Chapter VIII: An Unlucky Smash (1)

Captain Duff's first order after peace was thus restored and he had recovered the use of his voice, temporarily lost through amazement at the spectacle of a sailor before the mast paying out of his own pocket for a ship's stores, and stores of such an extraordinary character as well, was that the goods thus acquired should be immediately transferred to his own cabin. So Bonny, with Alaric to assist, began to carry the things below.

The cabin was very small, dirty, and stuffy. The air of the place was so pervaded with a combination odor of stale tobacco smoke, mouldy leather, damp clothing, bilge water, kerosene, onions, and other things of an equally obtrusive nature, that poor Alaric gasped for breath on first descending the steep flight of steps leading to it.

On his next trip below the lad drew in a long breath of fresh air just before entering the evil-smelling cabin, and determined not to take another until he should emerge from it. In his haste to execute this plan he dropped his armful of cans, and without waiting to stow them, had gained the steps before realizing that the Captain was ordering him to come back.

Furious at having his command thus disregarded, the man reached out with one of his crutches, caught it around the boy's neck, and gave him a violent jerk backward.

The startled lad, losing his foothold, came to the floor with a crash and a loud escaping "Ah!" of pent-up breath. At the same moment the cabin began to be pervaded with a new and unaccustomed odor so strong that all the others temporarily withdrew in its favor.

"Oh, murder! Let me out!" gasped Captain Duff, as he scrambled for the companionway and a breath of outer air. "Of all the smells I ever smelled that's the worst!"

"What have you broken, Rick?" asked Bonny, anxiously, thrusting his head down the companionway. He had been curiously reading the unfamiliar labels on the various jars, pots, and bottles, and now fancied that his crew had slipped down the steep steps with some of these in his arms.

"Whew! but it's strong!" he continued, as the penetrating fumes greeted his nostrils. "Is it the truffles or the pate grass or the cheese?"

"I'm afraid," replied Alaric, sadly, as he slowly rose from the cabin floor and thrust a cautious hand into one of his hip pockets, "that it is a bottle of eau-de-Cologne."

"Cologne!" cried Bonny, incredulously, as he caught the word. "If these foreign kinds of grub are put up in Cologne, it's no wonder that I never heard of them before. Why, it's poison, that's what it is, and nothing less. Shall I heave the rest of the truck overboard, sir?"

"Hold on!" cried Alaric, emerging with rueful face from the cabin in time to catch this suggestion. "It isn't in them. It was in my pocket all by itself."

"I wish it had staid there, and you'd gone to Halifax with it afore ever ye brought the stuff aboard this ship!" thundered the Captain. "Avast, ye lubber! Don't come anigh me. Go out on the dock and air yourself."

So the unhappy lad, his clothing saturated with cologne, betook himself to the wharf, where, as he slowly walked up and down, filling the air with perfume, he carefully removed bits of broken glass from his moist pocket, and disgustedly flung them overboard.

While he was thus engaged, the first mate, under the Captain's personal supervision, was fumigating the cabin by burning in it a bunch of oakum over which was scattered a small quantity of tobacco. When the atmosphere of the place was thus so nearly restored to its normal condition that Captain Duff could again endure it, Bonny finished stowing the supplies, and then turned his attention to preparing supper.

Meanwhile Alaric had been joined in his lonely promenade by a stranger, who, with a curious expression on his face as he drew near the lad, changed his position so as to get on the windward side, and then began a conversation.

"Fine evening," he said.

"Is it?" asked Alaric, moodily.

"I think so. Do you belong on that sloop? Where does she run to from here?"

"The Sound," answered Alaric, shortly.

"What does she carry?"

"Passengers and cargo."

"Indeed? And may I ask what sort of a cargo?"

"You may."

"Well, then, what sort?" persisted the stranger.

"Chinks and dope," returned Alaric, glancing up with the expectation of seeing a look of bewilderment on his questioner's face. But the latter only said:

"Um! About what I thought. Paying business, isn't it?"

"If it wasn't we wouldn't be in it," replied the boy.

"No, I suppose not; and it must pay big since it enables even the cabin-boy to drench himself with perfumery."

Ere Alaric could reply the stranger was walking rapidly away, and Bonny was calling him to supper.

The first mate apologized for serving this meal on deck, but that Captain Duff objected to the crew's presence at his table on this occasion. "So," said Bonny, "I told him he might eat alone, then, for I should come out here and eat with you."

"I hope he will always feel the same way," retorted Alaric, "for it doesn't seem as though I could possibly stay in that cabin long enough to eat a meal."

"Oh, I guess you could," laughed Bonny. "Anyway, it will be all right by breakfast-time, for the smell is nearly gone now. But I say, Rick Dale, what an awfully funny fellow you are anyway! What made you pay for all that truck? It must have taken every cent you had."

"So it did," replied Alaric. "But what of that? It was the easiest way to smooth things over that I knew of."

"It wouldn't have been for me, then," rejoined Bonny, "for I haven't handled a dollar in so long that it would scare me to find one in my pocket. But why didn't you let them take back the things we didn't need?"

"Because, having ordered them, we were bound to accept them, and I thought we needed them all. I'm awfully tired of such things myself, but I didn't know you were."

"What, olives and mushrooms and truffles, and the rest of the things with queer names? I never tasted one of them in my life, and don't believe the Captain did, either."

"That seems odd," reflected Alaric.

"Doesn't it?" responded Bonny, quizzically. "And that cologne, too. What ever made you buy it?"

"I don't know exactly. Because I happened to see it, I suppose, and thought it would be a useful thing to have along. A little of it is nice in your bath, you know, or to put on your handkerchief when you have a headache."

"My stars!" exclaimed Bonny. "Listen to that, will you? Why, Rick, to hear you talk, one would think you were a prince in disguise, or a bloated aristocrat!"

"Well, I'm not," answered Alaric, shortly. "I'm only a sailor on board the sloop _Fancy_, who has just eaten a fine supper and enjoyed it."

"Have you, really?" asked the other, dubiously. "It didn't seem to me that just coffee without any milk, hard bread, and fried salt pork were very fine, and I was afraid that perhaps you wouldn't like 'em."

"I do, though," insisted Alaric. "You see, I never tasted any of those things before, and they are first class."

"Well," said Bonny, "I don't think much of such grub, and I've had it for more than a year, too; but then every one to his liking. Now I've got to notify our passengers, for we sail to-night. You may come with me and learn the ropes if you want to."

"But we haven't any cargo aboard," objected Alaric.

"Oh, that won't take long. A few minutes will fix the cargo all right."

Alaric wondered what sort of a cargo could be taken aboard in a few minutes, but concluded to wait and see.

Soon both lads went ashore and walked up into the town. Although it was now evening, Bonny did not seek the well-lighted business streets, but made his way to what struck Alaric as a peculiarly disreputable neighborhood. The houses were small and dingy, and their windows were so closely shuttered that no ray of light issued from them.

At length they paused before a low door, on which Bonny rapped in a peculiar manner. It was cautiously opened by a man who held a dim lamp over his head, and who evidently regarded them with suspicion. He was reassured by a few words from the young mate; the door was closed behind them, and, with the stranger leading the way, while Alaric, filled with curiosity, brought up the rear, all three entered a narrow and very dark passage, the air of which was close and stifling.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

BUILDING A BOULEVARD.

BY J. PARMLY PARET.

A few years ago the people of New York decided that they must have a new boulevard, where fast horses could be driven without running over people or upsetting the carriages of those who didn't want to drive so fast. They puzzled their heads for some time to find a suitable spot for their new driveway, and it was many months before they finally agreed upon the bank of the Harlem River which runs along the east side of the city. The shore here is straight for several miles, and is lined with such steep, wooded bluffs that all the bridges cross the river high up in the air. Here there is no danger of interruption, and as the roadway can be both straight and level, it was chosen as an ideal spot, and the Harlem River Speedway is now being built there.

The building of this great boulevard has already been going on for two years, and it will probably take fully two more to complete it. The steep banks sloped down to the very edge of the river, so it was necessary to build the road out in the water for most of its length, and the workmen had to make land to build it on. In one or two places great masses of rocks were in the way, and here they cut the driveway right through the solid rock. At one point there was a big gap in the cliffs, and the road was built up on top of a high stone wall for over a quarter of a mile, while in another place they had to blast out thousands of tons of rocks from under the water to make room for the new drive.

Long before they could begin the actual work of building such a big road as this the civil engineers spent many months preparing their "plans and specifications." They estimate so many hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of mud to be dredged out of the river bed; so many thousands of feet of crib-work to be built; so many hundreds of yards of stone wall to be built; so many cubic yards of filling and grading, and so many--well, so many other things to be done that it took a big printed pamphlet to mention them all. Then the contractors who wanted to build the driveway made their offers to do the work, and the contract was given to the lowest bidder. This is the way with all public improvements.

Three months after the boulevard was started the river front for two miles fairly swarmed with workmen. At times there were nearly two thousand men at work there, and from the top of the big stone bridge, under whose high arches the road was to pass, a busy scene was presented. Far down below the hordes of men looked like little black ants crawling about at their work. All day long the little steam-drills that bored holes to blast away the rocks puffed out their little clouds of white smoke; the big pile-drivers thumped on regularly upon the tops of great piles as they sunk deeper and deeper into the soft mud, and clumsy steam-derricks and mud-dredges groaned under their work, while the scores of little carts, with their tiny horses and tiny workmen looked like swarms of bugs and ants quarreling together. The boats were covered with workmen, the shore was black with workmen, the rocky heights were sprinkled with workmen--everywhere it was alive with them. High Bridge was often lined with people looking down at the busy scene below.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the work was making the new land to build the roadway on. If they had simply dumped earth into the river, it would soon have washed away with the tides, so they had to begin from the outside and build in toward the shore.

First, a swarm of bristling, beetlelike mud-dredges anchored along in line just off the shore, and for many weeks their big scoops chunked up and down in the shallow water, each time bringing up with them great masses of black slimy mud. Scows were loaded down to the water's edge by the dredges, and sent off to dump the mud somewhere else where filling was wanted. When they came back, too, they generally towed behind them rafts of loose logs. For months these logs were coming up the river almost every day, and were anchored off the scene of the work. Hundreds of thousands of loose logs were towed up for this work at different times, and just before the crib-work was begun that part of the river looked like a logging camp.

When the dredges had dug a long deep trench in the mud where the outer edge of the roadway was to be, the work of sinking the cribs began. These cribs are made of logs laid crosswise, like old-fashioned log cabins, and fastened together. They were built at a ship-yard, in sections several hundred feet long, and towed up the river to be sunk in the trench. No sooner had they been fastened in place, by a row of piles, than the hordes of workmen began to swarm all over them. The loose logs were hauled up out of the water and laid on the cribs crosswise, and fastened in place with great spikes.

But though the workmen kept on building up the cribs, they did not seem to grow any higher. As fast as the new logs were added the weight carried them down deeper into the water. Finally they were sunk into the mud at the bottom of the trenches by filling them with tons upon tons of broken rocks, and when they were firmly imbedded they were built up to the proper height with more logs.

In some places these cribs are higher than an ordinary city house, and considerably wider at the bottom. Imagine a log cabin bigger than a house, and you have a good idea of what these cribs would look like if entirely out of water. When finally settled in place the outside edges were trimmed with smooth-cut timbers, and the work of filling in began. A little railroad was built along the tops of the sunken cribs and up the side of the hill, where a lot of blasting and digging was going on. Dummy-cars pulled by mules were loaded with rocks and earth, and dumped into the great gap between the cribs and the shore. Many thousands of tons of dirt and rocks were thrown in here before the big opening was filled up.

But the engineers had made a serious mistake in planning this part of the boulevard, and the weight of the filling behind them pushed some of the cribs out into the water. Far down under the soft muddy bottom there is hard rock, and this shelves out rapidly toward the middle of the river; so when the great weight was filled in behind the sunken cribs, the mud, cribs and all, slid out in places away from the shore. Some parts have moved as much as eight feet at the top, and apparently much more at the bottom, and before the great speedway can be finished, this work will have to be repaired, and the outer edge moved back out of the channel of the river.

Just below the bridge a great rocky promontory jutted out into the way like a cape, and nearly a hundred thousand cubic yards of rock were blasted away to make room for the boulevard. When the workmen got down to the level of the water, submarine drills had to be used for the blasting. This work, too, was very interesting. Divers in rubber suits with glass eyes were sent down under the water to fix the drills in position, and then the holes were bored from the floats above. When they had been sunk deep enough, the divers went down again and fixed the charges of powder that blasted out the rocks. It was like a small earthquake and water-spout combined when one of these blasts went off.

Down at the lower end of the road the approach winds down the side of the rocky heights. Here it is supported for nearly half a mile on a great stone wall, which gradually grows smaller and smaller as the approach nears the level of the river. At one point another great mass of rock got in the way of the workmen, and they blasted their way right through its centre. The carriages will disappear in this cut as though they had been swallowed up by the rocks, and come out again on the other side as they wind their way down toward the straight part of the road along the river-bank. Over forty thousand cubic yards of rock were cut out of this place alone, and the workmen used all this and much more to fill in the cribs when they sunk them in the river below.

The big wall that supports the approach was another difficult part of the work. In one place this is over forty feet high, and more than half as thick at the bottom. Just think of a solid stone wall as high as a house and more than half as thick at its base! It narrows down to two or three feet in thickness at its top, like a pyramid of masonry, and above this will be a railing to prevent people from falling off, for there is to be a sidewalk along the outer edge of the driveway here. It took many, many months to build that wall alone.

There will be two sidewalks in most parts of the new boulevard, but people will be allowed to cross from one to the other only at certain points, and then under the roadway. It would be dangerous to cross where fast horses are constantly passing, so there will be two or three tunnels, or transverse culverts, as the engineers call them, at different parts of the driveway. These tunnels will pass under the road-bed, connecting both sidewalks with stone steps at either side. Sewer culverts, too, have been built at a number of points along the driveway, for the amount of rain that drains off the slopes at the side of the boulevard after a storm would almost undermine it if there were not proper outlets for the water.

Another engineering difficulty was found when the workmen reached the lower end of the approach, for the rocky bluffs end suddenly there before the approach has reached the level of the crib-work. Here they had to dig down forty feet in the mud to get a hard bottom for the rest of the support. A wooden wall was built around the spot to keep the water out, and inside of this "coffer-dam," as the engineers call it, the masons laid the foundations for the last end of the stone wall. It was almost impossible to keep the wooden sides from leaking too, and they had to keep pumps at work almost all the time to prevent the inside from filling with water.

The work was stopped for the winter, but as soon as the mild weather comes again the river front will once more swarm with an army of workmen, and the busy little ants will tear down a lot of the work that has been done and do it all over again. The mistake of the engineers will make the new boulevard cost hundreds of thousands of dollars more than it was expected, and New York will have to pay over two million dollars for her new speedway before it is finished.

MOLLY PITCHER.

In all our school histories--that is, histories of the United States--honorable mention is made of Molly Pitcher, who did good service as a soldier in the Revolutionary war. None of these text-books gives us any clew to Molly's origin, but nearly all of them tell us that the brave woman lies in an unmarked grave, after having passed away without the recognition of her ungrateful country. Sometimes she is buried on the banks of the Hudson, but as a general thing the historians leave us to infer that the location of her grave is entirely unknown. This is all wrong, and I hope that the compiler of the next school history of our country will read what is here told of the heroine, and after verifying the facts, give in his book such attention to the true story of her life as her services entitle her to.

Mary Ludwig was the daughter of Pennsylvania Dutch parents, industrious people with a large family to support. In 1768, when about twenty years old, Mary "hired out" as maid of all work in the family of William Irvine of Carlisle, and on July 24th of the following year became the wife of John Casper Hayes, the town barber. Seven years later, when the war broke out, Hayes enlisted as a private in the First Pennsylvania Artillery, but was afterward transferred to the Seventh Pennsylvania Infantry, commanded by Colonel William Irvine, his wife's former employer. When the artillery regiment was ordered to go to the front Molly marched with it, having obtained the authority of the Colonel (Thomas Proctor) to serve in her husband's battery as cook and laundress. At the battle of Monmouth (Freehold), New Jersey, Hayes was wounded while serving his gun; but his place was soon filled by his wife, who rushed to the front when she heard of his fall, picked up the rammer he had dropped, and till the battle ended did as good service in loading the piece as could have been done by the best-drilled man in the battery. When the fight was over, Molly busied herself in carrying water for the wounded, and it was from this service she came by the pet name "Molly Pitcher."

Molly's husband did not die on the field, but when he recovered from his wound he entered the infantry regiment mentioned above, and remained with it till peace was declared. A few months after reaching Carlisle, Molly was left a widow, but a year later she married John McCauley, who seems to have led her an unhappy life. On Washington's birthday, 1822, when Molly was nearly seventy-five years old, the Legislature of Pennsylvania voted her a gift of forty dollars and pension of forty dollars a year for her noteworthy services during the Revolutionary war.

Molly lived to be nearly ninety. She died on the 22d of January, 1833, and was buried as a soldier, "with the honors of war," in the old Carlisle cemetery. More than forty years afterward--that is, on the Fourth of July, 1876--the citizens of Carlisle erected a handsome monument, over the heroine's grave. It bears this inscription:

MOLLY MCCAULEY,

RENOWNED IN HISTORY AS "MOLLY PITCHER,"

THE HEROINE OF MONMOUTH.

Died January, 1833.

* * * * *

Erected by the Citizens of Cumberland County, July 4, 1876.

THE WEATHER BUREAU.

BY W. J. HENDERSON.

What is the Weather Bureau? It is a branch of the national government service whose duty it is to make forecasts of the weather, to estimate and publish the probabilities twice in every twenty-four hours. Its headquarters are at Washington, and it is attached to the Agricultural Department. It was originally a part of the army, for on June 1, 1860, Congress passed an act establishing the Signal Service, and detailing a major and several signal officers to conduct it. In 1863 the Signal Corps was organized. It served through the war, and was then permitted to disband. It was reorganized in 1866, and the weather predictions were a part of its duties until recently. Now the weather service, or, to be more accurate, the Meteorological Bureau, is a separate service.

Its business is to predict the weather as nearly as it can. Most persons are of the opinion that it can do this accurately. At any rate, they blame the observers very severely when, owing to local causes, their predictions, intended to cover a large territory, are not fulfilled to the letter. If they predict showers followed by clearing weather in eastern New York, and it does not clear up in New York city till nine o'clock in the evening, inhabitants of the metropolis are very likely to say unkind things about the observers. They forget that the chief objects of this service are to furnish valuable information to mariners, to the great rice and cotton growers of the South, to the farmers, and to all other persons upon whose prosperity the weather has a potent influence. The fact that John Smith is caught in an unexpected rain and gets his new hat spoiled is not so important as the sailing of a ship, laden with valuable freight, into the teeth of a howling hurricane, of which she might have been warned. The government spends a good deal of money on this service. It costs $5000 to fit out a station, and the yearly allowance for incidentals alone is $500. This is exclusive of the pay of observers and the cost of telegraphing. And there are 182 of these stations at work now.

Twice a day, at 8 A.M. and at 8 P.M., the observations of the weather conditions are taken; and they are immediately telegraphed, in a cipher devised for the purpose, to Washington, at the headquarters. There the facts contained in the reports from the different parts of the country are collated, and the probabilities deduced from them. The bulletins which are printed in the newspapers are sent out, and also weather maps. On these maps are printed lines showing the areas over which certain variations of the barometer exist, and other lines showing the changes in temperature. If you understand the manner in which American weather operates, you can take these maps every day and make pretty good predictions yourself.

As I have said, it is from the local observations that the general predictions are made. In the city of New York the weather is studied away up on top of the tall building of the Manhattan Life-insurance Company. The Local Forecast Observer--that's his official title--is E. B. Dunn, who, when this was an army service, was Sergeant Dunn. Now the irreverent newspapers call him "Farmer" Dunn. What he does in his office is what all the other observers throughout the country do in theirs. I am going to describe his methods as he described them to me, and then you'll know all about it.

The instruments used in observing the weather are the aneroid and cistern barometers, wet and dry bulb thermometers, wind vane and compass, anemometer and anemograph, and the rainfall. Of all these the barometer is probably the most important. The standard form of the instrument is a tube thirty-four inches long, closed at the top, exhausted of air, and immersed at the bottom in a cup of mercury. The purpose of the barometer is to measure the pressure of the atmosphere. In general, the mercury will stand high in the tube when the weather is fair, and low when it is foul. By noting the minute changes, measured on a graduated scale beside the tube, the observer reads the indications of the barometer. The words "fair," "change," etc., engraved on the front of the instrument are disregarded. They have no significance whatever. The rising or falling of the mercury in the tube is caused by the beginning of those atmospheric changes which precede a storm but are not discernible by our senses. The barometer discerns them for us, and gives warning of weather changes. Of course there are many different conditions which affect the instrument, and the weather observers are instructed in these matters. The aneroid barometer is round, like one of the cheap nickel-plated clocks that are so numerous, and the changes are indicated by a hand moving across a scale on the dial. The weight of the atmosphere is measured not by a column of mercury in a tube, but by the expansion and compression of a small metal box from which the air has been exhausted.

The thermometer, as the reader knows, measures the temperature of the air; and in all readings of the barometer the changes in temperature have to be taken into account. The weather observers use two kinds of thermometers, the dry and the wet bulb. The dry bulb is the ordinary form, which every one knows, and is used to measure heat and cold. The wet has the bulb wrapped in some absorbent material, which is kept soaked with water. Now you know, without my telling you, that the water will cool the bulb, and hence the wet-bulb thermometer will stand lower than the dry. That cold is caused by evaporation, and the evaporating power of the atmosphere depends upon the amount of moisture there is in the air. So you at once see that the difference between the readings of the wet and dry bulb thermometers indicates the amount of moisture in the air. This amount the observers express in percentages of 100; and thus we read of "humidity, 60 per cent." Under ordinary circumstances, when the humidity gets close to 100, the point at which the air is soaked with moisture, it is going to rain. The temperature, however, and also the wind, have a good deal to do with this. The form in which the weather observers use these two thermometers is called the whirling psychrometer. The two instruments are put on the end of an arm, which is fixed on an axle turned by a crank. The observer whirls this around a few times before reading the instrument, for the purpose of making the air act freely on the two bulbs.

The direction of the wind, as every one knows, is shown by a weather vane. Those which are used by the observing stations, however, have an attachment which automatically records on a sheet of paper every variation of the vane, so that the office has an account of the smallest changes of the wind during the twenty-four hours. The speed of the wind is measured by the anemometer. This consists of four half-spheres at the end of four horizontal arms, which centre on an upright axle. The force of the wind causes the arms to revolve, and it has been found that 500 revolutions equal one mile. If the arms revolve 3000 times in an hour, the wind is blowing six miles an hour. The revolving of the upright axle operates a contrivance by which the speed of the wind for every minute in the day is recorded.

The amount of rain which falls is measured in a way which shows what the depth of water would be on a level surface if it did not, in the natural order of things, run off. The rain is caught in a funnel 8-1/2 inches in diameter, so placed as to be protected from all gusts of wind. The record is made in five-hundredths of an inch.

In addition to all these instruments the observers watch the well-known weather signs in the sky. Sunset and sunrise and the various changes in the appearance of the clouds are carefully studied. When a man has spent a year or two of his life in watching all these things, he can make a pretty safe prediction as to the weather for the next twenty-four hours. The Weather Bureau does not profess to foretell the conditions, except in special instances, for more than forty-eight hours.

Now I have told you what the local observers at each station watch and record and note in their reports sent to Washington. What you naturally desire now to know is how do the officials at the central office make their deductions as to the probable weather throughout the country. How do they know that a cold wave is advancing eastward, or that a severe storm is travelling up the coast, and that cautionary signals are to be set between Cape Henry and Passamaquoddy, or some other points? One of the principal ways in which the observers can tell the path of a storm is by watching the rainfall ahead of it. They have found that there is a sort of advance guard of rain, behind which is the lowest barometric area; and they regard that part of the country where the barometer is lowest as the centre of the storm. The reports from various stations show the path of the advancing rain, and the weather observers know that a low barometer is likely to follow it. They cannot tell exactly how fast it will advance, for areas of clear weather stand in the way of the storm, and local causes sometimes prevent them from yielding quickly.

The chief reliance of the observers, however, is on a general acquaintance with the laws of storms. Years of observation and recording have proved that storms have ways of their own, and when you know where a storm has come from you can come very close to telling just where it is going. At any rate, it cannot get lost so long as it is in the United States, for the weather men are always on its track. The greatest originating place for storms is the equator, and, in our hemisphere, that part of it which is near the West Indies. Most of our cyclones, or revolving storms, originate there. These storms have two kinds of motions. In the first place, the storm-wind blows in a circle, like a gigantic whirlwind; and in the second place this whole thing advances over the land and sea, very much as a top, while spinning on its own centre, will move slowly along the floor. A cyclone starting down near the equator will begin by moving westward; then it curves around and goes northward, its diameter increasing and the velocity of its rotation decreasing, and finally it edges off over the New England States, and goes out to sea. (See diagram.) In the southern hemisphere these storms follow a similar track to the southward. In both hemispheres the storms advance at from two to forty miles per hour, and it is this movement which is uncertain and which requires close watching.

The storms which come from the far West are less understood. One theory is that they go around the world; and some of them have been traced all the way around, except in Asia, where there are no observers. These storms cross the United States in three ways. Sometimes they come in by way of Alaska, sometimes further down the Pacific coast, and again by Lower California. They usually lose some of their force when they reach the middle of the continent. From that point they are very likely to move to the Lake region, where they acquire a fresh supply of vapor and energy, and finally go off to the Atlantic by way of the St. Lawrence River. The observers keep posted as to their path by watching the premonitory rainfall and the succeeding low barometer.

Cold waves also have ways of their own, and the observers have learned them. The waves come in from three different points--northwest, west, and southwest. Those from the northwest often move directly east, and in that case the cold weather is not likely to extend south of the Ohio River. Sometimes, however, they move in a southeasterly direction, and then the whole country east of the Mississippi is affected. Those which come in from the southwest usually extend in a north-easterly direction. In these cases there are large decreases in temperature at Shreveport, St. Louis, and such places, before Chicago is affected.

Thus I have given you the outlines of the data from which the Weather Bureau predicts what kind of a day it will be to-morrow. The observers could tell more than they do now if they could only keep track of the storms when they are out on the ocean. But unfortunately there is no method by which stations can be maintained on the face of the great deep. The weather students are compelled to do the best they can with such information as they can obtain from ship captains, and this is not constant or systematic, and is therefore far from satisfactory. The value of the information which the service furnishes to the sailors is, on the other hand, very great. The steamers of the regular lines, of course, sail as they are advertised to do, without considering the weather; but they know what to expect, and can be prepared for it. Sailing-vessels, however, often avoid heavy weather and even danger at sea by heeding the warnings of the observers. You and I just take our umbrellas with us when the probabilities are rain, but the sailor stays in his harbor and lets the cyclone get well out to sea ahead of him before he sets sail.

The mile run is about the only long-distance event practised by American school and college athletes. In England the three-mile race is popular, and is one of the standard events of the inter-university field meetings, but it has not as yet been adopted in this country. At the International games last fall it was on the card, and Conneff won for the New York Athletic Club. Since then there has been some talk of placing the event on the Inter-collegiate schedule, but the proposition was defeated at a recent meeting of the Executive Committee of the I.C.A.A.A.A.

Training for the mile run may be begun at almost any time of the year, but it is presumed in all these short sketches that training will be started in the winter-time and developed in the spring. Preliminary work in long-distance running is of the simplest kind, consisting merely of walking and running at a slow jog four or five miles every day until the spring season has fairly set in. For this kind of work the best costume to wear are knickerbockers, heavy shoes and stockings, a flannel shirt, and a sweater. This walking and running across country will harden the muscles and gradually develop staying powers, which can be acquired in no other way.

When the weather has become warm enough to go on the track in light running costume, the following scheme will be found a good one for steady training: On the first day do a mile and a half at an easy jog; on the second day, run a half-mile at a good pace, trying to do it in 2 min. 45 sec. (as the weeks pass by the athlete should try to reduce this time for the half-mile down to 2 min. 30 sec. or below); on the third day run a quarter of a mile at speed; on the fourth day cover three-quarters of a mile at an easy jog; on the fifth day do a mile and a half again very leisurely; on the sixth day another quarter at speed. Always lay off on Sunday, for one day's rest a week is necessary when training for any event.

After this method has been practised for several weeks, it will be well to take a trial mile on time. But thereafter do not run trials more frequently than once in ten days, and never make a trial within ten days of the date for the race. Before a competition it is well to lay off for two or three days, and before trying a mile on time during the practice season it is always best to lay off the day before. In other words, do your trial mile on Monday, Sunday being the regular lay-off day.

There is little to be said about the strategy of mile-running. The mile-runner must know just how fast he can run, and when he goes into a race he should cover his distances regardless of what his rivals are doing. This is sometimes very difficult, especially for younger runners who are not judges of pace, and who allow themselves to be run off their feet in the first half-mile. It is true that the first half-mile is always run at a greater speed than the second; but a well-trained athlete, who knows exactly how fast he can do his event, should not allow any opponent to make him go faster than he is in training for. A number of athletes, knowing the average weakness of mile-runners, train themselves to go a very fast half-mile at first, in the hope that they may run their opponents, who have trained in a different way, off their feet. Those, however, who are confident of their ability, and are judges of pace, will frequently allow these fast fellows to get a quarter of a lap ahead of them, knowing very well that in the second half-mile they will be able to close up and finish strongly.

English Inter-University Champion.]

The accompanying pictures show the stride of Conneff--the American and International champion--and Lutyens, the English Inter-University champion, who was defeated by Conneff in the International games last fall. It is plain to see that the Englishman's stride is much longer than Conneff's; but stride does not seem to be such an important factor in long-distance running as it is in the shorter distances. In fact, it will be noticed that most mile-runners are short, stocky men, although, as a rule, their legs are much longer in proportion to their bodies than is the case with other men. Conneff runs with his mouth open the whole distance, and, as I have already said, this is undoubtedly the best method for runners to adopt, in spite of the old adage about breathing through the nose. Conneff also runs with his arms hanging down, which is by far the best way, as it relieves the chest and shoulders of the weight of the arms (which counts in a long race), and the swinging of the hands low down seems to give a forward impetus similar to that which a jumper gets when he uses dumb-bells. The costume and footwear for long-distance running are the same as for other distances, except, perhaps, that the shoes may be made a trifle heavier if the athlete prefers.

Training for the low hurdles is, in general, the same as that for the high hurdles, which was described in this Department last week. The jump over the obstacle itself, however, is radically different, and it is for this reason that many hurdlers who are invincible over the shorter distance are frequently defeated in the longer. It is hardly necessary to repeat here that the low hurdles are placed twenty yards apart, and are only 2 feet 6 inches high. The fact, however, that they are 2 feet 6 inches high only is what makes the difference in the style necessary.

In clearing the low hurdles the athlete should endeavor not to jump. He must put as little spring as possible into his effort, but should clear the obstacle by a dexterous management of the legs. Here is where the advantage of the double-jump exercise comes in. In the 220 race the body of the hurdler should be kept on as constant a level as possible. In other words, his shoulders should move along an imaginary straight line from start to finish.

The diagram at the top of the page shows this more clearly perhaps than any description could. The line A is the one that the shoulders should follow; the line B shows the motion that should be avoided. With practice this form can be readily acquired, and it adds greatly to the speed of the hurdler. The secret of the motion is to lunge slightly forward at the hurdle and to spread the legs to the widest angle as you clear it. The movement is somewhat similar to that which a man would make if he were suspended from the ceiling, his toes just touching the floor, and a series of hurdles on a treadmill were passing under him. To avoid being struck he would merely lift his legs, as he has learned to do in the double jump.

In running the high hurdles the athlete may use either foot he chooses at the take-off, although it is better to become accustomed to jump from the right foot. It is better, because in the low hurdles the successful man must jump from the right foot. This is made necessary by curved tracks. There are few 220 straightaway courses; most low hurdle contests being conducted on a curved track, and it is practically impossible to make any speed at all on such a path when jumping from the left foot. Jim Lee used to jump from the left foot, and for that reason he almost never entered a contest on a curved track. He knew he could not win.

The low hurdles being placed twenty yards apart, it is of course necessary to take a greater number of steps between obstacles. Seven strides is the number to be aimed at, although a runner with a short stride has to be content with nine. This sometimes necessitates slowing up before each hurdle, which is bad; and consequently it is more advisable to train for eight strides, in that case jumping from alternate feet. This makes the race more complicated, and is a form that should be avoided, although there are many men who are compelled to adopt it.

In practice the athlete should never go over more than seven hurdles in succession, except, perhaps, once a month for a trial on time, for the event is too exhausting. The footwear adopted by hurdlers is similar to the high-jumper's shoes. They are made of kangaroo-skin, and should be slightly heavier than sprinters' shoes. The heel should be constructed of quarter-inch leather with two spikes placed at the extremities of diagonals drawn through the centre of the heel. This precludes the possibility of bruising from the constant pounding on the jumping foot. In the toes there should be the usual six spikes.

Berkeley turned the tables on Barnard by scoring thirty-four points to the latter's fifteen at the Berkeley in-door games a week ago Saturday. At the Barnard games a fortnight previous the Harlemites took thirty-six points to Berkeley's thirteen. Each institution has thus presented the other with a trophy, and both are now preparing to shake out of their respective sleeves what they count on to win with at the Interscholastics in May. It will be interesting, too, to see how close they will come to one another in points at the New Manhattan Athletic Club games on the 28th.

Irwin-Martin showed himself to be in excellent form, and broke two in-door scholastic records--the quarter-mile and the 220-yard run. In the quarter he took the lead from the start, and did not bother about any of his rivals until he had finished, although Evans of Oxford School kept pretty close to him all the way around. The half-mile run went to Hipple of Barnard, as might have been expected, for Hipple is undoubtedly the strongest man for this distance that has run in interscholastic contests for a number of years.

Another Berkeley athlete who showed himself to be in excellent form was Walker, the well-named. There is no doubt about his being the best walker of the schools in this vicinity. He made a brave attempt for first honors at the Interscholastics last spring, and finished an exceedingly close second, showing that he had plenty of grit and undoubted ability. He has vastly improved in the past nine months, and I doubt if there is any one who can touch him in his class. He is a little fellow, too, and must have worked very hard and conscientiously to develop such a great amount of strength and speed, maintaining at the same time such excellent form. At these games there were about a dozen starters besides Walker, but at the crack of the pistol he strode to the front, and literally walked away from the laboring bunch behind him. He kept increasing his distance so steadily that the contest really narrowed down to a battle for second place. This struggle was very hot between Myers and Adams, the former barely reaching the tape ahead of the others. Walker's time was 8 min. 13-1/5 Sec.

In the mile run Bedford took good care not to give Manvel of Pingry's a chance, and set a 2 min. 14-1/5 sec. pace for the first half-mile, which practically ran all the other contestants off their feet. But this pace was hot enough even to tire Bedford, for he had to slow up considerably in the last half, although he covered the whole distance in the excellent time of 4 min. 54-1/5 sec.

The dashes developed several speedy runners, three of the heat winners getting close to record time. In the final, Moore of Barnard and Doudge of Berkeley ran a dead heat in 7-3/5 sec., but in the run-off Moore proved himself to have the greatest staying powers, and took the event. The hurdle-racing was also good, the winners of each of the preliminary heats making the same time. Bien showed himself in excellent form in the trials, but in the final heat he did not do so well, and let Herrick pass him.

The field events were not particularly interesting. Pell tied Duval at 5 ft. 5 in. in the high jump; Young tied Irwin-Martin at 37 ft. 2 in. in the shot; and Eddy tied Katzenbach for third place in the pole vault at 8 ft. 10-3/4 in. In each one of these instances athletics were superseded by the less exhausting expedient of gambling, and coins tossed into the air decided which man should take the medal.

The points made by the several schools are as follows:

School. First. Second. Third. Total
Berkeley 4-1/2 3-1/2 1 34
Barnard 3 0 0 15
St. Paul's 1 2 2 13
Adelphi Academy 1 1 0 8
Brooklyn High 1 1 0 8
Pingry's 0 2 0 6
Newark Academy 0 1 2 5
Brooklyn Latin 1/2 1/2 0 4
Ailing Art 0 0 1 1
Columbia Grammar 0 0 1 1
Cutler 0 0 1 1
Oxford 0 0 1 1
Pratt Institute 0 0 1 1
Poly. Prep 0 0 1 1

St. Paul's School again made a good record on this occasion, as her athletes did at the recent games of the Long Island Inter-scholastic League in Brooklyn. These St. Paul athletes seem to be developing at a rapid rate, and may be counted upon to make an excellent showing at the New Manhattan Athletic Club games, and they will probably take a strong membership in the team which is to represent the Long Island League in the National Meet this spring.

THE GRADUATE.

Any questions in regard to photograph matters will be willingly
answered by the Editor of this column, and we should be glad to
hear from any of our club who can make helpful suggestions.

MARKING NEGATIVES.

It is sometimes desirable to have the name of a picture marked on the negative so that it may appear in the finished print. This may be done in several ways. One of the simplest is to write the name backwards in India ink on the film side of the negative. This should be done with a fine drawing-pen, and the lettering made in one of the lower corners. As the title appears white in the finished print the writing should be done where the glass is clear or in the deepest shadows.

To have the name appear in black on the print, take a fine steel needle, and having first marked the letters lightly with a pencil, scratch the letters through the film to the clear glass. Make the edges smooth, and see that the lines of the letters are perfect, as every imperfection in the lettering appears in the print.

One should always put his initials on a good negative. They can be put on either in India ink or scratched through the film.

If one does not wish to write the name on the negative it can be written on the sensitive paper before the print is made. India ink is to be preferred, but good black ink will do. The ink will wash off in the toning solution, leaving the name clear and distinct on the print.

An ink for writing on photographic prints may be made by taking 2 ounces potassium iodide, 6 ounces distilled water, half an ounce gum-arabic, 1-1/2 drams iodide. This is used for writing on the dark part of photographic prints.