4H 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



by a cone of paper, was found to give the 

 best effects. Messrs. Preeee and Stroh also 

 exhibited a machine for tracing curves of 

 the composite character which represent 

 the sounds of speech, especially the vowel- 

 sounds. By this machine they are able to 

 build up curves by putting together their 

 constituent parts, and thus to study the 

 various theories with regard to vowel-sounds 

 which have been put forward. Several in- 

 struments were shown by which the vowel- 

 sounds were reproduced with more or less 

 exactitude by vibrating a disk in accord- 

 ance with the curves formed by the curve- 

 machine. One of them makes a simple and 

 good siren, reliable for measurements, and 

 gives promise of introducing a new musical 

 machine which will give sweet sounds by 

 the mechanical vibration of a disk. Though 

 the knowledge of vowel-sounds is far from 

 complete, Helmholtz's theory has been fully 

 confirmed by the work the authors have 

 done. The sounds can not, however, be, 

 they say, exactly reproduced by mechanical 

 means at present. Some interesting experi- 

 ments were made on the loudness of sound, 

 tending to show, it was urged, that suffi- 

 cient importance has not been attached to the 

 quantity of air thrown into vibration. Disks 

 of different diameter, though vibrated with 

 the same amplitude and pitch, increase in 

 loudness very largely with the increasing 

 dimensions of the disk. 



A Large Terrestrial Globe. A New York 

 artificer, Grube, has constructed what pur- 

 ports to be the largest globe of the earth 

 now in existence, showing all the prominent 

 features of its surface. Its diameter is four 

 feet and about one inch, the scale being one 

 to 10,000,000. The range of even the Hima- 

 layas would not be visible upon this globe 

 if the same scale were adopted for the eleva- 

 tions as for the map, and accordingly the 

 relief is made upon a scale which exag- 

 gerates heights twenty times. The oceans, 

 seas, and rivers are colored blue ; the conti- 

 nents are yellow ; the glaciers, icebergs and 

 floating cakes of ice, white. Plains and 

 mountain ranges are clearly shown, and 

 every part of the world is exhibited in its 

 true character. Red, black, and white lines 

 cross the globe to indicate the isothermal 

 belts, the variations of the magnetic needle, 



the date line where ships correct their logs 

 by skipping from Saturday to Monday, and 

 vice versa, and other facts of like character. 

 The map has been corrected in the light of 

 the latest discoveries. The northern coast 

 of Siberia has been much altered in the 

 atlases by the Nordenskjold Expedition, the 

 ships sailing in deep water over places 

 marked as 500 miles inland, and being com- 

 pelled to go hundreds of miles around 

 promontories, etc., which are occupied on 

 the maps by bodies of water. The globe is 

 made of wood ; the relief is formed by wax. 

 Mr. Grube has been two years in perfecting 

 his globe. 



Is the " Uniformity System an Ameri- 

 can Idea ? Among the many mechanical ge- 

 niuses who by their inventions have helped 

 to develop the manufacturing industries of 

 the United States, none is entitled to higher 

 rank than Thomas Blanchard, inventor of 

 the tack-making machine, the machine for 

 turning gun-stocks, that for making shoe- 

 lasts, of an improved process for bending 

 timber, and of many other mechanical con- 

 trivances. An interesting sketch of Blan- 

 chard's life, written by Asa H. Waters, has 

 recently been published for the purpose of 

 vindicating for Blanchard his just place 

 among American worthies, refused to him 

 by certain historians of our national indus- 

 tries. Mr. Waters's pamphlet is a valuable 

 contribution to the literature of invention, 

 but he is certainly in error when he claims 

 for Blanchard the credit of having originated 

 what is known as the "uniformity system" 

 in manufacture the idea of making any 

 number of perfectly uniform copies of the 

 several parts of a piece of mechanism so 

 that one copy may be interchanged with any 

 other copy of the same part. 



The origination of this idea is asserted 

 by the author for Blanchard in the following 

 terms : " This perfect uniformity of Blan- 

 chard's work" (with the gun-stock-turning 

 machine) " suggested the idea of having all 

 the parts of the guns made at the armories 

 perfectly uniform, so as to be interchange- 

 able" (p. 9). Again, same page: 



" The War Department, impressed with 

 the importance of having the guns so made 

 that after a battle the broken ones could be 

 readjusted, ordered the Springfield Armory 



