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About The Chemawa American (Chemawa, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (April 21, 1920)
PAGE 4 T H E CHEM AWA AMERICAN BIRDS AND ANIMALS ARE CURIOUS Most animals, like man, have a prominently de veloped bump of inquisitiveness. They must needs investigate and inquire into every new and curious thing they encounter. As a result they sometimes meet with disaster and not infrequently interfere seri ously with m an’s affairs. An adventuresome squirrel climbed a pole support ing a wire carrying an electric current of 36,500 volts at St. Cloud, Minn. He grounded this powerful cur rent and paid for his curiosity with his life. His body was later found at the foot of the pole, his whis kers and eats burned off and a big hole rent in his body. Incidentally, the service of a number of sub stations over some 26 miles of line was interrupted. In another case a 2200-volt feeder of a railroad signal system was burned out. Men sent to locate the trouble found that the wire was grounded and broken. Following it up to the point of breakage they discovered the charred bodies of two mice. Evident ly the inquisitive animals had gnawed through the in sulation and short-circuited the current with unfor tunate results to themselves as well as to the signal system. A semaphore board at a railroad crossing in T arry town, New York, was observed to swing up and down in an unwonted manner, giving the signals “ danger” and “ clear” alternately. The gateman, glancing at the other semaphores, found them all do ing a similar crazy dance and decided that something very unusual must have happened. Looking into the conduit carrying the wires over which flowed the elec tric current for operating he discovered a ground-hog. A fire was built to smoke Mr. Ground-hog out, al though it was not his regular outing day. Another watchman, seeing the smoke, concluded that the crossing was on fire and stopped all trains on his side of the station, including fast expresses. The ground hog finally gave up and crawled out, and the trains proceeded, their crews all angry at having been de layed . Sometimes birds and animals through accident rather than curiosity get mixed up with man-made contrivances and cause serious trouble and incon venience. Often they lose their lives to boot. Just after a heavy downpour of rain some months ago the current for the motors that run the presses and other machinery at the printing plant were sudden ly shut off. The power company was notified and a “ trouble” man was sent over the line to discover the cause of the interruption. A few squares away from the building he found a b ird ’s nest built against the wiies. This had caused no trouble while dry but after becoming soaked with water it became a sufficiently good conductor to short-circuit the current. When the nest was removed the normal flow of current was resumed and the machinery started running as usual. A crane alighted on a tower supporting a high-ten sion electric wire in California but its rest was of short duration; the 104,000-volt current shot through its body to the ground, putting both the bird and the electric line out of commission, the former for all time. Night-flying birds are sometimes attracted by the light of lighthouses, much the same as moths are drawn to light from any source. Many are killed as a result of crashing with terrific force against the glass of the windows. One winter, during prolonged zero weather, it was noted that the lights of certain signs in New York city were unusually dim. On investi gation great numbers of birds, including sparrows, pigeons and larger species, were found clustering about the bulbs absorbing what warmth radiated from them. This heat, though comparatively slight, ap parently saved the lives of thousands of the feathered wanderers. NEAR-PERPETUAL MOTION James Cox, a London jeweler, is credited with hav ing produced the nearest approach to a real perpetual- motion device that the world has ever seen, unless we count the gas-meter, as someone has suggested. This device was a clock, built in 1774. It proved a real puzzle, even to the learned scientific men of that day. When the secret finally came out it was found that a barometer supplied the motive power. The mechan ism was cleverly devised to be run by fluctuations of the atmospheric pressure, operating through the baro meter. At length the clock was sent to the Chinese emperor as a gift. It was stolen from him and no-one knows what finally became of it. Perhaps it is still running in some out-of-the-way corner of the world, as an em inent man of science who studied it in England de clared than it would keep on going until its parts, worn by friction, would no longer function. FORT LAPWAI SANATORIUM SCHOOL A U n ited S tates G o v ern m en t School an d S an ato riu m com bined, for th e tre a tm e n t, tra in in g an d in stru c tio n of In d ia n boys an d g irls of school age who are afflicted w ith in cip ien t tu berculosis. E lig ib ility ru le s g o v ern in g e n ro llm e n t of p u p ils at n o n re serv a tio n In d ia n Schools ap p ly . A su m m er cam p in th e m o u n ta in s is m ain tain ed d u rin g July a n d A ugust. W e have room for about tw en ty ad d itio n a l p u p ils w ho are w illin g to com e a t th e ir ow n ex p en se. F o r fu rth e r in fo rm atio n and ap p licatio n b la n k s ad d ress, O. H . I.IP P S , S u p t., Lapw ai, Id ah o . The less coal we had the colder it got.
