It was during the dessert course. been sitting next to her for the last hour and a half and was deeply conscious of the beautiful contour of her arms and shoulders.

"Do you know," she said suddenly, "I've been in misery for a week. Sometimes I could almost scream with pain."

"Why, what's the matter?" he exclaimed sympathetically.

"I was vaccinated last week and it has taken dreadfully."

An old South Carolina darky was sent to the city hospital.

Upon his arrival he was placed in the ward and one of the nurses put a thermometer in his mouth to take his temperature. Presently, when the doctor made the rounds, he said: "Well, my man, how do you feel?"

"I feels right tol'ble, sar."

"Have you had anything to eat?" "Yassar."

"What did you have?"

"A lady done gimme a piece of glass ter

suck, sar."-The Reader Magazine.

Truthful Johnny

GUEST-Ah, Mrs. Blank, I seldom get as good a dinner as this.

LITTLE JOHNNY-Neither do we.

The Scientific Spirit

ANDREW CARNEGIE admires the scientific spirit-his generous gifts to science are a proof of that. Nevertheless to his keen humor this spirit offers itself as a good prey, and Mr. Carnegie often rails wittily at scientists and their peculiar ways.

"The late-the late-but I won't mention the poor fellow's name," said Mr. Carnegie at a scientists' supper. "The late Blank, as he lay on his deathbed, was greeted very joyously one morning by his physician.

"Poor Blank's eyes lit up with hope at sight of the physician's beaming face. There had been a consultation on his case the day before. Perhaps, at last, the remedy to cure him had been found.

"My dear Mr. Blank,' said the physician, 'I congratulate you.'

"Blank smiled.

A Misunderstanding

WILBUR J. CARR, of the State Department, had occasion to call at the house of a neighbor late at night. He rang the door bell. After a long wait a head was poked out of a second-floor window.

"Who's there?" asked a voice. "Mr. Carr," was the reply.

"Well," said the voice as the window banged shut, "what do I care if you missed a car? Why don't you walk and not wake up people to tell them about it?" - New York World.

"H'm!" murmured the city boarder. "Here is a chance to buy some current literature. Guess I'll go in."

Entering, he found the old storekeeper sitting on a herring keg puffing a corncob.

"Where are your books?" asked the city boarder.

"What books, stranger?" drawled the storekeeper.

"Why, the 'six best sellers.'"

"Ha, ha! Them ain't books, mister." "Not books?"

"No, sir. My 'six best sellers' are soap, sugar, suspenders, salt, socks and shoes. What can I wrap you up of each ?"-Chicago News.

His By Right of Discovery

A London cabby, on looking into his cab to see that all was in perfect order, discovered a dead cat on one of the seats. In his anger and rage he was about to throw the carcass into the street, when he espied a police-constable, and the following dialogue took place:

CONSTABLE "What are you up to, there?" CABBY (holding up the carcass)-"This is how I am insulted. What am I to do with it?" CONSTABLE "Surely you know what to do with it. Take it straight to Scotland Yard, and if it is not claimed within three months it becomes your property."-Tit-Bits.

MONSTER hydraulic crane has recently been erected on the jetty of Elswick, England, for putting heavy loads such as guns, armor, engines, boilers, etc., on board ships that are being fitted out. It is capable of dealing with weights up to one hundred and fifty tons at a radius of ninety-nine feet, and with lighter loads up to twenty-five tons at a radius of one hundred and seventeen

feet. The range in lifting is through a height of one hundred feet, and the range in turning is unlimited. The crane, which is carried on piles, is mounted on a steel pedestal with an archway through it, so that the traffic on the jetty is uninterrupted. The crane revolves on a roller path on the pedestal and is of the jib pattern, with hydraulic luffing machinery, this type of crane being convenient for use in fitting out vessels, as the luffing gear enables the heavy loads to be put

on board without risk of fouling rigging, etc. The main lifting purchase is worked by two sets of two hydraulic cylinders so arranged that each set can be worked independently of the other, each set giving a lifting power of seventyfive tons, or, working together, giving a lifting power of one hundred and fifty tons, as stated. An independent purchase is also provided for light loads up to twenty-five tons. The buffer motion of the jib is obtained from an hydraulic cylinder placed in an inclined position at the upper part of the post and at the back. This cylinder acts on a cross-head, coupling the inner ends of the tierods, and forces it downwards along inclined slides, thus raising the end of the jib. The crane was put into service by lifting the mounting of a twelve-inch gun for the new English battleship Lord Nelson, on board of a vessel lying alongside, the ceremony being witnessed by a large

graph the gunhouse is shown suspended above the river ready to be lowered. It is curious to notice how small and insignificant the gunhouse looks in the grasp of the crane, yet it is a huge

these heavy gun mountings which used to take two days, will now be accomplished in twenty minutes. The crane may be said to represent the latest word in hydraulic engineering.

JOW does steam run a locomotive?"

This was the question asked recently by an intelligent man who is doubtless better informed than the average but who has not been educated along technical lines. It probably expresses the condition of ignorance in the minds of many, who have been accustomed to accept the locomotive simply as a fact without inquiring into its construction or the principle upon which it operates.

De

The locomotive belongs to the type of steam engine called the reciprocating. The reciprocating engine is one in which the steam acts upon a piston within a cylinder, as distinguished from the turbine engine, in which the steam acts upon a paddle-wheel or a series of such wheels, as water acts upon an oldfashioned water-wheel. The ordinary, familiar form of locomotive has three principal parts, the fire-box, the boiler and the cylinders, as its means of creating, controlling and using steam. scribed in simplest terms, the boiler and fire-box convert water into steam exactly as the kitchen fire and the tea-kettle, in any home, perform the same operation. As the steam forms and reaches high pressure, it mounts into the top of the boiler and the steam-dome, that steel, rotunda-like affair everyone has noticed on top of an engine's boiler, usually placed back of the bell, close to the front of the cab and surmounted by the safetyvalve and the whistle. In this steamdome is located a double valve, called the

throttle, which is controlled from the cab by means of a lever to which the engineer usually devotes his left hand as he sits upon the right side of the cab. When the throttle is opened it allows the steam to rush into a pipe which leads forward within the boiler into the smoke-arch, that portion of the main body of the machine which lies directly beneath the stack, where it divides into two separate pipes. Each one of these pipes leads to a steam-chest, a square box-like structure of steel surmounting the cylinder. The cylinders are placed at the right and left sides of the locomotive, low down and in front of the driving-wheels.

Within the cylinder is the piston, a disk of steel slightly smaller than the bore of the cylinder but furnished with one or more rings set upon its edge, encircling its circumference, to make it a close fit in the cylinder. To this disk or piston is attached a rod called the piston-rod, which passes out through the center of the cylinder-head and which by means of intervening mechanism operates the driving-wheels of the engine. Opening from the steam-chest into the cylinder are two vents or ports, through which the steam flows to operate the piston. A valve of peculiar form controls the action of the steam at this point. A cross section of it would look not unlike the cross section of a straw hat, and it is arranged to slide to and fro upon its "brim" so as to cover and then uncover the ports of the cylinder alternately. When the valve slides forward to the limit of its stroke, the rear portion of its "brim" reaches a point between the two cylinder ports, so that its

hat-like valve-which has an opening connected direct with the smoke-stack of the engine and thence with the open air -allows the steam which has been used on the forward side of the piston to escape. The escape of the used steam through the port under the "crown" of our "hat-valve" is called the exhaust, and it is this which causes the hoarse belching of a locomotive, so noticeable when it first starts to draw a heavy load. It is directed through the smoke-stack for the purpose of creating an artificial draft for the fire below, so that it may be kept at its hottest.

As the valve slides back, the rear port is first covered by the rear "brim" and then goes under the "crown" of the "hat," and thus first, that end of the cylinder is shut off from the boiler steam and then its used steam is exhausted into the stack. Simultaneously, of course, the forward brim of the hat-valve slides back across the forward port, first covering it, then uncovering it to the flow of the boiler steam. In this manner the sliding valve sends steam alternately through the two ports, pushing the pis

governs the steam supply and exhaust in the cylinder is itself controlled by a valve-steam or rod, which is worked, in turn, by the upper part of a rocker, as it is called. This rocker is a steel rod hung on a pivot at its center and oscillating thereon like a teeter-board on a stump, except that the motion is forward and back instead of up and down. The lower part of this rocker is influenced by what are styled eccentrics. An eccentric is nothing more nor less than a crank of odd form. A disk of steel is bored at a point one side of its center and fastened at this bore upon the axle inside of the front drive-wheels. A ring or strap of steel surrounds this disk and to this ring is attached the rod which influences the rocker. As the axle turns, the disk revolves around it and carries the ring with it, thus acting exactly like a crank on the rocker-rod.

Two eccentrics, one for forward movement and the other for backward movement of the engine, influence each rocker, and, in order that the forward and backward movements may be under control of the engineer, the rocker rods are not