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Alleghany

alleghany

Business English: A Practice Book by Rose Buhlig is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . WORD ANALYSIS here WORD ANALYSIS To learn English words thoroughly we must spend some thought on the way in which they are made up, on the language from which they have been derived, and on the changes in meaning made by adding prefixes and suffixes. Three important influences in building the English have been the Anglo-Saxon, the Greek, and the Latin languages. The simplest words in the language are Anglo-Saxon. The following exercises illustrate how words have been multiplied by Anglo-Saxon prefixes and suffixes. Name as many words as you can that make use of each of the following prefixes. Give only such as are recognizable English words without the prefix. Exercise 46 —aboard a —misjudge mis —becalm be —unknown un —foretell fore —uproot up Give the meaning of each of the prefixes used above. What part of speech does each prefix make? Exercise 47 Using the following Teutonic suffixes, form English words. Be careful that the root taken alone is an English word. —kingdom dom —goodness ness —manhood hood —friendship ship What does each suffix mean? What part of speech does it make? Exercise 48 As above, form words using the following suffixes: —darken en —fearful ful —golden en —smoothly ly —sweetish ish —childlike like —fearless less —lonesome some Define each suffix. What part of speech does it make? Exercise 49—Greek Roots Below is given a list of common Greek roots with the English meaning of each. Form words using one or more of the roots for each word, and define the words you make. For instance, give the meaning of , , and . telephone telegraph monarch Greek English Greek English —hear phon —time chron —far tele —circle cycl —write graph —earth geo —see scop —government polit —small micro —rule cra —one mono —people demo —chief arch —water hydro —measure metr —many poly —pressure, weight baro —riches pluto How many names of modern inventions have you made? Exercise 50 What words belonging to your vocabulary end in the following suffixes? Choose only such as have an English word for the root. Adjective Suffixes able, ible—able to be, fit to be
Readable, fit to be read. al, eal, ial—relating to, having to do with ant, ent—being, inclined to ate—having the quality of, inclined to ic—like, relating to ive—relating to, of the nature of, belonging to ory, ary—relating to ous—full of, abounding in Verb Suffixes ate—to make fy, ify—to make ise, ize—to make Noun Suffixes age—condition, act, collection of ance, ancy, ence, ency—state of being ary, ory—one who, place where, that which ant, ent—one who ist, ite—one who ion, sion, tion—act of, state of being ity, ty—quality of being ment—that which, act or state of being or, er, ar—one who try—state of tude, itude—condition of being ure—condition of being, that which The following is a list of the more commonly used Latin prefixes: Exercise 51 a, ab—away from 1. , —away from a ab 2. —toward ad 3. —before ante 4. —against anti 5. —two, twice bi 6. —around circum 7. —together with, against con 8. —against contra 9. —from, apart from, down from de 10. —apart, not dis 11. —through dia 12. —out of ex 13. , —into in en —to cause to be en 14. , —not in un 15. —between inter 16. —toward the inside intro 17. —one mono 18. —not non 19. —in the way of, against ob 20. —through per 21. —before pre 22. —after post 23. —before pro 24. —again, back re 25. —half, partly semi 26. —away from se 27. —under, below sub 28. —above, more than super 29. —across trans 30. —one uni Exercise 52 Analyze the following words, telling prefix, root, suffix, part of speech, and meaning: business package truthfulness unsuccessful useless anteroom workmanlike agreement prefix monotone nervousness uniformity beautify breakage disrespectful misguidance semicircle pleasant perfection crystallize kingship sameness progressive precaution incase subway undeniable imaginary enrich disown displeasure supernatural pianist readmit endurance melodious bicycle adjuster reaction interlineal Exercise 53 When the prefixes , , and are used to form English words, the final consonant of each is often changed to the initial consonant of the root to which it is joined. ad con in assumes the forms , , , , , , , , , , assimilating the with the first letter of the word to which it is prefixed; as, Ad ab ac af ag al an ap ar as at d ab-breviate al-literation ar-rest ac-cept al-lot as-sign ac-cumulate an-nex as-sist af-fect an-nounce at-tract af-flict ap-position at-tribute ag-gregate ap-prove at-tune assumes the forms , , , by assimilation; it takes the form before and it drops the before a vowel; as, Con col cor com com p; n col-lateral com-mercial com-pose col-lect cor-relate co-operate com-mission cor-respond co-ordinate assumes the forms , , , by assimilation and takes the form of before . In il im ir im p il-lusion im-migrate ir-ruption im-port Exercise 54—Peculiar Adjective Endings The suffixes and are sometimes troublesome because it is difficult to know which ending to write. As a rule, if the new word was made from another English word, the ending is , as . The words ending in are derived from the Latin, and, as a rule, the ending cannot easily be separated from the root and still leave the latter an English word. Examples are: able ible able blamable ible divisible intelligible digestible audible visible permissible flexible incredible possible terrible horrible indelible The suffixes and must also be carefully noted. No rule can be given for using one rather than the other. Whenever in doubt, consult a dictionary. Note the following: ant ent ant ent important independent pleasant convalescent triumphant competent luxuriant convenient stagnant confident The endings and , where and are often confused, are illustrated in the following: eous ious e i eous ious hideous delirious miscellaneous impious courteous studious The endings and are shown in the following: cious tious cious tious conscious fictitious precious superstitious delicious cautious gracious ambitious suspicious nutritious The endings and are illustrated in the following: gious geous gious geous religious courageous Exercise 55—Peculiar Noun and Verb Endings Nouns in and ance ence: ance ence acceptance intelligence appearance reference annoyance patience acquaintance negligence remittance diligence ignorance residence Nouns in , , and sion cion tion: sion cion tion exclusion coercion acquisition aversion suspicion precaution Verbs in , , and ise yze ize: ise yze ize advise analyze baptize supervise paralyze recognize Verbs in , , and ceed sede cede: ceed sede cede exceed supersede concede proceed intercede succeed precede Exercise 56 What other words can you form from the following? Explain what prefixes or suffixes you use in each case and what part of speech you form. success consider real change please doubt publish attend occur apply regular satisfy emphasize industry operate assess second busy practice resist expense distribute organ define depend locate work sense attract install desire preside effect vital count sign Exercise 57 There are many words the meanings of which are easily confused. The spelling and the definitions of such must be mastered. Analysis in this exercise and in the one following does not require separation into prefix, root, and suffix, but it necessitates a careful study of the words, first, to note the difference in spelling; second, to consult a dictionary, if necessary, for the difference in meaning. Define each word clearly. Use each in a sentence to illustrate its meaning. accept—except common—mutual add—annex complementary—complimentary advice—advise continual—continuous affect—effect contraction—abbreviation after—afterward contradiction—denial ascend—assent currant—current assure—promise defective—deficient attain—obtain deprecate—depreciate benefit—advantage effective—efficient brief—concise eligible—illegible center—middle eminent—prominent claim—maintain expect—hope combine—combination intelligent—intelligible Exercise 58 As above, define each word carefully and use it in a sentence to illustrate its meaning. healthful—healthy proficient—efficient inventory—invoice proscribe—prescribe invite—invitation purpose—propose last—latest quiet—quite later—latter recommend—recommendation liable—likely—apt refer—allude loose—lose repair—fix need—want requirement—requisite—requisition perspective—prospective respectfully—respectively positive—definite scarcely—hardly practicable—practical stationary—stationery precede—proceed therefore—accordingly principal—principle 500 SPELLING WORDS\Lesson 1 business losing surprising height receive loosely Saturday depth believe across Wednesday eighth wholly whether excellent daily obliged describe exercise earnest Lesson 2 attached decision probable seize attacked buying usable siege gentlemen studying salable friend although relying desirable Messrs. thoroughly occasion honorable nickel Lesson 3 disappoint knew acquittal stopped disappear design occurrence referred disapprove forty compelling planned disagree fourth beginning swimming anxious purpose permitted submitted Lesson 4 all right persuade Norwegian variety already pursued possession prairie tongue prepared accumulate neighbor separate repaired dissatisfy soldier crystal necessary dissolve shoulder Lesson 5 their awkward opportunity scheme advise mucilage development schedule advice familiar statistics accurately laboratory peculiar accidental efficient until similar competent Spaniard Lesson 6 policy patient merchandise conscious rough ancient mercantile precious disease partial scarcity suspicion balance facial indebted physician decease ambitious estimate caution Lesson 7 ascend noticeable vengeance emergency assent serviceable address compliance minute manageable salary reference conceal exchangeable currency apparel immense advantageous withhold typical Lesson 8 edition especially appreciate imitate addition pamphlet essential initial identify illustrate eligible official illegal February legible curtain nuisance punctual illegible adjacent Lesson 9 later crystallize lieutenant lenient latter neutralize anthracite naphtha weighed conceit bituminous liquid destroy catarrh rheumatism gauge indelible colonel influential sieve Lesson 10 duly interfered analyze attorneys durable transferred analysis specialty mutual reconcile paralyze sympathy bargain accidental banana campaign misspell irregular molasses mattress Lesson 11 ached designate vicinity recognize social available guardian technical forfeit adequately celebrate hygiene opposite subordinate porcelain angel parallel sufficient poultice angle Lesson 12 society associate rumored remittance sirloin definitely courtesy remuneration laborer spherical obstinacy restaurant visitor commercial financial government souvenir permissible sapphire acquaintance Lesson 13 quite appropriate convenient knowledge least distinguish exaggerate principal, a written mysterious confidential stationary, a among appearance endeavoring judgment psalm conference immediately implement Lesson 14 assure greatly embarrassment auxiliary expect grateful organization conciliate prompt deserve advertisement principle, n eliminate bureau assessment stationery, n illuminate deficient accommodate parenthesis Lesson 15 coupon indispensable measure proprietor length innumerable condemn transient vehicle investigate security persistent customer incandescent liniment signature costumer effervescent mosquito mischievous Lesson 16 canal company's repetition sulphur channel real estate abbreviated benefited liquid equivalent unabridged unanimous recent assignment assurance itemize trough extravagant pneumatic calcimine Lesson 17 precede freight authority leisure proceed achieve mortgage neuralgia procession between specimen dyspepsia precision imagine solicitor substantial extinguish autumn coöperates passenger Lesson 18 merely mechanical preliminary omitted cashier permanent miscellaneous omission urgent prominent subscription committee hesitate precaution incredible commission anchored interval anticipation precisely Lesson 19 specify preparation athletics deceit equity coincidence excursion receipt accrue irresolute suggestion obstacle concrete vaccination courageous promissory summary glycerine concession compulsory Lesson 20 deficit sceptical anniversary rhythm mansion conscience presumption rhubarb mention interruption guaranteed fatigue reckoned approximately prejudice synopsis license avoirdupois privilege emphatic Lesson 21 scholar Elkhart industrious collision scissors Memphis hideous delusion career Niagara artificial oxygen sincere Raleigh cantaloupe martyr chiffonier Oregon unscrupulous apology Lesson 22 receipt Cincinnati sovereign chemical welfare Des Moines committee frontier feigned Decatur ingredients fulfilled chord Dubuque counterfeit facsimile scythe Alleghany responsible identical Lesson 23 exceed Paducah foreign Cheyenne succeed Eau Claire solemnity metallic secede Peoria assassinate nauseated immigrant Savannah pneumonia invariably emigrant Manila diphtheria injurious Lesson 24 adoption Minneapolis fraudulent mahogany scientific Indianapolis negligence corduroy guidance Syracuse diligence Schenectady syllable Milwaukee ridiculous duplicate Fort Wayne Valparaiso comparative reënforce Lesson 25 Duluth Massachusetts preferable periodical Missouri Connecticut preferred insertion Wisconsin enthusiastic publicity excursion luxurious acknowledgment prevailing plateau twelfth professional damageable tragedy About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Rose Buhlig (2011). Business English: A Practice Book. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/38046/pg38046-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

WORD ANALYSIS

Moral Injuries inflicted on Children at School.

Edison's Conquest of Mars by Garrett Putman Serviss is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . Chapter II Edison's Conquest of Mars Chapter II This enthusiasm would have had but little justification had Mr. Edison done nothing more than invent a machine which could navigate the atmosphere and the regions of interplanetary space. He had, however, and this fact was generally known, although the details had not yet leaked out—invented also machines of war intended to meet the utmost that the Martians could do for either offence or defence in the struggle which was now about to ensue. A Wonderful Instrument. Acting upon the hint which had been conveyed from various investigations in the domain of physics, and concentrating upon the problem all those unmatched powers of intellect which distinguished him, the great inventor had succeeded in producing a little implement which one could carry in his hand, but which was more powerful than any battleship that ever floated. The details of its mechanism could not be easily explained, without the use of tedious technicalities and the employment of terms, diagrams and mathematical statements, all of which would lie outside the scope of this narrative. But the principle of the thing was simple enough. It was upon the great scientific doctrine, which we have since seen so completely and brilliantly developed, of the law of harmonic vibrations, extending from atoms and molecules at one end of the series up to worlds and suns at the other end, that Mr. Edison based his invention. Every kind of substance has its own vibratory rhythm. That of iron differs from that of pine wood. The atoms of gold do not vibrate in the same time or through the same range as those of lead, and so on for all known substances, and all the chemical elements. So, on a larger scale, every massive body has its period of vibration. A great suspension bridge vibrates, under the impulse of forces that are applied to it, in long periods. No company of soldiers ever crosses such a bridge without breaking step. If they tramped together, and were followed by other companies keeping the same time with their feet, after a while the vibrations of the bridge would become so great and destructive that it would fall in pieces. So any structure, if its vibration rate is known, could easily be destroyed by a force applied to it in such a way that it should simply increase the swing of those vibrations up to the point of destruction. Now Mr. Edison had been able to ascertain the vibratory swing of many well-known substances, and to produce, by means of the instrument which he had contrived, pulsations in the ether which were completely under his control, and which could be made long or short, quick or slow, at his will. He could run through the whole gamut from the slow vibrations of sound in air up to the four hundred and twenty-five millions of millions of vibrations per second of the ultra red rays. Having obtained an instrument of such power, it only remained to concentrate its energy upon a given object in order that the atoms composing that object should be set into violent undulation, sufficient to burst it asunder and to scatter its molecules broadcast. This the inventor effected by the simplest means in the world—simply a parabolic reflector by which the destructive waves could be sent like a beam of light, but invisible, in any direction and focused upon any desired point. Testing the "Disintegrator." I had the good fortune to be present when this powerful engine of destruction was submitted to its first test. We had gone upon the roof of Mr. Edison's laboratory and the inventor held the little instrument, with its attached mirror, in his hand. We looked about for some object on which to try its powers. On a bare limb of a tree not far away, for it was late in the Fall, sat a disconsolate crow. "Good," said Mr. Edison, "that will do." He touched a button at the side of the instrument and a soft, whirring noise was heard. "Feathers," said Mr. Edison, "have a vibration period of three hundred and eighty-six million per second." He adjusted the index as he spoke. Then, through a sighting tube, he aimed at the bird. "Now watch," he said. The Crow's Fate. Another soft whirr in the instrument, a momentary flash of light close around it, and, behold, the crow had turned from black to white! "Its feathers are gone," said the inventor; "they have been dissipated into their constituent atoms. Now, we will finish the crow." The First Test of the Disintegrator. Another soft whirr in the instrument, a momentary flash of light close around it, and, behold, the crow had turned from black to white! Instantly there was another adjustment of the index, another outshooting of vibratory force, a rapid up and down motion of the index to include a certain range of vibrations, and the crow itself was gone—vanished in empty space! There was the bare twig on which a moment before it had stood. Behind, in the sky, was the white cloud against which its black form had been sharply outlined, but there was no more crow. Bad for the Martians. "That looks bad for the Martians, doesn't it?" said the Wizard. "I have ascertained the vibration rate of all the materials of which their war engines whose remains we have collected together are composed. They can be shattered into nothingness in the fraction of a second. Even if the vibration period were not known, it could quickly be hit upon by simply running through the gamut." "Hurrah!" cried one of the onlookers. "We have met the Martians and they are ours." Such in brief was the first of the contrivances which Mr. Edison invented for the approaching war with Mars. And these facts had become widely known. Additional experiments had completed the demonstration of the inventor's ability, with the aid of his wonderful instrument, to destroy any given object, or any part of an object, provided that that part differed in its atomic constitution, and consequently in its vibratory period, from the other parts. A most impressive public exhibition of the powers of the little disintegrator was given amid the ruins of New York. On lower Broadway a part of the walls of one of the gigantic buildings, which had been destroyed by the Martians, impended in such a manner that it threatened at any moment to fall upon the heads of the passers-by. The Fire Department did not dare touch it. To blow it up seemed a dangerous expedient, because already new buildings had been erected in its neighborhood, and their safety would be imperiled by the flying fragments. The fact happened to come to my knowledge. "Here is an opportunity," I said to Mr. Edison, "to try the powers of your machine on a large scale." "Capital!" he instantly replied. "I shall go at once." Disintegrating a Building. For the work now in hand it was necessary to employ a battery of disintegrators, since the field of destruction covered by each was comparatively limited. All of the impending portions of the wall must be destroyed at once and together, for otherwise the danger would rather be accentuated than annihilated. The disintegrators were placed upon the roof of a neighboring building, so adjusted that their fields of destruction overlapped one another upon the wall. Their indexes were all set to correspond with the vibration period of the peculiar kind of brick of which the wall consisted. Then the energy was turned on, and a shout of wonder arose from the multitudes which had assembled at a safe distance to witness the experiment. Only a Cloud Remained. The wall did not fall; it did not break asunder; no fragments shot this way and that and high in the air; there was no explosion; no shock or noise disturbed the still atmosphere—only a soft whirr, that seemed to pervade everything and to tingle in the nerves of the spectators; and—what had been was not! The wall was gone! But high above and all around the place where it had hung over the street with its threat of death there appeared, swiftly billowing outward in every direction, a faint, bluish cloud. It was the scattered atoms of the destroyed wall. A Marvellous Scientific Triumph. Only a soft whirr, that seemed to pervade everything and to tingle in the nerves of the spectators, and—what had been was not! The wall was gone! And now the cry "On to Mars!" was heard on all sides. But for such an enterprise funds were needed—millions upon millions. Yet some of the fairest and richest portions of the earth had been impoverished by the frightful ravages of those enemies who had dropped down upon them from the skies. Still, the money must be had. The salvation of the planet, as everybody was now convinced, depended upon the successful negotiation of a gigantic war fund, in comparison with which all the expenditures in all of the wars that had been waged by the nations for 2,000 years would be insignificant. The electrical ships and the vibration engines must be constructed by scores and thousands. Only Mr. Edison's immense resources and unrivaled equipment had enabled him to make the models whose powers had been so satisfactorily shown. But to multiply these upon a war scale was not only beyond the resources of any individual—hardly a nation on the globe in the period of its greatest prosperity could have undertaken such a work. All the nations, then, must now conjoin. They must unite their resources, and, if necessary, exhaust all their hoards, in order to raise the needed sum. The Yankees Lead. Negotiations were at once begun. The United States naturally took the lead, and their leadership was never for a moment questioned abroad. Washington was selected as the place of meeting for a great congress of the nations. Washington, luckily, had been one of the places which had not been touched by the Martians. But if Washington had been a city composed of hotels alone, and every hotel so great as to be a little city in itself, it would have been utterly insufficient for the accommodation of the innumerable throngs which now flocked to the banks of the Potomac. But when was American enterprise unequal to a crisis? The necessary hotels, lodging houses and restaurants were constructed with astounding rapidity. One could see the city growing and expanding day by day and week after week. It flowed over Georgetown Heights; it leaped the Potomac; it spread east and west, south and north; square mile after square mile of territory was buried under the advancing buildings, until the gigantic city, which had thus grown up like a mushroom in a night, was fully capable of accommodating all its expected guests. At first it had been intended that the heads of the various governments should in person attend this universal congress, but as the enterprise went on, as the enthusiasm spread, as the necessity for haste became more apparent through the warning notes which were constantly sounded from the observatories where the astronomers were nightly beholding new evidences of threatening preparations in Mars, the kings and queens of the old world felt that they could not remain at home; that their proper place was at the new focus and centre of the whole world—the city of Washington. Without concerted action, without interchange of suggestion, this impulse seemed to seize all the old world monarchs at once. Suddenly cablegrams flashed to the Government at Washington, announcing that Queen Victoria, the Emperor William, the Czar Nicholas, Alphonso of Spain, with his mother, Maria Christina; the old Emperor Francis Joseph and the Empress Elizabeth, of Austria; King Oscar and Queen Sophia, of Sweden and Norway; King Humbert and Queen Margherita, of Italy; King George and Queen Olga, of Greece; Abdul Hamid, of Turkey; Tsait'ien, Emperor of China; Mutsuhito, the Japanese Mikado, with his beautiful Princess Haruko; the President of France, the President of Switzerland, the First Syndic of the little republic of Andorra, perched on the crest of the Pyrenees, and the heads of all the Central and South American republics, were coming to Washington to take part in the deliberations, which, it was felt, were to settle the fate of earth and Mars. One day, after this announcement had been received, and the additional news had come that nearly all the visiting monarchs had set out, attended by brilliant suites and convoyed by fleets of warships, for their destination, some coming across the Atlantic to the port of New York, others across the Pacific to San Francisco, Mr. Edison said to me: "This will be a fine spectacle. Would you like to watch it?" "Certainly," I replied. A Grand Spectacle. The Ship of Space was immediately at our disposal. I think I have not yet mentioned the fact that the inventor's control over the electrical generator carried in the car was so perfect that by varying the potential or changing the polarity he could cause it slowly or swiftly, as might be desired, to approach or recede from any object. The only practical difficulty was presented when the polarity of the electrical charge upon an object in the neighborhood of the car was unknown to those in the car, and happened to be opposite to that of the charge which the car, at that particular moment, was bearing. In such a case, of course, the car would fly toward the object, whatever it might be, like a pith ball or a feather, attracted to the knob of an electrical machine. In this way, considerable danger was occasionally encountered, and a few accidents could not be avoided. Fortunately, however, such cases were rare. It was only now and then that, owing to some local cause, electrical polarities unknown to or unexpected by the navigators, endangered the safety of the car. As I shall have occasion to relate, however, in the course of the narrative, this danger became more acute and assumed at times a most formidable phase, when we had ventured outside the sphere of the earth and were moving through the unexplored regions beyond. On this occasion, having embarked, we rose rapidly to a height of some thousands of feet and directed our course over the Atlantic. When half way to Ireland, we beheld, in the distance, steaming westward, the smoke of several fleets. As we drew nearer a marvellous spectacle unfolded itself to our eyes. From the northeast, their great guns flashing in the sunlight and their huge funnels belching black volumes that rested like thunder clouds upon the sea, came the mighty warships of England, with her meteor flag streaming red in the breeze, while the royal insignia, indicating the presence of the ruler of the British Empire, was conspicuously displayed upon the flagship of the squadron. Following a course more directly westward appeared, under another black cloud of smoke, the hulls and guns and burgeons of another great fleet, carrying the tri-color of France, and bearing in its midst the head of the magnificent republic of western Europe. Further south, beating up against the northerly winds, came a third fleet with the gold and red of Spain fluttering from its masthead. This, too, was carrying its King westward, where now, indeed, the star of empire had taken its way. Universal Brotherhood. Rising a little higher, so as to extend our horizon, we saw coming down the English channel, behind the British fleet, the black ships of Russia. Side by side, or following one another's lead, these war fleets were on a peaceful voyage that belied their threatening appearance. There had been no thought of danger to or from the forts and ports of rival nations which they had passed. There was no enmity, and no fear between them when the throats of their ponderous guns yawned at one another across the waves. They were now, in spirit, all one fleet, having one object, bearing against one enemy, ready to defend but one country, and that country was the entire earth. It was some time before we caught sight of the Emperor William's fleet. It seems that the Kaiser, although at first consenting to the arrangement by which Washington had been selected as the assembling place for the nations, afterwards objected to it. Kaiser Wilhelm's Jealousy. "I ought to do this thing myself," he had said. "My glorious ancestors would never have consented to allow these upstart Republicans to lead in a warlike enterprise of this kind. What would my grandfather have said to it? I suspect that it is some scheme aimed at the divine right of kings." But the good sense of the German people would not suffer their ruler to place them in a position so false and so untenable. And swept along by their enthusiasm the Kaiser had at last consented to embark on his flagship at Kiel, and now he was following the other fleets on their great mission to the Western Continent. Why did they bring their warships when their intentions were peaceable, do you ask? Well, it was partly the effect of ancient habit, and partly due to the fact that such multitudes of officials and members of ruling families wished to embark for Washington that the ordinary means of ocean communications would have been utterly inadequate to convey them. After we had feasted our eyes on this strange sight, Mr. Edison suddenly exclaimed: "Now let us see the fellows from the rising sun." Over the Mississippi. The car was immediately directed toward the west. We rapidly approached the American coast, and as we sailed over the Alleghany Mountains and the broad plains of the Ohio and the Mississippi, we saw crawling beneath us from west, south and north, an endless succession of railway trains bearing their multitudes on to Washington. With marvellous speed we rushed westward, rising high to skim over the snow-topped peaks of the Rocky Mountains and then the glittering rim of the Pacific was before us. Half way between the American coast and Hawaii we met the fleets coming from China and Japan. Side by side they were ploughing the main, having forgotten, or laid aside, all the animosities of their former wars. I well remember how my heart was stirred at this impressive exhibition of the boundless influence which my country had come to exercise over all the people of the world, and I turned to look at the man to whose genius this uprising of the earth was due. But Mr. Edison, after his wont, appeared totally unconscious of the fact that he was personally responsible for what was going on. His mind, seemingly, was entirely absorbed in considering problems, the solution of which might be essential to our success in the terrific struggle which was soon to begin. Back to Washington. "Well, have you seen enough?" he asked. "Then let us go back to Washington." As we speeded back across the continent we beheld beneath us again the burdened express trains rushing toward the Atlantic, and hundreds of thousands of upturned eyes watched our swift progress, and volleys of cheers reached our ears, for every one knew that this was Edison's electrical warship, on which the hope of the nation, and the hopes of all the nations, depended. These scenes were repeated again and again until the car hovered over the still expanding capital on the Potomac, where the unceasing ring of hammers rose to the clouds. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Garrett Putman Serviss (2006). Edison's Conquest of Mars. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/19141/pg19141-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

This enthusiasm would have had but little justification

EFFICIENCY AND CAPACITY OF BOILERS

CLASSIFICATION OF FUELS

Scientific American, Vol. XXXIX. No. 6. [New Series.], August 10, 1878, by Various, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . THE SUN. here THE SUN. BY S. P. LANGLEY, ALLEGHENY OBSERVATORY, PA. [1] When, with a powerful telescope, we return to the study of the sun's surface, we meet a formidable difficulty which our first simple means did not present. This arises from the nearly constant tremors of our own atmosphere, through which we have to look. It is not that the tremor does not exist with the smaller instrument, but now our higher magnifying power exaggerates it, causes everything to appear unsteady and blurry, however good the glass, and makes the same kind of trouble for the eye which we should experience if we tried to read very fine print across the top of a hot stove, whence columns of tremulous air were rising. There is no remedy for this, unless it is assiduous watching and infinite patience, for in almost every day there will come one or more brief intervals, lasting sometimes minutes, sometimes only seconds, during which the air seems momentarily tranquil. We must be on the watch for hours, to seize these favorable moments, and, piecing together what we have seen in them, in the course of time we obtain such knowledge of the more curious features of the solar surface as we now possess. The eye aches after gazing for a minute steadily at the full moon, and the sun's light is from 300,000 to 600,000 times brighter than full moon light, while its heat is in still greater proportion. The object lens of such a telescope as the equatorial at Allegheny is 13 inches in diameter, and it is such light, and such heat, concentrated by it, that we have to gaze on. The best contrivance so far found for diminishing both, and without which our present acquaintance with the real appearance and character of sunspots would not have been gained, depends upon a curious property of light, discovered by a French physicist, Malus, in the beginning of this century. Let A ( ) be a piece of plane unsilvered glass, receiving the solar rays and reflecting them to a second similar one, B, which itself reflects them again in the direction C. Of course, since the glass is transparent, most of the rays will pass through A, and not be reflected. Of those which reach B again most will pass through, so that not a hundredth part of the original beam reaches C. This then, is so far a gain; but of itself of little use, since, such is the solar brilliancy, that even this small fraction would, to an eye at C, appear blindingly bright. Now, if we rotate B about the line joining it with A, keeping always the same reflecting angle with it, it might naturally be supposed that the light would merely be reflected in a new direction unchanged in quantity. Fig. 10 But according to the curious discovery of Malus this is not what happens. What does happen is that the second glass, after being given a quarter turn (though always kept at the same angle), seems to lose its power of reflection almost altogether. The light which comes from it now is diminished enormously, and yet nothing is distorted or displaced; everything is seen correctly if enough light remains to see it by at all, and the ray is said to have been "polarized by reflection." It would be out of place to enter here on the cause of the phenomenon; the fact is certain, and is a very precious one, for the astronomer can now diminish the sun's light till it is bearable by the weakest eye, without any distortion of what he is looking at, and without disturbing the natural tints by colored glasses. In practice, a third and sometimes a fourth reflector, each of a wedge shaped, optically plane piece of unsilvered glass, are thus introduced, and by a simple rotation of the last one the light is graded at pleasure, so that with such an instrument, called "the polarizing eyepiece" ( ), I have often watched the sun's magnified image for four or five hours together with no more distress to the eye than in reading a newspaper. Fig. A With this, in favorable moments, we see that the sun's surface away from the spots, everywhere, is made up of hundreds of thousands of small, intensely brilliant bodies, that seem to be floating in a gray medium, which, though itself no doubt very bright, appears dark by comparison. What these little things are is still uncertain; whatever they are, they are the immediate principal source of the sun's light and heat. To get an idea of their size we must resort to some more delicate means of measurement than we used in the case of the watch. The filar micrometer consists essentially of two excessively fine strands of cobwebs (or, rather, of spider's cocoon), called technically "wires," stretched parallel to each other and placed just at the focus of the telescope. Suppose one of them to be fixed and the second to be movable (keeping always parallel to the first) by means of a screw, having perhaps one hundred threads to the inch, and a large drum shaped head divided into one hundred equal parts, so that moving this head by one division carries the second "wire" 1/10000 part of an inch nearer to the first. Motions smaller than this can clearly be registered, but it will be evident that everything here really depends upon the accuracy of the screw. The guide screw of the best lathe is a coarse piece of work by comparison with "micrometer" screws as now constructed (especially those for making the "gratings" to be described later), for recent uses of them demand perhaps the most accurate workmanship of anything in mechanics—the maker of one which will pass some lately invented tests is entitled at any rate to call himself "a workman." Since the "wires" are stretched precisely in the focus, where the principal image of the sun is formed, and move in it, they, and the features of the surface, form one picture, as magnified by the eye lens, so that they appear as if moving about on the sun itself. We can first set them far enough apart, for instance, to take in the whole of a spot, and then by bringing them together measure its apparent diameter, in ten thousandths of an inch. Then, measuring the diameter of the whole sun, we have evidently the proportion that one bears to the other, and hence the means of easily calculating the real size. A powerful piece of clockwork, attached to the equatorial, keeps it slowly rotating on its axis, at the same angular rate as that with which the sun moves in the sky, so that any spot or other object there will seem to stay fixed with relation to the "wires," if we choose, all day long. The picture of "wires," spots, and all, may be projected on a screen if desired; and shows the field of view, with the micrometer wires lying across a "spot," so seen on the 6th of March, 1873. Part of a cambric needle with the end of a fine thread is represented also as being projected on the screen along with the "wires" to give a better idea of the delicacy of the latter. Fig. 11 Now we may measure, if we please, the size of one of those bright objects, which have just been spoken of as being countable by hundreds of thousands. These "little things" are then seen to be really of considerable size, measuring from one to three seconds of arc, so that (a second of arc here being over 400 miles) the average surface of each individual of these myriads is found to be considerably larger than Great Britain. Near the edge of the disk, under favorable circumstances, they appear to rise up through the obscuring atmosphere, which darkens the limb, and gathered here and there in groups of hundreds, to form the white cloudlike patches ( ), which may sometimes be seen even with a spy-glass—"something in the sun brighter than the sun itself," to employ the expression by which Huyghens described them nearly two hundred years ago. They are too minute and delicate objects to be rendered at all in our engraving; but this is true also of much of the detail to be seen at times in the spots themselves. The wood cuts make no pretense to do more than give an outline of the more prominent features, of which we are now about to speak. The wonderful beauty of some of their details must be taken on trust, from the writer's imperfect description of what no pencil has ever yet rendered and what the photograph has not yet seized. faculæ Bearing this in mind, let us now suppose that while using the polarizing eyepiece on the part of the spot distinguished by the little circle, we have one of those rare opportunities when we can, by the temporary steadiness of our tremulous atmosphere, use the higher powers of the telescope and magnify the little circle till it appears as in . We have now nearly the same view as if we were brought close to the surface of the sun, and suspended over this part of the spot. All the faint outer shade, seen in the smaller views (the ) is seen to be made up of long white filaments, twisted into curious ropelike forms, while the central part is like a great flame, ending in fiery spires. Over these hang what look like clouds, such as we sometimes see in our highest sky, but more transparent than the finest lace vail would be, and having not the "fleecy" look of our clouds, but the appearance of being filled with almost infinitely delicate threads of light. Perhaps the best idea of what is so hard to describe, because so unlike anything on earth, is got by supposing ourselves to look successive vails of white lace, filled with flower-like patterns, at some great body of white flame beyond, while between the spires of the flame and separating it from the border are depths of shade passing into blackness. With all this, there is something crystalline about the appearance, which it is hard to render an idea of—frost-figures on a window pane may help us as an image, though imperfect. In fact the intense whiteness of everything is oddly suggestive of something very cold, rather than very hot, as we know it really. I have had much the same impression when looking into the open mouth of a puddling furnace at the lumps of pure white iron, swimming half-melted in the grayer fluid about them. Here, however, the temperature leaves nothing solid, nothing liquid even; the iron and other metals of which we know these spot-forms do in part at least consist are turned into vapor by the inconceivable heat, and everything we are looking at consists probably of clouds of such vapor; for it is fluctuating and changing from one form into another while we look on. Forms as evanescent almost as those of sunset clouds, and far more beautiful in everything but color, are shifting before us, and here and there we see, or think we see, in the sweep of their curves beyond, evidences of mighty whirlwinds (greater by far than the largest terrestrial cyclone) at work. While we are looking, and trying to make the most of every moment, our atmosphere grows tremulous again, the shapes get confused, there is nothing left distinct but such coarser features as our engraving shows, and the wonderful sight is over. When we consider that this little portion of the spot we have been looking at is larger than the North and South American continents together, and that we could yet see its parts change from minute to minute, it must be evident that the actual motion must have been rapid almost beyond conception—a speed of from 20 to 50 miles a being commonly observed and sometimes exceeded. (A cannon ball moves less than ¼ of a mile per second.) I have seen a portion of the photosphere, or bright general surface of the sun, drawn into a spot, much as any floating thing would be drawn into a whirlpool, and then, though it occupied by measurement over 3,000,000 miles in area, completely break up and change so as to be unrecognizable in less than twenty minutes. Fig. 12 penumbra through second When we come to discuss the subject of the sun's heat, we shall find that the temperature of a blast furnace or of the oxyhydrogen blowpipe is low compared with that which obtains all over such a vast region, and remembering this, it is evident that its disappearance is a cataclysm of which the most tremendous volcanic outburst here gives no conception. We cannot, by any terrestrial comparison, describe it, for we have no comparison for it in human experience. If we try to picture such an effect on the earth, we may say in another's words that these solar whirlwinds are such as, "coming down upon us from the north, would in thirty seconds after they had crossed the St. Lawrence be in the Gulf of Mexico, carrying with them the whole surface of the continent in a mass, not simply of ruin, but of glowing vapor, in which the vapors arising from the dissolution of the materials composing the cities of Boston, New York, and Chicago would be mixed in a single indistinguishable cloud." These vast cavities then in the sun we call spots are not solid things, and not properly to be compared even to masses of slag or scoria swimming on a molten surface. They are rather rents in that bright cloud surface of the sun which we call the photosphere, and through which we look down to lower regions. Their shape may be very rudely likened to a funnel with sides at first slowly sloping (the ), and then suddenly going down into the central darkness (the ). This central darkness has itself gradations of shade, and cloud forms may be seen there obscurely glowing with a reddish tinge far down its depths, but we never see to any solid bottom, and the hypothesis of a habitable sun far within the hot surface, suggested by Sir William Herschel, is now utterly abandoned. We are able now to explain in part that mysterious feature in the sun's rotation before insisted on, for if the sun be not a solid or a liquid, but a mass of glowing vapor, it is evidently possible that one part of it may turn faster than another. it so turns, we repeat, no one knows, but the fact that it does is now seen to bear the strongest testimony to the probable gaseous form of the sun throughout its mass—at any rate, to the gaseous or vaporous nature of everything we see. We must not forget, however, that under such enormous temperature and pressure as prevail there the conditions may be—in fact, must be—very different from any familiar to us here, so that when we speak of "clouds," and use like expressions, we are to be understood as implying rather an analogy than an exact resemblance. penumbra umbra Why We must expect, with the great advances photography has lately made, to know more of this part of our subject (which we may call solar meteorology) at the next spot maximum than ever before, and by that time it may be hoped that some of the wonderful forms described above so imperfectly will have been caught for us by the camera. In the notice in our issue for July 27 of a new screw cutting lathe made by Messrs. Goodnow & Wightman, the address should have been 176 Washington street instead of 128, and the diameter of the tail spindle, which was given as 5/16, should have been 15/16 inch. The Olympia (Wyoming Territory) announces that a company has been formed there to bring ice from a glacier. The deposit covers a number of acres, is seventy or eighty feet deep, and is supposed to contain a hundred thousand or more tons, some of which may have been there as many years. The ice can be cut and sold at one and one half cents a pound, and by the ship load at five dollars a ton. Standard About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Various (2013). Scientific American, Vol. XXXIX. No. 6. [New Series.], August 10, 1878. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/19406/pg19406-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

THE SUN

The Position of Saturn in the System

Our nearer Neighbours in the Heavens

The Cave Girl by Edgar Rice Burroughs, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . THE GREAT NAGOOLA THE GREAT NAGOOLA WALDO EMERSON SMITH-JONES had gladly embraced the opportunity which chance had offered him to assume the kingship of the little tribe of troglodytes. First, because his position would assure Nadara greater safety, and, second, because of the opening it would give him for the exercise of his new-found initiative. Where before he had shrunk from responsibility he now found himself anxious to assume it. He longed to do, where formerly he had been content to but read of the accomplishments of others. To his chagrin, however, he soon discovered that the classical education to which his earlier life had been devoted under the guidance of a fond and ultra-cultured mother was to prove a most inadequate foundation upon which to build a practical scheme of life for himself and his people. He wished to teach his tribe to construct permanent and comfortable houses, but he could not recollect any practical hints on carpentry that he had obtained from Ovid. His people lived by hunting small rodents, robbing birds' nests, and gathering wild fruit and vege tables. Thandar desired to institute a scheme of community farming, but the works of the Cyclic Poets, with which he was quite familiar, seemed to offer little of value along agricultural lines. He regretted that he had not matriculated at an agricultural college west of the Alleghanies rather than at Harvard. [Pg 178] However, he determined to do the best he could with the meager knowledge he possessed of things practical—a knowledge so meager that it consisted almost entirely of the bare definition of the word agriculture. It was a germ, however, for it presupposed a knowledge of the results that might be obtained through agriculture. So Thandar found himself a step ahead of the earliest of his progenitors who had thought to plant purposely the seeds that nature heretofore had distributed haphazard through the agencies of wind and bird and beast; but only a step ahead. He realized that he occupied a very remarkable position in the march of ages. He had known and seen and benefited by all the accumulated knowledge of ages of progression from the stone age to the twentieth century, and now, suddenly, fate had snatched him back into the stone age, or possibly a few eons farther back, only to show him that all that he had from a knowledge of other men's knowledge was keen dissatisfaction with the stone age. [Pg 179] He had lived in houses of wood and brick and looked through windows of glass. He had read in the light of gas and electricity, and he even knew of candles; but he could not fashion the tools to build a house, he could not have made a brick to have saved his life, glass had suddenly become one of the wonders of the world to him, and as for gas and electricity and candles they had become one with the mystery of the Sphinx. He could write verse in excellent Greek, but he was no longer proud of that fact. He would much rather that he had been able to tan a hide, or make fire without matches. Waldo Emerson Smith-Jones had a year ago been exceedingly proud of his intellect and his learning, but for a year his ego had been shrinking until now he felt himself the most pitiful ignoramus on earth. "Criminally ignorant," he said to Nadara, "for I have thrown away the opportunities of a lifetime devoted to the accumulation of useless erudition when I might have been profiting by the practical knowledge which has dragged the world from the black bit of barbarism to the light of modern achievement—I might not only have done this but, myself, added something to the glory and welfare of mankind. I am no good, Nadara—worse than useless." The girl touched his strong brown hand caressingly, looking proudly into his eyes. "To me you are very wonderful, Thandar," she said. "With your own hands you slew Nagoola, the most terrible beast in the world, and Korth, and Flatfoot, and Big Fist lie dead beneath the vultures because of your might—single-handed you killed them all; three awesome men. No, my Thandar is greater than all other men." Nor could Waldo Emerson repress the swelling tide of pride that surged through him as the girl he loved recounted his exploits. No longer did he think of his achievements as "vulgar physical prowess." The old Waldo Emerson, whose temperature had risen regularly at three o'clock each afternoon, whose pitifully skinny body had been racked by coughing continually, whose eyes had been terror filled by day and by night at the rustling of dry leaves, was dead. In his place stood a great, full blooded man, brown skinned and steel thewed; fearless, self-reliant, almost brutal in his pride of power—Thandar, the cave man. The months that passed as Thandar led his people from one honeycombed cliff to another as he sought a fitting place for a permanent village were filled with happiness for Nadara and the king. The girl's happiness was slightly alloyed by the fact that Thandar failed to claim her as his own. She could not yet quite understand the ethics which separated them. Thandar tried repeatedly to explain to her that some day they were to return to his own world, and that that world would not accept her unless she had been joined to him according to the rites and ceremonies which it had originated. [Pg 181] "Will this marriage ceremony of which you tell me make you love me more?" asked Nadara. Thandar laughed and took her in his arms. "I could not love you more," he replied. "Then of what good is it?" Thandar shook his head. "It is difficult to explain," he said, "especially to such a lovable little pagan as my Nadara. You must be satisfied to know—accept my word for it—that it is because I love you that we must wait." Now it was the girl's turn to shake her head. "I cannot understand," she said. "My people take their mates as they will and they are satisfied and everybody is satisfied and all is well; but their king, who may mate as he chooses, waits until a man whom he does not know and who lives across the great water where we may never go, gives him permission to mate with one who loves him—with one whom he says he loves." [Pg 182] Thandar noticed the emphasis which Nadara put upon the word "says." "Some day," he said, "when we have reached my world you will know that I was right, and you will thank me. Until then, Nadara, you must trust me, and," he added half to himself, "God knows I have earned your trust even if you do not know it." And so Nadara made believe that she was satisfied but in her heart of hearts she still feared that Thandar did not really love her, nor did the half-veiled comments of the women add at all to her peace of mind. During all the time that Thandar was with her he had been teaching her his language for he had set his heart upon taking her home, and he wished her to be as well prepared for her introduction to Boston and civilization as he could make her. Thandar's plan was to find a suitable location within sight of the sea that he might always be upon the lookout for a ship. At last he found such a place—a level meadow land upon a low plateau overlooking the ocean. He had come upon it while he wandered alone several miles from the temporary cliff dwellings the tribe was occupying. The soil, when he dug into it, he found to be rich and black. There was timber upon one side and upon the other overhanging cliffs of soft limestone. [Pg 183] It was Thandar's plan to build a village partly of logs against the face of the cliff, burrowing inward behind the dwellings for such additional apartments as each family might require. The caves alone would have proved sufficient shelter, but the man hoped by compelling his people to construct a portion of each dwelling of logs to engender within each family a certain feeling of ownership and pride in personal possession as would make it less easy for them to give up their abodes than in the past, when it had been necessary but to move to another cliff to find caves equally as comfortable as those which they so easily abandoned. In other words he hoped to give them a word which their vocabulary had never held—home. Whether or not he would have succeeded we may never know, for fate stepped in at the last moment to alter with a single stroke his every plan and aspiration. As he returned to his people that afternoon filled with the enthusiasm of his hopes a burly, hairy figure crept warily after him. As Thandar emerged from the brush which reaches close to the cliffs where the temporary encampment had been made Nadara, watching for him, ran forward to meet him. The creature upon Thandar's trail halted at the edge of the bush. As his close-set eyes fell upon the girl his flabby lips vibrated to the quick intaking of his breath and his red lids half closed in cunning and desire. [Pg 184] For a few moments he watched the man and the maid as they turned and walked slowly toward the cliffs, the arm of the former about the brown shoulders of the latter. Then he too turned and melted into the tangled branches behind him. That evening Thandar gathered the members of the tribe about him at the foot of the cliff. They sat around a great fire while Thandar, their king, explained to them in minutest detail the future that he had mapped out for them. Some of the old men shook their heads, for here was an unheard of thing—a change from the accustomed ordering of their lives—and they were loath to change regardless of the benefits which might accrue. But for the most part the people welcomed the idea of comfortable and permanent habitations, though their anticipatory joy, Thandar reasoned, was due largely to a childish eagerness for something new and different—whether their enthusiasm would survive the additional labors which the new life was sure to entail was another question. So Thandar laid down the new laws that were to guide his people thereafter. The men were to make all implements and weapons, for he had already taught them to use arrows and spears. The women were to keep all edged tools sharp. The men were to hew the logs and build the houses—the women make garments, cook and keep the houses in order. [Pg 185] The men were to turn up the soil, the women were to sow the seeds, and cultivate the growing crops, which, later, all hands must turn to and harvest. The hunting and the fighting devolved upon the men, but the fighting must be confined to enemies of the tribe. A man who killed another member of the tribe except in defense of his home or his own person was to suffer death. Other laws he made—good laws—which even these primitive people could see were good. It was quite late when the last of them crawled into his comfortless cave to dream of large, airy rooms built of the trees of the forest; of good food in plenty just before the rains as well as after; of security from the periodic raids of the "bad men." Thandar and Nadara were the last to go. Together they sat upon a narrow ledge before Nadara's cave, the moonlight falling upon their glistening, naked shoulders, while they talked and dreamed together of the future. Thandar had been talking of the wonderful plans which seemed to fill his whole mind—of the future of the tribe—of the great strides toward civilization they could make in a few brief years if they could but be made to follow the simple plans he had in mind. [Pg 186] "Why," he said, "in ten years they should have bridged a gulf that it must have required ages for our ancestors to span." "And you are planning ten years ahead, Thandar," she asked, "when only yesterday you were saying that once beside the sea you hoped it would be but a short time before we might sight a passing vessel that would bear us away to your civilization? Must we wait ten years, Thandar?" "I am planning for them," he replied. "We may not be here to witness the changes; but I wish to start them upon the road, and when we go I shall see to it that a king is chosen in my place who has the courage and the desire to carry out my plans. "Yet," he added, musingly, "it would be splendid could we but return to complete our work. Never, Nadara, have I performed a single constructive act for the benefit of my fellow man, but now I see an opportunity to do something, however small it may seem, to—what was that?" A low rumbling muttered threateningly out of the west. Deep and ominous it sounded, yet so low that it failed to awaken any member of the sleeping tribe. Before either could again speak there came a slight trembling of the earth beneath them, scarcely sufficient to have been noticeable had it not been preceded by the distant grumbling of the earth's bowels. [Pg 187] The two upon the moonlit ledge came to their feet, and Nadara drew close to Thandar, the man's arm encircling her shoulders protectingly. "The Great Nagoola," she whispered. "Again he seeks to escape." "What do you mean?" asked Thandar. "It is an earthquake—distant and quite harmless to us." "No, it is The Great Nagoola," insisted Nadara. "Long time ago, when our fathers' fathers were yet unborn, The Great Nagoola roamed the land devouring all that chanced to come in his way—men, beasts, birds, everything. "One day my people came upon him sleeping in a deep gorge between two mountains. They were mighty men in those days, and when they saw their great enemy asleep there in the gorge half of them went upon one side and half upon the other, and they pushed the two mountains over into the gorge upon the sleeping beast, imprisoning him there. "It is all true, for my mother had it from her mother, who in turn was told it by her mother—thus has it been handed down truthfully since it happened long time ago. "And even to this day is occasionally heard the growling of The Great Nagoola in his anger, and the earth shakes and trembles as he strives far, far beneath to shake the mountains from him and escape. Did you not hear his voice and feel the ground rock?" [Pg 188] Thandar laughed. "Well, we are quite safe then," he cried, "for with two mountains piled upon him he cannot escape." "Who knows?" asked Nadara. "He is huge—as huge, himself, as a small mountain. Some day, they say, he will escape, and then naught will pacify his rage until he has destroyed every living creature upon the land." "Do not worry, little one," said Thandar. "The Great Nagoola will have to grumble louder and struggle more fiercely before ever he may dislodge the two mountains. Even now he is quiet again, so run to your cave, sweetheart, nor bother your pretty head with useless worries—it is time that all good people were asleep," and he stooped and kissed her as she turned to go. For a moment she clung to him. "I am afraid, Thandar," she whispered. "Why, I do not know. I only know that I am afraid, with a great fear that will not be quiet." About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Edgar Rice Burroughs (1993). The Cave Girl. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/69191/pg69191-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html.

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