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Page 4
This is only one instance of numberless applications of old sun force.
In this country coal does more work than every man, woman, and child in
the whole land. It pumps out deep mines, hoists ore to the surface,
speeds a thousand trains, drives great ships, in face of waves and
winds, thousands of miles and faster than transcontinental trains. It
digs, spins, weaves, saws, planes, grinds, plows, reaps, and does
everything it is asked to do. It is a vast reservoir of force, for the
accumulation of which thousands of years were required.
MOON HELP
At Foo-Chow, China, there is a stone bridge, more than a mile long,
uniting the two parts of the city. It is not constructed with arches,
but piers are built up from the bottom of the river and great granite
stringers are laid horizontally from pier to pier. I measured some of
these great stone stringers, and found them to be three feet square and
forty-five feet long. They weigh over thirty tons each.
How could they be lifted, handled, and put in place over the water on
slender piers? How was it done? There was no Hercules to perform the
mighty labor, nor Amphion to lure them to their place with the music of
his golden lyre.
Tradition says that the Chinese, being astute astronomers, got the moon
to do the work. It was certainly very shrewd, if they did. Why not
use the moon for more than a lantern? Is it not a part of the "all
things" over which man was made to have dominion?
Well, the Chinese engineers brought the great granite blocks to the
bridge site on floats, and when the tide lifted the floats and stones
they blocked up the stones on the piers and let the floats sink with
the outgoing tide. Then they blocked up the stones on the floats
again, and as the moon lifted the tides once more they lifted the
stones farther toward their place, until at length the work was done
for each set of stones.
Dear, good moon, what a pull you have! You are not merely for the
delight of lovers, pleasant as you are for that, but you are ready to
do gigantic work.
No wonder that the Chinese, as they look at the solid and enduring
character of that bridge, name it, after the poetic and flowery habit
of the country, "The Bridge of Ten Thousand Ages."
MORE MOON HELP
Years ago, before there were any railroads, New York city had thousands
of tons of merchandise it wished to send out West. Teams were few and
slow, so they asked the moon to help. It was ready; had been waiting
thousands of years.
We shall soon see that it is easy to slide millions of tons of coal
down hill, but how could we slide freight up from New York to Albany?
It is very simple. Lift up the lower end of the river till it shall be
down hill all the way to Albany. But who can lift up the end of the
river? The moon. It reaches abroad over the ocean and gathers up
water from afar, brings it up by Cape Hatteras and in from toward
England, pours it in through the Narrows, fills up the great harbor,
and sets the great Hudson flowing up toward Albany. Then men put their
big boats on the current and slide up the river. Six hours later the
moon takes the water out of the harbor and lets other boats slide the
other way.
New York itself has made use of the moon to get rid of its immense
amount of garbage and sewage. It would soon breed a pestilence, and
the city be like the buried cities of old; but the moon comes to its
aid, and carries away and buries all this foul breeder of a pestilence,
and washes all the harbor and bay with clean floods of water twice a
day. Good moon! It not only lights, but works.
The tide in New York Harbor rises only about five feet; up in the Bay
of Fundy it ramps, rushes, raves, and rises more than fifty feet high.
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