The High Shoals messenger. (High Shoals, Ga.) 1897-1???, October 14, 1897, Image 2

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•THE MARINE RS SLEEP BY THE SEA." The marine™ sleep by the sea. The wild winds some up by the sea, It walls round the tower, and it blows And panes. the sound and the scent of theses. When at night there's a seething of surf, The grandames look out o’er the surf, They reckon of mil their dead and their long years And they shake rum. their lean fists the at sea and its modneos. And curse the white fangs of the surf. But ths mariners sleep by the sea, Bor They the hear hum not from the sound the church of the where sea, the Bor the psalm crying is uplifted, birds that above them of are The drifted, mariners sleep by the sea. —Margaret L. Woods. BY A. X. STBOae. There have lately been turned out of the Southern Pacifio railroad shops at one of the big terminals of that Toad on the Pacific Coast fonr of the largest consolidated pattern engines tain in nse, designed especially for moun¬ work, whose plans and specifica¬ tions were drawn by probably the only lady expert meohanical engineer in America, if not in the world. How ahe attained her present position is one of the railroad legends of the road for which she works, but I believe the story has never been in print. A number of years ago,about fifteen ^locqted” I believe, some claims lucky prospectors mining away up in the almost inaccessible fortressess of one of the mountain ranges of the West, and the phenomenal riches of $ e lead am ply repaid the heavy ex uses of t ne “mule train” that was Used road. to Eventually “pack” the the output of tl^e rail¬ the first brought prosperity ad¬ , of proprietors othel venturous spirits to the lucky spot and later a rich syndicate brought out all the smaller claims on the ledge and 'established there the great mills and junelt^r? of the Calumet Mining and Smelting company. Then the Southern Pacific people awakened to the importance of the enterprise, and after a series of cob saltations with the syndicate, in the course of whiph a very handsome financial proposition was made by the miners, a branch road was surveyed np through the canons to the site of the now rapidly growing town. Tho difficulties were almost insurmount¬ able, but at last toe work was done and a very crooked and dangerous piece of track was the result. Its grades were sharp precipitous in the extreme its i ’rves to tho last dej > and V that ■ i 'i, became t ■ - derailed ShW__Alices' u. car .t was either demolished against the rock wall on one side or went to the bottom of the gorge on the other, there to lie and rot and rust away. Once over the cliff the cost of raising au ore car would almost pay for a new one, and the company seldom made any effort to recover the wreckage. One point on the Bhort road had always been dreaded by the trainmen, and this was the sharp curve at the approaeb to what was called the second crossing. It had been a prolific source of wrecks and the rocks below the bridge were strewn with broken tim¬ bers and bent and twisted ironwork of dozens of ore cars that had plunged over the sheer sides of too deep gorge. This second crossing bridge was at the foot of the heaviest grade and from there the road wound through the beautiful Silver Creek valley to the "Junction,” where it joined the main line of the Southern Pacific. At the point where the level track commenced, hardly a stone’s throw from the second crossing bridge,.the company had built a short siding for the use of the giant consolidated engine that was used to push the long trains of ore cars np the mountain, and jnst across the main track from the siding stood the little cottage where John Clarke, the engineer, and his daughter, Jessie, lived. Miss Jessie at that time was nearly sixteen, and for the last three years had been her father’s housekeeper. All her life she had been intimately associated with railroad men, and for three years that her father had been running the big “pushor’ she ha 1 no other companion than her little brother, several years her junior. AU her spare time she spent with father about the engine, and had made it an enthusiastic study until, at six¬ teen, she knew its mechanism about aa thoroughly as did her grayhaired father ; in fact, it was her boast that she eonld "run the consolidator as good ▲ Bhort as daddy.” time before tho incident happened of which I am about to tell you, a tourist delayed by a wreck at the bridge had spent the day at Clarke’s cottage. The little housekeeper had made the day very pleasant for him by piloting him about the valley, .and on leaving he had given her a pair of powerful fieldglasses. They were her dearest earthly pos¬ session, for with them she eonld see her father’s engine aa it swept down the mountain for nearly an hoar before he would arrive at the siding. , The long stretches of road aa *t wound around the crags up the canon. Bow for a mile in sight, then disappeor- ing still among the rooks, 'the only to reappear further up mountain, were always an interesting study for the girl, and but for those fieldglasses, the yound lady’s practical knowledge of railroading Southern and her unparalleled nerve, the Pacific would have had one wreck that would have coat many lives. One August evening Miss Clarke was watching throngh the fieldglasses the effect of the sunlight on the brilli¬ ant quartz rock at the farthest point up the mountain, where the track could be seen from the valley and only a short distance from the big mills at the top of the hill. Her father and his fireman had gone to the junction for sbme supplies, and were to return on the “mail,” now nearly due. Her little brother was "playing fireman," and with a big bunch of waist was rubbing np the bright work about the big engine. The twilight silence in the casional valley hiss was only broken by and the oc of escaping steam the steady, monotonous "pound” of the airpump on the engine, which her father had forgotton to shut off before he left. She had just noticed it, and was about to go to the engine and shut off the steam, when, as she took one last look, she was almost paralyzed by the sight of a long train of ore creep¬ ing around the curve. Two or three of the laborers at the mines were still on them, but band brakes would never stop that heavy train, and as it slowly gained in speed, she saw them leave the train. Then she thought of the little passenger train that would be there in a few minutes and in another moment she was climbing into the cab of the big engine and telling her little bVother wbat to do, "Open the switch,Johnnie, and when I get down on the main track shut it and run down the track and flag num¬ ber one. Tell da(l I’m up the hill to Catch a runaway.” Johnnie did as he was told and the powerful engine rolled out of the sid¬ ing, across the bridge and was soon tearing up the hill'at full speed toward the now rapidly approaching train. As she left the siding her one thought had been to save the pas¬ senger train from an awful collision, but as sbe crossed the bridge she thought of a little story her father had lately told of how be had once caught a runaway train with bis engine and had stopped it before it could do any damage. She would try it now, des¬ pite could the do awful it, she danger. could. If "Daddy” For nearly four miles up the hill the big engine fairly flew, then, as she. reached a long straight track where the view was clear for nearly a mile, she shut off the stearu and gradually the locomotive stopped. pointer Ljokedjup at the oleum 100 gattge. /The indicated only pounds pressure. Keeping a close watch on the track ahead, the intrepid girl left the throttle and, opening the firebox door, replenished the lire. Just as the last scoopful of coal .was thrown in and the door closed the runaway shot around the curve into view, and, starting the engine back, the girl watched closely for a chance to catch the now rapidly moving train. Down the heavy grade went engine and cars, the distance between them rapidly growing shorter. On a little piece of straight track, a little over a mile from the dangerous bridge, Jessie decided to take the last desperate chance, and as the engine reached the desired point, only a few feet ahead of the flying ore cars, the girl gave the eugine a light touch of the airbrake, and then, with mighty impact, the heavy train struck the engine, then the airbrake lever was sent to the the “emergency speed of notch,” the train but that so great that was even did but little to slacken the speed, and that awful curve at the bridge was al¬ most in sight. Jessie almost lost her nerve as she thought of that deadly place. She knew the big engine would never round it at its present rate of speed. Suddenly the escape valve of the engine opened with a mighty roar, telling her the powerful. engine was straining and quivering under the pressure of nearly 200 pounds of steam, and then a favorite axiom of her father's came to her mind: "If air won’t hold ’em, give ’em steam.” One supreme effort of tho strong young arms and the reverse lever of the black giant was thrown over, the sand pipes were opened, and with steady hand Jessie opened the throttle, throwing a mighty force against the heavy train. Now the speed of train materially decreased, but the big looomotive rolled and rocked like a ship at sea as she safely rounded the dangeroua curve and shot out on the high bridge, and then came another shook for the sorely tried girl, for standing in front of the cottage, almost hidden by a dense cloud of black smoke, stood the little passenger train with its load of unsuspecting travelers. Here again the girl’s knowledge of railroad craft came to her, and she knew that no power on earth could stop that heavy train in time to avert a collision, but she could signal fofttbe to them. A brown hand reached whistle cord, and in a second more the deep valley was resounding to the hoarse roar of the duplex whistle giv¬ ing three lond blasts—the railroaders’ signal: "Backup.” The signal was just in time; as the passenger train backed out of the way the big consolidator Mid its string of ore cars rolled heavily by, the train now under control, but still moving with sufficient force to have done con¬ siderable damage. As the train passed the siding, Clarke and his fireman climbed on the can and soon stopped them; and as Jessie jumped to the ground she almost alighted on a tall gray mustached old gentleman. He was Charles Archer, vice-president and general manager of the Southern Pacific, and a man who never failed to reconize and reward merit; and it was at his hands Miss Clarke received the education that fitted her for the position she now oocnpies abd who placed the lady’s name on the "merit roll” of the Southern Pacifio railroad at a salary of $1500 per year, work or play, as long as she lives. The Sleep of Plante. Like animals all plants require in¬ tervals of repose, during which the vi¬ tal functions are slowed down,' and the organic structures undergo repair. Some plants repose during the rainy drought, season, but otherf*j^"ring plants periods sleep of lome during toe cold or"fhe comparatively cold season of the year, others again take their rest when the average tem¬ perature is high. It occurred to a Norwegian observer to investigate the sleep of plants, more particularly with the object of shortening the period of repose, and this hlr'claims to have at tained by subjecting the bulbs or buds to the action of cloroform vapor. He asserts, indeed, that plants thus treat ed subsequently develop more rapidly than those whose repose has not been intensified bv tfce narcotic action of tbis drug, and the observation is not without considerable interest. If follows his ofyperv^tiojis are trustworthy, it that Sleep in plants is not strictly comparable to that of animal life, for we do not suppose that the period allotted to sleep by animals could advantageously be shortened by the administration of an anesthetic, Sleep, on the other hand, is a relative rather than an absolute condition. Its vaTue as a restorative depends in a very marked degree on its intensity, and* certain individuals derive more benefit and recuperate their jaded en ergiesmore effectually in five or six hours than others do after twice as long. This recuperative energy is as serted to be an indication of a high standard of vitality, and common ob serration certainly lends color to the view that diminished recuperative power is indicative of Medical physiological detcnovation.VLondon Press. . '•—<—*----— PEARLS OF THOUGHT. great sham on the affections.-George >*?*■ * 10 • Life is a train of moods like a string of beads, and as we pass through them they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue and each shows only what lies in its focus.—Emerson. Beligion cannot pass away. Be not disturbed by infidelity. Beligion can not pass away. The burning of a lit tie straw may hide the stars, but the stars are there and will reappear.— Thomas Carlyle. I do not believe the common man’s work is the hardest. The hero has the hero’s aspiration that lifts him to his labor. All great duties are easier thau the little ones, though they cost far more blood and agony.— Phillips Brooks The Bible is a book full of light and wisdom. It will make you wise to eternal life, and furnish you with di rections and principles to guide and order your life safely and prudently. There is no book like the Bible for excellent learning, Hale! wisdom and use. Sir Matthew ?.. T . w ?. care to . lv f and wa k ln tb ® Spmt, „ if to be receptive , of we care heavenly forces aid to taste the sweet ness of the true, the beautiful and the good, we must make inward room for the best things; we must exercise our selves to familiarity with the higher subjects. 0. G. Ames. One very useful precept for students is, never to remain long in puzzling out any the difficulty; but and lay the book it and subjeot aside, return to some hours after, or next day; after having turned their attention to some thing else. Sometimes a person will weary his mind for several honre in some effort (which might have been spared) to make out some difficulty, and, next day, when he returns to the subjeot, will find it quite easy.— Whately. The great problem is, after all, hoar shall one grow in sympathy and tend* erness and generosity and considera tion? How shall he feed on high thoughts and noble aims? How shall he be swift to discern and avail him self of those opportunities for useful ness to others whioh are the best channels of his own growth? How shall he hold clear and close relation with the divine energy? "Be one of the conquerors!” said Balzac. "The universe belongs to him who wills and loves and prays; but he must will, ho must love, he must pray 1” In a word, he must possess wisdom, force and faithl—Lilian Whiting. VALUE OF COLD STORAGE A VISIT TO THE FROZEN WARE¬ HOUSES IS INTERESTING. The Walls Are of Kxtrjwmllnsry Thick¬ ness—By Keans of Piped Chemicals the Temperature Is Kept Below Zero— Eatable# Kept for Years. The almost perfect system to. which cold storage has been brought in this oity and its suburbs is known only in a general way to the average citizen. It will donbtleasly cause surprise the to persons who are not familiar with facts to learn that a quail they eat for breakfast has been dead in some cases for one or two years, and that qnail and other game birds, fish and meat are frequently and then sold frozen in for good a year or more as a con¬ dition hs they were the day they were put into the great ioe-house. The business has grown to snch di¬ mensions that it is estimated roughly that market men, shippers and others interested in the trade have $15,000, 000 invested in the business, exclusive of the cost of the buildings. Large structures, usually located adjacent to the markets or the railroad depots, are in demand for oold storage ware¬ houses, and there are several on upper West street, more near Washington market, others located near the Fulton market and nnder the arohes of the Brooklyn bridge, that seem particular in adapted the oa 80 for of fruit the purpose. and snchvege- „ Ex tables as are destroyed , by freezing, it 18 are 8 sold , J? to the consumer seldom that upon provisions arrival J? m 1110 * 1 W1 £ ^ 10 « s > of , courB0 B an ^. * ^ bave en » there * 8 ** overstock of chickens, •Wf* be ?/> fish * “•»* or 8un llar co “; “*’■** * . Packed . cold > 8 away m a storage warehouse, where it is held prices justify a sale, wlntsr >» *««" tbat dB game, it was of the only state last emissaries game warden came to this city to find ? ut wh J certain restaurants were sell ln ® venison, , pheasants, quail and every other sort of game out of season The deputy game wardens h id quail * or “ September, when the law said that they should not be killed natl1 December; venison for dinner, w ben deer can only be hunted mJan and woodcock and snipe Then they made a list of the restaurants where the game had been obtained and arrested the proprietors. The pro P rle tors gave the names of the men from whom toey had bought the game, “ d these were found to have obtained J* fro,a * b « warehousemen. It was l earti ed tha.t some of the game had bee “ klllad m0la tba n a year before dunhg the. regulai . season.--"There were expressions of consciousness and wonderment on tho faces of the game not been ^ olated . “We certainly have developed the business,” said one of the ware housemen, “to a point that is un equalled in any other part of the world, Europe has nothing like toe cold -warehouse system of this city. Even royal personages have to take their vegetables, meat, fruit and game in season. Here we do not. The cold warehouse system has been growing bo slowly and yet sorely in this city that it would be considered a hardship by citizens if they had to do without ik We have developed a pampered taste that requires fruit at Christmas, commodities that m the ‘good old times’ we could get only when nature provided them, at times, months after the time they are grown or killed. Bich men want trout at all seasons of the 7 he » **“ ^own that they can only be dbtamed in the spring Xouc <* cbl ok en8 c \ n ? ot he obtained except at their , . weight in gold during * ba the cold months and killed just before b eln * U8ed ; Dy nieaus of the cold storage-system , they cost little more on New Year’s day than they do in May. Spring lamb, that was obtain able formerly only in May and June, j g car8 fully packed away in toe spring and 80 i d the BU0Cee ding winter and weeka be f 0 re the earliest spring lamb of the following spring is born. Beef Bnd mut ton are uot kept nearly so long—no need to do so. "Blnefish can be obtained only at certain seasons, yet they are on sale 1 *11 the time. The is true regard same ing bass, mackerel and other fish, Oysters and clams are also kept for months at a time and frequently from one season to another. ” A visit to one of these warehouses ie interesting. The walls are of extra ordinary and filled thickness, sheathed with wood with huge ice-boxes, in some of the more modern ware honses the some chemicals used to make artificial ioe are circulated through the rooms by means of pipes, which keep the temperature several degrees below zero. The fish, meat or game to be preserved is packed in the ice-boxes, which have double walls, and the iee is packed around them. With the atmosphere around them below zero, the articles to be preserved are kept at a temperature that would make an Arotio explorer shiver until they are wanted, when i they are taken days, out and sold, some times in a few and as often in a few months. The refrigerator cars I have helped to develop toe oold stor ■ age business. There are about twenty-five large cold storage warehouses in this city and a greater number of small ones. In all they employ nearly a thousand men.—New York Commercial Adver¬ tiser. The Pressing Process. In mining for gold in Siberia the ground is kept clear of snow, so as to permit the cold to penetrate as deep¬ ly as possible, after which the surface is thawed by fires until a shallow layer of earth can be removed. The freezing is then allowed to proceed, and the thawing operations repeated, and this is continued as long as the oold weather lasts, says a writer in the Engineering Magazine. In this way through the long Siberian winters open excavations are made to the gold bearing rocks, the depths obtained being from twenty-five duration to seventy-five feet,, according to the of the cold season. Artificial cold for purposes of exca¬ vation was first used by Poetsch in 1883; by his well known process of cold brine through a series of buried pipes the most difficult quicksand may be made hard enough to be excavated like rock. In the article under con¬ sideration are given general illustra¬ tions and details of the apparatus used in sinking the shafts at the Courrieres mines, together with formulas enab¬ ling the safe thickness of frozen wall to be computed for dimensions. round or square shafts of any given Among the important applications of the freezing process are noted the sinking of the shafts for the oylinderB of the hydraulic Fontinettes, elevator and for the the canal lift at Les con¬ struction of a tunnel at Stockholm. The latter work was executed en¬ tirely by the introduction of cold air into the working chamber at the head of the tunnel, the cold preventing in¬ filtration of water until the beton lin¬ ing wa3 built, and the work of excavat¬ ing and mining being carried on at temperatures ranging between zero and 25 degrees Fahrenheit. Left oa a Desert Island. Wise scientists went forth from San Fransisco on March 3, on the schooner Wahlberg, to gather specimens of sea. life. They were college professors, ichthyologists and men like that. They put into San Diego on July 27, with five tons of deep-sea treasures and four marooned miserables whom they rescued from the desert island of Natividad—four wild, wretched crea¬ tures who passed eight horrible months on the island. The four men are Sergeant Sanford and Private Connors of Company H, 'JacRDainpieiy First infantry.of and'Witliam San Diego Andrews, bdrraeks; who were rescued when on the verge of death on Natividad Island, San¬ ford and Connors had been on a three months’ furlough and went down the coast with Dampior and Andrews and others on a guano-poaching expedition, in toe junk Hongkong. That was over eight months ago. At Qedros Island the rest of the crew took the Hongkong and left the four men on Natividad Island, with quite a lot of water and provisions and pro¬ mising to return for them after their cruise to Turtle bay. There was no fresh water on the island and no rain fell. They measured the supply drops, watching: day and night for a sail. They had abandoned hope when the Wahlberg appeared. And indeed they mast have died had not the scientific party rescued them.—New York World. The Sewing Machine. How many women who, day after day, keep np the rocking motion of the sewing machine treadle eves stop, to think what this invention means, not only to them, but to the whole world? And do they know that 90 per cent, of all the machines made in the world are the product of this great country of ours? Sewing machines have revolution¬ ized many branches of bnsiness; espe¬ leather cially is this toe case in all kinds of work,from the heaviest harness to the lightest gloves. A really first-class machine ready for market costs about $20. From-, this figure the price drops to about; $14,with possibly $12,for toe most in¬ ferior grades of what are considered tolerable machines, Hundreds of thousands of persons make their en tire living by means of the sewing ma¬ chine, and probably millions are gain¬ ers by its use. During a period of' over 30 years the value of the exports of sewing machines was something like $70,000,000. In 1896 they were hundred considerably fiver $3,000,000. Three and fifty thousand pairs of shoes were sewed by machinery prior* to 1877, and this product has multi¬ plied almost past belief since that date.—New York Ledger. An Eagle's Cariosity. M. Cabalzar, a French aeronaut, re¬ ports tha.t he met with a strange ad¬ venture in a reoent ascent from An¬ necy, in Savoy. Feeling that the bal¬ loon was being pulled violently, he looked out, and was amazed to see a gigantic eagle climbing with extended wings down the ropes toward the oar. Here it remained, staring fixedly at M. Cabalzar, till the balloon neared toe ground, an hour afterwards, when it was frightened away by the shouts of a crowd ofpeasants.—DetroitFree Press.