Evening star., 1938-01-23
By NC. r.

long, t1u1 periodical cAllcQ
the Scientific American. It used to
be delivered regularly to her parents
home and she, ever with 4 mind to
the practical, learned soon Just what
manner Of enjoyment was to be had
from 1t, to-wit: That you could find
some highly intriguing pictures In its
pages, but that you could never read
any Of the print.
For no matter how sensa ational the
illustration, the reading matter was
inevitably unintelligible. An example
Of this discouraging discrepancy was
one picture which showed . lady very
obviously being murdered. The re-
viewer eagerly looked through the
pages for the accompanying harrow
ing story; 1t was not there; the author
had duly written about new electric
burglar alarm. The Scientific Ameri-
can thus early in the reviewers life
came to be marked down As some-
thing which promised thrills, but
promised only.
Well, the taste for thrills. fortu-
nately. subsidies along with that for
cheese dreams and divinity fudge. And,
1t would appear. the Scientific Ameri-
can goes on. The reviewer met her
first copy in some 10 years recently on
q magazine stand, and felt the same
apologize start on seeing its uncom-
promising formal as accompanies
meeting an old school teacher whom
one knows one used to annoy wickedly
There seemed no way to apologize to
the American except to buy a copy
and the reviewer forthwith purchased
the February issue.
THERE was no picture of lady
being murdered In it. Instead OF
the old maddeningly mysterious illus
trations, indeed. the pictorial matter
OF the Scientific American revealed
itself as given over now to art pho
Biography" a field which, say its edi-
tors, is for artists and scientists both
But a magazine reviewer finds art
photography no treat, since practically
every periodical today Is splashing its
pages with shots of paling fences,
spiral nebulae and matriarchal old
women. and so the present writer
went through the Americans exhibit
without excitement. 1t showed, to
be exact, wet paving stones, hypo-
dermic needle just entering human
hand and one patriarchal old man
You get the idea. 1t was pretty much
the usual thing. 1t would have been
fhn,,ntt rAN-iauyor q OF J.
cally, to find just one view Of lady
being murdered. But murdered lady
there was none. Eheu fugaces and all
the rest of 1t!
However, In its printed matter the
American now rates high interest
quotient tthe reviewer has been read
ing Mr.. Stuart Chase. as you will note
from other remarks on this page, ano
cannot resist the temptation to use his
delightful terminology). 1t would ap-
| pear that 1t has improved enormously
or else the reviewer has acquired new
capacity for symbol-referent- -compre-
hension (Mr. Chase again. saying. in
brief. that a reader understands what
an author is talking about). Anyway
she found the Scientific American very
bright and entertaining
Take. for example, such bits as
these:
The roar Of . lion Is 100000 times
more powerful than the smallest
sound that may be heard by the
human ear" Did you suspect that?
"Pedaling . bicycle for six day,
appears a most gruelling test Of muscle
power. yet . single rider. If he were
able to keep going night and day
without q stop. would exert but 2C
horsepower hours Of energy, equiva-
lent to the energy which IS cents
worth OF electricity would buy. This
was revealed when some of the racers
at Madison Square Garden. New York,
tested their strength on special bicy-
Gle. built by General Electric engineers,
which accurately measures the muscle
power Of the rider"
So now, when you go to a six-day
bike contest, you will know what you
are paying for. Exactly IS cents
worth of electricity-not a kilowatt
more.
by using carbon dioxide mixtures
with air as preservative atmosphere,
such perishable fruits as Australian
passion fruit have been shipped to
England" This, If you have ever
tasted passion fruit, you will put
down merely Is esoteric information.
As for the grammar-why, scientists
everywhere seem to have . fine superb
ority to laws Of relativity as these laws
apply to speech.
"Rancidity in potato chips is
checked by dusting finely ground oat
-four over the surface Of the chips"
Think Of that, now. No doubt you
could keep potato chips for years and
years If you just saw to 1t that the
oat -four was carefully busted on
each morning. Wonderful, wonderful!
Clearly all that is needed from this
point on is some sort of gadget for
dusting the chips In case you might
want to eat them. That, assuredly.
should be no trick to our laboratory
wizards And think what a paradise
1t would open up to ad copy writer's
when they began to put the machine
on the market! Visualize the picture
OF the two chaps whispering together
while the dismayed looking young
woman hangs her head-"she serves
dusty chips, old fellow. Hate to say
anything hard about . girl, but we
were all sneezing Is soon as we took
= bite. Her cocktail party simply
broke up IN . hurricane of sneezes.
No wonder she Isn't popular!" It
would liven up the magazines consid-
erably.
Smoke in the atmosphere costs
BEST SELLERS
For Week Ending Jonuory IS