Part 80

The blood in our body contains about the same proportion of salt as the water in the ocean normally. When the supply is normal we do not feel that we have too much salt in our systems, but when you take salt into your mouth the percentage of salt in the body is increased, and the being thirsty, or the desire to drink water afterwards is caused by the demand of the human system that the salt be diluted. The system calls for water or something to drink in order that it may counteract the too great percentage of salt in the system. Other things also, when taken into the body in too great a proportion, cause us to become thirsty. Thirst is merely nature’s demand for more water on account of the necessity of reducing the percentage of some substance like salt, or merely a necessity for having more water in the body.

What Are Diamonds Made Of?

We learned the definition of an element in our study of water and other substances. Many things which were at one time thought by our wisest men to be elements were later found to be compounds of other substances. Water is one of these which we have learned is really not an element at all, but compounded from two gaseous elements, hydrogen and oxygen.

One of the most important elements in the world is the one out of which diamonds are formed. Not because diamonds are so valuable, but because the element referred to, carbon, is found in every tissue of every living thing, both animal and mineral. This carbon is one of the most useful of all elements, but is found in and used by living things always in combination with some other substance. Carbon is combustible, forming carbonic acid gas, from which the earth’s vegetation secures its necessary carbon, which is very great in amount.

When heat is made to act in certain ways on the tissues of animal and vegetable life we get charcoal, lampblack and coke. Carbon will combine with more other substances than any of the other known elements. Its wonders lie in the fact that under various treatments it produces altogether different looking things, although remaining as pure carbon. Our diamonds, for instance, are pure carbon, but our lead pencils, that is, the part we write with, are also pure carbon, and the coal we burn is carbon also. It would be hard to say which of these three forms of pure carbon is most valuable to the world. A great many rich people might say diamonds, while the poor people would surely say coal, especially if you asked them in winter, while the people who write books, and newspaper reporters, would probably say lead-pencils. However, it would be better to choose diamonds, for if you have them you can always trade them for coal or lead-pencils. A very small diamond will buy quite a lot of either coal or lead-pencils. Carbon is one of the solid elements which are not metals. A great many of the important elements in the group of solids are metals.

What Causes Dimples?

A dimple is a dent or depression in the skin on a part of the body where the flesh is soft. The fibers which lay in the tissue under the outside skin help to hold the skin firm. These fibers which are, of course, small run in all directions and are of different lengths. Now and then these fibers will just happen to grow short in one spot or the other and pull the skin in, forming a little depression, but producing a very pleasing effect.

Why Does the Dark Cause Fear?

Fear is an instinct. We are by nature afraid of the things we do not know all about. That is why knowledge is so valuable; when we know about a thing we are sure of our ground. When we are where it is light we can see what is there; when it is dark our imagination becomes active and because we do not know for certain what is there in the dark before us, we imagine things.

Fear of the dark, however, cannot be said to be entirely natural. It comes naturally only when we have come to the age when we begin to imagine things. Animals have no imaginative powers and they do not fear the dark. Some people say that the fear of the dark is bred in us, but little babies do not fear the dark. If they are properly trained they will go to sleep in the dark and will prefer the dark. As they grow older children begin to fear the dark, but that is because their imagination is coming to life and because parents so often make the mistake at this stage of training their children of either encouraging the feeling of fear that darkness brings for the convenient means of punishment it provides through threatening to put the light out, or because they do not take the pains to show that there is no reason for fear.

Most children who fear the darkness are really taught to do so permanently by parents or servants. When a boy or girl first begins to imagine things in the dark, many parents run quickly to the child and say, “Don’t be afraid” or “There is nothing to be afraid of,” and in doing this they perhaps mention the word “fear” for the first time. Repetition of this will always cause the child to associate the word “fear” with “darkness.” As a matter of fact when the boy or girl first shows fear of the darkness, parents should go to them and quiet their fears, but talk about anything else but fear and direct the child’s mind away from any thought of fear.

The Story in a Coil of Rope

How many have ever given a thought to the question of where rope comes from and how it is made, or realize what a variety of uses it is put to, and how dependent we are upon it in many of the everyday affairs of life? But let us suppose for a moment that the world were suddenly deprived of its supply of this very commonplace material, and of its smaller relatives, cords and twine. We should then begin to realize the importance of a seemingly unimportant thing, and to appreciate the difficulty in getting along without it.

Ancient civilized peoples had their ropes and cordage, made from such materials as were available in their respective countries. The Egyptians are said to have made rope from leather thongs, and our illustration will be found interesting in this connection. This is from a sculpture taken from a tomb in Thebes of the time of the Pharaoh of the Exodus.

While this scene is said by the best authority to represent the preparation of leather cords for use in lacing sandals, it has been supposed by some to be a representation of rope making. In any event the process is undoubtedly the same as that used in making rope.

The scene is depicted with the true Egyptian faculty for showing details, making words almost unnecessary to an understanding of their pictorial records. We see the raw material in the shape of the hide, and also two well-made coils of the finished product. One of the workmen is cutting a strand from a hide by revolving it and cutting as it turns. Any one who has not tried it will be surprised to see what a good, even string can be cut from a piece of leather in this way.

Another man is arranging and paying out the thongs to a third, who is evidently walking backward in time-honored fashion, twisting as he goes.

Coming down to more recent times we find that rope-making had been going on for centuries with probably very little change, up to the time of the introduction of machinery and the establishment of the factory system.

~HOW ROPE WAS LONG MADE BY HAND~

In the early days to which we have referred, all the yarn for rope-making was spun by hand in the time-honored way. We are able to represent to our readers by the photographs shown, this now almost lost art. The material shown in the pictures is American hemp, which because the earlier machines were not adapted to working this softer fiber, continued to be spun by hand long after manila was spun chiefly on machines.

The hemp was first hackled, as is also shown by our photograph, the hackle or “hechel” being simply a board having long, sharp steel teeth set into it. This combed out the tow or short, matted fiber, leaving the clean, straight hemp. This “strike” of hemp the spinner wrapped about his waist, bringing the ends around his back and tucking them into his belt, thus keeping the material in place without knot or twist, and allowing the fibers to pay out freely.

The workman in our picture is Johnny Moores, an old-time expert hand-spinner, who can walk off backward from the wheel with his wad of hemp, spinning with each hand a thread as fine and even as can be asked for. In the photograph, in order to show the process more clearly, one large yarn is being spun.

HAND SPINNING.]

The large wheel, usually turned by a boy, is used to convey power to the “whirls,” or small spindles carrying hooks upon which the fiber is fastened. These whirls, revolving, give the twist to the yarn as the spinner deftly pays out the fiber, regulating it with skillful fingers to preserve the uniformity and proper size of the yarn. As he goes backward down the long walk through the “squares of sunlight on the floor” he throws the trailing yarns over the “stakes” placed at intervals along the walk for the purpose.

The spinning “grounds” were usually arranged with wheels at either end, so that spinners reaching the farther end, could go back to their starting point spinning another set of yarns.

Then in the case of small ropes, the strands could be made by attaching two or more yarns to the “whirl” and twisting them together, reversing the motion to give the strands a twist opposite to that given the yarns. These strands were twisted together, again reversing the motion, making a rope. Thus it will be seen that, reduced to its lowest terms, rope-making consists simply of a series of twisting processes. The twisting of the yarns into the strand is known as “forming” or putting in the “foreturn.” The final process is “laying,” “closing” or putting in the “after turn.” Horse-power was used in old times for forming and laying rope which was too large to be made by hand.

How all this work is now done in a modern rope factory by ingeniously devised machinery we shall now see.

The opening room where the fiber is made ready for the preparation machinery is a reminder of the days when all rope-making processes were hand work. The bales are first opened up--in the case of Manila this means cutting the straw matting put on to protect the fiber in shipment. Then the hanks which are packed in various ways--sometimes doubled, sometimes twisted--are taken out and straightened and the band at the end of the hank removed.