Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 37.djvu/443

Rh clothes, and the soiling that is caused by transpiration from the body. It is most important that the elements of bodily soil be removed, and this is probably accomplished quite as much in the drying as in the washing. We judge of the purity of clothes by their "sweetness." This is, to a large extent, proportioned to the completeness with which they have been acted upon by the atmosphere, or by its great oxidizing agent ozone, and is consequently dependent on the atmospheric conditions under which they are dried. The lesson is, that atmospheric drying is the best, and that laundry drying by artificial heat can not be depended upon to do its work, unless pains are taken to give a free circulation of ozonized air.

Voice-Figures on Glass.—A curious mode of decorating glass is practiced by an English lady, Mrs. Watts Hughes. The figures which she produces are shell-like forms, trumpet and snake like shapes, twisted together and combined, and crossed in various directions by lines, but not exactly like anything in nature. The instrument by which these lines are drawn is the voice, and the method of procedure differs for different figures. For a daisy-like figure, Mrs. Hughes prepares a paste of flake-white powder-color and water. On a thin membrane of India-rubber stretched over one end of a ring, resembling a napkin-ring, she spreads a little water, to which some of the flake-white paste is added, and thus floated all over the disk. This ring is inserted into the lower end of a tube turned up like the letter J. She then sings into the upper end of the tube a low note, firm but not very loud. Tiny globules of the paste are thrown up into the air by the vibration of the membrane induced by the sound, and fall back upon the center of the disk, making a little round heap, like the center of a daisy. Mrs. Hughes then sings a note of a different character from the first, when from the round center of white paste will fly out, at unequal distances, little tentative star-like jets. Sometimes two or three abortive attempts will have been made, when suddenly a symmetrical row of petals will start out and create with the center a dainty daisy-like figure. The pansy form is produced somewhat in the same way as the daisy, but more water is put on the disk in proportion to the paste, and the note is sung differently. In singing the shell and trumpet figures, the paste is made with Prussian blue, madder lake, or other pigment whose weight and character suit it to the vibrations of the particular note to be sung. Glass is rubbed over with the paste when the figures are to be called out upon it as well as the membrane. With a small piece of glass, Mrs. Hughes uses a bent-up tube and moves the glass rapidly round on the disk. Should the glass be too large to hold in the hand, she uses a straight tube, and sings the note while moving it round or along the glass. Specimens of this work were shown in the "Arts and Crafts Exhibition," at London, last fall, and panes decorated in this way form the lower part of the windows in Mrs. Hughes's Home for Little Boys, at Islington. The explanation of the phenomenon is that the particles of coloring-matter are thrown off from the vibrating parts of the membrane and collect on the nodal lines—the lines of no vibration. The nodal lines of vibrating membranes were first thoroughly studied by Savart.

Taming the Puma.—To show what may be done in the way of training the puma, or Rocky Mountain lion, usually deemed one of the most intractable of animals, William Lant Carpenter writes to "Nature" an account of one he has recently seen at Livingston, Montana. She is now three years old, and was raised from a cub by Mr. W. F. Wittich, who devoted eighteen months to training her. He now has her under complete control. "The beast not having been fed for twenty-four hours, he trailed pieces of raw meat over her nose and mouth, which the puma never attempted to eat until the word was given, as to a dog. Occasional attempts were made, but a twist of the ear by Mr. Wittich was sufficient to control her. When meat was placed a few yards off, the puma fetched it by word of command, and permitted the meat to be taken from her mouth by Mr. Wittich, who fondled her as he would a cat. A very fine dog, a cross between a pure setter and a pure St. Bernard, five years old, named 'Bruce,' is on intimate and even affectionate terms with the puma, who allowed him to remove meat