Menominee

“ Minerals.—Of the mineral products (for which the state is noted) iron is the most valuable. This mineral was discovered in the Marquette district along the shore of Lake Superior early in the 18th century, but active operations for mining it did not begin until 1845; in 1877 mining of the same mineral began farther south in the Menominee district, and seven years later farther west along the Wisconsin border in Gogebic county. The annual product steadily increased from 3000 long tons in 1854 to 11,830,342 in 1907 ”

“ Each of these rooms is also connected with the stomach in the middle, and with those parts which, as you see, look like the petals of a flower, when the anemone is spread out, waiting for its food. Each of these "petals" is hollow like the fingers of a glove. The anemone not only lives surrounded by water on the outside, but it is full of water on the inside. Water is to the anemone what blood is to you; it circulates all through the anemone, and the anemone makes its petal-like fingers stand up by filling them with water. ”

“ The higher grades of oxidation containing Mn2O7 and MnO3 are quite unknown in nature, and even MnO2 is not so widely spread in nature as the ores composed of manganous compounds which are met with nearly everywhere. The most important ore of manganese is its dioxide, or so-called peroxide, MnO2, which is known in mineralogy as pyrolusite. Manganese also occurs as an oxide corresponding with magnetic iron ore, MnO,Mn2O3 = Mn3O4, forming the mineral known as hausmannite. The oxide Mn2O3 also occurs in nature as the anhydrous mineral braunite, and in a hydrated form, Mn2O3,H2O, called manganite. ”

“ The sea-anemone not only looks like the flower of that name, but it has something that reminds us of the vine called the Virginia Creeper. The anemone is fastened to a rock by a sucking disc. It holds on with this sucker a great deal tighter than the vine clings to a wall it is climbing, with its little sucker feet. If you try to pull a sea-anemone up, you might think it has a strong root running down into the rock. But it has only a sucker foot for clinging. Sea-anemones have been known to move, but as a rule they spend their lives contentedly, fastened to rocks near which they are born. ”

“ He reached the spot where her form had sunk, and strove to dive, but weary nature proved a master of his will. He floated to regain his wind, while scanning the lake for a rising blotch of red; but only the leaping carp made circles through the waves, and a ruby sun climbed upward from a bed of mist. The breeze hummed foolishly among the palms, and a blue crane flung an accusing cry across the waters.
Menon's hope ebbed low and lower still, to die, to spring again to life at a peal of bubbly laughter, sweet unto his ears. ”

“ It is known that during the Revolutionary War Mennonites were located in considerable bodies in the states of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. Membership was confined largely to the class who were married and settled in life. Though the customs of their home life were in all respects contrary to the tactics of military training, single young men of Mennonite parentage found it difficult to keep out of the army. Early settlers, both old and young men, were given much to hunting, and of course were habitual gun carriers, and hence they were much accustomed to camp-life in the woods. ”

“ This venturesome spirit took many of our Mennonite people far beyond the border of regular settlements, and in fact some groups of families often located in the deeper recesses of the wilderness. In this way Mennonites found their way at very early periods into sections of the Cumberland valley of Pennsylvania and Maryland and the Shenandoah valley of Virginia, and where, for a whole generation, not a drop of Quaker or Mennonite blood was ever shed at the hands of the Indians. ”

“ To the warriors in Menon's charge, their chieftain had passed from boyhood to sterner age, for his laugh no more resounded through the camp as in days of old, and a frown of gloom sat always upon his brow. Where the followers of Ninus feasted by night and day, laying great rolls of fat upon their bones, Menon's men were held to the toil of war, to the practice of arms and a temperate use of wine and food, till slender and gaunt they grew, yet clear of sight and as hard as the rocky roads up which they climbed. ”

“ The water is then squeezed up into the tube-like tentacles, which of course expand. When it wants to close them it relaxes the pressure, and the water flows out of the tubes again and back into the water-jacket, so that they all come folding in.
The lower part of an anemone’s body is called the “foot,” and is really a big and strong sucker, by means of which the animal clings so firmly to the surface of a rock or a stone that it almost seems to be growing out of it. But these creatures do not spend the whole of their lives [123] without moving, as oysters and barnacles do. ”

“ While we rejoice at the growth in numbers, we can not but share in the generally expressed regret that there are so many different bodies of Mennonites. Some have left the parent body on the ground that the Mennonite Church is too strict in its discipline, others on the ground that it is not strict enough. ”

“ Whatever doubt there may be as to the action of lead salts, there can be none whatever as to that of manganese compounds. In the first place, manganous oxide is a powerful base, which readily dissolves in oil; manganic oxide is also readily soluble, yielding fatty acid salts of manganese, and causing oxidation of glycerine. Manganese borate and manganese oxalate are both soluble in oil, the former much more readily than the latter, but they are both salts of little stability at high temperatures in contact with oils. They both dissolve by the aid of heat, forming fatty acid salts of manganese. ”

“ Then they are all drawn to the centre of the Anemone, carrying their prey with them; and the feelers, prey and all, are tucked out of sight.
That is the way the Anemone obtains its food. As soon as the feelers get hold of a small animal they carry it to the opening of a tube in the centre. This is the mouth, leading to the stomach. Very often the feelers, with their victim, are tucked away into the stomach, and the feelers do not appear again for some time. Is not this a strange way of eating!
Much stranger still is the way in which the food is held, and made so helpless that it cannot escape. ”

“ Manganous Carbonate, MnCO3, found native as manganese spar, may be prepared as an amorphous powder by heating manganese chloride with sodium carbonate in a sealed tube to 150° C., or in the hydrated form as a white flocculent precipitate by adding sodium carbonate to a manganous salt. In the moist condition it rapidly turns brown on exposure to air. ”

“ But such a solution has a blue or red color. The color is here more brown than red, the reason being that the very finest portions of the manganese, which do not sink so easily, swim in the red solution; for without these fine particles the solution is red, and red mixed with black is brown. The manganese has here attached itself so loosely to acidum salis that the water can precipitate it, and this precipitate behaves like ordinary manganese. When, now, the mixture of manganese and spiritus salis was set to digest, there arose an effervescence and smell of aqua regis. ”

“ This quota of men was supplied without the enrollment of one known Mennonite, though numbers having Mennonite parentage are known to have enlisted, and some who lost their lives, were of Mennonite blood. ”

“ The skin of the tentacles, and, indeed, of most parts of the Sea Anemone is filled with little cells or vesicles, each containing a spiral thread, which when touched instantly darts forth, and penetrates the body coming in contact with it. In this way, if a worm, a small fish, or any other soft animal touches the tentacles of an Anemone, it is instantly transfixed with innumerable delicate darts, which not only assist the tentacles in holding the destined prey, but also seem to exercise a sort of numbing influence upon the victim, deadening his struggles and rendering him an easy conquest. ”

“ Manganese belongs to the number of metals widely distributed in [305] nature, especially in those localities where iron occurs, whose ores frequently contain compounds of manganous oxide, MnO, which presents a resemblance to ferrous oxide, FeO, and to magnesia. In many minerals magnesia and the oxides allied to it are replaced by manganous oxide ”

“ Manganous oxide in oxidising gives the red oxide of manganese, Mn5O4. This is the most stable of all the oxides of manganese; it is not only stable at the ordinary but also at a high temperature—that is, it does not absorb or disengage oxygen spontaneously. When ignited, all the higher oxides of manganese pass into it by losing oxygen, and manganous oxide by absorbing oxygen. This oxide does not give any distinct salts, but it dissolves in sulphuric acid, forming a dark red solution, which contains both manganous and manganic (of the oxide, Mn2O3) sulphates. ”

“ If we dissolve black oxide of manganese, permanganate of potash, or any other compound of manganese of a higher degree of oxidation than the protoxide in hydrochloric acid, we obtain, as is well known, a dark colored solution of perchloride of manganese, which, when heated to boiling loses color pretty rapidly, chlorine being given off, until finally only protochloride remains. ”

“ The oxidation proceeds much more rapidly if, before igniting in air, potassium chlorate or nitre be added to the mixture, and this is the method of preparing potassium manganate, K2MnO4. The resultant mass dissolved in a small quantity of water gives a dark green solution, which, when evaporated under the receiver of an air-pump over sulphuric acid, deposits green crystals of exactly the same form as potassium sulphate—namely, six-sided prisms and pyramids. The composition of the product is not changed by being re-dissolved, if perfectly pure water free from air and carbonic acid be taken. ”

“ In the spare room of a Mennonite farmer, who lives just inside the wheat belt.
This is going to be a long Sunday afternoon; so make up your minds for a long letter. I did not get work in the alfalfa. Yet there is news. I have been staying a week with this Mennonite family shocking wheat for them, though I am not anywhere near Great Bend.
Before I tell you of the harvest, I must tell you of these Mennonites. They are a dear people. I have heard from their reverent lips the name of their founder, Menno Simonis, who was born about the time of Columbus and Luther and other such worthies. ”

“ If, on dissolving the ignited mass, the solution should appear greenish from the formation of alkaline manganates, add a few drops of alcohol to reduce the manganese to insoluble dioxid. The residue of barium, magnesium, and manganese compounds is treated on the filter with hydrochloric acid, and the platinum dish is washed with warm nitric acid (not hydrochloric, for the platinum dish may be attacked by chlorin from the manganese oxid) dissolving any small traces of precipitate that may have been left behind. ”

“ The precipitate of manganese is dissolved either in water to which 0.5 per cent. of hydrochloric acid has been added, or in boiling nitric acid. When manganese occurs along with iron, which in general is the case, we must take care that the iron in the solution is in the state of peroxide, which is precipitated on the addition of the bicarbonate of soda, and is allowed to remain as a precipitate, because it does not affect the titration injuriously. ”

“ Menon took it and held it high, looking up into the blue heavens.
"O gracious Hermes!" he cried aloud, "fulfill thy omen! And to Zeus, the father, and to all the immortals be thanks."
As he prayed he turned the cup and spilled the wine upon the ground. That was the god's portion. A slave spread down a rug for his master to lie upon and put cushions under his elbow. Glaucon did the same for Charmides, and the meal began. Menon talked gaily about their journey, the games to-morrow, Creon's training. But Charmides was silent. ”

“ It was then that Menenius, red from the brow to the heel with the blood of his enemies, shouted to his brave companions to follow him, and hurling a gigantic Scythian down the steep, with one bound he passed the chasm, and lighted on a point of rock where the foot of man had never stood before--another brought him to a higher crag, whence a small green ridge ran round the steepest of the precipice under the city walls. ”

“ He will gladly tell you that he is in no wise a fop, but that it is absolutely necessary to produce a pleasant personal impression upon his fastidious, irritable patients. Menon himself claims to have been a personal pupil of the great Hippocrates, [*] and about every other reputable Greek physician will make the same claim. He has studied more or less in a temple of Asclepius, and perhaps has been a member of the medical staff thereto attached. ”

“ Such a solution, however, has an alkaline reaction, and gives, with a salt of phosphoric acid, a precipitate of magnesium phosphate, which is still more insoluble. Magnesia is not only dissolved by acids, forming salts, but it also displaces certain other bases—for example, ammonia from ammonium salts when boiled; and the hydroxide also absorbs carbonic anhydride from the air. The magnesium salts, like those of calcium, potassium, and sodium, are colourless if they are formed from colourless acids. Those which are soluble have a bitter taste, whence magnesia has been termed bitter-earth. ”