Sea Lions Helped to Detect U-Boats

1919

Design of Hydrophone Was Changed to Resemble Head of Acute Water Animal.

In the late months of the war some wild stories were published to the effect that the British naval authorities were training sea lions to catch German submarines. Of course this was ridiculous, but the story was based upon a fact, and that fact has only just been revealed.

It was at the recent meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, when Sir Charles Parsons, the president, delivered an address on "Science in War and Peace." In it he described the development of the binaural hydroplane, with which submarines are located by the sound they make. Early in the game it was discovered that the first forms of these instruments were useless when the vessel bearing them was in motion or when the sea was rough, because the noises made by the vessel's motion and by the waves drowned the noise of the submarine. This is where the sea lions came in.

Hear at Six Knots an Hour.

Sir Richard Paget, the eminent biologist, made experiments to learn how far these interesting animals could hear under water and at what speed their directional hearing ceased. These proved that the directional hearing of the lions was good up to six knots an hour.

Dr. Arthur Keith informed the naval experimenters that whales' ears are too small to receive sound waves in the usual way, but that the animals heard under water by the transmission of sound waves thru the bones of the head.

Design Was Changed.

Now, the whale's organ of hearing resembles the hydrophone. So the design of this was changed, and those used in the last year of the war were hollow bodies in the form of fish or porpoises, made of celluloid, varnished canvas or thin metal, filled with water and towed by the ship. The hydrophone was fixed in the head, and the towing cable carried the insulated wire leads to the telephone receivers of the observer on board the vessel.

These were towed some distance behind the ship, thus losing most of the noises made by the swift motion of this, and it was found that they registered directional sounds when traveling thru the water at speeds of fourteen knots and at considerable distances.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 9.

Perseverance

1901

With perseverance the very odds and ends of time may be worked up into results of the greatest value. An hour in every day withdrawn from frivolous pursuits would, if properly employed, enable any man of ordinary capacity very shortly to master a complete science. It would make an ignorant man a well informed man in ten years. We must not allow the time to pass without yielding fruits in the form of something learned worthy of being known, some good principle cultivated or some good habit strengthened.

The American Woman's Curiosity

1910

"The American woman's intellectual characteristic is curiosity. One feels she would like to have ten pairs of eyes so as to see everything, ten pairs of ears so as to hear everything. . . .

"When I sit down at table beside an American woman of Paris, she immediately asks me: "Have you seen such and such a play? Have you been to such and such an art exhibition? What do you think of this novel or of that philosophical or historical book recently published?' . . . And I am forced to admit that I have not seen the latest play, that for more than ten years I have not set my foot inside the annual 'salons,' that I read slowly and carefully, and am therefore forced to read but few books. And I know my American neighbor feels great disdain for my inculture. . . .

"Still I have infinite sympathy for her charming and universal intellectual curiosity; only long experience has taught me that man's head cannot contain too many ideas at once." — Marcel Prevost in Harper's Bazar.


Teach Them to Know Home City

The Buffalo board of education is considering a proposition to introduce in the public schools a textbook on Buffalo which will give pupils some knowledge of the industries and institutions of the city in which they live.

Child Is Wiser Than Man

1910

His Instinct Often Is More Reliable Than the Wisdom of His Parents

The imposition of any form of restraint on the appetite of a child is a relic of barbarism, a blunder on the part of the parents and a sign of ignorance of the laws of nature. Not only is it true that the child is father to the man, but in certain directions he is man's superior in wisdom. The prevailing parental notions on the rearing of children are crude, archaic and altogether unworthy of enlightened twentieth century civilization.

"Children have bottled-up intelligence inside of them," to quote the language of Dr. Woods Hutchinson, and this tells them what is best for them to eat. It is an admirable provision of nature. One cannot overfeed them despite all the old superstitions to the contrary. A child who wishes to eat between meals should be permitted to do so, for his system requires the food. If he displays a craving for sweets, the craving should be gratified, because his appetite is guided by an infallible instinct.

The wisdom exhibited by nature in this matter, as explained by Dr. Hutchinson, leads one to wonder what function parents are intended to perform. If the child's instinct is to be relied upon in everything, then parental guidance becomes superfluous, and parents are of much less importance than they have imagined. — Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

The Smallest Human Brain

1908

Proof That Size of Organ Does Not Measure Intellect

What is believed to be the smallest brain ever found in a normal human being was revealed as a result of autopsy performed at the New York city morgue upon the body of Daniel Lyons, a watchman, employed in the Pennsylvania tunnel excavation.

Lyons became ill suddenly while at work, and, having had no medical attendance, his death came technically under the investigation of the coroner, Dr. Philip O'Hanlon, who, with Prof. John E. Larkin, of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, made the autopsy, found that the brain of Lyons weighed only 24 ounces, although the normal weight of the human cerebrum is from 48 to 50 ounces.

Lyons was 40 years of age, five feet five inches in height and weighed 140 pounds. Those who had known him for many years testified that he was of average intelligence. The cause of the man's death was inflammation of the kidneys. The man's brain seemed in every way normal except as to size.

"It is one of the most remarkable brains I have ever seen," said Dr. O'Hanlon, who has made thousands of autopsies, "and it shows that the size of the brain does not necessarily measure the intellect of man. Lyons was, from all that I can learn, intelligent and capable. The quality of the brain, and not the size of it, counts. One of the smallest brains known to anatomists was that of Gambetta, at one time president of France, and a brilliant and forceful thinker."

Comparative tables of the weights of human brains bear out the idea of Dr. O'Hanlon that there is little connection between the weight of the brain and the power of the intellect.

"Talking Hen" Is A Wonder

1908

Aristocratic Chicken Refuses to Drink from Ordinary Vessel

Atlantic City, New Jersey — A talking hen whose superintelligence puts to shame the wildest dreams of nature fakers is the pride of Mrs. John C. Ford of this city. Mrs. Ford vouches for the statements that the fowl possesses qualities high above ordinary instinct.

" 'Jo' — short for Josephine — seems to be afraid of visitors," said Mrs. Ford. "But the minute we are alone she talks to me plain enough for me to know exactly what she means. She calls me 'mommie' and she can say that as plain as any child. She has also learned to call for 'water' and if she gets thirsty during the night she will stand under our bedroom window and call out until we come down and give her a drink."

The hen drinks from a glass and absolutely refuses to notice the drinking dish used by less educated fowls in the same yard.

"If she doesn't get enough to eat she calls out: 'More, more,' " said Mrs. Ford. The hen immediately notifies the family of having laid an egg by scratching on the kitchen door and leading the way to the spot where the egg is hidden.

What's Wrong, Lassie? Rover's In The Well?

1910

Dog's Remarkable Intelligence

Thomas Jones, who owns a big ranch on San Juan island, lost a collie dog last fall for nearly a month, and for several days searched the woods about his place zealously for the animal, without success. One day he tossed a bone to another collie. Instead of gnawing it, he picked it up and started for the woods. He kept turning his head, apparently to see if he was followed, and Jones concluded to follow him.

The dog trotted along for about a mile and stopped at the edge of an abandoned well. He dropped the bone over the edge of the well. Jones got a ladder, climbed down and found the dog that had been lost. There was only about two inches of water in the well, but the animal would have starved to death had it not been for the other. The lost dog was in good condition, and as it had been missing 24 days the other animal must have kept it supplied with food for nearly a month.


The Rule of the Road

There appears to be no definite record explaining the prevailing custom of turning our vehicles to the right in this country. One authority says that it grew out of the fact that in our early colonial days, before the arrival of rigs for pleasure driving, the drivers of heavy vehicles used in transportation fell into the way of turning to the right.

The English custom of turning to the left is an ancient one. It obtains in practically all of the British provinces.

A grizzled driver in Bermuda, asked once why all drivers turned to the left, explained that it was done so they could see just how much room they had.


Strength of Locomotive

A railway engine may roughly be said to equal in strength 900 horses.

Horse Gets Shoe Repaired

1910

Animal Leaves Barn, Goes to Blacksmith and Returns Without Owner's Knowledge

NEW YORK. — "Old Joe," if he is blind in one eye and weak in the other, possesses plenty of real horse sense. For years he has hauled an express wagon over a fixed route, his only side trips being to Carroll, the horseshoer, in Christopher street, between Washington and West streets.

The other morning Joe was left in the stable because his right forefoot shoe needed fixing, and Dan Barry, Joe's driver, had no time to take him around to Carroll's before business hours.

"Half an hour later Joe stopped in front of the Carroll blacksmith shop. "Ain't that Barry's horse?" asked Carroll of his assistant. "It sure is. Must have run away," was the reply. "Run away nothin'," said Carroll. "That horse never runs away."

Joe raised his right forehoof as if it hurt him. Carroll looked it over. "That hoof's all right. Only needs a new shoe," was the mental note of Carroll. The new shoe was fitted. Next thing Carroll knew Joe was trotting away.

"Well, what d' you think of that?" exclaimed Barry, when he came back and found a new shoe glistening on Joe's foot in his stall. "He went and got himself shod, and I'll bet he told Carroll in good horse talk to have it charged."

'Frisco Has Child Linguist Prodigy

1910

SAN FRANCISCO. — Leland Stanford University is to acquire a child prodigy of whom quite as great things are expected as of Harvard's boy wonder, William James Sidis. In this case the prodigy is a girl, Winifred Sackville Stoner, better known to her familiars as Cherie. Her mother is a daughter of the late Lord Sackville West, ambassador from England in one of the Cleveland administrations, and her father is Col. J. B. Stoner of the Marine hospital service.

She is now aged eight years, and as a linguist is in a class by herself. Her knack for poetry enabled her to print a book of 52 pages called "Jingles" when she was five. At the age of four she was proficient enough in Esperanto to receive from the founder of that composite language a medal for proficiency. She had heard this tongue from infancy, as her mother is a recognized authority in it.

In addition she speaks and thinks in English, French, Spanish and Latin, and she can speak well enough for conversational purposes Japanese, Russian, German, Polish and Italian. While accumulating this varied vocabulary she has gone along at a precocious rate in other studies and has had her full share of outdoor romping. Dolls are still her companions when the weather keeps her in.

"Her advancement is simply due to the way she was educated," her mother said. "I began when she was three weeks of age by placing beautiful pictures on the walls of her nursery. From the first she was accustomed to the best literature. We did not recite silly nursery rhymes to her, but only the best. Instead of giving her the stories usually told to children I read to her from the Bible and from mythology. She had Latin from the cradle.

"At three months I read to Cherie from the Latin writers and recited for her from such poems as 'Crossing the Bar.' At eight months she began to talk. At the age of one year, she could scan from Virgil and she read before she was two. I was teaching her the language all the time.

"At three she could operate a typewriter. By its use she learned to spell and also to memorize what she was writing. It was by copying poems and articles on the machine that she learned much that she knows. When she was at this age Puck accepted and printed a little poem of hers. Afterward she became a regular contributor to St. Nicholas. She did not learn to write with the pen until she was four. We have always made play of her work. Games similar to 'Authors' were devised for history and mythology."

Note: The article at Wikipedia says she was born in 1902 and died in 1983. She had a "Jr." on her name, as her mother was also Winifred Sackville Stoner.

Animals' Power of Reason

1910

French Scientist Advances Arguments to Prove Their Possession of Thinking Mind

Professor Lipinay, who has made long researches into the habits of domestic animals, in a lecture the other day at the new Dogs' and Cats' home near Ruell, said that he was convinced that animals have a certain amount of reasoning power. He declared that a simple kind of reasoning and reflex thought must be admitted to exist among them.

Cats, more than dogs, he said, learn to imitate their masters' voices. A pet canine has different ways of asking for different things; and their cries are easily understood. This fact seems to prove that the animals make an effort to raise themselves to the level of human beings.

It is also well known that dogs, cats and birds having become familiar friends, understand the meaning of certain words without a person's gesture. The intelligence of a bird he compared to that of a child. If a strange canary is placed in a cage containing several others, all will stop their chirping and singing to look at the newcomer; and it has often been observed how one of the birds will pick a feather out of the stranger and bound away. This is merely to tease the intruder, as children are seen to do when strangers come among them.

As for animals in circuses which are so clever, this cleverness Professor Lipinay attributes to habit rather than any particular intelligence.

The Instinct of Birds — A Storm Coming

1901

While a British brig was gliding smoothly along before a good breeze in the South Pacific, a flock of small birds about the size, shape and color of paroquets, settled down in the rigging, and passed an hour or more resting.

The second mate was so anxious to find out the species to which the visiting strangers belonged that he tried to entrap a specimen, but the birds were too shy to be thus caught, and too spry to be seized by the quick hands of the sailors. At the end of about an hour the birds took the brig's course, and disappeared, but toward nightfall they came back and passed the night in the maintop.

The next morning the birds flew off again, and when they returned at noon the sailors scattered some food about the decks. By this time the birds had become so tame that they hopped about the decks picking up the crumbs.

That afternoon an astonishing thing happened. The flock came flying swiftly toward the brig. Every bird seemed to be piping as if pursued by some invisible enemy on wings, and they at once huddled down behind a deck house. The superstitious sailors at once called the captain of the brig, who rubbed his eyes and looked at the barometer. A glance showed that something was wrong with the elements, and the brig was put in shape to outride a storm.

The storm came about 20 minutes after the birds had reached the vessel. For a few minutes the sky was like the waterless bottom of a lake — a vast arch of yellowish mud — and torrents of rain fell. Why it did not blow very hard no one knows; but on reaching port, two days later, they learned that a great tornado had swept across that part of the sea. — Our Dumb Animals.

Animals' Memory — Remembering Places They've Been, Things Done

1899

Animals' Memory

Monsieur Henri de Parville, a French writer, has collected instances of animal intelligence, many of which are of a character to indicate that animals always remember things which have become habitual with them. In many cases they remember a single kindness or a single unkindness, and treat the author of it accordingly; but the habitual thing may be said to be always remembered, and the unaccustomed thing only occasionally.

Monsieur De Parville gives an amusing account of the performances of six coach horses which were regularly driven on the diligence between Berne and Gurnigel, Switzerland. They reached Gurnigel each day after a long and hard journey, and at the inn were detached from the vehicle and allowed to find their own way to the stable. Before going to the stable they invariably set out on a little tour through the hotel grounds, where the guests were in the habit of giving them lumps of sugar. Marching from one guest to another, the horses gently demanded their sugar. This was an established custom at the place, and although newly arrived guests sometimes objected to it, they soon fell into the way of liking it, and frequented the grounds for the sake of meeting the horses.

The diligence plied only four months of the year, and the horses were employed elsewhere during the other eight months; but on the resumption of the trips in summer, these horses, who were used from year to year in the diligence, eagerly resumed their tour through the hotel gardens, showing, on the very first trip the greatest haste to go the familiar round of the year before in quest of sugar.

Monsieur De Parville also tells of a cavalry horse named Ménélas, belonging to the Tenth Regiment of Chasseurs, who, after being ridden in the cavalry manoeuvres in the ring at the barracks, became so fond of the evolutions that he would manage to escape from his stall at night, betake himself to the ring, and go through the required movements alone.

His nocturnal performance became known, and the officers and men frequently went to watch it. Ménélas would be left unhitched in his stall, and when all became quiet, would go out, find his way to the ring, and solemnly but briskly go through the whole drill, apparently remembering every detail of it in the proper order.

The writer of this witnessed a curious demonstration of the excellence of a dog's memory. He possessed a collie, who, at the age of about one year, had an attack of distemper, and was sent from Boston to a farm in Vermont, where he remained several months. While there he spent a good deal of time in digging out woodchucks and barking at their burrows, all over the large farm. He was sent back to Boston.

Some five years afterward he was taken by his master on a visit to the same farm in Vermont and he had no sooner arrived than he started out on a tour of the old familiar woodchuck holes. The farmer, who had been very familiar with his ways, said that he did not omit a single spot where woodchucks' burrows had existed during his previous sojourn, and went straight to them without any search.

The dog also fell instantly into all the old routine of the farm, and kept the dish out of which he ate in the spot where he had formerly kept it. He showed that he had forgotten no detail of his habits on the place five years before. — Youth's Companion.

The Pleasures of the Dull

1874

Tormented by the pains of thinking, I have often envied the placid peace of those who cannot think at all. How delightful it must be, I have said to myself, to be able to hold the most utterly contradictory views on all things, divine and human, without the faintest suspicion as to their inconsistency, or any logical horror of inconsistency itself! Women, with occasional exceptions, are not much troubled by such inconsistencies. Are they, therefore, less happy than men? How soothing it must be to be hopelessly incapable of syllogisms! What pangs is not a mind spared that refuses to admit that if A is B, and C is A, therefore C is also B! What admirable wives and mothers and daughters there are, and what praiseworthy country parsons too, to whom all this bepuzzlement about A, B, and C, is as unintelligible as a conjurer's gibberish! Supposing it were suddenly proved that all our astronomers are wrong, and that the sun really goes round the earth, what horrible agonies should we thinking people endure who believe in mathematics and the multiplication-table, and what a hideous skepticism would darken the rest of our lives! Yet the unthinking multitude would be unmoved by a single painful thought, and would dress, dine, digest, and sleep as unconcernedly as if Copernicus and Newton had never existed.

Then, again, there is that enviable capacity for enjoying many things which in my unfortunate state of culture, I do detest. I never walk through an old house, filled with eighteenth-century furniture, without envying the simplicity and credulity of my ancestors. How easily must that generation have been pleased which saw beauty in those spindle-legged chairs and tables, and which could plaster up a Gothic roof or screen, and paint some venerable oak-carving a pale-blue color, and find itself refreshed by the effect! There are limits, indeed, to one's envy of the non-culture — I will not call it the barbarism — of the past. By no possible effort of sympathy can I wish to feel as those felt who delighted to contemplate King George IV., in his tight coat and silk stockings, sitting upon his royal sofa, with arm outstretched, as depicted by Sir Thomas Lawrence.

As to the amount of happiness connected with the mutabilities of ladies' dress, on the other hand, my thoughts are much exercised. Does it, or does it not, add to the enjoyment of one's whole life to be able to be equally delighted with a mass of false hair of reddish hue at the back of one's head, and a mass of false hair, made white with powder, on the top of one's head, and a head without any false hair at all? Take the whole amount of rapture which one has ever experienced from the contemplation of the Venus of Milo, and consider whether it is equal, in the long-run, to the daily self-complacency of the simple soul that is conscious of being always clothed as fashion demands, whether fashion prescribes four-and- twenty inches or three yards as the diameter of her gown. I go, perhaps, to a gayly-dressed evening gathering, where every woman, whether old or young, is decolletee, in varying degrees of exposure. What necks do I see! What shoulders! What complexions! Yet are not those smiling creatures happy, whose skins are as nearly as possible the same color as their dresses? Is the enjoyment of that amiable female marred by the thought that she has clothed herself in a hue which brings out most forcibly the sad fact that time is beginning its ravages upon her face and aims? And are women generally to be pitied because they are for the most part unaware of the fact that good-looking arms are not common, and that arms which are not good-looking had better be encased in some pleasant-looking sleeves than paraded before the public gaze? These are difficult questions for him to settle who speculates on the advantages of the culture of today. — Cornhill.

Comment: Do you have any idea what this poor unfortunate person is talking about?

A Home For All Kinds of Cats, Some Talented Tabbys

1895

Our Boys and Girls

A Home For All Kinds of Cats in Tennessee

Some of the Talented Tabbys That Live There

In Knoxville, Tenn., there lives Mrs. Dangerfield, who has a most amusing and interesting family. It consists of twenty-seven cats. Mrs. Dangerfield was not at home but an obliging woman who helps her did the honors quite creditably. She showed us into the yard where cats reign supreme. It was very shady and had a high plank fence all around. In the center was a cute little drinking fountain, graceful plants surrounding its border.

In one corner of the yard was "the inn," a house eight feet high, and six feet wide with a passage way through the middle. The berths were arranged above each other, as in a sleeping car, each cat having his or her own appointed resting place, and never intruding upon others. A year ago "the inn" became too small, and the "annex" was built, not quite so large as "the inn," but a really nice, cozy hotel, with comfortable quarters. The woman rang the bell, and here came cats of all sizes, shades and colors over the fence, out of "the inn" and "annex," from under the house, out of the trees and everywhere. She gave them some bread and then proceeded to introduce them to us.

Grover Cleveland was presented; he is an immense Maltese, and does honor to the name, in size and demeanor. He rubbed his nose with his paw in acknowledgement of the introduction, then sat heavily down in perplexed thought.

Yankee Doodle was next called. He is a young, gray-striped, slim fellow, with a wide, white shirt-front, and when "Yankee Doodle" was whistled capered and grinned.

Uncle Remus is jet black. He, Miss Meaders and the gals are trained to go in company, and march in a comical way to "Ta-ra-boom-de-ay."

Buffalo Bill is tremendous and wears a collar bearing his name on it. He plays circus round and round in a ring with a troop o£ clever followers. Tippytail (a white tip on his gray tail giving him his name) is an adept in the leaping act and Ugly is the clown.

John L. Sullivan is entirely John L., as we had occasion to see from his overbearing manner during the lunch. We were informed, however, that when he becomes unmanageable Corbett, a splendid black and yellow fellow, who keeps much to himself, is called, and John slinks away in a resigned fashion.

Old Sleuth is trained to watch the others, and, if the proper "goings-on" are not observed, will pull a rope attached to a bell in the mistress' room and announce the fact.

One watches for the milkman, and notifies the servant. When the butcher comes in the morning with the fresh meat four guards escort him in, and not a "mew" is allowed. The servant feeds each in turn in the most systematic way. The nursery contained ten kittens found in a basket on the front gallery a few days ago, and are fed with oatmeal and milk in tender kindness.

Last, but not least, is Samaritan. She brings sick and wounded cats to the house and spends her time in affectionate attentions to those at home. When she returns from a day's outing the cats will run to meet her and hear the news and to welcome her. There are many other nice, fine cats, but these will serve to show what the home is like.

The cemetery is in a far corner of the large yard and many a grave marks a tabby's resting place. It is singular, indeed, the intelligence and affection animals possess and the possibility to reach them through our language. When we discover their language we will doubtless be amazed at how much animals know. — New Orleans Picayune.