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S Oliver E wer Luvans, g Th entific Mi - The Scientific Miller A 5 T 2 eWt7 sot é .By Rev. Thomas B. Gregory. teend} At 00000000000 HEN the farmer has harvested his grain and got the golden 0000008009 o 1 safely into his garner, the next question is: “How shall his wheat be prepared for food and for shipment to the distant parts where it is wanted?” It is known to all that the ancient method of grinding grain was that of the hollowed stone, or the mortar and pestle. 009900000000 By such means did the old Hebrews, Egyptians, Phoeni cians and Greeks grind or crack their grain, It*was a long time after the building of Solomon's Temple before the Romans improved upon the very ancient system by inventing the running stone and stationary grooved one—the “upper and nether mill-stones,” which were, of course, at first operated by hand. In the early part of the eighteenth century the millstones invented by the Romans were made mueh more effectively by the process known as “dressing,” or grooving, the meeting faces of the stones, Crude as these means were, they were all that men unsed in milling until well along toward the beginning of the nineteenth century. It was in 1790 that Oliver Evans of Delaware, wrought his great revolu tion in the milling industry, By Evang’s system, from the moment the grain was emptied from the wagon to the final production of the flour at the close of the process all man ual labor was dispensed with. The grain was first put into a box hung on a scale heam, where it was weighed. It was then run into an elevator which raigsed it to a chamber over cleaning machines, from which place it was run down to a room over the hoppers of the millstones. When ground it fell from the millstones into a receptacle which carried it to the drying floor, where an other contrivance kept it in steady motion until it was thoroughly dried, when ‘it was conveyed by machinery to the holters, . The Evans system-—bhetween which and the older one there was no com parison—prevailed in the Old and New World for more than three-quarters of a century. Within the past generation there has, of course, been a revolution in the milling business greater even than the one made by Evans at the close of the eighteenth century. Ahout thirty or thirty-five vears ago it was discovered that the coarser portion or kernel, of wheat, which lies next to the skin of the berry, and be tween the skin and the heart, is the most valuable and nutritious part of he grain, as it congists largely of gluten; while the interior is made up chiefly of starch. » It was such knowledge that ted {o the modern revolution in milling meth ods and gave us the “roller” process in lieu of the old faced stones. . The new process consists of removing the outer skin of the wheat and its adhering impurities from the “middlings,” then separating the middlings from the central part, and then regrinding the middlings into flour, Under the old system the coarser part, known as middlings, was thrown aside and ground up into cattie food or into what was considered an inferior grade of flour, by which arrangement the cattle got the cream of the wheat, while the man, in his ignorance, was eating the poorer part, thinking that he was getting the best.—From the American. S S el emnef ] fio p. . . arties and Principles T S S A P9O ” % 2 By A C. McLaughlin. : | o NYeangrsrnanaey POLITICAL party may be truthfully defined—or its content ronghly suggested—in some such way as this; it is a body of men, somewhat fluctuating in personnel and in numbers, who have Degun so work together to attain some political purposeé or to oppose other men to whom for some reason & & they”m &*nugnmt!ox This. body, acquiging erganiza -2 tion and graWhally devloping esprit de corps and a sense of self, continues in existence even after its first purpose is ; accomplished or abandoned, indeed after it has lost a dom inating purpose of any kind; it aceepts new doctrines to wrest office from its opponents; its activities rest largely on tradition, on party name, on personal pride and sometimes on a dominating principle. We should not be far wrong if we should declare that there are two or more great armies in ex istence, each controlled by a select few whose main ambition is victory, and that objects of the people’'s desire are attained by the organization’s accept ing a principle as a means of winning success. This does not mean that a party government would usually throw over a principle which is believed was unpopular and likely to bring disaster. If this is not true, why condemn My, Bryan for adhering to free silver, when its advocacy had not brought suc cess 2 Atlantic, KRRt ddtttAt Attt att ettt an e rflrs o pruonanan, Glori ] T orious Things to Talk About for a Year S—— — .o —— By Chancellor Day. Crrvvnstis e Vi ALK of nothing for a year but the great and glorious things y " of America. "Talk of the thousand varieties of handy and “heap forms into which meats and fruits and vegetables, all edibles, are being put for men in all places and pursuits, from the day laborer to the North-pole explorer. Talk of the difference between kerosene at 15 or 20 cents a gallon and kerosene at $1 a gallon and every gallon at that time : 0 might blow you into kingdom come. "Talk of the by-prod ucts once in the dump heaps that are adding hundreds of millions annually to our country's wealth and the comforts of the rich to the homes of the poor. Talk of unnumbered forms of manufacture, those most active agents of civilization, which must be eredited up to our great land. Talk of the raitways, which from opposition in their inception to persecution throughout their history, have pushed on opening up states, tilling the nation with teming millions, transporting us for a fraction of the cost of conveying ourselves in all directions, hurling our papers and letters off at every wayside village at a mile a minute, and taking to the tidewaters for the markets of the world the products of our fields and the work of our shops and factories, Talk about these great things a year and see how few things there will be to complain about.—~From Appleton’s Magazine, RURLRURRURRRAARERt et an M d\,—-’b . Precocity and Degeneracy Rese e s S b { By W. A Newman Dorland. IR\ N 2 RECOCITY is not always a thing to be desired. Indeed, it may, just as surely as a prematurely ripened fruit indicates decay and early death, mean an early degeneration and loss of the mental faculties, By many biologists it is considered an expression of premature senility. As Lombroso has in dicated, many of the men of genius were subjects of degen eracy. There is a period of antenatal growth known to sci entists as the senile period, embracing the fourth and fifth wmonths of prénatal existence, It has been found that a slight arrest of development at this period is characteristic of the class of be: ings kuown as degenerates, and precocity is recognized as one of the expres sions of this development defect. Relief de la Bretonne, who composed at fourteen a poem on his first twelve loves, is a remarkable precocity. “A wit of five is a fool of twenty,” is an adage founded upon the popular appreciation of this unpleasant truth.—From The Century. A LOOK INTO THE FUTURE SHOWS IT WILL BE A STRANGE WORLD INDEED FOR OUR POSTERITY, Anthracite Gonz, Soil Wa—s;::i: Electricity the Savior— By the Time City 3%s Mature Sun’s Rays Will Be Conserved, Watercourses Will Be Chains of Reservoirs and Air Will Fertilize Earth—So Says Dr. Steinmatz. Dr. Charles Proteus Steinmetz, pro fessor of electrical engineering at Union College, Schenectady, and con sulting engineer of the General Elge tric Company, predicts that all youneg men now living will see the exhaus tion of our supply of anthracite. The natural course then will be to rely upon our deposits of soft coal for pro tection against freezing, but the Goy ernment, in Dr. Steinmetz’s opinion, will be obliged to prohibit this or the air we breathe will become permeated with poisonous gases. The hope of the future for life, as Dr. Steinmetz gees it, lies in electricity. The United States that is to come will be a country entirely devoid of its present river scenery. The riversg of the future will be merely a succes sion of sluggish lakes, with electrical power stations in between. All the little streams will have been utilized and their combined strength con verged into the great bodies of water that are to supply the heat, light and power of the future. But even the hushanding of all our water power won't be sufficient. There must be economy along other lines. 'The energy of the sun itself must be trapped and saved. Our building methods will have to un dergo a change. Provision will have to be made for the utilization of the sun’s rays in the heating of our (or somehody else's) homes. Dr. Steinmetz also sees in the mind’s eye the city of the future—a collection of office buildings, factories and bachelor apartments. All the married men with their families will have moved to the water-courseless country. The development of the uses of electricity is already bringing this change about. . Dr. Steinmetz took this look into the future in a lecture at the Amer ican Institute of Electrical Engineers, 33 West Thirty-ninth street.” The lee ture was given for the New York Electrical Trade School, and most of the audience were students from that institution. Dr. Steinmetz’s subject was “The Future of Electricity.” Dr. Steinmetz said that the handi cap against electricity now is ietzlsh‘% cost of production. That high cost is occasioned largely by the irregular’ nature of the distribution, Electricity supplied - for twenty-four hours to a mill could be obtained on one gapt ver kilowatt hour, whereas the tricity used for lighting pugl¥ would cost ten times as much. @& | hope of the future for economygf teinmetz’s opinionw lay . in, JEFE! 'S'fitilzfi; 55 el,ecgricnkhtmfi*‘m‘ that it would go out evenly oveNg twenty-four hours, and not in a hapt, hazard and unsystematie way as at present. “The cost of production,” said Dr. Steinmetz, “depends on the distribu tion of the ‘loads,” and when they can be evened out over the twenty-four hours in a systematic way the end will have come for kerosene and gas as illuminants.” : The same conditions will usher in the age of cooking by electricity, if the coal supply hasn't given out be foi¥ then. i “The time will come,” said the pro fessor, “when we will have no more coal, and it is not far in the future. Anthracite will not last long: many | of us who are here will be alive when the last is gone. Many of us will see the time when there is only soft coal. Some of you may see the time when soft coal is exhausted, but probably not, for there is a supply of this even in Greenland’s icy mountains. But, nevertheless, we can see the end, -and when we approach it what are we £oo ing to do to keep from freezing? That seems to be the problem that the next generation will have to meet, and maybe we ourselves. “But the Nation also will have to wake up to the problem of the poisan that escapes in the burning of soft coal. Look out around Pittsburg where we se¢ the pine trees dying. | They have been poisoned. The ever green tree, like ourselves, has only one set of lungs. Other trees get a new set every year, 1f you go through all those valleys where the great steel plants are you will never find a pige. It may be even before the soft coal is gone that we may have to drop its use, that we will wake up to the vie iousness of the practice of burning it. “And what does this mean? It means that we must use electrical power. When we reach the end of the soft coal the only remaining sources that will keep us from freez ing are the water powers. We are developing the country's water power now, but we are only making a be ginning. In the single State of Mas sachusetts there is more water power going to waste than is found in Ipi agara herself. “Electricity in the future will have to solve the problem of collecting the water power. Now we convert it where we find it into electricity; we haven't started collecting it as yet. We have been dreaming of transport ing Niagara's power to New York. They will never do that, but the dif ferent powers joined together may feed the same system. “What we get to-day, however, of our real water power is a mere noth ing. No attempt is made to get the enormous power that goes to waste in the spring floods. Look at the enor mous unused power in. the little creeks and rivulets. New methods will have to be devised for collecting the joint power of all these creeks {and rivers. That is what we will have to do when we face the possibility of freezing. : 1 "“There are hard times coming for future generations. We can see now im what direction things will tend. We think now it is not worth while doing these things, but the time will come when they will have to be done. They won’t live in houses such as we have now. They will have to collect the sunshine. They will appreciate that it takes a lot of electrical power to produce a little heat.” ‘But in Dr. Steinmetz’s opinion there is a vaster problem facing the nations of the world—a problem which only electricity can solve. That has to do with the exhaustion of the soil. It's a cardinal principle that you’ve got to put back into the soil what you've taken out if you are ing to keep the soil's capital intact. %at hasn’t been done in this or other countries. New lEngland, for instance, 48 no longer a farming country. The capital there, according to Dr. Stein metz, has all been taken from the soil. The time will come, too, when the West will be exhausted, and we can go no further. - “We will face the Pacific, and he { vond that,” said the speaker, “the millions of China.” The attempt to fertilize the ground put back, Dr. Steinmetz held, only a -§mall proportion of what was taken out, and it would be only about ten vears when the supply of saltpeter, fised in fertilizer, will have heen ex gausted. ““When the capital of our farms,” said the speaker, “is exhausted, we will have to produce fertilizer. A large part of what we take out of the soil we dump into the rivers as sew age. Billions of dollars of capital is carried down by them into the ocean. But we cannot hope to utilize ail of this. ; : - “Electrical power is the only means {hat will combins the elements of the air necessary for a fertilizer. That process we are just reaching—the production of fertilizer from the air. It is not practical yet; the cost of clectrical power is too great. This fertilizer is produced only in Sweden, where electrical power is extremely .cheap. - Every year we can see the - sessity of restoring the capital to ' farm. That situation will have . jmet within our lifetimes.” ~ eerring ‘again to the possibilities o RIS p1y..»1m,.‘ Steinmetz ~gl Ve may get an enormous amount wr¥ower by collecting the water. ‘here will be no more creeks and rivers. The rivers will be lakes joined by power stations. It will not be a ~question of saving the beauties of na ture but of saving human life. All ‘will have to be utilized, even the spring floods, in restoring what has ‘been taken from the soil. We might ‘be able to get along without physi cians—the human race would prob ;'ably continue—but we would not be able to get along without the elec tricians.” ‘Dr. Steinmetz, speaking of the de velopment of the uses of electricity on railways, said that its effect on the social life of the Nation had been and would be incalculable. - ~ “To realize it,” said he, “go out iinto the country. An enormous ‘change is gradually taking place. In the old days the country districts ‘were becoming depopulated; the peo ple were moving to the cities. Now conditions are changing. The city is ‘rapidly sending its people back to the country. The overpopulation of the cities is being relieved by the country becoming practically part of the citles. The city is fast becoming the place of business, with factories office buildings and boarding houses for bachelors. The families will live in the country. This will progress further and further until the Nation will again live in the country but work in the cities and towns.” Dr. Steinmetz believes also that the application of electricity to rail roads and to street car lines will ulti mately afford the solution of the labor problem on the farm. “At present,” said he, “the farmer complains that he hasn't enough help; that the farm has been depopu lated. He wants a man for only a few weeks in a year, and then he is through with him. By operating be tween the town and the farm the elec tric roads will make it possible for the town man to meet those periods of demand and to work in the fac tories the rest of the time. At pres ent this isn't feasible, but the time will come when we will have to econ omize. The time will come when we will have to co-operate in systemically distributing according to the season the work that is to be done. Then we will combine the city and the town,"—New York Sun. eet e eet Strong Upon Him, y Miss Mathilda Owens hung upon the arm of the editor of the Laneville Bugle, to whom she had been en gaged for three years, and endeav ored to-turn his gaze toward the sky. ““Just notice the moon, William!" she said in a melting voice. : “At the usual rates, Matilda, 1 shall be happy to do so,” he replied; ~—Youth's Companion. . . | The Circus From the Inside s By JOHN S. LOPEZ. “Most performers,” said the Pink Lemonade Man, ‘soak away their gpare change in sparklers so as to shave somethin’ to hock if they go broke. I flash mine mostly for busi ness reasons, though I ain’'t denyin’. I've converted it at times. Diamonds adds dignity, specially in small towns, where they can only recognize a gen tleman because he wears a high hat, patent-leather shoes, and swell clothes. Besides, it makes ’em feel easier to let 'em see you trustin’ a fine sparkler like that in the liquids yvou're selling 'em.” Here a shower of sawdust fell about us. Two boys were fighting in froni of the stand, rolling on the ground and pelting each other with sawdust. “Well, I'll be—" began the Pink Lemonade Man, as a quantity of it { landed in one of the tubs. Then he smiled philosophically. “It’ll draw a crowd, and maybe I'll land some of ‘em. Here, Jimmy,” he called loudly to his assistant, “take this tub over to the dressing tent and empty it.” He turned to us. “What he'll do,” he confided, “is strain it through a cheesecloth we ’ keep on purpose. He'll bring it back in a minute, that is, unless Made- I moiselle Fleurette is hanging ‘round.” The Serious Student heamed. “Are there many little romances around the circus?” he asked, eager ly. “I presume she is his sweet heart?” % The Pink Lemonade Man threw back his head and gave up to such ex ]plosive and sprinkiing mirth that I shuddered for the lemonade. “If Jimmy heard you,” he finally managed to splutter, “he'd probably iry to beat your face in. Mademoi selle Fleurette's a young man. Him. an’ Jimmy uster Dbe pals, but now most every time they meet there's a scrap. Fleurette’s got a swelled head an’ puts on airs. Jimmy gets back at him by insinuations concerning him passin’ for a perfec’ lady.”—Har per’'s Weekly. ‘“What's Mine is Thine.” The simple statement of a New foundland report that the St. Pierre fishing fleet lost 123 men during the season recently closed makes little impression on the casual reader. Be hind the words, however, is deep tragedy. There is much pathos in the lives of those northern fishermen as well as in their deaths. They are ‘a hard working class, used to all sorts of dangers, and experiencing little of the common comforis of existence. Mr. Willson in ‘“The Tenth Isiand’’ gives an instance of generosity which might well shame the boasted hospi ‘tality of wealthy civilization, - The Newfoundland fisherman is _the personification of hospitality. He is a great, warm ,heartedr-'leuog;{ | whose be 4 and board and good offices ‘are at”-fi-dhow In hut, cabin or cottage everything you see belongs to you for the time being, but bhe careful not to express a wish for it. A Yankee comedian once came to Newfoundland during the shooting season. He was much struck by the extraordinarily and picturesquely patched trousers that his host wore, “I ghall have a pair like them,” he said, jocosely, and jotted down notes as to their appearance. When the actor and his friend took their leave, their hostess, in her lord’s absence, pressed a parcel on them, which they accepted, thinking it was fish. “We couldnt very well decline it,"” remarked the actor. *“lt’s the custom here, I believe. I vote we give it to the first man we meet. By the way, 1 suppose it is fish.” The parcel was opened and found to contain the trousers of the host. The two strangers ran back, and sur prised the fisherman mending nets in his wife’s skirts. It was a chilly day and he had worn those precious trou sers for seventeen years, yet he was much hurt because they were not ac cepted. R S et Found His Place at Last. ““Take a phrenological examination and learn what profession or calling in life you are best fitted for,” was the injunction painted on the show case at the bottom of the stairway, and the young man who had been looking#at it and studying the ‘‘ex hibits”” in the showcase went up the stairs to the second floor, where he found the phrenologist's office. “Is this where you examine peo ple’s heads?” he asked. “*Yes, sir.” “Well, I wish you'd run your fing ers over mine, and tell me what I'm good for,” said the caller. ‘I haven't found out yet.” The phrenologist made a thorough examination of his head, but seemed in doubt, “To be perfectly frank with you, my friend,” he said, ‘I can discover no marked characteristics on which to base any definite plan of life for you. There is no predominant devel opment in any one direction.” Here he paused a moment. “Have you ever tried any kind of occupation?’’ he asked. “Yes, sir. I've tried life insurance, sewing machines, real estate, bill col lecting and book canvassing, and made a failure of all of 'em."” “What is your name, may I ask?” “My name is Sweet."” “Ah!" exclaimed the phrenologist. “Young man, start a candy factory. My word for it, your name and that business will make a winning combi nation.” The young man paid the fee and went out, with a sarcastic smile on his face. But the curious part of the story is that he took the advice—and wchieved suceess, T QCIENTIFICT 2 AR &T X Y NDUSTP\I The highest authorities place the total number of years elapsed since, in the light of the best geological evi dence, men first appeared upon earth at 288,000, The statement that radium loses activity on healing has heen tested by Dr. H. W. Schmidt, who finds that at 1300 degree C. its effects are ege actly as at ordinary temperature, The aluminium books for the blingd now being printed in Edinburgh are of thin sheets embossed in the usual way. They are easier to read than paper hooks, do not soil, and are practically indestructible. Their ex. pensiveness is their drawback. Many cases of astigmatism arise from the practice of reading in bed, particularly by persons recovering from a severe illness. It strains the muscles of the eye to such an extent that they alter the curvature of the cornea —the abnormality to which l the term astigmatism is applied. l Plans have oilen been made to de velop the power of the tides, but in most cases these have failed of com mercial sueccess. Now, however, a project is well advanced to harness the power of the tides on the coast of Maine. A company has bonded land | on either side of Back Bay, in Port land, where it is anticipated a tidal power plant will be located capable of developing at least 25,000 horse power or enough to run all the elec tric cars, lights and engines in the i city. Mons. Dufour, a French scientist, has succeeded in making thermome ter tubes of pure quartz. Not only are these tubes exceedingly transpar ent, but their resistance to heat and other advantages make them superior to glass for thermometers intended to measure high temperatures, In such thermometers melted tin takes the place of mercury, and the scale reads from about 465 degrees Fah renheit up to over 1000 degrees. It ! could be run up to 1800 degrees, for quartz does not soften below that ' temperature, t The meteor trains studied by Pro fessor Trowbridge, of Columbia Uni ' versity, are the luminous streaks of ’ten seen in the wake of shooting stars, and they may continue many, . minutes, or even an hour or more. | They drift slowly and become distort _ ©d, as if by air currents. They seem . 1o De self-luminous and may some | times be seen in daytime. They some ! what resemble the afterglow on turn . ing off the current from vacuum tube '»électrode& The glow is greenish yel low, diffuses 100 yvards a minute and is most striking at a pressure caleu ~lated to be that of the atmosphere at | a height of fifty-five miles. > *————-_ ; The Honey Guide of Africa, i The honey guide belongs to Africa. When -it desires to feed upon some comb which it hasdiscovered it makes its way to a human being, flutters about restlessly and hops from bush | to bush and from one ant to another " until it succeeds in attracting the ! man's attention. During this time it ' utters a shrill ery of ““Cherr, cherr!”. | The native who understands its hab i its follows it. The honey guide now, ' goes ahead, always watehing to sce | that the man is following. At length the honey nest is reached. While the native attacks the nest and rifles the comb the bird still flutters abonut, | chirping. When the man departs the ! honey guide descends from its perch and helps itself.—Springfield Repube ! lican. l Life Under the Microscope. ! Everybody who has used a micio ; Scope has no doubt regretted the dif ificulty of seeing small insects, and I other living objects not of mere mi croscopic dimensions, magnified while : alive and moving freely in the field % of view. A recently invented English .instrument, called the vitascope, is' said to supply a desideratum in this | respect. It is shaped like a telescope, | a foot long when closed, and an inch | and a half in diameter. The lenses [ are so combined that an object twen ]ty inches away may be magnified | twelve diameters. At a distance of five inches the magnification is sixty, l diameters. 55 i o i Substitute For Hard Rubber. An Englishman has taken out 4 butent on a composition which he says has all the properties of hard rubber, but is much cheaper. Tan bark and sulphur ave used in its prep aration. A coarse black powder is said to result from stirring these ma terials when heated. Later the pro duct is ground fine and placed in a mold under the proper pressure. If heat is then applied to the mold, says the inventor, the contents set into a hard, durable mass, Flume Seventy Miles Long. % In the Dawson mining district the Yukon Gold Company is building a seventy-mile ditch, fiume and pipe line to supply water for placer min ing. The whole water supply system: when completed will cost about $2,- 500,000, It is expected that the con duit will be completed in the fall of this year. .