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)D the air among the gulls, for a fal-ion’s eggs are very valuable. But its :iest is hard to find, and often a whole lay is expended by the brave hunter oefore he reaches the spot where the iggs are laid. A nd if his bag is already Illed with eggs he slips his find into tiis roomy sleeves.asThe Good Old Times.It is quite hatural for elderly people to think that the times which are gone by, and which they alone remember, were more interesting and notable than the times which are passing now. The passage of years tends to efface from the mind the merely com-mouplace occurrences of every day, and leave only the salient ones; so that past years are really the more remarkable in our memories.This Is one reason why people speak of severe weather as “old-fashioned. On the whole, the weather does not vary much from one decade to another; but people remember the severe weather and forget the ordinary, so that to the mind, weather of the past is extreme weather.But the valuation placed on old things may be excessive—as, for instance, in the case of a remark made by an old gentleman to iiis nephew.•’Twenty degrees below zero'.” he said. “What does that amount to? Why, I can remember a day, when I was twenty years old. when the mercury was forty degrees below zero; and you must remember that one degree then was as good as two nowadays!This reminds one of the philosophy of the Irishman regarding the deference between the days in Ireland andAmerica.“Ah, said lie, “the days is twice as long in the ould counthry as here— and there’s twice as many of them!”related to Mr. Kromback at the if Hotel the following incident of f *:lt; ; run from Newport, and his story i||l corroborated by tbe engineer. James j Molyneux, the steward, Edward West,.-; Messrs. C. A. Parsons and Frank : Wood of New York and T. L. Carpen- 4 ter of Philadelphia, guests of Mr. : Longstreet. ^“The May” is fitted with a steam calliope, which was efnittlng “Home, Sweet Home” while she was off Nantucket Shoals. The boat struck a i’school of mackerel, and the fish acted in a most unaccountable manner, jumping a foot or so out of the water. All hands were surprised at the sight, which looked for ail the world like as though the whole school were playing ■ leap frog. The calliope kept on playing and the fish kept on jumping, leaping so high that they came down on the deck of the “May.” They did not drop in the boat in large numbers at first, but pretty soon they came so fast that it required all hands to shovel them back in tbe sea. It was funat first, but it became monotonous,and the calliope was stopped. The change was instantaneous: and in less than half a minute there- was not fish to be seen except those on the deck of the boat. The mackerel were of a fair size, and after sufficient were selected for use the rest were thrown overboad.*Mr. Kromback lias faith in Captain Thompson's veracity, and any one who, knows Mr. Krombach knows it is as hard to get him to believe a lie as to tel! one.—New York Times.Measuring Wind.Dr. Carl Barus has recently shown how the velocity of the wind can be reckoned by noting the musical pitch of the sound given out when wind blows across a stretched wire. The principal elements on which the calculation is based are the diameter of the wire and the temperature of the air. The length of the wire is immaterial,so long as it is Dot changed. Every variation is faithfully represented by the rising or falliDg of the pitch of the note sung by the wire.Solid Petroleum.It is reported iD Science that Monsieur De Humy, a French naval officer, has invented a process by whichpetroleum can be .converted into solidblocks, as hard asNantliracite coal.9 \Common petroleum oil, itr .is asserted, has been thus solidified, and the blocks, in burning, give off intense hoj't^ and are slowly consumed. One tou v,* solid petroleum used as fuel is said to be equivalent to thirty tons of coal. The comparative cost of the two forms of fuel is not given.The Fiuoroscope.Mr. Thomas A. Edison has invented an apparatus called the fiuoroscope, by the aid of which a surgeon, instead of photographing with the X-rays the bones or other hard substances concealed under the skin and flesh of patient, may actually see them. The machine depends for its action upon the fact that X-rays possess the property of rendering luminous certain substances which chemists call fluorescent. Mr. Edison first determined by experiment, that the best fluorescent substance for this purpose was calcium tungstate. The tungstate is spread in a smooth layer upon a piece of pasteboard which forms the bottom of a small box, having holes for the eyes at the upper end. A Crookes tube, enclosed in another box, is excited by a current of electricity, and if the hand, for instance, is to be examined, it is placed upon the box containing the tube. The observer then looks into the viewing box whose tungstate covered bottom is placed directly above the hand, and sees, with startling distinctness, the bones and joints, showing as dark and delicately graduated shadows, while the flesh is only faintly visible. The reason the bones appear is because they intercept the X-rays, and thus prevent the tungstate surface from becoming fluorescent where their shadows fall. —Ex.Novel Way to Catch Fish.Strange stories are told of the effect of music on wild beasts, but the writer has never heard a case where the3*fish were induced by sweet strains from a steam calliope to leave their element in a mad endeavor to approach the source of music, until thearrival of the steam yacht “May” recently at Tabo’s dock. “The May” is an eighty footer hailing from Borden-town, N. 3., and her owner, Mr. J. H.Longstreet, has been taking an extended cruise. Captain Thompson,Armies on Ice. tArmy engineers in vsyious countries have calculated the thickness of ice necessary to sustain certain weights. Ice two inches thick is deemed strong enough to sustain a man’s weight, according to a summary of the army rules on this subject published in “Engineering Mechanics,” and on such ice infantry may march if the distance between each, man is properly spaced. Cavalry and light field guns can cross on ice four inches thick. Six-inch ice will sustain heavy field guns; eight-inch ice, artillery batteries with horses: and ben-inch ice, “an army or an innumerable multitude.” On fifteen-inch ice railroads have been laid and operated for months at a time.Giant Plants.Recent explorers of tbe Caucasus Mountains have reported “the existence there of a peculiar race of gigantic herbaceous plants growing at a height of nearly 6,000 feet above sea-levei. Plants belonging' to the same botanic families, but growing at the bottom of the valleys below, do not attain an extraordinary size. For iustaacc, a species of campanula—our ordinary harebell is a campanula— grows only two feet high in the valleys, but on the mountains it reaches a height of six feet, and its stem becomes thick and rigid, like that of a small tree.Banners of the Sun.The expedition which will go from the Lick Observatory to observe the eclipse of the sun in Japan next August will carry a novel photographic machine to picture the great coronal streamers that are seen around the sun when its globe is hidden behind the moon. The sun’s corona has been photographed during previous eclipses, but as its light is much stronger near the sun thau at a greater distance, the photographs have invariably been over-exposed for the brighter part of the phenomenon when so timed as to catch the image of the fainter parts;and, conversely, the outer portions of the streamers have been lost in the photographs when the exposure has been made short enough to give a good image of the bright inner portion. Mr. Burckhalter of the Chabot Observatory, Oakland, who will accompany the expedition referred to, thinks he has contrived a machine that1 will equalize the exposure for all parts of the corona, and thus enable him to get a perfect photograph of the wonderful display around the sun during tbe eclipse. The principal feature of liis invention is a rotating diaphragm, driven by clockwork and provided with a peculiarly shaped hole for the passage of the light, whereby the faint outer part of the corona will get a much longer exposure than brilliant inner part. /Pure thoughts can only come fro: a clean heart.. Tbe greatest amount of specific heat is contained by water; the least by bismusth.Light words of those whom we lc and honor, what a power they are, ahow carelessly wielded by those w use them! Surely for these thingsaccount* .....
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Plainfield Reformatory
Plainfield, Indiana, US
Sat, Sep 19, 1896
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USA 06 Mar 2023
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