Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1907-09-04
SCIENCE,zAND INVENTIONS

DuT mCCuduiCdA supremacy, Dul WHO Is
practically disappearing under the mod
ern system" To meet this need. says
Mr.. Stratton. there has sprung up dur
ing the past few years q system of
apprenticeship designed and fostered
by the managers of great machine
plants. Instead of 'Le old way of
turning a green boy Immediately into
the shop-an unmitigated nuisance to
a busy foreman and the butt of jocu-
lar misinformation from the men
the lad is first made familiar with
shop tools, shop discipline, nd &c
some extent with the system of shop
orders and supply methods, but the
main point of Mr.. STATIONS argument
is his insistence that the young work
man who viii prepare himself as a
skilled mechanic will not only find
ready opportunity, but that the supply
of such men is inadequate to meet
the actual demand. A word is also
said in favor of the correspondence
schools, and the remark is quoted of
railroad master mechanic that he
would like to have every man in his
employ take a correspondence course
along the lines of his work, and SINH
lar remarks are quoted from men
prominent in the world of electricity.
The point is well made that young
men who have the determination and
patience to take up and complete
correspondence courses while they
are doing their reular daily work gain
something even greater than a tech
nical education. Their qualities of
force, self-control and self-reliance,
backed by the theoretical knowledge
of their work and supplemented by
their practical knowledge of shop dis
cipline and practice, make men from
whose ranks must inevitably come
many of the great engineers and in
dustrial managers whom the future
will demand"
An extraordinary fact in regard to
9enrls is unless they are worn thew
will literally pine away and die. This
Is recalled by the fading at the present
moment of magnificent pearl neck
lace in the Louvre museum in Paris.
which is described by Popular Me
chanics as being on its deathbed. 1t
is the famous necklace left by Theirs,
the statesman. 1t formerly belonged
to his wife and was once worth $780,
600 1t consists of las pearls in
three rows. The beautiful gems are
now fast losing their luster and in
decade Or two will turn jet black and
become valueless. The authorities in
the Louvre view the matter with con-
Germ, but they are aware that little
can be done unless the decay of the
gems is arrested by their being worn
on warm human SKIN, SO sensitive are
they to change Of temperature.
A new use of he long distance tele-
phone is reported to have been made
By young woman in Reading, Pa
who secured an operate engagement
by singing a sample number into a
long-distance telephone to a manager
in Philadelphia.
The heaviest passenger locomotive
yet built is said to belong to the Penn
sylvania railroad 1t has 1S-inch
driving wheels and cylinders "a by
26 inches. Its total weight without
the tender is 26S,2OO pounds.
One of the most interesting of sue.
cessful airships has been constructed
by 15-years-old boy, Cromwell
Dixon of Columbus, O., who was in
spired by exhibitions at the st. Louis
exposition. With only his mothers
aid, he has, in fact, designed and built
two airships, the second a slight i'm
provement over the frst His mother
thought him too young to attempt to
fly with a gasoline motor, and so he
developed the idea of foot-power ma
chine, calling it a sky cycle He Sc
cured big silk balloon, 80 feet long
and shaped something like a cucum-
Der. This he covered with a net
which he made himself, and then tax
ing an ordinary safety bicycle, he re-
moved the wheels and the forks, leav-
ing only a triangular frame supporting
the seat, the handle-bars and the ped
ais and sprocket wheel. He geared
the sprocket wheel to rotate a two
bladed silk propeller. and behind the
framework he placed a silk rudder,
manipulated by cords running for
ward to the handle-bars. The gas bag
he filled with hydrogen gas produced
With homemade generators.