A Mysterious Watch
A very interesting experiment may be made with the ordinary dollar watch in illustrating the law of the pendulum. A pendulum 39.1 in. long will make 60 one-way swings per minute, the number of swings varying inversely as the square root of the length. By actual count it was found that the balance wheel of the watch in question made 240 one-way swings per minute, which is just 4 times as fast as the 39-in. pendulum. Therefore, according to the foregoing law, a pendulum ¹⁄₁₆ as long, or about 2¹⁄₂ in., would swing in unison with the wheel of the watch. The question then arises as to what would happen if the watch itself were suspended so as to swing as a pendulum of the latter length. The experiment was made as illustrated, with the result that the watch keeps on swinging continuously. The swing amounts to about ³⁄₈ in., and appears so vigorous that it is almost incomprehensible that the small spring in a watch should be able to maintain so much weight in continuous motion for 24 hours.
Bait Casting for
Game Fish
by Stillman Taylor
There are many enjoyable phases of the fisher’s art, but bait casting from the free reel probably has a wider appeal than any other branch of angling. The pleasure of handling a short bait-casting rod is in itself a good sport, even when casting done in the back yard is made for distance and accuracy only. Get two or three enthusiastic casters together, and you may have an interesting little tournament, held on a vacant lot, on the lake, or on the greensward of a city park. There is plenty of action in casting from the reel, and it is its variety that has made angling of this type so universally popular. True, considerable practice is required before the caster is able to shoot an accurate plug far off, but the knack may be gained after reasonable application. The handling of the short rod differs from all other angling methods—it is an active sport rather than a contemplative recreation—and when the fun of handling a good outfit is combined with the sport of coaxing out a black bass, shooting a wooden minnow among the lily pads for pickerel, or casting the bait for those pirates of our fresh-water lakes, the wall-eyed pike and the muskellunge, the angler gets a taste of fishing—plus.