 Outdoor Life and Indian Stories by Edward Sylvester Ellis This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Chad Horner from Ballyclair in County Hunter, Northern Ireland, situated in the northeast of the island of Ireland. Outdoor Life and Indian Stories by Edward Sylvester Ellis Chapter 9. How to find your way by the stars It is very important that those who frequent the forest should be sufficiently familiar with the stars to be able to tell their way by them. Often a compass is lost or damaged or there is not enough light to see the landmarks. At such a time a knowledge of how to find the pole star is invaluable for to the experienced woodsman a glimpse of this star is equivalent to consulting a compass. It is really the most important of the stars we see although not a very bright one because it marks the north at all times and is fixed in its place. While all the other stars seem to swing around it once in every 24 hours which makes it impractical to use them for guidance. The Dipper or Great Bear is well known to all American boys on account of the size, peculiar shape and brilliance of this group and the fact that it never sets in this latitude. This group always points to the pole star or Polaris which is about in a line with the stars, Alpha and Beta which form the outside of the Dipper at the distance about three and a half times as great as the space separating these two stars. This star always points out the north. If the imaginary line between Alpha and Beta and Polaris is continued about the same distance beyond Polaris it will meet Cassiopeia. There are five stars in the shape of a W which, like the Great Bear, is always seen in our latitude. With these directions it should be always easy to locate Polaris. End of Chapter 9 How to Find Your Way by the Stars by Edward Sylvester Ellis. This recording is in the public domain. When we went to breakfast on Monday morning at eight o'clock, we found the first floor no longer the quiet and orderly place it had hitherto seemed. The alterations going on in the hotel embraced the ballroom. Both of which were being enlarged towards the front and, of course, when we descended the workmen were in full swing. We ate our morning meal to the sound of their hammers and saws and gave thanks when we reflected the sound of the bell. Although we were to take only the afternoon trip over the Pacific Division, we were obliged to leave Panama at 10.20 in the forenoon in order to have breakfast. We had to leave Panama at 10.20 in the forenoon in order to have breakfast. Although we were to take only the afternoon trip over the Pacific Division, we were obliged to leave Panama at 10.20 in the forenoon in order to catch the sightseeing train at Culebra where it would stop after its morning trip to allow the passengers to see the lock models and have luncheon. So really was going to take about all day and after breakfast we had only time to look over the papers, write some postcards and chat a little in the lobby before starting to the station. On a lighting from the train at Culebra we found an ambulance drawn by mules ready to take us up to the administration building on top of the hill and on reaching the entrance of the building we were directed to the lecture room by an agreeable and courteous young gentleman who had come up the hill with us. Being interested in the subject of locks and desirous of understanding thoroughly the working of the canal we found the lecture and the models extremely profitable and went down the hill afterwards considerably enlightened as we hoped also was the man who, on the way up, had remarked that he wouldn't know a lock if he met it in the road. What we went down the hill for was to get some lunch and this we found at the commission dining room where for fifty cents apiece we were served with a very excellent meal, the quality being uniformly good and the quantity about three times as much as we could eat. Nowhere else in the canal zone did we find so good a commission dining room as this one at Culebra. Thus fortified both mentally and physically, with lecture and luncheon, we blithely mounted the sightseeing car, an open car with seats running across and with a floor which was high at the back and sloped down to the level of the lecturer in front, impatient to begin to see the big job. However, there is always some drawback, and now, although up to this point the day had been perfect, an uninvited little shower suddenly obtruded itself and even tried to get into the car, thus obliging the porter to lower the canvas curtains in order to keep us dry. Shutting out the rain meant shutting out the view, too, and this was afflicting, but it proved to be necessary for only occasional short periods, during which the lecturer told us about the things we were about to see and answered any questions we wanted to ask in a very pleasant and comprehensive manner. Presently we arrived at Pedro Miguel, in local parlance, Peter McGill, where we were switched to the construction tracks and taken out close to the lockwork. There we got out and at last found ourselves face to face with one of the concrete monsters. Here words fail me. Stupendous seems to be the favourite adjective, with most people and I can't think of a betterer, but really a brand new one should be coined. Those locks look like the work of giants. And as if they would stand forever, eternal as the hills, I said to myself, but just then a man of the party remarked, well, I suppose some thousands of years hence archaeologists will be digging around here and will come across the remains of these locks and wonder what on earth they were anyhow. One pair of gates were done and closed, and as they are seven feet thick and equipped with the handrail along the top for the use of the public, we walked across them, an umbrella to procession, to the centre wall where we could see both sides and get a better idea of the thousand feet of length and the 220 feet of breadth of the double chamber. All the locks are double in order that vessels can go in opposite directions at the same time. Also, if one is out of commission, the other can be used. Pedro Miguel lock is single in that it will raise in lower ships only one step of 30 feet. It is the link between the Cut and Miraflores lake, a small artificial body of water with an area of two square miles formed by impounding the waters of three small rivers by means of the Miraflores locks and dam. As we stood on the walls, we thought of all that had been told us of their construction and imagined the water rushing in for the first time through the huge tunnels 18 feet in diameter passing lengthwise of the lock through the centre and side walls, then through lateral tunnels which branch out from the first ones at right angles and run under the lock floors, then through openings in the lock floor into the lock chamber. And we picked her to ourselves a great ship coming in, attended by four electric locomotives operating on the walls, two in front towing, one at each side, and two behind, one at each side, to stop her when she gets into proper position. By the time we had gone over all this in our minds, we were summoned to climb back into the car and go on, across the bed of the future Miraflores lake to the Miraflores locks. These are two in flight, and will raise in lower vessels 55 feet in two steps between the lake and the sea level end of the canal, which connects with the Pacific Ocean eight miles away. The work here was just the same as at Pedro Viguel, only there was twice as much of it, and we were still more deeply impressed with the immensity of the task which our country is accomplishing. From here we went on to Balboa, where the canal enters the ocean and saw the great dredges at work in the channel and the long stone breakwater now under construction. The latter is four miles long, extending from the mainland to Naos, one of the group of three beautiful islands which the United States is fortifying to guard the entrance of the canal. These islands are exceedingly rocky and picturesque, their steep sides rising abruptly from the water to a great height, relieved here and there by trees and shrubs, whose varying greens contrast exquisitely with the dark rock. The three islets seem to have been dropped by nature exactly into the right position to fulfill their office of protecting the canal terminus. Drills and cranes and steam shovels and dirt trains and concrete mixers and track lifters had been thrown in to make good the measure of our afternoon's entertainment. And by this time we began to feel the need of a rest for our minds, so the return to Panama between five and six and the sight of the big Tivoli Hotel up on the hill were very agreeable. Resting and dressing and dining and gossiping with our fellow tourists formed a pleasant conclusion to the day. And at a much earlier hour than we were accustomed to keep at home we went to bed, feeling sure that the very excellent railroad at the foot of the hill would wake us up between five and six in the morning and that the only way to get enough sleep was to begin early. Why that railroad did not have enough to do in transporting its crowded trains back and forth across the Ithsnes without turning missionary and trying to inculcate the early to bed and early to rise maxim into the passing traveller was more than we could understand. Such energy hardly accorded with the climate, either, but then it was an American road, which fact was explanation enough, and for that reason we forgave it. We remembered the very last thing that we had not asked anybody about the West Coast boats. As there was no regular sightseeing trip the next day we resolved to drive over to Balboa in the morning to the steamship office and make some inquiries of the agent. We were glad the regular trips did not come on consecutive days. It was so much pleasanter to have time in between in which to do things by ourselves and assimilate what had gone before. Therefore we looked forward with satisfaction to the next two days. End of Chapter 3 of Glimpses of Panama and of the Canal View of the Capitol at Washington by Nathaniel Willis Travel Collection 1. This is a LibriVox recording. While LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Betty B. View of the Capitol at Washington There are many favorable points of view for this fine structure standing as it does higher than the general level of the country. Besides those presented in the different drawings in this work there are views from the distant eminences which are particularly fine in which the broad bosom of the Potomac forms the background. The effect of the building is also remarkably imposing when the snow is on the ground and the whole structure rising from a field of snow with its dazzling whiteness looks like some admirable creation of the frost. All architecture however is very much improved by the presence of a multitude of people and the Capitol looks its best on the day of inauguration. The following description written after viewing the ceremony of Mr. Van Buren's induction into office will give an idea of the effect of this solemnity on the architecture. The sun shone out of heaven without a cloud on the inaugural morning. The air was cold but clear and life-giving and the broad avenues of Washington for once seemed not too large for the thronging population. The crowds who had been pouring in from every direction for several days before ransacking the town for but a shelter from the night were apparent on the spacious sidewalks and the old campaigners of the winter seemed but a thin sprinkling among the thousands of new and strange faces. The sun shone alike on the friends and opponents of the new administration and as far as one might observe in a walk to the Capitol all were made cheerful alike by its brightness. It was another augury perhaps and may foretell a more extended fusion under the light of the luminary new risen. In a whole day passed in a crowd composed of all classes and parties I heard no remark that the president would have been unwilling to hear. I was at the Capitol a half hour before the procession arrived and had leisure to study a scene for which I was not at all prepared. The noble staircase of the east front of the building leaps over three arches under one of which carriages pass to the basement door and as you approach from the gate the eye cuts the ascent at right angles and the sky broken by a small spire at a short distance is visible beneath. Broad stairs occur at equal distances with corresponding projections and from the upper platform rise the outer columns of the portico with ranges of columns three deep extending back to the pilasters. I had often admired this front with its many graceful columns and its superb flight of stairs as one of the finest things I had seen in the world. Like the effect of the assembled population of Rome waiting to receive the blessing before the front of St. Peter's however the assembled crowd on the steps and at the base of the Capitol heightened inconceivably the grandeur of the design. They were piled up like the people on the temples of Babylon in one of Martin's sublime pictures every projection covered and an inexpressible soul and character given by their presence to the architecture. Boys climbed about the basis of the columns single figure stood on the posts of the surrounding railings in the boldest relief against the sky and the whole thing was exactly what Paul Varanese would have delighted to draw. I was in the crowd thronging the opposite side of the court and lost sight of the principal actors in this imposing drama till they returned from the Senate chamber. A temporary platform had been laid and railed in on the broad stair which supports the portico and for all preparation for one of the most important and most meaning and solemn ceremonies on earth. For the inauguration of a chief magistrate over Republic of 15 millions of free men the whole addition to the open air and the presence of the people was a volume of holy writ. In comparing the impressive simplicity of this consummation of the wishes of a mighty people with the ceremonial and hollow show which embarrass a corresponding event in other lands. It is impossible not to feel that the moral sublime was here that a transaction so important and of such extended and weighty import could borrow nothing from drapery or decoration and that the simple presence of the sacred volume consecrating the act spoke more thrillingly to the heart than the trumpets of a thousand heralds. The crowded diplomatists and senators in the rear of the columns made way and the ex-president and Mr. Van Buren advanced with uncovered heads. A murmur of feeling rose up from the moving mass below and the infirm old man emerged from a sick chamber which his physician had thought it impossible he should leave bowed to the people and still uncovered in the cold air took his seat beneath the portico. Mr. Van Buren then advanced and with a voice remarkably distinct and with great dignity read his address to the people. When the address was closed the chief justice advanced and administered the oath. As the book touched the lips of the new president there arose a general shout an expression of feeling common enough in other countries but drawn with difficulty from an American assemblage. The sons and immediate friends of Mr. Van Buren then closed around him the ex-president and others gave him the hand in congratulation and the ceremony was over. End of View of the Capitol at Washington.