Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 January 1914 — FUNGUS LIFTS 200 POUNDS [ARTICLE]

FUNGUS LIFTS 200 POUNDS

With Quiet Persistency Herculean Toadstool Raises Stone Pavement In London.

London.—Some years ago a portion of the pavement in Goswell road, London, was lifted out of its place in a my sterious manner. Before it could be repaired numerous toadstools made their appearance in the gaping spaces between the stones. When the stones were removed it was found that they rested on an immense spongy mass of toadstool growth, which had gone on Increasing until it made a way through which it could push its head into the air. One of the stones moved by it measured four feet by two feet and weighed 200 pounds. The more extensive injury was done in tbe same way some years ago at the town of Basingstoke. Not many months after the town had been paved the pavement waa noticed to exhibit signs of unevenness, which could not be accounted for. As soon as the unevenness was sufficient to make openings between thb atones, tbe hidden enemy made his appearance in the shape of innumerable toadstools. So completely bad the spores or spawn got possession of the material on which the pavement was laid that It had to be completely taken up and the whole town repaved.' The toadstool and its kind seem to flourish in places where tbe light ie excluded, as in dark cellars, under flag, stones and in hollow trees. They require the air, however, and a certain, though it may be small, amount of light, that they may reach their perfect condition. Unless they are able to produce seed they go on developing this amorphous, spongy mass until it attains sometimes a fabulous dimension. Every one has heard of the enormous growths of fpngj in some wins cellars. A ease ls on record in which a cask of wine, having been left without attention In a dark cellar for

three years, was at the termination T>n the surface of a mushroom growth until it was forced against the roof. The fungus, moreover, had got aeeese to the wine and had drunk it all, living upon Its sugar, and so the more easily raising and gradually emptying cask from the ground. Fungi have sometimes taken possession of worked out mines and occupied enormous spaces.