688 



Popular Science Monthly 



One Tree Grows Through Another 



IN a West Virginia forest nature has 

 played an unusual prank upon two 

 trees. One of them 

 is a maple and the 

 other an oak. Close 

 inspection reveals 

 the interesting fact 

 that the oak tree 

 has beyond doubt 

 grown up through 

 the maple. The oak 

 being the more rug- 

 ged of the two trees 

 is causing the maple 

 where its bifurcated 

 trunk joins, a few 

 feet above the 

 ground, to split. 



Asleep On the 

 Sleepers 



WHEN the f^rst 

 railways were 

 built in China it was 

 necessary, first to 

 force the coolies to 

 work upon them at 

 the point of the bay- 

 onet, and later, to 

 protect these coolies 

 by force of arms 

 from the outraged inhabitants of the 

 countryside through which the railways 

 ran. This feeling passed rapidly, how- 

 ever, as the Chinaman's phil- 

 osophical disposition asserted 

 itself. The accompanying 

 photograph illustrates 

 graphically the way 

 in which the Ce- 

 lestial has taken 

 the railway. 



The sop- ,j^^^, ,*i 



ori f i c 

 indi- 



An oak tree growing through a maple 



viduals are section hands on the Shang- 

 hai-Nanking Railway, and because the 

 little wooden pillows on which they and 

 their ancestors have 

 been resting their 

 heads for a good 

 many thousands of 

 years were almost 

 exactly similar— 

 both in height, cross- 

 section and hardness 

 — to the eighty- 

 pound "T" along 

 which they were 

 working, they were 

 not long in adapting 

 the convenient met- 

 als to the same pur- 

 pose. There is one 

 swift express which 

 speeds over the 

 straight and well- 

 ballasted track be- 

 tween Shanghai and 

 Nanking at the rate 

 of sixty miles an 

 hour, and in the first 

 days that the "noon- 

 day sleep" habit be- 

 came popular it was 

 no uncommon thing 

 to have two or 

 three decapitated coolies reported at 

 headquarters every evening. This finally 

 became so troublesome that orders were 

 sent out prohibiting the prac- 

 tice absolutely, and holding 

 the section bosses respon- 

 sible for the men in 

 their gangs, but even 

 to this day, 'casu- 

 al ties from 

 sleeping on 

 the track 

 sti 1 1 

 occur. 



The Chinaman's pillow is a hard wooden bench, the size and shape of rails. So wiij oUj-iidii 

 the coolies use these nice pillows the railroad laid down 



