One Thousand Years Hence

1895

"Tell my daughter that she must not forget that dinner will be an hour earlier today. She is in Egypt."

"Yes, mum," (Telephones a phonographic signal to Pyramid station No. 99,999.)

"I see the airship from Market street, Japan, nearing the window. Bring my husband's slippers and dressing gown."

"Yes, mum."

"Now touch the buttons A, L, R, T, V, and X. I think that will be all we want for dinner. Here comes my daughter on her biwind flier just in time. Call up No. 8888."

"Yes, mum." — Boston Globe.

Insect Vision

1895

The Probabilities as to What They Can See With Their Strange Eyes.

Two theories of insect vision are extant — the older one that each lens forms a separate eye, and the more recent one that insects see as in a mosaic, each lens forming part of the total picture. The old view is supported by the experiment of placing a thin slice of an eye under the microscope, when the image of any object reflected from the mirror is seen to be transmitted through each of the hexagonal lenses. A rough model of an insect's eye may be made by taking a glass shade of the form of a half sphere, say about 16 inches in diameter. Place the eye at the center of the globe and paint on its surface the picture of the outer world as seen through it. If this painting be divided into squares by lines scratched at intervals of one-eighth inch, there will be 25,600 of them, and the proportions are roughly those found in the eye of a dragon fly.

If now, instead of the details of the picture on each square, a dab of color be placed on it corresponding to the general tone, the effect of the whole will pretty nearly agree with that of the original painting. It is probably this indistinct vision that insects actually possess. Mathematically it may be shown that to obtain anything like such perfect vision as human beings enjoy an eye constructed on the compound type would have to be of most impracticable size. In our eyes the rays of light passing through a single lens form an image on the concave retina. The retina is built up of the sensitive terminations of the optic nerve, forming, a kind of tessellated pavement with 36,000,000 squares to the square inch. If our lens were of perfect shape and the pupil wide enough, the size of things which might be seen as distinct objects would be limited by the distance of the nerve endings of the retina from one another. In order that two points may appear separate to the eye, they must subtend an angle of about one minute of arc — that is, for instance, that fine lines ruled one-twentieth of an inch apart can be made out to be separate at a distance of four yards. Beyond this the whole surface has a uniform gray tint.

Calculations clearly show that insects cannot see nearly as well as this, and their behavior to distant objects favors this opinion. But their eyes have this advantage — namely, that there is practically no limit to the nearness of objects they can examine. The details of their own antennae probably appear plainer to themselves than to us, but objects at the distance of a foot appear to them with about the same minuteness of detail as would be attained if they were made of rather coarse wool work. Beyond this the shades of light and dark are evident to them, but outlines must be blurred and lost. — North British Advertiser.

Green Not Restful to the Eyes

1901

It seems as though cherished notions were no sooner on an apparently firm foundation than some inconsiderate iconoclast comes along and throws them down. People have for many years supposed that the color green was restful to human eyes and have been referred to the green grass and green foliage that nature has been so prodigal with for the benefit of weaned vision.

Now, according to a German professor of Berlin, nature wasn't thinking of human eyes when she made her profuse verdant display and that her color scheme was carried out absolutely regardless of the visual needs of humanity. He says that green does not protect the eye, and he denies that it has any beneficial effects whatever.

He declares that green paper, green shades, green glasses, green decorations and green umbrellas are all a mistake and that by increasing the green light we are simply provoking a nervous disturbance.

He says that each of the colors tires a different set of nerves of vision, and therefore looking at one particular color saves one set of nerves at the expense of another. The best method he says, is to dim all of the rays of light by smoked or gray glasses, which rest all of the optic nerves. — New York Herald.

Mistakes Rooster's Call for His Wife

1920

Thinks Fowl's Crowing Is Her Call to Dinner -- Bing!

LOS ANGELES, Cal. -- Because Hoaglund of Venice is a bit hard of hearing he faced a judge for disturbing the peace -- and there was no roast chicken dinner in the Hoaglund home.

He was spading in the garden. The rooster crowed. Hoaglund dropped his tools and went home for lunch. Mrs. Hoaglund said she hadn't called him. Then she did call him -- many things.

Arraigned before Recorder W. W. Rennie, after the battle, he explained the matter and Mrs. Hoaglund was appeased.

--The Saturday Blade, Chicago, March 27, 1920, page 9.


Irishman Couldn't Even Detect Green

CINCINNATI, Ohio -- An Irishman who can't tell green when he sees it was rejected for enlistment in the U. S. Marine Corps here for defective color vision.

James Patrick O'Hara, born in the County Cork, insisted on picking brown skeins of yarn when told to select the green ones.

"What color is grass," ventured the examiner, "isn't that green?"

"No," replied the color-blind Irishman, "its color is not green; people call it green because is young and tender, but its color is brown."

--The Saturday Blade, Chicago, March 27, 1920, page 10.