Was there ever so idle a dog1 He will hlow us all into the air." He was a t this time probably making a detonating composition, which he called "thunder power," his sister Kitty being hisassistant.
James Watt obtained the first of his four patents for a steam engine on January 5, 1769. T. C. Bridges in "The Young Folk's Book of Invention" says: Wheo Watt grew up he became an instrument maker a t Glasgow University and i t was here that a model of Newcomen's steam pump was brought to him one day for repair. This engine.. . .wasted steam in a shocking fashion, for since a t every stroke cold water was driven into the cylinder to condense the steam, most of the energy of each f m h inrush of steam was wasted in reheating the cvlinder. Watt resolved t o find some way 01 preventing thti waste, and for two whole ywrs spent nearly all his sparc t m r i n purrlmg out the problem. . . .As he was takina a walk one fine Sunday in 1765, suddcnly. ns hc says himaelf, "the whrle thin^ was arranged in my mind." His at idea wns to connect to the working- cylinder a vrssel into which the stram could heexhausted lor condensation so that it would he possible to keep the cylinder itself constantly hot. ~
Francis Bacon was born January 22, 1560 or 1561. I n Sedgwick and Tyler's "A Short History of Science," we find the following: Bacon, because of his official position and immense philosophical and literary ability, was able t o draw universal attention to the methods of science and especially to the method of investigation of induction, so that his indirect service to science was great. Bacon's true place in science was, however, well understood by his contemporaries, for one of the greatest, Harvey, discoverer of the circulation of the blood, remarks that, "the Lord Chancellor writes of science like-a Lord Chanke1lar."-Sedgwick and Tyler: A Short History of Science.
Robert Boyle, "Father of Chemistry," was born January 26, 1627. In his book "The Sceptical Chymist" he writes: Me thinks the Chymists in their search after truth are not unlike the navigators of Solomon's Tarshish Fleet, who brought home from their long perilous voyages not only gold and silver and ivory but apes and peacocks too; far so the writings of several (I say not all) of your hermetick philosophers present us, together with diverse substantial and noble experiments, theories which, either like peacocks' feathers, make a great show, but are neither solid nor useful, or else like apes, if they have some appearance of being rational, are blemished with same absurdity or other that, when they W. R. W. are attentively considered, makes them appear ridiculous.
Sunlight Found Not So Good for Fish. The ultra-violet radiation in sunshine may be a great help t o birds and beasts and man but fish fail t o appreciate these invisiblerays. Experiments undertaken a t a Vermont hatchery and just reported to the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries, definitely establish that sunlight is harmful rather than helpful t o fish.. Almost twice as many young fish died in troughs of water exposed t o direct sunlight as those in troughs left in the shade, experts found. The experiments were repeated with different ages and different species with sometimes an even greater mortality in the unshaded troughs, it is stated.-Scimce Senice
