What are earth sweats?

D7

by Robert B. Thomas

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Sept. 1, Monday — Labor Day. Conjunction of Venus and the Moon. Conjunction of Mercury and the Moon. Saskatchewan became a province of Canada, 1905.

Sept. 2, Tuesday — First day of Ramadan. Conjunction of Mars and the Moon. Denver, Colorado, received 4.2 inches of snow, 1961.

Sept. 3, Wednesday — Conjunction of Saturn and the Sun. First classes at U.S. Naval War College began, 1885. Actress Eileen Brennan born, 1935.

Sept. 4, Thursday — George Eastman received a patent for the roll-film camera, 1888. "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin died, 2006. One's blessings are not known until lost.

Sept. 5, Friday — Great Fire of London ended, 1666. Composer Johann Christian Bach born, 1735. USS Mount Vernon torpedoed by German submarine, 1918.

Sept. 6, Saturday — On "Yellow Day," forest fires in Michigan caused a luminous yellow haze throughout the Northeast, 1881.

Sept. 7, Sunday — Grandparents Day. First Quarter Moon. Jupiter stationary. The Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN) made its debut, 1979.

Thunderstones

Q: Have you heard of "earth sweats" or "thunderstones"?

— G. U., Gallup, N.Mex.

A: Earth sweats occur when the humidity is on the rise, and wood, porcelain, metal, and even stone may start to exude moisture. These "earth sweats" have come to be known as rain predictors. Wooden beams and furniture, china dishes, stone, and brick all may show beads of moisture when rain is near. Oiled wood, especially, such as a salad bowl or a weaving loom with linseed oil on it, sweats easily.

Thunderstones, on the other hand, were believed by the ancients to be small meteorites or stones swept up and then dropped by violent storms. They were reputed to have magical properties and were sometimes worn as talismans. Wearers considered themselves especially protected from lightning.

We all scream for ice cream

Q: Any suggestions for family activities during the Labour Day holiday?

— D.E., Chelsea, Mich.

A: If your children are young, spend a lazy day relaxing with them in a rope hammock and reading aloud from your favorite adventure stories. Go back to the books you cherished as a child, or make up your own tales from bits of family history and folklore. Make up an adventure or tall tale that includes your child as the hero.

Then get out that ancient, hand-cranked ice cream maker and splurge on some fresh cream and the ripest fruits from the farm stand down the road. Summer is the time for ice cream, as even our earliest presidential families have known. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Dolley Madison often served ice cream to their guests.

In 1843, Mrs. Nancy Johnson patented the hand-cranked ice cream freezer, an innovative time-saver in those days. Jacob Fussell took the process a step further, opening the first commercial ice cream factory in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1851. Ice cream itself probably derives from the flavoured "water ices" of 17th-century Italy. English colonists brought the sweet, frozen delicacy to America, where early settlers made ice cream in pewter bowls set in ice and salt.

Pecksniffian Philadelphia

Q: Can you find that famous quote from H. L. Mencken about Philadelphia?

— O.T., Philadelphia, Pa.

A: We can, and then we'll answer your second (as yet unasked) question, too. Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956) was an American editor and critic. We assume that the quote that you are referring to is from his work "The American Language" (1921), where he concludes that "Philadelphia is the most pecksniffian of American cities, and thus probably leads the world."

Now for the second question, pecksniffian comes from Seth Pecksniff, a character in Charles Dickens's novel "Martin Chuzzlewit" (1843). Pecksniff is sanctimonious and hypocritically benevolent — we'll leave it to you to decide why Mencken saw Philadelphia in that light. Mencken was born and educated in Baltimore, and then began a career in journalism there.

Today, Mencken remains one of the most quoted writers of his time. He was particularly cutting and cynical on the subjects of love and matrimony. He defined love as "a state of perceptual anesthesia;" another of his definitions of love was "the delusion that one woman differs from another." He believed that it was "more blessed to give than receive; for example, wedding presents." But he pretended a sympathy for women, saying, "Men have a much better time of it than women; for one thing, they marry later; for another thing, they die earlier." Mencken once vowed that, "If I ever marry, it will be on a sudden impulse, as a man shoots himself."

The Old Farmer's Almanac Weekly Riddle

Q: What fish likes to catch a tan?

A: A sunfish

Send your questions to: Ask The Old Farmer's Almanac, P.O. Box 520, Dublin, NH 03444. Visit our "Question of the Day" section at Almanac.com for more advice.