Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1908-04-29

steaming sulphurous lake about an
acre in extent, and it was impossible
to scale the two peaks of the island
ling nature Of the pumice-like soil.
The chief results of the expedition,
therefore, were new Photographs and
the naming of the two peaks Perry
and McCulloch. News has now ar
rived that the island has once again
sunk below the level Of the sea as
the result probably OF another subma-
rine earthquake. The history of the
island has therefore been phenome-
nal1y short; in that respect differing
from its two predecessors in the same
neighborhood, one of which was
sighted by Captain Cook, and now
com prises a seal rookery, and the
other which has endured for genera
ton.
It has been several times suggested
that the gyroscope could be usefully
employed in steadying flying aero
plane. If it prevents a one-wheeled
car from falling over sideways. why
not flying machine? The answer is
probably that the conditions are not
the same The mono-rail car can only
fall to the right or left of its path;
the popularity of an aeroplane in mo-
ton is that its tendency to duck or
plunge" or sky is joined to tend
ency to roll, and, in fact, its pitching
motion is more pronounced than its
rolling motion. Professor Hele Shaw,
in the artificial paper birds which he
exhibited at the Royal Society's soiree,
showed that, whereas the lateral
swaying or rolling motion of these
@skimming machines" tended to be-
come smaller as the flight heightened,
the pitching motion tended to become
greater, and usually ended in the aero
plane falling backwards-on it's stern,
as one might say. The Wright
brothers, it is generally understood
counteract the lateral dip of their
aeroplane by bending the upper plane
of their machine at the critical mo-
ment; the tendency to dip has to be
counteracted by an analogous sudden
alteration of the cent? Of gravity or
center of pressure of the aeroplane.
But the gyroseope would be an ex-
tremely inadequate instrument at
administrative movements on the
part of the aeronaut, because the
gyroscope in its present form is not
sufficiently automatic, or has not au-
tomatism of the right kind, Pro
fessor Hele Shaw has observed that
an automatic electric contact could be
devised to set gyroscope rotating at
the proper moment but that is long
way off yet, though it is suggested by
Won Liebenbach in Germany.
When a small boy plays at robbers
in cave. or when smaller boy still
shows prehensile power in his toes, it
is usual to say that he is passing
through a stage of development which
is the equivalent of some passage in
the life of his forbears-the cave-man
or the arboreal ancestor. DR.. Paul
Morhards has recently been trying to
apply this hypothesis to certain
phases of a childs intellectual deyel-
opment with special application to its
powers of graphology and drawing.
Contrary to popular impression, it
is not in profile but with full face
that the child at first draws a man.
In the drawings of children at the age
of four, the feet, the eyes, the face
and the arms appear as seen front
wards in four-fifths of the specimens
examined. But in the drawings of
children who have reached the age of
nine the profile view of man ap-
pears in two-thirds of the specimens.
There is transition period during
which the front view appears blended.
Children at about the age of seven
are prone to this artistic anomaly.
Perspective is the greatest difficulty
of the child's mind. $3.50. The SINH
larity of children's drawings to those
of primitive savages is astounding;
but the adult savage never seems to
have outgrown the primitive type OF
child art. He makes his man front
wards. He inserts the full eye in the
profile. He has his man larger than
any hut in the landscape. But there
are similar examples from antique
art. Egyptian art of the Hyksos pc
riod shows the profile constantly with
the frontal eye; and there are other
blunders exactly similar to these to
which childhood, whether it is the
child of Paris or the child Of Tibet
Whose drawings are indistinguish-
able) is prone. Similarly there is lit
tie difference between modern child
art. Etrurian art and Modern Maori
art; the mysterious cities in Yucca
tan had artists on a level with our
nine-year-old child's knowledge of
perspective A stumbling block from
China to Peru in ancient art, as with
children, has been the putting in of
shadow.
Sir Oliver Lodge lately threw off
the suggestion that when a river
curves round bend the speed Of the
moving water Is greatest on the in
uel side OF the bend, and not as
right be supposed. on the outer
The observation has evoked state
ments and theories from several of
those who specially study the wind
tngs and flow of rivers. and among