The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, February 20, 1898, Page 21

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1898. 21 SHOOTING DOWN WAR BALLOONS Jelephone, Telegraph, Photograph and Balloon Jricks That Are Being Practiced for the Next War. NCLE Sam has some little tricks up his sleeve, which in war d be brought TViC 1t a moment’'s no- which would prove to an enemy. . js known about f the army and its Aerial military ma- tographing from great d distances, laying, equip- operating tele: in time n travel, are inter- all of them are branch of the service. on a peace footing officers and a score or s, together with small enlisted men detailed special service at the various the frontier, where instruction work of the corps is given. neral. A. W. Greely of is in command of the his headquarters at D. C. Too much credit given this thoroughly effi- who is to a large degree le for the perfection in all of the work that obt. to- The largest school of instruction t present is at Fort Logan, Colorado. ain W. A. Glassford, chief signal of the Department of the Colo- . is in charge, and has in his de- ent three s and eigh- detailed enli: ent be owing to the modern fire- made in - has arisen for a nunication from fleld to anoth of orders, i batt part of a 2y mission T reports, ete. othing is so electricity. T aerial ex e men outrival old-time aero- n is now part ment of the modern - ate of actual war- will go with the signal > field and see how the field telephone lines are put The telegraph train of the usual hard ser- are se- wooaen bins or cells prevent An- in se wagons, to g over, in transit. rtment in this same wa storage for the tele- and necessary sup- It carries a sup zed telegraph wi line ten or a doz wire is carried upon it out automatically, started. The arries the slender poles reels which the li Wwagon , together with the necessa: apport the wire and tools he lances in the ground. s along at a fair st and n com- ust W the line is to put up. The order for “‘double time” given, and after the men had short distance the order to halt v sounded. The officer in com- mand had s cted his imaginary line and directed the battery wagon to be in a c ain position when d. The men ran to the wire wagon swarmed over it; others of them ed the pole or lance truck and in ant a stream of poles was issu- om that wagon that could only be pay has been d by an army of eircus em- mantling a big tent. The gen- ection of the line was indicated e officer and the men set to work. armed with huge crow- off in the direction the line One of them halted at sixty yards from the bat- nd thrust the sharpened . steel bar into the ground. passed him and went twice when he, too, thurst the sharp nt into the yielding soil. The Arst man had now run around him and e where he had dug the first was taken by a group of men d with one of the lance i or and the end of the wire, which was mow spinning out of the rear end of the wire wagon. In less time than it takes to tell it, the lance or pole was set, the insulator was in posi- tion and the wire was attached. The nen were already at the second station, where a pole was going up, before I had time to make a photograph. The men with the crowbars were now far away and going farther all the time. That w of bristling poles seemed to grow like magic and one could almost see them run. In an incredibly short space ne—but little longer than it would ave taken me to walk to the edge of the timber—the line had disappeared among the trees. While I was wonder- ing what would be done next, the in- strument in the battery wagon began to tick and a message came in over the newly constructed line, asking for fur- ther instructions. Orders were flashed back and the line was continued all the vay to the foothills. Mili looning has alsoadvanced to tate of perfection during the past few years that it will be perfectly vithin the range of possibility, in case of war, to accurately photograph an enemy’s position, obtain accurate maps of his fortifications, etc., etc., without sending any one within his lines. The balloon service as it has been con- ducted at Fort Logan proves this con- clusively. To the uninitiated it would seemn out of the question to transport a balloon with an army and to send it up for observation purposes at any 1e or at any place. Yet the difficul- that naturally surround this prob- 1! been overcome and to-day s at Fort Logan a fully equipped feld train, ready for service at rent. The balloon train consists of three ilar in construction to those e and which transport . feld telegraph paraphernalia. The halloon itself, a huge affair, has place in the forward end of the wagon. At the rear end there is a large reel, upon which are carried several thousand feet of stout cable. In a middle compart- nt in the balloon wagon room Is re- ved for the basket and netting. In second wagon are stored the hydro- as tubes, needed for inflating the hip. These tubes are constructed of steel and are as light and as strong as it is possible to make them. There is a generating plant for gas at Fort Logan, and it is there that the tubes are filled. They are shipped in such quantities as may be needed, to various points throughout the count ply su nt for several inf be car with the fleld train and if larger supplies are needed additional wagons are pressed into service. _Thc ballcon itself is constructed of the finest and most costly material, gold beaters’ skin being used for this The balloon corps of the German army is said to be the equal, if not the superior, of any in the world. It is kept in' constant practice and experi- ments are made nearly every day in the year. The latest series of experiments re- cently took place at Interbock, about ten miles from Berlin, and were to test the sustaining qualities of a bal- 'mlun when riddled with heavy projec- tiles. Results showed that at a distance of 2000 feet above the earth an infantry fire from either muskets or rifles had little effect upon the balloon. The at- mospheric pressure being about the equal of the gas pressure had the ef- fect of keeping the perforations closed €0 that the balloon kept afloat the same as if nothing had happened. The fire of an artillery battery, how- ever, at a distance of 4300 yards, soon brought the balloon to the ground, the shells tearing large holes in the cover- ing and making it evident that a cap- tive ballon to be of service near a for- tification would have to be Kkept in tant and rapid motion. Vhetheror not expery made in the use of explosives dropped from balloons. T have nct been able to learn, but from what one can- see of the use of these aerial monsters at Fort Logan it would not be strange if the wildest dreams of moderns may soon be : -PHOTOGRAPH L OGAN TAKEN FROM, AELS —‘_&‘5‘. Tro ’Q%‘IN e e purpcse. The heavy wagon s of suffi- cient weight to hold the balloon” cap- tive, and if a change of base is neces- sary during an ascension .the wagon has eimply to be moved in the desired direction. Telephonic communication is maintained through the cable which holds the balloon to the wagon. As the members of the Signal Corps are also topographical engineers, it is a simple matter for them to prepare accurate maps of the country beneath them, while suspended out of harm’s way above an enemy’s camp. The adoption of teleo-photographic lenses also glves them means by which as ac- curate photographs can be made as if the artist were actually in the fortifi- cations. Statistics show that it is almost im- possible to hit a captive balloon with musketry fire when at an elevation of 2000 feet. The balloon is kept moving almost incessantly, and in that lies a great measure of its safety. Nearly all the standing armies of the world are now equipped with balloon corps, and the value of this sort of aerial survey- ing, in time of war, is incalculabie, at least it is so admitted by the military experts, and they ought to know. realized and the terrible death-dealing airship may soon evolve, as did the Holland submarine boat, from Jules Verne's “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.” W. J. ROUSE. —— WONDER AND MYSTERY OF VIBRATIONS. Science has proven that the planets and the bodies which make up our solar sys- tem have each an individual motion so clearly defined and mathematical that it is known for years ahead when the moon or the sun will be eclipsed, when a star or a planet will be hidden by the disk of the passing moon—in fact, everything has a perfect, orderly and mathematical motion. g Only within recent years have there been discoveries made that would throw much light on anything pertaining to the human mind, especially the senses. But the comstruction of some fine mechan- isms have made it possible to get to a definite basis as to what the sensations of the human body consist of. It has been found that the human organism is susceptible only to vibrations. A vibration is a rapid, rhythmic to a thin stick and with your hand move it to and fro about twenty times a sec- ond, you will have a vibration which will be heard as a low sound. If you increase the number of motions a second the sound will be that much higher, until at 245 vibrations a second you will hear the tone of lower “C"” of the piano. Conse- quently what you hear is only the rapid motion or vibration that the gases have been whipped into, which gives the hu- man mind the sensation of sound. The lowest sound the hu n ear can hear is that caused by 17 vibrations a ond, then tones are heard, octave after octave, until at about 42000 vibrations is reached, when we do not hear nor feel anything. There is a gap in our sensa- tions. But in keeping right on increasing the rate of vibrations until we reach about 120,000 vibrations we begin to feel the sensation of cold. After 120,000 vi- brations the cold increases until at 400,000 vibrations it begins to feel warm, and at £00,000 it is very hot. This ends the sensations wherein the gases convey the vibrations to our senses, for after this the ether is the medium which vibrated and we begin to see. When the ether is vibrated at a rate of from 3,000.000 to 4,000.00¢ {imes a second there is another gap in our sensations, for we see nothing. After this we gradually begin tc Red. and as the ased then Pink ap- pears, then Yellow, Green, Blue and last -3 INFANTRY AND ARTILLERY SH The result of the recent experimental shooting at & from Berlin, went to prove that at a distanceo of about 1000 ¥ tically without effect on the sustaining power of the bafloon, closing the small rents mads by tho bullets, and thus keeping soon brought the a captive bal . cinity of any fortification. tery, however, at a distance of some 4300 yards, large holes in the covering, and making it evident that and quick motion if employed In reconnoitring in the vi me colors reap- Violet, but of a al Violet. After this the sa pear, the Red, Yellow finer and more ethe showing that color: s well as have their octaves. \When about 300,000,900 vibrations are reached there is another gap in our sight, the same as there was in hearing, for we again see nothing. Fi- nally, when the vibrations reach so high that they cannot be calculated, then gradually light begins to be seen, which increases M brilliancy, until white light is produced, when the possibility of hu- man sensations ceases altogether. Thus the sensations of the human or- ganism are subject to a mathematical basis, and all of them caused by vibra- tions. But this i8 not all. Taste and smell are also caused by vibrations. It is known by chemists and scientists that a molecile of matter has a vibratory mo- tion. :One effect of this molecular vibra- tion is the sensation of taste when the molecules come in contact with the nerves of the throat and palate. Another is when the sense of smell is aroused by these molecuies entering the nostrils. One peculiar fact is that we can only taste J;e sweets by the nerves of the tip of the tongue and the bitters by those of the back of the tongue, while the salts and those between bitter and sweet are tasted at the center of the tongue. The same takes place With the nose. The sweet perfumes of flowers are smelled at the fore part of the nose and the stenches farther back. The reason of this is the fact that a nerve is composed of a thou- sand fibers as thin as a spider web, and each one Is only affected by a certain vibration, then passes to higher ones, or to one that responds, and so on, until the little group of nerves is exhausted. then the next group is called upon. That is how the fore and back nerves of the and trqrnlvvgon; for instance, if you take tongue are each aroused by a particular vibration—those of the fore part are pitched in a higher key and only respond to_high-keyed vibrations. = Having made the study of vibrations a special one for a number of years, dur- ing my travels while lecturing I have met with some interesting subjects, such as men and children who were peculiarly affected by music. Blind Tom, who was stone blind, told me that he saw colors when he played the piano. Later T meét a child in Nebraska who saw these colors also when her mother played the piano, and another child in Chicago who likewise saw them. In that city is a great organist, whose name I would not mention, who sees the most beautiful harmony of colors when he plays the organ, and especially the great pipe organ of the Chicago Auditorium. All of these people had a singular ex- perience which led me to investigate deeper in the effects of color on the mind. These people would feel the sense of warmth when the red colors were dis- played, pleasant when the yellow, and cool with the blue. The children (al- though a thousand miles apart), would each object when thelr mothers played “hot music” in the summer time. This “hot music” was the red colors.that fol- lowed the base tones. Thus I discovered that the first two octaves formed a red color, the middle octave formed yellow and the last two blue colors, and that these cclors had a purely mental im- pression as to the heat and cold. In ex- perimental psychology I found later a subject, who, when hypnotized and put into a_state of clairvoyancy, would see aven the colors of the thought vibra- tions that I would think at her. By OOTING AT A WAR BALLOON. balioon at the miiltary camp af Interbogk, ten miles ards the fire of an infantny batislion was prac- the pressure of the atmosphere immediately ‘the gas confined. The fire of an artiliery bat- balloon fo tha ground, the shells tearing. lloon would have to be kept in constant a e I got so I could produce these {?Efifr‘é".m Bt ethers by intense thinking ' them. Then 1 found that my sub- ject would have all the symptoms of a fover when 1 sent red colors at her, or would feel cool with the blue or the 1 could make her see snow or green. 0 - thopt speaking a word, by only ;:?nkg\‘g ;ronsly of the scene I wished toe portray. J. G. BREEDING BEES SEX DEVELOPMENT Gurious. Facts Brought to Light by the Microscope and Bearing on Dr. Schenck’s Recent Discovery. . ROF. SCHENCK of Vienna thinks he has proved that the sex of offspring is determined by the relative status of the two parents as regard nutrition. Should the proof be accepted, then one of the most puzzling and fascinating problems of the ages has been solved. But it should not be forgotten that it is a problem that has been “solved” a vast number of times before, and that all these solutions have failed to stand the test of experiment. Half a hundred explanations of the reason why a child is born of a particular sex are current in popular gossip, but no one of these has hitherto been ad- mitted to have a semblance of scien- tific backing. Hence the interest which attaches to the claim of the German professor, whose standing as a scientist removes 'his theory at once to a different plane from that of all previous ones. It is only In comparatively recent times, indeed, that any guess on the subject stood the slightest chance of nearing the truth, for until the micro- scope came to aid vision no one had the remotest notion as to what really constitutes the process of generation, which lies back of sex. The microscope brought to light the Interesting fact that in every process of generation there are two elements, and two_ only, involved. One of these is a round egg- like cell called the ovum, or female ele- ment; the other an even smaller motile cell, called the sperm cell or male element. Observa- tion of many forms of life made clear the wonderful fact that these elemen- tary cells are marvelously similar in appearance among all forms of living beings. The egg cell of a fish, a rep- tile, and a mammal, for example, are to all intents and purposes identi- cal in appearance, and the sperm cell of the lower forms of aquatic plants is often almost indistinguishable from that of the highest mammal, being in each case an infinitesimal moving creature, looking for all the world like a miniature tadpole with an extra long tail. And from the lowest to the highest forms of life, the real essence of generation is the union of a sperm cell with an egg cell; from such union, and not otherwise (except among cer- tain lower forms), results the new be- ing. %Vhen these elementary processes of generation were first discovered sci- entists thought themselves closely on the track of the question of sex, and of all the other puzzles of heredity. In the case of fishes, frogs and other lower forms of life, the germ-cell was ob- served entering the egg-cell, fertiliza- tion resulting, and the observers not unnaturally jumped to the conclusion that the matter of sex might be de- termined by the number of germ cells that found their way into any partic- ular egg-cell. If the number sufficed to give preponderance to the male ele- ments, they reasoned, the offspring must be a male, and vice versa. But this very satisfactory theoretical explanation received its quietus a few years ago when Professor Hertwig demonstrated that fertilization is ef- fected always by the union of a sin- gle germ cell and no more with an egg-cell. This being admitted soon af- ter by all observers, the sex question was returned to its former state of ob- scurity. Meantime, however, a very different set of observers had taken the ques- tion up, and brought it to what many of them believed to be a satisfactory solution. These were the breeders of cattle on the great Western ranches. * To these men the question of sex de- termination is one of utmost import- ance, from a purely business stand- point. One breeder, for instance, has a herd of Jerseys, for dairy purposes. The male offspring of his herd are practically of no value to him, being too small to make good beef, while fe- males are at a premium. Just the re- verse is the case with a neighboring breeder, who raises beef for the East- ern market, and hence keeps cattle of a large flesh-forming breed, the cows of which have little value as milkers. Various of these breeders discovered or thought they discovered some years ago that if the males of their herds were in particularly vigorouscondition, while the cows were less vigorous, the offspring, on an average, showed a pre- ponderance of females, while if the re- verse conditions prevailed male calves preponderated. So certain were they of this that many of them came habit- ually. to feed the bulls and cows of their herds in the particular way that would favor their ends, according to this the- ory; and thé claim was made that the results justified the experiment. These alleged facts were widely published, but they excited little comment among scientists because, from the nature of the case, the experiments were not per- formed with sufficiently rigid tests to satisfy the scientific mind. But now these allegations come at once to mind, because the alleged discovery of Pro- fessor Schenck. to which the scientific world is forced to give attention, is practically a rediscovery of the method long advocated by the Texas cattle breeders. 1t would certainly be curious if the solution of one of the greatest biologi- cal problems should have been reached first by frontier farmers of America; yet the experience would not be alto- gether unique, for it is well known that the dairymen of England had been aware of the preventive power of cow- pox over smallpox many years before Edward Jenner put the matter to rigid tests and demonstrated the truth of their rumored opinions. Indeed, such a substratum of rumored knowledge may be found beneath many great dis- coveries. And in this particular case it is not alone the cattle breeders but a large number of physicians everywhere who have held, as a provisional beliet, 4 theory of sex which is practicallythat now formulated definitely by Professor Schenck. There is at least one New York physician, for example, who has long been accustomed to point out the fact that among families of his ac- quaintance male offspring preponderate .where the mother noticeably exceeds the father in physical vigor or vitality; girl children where the father is pro- nouncedly the more vigorous. He has shown, further, that in a family where boys have been the sole offspring, a girl may be born during a period when the father had suffered from a long-continued depression of health. He has even claimed to have some success in predicating the sex of unborn children by applying this test. But as he had made no detailed publi- cation of his observations, his theory takes nothing from the precedence of Professor Schenck. It does, however, tend’ to strengthen confidence in the German'’s alleged discovery that other independent observers had reached somewhat similar conclusions. But there is another and a much stronger reason for supposing that the new claims may have some validity. Thus, it is well known that certain bac- teria will go on producing their kind by the splitting up of each individual to form two, continuing this process over and over so long as an abundance of food is supplied and the temperature is uniform; but that when food be- comes scarce or the temperature unfa- vorable (in other words, when nutri- tion is interfered with), at once this form of reproduction ceases, and each cell, instead of dividing to form two, develops within itself a colony of off- spring in the form of spores, which can rest indefinitely before going on to de- velopment. Here it would be too much, perhaps, to say that sex is involved; yet, beyond question, the spores are a different order of offspring from the ones ordinarily produced by division. A more unequivocal example of a similar kind is~ furnished by the aphides or plant lice. The female of this interesting species may, and us- ally does, produce a series of off- spring all of one sex throughout almost her entire life; and only toward the approach of winter, when food begins to be scarce, does she produce offspring of the other sex. Here, clearly, the influence of nutrition in determining sex is unequivocal. There is an impression abroad that the case of the bee is another instance in point, but this is a mistake. It is quite true that the worker bees may by forced feeding determine that a certain larva shall become a queen, whereas without such forced breading that larva would have been merely a worker; but it is also true that all worker bees are of the female sex. They are simple abortive queens; the males of the hives being drones. Yet the case of the bee has its importance in this ccrnection after all, for the worker bee, even though a female, is incapabie of producing offspring unless put through the course of forced feed- ing while in the larval state, that wiil alcne develop her into a queen. In all these cases of real or alleged predetermination of sex, it will be ob- served, the flnal settlement of the question for each particular individual is supposed to be effected immediately on the union of the male and female elements, giving vitality to the new organism. It is an open question, however, whether such final determina- tion of sex really takes place so early. There are biologists who hold that in it3 earliest stages the organism is with- out sex, or, perhaps better, that it ls bi-sexual. But when one reflects that al! the potentialities of the male par- ent have been transmitted through the germ cell, it is difficult to believe that any fortuitous later occurrences can change the sex of the offspring. In such a case as that of the fish, where the germ cell finds the egg cell at the bottom of a river, and where neither parent afterward comes near the developing young, one can hardly doubt that the sex is determined by the balance of vitalities of each pair of germ cells and ova, at the moment of' their union, and not by any subsequent' vicissitudes. And if this be true of the fish, such is the harmony of vital ac- tion throughout nature, one cannot doubt that it holds equally true of every other organism. So clear does this seem that one feels that Professor Schenck must be misunderstood in those reports which have stated that he bases his claims on the nutrition of the female after conception. If Lis theory has any validity at all it must surely be based on the vitality supplied the germ cells and egg cells by the nutrition of the parents, prior to con- ception, not afterward. ‘Without entering into-exhaustive dis- cussion of the matter, it may not be amiss to call attention to one familiar feature regarding the average sex of large masses of population, which the new theory of sex in some measure ex- plains. It is well known to statisticians that during times of war the average percentage of male births inercacsg among the warring nations. During the half decade, 1860-65, for example, more than the proportionate number of boys were born in the United States. The theory that nutrition influences sex would explain this as due to the fact that, on an average, the fathers of the country were more reduced in physical vitality by the physical vicis- N7 NS & ) -