The Herald
RICHARD B. SWENSON
Editor & Publisher
Entered u Mcond-elue matter September R. IX.
the post office t Mem mouth. Oregon, under the
Act of Much I 1ST.
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MONMOUTH. OREGON
FRIDAY, AUGUST 24, 1917.
Monmouth
Meditations
01 )
Its an ill wind that can't find
somebody to cool off.
Many a man is generous to a
fault, especially one of his own
faults.
The average man entertains an
unfriendly feeling for a coat and
vest at this time of the year.
While the nations across the
sea are making it hot for the
Kaiser, Old Sol is making it hot
for the rest of us.
It is hard for an easterner to
understand it but now they say,
after two months of uninterrupt
ed sunshine, that a rain .would
do more harm than good.
Since Herbert Hoover became
wheat dictator the price of that
cereal has gone higher than ever.
Now he is about to tackle sugar,
we hope with different results.
A friend who had carefully ex
amined last week's Herald came
in to assure us of his pleasure
in the fact that there was one
paper in the valley which occa
sionally put out a clean sheet.
Not long ago in the Willamette
valley the farmer burned his
straw stack while the burning
was good. Now he bales the
same and sells it for seven dol
lars a ton.
Mayor Ostien reports that in
his recent fishing camp along the
Deschutes he awoke one morn
ing to find his towel frozen stiff;
which is an indication of the
shortness of the season in that
section.
While Dobbin does not get
many chances to haul the family
carriage or surrey these days, it
is to be observed that he is still
useful to pull the wagon that
conveys the grain from the
threshers and the stove wood
from the hills.
A partial record of the history
of the earth is found in the stra
ta that covers its surface. When
the well digger reaches gravel he
knows he is in the bed of a for
mer stream and when he reach
es salt water he recognizes that
here was the ancient bed of the
ocean.
The striking I. W. W. does
not seem to have the same pull
with the powers in authority as
did the striking engineers of, a
year ago. A special law was
passed for their benefit but the
leaders of the I. W. W. are seized
by the nape of the neck and
thrust into jail. Pretty effective
treatment, too. It is a good
thing for us that we have an off
political year once in a while.
The more delicate the machine
the easier it is to put it out of
commission. Thoroughbred stock
will not stand the same amount
of rough usage as the ordinary
barnyard Bcrub. Frank Doerfler
the Silverton stock farm man
paid $820 for a fine Jersey cow at
McArthur's sale in June, the
highest price ever paid for a na
tive Oregon cow. Yet he had had
the cow barely two weeks when
she bloated from eating clover
and died.
People at the beaches complain
of the cold and fog which makes
wretched much of their leisure
time spent there. The weather
is fine for threshing, however,
and no one connected with the
outfiU finds the cold and damp
at all disquieting. And at the
conclusion of the season il is
hard to tell the difference in the
tan acquired, from that obtained
at the sea side.
Because of a bad growing
season exhibits at the county
fair are expected to be fewer
and much below the normal in
attractiveness for exhibition pur
poses. The fair is suffering
some also from the fact that
there is so much to distract at
tention in the war and prepara
tions therefor. Interest in the
fair is something that should not
be allowed to languish. It is a
big factor in the maintenance of
the agricultural spirit.
If Russia can hang on to her
republican institutions after
peace is declared; and equal
rights to all are guaranteed
through the vast 'areas of that
nation, it is bound to make won
derful strides of progress within
the twenty five years following
the war. The largest continu
ous section of land in the tem
perate zone, in the world, is lo
cated in Russia and Siberia and
its chances for development at
present seem limitless. With a
free people, free schools and an
uninterrupted chance to develop
in body and soul, the progress of
Russia would be a marvel to be
hold. What prospects for an early
peace there are spring out of the
reports that come from Germany
rather than because of the recent
appeal of the pope. In the way
of peace with the Kaiser as one
of the negotiating parties stands
the specter of military power, a
nightmare that has disturbed the
waking hours of continental Eu
rope and the British Isles and
made uneasy their sleep, for a
quarter of a century. The knowl
edge that a neighbor country was
drilling its .entire population,
amassing stores of ammunition
and manufacturing huge guns for
the purposes of invasion has been
disquieting. Now these neigh
bor nations have the whip hand.
They have raised armies for
themselves and made guns. They
are prepared now to demolish
that military equipment that has
threatened their peace and wel
fare and it is little wonder that
they will not stop now on the
threshold of actual achievement.
It is not vengeance they seek,
nor power, merely an assurance
of peace and liberty for the fut
ure. LaFollette appears to be grow
ing reckless in his later days.
Here is a rank statement made
by him in a recent senate har
angue: "Wealth has never sacrificed
itself on the altar of patriotism
in any war. On the contrary, it
has ever shown itself eager to
take advantage of the missfort
une which war always brings to
the masses of the people. That
has been true of every war we
have had and it is certainly true
of the present war."
Why, any bone head knows
better than that The paper mill
men must be operating at a loss
otherwise they would not be giv
ing their products away to any
one and everyone who will re
ceive it The sugar men also are
patriotically selling sweetening,
sacrificing profit on every sack,
for the common good; the coal
men vie with one another in ef
forts to lighten the toiling mass
es of their troubles by lightening
their purses; the packers, the
copper kings, the gasoline poten
tates ail are sprouting wings and
developing aureoles in their sac
rificial patriotic spirit
Here is another section of the
same brand of nonsense:
"Always remember tha't the
high prices already upon us have
taxed the colnmon people of this
country for the support of this
war to a much greater extent
than the wealthy people would
be taxed if every dollar of income
of the members of that class
were taken by taxation."
It is a well known fact that
well drillers in the Willamette
valley frequently run into reser
voirs of salt water in boring
toward the center of Mother
Earth. But we are close to sea
level as well as to the sea and
geological formations indicate
that this valley was not so long
ago, an inland sea, so the finding
of salt water beneath us does not
seem so strange.
However, it is surprising to
learn that a large portion of the
wells sunk within the area
of the United States to a
depth of 1000 ft. or more, en
counter salt water, often in such
quantities that the driller is led
to remark that he has struck the
Gulf of Mexico or some similar
sea.
The salt water may even flow
out of the mouth of the well, but
more commonly it rises in the
well to a height of several hund
red feet above the bottom. It is
often assumed that this water
fills some immense cavity or sys
tem of crevices but in fact it is
generally contained in some bed
of unusually porous rock like
sandstone, in which the pores,
though minute, have an aggre
gate voleme of capacity of mil
lions of cubic feet
How did this salt water get in
to the porous rock? Has rain wa
ter soaked far down in the earth
and found some bed of rock salt
which it dissolved and, thereby
became salty: or has the salt
water some source far within the
earth from which it has arisen
.toward the surface; or is it the
water of some ancient ocean that
filled the pores of the sand and
mud of its bed, which in ages
past became buried under sand
and mud that gradually accumu
lated on the ocean bottom.
The shells of sea animals found
in limestones - and other hard
rocks in the heart of the conti
nent show clearly that the ocean,
in some one or several remote
ages, covered a large part of the
country, and it appears extreme
ly probable that the salt water
found in the deep wells is really
fossil sea water, entoomed in the
sands and muds of former eons
and now brought to the surface
by the drills.
Salt water seems to be found
especially in oil fields, but it has
been struck by the drill in many
other places; for instance, near
Leavenworth, Kans. where enor
mous quantities of salt water are
found at various depths below
the surface. ,
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