Photographing Motion—Edison's Kinetoscope—Lumiere'sCinematographe—Before the Camera—The Mission of the MovingPicture.
Few can realize the extent of the field covered by moving pictures. In the dual capacity of entertainment and instruction there is not a rival in sight. As an instructor, science is daily widening the sphere of the motion picture for the purpose of illustration. Films are rapidly superseding text books in many branches. Every department capable of photographic demonstration is being covered by moving pictures. Negatives are now being made of the most intricate surgical operations and these are teaching the students better than the witnessing of the real operations, for at the critical moment of the operation the picture machine can be stopped to let the student view over again the way it is accomplished, whereas at the operating table the surgeon must go on with his work to try to save life and cannot explain every step in the process of the operation. There is no doubt that the moving picture machine will perform a very important part in the future teaching of surgery.
In the naturalist's domain of science it is already playing a very important part. A device for micro-photography has now been perfected in connection with motion machines whereby things are magnified to a great degree. By this means the analysis of a substance can be better illustrated than any way else. For instance a drop of water looks like a veritable Zoo with terrible looking creatures wiggling and wriggling through it, and makes one feel as if he never wanted to drink water again.
The moving picture in its general phase is entertainment and instruction rolled into one and as such it has superseded the theatre. It is estimated that at the present time in America there are upwards of 20,000 moving picture shows patronized daily by almost ten million people. It is doubtful if the theatre attendance at the best day of the winter season reaches five millions.
The moving picture in importance is far beyond the puny functions of comedy and tragedy. The grotesque farce of vaudeville and the tawdry show which only appeals to sentiment at highest and often to the base passions at lowest.
Despite prurient opposition it is making rapid headway. It is entering very largely into the instructive and the entertaining departments of the world's curriculum. Millions of dollars are annually expended in the production of films. Companies of trained and practiced actors are brought together to enact pantomimes which will concentrate within the space of a few minutes the most entertaining and instructive incidents of history and the leading happenings of the world.
At all great events, no matter where transpiring, the different moving picture companies have trained men at the front ready with their cameras to "catch" every incident, every movement even to the wink of an eyelash, so that the "stay-at-homes" can see theshowas well, and with a great deal more comfort than if they had traveled hundreds, or even thousands, of miles to be present inpropria persona.
How did moving pictures originate? What and when were the beginning? It is popularly believed that animated pictures had their inception with Edison who projected the biograph in 1887, having based it on that wonderful and ingenious toy, the Zoetrope. Long before 1887, however, several men of inventive faculties had turned their attention to a means of giving apparent animation to pictures. The first that met with any degree of success was Edward Muybridge, a photographer of San Francisco. This was in 1878. A revolution had been brought about in photography by the introduction of the instantaneous process. By the use of sensitive films of gelatine bromide of silver emulsion the time required for the action of ordinary daylight in producing a photograph had been reduced to a very small fraction of a second. Muybridge utilized these films for the photographic analysis of animal motion. Beside a race-track he placed a battery of cameras, each camera being provided with a spring shutter which was controlled by a thread stretched across the track. A running horse broke each thread the moment he passed in front of the camera and thus twenty or thirty pictures of him were taken in close succession within one or two seconds of time. From the negatives secured in this way a series of positives were obtained in proper order on a strip of sensitized paper. The strip when examined by means of the Zoetrope furnished a reproduction of the horse's movements.
The Zoetrope was a toy familiar to children; it was sometimes called the wheel of life. It was a contrivance consisting of a cylinder some ten inches wide, open at the top, around the lower and interior rim of which a series of related pictures were placed. The cylinder was then rapidly rotated and the spectator looking through the vertical narrow slits on its outer surface, could fancy that the pictures inside were moving.
Muybridge devised an instrument which he called a Zoopraxiscope for the optical projection of his zoetrope photographs. The succession of positives was arranged in proper order upon a glass disk about 18 inches in diameter near its circumference. This disk was mounted conveniently for rapid revolution so that each picture would pass in front of the condenser of an optical lantern. The difficulties involved in the preparation of the disk pictures and in the manipulation of the zoopraxiscope prevented the instrument from attracting much attention. However, artistically speaking, it was the forerunner of the numerous "graphs" and "scopes" and moving picture machines of the present day.
It was in 1887 that Edison conceived an idea of associating with his phonograph, which had then achieved a marked success, an instrument which would reproduce to the eye the effect of motion by means of a swift and graded succession of pictures, so that the reproduction of articulate sounds as in the phonograph, would be accompanied by the reproduction of the motion naturally associated with them.
The principle of the instrument was suggested to Edison by the zoetrope, and of course, he well knew what Muybridge had accomplished in the line of motion pictures of animals almost ten years previously. Edison, however, did not employ a battery of cameras as Muybridge had done, but devised a special form of camera in which a long strip of sensitized film was moved rapidly behind a lens provided with a shutter, and so arranged as to alternately admit and cut off the light from the moving object. He adjusted the mechanism so that there were 46 exposures a second, the film remaining stationary during the momentary time of exposure, after which it was carried forward far enough to bring a new surface into the proper position. The time of the shifting was about one-tenth of that allowed for exposure, so that the actual time of exposure was about the one-fiftieth of a second. The film moved, reckoning shiftings and stoppages for exposures, at an average speed of a little more than a foot per second, so that a length of film of about fifty feet received between 700 and 800 impressions in a circuit of 40 seconds.
Edison named his first instrument the kinetoscope. It came out in 1893. It was hailed with delight at the time and for a short period was much in demand, but soon new devices came into the field and the kinetoscope was superseded by other machines bearing similar names with a like signification.
A variety of cameras was invented. One consisted of a film-feeding mechanism which moves the film step by step in the focus of a single lens, the duration of exposure being from twenty to twenty-five times as great as that necessary to move an unexposed portion of the film into position. No shutter was employed. As time passed many other improvements were made. An ingenious Frenchman named Lumiere, came forward with his Cinematographe which for a few years gave good satisfaction, producing very creditable results. Success, however, was due more to the picture ribbons than to the mechanism employed to feed them.
Of other moving pictures machines we have had the vitascope, vitagraph, magniscope, mutoscope, panoramagraph, theatograph and scores of others all derived from the two Greek rootsgraphoI write andscopeoI view.
The vitascope is the principal name now in use for moving picture machines. In all these instruments in order that the film projection may be visible to an audience it is necessary to have a very intense light. A source of such light is found in the electric focusing lamp. At or near the focal point of the projecting lantern condenser the film is made to travel across the field as in the kinetoscope. A water cell in front of the condenser absorbs most of the heat and transmits most of the light from the arc lamp, and the small picture thus highly illuminated is protected from injury. A projecting lens of rather short focus throws a large image of each picture on the screen, and the rapid succession of these completes the illusion of life-like motion.
Hundreds of patents have been made on cameras, projecting lenses and machines from the days of the kinetoscope to the present time when clear-cut moving pictures portray life so closely and so well as almost to deceive the eye. In fact in many cases the counterfeit is taken for the reality and audiences as much aroused as if they were looking upon a scene of actual life. We can well believe the story of the Irishman, who on seeing the stage villain abduct the young lady, made a rush at the canvas yelling out,—"Let me at the blackguard and I'll murder him."
Though but fifteen years old the moving picture industry has sent out its branches into all civilized lands and is giving employment to an army of thousands. It would be hard to tell how many mimic actors and actresses make a living by posing for the camera; their name is legion. Among them are many professionals who receive as good a salary as on the stage.
Some of the large concerns both in Europe and America at times employ from one hundred to two hundred hands and even more to illustrate some of the productions. They send their photographers and actors all over the world for settings. Most of the business, however, is done near home. With trapping and other paraphernalia a stage setting can be effected to simulate almost any scene.
Almost anything under the sun can be enacted in a moving picture studio, from the drowning of a cat to the hanging of a man; a horse race or fire alarm is not outside the possible and the aviator has been depicted "flying" high in the heavens.
The places where the pictures are prepared must be adapted for the purpose. They are called studios and have glass roofs and in most of them a good section of the walls are also glass. The floor space is divided into sections for the setting or staging of different productions, therefore several representations can take place at the same time before the eyes of the cameras. There are "properties" of all kinds from the ragged garments of the beggar to kingly ermine and queenly silks. Paste diamonds sparkle in necklaces, crowns and tiaras, seeming to rival the scintillations of the Kohinoor.
At the first, objections were made to moving pictures on the ground that in many cases they had a tendency to cater to the lower instincts, that subjects were illustrated which were repugnant to the finer feelings and appealed to the gross and the sensual. Burglaries, murders and wild western scenes in which the villain-heroes triumphed were often shown and no doubt these had somewhat of a pernicious influence on susceptible youth. But all such pictures have for the most part been eliminated and there is a strict taboo on anything with a degrading influence or partaking of the brutal. Prize fights are often barred. In many large cities there is a board of censorship to which the different manufacturing firms must submit duplicates. This board has to pass on all the films before they are released and if the pictures are in any way contrary to morals or decency or are in any respect unfit to be displayed before the public, they cannot be put in circulation. Thus are the people protected and especially the youth who should be permitted to see nothing that is not elevating or not of a nature to inspire them with high and noble thoughts and with ambitions to make the world better and brighter.
Let us hope that the future mission of the moving picture will be along educational and moral lines tending to uplift and ennoble our boys and girls so that they may develop into a manhood and womanhood worthy the history and best traditions of our country.
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The Wizard of Menlo Park has just succeeded after two years of hard application to the experiment in giving us the talking picture, a real genuine talking picture, wholly independent of the old device of having the actors talk behind the screen when the films were projected. By a combination of the phonograph and the moving picture machine working in perfect synchronism the result is obtained. Wires are attached to the mechanism of both the machines, the one behind the screen and the one in front, in such a way that the two are operated simultaneously so that when a film is projected a corresponding record on the phonograph acts in perfect unison supplying the voice suitable to the moving action. Men and women pass along the canvas, act, talk, laugh, cry and "have their being" just as in real life. Of course, they are immaterial, merely the reflection of films, but the one hundred thousandth of an inch thick, yet they give forth oral sounds as creatures of flesh and blood. In fact every sound is produced harmoniously with the action on the screen. An iron ball is dropped and you hear its thud upon the floor, a plate is cracked and you can hear the cracking just the same as if the material plate were broken in your presence. An immaterial piano appears upon the screen and a fleshless performer discourses airs as real as those heard on Broadway. Melba and Tettrazini and Caruso and Bonci appear before you and warble their nightingale notes, as if behind the footlights with a galaxy of beauty, wealth and fashion before them for an audience. True it is not even their astral bodies you are looking at, only their pictured representations, but the magic of their voices is there all the same and there is such an atmosphere of realism about the representations that you can scarcely believe the actors are not present inpropriae personae.
Mr. Edison had much study and labor of experiment in bringing his device to a successful issue. The greatest obstacle he had to overcome was in getting a phonograph that could "hear" far enough. At the beginning of the experiments the actor had to talk directly into the horn, which made the right kind of pictures impossible to get. Bit by bit, however, a machine was perfected which could "hear" so well that the actor could move at his pleasure within a radius of twenty feet. That is the machine that is being used now. This new combination of the moving picture machine and the phonograph Edison has named thekinetophone. By it he has made possible the bringing of grand opera into the hamlets of the West, and through it also our leading statesmen may address audiences on the mining camps and the wilds of the prairies where their feet have never trodden.
Evolution of the Sky-scraper—Construction—New York's GiantBuildings—Dimensions.
The sky-scraper is an architectural triumph, but at the same time it is very much of a commercial enterprise, and it is indigenous, native-born to American soil. It had its inception here, particularly in New York and Chicago. The tallest buildings in the world are in New York. The most notable of these, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Building with fifty stories towering up to a height of seven hundred feet and three inches, has been the crowning achievement of architectural art, the highest building yet erected by man.
How is it possible to erect such building—how is it possible to erect a sky-scraper at all? A partial answer may be given in one word—steel.
Generally speaking the method of building all these huge structures is much the same. Massive piers or pillars are erected, inside which are usually strong steel columns; crosswise from column to column great girders are placed forming a base for the floor, and then upon the first pillars are raised other steel columns slightly decreased in size, upon which girders are again fixed for the next floor; and so on this process is continued floor after floor. There seems no reason why buildings should not be reared like this for even a hundred stories, provided the foundations are laid deep enough and broad enough.
The walls are not really the support of the buildings. The essential elements are the columns and girders of steel forming the skeleton framework of the whole. The masonry may assist, but the piers and girders carry the principal weight. If, therefore, everything depends upon these piers, which are often of steel and masonry combined, the immense importance will be seen of basing them upon adequate foundations. And thus it comes about that to build high we must dig deep, which fact may be construed as an aphorism to fit more subjects than the building of sky-scrapers.
To attempt to build a sky-scraper without a suitable foundation would be tantamount to endeavoring to build a house on a marsh without draining the marsh,—it would count failure at the very beginning. The formation depends on the height, the calculated weight the frame work will carry, the amount of air pressure, the vibrations from the running of internal machines and several other details of less importance than those mentioned, but of deep consequence in the aggregate.
Instead of being carried on thick walls spread over a considerable area of ground, the sky-scrapers are carried wholly on steel columns. This concentrates many hundred tons of load and develops pressure which would crush the masonry and cause the structures to penetrate soft earth almost as a stone sinks in water.
In the first place the weight of the proposed building and contents is estimated, then the character of the soil determined to a depth of one hundred feet if necessary. In New York the soil is treacherous and difficult, there are underground rivers in places and large deposits of sand so that to get down to rock bottom or pan is often a very hard undertaking.
Generally speaking the excavations are made to about a depth of thirty feet. A layer of concrete a foot or two thick is spread over the bottom of the pit and on it are bedded rows of steel beams set close together. Across the middle of these beams deep steel girders are placed on which the columns are erected. The heavy weight is thus spread out by the beams, girders and concrete so as to cause a reduced uniform pressure on the soil. Cement is filled in between the beams and girders and packed around them to seal them thoroughly against moisture; then clean earth or sand is rammed in up to the column bases and covered with the concrete of the cellar floor.
In some cases the foundation loads are so numerous that nothing short of masonry piers on solid rock will safely sustain them. To accomplish this very strong airtight steel or wooden boxes with flat tops and no bottoms are set on the pier sites at ground water level and pumped full of compressed air while men enter them and excavating the soil, undermine them, so they sink, until they land on the rock and are filled solid with concrete to form the bases of the foundation piers.
On the average the formation should have a resisting power of two tons to the square foot, dead load. By dead load is meant the weight of the steelwork, floors and walls, as distinguished from the office furniture and occupants which come under the head of living load. Some engineers take into consideration the pressure of both dead and live loads gauging the strength of the foundation, but the dead load pressure of 2 tons to the square foot will do for the reckoning, for as a live load only exerts a pressure of 60 lbs. to the square foot it may be included in the former.
The columns carry the entire weights including dead and live loads and the wind pressure, into the footings, these again distributing the loads on the soil. The aim is to have an equal pressure per square foot of soil at the same time, for all footings, thus insuring an even settlement. The skeleton construction now almost wholly consists of wrought steel. At first cast-iron and wrought-iron were used but it was found they corroded too quickly.
There are two classes of steel construction, the cage and the skeleton. In the cage construction the frame is strengthened for wind stresses and the walls act as curtains. In the skeleton, the frame carries only the vertical loads and depends upon the walls for its wind bracing. It has been found that the wind pressure is about 30 lbs. for every square foot of exposed surface.
The steel columns reach from the foundation to the top, riveted together by plates and may be extended to an indefinite height. In fact there is no engineering limit to the height.
The outside walls of the sky-scraper vary in thickness with the height of the building and also vary in accordance with the particular kind of construction, whether cage or skeleton. If of the cage variety, the walls, as has been said, act as curtains and consequently they are thinner than in the skeleton type of construction. In the latter case the walls have to resist the wind pressure unsupported by the steel frame and therefore they must be of a sufficient width. Brick and terra-cotta blocks are used for construction generally.
Terra-cotta blocks are also much used in the flooring, and for this purpose have several advantages over other materials; they are absolutely fire-proof, they weigh less per cubic foot than any other kind of fire-proof flooring and they are almost sound-proof. They do equally well for flat and arched floors.
It is of the utmost importance that the sky-scraper be absolutely fire-proof from bottom to top. These great buzzing hives of industry house at one time several thousand human beings and a panic would entail a fearful calamity, and, moreover, their height places the upper stories beyond reach of a water-tower and the pumping engines of the street.
The sky-scrapers of to-day are as fireproof as human ingenuity and skill can make them, and this is saying much; in fact, it means that they cannot burn. Of course fires can break out in rooms and apartments in the manufacturing of chemicals or testing experiments, etc., but these are easily confined to narrow limits and readily extinguished with the apparatus at hand. Steel columns will not burn, but if exposed to heat of sufficient degree they will warp and bend and probably collapse, therefore they should be protected by heat resisting agents. Nothing can be better than terra-cotta and concrete for this purpose. When terra-cotta blocks are used they should be at least 2 inches thick with an air space running through them. Columns are also fire-proofed by wrapping expanded metal or other metal lathing around them and plastering.
Then a furring system is put on and another layer of metal, lathing and plastering. This if well done is probably safer than the layer of hollow tile.
The floor beams should be entirely covered with terra-cotta blocks or concrete, so that no part of them is left exposed. As most office trimmings are of wood care should be taken that all electric wires are well insulated. Faulty installation of dynamos, motors and other apparatus is frequently the cause of office fires.
The lighting of a sky-scraper is a most elaborate arrangement. Some of them use as many lights as would well supply a good sized town. The Singer Building in New York has 15,000 incandescent lamps and it is safe to say the Metropolitan Life Insurance Building has more than twice this number as the floor area of the latter is 2-1/2 times as great. The engines and dynamos are in the basement and so fixed that their vibrations do not affect the building. As space is always limited in the basements of sky-scrapers direct connected engines and dynamos are generally installed instead of belt connected and the boilers operated under a high steam pressure. Besides delivering steam to the engines the boilers also supply it to a variety of auxiliary pumps, as boiler-feed, fire-pump, blow-off, tank-pump and pump for forcing water through the building.
The heating arrangement of such a vast area as is covered by the floor space of a sky-scraper has been a very difficult problem but it has been solved so that the occupant of the twentieth story can receive an equal degree of heat with the one on the ground floor. Both hot water and steam are utilized. Hot water heating, however, is preferable to steam, as it gives a much steadier heat. The radiators arc proportioned to give an average temperature of 65 degrees F. in each room during the winter months. There are automatic regulating devices attached to the radiators, so if the temperature rises above or falls below a certain point the steam or hot water is automatically turned on or off. Some buildings are heated by the exhaust steam from the engines but most have boilers solely for the purpose.
The sanitary system is another important feature. The supplying of water for wash-stands, the dispositions of wastes and the flushing of lavatories tax all the skill of the mechanical engineer. Several of these mighty buildings call for upwards of a thousand lavatories.
In considering the sky-scraper we should not forget the role played by the electric elevator. Without it these buildings would be practically useless, as far as the upper stories are concerned. The labor of stair climbing would leave them untenanted. No one would be willing to climb ten, twenty or thirty flights and tackle a day's work after the exertion of doing so. To climb to the fiftieth story in such a manner would be well-nigh impossible or only possible by relays, and after one would arrive at the top he would be so physically exhausted that both mental and manual endeavor would be out of the question. Therefore the elevator is as necessary to the skyscraper as are doors and windows. Indeed were it not for the introduction of the elevator the business sections of our large cities would still consist of the five and six story structures of our father's time instead of the towering edifices which now lift their heads among the clouds.
Regarded less than half a century ago as an unnecessary luxury the elevator to-day is an imperative necessity. Sky-scrapers are equipped with both express and local elevators. The express elevators do not stop until about the tenth floor is reached. They run at a speed of about ten feet per second. There are two types of elevators in general use, one lifting the car by cables from the top, and the other with a hydraulic plunger acting directly upon the bottom of the car. The former are operated either by electric motors or hydraulic cylinders and the latter by hydraulic rams, the cylinders extending the full height of the building into the ground.
America is pre-eminently the land of the sky-scraper, but England and France to a degree are following along the same lines, though nothing as yet has been erected on the other side of the water to equal the towering triumphs of architectural art on this side. In no country in the world is space at such a premium as in New York City, therefore, New Yorkper semay be regarded as the true home of the tall building, although Chicago is not very much behind the Metropolis in this respect.
As figures are more eloquent than words in description the following data of the two giant structures of the Western World may be interesting.
The Singer Building at the corner of Broadway and Liberty Street, New York City, has a total height from the basement floor to the top of the flagstaff of 742 feet; the height from street to roof is 612 feet, 1 inch. There are 41 stories. The weight of the steel in the entire building is 9,200 tons. It has 16 elevators, 5 steam engines, 5 dynamos, 5 boilers and 28 steam pumps. The length of the steam and water piping is 5 miles. The cubical contents of the building comprise 66,950,000 cubic feet, there are 411,000 square feet of floor area or about 9-1/2 acres. The weight of the tower is 18,300 tons. Little danger from a collapse will be apprehended when it is learned that the columns are securely bolted and caissons which have been sunk to rock-bed 80 feet below the curb.
The other campanile which has excited the wonder and admiration of the world is the colossal pile known as the Metropolitan Building. This occupies the entire square or block as we call it from 23rd St. to 24th St. and from Madison to Fourth Avenue. It is 700 feet and 3 inches above the sidewalk and has 50 stories. The main building which has a frontage of 200 feet by 425 feet is ten stories in height. It is built in the early Italian renaissance style the materials being steel and marble. The Campanile is carried up in the same style and is also of marble. It stands on a base measuring 75 by 83 feet and the architectural treatment is chaste, though severe, but eminently agreeable to the stupendous proportions of the structure. The tower is quite different from that of the Singer Building. It has twelve wall and eight interior columns connected at every fourth floor by diagonal braces; these columns carry 1,800 pounds to the linear foot. The wind pressure calculated at the rate of 30 lbs. to the square foot is enormous and is provided for by deep wall girders and knee braces which transfer the strain to the columns and to the foundation. The average cross section of the tower is 75 by 85 feet, the floor space of the entire building is 1,080,000 square feet or about 25 acres.
The tower of this surpassing cloud-piercing structure can be seen for many miles from the surrounding country and from the bay it looks like a giant sentinel in white watching the mighty city at its feet and proclaiming the ceaseless activity and progress of the Western World.
Ocean Greyhounds—Present Day Floating Palaces—RegalAppointments—Passenger Accommodation—Food Consumption—The OneThousand Foot Boat.
The strides of naval architecture and marine engineering have been marvelous within the present generation. To-day huge leviathans glide over the waves with a swiftness and safety deemed absolutely impossible fifty years ago.
In view of the luxurious accommodations and princely surroundings to be found on the modern ocean palaces, it is interesting to look back now almost a hundred years to the time when theSavannahwas the first steamship to cross the Atlantic. True the voyage of this pioneer of steam from Savannah to Liverpool was not much of a success, but she managed to crawl across the sails very materially aiding the engines, and heralded the dawn of a new day in transatlantic travel. No other steamboat attempted the trip for almost twenty years after, until in 1838 theGreat Westernmade the run in fifteen days. This revolutionized water travel and set the whole world talking. It was the beginning of the passing of the sailing ship and was an event for rejoicing. In the old wooden hulks with their lazily flapping wings, waiting for a breeze to stir them, men and women and children huddled together like so many animals in a pen, had to spend weeks and months on the voyage between Europe and America. There was little or no room for sanitation, the space was crowded, deadly germs lurked in every cranny and crevice, and consequently hundreds died. To many indeed the sailing ship became a floating hearse.
In those times, and they are not so remote, a voyage was dreaded as a calamity. Only necessity compelled the undertaking. It was not travel for pleasure, for pleasure under such circumstances and amid such surroundings was impossible. The poor emigrants who were compelled through stress and poverty to leave their homes for a foreign country feared not toil in a new land, but they feared the long voyage with its attending horrors and dangers. Dangerous it was, for most of the sailing vessels were unseaworthy and when a storm swept the waters, they were as children's toys, at the mercy of wind and wave. When the passenger stepped on board he always had the dread of a watery grave before him.
How different to-day. Danger has been eliminated almost to the vanishing point and the mighty monsters of steel and oak now cut through the waves in storms and hurricanes with as much ease as a duck swims through a pond.
From the time theGreat Westernwas launched, steamships sailing between American and English ports became an established institution. Soon after theGreat Western'sfirst voyage a sturdy New England Quaker from Nova Scotia named Samuel Cunard went over to London to try and interest the British government in a plan to establish a line of steamships between the two countries. He succeeded in raising 270,000 pounds, and built theBritannia, the first Cunard vessel to cross the Atlantic. This was in 1840. As ships go now she was a small craft indeed. Her gross tonnage was 1,154 and her horse power 750. She carried only first-class passengers and these only to the limit of one hundred. There was not much in the way of accommodation as the quarters were cramped, the staterooms small and the sanitation and ventilation defective. It was on theBritanniathat Charles Dickens crossed over to America in 1842 and he has given us in his usual style a pen picture of his impressions aboard. He stated that the saloon reminded him of nothing so much as of a hearse, in which a number of half-starved stewards attempted to warm themselves by a glimmering stove, and that the staterooms so-called were boxes in which the bunks were shelves spread with patches of filthy bed-clothing, somewhat after the style of a mustard plaster. This criticism must be taken with a little reservation. Dickens was a pessimist and always censorious and as he had been feted and feasted with the fat of the land, he expected that he should have been entertained in kingly quarters on shipboard. But because things did not come up to his expectations he dipped his pen in vitriol and began to criticise.
At any rate theBritanniain her day was looked upon as thene plus ultrain naval architecture, the very acme of marine engineering. The highest speed she developed was eight and one-half knots or about nine and three-quarters miles an hour. She covered the passage from Liverpool to Boston in fourteen and one-half days, which was then regarded as a marvellous feat and one which was proclaimed throughout England with triumph.
For a long time theBritanniaremained Queen of the Seas for speed, but in 1852 the Atlantic record was reduced to nine and a half days by theArctic. In 1876 theCity of Pariscut down the time to eight days and four hours. Twelve years later in 1879 theArizonastill further reduced it to seven days and eight hours. In 1881 theAlaska, the first vessel to receive the title of "Ocean Greyhound," made the trip in six days and twenty-one hours; in 1885 theUmbriabounded over in six days and two hours, in 1890 theTeutonicof the White Star line came across in five days, eighteen hours and twenty-eight minutes, which was considered the limit for many years to come. It was not long however, until the Cunard lowered the colors of the White Star, when theLucaniain 1893 brought the record down to five days and twelve hours. For a dozen years or so the limit of speed hovered round the five-and-a-half day mark, the laurels being shared alternately by the vessels of the Cunard and White Star Companies. Then the Germans entered the field of competition with steamers of from 14,500 to 20,000 tons register and from 28,000 to 40,000 horse power. TheDeutschlandsoon began setting the pace for the ocean greyhounds, while other vessels of the North German Lloyd line that won transatlantic honors were theKaiser Wilhelm II., Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, Kronprinz Wilhelm and Kronprinzessin Cecilie, all remarkably fast boats with every modern luxury aboard that science could devise. These vessels are equipped with wireless telegraphy, submarine signalling systems, water-tight compartments and every other safety appliance known to marine skill. TheKaiser Wilhelm der Grosseraised the standard of German supremacy in 1902 by making the passage from Cherbourg to Sandy Hook lightship in five days and fifteen hours.
In 1909, however, the sister steamshipsMauretaniaandLusitaniaof the Cunard line lowered all previous ocean records, by making the trip in a little over four and a half days. They have been keeping up this speed to the present time, and are universally regarded as the fastest and best equipped steamships in the world,—the very last word in ocean travel. On her last mid-September voyage theMauretaniahas broken all ocean records by making the passage from Queenstown to New York in 4 days 10 hours and 47 minutes. But they are closely pursued by the White Star greyhounds such as theOceanic, theCelticand theCedric, steamships of world wide fame for service, appointments, and equipment. Yet at the present writing the Cunard Company has another vessel on the stocks, to be named theFalconiawhich in measurements will eclipse the other two and which they are confident will make the Atlantic trip inside four days.
The White Star Company is also building two immense boats to be named theOlympicandTitanic. They will be 840 feet in length and will be the largest ships afloat. However, it is said that freight and passenger-room is being more considered in the construction than speed and that they will aim to lower no records. Each will be able to accommodate 5,000 passengers besides a crew of 600.
All the great liners of the present day may justly be styled ocean palaces, as far as luxuries and general appointments are concerned, but as theMauretaniaandLusitaniaare best known, a description of either of these will convey an idea to stay-at-homes of the regal magnificence and splendors of the floating hotels which modern science places at the disposal of the traveling public.
Though sister ships and modeled on similar lines, theMauretaniaandLusitaniadiffer somewhat in construction. Of the two theMauretaniais the more typical ship as well as the more popular. This modern triumph of the naval architect and marine engineer was built by the firm of Swan, Hunter & Co. at Wellsend on the Tyne in 1907. The following are her dimensions: Length over all 790 feet. Length between perpendiculars 760 feet. Breadth 88 feet. Depth, moulded 60.5 feet. Gross tonnage 32,000. Draught 33.5 feet. Displacement 38,000 tons.
She has accommodation space for 563 first cabin, 500 second cabin, and 1,300 third class passengers. She carries a crew of 390 engineers, 70 sailors, 350 stewards, a couple of score of stewardesses, 50 cooks, the officers and captain, besides a maritime band, a dozen or so telephone and wireless telegraph operators, editor and printers for the wireless bulletin published on board and two attendants for the elevator.
The type of engine is what is known as the Parsons Turbine. There are 23 double ended and 2 single ended boilers. The engines develop 68,000 horse power; they are fed by 192 furnaces; the heating surface is 159,000 square feet; the grate surface is 4,060 square feet; the steam pressure is 195 lbs. to the square inch.
The highest speed attained has been almost 26 knots or 30 miles an hour. At this rate the number of revolutions is 180 to the minute. The coal daily consumed by the fiery maw of the furnaces is enormous. On one trip between Liverpool and New York more than 7,000 tons is required which is a consumption of over 1,500 tons daily.
There are nine decks, seven of which are above the water line. Corticine has been largely used for deck covering, instead of wood as it is much lighter. On the boat deck which extends over the greater part of the centre of the ship are located several of the beautifulen suitecabins. Abaft these at the forward end are the grand Entrance Hall, the Library, the Music-Room and the Lounging-Room and Smoking-Room for the first cabin passengers.
There is splendid promenading space on the boat deck where passengers can exercise to their hearts' content and also indulge in games and sports with all the freedom of field life. Many life boats swing on davits and instead of being a hindrance or obstacle, act as shades from the sunshine and as breaks from the wind.
In the space for first-class passengers are arranged a large number of cabins. What are known as the regal suites are on both port and starboard, and along each side of the main deck are moreen suiterooms.
On the shelter deck there are no first-class cabin quarters. At the forward end of this deck are the very powerful Napier engines for working the anchor gear. Abaft this on the starboard side is the general lounging room for third-class passengers, while on the port-side is their smoking room with a companion way leading to the third-class dining saloon below and to the third-class cabins on the main and lower decks. The third-class galleys are accommodated on the main deck house and close by is a set of the refrigerating machinery used in connection with the rooms for the storage of supplies for the kitchen department. The side of the ship for a considerable distance aft of this is plated up to the promenade deck level so that the third-class passengers have not only convenient rooms but a protected promenade. Abaft this promenade is another open one. Indeed the accommodations for the third class are as good as what the first-class were accustomed to on most of the liners some dozen years ago.
To the left of the grand staircase on the deck house is a children's dining saloon and nursery.
On the top deck are dining saloons for all three classes of passengers, that for the third being forward, for the first amidships and for the second near the stern; 470 first-class passengers can be seated at a time, 250 second class and more than 500 of the third class.
The main deck is given up entirely to staterooms. The whole of the lower deck forward is also arranged for third-class staterooms. The firemen and other engine room and stokehold workers are located in rooms above the machinery with separate entrances and exits to and from their work. Promenade and exercise space is provided for them on the shelter deck which is fenced off from the space of the second and third class passenger. Amidships is a coal bunker with a compartment under the engines for the storage of supplies.
The coal trimmers are accommodated alongside the engine casing and abaft this are the mailrooms with accommodation for the stewards and other helpers. The "orlop" or eighth deck is devoted entirely to machinery with coal bunkers on each side of the boilers to provide against the effect of collisions.
The general scheme of color throughout the ship is pleasing and harmonious. The wood for the most part is oak and mahogany. There are over 50,000 square feet of oak in parquet flooring. All the carving and tracing is done in the wood, no superpositions or stucco work whatever being used to show reliefs.
The grand stairway shows the Italian renaissance style of the 16th century; the panels are of French walnut; the carving of columns and pilasters is of various designs but the aggregate is pleasing in effect.
The Library extends across the deck house, 33 by 56 feet; the walls of the deck house are bowed out to form bay windows. When you first enter the Library the effect is as though you were looking at shimmering marble, this is owing to the lightness of the panels which are sycamore stained in light gray. The mantelpiece is of white statuary marble. The great swing doors which admit you, have bevelled glass panels set in bronze casings. The chairs have mahogany frames done in light plush.
The first class lounging room is probably the most artistic as well as the most sumptuous apartment in the ship. The panels are of beautiful ingrained mahogany dully polished a rich brown. The white ceiling is of simple design with boldly carved mouldings and is supported by columns embossed in gold of exquisite workmanship. Some of the panels are of curiously woven tapestries, the fruit of oriental looms. Chandeliers of beautiful design in rich bronze and crystal depend from the ceiling. The curtains, hanging with their soft folds against the dull gold of the carved curtainboxes, are of a charming cream silk and with their flower borders lend a tone both sumptuous and refined. The carpet is of a slender trellis design with bluish pink roses trailing over a pearl grey ground and forms a perfect foil to the splendid furniture. The chairs are of polished beech covered with 18th century brocade.
The smoking-room of the first-class is done in rich oak carving with an inlaid border around the panels. An unusual feature in the main part of the room is a jube passageway extending the whole length and divided into recesses with divans and card tables. Writing tables may be found in secluded nooks free from interruption. The windows of unusual size, are semicircular and give a home-like appearance to the room.
The dining saloon is in light oak with all carvings worked in the wood. A children's nursery off the main stairway in the deck house is done in mahogany. Enameled white panels depict the old favorite of the Four and Twenty Blackbirds baked in a Pie.
An air of delicate refinement and rich luxury hangs about the regal rooms. A suite consists of drawing-room, dining-room, two bedrooms, bathroom and a private corridor. The drawing- and dining-rooms of these suites are paneled in East India satin-wood, probably the hardest and most durable of all timber. The bedrooms are in Georgian style finished in white with satin hangings.
The special staterooms are also finished in rich woods on white and gold and have damask and silk hangings and draperies. An idea of the richness and magnificence of the interior decorations may be obtained when it is learned that the cost of these decorations exceeded three million dollars.
The galleys, pantries, bakery, confectionery and utensil cleaning rooms extend the full length of the ship. Electricity plays an important part in the culinary department. Electric motors mix dough, run grills and roasters, clean knives and manipulate plate racks and other articles of the kitchen. The main cooking range for the saloon is 24 by 8 feet, heated by coal. There are four steam boilers and 12 steam ovens. There are extensive cold storage compartments and refrigerating chambers.
In connection with the commissariat department it is interesting to note the food supply carried for a trip of this floating caravansary. Here is a list of the leading supplies needed for a trip, but there are hundreds of others too numerous to mention: Forty thousand pounds of fresh beef, 1,000 lbs. of corned beef, 8,000 lbs. of mutton, 800 lbs. of lamb, 600 lbs. of veal, 500 lbs. of pork, 4,000 lbs. of fish, 2,000 fowls, 100 geese, 150 turkeys, 350 ducks, 400 pigeons, 250 partridges, 250 grouse, 200 pheasants, 800 quail, 200 snipe, 35 tons of potatoes, 75 hampers of vegetables, 500 quarts ice ream, 3,500 quarts of milk, 30,000 eggs and in addition many thousand bottles of mineral water and spirituous liquors.
The health of the passengers is carefully guarded during the voyage. The science of thermodynamics has been brought to as great perfection as possible. Not alone is the heating thoroughly up to modern science requirements but the ventilation as well, by means of thermo tanks, suction valves and exhaust fans. All foul air is expelled and fresh currents sent through all parts of the ship.
There is an electric generating station abaft the main engine room containing four turbo-generators each of 375 kilowatts capacity.
There are more than 5,000 electric lights and every room is connected by an electric push-bell. There is a telephone exchange through which one can be connected with any department of the vessel. When in harbor, either at Liverpool or New York, the wires are connected to the City Central exchange so that the ships can be communicated with either by local or long distance telephone.
By means of wireless telegraphy voyagers can communicate with friends during almost the entire trip and learn the news of the world the same as if they were on land. A bulletin is published daily on board giving news of the leading happenings of the world.
There is a perfect fire alarm system on board with fire mains on each side of the ship from which connections are taken to every separate department. There are boxes with hydrant and valve in each room and a system of break glass fire alarms with a drop indicator box in the chartroom and also one in the engine-room to notify in case of any outbreak.
The sanitation is all that could be desired. There are flush lavatories on all decks in marble and onyx and with all the sanitary contrivances in apparatus of the best design.
The vessel is propelled by four screws, rotated by turbine engines and the power developed is equal to that of 68,000 horses. Now 68,000 horses placed head to tail in a single line would reach a distance of 90 miles or as far as from New York to Philadelphia; and if the steeds were harnessed twenty abreast there would be no fewer than 3,400 rows of powerful horses.
Such is the steamship of to-day but there is no doubt that the thousand foot boat is coming, which probably will cross the Atlantic ocean in less than four days if not in three. But the question is, where shall we put her, that is, where shall we dock her?
To build a thousand foot pier to accommodate her, appears like a good answer to this question, but the great difficulty is that there are United States Government regulations restricting the length of piers to 800 feet. Docking space along the shore of New York harbor is too valuable to permit the ship being berthed parallel to the shore, therefore vessels must dock at right angles to the shore. Some provisions must soon be made and the regulations as to dock lengths revised.
The thousand footer may be here in a couple of years or so. In the meantime the two 840 footers are already on the stocks at Belfast and are expected to arrive early in 1911. Before they come changes and improvements must be made in the docking and harbor facilities of the port of New York.
If higher speed is demanded, increased size is essential, since with even the best result every 100 horse-power added involves an addition to machinery weight of approximately 14 tons and to the area occupied of about 40 square feet. To accomplish this the ship must be as much larger in proportion.
The ship designer has to work within circumscribed limits. If he could make his vessel of any depth he might build much larger and there would be theoretically no limit to his speed: 40 knots an hour might be obtained as easily as the present maximum of 26, but in designing his ship he must remember that in the harbors of New York or Liverpool the channels are not much beyond 30 feet in depth. High speed necessitates powerful engines, but if the engines be too large there will not be space enough for coal to feed the furnaces. If the breadth of the ship is increased the speed is diminished, while on the other hand, if too powerful engines are put in a narrow vessel she will break her back. The proper proportions must be carefully studied as regards length, breadth, depth and weight so that the vessel will derive the greatest speed from her engines.
Mating Plants—Experiments of Burbank—What he has Accomplished.
In California lives a wonderful man. He has succeeded in doing more than making two blades of grass grow where grew but one. Yearly, daily in fact, this wizard of plant life is playing tricks on old Mother Nature, transforming her vegetable children into different shapes and making them no longer recognizable in their original forms. Like the fairies in Irish mythology, this man steals away the plant babies, but instead of leaving sickly elves in their places, he brings into the world exceedingly healthy or lusty youngsters which grow up into a full maturity, and develop traits of character superior to the ones they supplant. For instance he took away the ugly, thorny insipid cactus and replaced it by a beautiful smooth juicy one which is now making the western deserts blossom as the rose. The name of this man is Luther Burbank whose fame as a creator of new plants has become world wide.
The basic principle of Burbank's plant magic comes under two heads, viz.: breeding and selection. He mates two different species in such a way that they will propagate a type partaking of the natures of both but superior to either in their qualities. In order to effect the best results from mating, he is choice in his selection of species—the best is taken and the worst rejected. It is a universal law that the bad can never produce the good; consequently when good is desired, as is universally the case, bad must be eliminated. In his method, Burbank gives the good a chance to assert itself and at the same time takes away all opportunity from the bad. So that the latter cannot thrive but must decay and pass out of being. He takes two plants—they may be of the same species, but as a general rule he prefers to experiment with those of different species; he perceives that neither one in its present surroundings is putting forth what is naturally expected from it, that each is either retrograding in the scale of life or standing still for lack of encouragement to go forward. He knows that back of these plants is a long history of evolutions from primitive beginnings to their present stage just as in the case of man himself. 'Tis a far cry from the cliff-dweller wielding his stone-axe and roaming nude through the fields and forests after his prey—the wild beast—to the lordly creature of to-day—the product of long ages of civilization and culture, yet high as the state is to which man has been brought, in many cases he is hemmed in and surrounded by circumstances which preclude him from putting forth the best that is in him and showing his full possibilities to the world. The philosopher is often hidden in the ploughman and many a poor laborer toiling in corduroys and fustian at the docks, in the mills, or sweeping the streets may have as good a brain as Edison, but has not the opportunity to develop it and show its capabilities. The same analogy is applicable to plant life. Under adverse conditions a plant or vegetable cannot put forth its best efforts. In a scrawny, impoverished soil, and exhausted atmosphere, lacking the constituents of nurture, the plant will become dwarfed and unproductive, whereas on good ground and in good air, which have the succulent properties to nourish it the best results may be expected. The soil and the air, therefore, from which are derived the constituents of plant life, are indispensably necessary, but they are not the primal principles upon which that life depends for its being. The basis, the foundation, the origin of the life is the seed which germinates in the soil and evolves itself into the plant.
A dead seed will not germinate, a contaminated seed may, but the plant it produces will not be a healthy one and it will only be after a long series of transplantings, with patience and care, that at length a really sound plant will be obtained. The same principle holds good in regard to the human plant. It is hard to offset an evil ancestry. The contamination goes on from generation to generation, just as in the case of the notorious Juke family which cost New York State hundreds of thousands of dollars in consequence of criminality and idiocy. It requires almost a miracle to divert an individual sprung from a corrupt stem into a healthy, moral course of living. There must be some powerful force brought to bear to make him break the ligatures which bind him to ancestral nature and enable him to come forth on a plane where he will be susceptible to the influence of what is good and noble. Such can be done and has been accomplished.
Burbank is accomplishing such miracles in the vegetable kingdom, in fact he is recreating species as it were and developing them to a full fruition. Of course as in the case of the conversion of a sinner from his evil instincts, much opposition is met and the progress at first is slow, but finally the plant becomes fixed in its new ways and starts forward on its new course in life. It requires patience to await the development Burbank is a man of infinite patience. He has been five, ten, fifteen, twenty years in producing a desired blossom, but he considers himself well rewarded when his object has been obtained. Thousands of experiments are going on at the same time, but in each case years are required to achieve results, so slow is the work of selection, the rejecting of the seemingly worthless and the eternal choosing of the best specimens to continue the experiments.
When two plants are united to produce a third, no human intelligence can predict just what will be the result of the union. There may be no result at all; hence it is that Burbank does not depend on one experiment at a time. If he did the labors of a life-time would have little to show for their work. In breeding lilies he has used as high as five hundred thousand plants in a single test. Such an immense quantity gave him a great variety of selection. He culled and rejected, and culled and rejected until he made his final selection for the last test.
Sometimes he is very much disappointed in his anticipations. For instance, he marks out a certain life for a flower and breeds and selects to that end. For a time all may go according to his plans, but suddenly some new trait develops which knocks those plans all out of gear. The new flower may have a longer stem and narrower leaves than either parent, while a shorter stem and broader leaves are the desideratum. The experimenter is disappointed, but not disheartened; he casts the flower aside and makes another selection from the same species and again goes ahead, until his object is attained.
It may be asked how two plants are united to procure a third. The act is based on the procreative law of nature. Plant-breeding is simply accomplished by sifting the pollen of one plant upon the stigma of another, this act—pollenation—resulting in fertilization, Nature in her own mysterious ways bringing forth the new plant.
In order to get an idea of the Burbank method, let us consider some of his most famous experiments, for instance, that in which by uniting the potato with the tomato he has produced a new variety which has been very aptly named the pomato. Mr. Burbank, from the beginning of his wonderful career, has experimented much with the potato. It was this vegetable which first brought the plant wizard into worldwide prominence. The Burbank potato is known in all lands where the tuber forms an article of food. It has been introduced into Ireland and promises to be the salvation of that distressed island of which the potato constitutes the staple diet. The Burbank potato is the hardiest of all varieties and in this respect is well suited for the colder climates of the Temperate Zone. Apart from this potato which bears his name, Mr. Burbank has produced many other varieties. He has blended wild varieties with tame ones, getting very satisfactory results. Mr. Burbank believes that a little wild blood, so to speak, is often necessary to give tone and vigor to the tame element which has been long running in the same channels. Probably it was Emerson, his favorite author, who gave him the cue for this idea. Emerson pointed out that the city is recruited from the country. "The city would have died out, rotted and exploded long ago," wrote the New England sage, "but that it was reinforced from the fields. It is only country that came to town day before yesterday, that is city and court to-day."
In Burbank's greenhouses are mated all kinds of wild and tame varieties of potatoes, producing crosses and combinations truly wonderful as regards shape, size, and color. One of the most palatable potatoes he has produced is a magenta color approaching crimson, so distributed throughout that when the tuber is cut, no matter from what angle, it presents concentric geometric figures, some having a resemblance to human and animal faces.
Before entering on any experiment to produce a new creation, Burbank always takes into consideration the practical end of the experiment, that is, what the value of the result will be as a practical factor in commerce, how much it will benefit the race. He does not experiment for a pastime or a novelty, but for a purpose. His object in regard to the potato is to make it a richer, better vegetable for a food supply and also to make it more important for other purposes in the commerce of the nations.
The average potato consists of seventy-five per cent. water and twenty-five per cent. dry matter, almost all of which is starch. Now starch is a very important article from a manufacturing standpoint, but only one-fourth of the potato is available for manufacturing, the other three-fourths, being water, is practically waste matter. Now if the water could be driven out to a great extent and starchy matter increased it is easy to understand that the potato would be much increased in value as an article of manufacture. Burbank has not overlooked this fact in his potato experiments. He has demonstrated that it is as easy to breed potatoes for a larger amount of starch, and he has really developed tubers which contain at least twenty-five per cent. more starch than the normal varieties; in other words, he has produced potatoes which yield fifty per cent. of starch instead of twenty-five per cent. The United States uses about $12,000,000 worth of starch every year, chiefly obtained from Indian corn and potatoes. When the potato is made to yield double the amount of starch, as Burbank has proved it can yield and more, it will be understood what a large part it can be made to play in this important manufacture.
Also for the production of alcohol the potato is gaining a prominent place. The potato starch is converted into maltose by the diastase of malt, the maltose being easily acted upon by ferment for the actual production of the alcohol. Therefore an increase in the starch of the potato for this purpose alone is much to be desired.
Of course the chief prominence of the potato will still consist in its adaptability as an article of food. Burbank does not overlook this. He has produced and is producing potatoes with better flavor, of larger and uniform size and which give a much greater yield to the area. Palatability in the end decides the permanence of a food, and the Burbank productions possess this quality in a high degree.
Burbank labored long and studied every characteristic of the potato before attempting any experiments with the tomato. Though closely related by family ties, the potato and the tomato seemed to have no affinity for each other whatever. In many other instances it has also been found that two varieties which from a certain relation might naturally be expected to amalgamate easily have been repellant to each other and refused to unite.
In his first experiment in trying to cross the potato and tomato, Burbank produced tomatoes from the seeds of plants pollenated from potato pollen only. He next produced what he called "aerial potatoes" of very peculiar twisted shapes from a potato vine grafted on a Ponderosa or large tomato plant. Then reversing this operation he grafted the same kind of tomato plant upon the same kind of potato plant and produced underground a strange-looking potato with marked tomato characteristics. He saw he was on the right road to the production of a new variety of vegetable, but before experimenting further along this line he crossed two distinct species of tomatoes and obtained a most ornamental plant, different from the parent stems, about twelve inches high and fifteen inches across with large unusual leaves and producing clusters of uniform globular fruit, the whole giving a most pleasing and unique appearance. The fruit were more palatable than the ordinary tomatoes, had better nutritive qualities and were more suitable for preserving and canning.
Very pleased with this result he went back to his experiments with the potato-tomato, and succeeded in producing the most wonderful and unique fruit in the world, one which by a happy combination of the two names, he has aptly called the pomato. It may be considered as the evolution of a potato seed-ball. It first appears as a tiny green ball on the potato top and as the season progresses it gradually enlarges and finally develops into a fruit about the size and shape of the ordinary tomato. The flesh is white and the marrow, which contains but a few tiny white seeds, is exceedingly pleasant to the taste, possessing a combination of several different fruit flavors, though it cannot be identified with any one. It may be eaten either raw or cooked after the manner of the common tomato. In either case it is most palatable, but especially so when cooked. It is exceptionally well adapted to preserving purposes.
The production of such a fruit from a vegetable is one of the crowning triumphs of the California wizard. Probably it is the most novel of all the wonderful crosses and combinations he has given to the world.
It would be impossible here to go into detail in regard to some of the other wonders accomplished in the plant world by this modern magician. There is only space to merely mention a few more of his successful achievements. He has given the improved thornless and spiculess cactus, food for man and beast, converting it into a beautifier and reclaimer of desert wastes; the plum-cot which is an amalgamation of the plum and the apricot with a flavor superior to both; many kinds of plums, some without pits, others having the taste of Bartlett pears, and still others giving out a fragrance as sweet as the rose; several varieties of walnuts, one with a shell as thin as paper and which was so easily broken by the birds that Burbank had to reverse his experiment somewhat in order to get a thicker shell; another walnut has no tannin in the meat, which is the cause of the disagreeable flavor of the ordinary fruit; the world-famed Shasta daisy, which is a combination of the Japanese daisy, the English daisy and the common field daisy, and which has a blossom seven inches in diameter; a dahlia deprived of its unpleasant odor and the scent of the magnolia blossom substituted; a gladiolus which blooms around the entire stem like a hyacinth instead of the old way on one side only; many kinds of lilies with chalices and petals different from the ordinary, and exhaling perfumes as varied as those of Oriental gardens; a poppy of such dimension that it is from ten to twelve inches across its brilliant bloom; an amaryllis bred up from a couple of inches to over a foot in diameter; several kinds of fruit trees which withstand frost in bud and in flower; a chestnut tree which bears nuts in eighteen months from the time of seed-planting; a white blackberry (paradoxical as it may appear), a rare and beautiful fruit and as palatable as it is beautiful; the primusberry, a union of the raspberry and the blackberry; another wonderful and delicious berry produced from the California dewberry and the Cuthbert-raspberry; pieplants four feet in diameter, bearing every day in the year; prunes, three, four, and five times as large as the ordinary and enriched in flavor; blackberries without their prickly thorns and hundreds of other combinations and crosses of fruits and flowers too numerous to mention. He has improved plums, pears, apples, apricots, quinces, peaches, cherries, grapes, in short, all kinds of fruit which grow in our latitude and many even that have been introduced. He has developed hundreds of varieties of flowers, improving them in color, hardiness and yield. Thus he has not only added to the food and manufacturing products of the world, but he has enriched the aesthetic side in his beautiful flower creations.