76 
THE YOUNG SCIENTIST. 
sixth shorter, so in this case it must be 20 
inches long. It should not have a knot or 
joint in its entire length, but, as we cannot 
find that length clear of a joint in this piece 
of rattan cane, we will let a joint be in the 
middle of its length, where it won't inter- 
fere with the bending. This, you see, is 
the straightest part of the cane, so we will 
<cut it off 10 inches on each side of this joint. 
Fig. 10. 
Now we must go to work and split the cane, 
for it is too thick and heavy, as it does not 
require to be more than the thickness of a 
slate pencil at the ends, and a little thicker 
than a lead pencil in the middle. There, 
you see, it has split pretty even, and now 
we will round it up." 
"Why do you make it smaller at the 
ends, Uncle?" 
" To make it bend with an even sweep. 
Let me show you on this sjDare piece of 
unsplit cane; there, do you see (Fig. 10) 
how uneven it bends, and how ugly or mis- 
shapen it seems. This is because the ends 
are too strong to bend, so we must make 
them weaker by tapering them off, and the 
more even we taper them, the more even or 
regular the bend will be. Now we have 
pared them down nearly small enough, we 
will straighten them by laying, one end at a 
time, on the table, to see where the high or 
protruding crooks are, and scrape them 
away with our penknife. Now, you see. 
I they look alike, but we must test our work; 
so let us find the middle of the length. We 
cut off this piece of twine to the full length 
of the bender, and then bring the ends even 
and double it up. Now place one end of 
the doubled twine at the end of the bender, 
holding it straight along the bender, and 
where the other end comes is the middle of 
the length of the bender, so we cut a small 
notch there to mark it. Now rest the notch 
on the back of the penknife blade, so (Fig. 
11). You see it does not quite balance, so 
we must take more off the heavy side, and 
try it again. Now you see it pretty nearly 
balances, so it will do for the present, but 
let us notice which is the heavy side, for 
that knowledge may be useful presently." 
' ' What difference does the balancing 
make?" 
If one side is heaviest, it will cause the 
kite to lean over on that side, and, in all 
likelihood, that side is the thickest, and 
won't bend so even. In that case there will 
be more face on the kite on one side of the 
standard than on the other, and then the 
wind will put more pressure on that side, 
and the kite will wag, or sway about, when 
you fly it." 
"I didn't think it took so much care to 
make a kite." 
It does to make .a good one, that will 
fly high, keep steady, and look stately. 
Now let us tie the bender to the standard, 
taking care to tie it exactly in the middle, 
where the notch is. Here it is (Fig. 12), 
you see, all ready to bend. Now we make 
a fine notch close to each end of the bender, 
and tie a string or twine to one end, then 
pass the other end round the other end of 
Fig. 11. 
