Newspaper Page Text
OUR LETTEREf r,. J
WEEKLY CHAT WITH CORRESPONDENTS
fERE is the first response to the
proposition of Busy Bek and
Gazella. It comes from “ Ed
fcpf'-.'j die,” of Irwinton, Ga., and is
£c) accompanied by a letter to the
Editor, which contains one or
two paragraphs we have concluded to
publish. He says :
“Dear Uncle Burke : I like the pro
proposition of Busy Bee and Gazella
very much ; but I feel like you are more
of a father to us than an uncle. I think
you ought to have at least twice as many
subscribers as you have; for you deserve
to be paid a great sum for so good a pa
per. There is not more than one out of
every ten of the boys and girls in Irwin
ton who takes the Weekly. The parents
of this town seem to take very little in
terest in it; even our Sunday-school
superintendent does not have your dear
paper in his family, although he has
several children that would be delighted
with it.”
% Is not this the secret of the want of
success of the Weekly? Parents do not
seem to care what their children read,
or whether they read at all, Frank Les
lie’s trashy paper, or Mayne Iteid’s
worse than trashy stories, take the place
of the Weekly, and Southern boys and
girls have their minds poisoned by the
vilest stuff, because their parents do not
take the trouble to provide them with
proper reading matter, or, what is worse,
allow them to provide themselves with
what will inevitably ruin them in time
and eternity.
But here is Eddie’s letter to the
“ Burke Cousins:”
u Dear Cousins: I see in No. 9 of
the Weekly a very nice letter, which
comes all the way from River Bank,
La., and I like the proposition very
much. How pleasant it will be for four
thousand boys and girls to be cousins !
I like the idea very much of getting ac
quainted with so many. If you will
allow me, I will write you a short let
ter, hoping that some others will soon
follow.
“ Well, my friends, I am sorry to
hear that the Weekly is not prospering
as it should do. Just think, in all the
South there are only four thousand sub
scribers ! Here, in our town, where we
have a school of about fifty scholars,
and a great many other boys and girls,
there are not more than ten who take
the Weekly. I have tried to get a club
here, but have failed. The boys of this
BURKE’S WEEKLY FOR BOYS AND GIRLS.
place are.not fond of reading, so
they will not take the Weekly, but
spend their spare moments hunting,
or walking about the streets. A
great many of the girls would take
an interest in the Weekly if their
fathers would give them the money
to pay for it. Come now, cousins,
and do your best for Uncle Burke.
Try and double his list before Christ-
mas. We shall all like to hear from you
through the Letter Bag. Hurry up your
letters, and crowd Uncle Burke so that
he will give the Letter Bag entirely up
to us. Cannot four thousand boys and
girls manage to have at least one letter
in every week? I am no letter-writer,
but I like to read letters from others;
and beg some of my cousins from Ir
winton to write for the Weekly. Surely
there are as smart girls here as in Ma
con or River Bank. You look well
enough, and why can’t you write well
enough too ? ”
Patterson W., of Abbeville, S. C.,
says he wishes the Weekly was a daily
—he likes it so much. We are glad to
know that he does ; but there are so
many boys and girls in the South who
do not even take the Weekly, that we
are afraid a daily would fare badly. If
the “Burke Cousins” do not form them
selves into “ a committee of the whole,”
and canvass for their paper, and give
their little friends and companions no
rest until they subscribe, we are not
sure that they will have a wmekly paper
a great many years longer. But we
thank our little friend, Patterson, for
his kind wishes, and are only sorry
that there are not a great many thou
sands just like him. We shall be de
lighted to have his portrait for our
Album.
Stella M., who does not give her
post-office, writes us a nice little let
ter, full of kind things, for which we
are very grateful.
How we should like be able to see
all of our little readers, and talk with
therm face to face 1
Written for Burke’s Weekly.
EVENINGS AT GLENWOOD.
HIS evening,” said Mr. Cran
ford, “ we propose to continue
' the subject of Mirrors. Last
Friday night, we talked principally of
plane mirrors. Ellen, can you tell me
what a curved mirror is?”
“A curved mirror is one in which
the reflecting surface is curved. They
may be of a great variety of shapes.”
“Yes, but we propose at present to
consider only those which are spheri
cal, and these may be either concave or
convex. Arthur, what is a concave
mirror? ”
“It is a mirror in which the reflec
tion takes place from the hollow or
concave side.”
“ What is the middle part of the
mirror called ? ’ ’
“Its vertex.”
“ Yes ; and this is true as well of the
convex as of the concave mirror. The
centre of the sphere, of which the
mirror forms a part, is called the opti
cal centre. The indefinite straight line
through the optical centre and the ver
tex, is called the principal axis , or
sometimes simply the axis. Any plane
section through the axis is called a
principal section.
“Henry, when parallel rays of light
fall upon the surface of a concave mir
ror, they are reflected and caused to
converge to a point half-way between
the centre of the surface and the centre
of the curve of the mirror. I can il
lustrate this, so as to make you under
stand it, by using this bright silver
spoon, which is a sort of concave mir
ror. Now, when I bring the light of
the candle upon the spoon, you see
how the rays converge to a particular
point. What is that point called?”
“ The principal focus of the mirror.”
“Right. Then a focus is a point at
which deviated rays meet. Here is a
picture which will illustrate this more
fully. A beam of sun-light is thrown
on a concave reflector. In this form
the concave reflector may be used to
collect the sun’s rays for the purpose
of developing a great amount of heat.”
“Are not these what are called ‘Burn
ing Mirrors,’ father?” asked Ellen.
“ Yes : and some very interesting ex
periments have been made with them.
A burning mirror, 20 inches in dia
meter, constructed of plaster of Paris,
gilt and burnished, has been found cap
able of igniting tinder at a distance of
50 feet. It is related that Archimedes,
the philosopher of Syracuse, employed
burning mirrors 200 years before the
Christian era, to destroy the besieging
army of Marcellus, the Roman consul;
his mirror was probably constructed of
a great number of flat pieces. The most
remarkable experiments, however, of
this nature, were made by Buffon, the
eminent French naturalist, who had a
machine composed of 168 small plane
mirrors, so arranged that they all re
flected radiant heat to the same focus.
By means of this combination of re
flecting surfaces he was able to set
wood on fire at the distance of 200 feet,
to melt lead at 100 feet, and silver at
50 feet.
“Here is a more minute account of
his experiments, which I will read you
from the ‘ Wonders of Optics
“ £ On the 3rd of April, at about two
o’clock in the afternoon, the great mir
ror was mounted on its stand, and was
" ' • ’Yd s, -\ank
when 128 glasses were used, although
the light was weak at the time, and the
sun was covered with mist. In pursuing
these experiments great care had to be
taken to prevent the bystanders placing
themselves within range of its terrible
power, for several were nearly blinded
by looking at the brilliant focal point
of the instrument. The next day, at
eleven in the forenoon, although the
sun was still covered with mist and
fleecy clouds they were able to produce
such a heat at 150 feet distant, with 154
glasses, that a pitched plank began to
smoulder and would have burnt into
flame, had not the sun disappeared at
that particular moment. On the fifth of
April, at three in the afternoon, with
the light much in the same weak condi
tion as it was on the other days, they
succeeded in igniting at 150 feet distant
a heap of shavings of deal mixed with
charcoal and sulphur, in less than a
minute and a half, with 154 glasses.
When, however, the sun shone with its
natural power, a few seconds were suffi
cient to effect these results.
“ ‘ On the 10th, when the sun was
shining pretty powerfully, a pitched pine
plank was easily fired with 128 glasses,
at 150 feet distant. In this case the ig
nition was very sudden, and extended
over the whole of the radiant spot form
ing the focus, which at the distance
named measured 16 inches in diameter.
The same day at half-past two, a pitched
elm plank covered in some places with
101