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To the Editor of the Scientific American: My attention has just ben called to the letter published In the Scientific American for June 1st under the heading Comment on the Forest Bill. The bias of the writer is so obvious that I consider it unnecessary to make reply to most of his assertions; but certain passages in his letter compel attention. Forest rangers are spoken of as apparently imbued with the sole idea of 'riding' the sheep, cattle, and other industries therein, and principally the men who drive their stock across this country, or who have previously owned for years patented land around the water therein. In this way they make a part of their salary, while the rest comes out of the general Government." This passage is so worded as to suggest that rangers are in the habit of levying on stockmen -and others for their own personal benefit. What are the facts? The stockmen who graze their sheep and cattle on the National Forests pay the Government for the privilege, although they pay much less than it is worth and much less than they pay in the same regions for the same privilege on privately owned lands of equal grazing value. But all receipts from users of the forests are covered into the Treasury of the United States, while the salaries of all forest officers are paid entirely from the annual appropriations for the Forest Service made by Congress. The writer also says: "I think much money is now being unlawfully diverted and should be curbed, and wish you would interest yourselves in the matter further. "If you want specificinstances, I will furnish them." I should certainly be glad to learn of any instances, specific or otherwise, of unlawful diversion of public funds. It is one thing to criticise the national forest policy, concerning which there are bound to be honest differences of opinion and which, from the fact that it collides with the private interests of many individuals, is bound to be warmly debated; but it is quite another thing to indulge in reckless accusation of public officers. If 1 have allowed public funds to be mis-spent, I should be removed from my position. If forest rangers have ben taking advantage of their position to practise extortion upon users of the national forests, The Fatal- Aeroplane Accident at Boston rfHE third Boston Aeroplane Meet. which was held T from June 29th to July 7th, had a pal thrown over it at the close of the third day by the sudden death of its manager, Mr. W. A. P. Willard, and Miss Harriet Quimby. America's best-known aviatress. The accident occurred at the close of a 2O-minute flight to the Boston Light and back, which had been accomplished in a perfect manner by the skillful aviatress. She had risen, when at the farthest point, to a height of some 2,000 feet, and had been gradually descending all the way back. She had almost reached the field, and was at a height of about 1,000 feet, when the machine made a sudden dip and the body of her passenger, who had ben seated in the rearmost of the two tandem seats, was thrown out of the machine and came hurtling to the earth. For a moment the pilot managed to right her machine, but the next instant It dived vertically and almost turned upside down, the result being that she to was thrown out, despite the strap which she had placed across the fuselage just . In front of her waist. As the two bodies fell with terrific speed and struck the water where it was only a yard deep, the aeroplane continued its plunge, but soon righted itself so that it descended at an angle of some 65 degrees and, striking in shallow water, turned upside down and remained on its back not severely damaged. It is hard to find a plausible explanation of this terrible accident. Miss Quimby had flown her powerful 70 horse-power Bleriot not more than half a dozen times, but she had never experienced any difficulty in managing it. On her first flight at Mineola, she used ballast in the shape of sand bags in the passenger's seat. She complained of the shifting of the sand, which she could feel when in flight, and afterward she never flew except with a passenger. Her machine was the latest military-type Bleriot and she believed it perfectly safe as far as carrying a passenger was concerned, because the latter, being located some 4^ feet back of her own seat, could not interfere with her in any way-- as had happened when the seats were side by aide, with almost disastrous results. they should be in jail. The writers of letters like the one which you published should, as a matter of public duty, lay their evidence before the officers who have power to institute criminal proceedings or to take the proper disciplinary action; or else they should retract their statements. There is no finer or more devoted body of public servants to be found anywhere than the men of the Forest -Service, and in justice to them I cannot but protest vigorously against such imputations as your correspondent seems to wish to convey. H. L. Graves, Forester. United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Washington, D. C. [The letter of June 1st referred to by Mr. Graves was published without prejudice on our part, and we take much pleasure in presenting the above reply.-- Editor.] Maritime Canals and Restrictions on Size of Vessels To the Editor of the Scientific American : The Scientific American of even date is before me. On page 579 you have an item referring to Mr. Grunsky's report in reference to maritime canals and restrictions on the size of vessels. In order that your readers may be informed, I may say that Mr. Grunsky's recommendations were not approved. All the writers of the various reports, from several maritime nations, of which Mr. Grunsky was Reviewer, and who were present and some who were absent but were represented, unanimously protested against his Conclusions, considering it to be the work of the International Navigation Congress to promote instead of to restrict navigation. Mr. Grunsky presented five suggested Conclusions, four of which were not accepted. The fifth was adopted as the sense of the Congress, which simply stated that a maritime canal should be five times as large as the immersed portion of the largest ship which is to use it, with a depth of one meter under the keel, these values being functions of the speed and somewhat of the volume of commerce, and are to be determined by local conditions. Elmer L. Corthell, D.Sc., President Maritime Section of the Congress. Bow Rudder for Ships To the Editor of the Scientific American: As many of the notable advances in various fields have been accomplished by a process entirely at variance with the customary and accepted way of doing things, I think my suggestion may not be as quixotic as it may seem at first glance. My idea is that a rudder should be at the bow of ocean steamships, in addition to the present one at the stern. If the Titanic had been so equipped, she As in the case of Moisant, who was flung from his machine as was Mr. Willard, the most plausible' explanation of the accident seems to be gyroeopic force. A very slight difference in pressure against the front edge of the wing (which might be caused by a sudden turn of only a few degrees, occurring as a result of an air hole or of the pilot's foot dipping off tho tiller) would, with the heavy 70 horse-power Gnome motor running at full speed, as it apparently was doing, develop a powerful and sudden force that would turn the machine instantly downward and whip the tail around through the arc of a circle so quickly that it might even break the fuselage. Eye witnesses agree that Willard was flung aloft and forward as from a sling, his body falling very close to the plunging machine, if, in fact, it did not hit the latter in its descent. This terrific gyroscopic force acts much more quickly and powerfully than does the force of gravity itself. Even a heavy, rapidly-revolving propeller on a non-rotary motor engenders sufficient gyroscopic force to put the aviator on his guard. In all probability many of' the terrible accidents which have occurred with revolving-cylinder motors have been due to this unrecognized force, which takes the aviators unawares. After Willard was pitched out, it appears to have been impossible for Miss Quimby to maintain the equilibrium of the monoplane sufficiently to make a safe descent- That she tried her best to do this, and that' she succeeded -for a moment, is seen in the fact that the aeroplane straightened out after its first dip and before its final plunge. It is also possible that the control post became jammed, owing to Miss Quimby reaching forward for something, or that it was thrown suddenly forward sufficiently to make the initial dive in this manner. It was in this way that Moisant made a sudden plunge to earth at Belmont Park one time when he was reaching forward to turn on the 'oil. - There is also the possibility that. a control wire may have broken, but as these were in duplicate this is very doubtful. It is possible that a so-called hole in the air may have caused Miss Quimby's accident. The writer has a vivid recollection of seeing Earle Ovington suddenly would no doubt have been afloat to-day. The Hawke disaster would most surely have been averted. Let us follow the action of arudder placed at the stern. If the bow is approaching an object, the action of a stern rudder is to swing the stern in the same direction as the object, and the bow is then pointed away, but before a rudder can point a boat away from any obstacle, the whole ship has been swung closer to it, which is the reason that it is difficult for a boat to swing directly away from alongside a wharf. Now let us follow the action of a rudder placed at the bow: On approaching an obstacle, the rudder would be turned away from the object, and would pull the bow of the boat directly away from it, and the ship would track after it, the same as an automobile does in turning a corner. In the case where the smaller boat was caught in the suction alongside a larger one, a bow rudder would have turned the bow away immediately, instead of which the stern rudder simply swung the stern of the boat in as well as the bow toward the larger boat. In the case of the Titanic a bow rudder would have drawn the bow aside immediately, instead of which the stern rudder in that case simply threw the ship partially broadside on the obstruction. Now this idea of placing a rudder at the bow will doubtless be criticised, and one of the first will be the objection to its exposed position. The rudder would not be damaged unless the ship runs into something bow on, a trick not appreciated'by good seamen. Of course, the rudder would have to be hung somewhat differently from the stem, so that about three-fourths of it would follow the ' post, but I think it would be a simple matter to arrange the necessary details. Toronto, Ont. A. C. Lawrence. A New Phonograph To the Editor of the Scientific American: May I point out that the sound-recording apparatus of Mr. Lifschitz, described in your issue for April 27th, is not as novel as you seem to think it, as Mr. J. C. M. Stanton, Mr. R. C. Pierce, and myself constructed an exactly similar apparatus more than ten years ago. The greater portion of this apparatus still exists in my possession, as also one of the photographic records from which the reproducing strip was prepared, together with some of the latter. As a delineator of the complicated curves which represent human speech, we found the photographic recording apparatus most efficient; but as a reproducer of sounds the system was not nearly so effective as the auxetophone of Sir Charles Parsons, which also operates by controlling the emission of air from a charged reservoir. Furthermore, the great length of ribbon that was required made the records unduly bulky. London, England. A. A. Campbell Swinton. tip to one side at an angle of 45 degrees when he experienced such a downward current over the edge of Long Island' Sound at Bridgeport, Conn., over a year ago. Ovington saved the situation by diving, but he said when he alighted that had he not acted with the greatest celerity, and had he not been strapped in securely, he would have fallen to his death. The aeroplane in this instance tipped with great suddenness, one wing of the machine evidently passing into a swiftly descending current. In Miss Quimby's case, from the accounts of eye witnesses, it seems to have been a forward dive that pitched out the occupants of her machine. Might it not be possible that this sudden dive was caused by the aeroplane striking a fast downward current head-on, even though it were going 70 to 80 miles an hour? At all events, such currents of air seem to be most numerous above the coast line, and aviators should be very careful when passing over it. Miss Quimby, as the readers of the Scientific American are aware, had been flying for something less than a year. She learned to fly at the Moisant school at Mineola, under the tutelage of Andre H ou-pert; and only a day or two before she left for Boston, her former instructor had endeavored to persuade her to give up flying, as her sister aviatress, Miss Matilde Moisant, done. She believed in the safety of the aeroplane if flown with discretion (and she never flew it otherwise), and it is certain that the accident which caused her death was not due to fancy flying or faulty manipulation of the machine by her in any way. Miss Quimby was the first woman to fly across the English Channel, a feat which she performed on April 16th last, as already described in these columns. She was a self-made young woman, of gracious personality, who had endeared herself to the staff of Leslie's Weekly, of which she was a member, and to every one in the aviation fraternity. Miss Blanche Scott, the only aviatress we have remaining, was flying at the Boston meet at the time of the accident. She did not give up on account of it,- but continued to fly every day until the end of the meet.
