What is a heat lightning?

Heat lighting is the flashes of light produced by distant electrical storms.  The flashes of lightning occur too far away for thunder to be heard.

Sometimes, on warm summer evenings, we see so-called “heat lightning”—silent flashes of light in the distant sky.  Heat lightning is really light from a flash of chain lightning that takes place beyond the horizon.  Chain, or forked, lightning is the lightning you see zig-zagging across the sky in any thunderstorm.

We just don’t hear heat lightning’s thunder because we are too far away.  We don’t see the lightning either.  We see its light reflected from high clouds.  Lightning is a big electric spark that spears its way across the sky.  During a thunderstorm, electrical charges are built up in the clouds.  If the charges become great enough, a flash of lightning occurs.

As the lightning flashes across the sky, it quickly heats the air in its path.  The heated air expands (spreads out) rapidly and sets a great sound wave in motion which we hear a few moments later as thunder.

What are icebergs?

Icebergs are large, floating chunks of ice that have broken off from glaciers,  to drift about in the ocean.  Icebergs are the broken-off end of glaciers that tumble into the water and drift out into the sea.  The biggest are huge, floating blocks of ice that weigh several million tons.  Some are a mile or more across and tower hundreds of feet above the surface.

An iceberg floating in the sea does not look nearly as big as it really is.  About seven-eighths of it is below the water, out of sight.  Icebergs are made up of fresh water ice, since they are formed on land from snowfalls.  Their white color is caused by tiny bubbles of air trapped in the ice.

Ocean currents often carry icebergs hundreds of mile out to sea before they melt and finally disappear.

In 1912, a large ocean liner, the Titanic, struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean and sand, with a great loss of life.  Since that time, the United States Coast Guard has patrolled the North Atlantic shipping lanes, warning ships of the location of large icebergs.

What Are Windmills Used For?

Windmill

A windmill is a machine that uses the power of the wind for pumping water and generating electric power.  A windmill is a machine that uses the power of the wind to do work of some kind.  In the United States, windmills are generally to be found on farms where they serve as a cheap source or power for pumping water from wells and driving electric generators for electric power.

The kind of windmill commonly used to bump well water has a big wheel with several blades.  It is usually mounted on tail tower so that the blades will catch the full force of the win.  A tall vane acts as a rudder and keeps the wheel facing into the wind.

By the means of gears, the turning wheel provides the power to work a pump, a small electric generator, or to do some other useful job.  Of course, a windmill is not of any use unless there is enough wind to turn it.  Today, many farmers don’t use windmills to get water from their wells.  They use electric pumps to do the work because they are more dependable.-Dick Rogers

What is a shooting star?

Shooting stars are tiny meteors that glow white hot when they hurtle from out of space into the earth’s atmosphere. 

If you look up at the sky long enough on a dark, clear night, you may see the fiery streak of a “shooting star” flash across the sky. 

Shooting Star

While “shooting star” may be a pretty name, it is not accurate, for real stars are great glowing balls of gases far out in space.

The “shooting stars” that streaks across the sky are bits of rock and metal called meteors.  Many billions of meteors zip around through space.

Many of them come so close that they are captured by earth’s gravity, and are pulled toward earth.  As the speeding meteors hurtle into the earth’s atmosphere, friction with the air causes them to glow white hot.  Then we see them as blazing trails of lights.

Meteors rarely blaze for more than a few seconds.  Most of those we see were originally no bigger than a grain of rice.  They usually burn up before they reach the ground.

Meteors that survive their fall and land on earth are called meteorites.-Dick Rogers

What does the inside of the earth look like?

Beneath the earth’s rocky crust are the hard mantel, hot liquid outer core, and the solid metal inner core.

Have you ever tried to dig a deep hole—maybe all the way to the other side of the world?  Of course, you could dig only a few feet.  But suppose you could dig a hole straight to the center of the earth.  What would you find on the way?

Earth

First comes the crust, or rocky “skin,” that covers the earth.  This may be about 30 miles thick in some places.  As we go down into this crust, we find that it  begins to get hotter and hotter.  At two miles below the surface of the earth, the temperature is hot enough to boil water.   Next comes a layer of hard, black rock, about 1,800 miles thick.  Inside this layer is the earth’s core.  The core seems to be a kind of super-hot liquid metal.

Scientists think that in the center of this core there lies a ball-shaped inner core of solid metal, which forms the very center of the earth itself.  We have been able to find out about the inside of the earth by studying earthquakes.  Probably we will never get to look at the earth’s core, but someday we will know more about it.-Dick Rogers

What makes the ring around the moon?

The ring around the moon or sun is caused when the rays of light are bent and reflected by clouds of ice crystals high in the sky.  A big, shining ring of light sometimes appears around the moon.  The ring is not really around the moon—it only seems to be:

The “ring around the moon” is caused when the moon shines on clouds of tiny ice crystals high in the sky.  The ice crystals bend and reflect the moonlight to make a halo, or circle of light.  Sometimes two bright spots, that look like a little moons, can be seen in the halo.  They are called “moon dogs.”  We can sometimes see a halo around the sun, and we can also see “sun  dogs,” as the sun shines through clouds of ice crystals.

Haloes are often seen in Arctic regions.  These colored rings are generally red on the inside, then orange, yellow and white on the outside.  When you see a ring around the moon or sun, it usually means that a storm is coming.  Smaller haloes sometimes appear around the moon of sun when light rays are bent and reflected by clouds of droplets.-Dick Rogers

What Is A Minotaur?

Minotaur

The Minotaur of Greek legend was a man-eating monster with the head of a bull and the body of a man.

The Minotaur (pronounced MIN O TAWR) was a mythical monster with the head of a bull and the body of a man.

One of the myths of ancient Greece told that King Minos of Crete, an island in the Mediterranean Sea, kept the Minotaur imprisoned in a labyrinth—a winding maze of passageways from which no one could escape.

It happened that Androgeos, son of King Minos, was killed by the people in a town in Greece.  As a punishment King Minos sacrificed seven Greek youths and seven maidens each year to the Minotaur (who ate them).

The Greek hero Theseus, at last, killed the Minotaur and escaped from the labyrinth by following a thread.

Nowadays, we do not believe in myths.  But there probably was a King Minos.  And it so happens that the ruins of an ancient palace on the island of Crete has so many winding passageways that it resembles the legendary labyrinth!–Dick Rogers

Who Invented Roller Skates?

No one really knows who invented roller skates or even when they first used.  They were probably invented by ice skaters in Europe, some 200 years ago, who wanted to skate when there was no ice.

Roller skating is the popular sports of skating on wheeled skates.  People were roller skating on the roads of Holland and Belgium  about 200 years ago. 

Some early skates had several wheels in a line like the blade of an ice skate.  Others had only two wheels.

In 1862, a man named John L. Plympton of Boston invented the four-wheel skate, much like those we skate on today.  These skates made roller skating widely popular.

The first skates had wooden wheels which broke easily.  The next development was the introduction of all-metal skates with ball bearings in the wheels to make them turn faster.  This completed the skate as we know it today.

Skating to music at indoor rinks is a year-round sport followed by many thousands of skating enthusiasts.–Dick Rogers

What Is A Ballad?

Ballad

A ballad is a simple song or poem that tells a romantic or sentimental story.  When you sing a song such as “Casey Jones” or “John Henry,” you are signing a ballad.

A ballad is a simple song or poem that tells a story.  Ballads are often songs of romance and songs of praise about heroes and events.

No one knows when ballads were first made up, but they were sung by European poets hundreds of years ago.

These early ballads were known in many places simply as songs, tales, and duties.  The ballads were passed along from one generation to another, and finally no one remembered who first sang them.

Often the tune and the story told by the ballad stayed the same, but the words were changed.

Sang old British ballads as models, Americans, for example, created popular ballads about such Western outlaws as Jessie James and Billy the kid.

No one knows for certain, in many cases, if what the ballad tells is true or is just a fanciful tale made up by the singer.–Dick Rogers

How did February get its name?

February

February gets its name from the Latin word “februare,” which means “to purify” (in English, it became February).  The early Romans devoted this month to ceremonies of purification. February is the second month of the year—and the shortest.  February has 28 days, except in “leap years,” when it has 29 years.

In the early Roman calendar February was the last month of the year.  During this month, the Romans held religious rites to purify themselves for festivals held at the start of the new year.

Later, when Romans emperor Julius Caesar set up a new calendar, he moved the start of the year from March to January, February became the second month.

An old story tells (though there may be no truth in it), that when August Caesar’s month (July) longer than the one named after himself.  So he stole a day from February to make August 31 days, as long as Julys.–Dick Rogers

What Is A Fable?

A fable is a special kind of short story made up to teach a lesson.  Fables are often about animals who can talk and act like people.  The lesson to be learned is usually made clear in the end by what one of the animals wisely says.

Fable

Many fables are many hundreds of years old.  Among the best-known fables are those by Aesop.  Aesop is believed to have been a slave in ancient Greece and a skillful storyteller.  His stories are simple moral lessons.

Nearly everyone knows Aesop’s fable, “The Lion and the Mouse.”  A mouse persuades a lion not to kill him.  Later the lion is captured and tied up by hunters.  The mouse frees the lion by gnawing away the ropes.

The lesson to be learned in this fable is: “Little friends may prove to be valuable friends.”  Today some fables are written in the form of newspaper comic strips.–Dick Rogers

How Does A Skywriter Write In The Sky?

To skywrite, the pilot releases smoke-making chemicals into the airplane’s exhaust pipe.  The trail of smoke they produce traces the letters.

Skywriting is a method of writing in the sky with an airplane.  A trail of smoke traces the letters.  Most skywriting message are advertisements that promote products advertisers want to sell.

Skywriter

The smoke used for skywriting is made from special, smoke making chemicals carried in a tank.  When the pilot wants to write a smoke letter, he releases some of the liquid chemicals into the airplane’s exhaust pipe.

The heat from the hot gases of the engine changes the chemicals into a very thick smoke.  This smoke then comes out of the plane’s smoke tubes in long streams.

It takes many hours of practice for a pilot to become a good skywriter.  He has to learn not only how to write backward, but also to write quickly before the wind blows his message away.

Each letter may be about a mile long.  People can see the giant letters spread out across the sky for many miles.–Dick Rogers