The daily chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Ind. Ter. [Okla.]) 1898-1902, 1899-02-21
sHoEMAKERs' WAX.
Curious Results of Scientific Exper
iments Recently Made by
Lord Kelvin.

One of the most apt illustrations ever
made by Lord Kelvin was his likening
the luminiferous ether to mass of
shoemakers' wax. What Lord Kelvin
said of shoemakers' wax may be tested
b. any boy in manner that will aston
ish his playmates. First, let it be said
that the ether penetrates all space. 1t
is as rigid as steel and yet so flexible
that it does not retard the passage of
planets through space in the least. 1t
is an invisible substance which travels
in waves through all things. Now, to
illustrate the nature of such paradox
ical material, Lord Kelvin searched
everywhere, and at last concluded that
shoemakers' wax represented it best.
He made tests, and this is what he
found:
He melted some wax in a common
glass tumbler. After it had hardened
lie tried to thrust lead pencil through
it. 1t would not go. Then he placed
coin on the surface of the wax and left
il for several days. When he again
visited il the coin had sunk to the bot
tom 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
tcen as deep as a well the coin would
have gone on sinking until it reached
the bottom. This proved that the wax
would conform only to very slow move
ments. If he had, tried TO push it too
fast it would have resisted him.
An idea struck the scientist. If the
wax acted like this toward the coin,
how would it treat an object which
foated? He accordingly placed cork
in a tumbler and poured hot shoe
makers wax upon it. The wax hard
2ued, with the cork at the bottom. Yet
when Lord Kelvin looked at the bottom
Of the glass, in a day or two, he found
the cork had disappeared. 1t was some
where in the mass of wax, and probably
rising very slowly but surely toward
the top. Sure enough, after given pc
riod of time the cork peeped above the
surface of the hard wax, and finally it
rose TO a point where it remained half
iilbedded in the wax, just as it would
have done in a glass of water. 1t rose
TO higher than this, however, and
corkscrew probably would not have
pulled it from the wax. Yet its own
huoyancy had raised it up from the bot
tom through what seemed an impen-
etrable mass of wax.
This in fact, is the popularity of shoe
makers waX-that it resists all sudden
or quick movements, but is highly sus-
ctptible to very slow and prolonged
pressure. If you pressed fiatiron hard
down on a lump of wax on table it
is probable you would make no impress
sion on it, but if you left that iron rest
ing on the wax for a day or two you
v ould find the lump flattened out under
tbs 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 mu
sical note and being set going by vi
bration from 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 exper-
i:nents. and the lesson in physics to be
got therefrom is NO less valuable than
the amusement which the performance
aifords.-London News.