Evening Star Newspaper, May 21, 1922, Page 66

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D! © LLOV E—4 srory or 1Hg meNacerm 1eNT— By COURTNEY RYLEY COOPER INDLINESS is not uncommon about the menagerie tent of a big circus. And of late the - portion of Chota had included far more evidences of thoughtfulness on the par: of the gruff, hard-work- ing ‘“animal-men” than usual. The.| strips ot horseflesh which formed her one daily meal, were selected with more than ordinary care: the straw of her cage invariably was fresh and ciean: the catnip. which gives Joy alike to every feline, be it house cat or jungle beast, came far more often than customary. and twice a day the coatless, sun-browned menagerie su- perintendent wtopped before her cage purr 4t her in imitation of her own expression of contentment, to talk to her and to question his men regarding her welfare. All of which Chota accepted with a quiet confi- dence and trust—for Chota was a tiger among {igers. The maliciousness of the average striped Bengal beast was missing Chota: more, it had been absent even back in her cub days when the super- intendent first put a dog-harness on her and led her ajout the menagerie at the end of a leash. The ugly fe- rocity, the viciousness which seems part of the tiger nature—these were absent also. Chota, in a word. was o a tiger in name and markings and in | ical characteristics, but in little It was night. Chota growled sleep- ily as an attendant entered her cage | 1o sweep it and spread it with fresh, clean straw, before the chandeliers of the menagerie should dim, the vast dun-colored canvas flutter down- ward and the cages roll away to the trains to be chocked in place aboard the flat cars for the journey to the next town With the usual “cat,” the method would have been to shunt the brute into the inclosure at ome end of the cage while the rest was being cleaned—but this method was not necessary in the case of Chota. Her den did not even possess the custom- ary dividing bars. The veriest “punk” of the menageries could enter her habitation without the slightest fear. And so her remonstrance brought no other response from the attendant tonight than a poke of the broom and the gruff, yet good-hu- mored comman “Hey! Git over there! Wassa mat- ter witcha?" Chota “got ovel The attendant proceeded with his work of sweeping the den clean; then fresh straw wi spread lazily by the workman, who even stepped over the body of the big, listless, striped brute as he com- pleted his task. Then sudden staccato bark issued from the menag- “connection™: Board up these den There's a blow comin’ an’ work fast! The long stretches of canvas were bellying. A whine of wind cut through guy-ropes and rigging: the scalloped cdges of the tent-eaves quivered. Outside the crackle of sledges echoed, and the shouts of the lot bosse: Aloft the acetylene chandeliers flick- ered. .Chota’'s attendant sprang from the cage. slamming the door behind him. nor pausing to note that the catch lock had failed to snap into place. Seizing the nearest of the side- boards, or bar-coverings of the cage, he attempted, single-handed, to drag it into place. In vain! * % ¥ * HE roar of the jungle suddenly broke loose, merging with the rear of the storm. A crackling boom, like the report of & muffled cannon, and the canvas covering of the me- nagerie was snapped from its fasten- ings, to billow a second above the straining center poles, then to be whipped away on the crest of the hurricane. The chandeliers flared with long, wind-fanned flames before the fabric mantels broke. Then dark- ness—and the inferno. Stampeding elephants, trumpeting and squealing as they ran, crashed to and fro aimlessly, striking against the weaving center poles and felling them. The rush of the wind grew greater. mingling with the roaring and hissing of the cat beasts, the ter- rific bellowing grunts of the rhi- noceros. the weaker cries of the ruminants and apes. And with the other cat beasts—the leopards, the lions, the pumas and panthers and tigers—Chota joined, roaring and hissing and bellowing, with a note she never had sounded before, a note of panic. She lashed about her cage, pressing her head tight against the bars as the lightning flashes illumined for jagged seconds the confusion of the eircus lot; the straining horses tug ging at careening wagons: the rush- ing forms of men, hatless, coatless, arms widespread; the wreckage of the poles; the thronging, icky crowds massing from the big top, also in darkness. The rain slashed between the bars of the tiger’s prison, whipping under the wind-raised fur, chilling her. maddening her. She be- £an to leap and claw, first at one side, then the other, vainly. madly. Somewhere down the line a cage capsized. and shouting men struggled against the force of the hurricane to right it. A crash sounded from far away—the elephants had broken for the open country and were smashing through the high wooden fence at the far end of the circus lot. Tt all served to instill in Chota a new quality of fright and she sprang with greater strength than ever. ' Suddenly to flounder, to roar, to claw and scratch aimlessly as she sought to recover her balance—and to fail. For in her last lunge she had struck against the door of the cage, and it had given beneath the impact of her body. A second more, and she ‘was on the ground, crouching against the onrushing wind, her eyes blinking with the sting of the rain and the clatter of the debris swept about her by the storm. Porms scurried close to her; d1d not notice them, nor they her. After 2 moment of dazed perplexity the tiger, with swift, sinuous mov ments, sought escape from the tur- moil, the noise, the bluster and dis- comfort' of the “blow-down." Panic was in her heart—her sole desire was to get away, to flee a world that harassed her from every side, tp reach again that place she had known in days of peace and comfort and kindli- ness. her straw-filled den. But It was ‘gone. - A = z ey AT the edge of the circus lot she paused, then skirted the fence head extended. nostrils twitching with the effort of the scent. She came finally to the great gap through which the elephants had crashed fifteen minutes before. and with one leap, cleared the loose boards and debris. | She was in a world unknown. The storm—to escape ii—that was all. The slow brain of the tiger knew only that a terrible enemy was upon her. and that her muscles were obey- ing the dictates of fear. On and on—until woods and mead- | |ows had taken the place of paved| | streets, until the crackling of branch- | | es in the swaying trees had supplant- ed the crashing of quarter-poles. But | | 8till she ran before the storm, stop-| | ping now and again to eqwer in the| | shelter of some great tree trunk, to whine and growl, then to hurry on- ward. 3 An hour—two. The wind decreased. | | The drive of the rain became lighter. | The pace of the tiger slowed—to | new step, a new sinuosity that came {to her with the dictates of a second | Stealth marked her progress suspicious of ever dim. hazy form of the Once she issued into al clearing. where lights showed ahead, | and ounded, as the laborers of & farm sought to repair the dam-| age to a wind-wrecked barn. An hour before Chota would have crawled to- | ward those lights and those voices. But now she growled, and twistings in her tracks, chose a new route back into the woods. The age-old Instincts| of her cat nature. dormant all her life, had come into being at last! | For Chota had been born in a cage. | She knew nothing of the uninhabit- able, malarious tardl fringing the Himalayas, where once her ances- tors had roamed—yet within an hour as the storm died, she had sought out the damp marshlands which fringed the river. Her food had been poked daily to her on a feeding fork be-| tween the bars of a cage: yet at this dawp, when a rabbit sprang up in her path, she was upon it in an instant, crushing it with one blow of a tre- menodus paw, growling over it as its last sighing breath departed, then ficking it with her scaly tongue be- fore the heavy teeth crunched upon bones and flesh alike. So the imme- diate past had become a blank. A single night free in the woods had | changed Chota from a tame thing into & creature as wild as one of her ancestors. So. as dawn ensued. apd the last scudding clouds gave way before the sun. she sought the heaviest under- growth, the thickest masses of marsh- reeds. there to trample down the | makeshift of a bed, and to doze with periods of wakefulness until late aft- ernoon. Then she tensed. Enemies were near! A hundred vards away she heard them crashing through the weeds and underbrush, shouting to one another, calling directions. A voice long-fa- miliar came to her, a voice that in other days would have caused her to nature. darkness. voices purr “She must be around here some- where, feliows. These weeds look like some big cat'd beat 'em down. Take it easy now—don't scare her—slow and careful, everybody.” But now the voice brought no friendly response from the striped brute. Chota was in the element of her forbears; the cage was as if it had never been. Her sinuous body un- curled from its sleeping posture. The heavy round head, with its white- flecked ears, was drawn against the powerful chest. A long, serpent-like hiss issued from between the heavy, yellow teenth. The sounds came nearer, then trailed away, to be repeated beyond her. The heavy paws of the cat paddied rest- lessly. A growl beginning deep in the throat turned suddenly into roar as the weeds parted and the first of a group of men appeared.not ten feet away. Then a leap, scattering forms, a cry as one of the went down beneath the aimle of a sweeping paw. Freedom! * % x % THE pursuers had been left behind confused by the sudden onsiaugat of the beast, while Chota, threading through the marshes with swift lunges, resumed her flight. Twilight found her high in rocky bluffs with taeir tangles of wild grapevines, their brambles, their network of blackberry patches—and their caverns. And there, in a crevice beneath the beetling, mossgrown rocks, Chota crept at last, to rest a space and then to start forth again in obedience to a2 newly aroused Instinct, the call of the hunt. An hour later, far below, in the pasture of a small farm, a calf bleated piteously as a striped destroyer pounced upon it, while the rest of the herd scattered in panic. Long into the night Chota glutted herself, tasting warm blood of her own kill. At last she turned away, hack to the hills, straight to the crevice beneath the great rock. Again the next night she stalked forth to the kill, and the night after that. But on the third she did not stir from the crevice be th the rocks, and for the reason that had caused the extra kindliness of the animal-men bgck on the circus,, the ‘solicitude of the menagerie super- intendent, and his numerous. visits before her cage. From the depths of the crevice there came with dawn the faint, yowling cries of a small, help- less furry being which tumbled about the non-! ting Chota, and with blind instinct, suckled at her breast. For in the night Chota, the Bengal, who had been a cub of captivity, had brought into being a cub of the wild. All day long she lay with it in the erevice, & mother of the jungle, tran: planted to the rocks and bluffs that fringed a muddy Missourl stream. Outside her cavern the blackbirds chattered and the mockingbird thrilled with the warm happiness.of summer; far away, ip & dead hickory, a dove cooed with that soft,/mysteri- ous, yet penetrating note which is as elusive as an echo. There were no parakeets, no twisting pythons, no plumed gorgeousness of the an- cestral jungle—only the hasy soft- ness of & Missouri day. Below, & boy with & cotton line and & chunk of; liver fished drowsily for catfish in the muddy, mirky stream, all unaware that above him. India had been tran: planted to America, that a jungle| mother, her now soft eyes following every move of the furry bundle o life which scrambled aimlessly about her, lay with s jungle child in & rocks. eame, the bullfrogs croaked somor- ously in the marshes; the martins cir- cled about the siient, mossy abyt- RN T s £ i “THE SHOUTS AND WARNI ments of the bluffs; the locusts sang and the screech-owls took up their gossip of the night. Still Chota did not move from her shelter; she only licked and fondled her baby, and was content. . * %ok % OTHER day—two. Then, with the sunset, the tiger rose. Hunger had called again—the demand of the hunt was upon her. Restlessly she paced about, starting away from the crevice, only to return, loath to leave her offspring, vet forced by the call of hunger. At last, with darkness, she lay beside her cub for a moment while it settled to sleep. Then she crept forth, and with a leap was gone. For a mile or two she skirted the hills, pausing at last to gaze into the distance toward the twinkling glitter of a city’s lights—tHe city she had fled. on the night of the storm. Now it meant nothing to her save a place to be avoided. and she veered in her cours the easler slopes of the bluffs away from the river and toward the farm- ing district, where the scent the evening breeze told of cattle. Again a calf bawled. Again a half- frenzied growl came from the throat of the beast with the taste of -hot blood. Far away a dog barked. ex- citedly. Its staccato warning thinning into a wafl. Chota did not heed. Three days of hunger, three days of constant giving. that her cub might be nourished, had dulled the fine edge making her way down ! UPON | about her and its tiny paws touched S REACHED THE DRESS to follow her, traveling along the smoother stretches of the meadow, with its close-packed, frightened cattls, then returning to the spot where lay the carcass of the slaugh- tered If, then 'lrlkinF out again toward the brush and the trees and the hills. To Chota it represented the thing which had brought her this new agony and the pain of wounds. It came nearer. A leap, from' which she went floundering almost help- lessly to the ground. to squirm with the pain that the action caused—then with slower steps than before, she went on. * X ¥ ¥ OMEHOW the miles dragged by and at last a yowling cub scram- bled helplessiy, blindly, toward its mother as Chota made her stagger- ing away into the crevice of the rocks. The pull of the suckling infant only brought new pain. But It was hers. her cub. and she did not resist Panting. harassed by pain and fear. she lay there thrqugh the night, wincing and growling with a sharp. anguished note as the cub crawled the raw flesh where a bullet had en- tered her body. Daylight came and she twisted her head to gaze without. Again the birds were singing and flashing from tree to tree. A .rabbit, venturing forth with the flush of sun- rise. hopped to the opening of the cave and stopped, round-eyed with fright at the sight of the great beast. Chota struggled to her feet and of wariness. The barking of the dog | sought to gather herself for the leap. twist and | ©On a slight rise of.ground she halted and dropped the cub. ¥ar be- low carmides gleamed in the gray gawn. Faint sounds came to her— the familiar trumpeting of ele- phsnts; the rough. fow-toned roars of cat beasts. ! As suddenly as the pld instincts of savagery had leaped into being with- in her, they now gave way before the lure of captivity, Pain and suf- fering and féar had brought her back to the thing that she had lost. Far down there beneath her, its pull-up teams working like the smooth-oiled pistons of & perfectly functioning engine, .its laborers shouting and hurrying from car to car, its bosses snapping out the crisp orders of the unloading process, its elephants and about her, while the world without stilled “with the “drowsiness of the sultry air, and crept through: the branches of the trees and, lowering the sky, searched out the cavern and caught her in ita dying blaze. The tbngue, hanging over the heavy. teeth, became thick and discolored. . The cub yéwled and scratched at her, but she did not mave. ‘E ¥ ® X AT last the sun disappeared. “ breeze rose. whispering through the trees, calling forth the birds again for the last song of the day, and wafted finally beneath the rocks. Its touch chilled her—she shivered, and, curling about the cub, huddled there in spite of the pain that the exertion caused. Then the chills passed. The coolness of the evening gradually began to have its effect upon her, reviving her, bringing back a portion, at least. of the strength which the sun had sap- ped. The gleam of the moon edged within the crevice, to discover the beast half crouched, alternately star- ing without, then turning her ey toward the still whimpering cub. For hours she remained thus, as though summoning strength for the next move. At last she rose. The cub.tumbled toward her. With velvety gentleness the great jaws | clamped upon the' nape of the furry ball. Then, staggering and weaving in her stride. the cub dangling from her mouth, she issued from the cav- ern and again, with agony in every the relentless sun| A into the crevice | cat animals and ruminants and “led- G TENT, TO BRING FORTH A MOTLEY CROWD.” route to the show grounds, lay the world that ‘ws hers—hers and, her { cub’s—the circus! Her wounds ached and throbbed. The haziness was returning to her brain. The fever was again burning,] her eyes and throat. But between H her forelegs sprawled something | for protection, for sustenance. And | below was that which assured it. Growling and lowering her head that her jaws might again close tenderly upon the soft neck of her cub, Chola started weakly forward. H * *x % A hour later. in the roge-pink of _sunrise, an engine' whistle screamed, bells clanged and a fireman leaned from his cab in. staring syr- prise. Twenty feet before the en- gine a great, gaunt, striped beast, a cub dangling from her mouth, had staggered across the railroad tracks. and stumbling, rolled down the em- bankment, to flounder helplessly in the brush and weeds of the slough below, while the train thundered on. Mid-morning came—and a circus party, motoring townward, stopped for'a moment to watch what was be- lieved in the distance to be a tre- mendous dog carrying something for a space of a few feet. then dropping | to the ground and resting apparently to gain strength for another sally. At parade fime a boss canvasman cocked his head sharply and stared into the depth of a small woods, ad- joining the show lot. Then with a “AN HOUR LATER, ON A SMALL FARM, A CALF BLEATED PITEOUSLY AS A STRIPED DESTROYER POUNCED UPON IT became louder; from down the road soynded the sullen roar of an auto- mobile engine. ,Then a shaft of light! Chota turned, to find herself spotted in a circle of glaring white. Half blinded, she whirled and clawed viciously at the motionless form of the calf though this prostrate thing might have been the cause of her misfortun Then with a hiss she leaped, twisting as she did so. A crackling roaf had sounded from the road, and a blazing flash of yellow- ish red. Something hot had seared its ‘way acro her body; her aquick tongue, scurrying to the point of pain, again tasted blood—her own! Another shot—a bullet whined harmlessly above her—then still an- other, and the flesh along h¢r ribs caused her once more to writhe In the terror of an unseen, unassailable enemy. She crouched, roaring. She struck out,-first with one paw, then the other, against nothing: while still again the rifie spat from the distance, end & puft of dust was kicked up bemeath her as the bullet bured it- of clawing and writhing: leaping over the body of her victlm, she turned bmck to the hills. But now something pulled at her breath to. come in coughs. The weight of & sudden ex- hauption had fastened itsélf upon her legs; wearily, ever mors wearlly, she struggled through thé self in the earth. A screeching note came into her roar—one last frenzy then, lungs, something which eaused her in short, panting But the movement was slow and the rabbit was gone even before her muscles had set. Painfully she sank again to the ground. The day grew older, the gun stronger and within the crevice Chota | panted with the new agony of the heat. For now fever was upon her; her eyes were glased, yet brilliant; the pain of the wound steadily be- coming more and mors of & throb- bin, her strength, her resistance, her very being. The cub pawed and wabbled about her—but she no longer growled at it with that soft, guttural murmur s the croon of -the animal mother. e no longer turned with sudden watchfulness to catch it gently in her paws and draw it back to her when it wandered too faf from the maternal breast. Her eyes fol- lowed it—that was all. Flattened on her wide, head A extended, tongue that fever and:of pain. But at Iast, at a yowling, insistent ory. from the cub, she turned. She to stretch forth her fever-laden head on the coolness;of the damp grourd. But the cry continiied. A siight new she raised. her aching, dizsy eves. Now_her cub and howlin .r mstinct told Chota that devouring thing, which sapped| dropling over the long incisors, Chota lay inert, panting in the agony of growled fretfully and sought agaih pain was felt by her—the touch of baby jaws biting at her and agaiw’ was scratching at her _with more pettishness step, began to skirt the bluffs to- ward—where, she did not know. At a hillside rill she stopped, lap- ping the water with slow movements of her thick, blackened tongue, turn- ing away from it as though' to go onward, then sinking beside it that she might drink again. The cooling touch of the water seemed to reach her brain and dissipate the dullness which had settled there. She growl- ed, now .with & stronger note, and drew.the cub toward her, licking it, fondling it for the first time that day. Two hours.later she was still ‘there, resting beside the tiny stream —drinking, resting and drinking. The doelness of the night changed to the chill of approaching dawn. the water for fhe last time, them, gathering her cub once more in her Jaws, started onward. She still stag- & half-mosn of"paig stfil issued from her throat, but she went on. s A mile and she weakened, drop- Pping inert for's Tong half-hour. Then suddenly she stiftened, the head went forward, the nostrils twitched con- ‘vulsively. brought another scent—a scent which iled to her a life far remote from this' existence of pain and suffering A new strength came int3 her weary legs.. The agony of the“wounds departed momentarily— she began. to trot, the cub joswing In sthe clutch of her jawe. ~that aeent 'which the l&l!llm_ ‘watted to her and of cat and pursyle! and bumph The great beast shivered, lapped at , but her step was & bit ‘surer; ‘The morning ‘breeze had 'shout he whirled, his arms fanwise, as he ran, shouting, for the menag- erie. 2 “Animal-men! and feedin' forks! tiger—"* But the cry already had been taken up: elsewhere. A frightened woman, ‘blanched, screaming’ ran for the pro- tection of the big top, and its crowds of hurrying plank and seat men. Children shrieked their fear. The beast was, in plain sight now at the Tar end ‘of the lot—a Lay hold o' prods There's a loose ward, with & cub ingher mouth. “Treasurer' the circus manager. out of the wagon and Fush "em! mal men, stand by to shoot!" The side wall of the menage: fluttered and raised as the m attendants came forth. A speeding messenger arrived from the trems- ury wagon. Rifies clicked into wait- ing hands, the cartridges snapping Ani- rie tent breeches, Canvas men seised tent stakes in .readiness for the assauit. The } hesitated, toppled, sank, then rbse and, floundering drunkenly, came on., & Horses reared and were pulled aside by shouting “skinners” to safety. The shouts and warnings reached the dressing tent, to bring forth, in ex- crowd of performers—racing figures in tinsel and spangles, white-splotch- od ' clowns, , oyerburdened men in ‘mail ‘and armor, all {—hurt, I'm tellin’ you. stock” being taken Yrom the car en which called to her mother nature | to have eyes for one thing alone— tpe menagerie tent, whence came the cent of hay and straw and the odor of the beasts of the jungle. Tight- clenched hands strained at the rifies and clamped them into firing posi- tion. Fingers twitched at the trig- gers. A form sprang out before the line of waiting men—suddenly to whirl, to wave an arm and to rush back shouting. “Wait—wait, fellows! It's Chota. Bear down on them guns—bear down, I'm telling you! She ain't goin' to hurt nobody—-she's comin’ in—she's got a cub in her mouth!™ < * ok ok ok AGAIN the beast floundered, again went flat—to roll awkwardly, then to struggle once more to its feet. Again the menagerie superintendent ‘ventured forward, while the rifles covered the path before him, while canvas men with their tent stakes edged nearer. But the reeling, striped beast neither growled nor roared nor quickened her pace. A slight ob- struction was before her—the tiger stumbled, then rolled helplessly and lay there an instant gasping before | she could rise again. A band waved! “Hold off on them guns! Bhe’s hurt She’s bringin’ in her cub. Animal men:" “Aye—aye!" | “Out with a shiftin' dqpn, quick! | Rush ig Scurrying forms entered and re- appeared at the menagerie connection, bringing with them the heavy yet easily handled shifting den. The tiger had "approached to within twenty feet.of the menagerie super- intendent now-—closer—closer—again a hand waved, again a shout came, from the lips of & man who suddenly had gone to his knees. “Get Doo Barton, somebody! Hurry! Get Doc Barton!" - For taere at his feet, the cub yowl- ing and spitting and scrambling. Chota had sunk to the ground. An hour later two men stood before a cage in the menagerfe tent. The sleeves of one of them were rolled back from the bloody arms. The eyes of the other were serious and he waited.a long moment before ask- ing his question. Then: “What about it, Doc™" “Wait 2 minute. right—clean and fection. heart. It's had a pretty hard strain —everything depends on that hypo- dermic. If her heart siands it and | can get her to sleep without killing her—" The doctor lald aside the hypo- dermic. Then he bent over the striped form and pressed his ear against her side. Rising, he smiled Lifting then the furry ball which wabbled about the den, he placed it between the forepaws of the gamp- ing, pain-racked beast. The glazed eves closed, slowly, naturally, and the breath came more evenly. Again the doctor smiled and nodded toward the menagerie superintendent. Then he stepped from ithe cage and the two walked away together, leaving behind them the sleeping Chata and her cub—Chota, who through mother love had regalned life—and home. everything—no in- (Copyright. All rights reserved.) | 0dd Facts About Electricity UT to an electrical engineer a | question concerning the force with which he deals and gen- erally he selzes a pencil and | paper and begins to draw ‘s picture. The picture is a graphic representa- tion of an idea- One must compre- hend the idea before being able to grasp the significance of the picture. Electricity is a far more definite thing In the way of science than is steam power. The public has learned from constant repetition that about 90 per cent of the energy liberated by burning coal to operate a steam_engine is wasted. In an | electrical machine the waste is far less, and the amount of energy that can be generated can be measured | with far greater accuracy. Electric | generators are machines to trans- form mechanical power into elec- | trical power. In other words, they generate electric curfent when driven by mechanical power. They are rup by steam engines. turbin gas engines or some other form of mechanical power called “prime movers.” The generator is construct- ed to transform the amount of me- chanical power that the prime mov- er running it supplies. A gengrator operated by a ten-horse-power en- gine, for instance, will transform ten horsepower of energy, less a small percentage. about 10 per cent, iost in the process, * % % x JLLECTRICAL engineers do fot usu- ally state that a generator transforms a certain horsepower. Their measure of energy, or power, is the kilowatt, which is equal to one and one-third horsepower. So they say that the generator transforms seven and a half kilowatts, which is | the equivalent of ten horsepower. Why should this change in nomen- clature be any more confusing than | to say that one inch is equal to two and one-half millimeters? Mention the action of electrie cur- rent to a novice, and he immediately assumes a look of blank perplexity. | Yet the fundamental facts about electric current are extremely sim- |ple. An efectric ‘current will not move unless it can move in a com- plete circuit and get back where it came from. This is why it is safer for a man handling an electric cur- rent to work with one hand behind his back. He is then not likely to touch it in two places and thus complete a circuit through Rimself. | Electric current may be said to have exactly the same sort of “intelli- gence” as a child playing “puss-in- the-corner.” The child will not leave the corner it occupies until it sees a corner free for it to go to. By likening the electric circuit to the piping system which leads the water to a wash basin and away from it to the sewer it is possible to grasp this idea, at the same time noting the difference in the action of the electric current and of the water. In the case of electricity, if you open the faucet the electricity will flow only if the discharge pipe is free all the way, and it has the power of finding- this out instantly, even if the obstruction in the discharge pipe is very far away. In other words, an electric current acts physically like one continuous piece of material, such as a hoop or an endless chain, one part of which will not move unless the whole®of it moves. You cannot revolve one part of & where within two hundred thousand miles of the place where the curient is generated. . An electric generator of tem-horse- power capacity run by a ten-horse- power engine, will transform ten horsepower of mechanical energy into ten horsepower, or seven and one-half kilowatts, of electricity. with practically no loss. This is true of & direct current generator, but in &n alternating current gemerator larger carrying capacity Is required, for the following reason: Electric power is the product of the volume of current, amperes, and the pressure at which it flows, volts, just &s the energy with which water flows out of a pipe is the resgt of the volume of water and the pressure at which it is flow- ing. The product of the amperes and volts is called watts. When the product is 1,000-100 volts by 10 am- peres, or 10 volts by 100 amperes, fcr instance, it is called one kilowat: In an alternating current machi the amperes and volts reverse their direction with marvelous rapldiis but not always at the same instant The amperes may arrive at & motor which is being run by the generator alightly before the volts of pressure. In that case the amperes with no vol- tage behind them are idle and do not produce any power. But the gencr- ator, the motors and the transmission lines—in fact, all parts of, the eystem —have to be made large enough 1o carry all the amperes, whether they are accompanied by volts and thers- fore produce power or not. The idea can best be expressed thus Imagine a man in business on bor- rowed capital, who expects to make 2 certain percentage a year on the commodity he sells, provided he sells it promptly. Suppose that he cannot sell it promptly, he must pay Interest on the capital invested in his stock This cuts down his net profits. The failure of the pressure (volts) to reach the motor at the same time as the volume of current (amperes) cuts down the amount of power delivered by the machine in precisel¥ the same way as the slow sales cut down the profits of the business man men- tioned. 1f the voits came a little bit later or earlier than the amperes, so that 20 per cent.of the amperes is not accompanied by volts, this reduetion is 20 per cent. and the machine, or system, is said to have only 50 per cent power factor. Therefore, a gen- erator with 80 per cent power fact would have 1o be bLig enough i transmit the curreat corresponding to twelve and one-half horsepower in order to transform all the power from & ten-horsepower engine. Twen.(y per cent of the twelve and one-half horsepower, or two and one-half horsepower, idle capacity. The re- maining ten horsepower is trans- formed and the generator, by being bulit large enough to transmit twelve and one-half horsepower, succeeds in transforming it ten horsepower. Queerest of Eyes. \/ERY curious data kave been col lected in regard lo the seeing | powers of insecte. The human eye in perfect condition is able to see ob- jects separately that are only one minute of arc apart. Put two objects. as, for instance, two black circles. on a white ground just one e hoop without revolving the whole hoop. You cannot move one part of an endless chain without moving the whole chain. In telegraphing from lar to what it would be if you had a mittently to make the dots and dashes. Only, instead of pulling on the chain, you break and close the any point along the ling, and the ef- fect is apparent at any other place or at any number of places simulta- neously. Sometimes t he return part 'wire, and sometimes thereturn is made through the earth. And when the cir- cuit is broken at any point on the line the current stops everywhere, to start again when the break is closed. s * % x % BUT how does the current in Bos . ton know that the circuit is broken in San Francisco? This bring facts about electric current. It trav- els at the rate of two hundred thou- sand miles a second, and. can, 5o o speak, “see ahesd” this distance, apart and then place them at a dis- tance of about 286l feet. As scen with the naked eye the apparent space between the circles will be a minute of arc. This space is plainly tottering, | Boston to San Francisco the action of|,py 1imit of detail visible to the un- weaving tiger, comipg stolidly for-|the electric current is precisely simi- |, yigteq Human eye. Now it might be supposed that an It was the shout of [long chain reaching that distance and |, ect, having a compound eye, would “Get the rifles|back, and you pulled upon it inter-|p, gpie to see more detail than we do: 1in other words, could separatc small objects closer together. As « matter of fact, owing to the small nagerie | €leotric circuit. This can be done at| oo e’ or the lenses composing the facets of the eye, and the spacing between the facets, insects see less detall than we do. It has been calculated that a almost sifultaneously into the|Of the chain is by & second electric|, on"0 connot see separately two objects that are placed less than one degree apart. In other words, to such an insect two silver colss lying on a table three inches apart, and viewed from a distance exceeding fourteen and one-third feet, would appear as single object. Bees and flies, according to the same investigator, are still more limited in their ability to see the details of ob- ts presented to their eyes. A fiy cited, hurrying groups, a motley lus to one of the:really remarkable|couid see the two silver coins above described separately only at & dis- tance not ex about seven feel The wound's Wiy But I don’t know about the second if the circuit {s broken any- * g