Varying Farm Life.
I live on a farm twenty-four miles from New York city, but am fond, as you may see from my letter, of reaching out beyond the farm and farm life and making inquiries about other things. I collect stamps, and have some old coins, one, a 1720 piece, which I found in the field one day while cultivating corn. I am sixteen years old. Could you tell me how to make an induction coil for taking shocks? Could you also tell me how to make a blow-pipe? I am thinking of making an electric telegraph. Could you give me some points on it? I have the Morse telegraph alphabet, but don't understand it or know how to use it.
Here is a game to be played when there are many to play it. Each one is provided with a slip of paper and a pencil. There are three persons who are in the secret—a confederate, the clairvoyant, and medium. Each one writes a word or short sentence on the paper. The clairvoyant seats herself before the writers, and the medium rubs her forehead with a handkerchief to put her in a trance. Then the medium collects the papers, takes any one of them (except the blank one, which must be left till last), and puts it on the clairvoyant's forehead. She makes up a sentence, which sentence must be claimed by the confederate, who really wrote nothing. Then the clairvoyant takes it from her forehead to see if she was right. Of course she reads it, and when the next paper is put on her forehead relates what she read on the preceding slip, greatly to the amusement and often the surprise of the writer.
Do you want some riddles?
H. A. Kretchmar.
West Nyack.
You cannot make an induction coil save at considerable expense, and even then it is not as good as the one you may buy for less money. Apply to any dealer in electrical supplies.
A blow-pipe is simply a small pipe or tube a few inches long and bent at a right angle very near one end. Insert one end in your mouth, the bent end in a gas or even lamp flame, and blow gently. The effect is a flame many times hotter than the still flame.
You can make a telegraph key. Make a walnut or oak base four by eight inches. Erect two uprights in the centre, one inch apart and two inches high. Put between them a wood lever six inches long. In one end of the lever insert a common screw, and from the base raise a metal contact—a common nail will do—about two inches back of the uprights. Any metal surface, as two brass buttons, will do for the screw and nail to "click" against, a hand-pin may be made from the end of a common spool. This key, of a good pattern, may be bought for $2, in brass. You can get along without a "sounder." Get some practical operator to show you about the alphabet. Do not try to learn it from instruction books. If you do you will be sure to learn at the same time many faults. We want good riddles—new, not old ones.