rent referred to, it also supplies a portion of the power for the St. Louis street-car system, representing a load of about 2,000 horse-power. The gradual increase in the intensity of the light is effected in the following manner :-Connected with the generating unit is a rheostat for absorbing current created by the exciter designed for the generator. To the rheostat is attached an arm provided with copper segments. The arm is operated by a small individual motor, and, by means of the segments, cuts out by degrees the resistance of the rheostat, the elimination of the resistance being so gradual that the time which elapses from the first turning on of the current until the illumination is complete, usually represents several minutes. This plant has attracted much attention not only by reason of its high percentage of efficiency, but also because of its ability to perform such heavy service without the necessity of shutting down for repairs. But two men are needed to look after the entire mechanism. Considering its power, the plant occupies a comparatively limited space, and demonstrates the advantage of installing such units with as great an elevation as possible. Sculpture by Photography Mechanical Process of Producing Plastic Reliefs by Aid of the Photographic Lens A By DR. ALFRED GRADENWITZ N interesting process for producing photographically the plastic shape of objects has been invented by Signor Carlo Baese, of Florence, Italy. Though many attempts have already been made in the way of producing statues with the aid of photography, all the processes so far designed necessitated a high amount of skill on the part of the operator, leaving to the photographic process itself only a secondary part. In the Baese process, the swelling properties of chromium gelatine are made use of. This substance is known to lose more or less its power of swelling, according to the intensity of illumination to which it is exposed, so that the different shades of a photographic negative will be reproduced in relief upon a layer of the gelatine if this be printed beneath the negative. The only drawback is the fact that the transparency of a negative is by no means proportional to the relief of the model, but depends on a multitude of other factors as well. Aside from the colors of the model, which play an important part, there is, for example, the actual distribution of the light, which is not without its influence. This difficulty, however, has been eliminated in a most ingenious way. The model is illuminated by means of a projection lamp, the light rays striking it at right angles to the direction in which the photograph is to be taken. By means of a light filter, the light from the projection lamp is graded so that the illumination decreases in intensity gradually from left to right, the model being illuminated so as to have the BAS-RELIEF SCULPTURED BY AID OF PHOTOGRAPHY. foremost part struck by the brightest and the back parts by the darkest portions. This gradation of light is, however, so modified by the different inclination of the surfaces on which it is distributed, as to be hardly recognizable with the photographic camera. A view obtained with a similar illumination, therefore, will by no means reproduce the most salient portions as the most opaque; neither would this result be obtained if the model were uniformly illuminated with white light. The coloring of the model, as a matter of course, would also have its influence in affecting the image produced upon the plate, which will thus receive values quite independent of the height of the points in question. If, after exposure of the first plate, the gradation filter in the projection lamp is inverted, so as to have the most transparent portions replaced by the darkest, and vice versâ, the luminous intensity on the model will augment from the front toward the back. After a second exposure is made with this new illumination, further views will be necessary. no The transposition of the plate and the light filters is effected automatically by shifting a slide, both exposures thus being readily made within one second. After the plates are developed and superposed, the gradation is seen to be compensated for almost entirely, while the coloring of the model is visible, in the same way, on both views. Now, if one of the views is printed as a diapositive, inverting the color effects, and superposed on the other negative, a composite figure will be produced which accurately corresponds to the conditions above outlined. In fact, any projecting parts in the model will be most strongly covered, while the back parts are represented by the most transparent portions, regardless of the color of the original. The height of relief may be adjusted by means of a relief copying machine. Work is the one cure for worry. ¶ Life's great opportunities are never labeled. A soft snap has a hard catch in it somewhere. Few married women read fairy tales-but they hear a lot of them. Natural genius consists of 2% of talent and 98% of application. Men who are always on the make never make much of anything. The best way to keep people from getting onto your curves is to be perfectly straight. Some automobiles are called runabouts, and others should be known as stopabouts. It is easier to name a brand of cigars after a great man than it is to induce him to smoke them. The man who has the stamp of genius on his brow usually has the gloss of it on his garments. Lighting the Highways of the Sea REAR-ADMIRAL HANFORD'S ar ticle on the Lighthouse Establishment, which opens this number of THE TECHNICAL WORLD, besides revealing interesting facts concerning the lighthouse keeper's life, shows us what wonderful improvements in navigation have been made of late years through the efficient system of aids to commerce maintained at the expense of the Government. It is gratifying to know that Uncle Sam is one of the foremost in this most helpful line of work. What a difference between the present conditions on the water and those that formerly prevailed. Once the sea was like a dense forest through which the explorer had to grope his way in darkness. Now the traversed roads of the ocean are like a city's streets in comparison. Lights beaming from every important point of land explain to the mariner his exact location, no matter how dark the night or how far he be from his native shore. There is little chance of his straying far out of the way before he encounters one of these lights, the flashing of which he is sure to understand. They are guide hands of the deep that point the way aright under all conditions. Industrial Training of despite his apparent laziness, must be Indians TRAINING the Indian in the industrial arts so that he may occupy a position with the white man and woman in the shops and factories, is a commendable undertaking by the United States. Several institutions for this purpose have been established, the most noted of which is at Carlisle, Pa., where the Indian boys and girls who have completed the courses of training prescribed have shown high ability and have been able to compete with skilled white labor. Many "Americans" condemn the policy of the Government in taking so much. pains with the aboriginese-supporting them in the reservations and educating their children in well-equipped schoolsfor which the Indian gives little or nothing in return. Of course it would be better if the Indian in general manifested more progressiveness, and if our task of civilizing him were less laborious. But the policy we are pursuing is the only one that will prevent the Indian from becoming extinct. He has well paid for all the expense we have assumed in his behalf, for all our country once belonged to him. The Indian was truly a child of the forest. He never knew what working for a stipend was until the white. man with his lordly and servile ways invaded his domain. He never saw inside a factory; and such a thing as a person having to toil all the day to earn a livelihood, was to him the life of a slave. He was used to roaming the woods and living off his prey, even as did the free birds of the air and the wild animals of the plains and forests. He or his ancestors knew not the meaning of toil, of servile labor; and to teach it to him now is like trying to work a lion to harness or make a barn fowl of an eagle. It will probably be generations before the Indian's spirit is subdued; before he will be content to abandon the charming excitements of the chase for the humdrum routine of the shop and the office. To force him to such work now, is suicidal. He cannot endure the confinement or restraint. He pines away and dies, even as many wild beasts find certain death in imprisonment. So the Indian, nursed and cared for tenderly if we wish to retain him amongst us. Despite his odd characteristics-most of which are faults in our eyes-we cannot help respecting the Indian. He absolutely refuses to be a slave, choosing death in preference every time. He will hold no servile position. He is proud of spirit, high-minded in most respects, brave in battle, and adventurous of disposition. It might even be claimed that the commingling of his blood, through miscegenation, with that of the white race would be beneficial to the inhabitants of the United States, and we should thereby be further removed from the ultimate degeneracy that has destroyed the Persian, the Macedonian, the Greek, and the Roman; that is now weakening the Spaniard and the Frenchman; and that has laid its hand upon the Englishman. The farther away from primitive virility a race may venture, the nearer it is to its doom. Therefore America is helping the present and aboriginal Americans by training and caring for the Indians, that their free-born lives may not be snuffed out by the very presence of a blighting civilization. Warships to Maintain BATTLESHIPS, Battleships, Battle- termined that no other nation on earth shall possess more battleships than she. She understands both the weakness and the strength of her isolation, and realizes that her very life-blood depends upon maintaining intact against any probable or possible coalition her imperial "first line of defense." Apropos of the alleged peaceful motives that underlie all this increase in armaments in which the nations are vying with one another, Bishop Foss tells the story of an Irish priest who did not credit the peace-maintaining story, and who wanted less money spent for battleships and more for brains-that is, less for army and navy appropriations and more for schools. A bill to appropriate $36,000,000 for battleships, and $12,000,000 for schools, was under discussion. "Friends," said the priest, "consider this proposal. Its absurdity is evident. For education, twelve million dollars; for warfare, thirty-six million dollars. That is to say-twelve million dollars for putting brains in, and thirty-six million dollars for blowing them out." How to Get a Patent "HOW to get a patent!" That is in formation everybody ought to have. Every person during his lifetime is liable to think of something worth patenting. Maybe there is "big money" in it, even if it be a little thing, for little things have often been the basis of great fortunes. Perhaps an idea is worth working out and patenting, but, because the person who conceived it did not know how to get a patent, he did not take the trouble to go any further, and the idea was lost forever. Thousands of ideas that would have been of inestimable value to humanity in general, have died with the brains that conceived them. "Getting patents" has made America great. Americans are the most notorious inventors on earth; and if it had not been for the innate hankering that possesses every typical Yankee, to learn a quicker and better way to do a thing, this nation and the world would now be a hundred years behind the times; thousands of people now living in luxury would be in poverty; and one of the United States' greatest institutions-the Patent Officewould be of secondary importance. We should probably still be traveling along the streets in horse-cars. After inventing electric railways and introducing them to England, Americans have had to go over there and build electric lines and subterranean tubes. We might still be plodding along over the country in rickety cars on wooden rails, pulled by an eight-miles-an-hour steam engine, if America hadn't shown the world how to build a real locomotive. The Old World might still be content to wait for ships to bring letters across the ocean, if America hadn't shown the world how to transmit messages by wire and builded telegraph lines and cables. Europeans, in fact, would scarcely believe it when told people could talk over the wire, until the American telephone was actually established in their midst. Electric lights, the phonograph, moving pictures, electric signals, and a thousand other electrical devices owe their origin to Americans. A thousand steam machines and appliances of Yankee conception have advanced the commerce of the world. We cut down the trees of the wilderness, cleared the land, and then invented farming implements to till the soil, sow and cultivate the crop, and reap the harvest, all of which have revealed to Europe the correct methods of farming. Europe has not yet learned to build the great American modern steel structure that is making American cities the greatest and most imposing of the earth. In mining, smelting, handling, and shipping ores; in packing, canning, bottling; in manufacturing of nearly every class, we have showed the world the quick and economical way to do things. A New American Industry "CUT GLASS is as superior to the pressed and acid-treated material as iron wrought by hand is superior to the machine-made articles of the same metal." |