Evening Star Newspaper, September 27, 1925, Page 69

. fow FE ; ILLUSTRATED ATURES MAGAZINE SECTION ’ Part 5—8 Pages WASHINGTON, he Suntay Stad FICTION. AND HUMOR D. C, SUNDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 27, 1925. 'Great and Growing Radio Demand Creates Modern Industry BY GENE THOMAS. RASH of the home run King's bat against a base ball, voice of the President of the United States, grim reports of a disaster, au dance or- chestra’s che music—all these things from far away are brought # Into our homes by rudio. From early morning. when Farmer Up-to-date “listens to the ket's bids for his crops, until night, when Mr. D. X. Fan tries to pick up a program from England, the radio receiving set plays an Impor- tant part in American life. Yet, as with many another snddenly popular invention, but little Las been heard of its history. We know the front of a set N. J., orchestra, a dial on Newark, v realize that the dial itse! ive of Jer- , having spent ly duys as rbolic acid 4 hyde there. he or plates bring us speeches home town, | the cabinet of mahogany stands us a challenge 1o us to obtain music as well as wood from tropical Central America. Only a few years ago ihe feat of making wood, metal messages from the more than a hobby ft has developed 1 American industry. sprung up in alil United States, and more than 3,000,- 000 receiving sets have been made during the last five years, the Fed- eral Census Bureau reports. _Of the 400 radlo factories in the United States, the largest is at Phila- delphia, where, spread over 12 acres of floor spac near the famous Schuylkill River, men, women and machines are producing recelving sets and radio speakers at a increasing rate. Thelir ta receipt of raw material 4 ture of individual parts, assembly of sets and final test-making. Collection of raw materials is the and wire pull air was hardly of scientists, but tu an impressive Factories have sections of the 4 first step toward producing radio equipment. Although a finished re- celving set can be held on a small table, there would be required a train of frelght cars three miles long to hold all the mahogany, gold, steel, aluminum, brass, copper and other crude materfals imported by this fac- tory for a year's output of sets. Changing raw materials into fin- i8hed apparatus is the second step in radio set making, so from storerooms the visitor stepped into an adjoining shop, where dials and rheostat knobs were being molded. Watching the molding of those little round knobs recalled afternoons when mother used to bake cup cakes for ap- proaching pienics. The knobs were baked out of a brown flour called bakelite. The bak- er poured it Into seven little cups in a | shiny steel pan, or mold. Just as| mother used to press a raisin atop each dab of dough, he placed in the center of each cup of flour a tiny brass tube, which eventually would | fasten the knob to fts shafi. Then he covered the ‘“dough” with the mold’s top, and put it in the oven. * o % HEATED by t of 300 degrees Fahrenheit and squeezed by a hydroelectric pressure of 3,000 pounds to a squure inch, the flour soon melted to a paste. Then the : oven's temperature mold lifted from oven to cold press, the knobs cooled and hardened, a la hot cookies on a win- dow sill. The baker completed the process by removing the firmly-baked knobs from Baking: e dials in an oven where the temperaiure rewches 300 degrees. into engraved figures and measures around the dial's edge. their cups, then turned his h of compressed air into the pan to blow it clean and bright for the next bak- ing. In the next aisle, a workman was taking baked ¢ 1 pans. They had to be fros being baked, the frosting being white enamel. which girls at a nearby table rubbed | “Every once in a while a knob or dial comes from the oveh burned too Spaces Between Some Stars Increasing NE of the most difficult, and at the same time interesting, ques- tions that astronomers have to solve {s that of the direction and velocity of the flight of the solar system through space. We ordinarily speak of the earth going around the sun as if that revolution were performed vear after year in the same path, the sun standing still while the earth moves. But, as a matter of fact, the sun moves as well as the earth. Now our planet goes round the sun from east to west, but, at the same time, the sun moves from south to north. The earth, therefore, is really traveling not in a beaten circle, but in a spiral line which is gradually carrying it toward certaln stars in the northern sky. And of course all the other planets also travel in spirals, going at the same time round and round the sun, with the sun toward the north The simplest proof that this motion of the solar system really exists is the fact that in t part of the sky toward which we are going the stars are observed to he moving slowly apart, while in the opposite part of the heavens they are drawing to- gether. A little reflection shows that this is a necessary resuit of such a motion of the solar em as we have described On account of the immense dis- tances of the stars, the apparent motions exhibited by them as a re- sult of our varying distane from slight to be detected without the aid of the most exquisite instruments, applied with an accuracy and pre- cision that only great skill and long practice can confer. Then, too, each star has an actual motion of its own—one in one direc- tion and another in another—for, like our sun, they are all journeying through space, without by any means keeping step to his music. The ob- server must, therefore, in the first place, measure motions that are al- most beyond the reach of measure- ment, and in the second place dis- tinguish the real movements of the individual stars from their apparent movements due to the actual motion of_the earth. Yet, difficult as this task Is, it has been attempted over and over again, and astronomers are still working at it. There are two things that they wish particularly to learn: First, in exactly what direction we are thus journeying through space and, second, just how fast we are going. The best Tresults obtained indicate that the point in_the sky to which we are moving lies in the eastern part of the constellation Hercules, not far from the very brilllant star Vega, which, in the United States, is seen almost directly overhead on Summer evenings. The velocity of our flight has been deduced from spectroscopic observa- tions and it appears to be between 2,000,000 and 3,000,000 miles a year, or & to 10 miles = second. Other esti- mates have made it considerably greater, but it is thought by most au- thoritles that this is the most satis- factory determination that has yet them are exceedingly slight; far too been made. brown or scratched,” a baker said. “They are set aside by inspectors and, no matter how slight the defect, are destroyed at the end of each day Behind the man who bake dials and | knobs are those who mix the “dough’ and make the molds. The recipe for bakelite flour, which is mixed ina group of Jersey plants, is: “To one portion of carbokic acid, add a portion of formaldehyde. Season with asbestos and wood flour. Stir well.” This mixture, upon reaching the factory, is measured out in a weighing room, and sent in cans to the bakers, each can containing precisely the amount needed for the plece to be molded. “Notice how bright the molds are, challenged the foreman of the ma- chine shop. “They are polished for hours and hours before being put into use. “Altogether it takes elght weeks to make a mold. Each one has to be tempered most carefully to endure the heat and pressure directed upon it night and day by that husky team of bakers. There were several examples of mighty machines in_the metal werk- ing shop, where radio speakers and panels for the fronts of the recelvers are fashioned. Four rams, striking with the force of three tons of falling bricks, pound- ed out the shapely radio speaker bell from a flat plece of steel. With one blow, the first ram battered a hollow in the flat steel. The second ram ham- mered a smaller hollow inside the first. The third made an even' smaller inside the second. Finally the fourth drove in its dent. The bell, of course, was badly con- torted by the punches, but a mechan- ical presser ironed out all its creases in a few minutes. The flat end, which still remained in the bell, was cut out and it was ready to be attached to the “gooseneck” of the speaker. ‘Another mechanical Hercules is the World’s First Public Railroa EPTEMBER 1825—one hun- dred ye today—the smoke from “Locomotive No. 1,” draw- first train over the only public railway, arose as a signal that man had ad- vanced another step in his ceaseless effort to conquer space and time. As the engine sped along at the law- breaking rate of six miles an hour, the \ hiss of its steam and the toot of its whistle sounded the death knell of the faithful horse, who for centuries had been the motive power of all over- land journeyings. It was in County Durham, England, that the curtain rose on the opening scene in the drama of steam railroads. George Stephenson, who bullt and ran the locomotive, and had also con- structed most of the roadbed and some of the cars, was the chief actor. The audience consisted of practically the entire population in the vicinity of Stockton and Darlington, the "two towns between which the railroad ran and after which it was named. In addition to the engine, the train consisted of 12 wagons loaded with coal and flour, a coach containing the officials of the young railroad, and were filled to their utmost capacity. The total weight of the train was about 90 tons. An idea of the low esteem in which the people of the time held the steam engine can be obtained from the fact. that a horse and rider preceded the train at the start of its first journey. The rider carried a flag bearing the motto of the company and had little fear of being run down as the maxi- mum of speed of the train was esti- mated at eight'miles an hour. However, Mr. Stephenson wanted to know just how rapidly his locomotive would go. Consequently, when a level stretch of the road was reached, he ordered the horseman off the track and opened the throttle the limit. The result was that his train attained the then unthinkable velocity of 17 miles an hour. It readily pulled away from a group of horsemen who had en- deavored to gallop across the country abreast of it. Such rapid transportation doubtless scared many of the 450 passengers who made the maiden trip behind the new “horse of iron,” but most of them were “game’ and stayed on board for the entire journey. At Darlington the 121 coal cars that had beeg converted into passenger-carrying coaches and loaded coal cars were replaced with other wagons contalning 150 more 1 passengers and a band. The train traversed the 12 miles separating Dar- lington and Stockton in about three hours. Its speed test was not made between those two towns, but on a stretch of track that extended to the coal fields west of Darlington. All along the route the novel pro- cession was greeted with cheers by people in every sort of horse-drawn conveyance, some of whom had come for miles to see the new ‘‘wonder.” Groups of men would frequently race the train for short distances. At a later date an actual race was staged between the coach traveling from Darlington to Stockton over the reg- ular road and locomotive No. 1. The engine won by a matter of some 100 yards, an achievement which was heralded as a distinct triumph for steam transportation. But on the 27th of September, 1825, there was no official race. The people were well satisfied that the train had actually reached Stockton and cele- brated that event with the conven- tional parade and banquet. * %X % % ‘HE builders of the road really had something of which to be proud. Tt had taken almost a generation of discussion and deliberation to get the Varnish 4is ¢ 4\.‘;;"1 nets. sprayed instead ofbrushed onv WNAT(ONAL PHoOTOS. many-toothed panel-punch. one bite in the steel front panel and left fifteen holes, three for dial shafts, three for rheostat connections, one It tooklfur tap switch connection and eight for screws that fasten panel to cabi- net. Between the big punches’ growls Mahogany, Aluminum, Steel, Copper, Even Gold, Are Employed to Draw Music From the Air—Hair-Raising Fea- tures of New Industry Attract Young Workers—Girls Excel Men at Winding Coils and Asembling Sets—Dials Baked From Flaky Flour Like Mother's Cup Cakes—Other Novel Feats. ing the cabinets. Moving belt of sandpaper smooth l='_1vutn one-third of the factory's em- ployes, ‘Hair-ralsing some jobs done I who “polished [for instance, had | tresses pulled as erect as | quills by elec er belts cre: enough to the belt and one of the girls, | likea bed cupine to b ow having her I on end, d | “Fine! 1t mak ‘crowning | story’ more glorious.” |~ Girls put the sets together. They stood on both sides of a Ic table, ter of which coursed a Beside each girl was a supply of the various parts e would use in the starting end of the bel 1ssembling the sets flat pleces of steel—th Pickin | attached the cor | transformers, ne nd fro be kets then When it reached |er as i d frorn of them, who l speaker and b At the third g ta od the wi the fourth diul | rheostat knobs, s ing end of ti very ter ether th |and give out which nsmi | spec were se First to change it. 1 st eted set, clearly ‘as the new net on the caverns is formed in lime- ordinary for the ent of its connected hen plotted upon streets of a ¢ cave is about & m and it contains some Irish cave stone and is ex and which number passages, 75 ength and a quarter animal inhal {there rose the whirring din of smaller machines—some slicing 12 feet long brass pipes into inch-and quarter vacuum tube sockets—some cuttng condenser plates out of alumi- num strips—some clipping washers off | of ribbons of ‘steel—all apparently racing to produce the most parts to | 8o Into the handsome mahogany cab- | inets being made in the adjoining sec- | tion—the carpenter shop. Sawing-up of a $25,000 pile of lum- ber—every plank of it solid Mexican | mahogany—was the sight that first | attracted the visitor to the carpenter shop. Its busy carpenters were aided at every move by machine-driven tools —tools which sawed planks into boards for cabinet lids, bottoms and sides; planed boards, drilled holes in them; and even sandpapered them. The sanding machine is a moving belt of sandpaper, against which the carpenter held the board. Sanding by | hand followed machine sanding. In fact, before the cabinet was finished it had been sanded six times: Instead of being varnished with a i brush, the cabinet was sprayed with | varnish from a hose, for spraying produces a smoother finish than brushing, according to the paint shop foreman. Each cabinet was given one coat of stain, two of shellac, three of lacquer and a final rub-down with pumice stone and ol. | Gold gleamed in the next section, | the gold-plating shop. Several hun- dred copper name plates were receiv- ing their gold bath. They slid about in a wire basket as it swung through the solution which brought them their valuable covering from the six bars of 24-karat gold that were im- mersed at one end of the vat. Ten thousand name plates are gold-covered every day, besides thousands of switches and screws. While men worked with gold and drove powerful machines on one side of the factory, on the other side girls wound wire thinner than a human hair into condenser and transformer ood! coils, insulated wires and polished Teacher—Why is this called completed part Women perform | verse these delicate tasks better than men, Bright Boy—Because it isn't worti: supervisors have found, so they con-'anything Chess Game Was Played With Musketg EVOTEES of the anclent game of chess will be iInterested in the following account of a game played by Charles XII of Sweden with his lieutenant, Grothusen, while encamped at Bender in 1713. The Swedish mon- | arch had exhausted the patfence of his Moslem enemy, whose army had begun to fire a sharp fusillade on the ' headquarters of the exile king. | Charles and Grothusen were pla Charles reproved with a la and then said ere is my knight, Grothusen? Find it and wo out the mate.” Before the minister could find the plece, the of Charles was struck the position of the forces, and re- mained for some minutes intently gaz- ing at the bo: “I don't think we need the knight; I believe that I can afford to give it to you nd st be able to mate you in four moves The monarch had just made this announcement when a second bullet ing chess one afternoon in the latt ually flew through the door and part of January, 1713. The morning | took its way as unerringly as the first had been spent in riding about the | had done toward the royal chessboard. defense round which 30,000 Turl The white pawn at rook's second and Tartars lay encamped. Although | square shared the fate of the knight the violent assaults that took place a [and fell in small pieces of ivory upon few days afterward had not yet com- | the floor. Grothusen, remembering menced, the Moslem army warned the | the satirical laugh of Charles, only besieged monarch of what he might | turned pale without stirring from his expect by sending an occasional ball | cha whistling over the house in which the headquarters were established. The game was far advanced, and oth You have our good friends the Turks upon your side, Grothusen,” said the King. “It will hardly be ex Charles, who played the white, had a | pected that I can compete both decided advantage. With the admir- [against you and 30,000 heathen, espe- able calmness that he knew so well |cially if you employ such powerful how to assume in the presence of dan- | weapons. = This is the first time I ger, he gazed for a long time at the [have seen chess played with muskets. position, and at last announced mate [ But wait a moment and let me see {f in_three moves. my game is not still good enough to Hardly had the words escaped from |allow me to dispense with this un- his lips when a bullet, shattering one | lucky pawn also. I have it he of the windowpanes, ended its flight | shouted, and laughed so loudly that he by removing from the board and | might have been heard beyond the breaking into fragments the white |intrenchments. “I have it! I have knight. Charles, who was about to |great pleasure in informing you that lean back in his chair with the self- | there is undoubtedly a mate in five satisfied air of a victor, looked vexed | moves.” at this unexpected 1 But Grothu-| And Charles would not permit Gro- sen, who was not his equal in cool- | thusen to leave the apartment until ness, leaped from his seat in dismay. | he had solved the problem. undertaking started, and when once under way three yvears were required for the construction of the road, the rolling stock and other necessary equipment. The- project had been put across in spite of opposition that extended all the way from members of Parliament to the proprietors of donkeys, which were the chief overland carriers of freight. The skepticism of the gen- eral public was reflected, as it always is, in the press of the day. “What person,” one paper asked, “would even think of paying anything to be conveyed from Hexham to New- castle in something like a coal wagon upon a dreary wagonway, and to be dragged for the greater part of the distance by a roaring steam engine?” In an attempt to counteract such “propaganda” and at the same time influence public opinion in favor of railroads, Edward Pease, the ‘“back- bone' of the Stockton and Darlington Raflway, carried on an extensive cor- respondence. But his writings show that he himself was none too sure of 1is ground. One of his conservative statements was: “The late improvements in the construction of railways have render- ed them much more perfect than when d Was Opened to constructed after the old plan. To such a degree of utility have they now been brought that they may be re- garded as very little inferior to canals. We may, therefore, hope that as this system develops itself our roads will be lald out as much as possible on one level and in connection with the great lines of communication through- out the country.” Such was the modest estimate of the potentialities of railroads of the man who first formed a_company to start operations on the Stockton and.Dar- lington line. Mr. Pease was a member of the Soclety of Friends and per- suaded so many of his “brothers” in that organization ot subscribe to his railway that the road was for a long period known as the “Quaker Line.” The company at first only contem- plated using horses to draw the trains. The chief cargo was expected to be coal from the rich fields of the Bishop Auckland district, that had al- ways been handicapped by lack of a means to market the mineral. The idea of transporting passengers was not even considered by the original founders of the road. George Stephenson, & man with con- siderable experience as a locomotive engineer on private railroads in-an ‘raffic 10 adjacent' mining section, applied for and was given the position of en- gineer-in-chief of the proposed Stock- ton and Darlington Rallway. Shephen- son was directly responsible for the use of steam instead of horses as the motive power in the first train. But even then the directors were not con- vinced, and when the road was first opened it was ordered that both horse and steam power be used over its 30 miles of track. Such direct competi- tion was apparently necessary to prove the superiority of the locomo- tive. * kK ok TEPHENSON also founded the first locomotive works in the world in conjunction with the building of the first public rallroad. The enterprising engineer conceived the idea that the demand for steam engines would soon be so great that a factory devoted solely to the construction of railroad equipment would be necessary. Aided financlally by Mr. Pease, he establish- ed such a factory at Newcastle in 1824. It turned out to be of immense help in rapidly putting into effect the improvements that Stephenson was continually making in his engines, as previously- he had been entirely de- ¢ Years Ago Today pendent upon the colleries of North | senger coaches themselves were often England. little more than stage coaches on The first job of the new works wa to fill the order for three locomotives | for the Stockton and Darlington. The | bY famed “Locomotive No. 1" weighed | Pany about eight tons, and was specially | Sengel designed to haul heavy loads at & low | bueleman, who accomnanied all stage speed, rather than a light cargo at a | coaches, was, of course not practical rapid rate. It embodied all the latest | on the trains, but his place was taken railroad knowledge, yet it was so im- | by a trumpeter whose duty of playing perfectly constructed that the chim. | the passengers out of the stations ney often became red hot from the | Was regarded as an essential railroad poorly controlled combustion in the| function for yea brick-lined firebox. The ever increas The engine established its superior. | SeNgers, necessitating more _trains, ity over the horse, however, with the| eventually did away with the mu result that others like it were ordered, | Siclans and led to the employment of as | flange wheels AL first those who wished to travel ail were “booked office and a list of the pas given the train guard. The at the com- ng volume of pas- and the great business of land steam | tickets in place of the combersome transportation fairly begun. . | booking methods. It also required 1" was used for about 20 years, and | the building of better locomotives and coach finally rewarded for its service by b ing placed on a pedestal in front of the Y station at Darlington. There it ‘SEPTEMBER —Today, the exhibited as the first engine to travel centennial of the first public rail- a public railway. road—finds the world, and particularly The rapidity with which the rail. | America, engrossed in a discussion roads became popular as a convey.{of the theory of evolution and other ance for passenger traffic surprised imely” subjects, so completely that the first ‘“magnates.” The early|it is almost entirely unmindful of methods of handling the “human |the birthday of its chief means of freight” were modeled after the old L transportation. H stage-coach system. In fact, the pas- (Continued on i {i i