Newspapers / The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, … / Aug. 21, 1921, edition 1 / Page 12
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SCIENCE 6u JSetuZ &aei42 Cosvrisht. int. tar Publl LUr C. us I- ... I I II- I 1 I . J ". J Mystery of Snow Images of - Andes Sought by Weather Bureau THE United States Weather Burtu ii puxsled about something, and It will thank anybody who ran explain it. Ta the higher Andea of Argentina and Chile, vi,'hn..a very limited region, where there ia a polar climate in which no human beinge can dwell, the no-railed Snow Penltenta netnbla. ' The traveler comes unexpectedly upon a great throne of them, gathered on the ' barren dope of a mountain peak. Been from a little distance, they hare the appearance of a crowd of hooded monks, all in white and kneeling in serried linee. It Is a re markable illusion, for the "monks" are not human at all, nor alive, 'Bach one of tbem is a Mock of snow and ice. But what is the meaning of this curious phenomenon? How are the anow figures fashioned T And why are they found in that particular re gion and nowhere else in the world? No body can say. One theory ia that the fallen anow m.ay be of uneven density, and that the powerful fays' of aa overhead sun first melt those parts of it around the denser spots, leaving the latter still frown, to assume the form of snow men. As the snow continues to melt water trickling down from the blocks may help to deenen the snrrnnnitinr hallnwa wklu vented from accumulating in the latter by the slope of the mountain. The arrange ment of the white figures in rows may be explained by the slope, the water all drain ing in one direction. This, however, is only one of several theories offered in ex planation of the "Snow of the Penitents," as it is called in that part of the world. The facts in the cane are still undetermined. The Movie Camera as a THE movie picture appears in a new role, thanks to the Ingenious 'invention 4 Marcus C. Hopkins, of Falls Church. Vs. It undertakes the business of sculp ture. Suppose yoil winh to have a bust of your self executed. The camera will do the work, with tbe help of simple mechanical apparatus, and the resulting three-dimensional portrait is certain to be absolutely correct and lifelike. It must be lifelike because its correctness is msthetnatical and not subject to the errors of a sculptor's eye. You seat yourself in a chair which rests upon a small circular revolving platform, your head being secured immovably by a bracket contrivance similar to that used in old-fashioned photographic studios. The studio is dark. A strong beam of light is directed upon your head and shoul Suitcase as I N THESE lawless days nobody Is safe from being held up almost" any time by a highwayman, Especially when traveling, it is important to be prepared against such" dangers. . ' Why not carry a pistol In one's traveling bsg? A ripe Idea. But, unfortunately, the bandit does not give one time to open the bsg sod get the weapon out. This difficulty, however, is entirely over come by a contrivance which Oscar V. Har grave, of Maiden, Mass., has newly pat ented. . It to a enitcase with a box compartment in one corner, just beneath the top. In thla compartment an automatic pistol is ,. secured' in fixed position. The trigger is connected by a pivoted ley with a small ring which .emerges through a bole in tha top of the suitcase beneath the handlei In front of tbe pistol muzzle is a round opening at the end of the suitcase Which ' may be concealed by a leather flap. Suppose that the person carrying the suit case is held urh He turns tbe business end of the bag toward tbe unsuspectiug robber, passes a finger through the above-mentioned ring without changing bis gravp on the auitcsse handle, mind you gives It a pull, and, bang! , ' If ths aim Is good the highwayman to "'out" right there. But even 'though not kkd or wounded, be will ,robably ba frightened away. Soma of the fantastic ahapea ders by s projecting lantern. But half the beam is masked by a slarp-edxed dia phragm, so that a shadow Una, likewise sharp-edged, can be made to fall vertically upon your person. Tbe platform on which you are sitting is made to revolve with a steady movement by an electric motor, and as you revolve with it a fixed movie camera takes on a film a series of pictures at the rate of thirty a second. One complete revolution of tbe platform is made in twelve seconds, the re sult being 360 pictures, or one for each -degree of a full circle. ' . When the resulting photographic film Is fed into an ordinary projecting machine, and the pictures are thrown upon a white surface, the shadow -line altera and xigzags rapidly to represent the 360 successive points of view. a Weapon Handy Rack for Shoes QJHOES are bothersome things to dispose J of. Shelves are not convenient places on which to put tbem, snd if scattered about on the closet floor they look disorderly. Why not a shoe rack ? :.. A woman, Florence E. Sanders, of Ben son, Minn., seems .to have the right Idea. For one point, the kind of rack designed V her has tbe merit of simplicity. -AH that is needed is a board and a single length ot stilt wire. The board is nailed to the closet door or well. The arrangement of the wire (with iv$fcv&4 'ftVVf fe4i, y7i assumed by the anow of tha Andea Sculptor But, for the purpoats of the new "photo sculpture" this is not desired. The gearing of the projecting machine is so adjusted that when one image Is projected it will remain . stationary for a while, whereupon tha next image is projected, and so on. One sees that the images will be .a series of irregular shadow -edges representing' the contours ot your head and shoulders as viewed from 860 equidistant points of a full circle. So much to start with. The rest of tha process is accomplished by the ose.of the familiar contrivanc called a "panto graph." but with a novel application of Ita principle. ' One" may find a pantograph in the ofike of any mechanical draughtsman. It is used ordinarily for enlarging or reihicing the scale of drawlnga. When lines of the original drawing are follow. tlr a "drv' point (which makes no t peacW carried by an arm of the machine make an exact copy on tbe scale for which the apparatus la adjusted. The pbotoaeulptor stands In front of tie' whits wall on which a shadow image has been thrown and follows the edge of It with a steel point. In thla case, however, the spying Instrument carried by the panto graph arm Is not a pencil, but a rapidly revolving cutting tool, which bitea into a block of plaster, of parts mounted on a turn table. It cats a contour line exactly cor responding to tbe shadow-edge. This accomplished, the shadow image next In order is projected upon the wall; the turntable carrying the plaster block Is re volved one degree and the process is re peated. When the turntable has been turned full-clrcle and the cutting tool has reproduced la the plaster all the 860 con tour lines, the block will be a perfect copy of your head and shoulders. All it will then need is a careful "retouching" with the chisel, corresponding' to the finishing which a photographer bestows upon a portrait negative. From the plaster bust thus produced a replica In marble, or bronse can be easily made by the method which sculptors ordi narily employ. You will then have a like ness of yourself a three-dimensional pho tograpli, as it were absolutely lifelike and correct. One advantage claimed for 'the method is that It eaves you a whole lot of time and bother.: Instead of having to give the. sculptor a series of tiresome sittings while he models your Image in clay, you need only to occupy the revolving jsbalr for twelve brief seconds. Machinery does the rest. The process Is rapid and inexpensive, and it ought to reduce the high price of portrait sculpture amsiingly. eyes formed of loops, for screws,, at the ends of the board) is fsr better described by the picture tbsh by words. Along the top are the shoe-hooks, which may support the shoes by being thrust into the latter, or by a top-button pushed through the book, or by tied shoe laces bung over the hook. This is a mere detail. The point Is that such a contrivance gets the shoes out of the way and, renders them get-at-able when they are wanted. It also helps them to retain their shape. u ?tet & ii h ?- YiA y J "J W r ' V . 5 Like veiled flffuret. they teem to Voices of Trees mBEES whisper ,1a ths summer breee. X We have all beard tbem do it. Different kinds of trees have different and character istic voices. There is a muffled plaint of the oak In a wintry blast, unlike the sibilant sigh of the pine. Pine trees are especially vocal, thanks to their myriads of "needles." which produce eoltan notes when a breeze sweeps through tbem. Similar notes sre sounded in the winter time by bare twigs nnd" even branches. Naturally the pine reedlee give a smaller range of high-pitched notes than do the twigs and branches of oaks. Prof. W, J. Humphreya, of the United Statea Weather Bureau, says that as the eollan whispers of pine needles or the nu merous twigs of the osk blend Into a sound of considerable volume, so do the whimperings of many trees blend into the well-known murmur ot the forest. Often, particularly in a pine- forest, in a leeward valley, one liters a low-sigblng or moaning noise, which, as the wind over the crest grows m a gale, swells to a cataract roar that Is awe-inspiring. It is an Instance of the t-omblned ' effect- of multitudes of eolian whispers. The storm wind in winter, when one la glad to be safs indoors, has many voices and some musical notes. At the height of its fury tt seems actually to howl about the chimneys and rooftops. Tbete founds are due to eddies in the amoving air, . ' attributable to Interruptions of the air cur rents by the edges pf the roof and other obstacle,' Marriage of W&ns UT ITTLlE birds In ffieir nests agree." So likewise do their parents, pre sumably. But there has been much specu lation as to whether pairs of birds, once married, do or do not .perpetuate the wedded relation fpm year to year, ' How about the house-wren? It At a gentle1 and virtuous bird, almost semi domesticated, as one might say, inasmuch ' a. 'it customarily builds its nest in or about human habitations. People who have watched the habits of house-wrens have' often been heard to say that tbey were sure . the same pairs returned to the same nesting plseee season after season. They, were proclaimed a models of marital constancy. However, Mr.. 8. Prentiss Baldwin, of Cleveland, who for many yeara has made the trapping and banding of birds bis special hobby (afterward releasing tbem to bs subsequently retrapped perhaps and Identified), has found that house-wrens are no more reliable In their conjugal, relatione than folks. In some instances these rela tions are perpetuated from season to sea son.; but often it happens that a houso-' wren, male or female; iriMulges in a violent flirtation, even making a Muff at starting housekeeping, and then muklng final choice of another mate. Divorces occur. ; A gen tleman house-wren may ' marry, rear a family and then leave his wife, going oft with another lady house-wren and setting, up aa establishment with her. Whereupon there Is nothing for the deserted fesae to do but get another husband. Days on Other Planets HOW long la a day on the un?i j -' It seems an odd question, considering that what we call the day is made by the aun. How can it bt otherwise than day all the time on the solar, luminary? "" :, That, however is merely our planetary ' ' viewpoint of the matter. In a broader sense of the term; a day means one complete revo. . lution of a celestial body. The su revolves on its axis, just as the-artb does, turaiag around once in 600 of our houra. Ita day, " in' other, words, is 800 hours long. Astronomers would Uke to know bow long the planet Mercury's day 1s, but they haven't been able to find out. Tbey are equally at a loss to know the day's length " on Venus. ( The lsttsr twin of tha aartb in site, and tiie only pUrnet besides ottr twa that i believed to be inhabited is so eov ered with a veil of clpds that the teleseope can "descry bo fixed point on its anrfaea by which to determine, the rata of its revs- auUcw..'- . ; -: ' ! The Martian day la six hova longtr than - ours. That of Jupitr is slightly ls thaa ' tea boors long; fend the length of Satora'a AtT Is ten and , three-tenths hours. But when it comes to Uranus and Kep. march town the nounUls iW Comfort for AT THIS warm season of the year, when traveling by train, one often seen fellow psssengers trying to sleep, with handker chiefs or newspapers spread over their face for a protection against light-glare, dust and files. Nothing could be less picturesque. Why not invent something better that will accomplish the same purpose and be not quite so unattractive? John C. Jennings, of Kansas City, Kan., thinks he ha done so. Simply described, it la a plllcw in a pillow-case, the latter having a good-sited Vast Bullion Supply THERE to now stored ia the new building ot the Assay Office on Wall street, New ' York, more than a billion dollars' worth of gold bullion, by far the greatest quantity of gold ever accumulated in one place any ;' where in the world. The famous treaaure' of King Midas wss trifling compared with it. The bullion .is kept In steel vaults of , the most up-to-date construction, which ex tend seventy feet below the level ot the street and forty feet below the waU'r level... Uncle Sam has always prided himself on maintaining equipments for ths handling of money metals-snd for their coinsge into .tune, the two outermost and mast distant at ' tbe ana'a eight planets, the Mtreaonm are ; again pusxled. They do not knew the rate at which either ef them revolves. It takes the earth' 885 days to make a ' complete journey around'the ana, which we call a year.' Mercury's year la only eighty- eight days long. That of Venue to 228 days. The Martiaft year la 087 days loaf. That of. Jupiter la twelve times' as long as oar years that of latum over twenty-nine times as long; that of Uranus eighty tour times aa long, and that of Neptune 188 times aa long, or 60,181 daya. . 4 . If (u seene altogether likely hj tbe ana to revolving ahoat aome etapendoue ttr In space, It may require goodness fcnowe how many millions of yean to make the circuit once-in other words, to fill out a single ' aolar year. . . X-Ray Shoe Fits ' rnHB average woman ambltlona of "atyla,,, 1 particularly It yeonf, seems Bkely to epotinne to select het shoes for pretttaeee rather than tor t. Aa the Freach aay. one nmat goffer to be beautiful, and aw penal. Uea aa eorne end hunlona are therefore to be hone with patience. , Nevertbelesa, many msnefacturers ef shoes today are turning ut footgear mostly. It la trme, for men in response to demaa4 for heota that 8t the feet. The war Jen important help ia this dlreetloB, beeauee tha Government made an elaborate and e.-tontiB Inquiry Into the subject, and aa a result oar fighting men had their eheea prescribed for then. Jfo soldier tu permitted to eboow them for himself. Betatlers actually have accepted the He that feet ought not to be required to tt hose. In a way, we Americana hay prne tired foot-deformation aa persistently aa the Chinese, wtth'ths difference that la China only the women and those of the upper claso follow that custom.' On thla account few of us have normally shaped feet. Com Btonly the toee are crowded together; they have not bad room In which to spread naturally. , f The newest Idea; already adopted by a few shoe dealers, to to use an X-ray machine of special pattern for determining fit. The customer, trying en a pair of shoes, stands oa a platform and looka through a eort of hood at his owa feet. He eeea tha outline of the shoes and the bones of bis feet. If the hones ot his toes are at all cramped or ' twisted, the fact to instantly apparent. The toes should show themselves spread out flat without jamming, and preferably with a tittle space between the big toe and the neat one. A pair of shoes that stands this test cannot fall to be comfortable. Car Nappers flap-extension, to the outer comer of which are attached two tapea terminating lasleope. When the sleepy passenger puts the pillow behind his head, adjusting it properly, th flap falls over his face and the tape-loopt drop into his lap. Passing bis hands through the loops he thereby makes sure that the flap will not slip off or bo blown of, and be can comfortably doae ia safety from cinders and bugs, while enjoying a measure of privacy as regards other eecupaata of the car or, persons passing through. money superior to those of any other coun try in the world. Hence the recent Intro duction of electric furnaces In the Phila delphia Mint, One of these furnaces, rated at eight kilowatts, Will melt 1000 ounces of sHver In sa eight-hour , dsy. Another, a one-ton Bennerfelt, is equivalent for dealing : with bronze ingots to seven ot the gat fur naces formerly used, which 'required for their operation ; seven melters and, fdur helpers,- This new jelectric furnace requires only three melters and six: helpers for melt ing, prepirlng snd delivering ths metal te tha coininc densrtment. ' " ' " '' 'wT : ' " ""V; . '
The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Aug. 21, 1921, edition 1
12
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