After the moisture has been thoroughly removed in the granulators
or dryers, the sugar drops directly to the sacking room through
a chute, at the lower end of which the top of the double bag is
attached. The sugar flows directly into the sack, the flow being cut
off automatically with each 100 pounds, when an endless belt conveyor
passes the upright sack past the sewing machine at the proper speed and
the product is sealed ready for storage or shipment.
While it requires from 400 to 1000 men to man a factory, not a human
hand has touched either beets or product since the beets were topped in
the field, and at no stage of the operation could flies or vermin or
filth come in contact with the product, which from the beginning has
been subjected to continuous high temperatures.]
Pictures herewith by courtesy of United States Beet Sugar Industry.
How Can We Smell Things?
You do not need to be told what organ of the body we use in exercising
the sense of smell. You can prove that easily to yourself by getting
the nose within range of a distasteful smell.
We do not use all of the nose to smell with, and the nose is useful to
us in other ways besides this. We use the nose a great deal in the act
of respiration or breathing, and it is also useful in helping us to
make sounds, form words, and, though you may not have known it, helps
our sense of taste.
We smell things by means of the olfactory nerves which are located
within the nose. The entire interior surface of the nose is covered
with a membrane. The ends of olfactory nerves, or the nerves which give
us the sensation of smell, are in this membrane, and the air, which is
filled with the odor of things we smell, passes over this membrane, and
thus the ends of the nerves feel the odor and cause sensation of smell
in the brain. The nerves of smell do not, however, go all through this
membrane.
There are other nerves in the nose, however, besides those which give
us the sensation of smell. These are also very sensitive and serve to
make the nose exercise other functions when the inside of the nose is
hurt or tickled. When a foreign substance, one of the many smaller
particles which are constantly floating in the air, gets into the
membrane in the nose, it irritates these nerves and often causes us
to sneeze, which is only nature’s effort to drive out this foreign
substance and clean out the nose. Smell is one of the lesser of the
five senses which we possess. It is one of what has been called the
chemical senses. The sense of smell does not act at any great distance.
This sense could be made of more value to us if we developed it. Some
people have a more highly developed sense of smell than others. The
lower animals have a much keener sense of smell than people. A great
many of them can follow a trail for miles merely by the smell of the
foot-prints, and it is said that a deer will note the presence of man
or any other animal that may subject him to danger even when miles
away, the odor being carried to him through the air.
How Do We Taste Things?
The sense of taste is closely associated with the sense of smell. In
fact we do a good deal of what we think is tasting by using our sense
of smell. A cold in the nose will sometimes destroy almost altogether
the taste of food, so that there is a very close connection between the
sense of taste and the sense of smell.
The sense of taste comes to us through the tongue, which is the
principal organ of taste. The remainder of our sense of taste lies in
the surface of the palate and in the throat. As in the case of the
other senses, the sensation of taste is given us through nerves, the
ends of which are all through those parts of the tongue, the palate
and the throat, which contribute to this sense. More nerves of taste
are located in the back part of the tongue than on the front, and it
is said that when you have to swallow a bad dose of medicine it won’t
taste so much if you put it on the front part of your tongue and then
swallow, because there are so few tasting nerves there. The extreme tip
of the tongue, however, is very thickly covered with the ends of the
taste nerves. In like manner one could have the front end of the tongue
cut off and still retain most of the sense of taste.
Now, in order to produce the sensation of taste, the substance to be
tasted must come in contact with something which mixes with it and
causes the sensation of taste. This is what happens when we taste
anything. The juices or liquids which are caused to flow when anything
is put into the mouth act on the substances which enter and give the
taste nerves a chance to taste them. Really the nerves of taste are so
placed in the mouth as to be regular guards or inspectors of what shall
go into the stomach. You can see how well they are arranged. In the tip
of the tongue quite a few of them; in the back part of the tongue a
great many nerves, for from there the food goes into the throat, which
delivers it to the stomach; then those in the palate and in the throat.
They are arranged so that the taste nerves have ample opportunity to
test what comes in and to give warning to the brain of what is being
sent to the stomach. Sometimes the things that come into the mouth
are so distasteful to the nerves of taste that they refuse to hand it
over to the stomach, but instead cause the distasteful substance to be
thrown out again immediately.
It is said that a good rule to follow in eating would be to swallow
only such things as are pleasing to the sense of taste. On this
principle many children would decide to eat nothing but candy, but do
you know, if you tried that, the continuous tasting of sweets by our
sense of taste nerves would cause them to repel further insertion of
candy after a while. You know that too much of a good thing is bad for
you, and that is what makes you feel badly when you have eaten too much
of one thing.
What Happens When We See?
~HOW WE SEE THINGS~
Of course, it is the eyes with which we see things. When we think of
the things with which we see, we think only of eyes, which give us our
sense of vision, but there are certain forms of animal life which have
no eyes but which have what are called eye spots or eye points, which
are sensitive to light and which are merely spots. These eye spots
may be located in any part of the body, and are often found in great
numbers on the same body. These rude eyes are, however, not real eyes.
They are, as has already been said, sensitive to light, but are found
only in some of the very low forms of animal life which live in the
water. A real eye is an organ in which the parts are so arranged that
optical images may be formed.
As animal life becomes developed to a higher scale, the parts which
contain the making of real eyes become more distinct although, of
course, the eyes themselves are not so highly developed as in man. One
of the first kinds of life which has eyes with a definite structural
character are the worms, snails, etc., though their sense of vision is
more or less dim.
When we come to the family of mollusks, however, low down in the scale
of life though they are, we find them to possess eyes which enable them
to see almost as well as animals which have a backbone, although this
kind of eyes is constructed in a very different manner than the eyes
of vertebrate animals referred to. As we ascend the scale of animal
life in the study of eyes, we come next to the crustaceous, which is an
important division of animal life that embraces the crabs and lobsters,
shrimps, crawfish, and insects such as sand-hoppers, beach-fleas,
wood-lice, fish-lice, barnacles. The eyes of such animals are quite
developed, but the number that each will have varies. Some have only a
single eye and others two, four, six or eight, but only certain kinds
of this class of life have more than two eyes. The spiders generally
have the most.
In vertebrates, which is the class of animal life to which we belong,
the number of eyes is almost always two and no more. The eyes are
formed in special sockets in the skull, which are called eye sockets
or orbits. This arrangement of placing them in a socket is of great
advantage because the eye is thus protected from chance of injury
except from one direction--the front. These animals have also eyelids,
eyebrows and eyelashes, which serve as a further protection to the eyes.
The principal parts of the eye are arranged in a globe-like ball called
the eyeball. This eyeball is movable in the socket under control of
various muscles. The eyeball is almost surrounded by a membrane which
is opaque in most parts, but very transparent at the front. This
transparent portion of the surrounding membrane is called the cornea,
and is quite hard. This is the outside coat of the eye. The second
coat of membrane consists of parts of various names and contains the
iris. The third coat is the retina, which is the end of the optic nerve
entering the eye full from behind and expanded into a membrane which
spreads out over the second coat.
The retina or optic nerve receives optical impressions focused upon it
by the crystalline lens. These impressions are carried along the optic
nerve to the brain, and the brain then receives the sensation of seeing
the image. The eyeball is hollow, and its three surrounding coats
form what is practically the same as the interior of a camera. The
crystalline lens of the eye acts the same as the lens in the camera.
This crystalline lens is suspended within the eyeball right in front of
the transparent opening in the front of the eyeball, and when the rays
of light strike this lens it focuses them on the retina, which is the
same as the film in your camera.
Why Can We Hear?
We can hear because nature has provided us with a very wonderful organ
called the ear and which catches the sound waves that come through the
air into the ear and make a part of the ear vibrate.
In man and mammals the ear is generally found on the outside of the
body, but the principal part of the ear is located within the skull.
What we call ears are only the funnel-shaped extensions on the outside
of the head which are not so very important so far as hearing is
concerned, because they only help the real ear to hear more easily. The
outside of the ear gathers in the sound waves and, because it is much
larger than the little hole which takes the sounds in to the real ear,
we can detect more sounds by having this funnel-shaped arrangement on
the outside.
The inside of the ear contains an eardrum or tympanum which is
separated from the outside part of the ear by a membrane. Behind this
eardrum is the real hearing part of the ear in a labyrinth containing
the nerves of hearing.
Now, when a sound wave strikes the membrane which hangs over the
opening before the eardrum, the membrane vibrates and transmits the
sound wave through the eardrum into the inner ear which contains the
ends of the nerves by which we hear. These nerves, on receiving the
sensation, transmit it to the brain which thus records the impression
of sounds.
As we descend the scale of animal life from the mammals downward, the
ear becomes a more and more simple organ. In the vertebrates which
are not mammals, there is no external ear at all, and we find great
simplifications of the ear the lower down in the scale we go.
What Is a Totem Pole For?
Before people had individual names, the savage people who lived in
clans or tribes referred to themselves in the name of some natural
object, usually an animal which they assumed as the name or emblem
of the clan or tribe. These names never applied to one individual
more than another, but only to the clan or tribe, so that everyone
in a tribe which had taken the “wolf” for its emblem was known as
“Wolf.” Later on they began to distinguish individuals by giving them
additional names characteristic of the individual, such as “Lonely
Wolf,” “Growling Wolf,” or other names. The name of this animal was
then the emblem of one tribe. They, therefore, placed this emblem upon
their bodies, their clothes, utensils, etc. Through this, these emblems
also became at times idols of worship and so they erected poles upon
which their emblems were engraved. The word totem is a North American
Indian word meaning “family token.” The tribes called themselves after
animals from which they believed themselves descended.
Where Does a Flower Get Its Perfume?
The perfume or smell of the flower comes from within the plant itself.
The perfume arises from an oil which the plant makes, and just as there
are many kinds of flowers, so almost every flower has a different
smell. Of course, flowers belonging to the same family or species are
likely to develop different smells. The oils produced are what are
known as the volatile oils, which means “flying oils,” because, if
extracted from the flower and placed in a bottle and the cork left out,
they will vanish into the air. Without this quality we could not, of
course, smell them at all.
Why Do Flowers Have Perfumes?
Man uses these oils to provide himself with perfumes, but the plant or
flower has another purpose than this. The perfume is not made for man’s
use, but for the use of the plant itself. In the plant and flower world
the smell of the plant which is in the flower is a part of the scheme
whereby plants reproduce themselves.
Every plant in order to reproduce itself must produce a seed. The
flowers are in most cases the advance agent of the coming seed. Each
flower produces within itself a little powder called the pollen, but as
plants are like people--also male and female--they are dependent upon
each other for the production of a perfect seed. Some of the pollen
from the male plant must be mixed with the pollen of the female plant
before a perfect seed results.
How Do Flowers Produce Seeds?
Naturally, the nearest male plant to a female plant may be quite some
distance off. How, then, is the pollen from the male plant to mix with
the pollen of the female plant? In some cases it is the wind which
blows the pollen powder from one to the other, and this thus leaves the
development of a perfect seed from a perfect flower open to chance. In
the case of perfumed flowers, however, which are mostly low-growing
plants, the wind cannot be depended upon. So nature gives to such
plants the power to make the perfumed oil and the busy bee does the
rest. The perfume being a flying oil rises up into the air and attracts
the bee. He is gathering honey and visits in turn all the flowers to
which he is attracted. He lights on a male flower and gathers in his
honey, and incidentally acquires on his legs, without intending to do
so, some of the pollen of the male flower. Then he flies about to the
next flower, and to others, and sooner or later he will come across a
female flower of the same kind as that from which he secured the pollen
on his legs. When he thus enters the female flower, the pollen on his
legs mixes with the pollen of the same kind of the female flower, and
quite unintentionally the bee helps thus to make the perfect seed. It
is not a part of a bee’s business to do this carrying. It only happens
that he does this in connection with his regular business of gathering
honey. It is a wonderful thing which may be noted here that the pollen
from a male of any flower will not mix with the pollen of the female of
any other kind of flower, but that the same kinds only have attractions
for each other. Flowers are given these attractive perfumes in order
that they may attract the bees and other insects in this way. The
plants or flowers which grow closest to the ground have generally the
strongest and most far-reaching smells. This is so that they will not
be overlooked.
Why Are Leaves Not All the Same Shape?
Leaves are of different shapes because they belong to different
families of plants or trees. They are a good deal like people in this
respect. Hardly two people in the world look exactly alike, but there
is a distinct family resemblance in members of the same family. It is
difficult to say just what happens inside the tree to determine the
shape of the leaf and that causes them to possess different shapes
from others. The shape of the leaf is a mark of identification of the
family to which the tree or plant belongs, just as you can tell from a
dog’s ears and from other characteristics what his breeding has been.
In the case of plants and trees however it is quite probable that the
shape and texture of the leaves has been developed as the result of
the conditions under which the plant grows. A plant or tree throws
off oxygen and takes in carbonic acid gas through the surface of the
leaves. To thrive and be healthy it must secure just the proper amount
of this food and as the quantity of food taken in depends upon the
amount of surface exposed through the leaves, each particular tree or
plant has developed in its own direction in this respect until this
feature of their structures has been adjusted properly to their needs.
It is a good deal like the radiation of heat in your home.
Why Are Some Radiators Longer Than Others?
When the plumber gets ready to put in the radiators in the home he
figures the cubic measurements of the room and then puts in a radiator,
the outside surface of whose pipes, is in the right proportion to throw
off sufficient heat to fill the room or heat all the air in the room.
It requires a certain number of square inches of radiator surface to
heat each cubic foot of air space and a good plumber can figure this
to a nicety. If he puts in a radiator however that has not sufficient
number of square inches on the outside of the pipes, the room will
not be heated properly. In the same way, the trees, require that
their leaves have a certain amount of square inches of surface space
in proportion to the size of the tree, to enable them to do what is
required of them and this is arranged by nature so that the trees grow
naturally, and no doubt the shape of the leaves has something to do
with this.
What Makes Roses Red?
All roses are not red. Some are white and others pink or of still
another color. The color of the rose, and in fact the color of all
flowers is due to the way they absorb and reflect the sunlight. In the
case of the red rose, the something in the plant that determines the
color, absorbs all the other colors in the sunlight and reflects the
pure red rays and that makes the color of the red rose. You cannot see
the color of any flower when it is perfectly dark. That is because they
have no color of their own, but only the colors which they reflect when
in the sunlight or some other light. The question of colors is more
fully explained in another part of the book.
Why Do Plants and Trees Grow Up Instead of Down?
As a matter of fact plants and trees do grow downward as well as up.
There is a part of each called the root whose business it is to grow
down and take certain things necessary to the life of the tree out of
the ground. But the part we see above the ground and which is the part
we generally think of only when we think of plants or trees.
The tree or plant, in order to grow properly, and eventually produce
flowers and perfect seeds, must have sunshine and carbonic acid gas,
and it is the business of the leaves and other parts above the ground
to get these out of the air for the good of the plant or tree. So they
start to grow toward the sun. It is easy to prove how a plant will turn
toward the light. Take notice of the plants in the flower pots at home.
Set one of them on the window sill inside the window where the sun can
shine on it and notice how quickly the leaves and branches will be bent
over against the window pane. Turn it completely around then so that
the plant leans away from the sunlight and watch it for a day or two.
Before long you will find that it has not only straightened itself
completely out but started to lean toward the window glass again so
as to get as near the sun as possible. Most plants, if kept where the
sunlight cannot touch them, will die. The sunlight is a necessary part
of their lives.
What Becomes of the Plants and Flowers in Winter?
A great many, in fact the large percentage of plants, live only during
one season. This kind of plant actually dies completely after, in the
natural course of growth and flowering, it has produced its seed which
is the method by which such plants are reproduced. Other plants only
appear to die in the winter. Parts of them, such as the leaves and
flowers actually die, but the roots and stalks of such plants do not
die in winter. The part that represents the life in them goes to sleep
and lies dormant until the light and warmth of summer bring forth the
leaves and flowers again.
The flowers, however, always die and the same flowers never appear
again but others just like them appear in their places.
Even in hot countries where there is no winter, the plants must go
through a period of rest or sleep, although this change is not so
marked in plants which grow in these hot countries.
How Can Some Plants Climb a Smooth Wall?
To get at the answer to this question, we should pick out one kind
of plant like the creeping ivy vine. If we examine same as it climbs
a brick wall, we find that it sends out little shoots which attach
themselves around the little rough places in the bricks of the wall
which, if examined under a microscope are quite large apparently--at
least they are large enough for the tiny creepers of the ivy to hold on
to. Of course, if there were only one little “shoot” to reach out and
take hold of the rough spots in the wall, the vine could not cling to
the wall, but the vine puts out a great many of these shoots--which it
would perhaps be best to call “clingers” and as each helps a little to
hold on, the great number all holding on together enable a quite heavy
vine to hang on to an apparently smooth wall.
Some vines have actually the ability to send out little suckers which
are made on the same principle as the boys’ sucker (a circular piece of
leather with string attached to the middle with which a boy can pick up
stones) and such plants can cling to and climb up an almost perfectly
smooth wall.
What Are the Thorns on Roses and Other Plants Good For?
The thorns of roses and other plants which have thorns originally grew
for the purpose of enabling the plants to fasten themselves on to
other things thus helping them to climb. Many plants with thorns are
permitted to grow now in places where they can use their thorns for
climbing but many others with thorns are cut down by the gardener to
make the plants shapely and to make them produce more flowers and less
branches, but they keep on growing their thorns just the same.
Do Plants Breathe?
Yes, indeed, plants do breathe. To breathe is just as important to the
life of a plant as it is to a boy or girl. Plants do not have lungs
like boys and girls and grown up people, but they find it necessary to
breathe. You know, of course, that fishes breathe, but they haven’t any
lungs either, even though they belong to the animal kingdom. Fishes
do not, however, breathe the air in the same form as we do because
they must use the air which they find in the water. That is why we say
fishes drown when on the land. They cannot breathe air in the form in
which we are able to use it any more than people can breathe the air in
the water.
Breathing, however, is necessary to all living things and the gas which
we take in when breathing is oxygen. There is oxygen in the water as
well as in the air. Things which live in the air take their oxygen out
of the air and things which live in the water get their oxygen out of
the water. For this purpose it is necessary for plants and animals that
live under the water to have a breathing apparatus especially adapted
for getting oxygen out of the water.
What Happens When Breathing Occurs?
The act of breathing consists really of two actions. Taking something
into the body and expelling something. Every living thing inhales and
expels in breathing. We take in oxygen and expel it again but when it
comes out it has added something to it and the combination or result is
carbonic acid gas--so we take in oxygen and expel carbonic acid gas.
How Do Plants Breathe?
The lungs of a plant, or what the plant breathes with corresponding to
our lungs, are located in the leaves of the plant. Under a magnifying
glass we can see the lungs of the leaf quite clearly. In addition to
this we know that plants breathe, because if we put them in a vacuum
where there is no air they die very quickly. The plant needs air or
it will suffocate just as any animal will suffocate under similar
conditions. Plants, however, do not make use of the oxygen as they
find it in the air. They live on the carbon which they find in the
air mixed with oxygen. What happens then is this. The plants take in
through their lungs in the leaves carbonic acid gas from which they
take the carbon and use it as food, and throw off the oxygen which
they cannot use. Human beings and other animals take the oxygen into
their lungs and use it and expel carbonic acid gas. The result is that
each kind of life is dependent upon the other. If it were not for the
plant life, men and other animals would find it difficult perhaps to
find sufficient oxygen in the air to keep them alive, and if it were
not for the carbonic acid gas which the animals throw off, plants and
other vegetable life would have great difficulty in finding sufficient
carbonic acid gas to go around.
Why Do Plants Need Sunlight?
Most plants, if placed where no light from the sun can reach them, will
die very quickly. To prove that a plant needs the sunlight we have
only to place it in a dark corner of the cellar and notice how soon it
dies. In fact if it were not for sunlight there would be no life on
earth at all. The plant or tree drinks in sunlight through the surface
of the leaves. In fact the ability to take in sunlight constitutes the
real life of the tree or plant. Leaves grow thin and flat in order
that as much surface as possible may be exposed to the sunlight. If
a leaf were curled up like a hoop only a part of the outside surface
would be exposed to the sunlight and the amount of life that a leaf
could supply to the rest of the tree would be much less. The leaf is so
constructed that when the sunlight strikes down upon its green surface,
it changes the carbonic acid gas which it drinks in, into its elements,
i.e., it takes out the carbon which goes into the body of the plant and
combining with other food and water supplied by the roots causes the
plant or tree to grow and then returns the oxygen part of the carbonic
acid gas to the air.
Why Does Milk Turn Sour?
The milk turns sour because a little microbe, known as the milk microbe
gets into it, and being very fond of the sugar which is in the milk,
turns this sugar into an acid.
If we could keep milk entirely away from the air after the cow is
milked, it would not turn sour, but as soon as it is exposed to the air
these microbes which are constantly in the air, drop into the milk.
They are alive, although invisible to the naked eye. If when they drop
into the milk it is warm enough for them to get in their work so to
speak, they fall upon the sugar in the milk and turn it into the acid.
Their attempt to sour the milk can be overcome by keeping the milk at a
low temperature in the refrigerator, but as soon as the milk is taken
out of the refrigerator and left out long enough to become warm, the
microbe begins to work and the milk cannot be made sweet again. If the
milk is boiled as soon or shortly after the cow is milked, the sugar in
the milk is changed in such a way that the microbe cannot feed upon it.
[Illustration: A PERSIAN RUG WEAVER AT WORK.[3]]
[3] Pictures and descriptions by courtesy of Hartford Carpet Co.