How Far can a Powerful Searchlight Send Its Rays?
Searchlights have recently been made capable of being seen nearly a hundred miles away. Such lights are very valuable for signaling purposes in time of war, and they are also much used on warships, enabling the officers to detect the approach of an enemy in the dark and to guard against torpedo boats.
The giant scintillator erected on the shore of the bay was not the least wonderful of all the wonderful sights of the Panama-Pacific Exposition at San Francisco.]
We are all familiar with the less powerful ones which are universally used on automobiles for night driving and in a multitude of other every-day practices. The illustration shows a battery of powerful searchlights, the use of which furnished some very effective displays during the Panama-Pacific Exposition at San Francisco in 1915.
Searchlights are ordinarily electric arc lights of great candle-power, arranged with a parabolic reflector so that the rays are sent almost wholly in one direct line, forming a path of light which may be projected for miles.
What Started the Habit of Touching Glasses Before Drinking?
Just as athletes shake hands before the beginning of a contest today, the people who fought duels in the olden days used to pause before their fighting long enough to each drink a glass of wine furnished by their friends. In order to make sure that no attempt was made to forestall the results of the duel by poisoning the wine in either cup, they developed the habit of pouring part of the contents of each glass into the other, so that if either contestant was poisoned the other would be too.
This habit has continued up to the present time, although there is no thought given now to the danger of poison, and in the present day the ceremony of actually pouring the drink from one glass to another has been omitted, merely the motion, as if to touch the glasses, sufficing as an expression of friendliness and good will.
Touching glasses together in drinking, preparatory to a confidential talk, has come to be nicknamed “hob-nobbing” because of the equipment incidental to that action years ago. A “hob” was the flat part of the open hearth where water and spirits were warmed; and the small table, at which people sat when so engaged, was called a “nob.”