Category The World Book – 1919

Art: Smile

Bran

An anthropomorphic axolotl poses like the Mona Lisa.

I’m trying to find a creative outlet. My brain is suffering from just focusing on work and doomscrolling each morning through the news and my state’s dedicated attempts to restrict my life. So I bought some cheap acrylic paints and canvas boards and I’ll post things here as I complete them. And I’ll try to throw in a quote or two from an old reference work while I’m at it.

My kid is super-obsessed with axolotls. They sometimes look like they’re coyly smiling. So I tried to combine an axolotl with one of the world’s most famous smiles. Kiddo’s alternative title for this painting is “Axolisa.”

In Milan, Leonardo [da Vinci] made his influence lasting by the founding of an Art academy. After the occupation of that city by the French, he went to Florence, where he painted the most celebrated of his easel pictures, the wonderful portrait of Mona Lisa del Giocondo, a Florentine lady of prominence. The “inscrutable” smile of this lady has been the subject if endless discussion, and it is said that Leonardo caused her to assume her mysterious expression by having music played during the sittings. In 1911 this priceless painting, commonly known as Mona Lisa, which is one of the glories of the Louvre, in Paris, was cut from its frame. Two years later it was recovered from the thief, an Italian, who stole it out of patriotic motives. (The World Book, 1919, Volume 10, page 6087)

The Encyclopedia Americana expands a bit on the famous theft (volume 19, page 362):

MONNA LISA, [sic] or <La Gioconda,> the famous masterpiece of Leonardo da Vinci, disappeared from the Louvre in Paris 21 or 22 Aug. 1911. The picture had been taken out of the frame, which was found on a back staircase of the building. For over two years the mystery remained unsolved. On 12 Dec. 1913 it was announced that the painting had been recovered in Florence and returned to Paris. It had been stolen from the Louvre by an Italian workman named Vincenzo Perugia, who gave as his reason for the theft that he wished to retaliate on France for taking so many Italian masterpieces from Italy. On 5 June 1914 Perugia was sentenced to one year and 15 days' imprisonment with payment of costs.

Octopus

Bran

In anticipation of playing Octodad: Dadliest Catch with kiddo this weekend, I decided to look up some octopus-related facts to pepper throughout our gaming time, which we will hopefully be able to stream (new internet provider). In the earlier English-language reference works I own, the octopus is almost a mythical creature, one of those horrors that occupy the unknown depths of the ocean. The entry in the 1919 World Book (vol. 7, pp. 4340-4341), for example, makes me feel sorry for the poor, misunderstood octopus, as the World Book repeats over and over again that the octopus is a horrifying and scary creature:

OCTOPUS, ok' toh pus, a genus of deep-sea animals, of repulsive and frightful appearance. The soft, pear-shaped body of the animal is joined to the head by a short neck, and encircling the mouth are eight movable arms, on each of which there are two rows of powerful suckers. The arms are connected at the base by a web. It is these arms that give the creature its name, for octopus is derived from Greek words meaning having eight arms. The octopus cannot swim, but moves along the sea bottom by means of its arms. It lives in coral reefs and among rocks and is most common in the Mediterranean and Asiatic seas, although it reaches its greatest size on the Pacific coast — sometimes fourteen feet from tip to tip of extended arms. Generally the length of arm in the largest specimens is from three and one-half to four feet. The food of the octopus consists of crabs and other small shellfish.

Octopus Woodcut

Divers along coral banks are sometimes caught by the arms of these animals and death is caused by strangulation, drowning or fright. It is possible to loosen the grip of an octopus by seizing it on either side of the mouth and turning it inside out, but it is said that the hideous appearance of the animal is so terrifying that a victim is usually rendered helpless. The Chinese and Italians, who seek the octopus for food, catch the animal by running a pointed stick through the body.

For description of the class to which the octopus belongs see the article Cephalopoda.

The 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica's entry (vol. 19 p. 993) on "Octopus" spends half of its space split between two topics - defending Victor Hugo's depiction of the octopus in Toilers of the Sea and discussing the hectocotylus, the sometimes detachable sperm-carrying arm of the male octopus:

[...] The celebrated account of the octopus given by Victor Hugo in his Travailleurs de la mer is not so fictitious as some critics with a knowledge of natural history have maintained. It is true that the great French author has made the mistake of using the name Cephaloptera, which belongs to a large tropical fish similar to a skate, instead of Cephalopoda, and that he applies the term devil-fish, which belongs to Cephaloptera, to the octopus. His description is exaggerated, imaginative and sensational; but it is correct in its most important particulars, and bears evidence that the author was to some extent personally acquainted with the animal and its habits, although he was not a scientific observer. The octopus feeds on crabs, and crabs feed on carrion, and, therefore, there is nothing impossible in Hugo's account of the skeleton of a drowned man surrounded by the shells of numbers of crabs which the octopus had devoured. Whether an octopus would attack and kill a man is another question, but it certainly might seize him with its arms and suckers while holding to the rocks by other arms, and a man seized in this way when in the water might be in danger of being drowned.

[...] The separation of one of the arms of the male for purposes of reproduction is one of the most remarkable peculiarities of the Octopoda. It does not occur, however, in octopus nor in many other members of the group. One arm is always considerably modified in structure and employed in copulation, but it is only in three genera, one of which is Argonauta, that the arm spontaneously separates. The detached arm is found still alive and moving in the mantle cavity of the female, and when first discovered in these circumstances was naturally regarded by the older naturalists as a parasite. Cuvier, on account of the numerous suckers of the detached arm, gave it the name Hectocotylus (hundred suckers). When the arm is not detached but only altered in structure it is said to be hectocotylized. The extremity of this arm is expanded and assumes the shape of a spoon. Whether detached or not the modified arm possesses a cavity into which the spermatophores are passed and the arm serves to convey them to the mantle cavity of the female.

Most of the rest of the entry is devoted to specific examples of the octopus disrupting the English lobster industry.

Compare the woodcut illustration of the octopus from the World Book entry above to the bottom right specimen in the color plate below from the 1921 Encyclopedia Americana; I highly suspect they were based on the same illustration.

The Encyclopedia Americana's entry on the octopus can be found in volume 20, on page 575, with a color plate inserted just before that page and another illustrative plate inserted between pages 576 and 577. This entry does a far better job of describing the octopus itself without becoming sensationalist:

Octopus Watercolors

OCTOPUS, a genus of the dibranchiate Cephalopoda (q.v.), or cuttlefishes, forming the type of the family Octopodidæ, the members of which group are familiarly known as "poulpes." These forms possess eight arms of equal length, united to each other by a web varying in extent in different forms. The arms possess two rows of sessile, wholly fleshy suckers. The prominent head is joined to the body by a distinct "neck," and the body itself is short, generally more or less rounded in shape and unprovided with side or lateral fins. The shell is internal, and is represented by two short "styles," which lie imbedded in the "mantle." In the octopods the third right arm of the male animals becomes developed to form a "hectocotylus" or sexual organ (see Argonaut); and in some this modified arm is detached from the body and deposited within the mantle cavity of the female for the purpose of fertilizing the eggs, a fresh arm being developed as occasion requires.

The poulpes attained a popular notoriety from the tales which were formerly circulated of gigantic members of this group which had no existence in reality. Some forms spread their limbs 12 or 14 feet, like great spiders, and might, under favorable circumstances, hold under water a person whom they had seized until he had drowned, at the same time biting him with their horny parrot-like jaws; no doubt such accidents have occasionally happened to pearl-divers and the like. Ordinarily, however, the octopus does not attain one-half these dimensions and many species have bodies no larger than an ordinary pear. These animals live in rocky places along shore and about reefs, protecting their soft bodies by sitting in holes and crevices with arms reaching out to seize their victims, which are fishes and any animal they are able to overpower. They are themselves preyed upon by large fishes, turtles, etc. Many species are eaten in various parts of the world and the common one (Octopus vulgaris), of the Mediterranean and neighboring Atlantic coasts, has been speared and taken to market from a time immemorial, and is still a regular object of pursuit, especially in Italy. A deep-water species (Eledone moschata) is trapped for market in from 10 to 20 fathoms of water by lowering earthen jars and leaving them a few hours. The creatures creep into these jars, as a fine hiding-place, and allow themselves to be drawn to the surface. The flesh is eaten boiled, fried and in salads and is preserved by pickling. Sepia (q.v.) is the substance in the "ink-bag": and "cuttlebone" the supporting calcareous plate beneath the skin of certain species. Of the American species O. bairdii and otehrs of the eastern coast dwell in deep water or about the tropical coral reefs. On the Pacific Coast several species are taken near shore and were always utilized by the Indians. Since the settlement of California their flesh is regularly supplies to the San Francisco market, where it is bought by Italians and Chinese. Some specimens brought in there are among the largest known, measuring 14 feet across the outstretched arms. Consult books of conchology, especially Cooke, 'Mollusca' (1895); and 'Standard Natural History' (Vol. I, 1884). See Argonaut; Cephalopoda; Cuttlefish.

American Octopus Varieties

The German-language encyclopedia Bilder-Conversations-Lexikon für das deutsche Volk by Brockhaus, published in 1841, features a short, but thorough article (vol. 4, pp. 436-437) on the Tintenfisch ("ink fish"), a term which encapsulates the cuttlefish, squid, and octopus under a single heading (translation follows):

Tintenfisch, lat. Sepia, heißt eine Gattung Weichthiere, welche zwei große, fast verständig aussehende Augen, einen hornartigen Schnabel und um diesen acht oder zehn große Fangarme mit Saugnäpfen haben. Am Bauche haben sie einen Beutel mit einer schwarzbraunen Flüssigkeit, welche sie willkürlich von sich lassen, um das Wasser zu trüben. Mehre Arten haben unter der Haut des Rückens eine knochige Platte. Man brennt dieselbe weiß, verkauft sie unter dem Namen weißes Fischbein oder Walfischschuppe (lat. os sepiae) und benutzt sie zum Abreiben und Glätten verschiedener Gegenstände. Der hier abgebildete sogenannte Meerpolyp, der Polypus oder Octopus der Alten, hat acht Arme und findet sich zwischen Klippen in den europ. und amerk. Meeren. Seine Arme benutzt er, um sich seiner Beute zu bemächtigen und damit beim Schwimmen zu rudern und um sich auf dem Meeresboden und selbst auf dem Lande fortzubewegen. Die hier noch besonders abgebildeten Saugnäpfe an den Armen wirken ganz wie Schröpfköpfe, indem sie sich luftdicht an die Gegenstände anlegen und dann nach innen eine luftleere Höhlung bilden. Mit denselben kann sich das Thier so fest anheften, daß man ihm die Arme abschneiden muß, um es abzulösen. Es macht besonders auf Krebse Jagd. Merkwürdig ist seine Eigenschaft, seine gewöhnlich rosenrothe Farbe verändern zu können. In einigen Gegenden pflegt man diese Polypen zu essen. Sie werden etwa 6 F. groß, doch erzählt der röm. Naturforscher Plinius von einem derartigen Thiere, welchces 30 F. lange Arme gehabt hätte, die so dick gewesen wären, daß sie ein Mann kaum zu umspannen vermocht. — Der gemeine Tintenfisch, vorzugsweise Sepia genannt, auch Tintenschnecke oder Blackfisch, wird nur über 1 F. lang. Er hat acht kurze Arme und zwei längere Fühler und wird besonders in mittelländ. Meere gefunden. Seine Haut ist röthlich, mit braunen Flecken besetzt. In dem daumenlangen Tintenbeutel befindet sich die braune Flüssigkeit, welche unter dem Namen Sepia als Malerfarbe geschätzt ist. Das Weibchen legt eine Menge Eier, welche traubenförmig aneinander hangen, und daher Seetrauben (lat. uvae maritimae) genannt werden. Auch liefert besonders dieser Tintenfisch das os sepiae. Er ist, wie der Meerpolyp, genießbar. — Der braune Saft der Tintenfische mit Biester vermischt, wurde zuerst von Seydelmann zu Zeichnungen, sogenannten Sepiazeichnungen, benutzt, welche großen Beifall fanden.

Tintenfisch (Latin: sepia) is the name of a genus of mollusks, which have two large, almost intelligent-looking eyes, a horn-like beak, and, surrounding this, eight or ten long tentacles with suction cups. They have a sack on their abdomen filled with a dark-brown liquid, which they can release at will in order to cloud the water. Many varieties have a bony plate under the skin of their back. This can be burned white and sold under the name of "whalebone" or "whale scales" (Latin: os sepiae); they are used for scrubbing and polishing various objects. The so-called ocean poulp, the "polypus" or "octopus" of the ancients, pictured here, has eight arms and can be found in the crags of the European and American seas. It uses its arms to seize its prey, to steer while swimming, and to move itself on the seafloor and even on land. The suction cups on the arms, specially illustrated here, work entirely like cupping glasses, in that they lay airtight onto objects and then create a vacuous cavity inside. The animal can hold on so tightly with these that its arms must be cut off in order to remove it. It particularly likes to hunt crabs. Remarkably, it has the ability to change its normally-pink coloring. In some areas, it is common to eat these poulpes. They grow to about 6 feet [note: I am not sure exactly how long a "foot" here refers to], though the Roman naturalist Pliny tells of a similar animal which supposedly had 30 feet long arms, which were so thick, that a man could barely wrap his arms around them. — The Common Tintenfisch, preferably called sepia [cuttlefish], but also "ink slug" or "black fish" [both of these terms mean cuttlefish], is little more than 1 foot long. It has eight small arms and two longer antennae and are particularly common in the Mediterranean Sea. Its skin is reddish with brown spots. Inside of its thumb-long ink sack is a brown liquid which is treasured as the painter's color sepia. The female lays a large number of eggs, which hang on one another like grapes, and so they are called "sea grapes" (Latin: uvae maritimae). The cuttlebone is particularly common in this Tintenfisch. It is, just like the octopus, edible. — The brown juice of the Tintenfisch, when mixed with colostrum, was first used by Seydelmann for drawing so-called "Sepia Drawings", which were met with great acclaim.

Old German Encyclopedia page on the Octopus

Finally, to end, here are a few fun octopus facts taken from a more modern entry, specifically from the 1992 World Book (vol. 14, pp. 678-679):

  • The octopus has three hearts, two of which are specifically linked to its gills.
  • The octopus is able to grow a new arm if it loses one.
  • The female octopus can lay over 100,000 eggs, though many of these get eaten by other animals.

Pneumatic Tubes

Bran

As a child, I didn't particularly like having to ride along with my mom whenever she would drive to the bank, but one thing I did like were the tubes in the drive-through service bays. She would put her deposit slip and money in a garishly blue box, insert said box into an opening, push up slightly, and whoosh! Up it went! And then, many minutes later, the teller in the building would put my mom's receipt back in the box and send it back. It seemed amazing, particularly when I was younger, watching the box shoot upwards, gravity be damned, then curve towards and disappear into the building. If we were in the bay closest to the window, I could even watch the box descend down and land in its holding container. I have somehow remained ignorant of the name for this system of document transportation up until now. A post from The Onion today featured the phrase "pneumatic tubes" in its headline, and so I have the name now. And took a dive into my encyclopedias for more info on the matter.

The use of pneumatic tubes has assuredly declined in our digital society; the 1992 World Book, for instance, does not have an entry on them. The 1919 World Book, however, includes this entry for "pneumatic tubes" on page 4716 (volume 8):

PNEUMATIC TUBES, or PNEUMATIC DISPATCH, a system or method of sending mail, dispatches and parcels through tubes, either underground or above, by means of air pressure. In 1667 this method was first suggested by Denis Papin, who read a paper before the Royal Society of London explaining a device for sending a carrier containing mail through tubes by means of suction. Improvements on his suggestion, which were not commercially adopted until 1835, have led to the development of various forms of pneumatic transportation devices in every civilized country.

The necessary apparatus consists of a series of tubes, an air compressor and air-tight cylindrical carrying cases. The first pneumatic dispatch tubes installed only allowed the carriers to be sent in one direction, and to but one destination. This was improved upon by the use of alternate suction and pressure which allowed the carriers to travel both ways. This form was further modified by circular systems in which a current of air kept continually moving and the carriers could be withdrawn from the tubes at regular intervals or stations.

The pneumatic dispatch system has since 1870 proved successful in connection with the general post office, London, especially in the telegraph department, and there is now in use in this connection in that city a series of underground tubes over forty miles in length. The postal authorities and the telegraph companies in the United States have installed pneumatic dispatch systems in all large cities. Department stores and large retail stores in the States and in Canada employ the principle in tubes for conveying money from the counters to the cashier's desk. The development of pneumatic dispatch has not been so rapid in America as in Europe, but it is generally increasing, the system having been proved economical and efficient.

In pneumatic tubes of two and a quarter inches in diameter, worked with an air pressure of ten pounds per square inch, containing containers which hold seventy-five ordinary messenger forms, a speed is obtained in transit of a mile in two and one-half minutes. Large tubes for pneumatic dispatch, eight inches in diameter, are built for conveyance of carriers seven inches in diameter and twenty-four inches long. These tubes require an air pressure equal to thirty horse power, and the carriers are propelled through the tubes at the rate of thirty miles an hour.

Consult Batcheller's The Pneumatic Dispatch Tube System.

The diagram here is from the 1939 Comptons Pictured Encyclopedia, where it accompanies the entry on "pneumatic appliances" on page 266 of volume 11. The caption reads: This picture shows how the carriers travel back and forth in the tubes of a big store. When the carrier is inserted at any point in the system, it speeds forward until it strikes a trap door, which opens outward.
The door snaps open long enough to let out the carrier, but not long enough to let in much air. A suction fan is constantly exhausting the air from the pipes.

Large department stores are the subject of "The Wonder of a Great Store," an article features in volume 10 of The Book of Knowledge (1945). Although the article itself does not deal with the tubes, it is accompanied by a wonderful full-page photograph of a series of pneumatic tubes in the Macy's store in New York City, with the following caption: From almost every sales counter in the store a pneumatic tube runs, to carry the customer's money to a central desk, and to carry back change, if there is any, with hardly ever an error (p. 3679).

The above examples were arguably from reference works marketed towards children; we'll finish with some choice extracts from the 11th Edition Encyclopaedia Britannica and its entry on "pneumatic despatch" (volume 21, pp. 865-867). Get ready to get your math on - I had a lot of fun figuring out how to program the equations in \KaTeX.

PNEUMATIC DESPATCH, the name given to a system of transport of written despatches through long narrow tubes by the agency of air pressure. It was introducted in 1853 by J. Latimer Clark, between the Central and Stock Exchange stations of the Electric and International Telegraph Company in London. The stations were connected by a tube 1½ in. in diameter and 220 yds. long. Carriers containing batches of telegrams, and fitting piston-wise in the tube, were sucked through it (in one direction only) by the production of a partial vacuum at one end. In 1858 C. F. Varley improved the system by using compressed air to force the carriers in one direction, a partial vacuum being still used to draw them in the other direction. This improvement enables single radiating lines of pipe to be used both for sending and for receiving telegrams between a central station supplied with pumping machinery and outlying stations not so supplied.

[...] ...it is found more economical to transmit local message-work by tube rather than by wire, as skilled telegraphists are not required, but only tube attendants. [...]

The tubes are in all cases of lead...

Great care is exercised in making the joints in the lead pipes. Before the tube is placed in its trench a strong chain is passed through it, and a polished steel mandrel, 6 in. long and slightly less in diameter than the diameter of the tube, is heated and attached to the chain, and pushed half its length into the end of the tube already laid; the new length of tube is then forced over the projecting end of the mandrel until the tube ends (which have been previously cut flat) butt perfectly together; an ordinary plumber's joint is then made. By this means the tube is made perfectly air-tight, and the mandrel keeps the surface of the tube under the joint as smooth as at any other part of its length. After the joint is completed, the mandrel is drawn out by the chain attached to it, the next length is drawn on, and the above process repeated. The tubes are laid about 2 ft. below the surface of the ground.

The tubes radiate from the central to the branch offices, the principal offices having two tubes, one for "inward" and the other for "outward" traffic. At the smaller offices both the inward and the outward traffic is carried on through one tube. The "carriers" are made with gutta percha bodies, covered with felt, the front of the carrier being provided with a buffer or piston formed of several disks of felt which closely fit the tube; the messages are prevented from getting out of the carrier by the end being closed by an elastic band, which can be stretched sufficiently to allow the message forms to be inserted. The 3-in. carriers will hold 75 ordinary message forms, the 2¼-in. carriers 25 forms, and the 1½-in. carriers 20 forms. The carriers are propelled in one direction (from the central office) by "pressure," and drawn in the opposite direction by "vacuum," the standard pressure and vacuum being 10 ln and 6½ lb per sq. in. respectively, which values give approximately the same speed.

The time of transit of a carrier through a tube when the air pressure does not exceed 20 lb per square inch is given very approximately by the empirical formula: —

t=.00872\sqrt{\frac{l^3}{Pd}};

where l = length of tube in yards, d = diameter of tube in inches, P = effective air-pressure in pounds per square inch, t = transit time in seconds. For vacuum the formula is:—

t=\frac{.00825}{1 - .234\sqrt{15.5 - P_1}}\sqrt{\frac{l^3}{d}};

where P1 = effective vacuum in pounds per square inch.

The horse-power required to propel a carrier is approximately, for pressure:—

H.P. = (.574 + .0011P)\sqrt{\frac{P^3d^5}{l}};

for vacuum:—

H.P. = (5.187 - 1.214\sqrt{15.5 - P_1})P_1\sqrt{\frac{d^5}{l}}.

For a given transit time the actual horse-power required is much less in teh case of vacuum than in the case of pressure working, owing to the density of the air column moved being much less: thus, for example, the transit time for 10 lb pressure is the same as for 6½ lb vacuum, but the horse-power required in the two cases is as 1.83 to 1. [...] The transit time for a 2¼-in. tube is 16% more than for a 3-in. tube of the same length, when both are worked at the same pressure, but the horse-power required is 50% less; it is not advisable, therefore, to use a tube larger than is absolutely necessary to carry the volume of traffic required.

[...]

As a rule, only one carrier is despatched at a time, and no second carrier is inserted in the tube until the arrival of the first one at the farther end is automatically signalled (by an electric apparatus) to the despatching office. On some of the long tubes a carrier, when it passes the midway point in the tube, strikes a trigger and sends back an electrical signal indicating its passage; on the receipt of this signal a second carrier may be despatched. This arrangement has been almost entirely superseded by a signally apparatus which by a clock movement actuates an indicating hand moves the latter to "tube clear" a certain definite time (30 to 40 seconds) after a carrier has been inserted in the tube. By this arrangement carriers can be despatched one after the other at comparatively short intervals of time, so that several carriers (separated by distinct intervals) may be travelling through the tube simultaneously. It is necessary that the carriers be separated by a definite interval, otherwise they tend to overtake one another and become jammed in the tube. Although the stoppage of a carrier in a tube is of exceedingly rare occurance, it does occasionally take place, through picks being driven into the tube by workmen executing repairs to gas or water pipes, but the locality of such a stoppage is easily determined by a simple inspection along the route of the tube. In no case is any special means of testing for the locality from the central office found necessary.

[...]