The scientific American boy at school

Front matter

O.

vOc

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Chapter I. Page

Initiation i

The Principal's Door. The Bottomless Pit. Jig's Initiation. An Unexpected Member.

CHAPTER H.

Building a Dam 9

The Scarabeus. A New Club House. The Bramble Path. Pile Driving. A Log Wall.

CHAPTER HI.

Boat Building i8

Nailing On the Bottom. Caulking and Painting. Launching the "Lady Bug."

CHAPTER IV.

Farmer Fithian. How to Chop Down a Tree. The Working Platform. Laying Out a Rectangle. Triangles. The Floor of the -Lake House. The Frame of the House. Putting on the Clapboards. The Chimney Opening.

CHAPTER V.

Midnight. The Mulligans. An Ambush. Put to Rout. The Light in the Hall. A Daylight Banquet.

viii Contents

CHAPTER VL

PACK

The Rogue's Gallery. The Pantagraph. Drawing One's Own Silhouette. Official Seals. The Work Bench. The Bench Vice. An Egyptian Lathe. A Bow Drill. Twisted Cord Drill.

CHAPTER Vn.

Friction Drive. How the Rollers Were Made. A Swivel Bearing. The Paddle Wheels. The Rudder. The Bicycle Support.

CHAPTER Vni.

Surveying the Lake yz-

The Underwater Stockade. Tricks of Surveying. Sighting Over the Thumb. Sighting Across a Ruler. The Cane and Cardboard Scale. Surveying With a Pin. The Two-Foot Rule Method. The Shadow of a Tree. Measuring a Height by Reflection. The Plane Table. The Alidade. Surveying the Lake. Sketching-in the Shore Line. "Traversing." The Stadia Rod. Surveying the Road to the Academy.

CHAPTER IX.

Sounding the Lake 94

A Home-made Tripod. The Sounding Parties. The Land Stations. The Boat Party. Recording the Soundings. Locating the Soundings. Professor James' Comment. A Camera as a Telescope. Testing the Lenses. Where to Set the Stadia Hairs. Making a Telescope. The Eye Piece. Sewing in the Stadia Hairs.

CHAPTER X.

Signaling Systems 108

Making the Cones. Making the Drum. The Ball, Cone, and Drum Code. The Semaphore System. The Wig-Wag Alphabet. Night Semaphore Signals. Electric Night Signals. The Cipher Disk. Making up the Cipher.

Contents ix

CHAPTER XL

PAGE

An Afternoon Call. The Moat. The Plank Bridge. A Lesson in Bridge Building. Construction of the "Howe" Truss. Assembling the Truss. Mounting the Bridge on Runners. Snowball Catapult. Catapult Stand. The Trigger of the Catapult. The Gunners' Shield. A Warning. The Attack. Reinforcements.

CHAPTER Xn.

Uncle Ed's Letter. A Daily Paper. A Report from Bokhara. The Seismograph Explained. Locating the Earthquake. The Horizontal Pendulum. The Multiplying Lever. Casting the Lever Bearing. The Stylus. Connecting the Lever to the Pendulum. The Recording Drum. The Time Recorder. Coating the Paper. A Record from the West Indies.

CHAPTER Xni.

The Canal Lock 1 56

An Engineering Problem. The Inclined Slideways. Surveying for the Lock. The Canal Lock. The Upper Gate. The Lower Gate. Digging the Canal. Passing Through the Locks. The Drawbridge Above the Canal. Collecting Tolls. Lake Moeris and the Nile.

CHAPTER XIV.

HUNTLNG WITH A CAMERA 167

A Man Up a Tree. An Early Morning Hunt. The Ornithologists's Blind. A Guest of Honor. Photograph a Meadow Lark. A Representative of the Scarabeans. An Electric Shutter. The Dummy Camera. The Umbrella Blind. Qimbers. An Honorary Member. Photographing Wild Animals. An Unexpected Portrait. Underwater Photography. The Float Box. Taking Pictures of Fish. A Failure.

X Contents

CHAPTER XV.

PAGE

A Gliding Machine. Making the Main Frame. Bracing the Frame. The Sail Planes. The Rudder Frame. The Rudders. The First Glide. Gliding Contests.

CHAPTER XVL Camping Ideas 198

Planning a Summer Outing. Sleeping Bags. Water-proofing the Bags. The Sleeping Bags in Use. Pine Beds. The Fireless Cooker for the Camp. Construction of the Cooker. An Iceless Refrigerator. Waterproof Matches.

CHAPTER XVn.

The Haunted House 207

A Message from the Sacred Scarabeus. Exciting News. A Visit to the Lake House. Preparing for the Feast. A Trip to the Haunted House. Mysterious Sounds. Farmer Fithian Enrolled With the Scarabs. One of the Requirements. The Ghost at the Window. Phosphorescent Paint.

CHAPTER XVni.

The Square Faced Dial. The Sun as a Timekeeper. Marking the Dial Face. The Sun Dial on the Lawn. Finding the North Star. A Vertical Dial. A Simple Water Clock. A Siphon Clepsydra. The Dial Mechanism. Testing the Mechanism. The Siphon Regulator.

CHAPTER XIX.

The Fish-Tail Propeller 234

A Wooden Fish Tail. Construction of the Fish Tail. Fish Tail Propulsion. The Centerboard. Steering With the Fish Tail.

Contents xi

CHAPTER XX.

PAGE

Birdseye Photograph. Suggestions for Springing the Shutter. The Bladder Trigger. The Ice Trigger. The Alarm Clock Trigger. The Key-Ring Signal. Telephone Kite Signals.

CHAPTER XXI.

Kite Sailing in the Water. A Removable Keel. Current Sailing. Sailing With a Drag.

CHAPTER XXH.

The Canvas-Covered Wooden Canoe 258

Building the Frame of the Canoe. The Steam Box. Bending the Ribs. Stretching On the Canvas.

CHAPTER XXni.

The Waving Bush. The Bicycle Sled. Wanted— A Brake. A Raid on the Mulligans. Licked.

CHAPTER XXIV.

An Egyptian Entertainment. Stage Settings. The Arch Priest of the Sacred Scarabeus. Advent of the Sacred Scarabeus. A Message from the Scarabeus. Magic Flowers. A Bouquet in the Goblet. Eggs in the Magic Handkerchief. The Padded Hat. Changing Ink to Water. The Magic Solvent. Making Moiiey. The Disappearance of Tommy. Tommy's Return.

CHAPTER XXV.

Forms and Side Planks. Cutting Out the Ribs. Planking the Frame. The Spars. The Sails. The Leeboard.

xii Contents

CHAPTER XXVL

PAGE

The Diving Swing. Dredging a Swimming Hole. The Outdoor Gymnasium. A Swimming Sail. Construction of the Swimming Craft. The Human Fish. One Thing Lacking. The Framework of the Monster. Covering the Framework. The Sea Serpent in Lake Moeris. The Sea Serpent in the Creek. Tommy's Peril.

CHAPTER XXVn.

A Token of Gratitude. Farmer Fithian's Spring. A Temporary Fountain. The Iron Pipe Line. The Concrete Basin. The Concrete Mixture.

CHAPTER I.

INITIATION

It was the first moonless night of the school year. The time had been chosen only after carefully consulting a patent medicine almanac on the chances for a darlc, cloudy night. Strange to say, the almanac struck it right that time. We couldn't have wished for wilder weather. The wind was blowing a gale. No rain fell, but occasionally there was a brilliant flash of lightning, revealing weird cloud forms against the jet-black sky.

We were all ready for the initiation. Announcements had been sent to the favored three, who were to be admitted into the fold of the Big Bug Club, summoning them to be ready for their guides on the stroke of midnight.

"This shall be your sign," so the summons read; "your guide will utter the word 'doom,' at which you must give the countersign 'devotion.' Remember the countersign!"

At ten minutes of 12 four Big Bugs, the only survivors of the last year's famous club, assembled in the lobby of the school, and each donned his white cap, and rolled a pebble under his tongue to disguise his voice. Bill staid down stairs on guard, while the rest of us wrapped in sheets stole up to our positions In the dormitory, and on the last stroke of 12, three bedroom doors opened simultaneously.

"Jig" Nelson was my victim — an awfully nervous fellow. As I opened the door there was a tremendous clap of thunder, and a blue-green flash lighted up the room. "Jig" started up in bed, staring at me with terrified eyes. He did not stir as I glided toward him and leaned over to utter the mysterious signal in his very ear.

"Doom!" The word boomed out with an unearthly, hollow sound. No answer from the spellbound "Jig."

"Doom-m!" I said again, but "Jig" was struck speechless.

"Doom-m-m !" I said a third time, but the spell was broken, for in this supreme effort the pebble suddenly shot out of my mouth and down my victim's neck.

"Wow!" cried "Jig" with a yell that should have brought out the police.

"Shut up, you fool!" I said in a hoarse whisper; "don't be an ass ! This is one of the Big Bugs. Have you forgotten your countersign?"

"Devotion," came the trembling response.

"Now, brace up!" as I blindfolded him; "we don't want any mollycoddles in our club. Get your duds on, man ! You should have been all dressed and waiting for me. I hope you haven't waked up the whole house."

A few minutes later I led him out into the hall. On the way down we had to pass the "old man's" room. This was decidedly a misnomer, because the new principal of our academy was far from being an elderly man. On the contrary, Professor James looked strangely young for his age. His short, slight figure, fair hair, light blue eyes, and smooth-shaven face were a marked contrast to the rugged features of his predecessor. Professor Clark.

The Principal's Door At the foot of the stairs, right in front of the principal's door, was a squeaky board. This board had been my

Initiation undoing once before, when I was sneaking to a midnight club meeting, and I didn't mean to be betrayed by it a second time. Now, as we approached the telltale spot, I cautioned "Jig" to take a long step over it, but as luck

Fig. 1 — Stumbled and struck heavily against the door would have It, he stumbled and struck heavily against the door. I was sure the game was all up ; for fully two minutes we stood quaking with bated breath, but nothing happened. Presently we made out the measured breathing of the sleeper, and much relieved groped our way noiselessly down to the lobby.

Bill and "Doc" Williams had already gone out with "Sneezer" Tracy, the first neophyte (new member), and Roy Bowers was waiting for me with "Jumbo" Harris, the second candidate. As it took two guides to initiate each victim properly, "Jig" had to be left behind until the other two had been put through their paces. Stripping off our sheets and white caps we plunged out Into the wild night with "Jumbo," the fattest boy In school.

Quite a programme of foolish tricks was provided for his entertainment. The tricks were all harmless, because our object was to be funny rather than to cause pain. To start with, we held his legs and made him walk on his hands, down the steep terrace toward the barn. Then we led him up to the hay loft and made him do the "dip of death," which was a slide down the slippery mound. He had to shin up a slippery pole, and walk the plank. The plank was laid across a saw horse, seesaw fashion, and he had to walk up one side, teeter the board over, and then walk down the other with no assistance from us, though we stood by at each side to catch him in case he made a false step.

The Bottomless Pit

Next we led him Into the shed. A six-Inch beam was laid on the floor, and supported one end of a long plank. "Jumbo" was led up this Inclined path, but the slope was so gradual that he thought he was walking on the level. Sud-

Initiation denly we stopped him at the very end of the plank with his toes over the edge.

"Before you lies the bottomless pit," said Bill in sepulchral tones. "Leap down into the depths to meet the 'A-awful Presence.' "

But "Jumbo" rebelled; he did not care to take a leap in the dark. Only after the direst threats and dares could we induce him to make the venture. He gathered himself up

Fig. 2 — He passed for a pretty good goat in the dark.

for a long jump; imagine his surprise at bringing up short after a drop of but six inches. We howled with laughter, in which even "Sneezer," who had just been through the same trick, joined.

The^next "stunt" on the programme was the goat ride. We had no goat, but Bill agreed to act as a substitute. He had tied upon him a sheepskin rug, purloined from the library, and he had a pair of horns whittled out of a gnarled root and nailed to a leather strap, by which he fastened them on his head. He passed for a pretty good goat in the dark, and "Doc" told me that the antics he went through while "Sneezer" tried to hang on his back were better than those of a real live goat. However, when it came to putting "Jumbo" through the same performance, he demurred. He wasn't going to prance around with an elephant on his back, so we reversed the proceedings, and "Jumbo" had to be the goat, while we all took turns riding on him.

"Jig's" Initiation

The two neophytes, still blindfolded, were now stood up in a corner of the shed, while Bill and I hurried back after "Jig" Nelson. "Jig" appeared to have regained his nerve, and went through the ordeal without flinching. He seemed actually to enjoy the scramble down the steep terrace, the seesaw board didn't alarm him, and he shinned up the slippery pole with an alacrity that evoked our admiration. The oyster, which we told him was the "evil eye," he ate with evident relish, and even the leap into the bottomless pit did not appear to phase him. Whether he was startled at being brought up short we could not tell, as the large handkerchief I had tied over his eyes completely covered his face.

The final act of the initiation was now performed. Bill, who was to pose as the "A-awful Presence," took his seat on a soap box, attired in his goat costume, while the two neophytes were made to kneel before him. Roy, "Doc," and 1 took up our positions behind them. Each member was sworn to secrecy and loyalty to the club. By the light of a barn lantern. Bill then read the constitution — not a very long document; but It dealt mainly with our pledge to meet at least once a month for a midnight banquet. Then, with a cheer, the neophytes were suddenly unblindfolded and made to look on the "A-a-awful Presence."

Initiation

An Unexpected Member

I will never forget that moment. The Awful Presence fell over backward from his throne and started like a shot for the door. "Jig" ran after him and stopped him. But no; was it "Jig"? Sure as I live, there stood Professor

Fig. 3 — The "Awful Presence" fell over backward

James wearing the broadest of broad smiles, while we simply stared with fear frozen on our faces.

"Don't be alarmed, boys," said Professor James. "Did I not just swear absolute secrecy and loyalty to the club? I want to tell you right here that I will be just as loyal to you as you are to me." Oh, pshaw, we were in for it now. A lecture on loyalty and such. But the next sentence surprised me. "I have no objection to your continuing this club in all secrecy to the rest of the school." Did he mean it? "But, now that I have been duly initiated and sworn in as a member, you must let me into your plans and recognize my vote. I will try to be a boy with you, and I think I can help you in lots of ways which will make up for my forcible entry into the Big Bugs' Club."

"Three cheers for Professor James!" cried someone, and the cheers were given with a vim.

"Now, Mr. President," he said, addressing Bill, "I believe the constitution limits the membership to seven, but I move you that the article be amended to allow one more member, for poor Nelson is still waiting in the lobby, where I traded coats with him."

The motion was unanimously carried, and I hurried off to fetch "Jig." To make up for his long wait, we swore him in without putting him through any initiation pranks. The society then adjourned after passing a motion made by Professor James that we meet in his own room immediately after school hours the next day.

"I am asking you to come to my own room, and not to the office. In the office I shall always be Professor James, principal of the Academy, and as such I shall demand that you treat me with all respect due to my office. But in my own room I can be a boy with you, a loyal member of the Big Bugs' Club."

"Say, he's a slick one, isn't he?" said Bill, as we were getting back to bed; "but he seems to be the right sort."

Chapter II. Building A Dam

The next day we assembled in the principal's room, where Professor James greeted us cordially with the secret handshake and the countersign of the month and then escorted Bill to the seat of honor. A meeting was called at once, and Professor James was given the floor.

"Fellow members," he said, "I want to apologize for taking an unfair advantage of you last night. But there Is quite a little to be said on my side. When Professor Clark handed over the school to me, he told me of a mysterious club which some of the boys were conducting on the sly. Just what sort of a club it was, he could not tell. He knew that the members had held secret meetings at night, but their purpose was a mystery to him. The fact that the club was secret was conclusive evidence to him that it must be 'crooked.' Consequently, he was strongly of the opinion that the organization should be broken up. That Is why he had your cave destroyed, and his urgent advice to me was that I check any attempts at reorganizing the club this fall. But I could not do such a thing without giving you a trial. Now, I hate a 'squealer' just as much as you do ; and though I knew one or two members of the club, I could not call them^up to tell on the rest. Last night, as luck would have it, I heard you creep out to your rendezvous, and I had to take some action. As I have just said, I took an unfair advantage of you; but, come now, don't you think you took an unfair advantage of me In trying to steal off to the barn while I was asleep?

lo The Scientific American Boy at School

"Now, I haven't seen any harm in the club, except for the loss of sleep at the midnight banquets, but there is one thing that every one despises, and that is a 'sneak.' Don't sneak off to those banquets. You can be secretive, and need not let anyone else in the school know when and where you are going to meet. But, why not have something better than midnight feasts for the chief aim of the society? Why not make it a club worth while? Bill, your uncle told me the other day, about the things you did in camp last summer. Why not continue the good work here? You may rely on me for considerably more than my share of the funds necessary to carry out any ideas that are worth while."

Cheers !

The Scarabeus

"Hold on, boys. I am not through yet. Among the relics of your cave house that Professor Clark turned over to me was a drawing of a huge bettle bearing the letters G.I.B. Now that I have been initiated, of course I know that G.I.B. must be read backward and with the beetle signifies Big Bug; but when I first saw it I thought it was meant to represent the Egyptian sacred beetle, or scarabeus, and that your club was patterned after one of the mysterious ancient societies. I am sorry my guess was wrong, because you could do much worse than to copy those old-time scientists and engineers. They were pretty smart, those people of Bible days. Do you know that the first subway under a river was built by the Assyrians, ages ago? Yes; one of their old kings wanted to have a private passage run under the Euphrates, and he told his engineers to build it. They must have been a pretty blue lot of engineers when they got those orders. It would not have been so bad if they were

Building a Dam

II going through rock, but the bed of the Euphrates is sandy, and there were no tunnel shields in those days to keep the tunnel from caving in while it was being built. They had to build the tunnel though, or have their heads chopped off. A pretty strong incentive, that ! Well, they didn't lose their heads; some one hit upon a scheme. It meant a lot of labor, but there were no unions then, and labor cost nothing. What do you suppose they did? The simplest thing in the world. They dug a new channel for the Euphrates, diverted the waters into it, and then proceeded to build their tunnel in perfect safety in the dry bed of the river.

When all was completed, the new channel was stopped, and the waters flowed through the old channel over the tunnel."

"Gee! that was clever, wasn't it?" interjected Bill.

"It certainly was. Why, you have no idea how smart those people were ! The old Egyptians used to hatch their eggs in incubators. The Egyptian priests had nickel-in-the-slot machines for selling holy water In their temples, and when it came to great engineering works they were simply wonderful. They didn't have steam engines, or much In the way of machines to help them, but yet they managed somehow. That's a good motto for the Big Bug Club — 'Manage

Fig. 4 — A beetle bearing the letters GIB

Somehow.' You cannot afford to buy a steam engine or a. gasoline motor, and you cannot put much money Into the things you want to do, but with a little headwork I believe you can get up some schemes that would make even the clever old Egyptians sit up and take notice."

"Hooray for the old Egyptian engineers! Give them three cheers!" And they were given with a vim.

"Let's make it an Egyptian club," said Roy.

"How will this do?" put in "Doc;" "The Modern Order or Ancient Engineers." The motion was carried with a storm of applause.

"This means that we've got to study ancient history," said Bill, "and I appoint Jim and 'Doc' as a committee of two to look up the subject and work out the details of our organization."

A New Club House

Next we discussed the question of building a new home for our club, to take the place of the cave we had dug the year before. Caves, huts, log cabins, and tree houses were in turn proposed and rejected. But finally someone suggested that we construct a lake house on FIthian's Pond. The proposition seemed a good one, and the entire club, Professor James included, walked down to the pond to make a preliminary survey.

FIthian's Pond was a boggy, half-submerged tract, near the Academy grounds, that had once been a mill pond, but the dam had been completely destroyed, and a large stream flowed through it to a much larger pond beyond called Jenkin's Lake. We planned first to reconstruct the dam, and then to build our lake house on a bank

Building a Dam 13

which would be covered to a comparatively shallow depth when the dam was completed.

The Bramble Path

The shores of the pond, particularly on the western side, were clothed with a thick, almost impenetrable, mass of undergrowth and briars. The year before. Bill had chanced on an old forgotten trail through the matted growth, which led to the water's edge. Here there were splendid opportunities for concealing a boat. By the judicious use of a hatchet, Bill had trimmed a clear path which, however, was completely hidden at each end by a large bush that had to be parted before we could enter the trail. We planned to use this path as our main approach to the lake.

Pile Driving

On the following afternoon we commenced operations on the dam. The gap we had to fill was about ten feet wide, and we meant to build the dam to a height of five or six feet. First we chopped down three young trees, trimmed off the branches, and made three posts or piles, each ten feet long. The posts were pointed at one end, and the branches which had been chopped off were piled away for future use. Bill and "Sneezer" had worked out a method of construction. They proposed to drive these posts into the bed of the stream and then pile logs and brush against them. Just how we were to dHve the posts without a pile driver puzzled me, but Bill said he had seen a "human pile driver" on the Harlem River, and was sure we could drive our piles in the same way, particularly as the stream had a soft, mud bottom. Back of the barn we found a long two-inch plank, which was put into service. The end of this plank was sawed out to a V shape, as shown in Fig. 5, so that it would fit partly around the pile or post. A ten-foot pile was set upright in the stream, with its pointed end sticking in the mud, and the plank was laid with one end resting on the shore and the other on a cleat, J, nailed to the pile at the proper height. To prevent the plank from slipping off the cleat, blocks, B, were nailed to the points of the V on the under side, and

Fig. 5 — When Bill counted three we all jumped

they fitted over the cleat. As a further precaution, nails, C\ were driven through the plank into the cleat, but with the heads sticking up so that they could easily be withdraAvn whenever desired. "J'g" ^"d "Sneezer," who were the lightest members of the club, steadied the pile to start with by means of a pair of laths nailed to it, while the rest of us lined up on the plank, "Jumbo" Harris in the lead, for in this game avoirdupois was everything. Then when Bill

Building a Dam counted three, we all jumped up and landed as one on the plank with a total weight of nearly six hundred pounds. The post dropped fully fifteen inches, and we had to knock off the cleat and nail it higher up, and then repeat the jumping operation. It took three jumps to drive the post the next fifteen inches, and before we had driven it to a depth of four feet we lost count of the number of jumps we had to make. After the center pile was driven we drove the other two piles in line near the opposite banks, but with the ends sticking up about six inches higher than the center pile. The

Fig. 6 — Looking down on the top of the dam

piles were connected at the top by a board, C, which was bent around the front of the center pile and back of the other piles (see Fig. 6). This helped to stiffen the upper end of the central pile. To the rear or upstream side of each of the side piles, D, and six or eight inches from them, two lighter posts, E, were driven into the mud. These sticks were driven with an ax, as it was not necessary to sink them to any great depth.

A Log Wall

Our next task was to cut a number of light logs, which we wedged down between the piles D and E; thus a log wall was built across the stream. To stop up the'cracks between i6 the logs, we lowered a mass of brush and branches against the upstream side of the dam, sinking it with loads of earth and stone. The water forced this mass against the logs, pretty effectually stopping the leaks. The main trick in building a dam is to prevent the water from washing out the banks at each side, so Professor James told us, and we over-

Fig. 7 — A log wall across the stream came the difficulty by building up the sides of the dam higher than the center so that the water would flow over the center only. Fig. 7, which is a front view of the dam, shows how this was done. A board, F, was nailed onto the top of the dam, forming a sort of sill. The two end piles, which extended through the sill, were notched to provide a bearing for this board. (See G, Fig. 7.) Four wedge-shaped boards, H, were then sawed out, and nailed onto the sill and to the piles at each side, and finally two boards, /, were nailed onto the wedge-shaped pieces.

Buildinsi a Dam

Nearly two weeks elapsed before the dam was entirely completed. The pond filled as rapidly as we built, and was

Sacticm at AA.

Fig. 8 — The filling behind the log wall

pouring over the top of the dam before we had finished dumping rock and earth on the upstream side. A pile of stones was dumped on the downstream side of the dam to break the fall of the water and prevent It from washing out a deep hole and undermining the central pile.

Chapter III

It was not until after our dam had been completed that we realized how foolish we were not to have built the lake house before flooding the site with water. We did not even have a boat to navigate our lake. There was nothing to do but to build one, and we determined that as lake dwellers we should have something pretty nice, not a common scow such as most boys build. JRoy Bowers designed the skiff and superintended its construction. His home was somewhere on Chesapeake Bay, and he knew more about boats than all the rest of us put together.

First we bought four ^-inch boards, each 14 feet long.