390 



Poj)nJar Science Monthly 



A large hospital for infants has recently been equipped with a number of rooms with glass 

 walls, so that without entering the rooms nurses may observe the babies as easily as if 

 they were so many fish in an aquarium 



Babies in Glass Cases 



T\\'0 years ago the Hebrew Infant 

 Asylum at Kingsbridge Road and 

 University Avenue, New York, adopted 

 the plan of using glass cases for ba- 

 bies admitted to the observation build- 

 ing. As a result the children may be ob- 

 served without the necessity of entering 

 their rooms. 



Each child is supplied with its own 

 utensils, to\vels, bath, etc. If one baby 

 develops a communicable disease it is 

 impossible for it to give it to another. 

 This is the first building of this kind to 

 be erected in the United States. The 

 idea was taken from some European in- 

 stitutions and adapted to the needs of 

 this asylum. There are glass chambers 

 enough to accommodate twelve babies 

 ranging in age from a few days up to 

 one and a half years. 



Why Is the Sun Hot? 



IF we could build up a solid column of 

 ice from the earth to the sun, two 

 miles and a half in diameter, spanning 

 the intervening distance of ninety-three 

 million miles, and if the sun should con- 



centrate his entire power upon it, it would 

 dissolve in a single second, according to a 

 calculation made by Professor Young. 

 To produce this enormous amount of 

 heat would require the hourly burning 

 of a layer of anthracite coal more than 

 nineteen feet thick over the entire sur- 

 face of the sun. If the sun were com- 

 posed of solid coal and we derived our 

 heat from the burning of that coal the 

 sun would burn out in less than five 

 thousand years. Since the earth is mil- 

 lions of years old the sun can not be 

 burning. Its heat must be generated in 

 some more persistent Avay. 



The great German physicist Helmholtz 

 was the first to explain satisfactorily 

 what keeps the sun hot. The sun is not 

 burning ; it is heated to the glowing point, 

 like a piece of white hot iron. Helm- 

 holtz found that if w^e suppose the sun to 

 be contracting by only two hundred and 

 fifty feet a year we would receive our 

 present amount of heat. In other words 

 heat is being literally squeezed out of the 

 sun. Professor Newcomb estimated that 

 when the squeezing process has contin- 

 ued for about seven million years, the 

 sun will be one half its present size. 



