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The Wonder Book Of Knowledge | by Henry Chase



The marvels of modern industry and invention, the interesting stories of common things, the mysterious processes of nature simply explained.

TitleThe Wonder Book Of Knowledge
AuthorHenry Chase
PublisherThe John C. Winston Company
Year1921
Copyright1921, L. T. Myers
AmazonWonder Book of Knowledge

Compiled And Edited By Henry Chase Hill With The Co-Operation Of Experts Representing Each Industry

Illustrated with 780 photographs and drawings

-Preface
This book is presented to those, both young and old, who wish to have a nontechnical account of the history, evolution and production of some of the every-day wonders of the modern industrial age; cou...
-The Story Of The Submarine. Origin Of Submarine Navigation
The history of invention has no chapter more interesting than that of sailing under the ocean's waves. The navigation of the air approaches it in character, but does not present the vital problems of ...
-The American Types
The type of these vessels was what became known as the diving. They were controlled by a rudder placed at the stern of the vessel and acting in both a horizontal and a vertical direction, the force ...
-Twentieth Century Submarines
We have given an epitome of the development of the submarine vessel up to the opening of the twentieth century. It had now reached a successful status of achievement and during the early years of that...
-Engine Power
The internal-combustion engine is the heart of the submarine. Steam, with its heavy engine, has been long set aside, and electricity, derived from the storage battery, yet awaits sufficient developmen...
-The Periscope
As the engine is the heart of the submarine, the periscope is its eye. This is, in its simpler forms, a stiff, detachable tube from fifteen to twenty feet long and about four inches in diameter. On it...
-The Voyage Of The " Deutschland."
The great mission of the submarine during the European war was as a commerce destroyer. Many ships were sunk and many lives, with cargoes of great value, were lost, and it was not until the summer of ...
-Submarine Dredging
Commerce is not the only peaceful mission of the submarine. In 1895 was organized an association known as the Lake Submarine Company, its purpose being to use the Lake type of submarine boat for the r...
-The Story Of The Panama Canal
America has captured the forces of Nature, harnessed the floods and made the desert bloom, builded gigantic bridges and arrogant skyscrapers and bored roadways through solid rock and beneath water, bu...
-The United States To The Rescue
The United States, not unmindful of the advantages of an Isthmian Canal, had from time to time, made surveys of the various routes. With a view to government ownership and control, Congress directed a...
-The Canal And The Navy
The opening of the canal has greatly increased the effectiveness of the Navy of the United States. It has reduced the distance between the central points of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts from 13,000...
-The Great Canal
The Isthmus of Panama runs east and west and the canal traverses it from Colon on the north to Panama on the south in a general direction from northwest to southeast, the Pacific terminus being twenty...
-The Hydroelectric Station
The hydroelectric station uses water from Gatun Lake for driving three turbogenerators of 2,000-kilowatt capacity each, which supply electricity for the operation of the lock and spillway machinery, t...
-Gigantic Obstacles
The greatest difficulty encountered in the excavation of the canal was due to slides and breaks which caused large masses of material to slide or move into the excavated area, closing off the drainage...
-Gatun Dam
The great dam at Gatun is a veritable hill - 7,500 feet over all, 2,100 feet wide at the base, 398 feet through at the water surface, and 100 feet wide at the top, which is 115 feet above sea level. T...
-Meeting All Emergencies
Many extraordinary feats of engineering were accomplished to overcome the difficulties presented. Special contrivances, wonderful in their operation, were invented to meet exigencies and emergencies. ...
-A Battle Won
The completion of this herculean task marked an epoch in the history of the world. A gigantic battle against floods and torrents, pestilence and swamps, tropical rivers, jungles and rock-ribbed mounta...
-What Is A Geyser?
The famous geyser shown in the illustration is called Old Faithful because of the clock-like regularity of its eruptions. For over twenty years it has been spouting at average intervals of sixty-fiv...
-What Kind Of Dogs Are Prairie-Dogs?
Prairie-dogs are not really dogs at all, but a kind of a squirrel called a marmot. As the visitors to city Zoological Parks already know, these animals make little mounds of earth, and a great many of...
-What Is Spontaneous Combustion?
Spontaneous combustion is the burning of a substance or body by the internal development of heat without the application of fire. It not infrequently takes place among heaps of rags, wool and cotto...
-The Story In The Talking Machine
As far back as 1855 inventors were experimenting with talking machines; but nothing practical was accomplished till 1877, when Thomas A. Edison constructed a primitive machine capable of recording and...
-What Are Petrified Forests?
In the first place, petrification is the name we give to the animal and vegetable bodies which have, by slow process, been converted into stone. We mean very much the same thing when we refer to Foss...
-What Animals Are The Best Architects?
Animals of a great many different kinds have helped show man the way, in taking advantage of the opportunities which nature affords him to feed, clothe and protect himself, but one of the smallest of ...
-The Story Of The Motorcycle
Interest in the development of mechanically propelled two-wheel vehicles began soon after the introduction of the bicycle in its first practicable form. Man's natural dislike for manual labor quickly ...
-The Story Of The Motorcycle. Continued
He recognized in Oscar Hedstrom, as the leader of the motor tandem racing field, the man who knew more about combustion engines than any other man in America, and accordingly enlisted his services. Os...
-How Is The Weather Man Able To Predict Tomorrow's Weather?
The Weather Bureau was founded in 1870 by the United States Government, its purpose being to make daily observations of the state of the weather in all parts of the country, and to calculate from the ...
-How Does A Siren Fog Horn Blow?
There are a great many different kinds of signals for the guidance of vessels during fogs, when lights or other visible signals cannot be perceived. One of the most powerful signals is the siren fo...
-The Story In A Watch
Clocks and watches are often called timekeepers, but they do not keep time. Nothing can keep it. It is constantly flying along, and carrying us with it, and we cannot stop it. What we call time kee...
-The Story In A Watch. Part 2
Watches are made to measure time. If anything is to be measured there must be some standard with which to compare it, for we have seen that measuring is a process of comparing a thing with an appropri...
-The Story In A Watch. Part 3
Interior op Astronomical Observatory, showing Transit Instrument. Used to Obtain Correct Local Time, by Observing the Passage op Stars Across the Meridian. Balance Cock and Patent Micro...
-The Story In A Watch. Part 4
A watch balance is made with a rim of brass encircling and firmly united to the rim of steel. In order to permit heat to have the desired effect upon this balance, the rim is completely severed ...
-How Does A Monorail Gyroscope Railway Operate?
The last decade has brought a railway with a single line of rails, on which the car is kept erect by the steadying power of a pair of heavy gyroscopes, or flywheels, rotating in opposite directions at...
-Why Are Finger-Prints Used For Identification?
The plan of identifying people by their finger-prints, although at first used only on criminals, is now put to many other uses. It was introduced originally in India, where it was of very great assist...
-The Story In A Rifle. How It Began
A naked savage found himself in the greatest danger. A wild beast, hungry and fierce, was about to attack him. Escape was impossible. Retreat was cut off. He must fight for his life - but how? Shou...
-The Earliest Hunters
The Cave Man and his descendants learned the valuable lesson of stone-throwing, and it made hunters of them, not big-game hunters - that was far too risky; but once in a while a lucky throw might brin...
-A Nameless Edison
We do not know his name. Possibly he did not even have a name, but in some way he hit upon a scheme for throwing stones farther, harder and straighter than any of his ancestors. The men and women i...
-What They Saw
Accordingly, one morning several of them followed at a careful distance as he sought the shore of a stream where water-fowl might be found. Parting the leaves, they saw him pick up a pebble from the b...
-The Use Of Slings
The new plan worked with great success, and a little practice made expert marksmen. We know that most of the early races used it for hunting and in war. We find it shown in pictures made many thousand...
-Something Better
Yet they had their drawbacks. A stone slung might kill a bird or even a man, but it was not very effective against big game. What was wanted was a missile to pierce a thick hide. Man had begun t...
-A Fortunate Accident
But bent wood is apt to be springy. Suppose that while one were bearing on pretty hard with a well-tightened string, in order to bring fire quickly, the point of the spindle should slip from its block...
-What Came Of It
After that it was merely a matter of improvement. The arrow-end was apt to slip from the string until some one thought to notch it. Its head struck with such force that the early hunter decided to giv...
-A Great Variety
It is interesting to see how many different forms of bow were used. The English had a six-foot Jong bow made of yew or ash, in a single straight piece, that shot arrows the length of a man's arm. Th...
-As To Arrows
The arrows were quite as important, and their making became a great industry with every race. This was because so many must be carried for each hunt or battle. Who is not familiar with the chipped ...
-A Shooting Machine
But the age of machinery was coming on. Once in a while there were glimpses of more powerful and complicated devices to be seen among these simple arms. A new weapon now came about through warfare....
-What It Was
What was the cross-bow? It was the first real hand-shooting machine. It was another big step toward the day of the rifle. The idea was simple enough. Wooden bows had already been made as strong as the...
-And Now For Chemistry
Human muscle seemed to have reached its limit, mechanics seemed to have reached its limit, but still the world clamored, Stronger, stronger! How shall we kill our enemy farther away than he can kill ...
-Playing With Fire
It all began through playing with fire. It was desired to throw fire on an enemy's buildings or his ships, and so destroy them. Burning torches were thrown by machines, made of cords and springs, over...
-What Two Monks Discovered
Many of these were made in the monasteries. The monks were pretty much the only people in those days with time for study, and two of these shaven-headed scientists now had a chance to enter history. R...
-The Gun Of Our Ancestors
Everybody knows what the flint-lock was like. You simply fastened a flake of flint in the cock and snapped it against a steel plate. This struck off sparks which fell into the flash-pan and fired the ...
-Caps And Breech-Loaders
Primers were tried in different forms called detonators, but the familiar little copper cap was the most popular. No need to describe them. Millions are still made to be used on old-fashioned nipple...
-From Henry VIII To Cartridges
Breech-loaders were hardly new. King Henry VIII of England, he of the many wives, had a match-lock arquebus of this type dated 1537. Henry IV of France even invented one for his army, and others worke...
-A Refusal And What Came Of It
Two men, a smith and his son, both named Eliphalet Remington, in 1816, were working busily one day at their forge in beautiful Ilion Gorge, when, so tradition says, the son asked his father for money ...
-The Beginning Of Precision In Mechanics
Not so many years before that, in England, James Watt was complaining about the difficulty of boring a six-inch cylinder for his steam engine with sufficient accuracy to make it a commercial success. ...
-The First Government Contract
The first government contract came in 1845. War with Mexico loomed up on the horizon. William Jencks had invented a carbine, and Uncle Sam wanted several thousand guns made in a hurry under the patent...
-Making Barrels
One of the most important features is, of course, the making of barrels. The machines for drilling and boring are the best that money can buy, and the operatives the most skilful to be found anywhere....
-The Making Of Ammunition Today
It is no easy matter to secure a pass to the Bridgeport plant. Its great advantage over other concerns lies, to a large degree, in the exclusive machinery that has been developed at so much pains and ...
-Handling Deadly Explosives
Operatives, girls in many cases, handle the most terrible compounds. We stop, for example, where they are making primers to go in the head of your loaded shell, in order that it may not miss fire when...
-Extreme Precautions
Or, perhaps, we may be watching one of the many loading machines. There is a certain suggestiveness in the way the machines are separated by partitions. The man in charge takes a small carrier of powd...
-How Does An Artesian Well Keep Up Its Supply Of Water?
Artesian wells are named after the French Province of Artais, where they appear to have been first used on an extensive scale. They are perpendicular borings into the ground through which water ris...
-Where Do Dates Come From?
Besides the dried dates which we are accustomed to seeing in this country, they are used extensively by the natives of Northern Africa and of some countries of Asia. It consists of an external peri...
-The Story Of Rubber
Rubber is the coagulated sap of more than 300 varieties of tropical trees and vines - the Landolphia of Africa, the Ficus of the Malay Peninsula, the Guayule shrub of Mexico and the Castilloa of South...
-How Was Rubber First Used?
Down in Brazil, several hundred miles up the Amazon River, there stood a great forest of trees and in this forest - the same as in forests of today - were birds and animals and bugs and beetles, etc. ...
-What Is A Rubber Camp Like?
In this locality the rubber harvest commences as soon as the Amazon falls which is usually about the first of August. When this date approaches bands of natives set out from their primitive homes and ...
-How Is Rubber Gathered By The Natives?
The trees are tapped very much like maple syrup trees. Only the juice is found between the outer bark and the wood. So these men make a cut in the tree through the bark, almost to the wood. A little c...
-How Is Rubber Smoked?
After the juice has been gathered in this way, the native builds a fire; over it he places a cover shaped like a large bottle with the bottom knocked out of it. This fire is built of oily nuts found i...
-How Was Vulcanizing Discovered?
Up to this time, these biscuits, when exposed to heat, would become very soft and sticky, and when exposed to the cold, would become hard like a stone. There was an American by the name of Charle...
-How Did Rubber Growing Spread To Other Places?
Back in the seventies an English botanist, Wickham by name, smuggled many Hevea seeds out of Brazil. The tree was found to grow well in the Eastern tropics and today the rubber plantations of Ceylon, ...
-How Is Rubber Cured On Modern Plantations?
With these big plantations some other way to cure the rubber had to be devised from the smoking process used in curing the native rubber which comes from South America. The milky juice is emptied from...
-How Is Crude Rubber Received Here?
Crude rubber is received in many forms under various names. There are more than three hundred standard kinds, depending on source and method of handling; e. g., Sernamby is simply bundles of Para tr...
-How Is Rubber Prepared For Use?
Now that we have rubber so that it can be used, we find there are a great many operations necessary between gathering the crude rubber and finally the finished rubber coat or shoe. These various opera...
-How Are Rubber Shoes Made?
In making footwear, the linings and such parts as can be piled up layer on layer are cut by dies, usually on the large beam-cutting machines, commonly seen in leather shoe factories. The uppers are cu...
-How Are Automobile Tires Made?
In making tires, the strips of fabric are built together about a steel core to form the body or carcass of the tire. The beads are also added. The side strips, the breaker strip and finally the tread ...
-How Did The Expression "Before You Can Say Jack Robinson" Originate?
Jack Robinson was a man in olden days who became well known because of the shortness of his visits when he came to call on his friends, according to Grose, who has looked up the subject very carefully...
-What Is An Aerial Railway Like?
Wonderful ingenuity has been shown in contriving a means to enable people to ascend the Wetterhorn Mountain in Switzerland. The sides of the mountain are so irregular and rough in their formation that...
-Why Are They Called "Newspapers "?
Although something like an official newspaper or government gazette existed in ancient Rome, and Venice in the middle of the sixteenth century also had official news sheets, the first regular newspape...
-How Did The Cooking Of Food Originate?
As soon as man found that he could produce fire by friction, as the result of rapidly rubbing two sticks together, he began to have accidents with his fires, just as we do today. And it was probably b...
-How Far Away Is The Sky-Line?
Unless you happen to be of the same height as the person standing next to you, the sky-line is a different distance away from each of you, for it is really just a question of the distance the eye can ...
-The Story Of Rope
Everybody knows what rope is, but everybody does not know how rope is made or of what kinds of fiber it is manufactured. And very few probably know the history of rope making, or how it developed from...
-The Story Of Rope. Continued
Formation of Sliver (for Spinning) on First Breaker. Interior of Present-Day Ropewalk. Machine-made Ropes. The old ropewalk is today largely obsolete, the rope-making machine taki...
-Why Does Rope Cling Together?
This is probably due to a degree of roughness in the surface of fibers, often imperceptible to the eye, yet preventing them when in close contact from slipping easily upon each other. This is greatly ...
-What Is Rope Used For?
This is a question that has already been answered in great part. Its uses, in fact, are innumerable. It serves to hold things together, and also to hold them apart; to lift things into the air and to ...
-How Did The Expression "A-L" Originate?
We have all become so accustomed to hearing the term A-l used to designate a thing as perfect that it does not occur to many of us to wonder how' it originally came to be used in that connection. It...
-How Has Man Helped Nature Give Us Apples?
The original of all the varieties of the cultivated apple is the wild crab, which is a small and extremely sour fruit, and is native of most of the countries of Europe. We use the crab-apple for prese...
-What Kind Of A Crab Climbs Trees?
Besides the water-crabs that we are most of us used to 3eeing and eating, there are several different kinds of land-crabs. Probably the most interesting of them all is the great Robber-crab, which is ...
-How Are Files Made?
A good tool-kit holds a number of files of various shapes. Some are flat, others half-round, three-sided, square and round. They are generally thickest in the middle, while their teeth are of various ...
-The Story Of Self-Loading Pistols
Colt Pistols. The machine gun of the present day, the murderous weapon which has numbered its victims by the hundreds of thousands during the European war, had its origin in the mind of a man whose...
-How Does The Poisonous Tarantula Live?
When the National Guardsmen from all over the Union were concentrated along the Mexican border, many reports were sent home of thrilling experiences with tarantulas, to whose bite the natives of Mexic...
-How Do The Indians Live Now?
The Indians of the United States are now largely gathered into reservations and their former dress, arms and habits are being gradually changed for those of the whites. Civilization is invading their ...
-How Does The Beach Get Its Sand?
Most of the sands which we find on the beaches and in other places are the ruins of rocks which have come apart, usually as the result of the action of water. A large part of the ocean bottom is made ...
-How Did Nodding The Head Up And Down Come To Mean " Yes "?
Like a multitude of other things, the signs which we give by the movements of our heads to indicate yes and no were copied from animal life. When the mother animal brought her young a choice mo...
-Why Do We Call A Man " A Benedict" When He Marries?
We call men benedicts when they become married because that was the name of a humorous gentleman in Shakespeare's play, Love's Labor Lost, who was finally married to a character named Beatrice. ...
-The Story In Firecrackers And Sky-Rockets
The blaze and noise, indispensable to patriotic celebrations among all peoples, was produced a century ago in America by simple agencies. Washington's Birthday was ushered in by cannon salutes in ever...
-What Makes A Chimney Smoke?
Smoky chimneys are usually caused either by the presence of other buildings obstructing the wind and giving rise to irregular currents of air, or by improper construction of the fireplace and adjacent...
-What Are Dry Docks Like?
Although divers are able to go down under the water to examine the bottom of a ship while it is afloat, it is usually necessary to have it up on dry land when thorough inspections or repairs have to b...
-Why Does A Lightning Bug Light Her Light?
The lightning bugs or fireflies which are seen so often on summer evenings in the country and among the trees in the parks of the city, are similar to the species of beetle called the glowworm in Grea...
-The Story In The Making Of A Picture
Let us suppose, for the purposes of explanation, that as far as seeing goes, any object is made up of countless infinitesimal points of light, and that the business of the eye is to gather them in and...
-The Story In The Making Of A Picture. Continued
People of an artistic turn of mind had been in the habit of making what were called silhouettes. The sitter was so posed that the light from a lamp threw the profile of his face in sharp shadow agai...
-How Deep Is The Deepest Part Of The Ocean?
Man has not been able to tell definitely just what the greatest depth of the ocean is, because it would be a practically unending task to go over every bit of it to take measurements. A great many exp...
-Why Do We Say "Get The Sack "?
The use of the expression get the sack, when we mean to be discharged, originated through the impression made upon people in this country when stories were brought to them of the way the Sultan of...
-Why Do We Call Them X-Rays?
At the time the discovery of X-rays was announced by Prof. Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen of the University of Wurzburg, Germany, he was not sure of their exact nature, and so he named them X-Rays, because ...
-How Did The Term " Yankee " Originate?
Although some people maintain that the word Yankee originated with the way white men interpreted the Indians' name for the early settlers, most of those who have wondered about it have decided that ...
-Why Do We Say " Kick The Bucket"?
A great many years ago a man called Bolsover became crazed by some unhappy experiences and decided to kill himself by fastening a rope around his neck and hanging from a cross-beam overhead. In select...
-When Does A Tortoise Move Quickly?
Tortoises lay their eggs in underground nests, where they remain for almost a year, and, strange to say, they have a very curious way of drilling holes for these nests with their tails. A tortoise pic...
-The Story In A Newspaper
Among the marvels of machinery of the present day there are none more complicated and bewildering in appearance than that by which the news of the world is sent adrift within the daily newspaper and n...
-What Do We Mean By The "Flying Dutchman"?
The Flying Dutchman is a phantom ship said to be seen in stormy weather off the Cape of Good Hope, and thought to forbode ill luck. One form of the legend has it that the ship is doomed never to enter...
-Why Does A Duck's Back Shed Water?
Nature has provided the duck with a protection against water just as she has so wisely protected all animals against such elements as they have to live in. The feathers on a duck are very heavy and...
-Why Doesn'T The Sky Ever Fall Down?
The sky never falls down because there is nothing to fall. What we see and call the sky is the reflection of the sun's rays on the belt of air that surrounds the earth. That beautiful blue dome that w...
-How Are Sand-Dunes Formed?
Sand-dunes are composed of drift sand thrown up by the waves of the sea, and blown, when dry, to some distance inland, until it is stopped by large stones, tree roots or other obstacles. It gradually ...
-What Do We Mean By An "Eclipse"?
Any good dictionary will tell us that an eclipse is an interception or obscuration of the light of the sun, moon or other heavenly body by the intervention of another and non-luminous heavenly body. S...
-What Are Dreams?
The dictionary tells us that a dream is a train of vagrant ideas which present themselves to the mind while we are asleep. We know that the principal feature, when we are dreaming, is the absence o...
-What Makes Our Teeth Chatter?
When one is cold there is apt to be a spasm of shivering over which the brain does not seem to have any control. The spasm causes the muscles of the jaw to contract very quickly and as soon as they ar...
-The Story In A Honey-Comb
When one thinks of honey one instinctively closes the eyes and a mental picture of fruit trees laden with snowy bloom, of beautiful clover fields, of green forests in a setting quiet and peaceful, com...
-The Story In A Honey-Comb. Continued
The old method of straining honey has long since been replaced by the centrifugal honey extractor, which simply empties the cells of honey, not injuring the combs. The combs are then replaced in the h...
-Where Do Figs Come From?
The fig tree, which is of the mulberry family, belonged originally in Asia Minor, but it has been naturalized in all the countries around the Mediterranean. It grows from fifteen to twenty, or even th...
-What Are "Fighting Fish"?
Fighting fish are a small fish and belong to the climbing perch family. They are natives of the southeast of Asia and are remarkable for their pugnacious propensities. In Siam these fish are kept i...
-How Is The Exact Color Of The Sky Determined?
An instrument called a cyanometer, meaning measurer of blue, is used for ascertaining the intensity of color in the sky. It consists of a circular piece of metal or pasteboard, with a band divi...
-What Is A "Divining Rod "?
A divining rod is a wand or twig of hazel or willow used especially for discovering metallic deposits or water beneath the earth's surface. It is described in a book written in 1546 and it has also...
-The Story Of Electricity In The Home
How wonderful to youth always has been the magical story of Aladdin and the wonderful lamp which, through its supernatural powers, he could gently stroke and thereby make genii of the unknown world hi...
-The Story Of Electricity In The Home. Part 2
One of the first irons to be manufactured, an illustration of which is shown herewith, did not offer the pleasing appearance nor give the service of its youngest sister, the illustration of which is a...
-The Story Of Electricity In The Home. Part 3
The Traveler's Iron. Electric current is so nearly universally obtainable that milady who travels much has come to carry in her grip or suitcase a light-weight iron, usually of about three pounds, ...
-The Story Of Electricity In The Home. Part 4
Fig. 11. - Electric Machine Type Valveless Percolator. Machine Type Percolator. Because some prefer to draw coffee from a faucet rather than pour it from a spout, manufacturers have made a...
-The Story Of Electricity In The Home. Part 5
Fig. 13. - Electric Rectangular Grill. Fig. 14. - Electric Three-heat Grill. Fig. 15. - Electric Radiant Stove. While this particular grill is furnished with a wattage provi...
-The Story Of Electricity In The Home. Part 6
One thing most desirable in connection with practically all of the lamp-socket appliances described and illustrated in this section is the very small cost of operation. Lighting companies have so redu...
-Why Is There Always A Soft Spot In A Cocoanut Shell?
A cocoanut shell always has a soft spot at one end because this is the provision nature has made to allow the embryo of the future tree to push its way out of the hard shell. Cocoanuts, as most of ...
-How Does A Gasoline Motor Run An Electric Street Car?
A gasoline-electric railroad train was introduced in Germany in 1913. It comprises a power car and ten other cars, each of a five-ton capacity, which trail along behind. The power car carries two gaso...
-How Do "Carrier Pigeons" Carry Messages?
The real carrier pigeon is a large bird with long wings, a large tuberculated mass of naked skin at the base of the beak, and a circle of naked skin round the eyes, but the variety generally employed ...
-What Family Has Over 9,000,000 Members?
Each female cod has more than 9,000,000 eggs, but the numbers are kept down by a host of enemies. The most interesting species is the Common or Bank Cod. Though they are found plentifully on th...
-The Story In The Telephone
On March 10, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell, standing in a little attic at No. 5 Exeter Place, Boston, sent through his crude telephone the first spoken words ever carried over a wire, and the words were...
-The Story In The Telephone. Part 2
It would be hard to find a line of business where progress would not be seriously retarded by an impairment of the present telephone efficiency. America Leads in Telephone Growth. It is a far cr...
-The Story In The Telephone. Part 3
It is characteristic of private management that plans can be made for the future with reasonable assurance that the necessary funds will not be arbitrarily withheld, or that the work of the past will ...
-Why Do They Call Them " Fiddler-Crabs "?
There is one member of the crab family for which the Latin name is Gelasimus, which means laughable. He certainly is appropriately named, for he is a very queer little fellow. The male has one claw ...
-How Far Can A Powerful Searchlight Send Its Rays?
Searchlights have recently been made capable of being seen nearly a hundred miles away. Such lights are very valuable for signaling purposes in time of war, and they are also much used on warships, en...
-What Started The Habit Of Touching Glasses Before Drinking?
Just as athletes shake hands before the beginning of a contest today, the people who fought duels in the olden days used to pause before their fighting long enough to each drink a glass of wine furnis...
-Why Are Windows Broken By Explosions?
When the large cannons in the forts on our coast are discharged during target practice, there are usually a lot of windows broken in the nearby houses. In Jersey City, N. J., several freight cars and ...
-What Does The Expression "Showing The White Feather" Come From?
We say people show the white feather when they display cowardice, because a white feather in a bird marks a cross breed, and it is not found on a fighting game-cock. ...
-The Story In Elevators And Escalators
Going up and down stairs is a duty every man, woman and child finds it necessary to perform daily and in many cases hourly, and some means for doing this is necessary in every modern household. Even i...
-What Happens When Animals Hibernate?
We have all heard of certain animals sleeping through the long winter months and most of us have probably wondered what happens to them when they do this. This hiding away for a long sleep, or hibe...
-How Do Peanuts Get In The Ground?
Peanuts are really the seeds or pods of a plant belonging to the family called the earthnut in Great Britain, the nuts there being used chiefly to fatten swine. The peanut-stand so commonly seen on st...
-How Did Your State Get Its Name?
Alabama is named after the Indian word which means Here we rest; Alaska comes from the Eskimo word Alakshak or Alayeska and means The main land; Arizona is the result of the Indian word Arizo...
-The Story Of Coal Mining
An interesting story is told in an English book by Edward Cressy, of the great coal strike in 1912. Many factories and workshops had to close for want of fuel. A workman from one of these, on reaching...
-The Story Of Coal Mining. Continued
Coal is largely formed from vast masses of vegetable matter deposited through the luxuriant growth of plants in former epochs of the earth's history. In the varieties of coal in common use the combine...
-How Can We Hear Through The Walls Of A Room?
We are able to hear easily through the walls of many rooms because the material used in those walls are good conductors of sound. We know that some things are better conductors of heat than others, an...
-What Is A Diesel Engine Like?
The Diesel engine has caused a great deal of comment of late years because of the spectacular uses to which it has been successfully applied. A specially constructed Diesel engine was probably the chi...
-What Does The Sheep-Grower Get For The Wool In A Suit Of Clothes?
A man's ordinary three-piece fall suit has about nine pounds of wool in it. Such a suit might cost somewhere between twenty and forty dollars, depending on whether it was bought ready made or whether ...
-The Story In A Silver Teaspoon
The spoon is older than history. There is, perhaps, no article or utensil of common use today that can trace an earlier origin. The evolution and development of the spoon into the graceful and beautif...
-The Story In A Silver Teaspoon. Part 2
Ornaments on the back of spoon bowls and handles were impressed by dies forced together by drop presses or under screw pressure. This is absolutely proven by the exact duplication of the pattern on se...
-The Story In A Silver Teaspoon. Part 3
Westminster. Frontenac. Brandon. Modern Designs This quick and less expensive method of manufacture rendered silver plate available to all classes, and the Sheffield plat...
-How Do Chimes Strike The Hour?
Chimes are ordinarily produced mechanically by the strokes of hammers against a series of bells, tuned agreeably to a given musical scale. The hammers are lifted by levers acted upon by metallic pi...
-How Is Electricity Brought Into A House?
The electric transmission of power is effected by employing the source of power to drive a machine called a dynamo, which generates an electric current. This current is conveyed by a copper conduct...
-What Was The Origin Of Masonic Signs?
Fable and imagination have traced back the origin of freemasonary to the Roman Empire, to the Pharaohs, the Temple of Solomon, the Tower of Babel, and even to the building of Noah's ark. In reality, i...
-What Is A Dictograph?
The dictograph, to which much publicity is now given, by reason of its use in detective work, is an instrument for magnifying sound. It was invented by K. M. Turner of New York, in 1907. It consist...
-The Story Of The Wireless Telegraph
Though one or more means of transmitting messages by electricity have been known now for a great many years, the mechanisms by which they are accomplished are understood only by those who take a gener...
-What Is Forestry Work?
A Division of Forestry was organized in the Department of Agriculture, some years ago, and the most earnest efforts are being made to prevent any needless waste of our timber lands. The usefulness ...
-How Did The Fashion Of Wearing Cravats Commence?
Cravats get their name from the French cravate, meaning a croat, because this piece of dress was adopted in the eleventh century from the Croats who entered the French service. Towards the end of th...
-How Does The Gas Meter Measure Your Gas?
The quantity of gas used by each consumer is measured by an instrument called a meter, of which there are two classes - the wet and the dry. The wet meter is composed of an outer box about three-fi...
-What Is A Game Preserve?
Game preserves have only been introduced comparatively recently in the United States, for the hunting grounds have been freely open to the hunter, but they have been common in Britain and other countr...
-The Story Of The Building Of A Silo. What Is A Silo?
A silo is a place or receptacle for storing green feed to preserve it for future feeding on the farm. In this way green fodder, such as corn and similar crops, are preserved in a green state to be fed...
-The First Silo
Silos have been used since very early times in one form or the other, and probably the first we have ever heard of are traceable back in ancient history to the Syrians, who had pits in the ground for ...
-What Is Put In The Silo?
The principal silage crop is corn, but in different parts of the country there are other crops which can be used to great advantage as substitutes for corn. Among these are kaffir corn, sorghum, alfal...
-Elements Of Success Or Failure
There are several things to be remembered by farmers when putting fodder into the silo, if they want to have perfect silage to take out. One of the main things is to see that the silage is cut to prop...
-The Story Of The Advance Of Electricity
It is often remarked that the history of electrical development is the history of modern industrial development. This is true, except that the terms should be reversed. Electric lighting was not inven...
-The First Commercial Central Station
The first central station for the commercial distribution of electricity was set going on the 4th of September, 1882, by Thomas Edison himself, at 257 Pearl Street, New York City. Newspapers of the fo...
-The Old Pearl Street Plant
This primitive central station in Pearl Street was a converted warehouse of brick construction, four stories high, and it was separated in two parts by a fire wall. One of these parts was used for the...
-Edison And The Electric Light
In 1878 Thomas A. Edison, at his experimental laboratory at Menlo Park, New Jersey, where he had already invented the carbon telephone transmitter and many other things, undertook the task of devising...
-In The Trenches
The systematic laying out of street mains in the first company district was begun in the summer of 1881. It must not be thought, of course, that these oldtime conduits resembled strikingly those of th...
-Early Growth
Within two years from the opening of the station the demand for service had so increased that over one hundred applications were filed in excess of what could be accepted, because the plant was taxed ...
-The Waterside Stations
For some time the need of a central generating plant had been apparent to all familiar with the company's facilities and prospects. Already during the summer of 1898 an engineering commission had visi...
-Electricity A Living Factor
To talk about electrical development in terms of power consumed tells but one side of the story. More impressive even than figures are the immense number Electric Sewing Machines in the Manha...
-In The Printing Trade
Electric power was introduced, timidly, by way of a few fans in 1884 and following this, in 1888, motor drive for printing presses was undertaken. At the present moment in New York City there is hardl...
-Construction
Not only are passengers conveyed up and down by electric elevators in skyscrapers, but the buildings themselves are erected by means of electricity. Recent examples of such construction are the Woolwo...
-Loft Manufacturing
Aside from these special instances of electricity in construction, one must think of electricity as responsible for nearly all the manufacturing, large and small, that goes on in the ever-increasing n...
-Electric Heating
The commercial use of electric heating is one of the more recent electrical develop-oients. For the most part, this also applies to the garment trade and its closely allied clothing industries. In the...
-Electricity And Safety
The importance of electricity in factory work cannot be over-estimated. A shop fully equipped with electric machinery is the best possible kind of shop for employee as well as for the owner. Motor-dri...
-Electricity In Medicine
Another domain of electric enterprise of the greatest value for the country at large is the increasing use of electricity in medicine. The most conspicuous element in this is the wide-spread acceptanc...
-Electric Vehicles
The electric truck has already demonstrated itself as a safer and less expensive rival of the gasoline delivery truck in many kinds of service. In the boroughs of The Great Press Room of The...
-Decreased Cost Of Electricity
Closely akin to this is another electrical development most pleasing to consider. Years ago, electricity was considered the luxury of the rich. Now electric light is coming to be shed on rich and poor...
-How Is Die-Sinking Done?
Die-sinking is the art of preparing dies for stamping coins, buttons, medallions, jewelry, fittings, etc. The steel for the manufacture of dies is carefully selected, forged at a high heat into the ro...
-The Story In The Making Of A Magazine
The printing of a few thousand copies of one of the great American magazines would not be a difficult feat for any large first-class printing plant. The putting of the pages into type and running them...
-How Did The Ringing Of The Curfew Originate?
The word curfew is derived from the French couvre-feu, meaning cover fire. The ringing of the curfew originated in England by William the Conqueror, who directed that at the ringing of the be...
-The Story Of America's First Horseless
Carriage Mr. Elwood Haynes tells an interesting story of his first horseless carriage: In 1890 I became interested in the natural gas field at Greentown, Ind. My work took me through the count...
-The Story In A Sausage
Away back in the dark ages, even before the Christian era, a Chinese husbandman, so we are told, made a wonderful discovery - that pork was good to eat. No one had ever considered the possibility of e...
-The Story In A Sausage. Part 2
Berkshire Boar.*. Berkshire Sow.* Dual Purpose Hog.. * Courtesy of The Field, New York City. it all day, the idea being to keep a fire which was not too hot but which would give off ple...
-The Story In A Sausage. Part 3
Passing through the hog chill rooms, on the way from the killing floor, one is impressed with the great number of hogs hanging there in a temperature near the freezing point. This temperature is maint...
-Why Do We Call Them "Dog-Days "?
When we talk about dog-days now, we mean the period of the year between July 3d and August 11th, twenty days before and after the rising of the dog-star. The name was applied by the ancients to...
-How Is A Five Dollar Gold Piece Made?
The process of converting the precious metals into coins is an interesting one. The rolling machines through which the ingots are passed are adjustable, the space between the rollers being governed...
-How Does A Bird Fly?
The wing of a bird is an elastic, flexible organ, with a thick anterior and a thin posterior margin; hence the wing does not act like a solid board, but is thrown into a succession of curves. When a b...
-The Story Of The Big Redwood Trees
The Big Trees of California are the most magnificent specimens of tree growth that have ever been found. In addition, they are the oldest known living things; they connect the present with the past ...
-How Did The Expression "Forlorn Hope " Originate?
In the expression forlorn hope we have made the Dutch word hoop meaning a company into hope. The forlorn hoop was a body of men, usually volunteers, selected from different regiments, to le...
-Why Is " Wall Street" Known Around The World?
This narrow canyon street in the lower part of the Borough of Manhattan is the financial center of New York City. The various exchanges and the largest banking institutions are situated here, and stoc...
-What Makes A Stick Seem To Bend In Water?
When we hold a stick partly in the water, it looks as though the stick bends just where it enters the water. That is due to the change of the direction of the light after it enters the water. This cha...
-What Causes A Lump In A Person's Throat?
When we eat anything, it passes into the throat after we have chewed it, and instead of just dropping down into our stomachs, there is a nine or ten inch series of rings in our throats, that takes the...
-How Are We Able To Hear Through Speaking-Tubes?
We know that when we speak, the sound waves that we set in motion are carried in every direction. Now when we speak into a tube, the sound waves cannot travel in all directions, but must follow the tu...
-Why Do We Always Shake Hands With Our Right Hand?
The custom of shaking hands with the right hand has come down to us from the time when everyone carried a sword or knife. In those days when one met a stranger it was customary, as an indication of fr...
-The Story In A Billiard Table
The origin of billiards is lost in antiquity. Who invented the game and the early processes of its evolution remain mysteries. The first known reference to the game with any traditional or historic...
-The Story In A Billiard Table. Part 2
To accomplish this with wood has taken years of experience and experimentation. Accuracy is obtained by the employment of specially-trained and long-experienced workmen. One large company now has h...
-The Story In A Billiard Table. Part 3
The final operation is the construction of pockets. The pocket irons are semi-circular pieces of metal with flat flanges extending at right angles at both ends of the arc. Stout black leather is st...
-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 ...
-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...
-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 ...
-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 part...
-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, cott...
-The Story In A Pin
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 ...
-The Story In A Pin. Continued
The Whitening Room, where the Pins are Cleaned and Plated. In the tumbling barrels the pins are cleaned and dried by tumbling in sawdust which has been heated in the ovens in the center backg...
-How Are Glaciers Formed?
Away up in the high valleys lormed 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 s...
-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...
-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 acco...
-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 untarnishab...
-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...
-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. Th...
-Why Do We Call 32&Deg; 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 sol...
-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 Story Of A Piece Of Chewing Gum
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...
-Where Did The Ferris Wheel Get Its Name?
The Ferris wheel was named alter 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 feat...
-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 ...
-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 obs...
-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 posse...
-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 ...
-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 coul...
-The "Difference Engine."
In the year 1822 a very ambitious project was conceived by Charles Babbage. He commenced to construct an automatic calculating machine, which he called a difference engine. The work was continued du...
-Work On Some Of The Present-Day Models
Frank S. Baldwin, a construction engineer, living in the United States, began to work on calculating machines in 1870. In 1874 he received a patent for a small hand adding machine. In 1875 a patent wa...
-How Big Is The Largest Adding Machine In The World?
The largest adding machine ever made was produced in 1915 and has a capacity of forty columns, or within one unit of ten duodecillions. This is a number too prodigious for the mind of man to grasp. Th...
-How Are Adding Machines Used?
Adding machines may be found at work in all kinds of business places from corner groceries to department stores and manufacturing plants. In the various offices and plants of the Western Electric Comp...
-Where Does Ermine Come From?
The ermine fur, with which we are all familiar, is furnished by the stoat, a small animal of the weasel tribe. It is found over both temperate Europe and North America, but is common only in the north...
-What Is The Principle Of "Foreign Exchange "?
Exchange, in commerce, is a transaction by which the debts of people residing at a distance are canceled by a draft or bill of exchange, without transfer of any actual money. A merchant in New York...
-What Do We Mean By "The Old Moon In The New Moon's Arms"?
Earth-shine/' in astronomy, is the name given to the faint light visible on the part of the moon not illuminated by the sun, due to the illumination of that portion by the light which the earth refle...
-The Story In A Bowling Alley
From the stone age onward the probabilities are that man has always had some kind of bowling game. Bowling, as we know today, is an indoor adaptation of, and an improvement upon, the old Dutch ga...
-The Story In A Bowling Alley. Continued
Cross-Section of Bowling Bed Showing Steel. Clamp other end of the strip is continued by adding other strips the full length of the bed. When these have been carefully squared to the exact di...
-How Are Artificial Precious Stones Made?
The art of manufacturing gems synthetically, that is, by the combination of chemical elements present in the real stone, has reached a high degree of success. The diamond, which is an allotropic fo...
-What Is A Mexican Bull-Fight Like?
Bull-fights are among the favorite diversions of the Spaniards. They are usually held in an amphitheater having circular seats rising one above another, and are attended by vast crowds who eagerly pay...
-What Is The Difference Between "Alternating" And "Direct" Current?
Strong currents of electricity are generated in the electric central stations and supplied to our homes, street lamps and so forth, in one of the two forms, either alternating or direct. While man...
-What Was The " Court Of Love "?
The Court of Love existed in what we call the chivalric period of the middle ages. It was composed of knights, poets and ladies, who discussed and gave decisions on subtle questions of love and g...
-The Story Of The Addressograph
If you were asked to enumerate the different kinds of clerical work performed in the modern business office, you would probably fail to mention the writing of names. Yet the writing and rewriting of n...
-The Birth Of Mechanical Addressing
But in one office this monotonous task of writing and rewriting the same names over and over again became such a hardship that the man who had to do it, thinking twenty-five years ahead of his time, h...
-Builds First Addressograph
Mr. Duncan invented and built his first addressing machine in 1892. He called it the Addressograph - a coined word meaning to write addresses. Although * Illustrations by courtesy of the Addres...
-Answering Demand For Greater Speed
Naturally, Mr. Hall's first thought on his return to Chicago was to induce Mr. Duncan to build a larger model, capable of greater speed and greater output. Acting upon Mr. Hall's suggestion, Mr. Dunca...
-Invents Embossed Metal Address Plate
After considerable thought, Mr. Duncan hit upon the plan of embossing, typewriter style, characters upon a metal plate. To do this, it was necessary for him to invent and perfect the Graphotype - a ma...
-A Card Index That Addresses Itself
As the use of the addressograph increased, Mr. Duncan and Mr. Hall realized the need of a more efficient way of making changes and additions to the list of names. It was important that individual name...
-Electric Motor Increases Speed
Not only was it necessary to meet the demand for card index conveniences, but it was also important to equip the Model A Addressograph with an electric motor for increasing its speed of operation an...
-Attachments Increase Utility Of Addressograph
The first addressographs were intended for printing names and addresses consecutively on envelopes and post cards. And so much time was saved on this one application that customers soon began applying...
-Small Users Not Overlooked
But, while Mr. Duncan and his associates have given every attention to the needs of users of large lists of names, he has not overlooked the lodge secretaries and other users of small lists of names. ...
-What Is "Dry Farming "?
Dry farming is a method which has been recently developed and which is coming into even wider use. The United States Department of Agriculture, through its experiment stations, has made a careful stud...
-What Is A "Drying Machine" Like?
This is a machine used in bleaching, dyeing and laundry establishments, consisting of two concentric drums or cylinders, one within the other, open at the top, and having the inner cylinder perforated...
-How Does The New York Stock Exchange Operate?
The New York Stock Exchange is typical of most American stock exchanges, the leading ones of which are located in Boston, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Cleveland, Cincinnati, New Orlea...
-How Did The Term " Cowboys " Originate?
The term cowboys was first used during the American Revolution. It was applied to a band of Tories who infested the neutral ground of Westchester County, New York, stealing cattle from both parties ...
-The Story In A Chemical Fire Extinguisher
A little smoke, a flash, and a waste basket, a curtain or something else is in flames. A few years ago an excited person would fail to extinguish the blaze with water or with any other first aid at ha...
-How Is Gold Leaf Made?
The gold is cast into ingots weighing about two ounces each, and measuring about three-quarters of an inch broad. These ingots are passed between steel rollers till they form long ribbons of such thin...
-What Is The Natural Color Of Goldfish?
It is greenish in color in the natural state, the golden-yellow color being found only in domesticated specimens, and retained by artificial selection. These fishes are reared by the Chinese in sma...
-When Was " Liquid Fire" First Used In Warfare?
Long before the European war, an inflammable and destructive compound was used in warfare, especially by the Byzantine Greeks. It was poured from caldrons and ladles, vomited through long copper tu...
-How Did The Greyhound Get His Name?
The name appears to have no reference to the color, but is derived from the Icelandic grey, meaning a dog. They are used chiefly in the sport of coursing, a work for which their peculiar shape, stre...
-Why Is It Called " Battery Park "?
The extreme southern end of Manhattan Island is both popularly and officially known as Battery Park because it was fortified in the seventeenth century for the protection of the town. In the picture...
-How Do We Know That The Earth Is Round?
We have all been taught that the earth is a nearly spherical body which every twenty-four hours rotates from west to east around an imaginary line called its axis - this axis having as its extremities...
-What Were " Ducking Stools "?
A ducking stool was a sort of a chair in which common scolds were formerly tied and plunged into water. They were of different forms, but that most commonly in use consisted of an upright post and a...
-The Story In Photo-Engraving
Modern advertising would not have been possible without photo-engraving. Attention has been attracted, desire has been created and goods have been sold, largely through the pictorial or other artistic...
-Color Engravings
Let us assume that we have a painting or a drawing in colors from' which it is desired to produce a set of printing plates to produce that drawing in facsimile. Under the old method of procedure, lith...
-Where Are Milk-Pails Filled From Trees?
In South America there are some trees known as cow-trees which, when wounded, yield a rich, milky, nutritious juice in such abundance as to render it an important article of food. This fluid resembl...
-How Did The Wearing Of A Crown Originate?
When we speak of a crown now we mean the head-dress worn by royal personages as a badge of sovereignty, but it was formerly used to include the wreaths or garlands worn by the ancients upon special oc...
-Why Do Lobsters Change Colors?
Before a lobster is cooked he is green, that being the color of the rocks around which he lives on the bottom of the ocean. However, as soon as a lobster is placed in boiling water his shell changes f...
-How Do Fishes Swim?
The fish is entirely surrounded by water which exerts an equal pressure on all sides. When the fish moves its tail, or makes any movement at all, he moves in the water. Of course, by moving his tail f...
-Where Do Pearls Come From?
Below the surface of the ocean, there's a strange, enchanted world. Living in the midst of its grandeur are most marvelous and delicate creatures that ceaselessly toil to strew the ocean's bed with lu...
-What Is Cork?
Cork is the outer bark of a species of oak which grows in Spain, Portugal and other southern parts of Europe and in the north of Africa. The tree is distinguished by the great thickness and sponginess...
-The Story In A Giant Cannon
Origin of the Cannon. The shotgun and rifle, the familiar weapons of the sportsman and the foot-soldier, are not the ancestors of the cannon, as might be surmised. On the contrary, the cannon was t...
-Modern Cannon
Until 1888 the largest cannon in use was the 119-ton Krupp, made in 1884 for Italy; but in 1888-90 the same house produced a 135-ton gun for Cronstadt. The heaviest British gun at that time was of 111...
-How Cannon Are Now Made
It was found that the inner surface of the tube stretched more than the outer surface, and that after the inner surface had been stretched to its limit of elasticity the outer part failed to add to it...
-Built-Up And Wire-Wound Guns
A built-up gun is made of several layers of forged steel. The parts of such a gun are known as the liner, the tube, the jacket and the hoops. The liner is a single piece which extends the length of th...
-Built-Up And Wire-Wound Guns. Continued
Courtesy of the Bethlehem Steel Co. Military cannon are divided into three classes, based upon the length of caliber, and technically known as guns, mortars and howitzers. In guns the length is rel...
-Ammunition
Made-up ammunition, with brass cartridge cases, and cast-iron and forged steel shells and armor-piercing projectiles. The rounds shown are as follows: Rounds with forged steel shell for one-pounder gu...
-Two-Handed Elevating Gear
Method of obtaining a variable movement of a miniature target, corresponding to rolls of a vessel of from 1 to 10 degrees. A series of 25,000 shots were fired thus, by eight gun pointers, at targets c...
-Range Finder And Predictor; Home And Distant Station Instruments
Continuous readings, by means of automatic indicators, of either the actual or the predicted ranges and azimuths of moving target at every instant and for any distance from 1,000 to 15,000 yards and t...
-Armor-Piercing Projectiles, Capped And Uncapped
The projectiles shown are a three-inch capped, a four-inch capped, a five-inch and a six-inch uncapped, eight-inch uncapped and capped, ten-inch uncapped and capped and twelve-inch capped. ...
-Range Finder With Chart Attachment
The chart is drawn on the lower and ground side of a ground glass plate. A pencil point is ecured to moving cross-head and marks position of target on ground glass, tracing movement of same thereon. T...
-Eighteen-Inch, Thirty-Caliber Torpedo Gun
Weight, 134,000 pounds. Length of gun, 528 inches. Weight of projectile, 2,000 pounds. Travel of projectile in bore, 432.4 inches (24.02 calibers). Weight of charge, 310 pounds of smoke-^ss powder. Mu...
-Firing Gear For Guns
External firing gear for guns using loose ammunition. The primer is inserted in the firing gear when the breech mechanism is open, but is held at an angle to the lighting vent until the final locking ...
-Fuses
The fuses shown from left to right are: minor caliber percussion fuse, minor caliber magazine percussion fuse, major caliber percussion fuse, major caliber magazine percussion fuse, triple, double and...
-What Is A Deep-Sea Diver's Dress Like?
There are now two general types of deep-sea diving equipment: an India rubber dress, covering the entire body, except the head, which is covered by a helmet, and another apparatus which is constructed...
-Why Do We Smile When We Are Pleased?
We smile to express our pleasure. When you meet a friend on the street you smile as you greet him. This is an indication of your pleasure at seeing him. This is often caused by an unconscious nervous ...
-Why Do Some Of Us Have Freckles?
Some people have freckles, when others do not, because all skins are not alike, just the same as eyes are not all of one color. People with certain kinds of skin freckle more quickly when the skin is ...
-Mining Ore, Island Of Cuba
The immense veins of magnetic ore lie close to the surface and are mined or quarried by working along a series of benches or ledges. ...
-Loading Ore, Island Of Cuba
The ore is loaded into small buggies at the mines and run down an inclined plane, where it is dumped into railroad cars for transportation to the shipping wharves, seventeen miles distant. ...
-Pig Iron Casting Machine
No. 1 casting machine has a capacity of 1,000 tons per day. There are 180 molds, each pig weighing about 125 pounds. No. 2 machine has a capacity of 1,800 tons per day. It has 278 molds, each for 1...
-Furnaces
Open-Hearth Furnace Stock Yard The raw materials for the open-hearth furnaces are received on elevated railroad tracks graded and piled preparatory to sending to the furnaces. Yard No. 1 is 950 fee...
-Forge Shop
Drop Forge Die Shop This shop has a floor space of 20,400 square feet. With full equipment of most modern die sinking tools. View Of A Section Of Projectile Forge Shop This shop has a floor s...
-Special Car Built For The Shipping Of Large And Heavy Material
Length of car over couplers, 103 feet 10 1/2 inches; capacity, 300,000 pounds. Weight of car, 196,420 pounds. Shown here loaded with casting of large 5,000-ton flanging press. Weight of casting, 252,0...
-The Largest Steel Casting In The World
Combining the product of five 40-ton open-hearth furnaces. Steel casting forming part of a 12,000-ton armor-plate hydraulic forging press. Weight of casting, 325,000 pounds (145 gross tons). ...
-Battleship Turret
Twelve-inch turret carrying two forty-five caliber twelve-inch guns for the U. S. Navy. These guns can be loaded at any angle of elevation or azimuth or while in motion. The turret is equipped with a ...
-What Do We Mean By "Deviation Of The Compass "?
When people speak of deviation of the compass they mean the difference of a ship's compass from the magnetic meridian, caused by the near presence of iron In iron ships the amount of deviation depen...
-The Story In The Making Of A Pair Of Shoes
The covering and protection of the feet has been a necessity in all but the warm climates for very many centuries, various articles being used for this purpose. Leather is now very generally employed,...
-The Story In The Making Of A Pair Of Shoes. Continued
The sole leather portions of the shoe pass through another series of machines, being cut from sides of sole leather by the dieing-out machine, cut to exact shape by the rounding machine and to exact t...
-What Is "Standard Gold"?
Gold is one of the heaviest of the metals, and not being liable to be injured by exposure to the air, it is well fitted to be used as coin. Its ductility and malleability are very remarkable. It may b...
-What Are Cyclones?
A cyclone is a circular or rotatory storm, or system of winds, varying from 50 to 500 miles in diameter, revolving around a center, which advances at a rate that may be as high as forty miles an hour,...
-What Metals Can Be Drawn Into Wire East?
The wire-drawing of metals depends on the property of solid bodies, which renders them capable of being extended without any separation of their parts, while their thickness is diminished. This proper...
-How Are Cocoanuts Used To Help Our Warships?
The fibrous husks of cocoanuts are prepared in such a way as to form cellulose, which is used for the protection of warships, preventing the inflow of water through shot holes. The United States ...
-How Did The Dollar Sign Originate?
The sign, $, used in this country to signify a dollar, is supposed to date from the time of the pillar dollar in Spain. This was known as the Piece of Eight (meaning eight reals), the curve being a ...
-Engine
Seventy horse-power, four-cylinder motor; speed, 35 miles per hour; locomotive bell and hand-operated siren horn; boiler, 36x66 inches; suction hose, 2 lengths, 4 1/2-inch diameter; lanterns, three, f...
-The Story Of The Taking Of Food
From the Air* of nitrogen and you can take off twenty pounds more wheat and forty pounds more straw than you could if you failed to make this application. One pound of nitrogen properly applied to a c...
-The Story Of The Taking Of Food. Part 2
Sugar Cane Crop Fertilized with Cyanamid Mixtures.. Grown in Calumet, La. At the cyanamid plant at Niagara Falls, in Canada, there are seven of these great carbide furnaces, each about fif...
-The Story Of The Taking Of Food. Part 3
Cyanamid Oven Room. Photo by William H. Rau FOREVER RUSHING AND FOREVER WONDERFUL. Niagara Falls from Prospect Point on the American side, looking southwest, across and up the stream. The ...
-What Is A Drawbridge Like Today?
We have all read of the castles in olden days into which the owner could retire and raise a drawbridge across a ditch, thus putting a barrier in the way of his enemies. That old style drawbridge, w...
-The Story Of A Deep Sea Monster
The early day was blue and silver; one of those colorful mornings peculiar to southern Florida. Sandwiched between the earth and the turquoise sky, the Atlantic lay gleaming like a huge silver wafer i...
-What Is An Armored Railway Car Like?
The armored car shown in this picture is the first of a new type of armored car to be constructed by the United States. It was designed under the direction of the Board of Engineers of the U. S. Army,...
-What Is An " Electric Eel"?
This is an eel abundant in the fresh waters of Brazil and the Guianas, which possesses organs capable of developing a strong electric current and thus of giving a violent shock to any one touching the...
-The Story Of Salt
Salt is a chemical compound composed of two elements, sodium and chlorine. Chemically it is known as sodium chloride. It is one of the things which comes into our lives daily, perhaps more than any...
-Why Do We Call It " Denatured Alcohol"?
Under a law passed by the United States Congress in 1907, on alcohol intended for use as fuel or for illuminating purposes, or other mechanical employment, the internal tax need not be paid. But to av...
-What Is The Difference Between A Cruiser And A Battleship?
A cruiser is a vessel built to secure speed and fuel capacity at the expense of armor and battery strength. The modern cruiser may be regarded as the offspring of the frigate of the eighteenth and ...
-The Story Of The Growth Of The
Motor Truck* and commercial vehicles, as reported by the various states, was 48,000 - about one month's production today of one well-known pleasure-car maker. While exact dates are not easily obtai...
-What Is A Diving Bell?
Diving, aside from the pleasure afforded to good swimmers, is important in many different industries, particularly in fishing for pearls, corals, sponges, etc. Without the aid of artificial applian...
-How Are Harbors Dredged Out?
There are several forms of mechanical, power-operated dredges. One of the most common is the clam-shell dredge, consisting of a pair of large, heavy iron jaws, hinged at the back, in general form re...
-How Is A Razor Blade Made?
The best scissors, penknives, razors and lancets are made of cast steel. Table knives, plane irons and chisels of a very superior kind are made of shear steel, while common steel is wrought up into or...
-The Story Of The Tunnels Under The Hudson River
The building of the Hudson River tunnels was probably one of the most daring engineering feats ever accomplished. As is well known, the Hudson River, for the length of Manhattan Island, is approximate...
-The Story Of The Tunnels Under The Hudson River. Part 2
Cutting Shield Head. made by saying that if the ceiling of a room was weak and threatening to fall - if we filled the room with sufficient pressure of air, it would support the ceiling and pr...
-The Story Of The Tunnels Under The Hudson River. Part 3
In the course of their progress, the shields were subjected to the most intense strains and hard usage, as may well be imagined. One of the shields is illustrated. It was used to construct the south t...
-What Causes Floating Islands?
A floating island consists generally of a mass of earth held together by interlacing roots. They occur on the Mississippi and other rivers, being portions of the banks detached by the force of the ...
-The Story Of An Automobile Factory
In visiting the factory where a half million automobiles are made each year, the visitor first comes to the power house. In the construction of this building 5,200 tons of structural steel were use...
-The Story Of An Automobile Factory. Part 2
Near the pay office is the main first-aid department. Here the chief surgeon has on his staff eight regular doctors and several first-aid nurses. The surgical equipment, which includes an X-ray machin...
-The Story Of An Automobile Factory. Part 3
At the end of this testing period, if no defect has developed, the motor is approved, placed upon a special truck and wheeled to the final assembling line. The motor department just described furni...
-The Story Of An Automobile Factory. Part 4
The body department occupies the greatest amount of space, requiring, with the upholstering department, most of the three upper floors. In addition to this work the construction of tops, curtains and ...
-The Story Of An Automobile Factory. Part 5
As soon as the castings have cooled sufficiently they are put into great horizontal cylinders, called tumblers. Small metal stars are placed in these tumblers with the castings, and when the tumbler i...
-How Do Big Buildings Get Their Granite?
Stones suitable for important building purposes are usually found at a good distance below the surface. In the case of unstratified rocks, such as granite, the stone is most frequently detached from t...
-Between New York And Chicago
All-Steel Passenger Train, Drawn by Electric Locomotive, as Used in the New York. ...
-Tunnels Of The Pennsylvania Railroad
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Railroad Co. Electric Train on the Main Line of the Pennsylvania Railroad*. Locomotive Equipped with Fire-Fighting Apparatus*. Courtesy ...
-Railroad At Philadelphia
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Railroad Co. Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Railroad Co. ABOARD THE BROADWAY LIMITED. The observation car is provided with book-cases, a writing desk and steno...
-The Story Of An Up-To-Date Farm
A man who had been tied in a great city all his life made his first visit the other day to an up-to-date farm. He was so surprised at what he saw that he wrote a letter describing his emotions. Some o...
-The Reaping Hook Or Sickle
From the first pages of history we find that the reaping hook or sickle is the earliest tool for harvesting grain of which we have record. Pliny, in describing the practice of reaping wheat says, One...
-Early Attempts To Harvest With Machines
The beginning of practical efforts in the direction of harvesting by wholly mechanical means may be said to date from the beginning of the last century, about the year 1800, although very little progr...
-Development Of The Reaper
The ten years following this first instance of a successful reaper were strenuous times indeed for Cyrus McCormick, for it was not until 1840 or 1841 that he was able to make his first sale. Twenty mo...
-Development Of The Reaper. Continued
No More Tiresome Hay Pitching on this Farm, where Hay Loaders Elevate the. Hay to the Men on the Wagons straight Marsh harvesters - carrying a man to bind - there had been made up to and incl...
-What Causes An Echo?
An echo is caused by the reflection of sound waves at some moderately even surface, such as the wall of a building. The waves of sound on meeting the surface are turned back in their course, according...
-The Story Of The Motion-Picture Projecting Machine
Few businesses have had a more spectacular rise than the motion-picture industry. It may be true that there are other industries of recent growth that are more highly capitalized than the motion-pictu...
-The Story Of The Motion-Picture Projecting Machine. Continued
Thomas A. Edison, was taken up later. The Edison perforation method became The Construction of the Lamphouse Affords Easy Access. The New Arc Lamp. Here, for the benefit of the un...
-The Story Of Leather
We all know that leather is the skins of animals, dressed and prepared for our use by tanning, or some other process, which preserves them from rotting and renders them pliable and tough. The large...
-What Is A "Glass Snake "?
Glass snake is the name which has been given to a lizard resembling a serpent in form and reaching a length of three feet. The joints of the tail are not connected by caudal muscles, hence it is ...
-The Story In Diamond-Cutting
Diamonds were known and worn as jewels (in the rough) in India 5,000 years ago and used as cutters and gravers 3,000 years ago. India was the source of supply until diamonds were discovered in Brazil ...
-The Story In Diamond-Cutting. Continued
In preparing to cut a diamond the rough crystal is studied until the grain is found. Along the grain another sharp-pointed diamond is ground until there is a V-shape incision or nick. The blunt end of...
-Why Do We Get Hungry?
Hunger is a sensation partly arising in the stomach, since it may be relieved temporarily by the introduction into the stomach of material which is incapable of yielding any nutriment to the body. It ...
-The Story In The Modern Lifting Magnet
Nearly every boy has had among his treasured possessions a small horseshoe magnet, painted red, with bright ends, and has spent many happy hours picking up needles, steel pins or other small objects, ...
-Why Is The Thistle The Emblem Of Scotland?
According to tradition, the Danes were attempting to surprise an encampment of the Scotch one night, and had come very near to it without being observed, when a Dane stepped on a thistle and its sharp...
-How Are Animals Identified On Cattle Ranges?
The question of how to mark animals started with the first stock raisers. In those days the main object was to provide some way animals could be identified as to ownerships, and many crude and more or...
-How Is Glue Made?
The best quality of glue is obtained from fresh bones, freed from fat by previous boiling, the clippings and parings of ox hides, the older skins being preferred; but large quantities are also get fro...
-Why Does A Hot Dish Crack If We Put Ice Cream In It?
If we take a hot dish and put ice cream in it, it cracks because the dish when hot has expanded. All the tiny particles that make up the dish have absorbed some heat and have expanded. When the ice cr...
-Acknowledgment
The Editor wishes to express his gratitude and appreciation to the following, to whom he is indebted for much valuable assistance in the form of illustrations and special information: Addressograph...







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