Chicago eagle. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1889-19??, 1893-04-15
POPULAR SCIENCE NOTES.

RECORDING WIND PHESoMENA.-The
new method of recording wind phenom-
ena, which has now for some time been
in use in the Odessa Observatory, has ac-
complished very satisfactory and useful
results. BY means of this simple appa-
tus the direction and velocity of the
winds are alike marked on a cylinder by
one symbol. The record consists in this
case of arrows, which are printed on the
paper covering the cylinder, their posi-
ton showing the direction of the wind,
and the number of them marked on a
length of paper corresponding to one
hour furnishes data for finding the We
locity by an empirical scale, the special
value of the readings being determined
by an thermometer. The recording appa-
tus is actuated by clock work, and the
indications are made with great readiness
and accuracy by electrical contacts,
which are produced by battery cell, the
duration of this contact depending on
the velocity of the wind-a light wind
producing, of course, contact of longer
duration than a strong one.
How ZERO WAS ADoPTED.-From a
bow Fahrenheit was a close observer of
nature. VIXEN only nineteen years old,
in the cold winter of 1906, he expert
mented by putting snow and salt to-
gether, and noticed that it produced
degree of cold equal to the coolest day
in the tcar. That day was the coolest
the oldest inhabitant could remember
Gabriel was struck with the coincidence
of his discovery, and concluded that he
had found the lowest degree of tempera-
ture known in the world. He called the
degree Zero" and constructed a Their
mometer, or rude weather glass, with
scale graduating up from zero to
boiling point, which he num-
bered Pig, and the freezing point 80, be-
cause, as he thought, mercury contracted
the thirty second of its volume on being
cooled down from the temperature of
freezing water to zero, and expanded the
both on being heated from the freezing
to the boiling point. Time showed the
arrangement arbitrary, and that these
two points no more represented the real
extremes of temperature than 'from Dan
to Beersheba" represented the exact eX-
tremes of Palestine. But Farenheit's
thermometer had been widely adopted
with its convenient scale, and many peo-
pie cling to the established scale. The
three countries which use Fahrenheit
are England, Holland and America.
INGENIOUS MECHANICAL DEVICES
Mechanical devices in the manufacture
of shoes are claimed to have reached their
ideal ingenuity in a recently invented
continuance for attaching heels to boots
and shoes by driving staples from the
inside through the inner sole, the counter
and the outer sole, and nearly through
the heel, the points of the staples reach
ing into and nearly through the
top lift-thus, if desired, leav-
ing the shoe heeled with a blind
lift by the first and only operation
of attaching. If it is desired to slug the
heel, the apparatus is provided with
mechanicism for driving slugs into
the top lift at the instant of attaching
the heel to the shoe. The staples being
thus driven from the inside, their crowns
are left embedded in the inner sole en-
tirely below its surface, and the inner
and outer soles and the counters are
drawn firmly together, making most
perfect heel seat. BY other methods, as
is we'll known, the heel seat has to be
made first, so as to insure tight joint at
the point of contact between the heel
and the outer sole, and to provide some
thing solid to which the heel may be at
tached by the points of the nails The
claim is therefore put forward that, in
the manufacture of boots and shoes, this
mechanical wonder supplies the place of
the heel-seating machine, the attaching
machine, and the slugging machine-in
fact, performing the whole work at ono
operation, and simultaneously.