// #10. More Gravitation

At Hutchinson, Kan., there are great beds of solid rock salt four hundred feet below the surface. Men want to get and use two thousand barrels a day. How shall they get it to the top of the ground? They might dig a great well - or, as the miners say, sink a shaft - pump out the water, go down and blast out the salt, and laboriously haul it up in defiance of gravitation. No; that is too hard. Better ask this strong gravitation to bring it up.

But does it work down and up? Did any one ever know of gravitation raising anything? Oh yes, many things. A balloon may weigh as much as a ton, but when inflated it weighs less than so much air; so the heavier air flows down under and shoulders it up. When a heavy weight and a light one are hung over a pulley, the light one goes up because gravity acts more on the other. Water poured down a long tube will rise if the tube is bent up into a shorter arm.

Exactly. So we bore a four-inch hole down to the salt and put in an iron tube.

We do not care about the water. It is no bother. Then inside of this tube we put a two-inch tube that is a few feet higher. Now pour water down the small longer tube. It saturates itself with salt, and comes flowing over the top of the shorter tube as easily as water runs down hill. Multiply the wells, dry out the water, and you have your two thousand barrels of salt lifted every day - just as easy as thinking!

We want a steady, unswerving force that will pull our clock hands with an exact motion day and night, year in and year out. We hang up a string, and ask gravitation to take hold and pull. We put on some lead or brass for a handle, to take hold of. It takes hold and pulls, unweariedly, unvaryingly, and ceaselessly.

It turns single water-wheels with a power of more than twelve hundred horses.

It holds down houses, so that they are not blown away. It was made to serve man, and it works without a grumble.

Thus the higher force in nature always prevails over the lower, and the greater amount over the less amount of the same force. What is the highest force?

// #10. More Gravitation

At Hutchinson, Kan., there are great beds of solid rock salt four hundred feet below the surface. Men want to get and use two thousand barrels a day. How shall they get it to the top of the ground? They might dig a great well - or, as the miners say, sink a shaft - pump out the water, go down and blast out the salt, and laboriously haul it up in defiance of gravitation. No; that is too hard. Better ask this strong gravitation to bring it up.

But does it work down and up? Did any one ever know of gravitation raising anything? Oh yes, many things. A balloon may weigh as much as a ton, but when inflated it weighs less than so much air; so the heavier air flows down under and shoulders it up. When a heavy weight and a light one are hung over a pulley, the light one goes up because gravity acts more on the other. Water poured down a long tube will rise if the tube is bent up into a shorter arm.

Exactly. So we bore a four-inch hole down to the salt and put in an iron tube.

We do not care about the water. It is no bother. Then inside of this tube we put a two-inch tube that is a few feet higher. Now pour water down the small longer tube. It saturates itself with salt, and comes flowing over the top of the shorter tube as easily as water runs down hill. Multiply the wells, dry out the water, and you have your two thousand barrels of salt lifted every day - just as easy as thinking!

We want a steady, unswerving force that will pull our clock hands with an exact motion day and night, year in and year out. We hang up a string, and ask gravitation to take hold and pull. We put on some lead or brass for a handle, to take hold of. It takes hold and pulls, unweariedly, unvaryingly, and ceaselessly.

It turns single water-wheels with a power of more than twelve hundred horses.

It holds down houses, so that they are not blown away. It was made to serve man, and it works without a grumble.

Thus the higher force in nature always prevails over the lower, and the greater amount over the less amount of the same force. What is the highest force?