Chapter XI: Part 11

Ivory is of cellular, not fibrous, construction. Through the center of the tusk runs the great nerve of the tooth. The structural cells build up around the nerve. Surrounding the nerve, the cells are small and more compact. As the tusk grows in length on the living elephant it also expands; but the cells grow larger and less compact as the tusk expands in circumference. It is quite apparent, therefore, that the weight centers around the nerve. To have a perfectly balanced ball, one that will roll true in every direction, the ball must be so turned out of the tusk that the nerve center runs exactly through the middle of the ball.

The process is as follows: The tusk is sawed into blocks about 2-3/4 inches in size. These are of irregular cylindrical form, depending on the form of the tusk’s circumference. Only that portion of the tusk can be used, the diameter of which is greater than the intended diameter of the ball. The rest of the tusk is used for ornaments, piano keys, etc. At least six inches from the point of the tusk must be discarded because the circumference is too small. The hollow part at the base of the tusk must also be discarded. There are defects discovered only when the ball is being turned or the segments cut. For all of the discarded portions and the fragments and shavings from the segments when the ball is turned, the manufacturer receives less than one-fourth of the price per pound which he paid for the whole tusk.

A segment is placed in a lathe--with the nerve center resting on the lathe point. The ball is then either turned down from the outside or cut out with an ingeniously constructed curved cutter from the inside of the segment. In the latter operation the ball lies loose in the center of the segment, which must be sawed in half to release it. Ivory seasons only to a slight depth. The thin seasoning on the surface seems to act as a shell which keeps raw the substance underneath. For this reason, when a ball is turned out of the tusk and the raw ivory thus exposed, the ball is stored away in a room of even temperature for about a year, that it may properly season before being finished. The red ball is dyed after seasoning, and at the time of final turning called finishing.

Another peculiarity about ivory is the fact that, owing to the cellular construction, in seasoning the ball never contracts at the nerve ends, but always around the other circumference, termed the “belly.” Therefore, when the balls are turned, the circumference around the “belly” is made greater than around the nerve ends, to allow for the shrinkage in the former. Each manufacturer carefully guards the secret of his allowance, which is made according to his experience and knowledge of ivory seasoning variations.

After seasoning, the balls are smoothed with shagreen and polished.

Except for the cue ball, no ivory balls are used today on the pocket table. As a substitute, a great variety of composition balls are used. The composition is another trade secret. Having been carefully weighed in a perfectly dry state, the necessary amount of composition is placed in a telescoping steel cylinder, the two ends of which are perfect hemispheres and the diameter of which on the inside is the exact diameter of the proposed ball. The cylinder is then placed in a hydraulic press and under a pressure of 30,000 pounds to the square inch, the cylinder and its contents are telescoped until the mass inside is perfectly round.

The molded ball is then taken from the press and smoothed. The holes for the number tablets are bored and the tablets forced into position. The tablets are made to conform to the rotundity of the ball and set flush with the surface. The ball is then smoothed and polished.

The cue bridge handle is made in a manner similar to the cue, except that it is not jointed and the span is substituted for the tip. The span has four slots along the top, which maintains a contour to assist the player in striking the ball on either side, or top or bottom of the center facing the player, when the cue ball is too far away to make the bridge with his hand and fingers. The span is made of either hard wood or ivory.

The temperate and torrid zones of the world are ransacked in order to secure the wood, the minerals and the animal substances, all of which are necessary to provide the means of play. Those of us who play the game (none of us, not even Willis Hoppe, know all its possibilities) may well paraphrase Thomas Carlyle’s reference to books and say, “Blessings on Herodotus, or whoever it was who invented billiards.”

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What is the Hottest Place in the United States?

A narrow valley in California, called “Death Valley,” between the Panamint and Funeral Mountains, is considered the dryest and hottest place in the United States.

Its central part is three or four hundred feet below sea level and is covered with salt. Its temperature has reached the extreme of 122° F.

It is called “Death Valley” because a party of emigrants perished there in 1849.

What are White Blackberries Like?

The accompanying illustrations show some remarkable white blackberries which have been developed by the great horticulturist, Luther Burbank of California. They grow thickly, are large in size and the taste is similar to that of the ordinary variety. Some spineless cactus in fruit are also shown. They make an excellent cattle food.

He has also originated a new fruit, the plumcot, by combining the plum and the apricot; developed very excellent varieties of potatoes and cherries; and produced various new apples and stoneless prunes as well as new peaches, nuts, roses, callas, violet-odored lilies and many other new varieties.

The son of a Massachusetts farmer, he became deeply interested in plant life and engaged in experiments on hybridization of plants. Removing to California, he established the Burbank Exposition Farms at Santa Rosa, where he undertook the work of cross-breeding on an extended scale. In 1905 the Carnegie Institute granted him $10,000 yearly for ten years to continue his work. He has very many extensive experiments under way and has nearly 3,000 distinct botanical specimens in his plantation.

Why do They Have a Dog-Watch on Shipboard?

The “dog-watch” is a nautical term distinguishing two watches of two hours each, from 4 to 6 P. M. and 6 to 8 P. M.

All the other watches count four hours each, and without the introduction of the dog-watches, the same hours would always fall to be kept as watch by the same portion of the crew.

How Much Gold has a 14-Carat Ring?

One often speaks of a ring as being 14-carat gold, or of 22- or 18-carat watch cases or jewelry, but do all of us know just what we mean by 14, 18 or 22 carat?

Gold is divided into twenty-four parts--that is, pure gold is said to contain twenty-four carats--the carat being just a measurement term. A ring or watch case marked 14K or 18K means that fourteen or eighteen parts of it are pure gold, the balance of the twenty-four carats being some sort of alloy, copper being generally used. If articles of jewelry were made of pure gold they would not wear well, as gold is a very soft metal, and it is, therefore, necessary to mix the gold with some harder substance.

What is an Electro-Magnet?

An electro-magnet is a piece of iron temporarily converted into a magnet by means of a current of electricity sent through a wire which is coiled around it. The wire is usually covered with silk, cotton, gutta percha or some other insulator, to prevent the current from leaping across, and compel it to travel through the whole length of the wire.

The more pure and soft the iron is, the stronger will its magnetism be while it lasts, and the more completely will it disappear when the current stops. Steel is less affected than soft iron for the time, but remains permanently magnetized after the current ceases. Electro-magnets are usually much more powerful than other magnets of the same size.

The iron which is magnetized by the current passing around it is called the core. It is frequently straight, the wire being wound upon it like thread upon a reel; but very frequently it has the shape of a U or horseshoe, the wire being coiled round the two ends and the bend of the U left uncovered.

The Story in a Pin[25]

A pin, so common and so cheap today, was once so expensive that only the wealthy could afford even a few. The term pin-money dates from that time and originally came from the allowance a husband gave his wife to purchase pins.

From an historical point of view, it appears that the need of something with which to fasten together pieces of cloth and like material has been met from ancient times by various devices. Among the remains of the bronze age are found pins and brooches of bronze. In Egyptian tombs have been found elaborate and costly pins, which range in sizes from two inches to seven or eight inches long, and have large gold heads or bands of gold around the upper end. Designs were often worked on these heads and bands. The largest of these pins were probably used for fastening the hair. Till the middle of the sixteenth century the poorer class in England used rude skewers of wood, while the more fortunate had pins made of gold, silver and brass. The Indians, in the ancient cities of Mexico, satisfied their need for pins by using the thorn of the agave.

As early as 1483, pins were important enough in England to warrant the passing of a law by Parliament prohibiting their importation. By 1540, however, they were being imported in large quantities from France. Parliament again passed a law regarding pins in 1543. This act provided that “no person shall put to sale any pins, but only such as shall be double-headed, and have the heads soldered fast to the shank of the pin, well smoothed, and shanks well shapen, the points well round filed, canted, and sharpened.” Some pins of good quality were made at this time, but a large portion of those against which the legislative enactment was directed were made of iron wire, blanched and passed for brass pins. Only three years after this prohibitory law was passed it became obsolete because of the improvements which had been made in the production of these articles. England continued to receive its supply from France until John Tilsby began their manufacture in Gloucestershire. His business increased to such an extent that in a few years he had 1,500 people in his employ. In 1636 the pinmakers of London formed a corporation and established the industry of Bristol and Birmingham. This latter city is still the center of the industry in England.

During this period the pins were made with two coils of wire fastened at one end of a length of wire, the other end of which was sharpened. First a wire, somewhat finer than that which was to be used for the pin, was coiled around a spit on a lathe. This was cut up into sections, each consisting of two turns. These coils were then annealed or softened and placed in a heap. Boys stuck the ends of the pins, which had been cut to the proper length, into this pile until a coil stuck. A workman pressed this coil in a die to make it hold to the pin. The head was then soldered and the other end of the pin filed and sharpened. Finally the pin was straightened and blanched or whitened.

In the United States the colonists early felt the need of local production. The colonial legislature of Carolina offered prizes in 1775 for the first native-made pins and needles. The first American pins were made in Rhode Island, during the Revolution, by Jeremiah Wilkinson. About the same time, Samuel Slocum made pins in Providence. These were handmade with twisted wire heads.

There are many types of pin machines which make anywhere from ninety to three hundred pins a minute, depending on the quality of the pin made.]

Pinmaking machines were first invented in the United States. During the War of 1812, the industry was started because of the difficulty of getting pins from England, where most of them were made. The industry was not successful, however, till 1836, when the Howe Manufacturing Company was formed at Birmingham, Conn. It is a curious coincident that the first successful American pin manufacturing company, making the new machine-made pins, should be established in the Connecticut town of the same name as the English city which had been the center of pinmaking for nearly two hundred years.

In 1817 a paper was filed at the patent office by Seth Hunt, describing a machine for making pins with “head, shaft, and point in one entire piece.” This machine, however, did not come into use. Lemuel W. Wright, of New Hampshire, secured, in 1824, an English patent for a machine for making solid-headed pins. This was the beginning of the present industry. A factory equipped with Wright’s machines was established in London, but was not successful. Daniel Foot-Taylen, of Birmingham, purchased this equipment and secured an extension of Wright’s patents for five years from 1838. He carried the production of machine-made pins to a commercial basis. Wright’s machines, however, did not complete all operations. Dr. John Neland Howe, a physician of Bellevue Hospital, New York City, formed a company in 1832 for the manufacture of pins. This concern was not successful, but in 1835 a second company was formed by Dr. Howe, who had great faith in the future of the industry. Nine years later, Samuel Slocum, of Connecticut, invented a new machine for sticking the pins on papers.

In the tumbling barrels the pins are cleaned and dried by tumbling in sawdust which has been heated in the ovens in the center background.]

Since that time there have been many pin machines developed, each accomplishing the same result in slightly different ways. In each case a special stiff pin wire is drawn into the machine from a large hank, which is placed on a drum on the machine. The wire is first passed through a series of rapidly revolving, straightening rolls which take out all twists and kinks. The proper length of wire is fed into the machine automatically, and the end is gripped by a set of jaws. A small part of the end of the wire extends beyond the jaws. This is struck several rapid blows by a die called the header. After the head is thus formed, the wire is cut off to the proper length and is then ready to be pointed. It is now carried along by a shaft having a screw thread, and is made to revolve rapidly by a belt which passes over it. The end to be pointed passes over a series of coarse, medium and fine revolving files or cutters. The pin now drops into a pan, ready to be finished after being inspected.

In the finishing room, the pins are put into a revolving or tumbling barrel and are rolled in sawdust, which absorbs all the oil, leaving them clean and bright. They are now dropped through a blower, where the sawdust is separated from the pins. The whitening is done by boiling the pins in a large copper kettle, which also contains layers of grained tin and a solution of argol or bitartrate of potash. After boiling for five or six hours, they have a thin coating of tin, which gives them their silvery appearance. Again they are cleaned, this time being washed in clean water, then tumbled in strong soap water, and finally tumbled in hot sawdust to dry them. The pins are separated from the sawdust as before. From there the pins go to the sticking department, where they are stuck on papers as you buy them. The sticking machine is of a simple construction, but is wonderful in operation, and requires no attention by the operator, except to keep it supplied with pins and papers.

The pins are put into a vibrating hopper, which slopes slightly towards the sticking machine. The conductor from the hopper to the machine is made of two strips of steel, down which the pins, held by their heads, slide. They are taken from the conductor by a screw thread and fed to the carrier, which takes thirty pins at a time and places them in front of a set of thirty punches. They are then forced along thirty grooves in the steel clamps, which crimp the paper, and on through the crimp. Thus a whole row of pins is stuck at once. The paper is now advanced the proper distance, and another row is stuck. When the center of the paper is reached, after six rows have been stuck, the machine automatically spaces the paper so as to skip the space used for the brand name. Then six more rows are stuck, and the operator removes the completed paper and inserts another without stopping the machine. These papers are inspected to make certain that no poorly made pins have gotten by the former inspection, are rolled and packed, usually in boxes of twelve papers each.

Pins today are made in many sizes from the 3-1/2-inch stout blanket pins down to the fine, slender, bronze pins used by entomologists, 4,500 of which pins make an ounce. Toilet pins are usually made in six sizes as shown in the illustrations. Besides the common or toilet pins, there are today numerous special bank and desk pins which are made to meet special requirements.

Pin production in the United States has reached a high stage of development. The number of pins made in 1914 reached the tremendous total of 25,000,000,000. These figures are almost too great for comprehension. If all the pin wire used for these 25,000,000,000 pins were in one piece it would go around the earth fifteen times. Safety pins, hooks and eyes, and hairpins, are generally made by pin concerns. Each of these different articles require very ingenious machines. Many of them are almost human in their operation.

* * * * *

The popular name of the prominence seen in the front of the throat in a man is called the “Adam’s apple” because of the story in the Old Testament, telling of the eating of the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge by Adam, a piece being supposed to have lodged in his throat where the bulge appears.

The upper view shows the method of crossing a glacier. Each of the climbers is carrying an alpenstock, or staff with ice ax at one end and spike at the other. The lower view is the famous sea of ice in Switzerland.]

One of the largest glacial systems in the world radiating from a single peak is situated on this mountain in western Washington.]

How are Glaciers Formed?

Away up in the high valleys formed among the peaks of the tallest mountain ranges of both the Rocky Mountains and the mountains of Alaska, as well as those in Switzerland and European countries, the snow freezes into great solid masses because of the intense cold, and is forced by its own pressure into vast fields and mountains of ice. This ice is not like that produced by the freezing of water, but resembles more a very hard, solid form of snow, being composed of thin layers filled with air bubbles and more brittle and less transparent than the ice we are accustomed to see. Glaciers exist in all zones in which mountains rise above the snow-line, that is, the height where it is so cold that there is always snow.

We all know that if we press two pieces of ordinary ice together each piece will melt at the place where it touches the other and just in that same way the pressure of the ice above them causes glaciers to be continually moving downward, frequently reaching the borders of cultivation even. As they descend they also experience a gradual diminution from the action of the sun and rain, and from the heat of the earth. Investigation has shown that they move very much like a river, the middle and upper parts faster than the sides and bottom, similar to the way in which a mass of thick mortar or a quantity of pitch flows down an inclined trough. The rate at which a glacier moves generally varies from eighteen to twenty-four inches in a day.

The Glacier National Park is the latest addition to the series of great natural attractions which the United States Government has been acquiring for years. It lies in Northern Montana, between the Canadian border and the line of the Great Northern Railroad, and contains about a million acres of natural wonders, ranging from verdant valleys and wooded heights to glacial peaks. There are numerous glaciers and mountain lakes and the locality presents many examples of sublime scenery. The City of Tacoma, Washington, is situated in the valley below Mt. Rainier and commands a wonderful view of that mountain, on which there is situated one of the largest glacial systems in the world radiating from any single peak.

One of the most famous glaciers of the Alps is the Mer de Glace, belonging to Mont Blanc, in the valley of Chamouni, about fifty-seven hundred feet above the level of the sea. Those of the Andes and the Southern Alps of New Zealand are conspicuous, and they abound in Norway, Iceland and Spitzbergen, but it is more especially in the chain of Monte Rosa that the phenomena of glaciers are exhibited in their greatest wonder, as also in their most interesting phases from a scientific point of view.

How Large are Molecules?

When a great scientist named Sir William Thomson was asked about the size of a molecule, he replied: “If a drop of water were magnified to the size of the earth, the molecules would each occupy spaces greater than those filled by small shot and smaller than those occupied by cricket balls.” That gives us about as clear an idea as it is possible to get of the size of molecules. And yet molecules are made up of even smaller particles, called atoms. An atom is the smallest division of anything that we know about now.

A molecule of water is made up of three atoms. Evaporation of water consists of the movement of these atoms in such a way as to make the liquid water change into a gas. Freezing water into ice is caused by making the molecules, and, in turn, the atoms, stick to each other. It takes a great deal of power to separate the molecules in water, and for this reason water was long regarded as something which could not be divided up, or, in other words, a basic element, such as the oxygen in the air.

Pictorial Story Of The Fishing Industry

COMING ABOARD

HALIBUT FISHING

ICED UP

BAITING UP

Six pictures by courtesy of Gloucester (Mass.) Board of Trade.]

NIAGARA

ARTHUR JAMES

TARTAR

MARY DE COSTE

ALICE]

HAULING THE TRAWL]

PITCHING OUT

FLAKE YARD

FLAKE YARD

FISH WHARF]

PACKING

SKINNING

BONE PULLING

DRY FISH SHED]

The Story in a Box of California Oranges

For several hundred years oranges have grown in this country. For about the last forty years men have made a business of growing them.

Oranges and lemons are called citrus fruits on account of their content of citric acid.

The two predominating varieties in California are the Washington Navel and the Valencia orange.

The California Navel orange is in the markets of the country from December 1st until about June 1st, when the California Valencia type takes its place and remains until the latter part of November.

It is a fact, therefore, that oranges are now picked fresh every day the year round in this country, and that the California oranges you buy in the summer are not fruit that has been held in storage, but are as fresh as any fresh fruit that the retailers offer.

Most California oranges and lemons are picked from the trees by gloved hands, so that the finger nails of the pickers will not injure the skin, for even a tiny scratch on the skin of an orange or lemon is sufficient to open the way for germs of decay.

Mr. G. Harold Powell, formerly connected with the United States government, was the discoverer of this source of great loss to the citrus industry. The use of gloves in the picking is thought to save the growers approximately $1,000,000 yearly.

When the oranges have been picked they are sent in boxes to a packing house where they are put through an automatic washing machine which thoroughly scrubs all dust and dirt from the skin; they then pass through a dryer and thence along a belt to men and women who roll the oranges over for examination and distribute them to other belts according to their color and the condition of the skin with regard to blemishes of all kinds. The oranges then pass over automatic sizers--that is, V-shaped rollers revolving horizontally. The oranges continue along these rollers until the space between the rollers has widened to the point where each particular size drops into a labeled bin. The sizes are designated by numbers, such as 150, 176, 250, etc., these figures signifying the number of oranges that may be packed in a regulation size box in which the jobbers and retailers buy the fruit. In other words, size 150 is a larger orange than 250.

The quality of an orange is judged in the packing house merely by the color and the condition of the skin. Size has something to do with it, but this is only one consideration. Many of the smaller oranges are just as good to eat and sometimes very much better than the larger sizes, and the condition of the skin, unless it happens to be broken in any way so that germs of decay can enter, ordinarily has no depreciable effect upon the flavor. The public, of course, finally judges an orange by its sweetness and tenderness, and a large, well-colored, smooth fruit is likely to reach the market in better condition than the rougher fruit which has a marred skin.

Oranges are usually divided in grades into four classes called, in the order of their quality, Extra Choice, Choice, Standards and Culls.

Lemons are handled throughout the processes in practically the same manner as oranges.

WHERE THE GOLDEN ORANGE GROWS.

The far-reaching orange groves surrounding Riverside are one of the most beautiful of all beautiful sights in Southern California, and the fragrance of the blossoms is subtlest witchery.]

After the fruit has passed the graders and the several sizes are separated, it goes to the packers, who pick up each orange or lemon and place a tissue wrapper around it, and press it firmly into the shipping box until the fruit “stands up high” above the top of the box. The cover is then nailed on and the box is placed in the freight car which is waiting at a convenient door. The average car carries 400 boxes of oranges or lemons.

The fruit is shipped in refrigerator cars, and is usually about eight days in making the trip from Southern California to the Eastern markets.

The California Fruit Growers’ Exchange ships on an average of sixty-five per cent of the California production of citrus fruits. This is a strictly non-profit, co-operative organization of 8,000 growers, the largest body of agriculturists operating on the non-profit co-operative plan in the world, and probably the most successful. At least, the cost to market the citrus crop under this system is lower than the marketing cost of any other agricultural crop in the world, which accounts in part for the fact that oranges and lemons are sold throughout the United States at retail prices which place this fruit within the reach of all.

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What Kind of Steel Knives do not Stain nor Rust?

Shortly after the first of the year, in 1916, the U. S. Consul at Sheffield, England, reported that a new steel had been introduced there for use in making table cutlery. It was said to be untarnishable and unstainable even when used with the strongest acid foods, as well as non-rusting. The new product, which is called “Tirth’s Stainless” steel, can be thoroughly cleansed by ordinary washing with soap and water, and cutlery made from it will retain its original polish after use. The properties claimed for it are of the steel itself and not the result of any treatment; consequently knives made from the new product can easily be sharpened in the regular way without fear of resulting damage.

While the initial cost of cutlery made from “Tirth’s Steel” will probably be about double the usual cost, for not only is the price of the steel considerably more than that of other steels used for the same purpose, but it also costs more to work up, it is nevertheless expected to prove a welcome discovery to restaurant and hotel keepers as well as other large users of table cutlery because of the immense saving in labor occasioned by its use.

Why is it Necessary to Keep Unusually Quiet when Fishing?

The experienced fisherman who smiles at the amateur’s restless fidgeting and complaining has discovered by careful observation that the fish who swims around in such an exasperating manner just a foot or so away from the temptingly baited hook has had an advance tip that something out of the ordinary is going on up above him. For sound, whether it be the noise of an oarlock or a companion’s casual remark, can be heard more than four times as easily by the fish in the water beneath than it can up above in the air. Sound travels very quickly through the air, traversing ten hundred and ninety feet in a second, but it reaches forty-seven hundred feet away under water in the same time.

When the crowd on the other side of the baseball grounds yells across the field it seems as though we have heard their cheers as soon as they have been given, and so we have for all practical purposes, although in reality half a second has elapsed while the sound has been coming across the field. The time taken by sound in traveling is more apparent when the volume is sufficient to carry it a long distance. The sound of an explosion of a large quantity of dynamite and ammunition in Jersey City was not heard in Philadelphia, ninety miles away, for over seven minutes after it occurred.

HOMES OF THE LONG-AGO

Famous reproduction of the Cliff-dwellers’ Ruins, near Colorado Springs, Col. The cliff-dwellers of early America built their habitations in the canyons of the Colorado and Rio Grande, where the action of the elements had worn away a layer of soft rock, leaving layers of hard rock above and below as roof and floor for the dwelling.]

What were the First Apartment Houses in this Country?

A great many years ago, long before the white men came to America, there was a race of Indians called “cliff-dwellers,” because they built their dwelling places far up on the sides of steep cliffs. They probably made their homes so hard to reach in order that they might be safe from visits of their enemies. While many of their homes were small single-family houses, there were also a number of large two and three-story dwellings with many rooms in which different families lived.

Some of these cliff dwellings may still be seen in the valleys of the Rio Grande and the Rio Colorado and its tributaries. Close examination shows that many of them were very skilfully built, every advantage being taken of the natural rock formations, and the stones being dressed and laid in clay mortar, very much as the bricklayer does his work on an up-to-date apartment house today. The outsides of the buildings somewhat resembled the cement houses which have been put up in later days, a coat of clay being spread on the outside walls and carefully smoothed off. Oftentimes the inner walls were plastered too.

Many relics of the inhabitants have been found in these cliff dwellings, although we cannot tell how they lived, for the region is now rainless and therefore destitute of food plants. Conditions must have been different then and the ground less barren.

Why do We Call 32° Above Zero “Freezing”?

We know that freezing is the transformation of a liquid into solid under the influence of cold. Each liquid always solidifies at some fixed temperature, which is called its freezing point, and the solid melts again at the same temperature. Thus the freezing point and the melting point, or point of fusion, are the same, and the point is always the same for the same substance.

Consequently the freezing point of water, or the melting point of ice (32° F.), is taken for one of the fixed points in thermometry. The freezing point of mercury is 39° below zero, of sulphuric ether 46° below zero, of alcohol 203° below zero F.

How is Fresco Painting Done?

In producing fresco paintings, a finished drawing on paper, called a cartoon, exactly the size of the intended picture, is first made, to serve as a model.

The artist then has a limited portion of the wall covered over with a fine sort of plaster, and upon this he traces from his cartoon the part of the design suited for the space. As it is necessary to the success and permanency of his work that the colors should be applied while the plaster is yet damp, no more of the surface is plastered at one time than what the artist can finish in one day. A portion of the picture once commenced, needs to be completely finished before leaving it, as fresco does not admit of retouching after the plaster has become dry. On completing a day’s work, any unpainted part of the plaster is removed, cutting it neatly along the outline of a figure or other definite form, so that the joining of the plaster for the next day’s work may be concealed.

The art is very ancient, remains of it being found in India, Egypt, Mexico, etc. Examples of Roman frescoes are found in Pompeii and other places. After the beginning of the fifteenth century fresco painting became the favorite process of the greatest Italian masters, and many of their noblest pictorial efforts are frescoes on the walls of palaces and churches.

Some ancient wall paintings are executed in what is called “Fresco Secco,” which is distinguished from true fresco by being executed on dry plaster, which is moistened with lime water before the colors are applied.

Fresco painting has in recent years again been revived, and works of this kind have been executed in the British Houses of Parliament and other public and private buildings, more especially in Germany.

The Story of a Piece of Chewing Gum[26]

The original “chewing gum” was spruce gum, the exudation of the cut branches of the spruce or fir tree. Later, pure white paraffin wax, variously flavored, took its place, but only in its turn to give way to the “chicle” now almost exclusively employed.

Though its employment in the manufacture of chewing gum is of comparatively recent date, chicle was used by the Indians prior to the days of Columbus as a means of quenching their thirst. It was first commercially imported as a substitute for rubber, but its peculiar suitability for chewing gum has resulted in the entire product being consumed by that industry. In 1885 the United States imported 929,959 pounds of chicle. The growth of the chewing gum industry is shown by the importation of nearly 5,500,000 pounds for the year ending with June 30, 1910.

The trees are “tapped” during the rainy season. The sap, or juice, as it exudes has the appearance of milk, but gradually changes to a yellow color and is about the thickness of treacle. The tree drains rapidly, the full supply of “milk” being generally obtained within a few hours, but an interval of several years usually elapses before it will yield a fresh supply. The milk differs from the juice obtained from the sugar maple, for example, in that it is not the life sap of the tree, and the flow varies greatly, some trees which show full life yielding much less than apparently poorer specimens. “Crude chicle” is obtained by simple boiling and evaporation of the milk, accompanied by frequent kneading. The product, as pressed in rough molds, is of a light gray color.

The bulk of the crude chicle manufactured is shipped in blocks to Canada, where it is further evaporated and carefully refined prior to importation into the United States. When the chicle arrives at one of the chewing-gum factories it is immediately turned over to the grinding department. It comes from Mexico in cakes, varying in size from twelve- to eighteen-inch cubes; these are a putty color, but in composition chicle is porous and brittle, particularly after it is thoroughly dried. In the cubical form it is said to contain from twenty-five to thirty per cent moisture. After it is ground and dried it is practically free of moisture, but one of the most difficult problems which the manufacturer faces is to thoroughly dry chicle before he proceeds to treat it for its introduction as the base of chewing gum.

The cubes are broken by a large steam hammer into irregular-shaped pieces weighing from a few ounces to a pound. These chunks are then run through grinding machines, which reduce the chicle to a coarse meal. Sometimes this breaking and grinding is done in Mexico, but the duty on ground dried chicle is five cents per pound more than upon cube chicle.

Chicle meal is dried upon frames in a special drying room, which is kept at a temperature of 80° F. An electric blower exhausts all of the moisture from the air. The pure meal is then transformed into a thick syrup under intense heat and passed through a filtering machine, one of the latest and most expensive pieces of machinery employed in the entire manufacture of chewing gum. This machine has practically solved the perplexing problem of separating impurities and foreign substances from chicle. Before the filterer was invented it was almost impossible for the manufacturer of chewing gum to produce gum entirely free from particles of grit.

During the process of filtration the chicle is also sterilized, and comes from the machine as pure as distilled water.

It is next passed to the cooking department and placed in huge steam-jacketed kettles, which revolve continually and thus keep the chicle from scorching. While it is being cooked in these large kettles sugar is added, and as soon as the gum is done it is placed in a kneading machine. It is now about the consistency of bread or cake dough, and after being kneaded and cooled, flavor is added.

Peppermint, spearmint and other oils used are triply distilled and absolutely free of all impurities. The orange oil comes from Messina and is always the product of the very latest orange crop.

From the kneading machine it reaches a sizing table, to which are attached heavy rollers for reducing the mass of gum to a strip about a quarter of an inch in thickness and twelve inches wide.

At this stage it will be seen the gum begins to take on a ribbon shape. As it comes from the first series of rollers, it is cut into short lengths sprinkled with powdered sugar, and these short lengths are passed in sticks about two feet high on to a second series of rollers. Under the second rollers each short length of gum is once more reduced in thickness and extended in length.

The surfaces of the second rollers contain knives running lengthwise and around. These knives partially cut the gum to its final size. The thin sheets are then sent to another drying room. They remain in this room from twelve to forty-eight hours, according to the season of the year, and are then ready for the wrapping machines.

Machines have also been invented which stamp out little nuggets of gum. To be finished these pieces are sent to a long room containing a line of twelve large white kettles, each on a separate base. It is these machines which coat the nuggets with snowy sugar. The kettles revolve until a sufficient coating of the liquid sugar has adhered.

The chewing gum wrapping machine is considered by machinery builders to be one of the most ingenious automatic manufacturing machines in use. It is about the size of an ordinary typewriter desk and is operated by one girl. She receives the thin sheet of partially cut gum from the last drying room. The machine operator drops the slabs of gum into a feeding chute. Each slab is here automatically wrapped in wax and silver-foil papers. These papers are fed from rolls, as printing paper is fed to a newspaper press.

As the slabs are wrapped they slide into a pocket. When five of them are finished, two steel fingers remove them and put on the final outside wrapper. The complete, wrapped packages of five slabs slide along a little runway into boxes.

The same girl who feeds the gum into the wrapping machine closes the lids of the boxes and places them on a packing table by her side. When the packing table is filled with boxes a boy removes it to the shipping room, where it is crated and forwarded to the wholesale dealers.

* * * * *

Where did the Ferris Wheel get Its Name?

The Ferris wheel was named after its builder, George W. Ferris, an able engineer, now dead.

The original Ferris wheel was exhibited at the Chicago World’s Fair. It was a remarkable engineering feature.

Its diameter was 270 feet and its circumference 825 feet. Its highest point was 280 feet. The axle was a steel bar, 45 feet long and 32 inches thick. Fastened to each of the twin wheels was a steel hub 16 feet in diameter. The two towers at the axis supporting the wheel were 140 feet high, and the motive power was secured from a 1,000 horse-power steam engine under the wheel.

The thirty-six cars on the wheel each comfortably seated forty persons. The wheel and passengers weighed 12,000 tons.

By the Ferris wheel the almost indefinite application of the tension spoke to wheels of large dimensions has been vindicated, the expense being far smaller than that of the stiff spoke.

Interior view of the Bethlehem Steel Company’s rail mill finishing department, showing the machinery for straightening and drilling rails.]

What is Done to Keep Railroad Rails from Breaking?

The breaking of rails has been the cause of much attention on the part of railroad and steel engineering experts ever since the tendency toward the construction of heavy locomotives and greater train loads became evident.

The report of the Interstate Commerce Commission for 1915 gave broken rails as the cause of 3,345 accidents, in which 205 people were killed and 7,341 were injured, with a property loss of $3,967,188. A steel man is authority for the statement that one cold winter day in 1913, a single locomotive, making excessive speed, broke about a hundred rails in the distance of a mile on one of the leading railroad systems.

Both steel and railroad men were, therefore, much interested in the announcement made by the New York Central Railroad, in August, 1916, to the effect that the road’s staff of specialists had discovered the cause and remedy for the hidden flaws in steel rails. It was said that no rails produced under the specifications provided by them had yet developed any fissures.

The process by which those rails were prevented from developing fissures consisted mainly of rolling them from reheated blooms, and although that method is said to have been used in a number of rail mills for many years, no mention had previously been recorded of the prevention of breakage in that way. The experiments are, therefore, sure to be watched with a great deal of interest, and it is probable that fewer accidents will occur from broken rails in the near future.

The technical man will be interested in an outline printed in the _Iron Age_, which said: “Induced interior transverse fissures in basic open-hearth rails are due in part to an occasional hot rail being cooled so rapidly by the rolls or so chilled by the gusts of air before recalescence on the hot beds as to cause a log of some of the transformations of the metal in the interior of the rail head. Induced interior transverse fissures can only develop in the track from the effects of preceding causes, either of which is no longer a mystery.”

The report of the railroad experts also laid stress on the theory that “gagging” rails--subjecting them to blows for the purpose of straightening them--was also likely to cause faults by injuring the metal.

How does a “Master Clock” Control Others by Electricity?

With the aid of electric currents, one clock can be made to control other clocks, so as to make them keep accurate time.

By means of this method one high-class clock, usually in an astronomical observatory, compels a number of other clocks at considerable distances to keep time with it.

The clocks thus controlled ought to be so regulated that if left to themselves they would always gain a little, but not more than a few minutes per day.

The pendulum of the controlling clock, in swinging to either side, makes a brief contact, which completes the circuit of a galvanic battery, and thus sends a current to the controlled clock. The currents pass through a coil in the bob of the pendulum of the controlled clock, and the action between these currents and a pair of fixed magnets urges the pendulum to one side and to the other alternately. The effect is that, though the controlled clock may permanently continue to be a fraction of a second in advance of the controlling clock, it can never be so much as half a second in advance.

An electrically controlled clock usually contains a small magnetic needle, which shows from which direction the currents are coming. The arrangements are usually such that at every sixtieth second no current is sent, and the needle stands still. Any small error is thus at once detected.

The Story of the Calculating Machine

How did Men Learn to Count?

Historians tell us that man was able to count long before he was able to write. Of course, he could not count very far, but it was enough for his needs at that time. He had no money and very few possessions of any kind, so that he did not have much occasion to use arithmetic.

It was fairly simple for prehistoric men to distinguish one from two, and to distinguish a few from a great number, but it was more difficult for him to learn to think of a definite number of objects between these extremes. Those who have studied the evolution of figures say that man found it hard to think of a number of objects without using a mark or a finger or something to stand for each object. That is how the first method of counting came into use.

Because man had ten fingers and thumbs, he learned to count in tens. When he had counted ten, he could make a mark to remind him of the fact, and then count them over again. Some of the early races learned to designate units from tens and tens from hundreds by working their fingers in various ways. Other peoples also made use of their toes in counting, so that they could count up to twenty without getting bothered.

Cantor, the historian, tells of a South African tribe which employed an unusual system of finger counting. Three men sat together facing a fourth who did the counting. Each of the three held up his fingers for the fourth man to count. The first man’s ten fingers and thumbs represented units; the second man represented tens, and the third hundreds. By this means, it was possible to count up to 999.

Who Invented the First Adding Machine?

Early cuneiform inscriptions, made about 2200 B. C., show that the Babylonians had developed a fairly extensive system of figuring. This was in the days of the patriarch Abraham. When men’s minds were overtaxed with the strain of counting into the hundreds and thousands, the Babylonians invented the first adding machine, a “pebble board,” a ruled surface on which pebbles were shifted about to represent different values.

The next adding and calculating machine was an evolution from the digits of the human hand and is known as the abacus in China, and the soroban in Japan.

The abacus may be defined as an arrangement of movable beads which slip along fixed rods, indicating by their arrangement some definite numerical quantity. Its most familiar form is in a boxlike arrangement, divided longitudinally by a narrow ridge of two compartments, one of which is roughly some three times larger than the other. Cylindrical rods placed at equal intervals apart pass through the framework and are fixed firmly into the sides. On these rods the counters are beaded. Each counter slides along the rod easily and on each rod there are six tamas or beads. Five of these slide on the longest segment of the rod and the remaining one on the shorter. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and even square and cube root can be performed on the abacus, and in the hands of a skilled operator considerable speed can be obtained.

_Courtesy of the Burroughs Adding Machine Company._]

It is still used extensively in China, and occasionally will be found in Chinese laundries in the United States.

_Courtesy of the Burroughs Adding Machine Company._]

The Oriental tradesman does not deign to perplex himself by a process of mental arithmetic; he seizes his abacus, prepares it by a tilt, makes a few rapid, clicking movements and his calculations are completed. We always look with some slight contempt upon this method of calculation, but a little experience and investigation would tend to transform this contempt into admiration, for it may be safely asserted that even the simplest of all arithmetical operations, the abacus, possesses distinctive advantages over the mental or figuring process. In competition in simple addition between a “lightning calculator” and an ordinary Japanese small tradesman, the Japanese would easily win the contest.

Blaise Pascal, the wonderful Frenchman, who discovered the theorem in conic sections, or Pascal’s hexogram, was not only one of the foremost mathematicians of his day but also excelled in mechanics; when he was nineteen years old he produced the first machine for the carrying of tens and the first arithmetical machine, as we know it, was invented by him about 1641. This was the first calculating machine made with dials. The same principle, that of using discs with figures on their peripheries, is employed in present-day calculating machines. Among these are numbering machines of all kinds, speedometers, cyclometers and counters used on printing presses.

It has seventeen “banks” or rows of keys, is electrically operated, and automatically adds, subtracts, and computes balances.

_Courtesy of the Burroughs Adding Machine Company._]

Who Discovered the Slide Rule Principle?

It was early in the seventeenth century that Napier, a native of Naples, invented the first actual mechanical means of calculating. He arranged strips of bone, on which were figures, so that they could be brought into various fixed combinations. The instrument was called “Napier’s rod” or “Napier’s bones.” It was the beginning of the slide rule, which has been found of invaluable aid to accountants and engineers.

One trouble with all these contrivances was that, although they aided man to figure, they offered no means of making a record of the work. The man who used these machines had no way of checking his work to know if it was right unless he did it all over again.

The first machine to perform multiplication by means of successive additions was invented by Leibnitz in the year 1671 and completed in 1694. It employed the principle of the “stepped reckoner.” This model was kept first at Göttingen and afterward at Hanover, but it did not act efficiently, as the gears were not cut with sufficient accuracy. This was long before the days of accurate machine tools.

The first satisfactory calculating machine of this nature was that of C. X. Thomas, which was brought out about 1820. It is usually called the Thomas de Colmar Arithmometer. This Thomas type of machine, which is commonly known as the beveled gear type, is still in use today in modern business.

The “Difference Engine.”