Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 90.djvu/204

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��Popular Science Monthly

���I Brown & Dawson

This family windmill tree must present an amazing spectacle when performing to the accompaniment of a stiff breeze at the approach of a big storm

Thirteen Windmills Decorating One Pole

ONE windmill to a pole is considered a sufficiency, as a rule, but a Con- necticut boy has decorated a pole in his back yard with thirteen of them. Some of hisdesignsare unique. For instance, there is the ocean liner with the windmill on the "port" side and another serving as the propeller. There is an aeroplane windmill among the number and an assortment of hu- man figures, including an original Indian that beggars description. The figure topping the pole looks to be a half- cousin to those little fellows that adorn automobiles. The owner must be well-informed as to wind indications.

��Music From the Bowels of the Earth? Yes; in Texas

THE south central portions of the United States abound in natural curiosities. Not only are there strange things to see, but mysterious sounds often cause the most unimpressionable and hardened traveler to avoid passing through certain localities alone, and especially after dark. Reverberations of the wind are the cause; but the mountaineers will tell you that the thundering footsteps of "Morgan — Morgan the raider, and Morgan's ter- rible men" may still be heard in calm- est weather in certain localities which they laid waste decades ago.

A less eerie, but similar phenomenon of sound is heard in Texas, where there is what is known as the "singing well." In fine weather dulcet tones like the music from an Aeolian harp issue from the well. At times the sound is wonderfully clear and loud. Then it recedes, until it reaches the ear only faintly. These modulations occur regularly every few minutes. When an east wind blows, the water in the well is low and the musical sounds are faint; but a strong west wind will in- crease the volume of sound to a chorus. It is when the north wind blows, how- ever, that the music of the well is most weird and wild.

���Both the nest and the eggs are now solid rock. The orig- inal owner was a bird prob- ably about the size of a robin

��A Wonderful Specimen of a Petrified Bird's Nest

PETRIFIED bird's eggs have been found on several occasions, but as far as can be ascertained, it remained for a Washington State man to find both a group of petrified eggs and the petrified nest in which the eggs were origin- ally laid. The nest was imbedded in a rock formation in a cliff of the Grand Canyon, five hundred feet above the base. It must have been the nest of some bird about the size of a robin, and only one side of it — what is now the darker side — must have been exposed to the air. It is im- possible to estimate how long ago the eggs were laid.

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