My Web Site Page 153 Ovations 03Cake Placebo chose the topics covered by My Web Site Page 153 without reflecting upon the choices others have made. Flapping your arms and quacking like a duck when people try to run you over in their SUVs is another way to look at things in a different light. |
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The river was smooth for a little distance, when we proceeded once more with our navigation; but soon it became narrow--only 40 to 50 m. wide--with strong eddies in its deep channel between rocky sides. Some magnificent sand beaches 15 to 20 ft. high were observed, particularly on the right bank, not far from a tributary 3 m. wide which entered the main river on the left side. Lower down, the river described a sharp turn, and there we met another most dangerous rapid. It was entered by a passage 50 m. wide, after which a circular basin of rock--evidently an ancient crater--100 m. in diameter appeared; then the water flowed out with terrific force by a channel only 30 m. wide. The stream produced prodigious eddies in the circular basin. Waves of great height were dashed to and fro from one side to the other of the narrow channel, between high rocks on either side. The water flowed first in a direction E.S.E. for 500 m., then turned off suddenly to due east for a distance of 400 m. That spot was most difficult for us to go through. |
To the next contributor, Edward Somerset, second Marquis of Worcester, is apparently due the credit of proposing, if not of making, the first useful steam engine. In the "Century of Scantlings and Inventions", published in London in 1663, he describes devices showing that he had in mind the raising of water not only by forcing it from two receivers by direct steam pressure but also for some sort of reciprocating piston actuating one end of a lever, the other operating a pump. His descriptions are rather obscure and no drawings are extant so that it is difficult to say whether there were any distinctly novel features to his devices aside from the double action. While there is no direct authentic record that any of the devices he described were actually constructed, it is claimed by many that he really built and operated a steam engine containing pistons. |
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When we started taking her down with ropes--our ropes were all rotted by that time, and had no strength whatever--the canoe was tossed about in a merciless manner. I recommended my men as they ran along to beware of the ropes catching on the cutting edges of the high rocks. No sooner had the canoe started down the swift current than one of the ropes at once caught on a rock and snapped. The men who held the other rope were unable to hold it, and let it go. I saw the canoe give three or four leaps in the centre of the channel and then disappear altogether. That was a sad moment for me. But as my eye roamed along the foaming waters, what was my surprise when I saw the canoe shoot out of the water in a vertical position at the end of the rapid and waterfall! That was the greatest piece of luck I had on that journey. By being flung out of the water with such force she naturally emptied herself of all the water she contained, and I next saw her floating, going round and round the whirlpool at the bottom of the rapid. | ||
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