Saturday Evening Mail, Volume 28, Number 8, Terre Haute, Vigo County, 21 August 1897 — Page 3

WHEELING IN ACADIA

A WEEK WITH THE HOSPITABLE "BLUE NOSES."

The Ride Down the South Coast to Bridgewater Journey Across to Middleton. The Fertile Annapolis Taller—Hunting

For Belie* In the Land of Evangeline.

[Special Correspondence.]

HALIFAX, Aug. 14.—We wheel up tbe bill and out of the city. Our way takes us past tbe little Dutch church, which has not been altered since it was built some 150 years ago. Then we sweep to the left past tbe citadel and through a dingy street or two. Before we realize it we are in about as bleak and barren a locality as can be imagined.

Westward, skirting tbe coast, we wheel through a road that is called good by tbe provincials, but tbe average bicyclist will not hesitate to term it very bad. And such a dreary waste 1 Even tbe hardy firs are stunted, and the soil merely patches the continuous ledges. After passing St. Margaret's Bay, where we take a midday meal, tbe country is less monotonously wild, and thf-re are spots where it is absolutely pretty. Here and there glimpses of the ocean are seen, the surf pounding tbe rock ribbed shore sullenly, as if conscious of its futile efforts.

The little hamlet of Chester is reached just at sundown after a ride of 46 miles. The rough and hilly road that so belies its reputation proves a poor introduction

THE EVANGELINE WILLOWS.

to a Nova Scotia wheeling tour. Besides I have broken ono of the pedals to my wheel as well as my enthusiasm. But the village tinker repairs the one and a night's rest at a good hotel the other, and early in the morning we are off for Ma hone Bay and Bridgewater. The ride is rather inoro enjoyable than that of the day before still I would not recommend it as paradise for wheelmen or any one else.

At Bridgewater we are told that the Toad on to Yarmouth is quite impassable, so wo take the train across the country for Middleton. And just what this inland portion of Nova Scotia was ever created for is beyond the power of comprehension. Possibly the Great Builder had portions of swamp and morass and rock li ft over at the seventh day and dumped them hero in the absenco of a better place. According to the tourist's guidebooks, moose and caribou abound here, but if so they probably all died of ennui or melancholia long ago. 1 could find no one to the manner born who had ever seen one.

At Middleton we egain take to cycling, and as we found rocky and hilly roads on the south coast, so wo experience the monotony of sand on the northern border, but there are side paths niufh of the way, and beyond an occasional embrace of the gutter, when the wheel strikes a suud pocket, alternating with dragging the wheels through stretches of desert roads, we finally arrive at Kentville, 84 miles distant, not much tho worse for wear. The Annapolis valley is really a fertilo and picturesque region. It is dotted with prosperous farms, fine orchards and rich meadows, and it has an air of comfort and thrift iii striking contrast with the country we have left behind.

Aradiati Honpltnllty.

On our way to Canning next morning we stop at a farmhouse in Upper Canard to inquire the way and to get a glass of water. The owner is a Mr. Diekev, the postmaster of tho place. He asks us to his shaded piazza, and we are invited to partake of milk and cream and cake such as they have on Olympus when Hebe serves. Here lot me say that Nova Scotia hospitality and courtesy are unbounded. The country folk make the stranger welcome within their gates without affectation or greed, with doors literally and figuratively open to all. I have a curiosity to know how long this free handed hospitality will last. The give-an-inch-and-take an-ell tourist may bo found in Nova Scotia as well as elsewhere, and I am sorry to sivy ho often travels on a bicycle. His mark is distinctive. He does uot ask for but demands information. lie seises water riglit at the back door of tbe farmhouse without as much as saying, "By your leave." He takes possession of the front porch to rest and looks down upou ruralists generally, although they can usually give him poiuts iu knowledge as well as in cul-: lure and politeness. These individuals will dry up the springs of hospitality and friendliness to strangers everywhere, but they have not yet done so iu Nova Scotia.

We reach Canning early in the forenoon, and, leaving our wheels at the quaint and eld fashioned inn, take a carriage for the Lookoff on North mountain. From this oint the local enthusiast tells us we can see five counties— Kiugs, Annapolis. Hants, Cumberland and Colchester—ai.d six rivers. We take his won! fer this and our own eyes for the fact that the panorama below is marvelous in its variety of color and is its bmidth.

Down ou the western shore of the Bnsiu of Minas we stop for dinner, and after getting our mouths wetered for fresh fish by a view of the in the cove and listening to tale* of mighty hauls made by the bold fishermen we tit down expectantly to a meal of which

tbe piece de resistance is salt shad. The individual who fixed grace before and not after meat was indeed wise.

A Boyal Bed.

Returning to the inn at Canning, my good landlady offers me tbe room and the bed occupied by the Marquis of Lorne on tbe historic occasion of his visit to the town. Poor Lorfie! How bis royal bones must have ached! Or, worse yet, bow my hostess' head must have ached for telling such a wbopperl

Next morning we wheel across tbe valley of the Cornwallis to Wolfville and tbe land of Evangeline. Wolfville is by far tbe prettiest town in the province, although Windsor makes the claim. It is closely associated with all the traditions and romance of the story of Evangeline and Grand Pre. But I shall chiefly remember it as tbe home of tbe village plumber who started my recalcitrant wheel, which balked just as we entered tbe town. Bicycles are a bit human. Even the best sometimes gets out of sorts. Perhaps it may be the dust or a patch of mud or an offending gully in tbe road that puts it into a mulish tantrum. At all events, mine begins to groan and grumble and finally absolutely refuses to proceed farther. 1 first try to coax it with oil. Then I tickle it with tbe wrench, but all to little purpose. Finally I stand it on its bead and use tbe wrench as a weapon of offense. I become red in the face. Perspiration trickles down my brow and oil along my shirtsleeves. I become tattooed with graphite. But tbe machine is quite as much out of sorts aa myself and just will not go. So, tempering my anger with discretion, 1 apply to the local plumber. "Tbe bearing in that rear wheel is too tight, and tbe balls is all bound together," says he, "but I can feex it in aboot a minit."

He gives it a gentle touch with his wrench, a little turn with his fingers, and, lo! it starts off gayly, as if to say, "f would have gone on long ago if yon had used me right."

Belie Hunting.

So we are off over the breezy hillside to the beautiful Gaspereau valley, tbe land of the Acadians, tbe spot in which was written one of the saddest and most romantic pages of North American history. Curious tourists are told that they must not believe all tbe wonderful things related concerning the land of Evangeline. Even the phlegmatic village storekeeper smiles when we ask him to point out tbe location of the blacksmith shop, the willows, the graveyard and Evangeline's well. He intimates that one place is as good as another to locate tbe burial ground, and that willows are always willows and wells wells. So by a little imaginative and mathematical calculation wo have no difficulty whatever in fixing the site of the old chapel where the French were assembled and made prisoners in September, nearly 160 years ago. I likewise drink buttermilk from the Evangeline heifer, Basil having done the milking, Evangeline's mother tbe butter making and Evangeline herself the serving at 8 cents per glass.

Longfellow seems to have somewhat idealized his facts in writing "Evangeline," though his geography is remarkably accurato for a man who never visited the scene of his epic. That the French were looted out cf their homes and scattered to tbe four quarters of the earth is a matter of history that even tho English will not deny, but ji^t how ruthlessly or barbarously this was done is a matter of some doubt.

Although the existence of relics at Grand Pre dating from the time of Evangeline is quito improbable except in th,e imagination, there is one tangible and typical monument to the loug ago as well as to the present in the old church on the hill. It is about 100years old and is still used as a bouse of worship by the Covenanters. Relic hunters, the vandals and barbarians of travel, liavo even stolen the leaves of the pulpit Bible outside of Deuteronomy and Luke. In front of tbe pulpit is the inscription: "Please do not destroy the pulpit hangings. Some one has already taken part of the fringe." As if to further disarm undevout visitors and to save the pulpit and ^ie rest of tbe edifice, tbe valuable piece of information is given that "Evangeline never worshiped in this building." The interior is about as forbidding as it could be made. Sunshine and tbe unholy influence of the sacrilegious world ave no place in the somber shadows of its high, straight backed pews. If gloom were but synonymous with gospel, it would be easy enoug'i to make converts there. I waded through the grass of the old graveyard which almost surrounds it, but found no earlier record of the dead than that of a child wbodied in 1707. Some of the inscriptions were in Latin, but it would take one of the finest classical scholars to translate them into fair English.

We wheeled back to Wolfville just at sundown, the road being one of tbe best we had found in the couutry districts of the province. Next morning the train is taken across country to Halifax by the way of Windsor.

One of the best bicycle rides in Halifax is through one of the side streets, half way up the bill to Pleasant street and thence along the harbor side to Point Pleasant There are some interesting points along tbe route, including the Sevastopol memorial arch, tbe home of the provincial governor and the park through which the road leads to the point Following around to tbe right alnng the water's edge there is the old chaiu battery, from which tbe English suspended a huge barrier to the opposite shore, effectually stopping tbe entranoe of French warships. The park has also two forts anil the old Prince of Wales Martello tower. Tbe tower is so called because tbe Prince of Wales is reported to have put ou the roof, and one of our mechanically minded party says be made a mighty good job of it. This tower is. supposed to be connected by subterranean passages with all tbe forts and also with George's island, ont in the torbor Jutoux

WOOD,

TERRE HAUTE SATURDAY EVENING- MAIL, AUGUST 21, 1897.

LIQUID AIE ON TAP.

POWER THAT MAY SUPPLANT STEAM AND ELECTRICITY.

Many Uses For a Fluid That Has a Temperature of More Than 450 Degree* Below Zero—Affords a Controllable Pressure of

Thousands of Pounds Per Square 1 noli.

[Sp*icial Correspondence.]

NEW YORK.,

Aug.

16.—In

the factor

that makes most for material prosperity and progress in all civilized lands the world is upon the verge of a stupendous revolution, a readjustment of conditions as radical as that attendant upon the intrcduction of steam as a motive force. This is now impending through discovery of a new source of power, more potent, economical and susceptible, of universal utilization than either steam or electricity—liquefied air.

Atmosphere as a Motive Force. Mr. Charles E. Tripler of New York has discovered a method for attaining tbe same end by means so simple, safe and economical that it compelled recognition at once as a commercial practicability of tbe very highest importance. He has found a way for making the atmosphere take tbe place of steam and electricity as a motive force, with infinite advantages in the substitution, not the least considerable of which is that its cost will be little if any more than that of water power under the most favorable conditions for the latter. Other elements of superiority will be manifest as the character and potentialities of the new force are explained.

The limitations of "compressed" air are generally understood, and it is well known as an expensive secondary power only desirable of employment under exceptional conditions. It must not, therefore, be confounded with "liquefied" air, which is something very different. 'Compressed" air is used under a pressure sometimes as high as 1,200 pounds to the square inch. But the pressure that may be developed from "liquefied" air, and controlled, admits of regulation and maintenance anywhere from 200 to 2,000 pounds per square inch, and for certain special uses can be raised to 8,000 pounds without difficulty. And the apparatus for its production is simple, neither large nor costly, and practically automatic in its action when once charged and set going.

Certain details of the interior of Mr. Tripler's apparatus will not be made known until they have been fully covered Dy European patents, but they are not essential to enable a sufficiently clear understanding of the general fea-

CHiiKLES E. TRIPLER.

tures of his process and comprehension of its astonishing results, and that is all at present necessary. The apparatus is in two parts—an air "compressor" of extraordinary power and a "liquefier." The "compressor" is only for temporary initial use, when starting the process, has nothing distinctive about it and "may be of any type capable of giving a pressure of 3,500 pounds to the square inch. Under that pressure air is liquefied, falling in the process to a tempera ture of about 4o9 degrees below zero, and in tl.at condition is accumulated in the "liquefier." As it accumulates, the intense cold aids the liquefaction and the pressure may be reduced to 2,000 pounds or even 1,500.

The liquefier employed in most of tbe inventor'8 recent experiments seems to be a rough wooden box of about 50 cubic feet in magnitude, with certain pressure gauges and pipes protruding from it, above and below. The pipes underneath are incased in felt and covered with ice. In a general way it is understood that tbe box is felt lined and contains pipes and valves submerged in the liquid air, provided primarily by the compressor. When a certain quantity of tbe liquid has accumulated, tbe compressor is cut off, and thenceforth the liquefier acts automatically and continuously, requiring no further attention than tbe letting off of its product and care that the delicate valves do not become elegged by atomic impurities in the atmosphere. It is explained that as the air, wbicb enters an open pipe at the top of tbe machine, is condensed by the intense cold to which it is subjected, it becomes liquid, leaving a vacuum which is filled by tbe rushing in of more air, and so tbe process goes on indefinitely. It is hard to realize that this process can continue for any length of time witbont reaching a point where tbe ingoing air would have given off sufficient heat to raise tbe temperature of tbe accumulated liquid above the liquefying degree of cold, but Mr. Tripler has satisfied himself that the nectary cold continues to maintain itself, and tbe machine proves that be is right, whether it is according to tbe books or not. "Heated With ice.

An assistant sets a big glass jar, packed in felt, beneath tbe liquefier, turns a stopcock in (me of tbe ice covered piges, and a turbid white liquid rushes out, looking exactly like a strong stream of bot water liberated from boiler. It boils furiously and throws off

volumes of vapor that looks like steam, but instead of rising, like steam, this vapor falls to the floor and rolls away in every direction, wetting nothing and chilling the feet of those it reaches. The jar is set up on a workbench, and the boiling diminishes in violence as it chills down approximately near the temperature of the liquid.

A few ladlefuls are dipped out and poured into a tin teakettle, from the nozzle of which a strong jet of vapor rushes with force. As ice forms on the outside of the kettle the boiling slack-, ens. "We will heat it up," remarks Mr. Tripler, opping in a big lump of ice, which is so much hotter than tbe liquid air that the boiling becomes furious. The vapor pouring from the nozzle looks like steam, but feels strangely cola, velvety and dry. What surprises there are in a liquid that doesn't wet things! A lor of this .stuff dropped on a paper simply disappears, and the paper is dry. A cigarette thrown into tbe jar, when fished out with a ladle and lighted, smokes just as if nothing bad happened to it

Seen in a tube that has been plunged deep in the jar to keep it below the boiling point, which is 300 degrees below zero, the liquid air is clear as crystal or of a slight bluish tinge if most of the nitrogen has gone off. But that can be 6een only for a moment, as the heat of the atmosphere sets it boiling again almost immediately. When all that was in the kettle has evaporated and the ice is dropped out, it is found to have been strangely affected by the intense cold. Myriads of figures make it look milky and at a touch it falls in minute fragments. A bit of soft rubber hose poked down for an instant into the jar is frozen so hard that it is with difficulty broken by a hammer. A piece of soft, pliable zinc in a second becomes as hard as flint and breaks like glass. A ladleful poured on a lot of mercury in tbe bottom of a glass instantly freezes it into a lump harder than lead. An egg dropped in is in two or three seconds transformed into a rock that is with difficulty broken by blows of a hammer and when shattered seems to he crystallized in lines radiating from the center. A slice of ripe to mato is by a few mome'nts in the jar converted into a piece of rose coral, pretty enough for jewelry and firm as flint until it thaws. The effect of the cold upon a piece of raw beefsteak is to make it look like fossilized mahogany.

Cheap Oxygen.

The egg when allowed to return to normal temperature, is soft yolk and albumen, showing no effects from the freezing, but the meat is exceedingly tender, has a taste of having been partly cooked and is palatable. As for the tomato, it looks as raw as ever when it thaws, but seems to have lost much of its acidity and mashes on the tongue as if it had been cooked. There are manifestly unexplored possibilities of much promise to the gastronome iu the preparation of food by subjecting it to a temperature of 450 degrees below zero. And no argument can be needed to enforce the evident superiority of such an agent of refrigeration as this over ice or either of the cold producing processes now in vogue. Tbe liquid air would make the interior of a refrigerator as cold as could be desired and keep it perfectly dry, thoroughly ventilated and sweet at less cost than ice.

Oxygen gas, for therapeutic use, commands a price of $10 per jar, and is worth it, produced by the methods of the chemist, but by this process it can be supplied in the liquid form at a profit for 10 cents a quart, or perhaps even less, and a quart of it would fill, as gas, more jars than could be piled in a barn. Liquid oxygen is a substance that tempts one to indulgence in a variety of fascinating experiments. Every one knows how badly wool burns, but a buncb of it dipped into the liquid oxygen when touched by a lighted match goes off with a flash like so much gun cotton. And a long shaving -—or turning—of iron held at the surface of a cup of the liquid and there lighted bums fiercely, brilliantly, until the pyrotechnic display ends in the sensational burning up of the bottom of tbe tin cup and a brief excitement. Mixed with alcohol the liquid oxygen, of course, instantly solidifies it, but as it thaws and volatilizes the gas that rises is a more powerful explosive than dynamite.

The Question of Power.

A pretty effect, is produced by plunging into the jar a slender glass tube about four feet long. The tube, at the normal temperature of the atmosphere, is relatively so hot that it promotes a furious ebullition in tbe liquid air, and a slender fountain jets np four or five feet above the top of tbe tube. The ascent of the liquid is so violent that it shoots little drops that, curving downward in their flight, burst into minute cloudlets of vapor.

The small machine now in use is capable of yielding a continuous stream of the liquid air as thick as a lead pencil and flowing with great rapidity. It will be easy to make a machine sufficiently large to yield a three inch stream, and that, it is computed, will afford power enough to run a 10,000 horsepower engine. The ocean 6teamsbipof tbe future willdoubtle& take her propulsive power from an air liquefying apparatus not larger than one of her present huge boilers, will need no longer an army of firemen and stokers, and can give up to cargo the space she now tWist sacrifice to the carrying of from 8,000 to 4,000 tons of coal.

There is no space for more than mere mention at present of another use for liquid air, wbich will possibly be one of its most important, and that is in tbe tempering of metals. Jt is reasonable to expect that proper application of such intense cold would impact tbe molecules of a plate of armor for a battleship to greater hardness than has hitherto been attained.

J. H. CONNELLY.

A Marital Record.

Tbe record of tbe largest number of notes struck by a musician in 12 benrs Is said to bave been made by Paderew* dd, wbc struck 1,030,800 notes.

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