases of the body politic. While grass grows under the feet of the good, the evil folk are making hay in the sun upon the sane meadow, SVe Bear of those who grow weary of well -doing; but apparently the sinful never tire of their trade. An idle goodness is not effectual. Children are told to "be" good. There is not very much in merely being goocd. It were better to tell them to "do" good, The fault to bo found with some religious societies has been that they were content with the unproduc- tive sacrosanctity of their members. These persons did not sally forth to give battle to monstrous wrongs. They drowned the din of the world with ritualism unrelated to conduct. They seemed to the world like slackers, who, lacking courage to endure, avoid- ed the fight altogether and let the others carry on the battle and repel the assaults of the enemy. The world does not bestow its grati- tude or its rewards on those who quit. Its premiums are for those who are indonnitable, those who keep going, -those who try again. it is immensely cheered and heartened to renew the struggle when it sees some ono who has every good excuse for giving up refusing to surrender and going at it again with all his might. We were put on earth not to 'neve everything come our way, but to work for the things we want; to get ahead by self-denial and sacrifice; to run a race with fortitude, and play a game in which the bruises and the blows are more in evidence than the fan. Life is not ,pure, joy for any one; and If it were, it would not provide the pre- paratory schooling for the endless and boundless existence of the great here- after. . The Lure of the Beyond. It is made known by their organizers that sixteen exploring expeditions of the first magnitude have started or are presently to start for various imper- fectly examined portions of the earth's surface. A Briish,party will attempt to sail all the way round Antarctica, with a side trip to the South Pole. This expedition has five ships, 125 men and three-quarters of a million in money. The Dane, ilasmussen, plans to spend five years in an intensive study of Greenland, whose blizzard - bound central ice -sheet is one of the most pitilessly inhospitable areas on the -face of the earth. A countryman of Rasmussen wilt try to bring North Greenland into closer touch with the central colonial ndministraton at Copenhagen, whose permission it is necessary to secure in ease one wishes to visit Greenland. This, the largest island in the world after Australia, covers approximately 825,000 square miles, or a little more than twice the area of Ontario. Africa is the objective of four ex- peditions. Siberia, Amazonia. the South Sea Islands, Tibet and China are summoning other intrepid spirits to take the long trail that leads through hazards to new lands and to strange experiences. The world is not yet a twice-told tale, a stroll written to the end and sealed. Such men as, Roald Amundsen, now the only living wihte man who has been to either pole (remembering that the Negro, Matt Henson, went with Peary to the North Pole) have no mind to "rust in idle- ness" or toast their toes' by the home fireside while the far spaces cry to them of riddles still unguessed. These they leave behind are forever asking, "What's the use?" and aro prone to see no benefit unless some rich ore - bearing vein is struck Or a trade is immediately started. The explorers ordinarily reap no great financial prof- it. They have not capitalized their discoveries for their own pockets. But others, conning safely and- comfortably later, along the trail they blazed, have entered into the reward. The history of 'Alaska, for instance, is studded with the names of heroes of the sur- veys that were ultimately lucrative for other men, though they drew nothing from their effort but the meagre -Wages of government employees. se - .Toronto's assessment for 1920 was $703,851,351, more than doubled since 1912 and trebled since 1909. Britain's latest airship is 515 feet long, iuid has a net lift of seventeen tons. The Latest in Knitting The Uortioeiti Wool Book. entitled "Fall and Winter Sports, No. 1." 1s chuck full of the niftiest and moot up-to-date color illustrations and knitting directions for Winter wear. Capes, vests, scarfs, sweaters, stock- ings, toques, etc. Send rhe In stamps for copy. Belding -Cortical, il, Limited Wellington BidR., - Toronto, Ont. Moon Feast in China. The moon of falling leaves takes a prominent place in the midautumnal festival celebrated in the Flowery Kingdom, according to a writer in the North China Herald. Under a respien- dealt moon, accompanied by offerings of fruit, the ceremony is widely cele- bt'ated. There are feasts and rejoic- ing which reach traditional Height at midnight, the hour for worsniping the 1110011, Tile very poorest have their moon cake, a delicacy obtainable only, at this time of the year. There are lighted lanterns attached to poles on the roofs, and fire balloons with strings of crackers are dispatched aloft. The Chinese owe their festival to the Emperor Tung 14 Zing-huang and his magician -in -chief. It is reported that one evening 'this eminent couple adjourned. to the palace yard. to view the full moon and the magician, cast- ing his rod, converted it into a bridge and bade the emperor cross, and so transported him to the moon. Like a good tourist, he made haste to visit all places of interest and in due course arrives at the palace of the moon. Here there was an entertainment in progress and the royal visitor gave himself up to song and dance. Re- turning to the earth he composed a poem in praise of the moon. The fame of his visit spread, and to this clay, the emperor's nocturnal trip is an annual occasion for rejoicing in China. The Fairest Thing. The fairest thing God ever made For human eye to view Is God's dear sky by cioudlets strayed, White isles and sea of blue! Forever move without a sound Those floating hills of snow; But whence they come or whither bound Only the wind can know. The fancies of amyriad men Have mused upon the sight! And wondered as they gazed again And felt their hearts grow light; Something unnamed that pureness vast Doth inter through the soul To strengthen and to' guide at last The spirit to its goal. Thank God for what no man can know, What utters no replies, )3y meeting mystery we grow To be more truly wise. . Not darkness only bars our ways And 'winders most our thought; The truth may come in such a blaze 1t dazzles, is not e),ught. So daily, hourly, let me learn The worthiest lore to win, The line where knowledge back must turn And faith her path begin; Let us peruse the book of space Where time's a thing of naught, The fair blue sky that veils the Face 13y whom all things were wrought. Minard's Liniment for Burns, etc. Rome Sells Street Refuse. The refuse from the streets of Rome and other Italian cities is sold by auc- tion. Airplanes to Survey Africa. It is proposed to adapt the aero- plane to further discoveries in Dark- est Africa. About one-half of all the diamonds in the world are owned by' Americans, COARSE SALT LAND SALT Bulk Carlots TORONTO SALT WORKS C, J. CLIFF • TORONTO It takes a joint of beef to make a bottle of Bovril. oV:IL NEVER PRQFITEERED Has not changed since 1914 Sayre Price, Sane Quality, Same Quantity. CONTROL OF FORESTS BY TRAINED MEN RECENT ACTION OF ON TARIO GOVERNMENT. Places Administration of the Forests on Crown Lands Un- der Practical Foresters. The opportunity for the beginning: of a new era in the forestry situation in Ontario was created by the recent announcement of the Provincial Gov- ernment that henceforth the timber administration of Crown lands will be under the Provincial Forestry Branch, instead e d of comprising a separate on ganization, in which no foresters were employed. This is the most important development which has yet taken place in the forestry, situation in On. • tarso. By this action, assuming that rte logical consequences ._will follow, On. tario aligns herself with the provinces - of Quebec, British Columbia and New Brunswick, which had already recog' nized the necessity for taking thought for the future by making foresters re. sponsible for the technical administrax tion of Crown timber lands. A partial example had been set by the Dominion Government at a still earlier date, when the Dominion Foreetry Branch was placed in charge of the timbeit administration on Dominion forest re- serves in the west, exclusive of the licensed lands or timber limits. Nova Scotia has practically no Crown timber lands, her forests have jug passed into private ownership many years ago, The need for a pro. vincial forest service there is based upon the opportunity for the develop- ment of better forestry practice on these privately -owned timber iandss and upon the urgent need for a great• ly intensified system of forest protec• tion, to cover all the forested area of ,the province. • Prince Edward Islaand 1s not a forest province, practically the whole of her land area being under cultiva- tion, !3eginning of New Era. On4erio is then the last of the forest provinces to recognize the necessary and logical connection between forest- ry and foresters. The recent action should, and no doubt will, mark the beginning of an era in which the full- est practicable consideration will be given to so regulating the methods of cutting on Crown lands as to leave them in a condition to produce an- other crop of valuable timber species. It has been demonstrated that logging operations in which cutting is not re- gulated with an eye to future pro- ductivity are generally destructive to the quality and quantity of the future growth. Each area requires to be care- fully studied in advance of cutting, that the method of treatment to be prescribed may be adaptive to local conditions and at the same time be pracicable from the operator's view- point, to say nothing of being reason- able from ,the viewpoint of additional cost involved. Ontario is to be congratulated upon the progressive action taken in thus - far recognizing the need for a techni- cal administration of Crown timber lands. The Provincial Forestry Branch has a great responsibility and a great opportunity for public service in the prospective addition to its pre- vious, work of forest protection, of the inauguration of forestry practice up- on the great areas of Crown lands which have now come under its juris- diction. Progress will necessarily be slow; economic conditions must be fully recognized; and it will take time to develop the kind of organization re- quired for so large a task. Public sentiment is now undoubtedly fully ripe for the development of this situs• tion along the most modern lines. It must, however, make itself activeles felt, in support of a really progressive'. forest policy. • World's Longest Island. Though a glance at a map of the, world gives the impression that one cannot sail the seas and be more than' a few hundred of miles' from land, it is quite possible at several pointe to be actually 1,000 miles from the neap,: est point of land—even a tiny islet, says Pearson's Weekly, Sailing northwest from Saar Franeli- eo, one can reach a spot where then is no land for 1,000 miles in any dire& tion. The same thing occurs if a voy• age is taken southeastwards from the most southern point of Kamchatka, la' Eastern Siberia. Between Cape .Horn and New Zeew land, in the Southern Pacific, a point, can be reached from which the nearest land is distant more than twelve hut sewgi` died milds. Kerguelen Island, in the Southern' Indian Ocean, is over three thousand miles from the nearest mainland, and may lay claim to being the most Igor lated island. «•