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PAGE SIX
AN ESKIMO DINNER
It Was Not Very Dainty, but It
Was a Satisfying Feast.
SEAL MEAT AND BLOOD SOUP.
The Firet Course Was Served Out of
Hand, and the Second In Musk Ox
Horn Drinking Cups—The Hospital¬
ity Extended to Explorer Stefansson.
An Interesting description of the bos
pitality of Eskimos is given by Vilhjal
mar Stefansson in his paper. “My
Quest In the Arctic,” in Harper’s Mag¬
azine. At one stage of his adventures
the writer found himself among Eski
mos who had never before seen white
people. He says:
“Like our distant ancestors, no
doubt, these people fear most of all
things the evil spirits that are likely
to appear to them at any time in any
guise, and next to that they fear stran
gers. Our first greeting had been a
bit doubtful and dramatic through our
being mistaken for spirits, but now
they had felt of us and talked with us
and knew we were but common men.
Strangers we were, it is true, but we
were only three among forty of them
and were therefore not to be feared.
Besides, they told us they knew we
could harbor no guile from the free¬
dom and frankness with which we
came among them; for, they said, a
man who plots treachery never turns
his back to those whom he intends to
stab from behind.
“Before the house which they imme¬
diately built for us was quite ready
for our occupancy children came run¬
ning from the village to announce that
their mothers had dinner ready. The
houses were so small that it was not
convenient to invite all three of us
into the same one to eat; besides, it
was not etiquette to do so, ns we now
know. Each of us was therefore tak
*
en to a different place. My host was
the seal hunter whom we had first ap¬
proached on the ice. His house would,
he said, be a fitting one in which to
offer me my first meal among them,
for ills wife had been born farther
west on the mainland coast than any
one else in their village, and it was
even said that her ancestors had not
belonged originally to their people, but
were immigrants from the westward.
She would therefore like to ask me
questions
“It turned out, however, that his
wife was not a talkative person, but
motherly, kindly and hospitable, like
all her countrywomen. Her first ques¬
tions were not of the land from which
I came, but of my footgear. Weren’t
my feet just a little damp, and might
she not pull my boots off for me and
dry them over the lamp? She had
boiled some seal meat for me, but she
had not boiled any fat, for she did not
know whether I preferred the blubber
boiled or raw. They always cut it in
small pieces and ate it raw themselves,
but the pot still hung over the lamp,
and anything she put into it would
be cooked in a moment
“When 1 told her that my tastes
quite coincided with theirs, as in fact
they did, she was delighted. People
were much alike then, after all, though
they came from a great distance. She
would accordingly treat me exactly as
if I were one of their own people
come to visit them from afar.
“When we had entered the house the
boiled pieces of seal meat had already
been taken out of the pot aud lay
steaming on a sideboard. On being as¬
sured that my tastes in food were not
likely to differ from theirs, my hostess
picked out for me the lower joint of
a seal’s foreleg, squeezed it firmly be
tween her hands to make sure noth¬
ing should Inter drip from it. and
handed it to me, along with her own
copper bladed knife. The next most
desirable piece was similarly squeezed
and handed to her husband, and others
in turn to the rest of the family.
“As we ate we sat on the front edge
of the bed platform, holding each his
piece of meat in the left hand and the
knife in the right. This was my first
experience witli a knife of native cop¬
per. I found it more than sharp
enough and very serviceable.
“Our meal was of two courses—the
first, meat; the second, soup. The soup
is made by pouring cold seal blood into
the boiling broth immediately after the
cooked meat has been taken out of the
po tand stirring briskly until the whole
comes nearly—but never quite—to a
boil. This makes a soup of a thickness
comparable to our English pea soup,
but if the pot be allowed to come to a
boil the blood will coagulate and settle
to the bottom. When the soup is a
few degrees from trailing the lamp
above which the pot is swung is ex¬
tinguished and a few handfuls of
snow are stirred into the soup to bring
it to a temperature at which it can be
freely drunk. By means of a small dip¬
per the housewife then fills the large
musk ox horn drinking cups and as¬
signs one to each person. If the num¬
ber of cups is short two or more per
sons may share the contents of one cup
or a cup may be refilled when one is
through with it and passed to another.
“After I had eaten my fill of fresh
seal meat and drunk two pint cupfuls
of blood soup my host and I moved
farther back on the bed platform,
where we could sit comfortably, prop¬
ped up against bundles of soft caribou
skins, while we talked of various
things.”
Adversity has the effect of eliciting
talents which in prosperous circum¬
stances would have Iain dormant.—
Horace.
A CHAIN OF FAME.
The Barrier Washington Erected
Across the Hudson.
ARNOLD REMOVED ONE LINK.
8till the Monster Cable, In Spite of the
Traitor’* Act, Served It* Purpose and
Blocked the Progress of the British
Ships Up the River.
Somewhere in the bed of the Hudson
river just off of West Point lies buried
the larger part of a great iron chain,
one of several ordered by General
Washington during the Revolution to
be constructed to prevent the enemy
from ascending certain rivers to ac¬
complish strategic points of vantage.
The British were making strenuous
efforts to get hold of the Hudson in
order to keep free communication with
Canada by the additional channels of
the St. Lawrence and Lake Champlain,
and so it was determined to obstruct
the Hudson by a great chain crossing
from Port Montgomery to Anthony's
Nose.
But this was a failure. The chain
parted within a week after it had been
stretched, and, although subsequently
raised and again placed, it was de¬
stroyed by the British.
Finally Washington decided to forge
another and obstruct the river between
West Point and Constitution island, for
here there was an abrupt change of
course, and a heavy tide reduced the
speed of any ship encountering it. Be¬
sides, file channel was 300 feet narrow¬
er at this crossing.
The forging of a chain such as was
contemplated was then no small under¬
taking. Requests were secretly sent
to various iron companies, and among
the bids the most favoruble came from
the Sterling Iron works, situated in
one of the most beautiful regions of
the east, now within the fashionable
domains of Tuxedo Park.
It was originally organized by Lord
Sterling in 1751, a well known officer
in the Revolutionary army, and con¬
tinued in operation for more than a
hundred years, meanwhile passing into
the possession of Abel Noble, who
married a niece of Peter Townsend
and who now in association with the
latter increased the capacity of the
works which eventually came into the
entire possession of Peter Townsend,
a patriot and filled with the spirit of
the time.
He finally obtained a few Welsh min
ers from Pennsylvania for the heavy
handling in the forging and a number
of men from Connecticut with their
ox teams to do the hauling, and when
the chain was ready it wms drawn
over the rough mountainous roads and
through forests that had to be pur¬
posely cut in many places and so on
to New Windsor, the nearest river
point, and towed to West Point
It was a strenuous undertaking from
the very start. Each link w’eighed 300
pounds, was two feet In length and
two and a quarter inches square, and
each 100 feet was secured by a swivel,
a twisting link, and at every thousand
feet there was a clevis. The whole
of this weighed 185 tons. When it
was stretched across from West Point
to Constitution island it was buoyed
up by large sixteen foot logs, and
these were in turn held in place by
the anchors.
The British made no specific attack
on this then invincible obstacle, for it
must be remembered that in those
days there was no dynamite nor tor¬
pedoes, and none of the enemy’s prows
would have pushed their way through
such a barrier.
Although the British did not succeed
in passing the big Hudson river chain,
the American traitor Arnold gave it
his particular attention and removed
a link of it under the pretense of hav
ing it repaired for weakness at a near¬
by smithy. He wrote to Major Andre
that it would not be replaced until the
forts w’ere surrendered to the British.
But somehow the chain stood for its
purpose, and Sir Henry Clinton did
not attempt to relieve Burgoyne.
Parts of this celebrated chain are to
be seen among various historical cu
rios of prominent societies. A number
of years ago Mayor Hewitt of New
York, then the owner of a mine near
the Sterling properties, became inter¬
ested in finding out the whereabouts of
the remaining portions of the chain. A
large part of it lies at the bottom of
the river, about thirty tons were in
various possessions, and at West Point
there are thirteen links, and a staple
placed near the spot where the chain
was anchoml and a plate tells of the
date and place of forging.—Boston
Herald.
No Primaries For Her.
“Are you going to the primaries to¬
night, Ethelinda?” asked the husband
of his suffragette wife.
“Indeed I am not!” replied the lady.
“Do you suppose that after I have at¬
tended the postgraduate courses In po¬
litical science for two years I’m going
to waste my time on those primary
classes? I guess not! They're good
enough for you men. but we women
have progressed beyond I hat!”—Har¬
per’s Weekly.
Two Failures.
“I married for beauty alone,” said
a presumably happy benedict to an old
chum. “And yet you remind me of a
friend of mine who married for mon¬
ey,” was the rejoinder, “flow’s that?”
“He didn’t get It” said the chum sar¬
castically.
The preservation of health is a duty.
Few seem conscious that there is such
a thing as physical morality.—Spencer.
THE COViNQfON NEW*, WEDNESDAY, JULY 2, 1913.
PERFECT SPHERES
with ah His Scientific Skill Man
Cannot Produce Them.
CURVING OF A BASEBALL.
It Is Possible Only Because the Ball Is
an Imperfect Globe and In Compari¬
son With Its Size Much Rougher
Than the Surface of the Earth.
The real reason why a baseball can
be thrown so that it will describe won¬
derful curves during its progress
through the air is that every such ball
has a surface made up of mountains,
valleys, craters, canyons, gorges, plains
and other irregularities of the surface
that, when the difference in size is
taken into consideration, makes the
surface of the earth seem like plate
glass.
If it were possible to make a perfect
sphere—if it were possible to make a
baseball with an absolutely smooth sur¬
face and an exact sphere—no pitcher
in the world could make it curve. The
very best pitchers baseball has ever
known or probably ever will know
could not make the ball deviate a hair's
breadth in its flight.
And so while it is partly in the art
or knack the professional pitcher has
in holding and releasing the baseball
as he throws it, it is also due to the
fact that a baseball has a wonderfully
rough surface against which the air
catches and turns it that gives it the
curve.
it you pass your hand over a plate
glass it moves smoothly with nothing
to retard it. If you pass your hand
over an unplaned board you can feel
the roughness—splinters we call them.
You cannot move your hand as easily
over the board. This is the same prin¬
ciple with the baseball. There is a
roughness in its surface that catches
iu the air and forces one side about or
retards that side. This has but one
result—to make the baseball leave its
straight course, and in doing this it de¬
scribes a curve.
This does not detract in the least
from the cleverness of the pitcher who
can so accurately judge his muscular
control as to make a baseball curve up
or down, right or left. But the fact
remains that it is the roughness of the
baseball that makes all his pitching
cleverness possible.
Take a brand new league ball in
your hand. It looks to be a perfect
sphere—that is, absolutely even and
uniformly round and as “smooth as
glass.” And it may be as smooth as
glass, for glass also has a rough sur¬
face.
Put a baseball under the_ most pow
erful microscope, enlarge it microscopi¬
cally 10,000 diameters, and what do
you see? The very thing mentioned in
the first paragraph of this article. The
surface is rough. It looks like the
landscape in the Alps or Yellowstone
park or any other rough section of the
earth. It has peaks, ranges, ridges,
valleys, plains and holes, gulches and
all sorts of uneven places, and if the
earth could be made as small as a
baseball it would be practically a per¬
fect sphere and absolutely smooth.
This is because the highest mountains
of the earth and the deepest valleys
would be millions upon millions of
times smaller in comparison with the
rough uneven places on a baseball if
either the earth were reduced to the
size of a baseball or a baseball enlarg¬
ed to the size of the earth.
If this were not true the earth would
not revolve so regularly upon its axis.
It would perform an “in shoot” or
“out shoot” and curve off through
space.
Even the billiard ball has a surface
much rougher in comparison to its size
than the surface of the earth, and we
refer to a billiard ball as about the
smoothest thing known. “As smooth
as a billiard ball” is a well known
simile. For the same reason that a
perfectly smooth baseball could not be
curved, a perfectly smooth and per¬
fectly round billiard ball could not be
made to curve on the table. It would
not take “English." as billiard players
call it when they make a ball go for¬
ward and then roll backward or in any
direction just by the manner in which
they strike it with a chalked cue.
This fact of roughness causing It to
spin becomes all too evident when a
player forgets to chalk his cue and
plays several shots thereafter. If the
leather tip of the cue becomes shiny
it will slip on the ball. There is no
purchase with which it can take hold.
But chalk is sticky stuff, and the gran¬
ules are large, so that a well chalked
cue has a very rough surface, and this
rough surface of the tip of the cue fits
into the rough projections on the ball,
and thereby a ball can be given a lot
of twist, in order to accomplish this
successfully, moreover, the billiard
cloth nap must be new and therefore
rough.
During recent experimentation with
regard to the kinetic theory of gases
a Belgian scientist desired to find out
how perfect a sphere could be made in
order that by the clashing of these to¬
gether an idea might be secured of the
effect of the collisions of the spherical
atoms that make up a gas. The proj¬
ect had to be abandoned at last be¬
cause no machinery could be construct¬
ed that would turn out a perfect
sphere artificially, and nature has no
perfect sphere of large size In all her
many forms of matter. Perfect disks
could be made, but a round ball was
beyond the limits of human accom¬
plishment—New York American.
The greatest pleasure is the power to
give it.
Helps With the Lesso m
At night when the children gather around
the sitting-room table studying their lessons f
the next day, the telephone often rings. A little
neighbor a mile down the road wants help f rom
his school-mates. Children as well as grown-um
get pleasure and profit from the farm telephone
Do you know how little this service costs and how
valuable it is ?
See the nearest Bell Telephone Manager or
write for our free booklet. A postal will do.
FARMERS’ LINE DEPARTMENT
SOUTHERN BELL TELEPHONE
AND TELEGRAPH COMPANY
S. PRYOR STREET ATLANTA, GA.
TYBEE
WHERE OCEAN BREEZES BLOWj
THE QUEEN OF/
SOUTH ATLANTIC
SEASHORE RESORTS
EXCURSION
FARES
VIA
CENTRAL^ GEORGIA
ASK THE TICKET AGENT
J. C. HAILE F. J. ROBINSON,
General Passenger Agent. Ass’t General Passenger Agent,
SAVANNAH. GA. SAVANNAH, GA.
GEORGIA SCHOOL OF
TECHNOLOGY
The Graduates of this leading engineering
institute are always in demand.
They are always well versed in the advanced courses in Mechanical,
Electrical, Textile and Civil Engineering, Engineering Chemit ry,
Chemistry and Architecture.
Fifteen Free Scholarships from each County in Georgia
Preparedness for real teaching, including new equipment for‘
Mill and Laboratories. New Hospital, New Shop Building, ,
tories. Splendid New Y. M. C. A. Cost reasonable. Climate
Environments excellent. Largest and most complete athletic ne
the South. Write for catalog.
K. G. Matheson, LL. D., Pres. Atlanta,
Real Estate For Sale
I have for sale for a client a good n^ e
room house on a nice lot in a nice sec¬
tion of Covington. Will sell at a l )ar '
gain and give terms. Also 100 a ( ‘ res
of good land. See me.
R. W. MILNER, Atty.
- - - WE WANT - - '
Beef Cattle, Hogs and Country
Produce. Best Market Price.
H. I. WEAVER COMPANY,
Porterdale, Georgia-
FATE OF A WORLD
Its Course From Chaos to Its
Hopeless Death Struggle.
THREE ACTS IN THE TRAGEDY
The First Is Shown by Jupiter, the
Second by the Earth and the Third
by Mar*, While the Moon Shows the
Empty Stage After the Play Is Done.
No stage was ever set for such a
tragedy as the planet Mars presents.
It is the last act in the drama of a
world’s history!
The first net in such a drama consists
of scenes from chaos. The huge plan
et Jupiter offers us a spectacle of that
kind in its streaming belts of thick
clouds aud its whirling vapors, glow¬
ing like steam above a furnace.
The second act is represented by the
earth, with its fertile crust, its cool, in¬
vigorating atmosphere and its life sus¬
taining seas that give birth to the
clouds which, condensing on the
mountains, furnish the rains and set
the rivers flowing.
The closing act is the role of Mars,
where the seas have vanished, the at¬
mosphere lias thinned out, the rivers
have disappeared, the continents have
turned into deserts, and life, driven into
a corner, is battling against final ex¬
tinction.
That there is yet intelligent life on
Mars is the universal belief of all the
observers whom Mr. Lowell has gath¬
ered about him at his Flagstaff ob¬
servatory, where the extraordinary phe¬
nomena of that wonderful planet are
studied as nowhere else in the world.
-More than that, they tell us with
ever increasing emphasis that the peo¬
ple of Mars, compelled by necessity,
have developed a command over natu¬
ral forces which would seem miracu¬
lous if exhibited upon the earth.
With them it has become simply a
question of brain power against the
Inanimate powers of nature.
They have nights and days of the
same length as ours. They have sea¬
sons almost precisely corresponding
with ours, except that they are each
twice as long. But their oceans are
dried up, no rains fall (though there
may be dews), and nearly all the at¬
mospheric moisture is alternately lock¬
ed up in one or the other of the polar
snowcaps.
In such a situation no vegetation can
flourish unless artificially stimulated
by a gigantic system of irrigation. And
without vegetation animal existence is
impossible.
But whence can the inhabitants of
Mars derive the water needed for irri¬
gation? The answer given is that they
get it periodically from -ttje melting of
the polar snows. Being without seas
and rivprs they have no other source
of supply.
On Mars the reign of universal peace
must have begun ages ago, introduced
not by moral or sentimental consid¬
erations, but by the necessity of unit¬
ing all the engineering skill, all the in¬
ventive powers and all the physical
forces of the entire population of the
planet in a common battle for life.
The only thought of their inventors
is of improved means for controlling
the slowly lessening subfiles of mois¬
ture that once in about two of our
years may be drawn away from one
of the poles while the summer sun¬
shine is dissolving its thin snows.
This universal concentration of men¬
tal energy upon a single aim is con¬
ceived as having developed upon Mars
a knowledge of the hidden forces of
nature such as has up to the present
merely been dreamed of on the earth.
We have just begun to learn how to
use electricity iu the mechanic arts,
but they may have unlocked the secret
forces inclosed in the atoms of matter
which our science has recently assured
us exist without showing us how to
utilize them.
Only by such suppositions can the
"canals,” hundreds of miles wide and
thousands of miles long, be accounted
for. if, as the Flagstaff observers in¬
sist. those objects are really of arti¬
ficial origin. It should be said, how¬
ever, that in Mr. Lowell’s opinion the
bands called canals are. in fact, irri¬
gated belts.
The real canals within them are in¬
visible, while the progressive darken¬
ing of these belts, as the polar melting
increases, is due to the growth of veg¬
etation, stimulated by the water.
After the world life drama closes
there is left an empty stage, and this
is represented by the moon. The lunar
world has lost all its water. Its trag¬
edy is finished. The actors are all dead.
Millions of years ago there may have
been a battle for life there like that
which now appears to be raging on
Mars. And millions of .Vears In the
future the stage of the earth will prob¬
ably be set for a similar tragedy. For.
to the eyes of the overlooking gods (to
change a little Shakespeare’s figure):
All the sky's a stage.
And all the worlds and suns are merely
actors.
-Garrett P. Servlss In New York Jour¬
nal.
Folding a Coat.
Here is the way to fold a man’s coat
when you want to pack it in a box
or a trunk. Lay the coat out perfectly
flat, right side up. Spread the sleeves
out smoothly, then fold them back to
the elbow’ until the bottoms of the
cuffs are even with the collar. Fold
the revers back and double the coat
over, folding it on the center seam.
Smooth out all wrinkles and lay it on
a level surface in the trunk.
Half the joy of life is la little thinga
taken on the run -David Starr Jordan
