FUSION DISK. 



GAMBETTA, LEON MICHEL. 313 



contending societies, each of which claimed to 

 be the White Lick quarterly meeting of Friends. 

 If those who had withdrawn from the West- 

 ern yearly meeting to form a new yearly 

 meeting had never been recognized in accord- 

 ance with the usages of the Society of Friends 

 as a regularly and properly organized yearly 

 meeting, they had no rights, powers, or au- 

 thority which the civil courts could recognize 

 as such; and if, as was also alleged, the de- 

 fendant society had never been recognized by 

 the established Western yearly meeting, with- 

 in whose territorial jurisdiction they seemed 

 to have attempted to organize, as properly or- 

 ganized, then they had no rights as such organi- 

 zation which the civil courts could protect or 

 enforce. It might appear to the court or jury 

 that the recognized Western yearly meeting, 

 or the recognized White Lick quarterly meet- 

 ing, had utterly abandoned the ancient faith 

 and practices, doctrines and teachings of the 

 Society of Friends ; yet when the superior or- 

 ganizations have decided otherwise, when they 

 continued to recognize and fellowship these 

 organizations, notwithstanding such apparent 

 change, as regular and orthodox, and refused 

 to recognize or admit to fellowship the new 

 organization which might appear to adhere 

 strictly and tenaciously to such ancient faith 

 and practices, courts and juries must respect 

 their action, and in the judgment of the court 

 could not go behind it. 



Issue was afterward joined upon the ques- 

 tions of facts involved in the suit. 



FUSION DISK A simple apparatus has 



been invented by Jacob Reese, of Pittsburg, 

 which is found very useful in its industrial ap- 

 plications, while the principle of its action is 

 a puzzling problem to scientific men. It is a 

 circular, revolving saw, with which steel bars 

 are cut in two. The material of the circular 

 saw is soft iron. It fuses steel bars which are 

 brought into close proximity to it without 

 touching. The bar to be cut is made likewise 

 to revolve, in the contrary direction, with a 

 speed of 200 revolutions a minute. The re- 

 volving disk is 42 inches in diameter and 

 inch thick. It turns with a velocity of 2,300 

 revolutions, equal to a tangential velocity of 

 25,250 feet a minute. The circular disk is 

 mounted on an arbor and set in motion with 

 pulleys and belts, like an ordinary circular saw. 

 When the bar is brought almost into contact 

 with the revolving disk, a small drop of molten 

 metal first appears on its surface. In a few 

 seconds a notch is made, the molten metal 

 flowing downward in a stream of sparks, and 

 being thrown in sparks in all directions. A 

 singular circumstance is the fact that the in- 

 candescent sparks, when they first leave the 

 bar, are not hot. These sparks or drops of 

 fused metal are of dazzling whiteness, yet 

 their temperature differs but little from that 

 of the surrounding atmosphere. In their path 

 through the air those sparks which are pro- 

 jected sidewise acquire heat from the fric- 

 tion. At the distance of five feet or more 

 they burn like a red-hot poker, while their 

 vivid incandescence has given place to a dull- 

 red color. 



G 



GAMBETTA, LEON MICHEL, a French states- 

 man, born April 3, 1838, at Cahors, where his 

 father, a Genoese of Jewish origin, was engaged 

 in commercial pursuits. After attaining high 

 honors at the lyceum of his native town, he 

 studied law in Paris, and was there admitted 

 to the bar in his twenty-second year. For 

 some time secretary to the late M. Cr6mieux, 

 the young advocate's talents soon won for him 

 the admiration and friendship of the veteran 

 democrat, in whom he afterward found a firm 

 supporter. During the interval between 1859 

 and 1868 he gained notice and distinction both 

 as an eloquent forensic orator and as a writer, 

 alternately pleading the causes of political of- 

 fenders (mostly journalists), publishing essays 

 on eminent members of the Paris bar, and con- 

 tributing to the daily press articles on politics, 

 finance, art, and other topics. In the electoral 

 campaign of 1863, the first in which he took an 

 active part, he acquired considerable popular- 

 ity as an ultra-Liberal. But 1868 found him 

 popular and left him famous. The empire, 

 which sprang from the coup d'etat of Decem- 

 ber 2, 1851, and silenced for a time the nation's 

 voice, had now become an impossible thing. 



The luster of a period marked by military suc- 

 cesses in the Crimean and Italian Wars, and 

 efficient to repress but not subdue the oppo- 

 sition, had been dimmed by the sorry issue of 

 the Mexican expedition, and the disastrous 

 Treaty of Prague ; both indicative of the en- 

 feeblement, or, as it has been aptly termed, 

 the precocious dotage, of the head of the 

 dynasty I Public discontent was at the full, 

 and the people looked forward to a solution 

 not long to be deferred, and already fore- 

 shadowed in overt democratic demonstrations 

 of hostility to the Government. As an in- 

 stance of such manifestations, we may cite the 

 popular tribute to the memory of Deputy Bau- 

 din, the circumstances of whose death while 

 endeavoring to shield the people from the fury 

 of the troops on December 2, 1851, had been 

 vividly recalled in a recent publication on the 

 coup d'etat. Numerous arrests followed ; the 

 press protested, and a subscription for a monu- 

 ment to Baudin was opened in the columns of 

 "Le K6veil." Delescluze, the editor-in-chief 

 of that journal, was prosecuted, and Gambetta 

 called to his defense. In his speech on that 

 occasion (November 14, 1868), the cause of 



