Demorralic atc "Bellefonte, Pa., February 14, 1919. THE PRAIRIE CROCUS. By Will Truckenmiller. While yet the snow in drifts is deep, And strong and cold the March winds sweep, In every slightly sheltered place The prairie crocus shows its face, Oh! first brave flowers of the spring, What promise to us you do bring Of balmy, summer days to be With all their floral pageantry. Sweet roses blooming everywhere, And stately lillies, tall and fair While gentians blue and goldenrod, To passing breezes, wave and nod. But none, however gay they be, And sweet and fair, can give to me The pleasure that you always bring, Oh! first brave flowers of the spring. NATURE’S BRIDGES. The best known of all natural bridges is that found in the south- western part of Virginia. This strange rock formation has been vis- ited by good geologists and tourists from all parts of the world. It is not so very far from a railroad station of the same name, and a short drive brings the visitor to it. As the road winds around over the hills and through forests of spruce pine, one comes upon the Natural Bridge quite unexpectedly. In fact, if one were not on the lookout, it would be possi- ble to pass over it and not be aware of its proximity. The walls are al- most fifty feet apart, and the arch has a thickness of forty-four feet. The | sides of the road adjoining the bridge | are strewn with spruce pines, which | find sustenance in the scant covering ! of soil. There is also a beautiful tan- | gle of vines and creepers growing all about. : : Natural Bridge crosses in aa ob- | lique direction a chasm which is sev- | eral hundred feet long, and through | which flows Cedar brook. The walls | of this chasm are almost perpendicu- | lar, and they rise above the bed of the stream about two hundred feet. In some places they are overhanging. | but recently been reported by the United States Geological Survey in Utah, from fifty to one hundred miles from the nearest railroad. Several of these bridges are of almost gigantic dimensions, among them being the Augusta, the Carolina or Kachina, and the Edwin. They are remarka- ble not only for their dimensions, but their coloring. Formed of red sand- stone, they are streaked with other shades of red and yellow, and have al- most as vivid coloring as the Grand Canon. The Augusta, or Shipapu, bridge is two hundred and sixty-one feet long at the bottom, and the arch is more than two hundred feet high. It is more than three times as long, and twice as high, as Virginia's fa- mous bridge. It is the greatest of | these three bridges, for it combines massiveness with a gracefulness of proportions that give a satisfying ef- fect. It is almost as wide as the av- erage roadway. The Carolina is one hundred and fifty-six feet long, and two hundred and five feet from the underside of the arch to the water be- low. The arch is more than one hun- ; dred feet thick, so that the roadway | is very lofty. The width on the top | is almost fifty feet. The dimensions | of the Edwin bridge are not so strik- : ing as the other two just described. ! Yet like all of these great stone mir- | acles, it has a grandeur and a beauty ' seldom met with in nature. i The Nonnezoshie Natural Bridge, near the same locality, is another of | these remarkable ‘formations. It is | rather an arch of stupendous size, ! since the top is not level, and was first ! reported in 1909 by the members of an archaeological expedition. It is more than three hundred feet in height, and almost the same distance from abutment to abutment. Its curve is nearly perfect, its lines arch- ! itecturally beautiful. This remarka- ble arch has been wholly carved out of the cliff by wind, rain and water. The section including this bridge was set aside by President Taft as Rainbow Bridge National Monument. | The Indians had given the canon the | name Nonnezoshieboka, the Great! Arch Canon. The wild setting makes | it one of the most attractive places in , the United States.—By Nevin O. Win- ter, in The Forward. i American Negroes Put Fear in Huns. Big Grocery Store Plan Starts March 1st. Chicago.—It is planned to put the retail grocery business on a per cap- ita basis in Chicago, New York, Phil- adelphia and St. Louis by the Piggly Wiggly Merchandising company, just organized with a capital of $2,000,000. The new company, which is a devel- opment of the Piggly Wiggly system of self-serving, cash-and-carry retail grocery stores operating in seventy- eight cities throughout the United | States, plans to open 5000 stores in New York, 3000 in Chicago, 2000 in Philadelphia and 1000 in St. Louis. This number will be at the rate of 1000 stores to every million of popu- lation in the four cities. The compa- ny will open its central headquarters in Chicago March 1. ——Only a few of the things we want are absolutely necessary to our welfare. Why Swift & Company Handle Poultry, Eggs, Butter and Cheese Swift & Company went into the pro- duce business because they saw a crying need for the kind of service they were equipped to perform. The produce business was in chaos. Collecting, transportation, preparation and distribution was hit or miss, USNS2NMSMS Ue Ue] Ue Ue USI EiEUEUELUEUEUEUELUEUELUEUESLUELELELUSLUS LUE IEUEUEL CLC UCUCUELEL I=nsisnsnan2nenannn=2naNan=nananara El ElEUELELELELELE LEE L: Shoes. Yeager's Shoe Store $8 Shoes Reduced to $5.50 I have an accumulation of sizes--- 8,181, 9 and 10--in Men’s Genuine Army Shoes These shoes sell at $8.00 per pair. You can Purchase a Pair at $5.50 Until they are All Sold This is $1.25 less than the Gov- ff Lk with delay, deterioration and loss on every hand. The farmer was at the mercy of an uncertain, localized market. He had no way of reaching through to the people who needed what he was raising for them. There was no prem- jum upon improving his stocks, for The sides are bare. The arch of the | : - i bridge is two hundred feet above the | With the American Army of Occu- | stream, which in itself distinguishes | pation—Wherever American negroes | this from the other natural bridges of | have appeared in the area occupied | the world. The top of the span is | by the Americans they have attracted ninety-three feet across, but it con- | great attention among the civilians. , tracts considerably near the bottom. |In Treves, Coblenz and other places, It has been left to man’s ingenuity | during the early days of the occupa- ! to provide suspended roadways, ol | tion, crowds assemble wherever any | though natural bridges do exist in sev- | 2&0 soldiers stopped in the streets, eral parts of the world. Their origin | 2nd it was necessary for the military | is variously explained, but the most | police to enforce the orders prohibit- | RR RRL RE LEAS, ernment is paying for Army Shoes today. NANA = I2ni2nia2n2n2n=2NiS NM N= =U SUSUMU Hed Best Ud generally accepted theory is that they | Ing gatherings in the public thorough- | have been formed by the erosion of water, whereby an outlet has been forced through a rocky ledge, thus forming a bridge. Another theory states that Natural Bridge, of Virgin- ia, was once a gigantic cavern, and that its roof and walls, destroyed by some convulsion of nature, left stand- ing the present-day wonder. Visitors to Mackinack Island see in the famous Arch Rock a kind of nat- ural bridge, although it is not so sit- uated that it ever was valuable as a roadway. Formerly. people. over it at will, but in recent years this has been forbidden, for fear of the . danger of the arch breaking. At the | best, it simply formed an artistic | frame for a beautiful picture. i In the Jordan Valley, near Pella, is | found a fine specimen of natural | bridge across the little watercourse | known as Wadi Hammet Abu Dha- | bleh. The banks of this deeply sunk- | en wadi, which means watercourse or valley, are very steep. Across it] stands an overhanging arch of con- | glomerate limestone which is nearly : three hundred feet long. It is thirty ! feet in width, and it is about one hun- | dred feet from the bed of the wadi to the roadway. The great broad, flat arch itself is thirty feet high, and much greater in span. : In the very heart of the Andes, and | on the Argentine side, is the Puente | del Inca, the Bridge of the Incans. Not many miles away, the lofty vol- cano, Aconcagua, seems to cleave the very blue of the heavens, while Cerro del Mercedario and Tupungato, scarce- ly less impressive, kiss the clouds with their snow-covered summits. It would be difficult to find a scene in na- ture more majestic or imposing than meets the eyes from the bridge. is bridge has a span of one hundred and fifty feet, with a width of one hun- dred and twenty feet, and the top of the arch is fully sixty feet above the Mendoza River which flows beneath. At the time of the Incas this bridge was a station on the great highway which led across the Andes, and it was by this road that the tax gatherers passed annually to collect the tribute due their sovereign. The last collec- tion was made in 1585, when a part- ner of Pizarro in the subjection of the Inca empire, Don Diego de Almagro, met officers of the Inca emperor bear- ing the annual tribute near the bridge and seized a portion of it. Almago with his followers crossed it, and in trying to go westward became lost in the mountains. Being without shel- ter from the stormy blasts that swept down from the peaks of the Andes, many of his soldiers were frozen, and others became blind from disease of the eyes which is caused by constant exposure to the glare of the sun on the snow. It was a melancholy and disastrous march, but Almago finally succeeded in crossing the pass and reaching the Pacific. Tens of thous- ands of persons have crossed this bridge in the last four centuries since the feet of the white man first invad- ed these passes. Many tales are told in connection with this curious natur- al bridge. Some of them are proba- bly true, but most of them have orig- inated in the fertile brain of some dweller in these regions during the past several centuries. One story tells that the Bridge of the Incas was at one time the headquarters of a fa- mous Italian bandit, named Farina, who robbed the ore trains that cross- ed the mountains. He was so success- ful that traffic was practically 'stop- ped, and after retiring from this bus- iness he opened a hotel in Valparaiso with his ill-gotten wealth. ; Natural bridges are exceedingly rare. Our great and wondrous West, however, furnishes a number of such freaks of nature. The most remarka- ble natural bridges in the world have i fares. | { gro soldiers, they attract crowds of Even now in Coblenz and Tre- | ves, where there are a number of ne- ' German children every time they ap- | pear in the streets. The German soldier also regards the negro with great curiosity. Ac- cording to a discharged German sol- i dier in Rengsdorf, the German army, early in the war, offered a reward of 400 marks for the capture alive of | each negro. The discharged German | soldier said that throughout the war, walked German soldiers lived in great fear and even terror of the negroes, and it was in order to overcome this fear that rewards were offered. : One evening on the front a scout- ing party, consisting of ten Germans, ! including the discharged soldier, en- countered two French negroes. In a fight which followed two of the scout- | ing party were killed. One of the ne- | groes escaped, the other being taken prisoner. During the fight two of the Germans left their comrades and ran | to the protection of their own trench- | es, but these, it was explained, were | young soldiers and untrained. The ! reward of 400 marks subsequently | was divided among the remaining six Germans for capturing the French negro. Zeppelins in the Animal World. Every mouse in the fields and mead- | ows, every rabbit that crouches under ! the thicket, every grouse and pheas- | ant, even fish and frogs and muskrats | in the waters and the squirrels and song-birds of the forest, live under a | menace from above, no less terrible | to them than the Zeppelins have been to London, and far less effectively combated. They live under the men- | ace of the raptores, or birds of prey —certain species of which are still far commoner than the ordinary per- son supposes, even in the settled sec- tions of our northeastern States. The terror comes to them out of the air; it drops with the speed of lightning and kills with extraordinary strength and ferocity. Size in itself is little protection, for a goshawk will easily kill a rooster and even carry him off. That menacing shadow over the hen- yard which causes such a commotion on a still summer day hovers in real- ity over all the land of the little wild folk, by night as well as by day, and tragedy falls like the traditional bolt from the blue in open field and sedgy marsh and silent forest.—Walter Prichard Eaton, in Harper's Maga- zine. ——Immigration into the United States from Europe has ceased. The immense station at Ellis Island in New York harbor, through which the newcomers used at times to pass at the rate of 3,000 a day, is put to oth- er uses connected with the war. Last year more Europeans left the coun- try than entered it, perhaps the first year since 1492, certainly the first since 1776, that the balance of migra- tion has been on the debit side. But according to official figures, Africans ledsthe list of immigrants in the last six months of 1917. These Negroes settled mostly in Northern cities, ad- ding to the problem already created for the Christian forces by the large migration from the Southern fields and cities to the Northern industrial centers. The Statesmanlike View. Another reason why we are sure of woman’s grasp of public matters is, when we asked Sister Smith what she thought of President Wilson’s going to Europe to attend the Peace Con- ference she said she thought it was grand, as his wife would enjoy the trip so much.—Houston Post. | —the eagles, hawks, falcons, and owls | tral points, was demanded. public support. grading was lax or lacking. The consumer had to accept produce that, as a rule, had no known respon- sible name behind it. of knowing how long the eggs or the butter he was buying had been lying around in miscellaneous lots in the back room of a country store. poultry was not properly refrigerated before shipment or properly protected by refrigeration in transit. Swift & Company's initiative brought system to this chaos. tion, equipment, and experience in handling perishable food products were already adjusted to the task. Their refrigerator cars, branch houses, cen- ar-reaching connections, trained sales force, supplied just what Now the farmer has a daily cash market in touch with iceds with better prices. zation makes better produce more profitable. More consumers are served with better, fresher, finer foodstuffs. Nothing suffers from this save inefficiency, which has no claim upon Swift & Company, U.S.A. He had no way SNS MUMS Ue Ue Yeager’s Shoe Store THE SHOE STORE FOR THE POOR MAN Bush Arcade Building BELLEFONTE, PA. 58-27 EL ELELEL EL ELE ELE ELE ELE EEE El El Slee El EELS EELS UELELELUELlEUE USL EUSUEL cS n2riSri=2riai=n-— ELELEIELELE LEE ELE EL EE ELE ELE LE LEE Much of the =ni2niznz2nzn2n=an=2n=2ni2n2n=2n2ni2n=Sni2n=2niani2 ri i= === ia ae Come to the “Watchman” office for High Class Job work. Their organiza- the nation’s Standardi- | FINE GROCERIES We are receiving fairly good shipments of Supplies for the New Year NAVAL ORANGES are in. The quality is fine and the price reasonable. CALIFORNIA WALNUTS and almonds of extra fine quality. OUR WHITE GRAPES AND CRANBERRIES are very fan- cy goods. CANDIES. In Candies we have succeeded in getting a fair sup- ply of desirable goods. EVAPORATED APRICOTS, PEARS AND PEACHES are very fine this season and we have all of them. We Have the Supplies and Will be Pleased to Fill All Orders, MINCE MEAT. Mince Meat of the usual high Sechler & Co. standard. Positively the finest goods we can produce. 28c. 1b. Try it. FANCY, MILD CHEESE, Sweet Potatoes, canned Fruits, Olives, Ketchup, Pure Olive Table Oil, old fashioned New Orleans Syr- up and fine table Syrup by the quart. Much finer goods than the Syrup in pails. pope Dopey Lyon & Co. Lyon & Co. Reconstruction Sale We are going to have the Largest Marked- Down Sale in the history of this store. We are busy finishing inventory, and will have all prices marked down and reconstructed. Sale Begins February 8th All Dress Goods in Silk and Woolen and Cotton, Sheets and Pillow Cases, Calicoes, Ginghams, Bed Tickings—in fact every price in all departments will be reconstructed. This will Méan Prices Lower than Wholesale Today. See our Rummage Table BETTER THAN EVER Spring Coats and Suits Here FOR YOUR INSPECTION SECHLER & COMPANY, B71 ule siren be Bush House Block, - Bellefonte, Pa. Lyon & Co. «» Lyon & Co.