to explain why so many plants of twining habits have adopted definite and constant directions of curvature. It has been suggested that in some species of vines the tip of the growing plant is attracted by and drawn toward the sun, resulting in a left, or 'anti-clockwise,' curvature, while in other species the tip is repelled by the sun, causing it to bend to the right in a 'clockwise' fashion. Whatever the cause, many plants have developed this peculiar way of manifesting a sense of direction, and good illustrations of the trait are to be seen in almost any lawn, garden or forest.

"Material for the study of the spiral tendency is near at hand, and in your rambles in garden or woods you will find it

Wide World Photo.

LOOKING THROUGH THE ZR-1

interesting to observe the characteristic twists of the various species. It is a fascinating phase of nature study which may be conducted with slight effort."

A STONE-EATING SHELL-FISH-A concrete-eating mollusk has been doing extensive damage to piers at San Pedro, California. His name is Pholad, and he is a bivalve, as are oysters and clams. When fully grown, he is about three inches or less by one and a quarter. Says Science Service's Daily Science News Bulletin (Washington):

"When the piles were constructed a number of years ago, they were jacketed with concrete to protect them from the common wood-boring marine animals. Recently it was found that the Pholads had bored through the concrete and so made way for the wood-borers to get at the wooden piles. Just how the mollusk works is unknown. The forward, rounded portion of the shells has a surface resembling a rasp or file. Whether the cutting of the concrete or rock is due wholly to attrition with the rough shell, or whether it is aided by some secretion which softens the material, has not been surely determined. These mollusks have been found in some hard rocks, but are generally in shales. Reports state that at every point in the inner harbor where mortar-jacketed piles exist, about 50 per cent. had been more or less attacked, of which more than one-fifth were badly bored; and of those not attacked a number were so far inshore as to be but little exposed. To allay unnecessary alarm, it should be said that the mortar was below average in quality, from two to five inches in thickness, some being decidedly poor. That these jackets had escaped attack for fourteen years is attributed to the fact that the wooden forms used in depositing the mortar had been left in place. They were gradually destroyed by marine wood-borers."

after which a series of actual flight tests of progressively greater length was to be undertaken preparatory to an air voyage to the North Pole early next year. We read:

"The helium to be used as the lifting power for the big dirigible is already on hand, and preparations for the official launching are rapidly going forward. Mrs. Edwin Denby, wife of the Secretary of the Navy, will christen the new ship.

"Every precaution is being taken to insure the maximum possible safety and efficiency of the ZR-1, and accurate cost records of its flights under various loads are to be made with a view to determining the commercial possibilities of this type of aircraft.

"The Navy may in this way be able to aid in the establishment of a new method of air travel. The military use of the big airship will be as a seout for operation with the service battleship fleet."

A brief description of the new airship is given by Admiral Moffett, which emphasizes its wide cruising range, its powerful engines, and its large carrying power. While no balloon is expected to be as speedy as an airplane, the ZR-1 will hold its own with a railroad locomotive, since it has a maximum speed of 75 and a cruising speed of 65 miles an hour. We read:

"The ZR-1 is 680 feet long, 79 feet high, and has twenty gas-cells with a total capacity of 2,115,000 cubic feet of gas, and a gross lifting power, with helium, of 120,000 pounds. The cruis ing range is 4,000 miles. Its six 300-horse-power engines car drive it at a maximum speed of 75 miles an hour or 65 miles ar hour cruising speed. These six engines are located in six power cars, four of which are located amidship; two on each side of the One is in the midline aft, and one is located in the control car in the forward part of the ship.

car.

"In this control-car are located the rudder-control and othe instruments used in navigating the ship, while a telephone sys tem connects it with the other cars and parts of the ship.

"The mess, bunks, and living-quarters for the crew of thirt men are located on a platform laid on the keel and inside th duralumin metal frame which gives rigidity to the ship. Th gasoline-storage tanks are also located along the walkway, whic runs for 600 feet along the keel.

"There are two observation platforms on top of the ship access to which is had by means of ladders and hatchways run ning up through the center of the ship. In the bow is a moorin device with cable by which the giant dirigible can be moored t

a mast.

"The framework is of duralumin metal, the twenty cells fo the lifting gas are made of gold-beaters' skin, while the oute envelop of the airship is made of cotton fabric doped with special preparation to resist weathering.

"The hangar which now houses the ZR-1 at Lakehurst is s large that the United States Capitol could be placed entirel inside with the exception of eighty feet of the dome, whic would project above the roof."

WORKING ON THE MIND THROUGH THE

T

BODY

HE INFLUENCE OF THE MIND on the body has perhaps been unduly exploited. That of the body on the mind is no less sure, but it has been little considered from any practical aspect. In an article on "The Influence of Bodily Attitudes on the States of Consciousness," contributed to L'Education Physique (Paris) by Jean des Vignes Rouges, we are told how we may make ourselves into "living statues of what we want to be," by assuming proper postures and facial expressions. The writer first reminds us that we have no trouble in deciding, to our own satisfaction, at least, on the characters of those who pass us in the street. The ease with which we thus read the minds of our neighbors from their outer aspect, is due, he assures us, to the correspondence that exists between their physical and their moral constitutions. In reality, each of us, we are told, has the visage that he deserves, according to the thoughts that he habitually entertains. Our physical appearance indicates our moral order. A philosopher has not the same face as a ditchdigger; there is intimate association between our attitudes, gestures, walk and expressions, and our states of mind. To quote further:

"Scientific psychology confirms these observations of common sense. We can not believe that there is complete separation between the different phenomena that we call sensation, speech, ideas, emotions and movement; all these words designate different phases of a tendency to action. There are no states of consciousness that are solely representative; in every idea, even the most abstract, we find on analysis motor images that are themselves the beginning of muscular contractions. In the same way, every movement is accompanied by something that remains in the consciousness. None of our muscles can enter into action without provoking a sensation that is connected with an idea and an emotion. This is why children who play at fighting often end up with a real fight. Many boxing contests that begin politely end in ferocity. Here we have aggressive gestures

Wide World Photo.

LOOKING DOWN ON THE GIANT AIRSHIP While the steel ribs were being covered by the envelop.

that, in those cases, with persons who can not control themselves, have released the emotion of anger with its train of ideas of hate.

"The impressions whose source is in the depth of our organs and tissues, themselves have an influence on our consciousness. That dyspeptics are disagreeable is well known. Compare the mental condition of two persons, one with flabby muscles, the other with hard ones, well trained physically; in the latter, the muscular fibers, tense and always on the point of contraction, provoke a feeling of strength, lightness and optimism that the former does not experience.

"This solidarity of functions of the psychic life, owing to which intelligence, sensibility and activity are in reality but different aspects of one tendency, is one of the best established laws of modern psychology.

"As we know, the direction of one's mental life is the stimulation in us of tendencies that we regard as useful, and the suppression of harmful ones.

"By auto-suggestion, we have learned to act on our tendencies by taking them in the word-phase; now we have come to realize that we can stimulate them by grasping them in the action-phase. In sum, we have a current passing through a chain of cells. Instead of acting on the fluid at the end called 'speech,' we cause it to move at the end named 'action.'

"Practically, when we wish to experience a useful feeling, emotion, or state of mind-for instance, self-confidence, courage or joy-we act, we walk, we use gestures, we assume facial expressions, as if we really possest the desired state of mind.

"What then happens? Owing to the mechanism of association, the vibrations that we have created artificially by these acts will communicate themselves to the whole system of cells that constitutes the tendency, our consciousness will be reached by them. and we shall really experience the state of joy or of confidence that we desire.

"This plan is not new. Men have always used it more or less consciously. Thus the coward who alone at night, on a lonely road begins to whistle and sing as if he was not afraid, really

stimulates courage. Turenne, who forced his trembling body into the greatest of dangers, thus imposed on himself an artificial attitude to awaken courage. The commonest laborer, when he has washed his hands and put on his Sunday clothes, feels himself surrounded with an atmosphere of dignity.

"This method is familiar in the Army. To arouse the feeling of respect and of obedience toward a superior, the soldier is required to salute; and the exterior attitude reacts on the mind. "The rites of religion are also an application of this principle. We may recall the advice of Pascal to those who complained that they lacked fervor: 'Kneel down; take some holy water.'

"It is by virtue of this psycho-physiological law that physical education acts on the moral nature-first by increasing the muscular tone, and thus by creating optimism, and second by imposing bodily attitudes whence certain feelings arise.

"Watch a timid person crusht by his infirmity during an interview; all his contortions and his confused movements indicate the weakness of his spirit. He might diminish his troubles considerably by assuming certain postures, but he thinks of this only after the interview is over. We are a little like him; it is after the crisis of discouragement, chagrin, fear or anger, that we think of taking proper bodily attitudes.

"So, to habituate the mind to use the method at the desired moment, I advise my readers to saturate their memories with this formula, by reciting it thrice a day for fifteen days:

"My body is a powerful instrument by which my will imposes itself on my mind. Today I will that my muscles shall be docile servants which will aid me to feel the sentiments that I desire. Let my attention therefore he vigilant! Let it survey carefully the attitudes of my body, my gestures, my facial expressions. Let it concentrate upon the idea of this task. If, at a given moment, I feel an emotion that my reason judges harmful or inopportune, all my nerves and my muscular fibers should at once lend me their aid in the contest that I shall begin, to assure the preeminence of my will; they will contract in order that, through my whole being, I may express the sentiment or the emotion summoned up by my reason. Even if I feel within me a painful contradiction between this artificial attitude and the feeling that I wish to banish, I shall continue to command my nerves and my muscles to stiffen, that they may build from their own substance the living statue that I desire to be. Thus shall I vanquish myself."

on edge. The tank can be quickly 'jacked down' to this height. which is sufficient clearance for the removal of all blocking. When the ice-cakes are on edge there is less danger of slipping or uneven settlement. With the aid of small fires in the tank th ice is ordinarily melted away in twelve hours."

MAKING A SUBWAY OUT OF AN OLD CANAL UR OLD CANALS are mostly a drug on the market Before the railroads came, they were important carrier of passengers and freight. Now they are disused and often forgotten. But the city of Rochester, New York, could not well forget hers; for it ran directly through the town. She has capitalized it by turning it into a freight and passenger subway which incidentally solves a problem of street congestion and railway maladjustment that has menaced her for years. Carrol Y. Belknap, writing in The Business Magazine (Detroit), remind us that Rochester is not an old town. More than a third of he inhabitants have arrived within the last ten years. Yet, ever so, the city is old enough t possess a number of heritage from the past, some of whic she values and some of whic she does not regard so highly If the early inhabitants the city, he says, had delib erately planned to leave t their posterity a traffic prol lem complicated, difficult, an intricate, they could hay succeeded no more completel than they did. He goes on:

LOWERING HEAVY TANKS WITH MELTING ICE-Steel tanks used as brine-containers in ice-plants of the Union Ice Company of California are lowered to their permanent positions with the aid of blocks of ice which carry the weight of the tank while blocking is being removed and then, as the ice melts, allow the tank to settle to its foundation. Says a contributor to The Engineering News-Record (New York):

"The buildings in which these tanks are installed are not designed with a frame from which the tank could be suspended, and the melting-ice method has been found cheaper and more satisfactory than erecting temporary means of supporting the tank while lowering it to position. The tank is riveted up on blocking three to four feet above this foundation in order that workmen may have access to the under side of the tank during the process of riveting, calking and painting. When the tank is finished the blocks of ice are placed and the tank is lowered on jacks until the ice carries the weight, after which all jacks and blocking are removed and the melting ice allows the tank to settle to final position. Two rows of ice-blocks. were placed under it on 12-foot centers, and to hasten the melting process small wood-fires were built inside the tank, one over each supporting cake of ice. In the case illustrated, 300-pound ice-cakes were set on end. More frequently the cakes are set

"Straight through the cent of the village ran the rive That alone would have creat a traffic problem.

"But the early inhabitan proceeded to triple the gravi of the problem by trying unite the two halves in

which the river had separated the town. They built a brids "So far so good. But the bridge grew into a street, a lo straight street that became longer as the city developed. In Main Street, or across it, or down it, flows all the passeng traffic of Rochester. From the point where Main Street bridg the river, all Rochester radiates.

"So much for the problem of passenger traffic. Complex a difficult as it seems, it is simple in comparison to the problem freight traffic.

"Freight traffic, to Rochester, is extremely important. Of 1 300,000 people within the city limits, 80,000 work in the factor Within the city area are 1,700 factories-one to every twe For the most part these produce specialties demand the highest type of skilled workmanship. All told, Rochest factories manufacture 225 different commodities, with a to annual value of $400,000,000.

acres.

"To bring in raw materials and carry away finished produ there are five railroads. Superficially it would seem that th must serve Rochester's industries adequately. Actually t do not. For there is no sufficient switching connection. No there any interrailroad belt line.

"How to link together these five railroads; how, at the s time, to relieve the congested traffic condition on Main Stree that was Rochester's problem.

"Four years ago, Rochester found the solution-found it in empty ditch, the old Erie Canal, which for a hundred years served to build up the commerce and industry of the Stat New York.

"In the prosperous days of the old canal Rochester, like m another town, had benefited by it, for the Erie Canal ran stra through Rochester's center. It crossed the Genesee River an aqueduct only a block from Main Street, and Main St a block or so west of the river.

"The State of New York, however, outgrew the old and built a larger one, the New York State Barge Canal, w

passed, not through Rochester, but to the south of the city. And in 1919 the portion of the Erie Canal that wound through Rochester was abandoned.

"There it was, then, a dry ditch, ten feet deep, seventy feet wide, cutting diagonally across the city and touching or crossing ach of the five railroads. Here, said Rochester, was the solution to the traffic problem: Turn the canal into a subway; let it switch freight cars from railroad to railroad; make it carry some of the street cars that crowd Main Street; and build above it a new street, a companion to Main Street, a through thoroughfare across the river.

"So, in the early months of 1919, the draftsmen in the office of the city engineer began to draw the preliminary maps and plans for the project.

To-day, more than a year and a half after the first public discussion of the subway plans, the men who brought the project before the public seem still a little dazed by what happened. They went to the city council with their plans, expecting opposition and delay, because opposition and delay are the accepted political methods of dealing with new ideas. What they met was neither opposition nor delay, but only indorsement and swift actions. Before the end of the year the city completed the purchase of some thirteen miles of the canal bed. In March, 1922, the advertisement calling for bids on the first contract appeared in the Rochester papers. On May 2 the actual work began."

The plans for the subway, says Mr. Belknap, were designed to produce the most satisfactory results for the least possible expense. Eight and a half miles of track were to be laid in the bed of the old canal. Through the heart of the city, for little less than a mile the subway was to be covered. East and west the tracks would run in the open channel. Through the greater part of the subway there were to be four tracks, two for passenger traffic, two for freight. The roof of the covered subway would provide a new east-and-west street. To quote further from the article in the Detroit magazine:

"Within a year, or a year and a half, the subway will be ready, and Rochester's traffic problem will have disappeared. The new street on the roof of the subway will carry much of the traffic now borne by Main Street. Removing the interurban cars from the surface lines and routing them through the subway will sist in reducing congestion.

Its freight tracks will furnish a means of rapid switching between the railroads that are now practically unconnected. It will enable the manufacturer to bring in his materials over any road that he chooses and to ship out his product by any route he prefers. Every manufacturer will be served, not by one or two roads, but by five.

The service of the belt line, moreover, will extend beyond the here linking together of the railroads. Along the old Erie Canal d are many factories, many of them without direct rail contion. By installing special sidings the belt line will serve them dreetly.

"The men who are building the subway estimate that every

shipper in Rochester will save, annually, from $500 to $3,000 or more, on drayage and switching charges alone. They further estimate that the belt line will transport at least 20,000 cars of freight a year, with a saving in switching charges of at least $15 a car.

"All those factors reveal the subway as one of the best investments ever made by any city. For the empty ditch alone the city paid a million and a half. The total cost of the project will amount to six million dollars. But beside the benefits the canal will bring, its cost does not seem either large nor, indeed, very important."

BRAIN-WORKERS GETTING TOGETHER-An Association of Brain-Workers founded in France about three years ago, by Henri de Jouvenel, one of the French delegates to the League of Nations, is being extended to other countries, we are told by The British Medical Journal, as quoted in Science (New York). The parent society now has 150,000 members, and similar ones have already been formed in eight other countries. We read:

"A meeting of representatives of these associations was held recently at the Sorbonne, the headquarters of the University of Paris, with the countenance of the French Government and under the honorary presidency of M. Léon Bourgeois, one of the most universally respected of French statesmen.

"It was attended also by 'observers' from nine other countries. Among the 'observers' present were persons nominated by the several British societies, among others the British Medical Association, which was represented by Dr. Gustave Monod.

"The meeting first of all received communications with regard to the position in various countries, and after a brief discussion it was decided to found an international association of brainworkers.

"A committee was appointed, consisting of two delegates from each of the eight countries having an organized confederation, and an 'observer' from each of the other countries represented, the latter having only consultative privileges. This committee was instructed to take steps to invite those countries which had not already done so to establish associations of brain-workers and to draw up a constitution for the international association; the draft is to be submitted to the national organizations and afterward considered at a meeting to be held in Paris before the end of this year.

"Dr. Monod informs us that medical societies in France are beginning to join the French confederation. The Association Générale des Médecins de France joined a short time ago, and on April 11th the members of the Therapeutic Society of Paris, a purely scientific body, unanimously resolved to join also. "Among the objects the organization has in view is the prolongation to eighty years of the period during which the author has a property in artistic and literary creations, and to extend this principle to scientific workers. With this object it will seek to bring into existence an international code governing the right in intellectual property."

WO LIVES AND $62,000,000 is what it cost; but ten million Russians were saved from death by famine and disease, and now the American Relief Administration is coming home, its work finished. For almost two years a scant 200 Americans "fought the good fight." They had not only to struggle against all the obstacles which disorganization and national disintegration placed in their path; they had also to convince the Bolshevists, some of the very people they went to feed, that their errand was one of mercy, that no daggers were concealed within their sleeves and no propagandist pamphlets hidden in their pockets. Yet, we are told, working against time and misunderstanding, they saved more lives than were lost in the World War, following through to the end the greatest adventure in humanity known in history. It is accepted as a matter for general gratitude that every American citizen participated in this great benefaction. The United States Government appropriated, in addition to a huge store of medical supplies, about $20,000,000 for corn and seed grain. The Jews of America, through the American Joint Distribution Committee, gave $5,000,000, and all Christian denominations swelled the total. But no denominational label was attached to any dollar given; the distribution was made without regard to race, sect, party or creed. Czarist and Bolshevist, Jew and Gentile were fed from the same hand.

Even in Russia, then, says the Syracuse Post-Standard, "there must be a feeling that the countries which Sovietism condemns do not cruelly oppress labor when they are willing to send money and men overseas to help other peoples. There must be occasional doubt whether communism is indeed the perfect state when it fetches so much suffering in its train, while the nations bowed down under capitalism get on so well that the people make generous contributions to relieve suffering abroad." "An

epic could be written of this great crusade," remarks the Toledo Times. "Perils as great as are confronted on the battle-field beset this band of heroes. They were in almost daily contact with human beings affected with hunger and disease. They wer forced to go into homes reeking with filth, and it is a remarkabl tribute to their courage and discipline that only one of thei number fell a victim to the dread typhus." If such a type o "warfare" doesn't contribute in a measure toward peace, "w have an erroneous conception of human kind."

The monumental size of the task appears from the report o Dr. Henry Beeuwkes, Chief of the Medical Division, who write that since going to Russia the American Relief Administratio supplied upwards of 16,000 hospitals and other institutions ha ing a constant capacity of 1,039,000 persons. As his letter transcribed in several papers:

"The A. R. A. brought to Russia $7,685,000 worth of med cines and other sick-room necessities. It brought a score or mo physicians, large quantities of serum, vaccine and other disea preventives. It opened free hospitals, clinics, dispensarie cleaned up entire cities, and vaccinated rich and poor by th millions. So that instead of there being 277,701 cases of typh in Russia as there were in March, 1922, March, 1923, saw on 6,321 cases.

44

'When the Americans arrived in Russia, they found everythi lacking for the care of the sick. Hospitals were filthy. For bed most of them were using planks stretched across two wood horses. Blankets were scarce, and there were no sheets. Oper tions were performed with bare hands in unheated operatin rooms, without anesthetics and only too often without any ho of asepsis. Wounds were drest with newspapers, or wrapt wi rags from the person's own clothing. Water supplies were p luted, and plumbing was beyond use, often without hope of repa Drug-rooms were empty of the simplest and most essential rem dies. The food was unspeakably poor and wofully inadequa "America has wrought a transformation here. The A. R.