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This Department is conducted in the Interest of Bicyclers, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question on the subject. Our maps and tours contain much valuable data kindly supplied from the official maps and road-books of the League of American Wheelmen. Recognizing the value of the work being done by the L. A. W., the Editor will be pleased to furnish subscribers with membership blanks and information so far as possible.
Among the most difficult questions to answer, because it is always so varied, is that which involves how much, how long, how far the impersonal "I" should ride. I do not write this in the spirit of ridicule at all, for evidently the many inquiries received are sent in all seriousness, and even if this were not so the subject is such a serious one that it would demand earnest attention. It may be said that any particular person can ride, or rather may ride, just so far on a wheel as his physical powers and his physical training will permit him to without completely exhausting him. This is, of course, entirely relative, and there are at the same time cases where a man may exhaust himself without fear of injury, and other cases where he must stop long before he approaches the point of exhaustion, unless he wishes to take the chance of severe injury. Each person, in other words, must be his own judge of what his distance and speed may be, unless there is some one near to watch and advise him competently.
Having stated the general case, let us particularize. An average afternoon ride for a business man who does not train regularly is twenty miles, without much of a stop anywhere from the first to the twentieth mile. An average ride for a woman who probably never has taken much exercise is ten miles, with several dismounts, to walk up most hills, and get the variation on the muscles furnished by a little walk. An average ride for a young man in school or college who has been in pretty good condition for some time, if not absolutely in training, is from forty to fifty miles in an afternoon, without much stop. An average ride for a girl of healthy out-door life and training—for there is always a certain amount of physical training in out-door life—is twenty miles in a day, with several stops. Here are four grades, so to speak, which merely give us a basis to work on. Now as to the time occupied. In the first, the man's twenty-mile ride, it would be safe to say two hours should be occupied in doing the ride. In the second, or woman's ten-mile ride, about an hour and a half altogether would be required. That is to say, she will wheel at the rate of seven or eight miles an hour to occupy a good fifteen minutes in walking. The third case, that of the young man in training doing fifty miles, ought to occupy under four hours, or, at any rate, not much more than four hours; thus starting out at one o'clock in the afternoon, he should do his fifty miles and be at home again by five. Finally, in the girl's twenty-mile ride, with its more or less frequent stops for a walk, two to two and a half hours should be employed. If you happen to belong to any one of these four classes, very probably you cannot easily do the amount set down here as the average for that class. It will be found, however, that these figures in the end will strike the amount nearly at the general average. The fact that you cannot do the amount without becoming exhausted at the moment and stiff the next day simply means that you are not yourself up to the average. This is nothing to be discouraged over, as it is a very simple matter to reach the average by a little training—that is, a little steady riding for a week or two—unless, of course, there is something organically defective about you.
The important point in all this—for we cannot stop to go into details—is that bicycling does not depend on the amount of ground covered, nor upon the speed with which you cover it, but upon the pleasure of being out-of-doors, and of moving along over the ground to the comfort rather than the discomfort of your body, and, consequently, of your mind. Hence, if you are planning out a trip for some holiday, for example, or for a holiday of more than twenty-four hours, do not think out a trip which will be a record for distance covered. Yet that is the point of most of the inquiries received by this department. "Please tell me whether I can do seventy miles a day for a week. I am going to spend my vacation of a week on my wheel, and want to take as long a trip as possible. Can I do 500 miles in the week without becoming sick?" This is, of course, an imagined case, but it is representative of what is often considered the point of a trip of this sort. There never was a greater mistake made. The point of a week's bicycle trip is, or should be, fun, unless the absolute object is a road record for so many hundred miles—fun and amusement and health; and therefore you must not ride so far that you begin to make work of it, nor so short a distance that you do not get the pleasure of the exercise. You should not tire yourself by riding up absurdly steep hills; you should not make yourself disgusted with wheeling, or your doctor disgusted with you, by trying to keep up with a better rider, or trying to beat some professional bicyclist's record. Let the pace and the distance disappear from among the factors that make up a bicycle tour.
[A NEWSPAPER MAN'S PROTÉGÉ.]
An old newspaper man told the following story not long ago, which is interesting, in that it shows what pluck and ambition will do for a boy: "Several years ago I was detailed to cover some disastrous floods in the lower part of the State. After travelling slowly all the afternoon, about dusk we began getting into the flooded district. The conductor of the train expressed some fears about the condition of the track, so when the train reached Boylston, I hunted up the telegraph operator to learn what the chances were of reaching the scene of the floods.
"While discussing the probabilities, the train-boy came up and called out to the operator, 'Oh, Mr. Jackson, have you that shorthand book you promised me?'
"When he had gone the operator apologetically said, 'The boy is studying shorthand, sir.'
"'Rather a bright boy,' I remarked.
"'Oh yes; he knows a deal of shorthand already, and he can send on the wires almost as good as I can.'
"That sort of boy aroused my curiosity. I got hold of him when the train started, and found out a little of his history. Nothing extraordinary, you know; a country lad of poor parentage endeavoring to earn his living. Well, we were rolling along, it seemed to me very rapidly, when I felt the car give a lurch; then came a terrific bumping, and as the thought flew through my mind that the rails had spread, the car toppled over on its side with a crash. I came out of that wreck bruised and battered, with a broken leg.
"They got me into a house close by, and later I heard that fifteen people lost their lives. While waiting for the doctor I wondered how I could get the news of the disaster to the office. I thought of the train-boy. Just the chap, and I got one of the men in the house to search for him. In a short time the boy came, for luckily he had escaped with a few scratches. I explained to him what I wanted. Well, gentlemen, that boy knew everything about that accident, even to the number of spikes in the spread rail, and he took my copy down in shorthand like a professional.
"Before I got through I gave up, fainted, you know, and I never learned until some time after how the matter came out. It seemed from the dictation I gave him he got enough of an example out of it to enable him to finish the rest of the story in the same style, and got it over the wires in time for the edition. They never knew at the office that the story of the disaster had been sent by a train-boy until a couple of days later, when the corrected list of the killed and wounded reached them. As the boy failed to put my name on the list he sent in, and receiving what they thought was my report, they had concluded I had escaped. Several weeks after, when I was able to get about, I hunted up the lad, and made him a sort of protégé of mine; he is now a brilliant man in the profession!"
Any questions in regard to photograph matters will be willingly answered by the Editor of this column, and we should be glad to hear from any of our club who can make helpful suggestions.
PREPARATION OF TINTED SENSITIVE PAPERS.
NO. 3.—ANOTHER WAY OF OBTAINING VIOLET TONES.
In paper No. 2 directions were given for making violet tones in prints by sensitizing prepared photographic paper with nitrate of uranium, and developing the image with a chloride-of-gold solution. The French have a process of making violet tints much softer in tone than these, and which resemble delicate engravings. It is some trouble to prepare the paper, and a beginner would perhaps not be successful the first time trying, but the prints are so beautiful that it is worth while to learn how to make them.
Take a sheet of best photographic paper—Rives is very good—and coat it with the following solution: Hydrochlorate of ammonia, 1 oz.; rock candy, 1 oz.; distilled water, 20 oz. Dissolve the candy in the water, which may be slightly warmed if necessary, then add the chlorate of ammonia. Dip a piece of blue litmus paper in this solution, and if it turns it red add a few drops of ammonia water till it does not turn the litmus paper. Put the solution into a large flat tray, and float the paper on it for five minutes; drain, and hang up to dry. After the paper is dry, sensitize it with a solution made of 1½ oz. of nitrate of silver and 10 oz. of distilled water. Float the salted paper on this bath for five minutes, and then dry. As soon as the paper is dried it is ready for printing. This is a printing-out paper, and the prints should be made as deep as for aristo or albumen paper.
Place the prints in a dish of soft water, to which has been added a few drops of ammonia water. Leave them in only a minute, and wash at once in several changes of clear water. The toning solution is made with Sel d'Or, 7½ grs., distilled water, 15 oz., hydrochloric acid (pure), 1 dr. As soon as the prints have washed sufficiently place them one at a time face up in this solution, and tone till the prints have a deep purple tone in the shadows and a creamy white in the high lights. Wash well, and place in a fixing bath composed of 3 oz. of hypo and 16 oz. of water. Leave in this bath for half an hour, till the purple tones have faded somewhat; wash well in running water, and place them in a dish of clean water, and leave them for twenty-four hours. On taking them from the water they must be coated with albumen in order to avoid the dull appearance which the print would have if dried in the usual way.
Have a solution of equal parts of albumen and water, and as soon as the prints are taken from the water blot off the moisture with a piece of fine white blotting-paper, and brush the surface of the print with the mixture of albumen and water, using a flat camel's-hair brush. Pin them to dry on a flat board placed in an upright position. The reason why prints which are not squeegeed on to glass or a ferrotype plate should be dried in a horizontal or upright position is because, if they are dried flat, drops of moisture are apt to settle on the face of the print, and either cause distortion—that is, the print does not dry evenly—or the water leaves spots on the face of the print.
Any one who has seen some of the imported French prints in violet tones knows how exquisite they are, and while the process is some trouble, and the paper needs careful handling, after one has prepared two or three kinds of sensitive paper by more simple methods he will find this comparatively easy, and will be delighted with the result.
Sir Knight Ray Mead, Winona, Wisconsin, asks for a good formula for a developer to use with films. The following will be found to give excellent negatives: Solution No. 1. Water, 10 oz.; sulphite of soda, 2 oz.; eikonogen, 165 grs.; hydroquinon, 80 grs. Add enough water to make the solution up to 16 oz. Solution No. 2. Water, 10 oz.; carbonate of potassium, 1 oz.; sodium carbonate, 1 oz.; and enough more water to make the solution up to 16 oz. For developing take 1 oz. of No. 1, 1 oz. of No. 2, and 4 oz. of water.