A square base block with neatly beveled corners is now in order, which is trimmed up squarely and a hole bored centrally through it to receive the lower end of the magnet. Procure a neat spool and make a hole in it large enough to pass over the magnet. Glue the spool to the base after locating it in the exact center.
The outer and larger cylinder is of copper, or of brass, copperplated on the inside. It is cup-shaped, with a hole in the bottom just large enough to permit the magnet to be pushed through with a close fit, to make a good electrical contact. The magnet may be held in place by having it closely fit the spool and the copper cylinder, and by soldering the heads of a couple of small tacks, or nails, to its under side and driving them into the spool. Coat the magnet with pitch, or paraffin, from the top down, and around its connection with the bottom of the cylinder. The small thimble shown at the top should be of brass or copper, and while one can be easily formed of sheet metal and soldered, it is not improbable that one could be made in seamless form from small article of commerce. In the exact center of the under side of the top of this thimble, make a good mark with a prickpunch, after which a small steel thumb tack should be filed to a fine needle point and placed, point up, exactly central on the upper end of the magnet, to which it is held with a little wax. The smaller cylinder is simply a piece of sheet zinc bent into a true cylinder of such a size that it may be sprung over the lower end of the thimble. This done, it is only necessary to slip the zinc over the end of the magnet until the thimble rests on the thumb tack, and then pour some dilute muriatic or sulphuric acid into the outer cylinder after which the thimble and attached zinc will begin to rotate. The required strength of the acid and the resulting speed will depend upon the nicety of suspension and the trueness of the rotating zinc cylinder. The zinc will have to be changed, but the copper undergoes no deterioration.
The Tricks of Camping Out
By STILLMAN TAYLOR
PART II—Cooking in the Woods
Cooking in the woods requires more of a knack than equipment, and while a camp stove is well enough in a permanent camp, its weight and bulk makes this article of camp furniture unsuited for transportation by canoe. Patent cooking grates are less bulky, but the woodsman can learn to do without them very nicely. However, the important item which few woodsmen care to do without is the folding baker, or reflector. The baker is folded flat and carried in a canvas case, including baking pan and a kneading board. The largest size, with an 18-in. square pan, weighs about 5 lb., and the smallest, with an 8 by 12-in. pan in aluminum, only 2 lb. In use, the reflector is placed with the open side close to the fire, and cooking is accomplished evenly and well in any kind of weather. Bread, fish, game, or meat are easily and perfectly cooked, and the smaller size is amply large for a party of two or three.
A Cooking Range Fashioned from Two Green Logs Laid in a V-Shape with a Few Stones Built Up at the Wide End over Which a Fire is Made of Hard-Wood Sticks
The camp fire is one of the charms of the open, and if it is built right and of the best kind of wood, cooking may be done over it as well as over a forest range. Many woodsmen prefer to build a second and smaller fire for cooking, and although I have never found this necessary, excepting in large camps where a considerable quantity of food must be prepared, the camper can suit himself, for experimenting is, after all, a large part of the fun of living in and off the woods.
A satisfactory outdoor cooking range may be fashioned by roughly smoothing the top and bottom sides of two green logs, and placing them about 6 in. apart at one end and about 2 ft. apart at the opposite end. At the wide end a few stones are built up, and across these, hickory, ash, and other sticks of hard wood are placed. The reflector is placed close to the coals at this end, and the fire is built between the logs, the broiling and frying being done at the narrow-end opening. Woods that burn slowly when green should be used for backlogs and end logs; chestnut, red oak, butternut, red maple, and persimmon being best adapted for this purpose.
The hard woods are best for cooking and heating, since they burn more slowly, and give out considerable heat and burn down to a body of glowing coals. Soft woods are quick to catch fire, burn rapidly, and make a hot fire, but burn down to dead ashes. Hickory is by far the best firewood of the North, in that it makes a hot fire, is long-burning, and forms a large body of coals that gives an even and intense heat for a considerable length of time. Next to hickory comes chestnut; the basket oaks, ironwood, dogwood, and ash are the woodsman’s favorites. Among the woods that are easy to split are the red oak, basket oak, white oak, ash, and white birch. Some few woods split more easily when green than after seasoning, and among them are hickory, dogwood, beech, sugar maple, birch, and elm. The most stubborn woods to split are the elder, blue ash, cherry, sour gum, hemlock, sweet gum, and sycamore. Of the softer woods, the birches make the best fuel; black birch in particular makes a fine camp fire, and it is one of the few woods that burns well when green. The dry bark of the hemlock makes a quick and hot fire, and white birch takes fire quickly even though moist. Driftwood is good to start a fire with, and dry pine knots—the limb stubs of a dead pine tree—are famous kindlers. Green wood will, of course, burn better in winter when the sap is dormant, and trees found on high ground make better fuel than those growing in moist bottom lands. Hard woods are more plentiful on high ground, while the softer woods are found in abundance along the margins of streams.