Diemer, cpa
Bellefonte, Pa., April 24, 1903.
EEE EE EE.
GRAMPER.
Graudfather’s old an’ rhemuaticky some,
Thiek in his hearin’ an’ failin’ in sight :
Can't chew no more of his bread than the
crumb,
But he’s a hustler, is gramper, all right,
Up an’ a-comin’ an’ chipper an’ gay,
If he can’t do a day's work he has found
He can be useful in many’s the way—
Fixin’ an’ patchin’ an’ putterin’ round.
If there’s a fence board that's anywhere
down.
Gramper’s on hand, with a hatchet an’ nail.
Drives the old mare in the buckboard to
town,
Solders the leak in the tin milkin’ pail ;
Cuts up the early pertaters fer seed ;
Sees that the straps in the harness is sound:
Does fer the wimmen folks all jthat they
need—
Fixin’ an’ patchin’ an’ putterin’ round.
Grandfather's old, but there's lots he can do—
Busiest man on the homestead, you bet !
Done his day’s work, but he ain’t no ways
through,
Good for the chores o’ the eventide yet.
Rest time's a-comin’, though ; soon he will
sleep
Soundly enough in the cemetery ground :
But t'will be lonesome. We’ll miss him a
heap—
Fixin’ an’ patchin’ an’ putterin’ round.
—Chicago Daily News.
THE WRONG ENVELOPE.
My Dear Irene : I answer your letter at
once, for you seem anxious for an imme:
diate reply though there seems nothing to
say. To plunge right into business, I
don’t know the intentions of the Rev.
Richard Stirling. I wish Aunt Clara hadn’t
been so communicative. There was noth-
ing to tell you, and what did she go and
tell it for? He calls here, I admit, about
once a week, loans me books, sings duets
with me and discusses art topics, etc, ete.
Of course you know that the Mrs. Arm-
strong who lives on Summit avenue is his
sister. She and I have been associated in
club work, and we are very good friends.
She was anxious that we should meet, and
seems pleased at our friendship.
You asked me point blank if I am in love
with Mr. Stirling. I will be frank with
you and tell you that Iam. Cuibono? I
don’t believe that he has matrimony in his
mind at all. Ours is a sors of intellectual-
mausical-artistic flirtation, and probably he
thinks it is only an innocent friendship.
Understand me, he is not a flirt. If Aunt
Clara said so she ought to be ashamed of
herself. She quizzed me dreadfully just
before she left home, but I told her noth-
ing but that the Rev. Richard and I are
very good friends.
N. B.—He says I am an inspiration to
him. The goodness only knows what he
sees in me. I'm such a humbug, musical-
ly and artistically that a man of his calibre
should see right through me. He never
suspects—no one does—that the real I—or
is it me ?-is a domestic, old fashioned wom-
an, who would rather order my own
house than write papers for a club. Really
I am one of the women who ought to wear
aprons and make puddings. If I told peo-
ple this they would think I was doing it
for effect.
There is no gense in running on in this
fashion. I write merely to tell you that
you need not foster any hope of having a
clerical brother-in-law. I always knew
that you liked him. In fact you said so
the first time you saw him. I'm not half
good enough for him, even if he contem-
plated matrimony, which I am sure is not
the case. His heart is bound np in those
early fathers (I almost said ‘‘Drat the early
fathers 1”) Wouldn’t he be horrified if he
heard that? Thank goodness, he can’t
hear anything contained in this insane let-
ter. Of course, you’ll never tell Aunt Clara
the least inkling of what I have told you.
I mean about my attitude toward Mr.
Stirling. I am foolish, perhaps to tell you
but you asked a plain question. Besides,
you have always been my confidante, and I
yours. Didn’t you tell me about Jack
Mayhew, when I was a school girl in short
dresses? Keep Annt Clara with you as
long as you can. Emma does very nicely,
and the new second girl bids fair to be a
treasure. Tell Aunt Clara that we take
good care of the dogs.
Yours with much love,
; KATHERINE EARLE.
P. S.-Don’t let Aunt Clara wheedle any-
thing out of you. Perhaps you would bet-
ter not tell her that yon have a letter from
me. She is such a goose about me that if
she thought I wanted Mr. Sterling she
would set about getting him for me. Love
to Jack. KATHY.
To Mrs. John F. Mayhew,
The Croft, Stamford, Conn.
* *
*
The Rev. Richard Stirling came in from
a round of pastoral calls, and mounted the
stairs to his study. He was more fatigued
that many a day laborer. He found pas-
toral calls much the hardest part of his
work, and as he sat down in his favorite
chair and turned up the gas he found him-
self thinking that the early fathers did not
have pastoral calls to make. They did not
attend afternoon teas where young ladies
squabbled over ecclesiastical embroidery.
He found that the luxurious rectory, pre-
sided over by an elderly cousin, who was
the widow of a bishop, lacked something.
For a while he sat trying to think what it
was; presently his thoughts crystalized into
this sentence : “I believe I take life too
streruously. I need some one to make fun
of me, someone who would call me Dick.
Nonsense,” he added quickly, and put his
hand out for the article he was preparing
upon ‘‘The Celibacy of the Clergy.” As
he did so his eyes fell upon a pile of letters
which had been put on his desk daring his
absence.
He opened the first letter and his eyes
fell upou his own name. He recognized
the writing at once, but nevertheless he
read it through to the signature. He read
it a second time, put it down, then took it
up again aud read it for the third time.
His face, usually pale, turned red. Pres-
ently he turned to the desk, took up a pen
and wrote :
My Dear Mrs. Mayhew : Evidently Miss |.
Earle has slipped your letter into an en-
velope intended for me, She was to write
me today about a list of books for our girls’
club. I send the letter to you at once,
hoping it will reach you before you let her
know her mistake. Of course, she need
never know it. May I ask you to let mg
know if this reaches you before you tell
her of the interchange of letters? I havea
very good reason for making the request,
which I'may explain to you later.
Sincerely yours,
RICHARD STIRLING.
. . *
Mz. Stirling put on his bat and overcoat
and went out and dropped the letter in the
mail box, instead of intrusting it to his
man. When he returned he trifled with
his dinner, and before the dessert came in
he begged the bishop’s widow to excuse
him.
When the study door was closed behind
him he spent the evening pacing the floor
and sitting before his desk, gazing at the
envelope andressed in Katharine Earle’s
writing.
On the following day the evening mail
brought him a letter addressed in writing
so much like Miss Earle’s that the color
flared into his face. He hurriedly tore the
envelope open. A sheet in Miss Earle’s
writing fell to the floor. He did not pick
it up, but turned to Mrs. Mayhew’s let-
ter :
My Dear Mr. Stirling : Thank youn so
much for your haste in returning poor
Katherine’s letter. I had just read the
note she intended for you, when yours
came. Of course, as you say, she slipped
the wrong letters into the envelopes. I shall
never tell her of her mistake. Let me
thank you for your haste and delicacy in
this unfortunate matter.
Most sincerely yours,
IRENE EARLE MAYHEW.
*
Mr. Stirling picked Miss Earle’s letter
from the floor :
My Dear Mr. Stirling : I send you the
book list, regretting that it is so meagre. 1
hope to supplement it when I hear from
Miss Gresham, who, as I think I told you,
is working with a Girl’s Friendly Sogeny
in New York. In the meantime I trust
that this list may be of some use to you.
Mrs. Armstrong has just dropped in, and
she bids me tell you that her musicale must
be postponed till next week. She hopes it
will not prevent your coming.
Please let me know if I can be of any
further assistance with the books.
Sincerely yours,
KATHARINE H. EARLE.
To Rev. Richard Stirling, Montclair, N.
J.
‘‘Poor little girl,”’ said Mr. Stirling, un-
der his breath. ‘‘I’m glad that Mrs. May-
hew didn’t tell her.”’
Miss Earle was dressing for dinner the
next day when a letter from Mr. Stirling
was carried to her. If she expected some
communication about library books or sew-
ing classes she was mistaken, for the note
ran as follows :
My Dear Miss Earle—I hoped to see you
today, but some parish duties make it im-
possible for me to leave town. I hope you
will be at home on Monday afternoon, for
I wish to tell you something which vitally
concerns my happiness, and, I venture to
hope, yours also. I shall reach Yonkers on
the 3:11 train, and I hope to find you in
the library waiting for me. If you shall
happened to wear that gray gown you wore
last week, so much the better.
Faithfully yours, ;
RICHARD STIRLING.
Dearest Irene—Prepare for great news.
I am engaged to Richard Stirling. It hap-
pened yesterday. It all cameabout sosud-
denly that I am almost afraid I shall wake
and find that I was dreaming. I know you
will be pleased, for you havea high opin-
ion of Richard. I call him Dick, and he
likes it. Fancy it! Would you bave
thought that I would dare do it? We are
to be married two months from yesterday,
Feb. 1st. It will be a brief engagement,
but it suits us. Aunt Clara goes about the
house acting like a blissful old goose, bless
ber. This morning I caught hersinging an
old love tune. She blushed like a girl when
I came in upon her. She is planning my
trousseau ; nothing too good for me, now
that I am to marry a clergyman. Come up
a day at least as soon as you can, and talk
things over. Affectionately,
KATHERINE.
*
My Dearest Girl—Just a word tosay that
I hope the bridal bouquet will turn up all
right. I saw it packed and properly ad-
dressed. I can’t think of any last thing
that has been left undone. If yon can wire
me at once. I am hoping for a fair day to-
morrow. ‘‘Happy is the bride,’’ ete. Not
that you aud I need mind if the skies are
gray. It seems like a dream, almost, that
after noon tomorrow I shall have the
right to carry you away.
I bave a great secret to tell you, but I
shall keep it till we have been married ex-
actly a year and a day. No amount of
coaxing can get it out of me an hour before
that time. It is a tremendous secret and I
am sorry that yon must wait so long to
know it. Your devoted,
RICHARD.
*.%
*
My Dear, My Better Half—I am so sor-
ry that I could not get home in time to
celebrate our anniversary yesterday. Fath-
er is still in a very critical condition,
though the physicians have some hope that
he will pull through. It did not seem safe
to leave him, and mother depends upon me
for everything.
I hope you received my telegram yester-
day at noon; also the roses. I tried
to get them as much like your bridal ones
as possible. It has been a very short year,
dear, and it scares me to think at this rate
we will have but a short time together be-
fore we reach our threescore-and-ten. Be
assured that the first minute the doctor pro-
nounces father out of danger I will fly back
to you. My heart is in the dear rectory. I
used to think it a gloomy house before you
came here.
Now, I will keep my promise to tell you
that great secret, since we have been mar-
ried a year and aday. Just a year and two
months ago you sent me a letter intended
for Irene, in which you confessed your
hopeless love for me. You slipped it into
my envelope, and in hers you puta prim
little note about some books for the girls’
club. I wrote Irene post-haste, sending
her the letter, and conjuring her never to
let you know what you had dome. As
goon as she assured me that she hadn’t and
wouldn’t, I wrote you a note, asking an
audience on the following Monday, when I
proposed in due form, as you ' may remem-
ber. It was a bona fide declaration, for by
that tiwue Isaw that I had been in love
with you much of the time when I thought
we were simply good friends. It might
have taken me longer to find it out if you
had not made that mistake with the let-
ters. So that’s the secret. As ever,
Your most devoted,
DICK.
Dear Boy—Is that all you have to tell ?
Bless you I put Irene’s letter in your en-
velope on purpose, as the cook says. I held
hers back a little so you would have time
to write her and keep her from telling me
of my mistake. I thought it quite time
that something brought you to your senses,
for I was getting tired of platonic business,
I wonder whois surprised now? If you
never come home I shall know that you
are properly shocked. Probably Aunt
Clara wouldn’t take me buck if she knew
the truth, and { shall be thrown ‘on the
cold world. In that case I shall support
myself by lecturing. I ought to say that
Irene was not in the plot. She asked me
if I loved you, and I answered her ques-
tion. With much love,
KATHERINE.
P. S.—The flowers were lovely. I al-
most cried over them; it was so beaatiful
of you to'get them just like my bridal
roses. I put on my wedding gown and
veil and walked up and down the study,
carrying my bouquet and humming the
march from Lohengrin, just iix= a goose.
Oh, I almost forgot this : In looking for
that sermon you wrote I found a paper of
yours on ‘“The Celibacy of the Clergy.” I
am using it for onrl papers.
KATHERINE.
But I will forgive you.
Magnanimonsly,
ICK.
—By Adelaide P. Rouse in Zhe Pilgrim.
Yon baggage !
Bridge Builders Dangers.
High Above the Water They Face Death at Every
Turn.
The interesting article is from the pen of
Cleveland Moffett, the well known writer :
As I went time and again to the great East
River bridge the new one whose steel tow-
ers were drawing to full height in the last
few months I found myself under a
growing impression that here at last
was a business with not only danger in it,
but fear of danger. Divers and steeple
climbers I bad seen who pronounced their
work perfectly safe (though I knew better)
the balloonists of the same mind abous
perils of the air; there were none, they de-
clared, though I had a list of deaths
to prove the contrary. And so on with
others. But here on the bridge were men
who showed by littie things (and some-
times admitted ) that they were afraid of
the black ribbed monster. And it seemed
to me that they were men with the best
kind of grit in them, for although they
were not afraid of their fear, and they
stuck to their job week after week, month
after month, facing the same peril until—
well—
I came upon this fear of the bridge the
very first time. sought leave to go upon
the unfinished structure. It wasin a lit-
tle shanty of an office on the Brooklyn side,
where after some talk I suggested to an as-
sistant engineer, bent over his plans, that
1 would like to take a picture or two from
the top of the tower. That seemed a sim-
ple enough thing.
. “Think you can keep your head up
there ?’’ said he, with a sharp look.
I told him I had climbed toa steeple
top.
“Yes. But you were lashed fast then in
a swing and had a rope to hold on to. Here
you bave got to climb up by yourself with-
out anything to hold on to, and it’s twice
as high as the average steeple. Thesaddles
are 340 feet above the river.”
“Saddles ?’’ I queried.
“That’s what we call ’em. They're
beds of steel on top of the towers for the
cables to rest on—nice little beds weighing
thirty six tons each.’’
“Oh !”’ said I. ‘‘How did you get them
up 2”
“Swing ’em up with steam derricks and
cables. Guess you wouldn’t care for that
job, hanging out on one of those booms by
your eyelashes.”” He smiled.
“Perhaps not,’”’ I admitted.
like to watch it.”
He said I must see something with more
authority and turned to his plans. He was
busy.
“You don’t feel in danger yourself, do
you,” I persisted, ‘‘when you go up ?”’
“Don’t, eh?’ he answered. ‘‘Well, I
nearly got cut in two the other day by a
plate washer. It fell more than 100 feeb
and went two inches into a piece of timber
I was standing on.” Then he explained
what havoc a small piece of iron—some
stray bolt or hammer—can work after a
long drop.
‘‘The plate washer,’’ said he, ‘‘weighed
only two pounds and a half when it began
to fall, but it weighed as much as you do
when it struck—and you’re a fair size.’
“Is that true—I mean a statement based
on calculation,”’ said I, ‘‘or is it a joke?”
“It’s based on the laws of gravitation,’’
he answered, ‘‘and it’s no joke for the man
who gets hit. Say why don’t you go down
in the yard and look around a little ?”’
Itold him I would and presently went
down into the yard, a noisy, confusing
place where the wind was humming through
a forest of scaffolding that held the bare
black roadway skeleton one hundred feet
over head. It was a long sheet of iron
resting on a long street of wood, with tim-
ber and steel built up in X’s on X's, the
whole thing rising in an easy slant to
yonder grim tower that loomed heavy and
ugly against the sky, a huge bowlegged
H, with the upper half stretched to a great
length and each leg piled up with more
black H’s held by two enormous ones be-
tween. It looked for all the world as if it
had come ready made in a box and had
been jointed together like children’s blocks,
which is about the truth, for this great
bridge was finished on paper, then in all
its parts, before ever a beam of it saw she
East river. As I drew near its feet (which
could take a row of house, between heel
‘But I'd
and toe) I had the illusion, due to bigness | &
and height, that the whole tower was rock-
ing toward me under the hurrying clouds,
and at first I did not see the workmen
swarming over it, they were so tiny.
But they were making noise enough,
these workmen, with their striking and
hoisting and shouting.
There was the ring of hammers, the
chunk-chunk of the engines, the hiss of the
steam, the mellow sound of planks falling
on planks and the angry clash of metal.
Presently far up the sides of the tower I
made out painters dangling on scaffolding
or crawling out on girders, busy with
scrapers and brushes. And higher “still I
saw the glow of red hot iron, where the
riveters were working. And at the very
top I watched black dots of men swing out
over the gulf on the monster derrick booms
or haul on the guiding lines. And from
time to time the signal bell would send its
impatient call to the throttle man below,
six strokes, four strokes or one stroke, tell-
ing him what to do with his engine and to
do it quick.
Drinking Water.
A beginning of kidney trouble lies in
the fact that people, especially women, do
not drink enough water. A tumbler of
water sipped in the morning immediately
on rising and another at night are recom-
mended by physicians. Try to drink as
little water as possible with meals, but
take a glassful half an hour to an hour be-
fore eating. This rule persisted in day
after day, month after month, the com-
plexion will improve and the general
health likewise. Water drunk with meals
should be sipped as well as taken sparing-
ly. Ice water ought never to be taken
with one’s meals and as little as possible
between meals. . One never knows what is
being taken into the stomach in water fill-.
It is safer to fill bot-
to stand
ed with chipped ice.
tles with water and allow them
beside ice to chill until required.
On the Yellowstone Trail.
From the mouth of the Hudson to the
headwaters of the Yellowstone is a three
days’ journey. The tourist leaves New
York on Monday morning; Tuesday morn-
ing brings him to Chicago, and the same
evening in Saint Paul he hoards the Pacific
Express on the northern Pacific Railroad.
All day Wednesday you watch from your
speeding Pullman the noble panorama of
the Northwest, the Minnesota wheat lands,
the North Dakota cattle ranges, and the
sculptured buttes of ‘‘the bad lands.” A$
sunset your train is rushing westward
along the banks of a muddy river. It is
the Yellowstone. All night the train
keeps the river company, until early on
Thursday moraing at Livingston, Mont.,
yonr car is left standing on a siding, while
the other coaches are hurried on over the
Rockies and the Cascades to the Pacific
coast, a thousand miles beyond.
At Livingston the Yellowstone river,
pouring out of the heart of the mountains,
makes its great bend toward the eastward
and sets off to join the Missouri some three
bundred milesaway. Looking southward
from the railway station, the t.urist sees
the wall of snow-capped peaks which
guards the boundaries of the National Park.
Soon his car is attached to the train on the
“Park branch.” and the last stage of the
journey is begun. The railroad follows
the river into the Gate of the Monntains,
across the smiling Paradise valley, past
of the old-time prairie schooner,
threads the lower canon and treads on
the towering Emigrant peak, the landmark
the foot of Cinnabar mountain. The
changing grandeur of the scenes keeps us
silent and wide-eyed. We pass the Devil's
Slide, two parallel dikes of trap rock run-
ning up and down the mountain side with
a smooth track between them, down which
Milton’s Satan might have coasted like a
hoy on a cellar door. Some fifty miles
from Livingston, where the spur leaves the
main line, is Gardiner, the terminus of the
Park branch. Here we are transferred to
the six-horse stage-coaches of the Yellow-
stone National Park Transportation com-
pany, or to the conveyance of the Wylie
Permanent Camps, according to our plan
for making the circuit of the park.
Access to the park is free to all, and
many persons go through it on horseback
or in their private vehicles, pitching their
tents at pight at one of the designated
camping places. Otheis patronize the
Wylie company, which operates a circuit
of stages, and which entertains its guests
very comfortably in neat hotels of canvas.
Most tourists, however, take the regulation
trip in the stages of the Yellowstone Na-
tional Park Transportation company, and
stop at the substantial frame hotels of the
Yellowstone National Park Association,
which accommodate from one hundred and
twenty-five to two hundred aud fifty guests.
This trip occupies five and one half days
and introduces you to all the leading
sights. The expense for transportation,
lodging, and meals is a trifle under fifty
dollars. By the Wylie outfit the expense
is fully one-fourth less. :
We mount the top of the big yellow tal-
ly-ho at Gardiner. The cowboy driver
cracks his whip and the six bronchos jump
into their collars. They have a stiff pull
of two or three miles up the Gardiner
canon to the park plateau. The mountains
round are forested thickly with pines, the
little river brawls and leaps among its
bowlders. eagles sail far overhead or settle
upon the nest which caps a striking pin-
nacle on the edge of the canon, more like.
a stout mast than a shaft of living rock.
Soon after leaving the railway the road,
which is superbly engineered and thor-
oughly built, passes a wooden tablet
painted white, which notifies us that we
have at last entered the park domain.
There is no fence or barrier-wall about its
two-bundred-and-twenty.mile boundary,
and the white mileposts lettered in black,
with the dissances and the altitudes, are
often the only sign of the government’s
presence and care, though a coiored caval-
ryman escorts the stages from Gardiner to
the first hotel, showing in every move-
ment and feature his importance as the liv-
ing representative of Uncle Sam.
The mileposts declare that the toiling
coach has climbed a thousand feet above
Gardiner, and we are six thousand two
hundred feet above sea level, when sud-
denly the driver's whip cracks, the bron-
cos spring forward past a row of red-roofed
barracks, with the stars and strips flying
above them and a cannon planted in front.
It is Fort Yellowstone, the headquarters of
the superintendent of the park, and the
military post of the two companies of
troopers who patrol the reservation. The
fort—looking strangely like a group of
boarding houses—faces a level space of sev-
eral acres, hemmed in by mountains.
Near by on the right is the great red mass
of the hotel, flanked by the smaller build-
ings of the settlement—the photograph
gallery (with its fence palings of elk
antlers), post office, store, laundry, lodg-
ings for the road builders, and a curio shop
or two. Farther yet to the south, a thous-
and feet distant, is something new and
strange. The surface of the plain begins
to show white through its covering of
reen. Curious conical forms stand upon
it, the hillside beyond is here white and
glistening. there tawny, and seems to be
cut into giant steps, while from the sides
and summit thin white wreaths and curls
of steam rise continually and float away in
the clear air. These steps are the famous
terraces, and the floating vapors come from
the Mammoth Hot Spring, which crowns
this hill of lime of its own building two
hundred feet above the surrounding plain.
Rooms assigned and luncheon disposed
of, the sight-seeing begins. The great
white sugar-loaf, forty feet high, called
“Liberty Cap,’”’ and the smaller ‘‘Giant’s
Thumb’’ are the crumbling monuments in
lime to two ancient and played-out hot
springs, which have left their dead craters
standing alone. The terraces are more
beautiful on closer acquaintance. What ap-
peared at a distance to he steps are shell-
like bowls, formed by the precipitation of
the lime carried in solution in the hot
water and deposited as it cools. They
shade off from sparkling white through
cream, and sulphur yellow, to ocher, reds
and browns, with delicate flutings and
bead-work. Thegroup of terraces bear the
names of heathen divinities—Minerva, Ju-
piter, Cleopatra—was she not ‘‘divine’’ ?
The form of the ‘‘Pulpit Terrace,’ hor-
dered with a fluting of stalacitites, explains
its name. The ‘‘Angel Terrace’’ is of al-
most unearthly beauty, its snowy bowls be-
ing seen through the whitened branches of
the lime-killed pines, which still stand in
ghostly grace. From the rear we may
reach the summit of the terraced elevation
and walked out npon the level white ‘‘for-
mation.’”’ The glare of the sun is almost
intolerable, and the unshielded eye turns
for relief to the somber pine-clad moun-
tains close at hand. But there is a fascina-
tion which ealls it back to the glittering
plain, for set in this acre-slab of marble is
a gem of purest azare. It is the Mam-
moth Hot Spring itself, as a shallow pool
of orystal purity some forty feet in
‘diameter dished in porcelain, and in
wu RHEIN
the center the dark blue water gushes
up from the depths in a swelling,
throbbing tide, which raises the surface of
the pool like the jeweled boss on some
gigantic shield. The exquisite tints of
blue and white, the silvery cascades of
warm water that leap down the hillsides.
waving their vaporous banners, the coral-
like terraces—themselves like cataracts in
stone—with the ancient mountains stand-
ing guard around, and a sense of mysteri-
ous world building forces working here
through the ages of ages—these manifesta-
tions of beauty, grandeur, and power
throng in upon the spectator, and transport
him with wonder and praise.
Mammoth Hot Springs (altitude six
thousand two hundred and fifteen feet) is
the headquarters of the military and of the
transportation company. The post office is
here, and here most tourists enter and leave
the park, after making the circuit. Fort
Yellowstone is to be honored this month
(April, 1903) by the presence of President
Roosevelt, who visits the park two months
in advance of the tourist season in order to
have rest and seclusion. The two remain-
ing articles of this series will describe the
geysers, and endeavor to convey some faint
appreciation of the glories of the great fall
and the Grand Cauon of the Yellowstone.
Sinking Sands.
Engineers Find Two Seemingly Bottomless Pits in
the Great Salt Lake. Engine and Cars Engulfed.
Troubles Which the Central Pacific People are
Experiencing in Building the Lucin Cut-Off.
Millions Have Been Spent.
Into the capacious maws of two quag-
mires in the Great Salt Lake have disap-
peared recently a locomotive, more than a
score of cars, section after section of rail-
road embankment and track and several
human beings, says the New York Herald.
Still the voracity of those maws, which
may be the openings of subterranean, out-
lets of the lake, have not been appeased.
In its attempt to build its °‘Lucin cut-
off’’ across Salt Lake the Central Pacific
has developed another mystery in that
weird, mysterious inland sea. Seemingly
bottomless pits of shifting quick sand have
been encountered. Mountains of rock have
been dumped into the pits, but the sands
are still treacherous and yielding. Time
and again an embankment has been built
across, only to be swallowed up in a night.
The embankment has at times appeared
to be solid and a temporary track has been
laid upon it. At the first weight of the
cars the track has settled. Sometimes the
crew has been successful in getting the
train off safely. ~ At other times cars have
been lost, while within the last ten days
the track settled so suddenly that a locomo-
tive and several cars pitched into the wa-
ter. The fireman was killed and the engine
driver was injured, while the locomotive
disappeared toward the interior of the
earth.
William Hood, chief engineer of the
Southern Pacific road, is on the ground
with other engineers, striving to solve the
problem. Some of the engineers say private-
ly that the case is hopeless and that the
track can not be made safe, at no matter
what expense.
According to the hest information ob-
tainable, the two quagmires have already
cost the company about $1,000,000 more
than estimated, while with good luck from
this time on the work on the lake portion
of the undertaking cannot cost less than
$4,000,000.
The cut-off extends from Ogden to Lu-
cin, in the extreme western part of Utah,
and, with the exception of a few miles east
and west of the terminal points, makes al-
most a straight line across the state. Build-
ing was started about nine months ago
from both ends and along the line.
The distance across the lake is about
twenty-eight miles. This work is now
completed with the exception of about ten
miles where the present great trouble is
experienced.
The Lucin end of the new road reaches
the lake at Strong’s Point, as the shore ex-
tends into the water there for some dis-
tance. The roadbed is continued into the
iake for about four miles and the rest of
the distance to the promontory is trestled,
excepting for ten miles, where the quag-
mire has retarded the work.
One ‘‘quag’’ is about half way between
the western+shore and the promontory.
From the Ogden side the roadbed is built
into the lake for about six miles,and trestle
work extends for the rest of the distance to
the promontory. That side of the lake also
has a quagmire, and although the road is
completed and trains run across it, the
trestle work keeps sinking rapidly and the
road has to be re-built regularly.
There are consequently two quagmires.
One is half way across Bear river bay and
the other is in the middle of North Arm,
where the road crosses it. It is in North
Arm that most of the trouble has occurred.
Piles of no matter what length driven into
the lake bottom go down hard for about
sixty feet and then, having apparently
pierced some outer crust, drop out of sight.
The first accident there occurred last fall
when two gravel cars were lost by the com-
pany. Roadbed after roadbed disappeared
and other cars and an engine have been
drawn into the place as the result of sink-
ing tracks.
1t was in the eastern quagmire that the
most recent serious accident occurred. A
construction train was passing over the
temporary track when the roadbed sagged
suddenly on one side, derailing the engine
and overturning it into the water, while
several cars were dragged after it. The
fireman was killed and the’ engine driver
was badly injured.
Several theories have been advanced as
to the cause and extent of these quick
sands. It bas been a current belief for
many years that the Great Salt Lake con-
tained subterranean outlets. Several riv-
ers pour into it, while the only apparent
outlet is through evaporation. Many per-
sons are convinced that the cut-off is being
built over two of these subterranean out-
lets, which are covered at the mouth by
the shifting quick sand.
_ Southern Pacific engineers believe the
eastern quagmire is the result of the wash-
ing down for centuries of silt from the Bear
river. This has filled in a deep canyon,
and they believe persistence will result in
finding the solid bottom. While they do
not offer to explain the other quagmire,
they believe the same result may be ob-
tained there.
The greatest difficulty is expected in the
western quagmire, which is now giving
most trouble. Here the wind sweeps the
entire length of the lake and the waves are
high. The water is thirty feet deep. It is
the intention tc build ten miles of trestle
across this portion, but so far the founda-
tion has not been secured.
The engineers have decided on an ex-
periment which they hope will solve the
problem. They have started on the build-
ing of immense ‘‘cradles”’ of timber. which
will be filled with stone and lowered into
the lake. By anchoring these carefully
and binding them closely together, it is
hoped that they will stand the strain.
All manner of expedients have been nec-
essary to carry on the work. Leaving Og-
den for six miles the road runs throogh a
beautiful farming country, but the rest of
the seven miles to the lake shore is across
the desert. This is all easy railroad build-
ing. At the edge of the lake is Little
mountain, which is cut through, the steam
shovels taking ont the material, which is
used to fill in the embankment. Two miles
inland an artesian well furnishes water for
the 1,000 or more men and the twenty-four
donkey engines. An artesian well was
sunk in the bottom of the lake, under the
salt water, and a flow of fresh water was
obtained, but it was so muddy it could not
be used.
_Trouble began as soon as the lake was
entered. Areas were encountered where
the salt and sand made an apparently solid
bottom. Perhaps it was solid, and the
plie driver would sink only a couple of
inches at a stroke. Again, the pile might
go through the crust and sink out of sight
at the second stroke. In other places the
mui was so soft that it would not bear the
weight of the construction train without
some device to aid in thesupport. In such
a case planks were laid eight feet to the
south of the permanent roadbed, a tem-
porary track laid, and light cars of rock
were sent out to be dumped over the side,
forming the permanent roadbed,
When the water was reached the tem-
porary track was extended by sand bags.
These were loaded on rafts and poled out
to the place desired. There they were
piled into piers and timber stringers were
placed across, the track being laid on these.
I6 was in this way that the first quagmire
was reached.
In deeper water this method was unavail-
ing, and the pile drivers came into service.
The stern wheel steamer Promontory, 127
feet long and with eighteen inches draught,
is used to tow scows carrying pile drivers
out into the lake. These drivers were
stationed at intervals of a mile. As soon
as a platform could be built on the piles
the drivers were raised on to them by their
own power and the building was pushed
along.
For the convenience of the men a board-
ing house was built six miles out in the
lake, accessible only by boat. On this
artificial island live several hundred labor-
ers, with their supervising officials. :
As the piles are driven a temporary track
is laid on them, and the donkey engine,
with ite pile driver, is pushed along. Be-
hind them come the trains of rock, to be
dumped over the side for the permanent
roadbed. When all is ready for unload-
ing, the engine begins winding a cable,
mashinery is set in motion, and almost in
an instant a train carrying 2,000,000 pounds
of rock is unldaded. In this way a perma-
nent roadbed twenty-four feet wide and
fifteen feet high has been built from the
eastern shore across to the promontory.
Forces of graders and track layers follow,
and in a short time the construction trains
are running over the regular roadbed.
Dr, Lorenz to Stay a Month.
Treatment of Lolita Armour Wiil Take That Long.
Dr. Adolf Lorenz, the noted Viennese
surgeon, who arrived at New York on
Tuesday of last week on the Lahn, left
Wednesday morning for Chicago, where he
will remove the cast from the body of his
little patient, Lolita Armour, and give the
after treatment which is to bring her leg
into a normal position.
‘Iam quite confident that my little
patient is cured,’’ said Dr. Lorenz. ‘When
I left this country last November it was
agreed that Mr. Armour and his family
would visit me in Vienna, where the final
treatment would be applied to the little
girl. When the time arrived for them to
start, however, her parents feared that the
trip would discomfors her.
*‘It would have been a hardship to the
little one to undertake so long a journey.
So when they wrote me of the situation of
affairs it was decided that I should go to
Chicago to treat her.
“I will first remove the cast and then
the after treatment begins. Her leg is now
in an abnormal position, and it must grad-
ually be returned to a normal one.
“‘This will take probably four weeks and
that is the extent of time I shall remain
here. The only purpose of my visit this
time is to treat the little girl. No; I don’t
intend to undertake any traveling in the
West. I think I did enough of that on my
former visit.”’
When asked whether he had any thought
of remaining in this country and practic-
ing here, Dr. Lorenz laughed genially and
shook his big beard.
‘No, no; I do not think so,’’ he said.
In speaking of the trip Dr. Lorenz said
it was fair and pleasant sailing from Gib-
raltar to the Azores.
“But from thete on,’’ he said, ‘‘the
weather was rongh and stormy. And for
the Jast two days we had a perfect gale.
“I’m not much of a sailor, and although
I missed only one meal, aud everybody
30a me I looked well, yet I felt misera-
e.
‘I sailed from Spain, having gone from
Vienna to Madrid, where I had several pro-
fessional duties.
through historic Spain and afterward to
attend the international medical congress
in Madrid, but now that, I suppose, will
be impossible.’
In speaking of the reports of the skep-
ticism with which his surgical methods
were received by surgeons in London, when
he went there on his departure from
this country, Dr. Lorenz laughed heartily,
saying, the stories were true,
“They were very conservative and high-
ly skeptical,”’ he said, ‘‘but not all,’’ he
added quickly. “The good surgeous,
whom I know well, appreciated my work,
with which they are familiar.”’
She Counldn’t Lose.
Mr. Catchpower is a very clean man.
His friends often remark how immaculate
his linen and how perfect his bands appear,
even in the afternoon of a day of Pittshurg
service. Mr. Catchpower bas been known
to cleanse his face and hands as many as
eight times during the day.
“It refreshes me‘’’ he explains, ‘‘and,
besides, I cannot do anything when my
hands and face feel sticky with dirt and
grease. It is all habit.”
At home Mr. Catchpower is just the
same—more so if anything. He is hap-
piest, his wife says, when he is splashing
about in a tub of soapy, tepid water. * * *
A few days ago Mrs. Catchpower employed
a new maid—an Irish girl named Maggie
—a strong, verdant, willing, good natured
girl who was sure to make good in the long
run.
Yesterday Mrs. Catchpower happened to
glancg into the wash room as she passed
and was horrified to see the new servant
washing her face and arms with her hus-
band’s pet sponge.
“Why, Maggie,’’ she exclaimed, ‘‘that’s
Mr. Catchpower’s sponge !”’
“Shure, I know it, mum,” squinting
around with her eyes full of soap: “but
he’s such a clean man, shure, I don’t moind
a bit washing afther the loikes iv him !’’
Iintended to takea trip”
~