The Washburn leader. [volume] (Washburn, McLean County, N.D.) 1890-1986, 1914-11-06
s~noEMAkERs' WAX.
Surprising Properties Of This Most Pc.
culiar Substance.

ever made by Lord Kelvin was MS
likening the luminiferous ether to
q mass of shoemakers' wax. What
Lord Kelvin said of shoemakers'
wax may be tested by any boy in a
manner that will astonish his play
mates. 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 ma
ture of such a paradoxical material
Lord Kelvin searched everywhere
and at last concluded that shoe
makers wax represented it best. He
made tests, and this is what ne
found:
He melted some wax in a com
mon glass tumbler. After it had
hardened he tried to thrust a lead
pencil through it. 1t would not go.
Then he placed a coin on the sur
face of the wax and left it there
for several days. When he again
visited it 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 ly-
ing there. Had the wax been 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
movements. If he had tried to
push it too fast it would have re-
sisted him.
An idea struck the scientist. If
the wax acted like this toward the
coin how would it treat an object
which loated? He accordingly
placed a cork in a tumbler and
poured hot shoemakers' wax upon
It. The wax hardened 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.
It was somewhere in the mass of
wax and probably rising very slow
ly, but surely, toward the TOP. Sure
enough, after a given period of time
the cork peeped above the surface
of the hard wax, and finally it rose
to a point where it remained half
embedded in the wax just as it
would have done in a glass Of wa
ter. It rose no higher than this,
however, and a 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 impenetra-
bic mass of wax.
This, in fact, is the popularity
Of shoemakers' wax-that it r~esists
all sudden OF quick movements, but
is highly susceptible to very slow
and prolonged pressure.-Exchange.
How to Carry Books.
The Philadelphia free library
permits patrons to take out six
books at a time during certain
months. +.
eff you are not going to wrap
those books up let me show you
how to carry them," said one of the
assistants at the library recently.
Then the young woman slipped
a cover of one book inside a cover
of one she placed on top of it, build
ing up a pile of six books in this
fashion, and the man addressed,
who was carrying the volumes home
to please his wife, the reader of
the family, found his difficulties
we're much Observation-Disclosures
Press.
Flattsrins.
ooh, sir" exclaimed Mama, rush
ing into the drawing room breath
lessly and carrying her fourteen
months-old charge, with whom she
had been visiting the co.. "Oh,'
ma'am, Archibald spoke this morn
ing for the first time!" :
"Really!" exclaimed the young
father, jumping up in excitement.
"Did you hear that, Bella? And.
what did he say, nurse?"
"Why, sir, I was showing him a
large cage Of monkeys when be
clapped his hands and called out
real plain, Papa, papa?"
The Main Chance. !
A Scottish laird invited an Eng
lish friend to go salmon fishing