Kansas University Weekly.
145
More About the Mississippi.
A question arises concerning the meaning of the terms "up" and "down." The surveyor, the astronomer or the dictionary will say that "up" is the direction opposite the line of gravity or the direction away from the earth's center, and "down" is the direction opposite "up." If a body in moving approach the earth's center it is going downward; if it leave the earth's center it is moving upward. The distance of the earth's center from its surface at the north pole is over 68,000 feet less than it is at the equator; and the source of the Mississippi is over 10,000 feet nearer the earth's center than is its mouth. The altitude of Lake Itasca is less than 1600 feet. Hence the water of the Mississippi rises over 8000 feet in flowing from Lake Itasca to the Gulf.
The reason for the water's continuing to flow under these conditions is that the earth is spinning rapidly on its axis, and tends very strongly to throw off the water at the equator; and thus draws the water down the Mississippi and other rivers that flow into a lower latitude.
If the earth's rotation were to cease the Mississippi would reverse its direction and flood central Minnesota. It takes at least a second thought to appreciate the great velocity through space of a point on the earth's surface and the effect of the same. The mouth of the Mississippi sweeps through over 1200 feet every second. No revolving wheel was ever constructed whose circumference had such a velocity.
If a wash bowl partly filled with water rotated, would one say that the water was not running up, as it flows over the edge, because the bowl is whirling? The Mississippi flows "up hill."
Does the Mississippi Flow up Hill?
The question "Does the Mississippi run up Hill" depends entirely on what we accept as the definition of "up hill." The common conception is that it signifies motion from one point to a second one which is farther from the earth's center than the first. If this is correct, the Mississippi does flow up hill as its
mouth is farther from the earth's center than its source. It is known that the shape of the earth is that of an oblate spheroid with its longest diameter through the equator. This heaping up of the matter of the earth at the equator is due to the centrifugal force of its rotation, and is the shape which would be represented by the surface of water at rest if the earth were submerged. The surface of the ocean is taken to represent the true shape.
A body of water at or near the equator being farther from the earth's center than one near one of the poles, would naturally flow toward that pole, but the centrifugal force, being greatest at the equator, sustains it against this tendency to flow and it is thus heaped up in this region. Now it is evident that if a body of water is higher than the sea level in its latitude, it will, if free to move, flow till it reaches the sea. The mouth of the Mississippi being about two thousand miles nearer the equator than its source, is about four miles farther from the earth's center than the sea-level in the latitude of its source, and while its source is nearer the earth's center than its mouth, this difference is less than four miles, so the source is above the sea-level in its latitude. Therefore the tendency is for it flow, which it does and reaches the sea in Louisiana.
JOHN. M. LEE.
Laughter in the Advertisements.
Curiously worded advertisements, which are funny without intent, are more common in the London papers, it would seem, than they are in New York publications. An English periodical offered a prize the other day for the best collection of such announcements, and the following is the result:
"A lady wants to sell her piano, as she is going abroad in a strong iron frame." "Wanted, experienced nurse for bottled baby." "Furnished apartments suitable for gentlemen with folding doors." "Wanted, a room by two gentlemen about thirty feet long and twenty feet broad." "Lost, a collie dog by man on Saturday answering to Jim with a brass collar round his neck and a muzzle."