190 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[Mat, 
■windmills?”—Yes, Minerva, 1 think I can: paper-boxes 
are just as “fascinating” and just as useful. I have 
seen young ones kept quiet with 
—--= ="'1 them for an entire morning. For 
the benefit of those who don't know 
how they are made, I will describe 
their construction. Take a square 
of writing-paper, say about the width 
of ordinary note-paper, or of any 
Size you please (fig. 1). Fold the 
’ ~ 7 diagonal corners together, as in 
Fig. 1. fig. 2, and crease it across ; no.w fold 
it across, with the other corners to¬ 
gether, so that the creases shall just cross the square like 
an X. Now open it, and bring the two corners to the 
center of the X, and crease the folds, as in fig. 3. Fold 
Fig. 2. Fig. 3. 
it between each two creases, as in fig. 4. Now turn the 
square, and crease it seven times across, the other way, 
until the paper is folded in squares, like fig. 5 ; then take 
Fig. 8.—BOX HALF TOGETHER. 
your scissors and cut out the little triangular sections 
blackened in fig. 6. and your paper will be shaped like 
fig. 7. Now put the point of your scissors carefully 
through the 
Jittle black 
lines at a 
and (2, and 
make slits 
(like button¬ 
holes) ; then 
cut the black 
lines at b and 
c, as far as the dots, and no further. Cut the black lines at 
«,/, <7. and h. Now fold the point at b, so that it will go 
through the slit 
at a , and when 
you have passed 
it through, 
straighten it 
carefully out, as 
in fig. 8. Now 
pass the point c 
through the slit 
d, and your box 
will be complete, 
and when your 
“little sister ” has made one all her own self, her joy will 
be complete too. Of course you can make a “ nest ” of 
boxes by gradually increasing the size from the smallest. 
Fig. 9.— BOX COMPLETE. 
“A Farmer.” —The magic square trick is pretty well 
understood by our puzzlers, and it is no more difficult to 
arrange 1>801 squares, than it is to arrange nine squares. 
But if you would transpose the columns, after you have 
written them mechanically, the plan of construction 
would not be so obvious. I append a sample by way of 
example. 35 47 22 41 4 10 16 
11 23 5 17 29 42 48 
36 6 30 49 12 18 24 
19 31 13 25 37 43 7 
44 14 38 1 20 26 32 
27 39 21 33 45 2 8 
3 15 46 9 28 34 40 
These columns add up to 175, perpendicularly, hori¬ 
zontally, and diagonally. 
A. R.—No. We are always glad to find that our puzzles 
have afforded amusement and instruction, but offer no 
“premium for the most answers.” 
Willie S.—Alphabetical arithmetic is solved by the 
same process as cryptography, or cipher-writing. You 
must find the key by patience, perseverance and ingenui¬ 
ty. If in the commencement of a sum you subtract H, 
from H, and the remainder is Y; you may be very sure 
that Y represents the cipher nought, and that “ nought ” 
may prove the key to the whole sum. 
Mart S.— You will find a “concealed river” in the 
following sentence:—Give me some of that ham, Esther. 
The river is “ Thames,” and to form it, you take t from 
“ that,”—“ ham,” and es from “ Esther.” Now do you 
see it ? 
-- 
Value of Metals. 
The following table gives the approximate commercial 
gold value of a pound (avoirdupois) of the metals named. 
It will be seen that eight of them are more costly than 
gold. Iridium is much used for the points of gold pens, 
on account of its hardness. Platinum is now much used 
because of its infusibility, while, like gold, it is not at¬ 
tacked by any single acid, and does not rust. It was, un¬ 
til recently, more costly than gold ; and it is the heavi¬ 
est of all metals. Aluminum is the metalic base of clay; 
it resembles silver, but is many times lighter, and tar¬ 
nishes as little as gold or platinum. On this account, 
and on account of its lightness, it will come into large 
use when improved processes render it easily obtainable. 
But a few years ago it was worth perhaps a hundred 
dollars an ounce, merely as a curiosity, but new methods 
of extracting it have greatly cheapened it. As clay is 
abundant, the supply of aluminum is unlimited, though 
at present it is not obtained from clay, but from a min¬ 
eral very abundant in Greenland, and from which it 
is more readily extracted. Though the cheapest, iron 
is intrinsically the most valuable of all metal3. A 
colony on an island, shut out from all intercourse 
with others, would make more useful things—imple¬ 
ments, knives, needles, etc., out of 100 lbs. of iron, 
than out of 100 lbs. of gold or other metals. Steel js 
simply iron, with a little carbon (coal or diamond) in it: 
Iron (1 lb). 
Lead. 
Zinc. 
Copper. 
Tin. 
Nickel.' 
Bismuth. 
Cobalt. 
Potassium.. 
...$0.02 
.. .07 
... .11 
Aluminum. $40.00 
Magnesium. 46‘.50 
Chromium. 58.00 
Thallium. 108.77 
.25 
Gold . 301.45 
... 1.35 
... 2.50 
... 3.20 
... 3.63 
Iridium. 317.44 
Osmium. 325.28 
Uranium. 576.58 
Palladium. 653.00 
Rhodium. 700.00 
... 6.00 
.. 7,75 
Ruthenium.1400.00 
. .18.85 
...23.00 
Indium.2520.00 
The Doclor’s Talks. 
At last my young friends seem disposed to take me at 
my word. I have often hinted, indeed directly stated, 
that I am always pleased to hear from them, and the 
more intelligent questions they ask, the better I shall 
like it. By their questions I can know what they are 
interested in, and what they are talking and reading and 
thinking about. Of late I have had quite a number of 
letters, and my “Talk” must this time be devoted to 
things suggested by them ; these letters are apparently 
by some of the older boys, but the younger boys, as well 
as the girls, will not be forgotten. I can not answer at 
once all the letters I have at hand, and others must wait 
a while. There is one kind of questions I hope you will 
not ask, those about medical matters ; there are very few 
of these that boys and girls need to know anything 
about; I have had nothing to do with medicine for years, 
and hope to keep out of it all my life. Now one of our 
youngsters wishes to know 
About Hydrophobia, Master “ W. P.,” Clermont 
Co., O., who asks quite a numbe of questions about 
it, which no person in the world can answer prop¬ 
erly. Even those physicians who have given the 
most attention to the matter, are obliged to admit that 
there are many things about it which they do not know. 
The disease is of very rare occurrence, and as, so far as 
known, it is incurable, persons are naturally in great 
fear of it. We can answer one of our young friend's 
questions : it is not caused by hot weather, as it is found 
to occur quite as frequently in cold months as in the 
others. The best way is to avoid all sick dogs, and not 
to give the matter any anxious thought, as persons can 
make themselves very unhappy by allowing their minds 
to dwell upon such things.' 
Tanning Small Skins. —Here is my young friend 
“ W. L ,” who writes from Massachusetts, asking me 
how to tan small skins. I have done a great many odd 
jobs in my life, but I don’t think I ever tanned a skin ; 
but as the next best thing to it, I have been told how to 
do it. Several years ago I was in the great wilderness 
of northern New York, a part of which is now so famous 
as the Adirondacs, and had for a guide a famous old 
trapper. I saw that he had a cap made of some nicely 
dressed skins, and I asked him to tell me how to do it. 
His instructions if put in print, would read thus: “Yer 
git some ellum, some Peter, and some salt, and mix 
’em.”—“Hold on a minute, what do you mean by 
ellum—not slippery elm?”—“No, this white stone ellum 
you git down to the settlements “ Oh, Alum 1 and the 
Peter? That’s what you pickle beef with.”—“Salt¬ 
peter, well, Alum, Saltpeter, and salt, what then.”_ 
“ Pound ’em as fine as you can git ’em, and then_” 
“But how much of each?”—” How much, why say a 
liau’ful of the ellum, and a han’ful of salt, and half a 
han’ful of Peter; you have ’em fine and mix ’em good, 
then have all the little bits o’ meat and fat pulled off of 
the skin, and sprinkle the stuff all over the inside on’t.”— 
“How much?”—“Well, put it on good, till the skin 
looks white, ’like a barn-door in a frosty mornin’—then 
you turn in the edges, and roll the skin up tight, and jest let 
it alone for three or four days.”—“What then ? ”—“ Then 
you take the skins down to the run, and kerslosh them 
about in the water until the stuff is all off, then you give 
’em a wash with soap and water, and hang ’em up to 
dry.”—“ Is that all ? “ No, ’cause they would dry hard 
and stiff, so when they begin to dry, you must pull and 
stretch ’em—pull side ways, head and tail ways, and 
criss-cross, everyhow—and the more you pull onto ’em, 
the slicker and softer they’ll be.”—All this was told with 
much side talk by the camp-fire many years ago, and I 
never supposed I should have any use for it. Perhaps 
you will see that you need two parts each of alum and 
salt, and one part of saltpeter, all fine, sprinkle the flesh 
side of the skin with this, enough to make it white, roll 
up for 3 or 4 days; wash first with clean water, then 
with soap and water, and pull while drying. 
About Freezing. —Master “ L. B.,”in Illinois, writes, 
“ what makes water at times freeze onto the bottoms of 
rivers, and not freeze on the top ; again it will freeze in 
the pail, or rather become one mass of slush ice.”—The 
formation of ice at the bottom of a body of water, is not a 
very common occurrence, and its doing so at all, has 
been a puzzle to philosophers. Such ice is known as 
“ anchor ice,” from its being found at the bottom, and 
the explanation given is this : You all know that 32° is 
the freezing point of water, but water does not always 
freeze when cooled down to 32°. Pure water cooled very 
slowly, and kept without the least disturbance of its sur¬ 
face, has had its temperature lowered to 21°, without 
becoming solid ; but the slightest motion caused it to 
become ice at once. Anchor ice is formed in very cold and 
very still weather, when the whole body of water has 
cooled to 32°, and on account of the great tranquility has 
not frozen ; it is supposed that the water being all at the 
freezing point, the ice forms first on the bottom, because 
of its roughness; the stones, sticks, and other sub¬ 
stances, afford points to which the crystals of water may 
attach themselves. You know if you have a solution of 
alum, or a strong syrup of sugar, in a smootl; vessel, and 
put in a string, stick, or other rough substance, the crys¬ 
tals of alum and sugar, will form on the rough surfaces 
of these, in preference to the smooth sides of the jar or 
other vessel. The ice under the conditions mentioned, 
seems in a similar manner to prefer to gather upon the 
rough surface of the bottom, to forming upon the smooth 
surface of the water. I understand you to say, though 
you have not expressed it so positively as I wish you 
had, that this same water in which anchor ice had form¬ 
ed, turned into slush ice when taken up into a pail. This 
would be very good evidence that the water had cooled 
to 32°, or below, without freezing, the disturbance of 
taking it up causing sudden freezing to occur. It is said 
that anchor ice sometimes forms to the thickness of three 
inches, and when it can break away from the substances 
to which it is attached at the bottom, it rises to the sur¬ 
face like other ice. This is a very interesting matter, 
Master B., and I hope that when another opportunity 
occurs, you will see if the conditions are as I have above 
litmed; observations on the temperature of the water, 
aiid that of the air, with the thermometer, and the con¬ 
dition of the air as to tranquility, will help you to decide 
how far this explanation meets your case. 
What Makes the Ice Groan ?—The unusual cold, and 
its long continuance the past winter, have set my young¬ 
sters to thinking about the things that belong to winter, 
for here is “T. G.,” in New Jersey, would like to know 
what causes the ice to make a noise in winter. He does 
not say a “groan,” but in some countries people are 
superstitions enough to think these noises a groaning 
that foretells some evil. The cracking and snapping of 
ice is easily accounted for. As you are aware, solids 
generally expand with heat, and contract when cooled ; 
but water has the curious trick of expanding with the 
loss of heat, after it has cooled down to 39° ; still 
when it has become solid ice, that obeys the usual law, 
and indeed contracts more rapidly by loss of heat, than 
any other solid. Now if a pond or stream is covered 
with ice, and the temperature sinks to zero and below, 
the sheet of ice will contract, and as it goes on shrinking, 
the weakest part must give way, which it sometimes 
does with a loud bang. A loud report will at a distance 
sound like a dull rumbling, which those who very much 
wish to do so, can make sound like a groan. 
