The dyeing process is a very important one, and upon its success
depends the permanency of the various colors.
Vast tubs, tanks, and kettles surround you on every side, and the
hissing steam seems to spring from all quarters. The “gum” of the silk
is first boiled out by immersion in strong soapsuds for about four
hours. The attendants, standing in heavy “clogs” (big shoes with wooden
soles two inches thick), turn the silk on the sticks at intervals
until the gum is removed. After the silk is dyed it is put into a
“steam finisher,” a device looking like a long, narrow box with a
cover opening on the side, set upright on top of an iron cylinder. The
hanks of silk are placed upon two pins in the steam chest, the cover
fastened, and the live steam rushes in around the silk. This brightens
the silk, giving it the lustrous, glossy appearance.
The editors are indebted to the Corticelli Silk Mills, Florence,
Mass., for this story of how silk is made, as well as for permission
to use their splendid life-like copyrighted photographs of the
silkworm. Many teachers will be glad to know that they can obtain
from the Corticelli Silk Mills, at slight expense, specimen cocoons
and other helps for object lesson teaching.
What Animal Can Leap the Greatest Distance?
The galago, or flying lemur. This singular animal is a native of
the Indian Archipelago. It is from 2 ft. to 3 ft. in length, and is
furnished with a sort of membrane on each side of its body connecting
its limbs with each other; this is extended and acts as a parachute
while taking its long leaps, which measure about 300 ft. in an inclined
plane. The kangaroo can leap with ease a distance of between 60 ft. and
70 ft. and can spring clean over a horse and take fences from 12 ft. to
14 ft. in height. The animals that can leap the greatest distance in
proportion to their size are the flea and the grasshopper, the former
being able to leap over an obstacle five hundred times its own height,
while the grasshopper can leap for a distance measuring 200 times its
own length. The springbok will clear from 30 ft. to 40 ft. at a single
bound. The flying squirrel, in leaping from tree to tree often clears
50 ft. in a leap. This animal also has a broad fold of skin or membrane
connecting its fore and hind legs. A steeplechase horse, called The
Chandler, is reported to have covered 39 ft. in a single leap at
Warwick some years ago. Some species of antelopes can make a leap 36
ft. in length and 10 ft. in height. A lion and a tiger each clear from
18 ft. to over 20 ft. at a bound while springing on their prey. A
salmon often leaps 15 ft. out of the water in ascending the falls of
rivers.
Why Do We Call Voting Balloting?
The term covers all forms of secret voting, as in early times such
votes were determined by balls of different colors deposited in the
same box, or balls of one color placed in various boxes. The Greeks
used shells (ostrakon), whence we derive the term ostracism. In 139
B.C. the Romans voted by tickets. The ballot was first used in America
in 1629, when the Salem Church thus chose a pastor. It was employed in
the Netherlands in the same year, but was not established in England
until 1872, although in Scotland it was used in cases of ostracism in
the 17th century. In 1634 the governor of Massachusetts was elected by
ballot, and the constitutions of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and North
Carolina adopted in 1776, made this method of voting obligatory. The
ballot progressed slowly in the Southern States, Kentucky retaining the
viva voce method until a comparatively recent date. In certain states,
the constitutions stipulate that the legislature shall vote viva voce,
i. e., cast their votes orally. Since 1875 all congressmen have been
elected by ballot. In 1888 the Australian ballot system, which requires
the names of all the candidates for the various offices to be placed
on one large sheet of paper, commonly known as a “blanket” ticket, was
adopted in Louisville, Ky., and some sections of Massachusetts. It is
now in very general use in this country. The voter, in the privacy of
an individual booth, indicates his preference by making a mark opposite
a party emblem or a candidate’s name. This system originated in 1851
with Francis S. Dutton, of South Australia, and Henry George, in a
pamphlet, “English Elections,” published in 1882, was the first to
advocate it in the United States. The first bill enacting it into a law
here was introduced in the Michigan legislature in 1887, but it did not
pass until 1889.
Why Do We Call a Cab a Hansom?
The term is applied usually to a public vehicle, known in England as
a “two-wheeler,” or “Hansom” (from the name of the inventor), and
drawn by one horse. In a hansom cab, the passenger or hirer of the
vehicle sits immediately in rear of the dashboard, the driver sitting
on an elevated perch behind, the reins being passed over the top. The
term cab is sometimes also applied to a four-seated, closed or open
carriage, drawn by one or two horses, the driver sitting in front. The
term is also applied to the covered part of a locomotive, in which the
engineer and fireman have their stations. The word cab is derived from
the cabriolet, a light one-horse carriage, with two seats and a calash
top. In London, England, the cab or hansom was called the “gondola” of
the British metropolis by Disraeli.
Where Did the Name Calico Come From?
A fabric of cotton cloth, the name being derived from the city of
Calicut, in Madras, where it was first manufactured, and in 1631
brought to England by the East India Company. Calico-printing, an
ancient Indian and Chinese art, has become a great industry in this
country and in Britain, as well as in Holland.
Who Made the First Postage Stamp?
The stick on postage stamps so generally used today was invented by
an Englishman James Chalmers in 1834. The English Government passed a
bill calling for uniform postage of One Penny in 1840 and furnished
envelopes bearing stamps printed on them. The people did not like them,
however, and the adhesive stamp invented by Chalmers was substituted.
The first stamps used in America were introduced in 1847. People have,
it seems, always preferred to lick their postage stamps.
How Many Languages Are There?
It is said that there are more than 3,400 languages, including
dialects, in the world. Most of them belong, of course, to savage
or uncivilized people. There are said to be more than 900 languages
used in Asia, almost 600 in Europe, 275 in Africa and more than 1,600
languages and dialects which are American.
What Is the Deepest Mine In the World?
The mine that goes farther down than any other in the world is the rock
salt mine near Berlin, Germany which is 4,175 feet. It is not, however,
straight down but somewhat slanting. The Calumet Copper Mine near Lake
Superior is at a depth in some places of 3,900 feet.
The deepest boring in the world is an artesian well at Potsdam,
Missouri, which is 5,500 feet deep or more than one mile straight down.
What Is Color?
~WHAT PRODUCES THE COLORS WE SEE?~
What is termed the color-sense is the power or ability to distinguish
kinds or varieties of light and their distinctive tints. We owe the
faculty of doing this to the structure of the eye and its elaborate
connecting nerve machinery. The eye in man is specially sensitive to
light, and the sensations we feel through it enables us to distinguish
the different colors. Over 1,000 monochromatic tints are said to
be distinguishable by the retina of the eye, though these numerous
tints are, in the main, merely blendings or combinations of the three
primary color-sensations, the sense of red, of green and of violet.
Each of these colors, it has been demonstrated, is produced by light
of a varying wave length, while white light is only light in which the
primary colors are combined in proper proportion. Colored light, on the
other hand, as Newton proved, may be produced from white light in one
of three ways: First, by refraction in a prism or lens, as observed in
the rainbow; second, by diffraction, as in the blue color of the sky,
or in the tints seen in mother-of-pearl; and third, by absorption,
as in the red color of a brick wall, or in the green of grass--the
white light which falls upon the wall being wholly absorbed, save by
the red, and all that falls upon the grass being absorbed except the
green. In art, color means that combination or modification of tints
which is specially suited to produce a particular or desired effect in
painting; in music, the term denotes a particular interpretation which
illustrates the physical analogy between sound and color.
Where Did the Term Dixie Originate?
The term was applied originally to New York City when slavery existed
there. According to a myth or legend, a person named Dixie owned a
tract of land on Manhattan Island and had a large number of slaves. As
Dixie’s slaves increased beyond the requirements of the plantation,
many were sent to distant parts. Naturally the deported negroes looked
upon their early home as a place of real and abiding happiness, as did
those from the “Ole Virginny” of later days. Hence “Dixie” became the
synonym for a locality where the negroes were happy and contented. In
the South, Dixie is taken to mean the Southern States. There the word
is supposed to have been derived from Mason and Dixon’s line, formerly
dividing the free states from the slave states. It is said to have
first come into use there when Texas joined the Union, and the negroes
sang of it as Dixie. It has been the theme of several popular songs,
notably that of Albert Pike, “Southrons, Hear Your Country Call”; that
of T. M. Cooley, “Away Down South where Grows the Cotton,” and that
of Dan Emmett, the refrain usually containing the word “Dixie” or the
words “Dixie’s Land.” During the Civil War, the tune of “Dixie” was to
the Southern people what “Yankee Doodle” had always been to the people
of the whole Union and what it continued, in war times, to be to the
Northern people, the comic national air. The tune is “catchy” to the
popular ear and it was played by the bands in the Union army during
the war as freely as by those on the other side. During the rejoicing
in Washington over the surrender of Lee at Appomattox, a band played
“Dixie” in front of the White House. President Lincoln began a short
speech, immediately afterward, with the remark, “That tune fairly
belongs to us now; we’ve captured it.”
How Big Is the Earth?
The third planet in order of distance from the sun, Mercury and Venus
being nearer to it. It is in shape a sphere slightly flattened at the
poles and bulged at the equator, hence it is called an oblate spheroid.
The equatorial diameter or axis measures 7,926 miles and 1.041 yds.,
and the polar diameter is 7,899 miles and 1.023 yds. The earth revolves
upon its axis, completing its diurnal or daily revolution in a sidereal
day, which is 3 minutes and 55.9 seconds shorter than a mean solar day.
It revolves around the sun in one sidereal year, which is 365 days, 6
hours, 9 minutes, and 9 seconds. Its orbit or path around the sun is an
ellipse, having the sun in one of the foci. The earth’s mean distance
from the sun is 93,000,000 miles. Its axis is inclined to the plane
of its orbit at an angle of 23° 27′ 12.68″. The circumference at the
equator measures 24,899 miles. The total surface is 196,900,278 sq.
miles, and the solid contents is 260,000,000,000 cubic miles. As we
descend into the earth the temperature rises at the rate of 1° Fahr.
for every 50 ft. At the depth of 10 or 12 miles the earth is red-hot,
and at a depth of 100 miles the temperature is such that at the surface
of the earth it would liquefy all solid matter in the earth.
What Causes Hail?
Hail is the name given to the small masses of ice which fall in
showers, and which are called hailstones. When a hailstone is examined
it is found usually to consist of a central nucleus of compact snow,
surrounded by successive layers of ice and snow. Hail falls chiefly in
Spring and Summer, and often accompanies a thunderstorm. Hailstones
are formed by the gradual rise and fall, through different degrees of
temperature (by the action of windstorms), and they then take on a
covering of ice or frozen snow, according as they are carried through a
region of rain or snow.
With regard to rain, it may be said, in popular language, that under
the influence of solar heat, water is constantly rising into the air by
evaporation from the surface of the sea, lakes, rivers, and the moist
surface of the ground. Of the vapors thus formed the greater part is
returned to the earth as rain. The moisture, originally invisible,
first makes its appearance as cloud, mist or fog; and under certain
atmospheric conditions the condensation proceeds still further until
the moisture falls to the earth as rain. Simply and briefly, then, rain
is caused by the cooling of the air charged with moisture.
Why Does a Human Being Have To Learn to Swim?
It is strange, isn’t it, that almost every animal, excepting man and
possibly the monkey, knows how to swim naturally; others such as birds,
horses, dogs, cows, elephants, can swim as soon as they can move about
alone.
The trouble with man in this connection is that his natural motion is
climbing. He has been a climber ever since he was developed from the
monkey, and when you throw him into the water before he has learned to
swim, he naturally starts to climb and as a climbing motion won’t do,
for swimming, the man will drown.
This climbing motion is as much of an instinct in man and monkeys as
the instinct in dogs which causes him to turn round once or twice
before he lies down just as his forefathers used to do ages ago when,
as wild dogs, they first had to trample the grass before they could lie
down comfortably.
Why Do I Get Cold in a Warm Room?
I suppose you mean the instances when you get cold while in a warm room
even when you are perfectly well. This will happen often when all of
the moisture in the room outside of what is in your body, is evaporated
by the heat in the room. The remedy is, of course, to keep a pan of
water some place in the room as the air has become too dry.
While heat is necessary to evaporate water, the process of evaporation
produces cold. The quicker the evaporation the sharper the cold feeling
produced. Now your body is continually evaporating the water from your
body which comes out in the form of perspiration through the pores of
the skin. This is one of nature’s ways of taking the impurities and
waste out of the body. You know, of course, don’t you, that more than
one-half the waste material which the body expels from the system comes
out through the pores of the skin rather than through the canals.
When the air in the room becomes too dry, the evaporation on the
outside of the body proceeds faster and makes you cold. By keeping
water in some vessel in the room you keep the air of the room from
becoming too dry.
Why Do They Call Them Wisdom Teeth?
The wisdom teeth are the two last molar teeth to grow. They come one
on each side of the jaw and arrive somewhere between the ages of
twenty and twenty-five years. The name is given them because it is
supposed that when a person has developed physically and mentally to
the point where he has secured these last two teeth he has also arrived
at the age of discretion. It does not necessarily mean that one who
has cut his wisdom teeth is wise, but that having lived long enough
to grow these, which complete the full set of teeth, the person has
passed sufficient actual years that, if he has done what he should to
fit himself for life, he should have come by that time at the age of
discretion or wisdom. As a matter of fact these teeth grow at about the
same age in people whether they are wise or not.
What Makes Freckles Come?
Freckles are generally caused by the exposure of unprotected parts of
the body to the sun, but this will not cause freckles on all people.
Only people with certain kinds of sensitive skins freckle. What happens
when freckles are produced in this way is this: The sunlight shining on
the face, neck or arms of anyone who has a tendency to freckle, has a
peculiar action on certain cells of the skin which produces a yellowish
brown coloring pigment, which remains for a time.
Then again the skins of some people are so peculiarly sensitive the
cells develop this kind of coloring matter in almost any kind of light
and such people are, so to speak, apt to be freckled for life.
[Illustration: First successful power-driven aeroplane. The Langley
monoplane with steam engine, which flew over the Potomac River in 1896.]