The last word on this much-discussed subject, which is of great geologic importance, because the falls have been made to serve as a sort of standard by which all geologic time is measured, comes from J. W. Spencer, who concludes from the measured rate of recession during forty-eight years, together with other geologic data not usually taken into account, that the falls are thirty-one thousand years old, and the river thirty-two thousand; also that the Huron drainage was turned into Lake Erie less than eight thousand years ago. He thinks that the lake epoch began fifty thousand or sixty thousand years ago, and that the falls have about five thousand years more to live, at the end of which time the lake waters will discharge into the Mississippi.
Tools of the Pyramid Builders
Mr. Petrie’s researches at Gizeh show that the Egyptian stone-workers, four thousand years ago, had a surprising acquaintance with what have been considered modern tools. Among the many tools used by the pyramid-builders were both solid and tubular drills and straight and circular saws. The drills, like those of the present time, were set with jewels (probably corundum, as the diamond was very scarce), and even lathe-tools had such cutting edges. So remarkable was the quality of the tubular drills and the skill of the workmen that the cutting marks in hard granite give no indication of wear of the tool, while a cut of a tenth of an inch was made in the hardest rock at each revolution, and a hole through both the hardest and softest material was bored perfectly smooth and uniform throughout.
A Distant World
It is impossible for the finite mind to comprehend the vastness of the spaces that separate us from the stars, even from those that are nearest. Some idea of our marvellous distance from Sirius, the nearest fixed star, and which shines brightest in the heavens, is given by this illustration. A scientific writer says that if people on the star Sirius have telescopes powerful enough to distinguish objects on our planet, and are looking at it now, they are witnessing the destruction of Jerusalem, which took place more than eighteen hundred years ago. The reason of this is that the light which the world reflects, travelling as it does at the rate of one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second, would take over eighteen centuries to reach the nearest fixed star.
A Matter of Form
The following is a brief extract from a law paper, for the full understanding of which it has to be kept in view that the pleader, being an officer of the law, who has been prevented from executing his warrant by threats, is required, as a matter of form, to swear that he was really afraid that the threat would be carried into execution:
“Farther depones, that the said A. B. said that if deponent did not immediately take himself off he would pitch him (the deponent) down stairs,—which the deponent verily believes he would have done.
“Farther depones, that, time and place aforesaid, the said A. B. said to deponent, ‘If you come another step nearer, I’ll kick you to hell,’—which the deponent verily believes he would have done.”