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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (June 28, 1903)
IP TTTF, SUOTAX OEEGONIAN, PQRTLA2SD, JUNE 28, 11)03.. MOST WONDERFUL- SUBSTANCE ON EARTH Radium the new element discovered by Madame Curie, of Paris is the most mar velous substance in the world. jt supplies heat, light and energy in a continuous stream, and yet loses none of Its own power by waste. Dp to this time, all the most famous scientists in the -world Including Lord Kelvin, the English Edl-' son, and Sir "William Crookes, of X-ray fame have been, unable to account for Its source of power. A pound of radium in a room 15 feet long by 18 feet square "would heat and light the room, and run a lot of machinery for ages without the slightest diminution of force, efficiency or woisht. . ' It has" its drawbacks, however, lor a pound of the substance In the size room mentioned would shrivel up all the living things" with which Its wonderful rays came In contact. ' All other substances are as air to ra dium rays. It pe"netrates steel, lead, mer cury, tin, copper, zinc and iron as if they were so much mosquito netting; If you sit in a dark room, blindfolded and with your head inside a leaden box, the rays of radium will be seen through all the thickness of the box, the blind fold, and even the closed eyelids. Can Photograph Throncli Steel. If you carry a tenth of a grain of ra dium in your pocket for a week, your skin will "be blistered through your clothing, even should the substance be encased In a copper tube, and surrounded by glass. Radium rays will penetrate nearly every known substance, and photographs can be taken with it through sheets of steel. All the foregoing sounds very much like a pipe dream from the longest "Church warden" oh earth. But It Isn't. The marvels of the new substance are so great that the flight of the wildest im agination is scarcely able to afford an Idea of Its qualities. Half the story of what radium will be is yet to be told. Scientists all over the world have riveted their attention on the new element, and any day might endow It with new and still more wonderful vir tues. Perhaps it is just as well for the dwell ers of this earth that so little radium is In existence. At present. It has to be extracted from pitchblende, a dark green compound found principally In the Hartz Mountains, In Bohemia, and in Cornwall, England. It is only obtained by submit ting the pitchblende to the most laborious Jdnd of processes, and then it requires a whole ton of pitchblende to yield 15 grains of radium. y I Irs a Tremendous Value. Until science knows more, about radium. Its production in such small quantities is perhaps an advantage rather than other wise. For, If a pound would kill every body in a large- room, and a tenth of a grain blister the sjn, what would a few tons do if suddenly brought to the earth's surface. The cost of radium prohibits its use ex cept by the wealthiest scientific Inves tigators It 'is worth more than Its weight In diamonds. A single gramme Is worth about 53500; an ounce, $100,000; while a pound, gentle reader, should you wish to invest In one, would stand you in, for the trifling sum of $1,575,000. It will be quite a while before there is a. "corner" In the radium market at these prices. The discovery of radium was not so much the result of accident as the prod uct of patient investigation. Some years ago M. Henri Becquerel conducted some experiments with the salts of uranium, and he found that they were continuous ly giving out a sort of stream of cor puscles, or minute atom-particles, which science has called electrons. Becquerel's discovery In relation to uran ium resulted from finding that air sur rounding an electrified body became con ductive of electricity. Becquerel also dis covered that the rays from the salts of THE- RO ADM ASTER'S STORY H ALLEY'S father was a section fore man. "When Halley was a kid he got Into Brodle's office doing er rands; butwhenever he saw a draughts man at work he was no good for errands. At such times he went all Into a mental tangle that could neither be thrashed nor kicked out of him; and .Brodle, since he could do nothing else with him, final ly kicked him Into learning to read and to cipher, Brodle called it. Then, by and by, Halley got an old table, and part of a cake of India ink himself, and himself became a draughtsman, and soon be came chief draughtsman In Brodle's of fice. Halley was no college man Halley was a Brodle man. Single mind on single mind concentration, absolute. Mathemat ics, drawing, bridges, .brains that was Halley. All that Brodle knew Halley had -from him; and where Brodle was weak, Halley was strong master of himself. "When Brodle showed the Imago he was made In, Halley hid the ebame best ho could, and Brodie, who hated even him self, showed still a light In the wreck by molding Halley to his work. For one day, said Brodie In his heart, this boy shall be master of these bridges. "When I am rot he will be here what I ought to have been this Irish boy and they will cay he was Brodle's man. And better than any of their Eastern graduates he shall be. If he was made .engineer by a drunkard. And Halley was better, far better than the graduates, better than Brodle and to Halley came the time to wrestle the Spider "Water. All Brodle knew, all the Indians knew, all that a life's experience, eating, living, watching, sleeping with tho big river had taught him, that Halley knew. And when Brodle's' bridge went out Hailey was ready with his new bridge. It was to bfc such a bridge as Brodle's bridge with th me-water left out. But the cost! The directors Jumped their table when they saw the figures. "We wera being milked at that time to put It bluntly, being sucked by a "Wall Street clique that robbed our good road, shaved our salaries, impoverished our equipment, and cut our maintenance to the quick. They talked economy and studied piracy. "When Halley demanded a thousand guild ers for his Spider" "Water bridge they laughed and said, "Come, take fifty." He couldn't do anything else; and he built PffOTOGRAPIZX &lNC2r STEEL Jsi7Z HV uranium penetrated opaque bodies glass, metals and other substances. Madame Curie and her husband well known French scientists began investi gating' along the Becquerel lines, and as uranium and thorium' were obtained from pitch-blende, they began tp-.lqpk for o'th er substances. After several gears of very, patient search, Madame 'Curie sep arated the salts of radium, from fcKc pitch blende. The fact that this great discovery has been made, by a. woman has excited the attention and interest of women all over the -world. Madame Curie found that the salts of radium were spontaneously luminous, and also that they imparted the power of giving forth light to all bodies with which radium came in contact. For Instance, a glass vessel containing radium retains its luminosity -after the radium has been re moved from It, Sir "William Crookes the Inventor of the Crookes tube, and. one of the most dis tinguished chemists in the world has tried a number of experiments with radium. He found that his glass beakers, test tubes and other vessels, after coming Jn con tact with radium were therqselves en dowed with radlent powers and emitted light when placed against a blende screen. Of course, radium rays are invisible un der ordinary circumstances. in order to see .them one must be in a totahy dark room. The radium Is placed near a card board screen the surface of which has been coated either with zinc-sulphide or platino-cyanlde of barium. Great Po-rrer of the Rays. Looking -at the screen, a wonderful scintillation Is beheld'. Radium electrons keep ur a continuous bombardment against the screen which resembles -the explosions of"""thousands .of tiny meteors in the heavens at night . The points of light as they strike the screen are vivid ly green in color. Ordinarily, tSe rays from most sub stances can be turned aside or deflected by powerful draughts of air, or by the presence of .an electro-magnet. Sir "Wil liam .Crookes found that no amount of electric current, and no force of air cur rent, had the power to deflect radium Tays. They kept on their course Irre spective of- every attempt made to divert them. Their velocity has been computed at the rate of about 95.030 miles a second. and their activity Is 100,003 times greater than uranium; which, up to the discovery of radium, was the most active substanqo"; iarger than a pin's head, carried In tho in the world. Uranium, it might be men- ( pocket can blister the skin through tho 1 tioned, Is 3000 times more active than ci0thlng. and through a copper tube sur other substances; therefore, radium is : imriii hv frins rinnMiprj its stimulative ;SOO,fi0O times morenctive than eyery other known. substance. j It Encrsry I Endlexs. . Tn an. Interview on radium. Sir William I Crookes, epeaklng of the power of the new element, said: "The energy of one gramme of radium electrons is enough to lift the whole of the British fleet to the top of the Alps." Lord Kelvin, In experimenting with the radium with a view to ascertaining whether or not it lost energy, found that it would take more than a billion years for a .square centimeter of radium to lose one mlllegram (thousandth part of a gramme) 'in. weight. As radium loses nothing la weight or energy, the, absorbing -question is: "Where does its marvelous energy come from? Various scientific so-called explanations have been advanced, but, so far, none of them has been satisfactory. Sir "William Crookes believes that radi um replenishes Its energy from the mole cules In the surrounding atmosphfcro; other scientists' think the rays come from millions and millions of years of stored suniight; and again, there are others 'who affirm that there is a "'fourth Btate" of matter which science knows nothing about at present. Radium by Its marvelous power of do ing work without loss, upsets all the pre conceived notions of science regarding the conservation of energy. Every ono a fifty-guilder bridge tobar the Spider's crawL It lasted really better than tho average bridge. But the dream of Bailey's life this we all knew, and the Sioux -would- have said the Spider knew was to build a final bridge over the Spider "Water a bridge to throttlo it for all time. Halley would talk Spider bridge to a Chinaman. His bridge foreman, Ed Pee to, a staving big one-eyed French Cana dian, actually had but two ideas in life- one was Hailey, the other the Spider bridge. "When the management changed again, and a great and public-spirited man took control of the system, Ed Pee to kicked his little water spaniel In a frenzy of delight. "Now, Sport, old boy," he exclaimed rlotouBly, "we'll get the bridge." So there were many long conferences at division headquarters between Bucks, superintendent, and Callahan, assistant, and Halley, superintendent of bridges, and afterward Halley went once more to general headquarters, lugging all his estimates revised and all his plans re figured. Tho new president, as befitted a very big man, received Halley with consider ate dignity. He listened to the superin tendent's .statement of the necessities at the Big Sandy River. The -amount looked large, but the argument, supported by a mass of statistics, was convincing. Hal ley's budget called, too, for a new bridge at the Peace River and a good one. Halley stayed over to await the decision. He haunted the general offices until the president told him he could have tho money. The wire flashed the word to the "West End. Everybody at tho "Wickiup was glad, but Ed Peeto burned red' fira and his little dog Sport ate rattlesnakes. Old Denis Halley went very near crazy. He resigned as section boss and took a place at smaller wages in the bridge carpenter's gang so ho could work on the boy's bridge. For A woflder the bridge material came In fast, and early In the Summer Halley, very quiet, and Peeto, very profane, moved Into construction headquarters at the Spider, and the first airlock ever sunk west of the Missouri closed over tho heads of tall Halley and big Ed Peeto. The "blowpipes never slept;, night and. day the sand streamed from below, and galley's caissons 6unk foot by foot toward tho rock. , By the middle of September .the masonry was crowding high-water mark, and the. following Saturday Hailey and Peeto ran back to Medicine Bend to rest Tip a bit an get acquainted with their families. Halley looked ragged, and thin, like the old depot, but Immensely happy. Sunday was a day to get your feet on the tables up In Bucks office and smoko knows that If a certain amount of work Is done, loss must result, and the. loss or waste has to be made up In some way. ' Radium, however, loses nothing. Radi um not only emits light,. but it gives- off heat. The heat given oft by radium is t such that it will melt Its own weight of ice in an hour. "Where this heat comes from, or how that heat can continue after It has melt-, ed 'the Ice, science at present does not know. The advocates of perpetual mo- " tion seem to have a natural confirmation of their theories in radium. Lots of marvelous properties are bejng claimed for radium, and the peculiar part about it Is that scientific men seem to admit that its possibilities are almost unthinkable.- Usually, scientists aro very prompt In "calling down the mere im aginative dreamer. Both Sir "William Crookes and Lord Kelvin, however, as well as the Curies, are inclined to tho opinion that radium will prove one of the greatest scientific , agents In the world. Its commercial possibilities are of ! omirRp n1tn wrv irrpnt. If a nolnt Tin effect on the nervous system will bo enor- mous. The 'optic nerve, even in persons 1 to.tally blind, is sensitive to radium ema- , nations: and as it also .possesses ph6tOi !. graphic powers, perhaps the hUnd tnay yet be enabled to eee pictures. Medical Men Look to It. I Medicinally, its powers are untested; though some of the best medical men i think great things will come from radium J therapeutics. A Glasgow professor has suggested that If Professor Jaques Loeb can practically create life by chemically fertilizing sea-urchins, why could not tho dead be brought back to life and rendered , Immortal by radium baths and nerve stira- ulation? As the energy of the radium i3 perpetual, the stlmulaus would never die. The war or the future wm merely De a question as to which power has the larg- est chunk of radium. As its rays can penetrate any thickness of steel, armor plates will be a back number. Doubtless some gun will be Invented to throw radi um projectiles; or, perhaps, armies "will burn each other "up with radiumthrow.- ing reflectors. However', this is. mere spec- :-i c? it i i ulation. So far, radiuin has proved one' of the best substances on which to exer cise the Imagination. This in itself rec ommends It as a topic of Interest. If radium should be produced In suffi ciently large quantities, the houses of a city could be painted with zinc sulphide; Callahan's Cavendish. Bucks wquld open the R. R. B. .mall and read tho news aloud for the benefit of Callahan and Hailey and such hangers-on as Peeto and an occasional strays dispatcher. "Hello," exclaimed Bucks, "here's a general order Number Fourteen " The boys drew their briers like one. Bucks read out a lot of stuff that didn't touch our End, and then be reached this paragraph: 'Tho Mountain and the Intermountain divisions are hereby consolidated under the name of the Mountain division, with J. F. Rucks as superintendent, headquar ters at Medicine Bend. C. T. Callahan Is appointed assistant superintendent of the new division." "Well, well, well" said Hailey, open ing his eyes. "Here's promotions right and left." "H. P. Agnew is appointed superintend dent of bridges of the new division, with headquarters at Omaha, vice P. C. Hal ley." Bucks read on. Then ho read fast, looking for some further mention of Hailey. Halley promoted, transferred, as signedbut there was no further mention of Halley. Bucks threw down the order In a silence. Ed Peeto broke but first. "Who's H. P. Canoe?" "Agnew." "Who the hell Is her' roared Ed. No body answered; nobody knew. Bucks at tempted to talk. Callahan lit his lighted pipe, but Ed Peeto stared at Halley Hke a drunken man. v "Did you hear that?" h snorted at his superior. Halley nodded. "You're out!' stormed Peefo; .', Hailey nodded.. The bridge foreman took his pipe from his mouth and dashed it Into the store. Halley spoke. 'Tm glad we're up to high water at the Spider. Bucks,"said he at last. "When they get In the Peace River work, the di vision will run for Itself for a year." "Halley," Bucks spoke slowly, "I don't need to tell you what I think of It, do I? It's a damned shame." Halley rose to his fet, "Where you go ing. Phil?" asked Bu,cks. "Going back to the Spider on Number Two." "Not going1 back this inornlng why don't you wait- for Four, to-night," suggested Bucks. "Ed," Halley raised his voice at the fore man, "will you -get those stay bolts and chuck them Into the baggage ear for nie on Number Two? I'm going over to the house for a minute." He forgot toanswer Bucks; they knew what It meant. He was bracing himself to tell the folks before he. left them. Preparing to tell the wife and the old man that ho was out. Out of the 'Radium Baffling Science Witi Its Power, Upsets All Tneories of Nature's Daws. WSqI12ECTS G&kslT an(jt Dy placing Tadlunfln the street lamps the, city would be. forever luminous. No renewals of material would be required, so far as the radium was concerned. It would -only be necessary to coat the ! houses from time to time with zinc sul- .phtde or platino-cyanlde of barium, lloir to Light a Room. By coating the walls of an office with zinc sulphide and then suspending a few grammes of radium from the ceiling, the j office, would be lighted perpetually; . . ... . . A small piece of radium placed in the fireplace or connected up to the cooking stove would supply a perpetual heat. The gasman will look rather superfluous in those days. Mr. "W. E. Garrett Fisher, a well known scientific Investigator, thinks that By FranK railroad system he had given his life to help build up. Out of the position he had climbed to by studying like a hermit and working like a hobo. Out without criti cism, or allegation, or reason slmnly, like a dog, out. Callahan, with Bucks, tried to figure what it meant. 1 know why they did it," Bucks said slowly, "but I couldn't tell Halley." Why?" "I tnlnk I know why. Lost time I was down the president brough't his name up and asked & lot of questions about whero he was educated, and so on. I gave him the facts told him that Brodie had given him his education as an engineer. The minute he found out he wasn't regularly graduated he froze up. Very polite, but he froze up. See? Experience, actual ac quirements nothing nothing nothing. As he concluded Halley was climbing be hind his father into the smoker. Number Two pulled down the yard and out. One thing Hailey meant to make sure of that they shouldn't beat him out of the finish of tho Spider bridgo as he had planned it; i one monument Halley meant to have one he has. . The new superintendent of bridges took bold promptly. He was a good enough fel low, I guess, but vreill hated him. Bucks did the civil, though, and' took Agnew down to the Spider In a special to Inspect the new work and Introduce him to the man whoso bread and opportunity he was taking. There wasn't a mean drop any where in Halley's blood, and he mode no trouble whatever for his successor. After ho let go on tho West End Hailey talked as if he would look up something further east, but Bucks told hlra frankly he would find difficulty without a regular degree. Halley himself realized that. -Moreover, he seemed reluctant to quit the mountains. He acted arourjd the cottage and the Wickiup like a man who has- lost something and who: looks for it abstract edly. But there were lusty little Ealleys ov.er at the cotlagc to be looked after, and Bucks, losing a roadmaster about that time, asked Halley (after chewing it a .long time wlthCallahan) to take the place himself and stay, on the staff. 4'i know It docsn-'t seem Just right." Buck3 put it, "but, Hailey, you must re member this thing at Omaha isn't going to last. They can't run a road like this with, Harvard graduates and B6ston type writers. There'll be an entire new deal down, there some fine day. Stay hereNrtth me, and I'll say this, Hailey, If I go ever yon go with me." And Halley. sitting with his head be tween his hands, listening" to his wife and to Bucks, said one day, "Enough," and THINGS Jr RtTU&T the discovery of radium U leading to the ' still greater discovery of "a mysterious I form of energy -which transcends all our ideas on the subject," and that "it may possibly point the way to a source of power that will revolutionize our Indus tries. Radicity may soon be a substitute for electricity. It Is only a question of quan tity: a. mere matter of method. Some one may soon discover another substance besides pitch-blende which yields radium in sufficient amount to make it a com mercial possibility. Then thlng3 will begin, to. hum The age of radicity will be as far ahead of the electrical age as the age of steam was In advance of the stone age. "W. B. NORTHROP. (Copyright, 1503.) H. Spearman the first of the monthreported for duty as roadmaster. Agnew, meantime, had stopped all con structlon work not too far along to dls continue. The bridge at the Spider, for tunately was beyond his mandate; It was finished to a rivet as Halley had planned It. Three spans, two piers and a pair of abuttments solid as the Tetons. But the Peace River canyon was caught In the air. Halley's caissons gave way to piles which pulled the cost down from JKjp.OOO to xio,ow, and incidentally It was breathed that the day for extravagant 'expenditures on tho West End was past, and Bucks dipped a bit deeper than usual Into Cal lahan's box of cross-cut and rammed the splintered loaf into his brier a bit harder and said no word. "But if we lose just one more bridge it's goodby and.one to the California fast freight business," muttered Callahan. We had no winter that year till spring, and no spring rill summer; and it was spring of snow and a summer of water. Down below the plains were lost in snow even after Easter. After that tha snow let up; It was then no lonrer .a matter of keeping the line clear; It was a matter of lashing the track to the right of way to keep it from swimming clear. Halley caught it worse than anybody, but he worked like two men, for In a pinch that was his way. Bucks leaned on the wiry roadmaster as her did on Callahan or Neighbor. Halley knew Buck3 looked to him for the track, and he strained every nerve making ready for the time the mountain snows should go out. Now, the Spider wakes regularly twice; at all other times irregularly. Once In April; that Is the foothills water; once in June; that is the mountain water. Now came an April without any rise; that Aprjl nothing rose except the Bnow. "We shall 'get It all together,-' 'suggested Bucks one night. ' "Or will it get us all together?" asked Halley. "Either way." said Callahan, "it will be mostly at once." May opened bleaker than AprlL Even the trackmen walked with se.t faces; tho dirtiest half-breed on the line- knew now what the mountains held, At last, while we looked and wondered, came a very late chlnook; July In May; then tjie water. Section gangs were doubled and track walkers put on, bridge crews strengthened, everything buckled for grief. Gullies be gan to race, culverts to choke, creeks to tumble, rivers to madden. From the Mud dy to the Summit the watercourses swelled and boiled all but the Spider; the big river Blept. Through May and Into June the Spider .slept; but Halley was there at the Wlckiupy always, and with one eye running over "alt the line, one eye turned always to the Spider, where two men. night and day, watched the lazy surface water trickle over and through the vaga bond bed between Halley's monumental piers. East and wos,t of us railroads ev erywhere Clamored In despair. The flood reached from the Rockies to the Alleghe nles. Our trains never missed a trip; qur schedules wero unbroken; our people laughed; we got the business, dead loads of it; our treasury flowed over; and Halley watched; and the Spider slept. On the 30th there was trouble beyond. W1W Hat, and all our extra men, put out there under Hailey, were fighting to hold the Rat Valley levels. Bucka sent Hailey over there because he sent Halley vfhereyer the Emperor sent Ney. Sunday while Hailey was at Wild Hat It began raininc Sunday it ramed Monday It rained all through the mountains; Tues day it was ralnlris: from dinana to Eagle' Pass and the Spider woke. Trackmen at the bridge Tuesday night flagged Number One and reported the river wild, and sheet -ice running. A wire from Bucks brought mauey out or tha West and into the East to reckon for the last time with his ancient enemy. He was agamst It Wednesday morning with dvnamlte. All the day; the night and the next day the sullen roar of the giant powder shopk the ice jams. Two more days be spent there watching; then he wirsd, "Ice out." and set back dragged and sllertt. for home and for sleep. Sat urday Right he slept, and Sunday all day and Sunday night. Monday about noon Bucks sent up to ask, but Hailey was asleep; they asked back whether they should wake him. Bucks sent word. No." Tuesday morning the. tall roadmaster came down fresh as sunshine. The Spider raced like the Mlssourf and the men. kt the bridge sent In panic messages, but Hailey lit his pipe wltn their alarms. (That bridge will go when the mountains go," was all he said. It was 9 o clock Tuesaay night, and ev ery star blinking when Hailey looked In at the office for the trackwalkers' report, and the railway weather bulletins. Bucks, Calahan and Peeto sat about Duffy, who, In his shirt sjeeves, threw the stuff out off the sounder as it tricKiea in oyer ine wires. The west wire was good, but east everything below Peace River was down. We had to get the eastern reports around by Omaha and the South a good thou sand miles of a loop. Wild Hat came first from the West with stationary river and the Loup Creek falling clear good night. Then from the East came Prairie Portage, ail the way round, with a northwest rain, a rising river, and anchor Ice pounding the piers badly, track In fair shape and and The wire went wrong, and stuff that no "man cpnld get tumbled in like a dic tionary upside down. Bucks and. uaiia han and Hailey and Peeto smoked, silent. and listened to the deepening drum of the rain on the" roof. Then Duffy wrestled mightily yet once more, and the long way came worn oi trouble in the Omaha yards. "Hell to pay on the Missouri, of course. growled the foreman. "Well, she don't run our way: let her boll, damn herl 'Keep still!" exclaimed Duffy, leaning heavily on the key. "Here's something from the- Spider." Only the hum of the rain and the ner vous break of the sounder cut the smoke that curled from their pipes. Duffy snatched a pen and. ran it across a clip, and Bucks, leaning over, read aloud from his shoulder: "Omaha. 'J. F. Bucks Trainmen from No. 75 stalled west of Rapid City; track afloat in Simpsons cut; report Spider bridge out send" And the current broke. Callahan's hand closed rigidly over his pipe. Peeto sat speechless; Bucks read again at the broken, message: hut Halley sprang like a man wounded and snatched the clip from his superintendent's hand. He stared at the running- words until they burnt his eyes, and then, with an oath frightful ias the thunder 'that broke down the' mountains he dashed the clip to the floor. His eyes snapped ereenlea with fury, and he cursed Omaha, cursed its messages and everything that came out of It. Out It came all the rage all the heart-burning all the bitterness and he dropped, bent, into a chair and covered his face with his bands. They watched him slowly knot his fingers and loosen them. and saw his face rise dry and bard and old out ot his hands. "Get up an engine!" "Not you're not going down there to night?" stammered Bucks. "Yes. Now. Right off. Peeto! Get out your crew!" In 20 minutes 20 men were runninc 20 ways through the storm and a live en gine boomed under the Wickiup windows, "Phil, I want you to be careful!" It was Bucks standing by the- roadmaster' s side at the window. "It s a bad night!' Hailey made no answer. "A wicked night," muttered Bucks, as the lightning shot the yards in a blaze and a crash roned flown the gorge. But wicked as It was he could not bring himself to coun termand. Something forbade It. Evans, the conductor of the special, ran In. "Hero's your orders!" exclaimed Duf fy. Evans nodded aa he took the tissue. Halley buttoned his leather Jacket and turned to Bucks. "Good-by." "Mind yohr track," said Bucks warning ly to Evans, as he toojc Halley's hand. "What. Trrinr- Tiorm ! fr "Forty miles an hour." "Don't stretch It. Good-by, Phil," he added, speaking to Halley. "I'll see you in the morning." "In the morning"' repeated Halley. "Good-by. Nothing more In, Duffy?" "Nothing more' "Come on!" With the words he pushed tne conauctor wrougn the door and was gone. The switch engine puffed up with the caboose. Ahead of It Ed Peeto had coupled In the plledrjver. At the last minute Callahan asked to go, and as th bridge gang tumbled Into the caboose, the assistant superintendent, E3 Peeto and Halley climbed Into the engine. Dennis Mullenix sat on the right, and with WII nam Durden, fireman, they pulled out, flv in the cab, for the Spider Water. From Medicine Bend to the Spider Water is a so-mlle run; down the gorge; through the foothills and fnto the Painted Desert that fills the Jaw of the "spur we inter sect again west o.f Peace River. From the Peace to the Spider the crow flies -20 miles. nut we take 30 for it, there is hardhr tangent between. Their orders set a speed limit, but from the beginning they crowded it. i alley, moody at first, be gan Joking and laughing the minute they got away. He, sat behind Denis Mulle nix on the right and poked at his ribs and taunted him with his heavy heels. After a bit he got down and threw coal for Durden mile after mile, and crowded the boiler till the safety screamed. Then go ing around to the right, the roadmaster covered Denis Mullenix's Angers on the throttlo latch" and the air with his big hands and good-naturedly coaxed them loose, pushed the engineer back and got the whip and the reins into his own keep ing. It was what he wanted, for he smiled as he drew out the bar a notch and settled himself for the run across the flat country. They were-leaving the foot hills, and when the lightning opened the night they could see behind through the blasting rain the great hulking piledriver nod and reel out Into the Painted Desert like a drunken- man. The storm shook them with freshening fury and drove the flanges into the south rail with a grinding shriek as they sped from the shelter of the hills. The rain fell in a eieet, and the right of way ran a river. The wind, whipping the water oft the ballast, dashed it like hall against the cab glass; the segment of desert caught In the yellow of the headlight rippled and danced and swam In the storm water, and Halley pulled again at the straining throttle and latched It wider. Callahan hung with a hand to a brace and a hand to Peeto, and every little while looked back at the caboose dancing a hornpipe over the joints; Mollenlx, working the in jector, stared astonished at Halley; but Durden grimly sprinkled new blood lato the white furnace and eyed. Ms stack. The Peace River hllla loomed Into the headlight like moving pictures; before they could think it the desert was behind. Callahan-, white-faced, climbed down and passed from hand to hand by Durden and Mullenix got his hands on Halley's shoul ders and lips to hl3 car. "For God s sake, Phil. let up'," Halley nodded and choked the steam a little. Threw a hatful of air on the shoes and slewed Into the hllla with a speed un- slackened. From the rocks It is a down grade all the way to the canyon, and the wind b'lew them and the .track pulled them and a frenzied man sat at the throt tle. Just where the line crosses Peaco River the track bends--sharply in through the Needles to take the bridge. The curve is a ten-degree As they truck It the headlight shot far out hthi? the river and they in the cab knew they were dead men. Instead of lighting the box of truss the, lamp lit u black and snaky flood sweeping over the abutment with yellow foam. The Peace had ltcked up Agnew's 30-foot piles and his bridge was not. "Whatever could be done and Hailey knew all meant "death tb the cab. Denis Mullenix never moved: no man that knew Hailey would think of trying to supplant him even with death under the ponies. He did what a man could do. There was no chance anyway for the cab; but the caboose held 20 of his faithful men. Ke checked and with a scream from the flags the special, shaking in the clutches of the air brake, swung the curve Again the roadmaster checked heavilv. The reads of the p"lledriver swaying high above gravity center careened foran In stant wildly to the tangent, then the mon ster machine, parting from the tender. took me elevation like a-hnrdle and shot Into the trees, dragging, the caboose after it. But engine and tender and five in the cab plunged head on Into the Peace. Not a man In the caboose was killed. They scrambled oflt" of the splinters and on their feet, men and ready to do. One voice from below came to them through tne storm, and they answered Its calling. It was Callahan. But Durden. Mullenix. Peeto. Hailey never called again. At daybreak wreckers of the West End. swarming from mountain and plain, wero neaaing lor the Peace, and the McCloud gang up crossed the Solder on Hailev's bridgeon the bridge the coward trainmen had reported out. quaking as. they did In tne storm at the Spider foaming over Its approaches. But Halley's bridge stood stands today. Yet three days the Spider rasred. ana knew then its master, while he three whole days eat at the bottom ot the Peace clutching the engine levers In the ruins of Agnew' 8 mistake. And when the divers got them uo Calla han and Bucks tore bitr Peeto's nr from his master's body and shut his star ing eyes and laid him at his mister's side. And only the Spider ravening at Halley's caissons ragea. tsut Jfciailey slept. (Copyright. 1303.) FAMILIAR SONGS AND THEIR AUTHORS Francis Scott Key was born in Frederick County, Maryland, August 9, 1780, and died In Baltimore, June 11, 1S43. He was a law ler by profession and District Attorney for the District of Columbia when tha British Invaded Washington, In 181L When out under orders from President Madison he was captured by the British, and while on board of an enerays ship' witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry, which defended Baltimore. He with other pris oners watched anxiously to see which flag floated on the fort. KTey's feelings on see In? that the Stars and Stripes had not been hauled down found expression in the poem which gained for him a lasting repu tation. He wrote part, of It on the shin and the rest on his arrival at Baltimore. where it was soontf ter-sung at his sug gestion to the tune of "Anacreon In Heaven." Key wrote a number of other songs, a collection of them appearing In 1S57. A $60,000 monument was erected to Key in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. by James Lick. The words of the song which carries his name along are aa fol lows: Oh. say. can you see by the dawn's early light. What so proudly we hailed, at the twilight's . last gleaming-. Whose broad stripes and bright stars,-throaza the perilous fight. O'er the ramparts ws watched, were so zal lantly streaming; And the rocket's red glare, the bombs borst lngr In air. Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there; Oh, say, does that E tar-Spangled Banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? On .that shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep. Where the foe's haughty host JLa dread si lence reposes, What is that which the breeze, o'er the tow ering steep. As it fitfully blows, new conceals, now dis closes? Now It catches the gleam, .of the morning's first -beam. In full glory reflected now shines In the stream; Tls the S tar-Spangled Banner; oh, long may It wave O'er the land oi tha free and the home of the brave. And where are- the foes who so. vauntlngly swore That the havoc ot war, and the battle's confusion, A home and a country should leave us no more? Thejr blood has washed out their foul foot steps pollution; No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight, or the gloom oi the grave: ' And the S tar-Spangled Banner in triumph doth wave O'er the land of the free and the home of tha brave! Oh, thus be it ever, when freemen shall siasd Between their loved homes and the war's desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and pre served us a nation! Then conquer we must, wnen our cause It Is Just, And this be our motto: "In. Sod Is our trust:" And the Star-Spangled Banner In triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free and the horns of the brave! " "WHAT OUR SCHOOLS COST VS. It is probably not generally known that the United States spends .annually on elementary education about $227,009,000 the exact figures for 13001301 were, ac cording to the report of the United States Commissioner of Education. $236,042,2 Europe spent during the same period ap proximately $2i5,000,00n. The-enrollment la the elementary schools of Europe is, bow ever, In the neighborhood of 45.0Q9,C3, while in the United States It Is not much more than 16,000,000 although it is esti mated that there were in 1M1. almost 000.000 children of school-goings age In this country. Our yearly expenditure per pupil averages $22. Some profit mar be gained 'from a com parison of the amounts spent yearly by representative' Anierlcan cities for tho maintenance and operation of their pub lic schools. New York spent in a single year $19,731,629; Chicago follows with an outlay of JS.203,493; Philadelphia's, expendi ture was $3,319,604; Boston's, $3,043,640; Baltimore's, $1,417,392; Cleveland's. $L2S7, 345; and Washington's, $1,182,916. New Or leans is at the end of the list, with aa ex pense ot only $478,023. St. liouls, by the "way, pays more for its police., departraemt than for Its schools: $1,81R for the former, as against $1.526,l4e for'the lat tera ratio of $t for the police to 96 cents for the schoolar