USA > Pennsylvania > Mifflin County > History of Mifflin County : its physical peculiarities, soil, climate, &c. ; including an early sketch of the state of Pennsylvania Volume I > Part 37
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the plant to grow, for the growth of the plant consists chemically of a decomposition or splitting up by the sun's rays of the carbonic acid gas which exists in the air into its simplest constituent ele- ments, the carbon assimulated for the building up of the vegetable tissues, and the oxygen sent back into the air for the subsequent use of animals. To effect this separation of carbon and oxygen a very large expenditure of force is neccessary and this energy is found in the sun's rays. How beautifully harmonious the discove- ries of science with the profound depths of revealed truth, and how obtuse is man's apprehension of these truths till forced on a slow- to-be-convinced judgment, by the practical deductions of science.
" And God said let there be light and there was light, and God saw the light that it was good, and God called the light day, and the darkness (or the absence of light) he called night, and God said let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed and the fruit tree yielding fruit of its kind whose seed was in itself." "And God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night. But there went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground."
The atmosphere surrounding the globe had been called into ex- istence in its constituent elements and primitive state. Light was created to generate heat that vegetation might clothe the earth. After vegetation and next in order, " there went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground." The laws of nature as constituted, made any other order of creation impossible. Light must combine with the elements of our atmosphere to gen- erate heat before the vegetable creation could exist.
The vegetable in connection with air, light and heat, (heat being the result of air and light), must exist before vegetable growth could occur, or animals inhabit the earth, and the consequent rain fall recorded in our last quotation is the evitable result of the action of heat on the aqueous element.
There seems to exist more largely those elements of the atmos- phere that combine with light to form heat in the lower stratas than in high of the air. More in deep valleys than on the higher table-lands or on the hills, and not existing at all above the snow line, hence, snow does not melt in the full sunlight of meridian, even under a tropical sun.
On the Andes the snow line varies from 14,000 to 17,000 feet. On the mountains of Colorado, snow begins at 12,000 and increases in quantity to the extreme height of the tallest peaks or, 14,250
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feet, though in August the extreme hcat of the deep valleys rise up at night when the sun is withdrawn and the snow is melted to nearly or quite the extreme height.
In the ocean, water and salt are mixed together most intimately, yet the heat raises the water through the atmosphere and leaves the salt, every increase of twenty-seven degrees in temperature doubles the capacity of the air to hold moisture, consequently, the largest amounts of rain at points of the greatest heat and evaporation, and the distribution and precipitation of rain from the greatly heated localities to colder ones by the action of the winds and by other causes and precipitated by counter currents of cold air. By res- piration, putrefaction, &c., air can be rendered unfit to support animal life, and in extreme cases will not support it. By the con- stant operations of corrupting influences, the whole atmosphere will become impure were there no restoring causes, and would come at length to be deprived of the necessary degree of purity. Some of the restoring causes have been discovered and their efficacy as- certained by experiment. So far as the discoveries have proceeded, they open up to us a beautiful and wonderful economy of nature. Vegetation proves to be the most efficient of these restoring causes. Here, therefore, is a constant circulation of benefits between the two great provinces of nature. The plant purifies what the animal poisoned, and in return the animal-contaminated air is more than ordinarily nutritious for the plant, but it must be remembered that the renovating, purifying influence exerted by growing vegetation on the atmosphere can only be done under the influence of light and ceases altogether in the night or if the sunlight be withdrawn.
This is a general characteristic of all plants for with all their manifold diversities of form and appearance, they are all construc- ted on the same general plan, and are living witnesses and illustra- tions of one and the same plan of creative wisdom in the vegetable world. Plants work only under the influence of light. There is a conversion by the vegetable of foreign dead mineral into its own living substance, or inorganic matter capable of becoming living substance. To do this is the peculiar office of the plant, and it is done by the plant by the action of the green parts only, and by them only under the influence of the light of the sun. The sun in some way supplies a power which enables the living plant to origi- nate these peculiar chemical combinations to organize matter into forms which alone are capable of being endued with life. The pro-
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cess is all the same whether the plant is making a direct immediate growth or laying up material for future use.
The principal ingredient laid up by plants is starch in the form of minute grains in the cells of the plant. Some plants make these accumulations in the roots, as the parsnip and carrot, some in shoots or underground growths as the potato, while the onion and the lily deposit in embryo leaves, and the cactus family generally in their fleshy leaves and stems with green coverings, and all only under the influence of light.
Heat is generated in various ways by friction, combustion, oxydi- zation, concussion, &c., but a combination of light with one or more of the constituents of our atmosphere, is the grand source from which this indispensible combination is derived. A moment's thought will show the utter impossibility of the sun furnishing to our solar system an adequate supply. The snow on high moun- tains does not melt above a certain line, even in the tropics, while the valleys became extremely hot, though receiving less sunshine than the more elevated positions.
The valleys of Thibet in Asia endure a temperature of 150° in the- shade during the day, and as the sunlight is withdrawn the warm air rises up, and the cold dense atmosphere from the mountains covered with snow, settles in its stead, the inhabitants who during the day were in almost the condition of the Hebrew children now find it necessary to retire to rest under thick coverings.
Another proof that heat does not emanate from the sun is found in the experience of every greenhouse man and florist.
The temperature is raised to a high degree under his glass and there seems to be imprisoned, unable to return though it apparently seems to have came in through that dense medium, the glass, unob- structed. The facts of the case divest it of all mystery. These are that the sunlight penetrates the glass and the heat is formed be- neath by a union of the light with some element or elements of the atmosphere, and instead of being a prisoner in confinement it is simply an ocenpant of the place where it first came into existence in its present form.
The eye also illustrates this principle. In its complex and mul- tifarious forms it can only be the recipient of light, and cannot en- dure heat, hence it receives light only. The lenses of the telescope and the human eye bear a complete resemblance to each other, in figure, position, power over the rays of light, viz : in bringing each ray of light to a point at the right distance from the lens, in the eye-
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at the exact place where the membrane is spread to receive it. Two. things were wanted to the eye that were not to the telescope, at least to the same degree, and these were adaptation to the different degrees of light and to the vast diversity of distance at which ob- jects are viewed with the naked eye, as from a few inches to many miles. These difficulties are not presented to the maker of the tele- scope. He wants all the light obtainable and never directs his instrument to objects near at hand.
In the eye both cases are provided for, and for the purpose of pro- viding for it, a subtle and appropriate mechanism is introduced to exclude the excess of light when it is excessive, and to render ob- jects visible under obsenrer degrees of it, the hole or aperture of the eye is so formed as to contract or dilate for the purpose of ad- mitting a greater or less number of rays at the same time. The chamber of the eye is a camera obscura, which, when the light is small can enlarge its opening, and when the light is too strong can contract it without any other aid than its own self-regulating ma- chinery, which machinery is operated on to enlarge or contract this opening by the light itself, which is another wonderful illustration of the adaptation of means to ends. When light enters the eye it falls on a dark back ground, and hence does not generate heat as though reflected from a light surface in the air. The tropical sun shining on the dark-colored races of the tropics is another illustra- tion of the same thing. The negro will endure more heat than the light-colored races, though physically less robust than the average inhabitant of the temperate zone.
We would here remind the reader that much as science can do it cannot explain everything, that although we may demonstrate that the body is built up of the solar rays, there are mysteries connected with life, animal and vegetable, towards the explanation of which science offers no clue whatever. It cannot explain the nature of that silent power that bids the mighty oak spring from the acorn, or builds from a single cell the multiform differences of animal life. Could it do this it would give us truer views of nature's infinitude and man's littleness. Sir Isaac Newton said, "To myself I seem as a little child playing by the seashore while the great ocean of truth lies unexplored before me." The system of truth revealed to us in the book of Nature, and the book of Revelation both emanating from the same Great Author, cannot conflict and both be true, hence disagreements between science and revelation is rendered an impossibility. "Let there be light," was spoken by the Creator
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before the dawn of creation's morn, and science has continued to re-echo that grand acclaim to the teeming millions who people this vast globe. The lights of science are burning brightly on the broad domain of our own favored land, from Alaska to Panama, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, in the isles of the ocean, and in the darkest regions of Paganism doors have been opened to our sci- ence, our commerce and our language. About the time the reforma- tion dawned on the darkness of Europe the polarity of the compass was discovered and spread the light with the expanding commerce of the nations. Then came the printing press, "every pull of which casts rays of light athwart the gloam," and the world is learning the sciences that speak just what the Bible speaks. No fact re- corded by the sacred historians has been so favorite a subject of cavil as the Mosaic account of creation. The objectors fail to re- member that Moses describes things optically and not physically Modern science proves that the phenomena of the heavenly bodies are not at all contradictory to the Mosaic history. Modern oppos- ers of revelation have objected that Moses talks of light before there was a sun and calls the moon a great light when everybody knows it is an opaque body.
But Moses seems to have known what modern science did not until lately discover, and therefore does not call either sun or moon a great light, but Luminaria or reflector, light bearer.
If the objectors will look into their Greek or Hebrew Bibles. their faith will be increased in regard to Moses' attainments in science. Though the moon is not a light in itself, yet it is a light in its effects to us as it reflects light from the sun. But the sun and moon are both with propriety called great, not as being greater absolutely than all other stars or planets, but because they appear greater to us and are of greater consequence and use to us and the world. And now, after all the philosophy and improvements in as- tronomy, we still speak of the light of the moon and the risings and setting of the sun. The man, who, in a moral or scientific dis- course, should use other language, would only render himself ri- diculous.
Hence we say that Moses' description of Creation, in the Book of Genesis, is not in conflict with science in its best discoveries, but confirms it, that he speaks optically and not physically, and we rely on the Mosaic record and the sciences, as a proof of our position on the origin of light, the generation of heat, the cause of evapora- tion and its effects, the philosophy of life and plant growth, and the
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consequent assimilation of this force in the animal kingdom. Anciently the sciences were locked up in the hands of the priest- hood and not reduced to the practical wants of life. To do so was spoken of as degrading seience. Not so in modern times ; the masses are educated and in advance of the priesthood in all the literary, scientific and mechanical progress of the age ; and further, that as education and intelligence increase, the partition walls between churches became lower, and the higher a man stands in piety, education and intelligence the sooner he is able to look over these walls, and they finally lose their dividing power, and the upper strata of intelligence and piety find themselves equally at home on either side of where the walls once stood, as they become invisible and crumble away.
It is not true that "ignorance is the mother of devotion," but ignorance is the mother of bigotry and superstition, and bigotry and superstition are the foundations on which the partition walls of churches rest. It is the pride and glory of this country that the sciences and the arts are moving forward to the annihilation of time and space; that educated intelligence is the helm of civil gov- ernment; that the revelation of God's word and His works are in happy unison, and science and not ignorance is the hand-maid of religion.
Enterprises of the Past.
Nothing more fully illustrates the history of our country than a sketch of the past progress and the enterprise that was the marked characteristic of the pioneer and the early settler. This will apply to our State or county, or to any locality, large or small.
The progress of a country begets necessities for increased facil- ities of travel and transportation, and for the transmission of news and intelligence ; and these, in their turn, add materially to that progress by inciting to other improvements, having no connection with each other, except that they result from the same cause. In the previous part of this work we have made some reference to these topics, so the reader may have some idea of their small begin- nings. We have spoken of the periods of the canoe and the pack- horses of provisional times, of the ark and flat of 1796, and the mail route of 1797. Let us now go forward under the lead and guidance of the spirit of enterprise and invention. The first mails brought to Mifflin county had stated times for arrival, once in two weeks. They were carried by post-riders from Harrisburg to Hunt- ingdon, and the trip between these points consumed four days.
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They were liable to detentions and delays, and irregularity in their delivery was the rule rather than the exception. Storms and freshets,. ice in winter, and melting snows in spring, and often the indisposi- tion of the carrier was the cause of delay given. In addition to these there were many other incident to a new and undeveloped country without roads and without protection from the dangers of a new and undeveloped country, for dangers lurked at every step. and it was a long time before these obstaclee were overcome.
The " Blue Juniata" carried upon its bosom in the direction in which it flowed, the products of the soil, of the mill, and of the distillery. Those articles which found a market in the east were taken thither without great difficulty. The rains and swelling streams but increased their power and usefulness as a means of conveyance to the east. But these natural facilities for a west- ward trade were not furnished. The demand for iron was westward, and the first iron that ran from the furnaces gave a reputation to Juniata iron that it has ever since enjoyed.
There was a demand for it in the manufactories of Pittsburgh, and it must go in the same manner as the Indian trader carried his light goods, on the backs of horses and mules. It was hammered at the forge into bars six or cight feet long, bent like the letter "U," and inverted it over the animal's back. Then the mountain trails over the Alleghenies were not sufficient to let two of these animals walk side by side, but followed each other single file five or six under the care of one man.
This slow and laborious process of transportation did not long answer the growing necessities of the country west of the Alle- ghenies. Other commodities varied in assortment, and increase- in quantity were demanded, and supplies most needed came from the eastern cities.
The making of roads became a necessity, and then followed the era of wagons and stage coaches, (see article on roads in this work). The first effort to run a line of stages in Mifflin county was in 1808. In an old publication we find the following advertisement :
" JUNIATA MAIL STAGE.
"The subscribers beg leave to inform the public that on the 3d of May next, their stage will commence running from Harrisburg, by the way of Clark's Ferry, Millerstown, Thompsontown, Mifflintown, Lewistown, Waynesburgh and Huntingdon, to Alexandria, once a week. Leaves the house of Mr. Berryhill, in Harrisburg, every
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Tuesday at one o'clock P. M., and arrives at Alexandria on Friday following. Returning, leaves Alexandria every Saturday morning, and arrives at Harrisburg on Tuesday morning.
"As the company have procured elegant and convenient carriages, good horses and careful drivers, they flatter themselves that the passage of those who may please to favor them with their custom will be rendered safe, easy and agreeable. Fare for travelers six cents a mile, each entitled to fourteen pounds baggage gratis, one hundred and fifty pounds of baggage equal to one passenger.
(Signed) "JOHN WALKER, JOHN McCONNELL, GEORGE GALBRAITH, GEORGE MULLHOLLAN, JOHN M. DAVIDSON, THOMAS COCHRAN. ROBERT CLARK.
" APRIL 14, 1808.
"N. B .- Horses and chairs will be procured at the different towns for those passengers who wish to go off the road or proceed further than Alexandria."
This enterprise went into operation on the day it was advertised, and the stage "Experiment" was the title of the first one through, and will be interesting to trace briefly the efforts and success of this company in affording the greatest conveniences to travel and reducing the trip to the shortest time possible.' In 1828, twenty years after making the first trip, this line of stages commenced running daily between Harrisburg and Pittsburg. The mails were then carried by it three times a week, passing through Lewistown Saturdays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. In 1829 the proprietors made arrangement with the government to carry a daily mail, which went into operation in February of that year. About 1830 the line was divided into two sections, cach terminating at Hunting- don where the mails were exchanged. The eastern division was run by Calder, Wilson & Co., and passengers were run over this eastern division through Lewistown to Philadelphia in two days. This was then afterwards deemed too slow traveling and efforts were made to increase it. In 1832 this eastern division was run faster, and stages reached Huntingdon, the terminus of the eastern division, at 4 P. M., the second day from Philadelphia. This was their best possible speed, and was only attained by running day and night. The railroad transportation of the present day runs
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2,500 miles in the same number of hours. The Juniata mail stage during its whole existence had the same difficulties to contend with that the post rider had who preceded him in this arduous work. The impediments that nature throws in our way was the same in 1832 as in 1800. "The rains descended and the floods came," and the winds "rip and snort," and against these human strength, en- ergy and enterprise could not always prevail, and consequently the mails were sometimes behind time even to the extent of several days. This enterprising stage line was not without competition, and that was one of the stimulents that induced this trial of speed.
The road improvement, especially after the turnpike construction facilitated the exertions of the proprietors to render their convey- ances a most desirable means of travel. The building of the turn- pike, like every other undertaking or important enterprise, had its era of agitation. From its earliest inception and first movement, of which we can obtain any knowledge, until its completion, there in- tervened a space of about twelve years, and its vicissitudes were so varied that we cannot follow them all through that extended period.
In 1806 petitions seem first to have been circulated for the con- struction of a turnpike along the Juniata. On the 27th of that month a notice was published in one of the Lewistown papers re- questing persons who had such petitions to forward them to An- drew Henderson, that he might forward them to the Legislature. Similar petitions were in circulation in all the counties in the Juni- ata valley. The Legislature took the appropriate action at its fol- lowing session, on March 4, 1807. The Governor was authorized to incorporate a company for making an artificial road from Har- risburg through Lewistown to Pittsburgh. The west end of the road over the mountains was constructed first, and labored under many disadvantages, and the work was often stopped for want of funds.
It was not until the 14th of May, 1821, that books were opened for the subscription of stock for the eastern division, along the Ju- niata through Lewistown and Mifflin county. When these artificial highways had enabled the stage coach to achieve its greatest sue- cess, a rival came upon the foreground which was destined to divide its usefulness, and deprive it of a considerable portion of its income. In 1829 the trade and travel went east on the canal, of which the details are given under their proper heading in this work.
Although Pennsylvania did not embark upon the construction of her public works until 1826, there was legislation on that subject at
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an earlier date. An act was passed on the 27th of March, 1824, "providing for the appointment of a Board of Commissioners for the purpose of promoting the internal improvements of the State." These Commissioners, among other duties, were " to view and ex- plore a route for a canal from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh, by the waters of the Juniata and Conemaugh Rivers." This act was re -- pealed and supplied by that of April 11, 1825, but is historically im- portant, as being the commencement of that great system of im- provement which has so materially developed the great resources of the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Commissioners were thus appointed as provided for, and took the- levels and made the surveys of the proposed canal. See section on canals in this work.
Under the act of Assembly, May 16, 1857, the Pennsylvania Canal was sold to the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and trans- ferred to the purchaser the August following. And now begins a work of retrogression. The upper part of the canal has been aban- cloned, its locks and bridges removed, and we are, perhaps, not far- wrong in closing this once valued and indispensable improvement,. and a necessity to the country, among the things that have served their day, fulfilled their mission, and gone into the past.
Early Congressmen.
The first election of Members of Congress participated in by Mifflin County, was in 1788, under the constitution of the United States, which had been adopted the previous year. It provided that until an enumeration of the inhabitants which was to be made within three years after the first meeting of Congress, and an ap- portionment there-under, Pennsylvania was to have eight members.
At the election of 1788 no districts had been formed, and they were elected by the State at large. That may have been the method for some years, but how long we have not been able to ascertain. No act of the Assembly can be found districting the state prior to 1802. It is only from that year that we can give the names of those. who represented this county or the district to which it belonged .. We give the following districts and the counties composing them,. and the years of their election and as fully as we have been able to ascertain positive dates :
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