The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1896-05-20
"REMINISCENCES.

hc
zines for several months past have had
great deal to say about the "Roentgen
Cathode rays" as applied to what has
been termed electric photography.
Roentgen was, perhaps, the first per-
son who succeeded in taking photo
graphs in darkness, or through Opaque
screens, coins or metallic substances,
wood, bones, etc. In connection with
this people talk about Geissler's tubes,
Crooks tubes, fiuorescence, waves of
rarefied gas, etc. These rays, they say,
are invisible they pass, with varying
degrees OF intensity, through wood,
rubber, flesh, glass and metal. These
rays are said to produce ''fluorescence"
upon striking certain substances, thus
acting on the Photographic plate.
These things, of course, produced quite
an excitement throughout the scien-
tific world, and our own Edison set
about to ascertain why "these things
were thus" What he does not know
about them by this time, no one else
need to try to find out. He has dis
covered certain new metals that are
necessary in making these photo
graphs, and has made ii applicable TO
surgery, in that he has made il possi-
bic to see exactly the location of bull
let at any place in the body, broken
bone or a diseased tissue anywhere,
and he is not half through yet. An
other scientist, named TESLA, appar-
emily not TO be outdone 1y Edison, has
announced that, by a process discover
ed by him, he can see through two or
three human bodies. This most likely,
ought to be taken cum grGnO salts,
for, even if it were true, it would be of
doubtful advantage in applied surgery,
or in anything else. 1t would be too
much like the fellow who was hunting
ducks, who complained to his COM
panion that whenever he took aim at
one duck, two or three more SWAN
between him and the one he was aim
ing at. Edison, however, has demon
strated that, with simple ma
chine he has constructed, it is possi-
BILE to see directly into the human
body anywhere. His explanations,
while not much clearer than mud to
the non-scientific mind, are accepted,
because Edison says so. All this is
~. Il hat la
scientists who make so many wonder
full discoveries bat, if we observe a
great many simple things in nature,
we are compelled to admit that science
and art can not explain them. The
writer is somewhat of an angler, and
many and many time he has dug
over ten feet square or more of ground,
when the ground was somewhat dry,
without finding angle-worms enough
to catch a few. fish. On the other
hand he has noticed, hundreds
of times, robin-red-breast, for in
stance, light on ground that seemed a.
dry as last years beef-rib, hop around
a little, turn the "X rays of first one
eye, then the other, on the hard-baked
earth, and presently commence TO pick
a hole in the ground, and quicker than
you could tell it, pull out a fat juicy
worm, which, after swallowing, would
make his red breast swell out with
justifiable pride. This process would
go on until his hunger would be salts
fled, when he would fly away to his
mate, and the young birds, with as
many worms as he could carry i'm his
mouth. Yet, hundreds of other times,
the writer has seen bird of the wood
pecker-species, fly against tree that
looked as hard and solid, almost as
iron, hammer away with his beak un-
Ill he came To a fine nest of worms, up
on which he gorged himself to his
hearts, or, rather, his stomach's con-
tent. Then again, who has not OBJ
served the wonderful engineering skill
displayed by birds i'm the construction
of their nests? Although their nests
are built in the open, yet they are built
in such way that rain never inter-
feres with the Matching process, and it
is rare occurrence to see 4 birds nest
destroyed by storm. Can Roentgen,
can TESLA, can our own Edison, even,
explain these things? They may talk
learnedly about cathode and y rays,
and sound waves, and fluoreseence, and
all that, but no one can tell why or
how these birds can do these things.
They may say it is instinct, but that is
an explanation that does not explain.
But the most wonderful thing, in the
writer's opinion, in all nature, is the
sense of smell, or rather the faculty or
power of following other animals, by a
mysterious, unexplainable something,
allied to the sense of smell. What is it
that enables dog TO follow a deer, for
instance, through woods, over rocks,
in snow or on dry ground, anywhere,
except through running water? The
writer has seen dog follow deer that
had run in among hogs, cattle and
Il. Iii ..Ia 70.