The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, January 8, 1904, Page 8

INSTRUCTIVE JSTUDIES N AND N i | | 2cquaintea with | trial” ! lower deck. le flight at Kit- | 17 Jast aerial | The box carried 2 as under per- held sus- oon. Santos- merely steer- uto of the fiving on its fiight, on d move- ch ne the accomplish- balloonist rs’ tri- onautical Herr Otto who made over 2000 flights | he was killed; a| named Pil-! one ociety befor time | of | attention of He and experiment Orville joined tests were SO 1900 they carried ving machines to | beach on the ics. Carolina, and it was th demonstrated their ability n to soar, but to manage their | nd to a limited degree con- | e flight They had ascertained | tha ties which obstructed | to success in flying ma- ruction were those which e construction of sustain- | ose which related to the | ation of the| the machine | and those relating to | steering of the ma- | as actually in flight. | began their experiments | men had constructed wings or aero-| planes which when driven through the | t a sufficient speed not only sus- | tained the weight of the wings them- | but also of the engine and en- gineer as well. Fifteen years before the lightest steam motor was the marine engine, which weighed sixty pounds to the horsepower, while the gas engine weighed m and the locomotive weighed 200 pounds to the horsepower. But great improvements effected radi-| cal changes, 0 that when the Dayton 2ir navigators took their huge Kkites to | test the carrying abilities of Atlantic breezes motors had been made | which w but ten pounds to the bhorsepower and gas engines had been cut down to twelve and one-half to fif- teen pounds to the horsepower. g The great problem which the Wright brothers undertook to solve and have solved related to the balancing and steering of the machine after it was actually in flight. In the words of Wil- bur Wrigh This can come only by practice provided the proper machine is constructed.” In an address which Wilbur Wright, in the fall of 1801, made before the Western Society of Engin- eers in Chicago, in which he first pub- licly recounted his experiments, he said: The person who merely watches the flight of a bird gathers the impression that the bird has nothing to think of but the flapping of its wings. As a matter of fact this is a very small part of itz mental labor. To even mention all the things the bird must constantly keep in mind in order to fly securely through the zir would take a consid- erable part of the evening. If I take this piece of paper and after placing it paraliel with the ground quickly let it fall it not settle steadily down as @ staid, sensible piece of paper ought to do, but it insists on contravening every recognized rule of decorum, turn- ing over and darting hither and thither | in the most erratic manner, much after the style of an untrained horse. “Yel this is the style of steed that men must rn to manage before fiy- ing can become an everyday sport. The bird has lezarned this art of equilibrium and learned it so thoroughly that its #kill is not apparent to our sight. We only learn to appreciate it when we try to imitate it. Now there are two ways of learning how to ride a frac- tious horse: One is to get on him and learn by actual practice how each mo- tion and trick may be best met; the other is to =it on a fence and watch the beast awhile, and then retire to the house and at leisure figure out the best way of overcoming his jumps and kicks. The latter system is the safest; but the former on the whole turns out the larger proportion of good riders. It is very much the same in learning how to ride a flying machine. If you are looking for perfect safety you will do well to git on a fence and watch the wi a | made from the top of & sand hill which oz 2 birde, but if you really wish to Xearn; you must mount a machine and become its tricks by actual The first flying machine built by the Wright brothers was a double-decked kite having a surface area of 165 square feet. The operator lay extended on his face crosswise of ¢ the center of the| The rudder was a smaller | aeroplane extending forward in front of the machine; therein the Wright| machine differed radically from others. | The first attempts at “gliding” were rose from the flat sand to a height of | fndred feet. Wilbur Wright, in| ribing the first flights, said: On the day of our arrival the wind | blew about twenty-five miles an hour, and as we had had no experience at all | in gliding we deémed it unsafe to at- tempt to leave the ground. On the day | following, the wind having subsided to fourteen miles per hour, we made about j a dozen glides. It had been the originai | intention that the operator should run | with the machine to obtain initial ve-| locity an@ assume the horizontal posi- | tion only after the machine was in free flight. When it came time to land he | was to resume the upright position and | light on his feet after the style of jpre- vious giiding experimenters. But on actual trial we found it much better to | employ the help of two assistants in starting, which the peculiar form of our | machine enabled us readliy to do, and in landing we found it was entirely | practicable to Jand while still reclining in a horizontal position upon the ma- | chine. Although the landings were made while moving at speed of more | than twenty miles an hour neither ma- | chine nor operator suffered any injury. | > 8- ® ““The siope of the hill was 9.5 degrees, | or a drop of one foot in six. We found | { that aftersatiaining a speed of about | { twenty-five to thirty miles with refer- | ence to the wind or ten to fifteen miles over the ground, the machine not only glided paraliel to the slope of the hill, but greatly increased its speed, thus indicating its ability to glide on a some- what less angle than 9.5 degrees, when | we ‘should feel it safe to rise higher from the surface. The control of the { machine proved even better than we t, responding quick- motion of the rud- | With these glides our experiments | for the year 1500 closed. Although the | | hours and hours of practice we had| hoped to obtain finally dwindled down | to about two minutes, we were very much pleased with the general results of the trip, for setting out as we did, with almost revolutionary theories on many points and an entirely untried form of machine, we considered it quite 2 point to be able to return withour baving our pet theories completely knocked in the head by the hard logic of experience and our own .braips; dashed out in the bargain. Everything | seemed to us to confirm the correctness of our original opinions: First—That practice is the key to the secret of | fiving; second, that it is practicable | to assume the horizontal position; third, that steering up and dewn can be at- | tained with a rudder without movinz | the position of the operator’s body.” oI The experiments of 1900 were so successful that the Ohio air cruisers at once went to work to design a new machine for 1901. They increased the surface area from 165 to 308 square feet. Compare this to the Lilienthal | fiver, which had an area of 157 square feet, the Pilcher machiné with 165 square feet and Chanute’s famous double decker with 134 square feet | and the nerve and audacity of the Wright brothers can be appreciated. | Never before had so large a machine been deemed controllable. = The 1901 flying machine was 22 feet wide, 14 feet long, including the | rudder, and 6 feet high. The machine | was first tested July 27, 1901, in a| wind blowing thirteen miles an hour. | It was without any driving apparatus | for gravity was still the “motor force” | of the experimental aeroplane. The | sequence of experiments disclosed | errors in construction and cufves. | These were corrected and glides ofi | several hundreds of feet in length were made repeatedly. The flying ma- chine was tested with a man aboard in 1 a twenty-two-mile wind—a somewhat reckless proposition considering that[ the navigator had had a practice of | less than five minutes spent in actual | flight. But the control of the machine | was so good that many successful | glides were made. The machine] weighed a trifle over 100 pounds, ori with a man aboard, 245 pounds. Its immense spread of double wings gave it the appearance of a gigantic box | kite when in the air. The framework was trussed to give strength with lit- tle weight, and the operator lay in a framework in the center. This machine was the model for the flying machine, equipped with gasoline moter and propellers, which carried Wilbur Wright three miles in the teeth of an Atlantic gale a few weeks ago. - It seems to be the common thing for airship inventors to insist that they will attain speeds of 100 to 200 miles an hour, provided their airships work. It is interesting to note that Wilbur Wright, the first man to attain me- chanical flight over any considerable distance, is extremely modest in his ideas of flying machine speed. He said to the western engineers: 4 “The probability is that the first flying machines will have a relativély low speed, perhaps not much exceed- ing twenty miles per hour, but the problem of increasing the speed will be much simpler in some respects than that of increasing the speed of a steamboat; for, whereas in the lat- ter case the size of the engine must increase as the cube of the speed, in the flying machine, until extremely high speeds are reached, the capacity of the motor increakes in less than simple ratio, and there is even a de-! crease in the fuel consumption per mile of travel. In other words, to double the speed of a stbamship (and the same is true of the balloon type of airship) eight times the engine and boiler ty would be required, and four times the fuel consumption per mile of travel, while a flying ma- chine would require engines of less than double the size, and there would be an actual decrease in the »al con- sumption per mile of trs "% B, | times. — I THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL | JOHN D. SPRECKELS, Proprietor » - - - . . . - . . Address All Commaunications to JOHN McNAUGHT, Manager mnimo\u@!’hfidmmmsr AN OLNEY CAMPAIGN. HILE it is by no means certaig that Olney will W receive the Democratic nomination for the Presidency, it is evident the boom given him in Massachusetts and New York has made a strong impres- sion upon the country and that Republicin leaders are getting reatly to meet d@n Olney campaign. For a long time past Republican criticism of Democracy has been directed so exclusively against the Bryanites the public has doubtless lost sight of the fact that the position of the gold wing of the party on othér issues is about as weak as that of the silver men on the money question. Consequently the opening of the campaign against i Olney will have something of the charm of novelty and prove interesting for a time at least, on that account on no other. An illustration of the turn given to partisan discussion by the appearance of Olney in the forefront of the fight was {urnished during the debate in the Senate on Tues- day, when Senator Lodge took occasion to reveal some of the weak places in the record on which Olney would kave to make his fight should he be nominated. In the course of his speech, the Senator, after referring to Oilney as a personal friend with whom he never agreed on any political subject, said that Qlney’s commendation of Cleveland had greatly interested him. He then added: “l do not regard the Democratic party as always abounding in good sense, but they had too much sense to fight the campaign of 1806 on Mr. Cleveland’s adminis- tration. They repudiated him and his administration and we are deprived of the opportunity of discussing it. We can say what we want about the silver issue, but it was a better issue for the Democratic party to meet the country on than the one gone before; and when I saw the accounts of this delightful banquet in New York and | read those inspiring’ speeches and observed the Demo- cratic party once more, through its chosen leaders, there preparing to stand across the pathway of American progress and proposing to put at their head the man who held power last in their name, I confess my spirits rose higher than ever about the Republican prospects.” | Of course Senator Lodge knows very well that Cleve- iand is not in the race and will not be renominated. Therefore, when he held up the weakness of the Cleve- land administration, it was done for the purpose of for- mulating charges that Olney will have to meet should he enter the field; for of course he could enter it only as the champion and defender of the bygone Cleveland ad- ministration. Senator Lodge recalls a striking series of blunders on the part of the Cleveland regime. He says: “What a pleasure it would be to contrast the policy which tried to set up Lilinokalani in Hawaii with the policy of the Republican party which has made thpse | islands a part of the United States; to contrast the tariff which they passed. and which their own President called the tariff of perfidy and dishonor, with the tariff we passed; to examine the history of the lgans which they made in a time_of profound peace to the bankers of New York with an interest rate far above what the United States could borrow at even then, and contrast them with the loans which we made in time of war; and then compare that era of panic and depression with the pros- perity that followed.” With such a blast of criticism to start the fray, it is easy to foresee that the nomination of Olney would bring about a revival of the old party war over issues that were dropped when Bryan raised the flag of free silver and Populism.in the Democratic camp and drove the old war horses out of it. The fight would not be bitter, but it would be vigorous; for of course the whole surviving Cleveland old guard would rally behind the Massachusetts man and work like Trojans to beat Bryan's record as a vote getter. Altogether an Olney | campaign would be red hot—a reminder of good old Coroner Leland has undertaken the task of protecting the public from the ignorant cupidity of lodging-house keepers who regulate or suppress the supply of gas to rooms during certain hours. The best way to do this is not to aim at a reformation of the laws of the city, but to establish a reform school for lawmakers. THE NEGUS OUR FRIEND. E have entered into treaty relations with Abys- sinia. The Ethiop will change his skin now with us, as well as with Europe. Heretofore his con- tact with Americans was confined to an awful licking he gave to the Egyptian army led by two American gener- als. But he has forgiven us that ill-starred expedition which Tsmail, Khedive of Egypt, sent against him under American Jeadership. The world has always fought shy of Ethiopia. The Romans never conquered that country. The last Ro- man general, Belisarius, who served Justinian whe Constantinople was the seat of the empire, marched all around the Mediterranean and fought and whipped everybody, but he kept out of Abyssinia, and that land bas remained a mysterious place, where the people are Christians and eat raw beefsteaks cut out of the liying ; cattle, They say that St. John introduced Christianity into Eithiopia and that it exists there in its primitive simpli- city, as it was understood in the time of the apostles, and without any of the modern improvements whatever. The Negus rules, and his people live, according to the Christian precept as it was understood in the days of Caesar, and without any ecclesiastical establishment or ponderous machinery. There is also religious equality in Abyssinia and there is no record, known to the out- side world, of religious persecution there. Of course, this shows the people to be horribly backward, and sunk in simplicity, without even displaying that zeal that shines in a heresy trial. We are glad to give any information at hand concern- ing our new great and good friend Menelik and his country. We fear that he does not indulge in the luxury of foreign ministers, so we may not hope to see the jewel of diplomacy in an Ethiop’s ear at Washington. The foreign policy of the Negus is simplicity itself Foreigners who enter his country in friendship are wel- comed as friends and treated to raw beef; but those who come as enemies are met and whipped, as he whipped the Egyptians and Italians. 5 We are not informed as to the articles of commerce we may expect to find there in exchange for what we mdy sell under the new treaty. The Negus himself was | delightfully robust in the gifts to our Embassador for the President, for they were a pair of lions and a couple of elephant tusks. It is lucky that he did not reverse the order and send a pair of elephants and 2 couple of lion’s 4 of vituperating him. |position and promised to see what he could do in the i way of scratching together some exhibits to sead on, *ut we beg to assure him that nothing would as well represent his country as himseli. The people would like to see the representative oi a dynasty that has so ‘well* defended ifs realm that Greek, Rofman and Egyptian commanders have looked the other way when passing Abyssinia, and have respected the sign, “Keep off the grass.” A turkey, duly prepared for a San Jose New Year's feast, was found to contain a quantity of gold, and now the county of Santa Clara is diligently searching for a placer mine. It seems like a compensation of fate that during the holiday season particularly this”cherished do- mestic bird should be raised to the dignity of the fabu- lous goose that laid the golden egg. S the Panama matter. He has taken to writing on the subject, and as his gorge rises he puts it in the'papers. It is evident that he has been made aware T MORGAN REFUSES COMFORT. ENATOR Morgan of Alabama is irreconcilabie to support the treaty and help to secure the canal. This leads him to vitriolic indulgence against the President, | whom he attacks for waiting just four yeeks after Colombia rejected the treaty, instead of immediately be- ’xinning to b4rgain with Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Senator Morgan should know that the making of a treaty with those two states during that time was im- possible. He is familiar with their past demands, Since then they have given no evidence of abatement. Nicaragua is in an unstable condition politically and physically. Not only is the government weak, crafty, | avaricious and corrupt, witl indications that renewal of canal negotiations would bring on a revolution, caused by the desire of such robbers as are out of office to get a chance at the swag, but the earthquakef# and volcanoes of last year demonstrated :h:' lack of safety | for a canal across that part of the isthmus. Even if | Panama, the protocols could not have been exchanged, and the President would have been entirely justified in turning again to Panama immediately upon the appear- ance of a chance to outwit the greed and dishonor of Bogota. The people want a canal and so does the President. The treaty made with Panama is as legitimate as any ever made by any nation. It gets more favorable terms than the United States ever dreamed of, and brings in sight a consummation that has been the talk of the world for a hundred and fifty. years. Senator Mbrgan calls it “a strange and frantic usurpation, a national scandal that would disgrace Turkey.” Of course he can choose his own language in describing his own country, but when one remembers his prompt indorsement of the revolu- tion in Hawaii, and his vindication of all its features, and his subsequent participation in annexation of the ;slands, it rouses curiosity to knoifl at just what particu- lar point of time his conscience lost its sea legs and pre- pared to get sick over Panama. The fact is that his reasons are purely personal. For many years he had canal matters in charge. consulted about treaties and his advice was followed, with no resuits. Growing tired of temporizing, Presi- dent McKinley wisely turned from the Morgan canal to Panama, and his successor has projected his policy in that respect. Morgan fought the change. In the last session he spoke for days against a treaty with Colombi}, and fought it with all the weaponry of his experience. He did not like the Spooner bill. He decried the dis-| cretion given to the President and worked himself into | ail sorts of temper. | If he had been the original proponent of Panama, he | | would now be patting the President on the back instead i His motives are original in his | seli-esteem and his pride of position. This is éntirely | well understood by his Southern colleagues, who, like President McKinley, long ago grew tired of waiting for | Morgan to dig a canal by speeches in the Senate. He is a theorist and declaimer. But theory and declamation will not dig a canal. President Roosevelt is a man of | action and he has brought a canal in sight without mak- | ing any entangling alliance, but under conditions of perfect security and independence. The country is with him. Americans, do not believe that their government is lower than Turkey or that it deserves the defamation and abuse which are the last resort of Mr. Morgan. He is in the habit of doing the vial of wrath act, and has thereby injured himself as a| public man. In one aspect his position is serious. He has the vocal giit of unlimited continuance, and will try to talk the long session out, if he is physically equal to it. ! ! To every people except the Japanese it seems evident that in the desperate situation in the Far East Russia is shrewd in her diplomatic playing for time. When the hour comes for her to strike with her monsters Japan is likely to receive her first bitter lesson in the practice of modern war. The Mikado seems to forget that neither his army nor his navy has yet been tested. ——————— The authorities of Chicago, aroused and determined to immediate action by the horror which closed the year in gloom and death, have closed every dance hall in the city as a protection against another fire and more death. San Francisco might do likewise with her dance halls and dives to protect the foolish and the inexperiericed ; against worse than fire or death. —— A wife secured a divorce a few days ago because he'r husband insisted upon keeping a loaded rifle under his | that a considerable number of Southern Senators will | which were held by Mr. Cleveland to be intolerable. | negotiations had been reopened before the revolution in | He was | Strings of Bultons. He is an old gray-bearded gentlema who .can be found at almeost any hour of the day nestled comfortably in one of the leather chairs of a downtown ho- tel. His mind, once one of the most po- tent factors on Change, has now so fa- lost its original acuteness and dar- ing that its penchant for figures and calctlations carries It into paths woe- fully removed from those of finance. Still the instinet for statistical reckon- ings lingers and the results o its pecu- | Har ramificatiaps are interesting. “Did you ever notice how many strokes of the razor a barber uses in shaving you?” remarked the old gentle- man the other day. “Well, it all de- pends upon what kind of a barber he is. If he is ome of these talkative fel- lows whose every move by a sentence he will go as strokes before he begins on the hot towels. On the other hand, i’ he tends strictly to business he will average from 300 to 350 strokes. You can tell whether or not he is of a nervous tem- perament by the kinds of strokes he uses. Look out for the barber who uses | the short, jerky kind, for, his nerves are not what they should be. “Again, how many times will the street car gripman ring his bell in go- ing one block in the downtown district? Say right on Market street from Grant avenue to Stockton street, when the patent bell ringer is not used, the av- erage gripman will strike his bell from 75 t0 100 times in that one short block. “How much work does a lady do in holding up her skirts during two hours’ shopping? Take it that she is walking | two-thirds of that time and her skirts weigh“five pounds. With that one right arm she does enough work in that shopping tour to raise a 100 peund block of granite ten feet in the air. “Say a man has a mustache. If he is especially proud of the contour of the | same, how many times during the day | will he raise hfs hand to lovingly stroke it? Supposing he keeps books. How | many entries a day will he 10sé by that jaction of the hand going up to the mustache? How much will his employ- jer lose in a year by the fact of that i man's wearing the mustache? “Say there are twelve stores within the block which have mirror decora- tions in their show windows. How many of those windows will the aver- | age young woman miss in her journey down that block? If she is at all pret- ty or well dressed she will mot miss more than two.” Navigating a Horse. Captain George Harvey of the Red | Stack towboat line has not always pos- | sessed the skill with reins and whip | which now warrants his being trusted | even with a newly painted buggy. The i story of hifs first ride along the water front has not yet lost itsgpower of pro- moting gayety on that part of the local world. “Take the buggy, George,” Captain Gray had said in sending Harvey on some business that called for expedi- tious attention. Now Harvey had never driven a horse, but was too good a sailor to re- fuse an order and toc proud to admit ignorance of knowledge. All went well until .Harvey's steed had carried him as far as the ferry depot. - Approaching the Market street car tracks, the buggy’s course was sud- denly crossed by a street car. The car stopped. The buggy held on its way. Harvey's right hand went groping into | the corners of the buggy and finding no signal levers there shot above his head in equally fruitless search for the whistle cord. The lines lay limp in his left hand and the horse kept on his way, only stopping when he had poked his head through one window of the car, raked two others and smashed a panel with the shafts of the buggy. “Why the blank d¥dn't you stop?” velled the car crew in unison. Then it was that Harvey found his | shore lezs. “Here’s my card. I'll pay all dam- ages. Don’t give me away and I'll make it all right.” “He's crazy,” said a small boy. “Nc he ain’t,” volunteered another. “He's a sailer.” iving Him Away. Two children of superfluously weaithy families were to be joined in the holy bonds of matrimony. The best of San Francisco’s society had been invited to attend the wedding ceremony and the best of San Francisco's society was there to see at the-appcinted time and place. The prospective husband had traveled an exceedingly rapid pace since he had become of age and was well known in those circles where the day's pleasures begin only when meost people are abed. A lifelorig friend of his had been se- lected to officiate as usher. The chum. a well known wag, was impatiently awaiting the arrival of the wedding party. Suddenly an acquaintance, who was also chafing at the delay, addressed him with the question, ‘Who is going to give the bride away, Jack?” “Her old man,” was the response in such a strenuous stage whisper that many of that well bred audience craned their necks to see what it was all about. Then he added in the same tone and with just the suspicion of a smile on his face: “Lucky for the groom that they pillow after he had retired to the peace and pleasant dreams of the slumber of domesticity. The husband got no more than he deserved. The use of a pistol not a rifie is good form in such cases whether they be for domestic purposes or to repel invader‘s. j —_—— The schobdl exhibit of Honolulu at the St. Louis Exposition, it is promised, will be eminently practical and will reflect instruction in only the essentials of pri- mary education. The school governors of the island shrewdly suspect that whatever they may do in this re- gard they will shine by comparison with other commu- nities more esthetic but less wise. The Piutes of Nevada, &iuqrmbly disposed, have progressed in their unseemly demonstration from a war dance to a scalp dange. It is becoming painfully appar- | ent to the people of the Silver State that the next neces- tusks, for elephants make clumsy baggage, and would | sary step in the proceedings will be extensive funeral cat their heads off getting them here. 3 The roval Ethiop was told all about the St. Louis ex- Ay e services for some of the noble red men of the reserva- tisns ) didn’t select me to give him away, be- cause I am afraid she would stop the festivities before I had told all I know.” It is allezed that there was a brutal exchange of fisticuffs between two gen- tlemen at a swell club the day after the Wedding tour had been completed. Cattle in Texas. turage, practically no expense for hous- ing and the cheapest and best flesh producing feeds; with a home market capable of absorbing the entire home product and a great city of export near the future highway of the world’s com- merce, the stock interests of Texas are certainly entering upon a new era of growth and development, and all of this serves to illustrate ogce more the important truth that the scientific man is also the practical man.—American Monthly Review of Review: A Korean Cinderella. In Korea the people tell a Cinderella story that is much more ancient than that familiar to Western people. The key of the latter story is the slipper. but not so thefrs. Peach Blossom, the Korean CindereHa's name, was the family drudge. One day as the meother was starting off with the favorite daughter to a plenic she said to Peach Blossom: “You must mnot leave until you have hulled a bagful of rice and filled the broken crock with water.” White sitting there bemoaning her hard lot she heard a twittering and a flutter- ing of wings. Looking up she saw a flock of sparrows pecking the hulls off the rice. Before recovering from her surprise a little imp jumped out of the fireplace and so skilifully repaired the crock that but a few minutes of work was required to fill it with water. Then she went to the picnic and had a royal time.—Chicago News. Death of Christ Actor. Josef Mayr, the impersonator of Christ in the Oberammergau passion i play for the last three times it has been given, has died, being somewhat over | 50 years old. Mayr, like those wh have | preceded him in this great personation, | was a worker with his hands in the | carving industries of his village; but | he retained in all his private life the air of consecration and regarded as set apart by virtue of hiv represen- tation of the Savior. His personal ap- pearance was majestic; the symmetsic beauty of his features, framed in long brown. hair. and ecarefully trimmed beard—for he never allowed his beard to grow shaggy—the profound sweet- ness of his deep-set eyes—these all con- tributed to keep before the people of the village the religious purpose and fm- port of their periodical presentation of Mr. the great drama of the world Mayr had repeatedly been Mayor of the village. el Answers to Queries. SHOTGUNS—E. P, City. There is an ordinance on the books of the Su- pervisors of Marin County which pro- hibits the use of repeating shotguns in that county. CASINO—Player, City. In casino the deal is determined by cutting and the player cutting the lowest card must deal. In cutting in that game ace is low. Ties cut over. EDUCATIONAL JOURNALS—O. 3., Bandon, Or. The Northwest Journal of Education is published in San Fran- cisco; the Western School Journal in Topeka, Kans., and the Western Tsach- er in Milwaukee, Wis. THE SHAMROCKS—A. 0. 8, City. The cost of the three Shamrocks which took part in the American cup race was about $200,000 each. Sir Thomas Lipton has never given out the exact figures as to the cost of each vessel. ELECTRICITY—F. L. R, City. In the free public library of this city you will find a number of books on elec- tricity that will give you the process for fusing metal by electricity and will also tell you how to construct an elee- tric furnace. COIN QUESTIONS—OIld Subscriber, and Constant Reader, Oakland, Cal. This department does not answer questions as to the value of coins. Such questions are answered by mail when a self-addressed and stamped envelope accompanies the query. . THE MERCANTILE LIBRARY— Subscriber, City. What was known as Mercantile Libraty concerts, three in number, during which there was a lot- tery drawing for financial aid to the library, were held in the Mechanics' Pavilion on Union Square in the sum- mer of 1870. 3 NEW RIFLE-E. V, City. If you will go to the periodical room of the Free Public Library in this city you will find there in the recent files of the Army and Navy Journal a number of articles on the new service rifle for the United States army, which is destined to supersede the Krag-Jorgenson. CLIPPERTON ISLAND—F. H., City. Clipperton Island, so called, is an atoll or coral reef four miles in circumfer- ence in the Pacific Ocean, 10.13.3 N. and ~ 109.7.30 W., 800 miles due west from Acapulco. In The Call of February 13, 1898, page 21, you will fin . an interest- ing account of a man Jamed n who was the only inhabitant of the atoll for a long time.