734 



Popular Science Monthly 



The College-Trained Elephant 

 as a Circus Attraction 



"TADIES and gentlemen," begins the 



I J official barker at a side show, "it is 

 your privilege to see before you the only 

 living college-trained elephant in captivity, 

 engaged at an enormous 

 expense by the manager 

 of this incomparable ag- 

 gregation of world-fa- 

 mous artists and animal 

 shows!" 



With this 

 he presents 

 to the ele- 

 phant, who 

 looks inde- 

 scribably 

 bored, a 

 piece of 

 white chalk 

 in an iron 

 holder. 



''Will 

 some of the 

 ladies or 

 gentlemen 

 kindly name 

 some small 

 numbers?" suavely urges the barker and 

 from amongst the spectators come calls 

 of "Six- -Two— Five!" 



"Six — two — five," repeats the barker 

 slowly and impressively and leads the 

 graduate of the elephant college to the 

 blackboard. 



To the astonishment of the spectators 

 the chalk traces a perfectly legible "6" 

 upon the black surface. Underneath he 

 writes a "2," underneath that a "5." 

 Then comes the addition line and the 

 result, 13. 



An attendant on the other side of the 



blackboard did the trick. For 



his benefit the barker repeated 

 the numbers so as to give him 

 time to pick out the same num- 

 bers, cut out of sheet iron, and 

 slip them into grooves provided 

 for them. Then he grasped a 

 powerful magnet and held it 

 against the top of the six. To the 

 same spot, on the other side, the 

 barker directed the trunk of the 

 eU'[)haMt. The chalk holder ))v- 

 ing of iron, followed the magnet. 



Is a Compass Necessary? Not 

 if You Have a Watch 



WERE you ever out in the "wild," 

 carrying your map but without a 

 compass? Your watch answers the pur- 

 pose just as well. 



Disregard the minute hand altogether. 



Then note the arc that the Jwur hand 



makes with the noon of the day — not the 



midnight — and draw an imaginary line 



bisecting this arc. Point this line 



towards the sun and the XII will 



point toward the south. 



Referring to the dia- 

 grams, the first 

 one repre- 

 sents 5.10 A. 

 M. Theimag- 

 i n a r y line 

 falls between 

 the hour 

 hand and 

 the ap- 

 proaching 

 noon, as 

 shown. The 

 second fig- 

 ure shows 

 the time to 

 be 3.45 P. M., so that the imaginary line 

 falling between the noon and the hour 

 hand, practically coincides with the II. 

 In the third it is 7.20 P. M. and the 

 bisecting line still comes between the noon 

 and the hour hand, so that it falls be- 

 tween the III and the IV. The line must 

 always bisect the arc, whether it is more 

 or less than a semicircle. 



One's watch makes tiro circuits while the 

 sun makes one. Therefore half the arc be- 

 tween the hour hand and the nearest 

 noon, pointed toward the sun, causes the 

 noon--the XII — to point due south. 



The " intelligent " elephant and the way his brain 

 works, said brain being in the head of the attendant 



Dotted line in each case represents imaginary line 

 bisecting arc between the hour hand and the noon 



