44 
THE YOUNG SCIENTIST. 
boiling, or our cover will be blown off, 
since we have here a veritable steam 
boiler, of which the paper cover is the 
safety or rather the clanger-YalYe. 
The most extraordinary experiment 
(next to stirring molten lead with the 
naked hand, a feat which we will explain 
hereafter) is that of laying a piece of fine 
cambric or thin muslin on a red hot coal 
without burning it! This is easily done 
by stretching the fabric tightly over a 
polished metal ball before bringing it in 
contact with the coal. The metal will 
conduct the heat away so rapidly that it 
will be impossible to burn the cambric. 
So, too, a piece of lead, tin, or any simi- 
lar metal may be melted in a thin card- 
board dish by holding it over a lamp, as 
shown in the figure. The onl^^ condition 
that is necessary is that the metal shall 
melt at a temperature below the point at 
which cardboard burns. Common solder 
is a good metal with w4iich to try the ex- 
periment. We might use fusible metals, 
some of which melt at a temperature less 
than that of boiling water, but this would 
not be a fair illustration of the principle 
w^e are illustrating. 
A Talk About Bows and Arrows. 
YOU see," said Dr. Carver, as he de- 
posited a whole sheath of brightly 
feathered arrows on a table, took off his 
umbrageous felt, and drew up a chair, " I 
must be shooting something or other all 
the time. If it isn't a Winchester, it's a 
bow and arrow. Pretty, they are. But 
most too fine ! Fanc}^ thing, these arrows, 
for handsome young ladies to shoot on 
grass plats at straw targets. Now an In- 
dian arrow is a good bit longer— in aybe 
32 inches— and when a Sioux draws it 
chock up to the bow it fairly hums when 
he lets it fly. An Indian arrow has grooves 
cut in it behind the barb— that is to say, 
the ones they use in hunting— so that the 
blood can flow, otherwise the wound would 
spoil and swell. The fighting arrows are 
nasty things. The barb is so put on the 
shaft that when it hits you the steel, or 
old hoop iron, stays in the flesh when you 
go to pull out the arrow. Dear sakes, 
what ugly wounds I have seen them 
make ! An Indian boy begins to handle 
a light bow when he toddles, maybe at 
four or five years. His bow is taller than 
he is. He shoots at almost anything 
around the camp. When he is twelve he 
uses sharp arrows. A boy must be strong 
at eighteen to use a man's bow. Now, a 
white man who takes an Indian bow for 
the first time has all he can do to bend it. 
It wants some strength, but more knack. 
The bow is made straight. When it is 
strung, the cord, even when in tension, 
almost touches the bow. It is thick, some 
four and a half to five feet long— that is, 
their hunting bow— and has extra stiffness 
by having sinews pasted on it. I have 
seen We-shessa-lias-ka — that is the Long 
Man— and he was the best of the Ogalalla 
Sioux, kill an antelope with his arrows at 
125 measured yards. We-shessa-has-ka 
was nearly seven feet tall, and a good In- 
dian. On horseback, broadside to a buf- 
falo, I have more than once known that 
Indian to send an arrow through a big- 
cow. The arrow hung out on the other 
side. The bow for horseback and for war 
is a trifle shorter, and may be stiffer. You 
do not draw the arrow to the eye, but catch 
aim as I do when shooting from the hip. 
That can be acquired only by long prac- 
tice. The string is drawn by the clutch of 
the whole fingers, though some of the 
tribes use the thumb and three fingers. 
The long man could shoot an arrow in the 
air out of sight, and so can I (the doctor 
pointed to an arrow buried up to the 
feathers in the ceiling of our office, his 
own peculiar ornamentation of the Forest 
and Stream sanctum). I think that in a 
couple of months I could get into perfect 
practice, for I used to hold my own with 
any Indian on the plains. Sometimes, 
after I had been shooting with my Win- 
chester, an Indian would come up and 
show his bow, and tell me his bow was 
' muchee good ; ' but then I used to take 
his own bow and beat him at it. 
To pass away the time when I was at 
the Brooklyn Driving Park, I bought an 
English bow and arrows of Holberton, 
and soon got into the trick of it. I hit 
blocks of wood thrown into the air quite 
as often as I missed them. The English 
bows and arrows are fancy, but good. I 
