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♦ KNOV^^LEDGE ♦ 



[July 13, 1883. 



THE DIVIDED SKIRT. 



IN the first number of Knowledge I gave an amusing 

 article from the Neiv York Times about pyramid 

 theories. It was written presumably by Mr. Alden, whose 

 occasional serio-comic articles are a most attractive feature 

 of that leading New York paper. I suppose we owe to the 

 same clever pen an article recently quoted in the Standard 

 about a habit chaffingly attributed to the Missourian belles, 

 who, according to this view, might be described as snapping 

 turtle[dove]s. (Four Missourian ladies happened to be 

 present in my house when that article appeared, but obser- 

 vation has hitherto failed to confirm the statements of the 

 Jfew York Times in their case, and I can only assume that 

 the habit of biting is not universal among the fair Mis- 

 sourians.) I think readers of Knowledge will read with 

 amusement the following specimen of Mr. Alden's quaint 

 humour : — 



" Mr. Richard A. Proctor, the distinguished astronomer, 

 has recently made some new investigations as to certain 

 heavenly bodies which show him to be a man of great fear- 

 lessness and originality. 



" According to Mr. Proctor's own statement, set forth 

 in a letter addressed to the London Times, he has of late 

 ceased his explanations of the milky way and concentrated 

 all his powers of observation upon corsets and skirts. Of 

 course, his scientific attainments have given him excep- 

 tional facilities for exploration in hi.s new field. Knowing 

 the diameter of any given skirt, he is able to calculate its 

 contents, and if the elements of a corset are given to him 

 he can ascertain to the millionth part of an inch the length 

 of arm required to encircle it, and the cubic feet of girl 

 which it contains. Conversely, with a knowledge of the 

 radius of any given girl, he can find the size of both the 

 skirt and corset best adapted to her. There is no hap- 

 hazard guesswork in Mr. i'roctor's investigations of femi- 

 nine dress. He proceeds by strictly scientific methods, and 

 he grasps figures with an assurance and success which 

 no unscientific person could hope to rival. 



" Several interesting experiments have been made by Mr. 

 Proctor upon ' subjects ' styled by him the ' ladies of my 

 famUy.' These experiments began with the removal of 

 corsets. It was found that great advantages at once 

 followed this measure. For example, the voice ' increased 

 markedly both in power and compass,' so that when Mrs. 

 Proctor now remarks to Mr. Proctor, from the top of the 

 stairs at midnight, ' Pachard, you've been sitting up with 

 those horrid stars again,' slie can be heard by neighbours 

 living at a distance of an eighth of a mile, whereas her 

 voice could formerly be heard only half that distance. 



"At the same time Mr. Proctor found that the withdrawal 

 of corsets left the skirts of the subjects insufficiently sup- 

 ported. He therefore substituted ' divided skirts ' for those 

 of the usual pattern, and thus obviated the difficulty. With 

 the ' divided skirt,' lawn-tennis, tricycling, and other open- 

 air exercises became much easier, and Mr. Proctor is so 

 completely satisfied with the result which he has attained 

 that he is now longing to deprive all his countrywomen 

 of corsets and to put them into the 'divided skirt.' 



" From the tone of his letter, it is plain that the astro- 

 nomer is more enthusiastic as to the clothing of the women 

 of England than he has even been as to the stars. The 

 transit of a young lady clothed in a ' divided ' skirt over 

 a stone wall is watched by him with as much interest as if 

 he were observing a transit of Venus across the sun, and 

 the orbit of a tricycle rider with a divided skirt presents 

 elements more interesting than those of the orbit of any 

 comet. In all probability Mr. Proctor will henceforth 



throw aside his telescope, and devote himself exclusively to 

 observations made through an opera-glass. 



" It may be quite possible that all the advantages claimed 

 for the ' divided skirt ' by Mr. Proctor may exist, but 

 whether they would compensate for the ugliness of the 

 garment is a question which most women, and all men with 

 minds uncontaminated by astronomy, will unhesitatingly 

 answer in the negative " [only as no eye, not even the 

 keenest astronomical eye, armed with a telescope of "ten 

 million gas magnifying power " can recognise any change 

 at all, this particular objection scarcely counts. — R. P.]. 



SOMETHING ABOUT THE BEET. 



AS the editer kindly allowed me to put before the readers of 

 K.vowLEDGE a few facts ascertained by chemists with 

 respect to the potato, I am in this going to try if I cannot give 

 some interesting, and at the same time scientific, facts with refer- 

 ence to the beet. In 1880 alone, there were no less than forty -three 

 important communications to the scientific world, announcing the 

 results of various investigations carried on in connection with this 

 plant. And it is through this that I think it a duty for some 

 person or other to lay before the public some, at least, of the 

 interesting and useful parts of their (the chemists') investigations. 

 What do most of ns know about the beet, beyond the fact that we 

 plant it in our gardens, and in dne time eat it, either as pickle or 

 ])lainly boiled, or prepared like cucumber, or used for salads ? I 

 take it for granted that we all, at the same time, know all about 

 the manufacture of this plant for sugar, also its history, and how 

 chemistry in those early days came to the rescue of the manufac- 

 turer, so that he might be able to manufacture a sugar in his own 

 country (Germany and France), instead of importing the colonial 

 cane-sugar ; how the duties were raised on foreign sugars to make 

 it prohibitory to import them, as it raised the price to a fabidons 

 sum per pound, I forget now how much, and should not like to guess, 

 fur fear of underrating the amount ; but these and other interesting 

 matters will be found in the " Chemistry of Common Life," by 

 Johnson and Church, by those who have not read the account of it. 

 But it is not my intention to go back to the old groimd, but to bring 

 forward later information. 



In my communication about potatoes, I showed you what an influ- 

 ence light had on the sprouting of tubers; we shall now see that 

 light has also a very marked effect on beet. Beet, when grown in 

 the shade, runs more to seed, and does not ripen as soon as when it 

 is grown in the open ; and to make this more clear, I will give 

 two results obtained by two different chemists to bear out the 

 assertion. 



In one case the relation — in the shade — between the leaves and 

 root was 66'34, and in the open the relations were nearly exactly 

 reversed, viz., 35'66. The same chemist foand that 1,000 plants in 

 the open yielded 32'5 kilos sugar, while the same number in the 

 shade only yielded 13'-t kilos (a kilo = about 2 lb. 3 oz.). 



The other chemist planted a lot of willows, and between the 

 willows he planted his beets with the following results : — The beets 

 he grew in the open yielded 11'14 per cent, of sugar, 350 grammes 

 of root to 100 of leaf, and the beet grown amongst the willows 

 yielded only 8'8 per cent, of sugar, and only 40'3 grammes of root 

 to 100 of leaf (a gramme is not quite 15i grains). 



This shows us how important it is to set our plants in the open, 

 and the same also applies to the potato, for the two plants are very 

 similar in their wants, as we shall see. 



We now come to the effect of heat on the growing beet, and we find 

 that a mean temperatm-e of from 14° to 18° C, from May to October 

 inclusive, and a warm and wet spring, together ivith a not too dry 

 summer, are the best conditions under 'which beet can be grown. 

 Heat has the same beneficial effect on the beet as on the potato. 

 Beets require a total temperature of 117° C. before they make their 

 appearance above ground, and as beets require to reach perfection 

 in as short a time as possible for successful estraction of the sugar, 

 it is easily seen that too early planting is disadvantageous to the 

 growth and manufacture. Beet thrives best in those countries 

 where a hot summer is followed by a very cold winter (| of the 

 number of degrees Centigrade + Z'2 = the degrees Falirenheit, 

 i.e., English temperature). When you cut open a beet you see 

 two concentric rings, the one white and opaque, the other clear, 

 transparent, and mostly coloured ; the former contains the chief 

 part of the sugar, while the latter contains tlie albumen. 



Ploughing has a very favourable influence on the quantity of the 

 crop, if the ploughing is deep, and is next in importance to planting. 



