Show a 1 rw 1 f F P POPULAR SCIENCE 1 success of m electric e atric the electric ral rai way la Is to perform a Is bernce arvice for mankind as notable and p perhaps ultimately As great as that rendered by its steam operated arede ceasor celsor says george H gibson in ln gi already it handles the bulk of suburban iban and short distance interurban pa passenger c it carriea freight mall mail express and baggage it operates at deeds peeds reaching sixty miles per hoar its cais are operated on time schedules and dispatched by telephone its roadbed Is often as ex pensive and heavy of construction as anat of the best steam lines and what hat is moie interesting to the in vestor it pays large dividends at the pa besent time 1 1600 are nomi nally ini im ested in electric reads in the united states and upon this sum 7 are paid in yearly dividends employed emp loyes receive yearly in wages and there are 20 mil mils s of trad on which 60 00 0 cars are run in issa ten miles of electric road were built for every mile of steam road constructed still it cannot be said that the electric roads have achieved their great success in competition with team roads they have opened a field of development which doea does not compete with and v as not open to steam the peculiar ad N antares lantages lan of the electric system of traction are frequent service ity itt convenient location clean light and airy cars and low fares ot of these probably the most important are loca tion and the ability to maintain a tre fre quent service with small units B by y these those means elect ie le roads have sue ceedee where traffic did not previously y exist and could not have been produced by steam roads acquired Charac tent t cs the question whether hether charac characters teris tics that have been acquit ed by an ani its lifetime are or can be transmitted to Us its offspring ia Is one that divides two schools of naturalists maintaining the negative As the controversy Is of ancient date and not yet settled its solution cannot be simple have facts like the following it bearing on the question 9 there w a dt one time a race of dogs that chased their prey and did not point at it as setters and other breeds now do some one or more of these dogs took to pointing at game the was use ful to some man or men who enczur aged it the acquired habit of these particular dogs has certainly been transmitted by inheritance to the fi pointers and setters of today to day there is s probably some fallacy or some fills 1 conception of the question in the foregoing statement which on its face would seem decisive of the matter at issue I 1 electric fire eng ne the general electric company says electricity has offered to furnish the eity city of schenectady with a new dec mec trie fire engine it if the off offer er is ac cepter this will be one of the first cities in the world to be equipped with an tiec electric fire engine the engine Is to be twelve feet long thirty inches wide ids and thirty inches high and wil I 1 weigh about a ton the engine will be provided I 1 h a cable that will allow it to be attached to a socket on a pole not more than yards from the fire the electric elc power thus received will be ased to operate the pump which has a capacio capa cit of 1 1500 gallons a minute the adNan advantages of this engine are thit it can be operated at less expense than a steam engine requires bat one horse to it and needs but one man to operate it to st value of plants few people know bow how many cagen ous devices are continually being in vented to meet the especial needs of workers in all fields devices that are seldom used outside the places where they are contrived despite their theira avail vall ability for far extended if ir i f among the most prolific in these things are the scientific laboratories ol 01 the govern ment in washington says crittenden marriott Marr lott in popular science news an instance has just o occurred in the horticultural section of the agrical device for testing evaporative rate of plants lural tural department where it was de tired to contrive some apparatus appa ratu whereby it could be speedily ascer tallied whether or not a particular plant would probably prove adapted to growing under arid land conditions condl tio without going through the long process ot of actual field trials the question was to devise something that would measure the amount of evaporation of any given plant the lem ism was solved by L C corbett horti hord ot of the department the ap used is simple it consists of two cylindrical cans one the other with a water jacket I 1 edwen bo to keep the temperature uniform the ann inner r can Is also partly filled 4 ith water mater on which rests a foat float through which a slender rod runs freely above tae ins water thia this rod supports a rest on which Is placed a pot or tub contain ing the plant in question below it terminates in an air chamber A lever ioner arm extends fron from some place on it to tar far outside where is placed a tab let on which any motion it may make is traced by a pencil the float and water in the cylinder are covered coved with cilto prevent evaporation the flomer flo pot or tub is also carefully covered for the same reason leaving nothing but the plant iseff exposed to the air As this evaporates its moisture through its sten and leaves it necessarily grows lighter and the air chamber below forces it to rise higher above the water this de presses the point of the lever the actual vertical movement is of course small but it can be multiplied to any ex extent ent desired simply by lengthening the lever arm the diame er or of the rod being krown a simple calculation gives the amount evaporated by the plant in twenty four hours comparative testa tests how which plants evaporate the I last ast thus enabling one essential tor for life in arid climes to be determined in a nery short time hairs of animals Z reading from left to right the hails halls are of a bat mouse sable and man all highly magnified increase of meehan cal power in 1830 the total horse power ot of steam engines in the united states was about in 1900 it was 20 an increase ot of 10 per cent the total motive power ex elusive ot of hydraulic motors increased in the seventy years from 1900 1 to 36 horse power the increase of population in this interval was per cent in 1830 the horse power per inhabitant w as 0 15 and 0 7 horse pow er or in 1900 since 1880 the hole hoe power of loco locomotives mothes alone has in creased per cent while the pop i lation increased increase ionly donly 52 per cent the total m wealth ot of the country la in this o 0 interval has increased sly the percentage pei being in 1836 the wealth per inhabitant was about and in 1900 1200 1 it must be noted noted hov homi fever ver that the wealth jer per tant which increased per cent i from 1850 to 1870 increased butr 31 per cent from 1880 to 1900 R nce 1853 the ilaban wealth began notably to exceed tae rural wealth to day the former constitutes 75 per cent othe ot he total in 1860 wages constituted tw and a halt half per cent ot of the total wealth wealtia while they make seven per c cent tod today to d day the average wages ol 01 workmen hive ill I 1 increased from per year in to to 1900 1 valuable F re fighting machine machle springfield MESS has a fire tire elgine engine trolley truck which can be loaded loaded in two and a quarter minutes and cm on which electricity carries the engine to the scene of the flames at a breath taking rate of speed it if car tracks run that ay it is especially designed for going to fires in the suburbs or la in neighboring email small towns which art obliged in case of great fires to call upon the cita cit for assistance the truck is built so that it can be easily operated by an electric motor attach ed to the axle of the truck or can ba drawn by a trolley car or snow plough the invention consists of two trucks on which are placed iron platforms to this rear truck is at cached a ro which connects the two trucks and upon which the fire engine Is carried the length over the platform railing is twenty eight feet eight inches the extreme length from edge of footboard to tender fender Is thirty feet ten and a halt inches dwellers in the amoor vally the condition of the inhabitants of the amoor valley deserves the es pedal attention of ethnologists oa on account of the contradictions between the customs which there obtain in practical intellectual social and re to lillous life the indigenous Indig erous people are fishermen the hunters are tun auses the herdsmen are mongols and the villager are chinese or comeans the material life food clothing household goods the life language writing literature the social life birth and marriage cus toms education property relations funerals are all in complete logical contradiction there are few parts of the world that afford such opportune opp atles tor for the study of the Ingue influence nev of the different culture conditions upon one another new method of steering an english engineers engineer a plan for steering twin screw steamers consists of a special throttle valve attached attached to each set of engines the valves being connected to a tiller by uy bell dell cranks and link work when the tiller is moved either way from ita its central position one throttle valve reduces the steam of its set of en gines diminishing the speed of its screw to a degree varying with that of the turning of the tiller t it funny to read what old maids write about the care of bablis babl is 21 A k 1 |