~INTERESTING GOVERNMENTS IN FLYING MACHINES~
It was not till 1908 that the Wright Brothers found purchasers for
their invention. In that year they made a contract to furnish one
machine to the Signal Corps of the United States Army and to sell the
rights to their invention in France to a French company. In both cases
they agreed to carry a passenger in addition to the operator, fuel
sufficient for a flight of 100 miles, and to make a speed of 40 miles
an hour.
After making some preliminary practice flights at their old experiment
grounds near Kitty Hawk in May, 1908, Wilbur Wright went to France to
give demonstrations before the French Syndicate and Orville Wright to
Washington to deliver the machine to the United States Signal Corps.
The machines used by Wilbur Wright had been standing in bond in the
warehouse at Havre since August of the year before. Owing to damage
done to the machine in shipment, it was not ready for the official
demonstrations until late in the year.
Meanwhile Orville Wright in September, 1908, started demonstrations
of the machine contracted for by the United States Government. On the
9th he made two flights, one of 57 minutes, and the other one hour
and 2 minutes, world’s records. On the 10th and 11th, these records
were increased and on the 12th a flight of 1 hour and 15 minutes was
made. On the 17th, the tests were terminated by an accident in which
Lieutenant Selfridge met his death and Mr. Wright was severely injured,
so that he was not able to complete the tests until the following year.
Four days after the accident, on the 21st of September, Wilbur Wright
made a flight of 1 hour and 31 minutes at Le Mans, France, which record
he improved several times during the following months, and on the 31st
of December, won the Michelin Trophy by a flight, in which he remained
in the air 2 hours and 24 minutes.
Where Is the Wind When It Is Not Blowing?
The answer is, of course, that there isn’t any wind then. To understand
this perfectly we must study a little and find out what wind is. In
plain words it is nothing more than moving air.
If you make a hole in the bottom of a pail of water the water will run
out slowly. If you knock the whole bottom out of the pail filled with
water, the water will rush out before you know it.
That is about what happens to make the wind. The air is constantly
full of air currents, like the currents you can see in a river. Down
the middle of the river you may notice a softly-flowing current going
straight. Along the shores there will be little side currents going
in all directions, and you may find some little whirlpools. That is
exactly what we should see in the air if we could see air currents.
Where Does the Wind Begin?
The movement of these currents of air leaves many pockets of space
where there is no air, and when one of these is uncovered the air
rushes in and creates a wind in doing so. These air currents are
continually pressing against each other to get some place else. They
change their direction according to the pressure that is being applied
to them. Sometimes the pressure will be very light in one part of the
air, many miles away perhaps, and then the air in another part, which
is under great pressure, will rush with great force into the part where
the pressure is light, and thus form a big wind. When the pressure
stops the wind stops.
We have probably felt the wind which comes out of the valve of the
automobile tire when the cap is taken off to pump up the tire. It is a
real wind that comes out. The reason is that the air in the tube of the
tire is under great pressure, and when the opportunity is given to get
where the pressure is light it starts for that place with a rush and
comes out of the valve a real wind.
What Causes the Wind’s Whistle?
The whistle of the wind is caused very much like the whistle you make
with your mouth or the noise made by the steam escaping through the
spout of the kettle. You do not hear the wind whistle when you are
out in it. You can hear it when you are in the house and the wind is
blowing hard. When the wind blows against the house it tries to get
in through all the crevices, under the cracks of the doors, down the
chimneys, wherever it finds an opening. And whenever it starts through
an opening that is too small for it, it makes a noise like the steam
coming out of the spout of the kettle, provided the opening is of a
certain shape.
Not all the noises made by the wind, however, are made in this way. The
wind in blowing against things makes them vibrate like the strings of a
piano or violin, and when things vibrate, as we have already seen, they
produce sound waves, which, when they strike our ears, produce sounds
of various kinds. The wind even on ordinary days makes the telegraph
and telephone wires hum, as you can prove to yourself by placing your
ear against a telegraph or telephone pole, and whenever the wind makes
anything vibrate, a great many queer sounds are produced, which often
frighten us more than they should.
Why Does the Air Never Get Used Up?
Simply because it is constantly being replenished. The three gases,
oxygen, nitrogen and carbonic acid gas, which are found in the air
about us, are constantly being used up. All living animal creatures are
at all times taking oxygen out of the air to live on. Certain microbes
are using up quantities of the nitrogen all the time, and the plants
live on the carbonic acid gas. But while these different kinds of life
between them use up the air, they give back something also. The plants
give off oxygen. The bodies of the animals and plants when they die
decompose, and as they are full of nitrogen, that is given back to the
air in that way, and then all living creatures are always throwing off
carbonic acid gas through their lungs, and thus everything that is
taken out of the air is put back again. The plants live on carbonic
acid gas, and give us back oxygen. The living creatures live on oxygen
and give off carbonic acid gas, and when they die their bodies put
back in the air the nitrogen which the microbes take out, and so,
consumption and production are about equal all the time.
Why Can’t We See Air?
We cannot see air because it has no color and is perfectly transparent.
If at times it appears that there is color in the air it is not the
air you see, but some little particles of various substances in it.
Sometimes you think when you look off toward a range of mountains or
hills, for instance, that the air is blue. You know the grass and trees
on the mountains are green, so it cannot be they that have turned blue,
and so you think the air is blue. But it is only the sunlight reflected
to your eyes from the little particles of dirt and other substances
which fill the air at all times which makes the blue that you see, and
not the air.
Pure air is a mixture of gases without any color and is perfectly
transparent. Air is nearly entirely composed of a gas called
nitrogen--the remainder being oxygen with a little water and carbonic
acid gas, which latter is thrown off in breathing. This is, however,
but a very small percentage.
Air has been and still can be reduced to a liquid state, and with
the use of it in this form many seemingly wonderful things can be
done, which are interesting to look at, but have not as yet become
commercially practical.
Why Does Thunder Always Come After the Lightning?
This occurs simply because lightning or light travels so much more
quickly than sound. Light travels at the rate of 186,000 miles per
second, and sound travels only at the rate of 1090 feet per second when
the temperature is at 32 degrees. Now, the thunder and lightning come
at the same time and place in the air, but the light travels so much
faster that you see the lightning often quite some seconds before you
hear the thunder. In fact, you can tell quite accurately how far away
from you the flash of lightning and clap of thunder are by taking a
watch and noting the number of seconds which elapse between the flash
of the lightning and the time when you hear the roll of the thunder.
If as much as five seconds elapse you can figure that it was about a
mile away from you, since sound travels only about 1100 feet per second
and there are 5280 feet in a mile. When the thunder and lightning come
close together you may know that it is near by, and when they come at
the same time you may be sure it is very close. When, therefore, you
see the lightning and then have to wait several seconds for the noise
of the thunder, you may rest easy about the lightning hurting you,
because you know then it is too far away to harm you, and when it is so
close that the lightning and thunder come simultaneously, there is no
use being afraid, because if you were to be struck you would have been
struck at the same instant or before you would have had time to notice
that the lightning and thunder come together.
How Big Is the Sun?
It is very difficult to gain a clear idea of how very large the sun
really is. We know from the scientists who have measured it with their
accurate measuring instruments that it is 865,000 miles through it, and
that at its largest part it is 2,722,000 miles around. Now, you can
see why I said it is very difficult to get a clear conception of the
sun’s size. A mile is quite a long distance to walk on a hot day. Now,
the earth is 8000 miles through. If there were a tunnel right through
the earth, like the subway, and you started to walk it, it would take
you 83¹⁄₃ days if you walked day and night without stopping to rest or
eat, if you kept going at the rate of four miles every hour. This would
be a long, hot walk, for, of course, the inside of the earth is hot,
as we have already learned. It would take an automobile, going at the
rate of 40 miles an hour night and day, about nine days to make the
trip through such a subway from one side of the earth to the other.
That makes it look like a pretty big old earth, doesn’t it? But let us
see what would happen if we started to do the same thing on the sun.
The sun is 865,000 miles through. If you were to walk through a similar
tunnel on the sun at four miles per hour it would take you 20 years,
not counting the stops, and an automobile going 40 miles an hour day
and night would take two years and a half to make the trip one way.
The sun is ninety million miles from the earth and an automobile
travelling at the rate of forty miles per hour day and night on a
straight road, without stopping, would be 257 years in getting there.
When we stop to think of how big the bulk of the sun is it is
altogether beyond us. We have a general idea that our earth is a pretty
large affair as worlds go, and yet we cannot conceive how much the
bulk of the earth amounts to. Still, the sun is so large that it could
contain a million worlds like our own.
How Hot Is the Sun?
We think the sun is pretty hot in summer when the thermometer goes
up to 90 degrees in the shade or out. We begin to get sunburned long
before it reaches that high. But right on the sun’s surface it is
between 10,000 and 15,000 degrees hot. That is, of course, a degree
of heat which we cannot conceive. How much hotter still it is on the
inside of the sun we don’t as yet know. It must be awfully hot there.
Why Is It Warm in Summer?
It is warm in summer because at that season of the year the heat rays
of the sun strike our part of the earth through less air. The blanket
of air which surrounds the earth is very much in comparison as to
thickness like the peeling of an orange and surrounds the earth in
just the same way. If you stick a pin straight into an unpeeled orange
you only have to stick it in a little way before you reach the juicy
part of the orange, but if you stick the pin in at an angle the pin
will travel a much longer ways through pure peeling before it strikes
the juicy part. Now, then, in summer the rays of the sun come down
to us straight through the peeling of air, and less of the heat is
lost by contact with the air, and that makes it warmer in summer. The
explanation also accounts for your next question.
Why Is It Cold in Winter?
In winter the heat rays of the sun strike at our part of the earth at
the angle at which you stick the pin into the orange when you wish to
make it travel through the most peeling. In winter the rays strike
the earth at such an angle that a great deal of the heat is lost in
travelling through the air, because they have to come through so much
more of the air. Of course, the sun’s rays strike some part of the
earth straight down through the peeling of air at all times, and at the
equator this occurs all the year round, so it is always summer there,
while at the North and South Poles the rays always strike the earth at
the greatest possible angle, and it is always very cold winter there.
In between, when it is neither hot nor cold, we have spring and fall,
due to the fact that the rays come down at an angle, but not so great
an angle.
Why Have We Five Fingers on Each Hand and Five Toes on Each Foot?
All animals, it seems, from a study of nature were started with ten
fingers and ten toes, the fingers originally having been the toes of
the fore legs. In a good many cases the environment in which animals
have lived has caused a change in the formation of the ends of the
limbs as well as in the limbs themselves. The horse, for instance, has
developed into a one toe or one finger animal, while a cow is a two
finger animal. The hen has only three toes on each foot and a part of
another. But if we go back into the history and examine how the horses’
foot used to look we will find that he originally had five toes. The
same is true of the cow and also the hen. Something happened to cause
the change, for the rule of five fingers and five toes on the end of
each limb has been universal. If you examine a chicken in a shell just
before it is ready to come out, you can distinctly count five toes on
each foot and at the ends of the wings you will see five little points,
which under other conditions would develop into fingers, perhaps.
Some of these toes of the new-born chicken do not develop. It can be
accepted as a rule that creatures were intended in the original plan to
have five fingers on each hand and five toes on each foot, making our
count of tens, which is the world’s basis for counting, and has always
been.
Why Do We Have Finger Nails?
Finger nails and toe nails are only another phase of the development
of man from the animal that originally walked on four feet. Animals
that walk on all fours use the finger and toe coverings which in man
is the nail, to scratch in the ground, to attack enemies, and to climb
with, and our nails of the present day are what the development of man
into a civilized being has changed them to. At that, there are still
uses for finger nails and toe nails, or man in his changing to a higher
plane would have found a way to develop away from them. They are useful
to-day in making our fingers and toes firm at the end, and enable us
to pick up things more easily. The time may come when man will have
neither finger nails nor toe nails.
Why Are Our Fingers of Different Lengths?
There is no known reason why our fingers should be of different lengths
to-day; in fact, it is thought by some people that the hand would
be stronger if the fingers were all of the same length. Certainly,
however, the hands would not then be so beautiful, and it might not be
so useful. The human hand to-day is perhaps the most versatile thing
in the world. You can do more things with the hand than with any other
thing in the world. The probability is that the shape of the hand
to-day and the length of the fingers are the result of the different
things the human being has called upon the hand to do during man’s
development up to the present time.
We must go back to the time, however, when man walked on fours, for
that is probably the real explanation. Originally man’s fingers were
of different lengths because all four-footed animals had the same
peculiarities. The shape and length of the toes and their arrangement
were the ideal arrangement for giving the proper balance and support
to the body, and in moving about and in climbing produced the best toe
hold.
Why Does It Hurt When I Cut My Finger?
It hurts when you cut your finger, or, rather, where you cut it,
because the place you have cut is exposed to the oxygen in the air, and
as soon as it is so exposed a chemical action begins to take place,
just as when you cut an apple and lay it aside you come back and find
the cut surface all turned brown. If the apple could feel it would
hurt also, because the chemical action is much the same. The apple has
a skin which protects its inside from the oxygen in the air, and you
have also a skin which protects you from the oxygen as long as it is
unbroken.
What happens, of course, is this: When you cut your finger you sever
the tiny little veins and nerves which are in your finger. They are
spread all over your body like a net-work under the skin, close to the
surface in most places. The nerves when cut send a quick message to the
brain, with which they are connected, telling that they are damaged,
and the brain calls on the heart and other functions to get busy and
repair the damage along the line. There may be some hurt while this
process of repairing is going on, but the principal part of your hurt,
outside of what we call your feelings, is due to the fact that the
inside of you is thus exposed to the chemical action of the air. Then I
can hear you say next:
Why Don’t My Hair Hurt When It Is Being Cut?
It does not hurt to cut anything that has no nerves. There are no
nerves in the hair which the barber cuts. If he pulls out a hair it
hurts, because the root of the hair has nerves, which telegraph notice
of the damage to the brain. When a dentist takes out or kills the nerve
in your tooth you cannot have any more toothache in that tooth, because
there is no nerve there to send the message to the brain. You can cut
your finger nails without feeling pain, because they have no nerves at
the ends, but underneath, where they join the skin of the finger, there
are a great many nerves, and it hurts very much to bruise the nails at
that location.
Of What Use Is My Hair?
~WHY WE HAVE HAIR~
Your hair is a relic of the days when the entire body was covered with
hair, just like some animals to-day, to protect the body from the heat,
cold and wet. Man has, however, for so long a time worn clothes over
most of his body that the need of the hair to protect him from these
elements has all but disappeared, and so also has the hair, excepting
in such places as the top of the head and face and other exposed
parts. If you were to go out into the woods without clothes and live
a long time your body would probably again become covered with hairs.
The time is coming, however, it is believed, when human beings will
have no hair at all on their bodies. You have hair on your head, but
if you were to wear a hat or cap all the time you would soon be bald.
Hair is of no use to us to-day excepting to adorn our bodies and add
to our appearance. This it seems to do to-day, probably because we
are accustomed to seeing it, and will make no difference in our looks
relatively if the time comes when we have no hair at all.
Why Does My Hair Stand On End When I Am Frightened?
It does this under certain conditions, because there is a little
muscle down at the root of each hair that will make each hair stand
up straight when this muscle pulls a certain way. It is difficult to
say just how these muscles are caused to act in this way when we are
frightened. We know that when thoroughly frightened our hair will
sometimes stand straight up, and we know that it is this muscle at the
root of each hair that makes it possible, but why it is that a big
scare will make this muscle act this way we do not as yet know.
What Makes Some People Bald?
The chief cause of baldness is the lack of care of the hair. It is as
necessary for the roots of the hair to have a free circulation of
the blood and that the hair itself should have plenty of air as it is
necessary for the brain to have a good circulation. A great many men
become bald through wearing their hats most of the time. The hat pulled
down tight over the head presses against the scalp and interferes with
the circulation of the blood in the scalp. Then, also, many hats do
not have any means of ventilation, and that keeps the pure air away
from the hair. The hair then becomes sick and dies, just as flowers
wilt if you keep them away from the air. You will notice that women
do not become bald so easily. One reason is that even when the women
wear large hats, as they often do, there is plenty of room for the air
to circulate through the hair, even when the hat is on, and women’s
hats are not pulled down tightly on the scalp. Therefore, they do not
press on the arteries and veins in the scalp and interfere with the
circulation of the blood. Another reason why women do not become bald
is that the hair of women has long been their “crowning glory”; a man
likes to see a fine head of hair on a woman, and as women have long
tried to please men in every possible way, they take better care of
their hair than men do, because they like to have the men consider it
beautiful.
What Makes Some Things in the Same Room Colder than Others?
The objects in a room which has been kept at a given even temperature
of heat will be all the same temperature, because heat spreads from one
thing to another equally.
Still, if you put your hands on various objects in such a room some
of them will feel colder than others. You touch the tiling of the
fireplace and that will feel cool to you. On the other hand, the
upholstered furniture will feel quite warm. The piano keys feel cool,
while the wood of the piano and case is warm. The difference is due to
the fact that heat or cold will run through some objects more quickly
than through others. It will run through the tiling on the hearth
and the piano keys more quickly than through the upholstering on the
furniture or the wood of the piano case. When you touch a thing with
your finger you supply some of the heat of your body to the object
through your finger. If the object is the tiling on the hearth or
the keys of the piano the heat runs through it quickly and you get a
cold impression in your finger. On the other hand, if you touch the
upholstery on the furniture, through which the heat runs slowly, you
get a warm feeling for the very same reason. Thus, anything which
carries the heat away from our contact quickly we call a cold feeling
object, and if the object touched does not carry the heat away so
quickly we call it a warm feeling object.
Why Does the Hair Grow After the Body Stops Growing?
The hair on our bodies is one of the things that is continually wearing
or falling away, and since, like the skin, it is necessary to protect
certain portions of the body, the hair keeps on growing long after the
grown up period has arrived. The skin is a very necessary protection
of the whole body, but is constantly being worn away, and is all the
time being replaced. Your hair falls out when it is not healthy. Unless
proper care is given to it, it will fall out and not grow in again, and
then we become bald.
Will People All Be Bald Sometime?
There is a theory that before many years have passed human beings
will lose all of the hairs which now grow on different parts of their
bodies, due to the fact that we wear so much clothing and keep so much
of our bodies away from the sunlight. If that time comes we shall have
a hairless race of men and women.