PUMPKIN 



1S7U 



PUNCTUATION 



Centrifugal and Turbine Pumps. When you 

 swing a bucket of water around your head, 

 the water does not spill out, for it is pressed 

 toward the bottom of the pail by centrifu- 

 gal force, the same force which makos mud 

 fly from a wagon wheel. If a number of 

 bottomless pails were whirled around inside 

 a pipe, and there were only one hole where 

 water could leave the pipe, each pail as it 

 passed this hole would throw some of its 

 water out and suck up more at the center. 

 This is exactly the action of a centrifugal 

 pump, though instead of pails there are or- 

 dinarily four blades. This type of pump has 

 the merit of giving constant flow, but it will 

 not lift water very high. 



The turbine pump is like a many-bladed 

 screw propeller or an electric fan. Like the 

 centrifugal pump it produces a constant flow. 

 In addition it is free from valves, which in 

 some classes of work would be liable to be- 

 come clogged with sand or other small parti- 

 cles. 



Consult Bjorling's Practical Handbook of Pump 

 Construction. 



PUMP 'KIN, a coarse, running vine with 

 hollow stalks, broad, prickly leaves and large, 

 orange-colored, gourdlike fruit. The plant is 

 believed to have been known to the native 

 Americans and planted among their corn; in 



THE PUMPKIN 

 Fruit, flower and vine. 



England it has been cultivated since the year 

 1570. The globe-shaped fruit, often two feet 

 in diameter, has tough, stringy pulp and large, 

 white seeds. It is not fit to eat raw, but when 

 cooked with other ingredients makes delicious 

 filling for pies. 



Whittier, in his poem The Pumpkin, refers 

 to the custom of making jack-o'-lanterns from 

 the fruits on Hallowe'en (see HALLOWE'EN), as 

 well as to the heroine of the fairy story Cin- 

 derella, who went to a ball in a coach made 

 from a pumpkin. 



O, fruit loved of boyhood ! the old days recall- 

 ing, 



When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts 

 were falling! 



When we laughed round the corn-heap, with 

 hearts all in tune, 



Our chair a broad pumpkin our lantern the moon. 

 Telling tales of the fairy who travelled like steam 

 In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her 

 team. 



PUNCTUATION, pungk tua'shun, in writing 

 and printing, is the use of certain signs to mark 

 off from each other sentences or parts of sen- 

 tences. The early Greek manuscripts had no 

 punctuation and no break between words, and 

 the reading of solid blocks of letters must have 

 been in some cases a matter of considerable 

 difficulty. The first attempt at punctuation of 

 any kind is to be found in Alexandrian manu- 

 scripts of the fourth century B. c., and takes the 

 form of a mark to indicate paragraph divisions. 

 Gradually a sort of scheme was worked out, a 

 circle standing for a full stop, a dot high above 

 the line for a lesser break in thought, such as 

 is in part indicated by the modern semicolon 

 or colon, and a dot midway above the line for 

 a slight break. This was in a measure adopted 

 by Latin writers of manuscripts, but it cannot 

 be said that the scheme was ever systematized 

 or very widely used. 



Constant attempts were made, however, to 

 adopt an effective system of marking, and about 

 the ninth century the comma appeared in use 

 among the monks of Europe, followed a little 

 later by a mark like the semicolon, which was, 

 however, a question mark. The systematizing 

 of a real punctuation scheme was the work of 

 Aldus Manutius, a Venetian printer who lived 

 in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Many 

 variations have been made since, but the sys- 

 tem of punctuation as it exists in all modern 

 languages remains unchanged in its essential 

 details. 



In English, much latitude is allowed in punc- 

 tuation. Certain rules, of course, are never 

 broken, but beyond that personal choice largely 

 governs the use of the marks. The best method 

 of learning to punctuate properly is not merely 

 to memorize and apply rules, but to watch the 

 closeness of connection in the thought. There 

 is a cause for every mark of punctuation, and, 

 this once learned, proper use of marks becomes 

 a comparatively simple matter. Open punctua- 

 tion is the use of only those marks which the 

 sense absolutely demands ; close punctuation is 

 the more liberal use of the signs. The present- 

 day tendency is toward the former rather than 

 the latter style, sometimes at the expense of 

 clearness; but authorities differ so widely that 

 it is impossible to establish unvarying rules. 

 The common marks of punctuation, with their 

 chief uses, are given below: 



