NOTES AND CLIPPINGS.
The Deepest Mining Shaft. — If you go to the famous Red Jacket shaft, for instance, you find the most powerful hoisting machinery in the world, huge engines of as much as 8, 000 horsepower which reel and unreel drums of wire cable that wind down a straight mile below the surface. These engines hoist ten-ton cars of ore one mile at the rate of forty miles an hour, or from the bottom to the top of this stupendous hole in the ground in ninety seconds. This is the deepest mining shaft in the world. Apart from this fact, perhaps the most interesting feature of the Red Jacket shaft is in the theory that it is possible to detect the effect of the earth’s revolution in a hole as deep as this. No less an authority than President McNair, of the Michigan College of Mines, has explained the belief that nothing dropped in this deepest of mining shafts can ever reach the bottom without colliding with the east side of the shaft.
“This is due to the motion of the earth, ” said he. “The article dropped, no matter what its shape or size may be, will invariably be found clinging to the east side of the shaft. One day a monkey wrench was dropped by a miner, but it failed to reach the bottom, and was found lodged against the east side of the shaft several hundred feet down. We decided that to make a proper test of the theory, it would be worth while to experiment with a small, heavy, spherical body. So we suspended a marble, tied with a thread, about twelve feet below
the mouth of the shaft. We then burned the thread with a lighted match in order not to disturb the exact fall of the marble. About five hundred feet down it brought up against the east side of the shaft. When miners have fallen down the shaft the result has been similar. Their bodies, badly torn, have been found lodged against the east side of the shaft. A carload of rock was dumped down the deepest mining shaft in South Africa, but not a particle of it reached the bottom. ” — Ralph D. Paine, in Outing.
The Monastery at Rilo. — It is said that the largest spoon in daily use is the wooden soup stirrer at Rilo monastery. The old spoon at Rilo is famous. It has been used for more than twenty years, and has had predecessors of its own kind for centuries. It has stirred soup for thousands of refugees who have sought safety in the monastery from the persecution of the Turk. The monastery was built in mediæval times. It has a curious kitchen. It is a room twenty feet square, but nearly one hundred feet high. Its rock walls gradually slope together as they rise, forming a dome with a hole about a foot in diameter at the top. A depression in the earth floor holds the fire, made of pine logs. Over the fire is hung a great iron cauldron, which holds more than twenty gallons of soup. The cook, climbs up on a big square stone and stirs the soup with the great spoon. The smoke from the pine rises with the steam of the soup to the dome and out through the opening. — Exchange.
Fire-killed Timber Valuable. — It is not generally known that trees killed by forest fires are used to any large extent, the popular opinion being that timber of this character is unfit for use. Dead timber is usually associated with unsound and decayed wood. For this reason it is hard for the average person to believe that it is capable of much use. In the West, however, there are many large tracts of firekilled timber which, owing to dry climate and high elevations, are just as sound thirty years after as the day they were burned. One of the important uses made of dead timber is for railroad ties. It has been found that the strength of the timber has not been impaired by the fire-killing while the durability has been often increased. Where these ties have been used along with green-timber ties they have shown up remarkably well. In some cases they have lasted much longer than ties of green timber. Dead timber is used for this purpose in wholesale quantities in the Pike’s Peak National Forest, in Colorado, and in a more limited way in some other places. That ties made of this material are of known value is proved by the fact that the price is the same as for green-timber ties. In a number of places these ties have been made as long ago as fifteen years. Where the worth of the ties is known there is a strong demand for them. One tie contractor had a contract for 75, 000 and could easily have doubled it had he been able to get out the ties. The Government, through the Forest Service, is acting for the greatest economy by disposing of this dead tie material before
In Mill, Factory, Storehouse
and Temporary Building construction, whether first cost is or is not a factor, you cannot use a better roofing or siding material than our
APOLLO BEST BLOOM Galvanized Sheets
They are flat, even in gauge, tough, pliable, easily worked, reasonable in price, and will give complete and lasting protection. Apollo Sheets are world-wide favorites, and it will therefore pay you, as thousands will testify, to demand Apollo when you are ready to place your orders.
We’ll gladly give you further information if you will write. Our Weight Card may also prove useful.
American Sheet & Tin Plate Company,
FRICK BUILDING
PITTSBURGH, PA.
The Deepest Mining Shaft. — If you go to the famous Red Jacket shaft, for instance, you find the most powerful hoisting machinery in the world, huge engines of as much as 8, 000 horsepower which reel and unreel drums of wire cable that wind down a straight mile below the surface. These engines hoist ten-ton cars of ore one mile at the rate of forty miles an hour, or from the bottom to the top of this stupendous hole in the ground in ninety seconds. This is the deepest mining shaft in the world. Apart from this fact, perhaps the most interesting feature of the Red Jacket shaft is in the theory that it is possible to detect the effect of the earth’s revolution in a hole as deep as this. No less an authority than President McNair, of the Michigan College of Mines, has explained the belief that nothing dropped in this deepest of mining shafts can ever reach the bottom without colliding with the east side of the shaft.
“This is due to the motion of the earth, ” said he. “The article dropped, no matter what its shape or size may be, will invariably be found clinging to the east side of the shaft. One day a monkey wrench was dropped by a miner, but it failed to reach the bottom, and was found lodged against the east side of the shaft several hundred feet down. We decided that to make a proper test of the theory, it would be worth while to experiment with a small, heavy, spherical body. So we suspended a marble, tied with a thread, about twelve feet below
the mouth of the shaft. We then burned the thread with a lighted match in order not to disturb the exact fall of the marble. About five hundred feet down it brought up against the east side of the shaft. When miners have fallen down the shaft the result has been similar. Their bodies, badly torn, have been found lodged against the east side of the shaft. A carload of rock was dumped down the deepest mining shaft in South Africa, but not a particle of it reached the bottom. ” — Ralph D. Paine, in Outing.
The Monastery at Rilo. — It is said that the largest spoon in daily use is the wooden soup stirrer at Rilo monastery. The old spoon at Rilo is famous. It has been used for more than twenty years, and has had predecessors of its own kind for centuries. It has stirred soup for thousands of refugees who have sought safety in the monastery from the persecution of the Turk. The monastery was built in mediæval times. It has a curious kitchen. It is a room twenty feet square, but nearly one hundred feet high. Its rock walls gradually slope together as they rise, forming a dome with a hole about a foot in diameter at the top. A depression in the earth floor holds the fire, made of pine logs. Over the fire is hung a great iron cauldron, which holds more than twenty gallons of soup. The cook, climbs up on a big square stone and stirs the soup with the great spoon. The smoke from the pine rises with the steam of the soup to the dome and out through the opening. — Exchange.
Fire-killed Timber Valuable. — It is not generally known that trees killed by forest fires are used to any large extent, the popular opinion being that timber of this character is unfit for use. Dead timber is usually associated with unsound and decayed wood. For this reason it is hard for the average person to believe that it is capable of much use. In the West, however, there are many large tracts of firekilled timber which, owing to dry climate and high elevations, are just as sound thirty years after as the day they were burned. One of the important uses made of dead timber is for railroad ties. It has been found that the strength of the timber has not been impaired by the fire-killing while the durability has been often increased. Where these ties have been used along with green-timber ties they have shown up remarkably well. In some cases they have lasted much longer than ties of green timber. Dead timber is used for this purpose in wholesale quantities in the Pike’s Peak National Forest, in Colorado, and in a more limited way in some other places. That ties made of this material are of known value is proved by the fact that the price is the same as for green-timber ties. In a number of places these ties have been made as long ago as fifteen years. Where the worth of the ties is known there is a strong demand for them. One tie contractor had a contract for 75, 000 and could easily have doubled it had he been able to get out the ties. The Government, through the Forest Service, is acting for the greatest economy by disposing of this dead tie material before
In Mill, Factory, Storehouse
and Temporary Building construction, whether first cost is or is not a factor, you cannot use a better roofing or siding material than our
APOLLO BEST BLOOM Galvanized Sheets
They are flat, even in gauge, tough, pliable, easily worked, reasonable in price, and will give complete and lasting protection. Apollo Sheets are world-wide favorites, and it will therefore pay you, as thousands will testify, to demand Apollo when you are ready to place your orders.
We’ll gladly give you further information if you will write. Our Weight Card may also prove useful.
American Sheet & Tin Plate Company,
FRICK BUILDING
PITTSBURGH, PA.