The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, May 2, 1897, Page 18

THE SAN FRAN MAY 2, 1897 SCO JALL, SUNDAY, 1 Astonishing Flight of a Cartier Pigeon. Once fairly under way, it is the habit of homing pigeons to fly in a straight line. 8o it probably was with these birds. From Carson to San Francisco, in an air line, 18 a distance, approximately, of about 180 miles. This is no distance for a bomer to fly under ordinary conditions and a very few hours would suffice to traverse it. The seq el shows conclusively that the conditions were very far from the ordinary. The first information received in this City concerning any of the homing quartet came from Copperopolis, in Calaveras County, which is in the foothills of the Sierras, upon the western slope. At that place, on the morning of March 21, fiying wearily, nearly famished, brave Mme. Rose alizhted and suffered herself, out ot pure ex- haustion, to be captured. So nearly spent was she that after she haa been fed she slept nearly twenty-four hours without waking. She bhad been on her perilous way between three and four days. Let those who respect human courage, dauntiess will and persevering enerzy re- flect for & minute upon what this flight of nearly four days signified. During two of the threec days while Mme. Rose was beating the thin, cold air with her eager wings blinding znows were falling. Mountain sireams were hushed under depths of ice. The temperature, according to meteorologists, sank at times to 22 degrees below the Ireezing veint. With the snow came high and bafling winds. In all the Sierras, snow-covered and desolate, was no food for this wonderful little messenger and path- finder. The lowest pass in the route selected by Mme. Rose was a mile and a half above sea level. To reach this elevation the bird had to scale a height above Carson of over balf a mile. Proiessor Georze Davidson of this City, who is familiar with the Sierras, says that the pass must be at least 3700 feet above the altitude of Carson and 7000 feet above the level of the ocean. Half blinded in that awful solitude, hurled hither and 3 g yon from its true course by the winds which eddied 1n and out of the fastnesses of it was fairly understood others wished to iry the experiment. It |the Sierras, night overtook the bird three times. There was no rest for it excepting that the winner of a race under such conditions would be an even | Upon the trees laden with their winter load of ice and snow. Be it to the credit of — <l S e e P d ame with the storied “Jackdaw of Rheims” and the bird born of the | the pluck of the bird, as it must be to its sure purpose, that it did not turn back after tion of the suthor of the ““Arabian Nights”—the marvel- | the first arctic night to seek the comparative comfort of Carson. 2T Bl e et v ie i 2l P roc. The next morning she was off again, and the next and the next, all the time \ were made, lofts were overhauled and the best birds were selected to fly | drawing nearer, but by a devious course, to its own home sna dove-hearted mates in g 2 / ZZ. : > e~ b Lt e P i Mfi clouds. €ix birds went out, four from Mr. Carlisle’s loft and two from a | their cozy cote on the warm and green Berkeley hiliside. When it finally, still tray- Of the only one is known to have survived. That one | eling toward the blue Pacific, reached Copperopolis, it had flown only what amount W W y’/-fé’l- I AT R ) %9/m_, Ty Mo&, Pt nea TS e, e W most wondefful feat ever required of a homing or carrier pigeon is claimed rnia bird. The opinion is entertained that nothing like it was ever before since {he flight of that historical dove which flew from Noah’s ark to of ary land to the lofty top of Ararat, at least. Haif in jest t a meeting of the Caliiornia Homing Club. i id a gentleman of quiet but determined bearing, “is to fly > peaks of the Sierra Ne vada in midwinter.” n't be:done,’”’ responded one. e the fabled discussion Phileas Fogg’s proposed tour around the ad more incred ulity been expressed. h,”” was another objection. e their way,” was another. “Geuntlemen, I am going Yo try the experiment,” i City. v things, the chances were that the scoffers were right and that sle'was wrong. There is no record of any homing bird ever flying over the i-are lower and not more forbidding in winter than many peaks of the id the quiet, determined man, who1s A Mr. Alps, a supreme test of the California flyers was to take them n; to release them at Carson and let them try to find n Francisco, crossing the sky-piercing and afmost in- The proposition 1o r east of the Sierrss to Car: ome to the e barrier of the & , lured to rest in the t y by that love of home which would seem to tle coves than in any other sentient being: so0 ring in the proposition, so much that was new and e e the during the past week, | t0 110 miles in an airline. The time consumed shows conclusively that it had been birds out to Carson at the time of the Corbett-Fitzsim- | compelled to fly many times that distance, or that the winds were fiercer and 1he from Berkeley went at one time, in ventilated boxes. | storms even more terrible than herein appears. The significant thing is that it had nt to release them at the proper hour, to bring back | departed litile out of its direct course between Carson and San Francisco, when, hav- 1 the Somewl ng happenings of the ringside. n bis custcdy was Charles R. Breck, who arrived by the Central overland, g the Sierra pursues as sinuousa course as the path of the labled 2 > The gentleman baving | ing actualiy crossed the Sierra, its overtired wings caffie to rest. t exc LN It will be naturally a<ked how it was that Mme. Rose, having been at Copperopo- lis in Calavera< County on March 21, has only been back home a few days. This was on account of her being detained by parties who had to he persuaded by prolonged argument to restore her to her original owner. The other three birds of the quartet are dead or lost. So are the other two mentioned. he reached Carson the birds were fairly in terra incognita. The four Car- never been farther east than Sacramento before they were carried, *C oS : i | A ~» \fi@;\m./ \ o e AN 27| |\ RV LY il ad been over comparativ ith gr s frosty. pane, d @ w. 2 h. had not seen one foot of the road over which they had traveied. From the vel they had climbe 1, and had then d tors, ulties in On the their aerial pathfinding ? cighed only dne pound apiece. inv So sligh athetic. 1 eovered with snow. ing on them ran liv live to the bay of ised at their Nort rily reaching lo d climbed, in the ca: scended to the arena whele winter's storms are some- h of March Mr. Breck released the four birds in his charge. tringe of hills They were world. ay deep—a ward to en altitude of a d the cunning little brains of these tiny handfuls of feathers conquer such t did they seem in comparison with the pro- v that they had the full admiration of Mr. Breck, who is cbservant Wherever be looked abroad winter and the Sierra were lost Mr. Breck was not alone in watching and admiring but the general opinion was that they would n Francisco. | birds, after they had been released from Mr. Breck’s hands, flut- | stranye surroundings, the quartet at once wer and lower temperatures as they flew. They were born in Berkeley about two yearsago. Their longest | y leve! country, and they had never been compelled | ing more lofty than the comparatively insignifican ange of the low-lying coast range mountains. nd of practically endless summer, and the hills cver which they had | ass and wild flowers during much of the year, 1d really seemed as landmarks to guide the feathered messenge en they reached Carson it must have seemed to them like anothe; and over the slumbering and far Sierra the snow szuising the mountain topography and waving and shifting | They | 1 to circle and sail the air in company, looking for some familiar object to guide | east and west they flew, scaling greater and greater | s mysterious within them as the architect-like instincts of the bee fizally | d them that to reach home they must fly over the loitie: barrier far to the west. | ‘““MADAM ROSE.” Hatched March 17, 1894 day. Mareh 9, 1895, flew in race from Sa The wonderful fly from Ca: Was awnrded first prize at pigecn show held e 1 City was begun on her birth. San Francisco in January, 18 mento, being liberated in the presence of a large number of legislators, and conveyed a message bearing the signature of the Governor and three other State oflicials aud those of all the newspaper representatives then at Sacra- mento. In this race troller Cc Record-Union representative as scor vilie. In a trial Madrm Rose while Previous to March 17, the Blue and Gold lofts. 1897, Madam Rose had not Leen seut east of Stockton. from Santa Cruz, June 11,1895, Ed Mariin, County Clerk, utilized ding an order attached to her eight other birds, 2!l being relessed by Miss Anita Gon The bird, on this occasion carrying a photogrgph of Qu two hours after all the other birds had arrived. Two days later she flew with ales, Queen of the Water Carnival. °n Anita, was shot, but came in 1L gave full accounts of this fiy. Owned by THE C. HERE IS A TELEPHONIC RECORDER. obably no ‘greater need ever existed than that of easy -and rapid communica- tion between distant points. Itis only a little while ago when to write a letter to London and get a reply consumed three weeks of time. Then by the laying of the cable distance and time were both practi- cally annihilated, and the question may now be propounded to London and 1ts answer received in the space of afew minutes. Yet while the telegraph has solved the problem of rapidity it is never- theless hampered by the burden of re- striction to brevity and is costly. while the presence of the wonderful mes- senger of electricity that has been har- nessed to doservice for man is rightfully regarded a marvelous blessing, 'yet man—the business one, especially—chafed under the restriction which the use of the | t 10 e graph placed upon him. He desired cise more fully the power of speech. Then came the telephone, and then man | could actually talk with his correspond- strained by tie inexorable “ten "’ of the telegraph. No invention thiat has blessed the world in all time has done more. to humanize mankind than has that of the telephone. In the_telephone speech is heard in the receiving portion of the apparatus because the diaphragm of the phone vibrates un- der the jmpulse of the electro-magnetic current. It was thought, when the teie- vhone first came into use, that this vibra- tioh might be employed to produce a series of inipressionsor indentations upon a disk or cyhinder of wax, which could be used as a phonographic converter. But repeated experiments have established the jaci that the vibrations of the telephone displiragm, while actual mechanical vi- ations, are of so ¢emall amplitude and e as to render impossible the produc- 0 of an impres-ion or indentation. Inventive genius is not, however, ham- pered by any knowiedge of the impossi- ble. From the day when Professor Bell and Professor Gray exhibited their won- deridl telephones at the Centennial Exhi- 8o, | bition at Philadelphia in 1876 down to the vresent time thousands of brains have been busily at work conjuring up a means to accomplish what was wanted, and it is now believed that the problem has been solved by the production of a device whereby a telephonic message is recorded at the district station without regard to the presence of the distant correspondent. | A Mr. Clarke of this city claims to have devised the long-sought apparatus. His machine, which is shown in the accom- | panying sketch, is exiremely simple, and it does not require any changes in exist- | ing methods. It is a weli-known fact to competent electricians that a closed circuit—that is, | & circuit without & break of continuity | and charged with a current—may have its | potential powerfully varied by the intro- duction of very slight resistances. Now the power or “‘pull” of an electro-magnet depends upon the potential of the current that is passing along the wire forming the | helix of the magnet. On these two condi- | tions rests the device of Mr. Clarke. He bas discovered that a liguid—not water— charged with a certain metallic salt in solution is capable of having the resist- ance 10 the passage of an electric current very markedly changed by the applica- | tion of extremely slight degrees of com- pression. Now, supposing that an electric circuit be constructel baving in its series an electro-magnet and a tube or tank of this liquid. Then a slight compression of the liquid would diminish the resistance and allow the carrent to How through the cir- cait with greater facility and strength, and the consequent effect of the current upon the eleciro-magnet would be to strengthen it and to cause it to attract an armature with greater force. When the pre-sure on the liquid was removed the liquid would then offer its greatest resist- ance, thus hinaering the flow of the cur- rent, and so weakening the “‘pull” of the electro-magnet. Thus by varying the yressure upon or compression of the liquid the electro-magnet would corre- spondingly change its attractive force and its armature be attracted or released ac- cordingly. In Mr. Clarke’s machine he employs a glass box, the top of whica is formed of a japanned iron plate, tdsed as the dia- phragm of the telephone. The glass box is completely filled with the liquid, and consequently the vibrationsof the tel- ephonic diaphragm produce a series of varying compressions of the liquid, small in amplitude, but sufficient to cbange the resistance of the fluid. This box of liGuid is made a part of a local circuit, which embraces a battery of four cells and an electro-magnet. The magnet bas an ar- mature provided with a stylus, and as the attraction of the magnet varies, the con- sequent motion of the armature is by the stylus indented upon the waxen cylinder of a phonograph. When not receiving a message, the phonographic cylinder is out of all contact with the armature strius; but at the be- ginning of a communication the cylinder is instantly thrown into contact by the operation of an exceedingly simple electro-mechanical device and so retained during the transmission of the message, at the termination of which it isrel-ased. Atany time subsequent to the transmis- sion the receiving operator has but to press a knob, when the speaking stylus is thrown into contact With the cylinder, which then begins to revolve, and the message that was transmitted a moment or & hundred years previously is made audible to the listener in the exact words and tones of the transmitting speaker. The invention not only promises to sup- oly the wants of a large class of business men; it bids fair to revolutionize the ex- isting modes of news dissemination. The morning and evening newspaper is at present a necessity, long outgrown the nature of a luxury. The family have by habit learned to require the newspaper. With the use of Mr. Ciarke’s invention it is possible to place a telephonic recorder in every house, and all the instruments connected with a “central’’ office, where will be collected and edited the news of the world, precisely in the same manner as is now done in the central offices of the Associated Press and the United Press; but instead of telegraphing a condensed account of the news to the newspapers to be published by them several hours after its occurrence, an operator at the ‘‘cen- tral” will speak the news into a transmit- ter and insiantly it will be recorded at the houses of the subscribers, unabridged, full and complete. Then at breakfast, at din- ner or at tea, when the family are gath- ered around the table, a press of the knob and lo, from a hole 1n the wall a voice reads out the startling news of what is going on in distant piaces. Should it be desired, the machine may be made to repeat again and again its messages. It while deiiver- ing a message another, one shouid arrive, the electro-mechanism instantly switches the cylinder into the position for its re- ceiving, and the delivery 1s interrupted until the transmission of the new message is completed. ‘The action is purely auto- matic, and effectuaily provides againsu any omission of communication. Proper provision is also made for renewing the surface of the cylinder when it is filled or for replacing it with another. The ordi- nary familiar telephonic transmitter and receiver may if desired be vlaced side by side and the same circuit with the Clarke machine, so that complete communication t0 and fro may be had. F. M. Cross, D.8c. A curiosity is exhibited by a man in Blue Rapids, Kan. It is the head ofa rabbit, which has eight horns, ranging in length irom 134 to 214 inches. One of the horns sprouts from t.e nose and the others are round the jaw. ————— A room in the castle of Simonetta, near Milan, Italy, has a wonderful echo. A loud noise, such as a pistol shot, will be repeated sixty times. oot 47 L, for its completion. of the First New York Cavalry. August 14, 1862. M SEDT pamee DD 7 . rislie D s o CAPTAIN RICHARD P, A Hitherto Unpublished Military Order From General @Grant. For twenty-five years Captain Richard P, Thomas has resided on thirty-two acres of the easterly face of the Berkeley hills, and during most of that time ke has contemplated uitimately investing the area in some institution which would forever main- tain it to & form of public use. The captain’s recent offer of donating the place to the town of Berkeley as a park iy lils ultimate decision aiter contemplating two other forms of disposition, one to the Soidiers’ tHome, which finally located at Yountville, the other to the State University. The managess of the home regarded the tract as not sufficiently large for their purposes and the captain aecided that, as between the university and the town, he would fav r the latter. A unique feature of the captain’s place is & log house which the owner built with his awn hands, requiring seven vears Itis two stories in height, has two rooms below and a large apartment above. the captain uses it as such, having fitted it up for a museum and smoking cabin; here he lounges during evenings amid his relics of the long past, an aggregation which covers the whole of the captain’s life—a veriod of eighty years. Many of these curios are mementoes of the captain’s three years’ career in the army when he was lieutenant and adjutant The collection includes his pistols and carbine, his saber, his great surtout, army uniforms and hats, together with an extensive gallery of rare war pictures taken within the Union lines by Brady, the Government photog- rapher, and covering hundreds of scenes and sit One of the most interesting of these exhibits is a letter from General Grant to General Sherman, written entirely in the hand of the former and bearing the indorsement of the latter. opposition writers that were employed in those days. It reads as follows: 1t is a comfortable lodge, and ions during the entire period of hostilities. The letter strikingly presents the effective means of extinguishing the HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF TENNEsSEE, CORINTH, Aug. 8, 1862, Major-General W. T. Sherman, Commanding United States Forces, Memphis, Tenn.—GENERAL: Herewith 1 send you an article credited 10 the Memphis correspondent of the Chicago Times, which is boih false in fact and mischievous in character, have the author arrested and sent to the Alton penitentiary under proper escort, for confinement until the close of the war, uniess sooner discharged by competent authority. Upon the lower lefthand corner of the letier is in General Sherman’s handwriting the following direction, evidently to some subordinate officer, to whom the letter bearing the indorsement was sen Do you know the man? Find him out and arrest. W. T. EHERMAN, Major-General. The letter was picked up in Memphis on the grounds which had been occupied by the Federal forces, after the withdrawal of the troops, and has never since gone out of the captain’s possession. dent, nor whether he was ever discovered or arrested. On the highest point of the captain’s land, and at an eminence not far from the summit of the mountain, he has erected what he calls a fort, and which he declares to be the only private affair of the kind in the State. On an esplanade surrounded by acir- cular parapet three 20-pound guns have been mounted in embrasures, and they command the entire country. On the right lie Sun Pablo Bay and the straits of Carquinez, San Quentin aud the Golden Gate, while a discuarge from the piece on the lefi mizht rake the streets of Oakland. A house is built within the inclosure and used as a powder magazine, and every Fourth of July the pow- der in this arsenal is brought out and the guns boom ail day long. The Fourth is a great day with the captain. He sets aside $500 for its celebration, hires a calerer to bring coffee and sandwiches on the mountain, and then invites the town. They come in hundreds, and for that day La Loma is a public pleasure ground. You wiil 1 am very respectfully your obedient servant, U. 8. Gra~T, Major-General. The captain does not know the identity of the correspon- JOHN E. BENNETT. THOMAS. ——