Part 35
winter to keep you in good condition. Muscles which have been developed through use or work need more work to keep them in condition. In a sense certain of the muscles which you employ in playing ball have been treated during the winter very much as if you had tied them down, as we suggested you might do with your arm. You have not been using them--they have not been doing enough work, and they begin to lose their strength when for any period they have not been used enough. The soreness that you feel is the natural condition that arises when you begin to use a muscle that has been idle for some time.
Why Does a Barber’s Pole Have Stripes?
In early years the barber not only cut hair and shaved people, but he was also a surgeon. He was a surgeon to the extent that he bled people. In early times our knowledge of surgery was practically limited to blood letting. A great many of the ailments were attributed to too much blood in the body, and when anything got wrong with a man or woman, the first thing they thought of was to reduce the amount of blood in the body by taking some of it out.
The town barber was the man who did this for people and his pole represented the sign of his business.
The round ball at the top which was generally gilded represents the barbering end of the business. It stood for the brass basin which the barber used to prepare lather for shaving customers.
The pole itself represents the staff which people who were having blood taken out of their bodies held during the operation. The two spiral ribbons, one red and one white, which are painted spirally on the pole, represented the bandages. The white one stood for the bandage which was put on before the blood was taken out and the red one the bandage which was used for binding up the wound when the operation was completed.
How Was the Flag Made?
The design of our flag was outlined in a congressional resolution passed on June 14, 1777, which stated “that the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen alternate stripes red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing the new constellation.” After Vermont and Kentucky had been admitted to the Union, Congress made a decree in 1794 that after May 1, 1795, “the flag of the United States be fifteen stripes alternate red and white and that the Union be fifteen stars white on a blue field.” This made the stars and stripes again equal and it was the plan to add a new stripe and a new star for each new state admitted to the Union. Very soon, however, it was realized that the flag would be too large if we kept on adding one stripe for each new state admitted to the Union, so on April 4, 1818, Congress passed a resolution reducing the number of stripes to thirteen once more to represent the original colonies, and to add only a new star to the field when a new state was admitted to the Union. At this time there were twenty states in the Union. Since that time none of the flags of the United States have more than thirteen stripes while a new star has been added for each state until now we have forty-eight stars, representing the forty-eight states.
Why Are Some Guns Called Gatling Guns?
A gatling gun is a kind of gun invented by Richard Jordan Gatling in 1861 and 1862 and so it receives its name from its inventor. The original gatling gun had ten parallel barrels and was capable of firing 1,000 shots per minute when operated by hand power. It was discharged by turning a crank and would shoot in proportion to the rapidity with which the crank was turned. It was at first not a huge success but has from time to time been improved so that the crank is now turned by electric power and about fifteen hundred shots per minute can be fired with it.
How Did Hobson’s Choice Originate?
As used today, this expression means a choice with only one thing to choose. Tobias Hobson was a livery stable keeper at Cambridge, England, during the reign of King Charles I. He kept a stable of forty horses which he hired out by the hour or day, and was famous in his day so far as a livery stable keeper could be.
When you went to Hobson to hire a horse, you had the privilege of looking over all the horses in the stable to decide which one you would like to drive, but he always made you take the one in the stall nearest the door. In this way all the horses in the stable were worked in turn and while you might pretend to choose your own horse, you really had no choice--you had to take the one nearest the door or none. As soon as a horse was hired, the other horses in the stable were moved up, each one to the stall next towards the door so there was always a horse in the stall nearest the door.
Why Do They Call It a Honeymoon?
The word Honeymoon which is commonly used to describe the first few weeks after marriage, has always meant the first month or moon after marriage, but does not have any reference to the month or moon excepting as that describes a certain period of time.
The word originated in an old custom quite common among newly married couples among the ancient Teutons of drinking a kind of wine made from honey during the first thirty days after being married.
In these days newly married couples generally take a trip away from home for a short or longer period after their wedding day and this is called the honeymoon whether it is but a few days or three months or more. The custom of drinking wine made from honey has been abandoned so that the word is now used in an entirely different sense than formerly.
Why Is a Horseshoe Said to Bring Good Luck?
The luck of the horseshoe comes from three lucky things always connected with horseshoes. These consist of the following facts: It is the shape of a crescent; it is a portion of a horse; it is made of iron.
Each of these has from time immemorial been considered lucky. Anything in the shape of a crescent was always considered a thing to bring luck. From the earliest times, too, at least since the world knew something of the qualities of iron, iron has been regarded as a thing to give protection and incidentally that would involve good luck. And lastly the horse, since the days of English mythology, has been regarded as a luck animal. When, then, we had a combination of the three--the crescent, the iron and the horse in one object, it became a true lucky sign in the eyes of the people.
Some Wonders of the Human Body.
There are said to be more than two million little openings in the skins of our bodies to serve as outlets for an equal number of sweat glands. The body contains more than two hundred bones. It is said that as much blood as is in the entire body passes through the heart every minute, i.e., all the blood in the body goes in and out of the heart once every minute. The lung capacity of the average person is about 325 cubic inches.
With every breath you inhale about two-thirds of a pint of fresh air and exhale an equal amount if you breathe normally.
The stomach of the average adult person has a capacity of about five pints and manufactures about nine pounds of gastric juice daily.
There are over five hundred muscles in the body all of which should be exercised daily to keep you in the best condition. The average adult human heart weighs from eight to twelve ounces and it beats about 100,000 times every twenty-four hours. The perspiration system in the body has only very small ducts or pipes, but there are about nine miles of them. The average person takes about one ton of food and drink each year. We breathe about eighteen times a minute, which amounts to about 3,000 cubic feet an hour.
Where Did the Expression “Kick the Bucket” Originate?
The expression originally came from the method used in stringing a hog after killing it. The pig after being slaughtered was hung by the hind legs. A piece of bent wood was passed in behind the tendons of each of the hind legs and the pig hung up by this stick of wood much like we hang up clothes with a clothes hanger today. The piece of wood was called a bucket. The “bucket” part of the expression does not, therefore, refer to a bucket at all but to this bent piece of wood. All are not agreed on this explanation, however, as it does not explain where the “kick” comes in. Many investigators hold to the belief that a man named Bolsover was the first to “kick the bucket” literally and that the expression came from the manner of his death. He stood on a pail or bucket while arranging to hang himself by tying a rope around his neck and to a beam which he could not reach without standing on the bucket. When ready he kicked the bucket out from under his feet and so succeeded in carrying out his own wishes and in so doing coined a famous expression which still means “to die.”
How Did the Word “News” Originate?
The word “News” which was created to describe what newspapers are supposed to print, came from the four letters which have for ages been used as abbreviations of the directions of the compass. In this N stands for North, E for East, S for South and W for West, and in illustrating the points of the compass the following diagram has long been used:
N | W--+--E | S
The earliest newspapers always printed this sign on the front pages of their papers in every issue. This was done to indicate that the paper printed all the happenings from four quarters of the globe.
Later on some enterprising newspaper man who may have forgotten the original significance of the letter in the diagram, arranged the letters N. E. W. S. in a straight line at the head of the paper and that is how what we read in the papers came to be known as news.
Almost one-half the whole number of newspapers published in the world are published in the United States and Canada.
Who Made the First Umbrella?
No one knows who made the first umbrella but we know that Jonas Hanway of London was the first man to carry one over his head to keep off the rain.
Umbrellas seem to have been known as far back as the days of Ninevah and Persepolis, for representations of them appear frequently in the sculptures of those early days. The women of ancient Rome and Greece carried them but the men never did.
Mr. Hanway is said to be the first man who walked in the streets of London with an open umbrella over his head to keep off the rain. He is said to have used it for thirty years before they came into general use for this purpose.
[Illustration: HOW MAN LEARNED TO TELL TIME
The first picture shows what was probably man’s first method of telling time. The principle was the same as that of the sun-dial. It provides to-day an accurate method of telling time.
Of course, man in the early days needed to find some other means of noting the passing of time at night, for then the sun cast no shadow for him. His ingenuity taught him to make a candle which was light and dark in alternate rings, and as each section burned he made a mark to record the passing of a certain length of time. Before candles were invented he used a rope in which he tied knots at equal spaces apart and which he burned as shown in the third picture.]
The Story in a Time Piece
What Is Time?
Time, as a separate entity, has not yet been defined in language. Definitions will be found to be merely explanations of the sense in which we use the word in matters of practical life. No human being can tell how long a minute is; only that it is longer than a second and shorter than an hour. In some sense we can think of a longer or shorter period of time, but this is merely comparative. The difference between 50 and 75 steps a minute in marching is clear to us, but note that we introduce motion and space before we can get a conception of time as a succession of events, but time, in itself, remains elusive.
In time measures we strive for a uniform motion of something and this implies equal spaces in equal times; so we here assume just what we cannot explain, for space is as difficult to define as time. Time cannot be “squared” or used as a multiplier or divisor. Only numbers can be so used; so when we speak of “the square of the time” we mean some number which we have arbitrarily assumed to represent it. This becomes plain when we state that in calculations relating to pendulums, for example, we may use seconds and inches--minutes and feet--or seconds and meters--and the answer will come out right in the units which we have assumed. Still more, numbers themselves have no meaning till they are applied to something, and here we are applying them to time, space and motion; so we are trying to explain three abstractions by a fourth! But, happily, the results of these assumptions and calculations are borne out in practical human life, and we are not compelled to settle the deep question as to whether fundamental knowledge is possible to the human mind.
What Was Man’s First Division of Time?
Evidently, man began by considering the day as a unit and did not include the night in his time-keeping for a long period. “And the evening and the morning were the first day,” Gen. i, 5; “Evening and morning and at noonday,” Ps. lv, 17, divides the day (“sun up”) in two parts. “Fourth part of a day,” Neh. ix, 3, shows another advance. Then comes, “are there not twelve hours in a day,” John xi, 9. The “eleventh hour,” Matt. xx, 1 to 12, shows clearly that sunset was 12 o’clock. A most remarkable feature of this 12-hour day, in the New Testament, is that the writers generally speak of the third, sixth and ninth hours, Acts ii, 15; iii, 1; x, 9. This is extremely interesting, as it shows that the writers still thought in quarter days (Neh. ix, 3) and had not yet acquired the 12-hour conception given to them by the Romans. They thought in quarter days even when using the 12-hour numerals! Note, further, that references are to “hours”; so it is evident that in New Testament times they did not need smaller subdivisions. “About the third hour” shows the mental attitude. That they had no conception of our minutes, seconds and fifth-seconds becomes quite plain when we notice that they jumped down from the hour to nowhere, in such expressions as “in an instant--in the twinkling of an eye.”
Before this the night had been divided into three watches (Judges vii, 19). Poetry to this day uses the “hours” and the “watches” as symbols.
This twelve hours of daylight gave very variable hours in latitudes some distance from the equator, being long in summer and short in winter. The amount of human ingenuity expended on time measures so as to divide the time from sunrise to sunset into twelve equal parts is almost beyond belief. In Constantinople, to-day, this is used, but in a rather imperfect manner, for the clocks are modern and run twenty-four hours uniformly; so the best they can do is to set them to mark twelve at sunset. This necessitates setting to the varying length of the days, so that the clocks appear to be sometimes more and sometimes less than six hours ahead of ours. A clock on the tower at the Sultan’s private mosque gives the impression of being out of order and about six hours ahead, but it is running correctly to their system. Hotels in Constantinople often show two clocks, one of them to our twelve o’clock noon system. Evidently the Jewish method of ending a day at sunset is the same and explains the command, “let not the sun go down upon thy wrath,” which we might read, “do not carry your anger over to another day.”
This simple line of steps in dividing the day and night is taken principally from the Bible because every one can easily look up the passages quoted and many more, while quotations from books not in general use would not be so clear.
How Did Man Begin to Measure Time?
Now, as to the methods of measuring time, we must use circumstantial evidence for the prehistoric period. The rising and the going down of the sun--the lengthening shadows, etc., must come first, and we are on safe ground here, for savages still use primitive methods like setting up a stick and marking its shadow so that a party trailing behind can estimate the distance the leaders are ahead by the changed position of the shadow. Men notice their shortening and lengthening shadows to this day. When the shadow of a man shortens more and more slowly till it appears to be fixed, the observer knows it is noon, and when it shows the least observable lengthening then it is just past noon. Now, it is a remarkable fact that this crude method of determining noon is just the same as “taking the sun” to determine noon at sea. Noon is the time at which the sun reaches his highest point on any given day.
[Illustration: The Sun-dial is only an improvement on the stick which cast a shadow which enabled man to tell the time of day at any hour. The shadow moves around the dial, falling on the numbers on the circle.]
How Is the Time Calculated at Sea?
At sea this is determined generally by a sextant, which simply measures the angle between the horizon and the sun. The instrument is applied a little before noon and the observer sees the sun creeping upward slower and slower till a little tremor or hesitation appears, indicating that the sun has reached his height--noon. Oh! you wish to know if the observer is likely to make a mistake? Yes, and when accurate local time is important, several officers on a large ship will take the meridian passage at the same time and average their readings, so as to reduce the “personal error.” All of which is merely a greater degree of accuracy than that of the man who observes his shadow.
The gradual development of the primitive shadow methods culminated in the modern sun-dial. The “dial of Ahas” (Isa. xxxviii, 8), on which the sun went back ten “degrees,” is often referred to, but in one of the revised editions of the Bible the sun went back ten “steps.” This becomes extremely interesting when we find that in India there still remains an immense dial built with steps instead of hour lines.
In a restored flower garden, within one of the large houses in the ruins of Pompeii, may be seen a sun-dial of the Armillary type, presumably in its original position. It looks as if the plane of the equator and the position of the earth’s axis must have been known to the maker.
Both these dials were in use before the beginning of our era and were covered by the great eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D., which destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum.
~THREE GREAT STEPS IN MEASURING TIME~
Modern sun-dials differ only in being more accurately made and a few “curiosity” dials added. The necessity for time during the night, as man’s life became a little more complicated, necessitated the invention of time machines. The “clepsydra,” or water-clock, was probably the first. A French writer has dug up some old records putting it back to Hoang-ti 2679 B.C., but it appears to have been certainly in use in China in 1100 B.C., so we will be satisfied with that date. In presenting a subject to the young student it is sometimes advisable to use round numbers to give a simple comprehension and then leave him to find the overlapping of dates and methods as he advances. Keeping this in mind, the following table may be used to give an elementary hint of the three great steps in time measuring.
Shadow time, 2000 to 1000 B.C.
Dials and water-clocks, 1000 B.C. to 1000 A.D.
Clocks and watches, 1000 to 2000 A.D.
Gear-wheel clocks and watches have here been pushed forward to 2000 A.D., as they may last to that time, but no doubt we will supersede them. At the present time science is just about ready to say that a time measurer consisting of wheels and pinions--a driving power and a regulator in the form of a pendulum or balance, is a clumsy contrivance and that we ought to do better very soon.
It is remarkable how few are aware that the simplest form of sun-dial is the best, and that, as a regulator of our present clocks, it is good within one or two minutes. No one need be without a “noon-mark” sun-dial; that is, every one may have the best of all dials. Take a post or any straight object standing “plumb,” or best of all the corner of a building. In the case of the post, or tree trunk, a stone (shown in solid black) may be set in the ground; but for the building a line may often be cut across a flagstone of the footpath. Many methods may be employed to get this noon mark, which is simply a north and south line: Viewing the pole star, using a compass (if the local variation is known) or the old method of finding the time at which the shadow of a pole is shortest. But the best practical way in this day is to use a watch set to local time and make the mark at 12 o’clock.
[Illustration:
Drawing by James Arthur.
A form of Sun-dial that is as good to-day as any dial for determining noon.]
On four days of the year the sun is right and your mark may be set at 12 on these days, but you may use an almanac and look in the column marked “mean time at noon” or “sun on meridian.” For example, suppose on the bright day when you are ready to place your noon mark you read in this column 11.50, then when your watch shows 11.50 make your noon mark to the shadow and it will be right for all time to come. Owing to the fact that there are not an even number of days in a year, it follows that on any given yearly date at noon the earth is not at the same place in its elliptical orbit, and the correction of this by the leap years causes the equation table to vary in periods of four years. The centennial leap years cause another variation of 400 years, etc., but these variations are less than the error in reading a dial.