jPart 5 of "The Popular Science Educator" will be on sale next Thursday, October 31st

T
HE success of THE POPULAR
SCIENCE EDUCATOR is largely
due to its fine series of explana-
tory drawings, which make clear many
of the great principles of science, and
at the same time explain difficult pro-
cesses and devices. Even a rough
sketch will often convey more to the
mind than a long description, and
when the diagrams are as carefully
thought out and as well executed as
those which are appearing in THE
POPULAR SCIENCE EDUCATOR, they
have a value which is incalculable.
That is why so many schoolmasters
and mistresses are advising their
scholars to take this book.
It is not intended, as has already
been explained, as a substitute for
existing text-books ; but as a supple-
ment to these and to science lectures
it is proving of the greatest value.
Those who have not had the advan-
tage of a science education are finding
that the book supplies them with
exactly what they want. Most science
text-books presuppose that the reader
knows, at any rate, the elementary
principles of the subject he is studying.
But those who come to THE POPULAR
SCIENCE EDUCATOR with a desire to
get some sort of working knowledge
of all the sciences find that they can
follow the story week by week and
chapter by chapter without having to
refer to other books. For example,
technical terms when used are fully
explained, and though they may look
formidable, their derivation, as ex-
TWO FASCINATING BOOKS
The Editor has produced two
fascinating books, one for boys
from eleven to seventeen, and the
other for children of both sexes up
to seven or eight. The former is
called THE BOY'S BOOK OF
WONDER AND INVENTION. It
is issued at 6s. and contains hundreds
of pictures with experiments, stories
of famous inventions, explanatory
drawings, and so on. The other is
THE NURSERY RHYME OMNIBUS,
the biggest collection of nursery
rhymes and the best illustrated
book of its kind ever issued. It
is published at 3s. 6d. Both books
can be obtained from any bookstall
or bookshop, or ordered at any
newsagent's.
plained, makes it far more easy to
remember them.
One of the most popular sections
of the book is that dealing with
Biology. Some readers have COljlfessed
that they thought this was a dry
subject, but as the story of .life is
unfolded they find that it is as fasci-
nating as a novel.
In all the sections the latest informa-
tion is embodied. so that those who
read the book will find that they have
an up-to-date knowledge of science
in all its branches.
The present part is particularly rich
in explanatory ill ustrations. We see, for
example, how the amoeba, the simplest
form of animal life, consisting of a
single cell, lives its life, eating and
moving and multiplying in a way that
seems like a fairy tale.
We see on page gr the carbon cycle
by which this important -element is
absorbed by in the form of
carbon dioxide gas, extracted from the
gas, and the oxygen passed out into the
air for animals to breathe.
Vve see how astonishing records
could be made for the high and long
jumps if athletes could be transferred
to the Moon. We are shown the
different ways in which fire is made by
man. We see how the inclined plane
is used in modern life, and how a great
city gets an ample supply of pure water
for drinking and other purposes.
Altogether, this part is well up to the
interest of its predecessors.
HERE ARE SOME OF THE PRINCIPAL FEATURES IN PART 5
THE SUCCESSION OF LIFE EXPERIMENTS IN BALANCING
An interesting account of how scientists believe that
living forms have evolved from lowly one-celled plants
and animals to highly developed forms . Illustrated.
THE REMARKABLE LIKENESS OF TWINS
A full page of photographs showing the remarkable
similarities in the appearance of twins and tripl ets,
who, as science explains, are the only people who are
really alike.
THE SIMILARITIES AND DISSIMILARITIES OF
MAN AND BEAST
Two full pages of illustrations showing how the skeleton
of man is simil ar in principle to those of various
animals, and yet at the same tii.;.ie differs widely.
BALANCE AND THE CENTRE OF GRAVITY
A chapter explaining the meaning of centre of gravity,
how it vvorks, and why some things balance and
others fall over. Fully illustrated.
SJ'ABLE AND UNSTABLE EQUILIBRIUM
A page of drawings showing the three forms of equili-
brium and ho\.v, if a body is to be in stable equilibrium,
its centre of gravity must be low.
HOW CENTRE OF GRAVITY AFFECTS LIFE
A full page of drawings showing people in various
positions carrying out different tasks, with an explana-
tion of why they take up the attitudes they do.
A full page of drawings showing various experiments
that can be carried out with ordinary objects.
THE TOWER THAT DOES NOT FALL
A full-page illustration of the famous Leaning Tower
of Pisa, with an explanation of why in its curious
position it is still perfectly safe.
HOW HEAT IS TRANSMITTED
A chapter descrihing the three ways in which heat ts
passed on, with an explanation of the miner's safety
lamp. the reason why dark clotheq are warmer than
light, and so on. Illustrated.
HOW A HOT-WATER SYSTEM WORKS
A full-page drawing illustrating central heating and
the hot-water supply t o the bath, etc.
NITROGEN WHICH IS NECESSARY TO LIFE
The story of nitrogen gas and how it enters into the
composition of all living bodies. Illustrated.
THE NITROGEN CYCLE
A full-page drawing showing how plants and animals
obtain their supplies of nitrogen.
HOW AMMONIA IS MADE FOR COMMERCIAL USE
A double-page drawing showi ng the whole process of
making ammonia, necessary to so many industries.
THE THREE NEAREST PLANETS
An interesting and graphic account of Mercury, Venus
and Mars, the three planets nearest to the Earth.
I
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J

THE MARVEL OF COLOUR IN THE ANIMAL WORLD
Macaw
Opah
We expect to have col our among t he fl ower s, but t her e ar e equally brilliant hues to be fou nd in the animal worl d. As can be
seen by thi s pl at e, t he br ight col ours are found among mammal s, birds, repti l es, fi shes, insects, shel ls and such lowl y cr eatures
as t he sea anemones. Of course, the exampl es gi ven her e are merel y t ypes of the rich col ours which are to be found i n all
cl asses of animal s, vertebr at e and invertebrat e. The opah i s one of t he most bri l l i antly col oured of British fishes, and the
anemones shown ar e found on t he southern coast s of Engl and. The edibl e frog i s common on t he conti nent of Europe, thP.
Orni thopt er a butterfl y, w it h i ts magnificent iridescent col ours, due t o the light bei ng broken up into the colours of t he spectrum
by the t i ny lines on i t s wi ngs, i found in the Solomon Isl ands. The beauti f ul Ampu ll ari a shell is common in Lak e Nyasa,
and t he macaw i s only one of many ri chl y coloured par rots found in South America whi ch ar e t o be seen at the London Z oo.
The mandrill , with its queer blue and red nose, is a striking exampl e of bri ght col our i n a mammal
1
Story of Life and Living Things and how these are constantly being affectej
by their surroundings ,
PHYSIOLOGY, ZOOLOGY, EMBRYOLOGY and BOTANY
.BIQLQGYi The
-., I . _..
111;911
. .
THE" SIMPLEST ANIMALS AND PLANTS
In both the animal and plant worlds th_ere are tiny creatures which are made up of
only one cell, and here we read some interesting facts about these lowly forms of life
ALL animals and plants, as we have
.f-\.. seen, are made up of minute
parts or units known as cells,
and in the highe{forms of life there are .
millions of these. cells, some uniting
together to form one kind of tissue
and -others uniting to form other tissue,
each group h'aving its own particular
kind of work to do in the animal or
plant. .
.But there are .. some very lowly
::tnimals and plants which consist of only
one cell and .. this has to do all the
work, moving about, catching and
digesting food, and producing new
creatures to .car:rY on the race.
Among the animals one of the most
interesting is the amoeba. There are
several different species, but they are
all very much alike. They are found
almost everywhere where there is any
degree of moisture, in ditches and
ponds, in the damp soil, on the surface
of mud, and; even in salt water and as
parasites .in the digestive organs of
men and. higher animals. In this
latter case they are the cause of that
unpleasant complaint dysentery.
Most of. the amoebae need a micro-
scope to make them visible, but there
is one speeie large enough to be seen
with the eye, and that is about
one hundredth of an inch in diameter.
Now the 'name amoeba means change,
a.n.d it was given to this simple animal
because, unlike ourselves .and the
horses and dogs and birds and all
higher animals, it does not keep the
same form. It is always changing its
shave.
It is just a mass of protoplasm, and
it moves abou:t in a curious way. It
keeps on bulging out first in one place
and then in another and throwing Ot\t
what are something like feet or toes.
When it puts, out a projection from
one part it _draws in at another.i;: and
so by throwmg out these pseudopods,
as scientists call them, or " false feet,"
the amoeba is able to move about from
place to place.
But the projections or false feet are
not merely limbs for moving, they are
fingers for grasping, and as it. goes
here and there the amoeba is with its
fingers seizing particles of food; l'hese
consist of other one-cel}ed living things
-minute plants like bacteria ancl one-
celled animals something like the
amoeba itself.
It likes a varied diet, as we do, but
all its food consists of organic matter.
It is no more able to take :iniheral food
and digest it than we are, and this
proves that the amoeba is an animal
and not a plant. Only plants can take
mineral matter and change it irito
food. '
. Food can be taken into the amoeba's
Here we.see a plant enormously magnified. The and centre of its body are colourless and sunlight can
so.as to act upon the chlorophyll, or green colouring matter, in the restofthe plant to form organic substances from the minerals
and salts absorbed through the cell wall. The part of the plant that does this is called the pyrenoid, and the part with the
colouring matter is known as the ct\loroplast. The front of the plant throws out whip-like parts which are waved about
"and enable it to move. This single-celled plant multiplies, as shown in the lower part of the drawing. The nucleus divides,
the protoplasm follows suit by grouping round the nuclei, and then two new plants burst out from their parent
89 D
THE SIMPLEST ANIMALS AND PLANTS
body at any point, the semi-fluid
protoplasm simply rolling over and
engulfing the food material.
] ust as . the protoplasm of the
amoeba's single cell has to move the
creature about, so it has to provide
mouth and stomach for the consump-
tion and digesting of the food. The
amoeba has no definite mouth, and so
when it comes across something suit-
able for food it throws out two pseudo-
pods, embraces the morsel, and then,
closing the arms round it, unites these
and the food is i'liside the amoeba,
being digested in a little cavity which
it has made for the purpose. This is
called a vacuole, which simply means
;:i.n empty place, and is really a tem-
porary stomach.
As soon as the morsel is imprisoned
in the cavity a digestive juice covers
it and begins to dissolve it, and the
single cell of the amoeba is then doing
the work that in
our more complex
bodies is done by
the gland-cells.
Good Digestion
more complex than the amoeba. They
are classed together as the Protozoa, a
word which means " first living
animals," and a single one is called a
protozoan.
Some of these, like the bell animalcule
found in.stagnant water, have a mouth
and little cilia or threads which wave
about and drive food into the mouth.
The mouth then closes. At the other
end the animalcule is extended into a
kind of tail, and in this the protoplasm
acts as in our muscles and enables the
creature to grip and hold on to the
water-weeds.
Many of the protozoa have cilia or
threads all over their exteriors and
swim about by moving these. Some
seize the chalk or lime in the water,
and with it build a skeleton or shell.
The globigerina ooze which is forming
a bed of . chalk on the bottom of the
Atlantic Ocean today consists of
Scientists call the method binary
fission, which simply means splitting
or dividing into two equal portions.
The strange thing about this method of
reproduction is that the parent dis-
appears when two children are thus
born, and so the amoeba, as has been
said, never knows old age ; it has
learnt the secret of eternal youth.
A still stranger thing sometimes
happens. Two amoebae come together
and become one creature, their two
nuclei uniting. But not long after-
wards the nucleus assumes the dumb-
bell shape and divides and there once
again are two amoebae.
The protozoa exist in enormous
numbers in the ocean and in lakes and
rivers, and form the food of many
higher creatures. Many fish, especially
those that travel in "schools," live
on such food. Other fish feed on rather
larger animals which in their turn live
upon the protozoa.
The fish that feed
in this way have
on each side of
their gills a kind of
rake, called a gill
raker. The rakers
are used by the fish
to catch the tiny
creatures that form
their food as the
water that contains
them passes over
their gills.
A Sea Mammal
Sometimes t h e
food captured is a
tiny one-celled
plant called a dia-
tom, and then the
amoeba has no
t r o u b 1 e , for the
diatom puts up no
fight. But at other
times the prey may
be a one -celled
animal with cilia or
hair - like threads
that are constantly
lashing about, and
this creature
though so lowly
fights for its life.
The amoeba then
wastes no energy
The food of the- Greenland,.whale, consists largely of erotozoa, or tiny one-celled creatures that
live in the sea. It takes my,riads of these into its 'moU'.th with the water, and then strains out
the water through a great strainer made of hanging plates of whalebone, shoWn in the picture
The whale, which
is, of course, not a
fish but a ma:inmal
living in the sea,
strains protozoa
and other srriall
animals and plants
out of the water by
a somewhat similar
strainer consisting
in putting out or withdrawing pseudo-
pods. It gives all its attention to its
capture. For some hours it remains
unchanged in shape while the captured.
animal hurls itself about in a vain
effort to break out of its prison. yet
though the protoplasm is so soft and
jelly-like it does not yield to this
prolonged attack, but resists as though
its walls were of steel. At last the
victim becomes still from exhaustion,
and at once the protoplasm -of. the
amoeba begins to digest its victim.
Like all other animals, the amoeba,
though consisting of a single simple cell,
has to get rid of its refuse matter after
eating, and this it does in the following
manner. Near the surface of its
body is a little spherical space filled
with water and the dissolved waste,
and from time to time the protoplasm
in the amoeba's body iri on this
space and, squeezing it, squirts the
waste out through the surface. The
little cavity in which the waste matter
accumulates and from which it is
ejected i,s called the contractile vacuole.
Other single-celled animals are rather
myriads of shells m<J.,de by these tiny
creatures. They die and their shells
fall to the sea-bed in a never-failing
shower.
The chalk clifEs of Dover and the
Downs were fornied millions of years
ago by somewhat similar one-celled
creatures that lived in a prehistoric
sea. Later the sea-bed was raised and
became the dry land of England.
These lowly animals breathe, taking
in oxygen and giving out carbon dioxide
as do more important animals,. but
how they do this fa not known. They
multiply by a process of dividing
First of all the nucleus changes its
shape to that of a dumb-belt and gets
longer and longer until it splits info
two. While this process is going on
the protoplasm arranges it.<ielf round
the two ends of the dumb-bell nucleus,
and when these break. apart the proto"
plasm soon afterwards does the same,
and then in place of one amoeba there
exist two. The two grow and in time
they also split up and so the race of
amoebae is carried on in this strange
though simple fashion.
90
of hanging plates of whalebone. The
slerider filaments of this material,
which is not really bone at all but a
substance called baleen, form a very
effective -sieve from th.e top to the
bottom of the mouth.
. Just as there are one-celled animals
so there are one-celled plants also, and
they may be seen on stagnant water
or on the bark of trees, on damp palings
and covering moist, shady ground.
They give all these places a green tinge,
but the individual plants are too small
to be visible except through a micro-
scope. It is masses of them
together that enable us to see the
green colour.
They have been given the name
qUa.mydomonas by botanists, a
name made up from two Greek words
meafiing mantle and unit. Each plant
co:Qsists of a 11i1:1gle cell, oval. in shapfi,
with one end sharper than the other.
There is a very thin membrane enclosing
the protoplasm and except in the front
part of the cell the protoplasm is
coloured green by chlorophyll, the
_green _ colouring. matter of plants, of
THE CARBON CYCLE BY WHICH LIFE IS KEPT GOING
ttt\
Plants take carbon dioxide from the
alf. 'lind after seizinq the carbon to
build!liP. qive off
I
Oxqqen from plants 'taken in bi/.
animals combines with carbon tif
food to form carbon dioxide which
is. then qiven out for use blJ plants
OXl/tjen from p/ants
taken in blJ amma/s
with the air theq
brea_the. to burn up
food eaten blf them
Fires and all kinds of living animals are constantly pouring carbon dioxide gas Into the atmosphere. The green plants take in
carbon dioxide from the air, and their green colouring matter, under the influence of sunlight, extracts the carbon from the gas,
and then returns the oxygen to the atmosphere. Oxygen is necessary to the iife of animals, which breathe it in, and in their
bodies it burns or oxidises the food materials they have taken in from the plants, which consist largely of carbon. . The oxygen
in ari animal's body combines with the carbon, and thus forms carbon dioxide, which is breathe.d out for the use of the plants.
Thus a regular cycle goes on which men of science describe as the carbon cycle; It must be remembered that the atmosphere
and the soil are the primary sources of.all food. The atmosphere contains carbon in the form of carbon dioxide gas, together
with water vapour, while the soil contains water and nitrogen in the form of nitrates. We see in another part of this book that
there is a regular nitrogen cycle just as there is the carbon cycle shown here. Animals are unable to make use of carbon and
nitrogen in the simple forms indicated, but plants, aided by the light and heat of the Sun, can, and they build up the carbon of the
carbon dioxide gas into Carbo-hydrates, which are eaten by animals and split up by them releasing carbon dioxide gas and water
9l
THE SIMPLEST ANIMALS AND PLANTS
which we shall learn more later. The
central and front parts of the cell are
clear.
The protoplasm that is coloured
green by the chlorophyll is generally
called the chloroplast, a word meaning
"pale-green form." In the centre of
the colourless protoplasm is a spherical
nucleus, and projecting through holes in
the front and sharper end of the cell are
two cilia, whip-like projections that are
lashed about and drive the little plant
through the water. There a.re also in
the front pa.rt of the cell two vacuoles,
or cavities, which can contract and a.re
probably for the purpose of squirting
water from the celL
More noticeable in this pa.rt of the
plant is a red-eyespot, which is believed
to render the plant sensitive to light.
In the chloroplast towards the back
of the cell is an object about the same
size or a little larger than
the nucleus. Its outer layer
consists of starch, as proved
by the fact that it turns a
blue-black colour when
treated with iodine. In the
centre is protein matter,
the most complex of all
chemical substances known,
which helps to build up the
body of a living creature.
bursting out of the pa.rent cell, in which
there may be four daughters floating
about. In some of the plants this is
carried still farther and as many
as sixty-four little cells have been
counted within a parent cell, ready to
break out and begin iife on their own
account.
A.lthough when we a.re examining a
specimen of Chlamydomonas under the
microscope it appears to swim a.bout at
random, it does not do this vvhen in
natural surroundings. Its' movements
then are definitely directed to bring it
into conditions where it is .. able to live a
normal and healthy life.
This may be proved by a very simple
experiment. We must take from an
open rain-tank some water with the
green tinge that is evidence of the
presence of Chla.mydomonas, and place
it in a tumbler near a window.
dust by the wind and wake up, as it
were, in a new pool. Then they divide
into a number of sections which ea.eh
grows into a new Chla.mydomona.s. In
such drought conditions ordinary mem-
bers of the family would perish.
It is interesting to know that both
the one-celled animals and the one-
celled plants sometimes link themselves
together with their kind into colonies.
Those slimy masses of floating green
threads tangled together that we see
floating on ponds and ditches in the
summer a.re examples of one-celled
plants united end to end. Among the
animals some protozoa live attached to
one another, forming a kind of cluster
of tiny shells, but living independent
lives.
The remarkable thing is that these
lowly plants and animals have the
fundamental characteristics of their
loftier relations. The one-celled
animals cannot take minet'a.l
matter and from it build up
organic matter as can the one-
celled plants. It is the function
of all plants, however lowly in
the scale, to change the
organic matter into organic and
make it fit food for animals.
A Constant Carbon Cycle
The carbon in our bodies
came from .the proteins, fats,
and carbohydrates which we
took as food, and these we
obtained either from plants or
from other animals that had
consumed plants, such as oxen,
sheep, pigs, rabbits and so
on.
The chalk cliffs of Dover and the Downs
were built up millions of years ago by tiny
animals_that lived in a prehistoric
sea, and made small shells to live in. When
they died the shells" fell to the bottom, and
everitua!ly the sea bed was raised to form
Building a Wall
This object is called
the pyrenoid, which
means a fruit - stone,
probably because of its
appearance. It is this
pa.rt of the single-celled
plant which is of very
great importance. It
builds up the cellulose
of the c e 11 - w a 11 and
when water containing
carbon dioxide and
w e a k s o 1 u t i o n s of
the cliffs and downs. The inset shows some of these shells greatly mag-
nified. They are much like tiny shells being formed in the Atlantic today
The animals cannot get their
carbon direct, but the plants
take it from the carbon dioxide
in the air, or, in the case of
water-plants, from the carbon
dioxide dissolved in the water.
mineral salts passes through the wall
into the cell the pyrenoid takes their
elements and builds up organic com-
pounds just as successfully as does the
tallest and biggest tree. The energy to
do this is provided by the light acting
on the chlorophyll. Oxygen is given
off by the lowly plant just as it is by
more important members of the plant
world.
These plants a.re members of the
Algae order to which the seaweeds
belong. Like the amoeba, they multiply
by fission, but in rather a different
way.
When the time for division comes
the cell withdraws its flagella or whips,
the nucleus divides into two .. the pro-
toplasm gathers round the two parts.
and soon a cellulose wall is formed
round ea.eh. Flagella are shot out and
after swimming round inside the parent
for a time the cells burst the wall and
pass out. They are thus real daughters
of their parent, which is left a mere
empty and broken cell-wall.
Sometimes one of the daughter cells
will itself divide into two before
After a very short time it will be
found that the side of the glass nearest
the window has become covered with a
green deposit. This is due to the fact
that the lowly plants, by means of their
cilia, have swum a.cross to the light,
which is so necessary for their welfare.
It is interesting to know that the
Cbla.mydomona.s makes provision for
times of drought which. would, in the
ordinary way, be fatal to its continued
existence. The delicate cells are dam-
aged by excessive heat or cold, but
drought is their' chief danger. Yet
living as they often do in small pools
and streams that are likely to dry up
in warm weather their risk is great.
Now when large numbers of new
plants a.re formed in the pa.rent as the
result of splitting up, these when they
escape are not able as are smaller
numbers to reproduce in their turn
by splitting up. Two of them have to
come together, and after their cilia a.re
entangled they fuse together and then
go into a state of rest. In this state
they can resist drought and if their pool
be dried up they may be carried like
Where does this gas come
from ? Well, certain rocks like lime-
stone yield a small quantity when they
decompose, but the bulk of it comes
from the large quantities that are
thrown off by fires as they burn, and
by living creatures as they breathe out.
There is thus a c01ista.nt carbon cycle
going on. The plants breathe in carbon
dioxide and by the aid of sunl.ight
acting on the chlorophyll, or green
colouring matter, break up the carbon
dioxide, ta.king the carbon to make
their leaves and other parts, and
throwing out into the atmosphere the
oxygen.
The animals eat the plants and
breathe in the oxygen of the air, which
thereupon burns or oxidises the organic
matter in their bodies and enables them
to give out carbon dioxide, which
provides food for new plants.
There is thus a rongh balance so long
as the cycle continues moving, but if
the a.mount of animal life in the world
should diminish very greatly there
would in time be a shortage of carbon
dioxide, and plant life would necessarily
decrease also.
In this picture we h ~ v a graphic representat-ion of an amoeba, the lowliest of all living animals, magnified many thousands
of times. It is a little mass of protoplasm enclosed in a mel'.Tlbrane, and has no definite form, but changes from moment to
moment. By stretching out projections known as pseudopods, or false feet, it is able to move about, and these feet also
seize particles of food. In the lower part of the drawing we see how the amoeba multiplies to carry on its race
93
t
IF ENGLAND WERE SITUATED ON THE MOON
The wonde-rful 100-inch telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory, linked with modern photography, enables us to take photo-
graphs of the Moon so fine in detail that we can see exactly what a lunar landscape is like. Here is part of such a photograph,
showing those chiiracteristic features of the Moon's surface, the lunar craters. Some of these are so big that if placed in the
middle of England, as shown in the inset, one of them would fill the whole of the Midlands. If England were situated
on the Moon it would appear in size as shown, for the outline drawing is made to the scale of the Moon and its craters.
Scientists are not agreed as to how these craters were formed. Some think they are extinct volcanoes, others that they
were caused by meteorites striking the Moon, and others that they are burst bubbles on the Moon's crust
94
PHYSIOGRAPHY
A description of the Physical Universe with the Daily, Monthly
and Yearly Happenings in Earth and Sky
ASTRONOMY, GEOLOGY, PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY and METEOROLOGY
THE ROMANTIC STORY OF THE MOON
The Moon is the nearest of all the heavenly bodies to our Earth, and, as we
read here, man has discovered a great deal about its nature and condition
A
FTER the Sun the Moon is the best-
known object in the heavens,
and though it is not always
visible, yet because of the light it does
give when it shines in the night it has
always been an object of great atten-
tion.
In the old days men were. very much
afraid of darkness, just as some children
are nowadays, and the Moon, because
on many nights it lighted up the Earth
in the dreaded period of darkness, was
regarded as a friend.
The full Moon always appears to us
about the same size, from which it may
be supposed that its distance from the
Earth does not vary a great deal. This
is the case, for while at its greatest
distance it is 252,970 miles away, at its
nearest it is 221,610 miles. Another
authority gives the figures 252,7rn and
221,462. The distance cannot be deter-
mined exactly within a few miles.
It is clear from the fact that
the distance is not always the
same that the orbit in which
the Moon moves round the Earth
is not a circle but an ellipse.
It travels in this orbit at a speed
of 2,287 miles an hour, or about
3,350 feet per second.
Men always noticed that there
were markings on the Moon's
face, but till the invention of the
telescope it was not possible to
know what these markings were.
But when ~ 1609 the great
Galileo turned his telescope upon
the Moon and examined it, he
announqirl at . once that it was
p. world like our own, with seas and
mountains.
The mountafos could be distinctly
seen,,. though not quite as clearly as in
the wonderful photographs taken by
the giant telescopes of today. The
dark patches now known to be vast
plains were supposed to be seas, and
were given such picturesque and poetic
names as the Sea of Serenity, the Sea
of Tranquillity, and so on.
Unlike the Sun, the Moon, though
appearing very bright at night, does not
shine by its own light. It merely
catches and reflects the sunshine, and
it would take 600,000 full Moons to
give us as much light as we receive
from the Sun. Of course, the visible
sky could no.t contain so many Moons.
If the whole sky as we "see it were
packed with full Moons we should
receive only about one-eighth of the
light which comes to us from the Sun.
It may seem curious, but the haH
Moon does not give anything like half
the light of the full Moon. The reason
is that when at that phase the Sun's
light is caught slantingly and there
are many shadows on the Moon's sur-
face which greatly reduce the light
reflected.
Only about one-sixth of the sunlight
that falls upon its face is reflected by
the. Moon. The light of the full Moon
is reckoned as being equal to that of a
hundred candle-power lamp seen at a
distance of twenty-two yards.
When the Moon is in the crescent
form if we look carefullv we shall be
able to discern the rest of its body as
a dull copper-coloured disc. Why is
there this faint light t If the rest of
the Moon were in absolute darkness it
could not be seen at all. There must
be some source of light shining upon
the Moon to show up the part not
illuminated by the Sun.
It has been found that the
dull copper colour is really
earthshine. The Sun's rays
shine upon the Earth, and if
our planet were viewed from the
Moon it would appear very much
as the Moon appears to us. This
sunshine on the Earth is reflected
back to the Moon and lights up
its dark side with a dull copper-
coloured light.
But the most interesting
thing about it is that the earth-
shine has been used for a very
curious purpose. The planet
Mars has an atmosphere which,
The Moon is 2,163 miles in diameter, and this drawing shows what it would look like if placed in the middle of Europe
95 D*
THE STORY OF THE MOON
when examined with the spectroscope;
appears to contain less than one per
cent of free oxygen, not enough to
support life as we know it.
As the atmosphere of Mars could
only be examined from outside the
planet, there was the possibility that
light absorbed by the gases in the
planet's atmosphere might be scattered
back and obliterate the lines in the
spectrum by which a gas is recognised.
If the scientists could examine the
Earth's atmosphere from outer Space
by .. means of. the spectroscope they
would know whether this interference
with the lines actualli occiirred, but
such an examination seemed im-
possible. Nevertheless, the feat has.
been accomplished in the following
way ..
They examined the earthshine of the
Moon 'by means of the spectroscope,
and that light when seen from the
Earth is really sunlight that has passed
three times through the Earth's atmo-
sphere. First it has gone from the Sun
to the Earth, then from the Earth to
the Moon, and finally from the Moon
to us.
Gaining. Difficult 'Knowledge
Now when the light of the bright part
of the Moon was examined with the
spectroscope, a certain amount of
oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere was
detected, but in this case the light had
passed through the Earth's atmosphere
only once. When the earthshine was
examined in the same way three times
the oxygen was detected, proving that
when an atmosphere was examined
from outside the lines in the spectro-
scope were not interfered with. Thus
the shine of the Earth on the Moon
helped greatly in gaining knowledge
of another planet far more distant.
Everything points to the Moon being
a dead world without life, water or an
atmosphere. The face turned towards
the Sun absorbs some of the Sun's heat
and then radiates or throws this out.
But so little of this reaches the Earth
that the most delicate thermometer
fails to record it. By a more sensitive
instrument, however, known as the
thermopile, scientists firid that the
total amount of heat radiated bv the
full Moon to the J!:arth is only one-
185,oooth of that which. we receive
from the Sun.
But if dead the Moon is anything but
a cold world at all times. The most
amazing contrasts of heat and cold
are experienced on its surface in the
course of the day and night. ,
The Earth's atmosphere acts like a
blanket and keeps in at night most of
the heat the Earth bas absorbed from
the Sun during the day. But the Moon
has no such blanket to temper the
Sun's heat by day and prevent its
escape by night.
When the Sun is shining on the Moon's
surface the temperature rises to as
high as 200 Fahrenheit, nearly the
boiling point of water. But as soon
as the Sun sets, the volcanic ash which
it is believed covers most of .the Moon's
surface gives up its heat rapidly, and
within a short time the place that was
nearly at boiling point bas a tempera-
ture as low as 250 below zero
Fahrenheit. There is thus a range of
450 or more in the course of a lunar
day and night.
Sometimes.' the crescent Moon is seen lying
on its back, and this picture-diagram shows the
reason. The Sun below the Earth's horizon
shines up upon 'the Moon when 'it is high in the
hecivens, so see the.,, cresc_ent in
position indicated. By looking closely we see
the rest. of the Moon illuminated by earth
shine, and this appearance is often called
11
the old Moon in the young. Moon's arms"
During an eclipse of the Moon, when
the Earth's shadow falls upon the .
Moon's face, astronomers by careful
observation have found that the cutting
off of the Sun's beat causes the tem-
perature on the Moon to fall 346
in a few minutes.
We know that the Moon has no at-
96
mospbere because every detail on its
surface i:;; so clear cut, and there is no
distortion near the edge of the disc as
there would be if there were any appre-
ciable atmosphere.
With no atmosphere the Moon must
be a silent world, for with no air or
other gas to carry 'the waves of sound
there can be no sound.
With a diameter of only 2,163 miles
and a volume of 5,300. million cubic
miles it would take forty-nine Moons to
make a globe the size of the Earth.
The Moon could indeed be placed in
the Atlantic Ocean or dumped down
'Dn the Continent of Europe.
The material of the Moon is by no
nieans so dense as that of which the
Earth is inade. The mass or weight of
the Moon is seventy-eight million
million million tons, and although the
Earth is equal to only Moons
in sj?e it weighs as much as eighty-one
Moons.
The surface area of the Moon is only
14,660,000 square miles, or less than Qne-
thirteenth that of the Earth. North
and South America together contaill
more square miles than the whole of
the Moon's surface.
Some _Record Jumping
Because of its smaller mass the pull
of gravitation on the Moon's surface
is much less than that which we
perience at the surface of the Earth.
An object weighing six pounds on the
Earth would weigh only one pound on
the Moon, and if we could be trans-
ported to the Moon as we are we
should be able to jump six times as
high as we can now and carry a load
six times as great.
On the Moon the high jump record
would be not as on the Earth 6 feet
8! inches, but over 40 feet ; the long
jump would be not 26 feet 2 inches, .
but 157 feet , the javelin would be
thrown not a mere 251 ! feet as on Earth,
but over 1 ,500 feet. All athletic records
would indeed be marvellously broken.
Unfortunately, with neither water nor
fir, life on the Moon is impossible. It
is because of the weakness of the
Moon's gravitation that all the atmos-
phere and water have escaped into
Space. .
We know that as we go higher and
higher up a mountain the reduction in
the pressure of air causes water to boil
at an ever lower temperature. At
ordinary sea-level the boiling point of
water is 212 Fahrenheit. At the top
of Snowdon it is 206, and on the top
of Everest water would boil at
Fahrenheit:
But with no atmosphere at all to
keep the molecules pressed down, and
thus prevent them flying off in evapora-
tion, all the water would evaporate
as surely as if it were boiled. This is
what has happened on the Moon.
What is the Moon's history? Where
did it come from ? How was it born ?
Well, one theory is that it once formed
part of the Earth and was thrown off
by centrif ugal force from where the
A HIGH JUMP AND A LONG JUMP ON THE MOON
The pull of gravitation on ~ h
Moon's surface is only about .one-
sixth that of the Earth's pu 11, and
if athletes could be transported to
the Moon and jump with the
energy that they do on the Earth,
they would beat all their old
records, for they would jump six
times as high and six times as far
as they can on the Earth. The
high-jump record would be, not
as on the Earth six feet eight
inches, but forty feet, and the long
jump would b.e not twenty-six
feet two inches, but 157 feet.
The reason for the lessened pu II of
graV-itation is that the . Moon's
mass is so much smaller than that
of the Earth. An object weighing
six pounds on the Earth would
weigh onlyonepoundontheMoon.
It is largely owing to its light gravi-
tational pull that the Moon has lost
its atmosphere. The pull was not
powerful enough to hold the gases
THE STORY OF THE MOON
Pacific Ocean now is. Another theory
is that it was an independent planet
which the Earth captured and has
ever since held as a prisoner. Still
another theory is that the Moon was
formerly an immense ring encircling
the Earth as the rings of Saturn en-
circle that planet and that in course of
time the ring became a globe. No one
can say for certain.
Perhaps one of the most remarkable
things about the Moon is that it always
turns the same side towards the Earth,
so that none of us has ever seen the
other side. This is because it rotates
on its axis in exactly the same time
that it takes to travel round theJfarth.
There has been mrich speculation
as to what the other side of the Moon is
like. The Abbe Moreux, the famous
French astronomer, thinks that the
tall mountains on the side we see
correspond with deep depressions on
the opposite side, just as on Earth the
deep Pacific Ocean is on one side and
the high masses of Europe and Asia on
the other.
But perhaps the most interesting
thing about the Moon is its scenery.
If we could suddenlv land on the Moon
we should find that "its landscapes were
very different from those of the Earth.
There are ranges of mountains just
as there are on the Earth, but on the
Moon they are far fewer in proportion
to its area.
Alps and Pyrenees on the Moon
The lunar ranges have been named
after many of those on the Earth-the
Alps, the Apennines, the Pyrenees, and
so on, and the plains have been called
Jakes and seas.
The chief feature of the Moon's sur-
face, however, is the extrii.ordinary
craters which mark its surface all over.
These are of enormous size, some being
as great as 150 miles in diameter, while
the largest craters on the Earth are not
more than seven miles in diameter.
If we were to stand in the middle of
one of the giant craters on the Moon
we should not be able to see ;the towerc
ing walls all round.
Craters from five to twenty miles
across exist by the hundred. They
are circular in form, and the walls
really form a ring of mountain peaks,
rising in many places to a height of
20,000 feet above the surrounding
country.
If the Himalayas were as high in
proportion to the Earth, Mount Everest
would have to be twenty miles high,
instead of rather more than five miles,
as it actually is.
Sometimes the inside of a crater
is 8,ooo feet or more below the level
of the plain outside. Some craters,
indeed, are 19,000 feet deep, but others
appear to be filled up to the brim so
that the floor is far above the level
of the outside plain. Here and there
is a crater which is a mere hole, and
has no surrounding ring of mountains.
.It is interesting to know that the
height of the mountains on the Moon
can be measured more accurately than
the giant peaks of the Himalayas.
The measuring is done by means of
the deep shadows cast by the moun-
tains or crater walls when the Sun is
shining upon the Moon at an . angle.
The measurements are checked when
the Sun is shining from a different
direction and casting other shadows.
What are these giant craters and how
were they formed? Well, there are
several theories, and none of them
is quite satisfactory.
The most likely theory is that the
craters are really extinct volcanoes,
and that the surface of the Moon
consists chiefly' of lava and volcanic
ash poured out from these volcanoes.
Some scientists think the Mpon'S craters were
caused by the impact- of meteorites on its crust
when it was in a plastic state. As shown here,
if a snowball be pressed tightly together and
thrown down upon a board covered with snow,
a formation almost identical with a lunar
crater results. Representations of almost every
type of lunar crater can be formed in this way
On the Earth, the rain and the air
acting upon volcanic ash and lava
form soil ; but on the Moon there is
nothing to change the character of the
volcanic products and so they remain
as they were.
Other astronomers think that the
craters are really pit-marks made on
the Moon's surface when it was in a
plastic state due to meteorites striking
it as the Moon crossed their path.
Still another theory is that they were
formed not by volcanic action or
by meteorites, but by the bursting of
great bubbles of gas which once covered
large areas of the Moon's surface.
When the interior gases were relieved,
it is thought, the thin crust covering
the bubbles fell back into the cavities.
A fourth theory, and a. plausible
one, is that the so-called craters are
really blisters on the Moon's face,
due to its cooling. As the Moon
cooled a crust formed over its surface,
but as the interior went on cooling it
contracted, leaving . spaces between
the fluid interior and tfut solid crust.
The hard crust could not contract,
98
and after a time the pressure of its
weight caused it to fall in, leaving a
rim.
Another curious feature of the
Moon's surface is a number of narrow
cracks, to which the name of rills
has been given, because they may at
one time have been water courses.
In addition there are clefts, about
half a mile wide and of unknown
depths, which run across the Moon's
surface for hundreds of miles.
Then there are light-coloured streaks
radiating from some of the craters
in all directions. . They are hundreds
of miles long and from five to ten
miles wide. Like the clefts they go
straight across valley and mountain,
and sometimes actually through a
crater. Their nature is unknown.
The Moon, like the Earth, is being
continually bombarded by meteors.
On the Earth these mostly get burnt
up through friction with our atmo-
sphere, but as there is no atmosphere
on the Moon they strike the Moon's
surface with the rapid motion with
which they move through Space.
It is as though a constant rain of
bullets and shells were pouring.,upon
the Moon, and Sir James Jeans,:Points
out that the many romantic writers who
.have described human visits to the
Moon have quite forgotten that the
explorers would be under this con:..
tinuous fire.
A Million Shooting Stars a i>ay
He says that at a moderate
tation more than a million shooting
stars and meteors must strike the
surface of the Moon every day, their
speeds averaging about thirty miles a
second, or a hundred times the speed
of a rifle bullet. -
Although there is no atmosphere
on ,1;he Moon, and no water, and
consequently it has no storms, there
must be some factor at work to break
up tbe rocks and form those jagged
peaks that we see.
It is probably the bombardment
of the. meteors that does this. Their
force is formidable, for as Sir James
Jeans tells us, '' at a speed of thirty miles
a seeond a tiny pellet of matter has as
much energy and also as much capacity
for doing damage as a motor-car
moving at thirty miles an hour, while a
,half-pound meteor has the same
energy as the Royal Scot rushing along
at seventv miles an hour."
There would not be much left of a
house, says Sir James, if such a meteor
fell on it.
Some astronomers looking at the
Moon through powerful telescopes have
actually seen what they believe to be
clouds of dust such as might happen
if a fall of rock took place, and it is
believed that if such clouds were really
seen they were due to the bombard-
ment of the rock by a meteor. It is
certainly a dramatic thought that men
on the earth should be able to see an
event like this a quarter of a million
miles away.

account of the Physical Properties of Matter and some of the great Natural
Forces harnessed by man

LIGHT, SOUND, HEAT, MAGNETISM and ELECTRICITY
HEAT THAT MYSTERIOUSLY VANISHES
Modem industry and transport, as well as our health and comfort, depend so much upon
heat that it is important we should know many facts about this subject as described here
W
ITHOUT fire man could never
have become civilised. He is
dependent upon it for the
cooking of his food, the warming of
his home, the driving of his engines,
the manufacture of his bricks and tiles
and metal goods. Indeed, it would take
a whole book to give a mere list of the
ways in which man uses fire to multiply
his powers and add to his comfort:
Now fire cannot be produced without
heat. Fire is the visible light and heat
produced by the action of a high
temperature on certain bodies, but all
bodies do not catch fire and flame up
at the same temperature.
We know how difficult it is sometimes
to light the domestic fire in the grate,
and we know also how dangerous it is
to bring petrol or celluloid near a hot
fire or even a candle light. Why is it
that some things burn so easily while
others are set alight only with the
greatest difficulty ?
Well, all combustible substances
have what is known as an ignitfon
point, that is, there is a certain tempera-
ture at which they will burst into flame,
and until they are heated to that point
they will not burn. with flame. The
ignition point of some substances is'
very low, while of others it is very high.
For example, the.ignition point of coal-
gas .is r,198 Fahrenheit, of carbon
monoxide 1,202, .and of hydrogen
I,080,
Explosions in mines occur because
the gases that have escaped'into the
workings are raised. to ignition poiht
by the flame of a naked light or of a
defective safety lamp, the fusing of
electric . wires, or some similar cause.
In the case of marsh gas, which is
carburetted hydrogen and is represented
by the symbol CH4 with an ignition
point of r ,202 Fahrenheit, the tempera-
ture must be maintained at or above
ignition point for a certain period,
generally the fraction of a minute, before
the gas will ignite.
Some substances, like phosphorus,
zinc ethyl, and the hydrides of silicon,
have such a low ignition point that
they catch fite spontaneously when
exposed to air. Piles of coal, hay-
stacks, and greasy or oily rags some-
times ignite spontaneously. It is
important if we are to understand the
reason for this to realise that the
amount of energy given out when a
definite amount of a substance such
as carbon combines with oxygen is
exactly the same whether the combina-
tion takes place rapidly or slowly.
When the combination of the sub-
stance with oxygen goes on slowly.
if the material is ex-
posed to the air the
heat generated passes
off and is rapidly
dissipated. The tem-
perature of the body
in that case does not
rise to ignition point.
But if the heat
cannot easily get
away, as for example
in the interior of a
haystack, then the
heat accumulates
until at last ignition
point is reached and
the material bursts
This drawing shows why it is bad to sleep between damp sheets. Vital heat is taken from the sleeper's body by the sheets
in order to evaporate the damp, and the body is then chilled so dangerously as often to bring on rheumatic fever
99
HEAT THAT VANISHES
into flame. Such substances as hay,
oily rags, and so on, are bad con
ductors of heat, and that is why the
heat is retained where the slow com--
bination with oxygen is going on.
Many very serious fires have had their
origin in spontaneous combustion.
Some time ago the children in a
school after polishing a number of
wooden stools that they had made,
threw the rags that had been used.
and which were saturated with
linseed oil and turpentine, into
a cupboard. A little later
the school was dismissed
and an hour afterwards
smoke was seen coming
from the building. When
the fire brigade was
called it was found that
the oily rags in the
cupboard had burst
into flame by spon-
taneous combustion
and set the school on
fire.
Linseed oil has a great
affinity for oxygen with
which it combines to
form a hard substarn;;e
that makes it a valuable
constituent of paint. The
hard substance forms a
protective covering for wood.
It is this oxidation of the oil
that makes a brush left with
paint on it grow hard and forms a
hard coat on a pot of paint left un-
o v e r ~ d and exposed to. the air. In
such cases the heat generated gets
away, but in the bundle of oily rags in
the school it could not escape and so
caused a fire.
Coal stored in the hold of a vessel _
without proper ventilation sometimes
becomes overheated by the oxidation
which is always going on between coal
and the oxygen of the air, and takes
fire spontaneously.
An explosion, on the other hand, is
the result of.the very rapid combustion
of gaseous mixtures like coal gas and
air, or of very finely divided matter,
such as the dust of
coal or flour,
suspended in the
atmosphere.
The mixture is
ignited at one point
and the speed of
because its ignition point is low. We
could light the wood also with a burn-
ing taper if we held it to the material
long enough, but it would take a con-
siderable time with so small a flame as
We light a fire with paper and wood because
the temperature at which they catch fire is much
lower than that at which coal burns, and so it
is easier to Set light to paper and wood first.
These-$ubstances when burning raise the coal
to the necPssary temperature to ignite it, and
it then catches fire
that of a match or taper to raise the
wood to its ignition point which is
higher than that of paper.
By lighting the paper first we get a
large flame with sufficient heat to light
the wood, and then when the wood is
explained, is the amount of heat required
to raise one gramme of water one
degree Centigrade, a unit known as
the gramme-calorie. There is another
unit known as the large calorie used
in estimating food values. It is the
amount of heat needed to raise one
kilogramme, or 1,000 grammes, one
degree Centigrade.
The heat of combustion can be
measured in an apparatus known
as a calorimeter, which means
"heat measurer." A given
quantity of the substance
is burned in an inner vessel
and the heat developed is
imparted to a measured mass
of water. The amount of heat
given out by the burning sub-
stance is calculated by noting the
rise in temperature of the water.
In measuring the amount of heat
what is known as the British Thermal
Unit, written for short B.T.U., is
often used. It is the amount of heat
required to raise one pound of water one
degree Fahrenheit. The B.T.U. is
equal to 252 calories.
Primitive man had only one way of
generating sufficient heat to make a
fire and that was by friction. It is
believed that men of the Stone Age
made fire by striking pieces of iron
pyrites together and letting. the sparks
that resulted fall on dry tmder made
of grass.
Later man
. the combustion in-
creases rapidly till
a maximum speed
is reached. Terrific
explosions of this
kind have occurred
in flour mills and
similar factories,
and nowadays to
Even coal could be lighted with a taper if the flame of the taper were held to the co,;I long
enough to raise the temperature to the coal's ignition point. This, however, would take too long,
and so we use paper and wood in lighting a fire, as shown above
learned to make
fire by means of the
fire drill, that is,
by twirling a blunt
pointed stick be-
tween the palms of
his hands so that
the point generated
enough heat by
fr i c t i o n with a
slight hollow in
another stick to set
light to the tinder.
avoid such disasters modern flour
mills are equipped with costly dust-
removing plants.
It is the fact that different sub-
stances have different ignition points
that explains why we use paper and
wood to light a coal fire. If we place
a lighted taper to the paper, that
material bursts into flame at once,
burning it raises the coal to its ignition
point and so the fire is lighted. It
would take a very long time with only
the taper flame to raise even a small
part of the coal to its ignition point.
The heat that is given out when
the substance burns is called the heat
of combustion, and it is expressed
in calories. A calorie, as already
JOO
Sometimes instead
of twirling the stick or drill between his
palms he rotated it by means of a
leather thong or by a bow. Even today
the fire drill is used for making fire by
primitive peoples in America, Asia,
Africa, Polynesia .and Australia.
In some parts the friction is obtained
by a fire plough instead of a fire drill,
the stick- being rubbed rapidly to and
Here we see what
happens when we
strike a match. The
f_r i c t ion generates
sufficient heat to set
light . to the phos-
phorus, and then the
ignition point of the
wood is raised high
enough for that to
burn also
fro instead of
being twirled
round. Another
variation is the
fire saw, a piece
of sharp bamboo drawn rapidly back-
wards and forwards on another piece
of bamboo. In principle, the fire drill,
fire plough and fire saw are the same.
Even in civilised communities we
A pint of boiling water and a gallon are
both at a temperature of 212 Fahrenheit,
but the gallon contains exactly eight times
as much heat as the pi.nt
still use the friction method of generat-
ing heat to light a fire or gas-burner.
\Ve draw a match sharply across a
rough surface and the friction generates
enough heat to raise the phosphorus
preparation at the end of the match to
ignition point. Then the burning
phosphorus raises the wax coating of the
match to its ignition point, and when
that is burning it sets light to the wood.
Cigarette and pipe-lighters also gen-
erate heat on the friction prip.ciple,
a steel wheel being rotated against a
flint, fragments of which are made
white hot by the friction and set light
to a wick steeped in petrol.
That different quantities of heat are
contained in different substances can
be proved by a simple experiment. If
we place a stone weighing, say, two
pounds in an equal weight of water and
then boil the water for some
time till the stone is at the
same temperature as the water,
we shall find that it contains
much less heat than the boiling
water.
This is shown by pouring
the two pounds of boiling water
into a bucket of cold water,
and placing the stone at the
same temperature, 212 Fah-
renheit, into another similar
bucket of cold water.
It will be found on testing
the two buckets of water with
a thermometer that the one
A porous bottle keeps water cool in a hot
climate. Water. oozes through to the
outside. of the bottle
where !t evaporates and
in doing so absorbs heat
from the bottle and it
contents, thereby mak-
ing the water inside
cooler than it would be
IOI
HEAT THAT VANISHES
into which the boiling water was placed
received much more heat from that
than did the other bucket from the
hot stone. Though both stone and
boiling water were at the same tem-
perature the stone had much less heat
in it to give up to the cold water.
If we made a similar experiment
with two pounds of iron we should find
that it contained only about one-ninth
as much heat as a similar quantity of
water at the same temperature, while
a piece of lead weighing two pounds
at 212 Fahrenheit would contain less
than one-thirtieth as much heat as a
similar quantity of boiling water.
Now if we take a block of ice with a
cup-shaped depression at the top and
in this place a ball of copper that has
been heated to 100 Centigrade or
212 Fahrenheit we shall find several
things result. Some of the ice in the
cavity melts and becomes . water and
at the same time the temperature of
the copper ball falls to the temperature
of the ice. We can find the amount of
water melted by weighing it ..
Now if we can take a copper ball
weighing twice as much as the former
one, and after heating it to 100
Centigrade in boiling water place that
in a similar block of ice, we shall find
that by the time it has acquired the
temperature of the ice it will have
melted twice as much water as the
smaller ball.
In neither case does the
hot copper ball raise the
temperature of the ice. Why
is this ? Where has the heat
that the ball gave up gone?
Instead of raising the tem-
perature of the ice it has
been absorbed and used for
the melting of some of the
Wafer as if furns'' . ' .
into vapour .
a&sorbinq ' ',
heal ' ' ' '
. .
.
HEAT THAT VANISHES
If water be boiled in a flask and the flask be then
removed from the gas, the water will cease to boil,
but by squeezing cold water on the flask the water
will again be made to boil. The cold water con-
Wafer reduced
below boilinq
point
denses the steam in-
side the flask, thereby
reducing the pressure,
and at less pressure
water boils at a lower
temperaturr
Vapour
condensed
reduces the
pressure
and wafer
boils at less
than 212Fah.
ice. The melted portion remains at freezing point. The heat
thus absorbed which seems to have disappeared and is incapable
of affecting the thermometer is known as latent heat. The
word latent simply means hidden or concealed. The heat is
there in the water, but is concealed, as it were.
As scientists say, " the latent heat of fusion of a substance
is the quantity of heat required to change a mass of the sub-
stance from the solid to the liquid state without rise of
temperature." .
The latent heat of the fusion of ice in the experiment
described is the number of calories required to change one
gramme of ice at o Centigrade into water at the same
tern perature.
Similarly, latent heat is required to turn a liquid into a gas.
If a kettle of water
is kept boiling for
some time, the
water will event-
ually boil away.
This picture shows why it is bad to sit in a draught'-even a warm one. The current of
air causes the evaporation of perspiration from the skin, thereby takjng heat from the
body and rendering the person liable to catch cold
102
But although heat is all the time being imparted
to the water, its temperature does not rise above
roo
0
Centigrade or 212 Fahrenheit.
Now suppose that we place over a similar
flame -in' turn six other kettles of water at the
temperature of the room, say 16 Centigrade,
they can each be raised to the boiling point,
roo Centigrade, while the water in the first
kettle is being boiled away. In other words, six
equal quantities of water can be raised through
84 Centigrade by the application to them of a
quantity of heat that causes an equal quantity
of water at roo Centigrade to evaporate into
steam. It will be seen that about 500 Centi-
grade heat units disappear in changing water at
the boiling point into steam at the same
temperature.
The heat which has been
absorbed by the steam is
called the latent heat of
evaporation, bu_t the latent
heat of steam varies at differ-
ent pressures. When any
part of a liquid evapo-
rates there must be
some latent heat. It
may come from outside,
as when we dry a damp
towel in front of the
A haystack sometimes catches fire by what is known as
spontanP.ous Heat generated inside the stack
is unable to get away, and raises_ the temperature of the
hay to fgrtition point, when it bursts into flame
fire, or it may be taken from surrounding objects,
whose temperature then is lowered, as when
eau-de-Cologne is put upon the forehead to cool it.
Rapid evaporation always causes cooling.
Even when increasingly hot air results in in-
creased evaporation coolness may result, as the
heat rendered latent may not be wholly replaced
by the hot air.
It is the practice in hot countries to keep the
drinking water in a porous jar. The water
exudes through the pores of the jar and
evaporates, but in doing so it absorbs heat which
becomes latent, and so the jar and its contents
are cooled.
Damp clothes on the body or damp sheets on
the bed are always dangerous, because the
moisture absorbs heat from the body in order to
evaporate it, and so the body is cooled to a point
that is perilous to health.
Wet clothes on a line dry more quickly in a
wind than in a calm, because as fast as the air in
contact with them becomes saturated with the
NINE DIFFERENT WAYS OF MAKING FIRE
The drawings ori this page show some of the different ways in which man
makes fire, that is, causes to burn with a flame. The earliest
method is believed to have been the striking together of two pieces of iron
pyrites, producing sparks to light dry leaves. Later the fire drill was used,
in which a piece of wood was twirled rapidly to and fro on another piece.
This method is used today by some primitive peoples, and the moving
stick is made to move more rapidly by using a bow. Another method of
generating fire by friction is the fire plough, in which a stick is moved rapidly
to and fro in a groove. In the fire saw one piece of bamboo is sawn to and
fro on another piece. Till the invention of safety matches the flint and
steel with tinder were used in Europe, and the cigarette-lighter of today
.is a modern adaptation of the flint and steel, which produces a spark to light
a wick soaked in petrol. The safety match is lighted by friction, and the
fire syringe by compressing air till enough heat is generated to light a
quantity_of tinder which lies at the bottom of the syringe
103
HEAT THAT VANISHES
evaporated moisture it is blown
away and less saturated air
approaches, which in its turn
can be saturated. Heated air
will always hold more moisture
than cold air, and ,so a warm
sunny day is better for drying
clothes than a dull cool day.
For the same reason there is
much more evapora-
tion from sea, river
and lake in a tropical
land than in a tem-
perate country.
lemperature of qas flames about 2750':Fah.
from which the at-
mospheric pressure
is excluded, the
solution is made to
boil at a very low
temperature. The
syrup during the
process is heated
only to about 150
Fahrenheit, and it
leaves the sugar
white.
When clothes are
being dried in a room
it is essential to leave
windows and door
open so that there
may be a steady
current of air through
the room, removing
the saturated air and
insuring the entrance
Although the gas flame is 2,750c Fahrenheit, the water in both the kettle and the boiler
remains at a. temperature of 212 Fahrenheit, but there is much more heat in the large
quantity of water in the boiler than in the small quantity in the' kettle
The apparatus for
e v a p o r at i n g the
water from the syrup
in a vacuum consists
of a vessel strong
enough to bear when
quite empty the
external pressure of
the atmosphere,
which, as we know,
is 14"7 pounds on
every square inch.
of drier air towards the wet clothes.
A constant current of air is far more
important than heat.
These matters explain why it is
always unwise to sit in a draught. The
draughty air may be just as warm as,
or even warmer than, the other air in
I ,
Equal quantities of different substances at the
same temperature contain different amounts
of heat. This is proved by these experiments.
In each case the substance is at 212 Fahren
heit, but the amount of heat it gives up when
placed in water at 68 Fahrenheit varies
the room, but playing upon the skin
it assists rapid evaporation, which
lowers the temperature of the body.
An interesting experiment may be
performed to show that a reduction
of pressure helps evaporation or
boiling which is evaporation with
ebullition. Water is boiled in a glass
flask over a spirit lamp or Bunsen
burner. It is allowed to go off the
boil by removing it from the flame
and the flask is then corked.
If now it be inverted and cold water
squeezed over the flask from a sponge,
bubbles of steam will immediately be
seen to rise. The water vapour in the
flask is condensed by the cold, the
pressure on the water is relieved, which
therefore begins to boil once more.
With a reduction of pressure boiling
point is always lowered.
This fact, that liquids will boil at
lower degrees of temperature when the
atmospheric pressure is lessened ,or
removed, is applied in various in-
dustries. One example that may be
mentioned is that of sugar refining.
In the old days when the syrup had
been clarified by straining or other-
wise, the water was boiled off so as to
leave the sugar as a crystallised mass.
The boiling was performed under
ordinary atmospheric pressure and
a heat of at least 220 Fahrenheit
was requited to make the syrup
boil. That high temperature, how-
ever, caused a good deal of the
sugar to be discoloured, and pre-
vented it from crystallising.
By boiling the syrup in a vacuum,
that is to say, in closed pans
104
The vessels are generally of copper, and
are made in the arched form in order
to resist the pressure better. The
vacuum is produced and maintained
by air pumps worked by a steam engine
or other power.
By an ingenious arrangement the
state of the boiling syrup can be
watched through a glass panel let into
the upper part of the vacuum pan.
Hundreds of gallons of liquid may
thus be seen under the agitation pro-
duced by the heat tossing about like
tumultuous waves on the surface of a
miniature sea.
The process of boiling in a vacuum
is also utilised in the preparation of
many medicinal substances. Extracts
from vegetables have their virtue
impaired, and some medicinal principles
are even destroyed by a heat of 212,
but when the water used in making the
extract is evaporated in a vacuuin the
activities of the plant are found to
remain in the product.
MECHANICS
How the mighty Forces of are applied and made 'to work for the
benefit of Mankind
.................................................
STATICS, HYDROSTATICS, .KINEMATICS and ENGINEERING
THE INCLINED PLANE AND SCREW
The inclined plane, with its developments the wedge and the screw, is,
as we read here, of the utmost importance to inankind in all sorts of ways
W
HEN a railway porter at a station
has a trolly full of bags and
boxes and wants to transfer
this from one platform across the
line to the other, he does not attempt
to lift it across. That would be beyond
his powers.
Yet he is able to transfer the load,
and he does this by wheeling the trolly
to the end of the platform down a slope,
then across the level line, and up a
slope on to the other platform.
In carrying out this task he has
used one of the simple machines, or
mechanical powers, as they are called-
'the. inclined plane. Just as the wheel
and axle and pulley are only develop-
ments or adaptations of the lever, so
the wedge and the screw, both of very
great importance, are merely adapta-
tions of the' inclined' plane,
First of all let us understand the
principle.. of the inclined plarie. A
house may be situated near the edge
of a cliff or precipice, a hundred feet
from the ground below. .
Now .if a load of furniture has to
be taken to the house it would be
impossible for men to lift it up the
hundred feet vertically, but they can
do .the work quite easily and deliver
the goods by walking up a sloping.path
that leads round the side of the cliff.
The distance they travel is much
more than a hundred feet, but when
they get to the house they have
actuall:J carried the furniture up the
hundred feet.
This illustration will show the
enormous advantage which is obtained
in certain circumstances by means of
the inclined plane. A horse drawing a
load on a road with a rise of one foot
in twenty is really lifting one-twentieth
of the load as well as overcoming the.
friction and other resistance of the
wagon.
The Sloping Mountain Road
By making a road up a very steep
hill wind or zigzag all the way, its
length is greatly increased, but the
load that has to 'be raised to the top
of the hill .is divided as it were into
sections, so that it can be conveniently
lifted.
Staircases are inclined planes, but
as they are usually very steep they
are notched into Steps, so that they
may afford a firm footing.
If we want to ascend to the top of
the Monument in London, the column
erected by Sir Christopher Wren to
commemorate the Great Fire of London,
we camfot jump or climb the column,
of course,
o f l b but we can
neaction o able keepinq objects in eqwJi 'l"ium get to the
top quite
easily by
walking
round and
round the
staircase
which winds its way up the inside of
the column.
Mountain roads are excellent
examples of the inc.lined 'plane used for
. enabling vehicles to get to the top
of a high mountain. .
Railways are able to ascend and cross
the Andes and other lofty mountain
ranges by engineers winding the track
round the mountain-sides.
It must be remembered that when
a railway line is perfectly level. the
locomotive that draws the train has
only to overcome the friction of the
wheels on the rails, and the resistance
of the air. If, however; there is a
rise of one foot in sixty, or one in 120,
then the locomotive has, in additfon,
to raise vertically 1/6oth or 1/120th
of the weight of the whole train. .
In the diagram 'on page'I06 we. see a.'
ball and a box . resting on a plane
inclined to the horizontal at an angle
of 30. Now .if the plane were quite
smooth the ball and box would slide
down to the bottom, but owing to
friction between the bcrdies and the
piane the former remain stationary,
or, as we say in science, in a state of
equilibrium. Friction supplies a force
along t)le plane which maintains the
equilibrium.
Before we examine this matter more
closely let us think of a number of
objects resting on a horizontal table, as
shown on this page. Here, no matter
how smooth the may be, the
objects remain in a state of equilibrium
without the application of. any force
such a.s friction. The ball, jug, book
and box press down upon the' table
with a force due to their mass. They
This diagram shows how objects pressing down on a horizontal surface are kept in equilibrium by an equal force pressing
upward in the opposite direction. Every particle of an object presses down towards the Earth's centre, but the united weight
of the particles is concentrated, as it were, at the centre of gravity. Similarly, the many small forces of reaction are
concentrated as one force pressing up cfppol!ite to the centre of gravity as illustrated in the box ,on the right of the drawing
105
INCLINED PLANE AND SCREW
are being pulled towards the centre
of the Earth by gravitation.
But they remain on the table
because its surface exerts a reaction
at right angles to the plane, and the
reaction is equal in magnitude and
opposite in direction to the pressure
on the plane or table. The two forces,
the pressure of the objects on the
table and the reaction, thus counter-
act . one another, and so each body
remains in equilibrium.
Balancing Forces
But the case of a body on an in-
clined plane is very different. Here
the force of gravitation pulls the
object vertically downward. The
reaction, being still at right angles
to the plane, is not now opposite in
direction to the pressure of the object
on the plane caused by its weight.
Now as the first diagram on page
I ro shows, the pressure or weight of the
o b j e c t and the re-
action at right angles
to the plane not being
opposite in -direction
cannot now counter-
balance one another,
and if the plane were
smooth, and no other
force such as friction
held the body back, it
would slide down the
plane. Its direction
would be between the
d i r e c tion.s
When bodies
rest on an in-
clined plane
instead of a
horizontal
surface the
reaction is
then not oppo-
site to the pull
of gravity, but at right angles to
the slope. The result is that the
object will move down the inclined
plane in the direction indicated by
the arrows, unless some force
such as friction prevents it
of the other two forces, the pull of
gravity and the reaction at right angles
to the plane. We get what men of
science call the triangle of forces.
This is explained in the diagram
referred to. In the triangle ABC the
sides represent in magnitude and
direction the forces which are applied
to the body on the inclined plane.
AB represents the weight, CA the
pressure or reaction of the plane, and
BC the friction ; that is, the force that
prevents the object from sliding down
the slope-in other words, the force
that keeps it in equilibrium.
The Advantage of the Inclined Plane
Let us see the exact advantage which
is gained by the use of an inclined plane
when a load has to be raised a height.
In the second diagram on page r ro
the man is pushing the cask up the
slope AB. When he has brought the
cask to B, he has raised it through
a vertical height equal to CB.
The principle involved is something
like that of the lever. If we want to
know what power is needed to push the
cask from A to B, then the weight of
the cask multiplied by the vertical
height it has been raised is equal to
the slope AB multiplied by the power
used.
Thus, if the cask weighs ro5 pounds
and the length of the plane-that is,
A to B-is twenty-one feet, the base
of the plane, A to C, twenty feet, and
the height of the plane, C to B, five
feet, then the weight, ro5, multiplied
by the height, five, must equal the
length, twenty-one, multiplied by the
power, which in this
case is twenty - five
pounds.
In other words, a
force of twenty-five
pounds will push a
cask weighing ro5
pounds up the inclined
plane
twenty-
one feet, there-
by raising the cask
from its original position
to a vertical height of five
feet.
These figures hold good where
the force is parallel with the length
of the plane. If the force is
exerted parallel to the base of the
plane, or in any other direction, a dif-
ferent formula has to be used, but we
need not go into that now. Of course,
in the calculation given nothing has
been allowed for friction, but there is
always a certain amount of friction to
be overcome, so that a force of rather
more than twenty-five pounds would
be necessary.
A great drum wound round with
lead-covered cable, such as we often
see where electrical lines are being
laid underground, which ten men
could not lift directly, may be rolled
into or out of a wagon by one or two
men with the assistance of a beam
forming an inclined plane.
It is believed that the Ancient
Egyptians constructed great inclined
roadways to enable them to put in
position the immense blocks of stone
which astonish us in their gigantic
architecture.
The wedge is a very important
adaptation of the inclined plane, in
which the inclined plane itself is
106
moved by force so as to do work in
enlarging an opening or lifting a
weight.
In the third diagram on page r ro the
wedge shown has been inserted under
a heavy box to raise the latter. The
force or power has been applied
horizontally, and has moved the wedge
forward a distance of twenty inches,
lifting the box a vertical height of
five inches.
In this case the power exerted
multiplied by the distance the wedge
is moved forward horizontally is equal
to the weight lifted by the wedge
multiplied by the vertical height it
is raised.
If the base of the wedge is
twenty inches, its sloping face
twenty-one inches and its height
five inches, and the weight or
downward pressure of the box is
erted.
would,
pounds.
eighty -four
pounds,
theri the
weight of
the box
multiplied
by.the ver-
tical height
it is raised
is equal to
the distance
the wedge is
moved for-
ward multi-
plied bythe
power ex-
The power needed in this case
therefore, be twenty-one
Wedges are used for splitting logs,
and in such cases usually have two
sloping sides, so as to form a double
wedge. The blades or points of cutting
or piercing tools, such as knives,
chisels, choppers, planes, nails, awls,
pins and needles are wedges, and in the
case of knives, axes and razors, and
weapons like spears, swords and so on,
the blade is a double wedge.
The wedge is often used for lifting
great weights, as when a ship in dry
dock is raised a little by wedges
driven under the keel. Some time ago
a lofty factory chimney, owing to a
defect in the foundations, began to
incline like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
By driving wedges under one side, an
engineer restored it perfectly to the
vertical position.
The Value of the Screw
Another valuable application of the
wedge is the screw. In this case, the
thread of the screw is really the
inclined plane wound round a cylinder.
The bottom diagram on page uo will
explain the matter. The distance
between two consecutive turns of the
thread is called the pitch of the screw.
The force is applied. to the screw at
its circumference, and if we think of
the thread or inclined plane being
unwound, we shall see that the circum-
ference of the cvlinder is the base of
the inclined plane, one whole turn of
TWO STRIKING EXAMPLES OF THE INCLINED PLANE
This sloping rock on the summit of Tryfan is an example of an inclined plane. If it were smooth like ice the schoolboys
sitting upon it would slide down, but friction acts as a force enabling them to keep their places without difficulty Even
a small amount of friction will act in this way, as we know when walking up a fairly smooth road on a steep hill
The wedge is an example of the inclined plane used for doing work. Just as the blades of knives, axes and other cutting
implements are made in the form of a wedge, so the prows of boats are wedgelshaped, enabling them to cut through the water.
The speed of a boat or ship depends to a very large extent upon this wedge-shaped formation of its bows
107
OF THE. MANY 'WAYS IN ,WHICH THE
The inclined plane is one of the simple machines, and on this page we some of its many ingenious adaptations, enabling
man to do work that would be difficult or impossible without its aid. We see the inclined plane in its simplest form in the
sloping end of a railway platform or in the plarik placed against the tailboard of a van enabling a heavy barrel to be roUed up
into the van. The staircase is another example 'of the. inclined plane, as is also the mountain road or railway. An ingenious
adaptation of the inclined plane is the wedge, whi.ch is really a double inclined plane. It is used for splitting logs, but we
are much more familiar with it as the cutting edge of.such implements as knives, razors, chisels, swords, saws, scissors, plane
irons, and the points of pins, needles and nails. Another adaptation is the screw, which is an inclined plane wound round a
cylinder. The screw is, of course, a .very valuable invention, and it is used in all sorts of ways. We see it in the' ordinary
wood screw and in the gimlet, in the more elaborate sc.rews u'sed for bolts and nuts, and in machines like the the
screw-jack, the micrometer screw, the screw-vice arid worm gear. Without the inclined plane in these various forms
civilisation would come to a sudden standstill, for itis found in some form in practically every machine, and is used in every
108
INCLINED PLANE IS USED IN MODERN LIFE
department of life. We could not reach the upper rooms of our houses without the inclined plane
In the form of a staircase, the builder could not reach the top of the house he is erecting without his
Inclined plane in the form of a ladder, and vehicles would not be able to go up hills, nor could
mountains be climbed. It is by taking advantage of inclined planes on the face of the mountain-
side that men are able to reach the heights. The screw propeller is another form in which the
inclined plane is of great service to man. It would be very difficult for the housewife to do her
cooking without the inclined plane, for if she had no knife with its wedge-shaped edge, enabling her
to cut and mince up things quickly, she would have to break or tear everything, and that would
not only be hard work, but would take a long time to perform. Probably when we are eating
some very nicely cut thin bread and butter we rarely give a thought to the fact that we owe this
product.to the inclined plane in the form of the sharp knife that enables the bread to be cut so thin
109
INCLINED PLANE AND SCREW
the thread the length of the plane,
and the pitch of the screw the height
of the plane.
The force exerted in turning the
screw multiplied by the circumference
or base of the plane is equal to the
pitch of the screw or height of the plane
multiplied by the work accom-
plished in driving the screw into the
wood.
A one-inch bolt :With a Whitworth
thread has eight threads to every
inch. Its
pitch, there-
fore, is one-
When three forces act upon a body, causing it to
remain in equilibrium, they can be represented
by the three sides of a triangle. In this diagram,
showing a b!ock resting on an inclined plane,
AB reprpsents the pull of gravity, AC the re-
action of the plane, and BC the friction that pre-
vents the block from sHding down
eighth ot an inch, and the circumference
three and one-seventh inches. In such
a screw the mechanical advantage
gained by the thread or inclined plane
is equal to about twenty-five.
The worm and worm-wheel, and the
screw propeller of a steam vessel are
examples of the screw in action. A
common corkscrew is the worm of a
screw detached from the central spindle.
The screw is much used in presses
for exerting a great pressure, so as
to squeeze oil and juices from seeds,
apples and so on ; and also for re-
ducing bales of cotton and other
material to a denser mass and
smaller compass.
Of it is in the crossing of lofty
mountam ranges like the Andes of
South America and the Himalayas of
Asia that the inclined plane
is of such great service. Engineers
make use of it in building their moun-
tain railways, and without it there
could be no such railways as those
which cross the mighty Andes in Chile,
Peru and Bolivia.
In the Alps there are many mountain
railways worked by cable or by rack
and piniOn, but these railways of the
Andes, which in several cases rise to
heights exceeding 15,000 feet, are
worked by ordinary adhesion methods,
the track zigzagging and sloping in
order to take advantage of the inclined
plane principle.
At Antofagasta in Chile, the rails
are not much more than a man's
height above sea-level, but 225 miles
inland they lie 13,000 feet or approxi-
mately 2! miles above the Pacific.
In the course of the first eighteen
miles, the railway goes up 1,800 feet,
the average rise being one in fifty,
though at places it is one in thirty. At
a height of 13,000 feet steam is shut
off, and the train then travels down by
gravity for nearly seven teen miles.
The greatest height is at Ptosi on the
Antofagasta system, 15,814 feet above
sea level, a height greater than that of
Mont Blanc.
So high is the Antofagasta railway
8
Man pressinq with
force of 25/lJ ;.u.---r
this direction
A force of twenty-five pounds
exerted by the man up a slope of
twenty-one feet will rais<' 105
pounds a height of five feet
8f!Sf! of P/f:lne equal to circumfer,.e(l.C!!- 0,Fscr,ew
IIO
that oxygen apparatus is carried on
the trains for the relief of passengers
who suffer from the sudden change to
the rare atmosphere of these high
altitudes.
On the central railway of Peru the
highest point reached is 15,806 feet at
La Cima.
It will be quite clear that it is only
the enormous advantage which the
inclined plane gives that enables pas-
sengers thus to travel comfortably by
train from sea level to such a great
height.
We find the same kind of thing on
the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway of
India, which mounts to a height of
7,407 feet. The difficulties of ascent
are very great, and the engineers have
only been able to reach this point by
winding their railway about With loops
and spirals.
At one part of the track, about twelve
miles from the start at. Siliguri station,
the line returns by various curves to
almost tj:l.e same spot, but at a higher
level, and then it makes a complete
curve, passing over itself fifty feet
higher. This ingenious method of con-
Force needed
to push the
wedqe 20 inches
forward in ,
this direction
quering the moun-
tain is one of the
engineering won-
<;lers of the world.
..- --1
------ I
iscl lb
..-- I
----- Oriqina/
__ ..- - - position or wedqe I
---- ------- ____ J
By exerting a force of twenty-one pounds
upon the wedge till it is pushed forward twenty
inches, the box weighing eighty-four pounds
would be raised five inches
The Darjeeling Railway is certainly
one of the most interesting railways on
. which it is possible to travel, for, quite
apart from the magnificence of the
scenery, the ingenious way . in which
the engineers have used the inclined
plane in a very difficult area is worth
seeing. It is by means of the Dar-
jeeling Railway that visitors and
residents in Northern India go to Tiger
Hill, 8,514 feet up, to see the Sun rise
in this majestic region and tip the
mighty peaks of the Himalayas with
the first gleams of light.
This diagram shows that the screw is really an
adaotation of the inclined plane, the plane being
wound round a cylinder, and the force exerted
in turning the screw multiplied by the circum-
ference, which is the base of the plane, is equal
to the pitch of the screw multiplied by the work
done in turning the screw ... , :.

. .
The Science of the Elements of which all the matter in the
Universe is made up
..............................................
The Wonders of COMBUSTION and CHEMICAL COMBINATION
THE STORY OF LIFE-GIVING WATER
The tremendous importance of water can be' understood when we know that it is impossible to
live without water for more than a day or two. Here are some facts about this vital substance
As we have. seen, water is a chemical temperatures when they have combined
J-\... compound made up of the two chemically their product is a liquid.
elements oxygen and hydrogen, Water is really an oxide of hydrogen,
in the proportions of one of the former just as rust is an oxide of iron and
to two of the latter by volume and,:,..red precipitate an oxide of mercury.
sixteen of the former to two of the, weight of a molecule of water
latter by weight. '" is r88 times the weight of a molecule
Wp.ter is a remarkable example of of hydrogen.
what different properties a compound So valuable a substance is water and
substance may have, and indeed so necessary to life, that we do not
usually does ha,ve, from the elements of think of it as dangerous, nor associate
which it is composed. a fatal explosion with it. Yet in the
Here is a gas hydrogen, which burns very production of the water from the
readily with a 'blue flame, but does gases oxygen and so much
not support cqpibustion. It combines heat is evolved in the combination that
in a moment .;with another gas oxy,g-en the sudden expansion causes a violent
which will not bum, but is a powerful explosion. Even . when so small a
supporter of. combustion, and forms quantity as. a bottle full
a substance yvhich neither burns nor of the gases in the proportions of two
supports cmp.bustion. volumes of hydrogen to one of oxygen
Further, 'at normal temperatures, has a flame . at the mouth of
both the oxygen and hydrogen repiain the bottle, the combination of the
in the gaseous form, whereas at sIJfiilar gases to form water is accompanied by
a detonation like the report of a pistol.
There have been many cases of persons
being killed while experimenting with
large quantities of the gases for the
purpose of producing water.
Water is so abundant in Nature
that it is not necessary to prepare
it as we prepare hydrogen and other
chemical substances. Three-fourths
of the Earth's surface is covered with
water. Water vapour is an important
constituent of the atmosphere, and
even the dry land, as we call it, has
large quantities of water in.it.
Not only so, but all living creatures,
animals and plants alike, are largely
composed of water, and live their
lives in a constant stream of water
which is passing through the body
continually. This is true of ourselves,
and ifthe stream of water is cut off only
for a short time we perish. That is why
a man can abstain from food for many
This picture-diagram shows how water evaporates, The molecules are in constant motion, and some from the top layers rise
and mix with molecules of air, making the air damp. Draughts blow away this damp air, carrying molecules of water with it
rIJ
HOW A GREAT CITY GETS AN AMPLE SUPPLY OF
In this explanatory drawing, which across the two pages, we see how a modern city or town gets a supply of pure
water for drinking and other uses .. So(netimes, of course, the water is from artesian wells, but here we see a
river as the source of supply, Thel,,Waier is. up from the river by powerful centrifugal pumps, driven directly by
electric motors. , The water is for<:;ed a water meter, where the quantity taken from the river is registered. When
it leaves the meter the water passesfo the settling tank, where it is allowed to settle, and screws running the length of the
tank stop the waterJrom eddying al:!ciut.' 'Chemicals are intrqduced into the supply pipe leading to the settling tank in order
to assist in the settling of the impuritiesjh the water. In th'e chemical house, which. is shown, soluble salts of all,1minium
are prepared and in, the settling tan.k tl:le,S,e form a slimy precipitate to which,. bacteria and other foreign bodies attach them-
selves and sink together to the bottom' of the tank, which is emptied periodically and cleaned out. Chlorine and lime are
also added to the water for purifying ,purposes, the ch.lorine being' sometimes supplied as a gas and sometimes soluble
hypochloritP.. The water now passes to the filter tank, where it percolates through a layer of sand, wh.ich collects impurities in
PURE WATER FOR DRINKING AND OTHER PURPOSES
suspension. It then passes through layers of gravel and is collected at .the bottom by means of small pipes which convey
it to the main. This filter bed is also periodically emptied and the impure sand replaced. The main pipe now runs to the
ozoner, where a centrifugal pump forces it up through a water tower. While the water is in the tower ozonised oxygen is
made to bubble through it, thus further purifying it. The ozone is produced by passing cool dry oxygen between two glass
tubes, when an electric current passing between them causes part of the oxygen to become ozone. This is then compressed
and forced up through the water. The purified water is next convey'ed to a surface reservoir, where it is stored ready for
use. Before being pumped to the street mains as required it is again p s ~ e d through a registering meter. The distribution
of water over a vast area like that of Greater London, where the levels vary by as much as 400 feet, is a difficult problem.
It would not do to put all the reservoirs on the highest hills, as in that case the pressure at the lower levels would be far
too great for domestic supply. Water from the Hampstead reservoir,'for example, would rise higher than the top of St. Paul's
Cathedral. The adequate supply of pure water to large and growing cities is one of the problems of modern civilisation
II3
LIFE,GIVING WATER
weeks, but cannot go without water.
for more than a day or two.
The leaves of herbaceous plants
contain from 60 to So per cent of
water, potatoes and most fruits and
succulent plants from S5 to 95 per
cent, and seaweeds and aquatic plants
generally about 9S per cent. Even
wood has 44 to 55 per cent of water,
anc;l it is the explOsions due to the
turning of the water into steam in the
many little minute compartments in
the wood that cause the crackling of
wood when it burns.
is. not pure,. for in falling through
the atmosphere it dissolves certain
substances in the air.
Water is a great solvent, but while
some substances, like sugar and salt,
are readily soluble in water, others, like
the sand on the shore, which is silica,
are so slightly soluble in water as to be
called insoluble.
Some liquids, like acetic acid arid
alcohol, dissolve in water in many
proportions, but other liquids, like
ether, will only dissolve in small
Of the r50 that make up . Molecules of water
the weight of an average man . 0
0
.
0 0 . evaporatinqfrom
IOO pounds consist of water. . 00o
0 00
00
0 0

SOdQ0 Crqsta/S
In a fat ox 45! per .;
0

water in a kettle the mineral is given
up arid deposited on the sides of the
vessel which is then said to be furred.
Hot-water pipes through which hard
water circulates sometimes get com-
pletely filled up with the deposited
mineral matter and when owing to
this the water cannot circulate, the
hot water in the boiler may be turned
into steam anc1 explode, wrecking the
house.
Hard water is bad for steam boilers,
for the coating of mineral matter on the
sides of the boiler is a bad conductor of
heat and as a consequence much fuel
is wasted.
Hard water will
cent is water, in a
pig 4 r per cent; in
a sheep 43 per
cent, in a chicken
74 per cent, in a
lobster 79 per cent,
and in an oyster
Si.per cent.
Wheri crystals of coninion washing soda are left exposed to the air they gradually powder,
because the water in the crystals evaporates. Washing soda contains about sixty-three per cent of water
not form a proper
latlier With soap,
but only a curd
which is really an
insoluble sub-
s ta n c e resulting
from the decom-
position of the
soluble soap by
The different parts of an animal's
body contain very varied quantities
of water. Thus in the case of an ox
the brain has So per cerit of water,
the heart 63 per cent, the muscles
62 per cent, the lungs So per cent,
the liver 7 r per cent, and the kidneys
76 per cent.
Of course, the water in a plant or
animal is not floating
loose like water in a
jug or kettle. It is
combined with the
other substances of
the tissues. The
amount of water in
an animal is found by
weighing the b 0 d y
while fresh ahd then
driving off the water
by drying it at a
temperature of 100
degrees Centigrade.
The drying breaks up
the combinations in
the body and liberates
the water, which is
evaporated, and then
the difference between
the weight of the
body originally and
the same after
drying gives the
amount of water
that has Been
driven off.
quantities. Similarly, some gases, like
ammonia and hydrogen chloride, are
very soluble in water, while others,
like oxygen, hydrogen and carb6n
dioxide; are only slightly soluble.
There is no known substance that is
.entirely insoluble in water. Even pow-
dered glass, quartz and gold dissolve in
very small quantities.
the calcium salts ih the water.
Some water companies now remove
a great deal of the before
sending the water through the pipes,
and consumers at once notice the
difference iri their baths and washing
basins when the change over from hard
to soft water is first made.
Spring water often comes from a
considerable depth,
where it has been in
contact with salts and
similar substances,
and having dissolved
much of these it may
have a decided taste
and smell. . A chaly-
beate spring; for ex-
ample, yields water
impregnated with iron
compounds.
We take a great
deal of the water that
we need iri the animal
o'r plant food that we
eat, but this is not
sufficient. It is im-
portant that we drink
water as well. Chemi-
cally pure water is
When blue copper suiphate crystals ,are heated in a test tube they give up water, and
become a white powder, but if wateA.;.be dropped upon this powder it will become blue
In this connection
it is. interesting to see
how the mineral con-
tent ofvarious bodies
of water varies. Here
is a list given by
Professors Louis
Kahle"nberg .and
Edwin Hart. The
figures represent the
grammes of mineral
matter in 1,000 litres
of water : Atlantic
Ocean, 35,664 ; White
Sea, 33,uS; Dead
Sea, 253,016 ; Great
Salt Lake, U.S.A.,
302,r22; Lake Michi-
gan, 145 ; artesian
well in London, S34;
River Rhine, 231 ;
River Nile, 142.
Think what this
not good drinking water. No natural
water is pure, but always has certain
minerals or other substances dissolved
in it. Even freshly collected rainwater,
which. is the nearest to pure water
that we know in a natural state,
When the rain has fallen on the land
and sunk into the ground it begins to
dissolve various substances. In a
limestone region, for example, that
mineral is dissolved and the water is
said to be hard. When we boil such
means in the case of
the Great Salt Lake of.Utah. In every
pint of water is dissolved .more than a
quarter of a pound of solid mineral
matter.
There are two ways iri which hard
Water can be made soft. It can be
LIFE-GIVING WATER
selves and demand more room. That
is why water-pipes sometimes burst
during freezing: they are unable to
resist the extra pressure.
This table, given by Mr. William
Coles-Finch, will show the extent to
which water becomes denser while
freezing.
Cen. Fah .. Density
Weight
of cub. ft.
lb.
At o
0
or 3200
999884 62417
"
lo
"
33 so 999941 62420
"
20
"
3y60 999982 62 423
"
30 " 374 1000004 62"424
..
40 ,, 3920 1000013 62425
"
5c:> ,, 41 00 I '000003 62 423
"
60
"
4280
999983 62 423
"
45 "
l 130 999038 61 823
"
roo
0
,, 2120 95866 59844
-
Distilled water is purer than tap water, but goldfish will die in it, b ~ c u s e there is
little or no oxygen dissolved in it which they can breathe, and so they suffocate
The weight of a cubic foot of water
at a temperature of 60 Fahrenheit is
1,000 ounces avoirdupois. This is
taken as a standard with which the
specific gravity of all liquids and solids
distilled, that is, the water can be
boiled and turned into steam, when the
mineral matter is left behind, and then
the steam is condensed back into
liquid. Such a process, however, is
too expensive for general use owing to
the quantities of fuel that would be
required for the distillation.
The other method, which is that
generally followed, is to add some
substance to the water which will
combine with the lime or calcium salts
and form insoluble compounds whkh
will be precipitated as solids. Among
such substances are sodium carbonate,
generally called soda, borax, and
sodium phosphate.
Pure water, that is, freshlv distilled
water, is very insipid and fiat to the
taste. Even boiled water that has been
allowed to cool is fiat, partly because
of the absence of air in it. This may
be largely remedied by agitating the
water violently or pouring it to and
fro several times between two vessels
through a considerable height. Air
then becomes dissolved in the water.
Some people have placed pet goldfish
in a globe of distilled water thinking
that pure water was best for them and
have been surprised when the fish died.
They were suffocated because there
was no air dissolved in the water for
them to breathe by means of their
gills.
The boiling and freezing points of
water are very different from those of
the two gases of which it is composed.
While oxygen boils at - 182.5 C., and
hydrogen at --252.5 C., water boils at
100 C. Oxygen freezes at - 219 C.
and hydrogen at -258.9 C., but
wrtter freezes at o C.
A peculiar thing about water is that
while like other substances it contracts
in volume and becomes denser as it
cools down from boiling point, at 4 it
stops contracting and expands until the
freezing point is reached.
As we read in another part of this
book, this strange and unusual property
of water, which causes ice to float in-
stead of sinking, is of the greatest
importance and benefit to mankind,
for it prevents the rivers and lakes in
the temperate and polar regions from
becoming frozen into solid masses of
ice which would never melt again.
Iron is one of the few other substances
that behave in the same way. Solid
iron will float on molten iron as ice
floats on water, because it is less dense.
Why these substances behave like
this 'no one knows. Contraction as the
is compared.
It requires more heat to raise the
temperature of a given amount of
water 1 than it does the same
quantity of any other substance except
hydrogen. Because of this, water is
said to have a greater heat capacity
than any other su?stance except
hydrogen, and water is taken as the
s t a n d a r d i n d e-
termining specific
heat capacities.
It is because of
this great heat
Water is a very bad conductor of heat1 as this experiment
shows. Water can be boiling in the top of a test tube,
While ice remains unmelted at the bottom
water gets cooler is due to the mole-
cules approaching each other more
closely, but at 4 Centigrade or 39.2"
Fahrenheit, new forces come into play
and the molecules then rearrange them-
u5
WATER
capacity of water coupled with the fact millionth of an inch in diameter.
that it gives up its heat very slowly The numb_er _of molecules in a single
and reluctantly that islands like Great drop of water, therefore, must amount
Britain have a much more equable to a million million million millions.
climate than inland countries like - They fly about with a speed exceeding
Germany and Russia. The sea having that of a gun, shell, or at the rate of
absorbed heat when the Sun was twenty miles a minute.
shining upon it, gives it up exceedingly Lord Kelvin has told us that if a
slowly in winter,
and this keeps the
temperature very
even, and so in
lands near the sea
there are none of
those violent ex-
tremes found in
the interior of con-
tinents.
The amount of
heat required to
raise 1 gramme of
water 1 Centigrade
is called a
and this is used as
a unit of heat. -
Water is a poor
conductor of heat,
as can be proved
by a simple experi-
ment. Weight a
small piece of ice
with a nail or. other
metal object and
place at the bottom
of a test tube. Fill
with water and
then hold the
upper part of the
tube in a Bunsen
flame. Soon the '
water in th_is part
will boil, but the
ice below will re-
main unmelted for
a long time because
the heat is con-
ducted through the
water so. slowly.
Water is also a
poor conductor of
electricity.
Water is verv
slightly compress-
ible. When the
pressure of the
atmosphere is
dou hled 20,000
volumes of _water
a re only c om-
p re s s e d one
volume. In. all its
forms, snow, ice
and liquid, and at
all temperatures,
water gives off
vapour - that is,
evaporates. What
happens is that
This picture-diagram shows the
process by which water is distilled.
The water is boiled and the .steam
passes through a coil round which cold water
circulates. The cold causes the steam to
condense into water, which can then be collected
some molecules near the surface in
their movements jump clear of the
water and never return. The process
is hastened' by sunshine or other heat
which spee<i!l up the movement of the
molecules and eventually all the mole-
cules get away.
The Rev. J. M. Wilson says that a
mole'cule of water is about one 500
drop of water were magnified to the
size of the Earth, its molecules would
be between' a cricket ball and a marble
in size.
At high temperatures water breaks
up into its constituent elements,
oxygen and hydrogen, the .degree to
which it does this depending on the
temperature.
II6
.;M:any substances when they crystal-
lise from solutions unite with water
to form compounds known as hydrates.
Gypsum and bluestone, or copper
sulphate, are examples, and proof that
they contain water is afforded when
these substances are heated in a clean,
dry test-tube. They give up water
which is deposited on the colder parts
of the tube, while a powder which is
the hydrate minus its water is left in
the bottom of the test tube.
These hydrates, it is found, are
definite chemical compounds, for they
have a constant composition, and
can be .represented by a definite
chemical formula.
Stea in
coils
beinq
condensed
into water
Some of the
hydrates, like
washing soda and
Glauber's salt,
when _exposed to
the air, -give up
water and crumble
to powder without
the application of
beat, as in the case
of gypsum and
copper sulphate.
This process is
known as efflor-
escence. Soda is
about sixty-three
per cent water.
Many crystal
substances contain
no water and are
not hydrate'l, but
in several cases
about half the
weight of the
crystal consists of
water. In alum,
for example, the
percentage of water
is 57.1, in Glauber's
salt 55.5, and in
borax 4 7. I. Crys-
tals of common
salt, on the other
band, have no water
at all. When water
is thus held in
crystals it is often
called "water of
crystallisation.''
The wat-er in
crystals is held
with very different
degrees of firmness.
While in some cases,
as already_ men-
tioned, the crystals
give up some of
their water and fall
to powder merely
on exposure tci dry
air, _other ccyJ;tals,
like those of calcium chloride and
potash, retain their water with great
tenacity, and if deprived of tt will
absorb . .water from the atmosphere
and beco:ine more or less coi;:npletely
dissolved in it. Such substances as
these are said to be deliquescent, a
word which means " to melt " or
" to becom:e. soft.'"