The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1898-12-30
sHoEMAKERs' Wax.
Curious Results of Experiments as Made
by Lord Kelvin.

One of the most apt Illustrations ever
made by Lord Kelvin was his hkenlng
the luminiferous ether TO mass OF shoe
makers wax. What Lord Kelvin saiu Oh
shoemakers' wax may be tested py any
how in a IN amer that will astonish his
playlpa tes. First let 1t be SAID that the
sthet peuetrates all space. IL Is as rlgld
as steel and yet SO flexible that 1t does not
retard the passage of lets through
snace in the least. 1t is an invisible sub
stance which travels through all
things. Now to illustrate the nature of
suoh a uarad oxical material Lord Kelvin
searched everywhere. and at last con-
cluded that shoemakers' wax represented
it best. He made tests and this is what
he found:
he melted some WAX in common glass
tumbler. After it had hardened he tried
to thrust lead pencil through 1t. 1t
would not CO. Then he placed % coin on
the surface of the wax, and lett 1t for
several days. When he again visited 1t
the coin had sunk to the bottom OF the
glass. The wax had closed over it and by
lifting up the glass and looking through
the bottom he could see the coin lying
there. Had the wax been as desr as
well the coin would have gone on sink
ing until it reached the bottom. This
rroyed that the wax would conform only
to very slow movements. If he had tried
TO push it too fast it would have resisted
him.
| An idea struck the scientist. 1t the
wax acted like this toward the coin, how
would it treat an object which located
| He accordingly placed cork in a tump-
Ter and poured hot shoemaker's wax upon
| it. The wax hardened, with the cork at
the bottom. Yet when Lord Kelvin
| looked at the bottom of the glass, in
day or two, he found the cork had disap'
peared.! Tt was somewhere in the mass
of wax, and probably rising very slowly
| but surely toward the top. Sure enough,
after given period OF time tne cork
peeped above the surface of the hard wax,
| and finally it rose to point where 1t re-
NAMED half imbedded in the wax, just
as it would have done in glass OF water.
1t rose no higher than this. however. and
corkscrew probably would not have
pulled it from the wax. Yet Its own
buoyancy had raised it up from the bot
tom through what seemed an impenetra-
| Bile mass of wax.
This, in fact, is the popularity Of shoe
makers wax-that it reslsts all sudden or
quick mi Y ,nents, but is highly susceptl-
| bic to We slow and prolonged pressure.
| If you pressed f1atiron hard down on a
| lump of wax on a table, it Is probable
you would make no impression on 1t, but
| If you LETT that iron resting on the wax
for q day OF two you would find the lump
fiattened out under the iron. So curious
| is this property of the wax that tuning
forks have been cast from pieces Of it.
These forks were capable of vibration,
giving musical note and being set go
| ing BY vibration from another tuning
| fork: vet when one of them was laid
across the open mouth of o jar it slowly
collapsed and fell into the jar in a shape
less, sticky mass.
| Any boy may perform these export
| ments, and the lesson in phyics to be got
therefrom Is is no less valuable than the
amusement which the performance
affords.