The Locomotive - Lighthouse Survival Blog

74 THE LOCOMOTIVE. [May,
SB lit Xttfctttti* *
HARTFORD, MAY 15, 1901.
J. M. Allen, A.M., M.E., Editor. A. D. Risteen, Associate Editor,
The Locomotive can be obtained free by calling at any of the company's agencies.
Subscri])tion price 50 cents per year when mailed from this office.
Bound volumes one dollar each. (Any volume can be supplied.)
We desire to acknowledge a copy of a new and very useful book, entitled Steam
Boiler Economy, and written by William Kent, author of the well-known pocket-book
bearing his name. The present work is comprehensive in character, and covers practi-
cally all important questions relating to boiler economy. We could wish that the
section on liquid fuel were more complete, as there is a considerable demand for informa-
tion on this subject at the present time, especially in the southwestern part of the
country; and there does not appear to be much solid, practical information available,
concerning American methods of burning liquid fuel. There is plenty of other informa-
tion in the book, however, to make it well worth the price that is charged for it. (John
Wiley & Sons, 53 East 10th St., New York; 458 pages, $4.00.)
It is growing more and more common, to write books in which good, practical in-
formation is served up under the guise of stories or anecdotes, the reader being beguiled
into learning something useful to himself, when he seems to be reading nothing but a
pleasant tale. The latest work of this sort that has come to our notice is Central Station
Experiences, which is correctly described on the title page as "a series of narratives on
the trials and tribulations of a steam engineer while learning to run an electric station."
These narratives, which are reprinted from Power, are very well done, and the book can
be read with profit by any engineer who is in the same position as the one whose troubles
are here related. The book is well illustrated, and the paper and press work are
excellent. (Power Publishing Company, World Bldg., New York; 106 pages. Bound
in stiff boards, 75 cents; bound in cloth, $1.00.)
Gravitation.
Gravitation is one of the most elusive and mysterious of all the forces of nature;
and while we have made some progress towards an understanding of the machinery by
which other forces operate, there has been very little progress indeed towards an under-
standing of the real reason why two masses of matter attract each other.
To be sure we know what is called ''the law of gravitation." That is, we know
that the attraction that the sun (for example) exerts* upon a mass of matter in space is
proportional to the quantity of matter that the attracted body contains; and we also
know that it is inversely proportional to the square of the distance of the attracted body
from the sun, so that when this distance is one million miles, the attraction is nine times as
great as it is when the distance is three million miles; and so on. But this law, for
which we are indebted to Sir Isaac Newton, is merely a statement of the way in which