Part 3

I am happy to say that this principle has now been adopted by the Russian Government, and by our navy in its specifications for smokeless powder; but they have, I think unwisely, selected a cellulose nitrate containing 12.5 per cent or less of nitrogen instead of that of the highest nitration.

This work was completed, a factory established, and the processes well marked out when I left the torpedo station in 1892. Besides this, there were then already commercial works established elsewhere in this country for the manufacture of the nitroglycerin-nitrocellulose powders of the ballistite class, while large quantities of many varieties could be easily procured abroad. Considering these facts, and that France and Germany had already adopted smokeless powders in 1887, that Italy adopted one in 1888, and England about the same time, it is unpardonable that our services should not yet have adopted any of the smokeless powders available when we were drawn into the conflict with Spain.

Besides their use as ballistic agents, gun cotton, dynamite, and explosive gelatin in their ordinary condition have found employment and been adopted as service explosives in military and naval mining, as their great energy and the violence with which they explode, even when unconfined, especially adapt them for use in the various kinds of torpedoes and mines which are in vogue in the service.

One form of these torpedoes was attached to the end of a spar or pole which was rigged out from the bow of a launch or vessel so that it could be thrust under the enemy’s vessel, and the detonators of such spar torpedoes were not only connected with electric generators, so that they could be fired at will, but they, in common with mines, were frequently provided with a system of levers so arranged that the enemy’s vessel fired the torpedoes and mines automatically as it came in contact with the levers. It was with such a contact-spar torpedo, containing thirty-three pounds of gun cotton, that the schooner Joseph Henry was blown up in Newport Harbor in 1884.

There are many types of the automobile torpedo. Among them the Hall, Patrick, Whitehead, and Howell may be cited. The first three are propelled by the energy resident in compressed gases; the Howell by the energy stored in a heavy fly wheel, which also, by acting on the gyroscopic principle, serves to maintain the direction imparted to the torpedo as it is launched. The Hall, Whitehead, and Howell are launched from tubes or guns by means of light powder charges, and are independent of exterior control after launching. The Patrick is launched from ways, and is controlled from the shore or boat by a wire through which an electric current may be sent to its steering mechanism. The charges are quite variable, but the war heads of the larger torpedoes contain as much as five hundred pounds of gun cotton.

[_To be concluded._]

A PARADOXICAL ANARCHIST.

BY PROF. CESARE LOMBROSO.

While I have had the privilege of making several indirect studies of anarchists by means of the data furnished by legal processes, the journals, and the handwriting of the subjects, I have only rarely been able to examine one directly and make those measurements and craniological determinations upon him without which any study can be only approximate, or, we might even say, hypothetical. I had, however, an opportunity a short time ago to observe a real anarchist in person, and study him according to the methods of my criminological clinic. The results have been singular, and it seems to me that they should cast some light upon the dark world of these agitators, and especially upon the phenomena of the strange contradictions presented in their life; manifestations which jurists and police officers, intent only on achieving the judicial triumph of a conviction, consider and call simulations and falsehoods.

He was a fellow who had caused a great excitement, during the crowded days of the exposition at Turin, by saying that he wanted to kill the king. In fact, he gave himself up to the police, saying that the anarchists of Alexandria were seeking the assassination of the king, and had written him a letter directing him to arm himself, but that he, wishing anything else than to commit regicide, had surrendered in order to denounce the scheme. There was no real basis of criminal intent, but our police put him in prison, and there I found him.

His physiognomy presented all the characteristics of the born criminal and of the foolhardy and sanguinary anarchist. He had flaring ears, premature and deep wrinkles, small, sinister eyes sunk back in their orbits, a hollowed flat nose, and small beard--in short, he presented an extraordinary resemblance to Ravachol, as may be seen from their portraits.

The cranium was a little smaller than the normal, and the upper part of the skull was much rounded and deformed, with a cephalic index of 91--considerably more rounded than the head of Luccheni. The horizontal fold of the hand was of a type much like that of Ravachol.

I add that the biological study, which was made directly, and therefore more satisfactorily than was practicable with Caserio and Luccheni, revealed a series of very singular anomalies; a touch six times more obtuse than the normal--six millimetres on the right, five on the left; a remarkably blunt sensitiveness to pain and dull perception of location; an extraordinarily reduced visual field, particularly in the left eye; a somewhat tremulous handwriting, and slight defects of articulation in speech; and thin hair. There was nothing very striking in his affective nature. He spoke kindly of his parents, whom he would be glad to see. But he had a blunt moral sense, and had committed frequent thefts, especially against his family, so that he had been put into a house of correction. And it was just while he was still in this establishment, at sixteen years of age, that he pretended to have been invited to attend a meeting of about thirty anarchists at Brescia, where he was made to swear, kissing a dagger, to kill the king. He described the room, and spoke of the individual persons present, and then said that he thought no more of the matter after he returned to the house; but a few days ago it had come into his mind to go to the post office, and there he had found a letter from the anarchists of Alexandria, urging him to arm himself to kill the king.

He repeated this story minutely and with great persistence, notwithstanding the postal authorities denied having given him the letter, in the face of the asseverations of the prefects that there were not thirty anarchists in Brescia, where he was in correction, and although all the facts were against him. Observe that he was in prison, that he had been there three months, and that he was told he would be likely to stay there as long as he adhered to his story.

Efforts to account for the phenomenon were unsuccessful, because his friends and relatives made no mention of any traces of insanity. Light began to break upon the case when it was learned that he had attempted suicide, a few years before, in grief at the death of his mother, and also that on the day before he gave himself up he had stolen a small sum from his drunken brother. These, however, were only distant hints. The matter was fully explained when, after he had drunk a litre of wine in the prison, he began to exclaim, “_Viva l’anarchio!_” (Hurrah for anarchy!), “_Morte al Re!_” (Death to the king!), to kiss a dagger, to break various things against imaginary guards, and, after a short period of quiet, to swear and forswear himself that his companions had done what he had done, that they had shouted for anarchy, had broken the vases, and had desired to kill the king.

This cleared up the matter at once for me, but I wished to complete the elucidation with an experiment. I began by giving him ten, then twenty, then thirty, then forty grammes of alcohol, up to eighty. I observed that his personality began to change after forty grammes. He became somewhat insolent and suspicious, and had vague delirious imaginings of persecutions. When invited to sing anarchistic songs he refused, evidently fearing to compromise himself, but sang them voluntarily in an undertone. When the dose of alcohol was increased to ninety grammes his personality seemed immediately to undergo a full change; his touch became twice as fine (three millimetres), and his visual field increased threefold; he declared that there was a spy around. When put into his cell he sang anarchistic hymns, threatened death to the king, handled a box as if brandishing a dagger, climbed to a window and insulted the sentinel, resisted five men who tried to disarm him, and continued in this condition for eight hours.

The next day he denied having done any of these things, avowed that he was a good monarchist and a good citizen, and declared distinctly that he had not done what he had done, in the face of the concurrent testimony of several witnesses. On renewing the experiment a few days afterward with eighty grammes of alcohol, the same series of phenomena recurred--a real anarchistic raving, a genuine mania for regicide, which would certainly have ended in some act if he had not been restrained by force; and this person, who had at first presented an evident obtusity of touch and an extraordinary contraction of the visual field, now exhibited an almost normal touch of three millimetres and a visual field enlarged to triple its extent when he was sober.

On the day after this he recollected none of all the things that had happened the day before. This double personality was determined in him by alcohol, as it is in others by misery or by fanaticism, while it rests with all upon a congenital basis. The fact helps us to explain how some inoffensive man may have a type of physiognomy quite similar to that of Ravachol, showing how often there are true criminals in potency, whose physiognomy, or rather the anomalies of it, bears a prophetic relation to the crime which breaks out on the first determining circumstance. And we have here another explanation of such contradictory characters as those of Ravachol, Caserio, and Luccheni, who, having been once well-behaved, end by becoming criminals.

* * * * *

Applied science was defined by Sir W. Roberts Austen, in his presidential address to the Iron and Steel Institute, 1899, as “nothing but the application of pure science to particular classes of problems.”

WHAT MAKES THE TROLLEY CAR GO.

BY WILLIAM BAXTER, JR., C. E.

I.

Of all the wonderful operations accomplished by the aid of electricity at the present time, none so completely mystifies the beholder as the action of the trolley car. The electric light, although incomprehensible to the average layman, does not excite his curiosity to the same extent. The glowing filament of an incandescent lamp or the dazzling carbon points of an arc light stimulate the inquisitive proclivities to some extent, but as the popular notion with respect to the nature of electricity is that it is some kind of fluid that can flow through wires and other things like water through a pipe, the conclusion arrived at is that the current, in its passage through the filament or the carbon points, generates a sufficient amount of heat to raise the temperature of the material to the luminous point. The fact that energy is required to raise the temperature of the mass to the incandescent point is not taken into consideration by those not versed in technical matters, owing to the fact that, as nothing moves, it is not supposed that power can be expended. When a trolley car is seen coming down the street at a high rate of speed the effect upon the mind is very different. Here we see a vast amount of weight propelled at a high velocity, and yet the only source through which the power to accomplish this result is supplied is a small wire. The mystifying cause does not stop here, for if we look further into the matter we see that the energy has to pass from the trolley wire to the car through the very small contact between it and the trolley wheel. After contemplating these facts, it appears remarkable that the energy that can creep through this diminutive passage can by any means be made to develop the force necessary to propel a car with a heavy load up a steep grade. An electrical engineer, if asked to explain the action, would say that the force of magnetic attraction was made use of to accomplish the result, but this explanation would fail to throw any light upon the subject. In what follows, it is proposed to explain the matter in a simple manner, and then it will be seen that what appears to be an incomprehensible mystery, when not understood, is, in fact, no mystery at all.

NOTE.--The illustrations of railway motor, generator, and switchboard (Figs. 15, 16, 17) were made from photographs kindly furnished by the manufacturers, the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company.

Electricity and magnetism are two forces that are intimately associated with each other, and, although radically different, it is difficult, if not impossible, to obtain one without the other, although it is a simple matter to make one inactive under certain conditions. It is very generally understood that a magnet possesses the power of attraction, and that it will draw toward it pieces of iron, steel, and other magnets. The laws governing the attractive properties of magnets, however, are not so well understood, and many are not aware of the fact that under certain conditions one magnet will repel another, but such is nevertheless the case.

In Fig. 1 the lower outline, _M_, represents a magnet fixed in position, and the upper bar represents another magnet arranged to swing freely around the pivot _a_. A magnet, as is generally known, will arrange itself in a north-to-south position if suspended from its center, like a scale beam, and allowed to swing freely, and the same end will always point toward the north. On this account the ends of a magnet are called its poles, and the one that will point toward the north is designated the north pole, while the other one is the south pole. The terms north and south poles were applied to magnets centuries ago, but at the present time the ends are more commonly designated as positive and negative. In Fig. 1 it will be noticed that the stationary magnet has its positive end upward, and this attracts the negative end of the swinging magnet. If the order of the poles is reversed, so that the positive of the swinging magnet will come opposite the positive of the stationary one, then there will be a repulsive action instead of an attraction, as is shown in Fig. 2. If the two negative ends were placed opposite, the effect would be the same. From this we see that to obtain an attraction we must place the magnets so that opposite poles come together, and that by reversing the order we obtain a repulsive action.

If the swinging magnet is replaced by a bar of iron, as is shown in Fig. 3, there will be an attraction, no matter what end of the magnet may be uppermost, thus showing that either end of a magnet will attract a bar of iron. The explanation of these different actions is that when two magnets are brought into proximity to each other each one exerts its force without any regard to the other, and if the two are set to act together they will attract one another, but if set to act in opposition they will repel. When one of the bars is not a magnet, but simply a piece of iron or steel, this bar, having no attractive or repulsive force of its own, can only obey the attractive action of the other, which is the only one that exerts a force.

In Fig. 4 _M_ is a magnet bent into the form of a U, commonly called a horseshoe magnet. The short bar set between the upper ends is also a magnet, and is arranged so as to revolve around the shaft _s_. From what has just been explained in connection with Figs. 1 and 2 it will be understood that, with the poles as indicated by the letters, there will be an attractive force set up between the top end of the straight bar and the _P_ end of the horseshoe, and thus rotation will be produced in the direction of the arrow. The rotation, however, will necessarily stop when the bar reaches the position shown in Fig. 5, for then the attraction between the poles will resist further movement. If the straight bar were not a magnet, but simply a piece of iron or steel, it is evident that when in the position of Fig. 4 the attraction would be just as much toward the right as toward the left, and if the bar were placed accurately in the central position it would not swing in either direction. It would be in the condition called, in mechanics, unstable equilibrium. In practice this condition could not be very well realized, as it would be difficult to set and retain the bar in a position where the attraction from both sides would be the same, therefore the rotation would be in one direction or the other; but whichever way the bar might move, it would only swing through one quarter of a revolution, into the horizontal position of Fig. 5.

If we reflect upon these actions we can see that if we could destroy the magnetism of both parts before the straight bar reaches the position of Fig. 5 it would be possible to obtain rotation through a greater distance than one quarter of a turn, for then the headway acquired by the rotating part would cause it to continue its motion. If, after the completion of one half of a revolution, we could remagnetize both parts, we would then set up an attraction between the lower end of the straight bar and the left side of the horseshoe, for then the polarity of the former would be the reverse of that shown in Fig. 4--that is, the lower end would be negative. By means of this second attraction we would cause the bar to rotate through the third quarter of the revolution, and if, just before completing this last quarter, we were to remove all the magnetism again, the headway would keep up the motion through the final quarter of the revolution, thus completing one full turn. From this it will be realized that if we could magnetize and demagnetize the two parts twice in each revolution a continuous rotation could be obtained.

If the magnetizing and demagnetizing action were only applied to the rotating part we would fail to keep up a continuous rotation, for, as was shown in connection with Fig. 3, the action when the straight bar reached the position of Fig. 5 would be the same as if it were magnetized, owing to the fact that a magnet always exerts an attraction upon a mass of iron. Suppose, however, that we were to reverse the polarity of the rotating part just as it reaches the position of Fig. 5, then there would be two poles of the same polarity opposite each other, and, as shown in Fig. 2, the force acting between them would be repulsive, and would push the bar around in the direction of rotation. Not only would the right-side pole of the horseshoe force the end of the bar away from it, but the negative pole, on the left side, would attract this same end, and thus a force would be exerted by the two poles of _M_ to keep up the rotation through the next half of a circle. On reaching this last position the rotation would stop if the polarity of the revolving bar were left unchanged, for then the poles facing each other would be of opposite polarity. If, however, we again reversed the polarity, a repulsion would be set up between the poles facing each other, and thus a force would be exerted to continue the rotation. Thus we see that if the polarity of the horseshoe magnet is not disturbed it is necessary to reverse that of the rotating part to obtain a continuous motion, but if we change the magnetic conditions of both parts, then it is only necessary to magnetize and demagnetize them alternately.

From the foregoing it is seen that there are two ways in which the force of magnetism could be utilized to keep up a continuous rotation, and the question now is, Can either of them be made available in practice? To this we answer that, by the aid of the relations existing between electricity and magnetism, both can be and are made available, as will be shown in the following paragraphs:

In Fig. 6 _W_ represents a coil of wire provided with a cotton covering, so that there may be no actual contact between the adjoining convolutions. If the ends _p n_ of this coil are connected with a source of electric energy, an electric current will flow through it, and if a bar, as indicated by _N P_, of iron or steel is placed within the coil it will become magnetized. If the bar is made of steel and is hardened it will retain the magnetism, and become what is called a permanent magnet; such a magnet, in fact, as we have considered in all the previous figures. If the bar is made of iron it will not retain the magnetism, but will only be a magnet as long as the electric current flows through the coil _W_. A magnet of the latter type is called an electro-magnet. If the iron is of poor quality--that is, from an electrical standpoint--it will require an appreciable time to lose its magnetism, but if it is soft and high grade, electrically considered, it will lose its magnetism instantly, or nearly so. If we take two bars of soft iron and arrange them side by side, as in Fig. 7, and wind coils around them as indicated each one will become magnetized when the ends _p n_ of the coils are connected with an electric circuit. If the lower ends of the two bars are joined by a piece, as shown at _M_, we will have a horseshoe electro-magnet. If we take a round disk of iron, as in Fig. 8, and wind a coil around it, it will also become a magnet when an electric current traverses the coil. Thus it will be seen that it makes little difference what the shape of the iron may be, providing it is surrounded by a coil of wire and an electric current is passed through the latter. This being the case, it is evident that either of the processes explained in connection with Figs. 4 and 5 can be made available for the production of a continuous rotation by the aid of electro-magnets. Suppose we make a drum, as shown in Fig. 9, and wind a wire coil around it in the direction indicated, then when a current passes through the wire the drum will be magnetized, with poles at top and bottom. If the electric current passes through the wire from end _p_ to end _n_ the drum will be magnetized positively at the top and negatively at the bottom, and if the direction of the current through the wire is reversed the polarity of the drum will be reversed. If we construct a horseshoe magnet of the shape shown in Fig. 10, and place within the circular opening between its ends the drum of Fig. 9, we will have a device that is capable of developing a continuous rotation, providing we have suitable means for reversing the direction of the electric current through the wire coil; and this machine constitutes an electric motor in its simplest form.