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Zurich Herald, 1925-01-29, Page 71 PRINCE AS SCIENCESEES 1111/1 Science busies Jason very much with heredity. It would like to search ttie pedigrees of every bride and bride- groom before allowing themto sigh a marriage register. ` But the search is complicated by the vastnese of the number of everybody's ancestors, as well as by the scantiness of records. It Is a commonplace to say that un- known and self-made men have . no ancestors, but everybody has ancest- ors?as countless as the sands on the seashore. Everybody has two parents, Ebur grandparents, eight great -grand - Parents, and so on. Twelve genera- tions give 8,190 ancestors In the . course of some 350 years. If you went back 24 generations, say to the days of Magna Charta, you would have to reckon with 33,546,240 individuals, scarcely less than the whole present population of England, andany one of them might have left a trace on your character, sanity, strength, or features. What is known as low birth merely means obscure birth. It means that little or nothing is known about the ancestors. If you were born after the death of grandparents who make no mark in the world, all you know about them is what your father and mother may have chanced to tell. Ask the average lean what was his grand- mother's maiden name and It is very long odds that he wiI.1 have no idea. You may ' be surprised --perhaps ashamed—to find that the ancestry of pigs and cats has been recorded far more carefully. The pedigree et a racehorse is nearly always available for more than a dozen generations, whereas kings and queens, whose for- bears gave their names to historical epochs, can rarely trace back com- plete pedigrees half so far. Thus the ancestors of the, Prince of Waive are known only for three gen- erations, because one of his great - Curious Adventure With Fishes By C. F. Holder "Hard a -lee there!" shouted the p - lot. And the trim yacht, that had been skirting the reef. that guards the i Florida. coast, rounded to and shot through a narrow channel, and was soon rushing along the smooth waters of a shallow river that drained the 1 great. Everglade country, about which fl so much is said, and so little really f known. . I The river was about a thousand 1 yards wide, its banks lined with trope- f cal vines and trees, that apparently s formed an impenetrable barrier to the a interior, Great palms, with . their graceful leaves, . that in the gentle fi wind gave out rustling sounds as if of v falling rain, rose here and there, and t the thick underbrush and smaller i trees ofter overgrown with long mass- a es of .hanging moss that, gently way- a ing, imparted a weird and curious fea.- h ture to the scene. F The yacht, which was nearly sixty m feet long, bad run up the stream a e mile, when the water grew rapidly 0 shallow, a strazkge ripple appearing t upon the surface. At first It kept t ahead, increasing in size, and as the yacht gained and entered it, a shining in object darted from the water, like a c meteor, and went whizzing over the heads of the crew, striking the river re again twenty feet distant. Hardly had the voyagers recovered ;ti from their astonishment, when an- se other of these strange missiles rose, ' sp followed by another and another, one co of which passed near the captain, and, al as he dodged quickly to avoid the ed blow, a shining fish struck the sail, bo and fell quivering upon the deck. The th fishes were now leaving the water ni with such rapidity that the men with b difficulty sought protection behind the in bulwarks or house. ti The fishes were the Pompanos. An enormous school had been hedged in- th to the narrow stream, and, after the an manner of their 'kind, were alarmed mo by the approaching vessel, they darted we from the water in wild confusion in of every. direction, taking such extraor- dinary leaps that it seemed almost in- credible, For some time this curious bombard- ment kept up, liuinbers of the fish re- maining upon the deck, victims of their fright •or indiscretion, while the rest of the school finally turned, and made their way back to the sea., In this .portion of Florida the streams are often fainly packed with schools of fish of various kinds, and during. a trip up another inlet the yacht was towing a small boat astern, when a large silvery fish, known as the tar - Pon, leaped Into it. To leave the water when attacked seems instinctive with nearly all fish- es, The smaller forms, as the flying - fish, dart into the air, and soar away the tike birds for an eighth of a mile or at more, thus escaping froze, their More elan eumbersonio foes. The flying -fish are bare often, in their night at night, carried wile by the wind aboard.vessels, and in whe home cases the lights .of ports seem to mo attract then, at tl The ordinary fish is a delicate area -der tare, that would do but little harm, flash but the flying guritard, that possesses Th a hard, helmeted head, is totally dif- eve feerent, The dolphin; that Is the in- back 'Veterato enemy of the flying -fish, often (Abases the latter, and en one occasion darted into a school, that rose like a grandfathers made a love -meta, with a lady who had no family records, And there were other intruders of un- known ancestry in the .seventh, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth generations, with the result that we can `find ao trace of about one-ffth of the Prince's forbears during the last - 350 years, Still, his pedigree is probably as Gone- piete as. any other to be found in the world, and it is interesting to see what it tells science about him. If heredity counts for anything, the Prince may be described as a ,singu- larly fortunate young nidi. There is an extraordinary scarcity of degener- acy among his direct ancestors, al- though in many cases degenerates were present in the family. Gustavus Vasa, that tremendously energetic man who liberated Sweden Erten the Danes, had five abnormal children out of nine, and although four of these figure in the Prince's pedigree only one created any scandal George SII. beoame insane in his later years, but the Duke of Kent, the Prince's great -great-grandfather, was certainly the most reputable of his sons, The gloomy Admiral Coligny, who perished during the massacre of St. Bartholomew; William the Silent, who led the Netherlands against Spain; Sophia Charlotte of Hanover, known as the philosophic queen; Albert of S'oxe-Coburg; and Edward Vtt., that brilliant diplomatist—all contributed their share of good qualities. Courage, energy, diplomacy, prudence, and inde- pendence are to be found in the pedi- gree. and in the Prince himself science is to be believed, And though people may point signs of inbreeding in the family the Saxe-Ooburgs, scientists point that inbreeding is dangerous o among the feeble-minded. When g qualities predominate in the blo even first cousins may marry and h to produce a superior breed.. , if was nearly thrown over, . while. the to fish, evidently stunned and confused of by this sudden arrest of its progress, out lashed the water about him into.:foam. my A spear was soon put into it, ani!;: the cod dangerous living arrow thrown into od, the boat, ope Equally dangerous is the sword -fish,' land - many accounts are on record where these swordsmen of the 'Sea the have attacked boats and fishermen, em seemingly only to display their';pug- of nacity and fighting qualities. re- -+r ob- a sh. ve of or nil p.I me ar ed. !tel lam. ! - 1 "�1i1 .tA, ST L YET TO COME pERFEcTL- 4EAI-'iH`f 'SNAPPt- —� `ibR.'il.i~. 'moi. +N`e 111.15+o H The Skylark Caged. Beat little breast, against the wires • Strive little wings and misted eyes, Which one wild gleam of memory fires, Beseeching still the unfettered skies Whither at dewy dawn you sprang Quivering 'with joy from this—hark earth, and sang. flock of highly -colored birds above waves, the strong wind carrying th fairly aboard a passing ship. One the fish struck a sailor upon the fo head, felling him to the deck, pr ably the first case on record where man has been knocked downs by a fl Large fishes and whales often lea the water in play. The breeching whales is accompanied by a noise crash that can be heard for miles, a cases have been known of their lea ng entirely over boats. A curious incident occurred so years ago on the Maine coast, ne York. An old fisherman was anchor n his dory, half a Inde from shore, --=-- , - • , shing for hake, when a shark, nine And They Mean to Be, if They Can. at. Mother—"Boys will be boys,, - ,niy s, dear; but girls should—" ir, Modern Daughter -="Should be boys' the too!" eet in length, jumped into the bo t floundered about, sending the oat Ines and buckets flying into the a or a moment utterly demoralizing tartied fisherman, who, however, fi Ily disposed of his unsought game. In our southern waters the gar shes, that maize their homes .at th ery surface of the water, are, !iron o leave it at the slightest alarm, dar ig away wildly, and often runnin shore in their fright. They rarel ttain a length of over twelve inche ere, but in the Pacific Island, at Ar iji and other localities, they gro uch Iarger, and the bill, that is ar d with sharp teeth, becomes a wea n to be dreaded, and a number of my erious deaths have been traced t hem A captain of an American vessel ly- g at the Aru Islands made this dis- every in a singular way,. The locality thereabouts being markable one for corals, shells, an ther.•objects that are known as curi'si es there, he obtained the services o veral natives, and on calm da eat much of his time upon the ree fleeting,. Their method was to wad ong in the streams and byways form by the branch coral, towing the at, in which the captain sat, after em, while they picked up the spec ens and tossed them in, these often be great bunches of coral, in the terior of which would be some beau- uf shell. After taking them out, the captain en tossed the coral overboard again, d in doing this he noticed that al- st invariably the large gars that re in the vicinity would start out the water and clash away et head. - :Pencils for Patent Leather. Ordinary black lead • pencils :ars e made .in more than fifty.varieties,- e. hard and soft. The variety of pen cels made with different colored leads g is also very considerable. But' apart Y from these the pencil manufacturer s issues a variety of pencils made. for u, quite special. purposes. w) Since they are used for. pur- e-, poses, these are -rarely, -seen by the p- general public. The furniture dealer s- usually marks the price on a mirror o with soap, but he can purchase a pen- cil which will write legibly on glass. There are pencils •made for marking prices on polished metals, porcelain, oilcloth, and even patent leather. In a each case the lead is made so that the d mark can be easily rubbed out, Among the most interesting pencils f made is one used by surgeons. For day marking out lines or divisions on the f surface of a patient's body before per - e forming an operation the use of a pen- - oil is sometimes necessary, and as the ordinary pencil is useless a special one is made which marks the skin as. i ' clearly as an ordinary lead pencit will mark a sheet of paper. Origin of Bachelor. The word "bachelor" is derived froln an old word for "cowherd." 4. bachel- or, or cowherd, stood lowest'in the s°oeial scale, and the term tl�erefere came to be apirlied to men who had not yet reached the full dignity of manly esponsibility. long speed, glancing in and out of the water like a shot. One of the fish coating near the boat, the captain ob- served that as soon as its direction could be determined the native lifted i up the peculiar flat basket that he carried and held it as a shield, at the same time raising his chub. The idea of using a basket as a shield seemed a comical one, but was nevertheless a good one, as a few mo- ments Iater a maitre, some three lion-' drecl yards to their left, lifting up a huge branch of coral,, and finding noth- ing in it,: hurled it back again. It fell with a loud crash, and almost instantly. four or five gars darted from the water , rushing away with incredible speed. Two of the largest came flying. toward boat, clearing three or four feet; a bound, striking the water and ging out again, and tlea native hacl ly time to utter a warning cry, ! n one, of them passed directly over re the captain's head had been a lent before. The other came full ie native. For a second it was un- I water, then out with a bound, ing, in the sunlight like a meteor, e quick eyo of the native, hove- r, had followed it, and stepping' , he raised the thick basket shield and received the flying gar full upon '. it. The blow was so heavy that for the Institut the man staggered and Beat little breast, still beat, still beat, Strive misted eyes and tremulous wings, Swell Iittle throat,. your Sweet! Sweet! Sweet! Through which such deathless mem- ory rings— Better to break your heart and die Than like your gaolers to forget your sky. It Auto is Old as the Pyr; ew great inventions are Reade :at once by a single individual in a single age. Many men in many countries in various ages assist in.the consumme tion .of most important mechanical in ventions, like those :of the steam en gine, gas engine, locomotive and steamships or wireless telegraphy The automobile was no exeeption. Man had dreamed of self-propelled car- ciages since early Egyptian tunes when experiments were made to find the means of propelling carriages with- out horses was handed down from 'generation to generation and each age endeavored to improve the status of the solution. The names of`soine of these men are known, but those of many `other ardent experimenters are lost. Roger Bacon in the thirteenth cen- tury discussed the possibility of self- propelled ears. Simon Stevin, of Brus- Bels, early in the seventeenth. century built and demonstrated the practical value of the old Egyptian plans for sailing chariots or wind propelled cars. A steam car was built in China in 1665 by Father Berbiest, a des•uit mis- sionary. The motor of this early steam automobile was of the turbine type. Sir Isaac Newton suggested in 1680 the construction of a car to be pro- pelled by Verbiest, and in 1698 Pepin constructed one in Cassel, Germany. Watt, one of the earliest to perfect the steam motor, directed his experiments in 1759 to steam automo- biles on the suggestion of Dr. Robin- son, a fellow student in the University of Glasgow; Murdock, another Scotch engineer, constructed a working model of a steam automobile in 1784. This machine now is among the ex- ceedingly interesting exhibits. of sev- enteenth and eighteenth century auto- mobiles in the South Kensington Mu- seunt, London. Feat Achieved by Murdock. Before Murdock demonstrated the feasibility of a steam automobile Cug- not, a French engineer, in 1769 con- structed a full-sized steam automo- bile, which he demonstrated before of- ficials of the War Department. Their reports on the value of this invention were so favorable that the inventor was encouraged to construct others. He gave a demonstration with an im- supplanted the old horse coaches• and others competed with the railroads. ,Since the° eariiea.t days •of railroad- • Ing attempts have been made to . pro:- - ro- - duce cheaper and more convenient - means of transportation .and in Eng- land,there has been a constant scene of experiments in the traction field.. Telford and Mcl'leil, the oelebrated civil engineers, were at that time AO' , tively engaged in reconstructing the main highways in Great Britain, and their work largely aided in the suc- cesses of the early road transportation companies. The congestion of the roads, the weakness of.the .road bridges and other influences about 1840 combined to drive the automobiles out of busk i ness. These machines became so large and heavy that they destroyed the best roads and bridges anti dam- aged the ripening crops by setting fire to them; Inventors, however, con- tinued improving the automobile and many distinguished names of invent- ors continued to appear in the Patent Office records. Tractors Take Up Work. Ransoms & Sims, a famous firm of agricultural implement manufacturers began the manufacture of steam trac- tor engines in 1840, and in 1841 they exhibited one'of their first steam tractors in the Royal Agricultural 'So• cienty's exhibition in Liverpool. This machine was propelled with a Davies rotary disk engine. In the British agricultural exhibitions in 1858 many types of steam tractors for agricul- tural and industrial use were exhibit • ed. Some of to draw i speeds run an hour. While t automobile by legislation turning the tract these machines were able cads up to twenty tons at nine from eight to ten miles he original steam -driven s were ruled off the roads and inventors were it attention to steam or engines for industrial and agricul- tural purposes, many inventors were engaged in developing motors• oper- ated by compressed air, which they believed would be lighter than the steam motors and better suited to automobile propulsion, Medhurst was one of the leading inventors gtof com- pressed air motors, and in his patent :ification No. 2431, which was filed n the British Patent Office in 1800, he made these interesting claims: Ahead of the Time. "The power applied to the machin- ery is compressed air, and the power o compress the air T obtain generally y wind, assisted and improved by machinery described in this specifi- ation; and in order to render my in- vention 'universally useful, I propose o adapt my machinery and magazine a that it may be charged by hand, by fall of water, by a partial vacuum btained by wind, and also by mice —Alfred Noyes. proved car in 1771. This machine is i •••••,,...........4...,•••••••••• now exhibited in the museum of the Killing Time.. Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, in Paris. is hard for those oppressed by a Many patents were taken out for sense of the things there are to do ,steam automobiles in France and to understand the indolence and the Brit inertia of those for whom a day is merely something to be lived through The busy are not bored. Faced by s ninny alternatives, their problem is t ain after Cugnot demonstrated t the value of the steam car. o Symington in England and Oliver n Evans and Nathan Reed in the United choose amid the importuning number. The man who has always worked hard asks no misery more acute than to be condemned to' lasting idleness- Then he is persuaded into vacation hardlyw knows whatto do with t them e Happy is he if he has - an avocation in to which. he can change, which evil consume the burning energy released from the routine of ordinary working days. There are men who do more than one thing well, and each of their activities is. the gainer bee the mental freshness that comes from the alter native employment. There was,;for example, the Russian genius, Borodin. He. was an eminent professor of chem- istry and a famous composer, too. It was only when he was i11 that' he got a chance to write music. So.,his friends would write to him, saying, "We hope you are sick!" It is an inspiratfon to come upon .people ' whose lives are crowded with a -diversity of. interests, though in one field they • intensify and specialize. Such persons keep young in the spirit, whatever the tale of the calendar. They mean to keep busy to the end of life,. and 'When the final summons comes it will be to them no tragedy; they will give it welcome as a signal to new occupation and not to celes- tial lethargy, • $ Trevitltick, the distinguished Eng- m' lish engineer, • began constructing steam automobiles in 1796 and con- tinued until 1808. 'Re made many valuable improvements in motor con- t struction and greatly advanced them. a Brunton, another Englishman spur- ti red by the work done by Trevithick, developed his. "mechanical traveler m la c• s States made steam cars in 1786. The .t cars of Evans and Reed were very primitive, but they are the first re- s corded as having been made in Ameri- o ca Felt Pity For Her. Burglar (sternly)—"Where's your husband?" Woman (trembling). -•--"Under the eth' "Then I won't take anything. Tt's bad; enough to have such a hueband without' boing robbed, too," • When other birds bad slipped aevey, With leaves stripped. by the breeze, Theirs was the only cheerful voice Around my lonely, trees. So keep you with your guns away, I'll plant a field apart For the songless feathered folk that stay= --- A safe place in my heart., - --B. S. Ivey. sive and efferveseent substances for lie rapid conveyance of passengers, mails, dispatches, artillery-, military tores, etc.; and to establish regular tage coaches and wagons throughout he United Kingdom to convey goods nd passengers, for public accommoda- on by erecting windmills, water ills, etc., at proper intervals upon the oads, to be employed in charging rge magazines at these stations with ompressed air, or in raising large re- ervoirs of water by- wind, etc., by the ower of which smaller portable ma- chines niay be charged, when required, by machinery for that purpose." Here we clearly see a distinguished inventor one hundred and twenty-four years ago foreseeing the gas and other explosive automobiles of to -day. Med- hurst's work has inspired many engi- neers in every decade ,since his time, and the patent records of all countries indicate that men are still working on the various problems indicated in the above quotation of -one of Medhurst's claim which was propelled by a system of mechanical legs that was subsequent- ly adopted by Gordon and Gurney and other prominent inventors. Steam Carriages. Between 1830 and 1933 Alexander Gordon published several books in England on steam -propelled automo- biles which ran through numerous edi- tions and had wide sales. This show- ed the wide public interest that had been aroused in automobiles. At that time there were many forms of steam carriages operating on Eur pean.roada and many public companies were or- ganized to run automobile services among European cities. Some of these To th Crow and Sparrow. The crow niay caw all summer long, lay loot my growing corn. For he was with me when the spring Was a doubtful thing unborn. The sparrow in my root may build, And squabble in my yard, For he in winter stayed with me, 'V1ion the ground was frozen Karl Lure of the Beehive. One of. the cleverest birds in the world is the "honey guide" of Aft'ica, which has learned to entice men to open beehives for him. The "honey guide" has a sweet tooth, as well as a liking for the arvae of bees, But he is a small bird and beehives are hard for liim to crack. So he seeks out a man, and when ho anal one, perches in a tree and begins to chatter. ,This means ; that he knows where there is a hive,. and that he wants the man to follow luiurt, He leads itis unman assistant to the hive, stopping at intervals to N ait for his „lower partner toretch at Miss Louise Drouin, of 'Quebec, enjioys 'a ride on her tobog�, gan up" 'Tlueso birds the are highly valued trt Chateau Prontonac, while her portabi.e radio set provides mesh: during the e .\mca, and to hill them is' a Atistle. sport, meauotar punishable by law 1 The Perfect Gentleman. "He's a perfect gentleman, you think?".. "I do -lie always rises and gives a lady his seat in the barber shop." A Good Retort. A professor of philosophy, in a Ger- man college town, one day received a large parcel containing six boxes of cigars, aecomeaniod by the following note: "We beg leave to send you six boxes of our excellent cigars. We have uo doubt that you will recom- mend us to your friends. I£indly re- niit us the • amount of the Invoice.— fifty narks per box --by postal order." 'Fo this the professor replied immedi- ately: "1 have the honor to send yoll herewith a dozen dissertations, which will no doubt Blease you. Sbould you dos•ire any more, I hold them at your disposal, The price is fifty marks per copy." By return mail, the professor received the following epistle: "bilin • - ly return our cigars. Enclosed, glad cost of carriage and packing. We are sending !sack your di:sseristions "