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scientificamerican.com/magazine/saAPRILthe dirigible [ see illustration ]
is destined to be the carrier of
passengers and goods over long
routes, in competition with the
intercontinental steamers.”(^1869)
Meat on Ice
“A new invention,
in the shape of machinery for
making ice and performing the
refrigerating process, was tested
on board the ship William Taber,
lying at the foot of Nineteenth
Street, East River, New York City,
in the presence of a number of sci
entific and mechanical gentlemen,
to whom invitations had been
extended. The ship has been thor
oughly fitted with this new appa
ratus for the preservation, during
transportation, of fresh beef and
other perishable food for a long
period, and she will sail for Texas
some day next week. The two
great principles in the mechanism
of the affair seem to be, first, the
application of pumps to the lique
faction of carbonic acid [carbon
dioxide] gas; and second, the
remaking of it into gas over and
over again ad infinitum.”
the ship failed to make its delivery.
The date of the first successful refriger-
ated ship voyage is usually given as 1877.
High Fashion in Toys
“Not the least interesting of the
English reports on the French
Exhibition is on toys. The chief
French toy is a doll, not a repre
sentation of an infant for a child
to fondle, but a model of a lady
attired in the height of fashion,
a leading manufacturer changing
the costume every month to en
sure accuracy. As an excuse for
this apparently early inoculation
of childhood with a love for finery,
it is explained that these dolls
serve as models to colonial and
other extraParisian milliners
before they are handed over to
their children. French dolls, un
like our waxfaced natives, have
china heads.”
knapper can turn out 500 pounds
of blades a day from locally quar
ried nodules of flint.”
New agricultural machinery made
this craft obsolete in the 1980s.
(^1919)
Airships
for Travel
“The substitution of helium for
hydrogen, which is one of Ameri
ca’s contributions to military avia
tion, removes one of the greatest
prejudices against the lighter
thanair craft. For now that heli
um gas, which is noninflammable,
is used in place of explosive hydro
gen, there is no further need to
think of conflagration during
flight or on the ground. Engines
can be placed anywhere, and so
can the galley and stoves and
heating plant, since the dirigible
is no longer a huge explosive
charge held in a silk bag, ready to
burst into flames at the slightest
spark. Frankly, the airplane as a
commercial proposition is today
but a poor second to the dirigible.
The airplane is to be the competi
tor of the fast railroad train, while
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN,
VOL. CXX, NO. 16; APRIL 19, 1919
(^1969)
Trans urani um
Elements
“Up to 1963 the rate of discovery
of transuranium elements had
been high. Each step forward has
required more and more complex
apparatus and methods to increase
the number of protons in the nucle
us, while at the same time the sta
bility of the nuclei produced has
decreased, making them difficult
to observe and identify. Nonethe
less, heavy synthetic elements are
a subject of livelier interest than
ever because of advances in the
theory of nuclear stability, which
have given rise to the possibility
of synthetic elements beyond the
dreams of early workers in the
field. Concurrently great progress
has been made in manufacturing
in quantity the unstable elements
through element 98, in enlarging
knowledge of their properties and
in finding worthwhile applications
for them.—Glenn T. Seaborg and
Justin L. Bloom”
Seaborg shared the 1951 Nobel Prize
in Chemistry for his work in this field.
Knappers at Work
“The only living men who make
tools by flaking flint are usually
believed to be a few primitive
tribesmen who still follow the
customs of their forebears and
a handful of specialized craftsmen
who fashion the flints needed for
surviving flintlock firearms. Dur
ing recent archaeological work
in Turkey, Jacques Bordaz of the
University of Montreal found this
belief to be in error: flintknap
pers in the Turkish village of
Çakmak produce 500 tons of flint
blades every year, enough to pro
vide fresh cutting edges for all the
threshing sledges in rural Turkey.
Turkish wheatgrowers like to sep
arate the grain from the stalk by
dragging a sledge over sheaves
spread on a threshing floor. Each
sledge has 600 to 800 blades of
flint, a little less than two inches
long, set on edge in a slot. Each
1919: Elegant dirigibles are the hope for air travel to come.
Pas sengers relax in the stern observation salon of an airship
crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
1969
1919
1869