Bill Nye's Cordwood

The Earth

The earth is that body in the solar system which most of my readers now reside upon, and which some of them, I regret to say, modestly desire to own and control, forgetting that the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof. Some men do not care who owns the earth so long as they get the fullness.

The earth is 500,000,000 years of age, according to Prof. Proctor, but she doesn't look it to me. The Duke of Argyll maintains that she is 10,000,000 years old last August, but what does an ordinary duke know about these things? So far as I am concerned I will put Proctor's memory against that of any low-priced duke that I have ever seen.

Newton claimed that the earth would gradually dry up and become porous, and that water would at last become a curiosity. Many believe this and are rapidly preparing their systems by a rigid course of treatment, so that they can live for years without the use of water internally or externally.

Other scientists who have sat up nights to monkey with the solar system, and thereby shattered their nervous systems, claim that the earth is getting top-heavy at the north pole, and that one of these days while we are thinking of something else, the great weight of accummulated ice, snow, and the vast accummulation of second-hand arctic relief expeditions, will jerk the earth out of its present position with so much spontaneity, and in such an extremely forthwith manner, that many people will be permanently strabismused and much bric-a-brac will be for sale at a great sacrifice. This may or may not be true. I have not been up in the arctic regions to investigate its truth or falsity, though there seems to be a growing sentiment throughout the country in favor of my going. A great many people during the past year have written me and given me their consent.

If I could take about twenty good, picked men, and go up there for the summer, instead of bringing back twenty picked men, I wouldn't mind the trip, and I feel that we really ought to have a larger colony on ice in that region than we now have.

The earth is composed of land and water. Some of the water has large chunks of ice in it. The earth revolves around its own axle once in twenty-four hours, though it seems to revolve faster than that, and to wobble a good deal during the holidays. Nothing tickles the earth more than to confuse a man when he is coming home late at night, and then to rise up suddenly and hit him in the back with a town lot. People who think there is no fun or relaxation among the heavenly bodies certainly have not studied their habits. Even the moon is a humorist.

A friend of mine, who was returning late at night from a regular meeting of the Society for the Amelioration of the Hot Scotch, said that the earth rose up suddenly in front of him, and hit him with a right of way, and as he was about to rise up again he was stunned by a terrific blow between the shoulder blades with an old land grant that he thought had lapsed years ago. When he staggered to his feet he found that the moon, in order to add to his confusion, had gone down in front of him, and risen again behind him, with her thumb on her nose.

So I say, without fear of successful contradiction, that if you do not think that planets and orbs and one thing and another have fun on the quiet you are grossly ignorant of their habits.

The earth is about half way between Mercury and Saturn in the matter of density. Mercury is of about the specific gravity of iron, while that of Saturn corresponds with that of cork in the matter of density and specific gravity. The earth, of course, does not compare with Mercury in the matter of solidity, yet it is amply firm for all practical purposes. A negro who fell out of the tower of a twelve-story building while trying to clean the upper window by drinking a quart of alcohol and then breathing hard on the glass, says that he regards the earth as perfectly solid, and safe to do business on for years to come. He claims that those who maintain that the earth's crust is only 2,500 miles in thickness have not thoroughly tested the matter by a system of practical experiments.

The poles of the earth are merely imaginary. I hate to print this statement in a large paper in such a way as to injure the reputation of great writers on this subject who still cling to the theory that the earth revolves upon large poles, and that the aurora borealis is but the reflection from a hot box at the north pole, but I am here to tell the truth, and if my readers think it disagreeable to read the truth, what must be my anguish who have to tell it? The mean diameter of the earth is 7,916 English statute miles, but the actual diameter from pole to pole is a still meaner diameter, being 7,899 miles, while the equatorial diameter is 7,925-1/2 miles.

The long and patient struggle of our earnest and tireless geographers and savants in past years in order to obtain these figures and have them exact, few can fully realize. The long and thankless job of measuring the diameter of the earth, no matter what the weather might be, away from home and friends, footsore and weary, still plodding on, fatigued but determined to know the mean diameter of the earth, even if it took a leg, measuring on for thousands of weary miles, and getting farther and farther away from home, and then forgetting, perhaps, how many thousand miles they had gone, and being compelled to go back and measure it over again while their noses got red and their fingers were benumbed. These, fellow-citizens, are a few of the sacrifices that science has made on our behalf in order that we may not grow up in ignorance. These are a few of the blessed privileges which, along with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, are ours – ours to anticipate, ours to participate, ours to precipitate.

Francisco Pizarro's Career

BORN IN SHAME AND REARED AMONG SWINE, HE CONQUERS FAME AND FORTUNE IN PERU WITH THE SWORD – HISTORY OF A SELF-MADE MAN

BILL NYE

Perhaps the history of the western hemisphere has never furnished a more wonderful example of the self-made man than may be found in the person of Francisco Pizarro, a gentleman who came to America about 1510, intending to grow up with the country.

Mr. Pizarro was born at Truxillo, Spain, about 1471. His father was a Spanish colonel of foot and his mother was a peasant girl who admired and respected the dashing colonel very much, but felt that she had scruples about marriage, and so, although years afterward Francisco tried his best to make a match between his father and mother, they were never married. It is said that this embittered his whole life. None but those who have experienced it can fully realize what it is to have a thankless parent.

Pizarro's mother's name was Estramadura. This was her maiden name. It was a name which seemed to harmonize well with her rich, pickled-olive complexion and so she retained it all her life. Her son did not have many early advantages, for he was neglected by his mother and allowed to grow up a swineherd, and it is even said that he was suckled by swine in his infancy while his giddy mother joined in the mad whirl at the skating-rink. We can hardly imagine anything more pitiable than the condition of a little child left to rustle for nourishment among the black-and-tan hogs of Spain while his father played old sledge on the frontier in the regular army and his mother stood on her Spanish head and wrote her cigar-box name in the atmosphere at the rink.

Poor little Pizarro had none of the modern advantages, therefore, and his education was extremely crude. The historian says that he grew up a bold, ignorant, and brutal man. He came to what was then called Spanish America at the age of 39 years and assisted Mr. Balboa in discovering the Pacific ocean. Having heard of the existence of Peru with all its wealth, Pizarro secured a band of self-made men like himself and lit out for that province for the purpose of conquering it if he liked it and bringing home some solid silver teapots and gold-lined card-receivers. He was engaged in gathering this line of goods and working them off on the pawnbroker for twenty-one years, during which time he did not get killed, but continued to enjoy a reasonable degree of health and strength.

Although Peru at that time was quite densely populated with an industrious and wealthy class of natives, Pizarro subdued her with 110 foot soldiers armed with old-fashioned muskets that had these full-blown barrels, with muzzles on them like the business end of a tuba horn, sixty-seven mounted men, and two toy cannon loaded with carpet-tacks. With no education, and, what was still harder to bear, the inner consciousness that his parents were plain, common, every-day people whose position in life would not advance him in the estimation of the Peruvians, he battled on. His efforts were crowned with success, insomuch that at the close of the year 1532 peace was declared and he could breathe the free air once more without fear of getting a bronze arrow-head mixed up with his kidneys when his back was turned. "For the first time in two years," says the historian, "Pizarro was able to take off his tin helmet and his sheet-iron corset at night when he lay down to rest, or undismayed to go forth bareheaded and wearing only his crinkled seersucker coat and a pair of sandals at the twilight hour and till midnight wander alone amid the famous guano groves of Peru."

Such is the history of a man who never even knew how to write his own name. He won fame for himself and great wealth without an education or a long, dark-blue lineage. Pizarro was like Job. You know, we sometimes sing:

Oh, Job, he was a fine young lad,
Sing glory hallelujah.
His heart was good but his blood was bad,
Sing glory hallelujah.

So Pizarro could not brag on his blood and his education was not classical. He could not write his name, though he tried faithfully for many years. Day after day during the campaign, and late into the night, when the yaller dogs of Lima came forth with their Peruvian bark, he would get his orderly sergeant to set him the copy:

"Paul may plant and Apollinaris water, but it is God that giveth the increase."

Then Pizarro would bring out his writing material and his tongue and try to write, but he never could do it. His was not a studious mind. It was more on the knock-down-and-drag-out order.

Pizarro was made a marquis in after years. He was also made a corpse. He acquired the latter position toward the close of his life. He, at one time, married the inca's daughter and founded a long line of grandees, marquises, and macaroni sculptors, whose names may be found on the covers of imported cigar boxes and in the topmost tier of the wrought-iron resorts in our best penitentiaries.

Pizarro lived a very busy life during the conquest, some days killing as many as seventy and eighty Peruvians between sun and sun. But death at last crooked his finger at the marquis and he slept. We all brag and blow our horn here for a few brief years, it is true, but when the grim reaper with his new and automatic twine-binder comes along he gathers us in; the weak and the strong, the ignorant and the educated, the plain and the beautiful, the young and the old, those who have just sniffed the sweet and dew-laden air of life's morning and those who are footsore and weary and waiting – all alike must bow low to the sickle that goes on cutting closer and closer to us even when we sleep.

Had Pizarro thought more about this matter, he would have been ahead to-day.

Bill Nye

HE DISCOVERS A MAN WITH AN IDEA – A NEW PLAN OF RUNNING A GOOD HOTEL – IMPROVEMENTS FOR WHICH PEOPLE PAY IN ADVANCE

The following circular from a hotel-man in Kansas is going about over the country, and it certainly deserves more than a passing notice. I change the name of the hotel and proprietor in order to avoid giving any free boom to a man who seems to be thoroughly self-reliant and able to take care of himself. The rest of the circular is accurately copied:

Kansas. —Dear Sir: Not having enough room under our present arrangements, and wishing to make the Roller-Towel House the recognized head-quarters for traveling men, we desire to enlarge the building. Not having the money on hand to do so, we make the following proposition: If you will advance us $5, to be used for the above purpose, we will deduct that amount from your bill when stopping with us. We feel assured that the traveling men appreciate our efforts to give them first-class accommodations, and as the above amount will be deducted from your bill when stopping with us, we hope for a favorable reply. Should you not visit our town again the loan will be repaid in cash.

    J. Krash Towel,
    Proprietor Roller-Towel House.

Here we have a man with a quiet, gentlemanly way, and yet withal a cool, level head, a man who knows when he needs more room and how best to go to work to remedy that defect. Mr. Towel sees that another row of sleeping rooms, cut low in the ceiling, is actually needed. In fancy he already sees these rooms added to his house. Each has a strip of hemp carpet in front of the bed and a cute little green shade over the window, a shade that falls down when we try to adjust it, filling the room with Kansas dust. In his dreams he sees each room fitted out with one of those smooth, deceptive beds that are all right until we begin to use them for sleeping purposes, a bed that the tall man lies diagonally across and groans through the livelong night.

Mr. Towel has made a rapid calculation on the buttered side of a menu, and ascertained that if one-half the traveling men in the United States would kindly advance $5, to be refunded in case they did not decide to make a tour to the Roller Towel House, and to be taken out of the bill in case they did, the amount so received would not only add a row of compressed hot-air bedrooms, with flexible soap and a delirious-looking glass, but also insure an electric button, which may or may not connect with the office, and over which said button the following epitaph could be erected:

One Ring for Bell Boy.

Two Rings for Porter.

Three Rings for Ice Water.

Four Rings for Rough on Rats.

Five Rings for Borrowed Money.

Six Rings for Fire.

Seven Rings for Hook and Ladder Company.

In fact, a man could have rings on his fingers and bell-boys on his toes all the time if he wanted to do so.

And yet there will be traveling-men who will receive this kind circular and still hang back. Constant contact with a cold, cruel world has made them cynical, and they will hesitate even after Mr. Towel has said that he will improve his house with the money, and even after he has assured us that we need not visit Kansas at all if we will advance the money. This shows that he is not altogether a heartless man. Mr. Towel may be poor, but he is not without consideration for the feelings of people who loan him money.

For my own part I fully believe that Mr. Towel would be willing to fit up his house and put matches in each room if traveling-men throughout the country would respond to this call for assistance.

But the trouble is that the traveling public expect a landlord to take all the risks and advance all the money. This makes the matter of hotel keeping a hazardous one. Mr. Towel asks the guests to become an interested party. Not that he in so many words agrees to divide the profits proportionately at the end of the year with the stockholders, but he is willing to make his hotel larger, and if food does not come up as fast as it goes down – in price, I mean – he will try to make all his guests feel perfectly comfortable while in his house.

Under favorable circumstances the Roller-Towel House would no doubt be thoroughly refitted and refurnished throughout. The little writing-table in each room would have its legs reglued, new wicks would be inserted in the kerosene lamps, the stairs would be dazzled over with soft soap, and the teeth in the comb down in the wash-room would be reset and filled. Numerous changes would be made in the corps de ballet also. The large-handed chambermaid, with the cow-catcher teeth and the red Brazil-nut of hair on the back of her head, would be sent down in the dining-room to recite that little rhetorical burst so often rendered by the elocutionist of the dining-room – the smart Aleckutionist, in the language of the poet, beginning: "Bfsteakprkstk'ncoldts," with a falling inflection that sticks its head into the bosom of the earth and gives its tail a tremolo movement in the air.

On receipt of $5 from each one of the traveling men of the union new hinges would be put into the slippery-elm towels; the pink soap would be revarnished; the different kinds of meat on the table will have tags on them, stating in plain words what kinds of meat they are so that guests will not be forced to take the word of servant or to rely on their own judgement; fresh vinegar with a sour taste to it, and without microbes, will be put in the cruets; the old and useless cockroaches will be discharged; and the latest and most approved adjuncts of hotel life will be adopted.