394 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 15. 



tions they will ultimately find they are trail- 

 ing the wrong coon. They had better spend 

 their time in investigating the sense of touch, 

 which is a very delicate sense, or force, and is 

 beautifully illustrated by the inmates of the 

 blind-asylums. 



Hold your breath, Mr. Editor, while I an- 

 nounce that sound and light will, in the near 

 future, be recognized as forces ('especially 

 sound), and not, as now held to be, ethereal 

 waves, as now thought, just as electricity is 

 now known to be force, and not fluid, as it 

 was thought to be only a few years ago. A 

 trained hand can often feel a sound when 

 transmitted through a dense medium. If you 

 dissent from this position, let your footnotes 

 answer these questions : 



What causes light to pass through several 

 inches of glass, and be stopped or turned back 

 by an inch board of porous wood ? Can the 

 subtile ether more easily penetrate dense glass 

 than porous wood ? Why will not ether carry 

 light through sheet iron as well as through a 

 foot of glass ? Absorbs it ? Yes. How long 

 will it take to get so full of ether-waves that it 

 will glow like phosphorus in the dark ? If 

 they are forces we have this solution : As 

 glass is a non-conductor of electricity, and as- 

 bestos of heat, so wood and iron are non-con- 

 ductors of light, while glass is, perhaps, its 

 best conductor, air excepted. Iron, being a 

 non-conductor of light, is an excellent con- 

 ductor of the forces of sound and electricit}'. 



I was led to these conclusions by being able 

 to feel sounds with my hand when I was ac- 

 tively practicing medicine. I could almost as 

 accurately diagnose bronchitis by my hand 

 laid flat on the thorax as I could with the 

 stethoscope. Again, if light and sound are 

 ethereal waves, why should light travel mil- 

 lions of miles in a minute, while sound would 

 be many hours traveling that distance? Sure- 

 ly, the discharge of a cannon would give a 

 greater impetus than the feeble rays of a tallow 

 dip ; yet the one could be seen a long distance 

 much quicker than the other could be heard ; 

 thus air is a much better conductor of light 

 than of sound. The telephone demonstrates 

 that sound is more rapidly transmitted 

 through wire than is electricity, the former 

 being instantaneous for miles, while the latter 

 is not instantaneous. 



That's right ; thrash Dr. Miller with that 

 bundle of straw until his preaching and prac- 

 tice agree. Hit him again, Dr. Miller. Have 

 the finger point to the side of wagon, and save 

 breakage. I have peddled honey considerably 

 from a wagon, and have learned a thing or 

 two when I can think of them. 



I'd like to see Hasty and A. B. Gill, of Paso 

 Robles, eat honey on a race. I would furnish 

 the honey to see the fun. Gill can get away 

 with a pound at a sitting ; but how long he 

 could hold out at that rate I do not know — 

 perhaps a month or two. 



Dove, Cal., April 4. 



[Your science, theory, and practice are all 

 right, save in the reference to the telephone. I 

 have made telephones, acoustic and electrical, 

 a special study, and your statement to the ef- 



fect that ' ' sound is more rapidly transmitted 

 through a wire than electricity " is erroneous, 

 or else the theory and practice of the Bell tel- 

 ephone is all wrong, if I understand you. As I 

 understand it, it is this way : The voice acts 

 sometimes on an electro-magnet — more often 

 on a microphone — which in turn causes an 

 intermittent current of electricity to act on an 

 electro-magnet at the " other end of the line." 

 This magnet in the "receiver" causes the 

 diaphragm (or armature) to vibrate in such a 

 way as to reproduce siJiiilar sound-waves (but 

 not the same) as those spoken at the other 

 end, even though thousands of miles away. 

 That is to say, sound does not travel over the 

 wire of an electric phone at all. It simply 

 acts on the head or mouth-piece, causing cer- 

 tain vibrations. These are reproduced by 

 electricity (another and distinct force) in the 

 receiver at the other end. In a certain sense, 

 sound travels over the wire of an acoustic 

 phone but very imperfectly. I don't pretend 

 to be " up "on the other sciences ; but all that 

 Mr. Arwine saj's sounds reasonable, and, so 

 far as I know, is quite within the range of 

 practice. Indeed, I believe it the best article 

 we have ever received on the subject. — Ed.] 



FORECASTS OF THE HONEY SEASON. 



How does it Affect Market Prices on Honey? 



BY C. DWENPORT. 



If Gleanings did not have the reputation 

 it has for fair play by allowing everybody in 

 our ranks to express his opinion on all mat- 

 ters relating to our pursuit I should hesitate to 

 criticise its policy of estimating such large 

 honey crops before such is actually assured. 

 I think there is little question that the esti- 

 mates and reports of large or very large 

 expected crops in the different bee-papers 

 have done considerable to lower the price 

 during the last two years. Of course, bee- 

 keepers thenaselves are mostly to blame for 

 this by sending in such glowing reports. Still, 

 the editorials on the matter, as a rule, seem to 

 overlook the fact that many — in fact, I think 

 I may say most — of these reports on which 

 such large estimates of the crops have been 

 made the last two years were sent in by be- 

 ginners or by those who had but a small num- 

 ber of colonies, and on these accounts were not 

 competent authority. Gleanings, though, 

 on account of its connection with or intimate 

 knowledge of the affairs of a great manufac- 

 tory which has distributing-points all over the 

 L^nited States, has, of course, other ways of 

 forming an estimate of the crop by the amount 

 of supplies manufactured or actually sent out 

 to the producers ; still, this does not give an 

 accurate means of estimating the crop ; for no 

 bee-keeper, when ordering supplies, can tell 

 with any certainty whether they will be need- 

 ed that season or for a number of years to 

 come. Besides, this is a big country, and the 

 manufacture of supplies at the present time is 

 in the hands of or controlled by but few 

 factories, comparatively speaking; and on this 

 account if they do a large business, and even 



