The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1891-09-17
SCIENCE AND PROGRESS.
SOME RECENT DISCOVERIES IN
THE WORLD OF SCIENCE
New Kinks In Electricity --lnvented
by Convict--Grinding Without
Pressure--I to Cranks
Invention of the Type
H -gf.13 writer.
New Kinks. In Electricity.

In 1885 there were three electric
roads in existence, with an equipment
OF thirteen cars. There are now in
operation or under contract 1926 roads
with 1000 cars and a daily carrying
capacity of a billion passengers. In
the United States the horse-car traffic
is carried on: Two-thirds by horse
power, one-fourth by electricity, one
sixteenth by dummies and one-twen-
etlth by cable. An average of cost
gives, per car, mile 1916 cents for
horse, 1912 cents for electricity and
14.l2 cents for cable. ...-. Il.
"You won't never have no accidents
IT, you don't never take no risks" was
the wise dictum Of a witness of re-
cent electrical accident. H. .:.s-
Experiment in fixing the longitude
OF Montreal, undertaken at McGill
College, necessitated the opening of a
circuit by cable and land lines to
Greenwich and return. Some two
hundred signals were sent, and the
average time for the round trip of
nearly 5000 miles was 1 .O5 seconds.
An English woman has written what
is declared to be the best popular ex-
position of the science OF electricity
up to date. She is Emma Marie
Caillard.
Electric welding has been reduced to
the utmost exactness in shops where
formerly all the clumsiness of fire
welding prevailed. Leader water
pipes may be welded but joints on.
The use OF hux is not necessary.
There is some question whether the
broadway road will ever run the
cable now going in. It is thought
that by the time the rope is ready
that all electric car far cheaper will be
on the market. .. 49,. ~
An invention for factories enables
any person in any part of the factory
TO stop the main engine by the touch
ing OF q button, the wire connecting
with the engine governor. In cases Of
mishap this is a very useful device.
Photographing Speech.
The method of analysing motion by
the acknowledgement, which has
been so happily applied, by M. Marcy
in the case Of moving animals, such as
horses running or birds and insects in
flight, has recently been employed by
M. u. Demeny, a preparation, at the
physiological station of NJ. Marcy, to
examine the movements of the lips in
speaking. He has obtained results
which show that the form of the mouth
is quite definite for the different
articulate sounds. With these photo
graphs combined in a zoetrope he has
reproduced the movements of the lips
by synthesis. An ordinary person
finds it difficult to read the words by
the animated pictures; but a deaf
mute who has been accustomed to
read from the lips of a speaker finds it
easy to do the same from the photo
graphs. Ayoung pupil of the Nation.
al Institute of Deaf Mutes in France
could read the vowels and diphthongs
as well as the labials. The first ex-
periments were, of course, not all that
could be desired, but in bringing the
matter before the Academy of Sciences,
Paris, M. Demeny expressed the hope
that in continuing his researches he
would be able to develop new
method OF educating deaf mutes by
sight from more perfect Photographic
images. Obviously magic lantern
lecture might be delivered to an
audience of deaf mutes IN this way.
Grinding Without Pressure.
In a paper recently read before the
Technical Society OF the Pacific Coast,
Mr.. John Richards referred, among
other things, to thesystem OF accurate
grinding for calender rolls for paper
making, introduced a number OF years
ago by J. Martin Poole, OF Whining
ton, Del. III
These rolls, some of them seven feet
in length, had to be made for rolling
tissue paper, which will pile 1000 to
1000 to an inch of thickness and
variations of l 100000 of an inch in
diameter or alignment would distort
the paper as it passed through the
rolls. Mr.. Poole had exhausted the
emery wheel market, and ended by
eVoV q olSAAS AAcIc e1Au ia CuIOpc lOI
samples of emery and corundum. He
collected such samples and establish
ed a laboratory for experiment and
the manufacture Of wheels, and, finally,
after many failures, produced those
that would grind without pressure.
This was done by cementing the
wheels with substances soluble by soda
water, using the sharpest corundum
carefully. assorted. When the wheels
were at work a. stream of alkaline
water was run upon them, SO the sur.
face was continually but slowly melted
away, and each time the wheels turned
around, SO to speak, new edges were
presented to the work, and when the
conditions were favorable the cutting
went on without appreciable pressure.
Indebted To cranks.
Every time we strike match we are
indebted to men who have studied
science for mere love of it. The men
who worked away at coal tar ''just to
see what was in it," made the whole
world their debtors by discovering ali
zarln, the coloring principle ofmadder.
And to those men the world is indebt-