The evening herald. [volume] (Shenandoah, Pa.) 1891-1966, 1899-02-02
sHoswAkses Wax.
Experiments with This substaHss
THAT VIII Surprise Every one.

THAT VIII surprise Every one.
One OF the most apt illustrations ever
made by Lord Kelvin was his likening the
luminiferous ether 10 mass of shoemak.
ers' wax What Lord Kelvin said OF shoe
makers wax may be tested by any boy In
a manner that will astonish his playmAtes
First let ~ be said that the ether pene-
trates all space II is as rigid as steel and
yet 50 flexible that 10 does not retard the
passage Of planets through space In the
least Tt IL an invisible substance which
travels In waves through all things Now,
to illustrate the nature OF such a paradox
teal material Lord Kelvin searched every
where and at last concluded that shoe
makers wax reprcsented II best. He
made tests and this is what he found;
He melted some wax In common glass
tumbler After IL had hardened he tried
10 thrust lead pencil through t. II
would not go Then he placed a coin on
the surface Of the wax and left IL there Tor
several days When he again visited IL,
the coin had sunk 10 the bottom OF the
glass The wax had closed over IL and by
lifting up the glass and looking through
the bottom he could see the coin lying
there Had the wax been as deep as g well
the coin would have gone on sinking un.
til It reached the bottom. This proved
that the wax would conform only 10 very
slow movements II he had tried TO push
1t too fast 70 would have resisted him
An idea struck the scientist II the wax
acted like this toward the coin, how would
it treat an object which floated2 He ac-
cordingly placed cork In a tumbler and
poured hot shoemakers' wax upon it. The
wax hardened with the cork at tho bot
tom Yet when Lord Kelvin looked at the
bottom Of the glass in 8 day or two he
found the cork had disappeared IL was
somewhere in the mass OF wax and proba-
bly, rising very slowly, but surely, toward
the top Sure enough, after a given period
of time the cork peeped above the suriaos
OF the hard wax and finally IL rose to q
point where It remained half imbedded
in the wax, just as II would have done In a
glass Of water It rose no higher than this
however, and corkscrew probably would
not have pulled It from the wax Yet It's
own buoyancy had raised It up from the
bottom, through what seemed an impene
trable mass OF wax
This, in fact, is the popularity Of shoe
makers wax, that 1t resists all sudden OF
quick movements, but Is highly susceptible
to very slow and prolonged pressure. II
you pressed a flatiron hard down on .
lump of wax on n table IL is probable you
would make no impression on it, but If
you left that iron resting on the wax for q
day or two, you would find the lump fat
tened 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 a
musical note and being set going by vibrs-
tion for another tuning fork, yet when one
of them was laid across the open mouth OF
jar It slowly collapsed and fell into the
jar in shapeless, sticky mass Any boy
may perform these experiments, and the
lesson in physics to be got therefrom is no
less valuable than the amusement which
the performance affords - Cincinnati
Commercial Tribune