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Page 8
If we use steel wires instead of gravitation for this purpose, each
strong enough to support half a score of people (1,500 pounds), how
many would it take? We would need to distribute them over the whole
earth: from pole to pole, from side to side, over all the land and sea.
Then they would need to be so near together that a mouse could not run
around among them.
Here is a measureless power. Can it be gotten to take Pittsburgh coal
to New Orleans? Certainly; it was made to serve man. So the coal is
put on great flatboats, 36 x 176 feet, a thousand tons to a boat, and
gravitation takes the mighty burden down the long toboggan slide of the
Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to the journey's end. How easy!
[Illustration: The Head of the Toboggan Slide.]
One load sent down was 43,000 tons. The flatboats were lashed together
as one solid boat covering six and one half acres, more space than a
whole block of houses in a city, with one little steamboat to steer.
There is always plenty of power; just belt on for anything you want
done. This is only one thing that gravitation does for man on these
rivers. And there are many rivers. They serve the savage on his log
and the scientist in his palace steamer with equal readiness.
THE FAIRY WORKS A PUMP HANDLE
The Slave of the Ring could take Aladdin into a cave of wealth, and by
speaking the words, "Open Sesame," Ali Baba was admitted into the cave
that held the treasures of the forty thieves. But that is very little.
I have just come from a cave in Virginia City, Nev., from which men
took $120,000,000.
In following the veins of silver the miners went down 3,500 feet--more
than three fifths of a mile. There it was fearfully hot, but the main
trouble was water. They had dug a deep, deep well. How could they get
the water out? Pumps were of no use. A column of water one foot
square of that height weighs 218,242 pounds. Who could work the other
end of the pump handle?
They thought of evaporating the water and sending it up as steam. But
it was found that it would take an incredible amount of coal. They
thought of separating it into oxygen and hydrogen, and then its own
lightness would carry it up very quickly. But they had no power that
would resolve even quarts into their ultimate elements, where tons
would be required.
So they asked gravitation to help them. It readily offered to do so.
It could not let go its hold of the water in the mine, nor anywhere
else, for fear everything would go to pieces, but it offered to
overcome force with greater force. So it sent the men twenty miles
away in the mountains to dig a ditch all the way to the mine, and then
gravitation brought water to a reservoir four hundred feet above the
mouth of the mine. Now a column of this water one foot square can be
taken from this higher reservoir down to the bottom of the mine and
weigh 25,000 pounds more than a like column that comes from the bottom
to the top. This extra 25,000 pounds is an extra force available to
lift itself and the other water out of the deep well, and they turn the
greater force into a pump and work it in the cylinder as if it were
steam. It lifts not only the water that works the pump, but the other
water also out of the mine by gravitation. So man gets the water out
by pouring more water in.
THE HELP OF INERTIA
Since the time of David many boys have swung pebbles by a string, or
sling, and felt the pull of what we call a centrifugal (center-fleeing)
force. David utilized it to one good purpose. Goliath was greatly
surprised; such a thing never entered his head before. Whether a stone
or an idea enters one's head depends on the kind of head he has.
We utilize this force in many ways now. Some boys swing a pail of milk
over their heads, and if swung fast enough the centrifugal force
overcomes the force of gravitation, and the milk does not fall. That
is not utilizing the force. It often terrorizes the careful mother,
anxious for the safety of the milk.
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