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Lime Water Bread To the Editor of the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN: In the issue of the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN of February 9th, you published an article about war bread where you advocated the use of lime water instead of milk or water, when the new war flours are used. I have had four years of domestic economy at Lewis Institute, and was very much interested in your article, so tried using lime water in mixing my bread, and thought you might be interested in the results. I have tried making the bread with it twice, and find it works beautifully using two-thirds war flour, one-sixth rye, and one-sixth oatmeal. The bread rises well, is sweet tasting and as your article says keeps moist for several days. I am enclosing a recipe for the bread, and if you care to pass the information on to the housewives, you are at liberty to use it: One cake compressed yeast dissolved in cup warm water, 1 cup steel cut oatmeal cooked 10 minutes in 1 pint of water, 2 tablespoons sugar, 2 tablespoons fat, 2 tablespoons of salt, y$ cup of lime water, 1 pint water, 2^6 cups rye flour, 6 to 7 cups war flour. Cook oatmeal, let cool until luhe warm; add yeast and other ingredients; knead well, let rise until double in bulk; knead again, shape into loaves; put in tins and let rise again; bake in moderate oven about fifty minutes. This makes three good sized loaves. I was unable to get the lime water made up one part in three thousand, so bought a 15-cent bottle of lime water at the drug store, and find it works very well using one-third cup of it and one pint of water for the liquid. I want to thank you for the helpful idea. CLARA M. GOTT. Chicago, 111. The Marine Corps Signal Battalion To the Editor of the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN: I have been asked many times since I have been in Philadelphia, by men, if the Marine Corps has a Signal Battalion. I believe, therefore, that if you would give this matter publicity, it would serve a great deal of good, in that it would inform so many young men that the Marine Corps has a Signal Battalion, and its home station is Philadelphia, Pa., where the Signal Battalion has a school for training radio operators, telegraphers, electricians, linesmen, repairmen, gas enginemen, motorcyclists and operators of switchboards and operators of night and day signalling apparatus. You might further state that unprecedented opportunity is given applicants to join this Battalion, who are experienced as telegraphers, radio operators, gas enginemen, linesmen, etc., or those who have a desire or aptitude for learning those things; he is sent direct to the Signal Battalion at Philadelphia, instead of going through the recruit depot. Here at Philadelphia, he is given his military training, as well as, his training in branches above mentioned. It is a chance for a man to affiliate himself with men of the Battalion, who represent twenty odd colleges and universities, and almost every profession and trade known: Civil engineers, lawyers, law clerks, draftsmen, machinists, chauffeurs, motorcyclists, repairmen, linesmen, switchboard operators, students, etc. The Marine Corps Signal Battalion offers to likely men the chance of patriotic service, cosmopolitan association, liberal education and technical training. If any young man desiring to enter this Battalion will drop a line to Major J. J. Meade at these headquarters, he will be glad to give him any information he desires, or to see him here and take him over our work. MILLAKD F. STEVENS, Philadelphia. Sergeant Major, Navy Yard. Signal Battalion, U. S. M. C. Physical Environment To the Editor of the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN: I quote the following from "Geographic Influences in American History," by A. P. Brigham: "We do not yet know how much physical environment molds the mental and spiritual life. We cannot trace geographical influences in a complete way, but we gather hints of their power. Unless one is plying the Hudson for trade, Irving is the best guide to the river. His tales of humble domestic scenes in the 'Legend of Sleepy Hollow,' are pictures, and the woods in which Rip Van Winkle slept are the living forests of the Catskills. "The reader of 'In the Tennessee Mountains,' or of 'The Prophet of the Great Smokies,' finds true pictures of the forests and hazy mountain slopes of the Southern Appalachians. But he finds also a human type not to be met elsewhere in the United States. He is courageous, original, reads the sky and forest in lieu of books, and is little troubled by the outside world. Retired from all the world, these men reveal the effects of a stable environment in a remote region." This leads me to say that physical environment influences in a large way one's thinking and practices in life. I travel throughout the Tennessee Mountains, as a Sabbath School missionary, visiting families in their homes, and meeting the people in public meetings in district school houses, and I am impressed with the ruggedness and independence of thought of the citizens of this region. I think it is due in a measure to physical environment. Here you find a class of people as distinct and separate in thought and conventionalities as the Jewish people are to other nationalities. This great highland empire known as the Southern Appalachians has the purest stock of Scotch-Irish and Anglo-Saxon blood to be found anywhere in America. The people have not intermarried with foreigners, and no immigration has as yet found its way into these communities. The mountaineer is intensely patriotic, and has always been loyal to the National government in great crises. History will bear out this statement. In the present war many of the mountain counties in Tennessee have furnished more than their quota of volunteers. Cumberland County did not have to draft a single man. In the foregoing county there are 1,879 families, and 1,839 dwellings. There are only 263 tenants in the county. This is an illustration of general conditions throughout the mountains, and shows that the family life, as of Bible times, is an important factor in the development of character. In the mountains, as a rule, every family has its own honie. This contributes to freedom and independence of thought. It is a life lived in close contact with nature. The government Children's Bureau at Washington has issued a report which states that in homes occupied by single families 86 babies in 1,000 die. But in tenements where six or nine families live, 237 babies in 1,000 die. In the great industrial communities that are now springing up as a result of the war, housing conditions and other matters pertaining to physical environment should be given due consideration. If this law of physical environment holds true in such a marked way with the Southern Mountaineer it will with equal force apply to all sections and conditions of mankind. JAMES D. BURTON. Oakdale, Tenn. White Ant Depredations To the Editor of the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN: Last summer my attention was called to the matter of white ants attacking live trees. The only cases that I have seen have been small trees, pitch pine or cryptomeria, or small limbs on,trees of these species. Also, so far as I have examined, there is first an unhealthy condition of the young bark which causes it to swell and roughen so that when the new ring of wood is forming in the. spring, the bark splits open and gives the white ants access to the half formed wood. They thus eat this out without disturbing the bark, while the previous year's growth of wood is left perfectly smooth without a scratch. It bears the mark of the unhealthy condition which gave the white ants access to the underside of the bark. J. E. WALKER. Shaowu, Fu, China. Restoring the Battlefields To the Editor of the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN: In your editorial of February 9th, "Can Shell Scarred Battlefields Be Cultivated?" you suggest that a machine be found which can drive straight across all obstacles, etc. Would it not be more practical to revive the old system of steam plowing and drag the scraper across the field by means of wire rope? This, it seems to me, would not only be more efficient than a self-propelling machine, but would be much safer as the operators could be at a safe distance from the scraper. In case of an explosion from striking a dead shell the only damage would be to the mechanism of the scraper. C. M. CONRADSON. Green Bay, Wis.
