Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 September 1892 — Imitation Mountain. [ARTICLE]

Imitation Mountain.

Ju9t now, at the office of the Geological Survey, they are engaged in building imitation mountains, forthS purpose of studying the way in which the eternal bills were formed by the crumpling due to the contraction of the earth’s crust. The coal basins and other valuable mineral deposits in many parts of the United States have undergone just such crumpling, so that it shall resemble in consistency the brittle rocks near the surface of the earth or the plastic rocks which are in that condition because of tho great pressure that exists even at depths of only two or three miles, as the case may be. The mixture is cast in layers of a given thickness by melting and flowing it in a wooden trough. . When each layer has hardened it is taken out, and a number of layers thus made are superimposed one upon the other like layers of jelly cake, representing geological strata. The next process is to place the layers in a machine, piling shot on top of them to represent the force of gravity, after which pressure is applied from the ends very slowly by a piston advanced with a screw. This causes them to crumple up, and under the artificial contraction they are found to take precisely the forms of mountain ranges like the Alleghanies,