Part 15
All animals, it seems, from a study of nature were started with ten fingers and ten toes, the fingers originally having been the toes of the fore legs. In a good many cases the environment in which animals have lived has caused a change in the formation of the ends of the limbs as well as in the limbs themselves. The horse, for instance, has developed into a one toe or one finger animal, while a cow is a two finger animal. The hen has only three toes on each foot and a part of another. But if we go back into the history and examine how the horses’ foot used to look we will find that he originally had five toes. The same is true of the cow and also the hen. Something happened to cause the change, for the rule of five fingers and five toes on the end of each limb has been universal. If you examine a chicken in a shell just before it is ready to come out, you can distinctly count five toes on each foot and at the ends of the wings you will see five little points, which under other conditions would develop into fingers, perhaps. Some of these toes of the new-born chicken do not develop. It can be accepted as a rule that creatures were intended in the original plan to have five fingers on each hand and five toes on each foot, making our count of tens, which is the world’s basis for counting, and has always been.
Why Do We Have Finger Nails?
Finger nails and toe nails are only another phase of the development of man from the animal that originally walked on four feet. Animals that walk on all fours use the finger and toe coverings which in man is the nail, to scratch in the ground, to attack enemies, and to climb with, and our nails of the present day are what the development of man into a civilized being has changed them to. At that, there are still uses for finger nails and toe nails, or man in his changing to a higher plane would have found a way to develop away from them. They are useful to-day in making our fingers and toes firm at the end, and enable us to pick up things more easily. The time may come when man will have neither finger nails nor toe nails.
Why Are Our Fingers of Different Lengths?
There is no known reason why our fingers should be of different lengths to-day; in fact, it is thought by some people that the hand would be stronger if the fingers were all of the same length. Certainly, however, the hands would not then be so beautiful, and it might not be so useful. The human hand to-day is perhaps the most versatile thing in the world. You can do more things with the hand than with any other thing in the world. The probability is that the shape of the hand to-day and the length of the fingers are the result of the different things the human being has called upon the hand to do during man’s development up to the present time.
We must go back to the time, however, when man walked on fours, for that is probably the real explanation. Originally man’s fingers were of different lengths because all four-footed animals had the same peculiarities. The shape and length of the toes and their arrangement were the ideal arrangement for giving the proper balance and support to the body, and in moving about and in climbing produced the best toe hold.
Why Does It Hurt When I Cut My Finger?
It hurts when you cut your finger, or, rather, where you cut it, because the place you have cut is exposed to the oxygen in the air, and as soon as it is so exposed a chemical action begins to take place, just as when you cut an apple and lay it aside you come back and find the cut surface all turned brown. If the apple could feel it would hurt also, because the chemical action is much the same. The apple has a skin which protects its inside from the oxygen in the air, and you have also a skin which protects you from the oxygen as long as it is unbroken.
What happens, of course, is this: When you cut your finger you sever the tiny little veins and nerves which are in your finger. They are spread all over your body like a net-work under the skin, close to the surface in most places. The nerves when cut send a quick message to the brain, with which they are connected, telling that they are damaged, and the brain calls on the heart and other functions to get busy and repair the damage along the line. There may be some hurt while this process of repairing is going on, but the principal part of your hurt, outside of what we call your feelings, is due to the fact that the inside of you is thus exposed to the chemical action of the air. Then I can hear you say next:
Why Don’t My Hair Hurt When It Is Being Cut?
It does not hurt to cut anything that has no nerves. There are no nerves in the hair which the barber cuts. If he pulls out a hair it hurts, because the root of the hair has nerves, which telegraph notice of the damage to the brain. When a dentist takes out or kills the nerve in your tooth you cannot have any more toothache in that tooth, because there is no nerve there to send the message to the brain. You can cut your finger nails without feeling pain, because they have no nerves at the ends, but underneath, where they join the skin of the finger, there are a great many nerves, and it hurts very much to bruise the nails at that location.
Of What Use Is My Hair?
~WHY WE HAVE HAIR~
Your hair is a relic of the days when the entire body was covered with hair, just like some animals to-day, to protect the body from the heat, cold and wet. Man has, however, for so long a time worn clothes over most of his body that the need of the hair to protect him from these elements has all but disappeared, and so also has the hair, excepting in such places as the top of the head and face and other exposed parts. If you were to go out into the woods without clothes and live a long time your body would probably again become covered with hairs. The time is coming, however, it is believed, when human beings will have no hair at all on their bodies. You have hair on your head, but if you were to wear a hat or cap all the time you would soon be bald. Hair is of no use to us to-day excepting to adorn our bodies and add to our appearance. This it seems to do to-day, probably because we are accustomed to seeing it, and will make no difference in our looks relatively if the time comes when we have no hair at all.
Why Does My Hair Stand On End When I Am Frightened?
It does this under certain conditions, because there is a little muscle down at the root of each hair that will make each hair stand up straight when this muscle pulls a certain way. It is difficult to say just how these muscles are caused to act in this way when we are frightened. We know that when thoroughly frightened our hair will sometimes stand straight up, and we know that it is this muscle at the root of each hair that makes it possible, but why it is that a big scare will make this muscle act this way we do not as yet know.
What Makes Some People Bald?
The chief cause of baldness is the lack of care of the hair. It is as necessary for the roots of the hair to have a free circulation of the blood and that the hair itself should have plenty of air as it is necessary for the brain to have a good circulation. A great many men become bald through wearing their hats most of the time. The hat pulled down tight over the head presses against the scalp and interferes with the circulation of the blood in the scalp. Then, also, many hats do not have any means of ventilation, and that keeps the pure air away from the hair. The hair then becomes sick and dies, just as flowers wilt if you keep them away from the air. You will notice that women do not become bald so easily. One reason is that even when the women wear large hats, as they often do, there is plenty of room for the air to circulate through the hair, even when the hat is on, and women’s hats are not pulled down tightly on the scalp. Therefore, they do not press on the arteries and veins in the scalp and interfere with the circulation of the blood. Another reason why women do not become bald is that the hair of women has long been their “crowning glory”; a man likes to see a fine head of hair on a woman, and as women have long tried to please men in every possible way, they take better care of their hair than men do, because they like to have the men consider it beautiful.
What Makes Some Things in the Same Room Colder than Others?
The objects in a room which has been kept at a given even temperature of heat will be all the same temperature, because heat spreads from one thing to another equally.
Still, if you put your hands on various objects in such a room some of them will feel colder than others. You touch the tiling of the fireplace and that will feel cool to you. On the other hand, the upholstered furniture will feel quite warm. The piano keys feel cool, while the wood of the piano and case is warm. The difference is due to the fact that heat or cold will run through some objects more quickly than through others. It will run through the tiling on the hearth and the piano keys more quickly than through the upholstering on the furniture or the wood of the piano case. When you touch a thing with your finger you supply some of the heat of your body to the object through your finger. If the object is the tiling on the hearth or the keys of the piano the heat runs through it quickly and you get a cold impression in your finger. On the other hand, if you touch the upholstery on the furniture, through which the heat runs slowly, you get a warm feeling for the very same reason. Thus, anything which carries the heat away from our contact quickly we call a cold feeling object, and if the object touched does not carry the heat away so quickly we call it a warm feeling object.
Why Does the Hair Grow After the Body Stops Growing?
The hair on our bodies is one of the things that is continually wearing or falling away, and since, like the skin, it is necessary to protect certain portions of the body, the hair keeps on growing long after the grown up period has arrived. The skin is a very necessary protection of the whole body, but is constantly being worn away, and is all the time being replaced. Your hair falls out when it is not healthy. Unless proper care is given to it, it will fall out and not grow in again, and then we become bald.
Will People All Be Bald Sometime?
There is a theory that before many years have passed human beings will lose all of the hairs which now grow on different parts of their bodies, due to the fact that we wear so much clothing and keep so much of our bodies away from the sunlight. If that time comes we shall have a hairless race of men and women.
THE STORY IN A LUMP OF SUGAR
[Illustration: PREPARING THE GROUND.--PLOWING AND HARROWING WITH A CATERPILLAR ENGINE.
Sugar beets require deep plowing, ten to fourteen inches, or twice the usual depth. When using horses, farmers are inclined not to plow deeply enough to secure maximum results, and some of the factories have put in power plows which turn six furrows and harrow the land at the same time. They plow and harrow the land of beet farmers for $2.50 per acre, which is about one-half of what it costs the farmers to plow equally deep with horses. The traction engines also are used for hauling train wagon loads of beets to the factory. In some localities farmers are banding together and purchasing engines for plowing and hauling beets. The outfit illustrated above costs about $4,500.]
[Illustration: DRILLING THE SEED.
Beets are drilled in rows, usually eighteen inches apart, 18 to 25 pounds of seed being drilled to each acre. Practically all the beet seed used in America is grown in Europe, principally in Germany, but it has been demonstrated that superior seed can be produced in the United States. Sugar-beet seed growing requires five years of the utmost skill, care and patience, from the planting of the original seed to the maturing of the commercial crop which is sold to the trade. The factories contract for their seed for three to five years in advance, sell it to farmers at cost price, and deduct the amount from the payment for beets.]
[Illustration: HOW THE BEETS ARE GROWN
BLOCKING AND THINNING.
When the beets are up and show the third leaf they should be “thinned.” Unless thinned at the proper time the pulling up of the superfluous beetlets injures the roots of the remaining ones. Scientific experiments in Germany, where all other conditions were identical, showed that one acre thinned at the proper time yielded 15 tons; the next acre, thinned a week later, yielded 13¹⁄₂ tons; the third acre, thinned still a week later, yielded 10¹⁄₂ tons; and the fourth acre, thinned three weeks after the first, yielded 7¹⁄₂ tons.
The men in the foreground are “blocking” the beets, leaving a bunch of them every eight inches. Those in the rear are “thinning,” or pulling up the superfluous beetlets, leaving one in a place, eight inches apart.]
[Illustration: READY FOR THE HARVEST.
This field of beets yielded 20 tons to the acre. Ex-Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson is convinced that when American farmers become expert in beet culture they will average to produce more than 20 tons per acre because of the superiority of our soils. The ideal factory beet weighs about two pounds, and a perfect “stand” of such beets, one every eight inches, in rows eighteen inches apart, would yield 43¹⁄₃ tons per acre. The present average yield in the United States is about 10 tons per acre, while the hitherto “worn-out soils” of Germany yield 14 tons per acre, or 40% more than is secured from our “virgin soils.”]
[Illustration: HUGE BINS TO HOLD THE BEETS AT FACTORY
TOPPING THE BEETS.
After the beets are plowed out they are topped or cut off by hand and the tops are fed to stock, for which purpose they are worth $3.00 per acre. They are topped just below the crown and the factories require that they be so topped as to remove any portion which grew above the ground, as such portion of the beet contains but a small percentage of sugar. The beet will grow in length, and, if as a result of shallow plowing or coming in contact with a rock it cannot grow downward, it will grow upward and out of the ground, thus necessitating a deeper topping and consequent loss to the farmer.]
[Illustration: DUMPING CARS AT FACTORY WITH HYDRAULIC JACK.
Beets arriving at the factory by rail from receiving stations either are stored in bins until needed or are floated directly to the beet washers. If to be used at once, they are dumped, as shown above, and slide directly into a cement flume filled with warm water, which has been pumped to its upper end, and is flowing in the direction of the beet end of the factory. In whatever manner they may be received, they first are weighed, and as they are dumped, a basket is held under them to catch a fair sample of both beets and the loose dirt, which the car or wagon contains. These samples, properly tagged, are conveyed to the beet laboratory, where they are washed, and trimmed if not properly topped, and the difference in the weight of the sample beets as received and their weight when washed is called the “tare.” Whatever percentage this amounts to is applied to and deducted from the weight of the car or wagon load. A sample of these beets then is tested by the polariscope for its sugar content and its purity; farmers often being paid a stipulated price per ton for a beet of a given sugar content and 25 to 33¹⁄₃ cents per ton additional for each extra degree of sugar which they contain. The tare rooms and the beet-testing laboratories are open to any one, and in some localities the farmers’ associations employ experts to tare and analyze each sample of beets.]
[Illustration: MILLIONS OF BUSHELS OF BEETS
FACTORY BEET BINS FILLED TO CAPACITY.
As they arrive by rail from receiving stations, or by team, or traction engines from the farm, beets are stored in bins or sheds, the capacity of which ranges from 6000 to 35,000 tons per factory, depending upon location and general climatic conditions.
The bins are V shaped, about 3 feet wide at the bottom, 20 to 30 feet at the top, and they are 20 to 30 feet high. As beets are needed, beginning at one end of the bin the loose three-foot planks at the bottom are removed one at a time, and with hooks attached to long poles the beets are rolled into the flume or cement channel below, in which they are floated into the factory. This is not only to save labor, but to loosen up the dirt which attaches to the beets, thus partially washing them. The water which is used in the flumes is warm water from the factory.]
[Illustration: TYPICAL AMERICAN BEET SUGAR FACTORY.
These factories cost from half a million to three million dollars. They consume from 500 to 3,000 tons of beets per day, and during the “campaign,” which usually lasts about three months, will produce from 12 to 75 million pounds of granulated sugar. There are 73 of these factories, located in 16 States, from Ohio to California. During the operating season they give employment to from 400 to 1000 men each.]
[Illustration: WASHING THE SUGAR BEETS
CHEMICAL LABORATORY.
In a beet-sugar factory each set of apparatus for performing a given process is termed a “station.” In the chemical laboratory the juices and products from each station are tested hourly to check up the correctness of the work and to determine the losses of sugar in each process in the factory.]
[Illustration: CIRCULAR DIFFUSION BATTERY.
After being floated in from the sheds the beets are elevated from the flume to a washer, where they are given an additional washing before being sliced. From the washer they are elevated and dropped into an automatic scale of a capacity of 700 to 1500 pounds. From the scale they pass to the slicers, where with triangular knives they are cut into long, slender slices, which look something like “shoestring” potatoes. These slices drop through the upright chute seen at the right side of the picture, and are packed tightly into cylindrical vessels holding from two to six tons each; the battery consisting of eight to twelve vessels arranged either in a straight line or in circular form. Warm water is run into these slices, and coaxes out the sugar as it passes from one vessel to the succeeding ones. After passing through the entire series of vessels the water has become rich in sugar, of which it contains from 12 to 15 per cent, depending upon the richness of the beets. It then is drawn off and is called diffusion juice or raw juice. This is carefully measured into tanks and recorded. As this juice is drawn off the vessel over which the water started is emptied of the slices from the bottom, the exhaust slices containing in the neighborhood of ¹⁄₄ to ¹⁄₃ per cent of sugar. These slices are carried out from the factory in the form of pulp and fed to stock, as explained later.]
[Illustration: HOW THE SUGAR IS TAKEN FROM THE BEET
CARBONATATION AND SULPHUR STATION.
Warm raw juice is drawn into the carbonatation tanks and treated with about 10 per cent milk of lime--about like ordinary whitewash. This lime throws out impurities, sterilizes the juice and removes coloring matter. Carbonic acid gas from the lime kiln is forced through the lime juice in the tank, throwing out the excess of lime, converting it into a carbonate of lime or chalk. Tests are taken here by the station operator to show when the process is finished.]
[Illustration: FILTER PRESSES.
From the carbonatation tanks the juice is pumped or forced through filter presses consisting of iron frames so covered with cloth that the juice passes through the cloth as a clear liquid, leaving the lime and impurities precipitated by it, in the frame, in the form of a cake. This cake, after washing, is dropped from the presses and conveyed out of the factory. It contains from one to two per cent of its weight in sugar, which constitutes one of the large losses of the process. It also contains organic matter, phosphate and potash, besides the carbonate of lime, which makes it an excellent fertilizer, all of which is used in Europe on the farm, but so far to too small an extent in America.]
[Illustration: EVAPORATING THE WATER FROM THE SUGAR
EVAPORATORS.
After a second, and sometimes a third carbonatation and filtration, the juice is carried to the evaporators, commonly called the “effects,” usually four (4) large air-tight vessels furnished with heating tubes running from 3000 to 7000 square feet in each vessel. A partial vacuum is maintained in these evaporators which makes the juice boil out at a low temperature, thus preventing discoloration, and to a large degree the destruction of sugar which will come about by high temperature. There always is, however, some unavoidable loss of sugar in this apparatus. The juice passes along copper pipes from first to last vessel, becoming thicker as it does so. It comes into the first vessel at 10% to 12% sugar and is pumped out of the last one so thick that it contains about 50% of sugar.]
[Illustration: VACUUM PANS.
After a careful filtration, the juice that comes from the evaporators, and is called thick juice, is pumped to large tanks high up in the building, and from these is drawn into vacuum pans. These are large cylindrical vessels from 10 to 15 feet in diameter and from 15 to 25 feet high, with conical top and bottom, built air-tight. Around the inner circumference they are furnished with 4- to 6-inch copper coils, which have a heating surface of 800 to 2000 square feet. Exhaust steam is used in the evaporators, live steam in the pans, the juice in both being boiled in a vacuum to prevent discoloration and reduce losses.