12. The other half of the strand 8 is now wound around the other half

strand 7 in the same way. After each pair of strands has been treated in this manner, the ends are cut off at 12, leaving them about four inches long. After a few days’ wear they will all draw into the body of the rope or wear off, so that the locality of the splice can scarcely be detected.] Why Do We Go to Sleep? First, of course, we sleep to rest our body and brain. During our waking hours many, if not all, parts of our bodies are active all the time, and with every movement we exhaust or spend some of our strength. Take the case of your arm, for instance. You may be able to move it up and down fifty or a hundred or more times without getting tired, according to how strong you are, but sooner or later you will not be able to move it any more--it is tired--the life has all gone out of it and it needs rest, in order that it may become strong again. Every time you move your arm you destroy certain parts of its tissues, which can only be replaced during rest. Every activity of your body has the same experience, and the constant work of the brain in directing the various movements and activities of the body, tires it out too. As soon as this condition occurs, the brain tells the other parts of the body that it is time to rest, and even if we try to keep awake and go on with our work or play, or whatever it is we are doing, we find sooner or later that it is impossible. If we persist we fall asleep wherever we happen to be. It is not necessary for all parts of the body to be tired before we sleep. One part alone may be so affected by what it has been doing that it alone causes us to fall asleep. Sometimes the eyes become so tired, while we are looking at the pictures in a book or reading, for instance, that we fall off to sleep quickly. It is perhaps easier to bring on sleep by making the eyes tired than in any other way. That is why so many people read themselves to sleep. It is such a gradual passing into unconsciousness that you can hardly ever tell where you left off reading. It is said that when we are awake our bodies are continually planning for the time when we shall need sleep and are continually making some little germ which is carried to the brain as soon as made, and when there are a sufficient number of these little germs piled up in the brain, we go to sleep. The process of sleeping then destroys these germs, and when they are destroyed we again wake up. Why Do We Wake Up in the Morning? To answer this we must go back to the answer to the question, “What makes us go to sleep?” We go to sleep in order to secure the rest which our body and brain need to build up the parts which have been destroyed during our active work or play. We wake up naturally when we have had sufficient rest. We wake up naturally, however, only when the destroyed parts of the body have been replaced. Other things may waken us--a noise of any kind, loud or slight, a startling dream or a moving thing that disturbs our sleep--according to how fully we are asleep. It is said that sometimes only parts of the body are asleep; that we are not always all asleep when we appear to sleep, and that we dream because some part of the body is awake or active. This is probably true. Now then, when all of anyone of us is sleepy, we go into what is called a deep sleep and at such times only something out of the ordinary would awaken us. Gradually, however, various parts of the body become rested and they are said to wake up, and finally when all of us is rested, we naturally wake up all over. If you are healthy and sleep naturally, in a place where you cannot be disturbed by noises or movements of others, you should be “wide awake” when your eyes open and be ready to get up at once. If you feel like turning over for another snooze, when it is time to get up, you did not go to bed as early as you should have done, or else some part of you did not get the required amount of sleep it should have had. Where Are We When Asleep? We are just where we lie. It seems to us, of course, because of our dreams when we are asleep that we are away off some place else. Often when we wake up we wonder for a minute or two where we are, as everything seems so strange to us, and it takes a minute or so for us to remember that we are in our own bed, if that is where we went to sleep. This is because of the dreams we have while asleep. In past times the uncivilized savages in various parts of the earth believed that when any of them went to sleep that the real person so asleep actually went away, leaving the body behind; in other words, that the soul went traveling. They thought this because it was the only explanation they could think of for the dreams they had, since almost invariably the dream was about some other place. Why Does It Seem When We Have Slept All Night That We Have Been Asleep Only a Minute? This is because all our ideas of passage of time are based on our conscious periods. When we are asleep we are unconscious. It is the same as if time did not pass, and when we wake up the tendency is to start in where we left off. We have learned by experience that when we go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning that much time has passed and this unconscious knowledge keeps us from thinking always that we have been asleep but a minute. But if you drop asleep in the day time, no matter how long you sleep, you wake up thinking that you have been asleep only a minute, and sometimes it is difficult to convince yourself that you have been asleep at all. Sometimes after being asleep for hours, your first waking thought is a continuation of what your mind was on when you went to sleep. The reason for this, as stated above, is that we cannot keep track of passing time when we are asleep, because we are perfectly unconscious. Why Should We Not Sleep With the Moon Shining On Us? There is no harm in letting the moon shine on us while we are asleep. This is one of the queer superstitions that has developed in the world. A great many people think that something terrible will happen if the moon is allowed to shine into the room where they are asleep. Not so many believe this as used to do so, thanks to the more enlightened condition of things in the world. To prove to yourself that no harm can come to you through the moon shining into your bedroom or upon you as you are asleep, you have only to remember that a great many men and very many more animals sleep out under the sky every night and that the moon must shine on them while they are asleep. As a matter of fact, people who sleep out under the open sky are generally in possession of more rugged health than people who sleep in beds in closed rooms. So it is rather better to let the moon shine on you while asleep than not. This belief probably started with some one who had trouble in going to sleep with the moon shining on him, because the light of the moon might have a tendency to keep him awake. It is easier to go to sleep in a dark room than in one that is lighted, because when there is no light there is less about you to keep you awake. What Makes Us Dream? Dreams originate in the brain. The brain has many parts and some parts of it may be asleep while others are not. If all parts of the brain are actually asleep, it is said there can be no dreams. We have dreams about things which seem very natural while we are having them, and which we know would be impossible if we were wholly awake, because those parts of the brain which control the other parts are probably asleep while the dream is taking place, and it is then that we have those fantastic and highly imaginative dreams, for the brain is not under control in every sense. We used to believe that dreams have no purpose, just as now we know that they have no meaning. But it has been discovered that dreams have a purpose in that they protect our sleep. You see, every dream is started by some disturbance or excitement of the body or mind. Something may be pressing or touching us while we sleep, or a strange sound may start a dream, or perhaps it is some uncomfortable position in which we are lying or trouble in the stomach on account of eating something we should not. Whatever it may be, those things wake up some part of the brain, because if all parts of the brain were asleep, we could not feel or hear anything. Any such disturbance or excitement would naturally excite the whole brain and wake us up completely if it were not for dreams. The dream takes care of this and enables the rest of the body and brain to sleep while one or more parts of the brain are disturbed and even perhaps awake. We may perhaps have become uncovered in some way. This would produce a cold feeling and might wake a part of the brain and cause a dream about skating or some other winter amusement or experience, or even perhaps one about falling through the ice, and still we might not be uncovered so much that it would make any great difference. The dream comes and we go on with our sleep without waking up, whereas if it were not for the dream we would awaken. In other words, dreams are just another wise provision of nature which enables us to go right on and get the rest we need, even if our digestion is out of order, or some part of our brain is disturbed through something we read about, or were told of, or we thought of while still awake. Why Do We Know We Have Dreamed When We Wake Up? Because we remember some of our dreams. Sometimes we do not remember the dreams we dreamed. This is just like what happens when we are awake. We remember some things and forget others. Dreams are a sort of safety valve in our sleep. We dream because not all of our brain is asleep at the time and it is a wise provision of nature that permits the waking part of the brain to go on working without disturbing the sleep of the other parts of the brain. If a large part of the brain is awake and engaged in making the dream, we are very apt to remember the dream; but when we dream and cannot remember what the dream was, it is because only a very small portion of the brain was awake and making a dream. What Causes Nightmare? A nightmare is a dream of what we might call a vigorous kind. A nightmare is caused by a feeling of intense fear, horror, anxiety or the inability to escape from some great danger. A nightmare is the result of either an irregular flow of blood to the brain or by a stomach that is not in proper condition. The name for this kind of a dream comes from the words night and mare. The latter word in one of its several meanings indicates an incubus or evil vision, and a dream of an evil vision involving fear or horror came to be termed a mare. Since they occurred generally at night, since most people sleep at night, they became known as nightmares. Nightmares are more common to children than grown-up people because children are more apt to have an uneven flow of blood to the brain and also are more apt to eat the things which put the stomach in a state of unrest which causes nightmares. Grown-up people are more likely to have learned to avoid the abuses of the stomach which are apt to produce nightmares. What Are Ghosts? The idea of ghosts is the result of a mistake of the brain or an attempt to account for something of which we see the results, but have no actual knowledge. There are no ghosts. There are many forces at work in the world of which we know nothing as yet. Many of the wonderful things that occur in the world are as yet mysteries to the mind of man. Every little while man discovers one of these new forces, and then he is able to understand many things plainly which were up to then surrounded with mystery and in the minds of superstitious people attributed to spirits or ghosts. Long before we understood as much as we do now of the workings of electricity (and they say we know only a little of its wonders as yet) many of the natural wonders produced by electricity were attributed to ghosts. Most of the marvelous tales of the wonders performed by and visits from ghosts are the result of disturbances of the brain in the people who think they see the ghosts and the results of their work. A creature without imagination does not pretend to see or believe in ghosts. Man is the only animal which possesses the ability to imagine things and so the ghosts we hear about are the creatures of the disturbed brains of men. Generally in the ghost stories we hear of, the ghost is described as wearing clothes--usually white. A bed sheet thrown over the foot of the bed may appear to a half-awake person as the outline of the figure of a ghost and to one of a highly imaginative temperament without the courage of investigation, become forever a real ghost. Usually what is supposed to be a ghost is only a creation of the mind--a vision such as we can develop during a dream--oftentimes, however, what you look at when you think you see a ghost is an actual something such as the sheet referred to, but which takes the form of the ghost in the brain of the person who is looking at it through eyes that really see it, but out of a brain that for the moment at least is far off its balance. Why Do Girls Like Dolls? Girls like dolls because they come into the world for the purpose of becoming mothers and the love which they display for dolls is the mother instinct which begins to show itself early in life. To the little girl the doll is a make-believe child. It satisfies her as long as there are no real babies to take its place, but any little girl will drop her dollie if she is given an opportunity to play at dolls with a real live baby instead. This is a very interesting fact in connection with the human race. Boys sometimes play with dolls, but not so often, and any kind of a boy will give up playing with a doll as soon as a toy engine or some other boy’s toy appears for him. A boy has certain mannish instincts which a girl has not. We have many other instincts besides the instinct of parenthood and each of them has its origin in some certain kind of feeling which is born within us and is capable of development along interesting lines. What Makes the Works of a Watch Go? A watch like any other machine which we have, only goes when power is applied in some form or another. In the case of a watch it is a spring. A spring is an elastic body, such as a strip of steel, as in the case of the watch, coiled spirally which, when bent or forced out of its natural state, has the power of recovering its shape again by virtue of its elastic power. The natural state of a watch spring is to be open flat and spread out to its full length. When you wind a watch you coil this spring, i.e., you bend it out of its natural shape. As soon as you stop winding the spring begins to uncoil itself, trying to get back to its natural shape, and in doing so makes the wheels of the watch which operate the hands go round. The spring then, or rather its elasticity, which always makes an effort to get back to its natural state, is the power which makes the watch go. Men who make watches arrange the spring and the other machinery in the watch in such a way that it will uncoil itself only at a certain rate of speed. Sooner or later the spring loses its elasticity and then its power to make the watch go. What Makes a Hot Box? When you put oil on the axle, however, the oil fills up the hollows between the little irregular bumps on both the axle and the hub, and makes them both smooth--almost perfectly so. This reduces the friction and keeps the axle and hub from becoming hot and expanding. The less friction that is developed, the more easily the wheel will turn. [Illustration] The Story in a Moving Picture How Are Moving Pictures Made? To begin at the beginning, we must start with the negative stock, or film on which the pictures are taken. This material is very much like the films you buy for the ordinary snap-shot camera, slightly heavier and of more durable quality, to stand the wear and tear of passing through the picture camera and the projecting machine used in exhibition. This film is 1³⁄₈ inches wide and comes in rolls of 200 feet in length. This negative stock has to be carefully perforated, making the holes necessary to conduct the film by aid of sprockets through the camera and the projectoscope. To still further understand this explanation, see illustrations of the negative stock. Having prepared the film in the dark room, we can load the camera in the dark room and proceed to take the picture. In taking an industrial or travelogue picture, after the camera is in readiness, is not so much of an undertaking as taking a picture of a drama or comedy, wherein a plot and players are concerned. The travelogue or industrial pictures are simply photography, with the additional manipulation of panoraming or turning the camera, which requires an expert knowledge, acquired from experience and years of study. There is a distinction and a big difference between the ordinary photographer and the moving picture photographer, who is generally known as a “camera-man.” A photographer, therefore, though of vast experience, cannot step into a “camera-man’s” place and expect to “make good.” The latter has to depend entirely upon his special experience and judgment as to light and distance, focusing and general physical conditions of the moving-picture camera, which is affected by static and other electrical peculiarities of the atmosphere, to be avoided by him. These, and many other points, are convincing evidence that the moving-picture camera is entirely different from an ordinary photographic camera. A moving-picture camera and tripod weigh from fifty to one hundred pounds. There are two styles of cameras, one which takes a single film and one which takes two films at once, and each lens of the double camera must be equally well focused and every feature to be depicted must be brought within the focus, which generally occupies a radius of 8 feet in width by 10 feet in height. [Illustration: SCENES FROM “OFFICER KATE.”] [Illustration: RAW NEGATIVE STOCK. PERFORATED NEGATIVE STOCK. Exact size of a Motion Picture Film] When it comes to taking a photo-play, a drama or comedy, different conditions of a varied nature have to be contended with. To proceed intelligently in taking a photo-play, a scenario or manuscript is essential. It must be prefaced with a well-written synopsis of the story involved, cast of characters, scenes to be enacted and a list of properties required in the scenes. The director, or producer, of the play, being furnished with such a guide, proceeds to select the actors and actresses (called players) suitable for the parts and the filling of the cast. This being accomplished, he insists that each one of the players read the scenario in order to be familiar with his or her part and understand the whole play before going into the picture. The director instructs them as to the costumes fitting the parts and then confers with the costumer concerning the furnishing of proper dress for each one of the players. The director is ready to go on with the performance of the play, and tells his cast to appear for rehearsal at a set hour. At that time he puts them through a thorough course of training or rehearsal, to “get over” and register the meaning of each thought which is to be expressed by their actions. Sometimes a scene is rehearsed four to six hours before it is photographed. A one-reel play is generally 1000 feet in length, and it is very important that the director, if he has twenty scenes, for instance, to introduce within that 1000 feet, to time the scenes to the length of his film; that is, if he has twenty scenes within one thousand feet, each of the twenty scenes must not average more than one minute each. If one should happen to be more than one minute, then he has to condense another scene less than one minute, in order to bring all within the twenty minutes or 1000 feet. [Illustration: STAGING A MOTION PICTURE IN A STUDIO REHEARSING SCENE IN STUDIO] The Size of Each Picture on the Film. So you can see from this that it needs very careful rehearsal and nice calculation to bring a well-acted and convincing play within so short a time, to tell the whole story intelligently. Having done all this, the director is ready to have the “camera-man” do his part of the work. He draws his lines within the range of the camera, which do not exceed eight or ten feet in the foreground. This is another point to be considered on the part of the director, because all the action has to be carried out within the eight feet of space, which is really confined to that much stage width. Here again is where the camera-man has to watch very carefully, not only the workings of his camera, but the players; always alert that they are in the picture, and assisting the director by his observations. The size of each picture as taken on the film is ³⁄₄ by 1 inch. It is magnified ten thousand times its actual size when we see it on the screen in a place of exhibition. A full reel of 1000 feet shows 16,000 photographs on the screen during the twenty minutes it consumes in its showing. The future of moving pictures is no longer a matter of speculation. The business is an established one, and its further developments are only matters of time. The possibilities and uses of the animated art are unlimited. Already it is felt in educational, religious, scientific, and industrial affairs. Their influence in matters of sanitation and all civic improvements, construction and mechanics, is invaluable. As a medium of wholesome entertainment and solid instruction it is unsurpassed. These are merely suggestions of a few phases of its utility and it is only a natural conclusion that it will be so far-reaching in its uplift that it will surpass the expectations of the most sanguine. [Illustration: THE DEVELOPING ROOM.] To develop, tint and clear the films, large tanks of wood or soapstone are used. The films, which are wound upon the wooden frames, or racks, are dipped into these vats, filled with the necessary chemicals and liquids. The films being wound on frames enables the developers to examine them without handling them. The tinting is done by similar methods to give the necessary tint, coloring in red, sepia, blue, green or yellow, imparting to them the effect of night, sunlight or evening, whichever the case may be. The films are finally cleared, to wash them clear of any extraneous chemicals or matter which might streak or scratch the films, and avoid any objectionable matter that might mar their appearance when shown on the screen or in the process of handling. ~EACH PICTURE IS FIRST EXHIBITED AT THE STUDIO~ As soon as convenient after a film is finished it is taken to the exhibition rooms, at the studio, where it is thrown onto the screen. It is reviewed first by the heads of the departments and the directors, and later by players and all those interested in it. The projectoscopes or moving-picture machines are run by motor, presided over by licensed operators, who are kept on the job continually. These exhibition rooms are called, in the parlance of the studios, “knocklodeums,” for here is where everything is criticised. Players’ acting and fitness are judged by their appearance and conduct on the screen and decision given as to their qualifications. The quality of the photography, developing and the picture as a finished production is here determined by the heads of the concern. [Illustration: DRYING ROOM.] ~THE BOARD OF CENSORS PASSES ON EVERY PICTURE~ Every picture before it is released for exhibition must be passed upon by the Board of Censors. It is run upon the screen and thoroughly inspected, criticised, and every point involved thoroughly weighed as to its effect upon the mind of the general public. If, in their estimation, it is found objectionable in any particular, the objectionable parts are eliminated, and if considered entirely harmful, in its sentiments or influence, the picture is condemned. The majority rules in the board’s judgment, although it is by no means infallible in its decision. This board is composed of about sixty persons, who are appointed by the government for their general qualifications, their interest in the general welfare of the public, keenness as to morals and uplift of the people at large. They do not receive salaries; their services are _pro bono publico_. [Illustration: TAKING A MILITARY SCENE OUTDOORS.] THE STORY IN “PIGS IS PIGS” [Illustration: “PIGS IS PIGS.”] [Illustration: VITAGRAPH FAMOUS AUTHORS’ SERIES BY ELLIS PARKER BUTLER. _You Have Seen Pigs, but Never Such Pigs as These. Two of Them Become Eight Hundred Pigs so Rapidly, They Set Bunny Daffy and Almost Ruin the Express Business._ _Director_--GEORGE D. BAKER. _Author_--ELLIS PARKER BUTLER. CAST. _Flannery, an Express Agent_ JOHN BUNNY _Mr. Morehouse_ ETIENNE GIRARDOT _Clerk in Complaint Dept._ COURTLAND VAN DEUSEN _Head of Claims Dept._ WILLIAM SHEA _Mr. Morgan, Head of Tariff Dept._ ALBERT ROCCARDI _President of Company_ ANDERS RANDOLF _Prof. Gordon_ GEORGE STEVENS After a strenuous argument with Flannery, the local Express Agent, Mr. Morehouse refuses to pay the 30c charges on each of two guinea pigs shipped him, claiming they are pets and subject to the 25c rate. Flannery replies, “Pigs is pigs and I’m blame sure them animals is pigs, not pets, and the rule says, ‘30c each.’” Mr. Morehouse writes many times to the Express Company, claiming guinea-pigs are not common pigs, and each time is referred to a different department. Flannery receives a note from the Tariff Department inquiring as to condition of consignment, to which he replies, “There are eight now! All good eaters. Paid out two dollars for cabbage so far.” The matter finally reaches the President, who writes a friend, a Zoological Professor. Unfortunately that gentleman is in South Africa, causing a delay of many months, during which time the pigs increase to 160. At last word is received from the learned man proving that guinea-pigs are not common pigs. Flannery is then ordered to collect 25c each for two guinea-pigs and deliver the entire lot to consignee. There are now 800 and Flannery is horrified to find Morehouse has moved to parts unknown. He is about to give up in despair when the company orders him to forward the entire collection to the Main Office, to be disposed of as unclaimed property, in accordance with the general rule.] [Illustration: BUNNY FEEDING THE PIGS.] [Illustration] Who Made the First Moving Pictures? ~THE FIRST MOVING PICTURE CAMERA~ The first device which produced the motion-picture effect was nothing but a scientific toy. The idea is almost as old as pictures themselves. This toy we speak of was called a zoetrope. It consisted of a whirling cylinder having many slits in the outside through which you could see by looking into the cylinder a picture opposite each slit. The pictures were drawn by hand and the artist aimed to place the pictures within the cylinder in such order that each succeeding one would represent the next successive motion of any moving object in making a movement as near as he could draw it; when the cylinder was whirled with the slits on a level with the eye, the effect produced was of a continuous moving picture. A great many devices were produced as a result of this toy for presenting the effect of pictures so arranged, but until photography was invented no way was found for making the pictures to be viewed except such as were drawn by artists. But when photography was developed it was possible to get actual successive photographs. The greatest difficulty was found in taking photographs in such quick succession that all of the motions in the moving object were taken without any skipping. This difficulty was for the first time successfully overcome by Muybridge in 1877. He arranged a row of twenty-four cameras with string trigger shutters, the string of each shutter being stretched across a race track. A moving horse approaching down the track broke the strings as he came to them, thus operating each of the cameras in turn in quick succession and securing a series of pictures of the moving horse within a very short time. There were twenty-four pictures to this film when reproduced in the devices then known for projecting pictures, and this method required one camera for each section of the picture produced. Of course, the length of the series was thus limited greatly. About ten years later Le Prince arranged what he called a multiple camera. This was as a matter of fact a battery of sixteen automatically reloading cameras in which strips of film were used. Each of the sixteen cameras took a picture in turn and then automatically brought another strip of the film into position, so that camera number one took the seventeenth picture, the twenty-third, the forty-ninth, etc., and each of the other cameras took their various pictures in turn. With this camera a film of any required length could be produced. The Le Prince camera was therefore the real parent from which the modern motion-picture camera sprang. The first really modern motion-picture camera was built in a single case with a battery of sixteen separate lenses and sixteen shutters. These were operated by turning a crank. The pictures were taken on four strips of film. When the crank was turned the exposure was made to each of the sixteen lenses in succession, and when the series was completed the films were cut apart and pasted together in a single strip of film, the pictures themselves being arranged in the proper order. The principal development of this camera, as found in the present method of making motion pictures, is the invention of the flexible film negatives; the transparent support for the print which permits the pictures to be projected in enlarged form upon a screen; and the system of holes in the margin of the film by which the film is held in perfect alignment for projecting the pictures. But a few years ago, then, the motion picture was a child’s toy. To-day it forms the basis for not only a very large and profitable business for many people, but a source of amusement and education to millions of people at reasonable prices. To-day the motion-picture business is regarded as one of the world’s greatest industries. No corner of the world is so far remote but the motion-picture man finds his way there, either as an exhibitor or as a producer. Nothing happens in the world to-day but the motion-picture man with his camera is on the job if it is a happening that can be preserved in motion pictures and worthy of that. The dethronement of kings and the inaugurations of presidents are all alike to him. If there is a war, he is found in all parts of the field, and is the first to see the parade when there is a peace jubilee. Disasters, horrors, heroes and criminals pass before his lens and he gives us a moving panorama of everything that is interesting, in nature, in real life, and in fiction. Taking Motion Pictures a Simple Operation. Motion-picture photography is mechanically simple and the projection of the pictures on the screen was made possible by the improvement in dry plates which made instantaneous photography successful, together with the invention of the process of using celluloid films for negatives. Motion pictures consist of a series of photographs made rapidly and then projected rapidly on the screen. In this way one picture follows another so quickly that the change from one picture to another is not noticed and the movements and actions of the persons or things photographed are reproduced in a life-like manner. Is the Hand Quicker Than the Eye? There is no question that the hand can be moved so quickly that the eye cannot detect the movement. This is proved by the motion picture when projected on the screen. In moving pictures the quickness of the machine deceives the eye and the transition from one picture to another is done so rapidly that the change is not seen and the apparent movement is continuous and unbroken. The film made by the motion picture is a “negative” in which the colors are reversed, the blacks being white and the whites black, exactly as in still photography. The film used in the projection machine is a “positive,” in which the lights and shadows have their proper values. The principle and process is exactly the same as in making lantern slides and window transparencies. Does the Film Move Continuously? In making the negative for the motion picture the film does not move forward regularly, but it goes by jumps. It is absolutely still at the moment of exposure. The same is true in projecting the picture on the screen. In most projection machines the film is stationary three times as long as it is in motion, though in some machines the proportion is one in six. In the taking of the picture, the film is really stationary one-half of the time. As pictures are usually projected at the rate of fourteen or sixteen to the second, this means that each separate picture appears on the screen three-fourths of one-sixteenth of a second, or three-sixty-fourths of a second, and How Are Freak Pictures Made? Freak pictures are usually the result of clever manipulation of the camera or the film. Articles or individuals can be made to instantly disappear by stopping the camera while the article is removed or the person walks off the stage, the other characters holding their pose until the camera is again put in motion. In some films in which a person is thrown from a height or is apparently crushed under a steam roller the effect is gained by the live person walking away after the camera is stopped and a dummy substituted to undergo the death penalty. By projecting the picture at a faster rate than it was taken, excruciatingly comic scenes are sometimes devised. An automobile going ten miles an hour, by speeding up the projection machine, may be made to apparently move at a hundred miles an hour, and by increasing in the same way the apparent speed of persons dodging the demoniac auto exceedingly ludicrous effects are had. By mechanical means in combining two or more negatives into one positive a man can be shown fencing with himself or even cutting his own head off. Pictures by courtesy of the Vitagraph Company. [Illustration: HOW RUBBER TIRES ARE MADE WASH ROOM.[4]] [4] These and the following Pictures by courtesy of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. The Story in a Ball of Rubber How Crude Rubber Is Treated. _Washing._--When the crude rubber arrives at the factory of the rubber manufacturer, it is generally stored in bins in dark and fairly cool store-rooms, where it is kept until ready to be used. The rubber passes directly from the storage bins to the wash-room, where it is cut up into small pieces, put into large vats of warmed water and allowed to soak, in order to soften it sufficiently to be broken down in the machines. It is then fed into a cracker, a machine consisting of two rolls with projections on their surfaces shaped like little pyramids, the two rolls revolving with a differential, one going considerably faster than the other, and being adjustable, so that they can work close together or with some distance between them. The rubber is fed between these rolls and broken down into a coarse, spongy mass. Water flows on to the rubber during the process, bringing down sand, dirt, bark, and the many other foreign materials which come mixed with the rubber. The rubber is put through this machine a number of times, until it is worked into a uniform condition. Some of the rubbers, like the Ceylons and Paras, will sheet out into a coarse sheet by being put through this machine; others, like the majority of the African rubbers, will fall apart and come down in chunks and have to be fed into the machine with a shovel. [Illustration: PREPARING CRUDE RUBBER FOR MAKING TIRES CALENDER ROOM.] After the rubber is broken down sufficiently in the cracker, it is next put through a washing machine, which is built very similar to the cracking machine, except that the rolls are grooved or rifled, so that their action is not so severe on the rubber. A large quantity of water is kept constantly running over this machine while the rubber is being put through, and the rolls work very close together, so that the rubber is finely ground and run out into a thin and comparatively smooth sheet, allowing the water flowing between the rolls to take out practically all of the foreign matter that remains. The rubber is run through this machine a number of times until the experienced inspectors in charge are satisfied that it is thoroughly washed. Some types of rubber, such as Manicoba, which have large quantities of sand in them, are washed in a special form of washing machine known as the beater washer. This is an endless, oval-shaped trough with a fast-revolving paddle-wheel. In this machine the rubber is submerged in water, after being broken down in the cracker, and the sand is literally knocked out of it by the paddle-wheel. The sand drops to the bottom of the machine, where if is drained off, while the rubber floats to the top and is there gathered and then put through a regular washing machine for the final sheeting out. _Drying._--From the wash-room the rubber goes to the dry-room. Before the rubber can be used in any articles of commercial value, it must be thoroughly dried, as any moisture in the stock would turn to steam during the vulcanizing process and cause blisters or blow-holes to form in the goods. There are two ways in which rubber is usually dried. The method mostly used, and which is generally practiced with all the better grades of gums, is to hang the washed strips on horizontal poles and space them in aisles, so that air can freely circulate all around the surface of the rubber, the dry-room being kept at a constant temperature. To properly dry the rubbers by this method takes from four to six weeks. The other method of drying is by means of a vacuum-drier. Low-grade rubbers which have a comparatively large percentage of resin in their composition cannot bear their own weight when hung on horizontal poles, but drop off and stick in piles on the floor. Hence, these rubbers have to be dried in a peculiar manner. They are laid in trays which are placed into a large air-tight receptacle. The air is then withdrawn from this receptacle and the interior heated by means of steam coils. This allows the water to be evaporated off from the rubber at a considerably lower temperature than that at which water boils under atmospheric pressure, and at such a low temperature, and in such a short time, that the rubber is not affected. By this process these rubbers can be dried in a few hours. _Mixing._--After the rubber has been thoroughly dried, it is ready to be mixed in proper proportions with the various ingredients which are used in rubber compounding, to give the desired quality of rubbers for the various products for which they are intended. In order that rubber shall vulcanize, it is necessary to mix with it a certain proportion of sulphur, vulcanizing, or curing, as it is sometimes called, being merely the changing of a physical mixture of rubber and sulphur into a chemical compound of these ingredients, by the application of heat. Besides sulphur, some of the more important ingredients used in compounding rubber are: _Zinc oxide._--This toughens the rubber and increases its wearing properties and tensile strength. _Barium sulphate._--This stiffens the rubber and adds weight, so reducing the cost. _Lithopones._--This whitens the stock and makes it soft, and is used extensively in druggists’ sundries. _Antimony sulphide._--This makes the stock red and is a preservative against oxidation. _Litharge._--This has the same action as antimony sulphide, but makes the stock black. _White lead._--This hastens the cure and is extensively used in gray and black stocks, and is a good filler or weight adder. _Magnesia oxide and carbonate._--These are used as fillers for white stocks. _Oxide of iron._--Used for coloring red and yellow stocks. _Lime_ (unslacked).--This hastens vulcanization and chemically removes any water left in the rubber. _Whiting._--This is used only as a cheap filler to increase quantity and lower cost. _Aluminum silicate._--This is used chiefly as a filler. There are also used in compounding what are known as the various substitutes. These are chiefly linseed oil products and mineral hydrocarbons which are more or less elastic, and act somewhat as a flux. Why Don’t We Use Pure Rubber? There seems to be a general impression that the various ingredients which are mixed with rubber are put into the compounds merely to cheapen the product and to lower the grade of the material. This is true in many cases, such as the general line of molded goods, rubber heels, bicycle grips, automobile bumpers, etc., but in many cases, such as tires, packing, belting, etc., these ingredients are added to toughen the gum, increase its wearing qualities, to make it indestructible when subjected to heat, or to make it soft and yielding so that it can be forced into fabric, etc. ~PROCESS NECESSARY TO MAKING RUBBER GOODS~ In the general process of manufacture the sheeted rubber is sent directly from the dry-room to the compound-room, where the various ingredients are weighed out into proper proportions along with the rubber to make up a batch, and placed in receptacles ready to be mixed. The batch is then sent into the mill-room to be mixed into a uniform pasty mass, which is the characteristic uncured, or so-called green, rubber compound. The mixing is done in the mill. This is a very heavy machine, constructed similarly to a cracker and a washer except that it is much larger and heavier, and the rolls are perfectly smooth and run closer together. No water at all is used on the batch during the mixing. There are steam and cold water connections to the mills which are connected with hollow spaces inside the rolls, so that the latter can be kept at any temperature desired. The general process of mixing is as follows: First the rubber portion of the batch is thrown into the mill and is worked and warmed up until it takes on a very sticky and plastic consistency. When it has arrived at a certain stage of plasticity, the various compounds in the batch, which are always in the form of very fine powders, are thrown in the mill, being worked by the rolls into the rubber. The compounds are generally thrown on, a small amount at a time, until they are all taken up by the rubber. The batch is then allowed to go through and through the mill, over and over again, until the mixture is absolutely uniform throughout the whole mass. The consistency of the rubber, during this operation, is such that the batch can be made endless around one of the rolls of the mill, so that it is constantly feeding itself between the rolls. After the batch is properly mixed, it is cut off the rolls in sheets and rolled up and sent to the green-stock store-room. In this store-room the compounded, uncured gums are kept in different bins, according to the nature of the compound, and are there allowed to season a certain length of time, after which they are delivered to the various departments of the factory in which they are going to be used. Another form in which rubber is used is the so-called Rubber-Cement. Rubber or any of its compounds are readily soluble in naphtha. In this process, the compounds, after being milled, are chewed up and washed in specially constructed cement-mills and there mixed with a certain proportion of naphtha which gives a thick solution. _Spreading and calendering._--Rubber which is used for the general line of molded goods, solid tires, some kinds of tubing, etc., goes directly to the various departments from the green-stock store-room, while rubber used for boots and shoes, waterproof fabrics, many of the druggists’ sundries, belting, pneumatic tires, inner tubes, etc., has to be sheeted out, and some of it forced into fabric before it goes to the various departments. This sheeting-out of the gum, as well as applying the rubber to fabrics, is done generally by two methods; either by spreading a solution of the rubber and naphtha onto the fabric, or by calendering the rubber between heavy rolls in a rubber calender. In the spreading process, a machine called a spreader is used. The fabric to which the rubber is to be applied is mounted in a roll at one end of the spreader and from the roll passes through a trough of rubber-cement, and then up over a so-called doctor roll, and under a knife edge, which allows only enough cement to pass through to fill the pores of the fabric. From this knife the cemented fabric passes over a steam drying chest and is then rolled up with a roll of liner cloth to prevent its sticking together. Fabric treated in this manner must be put through the spreader a number of times before it has sufficient rubber on it to be used in the products for which it is intended. For calendering rubber, a machine called a rubber calender is used. This machine is made with three and sometimes four heavy rolls, which are capable of very fine adjustment. The rubber from the green-stock store-room is first warmed up on a small mixing mill and is then fed between the rolls of the calender, coming through in a thin sheet of required thickness, and is wound up in a liner cloth and sent directly to the departments, where it is used for inner tubes, druggists’ sundries, etc., where only rubber and no fabric is used. Where the rubber is to be applied to fabric, the fabric is put through the calender rolls with the rubber, and the rubber is literally ground into the fabric. Fabric treated in this manner is known to the trade as friction, and is generally used in the manufacture of pneumatic tires, belting, hose, etc. For boots, shoes, and other special work, calenders are used which are equipped with rolls engraved with the shapes of the soles and other parts of the articles in question, so that the sheet of rubber coming from the machine has imprinted on it the shapes and thickness of the articles for which it is intended. After passing through such of the above processes as are required the rubber is ready to be made up into the various articles known to the rubber trade, such as boots and shoes, mackintoshes, waterproof fabrics, for balloons, aeroplanes, tentings, etc., mechanical goods, such as rubber heels, horseshoe pads, packing, tiling, automobile and other bumpers, artificial fish bait, etc., druggists’ sundries, such as nursing-bottles, nipples, syringes, bulbs, hot-water bottles, tubing, etc. tobacco pouches, rubber belting, golf and other balls, insulated wire, fire and garden hose, inner tubes, tires, and the many other commodities into the manufacture of which rubber enters. [Illustration: TRADING ROOM] How Are Automobile Tires Made? From the calender room of the rubber factory the stock is received in the automobile tire department, in the form of large rolls of rubber-coated fabric, and in rolls of sheeted rubber of various thicknesses and widths. The rubber-coated fabric is first cut into strips of proper widths so that the edges will extend from bead to bead over the crown of the tire. These strips are always cut on the bias, generally at a 45-degree angle, with the edge of the roll, and were formerly all cut on a cutting-table, a table about 50 feet long and 6 feet wide, covered with sheet metal. The cutting was done by two men, each having a knife and each cutting half-way across the cloth along the edge of a straight-edge so arranged as to be always set at 45 degrees with the edge of the table. This method of cutting is gradually being put aside by the use of the bias cutter, an extremely up-to-date machine having jaws which ride up to the end of the fabric and pull it for a certain distance under a knife set at a 45-degree angle, the knife being set to cut just when the jaws have arrived at the limit of their motion. The action is repeated so that the machine cuts about eighty strips a minute. These strips are fed onto a series of belts which carry them to where they are placed, by boys, into a book having a leaf of common cloth between each strip of gum fabric, to prevent the strips from sticking together. [Illustration: CURING ROOM--SOLID TIRES.] [Illustration: MAKING A PNEUMATIC TIRE CURING ROOM, FIRST CURE--PNEUMATICS.] [Illustration: SPREADER ROOM.] The majority of automobile tires to-day are machine built, but there are still a great many built by hand and this is the process we shall describe first. In this process the books of fabric are laid up and spliced into proper lengths to go around the tire and allow a proper lapping for the splices. The proper number of these laid-up pieces, or plies, as they are called, are placed together with cotton cloth between and taken to the tire builder. The tire builder mounts the core, upon which the tire is to be built, on the building stand, generally cementing it so that the first ply of fabric will stick in place. The first ply is then stretched onto the core and spliced, rolled down with a hand roller onto the sides of the core, and trimmed with a knife at the base. The following plies are put on and rolled down in the same manner, the beads being put in at the proper time, according to the size and the number of plies to be used. After all the plies have been put onto the core the so-called cover rubber is put on. This cover rubber is generally a sheet of rubber about one-sixteenth of an inch thick or more, and of the same compound as the rubber on the fabric. [Illustration: HOW THE TREAD OF A TIRE IS MADE TREAD LAYING ROOM.] In the case of the machine-built tire, the result is the same, but the stock is handled as follows: After the rubber-coated fabric has been cut on the bias cutter, the strips are spliced and rolled up in rolls on a spindle which is placed in the so-called tire-building machine. The tire core is mounted on a stand attached to the machine, so that it can be revolved by power, and the fabric is drawn onto the core from the spindle under a certain definite tension. The tire-machines roll the fabric down by power, and the beads are put into place before the tire and core are removed from the machine. Thereafter the process is the same as in the case of the hand-built tires. After the cover rubber is in place the tire is ready to have the tread applied. The tread is made up independently of the tire by laying up narrow strips of rubber, in different widths, in such a way that the center of the tread is thicker than the edges. In the case of the so-called single-cure tires, which are wholly vulcanized at one time, this tread is applied to the tire directly after the cover, a strip of fabric called the breaker-strip generally being placed underneath, and the building of the tire so completed. In the general method of curing, the tire is allowed to remain on the core, and is either bolted up in a mold and put into an ordinary heater, or it is laid in a mold and put into a heater press, where the hydraulic pressure keeps the two halves of the mold forced together during the vulcanizing process. After the vulcanizing is completed, the tire is removed from the mold, the inside is painted with a French talc mixture, the tire inspected and cleaned, and so made ready for the market. In some methods of curing, instead of the tire being put in a mold, it is put into a so-called toe-mold, which is virtually a pair of side flanges only reaching up as high as the edges of the tread on the side of the tire. After the flanges are fastened into place, the whole is cross-wrapped, the cross-wrapping coming in direct contact with the tread. The tire in this condition is then put into the heater and vulcanized, giving the so-called wrapped tread tire. Still another form of curing is to inflate a kind of canvas inner tube inside the tire and place the whole in a mold. This is known as the air-bag mold process. [Illustration: PNEUMATIC-TIRE ROOM--SHOWING TIRE-BUILDING MACHINES.] How Are Inner Tubes Made? Inner tubes for pneumatic tires may be classed under three headings, according to the methods used in their manufacture, viz., seamed tubes, rolled tubes, and tube-machine tubes. By far the greater number of tubes come under the first two headings. For seamed tubes, the rubber is taken from the calender in the form of sheets from one-sixteenth to three-sixteenths of an inch in thickness. These sheets are cut into strips of proper length and just wide enough to make a tube of proper cross-section diameter when the two long edges are folded over and fastened together with rubber cement. These two long edges are cut on a bevel so that they make a good lap seam. The tube is then pulled over a mandrel of proper size and a thin piece of wet cloth rolled around it, and then it is spirally cross-wrapped with a long, narrow piece of wet duck for its entire length. The whole is then put into a regular heater and the tube vulcanized. After vulcanizing the wrapping is removed and the tube stripped from the mandrel, turning the tube inside out, so that the smooth side which is vulcanized next to the mandrel appears outside, and the rough side showing the marks of the cross-wrapping is inside. The valve hole is then punched in the tube, the valve inserted and the open ends of the tube buffed down to a feather edge. The tube in this state passes to the splicers, who cement the buffed ends and splice them together, placing one open end within the other, making a lapped seam around the tube about 2¹⁄₂ inches long. The cement used in splicing is generally cured by an acid which chemically vulcanizes the rubber without the application of heat. The tube is thus finished and ready for the market. Rolled tubes are made from very thin sheet rubber by rolling same over a mandrel of proper size, until the required number of layers of thin rubber have been rolled on to give the tube the desired thickness. The tube is then wrapped, cured and spliced, in exactly the same manner as a seamed tube. What Is Rubber? Crude rubber is a vegetable product gathered from certain species of trees, shrubs, vines and roots. Its characteristic peculiarities were early recognized by the natives of the tropical countries in which it is found. Records of the earliest travelers in these countries show that the natives had used various articles, such as receptacles, ties, clubs, etc., made from rubber, but it was not until about 1735 that rubber was first introduced into Europe. In civilization rubber was first used for pencil erasers and in waterproof cloth, and finally in cements. Vulcanizing, or the curing of rubber, was not discovered until 1844, and thereafter the development of the rubber industry was very rapid, especially in Great Britain. [Illustration: WRAPPING ROOM--PNEUMATICS.] There are many kinds and grades of rubber, and to-day these can be divided into two chief classes, wild and cultivated. [Illustration: PNEUMATIC-TIRE ROOM, SHOWING TIRE FINISHING.] [Illustration: HOW THE CRUDE RUBBER IS SECURED Gathering Rubber in South America.] [Illustration: 1. Tapping Axe. 2. Tin Cup to Catch the Rubber Milk. 3. The Beginning of a Rubber “Biscuit.” 4. A Palm Nut.] [Illustration: Making Balls of Crude Rubber.] [Illustration: Tapping the Trees in Japan.] [Illustration: How the Rubber Looks when it comes to Market.] [Illustration: Carrying Balls of Crude Rubber to Native Market.] Pictures herewith by courtesy of The B. F. Goodrich Company, Ltd. What Is Wild Rubber? ~WHERE RUBBER COMES FROM~ The first class, or wild rubbers, are collected from trees which have grown wild and where no cultivation processes whatsoever have been used. These rubber-producing trees, shrubs, etc., are found mostly in Northern South America, Central America, Mexico, Central Africa and Borneo. The finest rubber in the world is Fine Para, and is gathered in the Amazon regions of South America. This rubber has been gathered in practically the same way for over a century. The natives go out into the forests and, selecting a rubber tree, cut “V”-shaped grooves in the bark with a special knife made for the purpose, these grooves being cut in herring-bone fashion diagonally around the tree, with one main groove cut vertically down the center like the main vein in a leaf. The latex, or milk-like liquid, of the tree, from which the rubber is taken, flows from these veins and down the center vein into a little cup which the natives place to receive it. After the little cups are filled they are gathered and brought into the rubber camp, and there the latex is coagulated by means of smoke. This is done by the use of a paddle which is alternately dipped into a bowl of the latex and then revolved in the smoke from a wood or palm-nut fire. This smoke seems to have a preservative effect on the rubber as well as drying it out and causing it to harden on the paddle, each successive layer of the latex causing the size of the rubber ball or biscuit to increase. When a biscuit of sufficient size has been thus coagulated it is removed from the paddle and is ready for shipment to countries where rubber products are manufactured. Para rubber is sold in three grades. Fine Para, which is the more carefully coagulated or smoked rubber; Medium Para, which is rubber gathered and smoked in the same way as Fine, but which has had insufficient smoking, and, therefore, more subject to deterioration due to oxidation, etc.; and Coarse Para, which is rubber gathered from the drippings from the rubber trees after the cups have been removed. This latter grade has generally a large percentage of bark and other foreign substances mixed with it, and is subject to even more deterioration than is Medium Para, as it is oftentimes not smoked at all. Another important grade of rubber coming from South America is Caucho. This tree grows similar to the Para trees and the rubber is gathered in a similar manner, but is cured by adding to the latex some alkaline solution and allowing the whole to dry out in the sun. The value of this rubber can be greatly improved by better methods of coagulation. From Central America and Mexico comes the Castilloa rubber. This rubber is gathered from trees in a very similar manner to Para, and is coagulated by being mixed with juices which are obtained by grinding up a certain plant which grows in the Castilloa districts. After being mixed with this plant juice, the Castilloa is spread out in sheets on bull hides, where it is allowed to dry in the sun, after which the rubber is rolled up and is ready for shipment. Castilloa is gathered mostly from wild trees, but in Mexico it has recently been cultivated to some extent. From Mexico we also get Guayule. This rubber is obtained from a certain species of shrub, the shrub being cut down and fed into a grinding or pebble mill where the branches are crushed and ground and mixed with water, and the rubber, which is contained in little particles all through the wood, is worked out, being taken from the pebble mills in chunks as large as a man’s fist. From Central Africa and from Borneo come the so-called African gums, such as Congo, Soudan, Massai, Lapori, Manicoba, Pontianic, etc. Some of these rubbers are gathered from trees, but most of them from vines and roots, and the methods of coagulation are varied. Practically all of them are dried out in the sun. These rubbers are all of lower grade than the Para rubbers of South America. [Illustration: BAGS OF CACAO BEANS.] The Story in a Stick of Chocolate Where Does Chocolate Come From? Perhaps no other one thing is so well known to boys and girls the world over as chocolate. Yet there was a time, and not so many years ago, as we figure time in history, when there were no cakes of chocolate, or chocolate candies to be had in the candy shops, no chocolate flavored soda water or chocolate cake. To-day quite a panic would be started if the world’s supply of chocolate were cut off. Chocolate is obtained from cacao, which is the seed of the cacao tree. It is quite often called cocoa, although this is not quite a correct way of spelling the word. The cacao tree grows to a height of sixteen or eighteen feet when cultivated, but to a greater height when found growing wild. The cacao pod grows out from the trunk of the tree as shown in the picture, and is, when ripe, from seven to ten inches long and from three to five inches in diameter, giving it the form of an ellipse. When you cut one of these pods open, you find five compartments or cells, in each of which is a row of from five to ten seeds, which are imbedded in a soft pulp, which is pinkish in color. Each pod then contains from twenty-five to fifty seeds, which are what we call “cocoa beans.” The cacao tree was discovered for us by Christopher Columbus, so that we have good reason to remember him aside from his great discovery of America. The discovery of either of these would be fame enough for any one man, and it would be difficult for some boys and girls to say just which of the two was Columbus’ greater discovery. Columbus found the cacao tree flourishing both in a wild and in a cultivated state upon one of his voyages to Mexico. The Indians of Peru and Mexico were very fond of it in its native state. They did not know the joy of eating a chocolate cream, but they had discovered the qualities of the cacao bean as a food and had learned to cultivate it long before Columbus came to Mexico. Columbus took some of the cacao beans back with him to Spain and to this day cacao is much more extensively used by the Spaniards than by any other nation. The first record of its introduction into England is found in an announcement in the _Public Advertiser_ of June 16, 1657, to the effect that: “In Bishopgate Street, in Queen’s Head Alley, at a Frenchman’s house, is an excellent West Indian drink called chocolate, to be sold where you may have it ready at any time and also unmade, at reasonable rates.” Of course, by the time America became settled the people brought their taste for chocolates with them. [Illustration: VIEW OF COCOA BEANS IN BAG AND COCOA-GRINDING MILL.] What is the Difference Between Cacao and Chocolate? When the cacao seeds are roasted and separated from the husks which surround them, they are called cocoa-nibs. Cocoa consists of these nibs alone, whether they are ground or unground, dried and powdered, or of the crude paste dried in flakes. Chocolate is made from the cocoa-nibs. These nibs are ground into an oily paste and mixed with sugar and vanilla, cinnamon, cloves, or other flavoring substances. Chocolate is only a product made from cocoa-nibs, but it is the most important product. [Illustration: CACAO CRACKING MILL AND SHELL SEPARATOR.] [Illustration: COCOA CRACKING AND SHELL SEPARATOR. WHERE THE SHELLS ARE SEPARATED FROM THE BEAN.] [Illustration: COCOA MILL.] What Are Cocoa Shells? There are other products which are obtained from the cacao seed. One is called Broma--which is the dry powder of the seeds, after the oil has been taken out. Cocoa shells are the husks which surround the cocoa bean. These are ground up into a fine powder and sold for making a kind of cocoa for drinking, although the flavor is to a great extent missing and it is, of course, not nearly so nourishing as a drink of real cocoa. [Illustration: COCOA ROASTER. MILL IN WHICH THE BEANS ARE ROASTED.] What is Cocoa Butter? The oil from the cacao seeds, when separated from the seeds, is what we call cocoa butter. It has a pleasant odor and chocolate-like taste. It is used in making soap, ointments, etc. [Illustration: HOW CACAO BEANS GROW COCOA TREE WITH FRUIT KNOWN AS COCOA PODS, WHICH CONTAIN THE COCOA BEANS.] How is Cacao Gathered? When the cacao pods ripen on the tropical plantations, where the climate is such that they can be grown successfully, the native laborer cuts off the ripened pods as we see him doing in the picture showing the pods on the tree. He does this with a scissors-like arrangement of knives on a long pole. As he cuts off the pods he lays them on the ground and leaves them to dry for twenty-four hours. The next day they are cut open, the seeds taken out and carried to the place where they are cured or sweated. In the process of curing or sweating, the acid which is found with the seeds is poured off. The beans are then placed in a sweating box. This part of the process is for the purpose of making the beans ferment and is the most important part of preparing the beans for market, as the quality and the flavor of the beans and, therefore, their value in the market, depends largely upon the ability of whoever does it in curing or fermenting. Sometimes the curing is done by placing the seeds in trenches or holes in the ground and covering them with earth or clay. This is called the clay-curing process. The time required in curing the cacao beans varies, but on the average requires two days. When cured they are dried by exposure to the sun and packed ready for shipping. At this time beans of fine quality are found to have a warm reddish color. The quality or grades of beans are determined by the color at this stage. [Illustration: CHOCOLATE MILL.] How Chocolate is Made. When the cacao beans arrive at the chocolate factory they are put through various processes to develop their aroma, palatability and digestibility. ~PROCESSES IN CHOCOLATE MAKING~ The seeds are first roasted. In roasting the substance which develops the aroma is formed. The roasting is accomplished in revolving cylinders, much like the revolving peanut roasters, only much larger. After roasting the seeds are transferred to crushing and winnowing machines. The crushing machines break the husks or “shells,” and the winnowing machine by the action of a fan separates the shells from the actual kernel or bean. The beans are now called cocoa-nibs. These nibs are now in turn winnowed, but in smaller quantities at a time, during which process the imperfect pieces are removed with other foreign substances. Cacao beans in this form constitute the purest and simplest form of cacao in which it is sold. The objection to their use in this form is that it is necessary to boil them for a much longer time, in order to disintegrate them, than when they are ground up in the form of meal. For that reason the nibs are generally ground before marketing as cacao or cocoa. Another form in which the pure seeds are prepared is the flaked cocoa. This is accomplished by grinding up the nibs into a paste. This grinding is done in a revolving cylinder machine in which a drum revolves. In this process the heat developed by the friction in the machine is sufficient to liquefy the oil in the beans and form the paste. The oil then solidifies again in the paste when it becomes cool. [Illustration: CHOCOLATE FINISHER.] What we know as cakes of chocolate are made from the cocoa-nibs by heating the mixture of the cacao, sugar and such flavoring extracts as vanilla, until an even paste is secured. This paste is passed several times between heavy rollers to get a thorough mixture and finally poured into molds and allowed to cool. When cool it can be taken from the molds in firm cakes and wrapped for the market. This is the way Milk Chocolate is made. The difference in the taste and consistency of milk chocolate depends upon how many different things the chocolate maker adds to the pure cocoa-nibs to produce this mixture. Often substances such as starchy materials are added to make the cakes more firm. They add nothing to the quality of the chocolate. [Illustration: CHOCOLATE MIXER.] ~HOW CHOCOLATE CANDIES ARE MADE~ Chocolate-covered bonbons, chocolate drops, and the many different kinds of toothsome confections are prepared in the American candy factories, as we all well know. The chocolate covering of this confectionery is generally put on by dipping the inside of the choice morsel in a pan of liquid chocolate paste and then placing the bits in tins to allow them to cool and harden. [Illustration: CHOCOLATE MIXING AND HEATING MACHINE.] A great many of the choicest bits of confectionery are now produced by machines entirely. These machines are almost human, apparently, as we see them make a perfect chocolate bonbon which is delivered to a candy box all wrapped for packing. These wonderful machines thus give us candy which has not been touched by the hands of any one prior to the time we thrust our own fingers in the brightly-decorated box and take our pick of the assortment it offers. [Illustration: WHERE THE INDIVIDUAL PIECES OF CONFECTION ARE WRAPPED.] [Illustration: THE TALLEST BUILDING IN THE WORLD WOOLWORTH BUILDING, NEW YORK CITY. This building, the tallest in the world, is equipped with 26 gearless traction elevators. Two of the elevators run from the first to the fifty-first floor with actual travels of 679 feet 9¹⁄₂ inches and 679 feet 10¹⁄₄ inches, respectively. There is also a shuttle elevator which runs from the fifty-first to the fifty-fourth floor. Total height of building from curb to base of flagstaff, 792 feet.] [Illustration: HOW AN ELEVATOR GOES UP AND DOWN COMPLETE GEARLESS TRACTION ELEVATOR INSTALLATION.] How Does an Elevator Go Up and Down? Ordinarily, when we think of an elevator we think merely of the cage or car in which we ride up or down. But the car is really only the part which makes the elevator of service to man, and from the standpoint of the machinery, is a relatively unimportant part of the equipment. There are two principal types of elevators used to-day; the hydraulic, which is worked by water under pressure, and the electric, which is worked by electricity through an electric motor. The latter type, because of the tendency towards the general use of electricity in recent years, has largely superseded the hydraulic, and, as when you think of elevators you probably have in mind those you have seen in some huge skyscraper, we shall look at one of these. What are the Principal Parts of an Elevator? The most advanced type of elevator to-day is called a Gearless Traction Elevator. In this elevator the principal parts are a motor, a grooved wheel on the motor shaft called a driving sheave and a brake, all mounted on one cast-iron bed-plate; a number of cables of equal length which pass over the driving sheave and thence around another grooved wheel called an idler sheave, located just below the driving sheave, and to one end of which is attached the car or cage, and to the other end a weight called a counterweight; also a controller which governs the flow of electric current into the motor and thereby the speed, starts and stops of the elevator car. Although the controller, motor, brake and sheaves are usually placed way at the top of the building out of our sight, they are really very important parts of the elevator. The cage or car in which we ride is held in place by tracks built upright in the elevator shaft, and the counterweight at one side of the shaft travels up and down along two separate upright tracks. When the car goes up the counterweight on the other end of the cables goes down an equal distance. The counterweight is used to balance the load of the car and to make it easier for the motor to move the car. Electricity is the power that makes the car go up or down. The operator in the car moves a master switch--in one direction if he wishes to go up, in the other direction if he wishes to go down. This master switch sets the electro-magnetic switches of the controller at the top of the hatchway into action, electrically, and the controller in turn allows the electric current to flow into the motor. The motor then begins to revolve, gradually at first, and then faster, turning the driving sheave with which it is directly connected. As this driving sheave revolves, the cables passing over it are set in motion, and the car and counterweight to which they are attached begin to move. Why Does Not the Car Fall? [Illustration: THE PRINCIPAL PARTS OF AN ELEVATOR] Of course, the question of safety is a very important one in any elevator, and you wonder what would happen if the cables broke. You think of this especially when you are going up in one of the big skyscrapers--where the elevators sometimes travel to a height of 700 feet. It can be truthfully said that on every modern elevator there are safety devices which should make it practically impossible to have a serious accident, due to the fall of the car. Every elevator is equipped with wedging or clamping devices which automatically grip the rails in case the car goes too fast either up or down. These gripping devices can be adjusted to work at any speed that is desired above the regular speed. It is not at all probable that all the cables will break at once, because there are usually six of these, and any one of them is strong enough to hold the car if the others break; but even if they all should break the gripping devices on the rails will operate and hold the car safely, just as soon as it starts down at great speed. Suppose that the car should descend at full speed, but not sufficiently fast to work the rail-gripping devices, it would be brought to a gradual rest at the bottom of the hatchway, because of the oil-cushion buffer against which it would strike. This is a remarkable invention, with a plunger working in oil in such a way that a car striking it at full speed will come to rest so gradually that there is scarcely any shock. You have perhaps seen a clever juggler on the stage throw an ordinary hen’s egg high into the air and catch it in a china dish without cracking it He does it by putting the dish under the falling egg just at the right moment, and bringing the dish down with the egg at just the right speed, so that eventually he has the egg in the dish without cracking it. The trick is in calculating the rate of speed of the falling egg accurately and adjusting the insertion of the dish under the falling egg to a nicety. The oil-cushion buffer in the modern elevator works in very much the same way. [Illustration: GENERAL ARRANGEMENT OF ROPING FOR GEARLESS TRACTION ELEVATOR INSTALLATION.] If it were not for the genius which has made possible these new types of elevators we could not have the high buildings. The elevators in the Woolworth Building are the latest type in modern elevator construction. In this one building alone there are 29 elevators, and when you are told that the electric elevators in the United States installed by a single company represent a total of 525,000 horse-power, you will have some idea of the power required to operate elevators all over the country. Does Air Weigh Anything? Air is very light, so light that it seems to have no weight at all; but, if you will think a minute you will see that it must have some weight, because birds fly in it and balloons can be made to float through it. It has been found that one hundred cubic inches of air at the sea level weighs, under ordinary conditions, about thirty-one grains. This seems a very small weight, but when we remember the thickness of the atmospheric envelope over the earth we see that it must press quite heavily upon the earth’s surface. There is a very simple instrument called a barometer, which is used for measuring the amount of this pressure. The name means pressure-measure. Another striking feature of air is its elasticity, and this explains something that is noticed by all mountain climbers. On a high mountain, it is difficult to get enough air to the lungs, though one breathes rapidly and deeply. The reason is, that the air at the foot of the mountain is compressed by the weight of that above it, and consequently the lungs can hold more of it than of the air on the mountain top, which has less weight resting upon it and is, therefore, not so much compressed. On account of the ease with which it is compressed, we find that more than half of all the envelope of air that surrounds the earth is within three miles of the surface. When air is chemically analyzed it is found to consist of a number of substances mingled together, but not chemically united. These include nitrogen, oxygen, argon, carbonic acid gas, water vapor, ozone, nitric acid, ammonia, and dust. Oxygen is the most important of these constituents, for it is the part that is necessary to support life. Yet, notwithstanding its importance, it forms only about one-fifth of the entire bulk of the atmosphere. Oxygen is a very interesting substance and many striking experiments may be performed with it. If a lighted candle is thrust into a vessel filled with oxygen, it burns very much more rapidly and brilliantly than in air. A piece of wood with a mere spark on it bursts into flame and burns brightly when thrust into oxygen, and some things that will not burn at all in air, can be made to burn very rapidly in oxygen. For example, if a piece of clock spring be dipped in melted sulphur and then put into a jar of oxygen, after the sulphur has been set on fire, the steel spring will take fire and burn fiercely. The heat produced is so great that drops of molten steel form at the end of the spring, and falling on the bottom of the jar, melt the surface of the glass where they strike. The other two substances found in pure air, nitrogen and argon, are very much alike. They make up the remaining four-fifths of the air, and are very different from oxygen in nearly every respect. Nitrogen and argon resemble oxygen in being colorless, odorless, and tasteless gases; and they are of nearly the same weight as oxygen, argon being a little heavier and nitrogen a little lighter; but here the similarity ends. Oxygen is what we call a very active substance. As we have seen, it causes things to burn very much more rapidly in it than in air. Nitrogen and argon, on the contrary, put out fire. If a lighted candle is put into a jar of nitrogen or argon its flame will be extinguished as quickly as if put into water. We must now consider the impurities found in air. Of these the most important is carbonic acid gas, or, as it is frequently called, carbon dioxide. It is always produced when wood or coal is burned, and is, of course, constantly being poured out of chimneys. It is also produced in our lungs and we give off some of it when we breathe. It is colorless, like the gases found in pure air, has no odor or taste, and is considerably heavier than oxygen or nitrogen. In its other properties it is much more like nitrogen than oxygen, for when a candle is put into it the flame is extinguished at once. To find out whether air contains carbonic acid gas, it is only necessary to force it through a little lime water, in a glass vessel, and watch what change takes place in the water. Fresh lime water is as clear as pure water; but after forcing air containing carbonic acid through it, it becomes turbid and milky. If the turbid water is allowed to stand for a time, a white powder will settle to the bottom, and if we examine this powder, we find it to be very much the same thing as chalk. While it is true that air generally contains only a very small portion of carbonic acid gas, there are some places in which it is present in such large quantities as to render the air unfit for breathing. The air at the bottom of deep mines and old wells often has an unusually large proportion of this gas, which, because of its great weight, accumulates at the bottom, and remains confined there. The presence of a dangerous quantity of the gas in such places may be detected by lowering a candle into it. Why Does the Scenery Appear to Move When We Are Riding in a Train? When you sit in a moving train looking out of the window it appears as though the fields, the telegraph poles and everything else outside were moving, instead of you. This is because our only ideas of motion are arrived at by comparison, and the fact that neither you nor the seats of the car or any other part of the inside of the car is changing its position, leads you to the delusion that the things outside the car are moving and not you. If you were to pull down all the curtains and the train were making no noise at all, you would not think that anything was moving. It would appear as though you were motionless just as everything in the car appears so. When you turn then to the window, and lift the curtain you carry in the back of your mind the idea of being at rest and that is what makes it appear as though the fields and everything outside were moving in an opposite direction. This is particularly noticeable when you are in a train in a station with another train on the next track. There is a sense of motion if one of the trains only is moving and you feel that it is the other train, because you are surrounded by objects in the car which are at rest, and when you look out at the other train with this half consciousness of rest in your mind, it appears as though the other train were moving when as a matter of fact it is your train. If the delusion happens to be turned the other way, it will appear as though you are moving and the other is still. It depends upon what cause the impression starts with. Why Don’t the Scenery Appear to Move When I am in a Street Car? If you are in a street car in the country and moving along fast you will receive the same impression, especially in a closed car, because you are looking out of one hole or one window. In an open car you do not receive the same impression because your range of vision is broader. You can and do, although perhaps unconsciously, look out on both sides and the impression your mind gets through the eyes is not the same. If you were to pull down all the storm curtains in a moving open street car, and then look out of one little crack, you would think the outside was moving. But if you stop to remember that you are moving and not the things outside the car, then the impression vanishes. In the city, of course, your brain is so thoroughly impressed with the fact that houses and pavements do not move, and the cars move so much more slowly, that it is difficult to make yourself believe otherwise. The impression is more difficult always when you are moving through or past objects with which you are perfectly familiar. It is all, of course, a question of impressions. Why Does the Moon Travel With Us When We Walk or Ride? The moon does not really travel with us. It only seems to do so. The moon is so far away that when we walk a block or two or a hundred, we cannot notice any relative difference in the relative positions of the moon and ourselves. When a thing is close at hand we can notice every change in our position toward it, but when it is far away the change of our position toward it is so slight that it is hardly perceptible. A very good way to illustrate this is to ask you to recall the last time you were in a railroad train looking out at the scenery in the country. The telegraph poles rush past you so fast you cannot count them. The cows in the pasture beside the railroad do not seem to go by so fast. You can count them easily. The tree farther over in the next field does not appear to be moving but slightly, while the church steeple which you can see far in the distance, does not go out of sight for a long time--in fact, seems almost to be moving along with you. The moon is just like the church steeple in this case, except that it is so much farther away that it seems to travel right with you. It is all due to the fact as stated at the beginning of this answer, that the relative positions of yourself and the moon are only slightly changed as you move from place to place, so slight in fact as to appear imperceptible. Is There a Man in the Moon? The markings which we see on the face of the moon when it is full can by a stretch of the imagination be said to form the face of a man. On some nights this face appears to be quite distinct. If, however, we look at the moon through a telescope, we see distinctly that it is not the face of a man. Through a very large telescope we can see very plainly that the marks are mountains and craters of extinct volcanoes. It just happens that these marks on the moon, aided by the reflections of the light from the sun, which gives the moon all the light it has, make a combination that looks like a face. Does the Air Surrounding the Earth Move With It? This is one of the old puzzling questions which many a high-school student has had to struggle with to the great amusement of the teacher who asks for the information and such other scholars who have already had the experience of trying to solve it. To get at the right answer you have merely to ask one other question. If the air does not revolve with the earth, why can’t I go up in a balloon at New York, and stay up long enough for the earth to revolve on its axis beneath me, and come down again when the city of San Francisco appears under the balloon, which should be in about four hours? If that were possible, travel would be both rapid and comfortable, for then we could sit quietly in a balloon while the earth traveling beneath us would get all the bumps. No, the atmosphere surrounding the earth moves right along with the earth on its axis. If it were not so, the earth would probably burn up--at least no living thing could remain on it--since the friction of the surface of the air against the surface of the earth would develop such a heat that nothing could live in it. Why Does Oiling the Axle Make the Wheel Turn More Easily? If you look at what appears to be a perfectly smooth axle on a bicycle or motor car through a powerful magnifying glass, you will find that the surface of the axle is not smooth at all, as you may have thought, but covered with what appear to be quite large bumps or irregularities in the surface. If you were to examine the inside of the hub of the wheel in the same way, you would find that it also is like that. Now, when you attempt to turn a wheel on the axle without oil, these little irregularities or bumps grind against each other, producing what we call friction. As friction develops heat, the metal of the axle and the hub expand and the wheel gets stuck. What Made the Mountains? There is no question but that at one time the surface of the earth was smooth, i. e., there were no big hills and no deep valleys. That was before the mountains were made. The earth was a hot molten mass that began to cool off from the outside inward. It is still a hot molten mass inside today. The outside crust became cooler and cooler and the crust became deeper and deeper all the time. Then when there would be an eruption of the red-hot mass inside, the earth’s crust would be bulged out in some places and sucked in in others and would stay that way. The bulged out place became a range of mountains and the sucked in place became a valley. This process went on happening over and over again until the crust of the earth became firmly set. Volcanos caused some of these eruptions, as also did earthquakes. There are today gradual changes occurring which to a certain extent change the outside surface of the earth, and it is possible that new mountain ranges will be produced in this way. What Makes the Sea Roar? The roar of the sea is a movement of the sea which causes the same kind of air waves or sound waves that you make when you shout, excepting that, of course, the vibrations do not occur so quickly in the sea and, therefore, the sound produced is a low sound. It is no different in any sense than the same noise would be if the same air waves could be produced on the land away from the water. Why Is Fire Hot? When a fire is lighted it throws off what we call heat rays or waves. These waves are very much like the waves of light which come from a light or fire or the air waves which produce sounds. The rays of light and heat which come from the sun are like the rays of light and heat from a fire. Heat is of two kinds--heat proper which is resident in the body, and radiant heat which is the kind which comes to us from the sun or from a fire. This radiant heat is not heat at all, but a form of wave motion thrown out by the vibrations in the ether. The heat we feel is the sensation produced upon our skins when it comes in contact with the waves created by the fire. Heat was formerly thought to be an actual substance, but we know now that radiant heat is known to be the energy of heat transferred to the ether which fills all of space and is in all bodies also. The hot body which sets the particles of either in vibration and this vibrating motion in the form of waves travels in all directions. When these vibrations strike against our skin they produce a heat sensation; striking other objects these vibrations may produce instead of a heat sensation, either chemical action or luminosity. This is determined by the length of the vibratory rays in each case. When I Throw a Ball Into the Air While Walking, Why Does It Follow Me? When you throw a ball into the air while moving your body forward or backward, either slowly or fast, the ball partakes of two motions--the one upward and the forward or backward motion of your body. The ball possessed the motion of your body before it left your hand to go up into the air because your body was moving before you threw it up, and the ball was a part of you at the time. If you are moving forward up to the time you throw the ball into the air and stop as soon as you let go of the ball, it will fall at some distance from you. Also if you throw the ball up from a standing position and move forward as soon as the ball leaves your hand the ball will fall behind you, provided you actually threw it straight up. Of course, you know that the earth is moving many miles per hour on its axis and that when you throw a ball straight into the air from a standing position, the earth and yourself as well as the ball move with the earth a long distance before the ball comes down again. The relative position is, however, the same. We get our sense of motion by a comparison with other objects. If you are in a train that is moving swiftly and another train goes by in the opposite direction moving just as fast, you seem to be going twice as fast as you really are. If the train on the other track, however, is going at the same rate of speed and in the same direction as you are, you will appear to be standing still. Going back to the ball again, you will find that it always partakes of the motion of the body holding it in addition to the motion given when it is thrown up. What Good Are the Lines On the Palms of Our Hands? It cannot be said that the lines on the palms of our hands are of any great service to us. Indeed it is doubtful if they are of any value in themselves, outside of the possible aid they may be in helping us to determine the character of the surface of things which we grasp or touch. It is possible that they aid in some slight degree in this way. There is little doubt, however, that they are a result of the work the hands are constantly called upon to do rather than contrived for any particular service. The habitual tendency of the fingers in grasping and holding things throws the skin of the palms into creases which through frequent repetition make the lines of the palms permanent in several instances. The peculiarities of these lines or creases in various individuals as to details and length and variations is the chief basis of the so-called science of palmistry. What Makes Things Whirl Round When I Am Dizzy? The medical term that describes this condition of turning or whirling is vertigo, which means in simple language “to turn.” There are two kinds of dizziness--one where the objects about us seem to be turning round and round and the other where the person who is dizzy seems to himself to be turning round and round. One cause of this is due to the fact that when you are dizzy the eyes are not in complete control of the brain and the eyes moving independently of each other look in different directions and produce this turning effect on the brain, since each eye then sends a different impression to the brain instantly. The principal cause of the sense of dizziness is, however, the little organ which gives us our power to balance and which is located near the ears. Sometimes this organ becomes diseased and people affected in this way are almost continually dizzy. Whenever this organ of balance is disturbed we lose our idea of balance and the turning sensation occurs. It is easy to make yourself dizzy. All you do is to turn round a few times in the same direction and stop. In doing this you disturb the little organ of balance and things begin to turn apparently before your eyes. If you turn the other way you right matters again or if you just stand still matters will right themselves. There is no great harm in making yourself dizzy and very little fun. Why Are the Complexions of Some People Light and Others Dark? This difference in the complexions of people is due to the varying amounts of pigment or coloring material in the cells of which the skins of all animals is made up. Very light people have very little pigment; very dark people, those with dark eyes and black hair, have a great deal of this coloring material in their cells. A great many people are neither light or very dark. They have less than the dark-complexioned people and more than the light-complexioned people. When the hair turns gray it is because the pigment has disappeared. As this is due to the loss of this coloring material, dark-complexioned people turn gray sooner than light-complexioned people. The structure of the skin showing how these cells are made in layers can be seen by examining the skin with a microscope. What Makes Me Tired? Men were wrong for a long time in their conclusions as to what produced the tired feeling in us. We know now that every activity of our body registers itself on the brain. When we move an arm or leg a great many times we soon feel tired. Every time you move your arm the movement is registered in the brain, and after a number of these movements are registered the tired feeling in the arm appears. It is said that every movement of any part of the body really produces certain defective cells and that these accumulate in the blood. When these reach a certain number the tired feeling takes possession of us, and when we rest, the blood under the guidance of the brain, goes to work and rebuilds these defective cells. We know that a change takes place in the blood when we become tired because, if you take some of the blood from an animal that shows unmistakable signs of fatigue and inject it into an animal that shows no tired feeling at all, the second animal will begin to show signs of fatigue even though it is not active at all. We used to think that being tired indicated that our bodies were in need of food and that the way to overcome it was to eat a big meal. We did not stop to think that even when we are hungry the human body has sufficient food supply stored up to keep it going for days without taking in new food. Of course, this mistake was made because we knew that our power and energy came as a result of the food we took into our systems, but this belief was exploded when it was found that a really tired person could hardly digest food while tired, and that it is best for people who are very tired to eat only a light meal. Why Are Most People Right-Handed? Most people are right-handed because they are trained that way. Being right-handed or left-handed depends largely on how we get started in that connection. When we are young we form the habit generally of being either right-handed or left-handed, as the case may be. Most people correct their children when it appears they are likely to become left-handed, as we have come to think that it is better to be right-handed than left, and that is the reason why most people are right-handed. As a matter of fact, if we were trained perfectly, we should all be both right-handed and left-handed also. Some people are so trained and, when we refer to their ability to do things equally well with both hands and wish to bring out this fact, we say they are ambidextrous. It is not natural that one hand should be trained to do things while the other is not. Why Are Some Faculties Stronger Than Others? All of our senses are capable of being developed so that our ability along these lines would be about equal. The trouble is that we soon begin to develop one or more of our faculties in an unusual manner at the expense of the development of others. Many people have a keener sense of observation than others because they have had more and better training along that line. It is a pity that more attention is not given to the development of the power of observation in children, because it is one of the most valuable accomplishments that we can possess ourselves of. With the sense of observation developed to the highest degree, many of the other faculties need not be developed so strongly because, if we notice every thing that it is possible for us to see, we do not have the need of the development of other powers to the same extent. It is said that it would be possible to so train an infant and bring him up to maturity with all his faculties developed and in practically an even way. If we did that we would have a wonderfully intelligent being. [Illustration: Glazing plates.] [Illustration: Decorating china cups.] The Story in a Cup and Saucer ~HOW CHINA IS MADE~ Many different kinds of raw materials are required to produce the clay from which china is formed, and these ingredients come from widely separated localities. Clays from Florida, North Carolina, Cornwall and Devon. Flint from Illinois and Pennsylvania. Boracic acid from the Mojave Desert and Tuscany. Cobalt from Ontario and Saxony. Feldspar from Maine. All these and more must enter into the making of every piece. [Illustration: Grinders for reducing glazing materials.] These materials are reduced to fine powder and stored in huge bins. Between these bins, on a track provided for the purpose, the workmen push a car which bears a great box. Under this box is a scale for weighing the exact amount of each ingredient as it is put in, for too much of one kind of clay or too little of another would seriously impair the quality of the finished china. [Illustration: Mill for pulverizing materials.] From bin to bin this car goes, gathering up so many pounds of this material and so many pounds of that, until its load is complete. Then it is dumped into one of the great round tanks called “blungers,” where big electrically driven paddles mix it with water until it has the consistency of thick cream. From the blungers this liquid mass passes into another and still larger tank, called a “rough agitator,” and is there kept constantly in motion until it is released to run in a steady stream over the “sifters.” These sifters are vibrating tables of finest silk lawn, very much like that used for bolting flour at the mills. The material for china making strains through the silk, while the refuse, including all foreign matter, little lumps, etc., runs into a waste trough and is thrown away. From the sifters the liquid passes through a square box-like chute, in which are placed a number of large horseshoe magnets, which attract to themselves and hold any particles of harmful minerals which may be in the mixture. After leaving the magnets the fluid is free from impurities, and is discharged into another huge tank called the “smooth agitator.” While the fluid is in this tank a number of paddles keep it constantly in motion. [Illustration: Pressing the water from the clay.] From the smooth agitator the mixture is forced under high pressure into a press where a peculiar arrangement of steel chambers packed with heavy canvas allows the water to escape, filtered pure and clear, but retains the clay in discs or leaves weighing about thirty pounds each. From the presses this damp clay is taken out to the “pug mills,” where it is all ground up together, reduced to a uniform consistency, and cut into blocks of convenient size. It is now ready to use. Automatic elevators carry it to the workmen upstairs. [Illustration: Molding Dishes. The racks to the left are full of molds on which the clay is drying.] [Illustration: Molding sugar bowls and covered dishes.] ~HOW THE DISHES ARE SHAPED~ The exact process of handling the clay differs with articles of different shapes. Some are molded by hand in plaster of paris molds of proper shape, while others are formed by machine. To make a plate, for example, the workman takes a lump of clay as large as a teacup. He lays this on a flat stone, and with a large, round, flat weight, strikes it a blow which flattens the material out until it resembles dough rolled out for cake or biscuits, only instead of being white or yellow it is of a dark gray color. A hard, smooth mold exactly the size and shape of the inside of the plate is at hand. Over this the workman claps the flat piece of damp clay. Then the mold is passed on to another workman, who stands before a rapidly revolving pedestal, commonly known as the potter’s wheel. On this wheel he places the mold and its layer of clay. He then pulls down a lever to which is attached a steel scraper. As the plate rapidly revolves, this scraper cuts away the surplus clay, and gives to the back of the plate its proper form. The plate, still in its mold, is placed on a long board, together with a number of others, and shoved into a rack to dry. One workman with two helpers will make 2,400 plates per day. It is fascinating to watch the molders’ deft hands at work swiftly changing a mass of clay into perfectly formed dishes. Such skilled workmen are naturally well paid. [Illustration: Interior of a kiln showing how the “saggers” are packed for firing.] When the clay is sufficiently dry, the plate is taken from its mold, the edge smoothed and rounded, and any minor defects remedied. It is then placed in an oval shaped clay receptacle called a “sagger,” together with about two dozen of its fellows, packed in fine sand, and placed in one of the furnaces or kilns. Each kiln will contain on an average two thousand saggers. When the kiln is full the doorway is closed and plastered with clay, the fires started, and the dishes subjected to terrific heat for a period of forty-eight hours. The fuel used is natural gas, piped one hundred miles from wells 2,000 feet deep. Natural gas gives an intense heat, and yet is always under perfect control--features which are vital in producing uniformly good china. When the plate is taken from the kiln after the first baking, it is pure white, but of dull, velvety texture, and is known as bisque ware. In order to give it a smooth, high finish, the plate is next dipped into a solution of white lead, borax and silica, dried, placed in a kiln and again baked. When it is taken out for the second time it has acquired that beautiful glaze which so delights the eye. In this condition it is known as “plain white ware,” and is finished, unless some decoration is to be added. [Illustration: Taking the dishes from a kiln.] ~HOW CHINA IS DECORATED~ Most people are surprised to learn that the greater part of the gold which adorns dishes is put on by a simple rubber stamp. Two preparations of gold are used. One is a commercial solution called “liquid bright gold,” the other is very expensive, and is simply gold bullion melted down with acids to the right consistency. Decorating in colors is now done almost exclusively by decalcomania art transfers. These are made principally in Europe. After the gold and colors are applied, the China must again go through the oven’s heat for a period of twelve hours. Then the piece finished at last, is ready to grace your table. The dull gray clay has become beautifully finished china, which will delight alike the housekeeper and her guests. How Do Birds Find Their Way? The most interesting phase of the movement of animals from place to place is found in the flight of birds during the spring and fall. In the spring the birds come north and in the fall they go south. This is called “migration” and the reason given for the ability of some birds to come back every year to build a nest in the same tree is usually attributed to the “instinct of migration,” and yet that is more a statement of fact rather than an explanation of the wonderful ability of the birds to do this. How Does a Captain Steer His Ship Across the Ocean? Man, the most intelligent animal, can also find his way about, but he has had to learn to do this step by step. When an explorer first travels into the unexplored forest, he carries a compass which tells him in what direction he is traveling, but this is not sufficient to tell him the exact path he came and return the same way. In order that he may do this, he must make marks on the trees and other objects to find his way back. When these marks are once made, other men can follow the path by their aid, and eventually a path becomes worn so that men can find their way back and forth without the aid of the marks especially. A trained ship captain can take his ship from any port in the world to another port. He can start at New York City and in a given number of days, according to how fast his ship can travel, land his passengers and cargo in the port of London or Johannesburg, South Africa, or at any desired port in China, Japan or any other country. But he cannot do this by any kind of instinct. He takes his directions from information that was furnished him by some one who went that way before him--some other captain of a vessel who made marks in his book of his position in relation to the sun and stars. This is practically the same as the traveler in the forest who made marks on the trees to make a map of the way back and forth. Even with these charts, compasses and other guiding marks, however, man, even though he is the most intelligent of all the animals, makes very grave mistakes and sometimes brings disaster upon himself and the lives in his care. Why the Birds Come Back in Spring? The birds, however, have no charts or compasses to guide them. We do not know as yet absolutely what it is that enables the bird to find its way back and forth to the same spot year after year. As nearly as we have been able to ascertain, the birds after they mate and build their first nest and bring up their first family, develop a fondness for that particular spot which is much the same as the instinct in man which we call the “homing instinct.” Man becomes attached to one particular spot which he calls home and wherever he is thereafter, he is very likely to think of the old locality when he thinks of home, and there are very few of us but have yearnings to go back to the old “home locality” every now and then. The environment in which a bird or human being is brought up generally becomes to a greater or less extent a permanent part of him in this sense. Why Do Birds Go South in Winter? We know why birds go south in the winter. The necessity of finding food to live upon has everything to do with that. As food grows scarce towards the end of summer in the farthest northern places where birds live, the birds there must find food elsewhere. They naturally turn south and when they find food, they have to divide with the birds living there. The result is that soon the food becomes scarce again and both the new-comers and the old residents, so to speak, are forced to seek places where food is plentiful. So both of these flocks, to use a short term, fly away to the south until they find food again and encounter a third flock or group of the bird family crowding the locality and exhausting the food supply. So in turn each flock presses for food upon the one in the locality next further to the south until we have a general movement to the south of practically all the birds until they reach a point where the food supply is sufficient for all for the time being. Why Don’t the Birds Stay South? The result of all this is that the south-land is crowded with birds of all kinds and the food supply is enough for all. But soon in following the laws of nature in birds, as in other living things, comes the time for breeding. The south-land is warm enough for nesting and hatching, but it is so crowded that there wouldn’t be enough food for all the old birds and the little ones too and so the birds begin to scatter again. Just think of what would happen in the south-land if all the birds that stay there in the winter built their nests there and brought up a new family. A bird family will average four young birds, so that if all the bird families were born and raised in the south the bird population would quickly multiply itself by three and there would be the same old necessity of traveling away to look for food. To avoid this the birds begin to scatter to their old homes before the breeding season begins. How Do They Find the Old Home? The return of the birds to their old homes and how they find their way back to the same spot every year, to do which they must sometimes travel thousands of miles, is one of the most marvelous things in nature and has not as yet been satisfactorily determined. The nearest approach we have to a satisfactory answer to this is that birds do have a memory, that they can and do recognize familiar objects, and that their love for the old home causes them to fly to the north until they recognize the landmarks of their former habitation. In this it is said that the older birds--those who have gone that way before--lead the flocks and show the way. There is no doubt that birds have a more perfect instinct of direction than man. They can follow a line of longitude almost perfectly, i.e., they can pick out the shorter route by instinct, and this is, of course, a straight line. They just keep on going until they come to the familiar place they call home and then they stop and build their nests. That it is not memory and sight of places alone that guides the birds is shown by the fact that some birds when migrating fly all night when there is no light by which to recognize familiar objects. Why Do Birds Sing? The song of the birds is a part of the love-making. The male bird is the “singer,” as we call them at home, when we think of the canary in the cage near us. The male bird sings to his mate to charm her and to further his wooing. This wooing goes on after the eggs have been laid in the nest and while the mother bird is keeping them warm until they hatch out, but almost instantaneously with the birth of the little birds, the song of the male bird is hushed. Take the case of the nightingale. For weeks during the period of nest-building and hatching he charms his mate and us with the beautiful music of his love song. But as soon as the little nightingales come from the eggs, the sounds which the male nightingale makes are changed to a gutteral croak, which are expressive of anxiety and alarm, in great contrast to the song notes of his wooing. And yet, if you were at this period--just after the birds are born, and when his song changes--to destroy the nest and contents, you would at once find Mr. Nightingale return to his beautiful song of love to inspire his mate to help him build another nest and start all over again to raise a family. What Causes an Arrow to Fly? It is caused by the power generated when you bend the bow and string of the bow and arrow out of shape. The bow and string have the quality of elasticity which causes a rubber ball to bounce. When you force anything elastic out of shape, this quality in it makes it try to get back to its natural shape quickly. In doing this it acts in the direction which will take it back to its normal shape most quickly. The arrow is fixed on the string in a way that will not interfere with the bow and string getting back to its shape and, when they bounce back, the arrow goes with it. The real cause for the arrow’s flight, however, comes not from the bow, because the bow cannot put itself out of shape, but comes from the person who causes it to be out of shape and, therefore, the person who pulls the string back really causes the arrow to fly. Why Do Children Like Candy? Children crave candy because the sugar which it contains largely is in such a condition that it is the most suited of all our foods for quick use by the body. It is actually turned into real energy within a few minutes after it is eaten. All the things we eat are for the purpose of supplying energy to our bodies to replace the energy that our daily activities have dissipated. Nature takes the valuable parts of the foods we eat and changes them into energy. The waste parts she throws off. Many things we eat have little real value as food and many also nature has to work upon a long time before their food value is available in energy. Sugar, however, represents almost energy itself. Children are, of course, more active than grown-ups. They are never still. They are, therefore, almost always burning up or using up their energy. They are also, therefore, almost always in need of food that can be made into energy, and as sugar does this almost more quickly than any other food, nature teaches the children to like candy or sweets. Why Does Eating Candy Make Some People Fat? Eating as much as one can of anything at any time will produce fat, provided you do not do sufficient physical work or take enough exercise to counteract the effect of generous eating. When you see a person who eats a great deal and is growing fat, you may know that he or she is not taking sufficient bodily exercise to work off the energy produced by the body from the food that has been eaten. When this happens the energy in the form of fat piles up in various parts of the system. Candy will do this more quickly than any other thing we eat because it contains so much sugar and because sugar is so easily changed by our system into usable energy. You generally find a fat person who eats much candy to be a lazy person. What Makes Snowflakes White? A snowflake is, as you are no doubt aware, made of water affected in such a way by the temperature as to change it into a crystal. Water, of course, as you know, is perfectly transparent. In other words, sunlight or other light will pass through water without being reflected. A single snow flake also is partially transparent, i.e., the light will go through it partially, although some of it will be reflected back. When a drop of water is turned into a snowflake crystal, a great many reflecting surfaces are produced, and the whiteness of the snowflake is the result of practically all of the sunlight which strikes it being reflected back, just as a mirror reflects practically all the light or color that is thrown against it. If you turn a green light on the snow, it will reflect the green light in the same way. When the countless snow crystals lie on the ground close together, the ability to reflect the light is increased and so a mass of snow crystals on the ground look even whiter than one single snowflake. What Makes the White Caps on the Waves White? In telling why the snowflake is white we have practically already answered this question also. Instead of little crystals formed from the water, the foam produced by the waves of the ocean are tiny bubbles which have the same ability to reflect the light as the snow crystals. What Good Can Come of a Toothache? Very few of us realize that an aching tooth is a good thing for us, provided we have it attended to and the ache removed. Any one who has had toothache will hardly agree that there can be a blessing attached to this excruciating pain. But the good comes from the warning it gives us of the condition of our teeth on the inside of our mouths. The arrangement of the interior of the mouth and the use we make of it in passing things into our systems, favors very much the development and increase of microbes, and when they once get in they are difficult to remove. It is said that the greatest percentage of cases of stomach trouble come from teeth which are in bad condition and that a very large percentage of people who have bad teeth are in grave danger of blood poisoning or other troubles due to the microbes. When these microbes lodge in the mouth, they find conditions favorable to their development when there are bad teeth, and spread through the system. How Can Microbes Spread Through the Body? The various parts of the body, including the gums, are connected by a lymphatic tissue, which is practically a series of canals. If the teeth are not properly attended to and kept in good condition, both as to cleanliness and repair, the microbes or germs collect on the gums and teeth, and increase in numbers. Soon the mouth is over-populated with microbes and are pushed off the gums or teeth into the lymphatic canals, where they succeed in developing a disease in your body. Now the ache in the tooth becomes a blessing very promptly if it begins soon after the tooth begins to decay, because in that event the dentist is visited and the tooth filled or pulled. Therefore, while it hurts terribly, it might be well to remember that a toothache is a timely warning of danger which, if not heeded, will likely develop into something quite serious. What Causes Toothache? The ache comes when the tiny nerve at the heart of the tooth is exposed to the air. When the tooth begins to decay, it starts to do so generally from the outside, and after the decaying process has gone far enough, it reaches the nerve in the tooth, which aches when exposed to the air. The ache is the signal which the nerve sends to the brain that there is an exposure and a cry for help. Of What Use Are Pains and Aches? All pains and aches are helpful in sounding a warning. A headache may be the result of improper sleep and rest and, therefore, warns us to take the needed rest or sleep. A pain in the stomach is only nature’s way of telling us that we have been unwise in our eating and drinking. As a matter of fact, short though our lives are, they would probably be still shorter, on the average, if it were not for pains and aches, because without these warnings we would never have sense enough to stop doing the things we should not do if we lived normally. What Causes Earache? Earache is caused by the nerves in the ear being affected by something either from within or without which produces a swelling of the parts immediately adjacent to the nerves in the ear, and which press against the nerves; as the nerves cannot go any place else they send a warning to the brain that they are being crowded and pressed against. The pain you feel is the nerve in the ear warning the brain that something is wrong in the ear. What Is Soap Made Of? Soap is not a very modern product, although we have rarely read of soap in olden times. As long ago as two thousand years, the Germans had an ointment which was made in practically the same way as we now make soap. A soap factory was engaged in making soap in France in 1000 A. D. Even before soap was manufactured, people knew that ashes of some plants, when mixed with water, gave it a peculiar, smooth, slippery feeling, and added to the cleansing qualities of water. Although they did not know it, this was due to the soda of potash which was in the ashes. Pure soda and potash both have excellent qualities for cleaning, but are likely to injure the skin, and other things coming in contact with them. Soap is made by boiling together oil or fat and “caustic” soda or potash. Caustic soda is a substance made from sodium carbonate by adding slaked lime to a solution of it. The slaked lime contains calcium in combination with hydrogen and oxygen, and is known in chemistry as calcium hydrate. When calcium hydrate is added to a solution of sodium carbonate, the sodium present combines with the oxygen and hydrogen to form a compound, variously called sodium hydrate, sodium hydroxide, or caustic soda. A similar compound of potassium is formed when the same kind of lime is mixed in a solution of potassium carbonate. In both cases the calcium is converted into calcium carbonate, which is not soluble in water and settles to the bottom; but the caustic soda or potash is dissolved. The word “caustic” means to burn. Both will burn the skin if allowed to touch the skin for a short time. The fats used for making soap consist of glycerine, in chemical combination with what are called fatty acids. When these fats are boiled with caustic soda, or caustic potash, the fat is decomposed; the fatty acid combines with the sodium or potassium to form soap and the glycerine is left uncombined. In modern soap factories the manufacture is carried on in large iron vessels. Some fat and oil are put into the vessel and a little lye, which is really caustic soda or potash, is added and the mixture boiled. The fat and the lye combine very quickly and form a whitish fluid. More lye is now added and the boiling continued. This process is repeated until nearly all the oil or fat has combined with the lye. If yellow laundry soap is being made, some rosin is put in, and this gives the yellow color. If toilet soap is being made, common salt is put in instead of rosin. The addition of the salt has the effect of separating the water and the glycerine from the soap. The soap rises to the surface and is skimmed off. As soon as the separation is complete, and the soap is then cut or pressed into cakes after it has become hard. Soaps referred to above are the ordinary hard soaps. In making soft soaps no salt is added to separate the soap from the liquid. As the water and glycerine do not separate from the soap, the entire mixture remains of a soft consistency. Soft soap is also made with a lye, that is obtained from wood ashes. The ashes are placed in barrels and water poured upon them. The water drips down through the ashes in the barrel and dissolves the potash contained in them, making lye or caustic potash. This lye is then in liquid form and is mixed and boiled with grease or fat to make soap. There are many different fats used in soap making. Palm oil is perhaps the most common, but tallow, olive oil, cotton seed oil, and many other fats are used. The hardness of the soap varies with the kind of fat and lye used. Palm oil or tallow soap is very hard, and other oils are sometimes mixed with it to soften it. These are the main facts connected with the making of soaps. There may appear to be different kinds all of which look and smell differently. The difference in them is largely due to the presence of different perfumes and coloring matters. [Illustration: INDIAN SENDING MESSAGE WITH SMOKE SIGNALS. The savage Indians found their system of smoke signals quite effective in sending messages from place to place. With a good burning fire before him, and a blanket or shield at hand, the Indian was equipped to send his messages. The code consisted of the varying kinds of smoke clouds produced. These were made large or small by covering the fire at intervals with the blanket or shield, thus making interruptions of various lengths in the rising clouds of smoke. By dropping moss or other things into the fire, he made the smoke clouds either light or dark at will.] The Story in a Telegram How Man Learned to Send Messages. From the time when man had learned to protect himself from the beasts of the forest, and thus was able to move about more freely, and live by himself rather than remain with the tribe, he has found it necessary to send messages. One of the most interesting of the early methods for sending messages was the Indian way of smoke signalling with the simple equipment of a fire with its rising column of smoke and a blanket or shield. Messages were sent, relayed, received and answered, at points hundreds of miles apart. Among savages still found in remote parts of the earth this and other primitive methods are still in use. In the wilds of Africa to-day at points where the electric telegraph service has not yet penetrated, the natives by the simple method of beating drums, which can be heard from one relay point to another, are able to send the “news of the day” across the country with marvellous rapidity. In some parts of South America, the natives long ago discovered that the ground is a good conductor of sound and send their messages almost at will, making their signals by tapping against poles which they have planted in the ground at various points and which constitute both their sending and receiving instruments. The Signal Corps in the army uses flags for sending messages, where the telegraph is not available, the flags being of different colors, and the signals are produced by waving the flags in different ways. The army heliograph is also used as a telegraph line--a mirror which reflects the sun’s rays in a manner understood by a prearranged code. These and other similar methods are merely elaborations of devices developed and used by the savages as a solution of the ever present need of sending a message to some other point. [Illustration: THE FIRST MESSENGER BOY THE GREEK RUNNER. In this picture we see the Greek Runner on the last leg of his journey and the man to whom he is to deliver the message waiting for him. This method of sending messages was not very fast, although the runners were picked because of their speed and endurance.] [Illustration: THE PONY TELEGRAPH. Here we see the fast riders of the Pony Telegraph, which increased the speed of delivering messages quite a good deal, but, of course, there was danger of losing the message to enemies or through accident, so that it might be difficult under such circumstances to send a secret message or to even be certain that it would arrive at destination.] [Illustration: IT IS EASY TO CALL A TELEGRAPH MESSENGER... RINGING THE CALL BOX.] The great Marathon runner was nothing more or less than a telegraph messenger hastening with his written message, from the man who delivered it to him, to its destination, and his work was harder than that of the messenger boy to-day, for he not only had to deliver the message himself to its destination, but had to run fast all the way or lose his job. The messenger on foot finally gave way to the Pony Telegraph, which not only shortened the time necessary to deliver a message, but marked the beginning of a system. [Illustration: MESSENGER BOYS WITH BICYCLES WAITING THE CALL.] How Does a Telegram Get There? The next time your daddy takes you down to the office, ask him to show you the telegraph call box. When you see it, you will perhaps not think that by merely pulling down the little lever you can so start things going that, if you wish, you can cause men who are on the other side of the earth to work for you in a few minutes, and to make little instruments all along the way which, with their other equipment, have cost millions of dollars, click, click, click at your will. [Illustration: ...BUT MANY TELEGRAPH EMPLOYEES MUST WORK... Here we see the messenger calling at the office from which the call box registered a call and receiving the telegram to be taken by him to the central office to be put on the wire.] [Illustration: When the messenger gets back to the office, he hands the message to the receiving clerk who stamps it, showing the exact time received and sends it by pneumatic tube to the operating room.] Sooner or later during the day your father will be wanting to send a telegram. He steps to the call box, pulls the little lever and goes back to his desk. In a few minutes, sometimes before you realize it, the little blue-coated messenger appears and says “Call?” Father hands him a telegraph blank on which he has written the message, the messenger takes off his cap, puts the message inside and the cap back on his head and away he goes on his bicycle as fast as his legs can pedal, to the central office, to which point you follow him to see what he does with the message. If you had been at the telegraph office instead of your father’s office, you would have seen one of these boys start off on his wheel to get the message your father wished to send. When the little lever on the call box is pulled down, it is pulled back by a spring which sets some clock work going which sends a signal over the wire on a circuit which runs out from a register at the main office. The register has a paper tape running through it, and the signal from the call box appears as a series of dots on the tape. The clerk knows from the number and spacing of the dots that it was your father that called and not some other business man whose box might be on the same circuit. [Illustration: ...BEFORE THE TELEGRAPH SERVICE IS POSSIBLE AND... We have now followed the telegram to the point where it is to start on its real journey. Here we see the operator preparing to send the message. He first must “get the wire.” By this is meant to get a through connection to the town where the message is to be delivered. Each office along the line has a signal. The other operators can hear the call, but since it is not their signal, they pay no attention. Almost immediately, however, the operator at the delivery point hears the signal. He signals back “I I” and repeats his own office call, which means “I hear you and am ready.” The message is then ticked off, until finished and the operator at the delivery point signals “O. K.,” together with his personal signal, which means he has received the whole message and has it down on paper.] [Illustration: Here we see the operator at the delivery office. She has translated the dots and dashes as they came to her over the wire into plain words on a regular telegraph blank, putting down the time received, the amount to be collected, if it is a “collect” message, or marking it “Paid” if it was so sent. She has handed it to one of the blue-clad messengers in her office who starts off at once to deliver it. The operator has also made a copy of the message for the office files.] [Illustration: ...THE TELEGRAM ARRIVES AT DESTINATION Here we see the messenger delivering the telegram to the person to whom it is addressed. It may be good news or bad news for the person receiving it, but it is all in the day’s work for the messenger boy. But let us see how many people have to work to deliver the message. We have followed it through from the original call box. First there was the messenger who came for it, then the receiving clerk, the sending operator and the operator who receives it and last of all the messenger boy who delivered it. This does not take into account the men who must look after the many miles of wires, the machinery which supplies the current, or the great army of men who are constantly laying new wires so that you can send a telegram from almost anywhere to any other place.] The operators you have seen working in these pictures are Morse operators. They send the message by Morse Code in dots and dashes which are sent over the wire as electric impulses. At the other end the message is read by listening to the clicks the sounder makes as it receives these same electric impulses. This is the simplest way of telegraphing. The number of messages sent between two big cities in a day is tremendous--many more than could be transmitted over one Morse wire. Many wires would be needed. But wire costs money, so ingenious men set to work to find some way to send more than one message over a single wire at the same time. They succeeded. There is now the duplex telegraph, which sends a message each way simultaneously over a single wire, the quadruplex, which sends two messages each way simultaneously over a single wire. Last but not least there is the multiplex, which sends four messages each way simultaneously over a single wire. This seems almost unbelievable, but it is done. In the case of the duplex and quadruplex, the different messages are sent by currents of different strength, and by changing the direction of the current. Receiving instruments are designed so as to separate the messages by being affected only by the currents of certain strength or polarity, as the direction of flow is termed. It can easily be seen that by these ingenious devices, the telegraph company saves many thousands of dollars in the miles and miles of wire, and hundreds of telegraph poles which would be required if all the messages had to be sent over a simple Morse wire, one message only upon the wire at a time. [Illustration: THE WONDERFUL ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH SYSTEM... In this picture we see the interior of a telegraph office along the line of a railroad. The operator has her hand on the “key” or sending instrument. At her left in a stand called the resonator, is the receiving instrument called the “sounder” which clicks off the message. In front of her is an instrument called the “relay.” Current from two of the batteries goes through the key when it is pressed down, through the relay and out on to the wires of the pole line, then through the relay of the receiving operator at the other end, (see picture on opposite page) through his key and through two more batteries to the ground. The earth forms the return wire of an electric circuit when both keys are “closed” or pressed down. You know all electricity has to flow in a closed circuit. The “sounder” has to make good strong clicks to be understood, and the current after it has gone through miles of wire and ground may not be strong enough so the sounder is put on a local circuit of its own, with a special battery. In this circuit is a contact maker which is part of the relay. When the key is pressed down and current flows over the wires on the poles and through the relays, the magnets of the relay pull on a little piece of metal called the “armature,” which makes a contact and closes the local sounder circuit, so current from the single local battery can flow up through the magnets of the sounder and back to the battery. This makes the sounder click. When the key is released, the relay armature is pulled back by a spring and breaks the circuit of sounder, which then emits another click. By the number and duration of the clicks and the time between them, the receiving operator knows the meaning of the signal. The Morse Code, which is used throughout the United States, is shown on next page.] [Illustration: ...SENDS MESSAGES THOUSANDS OF MILES INSTANTANEOUSLY MORSE TELEGRAPH CODE Letters Morse A · -- B -- · · · C · · · D -- · · E · F · -- · G -- -- · H · · · · I · · J -- · -- · K -- · -- L ---- M -- -- N -- · O · · P · · · · · Q · · -- · R · · · S · · · T -- U · · -- V · · · -- W · -- -- X · -- · · Y · · · · Z · · · · & · · · · Numerals Figures Morse 1 · -- -- · 2 · · -- · · 3 · · · -- · 4 · · · · -- 5 -- -- -- 6 · · · · · · 7 -- -- · 8 -- · · · · 9 -- · · -- 0 ---- Punctuations . Period · · -- -- · · : Colon -- · -- · · ; Semicolon · · · · · , Comma · -- · -- ? Interrogation -- · · -- · ! Exclamation -- -- -- · - Fraction Line · ¶ Paragraph -- -- -- -- () Parenthesis · -- ·· --] The multiplex telegraph is truly a marvellous invention. It has been developed by the engineers of the Western Union Telegraph Co. working with the engineers of the Western Electric Company. The principle on which this instrument works is that if separate instruments are given connection with the wire one after the other during very short intervals of time, the effect is as though the wire were split up, and each instrument works just as if it alone were on the wire. Not only does the multiplex telegraph thus send four messages in one direction and four messages in the opposite direction, simultaneously over a single wire, thus keeping no less than sixteen operators employed on one wire, four sending and four receiving at each end, but each message instead of being sent by the ordinary Morse key, is written upon a typewriter keyboard at one end of the line and appears automatically typewritten at the other end. If you live in a big city, go into one of the larger branch offices of the Western Union Telegraph Co. and ask to see printing telegraph. Most of the large branch offices communicate with the general operating department in the city by means of what they term “short line printers,” which are instruments on which the message is written upon a typewriter keyboard and appears typewritten at the other end. Who Invented the Electric Telegraph? It is hard to say just how the telegraph originated in the mind of men. We have already shown how the savages sent signals over distances by means of the smoke rising from his fire. Every boy and girl has used a little mirror, held in the sun to flash a bright spot here and there. This principle has been used by the army to signal at distances. The sun’s rays are flashed from a small mirror, long and short flashes indicating the dashes and dots of the Morse telegraph code. [Illustration: PROFESSOR S. F. B. MORSE, INVENTOR OF THE TELEGRAPH.] Progress towards the perfection of the electric telegraph began with the first researches of scientists into the natural laws which govern that great natural agent, electricity. Clever, painstaking men, studying and experimenting for the love of the work, discovered bit by bit how to control the force. Stephen Gray with his Leyden jars, which stored up a charge of electricity, inspired Sir William Watson to experiment, and he sent current from one jar to another two miles away. The First Suggestion of the Electric Telegraph. For a long time no one thought that this opened the way for the making of a useful servant for man. In 1753 this thought occurred to an unknown man in Scotland, who wrote a letter to a newspaper suggesting that messages be sent by electric currents. One of his schemes was that there should be a light ball at the receiving end of the wire which would strike a bell when it felt the electric impulse come over the wire from the Leyden jar, and by devising a code depending upon the number of strokes of the bell and the time between them, he suggested that messages could be sent and interpreted. Some believe this man to have been a doctor named Charles Morrison of Greenock, Scotland. Whoever he was, he suggested a method which comes very near to being that in use to-day. The difficulty with proceeding on this suggestion was that the current from the Leyden jar was static electricity, which has not the strength nor can it be controlled as can the current of low potential which is used to-day. Volta discovered this new and more stable form of electricity and many different men labored investigating what could be accomplished with it. The names of Sir Humphry Davy and Michael Faraday are inseparably connected with this advance. It was Oersted’s and Faraday’s discovery of the connection between electricity and magnetism, and how an electric current may be made to magnetize a piece of iron at will, that really opened the way for the invention of the telegraph we know to-day. The First Real Telegraph. But before the much greater practical value of Volta’s current was discovered, one man developed a real telegraph which worked with electricity of the static kind, produced by friction. This man was named Sir Francis Ronalds. He worked along the lines laid down by the unknown Scotchman, whom we have supposed to be Charles Morrison. The machine he built and operated in his garden at Hammersmith utilized pith balls, which actuated by the charge of static electricity sent along the wire caused a letter to appear before an opening in the dial. When perfected he offered it to the British Government, who refused it. They were very stupid in their refusal, for they said “telegraphs are wholly unnecessary.” Sir Francis Ronalds’ invention cost him much care, anxiety and money. He lived to see the more practical voltaic current taken up by others and put to successful use. Being unselfish he rejoiced that others should succeed where he had failed. Two Men who Invented our Telegraph almost Simultaneously. The telegraph, working on the electro-magnetic principle, as used to-day, was developed almost simultaneously on the two sides of the Atlantic Ocean. In England Sir Charles Wheatstone and Sir William Fothergill Cooke worked out a practical method and instruments, which with few changes, are in use to-day. Cooke was a doctor and had served with the British army in India. Wheatstone was the son of a Gloucester musical instrument maker. The latter was fond of science and experimented continually with electricity and wrote about it and other scientific subjects. As a result of his work he was made a professor at King’s College. There he conducted important researches and tests, among which was one which measured the speed at which electricity travels along a wire. So Cooke, who was a doctor and a good business man, entered into partnership with the scientist Wheatstone, and together they completed their invention. It was first used in 1838 on the London and Blackwall Railway. At first it was expensive and cumbersome, using five lines of wire. Later this number was reduced to two, and in 1845, an instrument was devised which required but one wire. This instrument, with a few minor changes, is the one in use to-day in England. While these two men were working in England, an American artist, S. F. B. Morse, was studying and experimenting in the United States along his own lines but with the same end in view, namely to produce instruments which would satisfactorily send messages over a wire by electricity. An American, however, is given the honor of First by Slight Margin. Morse was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1791. He was gifted as an artist, both in painting and sculpture, and in 1811 went abroad to England to study. While on a voyage from Havre to America in 1832 he met on board ship a Dr. Jackson, who told him of the latest scientific discoveries in regard to the electric current and the electro-magnet. This set Morse to thinking and after three years’ hard work on the problem he produced a telegraph which worked on the principle of the electro-magnet. With the apparatus devised by Morse and his partner Alfred Vail, a message was sent from Washington to Baltimore in 1844. There has been some question as to whether Morse or Wheatstone first invented a workable telegraph. As will be evident from this history, the telegraph in principle was a gradual development, to which many minds contributed. To Morse, however, the high authority of the Supreme Court of the United States has given the credit of being the first to perfect a practical instrument, saying that the Morse invention “preceded the three European inventions” and that it would be impossible to examine the latter without perceiving at once “the decided superiority of the one invented by Professor Morse.” Uncle Sam Helped Build the First Telegraph Line. ~FIRST TELEGRAPH LINE FROM BALTIMORE TO WASHINGTON~ At the time Morse’s Recording Telegraph was invented there were, of course, no telegraph lines in any part of the world, with the exception of the short lines of wire put up by investigators for experimental purposes. To remove the obscurity as to the purpose to be served by the telegraph was the first problem which presented itself to Morse and his backers. In 1843 an appropriation was secured of $30,000 from the U. S. Government, with which a line was built from Washington to Baltimore. This was built and operated by the Government for about two years, but the Government refused to purchase the patent rights. So the owners of the patents endeavored to get the general public interested in the telegraph as a commercial undertaking and gradually companies were founded and licensed to use the invention. By 1851 there were as many as fifty different telegraph companies in operation in different parts of the United States. A few of these used the devices of a man named Alexander Bain, which were afterwards adjudged to infringe the Morse patents, and one or two used an instrument invented by Royal E. House of Vermont, which printed the messages received in plain Roman letters on a ribbon of paper. This at first seemed to have an advantage over that of Morse, which received the message in dots and dashes, in the Morse Code, and these had to be translated and written out by an operator before they could be delivered. However, as time went on, the operators came to read the Morse messages by the sound of the dots and dashes, instead of waiting to read the paper tape having the dots and dashes marked on it, and finally the recording feature was given up and the sounder, or instrument which simply clicks out the message, came into general use. In the early days, the possibility of the business were little understood and many telegraph companies failed. April 8, 1851, papers were filed in Albany for the incorporation of the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Co. This company, which soon afterwards changed its name to Western Union, was destined to absorb the various companies throughout the country until it, in time, operated the telegraph lines over practically the entire United States, and has its blue sign in nearly every town and hamlet in the country. [Illustration: AN EXPENSIVE EQUIPMENT NECESSARY TO-DAY OPERATING ROOM. In large cities like New York and Chicago, the operating rooms are very large. For instance, the main operating department of the Western Union Telegraph Co. in New York City has 1000 operators. This picture shows an operating room. The men and women sit in opposite sides of long tables. On the tables are the keys and sounders by which they send and receive the messages. Each operator has a typewriter, or “mill,” as he calls it, on which he writes off the message as it comes to him over the wire.] [Illustration: MAIN SWITCHBOARD. The picture shows a main switchboard in a large operating room. To this come the ends of the wires from other cities, and to it are connected the wires from the instruments in front of the operators. By putting plugs, attached to each end of a wire, into the sockets in the board, any wire can be connected with any operating position, or several local circuits can be connected up with a main line from the outside.] [Illustration: A THOROUGH SYSTEM MUST HANDLE THE MESSAGES A SECTION OF THE REPEATER ROOM. When a wire runs to a distant point from the main operating department of the telegraph company in a large city, the same electric current which runs through the key of the operator as he sits at his place, busily sending messages, does not go out over the wire to that distant point. It simply goes to the repeater room and operates a repeater, which sends out another current over the long wire which leads to the destination of the message. This is necessary because the condition of the weather affects the lines and the current strength has to be changed to suit the changing line conditions. The operators haven’t time to make these adjustments, and so all the repeaters are grouped together in the repeater room where they are under the watchful eyes of experts. Here also are the delicate instruments which separate the messages coming over duplex and quadruplex wires, by responding to impulses of various strengths. These messages which have been separated are then transmitted by the duplex or quadruplex repeaters to different operators in the operating room, who hear their sounders tick out the message just the same as if it came over a simple Morse wire.] [Illustration: CABLES ENTERING A CENTRAL OFFICE. You may not but your father will remember the time when in large cities there were tall telegraph poles with hundreds of wires on them running along the main streets, so that the town seemed to be bound with great spiders’ web. That is all changed now, and the telegraph wires are run through ducts, placed underground. For this purpose they are made up in cables, and in the picture you see a number of cables entering a central office.] [Illustration: THE MARVEL OF TELEGRAPH INSTRUMENTS WHEATSTONE SENDING INSTRUMENT. These two photographs show the most modern form of the instruments which, as we are told on another page, were invented in England by Wheatstone and Cooke. In sending a paper tape is punched in what is called a perforator, which has a keyboard like a typewriter. A certain combination of holes means a certain letter. This tape is then automatically fed through the sending instrument, which sends impulses over the wire. The tape with the holes punched through it can be seen in the picture. On the right is the Wheatstone receiving instrument. It prints the signals received in dots and dashes on a tape, which is translated by the operator who typewrites the translation on a message blank for delivery.] [Illustration: The automatic telegraph typewriter shown here is one of the wonderful instruments mentioned on one of the preceding pages. The operator at the other end of the line writes on a typewriter keyboard, on the sending instrument. The electric impulses are received by the machine shown above, which automatically typewrites the message on a blank, ready for delivery.] On this page we see some of the first telegraph instruments, in fact, the very instruments which Professor Morse used in the early demonstrations of his invention. These instruments may be seen in the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, D. C. The key is known as the Vail key, because it is supposed to have been constructed by Alfred Vail, who worked with Morse in his experiments with the telegraph. As can be seen it is very simple. One wire was connected to the spring piece and the other to the post beneath it. When the key was pressed down, the contact was made and an impulse sent over the wire, either a dot, if the key was pressed down and immediately released, or a dash if it were held down for just the fraction of a second before releasing. From the very first it was found that relays were necessary, because the current after coming a long way over the wire often was not strong enough to operate the recording instrument. Therefore, this weak current was made to go though the electro-magnets of the relay, magnetizing these and pulling to the left the upright arm which can be seen in the photograph with a little block of iron attached to it. This arm, when pulled by the magnets, made a contact at the top and allowed a strong current from a battery to flow through the magnets of the recording instrument. The first practical recording telegraph instrument devised by Morse is shown. It looks like a clumsy affair compared to the instruments of to-day, but it worked so effectively as to convince people of the possibilities of the great invention. In the wooden box, attached to the frame at the right, is clockwork which pulled a paper tape at an even rate of speed over a pulley just beneath a needle point. This needle point is attached to a light framework having a piece of iron fastened in it. Below this iron are the electro-magnets, and when they received an impulse of current from the battery, through the relay, they pulled down the frame so that the point made a mark upon the paper tape which moved under it. Thus in the tape appeared a series of dots and dashes, which the operator, knowing the Morse Code, could easily translate into English. [Illustration: THE FIRST TELEGRAPH INSTRUMENTS ONE OF THE FIRST KEYS FOR SENDING TELEGRAMS.] [Illustration: ONE OF THE FIRST RELAYS.] [Illustration: The first recording apparatus. The box on the right contains clock work for pulling a paper tape beneath a sharp point actuated by magnets.] [Illustration: THE LITTLE INSTRUMENTS THAT CHECK OFF THE WORDS A LATER KEY.] [Illustration: A LATER AND IMPROVED RECORDING INSTRUMENT. Here we see some early telegraph instruments which have been improved somewhat from the crude devices illustrated on the preceding page. The key answers the same purpose as before, but has been improved by pivoting the lever arm, and having a coil spring, adjustable by means of a screw, so that the weight necessary to press it down can be varied to suit the likings of the operator who uses it. The play of the key or the distance it must be pressed down before it makes an electric contact, can be adjusted by another screw. The recording instrument here shown is a much neater affair than the cumbersome device which Professor Morse first built. The cumbersome wooden box has been replaced with a neat brass frame containing the clockwork for drawing the paper tape beneath the marking point, which is attached to a piece of iron, or armature, placed just above the magnet. Below we see the most modern types of Morse instruments. In the center is the key, which is not much changed except that it is built to be low down to a table, so that the operator may rest his forearm on the table top in front of it, and operate the key with his wrist, with less fatigue. The relay at the left is interesting. It shows how little this instrument has changed, except for refinement in its appearance, from the first relay built by Professor Morse. At the right is the Morse sounder, which has replaced the old Morse tape recording instrument. When current goes through the magnets they attract a piece of iron attached to the metal arm and pull it down to strike the brass frame. This makes a click, and when the current is intercepted, the magnets release the arm and a spring pulls it back, making another click. The operator reads the message by listening to the clicks. If the up click comes right after the down click it represents a dot. If there is a pause between them, a dash is represented.] [Illustration: Relay Key Sounder MODERN MORSE INSTRUMENTS] [Illustration: WHAT OCEAN CABLES LOOK LIKE WHEN CUT IN TWO _Light Intermediate_ _Heavy Intermediate_ _Main Cable_ _Rock Cable_ _Heavy Shore End_ _Rock Cable_ _Heavy Shore End_ _Heavy Intermediate_ _Light Intermediate_ _Deep Sea_ _Bay Cable_ FIG. 1.--CABLES ON VANCOUVER-FANNING ISLAND SECTION. Full size. Core, 600/340.] [Illustration: Yarn Serving & Compound 16 No. 13 (·095) Galvanized Wires Jute Serving Gutta Percha Copper Conductor FIG. 2.--CABLES USED ON FIJI-NORFOLK ISLAND-QUEENSLAND AND NEW ZEALAND SECTIONS. Full size. Core 130/130. This picture shows cross-sections of a cable which runs from Vancouver, B. C., to Australia and New Zealand. A cable is not laid with a uniform cross-section. On the floor of the ocean, perhaps miles below the surface, the cable rests quietly and is not moved by storms which generate great waves on the surface of the water. As the cable approaches the shore, the movement of the water goes deeper and the cable must be made heavier to prevent it from being worn by movement on the bed of the ocean. Where the cable passes over a rocky bottom, it is made much larger in diameter and is heavily armored.] [Illustration: Here is the cable steamship “Colonia” laying the shore end of a cable. Note the row of floats upon the water which carry the cable until the end in the cable office is firmly fastened. When this is accomplished the floats are removed and the cable sinks to the bottom.] The Story in an Ocean Cable What is a Cable Made of? A submarine telegraph cable as usually made consists of a core in the center of which is a strand of copper wire which varies in weight from seventy to four hundred pounds to the mile. Strands of copper wire instead of one thick wire of copper are used, because the former is more flexible. The copper conductor is covered with several coatings of rubber of equal weight to the copper wires. After this comes a coating of jute serving, then a layer of galvanized iron wires and finally a layer of yarn and compound which forms the outer covering of the cable. In addition to this where the cable lays among rocks that might injure it, chains are securely wrapped around it, so as to prevent wear and tear as much as possible. You may not have known it, but the cable which lies on the bottom where the water is deepest is never so large as nearer the shore or in shallow water. Little by little the men who lay and look after cables have found that it is best to have a specially constructed outer covering for different depths and character of bottoms so as to provide the least possible danger of damage through the action of the water on the bottom. How is a Cable Laid? When the cable of sufficient length is completed, it is carried to a specially equipped vessel which has a great tank for holding the cable and the necessary machinery for lowering it over the end of the ship into the water. The cable is carefully coiled in the tank, the different coils being prevented from adhering by a coat of whitewash. First then, a sufficient length of cable is paid out to reach the cable house or shore. Here it is finally tested to see that the entire length of cable is in working order. If satisfactorily tested, the vessel steams slowly away on the course outlined, paying out the cable as she goes. [Illustration: STORING A CABLE LONG ENOUGH TO CROSS THE OCEAN Here we see a cable coiled round and round in the tank which holds it on board the cable ship.] [Illustration: In the front of the picture we see the cable coming from the tank in which it is coiled. It goes over the drum of the paying-out machine and thence to the bow of the ship, where it passes over big sheaves or pulleys and down into the ocean.] [Illustration: THE MACHINERY ON A CABLE SHIP The paying-out machine. The cable makes a couple of turns around the big drum, which is connected to the dial, so that the dial indicates the length of cable which has been paid out into the sea.] [Illustration: The upper forward deck of the cable steamship “Telconia,” showing the gear which is used in paying out the cable. Away in the bow are the big sheaves over which the cable goes into the sea. Nearer is a dynamometer which measures the tension on the cable.] [Illustration: HOW THE CABLE IS DROPPED INTO THE OCEAN Here we see the cable on the lead, as it is called, passing over the big bow sheave from which it dives into the depths of the sea.] The vessel must pay out more than a mile of cable for every mile she travels because there must be enough slack allowed at the same time to provide for the unevenness of the bottom of the sea. For this purpose the amount of cable paid out must be measured. This is done by the paying-out machine, which is shown in one of the pictures. The difference between the speed of the ship and the amount of cable paid out gives the amount of slack. Too much slack would also be bad, so that it is a very pretty problem to pay out just enough and both the speed of the vessel and the rate of paying out the cable must be watched carefully. One of the greatest wonders accomplished by the ingenuity of man is the ocean telegraph, by which we flash messages back and forth under the sea between the continents and completely around the world. Hardly had the telegraph become an established fact, before Professor Morse, who made the telegraph practical, expressed the belief that a telegraph line to Europe by means of a wire laid on the bottom of the ocean was easily possible at some future time. Mr. Cyrus W. Field, the first to lay an ocean cable successfully, heard him and in his own mind said “Why not now?” The idea fixed itself so thoroughly in his resolute mind that he soon said to himself “It shall be done,” and went to work, and labored incessantly through twelve years of failure and discouragement before he accomplished his task, which was a great compliment to this giant of American stick-to-it-iveness. While many doubted the feasibility of the project and others thought it the dream of a disordered brain, Mr. Field found many who believed in him and his idea and who loaned him their financial support for the undertaking. [Illustration: THE CABLE ARRIVES ON THE OTHER SIDE Landing the shore end of a cable. The cable is supported on several boats and this picture shows the inshore boat with the end of the cable reaching the beach with the seas breaking over her.] [Illustration: THE MEN WHO MADE THE OCEAN CABLE POSSIBLE THE PIONEERS OF THE FIRST OCEAN CABLE.] American genius had not at that time asserted its supremacy in mechanics and so the first cable had to be made in England; so Mr. Field ordered one long enough to stretch from the west coast of Ireland to the eastern point of Newfoundland. English capitalists subscribed the money and the United States provided the vessel in which to store and from which to drop the cable into the ocean. Upon the first attempt to lay the cable, every thing went along nicely for six days, and then suddenly the cable broke when three hundred and thirty-five miles had been laid, and many said it could not be done. Mr. Field, however, full of American pluck and determination, said “We will try again.” A second attempt was made with two ships, the U. S. S. “Niagara” and H. M. S. S. “Agamemnon.” Each ship carried half the cable and they traveled in company to the middle of the ocean. There the two pieces of the cable were spliced together and the ships started for the shores in opposite directions. Again, however, when only a little of the cable had been paid out--a little more than one hundred miles in fact--the cable broke and both ships were forced to return to England. In his third attempt the cable was finally laid clear across the ocean and fastened at both ends. When tried it was found to work successfully and Queen Victoria and President Buchanan were able to exchange greetings upon the achievement of a wonderful work. The people celebrated the event on both sides of the ocean, but in the midst of the festivities, while a message was being flashed, something happened to the cable--what, we have never been able to learn--and the cable was silent, forever. Nothing daunted, however, Mr. Field by his great courage induced his backers to buy him another cable and the “Great Eastern” sailed upon what was to be a most successful mission. Starting from the American side with the greatest steamship then known in charge of the previous cable, the other end was successfully landed at Hearts Content, Ireland, on July 27, 1866, in perfect working order, and the question of the ocean telegraph was solved. [Illustration: HOW CABLES ARE REPAIRED Here is a buoy which is anchored to the cable. The cable ship will pick it up and haul up the cable to the surface for inspection and perhaps it will have to be repaired.] [Illustration: Three grapnels used for picking up a cable from the bed of the ocean. On the left is a common grapnel. In the middle is a special grapnel known as Trott-Kingsford. On the right is the ordinary cutting grapnel. Note the knives on the shaft and the insides of the prongs.] [Illustration: In this picture we see a portion of a cable which has been fouled by the anchor of a ship and badly damaged. Note how the wires are bunched. The cable splicers will go to work on this and put in a new piece of cable, after which it will be let down into the sea again.] [Illustration: The Western Union Cable ship “Minia,” fast in an ice field.] [Illustration: POWERFUL ENGINES NEEDED ON CABLE REPAIR SHIPS Here are the powerful engines which are used for picking up a cable which has to be raised from the bottom of the sea for inspection or repair.] [Illustration: In this picture we see men at work splicing a cable which has been picked up out of the depths of the sea and found to be damaged.] [Illustration: THE SHIP WHICH HELPED IN LAYING THE FIRST CABLE ARMORING MACHINE Here is one of the machines used for armoring the cable. By armoring is meant winding steel wires around and around the cable to protect it from being cut by sharp rocks on the bottom or by deep sea animals like the teredo, which might attack it.] [Illustration: The “Great Eastern” which was the first ship to carry a cable across the Atlantic Ocean.] [Illustration: This is a section of a telephone cable, known as a “bulge.” It contains inductance coils to offset what is called the condenser capacity of the cable, which would otherwise cause the talking to become blurred.] [Illustration: THE DOTS AND DASHES WHICH FLASH ACROSS THE SEA CONTINENTAL MORSE CODE SIGNALS USED IN CABLE WORKING] Making repairs to a cable where it comes out of the sea on to a bold rocky shore. Note how the cable is wound with chain to protect it from the rocks. [Illustration: Facsimile of Continental Morse Alphabet as Signalled Across the Atlantic and Copied on Tape by Siphon Recorder Instrument at the Receiving Station. Signals Enlarged for Purposes of this Illustration. Same Signals as They Appear in Actual Working Here are two photographs showing the continental Morse code signals used in cable working and the signals as they are received by the siphon recording instrument at the receiving station. This siphon recorder is in practical use in the cable world. The dots and dashes sent into the wire on one side of the ocean according to the Morse code, cause the siphon recorder through the means of electrified ink to make a waving line on a tape. The signals are readily reducible again if necessary to the dots and dashes of the Morse code because dots make deflections to one side of the center of the tape and dashes to the other. The operator who receives the message can therefore readily read it. ALPHABET: A · -- B -- · · · C -- · -- · D -- · · E · F · · -- · G -- -- · H · · · · I · · J · -- -- -- K -- · -- L · -- · · M -- -- N -- · O -- -- -- P · -- -- · Q -- -- · -- R · -- · S · · · T -- U · · -- V · · · -- W · -- -- X -- · · -- Y -- · -- -- Z -- -- · · FIGURES: 1 · -- -- -- -- 2 · · -- -- -- 3 · · · -- -- 4 · · · · -- 5 · · · · · 6 -- · · · · 7 -- -- · · · 8 -- -- -- · · 9 -- -- -- -- · 0 -- -- -- -- -- OR --] [Illustration: TO-DAY THERE ARE MANY CABLES ON THE BOTTOM MAP No. 1 WESTERN UNION TRANS-ATLANTIC CABLES AND CONNECTIONS] THE STORY IN A RAILWAY LOCOMOTIVE [Illustration: One of the Most Powerful Locomotives in the World] [Illustration: BOILER OF ARTICULATE COMPOUND LOCOMOTIVE. The wonder of our railroad systems to-day is the growth of the locomotive. The necessity for economy in hauling long freight trains has led to the development of this type of engine. Some idea of its size can be had from the second picture, which shows the boiler and firebox of the locomotive shown in the first picture. The firebox is so large that an ordinary narrow-gauge locomotive of the old style can be comfortably stored in it. LOADED WEIGHTS On driving wheels 475,000 lbs. On truck wheels 30,000 lbs. On trailing wheels 35,000 lbs. Total of engine 540,000 lbs. Total of tender 212,000 lbs. WHEEL BASE Driving, rigid 15 ft. 6 ins. Total of engine 57 ft. 4 ins. Total of engine and tender 91 ft. 5³⁄₁₆ ins. CYLINDERS Diameter H.P. 28 ins., L. P. 44 ins. Stroke of piston 32 ins. WHEELS Diameter of driving wheels, outside 56 ins. Diameter of truck wheels 30 ins. Diameter of trailing wheels 30 ins. Diameter of tender wheels 33 ins.] [Illustration: CYLINDERS BIG ENOUGH FOR MEN TO SIT DOWN IN LOW PRESSURE CYLINDERS OF ARTICULATED COMPOUND LOCOMOTIVE. In the picture we see the cylinders of the locomotive shown on the previous page. Some idea of their size can be had from the fact that a good-sized man can sit comfortably in each of them. BOILER Type Ex. Wagon Top Working pres. per sq. in. 200 lbs. Outside diam. at front end 100 ins. Outside diam. at back end 112 ins. Length firebox inside 173¹⁄₁₆ ins. Length firebox, actual, inside 132 ins. Width of firebox inside 108¹⁄₄ ins. No. and diam. of tubes 334, 2¹⁄₄ ins. No. and diam. of flues 48, 5¹⁄₂ ins. Length of tubes 24 ft. 0 ins. Combust. chamber length 39¹⁄₁₆ ins. Grate area 99.2 sq. ft. HEATING SURFACE Tubes and flues 6462 sq. ft. Water tubes 67 sq. ft. Firebox 380 sq. ft. Total 6909 sq. ft. Superheating surface 1311 sq. ft. CLEARANCE LIMITATIONS Extreme height 16 ft. 5¹⁄₈ ins. Extreme width 11 ft. 8¹⁄₂ ins. Length over all 99 ft. 9⁵⁄₈ ins. MAXIMUM TRACTIVE POWER Working compound 115,000 lbs. Working simple 138,000 lbs. Factor of adhesion (working compound) 4.13 Factor of adhesion (working simple) 3.44 TENDER CAPACITY Water 12,000 gals. Fuel 16 tons] [Illustration: THE LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEER’S WORKROOM Here is a picture of one end of the boiler of this giant locomotive. It would take a man more than seven feet high to bump his head in the middle of it while standing on his feet.] [Illustration: This shows a picture of the engineer’s cab of one of these great railroad machines. We are accustomed to see the levers and other machinery for operating the engine right in the back of the engine cab. Over or near the firebox. Upon looking closely we find that the operating machinery is at the side of the locomotive and far forward in the cab. In fact there is a complete set of operating machinery on both sides of the cab, so that the engineer can run the engine from whatever side he happens to be on. This is very necessary, particularly in switching. Near the end of the cab where the engineer used to sit you will notice a peculiar pipe-like arrangement. This is not for operating the engine, but is the automatic stoker, which is fully explained in the next picture. An engine of this size will require seven tons of coal per hour.] [Illustration: A MACHINE WHICH DOES THE WORK OF FOUR FIREMEN When these large locomotives were first used it was found that no one fireman could shovel in enough coal to keep the steam up. It would require three or four firemen working constantly to shovel enough coal to keep this engine going. Man’s inventive genius came to the front, however, and now we have an automatic fireman, so to speak. Instead of shoveling coal on one of these engines the fireman merely operates a lever. This is a picture of the Sweet locomotive stoker installed in a railroad engine. This machine automatically conveys coal from the tender to the locomotive, raises it by an elevator to a point above the fire door, dumps it into the firebox and spreads it evenly over the grate.] [Illustration: This is the new type of electric locomotive being used by the New York Central system] [Illustration: HOW A FAST TRAIN TAKES WATER WITHOUT STOPPING The fast express trains haven’t time to stop and take water from the tank at the side of the railroad as in former days. This picture shows a tank built between the tracks which enables the engineer to fill his boilers without slackening speed. When approaching this tank the engineer simply lowers a tube into the water, the end of which is a scoop. The moving engine thus forces the water up into the tube, from which it runs into the boiler.] [Illustration: This is an improved signal tower from which switches are operated. If you were ever in a signal tower you will not recognize this as one, for you are used to seeing a room full of levers which the tower man had to pull hard when he wished to throw a switch. By the old way the end of the lever was attached to a wire which was connected with the switch. The wire running through pipes, when the operator pulled the lever the switch was pulled shut by the pull on the wire. In this new plan the switch is controlled by electricity, and the operator has merely to pull out a plug as shown in the picture, which is much easier than operating a lever.] [Illustration: WHAT MAKES A WIRELESS MESSAGE GO Sketch showing arrangement of aerial on ship equipped with the Marconi Direction Finder, an instrument which tells the sea captain the exact points of the compass from which wireless distress signals are being sent and enables ships to avoid collisions in fog.] The Story in the Wireless What is the Principle of the Wireless Telegraphy? Drop a stone in a pool of water. Circular waves or ripples will travel outward in all directions. That is the principle of wireless telegraph. If a chip be floating on the water it will be rocked by each ripple, just as a wireless receiving station will respond to the electrical waves or impulses that make up a wireless message. It is not known just how the invisible wireless waves are propelled through space, but they travel through the ether in the air in very much the same way as do sound waves. The electrical signals, too, are received only by apparatus that is attuned to them; that is, they can not be heard except at wireless stations, any more than sound can be heard by the ears of a deaf person. The wireless waves have a definite length, can be measured in feet or meters, and are regulated according to the distance the message is to travel. Stations that send a few hundred miles use a wave length of six hundred meters, or less, while at the powerful land stations used for trans-atlantic work the wave lengths used run into as many thousands. Why Don’t the Messages Go to the Wrong Stations? So that the hundreds of messages hurtling through space at the same time will not interfere, the wireless stations are equipped with tuning-apparatus through which they can adjust their wave length to receive the particular message desired. A different wave length is used by each ship or wireless shore station, and even though dozens of messages fill the air, the minute the wireless operator adjusts his tuner to the length of the station he is after, that particular message stands out very strongly and all the others grow dim. [Illustration: The Marconi Wireless station at Miami, Fla., which is typical of the shore stations that handle messages to several thousand ships at sea.] How Does the Wireless Reach Ships at Sea? All ships at sea report their positions regularly; thus it is a simple matter for a shore station to send a wireless message to the ship to which it is addressed. For example, the Marconi station at Sea Gate, New York, wants to reach the Lusitania. The operator looks up that vessel on the list and notes her call signal and wave length. He adjusts his tuner to correspond and calls her signal, M F A, repeating it three times. The wireless man on the vessel, knowing that he is within range of a shore station, has set his tuner at the wave length assigned to him and is listening. When his call letters are heard, he acknowledges them and signals to go ahead with the message. When it has been given, the Sea Gate station “signs off” with its call letters W S E and the ship operator enters in his record that that particular message reached him via the Marconi station at Sea Gate. Thus, with the wide variety in wave lengths, no confusion of messages exists and any desired ship or shore station can be called, just as a direct telephone connection is secured by giving the central station the call number of the subscriber wanted. What Kind of Signs Are Used in the Wireless? The actual wireless message is composed of dots and dashes, which, in certain combinations, stand for certain letters of the alphabet. This is done through opening and closing the electrical circuit by pressing a key, a sharp touch forming a dot and a longer pressure a dash, as with the wire telegraph. If secrecy in a wireless message is wanted, the words are sent in cipher which, of course, cannot be understood by outsiders. The Government sends thousands of words each day without a single word meaning anything to the wireless stations that happen to be “listening in.” While it is true that any one owning a wireless receiving set may listen to messages flying through the air, every person within hearing who understands the Morse Code can read the telegrams that come into a telegraph office. Knowledge thus gained, however, is of little value, as the law provided heavy penalties for disclosing the contents of any kind of telegraph message. What Does a Wireless Equipment Consist of? The various apparatus that comprises a wireless equipment can not be properly explained without the use of technical language, but the general principle of operation is somewhat as follows: If a small loop of copper wire, with a slight separation between the ends, is placed across a room from an electric spark, it will be slightly affected. Increase the electrical current to far greater power and control it, and the invisible electrical wave may be thrown many miles. To send a message across the ocean, the current used by the modern wireless station is so powerful that it will pass through storm and fog, even through mountains, without losing much of its force. When this tremendous force is released by pressing the telegraph key, it leaps from the aerial wires, or antennae, travels across the Atlantic and is picked up by a corresponding aerial, attuned to receive the signal. [Illustration: Pack and riding horses grouped together ready for unloading the Marconi wireless set used in the cavalry. Station set up and working. WORKING THE WIRELESS IN THE ARMY.] The aerial, or antennae, as it is called in a wireless work, is made up of copper wires. On a ship these are strung between the masts, usually consisting of two, four or six wires held apart by crosspieces. Two or more wires lead down from this to the wireless cabin. The coil or transformer is the apparatus which produces the spark that forms the electrical waves. In small stations, the length and thickness of the spark and the speed of vibration is regulated by a thumb screw. Transformers are used when the power is taken from the alternating current of an electric light circuit. The gap, which the electrical current jumps when the telegraph key is pressed down, is composed of two rods which slide together or apart to vary the length of the spark. The simplest type of sending station consists of the antenna, battery, coil, wireless key and spark gap. If a change in wave length is desired a transmitting tuning coil must be added. The receiving apparatus contains a detector, which is chiefly two mineral points lightly touching and connected with a sensitive head telephone. The incoming signals are heard as long and short buzzing sounds corresponding to the dots and dashes. The receiving tuning coil, used to adjust wave lengths, is operated by simply moving sliding contacts along a bar until the signals are more plainly heard. While the large stations have more complicated apparatus, the principle remains the same. [Illustration: The masts for the cavalry wireless sets are so attached that they can be loaded and unloaded with the utmost rapidity; a complete station can be erected or dismantled in less than ten minutes.] [Illustration: The gasoline engine which supplies the power for operating a cavalry wireless station is fitted to the saddle frame and is light enough to be carried by one horse. THE WIRELESS IN THE ARMY] How High Do Wireless Masts Have to be? The towering masts of the Marconi Trans-Oceanic stations are often supposed to rise to their great height, so that an antennae will be raised above the obstructions between. If this were necessary, two wireless stations separated by the Atlantic would have to have masts one hundred and twenty-five miles high to rise above the curvature of the earth. The path of the wireless waves, however, is not in a straight line, but follows the curvature of the earth. Scientists explain this by saying the rarefied air above the earth’s surface acts as a shell enclosing the globe. The speed of wireless messages is placed at 186,000 miles per second. A wireless message will thus cross the Atlantic in about one-nineteenth of a second--a period of time too small for the human mind to grasp. In other words, the wireless flash crosses in a fraction of a second a distance that the earth requires five hours to turn on its axis and the fastest ships take nearly a week to cross. The longest distance over which a wireless message can be sent is not definitely known; the present record was made in September, 1910, by Marconi from Clifden, Ireland, to Buenos Aires, Argentina, a distance of 6700 miles. [Illustration: THE WIRELESS PREVENTS ACCIDENTS AND SAVES MANY LIVES This photograph makes us appreciate what a wonderful aid is wireless to navigators. On Easter Sunday, 1914, the U. S. Revenue Cutter “Seneca,” patrolling the North Atlantic, found these two gigantic icebergs in the regular steamer lanes and sent out wireless warnings to all nearby steamships.] [Illustration: HOW THE WIRELESS IS INSTALLED ON FAST TRAINS RAILROAD WIRELESS.--ANTENNA ON CARS.] [Illustration: WIRELESS STATION ON TRAINS.] [Illustration: WIRELESS STATION IN U. S. ARMY City side of Scranton station, Lackawanna R.R., showing aerial of wireless which communicates with trains.] [Illustration: Photo by Stefano WIRELESS RECEIVING STATION IN U. S. ARMY.] [Illustration: Guglielmo Marconi, Inventor of wireless telegraphy.] The Man Who Invented Wireless Telegraphy. Communication without wires for thousands of miles across oceans, from continent to continent, is a far cry from sending a wireless impulse the length of a kitchen table. That is the development of twenty years. To properly trace the development of wireless telegraphy, however, it is necessary to go back eighty-three years to when, in 1831, Michael Faraday discovered electro-magnetic induction between two entirely separate circuits. Steinheil, of Munich, too, in 1838, suggested that the metallic portion of a grounded electrical circuit might be dispensed with and a system of wireless telegraphy established. Then, in 1859, Bowman Lindsay demonstrated to the British Association his method of transmitting messages by means of magnetism through and across the water without submerged wires. In 1867 James Clerk Maxwell laid down the theory of electro-magnetism and predicted the existence of the electric waves that are now used in wireless telegraphy. Dolbear, of Tufts College, in 1836, patented a plan for establishing wireless communication by means of two insulated elevated plates, but there is no evidence that the method proposed by him effected the transmission of signals between stations separated by any distance. A year later Heinrich Rudolph Hertz discovered the progressive propagation of electro-magnetic action through space and accomplished the most valuable work in this period of speculation and experiment. Just twenty years ago, at his father’s country home in Bologna, Guglielmo Marconi, then a lad just out of his ’teens, read of the experiments of Hertz and conceived the first wireless telegraph apparatus. This was completed some months later and a message in the Morse Code was transmitted a distance of three or four feet, the length of the table on which the apparatus rested. Satisfied that he had laid the foundation of an epoch-making discovery young Marconi pursued his experiments and filed the first patent on the subject on June 2, 1896. Further experiments were carried on in London during that year and at the request of Sir William H. Preece, of the British Post Office, official tests were made, first over a distance of about 100 yards and later for one and three-quarter miles. During the year following Mr. Marconi gave several demonstrations to the officials of the various European governments and communication was established up to 34 miles. In July of this year, 1897, the first commercial wireless telegraph company was incorporated in England and the first Marconi station was erected at the Needles, Isle of Wight. On June 3, 1898, Lord Kelvin visited this station and sent the first paid Marconigram. A month later the events of the Kingstown Regatta in Dublin were reported by wireless telegraphy for a local newspaper from the steamer “Flying Huntress.” In August of that year the royal yacht “Osborn” was equipped with a wireless set, in order that Queen Victoria might communicate with the Prince of Wales, who was at Ladywood Cottage and suffering from the results of an accident to his knee. For sixteen days, constant and uninterrupted communication was maintained. Then on Christmas Eve was inaugurated the first lightship wireless service, messages being sent from the East Goodwin lightship to the lighthouse at South Foreland. [Illustration: PREPARING TO SEND MESSAGES ACROSS THE OCEAN This photograph shows how wireless messages are prepared for direct transmission across the ocean. The dots and dashes of the telegraphic code are punched on tapes by skilled operators, thus insuring accuracy and a permanent record of each message. Five or six operators, and sometimes more, are steadily preparing these tapes, which are pasted together and run through a machine which operates the key at each perforation. A speed of 100 words a minute is thus obtained.] Three months later the first marine rescue was effected through this installation. The steamship “R. F. Matthews” ran into the lightship and lifeboats from the South Foreland station promptly responded to the wireless appeal for aid. The most important wireless event abroad during the year 1899 was the establishing of communication across the English Channel, a distance of thirty miles. The American public next learned something of Marconi’s invention, for in September and October of that year wireless telegraphy was employed in reporting the International yacht races between the “Shamrock” and the “Columbia” for a New York newspaper. At the conclusions of the races, the naval authorities requested a series of trials, during which wireless messages were exchanged between the cruiser “New York” and the battleship “Massachusetts” up to a distance of about 36 miles. On leaving America, Marconi fitted the liner “St. Paul” with his apparatus and when 36 miles from the Needles Station, secured wireless reports of the war in South Africa. These were printed aboard the vessel in a leaflet called “The Transatlantic Times,” the first of the chain of wireless newspapers now published daily on practically all passenger steamships. Six field wireless sets were dispatched to South Africa about this time and were later of considerable service in the Boer War. [Illustration: In the foreground of this picture is seen the automatic transmitter with the message perforated tape running through. This is one of the smaller wireless equipments; much larger ones are used at the new Marconi stations.] The year 1900 brought the first commercial wireless contracts. By agreement with the Norddeutscher Lloyd, Marconi apparatus was installed on a lightship, a lighthouse and aboard the liner “Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse.” On July 4th the British Admiralty entered into a contract for the installation of Marconi apparatus on thirty-two warships and shore stations and the erection of the high power station at Poldhu was commenced. ~WORLD WIDE USE OF THE WIRELESS~ Work on similar station at Cape Cod was begun early in 1901 and on August 12th the famous Nantucket Island and Nantucket lightship stations opened to report incoming vessels by wireless. Heavy gales in September and November wrecked the masts at both Poldhu and Cape Cod stations and these were replaced by four wooden towers, 210 feet high. Important experimental work was then shifted to St. John’s, Newfoundland, and on December 12th and 13th, signals were received across the Atlantic from Poldhu. This to Marconi was a great achievement and the forerunner of the present day trans-atlantic service. But with the announcement that the long dreamt of feat had been accomplished a flood of vituperation from scientific men was let loose. It was nonsense; it was deliberate deception; the reading was in error, were among the comments. Another prank of the “young man with a box,” one scientist termed it. It is amusing now to recall this extraordinary treatment, but it was hardly so amusing to the young inventor, then in his twenty-seventh year. But in spite of the skepticism, developments followed rapidly from then on and in 1902, the year in which the American Marconi Company was established, full recognition to wireless telegraphy was given by the various governments. The wonderful growth of the Marconi system within the last twelve years is well known to all and does not require detailing. But in view of its youth as an industry and its inauspicious beginning, a glimpse into what the present day Marconi system comprises may be interesting. More than 1800 ships are equipped with Marconi wireless and its shore stations are landmarks in practically every country on the globe. Press and commercial messages are transmitted daily from continent to continent direct. Shore to ship and ship to shore business each year runs into millions of words. Marconi wireless within seventeen years, has become an absolute necessity in the maritime field, an invaluable aid in others. Regular communication has been established with icebound settlements and desert communities, and official running orders transmitted to moving railway trains. Its service is dependable under all conditions and embraces activities and locations inaccessible to any other telegraph system. Continuous service is maintained and wireless messages for all parts of the world at greatly reduced rates are received at any Western Union Office. The direction finder and wireless compass are recent Marconi inventions. A wide variety of types of Marconi equipment are designed for the merchant marine, warships, submarines, pleasure craft, motor cars and railroad trains; also portable signal corps sets, apparatus for aircraft, cavalry sets, knapsack sets and high-power installations for trans-ocean communication. How Does a Fly Walk Upside Down? There is a little sucker on the end of each of the fly’s feet which makes his foot stick to the ceiling or any other place he walks, and which he can control at will. It is made very much like the sucker you have seen with which a boy can pick up a flat stone--a circular piece of rubber or leather with a string in the middle and more or less bell shaped underneath. A boy can pick up a flat stone with this kind of a sucker by pressing the rubber or leather part down flat on the stone and then pulling gently on it by the string. When he does this he simply expels the air which is between the leather part of the sucker and the stone, which creates a vacuum and the pressure of the air on the outside part of the leather enables him to pick it up. The fly has little suckers like these on each of his feet, and they act automatically when he puts his foot down. Of course the sticking power of each foot is adjusted to the weight of the fly, just as the sticking or lifting power of the boy’s sucker is regulated by the weight of the stone or other object he tries to pick up. If the weight of the object is sufficient to overcome the sticking power which the vacuum creates, the stone cannot be lifted. What Is Money? It is quite difficult to give a broad definition of money that will be understood by all, for in different ages and lands many things have been used as money besides the coins and bills which we think of only when we think at all what money is. Anything that passes freely from hand to hand in a community in the payment of debts and for goods purchased, accepted freely by the person who offers it without any reference to the person who offers it, and which can be in turn used by the person accepting it to give to some one else in payment of debt or for the purchase of goods, is money. This is rather a long sentence and perhaps difficult to understand, and so we will try to analyze what this means. If some one offered you a pretty stone as money in payment of a debt, it would be as good as any kind of money if you in turn could pass it on to any other person to whom you owed a debt or in payment of something you bought. The stone might appear to you to be valuable but it would not be good money unless you could count on every one else in the community accepting it at the same value. If everybody accepts it at the same value, it is as good as any kind of money. So that anything which is acceptable to the people in any community as a unit of value to pay debts, is good money, provided everybody thinks so and accepts it that way. In this case, then any kind of substance might become money provided it was used and accepted by everyone. Why Do We Need Money? We need money for the sake of the convenience which it provides in making the exchange of one kind of wealth for another and as a standard of value. When a community has adopted something or anything which is regarded by all of the people as a standard of value, all of the difficulties of trading disappear. Who Originated Money? The earliest tribes of savages did not need money because no individual in the tribe owned anything personally. All the property of the tribe belonged to the tribe as a whole and not to any particular person. Later on, when different groups of savages came into contact with each other, there arose the custom of bartering or exchanging things which one tribe possessed and which the other tribe wanted. In that way arose the business of trading or of what we call doing business, and soon the need of something by which to measure the values of different things arose. Some of the old Australian tribes had a tough green stone which was valuable for making hatchets. Members of another tribe would see some of this stone and notice what good hatchets could be made from it--better hatchets than they had been able to make. Naturally they wanted it so much that it became very valuable in their eyes and so they came wanting to buy green stones. But they had nothing like what we could call money today. They had, however, a good deal of red ochre in their lands which they used to paint their bodies. They got this red ochre out of the ground on their own lands just as the other tribe got green stones out of its ground, and those who owned the green stones which were good for making hatchets, wanted some red ochre very much, and so they traded green stones for red ochre. The green stones then took on a value in themselves for making exchanges for various commodities, and before long became a kind of money inside and outside the community so that when they wanted to obtain anything, the price was put by the merchant as so many green stones and he accepted these in payment for goods given in exchange. He was willing to do this because he knew he could use them in making trades for almost anything he might want, provided he had enough of the green stones. So you see these green stones of the Australian tribe became a rudimentary kind of money, just because a desire had arisen to possess them; and the red ochre was actual money in the same sense, for when this tribe found that other tribes would value this red ochre, they began getting the things they wanted and paying for them in red ochre. But the “unit of value” had to be developed to make a currency that was elastic. It required something that could be carried about easily--in fact it had to be something small enough so a number of units of value could be carried about without too much trouble. The Indians of British Columbia solved this difficulty of making an elastic currency by adopting as a unit of value a haiqua shell which they wore in strings as ornamental borders of their dresses--and one string of these shells was worth one beaver’s skin. These shells then were real money and one of the earliest forms of it. The skins of animals were long used by savage tribes as money. The skins were valuable in trading and a man’s fortune was reckoned by the number of skins he owned. As soon as the animals became domesticated, however, the whole animal replaced the skin as the unit of value. This change undoubtedly came because a whole animal is more valuable than only its skin. The first skins obtainable however were worn by wild animals--the kind that the people could not deliver to someone else alive and whole. But when the animals became domesticated, which meant that man tamed them and kept them where he could control them at will, the skin and the wild animal ceased to be a unit of value because it was an uncertain kind of money. Among domestic animals, oxen and sheep were the earliest forms of money--an ox was considered worth ten sheep. This idea of using cattle as money was used by many tribes in many lands. We find traces of it in the laws of Iceland. The Latin word pecunia (pecus) shows that the earliest Roman money was composed of cattle. The English word fee indicates this also. The Irish law records show the same evidence of the use of cattle as money and within recent years the cattle still form the basis of the currency of the Zulus and Kaffirs. When slavery became prominent many lands adopted the slaves as the unit of value. A man’s wealth was reckoned by the number of slaves he owned. Then, when the practice of agriculture became more common, people used the products of the soil as money--maize, olive oil, cocoanuts, tea and corn--the latter is said to pass current as actual money in certain parts of Norway now. They used these products of the soil for money even in our own country. Our ancestors in Maryland and Virginia before the Revolutionary War, and even after, used tobacco as money. They passed laws making tobacco money and paid the salaries of the government officials and collected all taxes in tobacco. Other early forms of money were ornaments and these serve the purpose of money among all uncivilized tribes. In India they used cowrie shells--a small yellowish-white shell with a fine gloss. The Fiji Islanders used whales’ teeth; some of the South Sea Island tribes used red feathers; other nations used mineral products as money--such as salt in Abyssinia and Mexico. Up to this point we have talked about the things used as money from the standpoint of primitive forms of money. Today the metals have practically driven all these other crude forms of money out. Metallic Forms of Money. ~WHY WE USE METALS FOR COINING~ The use of metals as money goes far back in the history of civilization but it has never been possible to trace the historical order of the adoption of the various metals for the purposes. Iron according to the statement of Aristotle was at one time extensively used as money. Copper, in conjunction with iron, was used in early times as money in China; and until comparatively a short time ago was used for the coins of smaller value in Japan. Iron spikes were used in Central Africa and nails in Scotland; lead money is now used in Burmah. Copper has long been used as money. The early coins of England were made of tin. Finally, however, came silver and silver was the principal form of money up to a few years ago. It was the basis of Greek coins introduced at Rome in 269 B. C. Most of the money of Medieval times was composed of silver. The earliest traces of gold used as money is seen in pictures of ancient Egyptians “weighing in scales heaps of gold and silver rings.” Why Do We Use Gold and Silver as Money Principally? There are a good many reasons why gold and silver have become almost universal materials for use as money. Perhaps this will be better understood if these reasons are set down in order. 1st. It is necessary that the material out of which money is made should be valuable, but nothing was ever used as money that had not first become desirable and, therefore, valuable as money. This is only one of the incidental reasons for taking gold and silver for coining money. 2nd. To serve its purpose best, money should be easy to carry around--in other words, its value should be high in proportion to its weight. The absence of this quality made the early forms of money such as skins, corn, tobacco, etc., undesirable. It was difficult to carry very much money about. Imagine the skin of a sheep worth a dollar, say, and having to carry ten of them down to pay the grocer. To a certain extent this difficulty occurred with iron and copper money and in times when they used live cattle it was a pretty expensive job to pay your debts because, while the cattle could move, it was still expensive to drive them from place to place. A man who accepted a thousand cattle in payment had to go to some expense in getting them home. Then it was expensive to have money when live cattle were used because the cattle, of course, had to be fed and from that point of view the poor man who had no money was better off than the rich man who had money. When cattle were used as money it cost a lot to keep it. Our kind of money doesn’t eat anything; in fact, if you put it in a savings bank, it will earn interest money for you. But when cattle were used as money it cost a great deal to keep them and so it was worse than not earning any interest. 3rd. Another quality that money should possess is divisibility without damage and also the quality of being united again. This quality is possessed by the metals in every sense because they can be fused, while skins and precious stones suffer in value greatly when they are divided. 4th. The material out of which money is made should be the same throughout in quality and weight so that one unit of money should be worth as much as any other unit. This could never be true of skins or cattle as the difference in the size of skins is very great sometimes, and a small skin from the same animal could not be worth as much as a large one, or a skin of an animal of inferior quality so valuable as a very fine one. 5th. Another quality which money should possess is durability. This requirement made it necessary to use something else besides animals or vegetable substances. Animals die and vegetables will not keep and so lose their value. Even iron is apt to rust and through that process lose more or less of its value. 6th. The materials out of which money is made should be easy to distinguish and their value easy to determine. For this reason such things as precious stones are not good to use as money because it takes an expert to determine their value and even they are not always certain to be correct. 7th. Then a very important quality that the material out of which money is made is that its value should be steady. The value of cattle varies very greatly and, in fact, most of the materials out of which the first currencies were made were subject to quick change in value in a short time. The value of gold and silver does not change excepting at long intervals. Gold and silver are both durable and easily recognizable. They can be melted, divided and united. The same is true of other metallic substances, but iron as stated is subject to rust and its value is low; lead is too soft. Tin will break, and both of them and copper also are of low value. Gold and silver change only slowly in value when the change at all; they do not lose any of their value by age, rust or other cause; they are hard metals and do not, therefore, wear. Their value in proportion to the bulk of the pieces used for money is so large that the money made from them can be carried without discomfort and it is almost impossible to imitate them. Who Made the First Cent? Vermont was the first state to issue copper cents. In June, 1785, she granted the authority to Ruben Harmon, Jr., to make money for the state for two years. In October of the same year, Connecticut granted the right to coin 10,000 pounds in copper cents, known as the Connecticut cent of 1785. Massachusetts, in 1786, established a mint and coined $60,000 in cents and half cents. In the same year, New Jersey granted the right to coin $10,000 at 15 coppers to the shilling. In 1781 the Continental Congress directed Robert Morris to investigate the matter of governmental coinage. He proposed a standard based on the Spanish dollar, consisting of 100 units, each unit to be called a cent. His plan was rejected. In 1784, Jefferson proposed to Congress, that the smallest coin should be of copper, and that 200 of them should pass for one dollar. The plan was adopted, but in 1786, 100 was substituted. In 1792 the coinage of copper cents, containing 264 grains, and half cents in proportion, was authorized; their weight was subsequently reduced. In 1853 the nickel cent was substituted and the half cent discontinued, and in 1864 the bronze cent was introduced, weighing 48 grains and consisting of 95 per cent. of copper, and the remainder of tin and zinc. How Did the Name Uncle Sam Originate? The name Uncle Sam is a jocular name long in use for the Government of the United States. Shortly after the war of 1812 was declared, Elbert Anderson of New York State, who was a contractor for the army, went to Troy, New York, to purchase a quantity of provisions. At that place the provisions were inspected, the official inspectors being two brothers named Wilson--Ebenezer and Samuel. The latter was very popular among the men and was known as “Uncle Sam Wilson” and everybody called him that. The boxes in which the provisions were packed were stamped with four letters, E. A. for Elbert Anderson, and U. S. for United States. One of the men engaged in making the inspection asked another of the workmen who happened to be a jocular fellow, what the letters E. A. U. S. on the boxes stood for. He said in reply that he did not know but thought they probably meant Elbert Anderson and Uncle Sam Wilson, and that they had left off the W which would stand for Wilson. The suggestion caught on quickly and as such things often do, the joke spread rapidly so that everybody soon thought of the name “Uncle Sam” whenever they saw the letters U. S. on anything or in any place. The suit of striped trousers and long tailed coat and beaver hat in which Uncle Sam is now always represented in pictures, was the inspiration of the famous cartoonist. [Illustration: THE WORLD’S BREAD LOAVES Egypt 2500 B.C. Unleavened Bread 2000 B.C. Pompeii 50 A.D. Palestine Modern American Loaf England England France Hungary Spain Switzerland Bohemia Holland Italy Austria Germany Balkan States] [Illustration: HARVESTING WHEAT.] The Story in a Loaf of Bread Why is Bread so Important? The history of bread as a food reads like a romance. It has played an important part in the destinies of mankind and its struggles through the ages to perfection. The progress of nations through their different periods of development can be traced by the quality and quantity of bread they have used. No other food has taken such an important part in the civilization of man. To a large extent it has been the means of changing his habits from those of a savage to those of a civilized being. It has supplied the peaceful pursuits of agriculture and turned him from war and the chase. It is an interesting fact that the civilized and the semi-civilized people of the earth can be divided into two classes, based upon their principal cereal foods: the rice eaters and the bread eaters. Every one admits that rice eaters are less progressive, while bread eaters have always been the leaders of civilization. It is an interesting fact that just as Japan is changing from a rice-eating nation to a bread-eating nation she is asserting her power. Any one who stops to consider the history of nations will see that this matter of what we eat is the one question of vital importance. Bread is one of the earliest, the most generally used and one of the most important foods used by man. Without bread the world would not exist without great hardship. On bread alone a nation of people can exist, and to sit down to a meal without it causes us to feel at once that something is missing. What Was the Origin and Meaning of Bread? Bread is baked from many substances, although when we think of bread, we usually think of wheat bread. It is sometimes made from roots, fruits and the bark of trees, but generally only from grains such as wheat, rye, corn, etc. The word bread comes from an old word _bray_, meaning to pound. This came from the method used in preparing the food. Food which was pounded was said to be brayed and later this spelling was changed to bread. Properly speaking, however, these brayed or ground materials are not really bread in our sense of using the term until they are moistened with water, when it becomes dough. The word _dough_ is an old one meaning to “moisten.” This dough was in olden times immediately baked in hot ashes and a hard indigestible lump of bread was the result. Accidentally it was discovered that if the dough was left for a time before baking, allowing it to ferment, it would when mixed with more dough, swell up and become porous. Thus we got our word loaf from an old word _lifian_, which meant to raise up or to lift up. When Was Wheat First Used in Making Bread? It is not clearly known when or by whom wheat was discovered, but it seems to have been known from the earliest times. It is mentioned in the Bible, can be traced to ancient Egypt and there are records showing that the Chinese cultivated wheat as early as 2700 B.C. To-day it supplies the principal article for making bread to all the civilized nations of the world. The origin of the wheat plant is said to have been a kind of grass which is given a Latin name _Ægilops ovata_ by the botanists. Will Wheat Grow Wild? This is a question that has puzzled the world’s scientists for more than two thousand years. From time to time it has been reported by investigators in various parts of the world that here and there wheat has been found growing wild and doing well, but every time a further investigation is made, it develops that the wheat has been cultivated by some one. There is as yet no evidence for believing that wheat will grow in a wild state. What is the Difference between Graham Flour and Whole Wheat? Graham flour from which Graham bread is baked is made from unbolted flour. The process of bolting flour, which is described in one of the following pages, consists briefly in taking out of it all but the inside of the grain of wheat. When this has been done, we have pure white flour. In making Graham flour every part of the grain of wheat is left in the flour, and ground up finely. Many people think that Graham flour is made from a special grain called Graham, but this is not true. It is said that Graham bread is not so good for you because it contains the outside covering of the wheat grain or bran which is composed of almost pure silica, the same substance of which glass is made, and cannot therefore be good for us. Whole wheat flour is made from the whole grain of wheat from which the outside covering or bran has been separated. It contains everything but the bran and is therefore the most nutritious flour made. The grain of wheat has several coverings of bran coats, the outer one of which is the one composed of silica, and which is not valuable as food. Underneath this husk--are found the inner bran coats, which contain the gluten. Gluten is a dark substance containing the flesh-forming or nitrogenous elements, which are valuable in muscle building. The inside or heart of the grain of wheat consists of cells filled with starch, a fine white mealy powder which has little value as food, but is a great heat producer. Sometimes in making whole wheat flour, the heart of the grain is also removed, making a pure gluten flour. The name whole wheat for flour is not accurate, therefore, for Graham flour is made of the whole wheat grain, while “whole wheat” flour is made of only certain parts of the grain of wheat. [Illustration: Wheat conditioners for tempering the wheat before being ground by the corrugated roller mills.] How is Flour Made? In great factories the raw material is frequently taken in at one end and comes out of the opposite end as a finished locomotive, a Pullman palace car, or a pair of shoes. There is no such progression in making flour. The wheat comes in at one place as a plain Spring or Winter wheat and at another goes out as flour, but in the process parts of it may go from top to bottom of the big mill 30 times. Instead of a factory where everything moves along from hand to hand or machine to machine, the flour mill is like a human body--a huge framework like the bones, with thousands of carrying devices, “elevators,” “spouts” and “conveyors,” like the veins and arteries of the blood-carrying system. Stop up a vein of wheat, the mill becomes clogged, and finally must shut down if it cannot be mechanically relieved. It is an intricate and intensely interesting process, the result of year-to-year experience. [Illustration: SEPARATING THE WHEAT FIBER AND GERMS Purifier for separating the fiber, germ, and other impurities from the semolina (grits) before it is finally crushed or ground into flour by smooth roller mills.] Scouring that Suggests a Dutch Kitchen. From the storage bins the wheat is drawn off through conveyors to the first of several cleaning processes, the “separators,” where the coarse grain which naturally comes with the wheat, such as corn and oats, and imperfect kernels of wheat, is taken out. After this general cleaning the grain goes to the “scouring machine,” which is an interesting device--a rapidly revolving cylinder with what are called “beaters” attached. The grain is thrown against perforated iron screens. Any clinging dirt is loosened, and a strong current of air passing through the cylinder is constantly “calling for dust,” as the miller aptly expresses it, and carries the impurities away as dust and dirt. Indeed, the cleaning process seems to be a constant one from the time the wheat enters the mill until the flour is made. Having been cleansed, the wheat is now ready for the rolls except for a “tempering” process, which is to prepare the grain, so that the outside of the wheat may be taken off without injury to the inside or kernel. Then as the grain passes to the rolls there begins a gradual reduction of wheat to flour which is most intricate. The first sets of rolls are corrugated and so adjusted as to “break” each grain of wheat into 12 to 15 parts. The “breaking” process goes on through five different sets of rolls. [Illustration: GRINDING THE WHEAT FOR MAKING FLOUR Corrugated roller mills for grinding the wheat after it has been cleaned.] [Illustration: Wooden spouts for conveying the different products, bran and partly ground wheat, from one machine to another.] [Illustration: THE FLOUR IS READY FOR BAKING Gyrating sifter for separating the bran particles from the flour and semolina.] The Big Bolters with Silken Sieves. Closely allied with the rolling process is the bolting process, which, working hand in hand with it has made modern flour making so perfect. The bolting process consists of a series of sieves--a sifting of the broken grain so that it is finally, after repeated breaking and sifting, a flour. The bolter machine contains a number of sieves covered with silk bolting cloth with varying mesh or number of threads to the square inch. This bolting machine, moving rapidly, makes from 8 to 10 different separations of the material. From rolls to bolters, from bolters to purifiers, from purifiers to rolls, over and over, the process continues, until five different grades of “middlings” have been selected by the mechanical hands of the millers. The purifier is still another step to the process. It is a machine having eight sieves of different mesh. The “middlings” flow down over the different sieves in a thin sheet, a current of air meantime drawing all impurities out. With this purifying process completed, the material is ready for the smooth rolls. The Mill Tries to Catch Up with the Bins. When the flour is made it is conveyed to large round bins--five sheets of hard wood pressed together. These bins are being filled all the time and being emptied all the time, the mill being about seven hours behind the capacity of the bins, so that from start to finish the modern flour mill is a tremendously busy place. Underneath the bins and connecting with them are the flour packers--automatic devices which pack a 3¹⁄₂-pound paper sack as accurately as a 196-pound barrel. The filled packages are sent down “chutes” to the shipping floor. There they go to wagons or through other chutes to boats. The Story in a Lead Pencil[5] [5] Courtesy of The Scientific American. Why Do They Call Them Lead-pencils? ~WHERE LEAD PENCILS COME FROM~ The lead-pencil so generally used today is not, as its name would imply, made from lead, but from graphite. It derives its name from the fact that prior to the time when pencils were made from graphite, metallic lead was employed for the purpose. Graphite was first used in pencils after the discovery in 1565 of the famous Cumberland mine in England. This graphite was of remarkable purity and could be used without further treatment by cutting it into thin slabs and encasing them in wood. Who Made the First Lead-pencils in America? For two centuries England enjoyed practically a monopoly of the lead-pencil industry. In the eighteenth century, however, the lead-pencil industry had found its way into Germany. In 1761, Caspar Faber, in the village of Stein, near the ancient city of Nuremberg, Bavaria, started in a modest way the manufacture of lead-pencils, and Nuremberg became and remained the center of the lead-pencil industry for more than a century. For five generations Faber’s descendants made lead-pencils. Up to the present day they have continued to devote their interest and energy to the development and perfection of pencil making. Eberhard Faber, a great-grandson of Caspar Faber, immigrated to this country, and, in 1849, established himself in New York City. In 1861, when the war tariff first went into effect, he erected his own pencil factory in New York City, and thus became the pioneer of the lead-pencil industry in this country. Since then four other firms have established pencil factories here. Wages, as compared to those paid in Germany, were very high, and Eberhard Faber realized the necessity of creating labor-saving machinery to overcome this handicap. Many automatic machines were invented which greatly simplified the methods of pencil making and improved the product. To-day American manufacturers supply nine-tenths of the home demand and have largely entered into the competition of the world’s markets. What Are Lead-pencils Made of? The principal raw materials that enter into the making of a lead-pencil are graphite, clay, cedar and rubber. Although graphite occurs in comparatively abundant quantities in many localities, it is rarely of sufficient purity to be available for pencil making. Oxides of iron, silicates and other impurities are found in the ore, all of which must be carefully separated to insure a smooth, serviceable material. The graphites found in Eastern Siberia, Mexico, Bohemia and Ceylon are principally used by manufacturers. Pictures by courtesy Joseph Dixon Crucible Co. [Illustration: FIG. 1. FIG. 2. FIG. 3. Fig. 1 shows the shape in which the cedar slats arrive at the factory. These slats after grading are boiled in steam to remove what remaining sap there may be in the wood. The slats are then dried in steam-drying rooms. Then the next step is grooving and gives the results shown by Fig. 2. Now the wood is ready to receive the “leads” (which you will remember are a mixture of graphite and clay), which are placed between two slats sandwich fashion, glued, put in forms that hold them over night under a thousand pounds pressure. Fig. 3 shows the leads laid in one of the grooved slats.] How Are Lead-pencils Made? The graphite, as it comes from the mines, is broken into small pieces, the impure particles being separated by hand. It is then finely divided in large pulverizers and placed in tubs of water, so that the lighter particles of graphite float off from the heavier particles of impurities. This separating, in the cheaper grades, is also done by means of centrifugal machines, but the results are not as satisfactory. After separation, the graphite is filtered through filter-presses. What Makes Some Pencils Hard and Others Soft? The clay, after having been subjected to a similar process, is placed in mixers with the graphite, in proportions dependent upon the grade of hardness that is desired. A greater proportion of clay produces a greater degree of hardness; a lesser proportion increases the softness. [Illustration: FIG. 4. FIG. 5. FIG. 6. Fig. 4 shows a prospective view of the block as it appears when taken out of the form; the leads can be seen in the end. These blocks are fed to machines which cut out the pencils in one operation. An idea of this operation is given by Fig. 5, which shows a block half cut through. The pencils come out quite smooth, but are sand-papered to a finer finish before receiving the finishing coats. The finer grades of pencils are given from seven to nine coats of varnish before being passed along for the next process. Fig. 6 shows a pencil after it has been machined and before it has been varnished and stamped.] Furthermore, the requisite degree of hardness is obtained by the subsequent operation, viz., the compressing of the lead and shaping it into form ready to be glued into the wood casings. A highly compressed lead will produce a pencil of greater wearing qualities, an important feature in a high-grade pencil. Hydraulic presses are used for this purpose; and the mixture of clay and graphite, which is still in a plastic condition and has been formed into loaves, is placed into these presses. The presses are provided with a die conforming to the caliber of the lead desired, through which die the material is forced. The die is usually cut from a sapphire or emerald or other very hard mineral substance, so that it will not wear away too quickly from the friction of the lead. The lead leaves the press in one continuous string, which is cut into the lengths required (usually seven inches for the ordinary size of pencil), is placed in crucibles, and fired in muffle furnaces. The lead is now ready for use, and receives only a wooden case to convert it into a pencil. Where Does the Wooden Part of a Lead-pencil Come from? The wood used in pencil making must be close and straight grained, soft, so that it can readily be whittled, and capable of taking a good polish. No better wood has been found than the red cedar, a native of the United States, a durable, compact and fragrant wood to-day almost exclusively used by pencil makers the world over. The best quality is obtained from the Southern States, Florida and Alabama in particular. The wood is cut into slats about 7 inches long, 2¹⁄₂ inches wide, and ¹⁄₄ inch thick. It is then thoroughly dried in kilns to separate the excess of moisture and resin and to prevent subsequent warping. After this the slats are passed through automatic grooving machines, each slat receiving six semi-circular grooves, into which the leads are placed, while a second slab with similar grooves is brushed with glue and covered over the slat containing the leads. This is passed through a molding-machine, which turns out pencils shaped in the form desired, round, hexagon, etc. The pencils are now passed through sanding machines, to provide them with a smooth surface. How is the Color Put on the Outside of the Pencil? After sand-papering, which is a necessary preliminary to the coloring process, when fine finishes are desired, the pencils are varnished by one of several methods. That most commonly employed is the mechanical method by which the pencils are fed from hoppers one at a time through small apertures just large enough to admit the pencil. The varnish is applied to the pencil automatically while passing through, and the pencils are then deposited on a long belt or drying pan. They are carried slowly a distance of about twenty feet, the varnish deposited on the pencils meanwhile drying, and are emptied into a receptacle. When sufficient pencils have accumulated, they are taken back to the hopper of the machine and the operation repeated. This is done as often as is necessary to produce the desired finish. The better grades are passed through ten times or more. Another method is that of dipping in pans of varnish, the pencils being suspended by their ends from frames, immersed their entire length and withdrawn very slowly by machine. A smooth enameled effect is the result. The finest grades of pencils are polished by hand. This work requires considerable deftness; months of practice are necessary to develop a skilled workman. After being varnished, the pencils are passed through machines by which the accumulation of varnish is sand-papered from their ends. The ends are then trimmed by very sharp knives to give them a clean, finished appearance. Stamping is the next operation. The gold or silver leaf is cut into narrow strips and laid on the pencil, whereupon the pencil is placed in a stamping press, and the heated steel die brought in contact with the leaf, causing the latter to adhere to the pencil where the letters of the die touch. The surplus leaf is removed, and, after a final cleaning the pencil is ready to be boxed, unless it is to be further embellished by the addition of a metal tip and rubber, or other attachment. How is the Eraser Put On a Pencil? In this country about nine-tenths of the pencils are provided with rubber erasers. These are either glued into the wood with the lead, or the pencils are provided with small metal ferrules threaded on one end, into which the rubber eraser-plugs are inserted. These ferrules are made from sheet brass, which is cupped by means of power presses, drawn through subsequent operations into tubes of four- or five-inch lengths, cut to the required size, threaded and nickel-plated. [Illustration: Courtesy of Doubleday, Page & Co. A SOUTHERN COTTON FIELD] The Story in a Bale of Cotton Where Does Cotton Come From? We get cotton from a plant which grows best in the warm climate of our Southern States. Cotton has been known to the people of the world for a long time. Before the birth of Christ people knew about cotton. They thought it was wool which grew on a tree instead of a sheep’s back. No other plant is of such value to man as cotton. We should learn something about a plant that is used by man in so many ways as cotton. The cotton plant of our Southern States is a small shrub-like annual about four feet high. The flowers of the cotton plant are white at first but change to cream color and then are tinged with red. This change takes place over a period of four days when the petals drop off and leave what is called a “boll” in the calyx of the flower. This boll, which is to contain the cotton, is really the seed container of the cotton plant and keeps on growing larger until it is about as big as a hen’s egg. When it is fully grown or ripe the boll cracks and the seeds and fibrous lint burst forth. The bolls are then gathered and taken to a cotton gin, where the seeds are separated from the lint and the lint prepared for weaving. The boll is divided into from three to five sections. Each section contains a quantity of lint and seeds. When the boll is fully grown the covering of each of the sections cracks and opens up, revealing the contents. It is just like opening the door of each section and having the contents burst out. When these bolls burst open, there is no more beautiful sight in the world than to look out over a cotton field and see the colored people--the “cotton pickers”--busy at their work picking off the bolls. When the crop is gathered and ginned, the lint is packed into bales and taken to the cotton mill, where it is made into cloth. One of the most interesting industrial processes in the world is to see the bale of cotton go into a cotton mill and come out a piece of cotton goods. [Illustration: THE COTTON ARRIVES AT THE MILL BALES OF COTTON AT COTTON MILL] [Illustration: OPENING MACHINES. The bales are opened, and the cotton is thrown into the large hoppers at the front of these machines, which open and loosen the fibers, work out lumps and remove the grosser impurities, such as dirt, leaf, seed and trash. A strong air draft carries off the dust and foreign particles, and lifts the cotton through trunks to the floor above.] [Illustration: LAPPER MACHINES. In these machines, known as Breaker and Finisher Lappers, more of the trash and impurities is beaten out of the cotton, and the lint is carried forward and wound into rolls of cotton batting, known as laps. Several of these are doubled and drawn into one so as to get the weight of each yard as uniform as possible.] [Illustration: FIRST STEPS IN MAKING COTTON CLOTH CARD ROOM. In these machines, known as Revolving Flat Top Cards, the cotton passes over revolving cylinders clothed with wire teeth, and the fibers are combed out and laid parallel with each other. They are delivered at the front of the machine as a filmy web, which is gathered together and formed into a soft downy ribbon or rope, known as card sliver. This is automatically coiled and delivered into cans.] [Illustration: DRAWING FRAMES. To insure uniformity in weight, so that the yarn when spun shall run even, the card slivers are doubled and drawn out, redoubled and again drawn out, somewhat in the manner of a candy maker pulling taffy, only here the process is continuous. Six strands of the card sliver are fed in together at the back of the drawing frames, pulled out and delivered as one; and the process repeated. This produces a sliver more uniform in weight, and in which the fibres are more parallel.] [Illustration: SLUBBERS. The sliver from the drawing frames is taken to machines called slubbers, where again the fibers are drawn out, and the strand of cotton, now much finer and known as slubber roving, is given a bit of twist to hold it together, and is wound on large bobbins.] [Illustration: PUTTING THE COTTON FIBER ON BOBBINS SPEEDERS. The large bobbins of roving from the slubbers are taken to other machines known as Speeders, and are unwound through the machine, again drawn out finer and finer, and rewound on smaller bobbins. The strand of cotton known as speeder roving is now ready to be taken to the spinning room for the final draft and twist necessary to turn it into yarn.] [Illustration: SPINNING FRAMES. The roving from the speeders is placed on the Spinning Frames, and now undergoes its final draft as it passes through the spinning rolls. The attenuated fibres are then twisted firmly together by the action of the spindles, which turn at a speed of about 10,000 revolutions per minute. The yarn thus formed is wound on bobbins and is ready to be dyed and weaved.] [Illustration: THE COTTON IS READY FOR DYEING SPOOLERS. Two kinds of yarn are delivered at the spinning frames, known as warp and filling, which make respectively the lengthwise and crosswise threads of the cloth. The filling is in its completed form ready for the loom; the warp must first be gotten into shape for dyeing and then arranged in parallel rows or sheets of thread for weaving. The first of these processes is spooling, and consists simply in unwinding the yarn from the small bobbins on which it is spun, and rewinding it on large spools.] [Illustration: WARPERS. The spools of warp yarn are placed in large wooden racks or creels from which they can conveniently unwind. The separate threads are drawn through little wires in the warpers, and are gathered into a bunch or rope of threads, which is wound in a large cylindrical ball known as a warp. If any thread breaks while passing through the warper, the little wire drops and stops the machine. In this way full count of threads and uniform weight of the goods is insured.] [Illustration: DYE-HOUSE. Here the warps, after being boiled and softened to enable the dye to penetrate, are passed through the indigo vats. Several runs are made to get the beautiful depth of color. This Dye-house is equipped with one hundred indigo vats, and is one of the best-lighted and cleanest-kept dye-houses in the world.] [Illustration: WHERE THE COTTON IS WOVEN INTO CLOTH BEAMING FRAMES. After being dyed, the warps are washed and then passed through drying machinery, from which they are delivered in coils. These are brought to the beaming frames, where they are again spread out into sheets of parallel threads, and passed through the teeth of a steel comb, which separates the threads and prevents tangling, and in this form they are wound on huge iron spools known as slasher beams.] [Illustration: SLASHERS. From the beaming frames the warps are taken to machines known as Slashers, where they are sized or stiffened to enable them to stand the chafing at the looms incidental to the process of weaving. The slasher beams are placed in an iron frame at the back of the slashers and unwound together through the machine. With them some additional threads of white yarn are unwound at either side to form the selvage of the cloth.] [Illustration: WEAVE ROOM. The sheet of warp threads unwinds from the loom beam, receives the filling threads and is wound into a roll of cloth at the front of the loom. This weave room contains 2000 looms. It is 904 feet long by 180 feet wide (about four acres) and is the largest single weave room in the world. Overhead is the roof, which forms one vast sky-light, being of what is known as saw-tooth construction. The vertical sides of the teeth all face due north and are formed of ribbed glass, which affords the most perfect light to every section of the room.] [Illustration: THE COTTON CLOTH FINISHED INSPECTING TABLES. Before going to the baling presses every yard of cotton cloth passes under the vigilant eyes of the cloth inspectors, who mark as seconds and lay aside all pieces containing imperfections. This inspection is not a mere formality, but is conducted most carefully, and this department is specially located to get the best and most perfect light.] [Illustration: BALING PRESSES. The bolts of finished cloth are now placed in presses and made into bales of finished cloth and are ready for the market.] [Illustration: Shipping platform of the White Oak Mills, Greensboro, N. C., showing how the bales of finished cloth are handled in shipping.] Pictures herewith by courtesy of White Oak Mills. Who Discovered Cotton? Just who discovered cotton is not known. The early records are so incomplete that no individual can be credited with the discovery of the value of this wonderful plant. Long before Cæsar’s time, among the Hindoos they had a law that if you stole a piece of cotton you were fined three times its value. Most of the early nations were familiar with cotton--the early Egyptians, Chinese and other ancient people used it and valued it. What Nation Produces the Most Cotton? The United States is the leader in the production of cotton, as in many other important world products. We produce more than seventy-five per cent of all the cotton grown in the world. The remainder is practically all grown by East India, Egypt and Brazil. What is Cotton Used For? The cotton plant is one of the wonder plants of the world, when you stop to think how well we could get along without wool or silk or other fabrics if we had to. Little would be lost to the world so far as actual comfort is concerned if all of the other fabric-making materials were lost. We would sleep, as we often do now, in beds the coverings of which were pure cotton, in a room in which the rugs were woven from cotton, the sun kept out of the room by cotton window shades. We could still have plenty of good soap to wash our bodies and clothing, for much of our soap to-day is made from cotton-seed oil; then we could use a cotton towel to dry ourselves; and put on a complete outfit of clothing made entirely of cotton. White cotton table cloths and napkins are not so fine as linen; they are good enough for anyone. Your breakfast rolls will taste quite as well if baked with cottolene instead of lard; the meat for your dinner would be fed and fattened on cotton-seed meal and hulls as they are now; you would have butter made from cotton-seed that compares favorably with the butter you now have on the table; the tobacco in your cigar would continue to be grown under cotton cloth and packed in cotton bags; armies would still sleep under cotton tents and could use gun-cotton to destroy the enemy. What Are the Principal Cotton Cloths? There are a great many different names given to cotton cloths, but they may in general be divided into five classes--plain goods, twills, sateen, fancy cloth and jacquard fabrics. The cotton cloth in each of these classes varies and goes by different names. For instance, in Plain Goods, the different kinds are lawn, nainsook, sheeting, mull, print cloth, madras. The difference lies in the number of threads in one inch of width, the fineness and the weave. The Twills have lines running diagonally and are used for linings mostly. The difference is in the weaving. Denim, largely used for overalls, belongs to the class of Twills. Sateen is used for dress linings, dresses and waists. Then there is the class of Fancy Cloths which is another kind of weave used largely in children’s clothes, shirt waists, etc., and under the name Scrim is fine for draperies and towelling. The other class, Jacquard Fabrics, represents the most complicated form of weaving and used largely under special individual names or brands for dress goods, novelties, etc. How Much Cotton Cloth Will a Pound of Cotton Make? When the cotton is spun into yarn it is no longer sold by the bale, but by the pound. It is impossible to make an exact statement of the amount of cotton cloth one pound of cotton yarn will make, because of the difference in weaving. It has, however, been figured out that a pound of cotton yarn should make 3¹⁄₂ yards of sheeting, or 3³⁄₄ yards of muslin, or 9¹⁄₂ yards of lawn, or 7¹⁄₂ yards of calico, or 5¹⁄₂ yards of gingham, or 57 spools of thread. [Illustration: Picture by courtesy Browne & Howell Co. CHRISTOFORI PIANO FROM THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK CITY.] The Story in a Piano What is Music? Music is one kind of sound. All sounds, whether musical or not, are the result of sound waves in the air. They travel almost exactly like the waves of the water. They go in circles in all directions at the same speed and will go on forever unless they meet something that has the ability to stop them. If you drop a pebble into the exact center of a basin of water, you will see the ring of waves produced start from the point where the pebble entered the water and travel to the sides of the vessel, which stop them. Also the pebble as it falls into the water will make ring after ring of waves. When you shout or ring or strike one of the keys of the piano you start a sound wave or a series of them, which you can hear as soon as the sound wave strikes your ear. When the series of waves is regular the sound produced is a musical sound, and when the sound waves are not regular in length we call it some other kind of a sound. Acting on the knowledge so learned, man has devised numerous instruments with which he can produce musical sounds, such as the piano, phonograph, and many others. Who Made the First Piano? The first real piano was made by Bartolomeo Christofori, an Italian. He invented the little hammers by the aid of which the strings are struck, giving a clear tone instead of the scratching sound which all the previous instruments produced. It took two thousand years to discover the value of the little hammers in making clearer notes. His first piano was made in 1709. The word by which we call the instrument pianoforte has, however, been traced back as far as 1598, when it is said to have been originated by an Italian named Paliarino. The first piano made in America was produced by John Behnud, in Philadelphia, in 1775. How Was the Piano Discovered? ~THE DISCOVERY OF STRINGED MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS~ The piano is a stringed musical instrument. The name pianoforte comes from two Italian words meaning _soft_ and _loud_, and is accurately descriptive of the piano because the notes can at will be made soft or loud. The piano is a development of the simplest form of making regular sound vibrations by snapping or hammering a string of some kind which is stretched tight and fastened at both ends. We must go far back into history to find the earliest traces of stringed instruments, and even then we do not know where and when they originated, for there seem to be no records which help us to trace their origin. We know that the Egyptians as far back as 525 B.C. had stringed instruments, but we only know they had them--not where they got them or who made them. There is a legend that the Roman god Mercury, while walking along the Nile after the river had overflowed its banks and the land had again become dry, stubbed his toe on the shell of a dead tortoise. He picked it up to cast it aside and accidentally touched some strings of sinew with his finger. These strings were only what remained of the once live tortoise. At the same time Mercury heard a musical note and, after vainly trying to find a cause for the musical sound, twanged the string again and discovered the music in tightly-stretched strings. He set about making an instrument, using the tortoise shell for the sound box and stretching a number of strings of sinew across it. This is only a legend, of course, but if we examine the early musical instruments of the Greeks, which was the lyre, we always find the representation of a tortoise upon it. Other nations, such as the early Chinese, the Persians, the Hindus and the Hebrews, had stringed instruments much resembling the lyre. In the tombs of the great rulers of Egypt are found representations of harps, and one harp which had been buried in one of the tombs for more than 3000 years was actually found to be in good condition. [Illustration: Picture by courtesy Browne & Howell Co. DULCIMER.] Wherever we search among the records of early nations we find evidence that they were familiar with the music obtainable from playing upon stringed instruments, but we have never been able to discover what people or what persons first learned that music could be produced with such instruments. ~THE FIRST STRINGED MUSICAL INSTRUMENT~ The harp was probably the first practical stringed instrument. Its music was produced by picking the strings with the fingers or with a piece of bone or metal. The next step was the psaltery, which was produced in the Middle Ages. It was a box with strings stretched across it and represented the first crude attempt at using a sounding board. A larger instrument which came about the same time and was very like the psaltery, was the dulcimer. Both were played by picking the strings with the finger or a small piece of bone or other substance. Then came the keyboard, first used on stringed instruments in what is called the _clavicytherium_. This consisted of a box with cat-gut strings ranged in a semitriangle. On the end of each key was a quill, which picked the string when the key was operated. After this came the clavichord. It was built like a small square piano without legs. The strings were made of brass and on the end of each key was a wedge-shaped piece of brass which picked the strings. The elder Bach composed his music on the clavichord, his favorite instrument, and that is why the music written by Bach is full of soft and melancholy notes. The clavichord produced only such notes. The next steps brought the virginal, spinet and harpsichord. The strings on all three were of brass with quills at the key ends for picking the strings. The virginal and spinet were very much alike. The harpsichord was larger and sometimes was made with two keyboards. These instruments had notes covering four octaves only. [Illustration: Picture by courtesy Browne & Howell Co. CLAVICHORD.] The arrangement of the strings in the harpsichord provided one step nearer to our piano. It had five octaves of notes and there were at least two strings to each note instead of only one, as in previous instruments. [Illustration: Picture by courtesy Browne & Howell Co. SPINET.] Why Do We Have Only Seven Octaves On a Piano? Why Not Twelve or More Octaves? Ordinarily the longest key-board of the piano has seven octaves and three notes in addition, or 52 notes, not counting the sharps and flats. An octave you, of course, know consists of the seven notes C D E F G A B. Every eighth note is a repetition of the one seven notes below or above. The reason that there are no more notes or octaves on the piano is that if we extended the key-board either way one or two octaves more, we should not be able to hear the notes struck on the keys. There would be sound produced, or course, but the vibrations would be too fine for the human ear to hear. It is said that the range of the human ear does not go beyond somewhere between eleven and twelve octaves. [Illustration: Picture by courtesy Browne & Howell Co. UPRIGHT HARPSICHORD. (From the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.)] [Illustration: Picture by courtesy Browne & Howell Co. QUEEN ELIZABETH’S VIRGINAL.] [Illustration: HOW THE MUSIC GETS INTO THE PIANO Photo by Kohler & Campbell Piano Co. PUTTING ON THE SOUNDING BOARD. The first operation in producing the piano is to make a wooden frame or back on which is attached first the sounding board, then the iron, harp-shaped frame to which the strings are fastened. The tones of the piano are produced by felt-covered hammers striking the strings. The sounding board, which is made of wood, magnifies the tones. This picture shows the mechanics glueing the sounding board to the back.] [Illustration: Photo by Kohler & Campbell Piano Co. FASTENING THE STRINGS. The strings are hitched on to pins in the iron frame at its lower end and fastened at the upper end by a metal pin or peg driven into the back. The peg is square on top, so that it can be turned with a tuning hammer or wrench in order to tighten or slacken the strings, which is the operation of tuning the piano.] [Illustration: THE LITTLE HAMMERS WHICH STRIKE THE PIANO STRINGS Photo by Kohler & Campbell Piano Co. BUILDING THE CASE AROUND THE SOUNDING BOARD. As soon as the sounding board with its iron frame and strings is complete, the outside case is built up around it, the front being left open to receive the action and key-board.] [Illustration: Photo by Kohler & Campbell Piano Co. ATTACHING THE LITTLE HAMMERS THAT STRIKE THE STRINGS. In this picture the workmen are placing the action and keys, to which are attached the little wooden felt-covered hammers, which will strike the strings and produce the tones. It took a great many years for our musical instrument makers to hit upon the idea of using these little hammers, and thus make the piano a perfect instrument.] [Illustration: REGULATING THE ACTION OF THE PIANO Photo by Kohler & Campbell Piano Co. REGULATING THE ACTION AND KEYBOARD. This picture shows the piano partly assembled and the workmen adjusting each little black and white key to the proper touch.] [Illustration: Photo by Kohler & Campbell Piano Co. TUNING, POLISHING AND FINISHING. The piano is now complete except for polishing and tuning. The tuning is left to the last. The tuner must have a good ear for music. With his key he tightens or loosens each of the pegs to which the wires are attached until it is perfectly in tune and all in harmony. The piano is now ready to play upon.] How Sounds Are Produced. If you look closely at a tuning fork, or a piano string, while it is sounding, you can see that it is swinging rapidly to and fro, or vibrating. Touch it with your finger and thus stop its vibration and it no longer produces sound. The only difference that you can discover in the fork or string when sounding and when silent is that when you stop the motion it is silent and when it vibrates it makes a sound. From this we learn that the sounds are due to the vibrations of sounding bodies. This has been proven by the examination of so many sounding bodies that we believe that all sounds are produced by vibrations. The question that next presents itself is, how the vibrations affect our ears, so as to produce the sensation of hearing. This may be made clear by a very simple, but striking, experiment. If a bell which has been arranged to be rung by clock-work is suspended under the receiver of an air pump, and the air pumped out, the sound of the bell will grow faint as the quantity of air in the receiver decreases, and finally will stop completely. By looking through the glass of the receiver, however, the bell may be seen ringing as vigorously as at first. We learn thus that the air around a sounding body plays an important part in the transmission of the vibrations to our ears. The way in which the air acts in transmitting the vibrations is as follows. At each vibration of the sounding body, it compresses, to a certain degree, a layer of air in front of it. This layer, however, does not remain compressed, for air is very elastic, and the compressed air soon expands, and in doing so compresses a layer of air just beyond it. This layer expands in its turn, and compresses another layer still further from the body. In this way waves of compression are sent through the air, at each vibration, in all directions from the vibrating body. It must not be thought that particles of air travel all the way from the vibrating body to the ear when a sound is heard. Each particle of air travels a very short distance, never any further than the vibrating body moves in making a vibration, and the movement of the air particles is a vibratory one, like that of the sounding body. But the particles of air near the sounding body communicate their vibrations to other particles, further from that body, and these, in turn, to others still further away, so, while the particles of air themselves move very short distances, the waves produced by their vibrations may be made to travel a considerable distance. The size of a sound wave ordinarily is very small, but sound waves are sometimes made of such size and strength as to strike our ears with a force sufficient to rupture the ear drum. Such large and forceful waves come during explosions, such as the discharges of cannon or the explosions of large quantities of gunpowder under any conditions. What Is Sound? From what has already been said, you will probably answer that sounds are waves in the air, which produce the sensation of hearing. This is correct, but sound is not limited to vibrations of the air. Other elastic substances can be made to vibrate in the same way, and the waves so produced when conveyed to our ears, produce the sensation of hearing. If you put your ear under water and then strike two stones together in the water you will hear a sound as readily as you would in air. Sound waves may be transmitted by solid bodies also, and some of these are better for this purpose than air or liquids. Perhaps you have tried the experiment of placing your ear against one of the steel rails on a railroad track to listen for the coming of a distant train. If you have tried this, you know that a sound that is too faint, or is made too far away, to be heard through the air, can easily be heard through the rail. In view of the fact that other substances than air can be thrown into waves that will affect the sense of hearing, we may define sound as vibrations in any elastic object, that produces the sensation of hearing. The definition is sometimes called the physical definition of sound, in contradistinction to the physiological definition of sound which is given as the sensation produced when vibrations in elastic substances are conveyed to our ears. You will see then that sound when referring to the physical definition is what makes sound known in the physiological definition. The term sound alone, without qualifications, may have either meaning, and therefore statements concerning sound may be misleading, unless we are exact in explaining the sense in which the word is used. How Fast Does Sound Travel? When a sound is made close to us, it reaches our ears so quickly that it seems as though it took no time to travel; but when a gun is fired by a person at a distance, you will notice that after you see the flash of the gun, a little time elapses before the sound reaches your ear. It takes a little time for the light from the flash to get to your eyes, but a very short time, which you cannot appreciate. Sound travels much more slowly and the time it takes to travel a few hundred yards is noticeable. Accurate measurements of the speed of sound have been made, and it has been found that sound usually travels in air at a speed of about eleven hundred feet a second. The speed is not always the same, however, for a number of circumstances may cause it to vary. In air which is heated, the speed at which sound travels in it is increased because hot air expands. At the freezing point, sound travels through the air at the rate of 1,091 feet a second, and for every increase in temperature of one degree of heat, the speed is increased about thirteen inches a second. Accordingly at 68° F. the speed would be approximately 1,130 feet a second. Sounds also travel faster in moist air than in dry. In other gases the speed of sound transmission may be greater or less than in air. For example, in hydrogen gas, which is much lighter than air, sound travels nearly four times as fast as it does in air. On the other hand, in carbonic acid gas, which is heavier than air, sound is transmitted more slowly. In liquids, which are always heavier than air, you would naturally think that sound would travel more slowly than in air, but this is not true. Liquids are less compressible than gases and this causes the speed with which sound is transmitted in them to be increased. In water sound travels about four times as fast as in air. What Are the Properties of Sound? Sounds differ from each other by the extent to which they possess three qualities, namely; intensity, pitch and quality. The intensity of any sound that we hear depends upon the size of the waves that reach our ears. The size of a sound wave gradually decreases, as the wave travels from its starting point, consequently the intensity of a sound depends upon the distance from the point at which the sound was produced. We know this from experience and if we think of the matter for a moment we will see why it is so. At the start of a sound wave, only a small quantity of air is affected, but for every inch it travels the quantity of air to which the wave is conveyed becomes larger, and the intensity of the waves must grow correspondingly smaller, just as when a pebble is dropped into water, the ripples produced by it are highest at the point where the pebble struck the water, and grows lower and lower as their circle widens. It has been found possible to measure the intensity of a sound wave, at different distances from the point from which it started, and from these measurements it has been learned that the decrease in the open air, follows a fixed rule that is stated thus: the intensity of a sound wave at any point is inversely proportional to the square of its distance from its starting point. This rule is called “the law of inverse square,” and it means that if the intensity of a wave be measured at two points, distant say one hundred, and two hundred yards, respectively, from the starting point of the sound, the intensity of the sound at the first point will be found to be four times as great as at the second point. Why Can You Hear More Easily Through a Speaking Tube? We have seen that the decrease in intensity of a sound wave as it travels through the air, is due to the fact that the quantity of air set in motion by it is constantly increasing. But, if a wave is conveyed through a tube containing air, the quantity of air to which the vibrations are communicated does not increase as the wave travels forward, and theoretically there is no decrease in intensity. When a wave is actually transmitted in this way, however, it is found that there is some decrease in intensity on account of the friction of the particles of air against the sides of the tube; but the decrease from this cause is much slower than that which occurs in the open air, and consequently sounds can be heard at much greater distances through tubes than through the open air. Tubes for speaking purposes are frequently used to connect different parts of the same building, and if the tubes are not too crooked they serve their purpose very well. Pitch is that property of sounds that determines whether they are high or low. The pitch of a sound depends upon the number of vibrations a second which the body that produces it makes. The sound of an explosion has no pitch because it makes but one wave in the air. The sound made by a wagon on a pavement has no definite pitch, for it is a mixture of sounds, in which the number of vibrations per second is not the same. Pitch is a property of continuous sounds only, and it is apparent chiefly in musical sounds, by which we mean sounds in which the vibrations are continuous and regular. In music, however, pitch is very important. In a musical instrument, the parts are so arranged that the sounds produced can be given any desired pitch, and it is by controlling the pitch that the pleasing effect of musical sounds in large measure is produced. Sounds of low pitch are produced by bodies making but a few vibrations a second while high-pitched sounds are made by bodies that vibrate rapidly. Quality, may be defined as that property of sounds which enable us to distinguish the notes produced by different instruments. Two notes, one of which is produced upon a piano, and the other upon a violin, may have the same pitch and be equally loud, yet they are easily distinguishable. The difference in them is due to the presence of what are called overtones. What Is Meant By the Length of Sound Waves? The length of a sound wave embraces the distance from the point of greatest compression in one wave to the same point in the next. This depends upon the pitch for if a sounding body is making one hundred vibrations a second, by the time the one hundredth vibration is made, the wave from the first vibration will have travelled about eleven hundred feet from the starting point, and the remaining ninety-eight waves will lie between the first and the one hundredth. In consequence of this, the wave length for that particular sound will be about eleven feet. If the sounding body had made eleven hundred vibrations a second by the time the first wave had travelled eleven hundred feet, there would have been eleven hundred waves produced, and the wave length for that sound would be one foot. The wave lengths of sounds produced by the human voice usually lay between one and eight feet, though some singers have produced notes having wave lengths as great as eighteen feet, and others have reached notes so high that the wave length was only about nine inches. When a tuning fork is struck, it produces a sound so faint that it can scarcely be heard unless the fork is held near the ear; but if the end of the fork is held on a box or table, the sound rings out loudly and seems to come from the table. The explanation of this is very simple. When only the fork vibrates, it produces very small sound waves, because its prongs are small and cut through the air. But when it is set on a box or table, its vibrations are communicated to the support, and the broader surface of the box or table sets a larger mass of air in vibration, and so amplifies the sound of the fork. When a surface is used in this way to reinforce the vibrations of a small body, and thus produce sound waves of greater volume, it is called a sounding board. Many musical instruments, like the violin and the piano, owe the intensity of their sounds to sounding boards, which reinforce the vibrations of their strings. ~WHAT A SOUNDING BOARD DOES~ Columns of air, like sounding boards, serve to reinforce sound waves. Unlike sounding boards, however, they do not respond equally well to a large number of different sounds. They respond to one sound only, or to several widely different ones. This may be shown as follows: Take a glass tube about sixteen inches long, and two inches in diameter, and after thrusting one end of it into a vessel of water, hold a vibrating tuning fork over the other end. By gradually lowering the tube into the water a point will be reached at which the sound becomes very loud, and as this point is passed the sound gradually dies away again. By raising the tube again the sound is again made loud when the tube reaches a certain point. This shows that to reinforce sound waves of a certain vibration frequency, the column of air in the tube must be of certain length. Let us now see why the waves produced by the tuning fork are reinforced only by a column of air of a certain length. When the prongs of the fork make a vibration, a wave of air is produced which enters the tube, goes down to the water, is reflected, and comes back toward the fork. Now, if the reflected wave reaches the fork at the precise moment when it has completed one-half of its vibration and is about to begin upon the second half, it will strengthen the wave produced by the second half of the vibration; but if the reflected wave reaches the fork before or after the beginning of the second half of the vibration, it will not reinforce it. At the downward movement of the lower prong of the tuning fork, a wave of compression is sent down into the tube, and is reflected at the surface of the water. In order to reinforce the wave produced by the prong when it moves upward, the reflected wave must reach the fork just at the time that the prong reaches its normal position and before it starts upon the second half of its vibration. Not only do columns of air tend to reinforce notes having a certain rate of vibration, but all elastic bodies have a certain rate at which they tend to vibrate, and when sounds having the same rate of vibration are produced near them, these bodies will vibrate in sympathy with them. If the sounds be kept up long enough, the sympathetic vibrations in objects near them sometimes become so great that they can easily be seen. Goblets and tumblers made of thin glass show this property very strikingly. When the proper notes are sounded the glasses take up the vibrations, and give a sound of the same pitch. If the note is loud, and is continued for some time, the vibrations of a glass sometimes become so great that the glass breaks. Large buildings, and bridges also, have rates at which they tend to vibrate, and this fact is the foundation for the old saying, that a man may fiddle a bridge down, if he fiddles long enough. Musical Instruments. By musical sounds, are meant sounds that are pleasant to hear, and their combination in such a way that their effect is agreeable produces music. Any instrument, therefore, that is capable of producing pleasing sounds may be called a musical instrument, and music is sometimes produced by very odd devices; but by musical instruments we ordinarily mean instruments that are especially designed to produce musical sounds. The number of such instruments that have been invented is enormous, but all of them may be divided into comparatively few classes, only two of which are of much importance. The two classes, only two of which are of much importance. The two classes referred to are stringed instruments and wind instruments. ~WHAT PITCH IS IN MUSIC~ Stringed musical instruments are those in which the sounds are produced by the vibration of a number of strings, and are generally reinforced by a sounding board. The strings are arranged in the instruments in such a way that the pitch of the sound produced by each string shall bear relation to the pitch of those obtained from the other strings. As long as this relation exists, the instrument is said to be in tune, and when the relation is destroyed, the instrument is out of tune, and the music produced by it is apt to contain what we call discords. The conditions that determine the pitch of sounds produced by strings can be very easily discovered by experiment. Thus, by taking two pieces of the same wire, one twice as long as the other, and stretching them equally, you will observe on striking them that the shorter one yields the higher note. If their vibration frequencies are measured it will be found that the shorter string has a vibration frequency just twice as great as that of the longer string. From this we conclude that when two strings of the same size (and material) are stretched equally taut, their vibration frequencies are inversely proportional to their lengths. By now taking two pieces of wire, of the same size and length, and stretching them so that the tension of one is four times as great as that of the other, we shall find that the vibration frequency of the tighter string is just twice as great as that of the looser. Thus, we see that the vibration frequency depends upon the tension applied to a string, and, that in strings of the same size and length, the vibration frequencies are proportional to the square roots of their tensions. Now taking two strings of the same length, but with the diameter of one twice as great as that of the other, and stretching them equally, we shall find that the vibration frequency of the smaller string is twice that of the larger; which shows that when the lengths and tensions of two strings are equal, their vibration frequencies are inversely proportional to their diameters. In constructing stringed instruments, advantage is taken of each of these conditions that affect the vibration of strings, and the requisite pitch is secured in a string by choosing one of convenient length and diameter, and by stretching it to just the right tension. When a string is plucked in the middle, it vibrates as a whole, and its rate of vibration, or vibration frequency, is determined by the three conditions that have just been discussed; but if a finger is laid on the string, in the middle, and the string is plucked between the middle and the end, the string will vibrate in halves, and the middle point will remain at rest. If the string had been touched at a point one-fourth of the length from the end it would have vibrated in fourths, and there would have been three stationary points. When vibrations are set up in a string, with nothing to prevent the free vibration of the whole string, it first vibrates as a whole, and the sound produced is known as the fundamental tone of the string; but very soon smaller vibrations of segments of the string begin, first of halves of the string, then of thirds, and then of fourths. These smaller vibrations produce sound waves that blend with the fundamental tone and are known as overtones. The combined sound of the fundamental tone and the overtones is called a note. The overtones present in notes that have the same fundamental tone are not the same when the notes are produced by different instruments, and, consequently, the sound of notes of the same pitch is not the same on different instruments. This difference in notes of the same pitch has already been mentioned, but the way in which overtones are produced was not explained in connection with it. In wind instruments the sounds are produced by the vibrations of columns of air in pipes. In the organ, which is probably the best example of a wind instrument, the vibrations are usually produced by causing a current of air to strike a sharp edge, just above the opening of the pipe, as is done in a common whistle. A portion of the air current is deflected into the organ pipe, and it sets up vibrations in the air within the pipe. The pitch of the sound produced by an organ pipe is determined by the length of the pipe. A pipe that is open at both ends, called an open pipe, produces a sound that has a wave length twice as great as the length of the pipe; and if the pipe is open at one end only, a closed pipe, the sound produced has a wave length twice the length of the open pipe. Hence it will be seen that a closed pipe produces a sound that has the same pitch as that produced by an open pipe that is twice as long. Talking Machines. The phonograph, graphophone, gramophone, sonophone, and other talking machines, furnish one of the best proofs of the wave theory of sound, because their invention was based upon that theory. The first talking machine was that invented by Thomas A. Edison and called by him the phonograph. The others merely show the principle of the phonograph applied in different ways, and need not be separately described. The reasoning that led Edison to invent the phonograph was that if the sound waves produced by the human voice were allowed to strike a thick disk of hard rubber or metal, they would cause the disk to vibrate in a certain way, and if the disk were again made to vibrate as it had done under the influence of the voice, the sounds of the voice would be reproduced. The difficult part of the task of making a talking machine was in finding a way to make the disk vibrate again as it did under the influence of the voice. This, however, was finally accomplished, providing the disk with a needle, that rests on a cylinder of hard wax, which turns slowly under the point of the needle while the sound waves are striking the disk. The vibrations of the disk cause the point to indent the surface of the wax so as to produce a groove of varying depth on its surface. After the vibrations of the speaker’s voice have been recorded in this way on the surface of the wax cylinder the needle can be made to retrace its path, and will cause the disk to vibrate as it did under the tones of the speaker’s voice. These last vibrations of the disk produce sound waves similar to those of the voice, but their amplitude is less and the sound is not so loud. Why Does Red Make a Bull Angry? It is very doubtful if a red flag really makes a bull more excited or more quickly than a rag of any other color or any other object which the bull can see plainly but does not understand. Conceding for the moment that red excites a bull more than any other color, the answer to the question will be found in the statement that anything unusual which the bull sees has a tendency to make him angry and the thing which he can see at a distance more quickly will start him going most quickly. He can see a red rag better perhaps than almost any other color. There may be something about the color which excites him just as some notes on the piano will worry some dogs, but there is no way of studying the bull’s anatomy to determine why red should excite him more than any other color, if that is so. [Illustration: FIG. 1.] [Illustration: FIG. 2.] [Illustration: FIG. 3.] HOW A KEY TURNS A LOCK What Happens When the Knob is Turned? All of that portion of the lock which is shown above the round central post is operated by the knob, the spindle of which passes through the square hole. Before the knob is turned, the parts are in the position shown in figure 2, with the latch bolt protruding. Turning the knob to the left gives the position shown in figure 1, the upper lever in the hub pushing back the yoke, which in turn pushes back the latch bolt. When the hand is removed, the springs cause the parts to return to the position shown in figure 2. Turning the knob to the right also retracts the latch bolt, as shown in figure 3, by means of the lower lever on the hub. The spiral spring on the latch bolt is lighter than the one above it. This gives an easy, lively action to the bolt, with very little friction when the door is closed, while the heavier spring above gives a quick and positive action of the knobs. What Happens When the Key is Turned? All of that portion of the lock which is shown below the round central post is operated by the key. The square stud is attached to the bolt, and in figure 1, it is seen that the projections on the flat tumblers prevent the stud from moving forward, holding the bolt in retracted position. When the key is turned as shown in figure 2, it raises the tumblers releasing the stud, and then pushes the bolt out, the tumblers falling into position as shown in figure 3, with the projections again engaging the stud and preventing the bolt from moving until the key is turned backward, again raising the tumblers and releasing and retracting the bolt. How Key Changes Are Provided. There are three ways in which keys are made individual to the locks they fit. _a._ By changing the shape of the keyhole. This may be done shorter or longer, wide or narrow, straight or tapering and with projections on the sides which the key must fit, making it difficult or impossible for keys of a different class to enter the lock. In the lock shown, a projection on the keyhole will be noted, fitting a groove in the bit of the key. _b._ By wards attached to the lock-case. The two crescent-shaped wards seen near the key in figure 2 illustrate this feature. Similar wards are placed on the lock cover. These fit into the two notches shown on the key bit in figure 4, and their shape and position are varied at will. _c._ By changes in the tumblers. There are five flat tumblers in the lock shown, and their lower edges fit into the end of the key bit. By varying their height, changes in the cutting of the key are made necessary. The security of a lock depends very largely upon its being so made that no key will operate it except the one which belongs to it, and this is obtained by guarding the keyhole by means of _a_, by preventing the wrong key from turning by means of _b_, and by still further limitations by means of _c_. [Illustration: HOW A CYLINDER LOCK WORKS] [Illustration: FIGURE 1. PARTS OF CYLINDER LOCK.] [Illustration: FIGURE 2. FACE OF CYLINDER LOCK.] The Cylinder Lock. Door locks of the highest grade of security are made with a locking cylinder, which contains tumblers in the form of miniature bolts which make it impossible to operate the lock except with the key to which it is fitted. This is screwed into the lock-case through the side of the door, with the lever on the inner end engaging the end of the bolt in the lock, so that as it is moved it either retracts or “throws” the bolt as desired. Figure 1 shows all the parts of a modern master-keyed lock. Figure 4 shows a broken view of the cylinder with all parts in position. Figure 3 shows a simpler form used when the master key is not desired. Figure 2 shows the front, the only part which is visible when the lock is in use, with its keyway of tortuous shape which will not admit flat-picking tools. When the lock is assembled, the pin tumblers project through the shell, the master cylinder and the key plug holding all parts firmly bolted or fastened together. When the proper key is inserted, the tumblers are raised until the “breaks” in all of them coincide with the surface of the key plug, releasing it and permitting the key to turn it. If any one of the five tumblers is .002 inch too high or too low, the key will not turn; so that no key except the one made for the lock can be used. In the master-keyed lock, the master key causes the breaks to coincide with the outer surface of the master ring. It is thus possible to have a master key which will fit any desired number of locks with the individual or change keys all different from each other and from the master key. The balls reduce friction to such an extent that a key has been inserted and withdrawn for a million times without affecting the accuracy of the lock. [Illustration: FIGURE 3. INTERIOR OF CYLINDER LOCK WITHOUT MASTER KEY.] [Illustration: FIGURE 4. INTERIOR OF MASTER-KEYED CYLINDER LOCK.] Where Does Salt Come From? Salt is one of the things with which we come in contact with daily perhaps more than any other. With the exception of water, probably no one thing is used more by all civilized people than salt. You have already learned in our talk on elements the difference between a mere mixture of substances and a chemical compound. You remember that when some substances are only mixed together, they do not lose their identity. In a compound the substances are always combined in fixed proportions and the properties of the compound are often very different from those of the things that make it. Common salt is made of two substances, that are not at all like salt, and are very different from each other. One, sodium, is a soft, bluish metal, and the other is chlorine, a yellowish-green gas. The chemical name for salt is sodium chloride which is derived from the two names sodium and chlorine. Sodium and chlorine are both what we have learned to call elements. An element being a substance which cannot be separated into substances of different kinds. There are now known about seventy such elements. All the substances around us are composed of these elements alone, or chemically united in different compounds, or simply mixed together. Most of them, however, are mixtures, not of separate elements, but of compounds. The soil under our feet is a mixture of compounds. Water is also a compound. Pure compounds very rarely occur naturally. Salt is sometimes found almost pure; but generally is mixed with so many other things that we have to take them out to get absolutely pure salt. For practical every-day use it is unnecessary to purify the salt. Salt is found in large quantities in the sea water, in which it is dissolved with some other substances. It is also found in salt beds, formed by the drying up of old lakes that have no outlets; salt wells, that yield strong brine; and salt mines, in which it is found in hard, solid, transparent crystals, called rock salt. Rock salt is the purest form in which salt is found and, to prepare it for market, it is merely necessary to grind it or cut into blocks. The greatest deposit of salt in the world is probably that at Wielizka in Poland, where there is a bed 500 miles long, 20 miles wide, and 1,200 feet thick. Some of the mines there are so extensive that it is said some of the miners spend all their lives in them, never coming to the surface of the earth. A trip through these mines is interesting. In one of them can be seen a church made entirely of salt. The salt supply of the United States is obtained chiefly from the salt wells of Michigan and New York, the Great Salt Lake in Utah, and the rock-salt mines of Louisiana and Kansas. In the arts and manufactures, the most important uses of salt are in glazing earthenware, in extracting metals from their ores, in preserving meats and hides, in fertilizing arid soil, and also, as we shall presently see, in the manufacture of soda. Of equal importance, perhaps, is its use in food. Most people think it not only lends a pleasant flavor, but is itself an important article of diet. It is certain, that all people who can obtain it use salt in their food, and where it is scarce, it is considered one of the greatest of luxuries. Soda is of interest to us, not so much on account of its use in our households, as because it plays on extremely important part in two industries that contribute greatly to our comfort, viz., the manufacture of glass and soap. Soda is not found naturally in great abundance, as salt is, but is generally made from other substances. Formerly it was made almost entirely from the ashes of certain plants. One, known as the Salsoda soda-plant, was formerly cultivated in Spain for the soda contained in it, and the ashes, or Barilla, as they were called, were soaked in water to dissolve out the soda. Now, however, the world’s soda supply is produced from common salt by two processes, known from the names of their inventors as the Leblanc and Solvay processes. ~WHERE WE GET SODA~ In the Leblanc process the first step is to treat the salt, or sodium chloride, with sulphuric acid. As a result of this, a compound of sodium, sulphur, and oxygen, called sodium sulphate is formed, together with another acid containing hydrogen and chlorine, and called hydrochloric acid. This acid is driven off by boiling, and the sodium sulphate is left. The next step in the process is to convert the sodium sulphate, or “salt cake,” into soda, or, to give it its chemical name, sodium carbonate. This change is brought about by mixing the salt cake with limestone and coal and heating the mixture. Just what changes go on when this is done, are not known, but the chief ones are probably the following: the coal, which consists for the most part of an element called carbon, takes the oxygen out of the sodium sulphate, and unites with it to form carbonic acid gas, leaving a compound of sodium and sulphur called sodium sulphide; this acts on the limestone, which is composed of a metal, calcium, in combination with carbon and oxygen, and causes the sulphur in the sodium sulphide to combine with the calcium, forming calcium sulphide, while the sodium combines with the carbon and oxygen and forms the desired compound, sodium carbonate. After the heating, the resulting mass which contains calcium sulphide, sodium carbonate, and some unburned coal, and is known as “black ash,” is broken up and treated with water. This dissolves the sodium carbonate, leaving the rest undissolved, and when part of the water is evaporated crystals containing sodium carbonate and water are formed. By heating these the water may be driven off, and the sodium carbonate left behind as a white powder. The Solvay, or ammonia soda, process consists in forcing carbonic acid gas through strong brine, to which a considerable quantity of ammonia has been added. When this is done, crystals are formed in the brine, which are composed of a compound of hydrogen, sodium, carbon, and oxygen, and are called sodium bicarbonate. This substance, which is the soda we sometimes use in baking bread, is decomposed by heating, into water and sodium carbonate, the soda used for washing. The Leblanc process was formerly used almost altogether for making soda; but in recent years the Solvay process has come into extensive use, and it is said that now more than half the soda of the world is made in this way. Where Do All the Little Round Stones Come From? The little round stones you are thinking of are really pebbles which have been worn smooth and round by being rubbed against each other in the water, through the action of the waves on a beach, or the running water of brooks and streams. This sort of rock is called a water-formed rock. Some of them have travelled many miles before they are found side by side on the shore or in a large mass of what we would call conglomerate rock. But whenever you see a round smooth rock or pebble you may be quite sure that it was made round and smooth by the action of water. You sometimes see large rocks made of small stones of various colors and sizes. You can often find a large rock of this kind standing by itself. If you examine it carefully, you will find it consists of an immense number of small stones of different sizes and of a variety of colors, all fastened together as though with cement. This kind of rock is called conglomerate. We know two kinds of conglomerate rock, one, quite common, in which the little stones are round and smooth, and another, not seen so often, in which the stones are sharp. The latter sort is sometimes called breccia, to distinguish it from the former, which is called true pudding stone. What Is Clay? Clay is the result of the crumbling of a certain kind of rocks called feldspars. When feldspar is exposed to the action of the weather, it crumbles slowly at the surface and the little fragments combine with a certain amount of water, forming clay. Pure clay is white and is used in the manufacture of china and porcelain. The common clay that we usually think of when we think of clay, is generally yellowish, but there are many different colored clays. Most of these colors, particularly those of red clay, yellow clay and blue clay, come from the iron which is present in the clay. Clay which contains iron is useful for making bricks. Bricks are made from clay by first softening the clay and pressing it in molds, the size of a brick. When dried for a time in the sun they are put into an oven and baked in great heat and they become quite hard and generally red. Most of the clay from which bricks are made turns red when baked, whether blue, yellow or red, because the iron which is in the clay is generally turned red when subjected to heat. For making porcelains it is desirable to use the kinds of clay which contain nothing that melts when heated to a high degree. Clays which contain substances which melt in strong heat are, therefore, not good for making porcelains. There is a pure white clay called Kaolin which is very excellent for this purpose. Clay out of which we make firebrick for lining stoves and fireplaces is free from substances which melt. Several kinds of clay are good for making paints. Where Do School Slates Come From? Slates such as are used in school and as roofing material are formed of clay, which has been hardened under pressure and heat. When this occurs it does so because a number of layers of clay, one on top of the other, have at sometime been subjected to great heat and pressure within the earth with the result that the clay is pressed into very thick layers and changed in color by the heat and becomes hard. There are many kinds of slate. Some of the slate, as found in slate mines, is used to make roofs over buildings and for this purpose they are cut to shapes very much like wooden shingles. They are easily broken, however, as slate is very brittle. Slate is used in many other ways besides for roofs and school slates. Sometimes it is made into slate pencils but, since paper has become so cheap, comparatively few slate pencils are used in the school room today. What Causes Shadows? Where anything through which rays of light cannot pass intercepts the light rays coming from a luminous body, the light rays are turned back in the direction from which they come and the part on the other side of the object which intercepted the light goes into shade and a shadow results. A shadow then is produced by cutting off one or more light rays. We notice shadows when the sun is bright in the daytime and at night when we walk along the streets lighted partly by street lamps. The shadows we see in the daytime are caused by our cutting off and throwing back some of the light rays which come from the sun. These are not so dark as the shadows we see at night because the rays of light from the sun are so bright and are reflected from so many other objects to the side and in back of us. When, however, we are walking along a dimly lighted street and come to a street lamp the shadows our bodies cause are quite black. The night shadows are darker because the source of light is less intense and the objects to the side of and in back of us (if we are walking toward the light) do not reflect so much of the light rays as they do of the sun’s rays in the daytime. [Illustration: DRIVING THE HOLLOW STEEL PILES TO BED ROCK.] The Foundation of a Sky Scraper How Hollow Steel Piles, Compressed and Concrete Are Employed to Make a Foundation Rapidity of building construction is of primary importance in every city of metropolitan size. When real estate is sold at the rate of several hundred dollars a square foot it is self-evident that time is indeed money. The delay of a few days in completing a structure may deprive the owner of the chance of earning thousands in rental money. Because of the excessive depth of an open caisson, the completion of a foundation may be delayed for months. Hence the building may not be completed until the renting period has passed and the owner must wait an entire year before he can expect any financial return on his investment. Because rapidity is so essential in city building construction the method of first sinking an open pit to rock in providing a foundation has been displaced to a large extent by a system in which heavy hollow steel piles are employed in clusters to support a building. The hollow piles are driven through quicksand to rock, cleaned out and ultimately filled with concrete. ~PILES ARE DRIVEN DOWN TO SOLID ROCK~ In this method of constructing foundations, which is illustrated, hollow steel piles are driven in the well-known manner down to solid rock. The steel pile sections vary in length from 20 feet to 22 feet, and in diameter from 12 inches to 24 inches. If the ground is to be penetrated to a depth greater than 22 feet, the sections of piling are connected by means of a sleeve in such manner that a watertight joint is formed. Under a pressure of 150 pounds to the square inch a jet of compressed air is then employed to blow out the earth and water contained within the shell. A spouting geyser of mud rising sometimes to a height of 150 feet, and occasional large pieces of rock blown up from a depth of 40 feet below the ground, bear testimony to the terrific force of the air blast. [Illustration: THE PILES ARE ABOUT TWENTY-TWO FEET LONG. IF GREAT DEPTHS ARE TO BE REACHED SECTIONS OF PILING ARE JOINED TOGETHER BY MEANS OF A SLEEVE.] When the shell has been completely cleaned out by means of the blast of compressed air, the exposed rock can be examined by lowering an electric light. Steel sounding rods are employed to test the hardness of the rock and to detect the difference between soft and hard bed rock. After the piles in each pier have been cleaned out, they must be cut off at absolutely the same height--sometimes a very difficult task when there is little room. The oxy-acetylene torch is used for the purpose, the intensely hot flame cutting off the steel almost like butter at the exact elevation desired. [Illustration: CUTTING STEEL PILES WITH A HOT FLAME PILE BEING CUT TO PROPER LEVEL BY MEANS OF OXY-ACETYLENE TORCH. After the piles in each pier have been cleaned out they must be cut off at exactly the same height--sometimes a very difficult task when there is little room. The oxy-acetylene torch is used for the purpose, the intensely hot flame cutting off the steel almost like butter.] [Illustration: A CLUSTER OF PILES, CLEANED OUT, FILLED WITH CONCRETE AND CUT OFF FLUSH BY MEANS OF THE OXY-ACETYLENE FLAME.] ~PILES ARE NEXT FILLED WITH CONCRETE~ The hollow shell is next filled with concrete reinforced by means of long two-inch steel rods, sometimes fifty feet in length. On clusters of these concrete-filled piles, the weight of the building is supported. That this method of constructing foundations is indeed rapid, the story of the work at 145-147 West Twenty-eighth Street, New York City, proves. Rock was located 38 feet below the curb. The material above it was clay and water-bearing sand. Structural steel was due in three weeks, but the completion of the cellar was still ten days off. The steel pile foundation method offered the only solution of the problem. Specifications were drawn which called for eighty-five 12-inch steel piles, driven to rock, blown clean by compressed air, and filled with concrete, reinforced with 2-inch rods. Despite various obstructions on the ground (shoring of neighboring buildings and the like) the driving was started on June 30th. The excavator was still taking out his runway while the rear half of the lot was completely driven. After he had left the ground a compressor was set up, and the first pipe was blown on July 7th. Three days later all driving and cleaning had been completed. During the following two days all the piles were filled and capped. In a word, the entire foundation had been completed three days before the expected arrival of the steel. [Illustration: CONCRETE PILES WHICH HAVE BEEN SUNK TO ROCK BOTTOM AND IN WHICH TWO-INCH STEEL RODS HAVE BEEN INSERTED TO ACT AS REINFORCEMENT FOR THE CONCRETE WHICH WILL EVENTUALLY BE POURED IN.] Such rapid work is not unusual with the steel foundation method. On another contract, work was completed not in the three months stipulated, but in exactly one month and a half, during which brief time all the excavation had been done, including sheeting, shoring, pile-driving, the mounting of concrete girders to carry the wall and capping of the piles ready to receive the grillage. [Illustration: THE STEEL PILE IS EASILY FORCED EVEN THROUGH THE SOFT UPPER LAYERS OF BED ROCK. SOMETIMES VERY LARGE PIECES ARE BLOWN UP INTO THE AIR BY THE BLAST OF COMPRESSED AIR.] Sometimes difficulties are encountered which would prove all but insurmountable and certainly hopelessly expensive with other methods. Thus in carrying out the one contract, water was found 12 feet from the curb. Two running streams had intersected at that point. The piles were simply sunk through the stream to rock bottom without any difficulty. The excessive cost of open-pit work has sometimes made it impossible to build twelve or fourteen-story buildings in many sections of the city of New York. The steel pile has, however, made steel building construction profitable. The carrying capacity of a steel pile is enormous. On a single 12-inch steel pile one hundred tons can be safely maintained. Piers containing sixteen piles have been used, and loadings up to 1300 tons are not unusual. Naturally the question arises: Do the steel piles deteriorate in time? The question has been answered over and over again by the piles themselves. After a service of fifteen years the steel foundation piles were removed from the site of a building which now stands at the northwest corner of Wall and Nassau streets, in New York City. They showed practically no deterioration. The oxidation on the outside was almost negligible. [Illustration: BLOWING OUT MUD AND ROCK WITH COMPRESSED AIR CLEANING OUT A HOLLOW STEEL PILE BY MEANS OF COMPRESSED AIR A GEYSER OF MUD ALWAYS APPEARS.] [Illustration: A DRIVEWAY ALONG THE TOP OF THE OLIVE BRIDGE DAM.] The Story in a Glass of Water How Does the Water Get into the Faucet? It is easy for you boys and girls who live in the city to run into the kitchen or bathroom when you are thirsty and by a simple turn of the faucet tap secure a glass of cool and refreshing water, but did you ever stop to think how many men must constantly work and how great and perfect arrangements must be made before it is possible to supply a great city with water to drink, to bathe in, and for cooking and washing? No one who has never had the experience of being in a town or city from which the water supply has been cut off, for a day or a number of days, can realize how necessary water is in our daily lives. We are so used to having all the water we want at any time that we even complain when in summer we are asked to drink water which is not iced. Drinking ice-water is very much of a habit. In tropical countries where there is no ice, people drink the water just as they find it, and if you were to go there and drink the waters for a few days, you would soon find that the water slakes your thirst even when quite warm, so it is not the ice in the water that quenches your thirst, but the water itself, and the ice-water is not good for you, as the doctor will tell you, because it chills the stomach. Where Does Our Drinking Water Come from? The best way to find out where the water in the faucet comes from is to follow it back to its source. Let us see. Here we are in the kitchen and you have just had a drink of water taken from the faucet above the sink. The faucet, you will notice, is attached to a small pipe which is fastened to the wall back of the sink. We look under the sink and see that the pipe goes through a hole in the floor, so we reason that the water must come from the cellar. Let us go down cellar and see. Yes, here is the little pipe that comes down through the floor under the sink and we follow it along the wall toward the front of the house, and well, well, there it goes right out through the stone foundation of the house. So we conclude that the water comes from somewhere outside of the house, and that the little pipe we have been following is only a means of getting it from the outside into the house. We now mark the place in the wall where the pipe goes through and run around to the front of the house to see where it comes out, but we don’t see it. It must be buried in the ground, so we get a spade and pick and begin to dig a hole in the ground, and pretty soon we find the little pipe pointing straight out toward the street. We keep on digging the dirt away, and thus open a little trench from the house to the middle of the street and when we get there after a great deal of digging we find our little pipe attached to a larger pipe which seems to run along the ground in the middle of the street; so we are still in the dark as to where the water comes from, excepting that so far as our own home is concerned we know that it gets into the house through a little pipe which is attached to a big pipe in the middle of the street. By this time we know we have a big job on hand. [Illustration: HOW A BIG DAM IS BUILT BUILDING OLIVE BRIDGE DAM TO FORM THE ASHOKAN RESERVOIR. The great Ashokan reservoir is situated about fourteen miles west of Kingston on the Hudson River. Its cost is $18,000,000, and it will hold sufficient water to cover the whole of Manhattan Island to a depth of twenty-eight feet. The water is impounded by the Olive Bridge dam, which is built across Esopus Creek, and also by the Beaver Kill and the Hurley dikes, which have been built across streams and gaps lying between the hills which surround the reservoir.] [Illustration: THE OLIVE BRIDGE DAM, 4650 FEET LONG, 200 FEET HIGH. The dam is a masonry structure 190 feet in thickness at the base, and 23 feet thick at the top. The surface of the water when the reservoir is full is 590 feet above tide level. The total length of the main dam is 4560 feet, and the maximum depth of the water is 190 feet. The area of the water surface is 12.8 square miles, and in preparing the bottom it was necessary to remove seven villages, with a total population of 2000. Forty miles of highway and ten bridges had to be built. In the construction of the dam and dikes it was necessary to excavate nearly 3,000,000 cubic yards of material, and 8,000,000 cubic yards of embankment and nearly 1,000,000 cubic yards of masonry had to be put in place. The maximum number of men employed on the job was 3000.] ~HOW THE PIPES RUN THROUGH THE STREET~ We are pretty tired of digging by this time, so we call in all the boys and girls in town to help us dig so that we may see where these pipes come from, and we have a regular digging carnival. We follow the big pipe along our own street until we come to the corner. Here we find that our larger street pipe is connected with a still larger pipe, so we think we had better follow the larger pipe. We keep on digging, getting more of the boys and girls to help, and we follow that big pipe right out to the edge of town where we see it runs into another stone wall which you knew all the time was the reservoir, but concerning what it was for you were perhaps never quite clear. Right near the place where the pipe goes in is a stairway which leads up to the top of the wall, so the whole crowd of boys and girls climb the steps and you are at the top of the reservoir; and there spread out before you, you see a big lake surrounded with a stone wall and you see where the water comes from--the reservoir--at least so you think. But you are wrong. You really haven’t come anywhere near the source of the supply. For soon as you walk around the broad top of the wall which surrounds your reservoir, you meet a man who asks you what you want, and you tell him that you have been finding out where the water in the faucet came from, but having found out you thought you would go back home. The man smiles at you, but, as he is good-natured and sees you are really trying to find out where the water comes from, he tells you that since you have gone to all the trouble of digging up the streets to follow the pipes, you might as well learn all about it. He first tells you that the reservoir is not really the place where the water comes from but only a tank, so to speak. He explains to you that most of the faucets in the city are higher than the real source of the water, which is out in the country miles away, and as water will not run up hill, it is necessary to keep the city’s daily supply in some place that is higher than the highest faucet in the city, so that it will force its way into and fill to the very end all of the large pipes in the streets and the small pipes which go into the houses, so that the water will come out just as soon as you turn the faucet. Then he takes you over to a large building near the reservoir which you have always called the water works, but never knew exactly what it was for. He takes you into a large room where there is a lot of nice-looking machinery working away steadily but quietly, and tells you that these are the great pumps which lift the water from the great pipes which bring it from far away in the country, into the reservoir we have just seen, from which the water runs into and fills all of the pipes into the city. He also tells you that in some cities it is impossible to find a place to build a reservoir which is higher than the highest places in the city. In such places, the pumps in the water works pump the water direct into the city water pipes and force the water to the very end of all the pipes and keep it there under pressure all the time. From the pumping station he takes you down stairs in the water works and shows you the huge pipe which brings the water to the water works from the country. It is quite the largest pipe you ever saw. You see it is not really an iron pipe, but built of concrete, which is quite as good. You will be surprised to have our friend, the water-works man, tell you that three average-sized men could stand up on each other’s shoulders inside the great pipe. [Illustration: HOW THE BIG PIPES ARE LAID THROUGH THE COUNTRY OLIVE BRIDGE DAM; ESOPUS CREEK FLOWING THROUGH TEMPORARY TUNNEL.] [Illustration: PLACING THE 9¹⁄₂ FOOT STEEL PIPES.] [Illustration: A HUGE UNDERGROUND RIVER The water is conducted from Ashokan reservoir as a huge, underground, artificial river. The aqueduct is ninety-two miles in length from Ashokan to the northern city line, and it should be explained that it is built on a gentle grade, and that the water flows through this at a slow and fairly constant speed. The aqueduct contains four distinct types: the cut-and-cover, the grade tunnel, the pressure tunnel, and the steel-pipe siphon. The cut-and-cover type, which is used on fifty-five miles of the aqueduct, is of a horseshoe shape and measures 17 feet high by 17 feet 6 inches wide, inside measurements. It is built of concrete, and on completion it is covered in with an earth embankment. This type is used wherever the nature of the ground and the elevation allow. Where the aqueduct intersects hills or mountains, it is driven through them in tunnel at the standard grade. There are twenty-four of these tunnels, aggregating fourteen miles in length. They are horseshoe in shape, 17 feet high by 16 feet 4 inches wide, and they are lined with concrete. When the line of the aqueduct encountered deep and broad valleys, they were crossed by two methods: if suitable rock were present, circular tunnels were driven deep within this rock and lined with concrete. There are seven of these pressure tunnels of a total length of seventeen miles. Their internal diameter is 14 feet, and at each end of each tunnel a vertical shaft connects the tunnel with the grade tunnel above. If the bottom of the valley did not offer suitable rock for a rock tunnel, or if there were other prohibitive reasons, steel siphons were used. These are 9 feet and 11 feet in diameter. They are lined with two inches of cement mortar and are imbedded in concrete and covered with an earth embankment. There are fourteen of these pipe siphons of a total length of six miles. At present one pipe suffices to carry the water. Ultimately three will be required for each siphon.] Our water-works man sees how earnest you are in seeing just where the water comes from, so he proposes that we go find out. We go outside and there is an automobile all ready to go and we jump in and the machine starts off along quite one of the nicest roads you were ever on. Soon you exclaim, “Why, this is the aqueduct road,” and so it is. The great pipe through which the water comes to the city is an aqueduct and they have built the road right over the place where the aqueduct runs. Away we go as fast as the car can carry us, sometimes ten, or twenty or perhaps fifty miles, according to what city you are in. The city goes as far as it must to find a supply of pure water and plenty of it and spends millions upon millions of dollars to make its supply of water good and certain. Occasionally we come to a little stone house along the way where we can go down and see the sides of the great stone pipe. After a while, however, we find our aqueduct road comes to an abrupt stop before another great stone wall. It is the great dam which has been built out there in the country to form one end of a great tank that catches and holds the waters from the creeks and rivers that flow into it. Usually the dam is built up right across a river. They simply build the dam strong enough to stop the river from going any further. Then, of course, the water piles up on the other side of the dam and occasionally this tank, which is simply another huge reservoir, gets so full that the water flows over. It does not really overflow the top of the dam, because underneath the top the engineers have left openings here and there for the water to get through. If it were not for these loopholes, so to speak, the great wall of water within the reservoir, piled against the dam, would break down the wall no matter how well built, by the great pressure it exerts. [Illustration: THROUGH THIS CHAMBER THE FLOW OF WATER TO THE AQUEDUCT IS REGULATED.] ~THE REAL SOURCE OF THE WATER~ We are now near to the real source of the water. We take a trip around the top of the great reservoir. Around at the other end we find what looks like a river, excepting that there isn’t any current to speak of. It is a river, but a much deeper one than it would have been but for the dam which has been built across it, and originally its surface was quite far down in a valley. Sometimes man makes his water dam at one end of a lake, which has been formed by streams flowing into a valley which has no opening for the water to run out of. In these cases the lake will be high up in the hills and man simply builds his dam at one end, lets the end of his aqueduct into the bottom of the lake and the water flows. In other cases he picks out a valley where there is no lake at all, builds his dam and then drains the water which he finds in small lakes higher up in the hills into the one big valley and makes a very large lake. But the water in the lakes comes originally from the creeks, rivers or springs which run into it, and so we will follow our original river back into the hills. Here and there along its course we find a little stream flowing into our river and, as we go up higher and higher into the hills, we find our river getting smaller and smaller. Now it is only a creek and, if we go far enough, we find its source but the tiniest kind of a tinkling brook with the water dripping almost noiselessly between the rocks as it makes its path down the side of the hill. There is the source of the water in the glass you have just enjoyed. [Illustration: DIGGING A HOLE UNDER A RIVER DIAMOND DRILL BORING A HORIZONTAL HOLE 1100 FEET BELOW THE HUDSON RIVER.] [Illustration: HUDSON RIVER SIPHON, 1100 FEET BELOW THE RIVER. Of the many siphons constructed, by far the most interesting and difficult is that which has been completed beneath the Hudson River. The preliminary borings made from scows in the river showed that great depths would have to be reached before rock sufficiently solid and free from seams was encountered to withstand the enormous hydraulic pressure of the water in the tunnel. After failing to reach rock by the scow drills, two series of inclined borings were made from each shore, one pair intercepting at about 900 feet depth and the other at about 1500 feet. Both showed satisfactory rock, and accordingly a shaft was sunk on each shore, to a depth of approximately 1100 feet, and then a horizontal tunnel was driven connecting the two. It is of interest to note that because of the enormous head, which must be measured from the flow line far above the river surface, the pressure in the horizontal tunnel reaches over forty tons per square foot.] [Illustration: THE HIGHEST BUILDING IN THE WORLD UPSIDE DOWN SHAFT 752′-0 DEEP WOOLWORTH BUILDING 750′ 0″ HIGH This picture shows the depth to which the pipes which carry the water through the city must sometimes be sunk in order that it will be certain to remain in place. To illustrate this in connection with the depth of the water tunnel in one place in the city of New York, our artist has taken the liberty of turning the Woolworth Building upside down. Even this building, which is the tallest business building in the world, and is 792 feet high, would not penetrate the water tunnel, at the point shown, which is at the Clinton Street shaft at the west bank of the East River.] What is Carbonic Acid? It was formerly called fixed air, and is a gaseous compound of carbon and oxygen. It is procured by the processes of combustion and respiration, and hence is always present in the air, though in minute quantity. Plants live upon it and absorb it into their tissues; they abstract and assimilate its carbon, and return its oxygen to the atmosphere in a pure condition. It is also present in spring water, and often in quantities, so that it sparkles and effervesces; it is also produced during the processes of putrefaction, fermentation, and slow decay of animal and vegetable substances in presence of air. It is largely employed by the manufacturers of aerated bread and aerated waters. Under a pressure of about 600 pounds it liquefies, and when allowed to escape through a small jet it rapidly evaporates and causes intense cold, so much so as to become frozen. It does not support burning. The gas derived from it, carbon dioxide, is invisible, and is heavier than air by one half, and has a pungent odor and slightly acid taste. In a pure state the gas cannot be respired, as it supports neither respiration nor combustion. When the portion in the atmosphere is increased to a considerable extent, as happens sometimes, it endangers life. The familiar “rising” of bread is brought about by carbonic acid gas escaping through and permeating the dough, making it light and porous. In this form it is known as yeast or as baking powder. We see its uses also in the chemical fire-engine. In some parts of the world large quantities of carbonic acid gas are constantly issuing from openings of the earth’s surface. Two such places are the famous Poison Valley of Java, and the Grotto del Cane, near Naples, in Italy. The former is a small valley about a half a mile around and about thirty-five feet deep, in which the air is so loaded with carbonic acid gas that animals entering it are killed in a few minutes. Even birds that fly over the valley are overcome if they do not rise high above it. The Grotto del Cane, or Grotto of the Dog, is a small cavern in the crater of a volcano. A stream of carbonic acid gas flows constantly into the grotto, but the level of the gas does not reach the height of a man’s mouth. When the same air is breathed over and over again, the quantity of carbonic acid in it is increased so much, that it may become as deadly as the air in the Poison Valley. Two other gases that may generally be found in air are ozone and ammonia. The first is merely a form of oxygen that is produced by the passage of lightning through the air. After severe thunderstorms, it is said to be present, sometimes, in sufficient proportion to give to the air a slightly pungent odor. It is more active chemically than is the ordinary form of oxygen, and consequently has a stimulating effect upon animals. Ammonia, or hartshorn, as it is sometimes called, from the fact that it was formerly obtained by distilling the horns of harts, or deer, is almost always present in the air in small quantities. It is produced chiefly by the decay of animal and vegetable matter, especially the former. Though present in the air in very small quantities, it is of much value to the plant world, because it contains nitrogen in a form in which it can be readily absorbed by plants. All plants contain some nitrogen, which is essential to their growth, but the greater part of the nitrogen in the air is not in such form that it can be absorbed by them. They must obtain their supply from the soil, which usually contains some nitrogen in a form that may be taken up by plants, and from the ammonia in the air. The latter is not taken directly out of the air by the plants, but the rains falling through the air absorb the ammonia and carry it to the soil, from which it is taken up into the plants by their roots. ~VARIOUS GASES FOUND IN AIR~ Besides the gases that have been mentioned, there is present in the air, at all times, a small quantity of water-vapor, which is, in many ways as important to mankind as is the oxygen itself. The quantity of water in the air is not always the same. As a rule, the quantity is greater in warm air than in cold, and is less over land than over water. Frequently the air feels damp in cold weather, and dry in hot weather, and it is natural to suppose that there is more vapor in the air on the damp day than on the dry one. This, however, is not always true. There is usually more moisture in the air on a warm summer day than on a cold day in winter, though the winter day may seem much more moist. You will be able to understand why this is so by comparing the air to a sponge. If we fill a sponge with water, and squeeze it gently, a little water will be forced out of it. If we then remove the pressure on the sponge. When the air cools, will appear dry on the surface, but there will still be water in it, and on being squeezed harder than before it will again become moist on the surface and more water will be forced out of it. Now cold has an effect upon moisture-laden air very much like that of pressure on the sponge. When the air cools, some of the moisture is forced out of it, and the air seems damp. When it warms again, the air seems dry, though there is still water-vapor in it. It seems dry because it can absorb more water-vapor, just as the sponge seems dry after you cease to squeeze it, though it still contains water. From this we see that the air does not always seem moist when there is much water-vapor in it, nor dry when there is only a little. It feels moist when there is as much water-vapor present as it can hold, and dry when it can held more than it already has. And we also see that in hot weather the air can hold much more moisture than it can in cold weather, so that whether the air feels dry or moist, there is generally much more water-vapor in it in hot weather than in cold. It is easy to see that, over water, the air naturally takes up more moisture than over land, because there is so much more water there to be transformed into vapor. Over the surface of seas, lakes and rivers, water is continually being converted into vapor by the process of evaporation, and this vapor is absorbed by the air. Let us now consider the solid particles floating in the air, the dust that is seen dancing in the path of a sunbeam. Whenever we examine the air, these small particles are found, even on the tops of mountains, and at points so high above the earth that they have been reached only by balloons. Of course, there is very much less dust high above the earth than near the surface, where the winds are constantly stirring up the loose soil, and throwing into the air small particles of every kind. In cities, where factory chimneys are continually pouring out clouds of smoke, and the people and vehicles are constantly disturbing the dust of the streets, the air always contains more dust than does the air of the country. In order that we may breathe air, the oxygen in it has been mixed with four times as much nitrogen and argon, which must be inhaled with the oxygen, though they have no more effect on the body than the water you take with a strong medicine to weaken it. The oxygen, however, has a very important effect upon the body, and if we compare the air we exhale with that we inhale we find considerably less oxygen in the former than in the latter. In place of the oxygen, the air has received carbonic acid gas. It may seem very strange to say that there is burning going on in the body, but that is very nearly what takes place. The chief difference from coal-burning is that in the body the process goes on so slowly that it does not make the body very hot; but when we set fire to coal, the process is much more rapid, and a large amount of heat is produced in a short time, so that the coal becomes very hot. The products of breathing and of coal-burning are the same, carbonic acid gas being the chief one. When coal is burned it disappears, together with some of the oxygen of the air, and in their stead we have carbonic acid gas. When a breath is taken some of the material of the body disappears, as does some of the oxygen of the air, and in place of them carbonic acid gas is found. If we could weigh the coal burned and the oxygen that disappears in the burning of it, and could then weigh the carbonic acid gas that is produced in the burning, we should find that the latter weighs just as much as the coal and the oxygen together. So, too, if we could weigh the oxygen that disappears from the air we breathe, and also find the weight of the material taken from our bodies by breathing, we should find that the two together weigh just as much as the carbonic acid gas given off in our breath. In neither case is anything absolutely destroyed; the substances resulting from the change weigh just as much as those that took part in it. Having learned that a quantity of oxygen disappears every time we take a breath, every time we build a fire, it would seem that in the thousands of years during which men and animals have been living on the earth, all the oxygen would have been exhausted and nothing left in its place but carbonic acid gas. That, however, is impossible, as the carbonic acid gas is used up almost as fast as it is produced and the oxygen is returned to the air in its stead. ~HOW PLANTS EAT CARBONIC ACID~ All trees and plants, from the great redwood trees of California to the smallest flowers that dot the fields, need carbonic acid gas to keep them alive and to make them grow. Their leaves have the power when the sun shines on them to take up carbonic acid from the air and to return oxygen in exchange. In this way you see that the balance is kept just as it should be. The oxygen needed by animals of all kinds is furnished by the plants, and the carbonic acid required by plants is thrown off in the breath of animals. Is It a Fact that the Sun Revolves On Its Axis? It is a proved fact that the sun revolves on its axis. All parts of its surface, however, do not rotate with the same velocity. The rotation of the sun differs from that of the earth in this respect. This constitutes the visible proof that the physical state of the sun is different from the earth’s, although they are composed of similar chemical elements. The earth, being covered with a solid crust, and being also, as recent investigation demonstrates, as rigid as steel throughout its entire globe, rotates with one and the same angular velocity from the equator to the poles. If you stood on the earth’s equator you would be carried by its daily rotation round a circle about 25,000 miles in circumference. If you stood within a yard of the North or South Pole you would be carried, by the same motion, round a circle not quite 19 feet in circumference. And yet it would require precisely the same time, viz., twenty-four hours, to describe the 19-foot circle as the 25,000-mile one. What Is the Most Usefully Valuable Metal? If you were guessing you would naturally say that gold is, of course, the most valuable of the metals. But you would be wrong. The proper answer to this is iron. We do not mean the pound for pound value, for you could get much more money for a pound of gold than for a pound of iron, but we mean in useful value--iron is in that sense the most valuable metal known to man. This is so because iron is of great service to man in so many different ways, and it is very well that there is so great a quantity of it for man’s use. [Illustration: WHERE DOES TOBACCO COME FROM? GROWING TOBACCO UNDER CHEESECLOTH.] The Story in a Pipe and Cigar[6] [6] Copyright by Tobacco Leaf Publishing Co. Where Did the Name Tobacco Originate? It is now generally agreed that the word tobacco is derived from “tobago,” which was an Indian pipe. The tobago was Y-shaped, and usually consisted of a hollow, forked reed, the two prongs of which were fitted into the nostrils, the smoke being drawn from tobacco placed in the end of the stem. The island of Tobago, contrary to the belief of many, did not furnish the name for tobacco, but on the other hand, it was given that name by Columbus, owing to its resemblance in shape to the Indian pipe. How Was Tobacco Discovered? While tobacco is now found growing in all inhabited countries, it is a native of the Americas and adjacent islands. Its discovery by civilized man was coincident with the discovery of this continent by Christopher Columbus in 1492. Columbus and his adventurous sailors found the native Indians using the weed on the explorer’s first visit to the new world. Investigation has established that the plant was first used as a religious rite and gradually became a social habit among the natives. Columbus and his Castilian successors carried the weed to Spain. Sir Walter Raleigh took it to England, Jean Nicot, whose name is immortalized in nicotine, introduced it to the French; adventurous traders brought the seed to Turkey and Syria, and Spanish argosies carried it westward from Mexico to the Philippines and thence to China and Japan. Thus within two centuries after its discovery tobacco was being cultivated in nearly every country and was being used by every race of men. Where Does Tobacco Grow? While tobacco is a native of the Americas, it is a fact that it will grow after a fashion almost anywhere. Milton Whitney, Chief of the Division of Soils, United States Department of Agriculture, in his bulletin on tobacco soils says tobacco can be grown in nearly all parts of the country even where wheat and corn cannot economically be grown. The plant readily adapts itself to the great range of climatic conditions, will grow on nearly all kinds of soil and has a comparatively short season of growth. But while it can be so universally grown, the flavor and quality of the leaf are greatly influenced by the conditions of climate and soil. The industry has been very highly specialized and there is only demand now for tobacco possessing certain qualities adapted to certain specific purposes.... It is a curious and interesting fact that tobacco suitable for our domestic cigars, is raised in Sumatra, Cuba and Florida, and then passing over our middle tobacco States the cigar type is found again in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin.... It is surprising to find so little difference in the meteorological record for these several places during the crop season. There does not seem to be sufficient difference to explain the distribution of the different classes of tobacco, and yet this distribution is probably due mainly to climatic conditions.... The plant is far more sensitive to these meteorological conditions than are our instruments. Even in such a famous tobacco region as Cuba, tobacco of good quality cannot be grown in the immediate vicinity of the ocean or in certain parts of the island that would otherwise be considered good tobacco lands. This has been experienced also in Sumatra and in our own country, but the influences are too subtle to be detected by our meteorological instruments.... Under good climatic conditions, the class and type of tobacco depend upon the character of the soil, especially on the physical character of the soil upon which it is grown, while the grade is dependent largely upon the cultivation and curing of the crop. Different types of tobacco are grown on widely different soils all the way from the coarse sandy lands of the Pine Barrens, to the heavy, clay, limestone, corn and wheat lands. The best soil for one kind of tobacco, therefore, may be almost worthless for the staple agricultural crops, while the best for another type of tobacco may be the richest and most productive soil of any that we have. ~WHERE HAVANA TOBACCO IS GROWN~ Havana tobacco, which means all tobacco grown on the island of Cuba, possesses peculiar qualities which make it the finest tobacco in the world for cigar purposes. The island produces from 350,000 to 500,000 bales annually, of which 150,000 to 250,000 bales come to the United States for use in American cigar factories. The best quality of the Cuban tobacco comes largely from the Vuelta Abajo section, although some very choice tobaccos are raised also in the Partidos section. Remedios tobaccos are more heavily bodied than others and are used almost exclusively for blending with our domestic tobaccos. While there are innumerable sub-classifications, such as Semi-Vueltas, Remates, Tumbadero, etc., the three general divisions named above, Vuelta Abajo, Partidos and Remedios, embrace the entire island. If a fourth general classification were to be added, it would be Semi-Vueltas. The Vuelta Abajo is grown in the Province of Pinar del Rio, located at the western end of the island. It is raised practically throughout the entire province. Semi-Vueltas are also grown in Pinar del Rio, but the trade draws a line between them and the genuine Vueltas. Partidos tobacco, which is grown principally in the Province of Havana, differs from the Vuelta Abajo in that it is of a much lighter quality. The Partidos country is famous for its production of fine light glossy wrappers. Tobacco from the foregoing sections is used principally in the manufacture of clear Havana cigars. Some of the heavier Vueltas, however, are also used for seed and Havana cigar purposes. Remedios, otherwise known as Vuelta-Arriba, is grown in the Province of Santa Clara, located in the center of the island. This tobacco is taken almost entirely by the United States and Europe and is used here for filler purposes, principally in seed and Havana cigars. Its general characteristics are a high flavor and rather heavy body, which make it especially suitable for blending with our domestic tobaccos. Havana tobacco is packed and marketed in bales. Preparing the Seed Beds. The first step is the preparation of the seed beds. For these beds low, rich, hardwood lands are selected. The trees are cut down and the wood split, converted into cord wood and piled up to dry. About the middle of January this wood is stacked up on skid poles and ignited. The ground is thus cleared by burning, the fires being moved from spot to spot until a sufficient area is cleared. By this process all grass, weeds, brush and insects are eradicated. The ground is then dug up with hoes and cleared off and a perfect seed bed is made. The tobacco seed is first mixed with dry ashes in the proportion of about a tablespoonful of seed to a gallon of the ashes, and about this quantity is sowed over a square rod of land. This amount is calculated to supply plants enough for one acre of ground, but the farmers usually double the planting as a precaution against emergencies. After the seed beds are sowed they are covered over with cheesecloth as a means of protection, and they are carefully weeded and watered until the leaves have attained a length of about four inches. They are then ready for transplanting, which operation begins about the middle of April. Fertilization. In the meantime, the tobacco-growing areas have been prepared by plowing and fertilizing. The matter of fertilization has been the subject of much study and many experiments, and it has been definitely established that cow manure is one of the best for this purpose. This natural fertilizer is distributed on the fields at the rate of ten to twenty two-horse loads to each acre. In addition to this from two hundred to three hundred pounds of carbonate of potash, and from two thousand to three thousand pounds of bright cottonseed meal are employed. The total cost of this fertilizer amounts to about $120 per acre. Planting. After the fertilizer is well plowed into the land the ground is laid off into ridges about four feet apart, made by throwing two one-horse furrows together. These ridges are about two feet in width and are flattened on the top so as to make a level bed for the young plant. The farmer then measures off and marks these rows at intervals of 16 to 18 inches. At each mark he makes a small hole, and after pouring in a pint of water the plant is carefully set. Machine planters are used for this purpose to a limited extent. Care of the Growing Crop. The growers usually calculate on finishing their planting about the first of June. The young plants are then closely watched and are hoed and cultivated at least once a week. They are also supplied with sufficient water to keep them alive and growing. At this stage of the proceedings, the planter begins to look out for worms. The butter worm is one of his greatest enemies. This is a small green moth that lays its eggs in the bud of the plant and turns into a worm two days later. To stop the ravages of this insect, it is customary to use a mixture composed of some insecticide mixed with corn meal. A small pinch of this mixture is inserted at regular intervals in the bud of each plant until the plant is nearly grown. When the tobacco is about three feet high, all such leaves as were on the plant when it was first set out are picked off and thrown away. About this time the crop is usually threatened by another enemy known as the horn worm. This is a large, mouse-colored moth, which swarms over the field about sun-down, and deposits green eggs about the size of a very small bird shot, on the back sides of the leaves. This is a very ravenous insect and unless carefully watched it will devour every leaf of tobacco, leaving nothing but the stalks standing. It is removed by picking off and by insecticides. [Illustration: A FIELD OF FINE HAVANA.] Harvesting. About sixty to ninety days after setting, the bottom leaves on the plant are ripe and the grower is able to remove from three to four on each stalk. This is called priming. The primer detaches each leaf carefully and places it face down in his left hand, inspecting it at the same time to see that no worms are carried to the barns. Upon accumulating a handful, he places them in baskets that are lined with burlap to prevent injury to the leaf, and the filled baskets are either carried or hauled to the barns. About this time the plants have begun to bud out at the top, and this bud, with a few small leaves around it, is broken off. This process is called topping, and is done for the purpose of confining the development of the plant to the leaves below. After topping, the priming of the tobacco is continued for about three weeks, and until all the upper leaves of marketable value have been harvested. In the meantime, the suckering has to be looked after, which is the removing of the small branches that have a tendency to grow out of the main stalk of the plant. In the barns the leaves are placed on long tables, behind which stand the stringers. They string the leaves, each separately, on strong cotton twine, about thirty leaves to a string, spaced about an inch apart. If this is not done carefully and accurately, several leaves may become bunched together and the cure will thereby be impaired. It is attention to this detail which prevents the defect known as pole-sweat. These strings are tied at either end to a tobacco lath, and the lath is hung upon two poles. These poles are placed in courses in the barn, at spaces of two feet, one above the other. [Illustration: A MODERN CUBAN TOBACCO PLANTATION.] ~HOW TOBACCO IS CURED~ Here the tobacco undergoes its preliminary, or barn cure, and during this period the grower is constantly on the anxious seat, having to open and close his curing houses according to the changes in the weather, and to look closely after the ventilation of his crop in order to avoid the development of stem rot and other afflictions with which the tobacco is threatened at this stage of the proceedings. [Illustration: A STAND OF TOBACCO IN EACH HAND.] Bulk Sweating. In due course of time the laths are taken down, the strings removed and the leaves are formed into hands and tied with a string. The tobacco is then packed temporarily in cases and delivered at the fermenting house, where it is put into what is known as the bulk sweat. This consists of uniform piles of tobacco covered over with blankets, and which are frequently “turned” in order that they shall cure evenly and not become too dark in color. From the bulk sweat the tobacco goes to the sorting tables, where it is divided into numerous grades of length and color. It is then turned over to the packers, who form it into bales. How is Tobacco Cultivated? As the young plants spring up and begin to grow, they are thinned out, watered and cared for until along in October or November, and as soon as the weather becomes settled for the season, the little seedlings are transplanted into the field. Some growers use shade, but most of the tobacco is grown in the open. The plants are placed in rows, very much as corn is planted, only farther apart. The plants are carefully protected from weeds and insects, and in December the early tobacco is ready to be harvested. Here the mode of procedure differs according to the discretion of the grower. The plan universally in vogue until recent years was to cut the plant down at the base of the stalk. Lately, however, the more scientific growers harvest their tobacco gradually, picking it leaf by leaf, according as they ripen and mature. The tobacco is then allowed to lie in the field until the leaves are wilted. The stalks (or stems, according to the method followed) are then strung on _cujes_ or poles, so that the plants hang with the tips down. The tobacco is then allowed to hang in the sun until it is dry and later carried into the barns, where the poles are suspended in tiers until the barn is full. Tobacco barns everywhere are constructed with movable, or rather, adjustable, side and end walls which permit of a constant adjustment of the ventilation. While hanging in the barn the tobacco undergoes its preliminary cure and changes in color from the green of the growing plant to a yellowish brown. The climatic changes have to be carefully studied during this process. If the weather is extremely dry it is customary to keep the barns closed in the daytime and to open the ventilators at night. It is generally desirable to keep the tobacco fairly dry while it is undergoing the barn cure. After a few weeks, and when the hanging tobacco has reached the proper stage of maturity, a period of damp weather is looked for so that the dry leaves may be rehandled without injury. When the desired shower comes along the tobacco is stripped off the poles and placed in _pilon_--that is, in heaps, or piles, on the floors of the barns and warehouses, each pile being covered with blankets. Here, being in a compact mass, it undergoes the _calentura_, or fever, by which it is pretty thoroughly cured, the color changing to a deeper brown. After about two weeks in the piles it is sorted, tied into small bundles or carrots, and these in turn are packed in bales. After being baled the tobacco, if allowed to remain undisturbed, undergoes a third cure, by which it is greatly improved in quality. It is then ready for the factory. [Illustration: A TOBACCO BARN.] The Shade-growing Method. The shade-growing method is one of the institutions of modern tobacco cultivation. The principle is this: The sun, shining on the tobacco plants, draws the nutrition from the earth, and the plant ripens quickly, the leaves having a tendency to be heavy-bodied and not very large. To defeat these results and produce large, thin, silky leaves for cigar-wrapper purposes, the grower sometimes covers his field with a tent of cheesecloth or with a lattice-work of lathing which protects the growing tobacco from the direct rays of the sun. Thus the ripening process is slower, causing the leaves to grow larger and thinner and less gummy; and being thinner and less gummy, they are of a lighter color when finally cured. This method is employed by some growers in cigar-leaf districts, such as Cuba, Florida and Connecticut. [Illustration: TAKING TOBACCO FROM BALES] How Are Cigars Made? While many labor-saving devices have been introduced in all branches of tobacco manufacture, it is a curious fact that in the production of the best grade of cigars, namely, the clear Havana, the work is done entirely by hand. In fact, it may be said that in the process of manufacturing fine cigars exactly the same principles are followed as those of two centuries ago. There has been much improvement in the artisanship of the worker, of course, but no rudimentary change in method. In the manufacture of snuff, chewing and pipe tobacco, cigarettes and all-tobacco cigarettes, machinery plays an important part; and mechanical devices are also used extensively in the production of five-cent cigars and in the still higher priced grades of part-domestic cigars, such as the seed and Havana. Some of these appliances are almost human in their ingenuity. But in fashioning the tobacco of Cuba into cigars that are perfect in shape, in formation and in all the qualities that go to make a good cigar, there is no substitute for the human hand. Upon opening a bale of tobacco the workman takes each carrot out separately, shakes it gently to separate the leaves, and then moistens it, either by dipping it into a tub of water from which it is quickly removed and shaken to throw off the surplus water or else by spraying it with a blower. It is left in this condition over night, so that the leaves may absorb the moisture and become uniformly damp and pliable. The tobacco is then turned over to the strippers, who remove the midrib from each leaf, at the same time separating the wrapper from the filler. From this point on the treatment of the wrappers and fillers is different. The half leaves suitable for fillers are spread out and placed one on top of the other, making what are called books. These books are placed side by side, closely together, on a board, and a similar board is placed on top of the tobacco to hold it in position. Later, it is packed into barrels, the tops of which are covered with burlap, and there it undergoes a fermentation. It is usually allowed to remain in this condition for ten days or two weeks, when it is rehandled and inspected, and if found to be in the right condition, it is placed on racks, where it remains until it is in just the proper state of dryness to be ready for working. ~THE GREAT CARE NECESSARY IN SELECTION~ The wrapper leaves, after leaving the hands of the stripper, are taken by the wrapper selector, who sits, usually, at a barrel, and spreads out each leaf, one on top of the other, over the edge of the barrel, assorting them as to size, color, etc., into several different piles or books. Each of these piles is divided into packs of twenty-five each, and each lot of twenty-five is folded over into what is called a “pad” and tied with a stem. It is in this form that they go to the cigarmaker. Every morning the stock is distributed among the cigarmakers. Each workman is given enough tobacco to make a certain number of cigars, and when his work is finished he must return either the full number of cigars or the equivalent in unused leaves. The tools of the cigarmaker consist merely of a square piece of hardwood board, a knife and a pot of gum tragacanth. He sits at a table upon which rests the board, and at which there is also a gauge on which the different lengths are indicated. Fastened to the front of each table is a sack or pocket of burlap into which the cuttings that accumulate on the table are brushed. The operator deftly cuts his wrapper from the leaf, fashions the filler into proper form and size in the palm of his hand (this is known as the “bunch”) and rolls the tobacco into cigar form, In winding the wrapper around the “bunch” the operator begins at the “lighting end” of the cigar, called the “tuck,” and finishes at the end that goes into the mouth, which is called the “head.” A bit of gum tragacanth is used to fasten the leaf securely at the “head.” The cigar is then held to the gauge and is trimmed smoothly off to the proper length by a stroke of the knife at the “tuck.” The cigars are taken up in bundles of fifty each. They next pass into the hands of the selectors, who separate them into different piles, according to the color of the wrappers, and who also reject any cigars that may be of faulty construction. Broken wrappers, bad colors or any other defects are sufficient to cause the rejection of a cigar. The rejected cigars are known as _resagos_ (“throwouts”) or _secundos_. From the selectors the cigars go to the packers, whose duty it is to place them in the boxes, and to see that the colors in each box are uniform, marking the temporary color classification on each box in lead pencil. After being packed, the filled boxes are put into a press and so left for twelve hours or until the cigars conform somewhat to the shape of the box which contains them. On being removed from the press, if to be banded, the cigars are carefully removed in layers from the box, the bands affixed, and the cigars replaced. The goods are then placed in an air-tight vault to await shipment. When the cigarmaker ties up his bundle of fifty cigars, he attaches to it a slip of paper upon which is marked his number. This enables the manufacturer to keep an accurate account of the number of cigars made by each workman and also to place the responsibility for any defects in the workmanship. Cigarmakers are paid by the piece, the scale of wages ranging from $16 to $100 per thousand. In nearly every factory there may be found advanced apprentices or old men working at the rate of $14 per thousand and also there may be found skilled artisans making exceptionally large odd sizes at more than $100 per thousand, but these are not generally considered in the regulation scale of prices. In averages, the workmen earn about $18 a week and make about 150 cigars a day. Just a Few Figures About Tobacco. The internal revenue from tobacco for one year would build fourteen battleships of the first-class; or it would pay the salary of the President of the United States for nearly a thousand years. It would pay the interest on the public debt for three years, and there would be enough left over to add a dollar to the account of every savings bank depositor in the United States. The money spent by smokers for cigars only, _not counting_ cigarettes, smoking and chewing tobacco and snuff would more than pay for the building of the Panama Canal, besides taking care of the $50,000,000 paid to the new French Canal Co., and the Republic of Panama for property and franchises. And in addition to this it would cover the cost of fortifying the Canal. Or it would build a fleet of thirty-five trans-Atlantic liners, each exactly like the lost _Titanic_, coal them, provision them and keep them running between New York and Liverpool with a full complement of passengers and crew, almost indefinitely. There are 21,718,448 cigars burned up in the United States every twenty-four hours; and 904,935 every hour; and 15,082 every minute; and 251 _every second_. The annual _per capita_ consumption of cigars in the United States, counting men, women and children, is eighty-six cigars. _If all the cigars smoked in the United States in one year were put together, end to end, they would girdle the earth, at its largest circumference, twenty-two times._ AS TO THE CIGARETTES, there are 23,736,190 of them consumed in the United States every day; and 989,007 every hour; and 16,482 every minute. With every tick of your watch, night and day, the year around, the butts of 275 smoked-up cigarettes are dropped into the ash tray. Cigarette smokers in the United States, not counting those who roll their own smokes from tobacco, spend $60,645,966.36 for the little paper-covered rolls. If all the cigarettes smoked in the United States in one year were placed end to end and stood up vertically they would make a slender shaft rising 512,766 miles into the heavens. _If strung on a wire they would make a cable that would reach from the earth to the moon and back again, with enough left over to circle one-and-a-half times around the globe._ If this quantity of tobacco could be placed on one side of a huge balancing scale it would take the combined weight of four vast armies, each army consisting of 1,000,000 men, to pull down the other side of the scale. The weight of the tobacco consumed in the United States in a year is equal to the weight of the entire and combined population of Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee and Alabama. [Illustration: HOW OUR FINGER PRINTS IDENTIFY US ARCH: IN THIS PATTERN RIDGES RUN FROM ONE SIDE TO ANOTHER, MAKING NO BACKWARD TURN.] [Illustration: LOOP: SOME RIDGES IN THIS PATTERN MAKE A BACKWARD TURN, BUT WITHOUT TWIST.] The Story in a Finger Print[7] [7] Engravings and story by the courtesy of Scientific American. Our Fingers. One of the most interesting facts about our fingers is that every member of the human race, irrespective of age or sex, carries in person certain delicate markings by which identity can be readily established. If the inner surface of the hand be examined, a number of very fine ridges will be seen running in definite directions, and arranged in patterns, there being four primary types--arches, loops, whorls, and composites. It has been demonstrated that these patterns persist in all their details throughout the whole period of human life. The impressions of the fingers of a new-born infant are distinctly traceable on the fingers of the same person in old age. The fact that these patterns on the bulbs of the fingers are characteristic of and differentiate one individual from another, makes it an ideal means of fixing identity. Even men who look so much alike that it is virtually impossible to tell one from the other so far as facial characteristics are concerned, can be identified by their finger impressions. Innumerable illustrations can be given of how the perpetrators of crime have been identified and convicted by their finger prints. Impressions left by criminals on such articles as plated goods, window panes, drinking glasses, painted wood, bottles, cash boxes, candles, etc., have often successfully supplied the clue which has led to the apprehension of the thief or thieves. One of our illustrations is that of a champagne bottle which was found empty on the dining-room table of a house which had been entered by a burglar in Birmingham, England. There was a distinct impression of a thumb mark on the bottle. An officer of the Birmingham City Police took the bottle to New Scotland Yard, London, and within a few minutes a duplicate print was found in the records. The burglar was arrested the same evening. [Illustration: FINGER PRINTS OF DIFFERENT PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT WHORL: RIDGES HERE MAKE A TURN THROUGH AT LEAST ONE COMPLETE CIRCUIT.] [Illustration: COMPOSITE: INCLUDES PATTERNS IN WHICH TWO OR MORE OF THE OTHER TYPES ARE COMBINED.] Many similar instances could be given of how thieves have been caught by handling bottles and glasses. On one occasion a burglar entered a house in the West End of London, and before leaving helped himself to a glass of wine. On the tumbler used he left two finger imprints, and these were subsequently found, upon search in the records at New Scotland Yard, to be identical with two impressions of a notorious criminal, who was in due course arrested and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment. A somewhat gruesome relic is a cash-box which bears the blurred thumb mark of a man who was convicted of murder. The box was found in the bedroom of a man and his wife who were murdered at Deptford, London, in