532 



The Review of Reviews, 



BRITAIN'S LOST REPUTATION. 



The results of the Filth Olympiad at Stoi-kholm 

 have caused much heart-burning, but in the Badminton 

 MagaziiieVix. Adolphe Abrahams suggests that we were 

 beaten because we did not take trouble, and that there 

 are excellent grounds for encouragement if we take 

 pains, without which success is impossible. Among 

 other things, Mr. Abrahams believes in the value of 

 the professional trainer :— 



I am sure that many who see the results of American training 

 imagine that we have only to import a trainer from across the 

 Atlantic to produce a lea n of world's record breakers. Let us 

 have the trainer by all means. (Hi^ snlary, by the wav, \\ould 



THE EAR AS EYE. 



The English Mechanic records the latest marvel of 

 science, an instrument enabling the blind to see, or 

 at least to locate Hght by means of the ear. The 

 inventor is Mr. Fournier d'Albe, of Birmingham 

 University, who has made use of the well-known 

 property of selenium of changing its resistance under 

 the action of light. The instrument is called the 

 " Optophcne," and consists of two parts^ and is thus 

 described : — 



One of them is a pair of high-resistance telephones, as used 

 for wireless telegraphy. The other is a long box, measuring 

 iS in. by 4 in. by 6 in., which contains the selenium briilge. the 



iiy couriay 'J tlu:. 



The Stadium at Athens. 



L*' ^iichtitCiwu^ tCti/hiu 'jar J-'y. 



he one which most professional men would envy if we paid him 

 what he receives in .•\merica.) He would get the best out of 

 our men, but if an athlete has been running or jumping wrongly 

 for years he could not be sufficiently untaught to be taught. 

 Our matured long-jumper of twenty-three feet could not be 

 turned into a twenty-live feet man ; but a boy capable of 

 nineteen feet might be the ideal material from which to make a 

 world's champion. .America knows well the importance of 

 getting .at the malleable material whose nervous system has not 

 yet become grooved in wrong paths. To educe absolutely the 

 best possible out of our available material we ought to begin 

 preparing now, not for the Games at Berlin in I9i<3, but lor 

 those in 1920. 



The' above illuslntion refers to the article on the 

 Stadium at Athens, which appeared in our last issue 

 on pa'.e 184. It represents the last restoration 

 carried out under the supervision of Hi'.nsen of 

 X'ienna. 



battery, the \\'ire resistances, two adjustable carbo n resistances 

 and a clockwork interrupter. The last is there for the purpose 

 of making the telephone current intermittent, as a continuous 

 current is inaudible in the telephone. 



The method of using the optophone is as follows : The tele- 

 phones are attached to the head, and the optophone box is 

 carried in the right hand, connected by flexible wires with the 

 telephones. On turning on the current and starling the i^ioek- 

 work, a ticking or rasjiing sound ii heaid in the telephones. 

 This can be rediiced to silence by adjusting the sliding carbon 

 resistance, and by an auxiliary resistance giving a fine adjust- 

 ment. That silence will continue so long as the light shining 

 into the box rcm.ains of the same intensity ; but a very slight 

 change of illumination, either a brightening or darkening, 

 sutlices to restore the sound iii the telephone, and the hnidness 

 of the sounil pioduced measures the extent of the brightening or 

 daikening of the light. 



In jiracliee it is found best to adjust the resistances so that the 

 briglUest light available produces silence, and then the various 

 shades of darkness produce sounds of corresponding intensity 



