Arctic regions, finding at Spitzbergen, also in Greenland and that neighborhood, fossils of animals and plants which live only in temperate and sub-tropical climates. For instance, they unearthed swamp cypress now found in Texas; sequoias, those giant trees now found only in California; limes, oaks and even magnolias. Remains of a lizard were also found. These were creatures demanding much more heat and light than the polar regions afford. Then, in connection with these finds, was taken into consideration the fact that a part of our zone was once under glacial ice.

That the climate of Greenland and Spitzbergen must have been, at some past geologic age, like that of present Egypt and the Canary Islands, was the opinion announced by Prof. Oswald Heer, the great Swiss naturalist, director of the botanical gardens at Zurich. Lord Kelvin has also been led into the discussion, and has stated that while there probably have been no sudden and violent convulsions, causing the earth to shift its torrid regions toward the poles-it is highly probable that the earth's axis of rotation may have gradually shifted forty or more degrees since ancient times. Prof. G. H. Darwin has also figured that the poles might have shifted three degrees as a

result of the continents and oceans changing places, or from ten to fifteen degrees as a consequence of earthquake changes.

That electricity conducted to earth through interplanetary space might become sufficiently strong to make Earth strive to revolve upon its magnetic rather than its geographic poles, and thus produce a pull from its prescribed axles, has been suggested by Prof. Arthur Shuster, before the British Association.

That small shiftings and wobblings may result from a slipping of the outer shell of the earth's crust is thought probable by Dr. Charles L. Doolittle, professor of astronomy, University of Pennsylvania. That such movements of the poles have taken place in connection with mountain upheavals is undoubtedly true, and probably are still going on, in his opinion. He and four other astronomers have estimated changes in the latitude of Washington, Paris and other cities during the present century.

In the midst of this theorizing the systematic observations at Washington were commenced and the chain of observations about the earth was later established. The co-operating observatories were placed as near as possible to the parallel of 39 degrees 8 minutes north,

taken as a base line. Just as the pole star hovers always above the north pole - or where that point should be were it to stand still-there are other fixed stars hovering over our heads at night.

Upon certain of these fixed stars the instruments are focused nightly in Japan, Turkestan and the United States. There are certain paths straight through the heavens, which these fixed stars should appear to take were earth steady at the poles. But just as much as they stagger along the path, just that much the poles are wobbling. It seems a curious thing that the poles which have become proverbial in their stability should after all be as mutable as anything else of this fleeting world. The poet has eulogized the north star for its constancy; and the poles have received a goodly share of reflected honor. Yet the axles of

the earth may be said to be loose, just as the axles of a teamster's wagon are. No apter term than wobbling could possibly be found for this curious phenomenon.

But what has been learned at the stations in the northern hemisphere? There measurements are tabulated with infinite care and submitted annually to a sort of clearing house in Berlin, where they are averaged up and reduced to a technical chart by the learned astronomer, Professor Albrecht. The figures thus far indicate that although the north pole is undergoing periodic wobblings, no steady, progressive changes of position are taking place in one general direction. Were a pencil attached to the pole so that it could write its record upon a fixed sheet of white sky above it, an irregular, spiral-like tangle would be traced. This

proves that, thus far, the pole after traveling in one direction, sweeps around and returns by an opposite route.

Its movement is very slow. It has never been observed to travel more than four feet in a week. Sometimes it has required more than a month to cover a yard. In six months it has described an irregular, semi-circle more than sixty feet in diameter. While it is known that a point which is the north pole today will not be the north pole tomorrow, no one can predict where this nomadic spot -the great magnet of the explorer-will be the next day, the next hour, the next year. The Arctic surveyor might insert his chain pin at the point which today marks the exact pole. But, like some living thing, this hypothetical dot on earth's crust will be crawling away from

him the while he is doing this thing. After describing its irregular sixtyfoot circle it lately passed within about a foot of the charted pole. Afterward it wandered about aimlessly, in a somewhat spiral path, sweeping further and further outward. It now seems to be completing its ragged circle, about the pole of the maps every four hundred and thirty days. The same antics are, of course, daily being performed by our every point of latitude. Examination of data collected before the chain of observatories was es

N the effort to save labor, the most wonderful mechanical devices constantly are being invented; so wonderful that many of them seem actually to perform the human operation of thinking. It probably is a safe statement that nine-tenths of the world's work today is done by machinery.

When, recently, one of the great railroads which has terminals fronting New York harbor, introduced a new boatloading machine by which a carload of coal is turned bottom-upward and dumped into a barge, there was much discussion as to what would become of the 4,500 workmen who were displaced by the new contrivance. What, for that matter, it might be asked, has become of the hundreds of billion of workmen whom all the machinery of the world has "displaced." Of course they have never existed, for no number of human laborers could do what machinery does. When a new device is invented which performs the work of a hundred or more human hands the human hands are released for other effort. So the world jogs along, merrily or sadly, and the more "brains" its progressively improving machinery displays the more it waxes in cumulative wealth.

Manual labor is not displaced by the machine which almost thinks; it merely is directed into other channels, and more new things are made.

As to whether the work

man should not have a greater share in the fruits of his machine-helped labor is-but that is getting into economics, and this a technical magazine.

Quite apart from all the popularly well known mechanical marvels which in their operation seem endowed with human intelligence, there are in existence to-day hundreds of contrivances of which the average person scarcely has any idea, which do almost everything that a man. can do. That they are the product of the human brain and require a human operator to set them in motion are the only respects in which the human superiority asserts itself.

To give a technical description of allthese machines would be quite impossible within the limits of a magazine article. All that can be done will be to describe the operations which they perform and, in a general way, to indicate how they do it. Almost every possible operation is included in the list. There are ma

THE TELEGRAPHONE.

sheets of steel.

chines which chop and pile wood, machines which light fires automatically; machines which decorate and mark crockery, measure the speed of bicycles, automobiles and locomotives; machines which print, punch and sell railroad tickets; machines which sort, count and wrap up coins; which take the place of human brains in counting houses, insurance offices and observatories.

Of all these wonderful contrivances perhaps the typewriter and its variations play the largest part. It is now possible for any person who can operate a typewriter to send a telegraphic message as well as the skilled telegraph operator who works the key. By simply striking

TIME REGISTER.

Keeps tab on comings and goings of employees.

cach typewriter letter the machine makes the necessary telegraphic dots and dashes. It is impossible to make a mistake except by striking the wrong letter. The receiving instrument records the message automatically. The typewriter telegraph will greatly simplify the business of the telegraph companies, and will almost mean a revolution in telegraphy.

The typewriter also is, by a new invention, capable of being operated by electricity. It has heretofore been necessary to depress the keys of the machine suffi

THE MULTIGRAPH.

Reproduces fac-similes of letters in quantity.

ciently to throw the type-bar against the inking ribbon, and leave its impression on the paper, this action releasing a universal bar, which allows the carriage to move forward one space as each letter is printed. This can now be done by the aid of the electric current. Each rod is connected with a small electro-magnet, and as soon as the current enters the coil its corresponding rod is thrown forward, just far enough to hook the lower end of it beneath the edge of the central disk. Just as this connection is made the passage of the electric current through another electromagnet depresses the disk, pulling the rod down and striking the type space on the paper as though it were done by the depression of the key with a finger. To

form the connection between the individual magnets and the operating mechanism, the writer wears a set of metallic thimbles on the fingers, which are wired to the source of the electric current. The instant connection is made

EMPLOYEES ARE ON TIME WHERE THIS IS USED.