JF Ptak Science Books

Charting the Winds: a Superb Anemographic Chart from 1598

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Source: ETH-Bibliothek  http://www.e-rara.ch/zut/content/pageview/5616752

It seems to me that the winds were named long before clouds were were--in many ways that is understandable given the nature of winds and clouds, and also given the burden of understandable "proof" in that the winds were categorized for centuries before clouds received their first scientific treatment in the early 19th century.  (See this earlier post on Luke Howard, "On Naming Clouds But Not Illustrating Them, 1815" http://longstreet.typepad.com/books/2012/01/on-naming-clouds-and-not-illustrating-them-1815.html.)

The chart above,"De ventis" is a gorgeous and half-hypnotic anemographic chart of wind roses, which was an engraved illustration from Francesco Barozzi's (1537-1604). Cosmographia in quatuor libros distributa summo ordine, miraque facilitate ac brevitate ad magnam Ptolomaei mathematicam constructionem, ad universamque astrologiam instituens... and published in Venice in 1598. 1598

From the same source--which was a general work on cosmography but included exercises in perspective as well as extended discussions of terrestrial interest--comes this excellent chart of the wind names:

 

 

"The Body as Army and Navy", 1921--Mechanical Images of Sensory Capacity

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 These creative displays are found in Marion Florence Lansing's The Wonder of Life (volume 11, Supplementary), published in 1921.  They represent a somewhat humanized-but-roboticized/automated approach to displaying he control of the senses, which seems to have been a developing style in the 1920's giving the popular cultural appearance of mechanical people (the term "robot" appearing for the first time in this same year in Karel Capek's play R.U.R.). The images also appear, appropriately enough, in the chapter titled "The Machinery of Our Bodies". 

 

Children and Labor, 1910-1920

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Welcome to the not-too-distant past, the era of my grandmother, when in 1910 50% or more of 10 to 13 year-old boys in Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina were working, and working at real jobs.  There does seem to be a remarkable change in the employment situation in the next census of 1920.  

[The maps below appear in Statistical Atlas of the United States, prepared by Charles S. Sloane, published in Washington, 1925, plates 230 and 232.]

See some earlier posts on child labor: 

• Child Labor Street Trades, 1908-1924
• Children and Labor, 1937
• Map of Newsboy Work Violators, 1915--Child Labor & Child Scavengers
• Making Human Junk from Children, 1914

among others...

 

Maps of the proportion of females 10 to 13 years of age engaged in gainful occupations, 1920:

Extraneous Alphabets: Imperative Incidentals in Dante. And the Devil.

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There is a peculiar beauty to discovering a sleeping obviousness--something that is so present and apparent and minor that it can present for a while before you suddenly recognize it, and then the obviousness is all that you can see. "Hiding in plain site" is something that it might be called, though I don't think we have a word for it in English.  

Here's an example of it, found in Dante. It may seem perverse to look at beautiful images like this/these illustrating one of the greatest stories that has ever been spun, but the tiny letters signifying the actors defined in the motion take on their ow unusual lives for me.  It seems very odd to identify objects that are so obvious and form the direction of the story and need no identification. (Some things need no introduction, like Dante and Beatrice, and Yogi Berra. (A friend told me a story of going to a function and being seated next to Berra for dinner, Yogi walking up to him and extending a hand saying "Hi, I'm Yogi". No kidding?))  But I guess someone thought the notation was necessary, even if it both spoils and beautifies the simplicity of the design.  

The edition of Dante is by Alessandro Vellutello, (La Coemdia con la nova espostione de Alessandro Vellutello...published in Venice in 1544) who extended himself to include the (87) illustrations that I just mentioned, and included a text full of glosses. No doubt the signifiers in the illustrations are aids to the supplementary text--still, they seem to be fairly unnecessary. 

• Here's an entire gallery of the Vellutello illustrations at World of Dante, http://www.worldofdante.org/gallery_vellutello.html

That said, most of the time I appreciate the annotated image (speaking here of the non-technical/scientific ones)  mainly because without the help the iconography sometimes escapes me.  The Vellutello illustrations are much more "modern" than previous illustrations made for Dante, and seem to bridge the centuries of differentiated understanding so far as the interpretation of the images are concerned. On the other hand I appreciate the effort made for explanation in the engraving by Cornelis Galle of the Devil as it lived and breathed in Dante, the help coming in many forms. For example, without the annotations I would probably never have noticed the "D" and "V" figures (Virgil carrying Dante) so I  am thankful for the help:

 

 

A Chain but Not a Chain (?) in the Last Judgment (1512)

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This interesting image, "The Last Judgment", appeared as a woodcut in a book by Ricius (Rici, Rizzi, Rizius), Paul(us) (Paulus Israelita), Freiherr von Sprinzenstein (1530 Reichs- u. erbländischer Freiherr, 1480-1541), Eruditiones christianae religigionis plurimum utiles & cuilibet christiano ad modum necessarie, which was printed in Paris in 1512. The author was a German Jew who converted to Christianity and wrote and studied a form of Christianized kabbalaism, a philosopher, translator, and a physician who was the doctor to Emperor Maximillian I.  What attracted me in all of that in this image had nothing to do with any of this--what I'm seeing here, wrapped around the condemned entering Hell in the mouth of the beast, is a chain.  The unhappy group standing in the jaw of the beast, cowering against a very annoyed Archangel Michael, are being collected with the "chain" and pulled downward by a hell-beast.  

It is an odd object, and I'm not convinced that it is a chain, though it does look like one.  The issue with chain is that outside of being worn for defense and adornment (for centuries) steel chain didn't appear in the west in extended use unto the 19th century.  There is a sketch of chain in a Leonardo sketch, but a popular use of a chain really doesn't exist for another two centuries.

Again, this item does have a torus-like shape and does look like a chain of some sort, but that doesn't necessarily make it one.  Also I'm not familiar with its symbology if it isn't a chain, so I'm a bit out of my element. I'm glad though to share this should someone out there know what it is, or isn't. It is certain though that it is odd. 

UPDATE:

A friend on facebook provided an interesting Bible quote on chains/Last Judgment:“For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness….” 2 Peter 2:4.

Also there are:

And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling--these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day.--Jude 1:6

And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain.--Revelation 20:1

37 Miles from Mexico *and* 27 Miles from Poland

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The answer is "yes", the sign is real; the question though is where does it work? 

[Source: Popular Science Monthly, July 1940.]

The location, according to the article, is Lynchville, Maine, which is about 50 miles northeast of Portland.  

 

WWI Aviator Pigeons, 1918

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I found this interesting image in Illustrirte Zeitung, 18 July 1918, though I very nearly passed it by. I saw its neighbor photo of a machine gunner and his ammo and a quick pass over this photo made it look very similar, my mind filling in cartridges before my brain recognized that the ammunition was actually a pigeon.  

• [For other posts on WWI pigeons, enter that term in the google box at left]

 This is an image of German aviator pigeons, I know, but I included this U.S.-based explanation of the general practice of using pigeons in aircraft as a means of communicating with the ground in pre-airborne radio communication days:

"U.S. Navy aviators maintained 12 pigeon stations in France with a total inventory of 1,508 pigeons when the war ended. Pigeons were carried in airplanes to rapidly return messages to these stations; and 829 birds flew in 10,995 wartime aircraft patrols. Airmen of the 230 patrols with messages entrusted to pigeons threw the message-carrying pigeon either up or down, depending on the type of aircraft, to keep the pigeon out of the propeller and away from airflow toward the aircraft wings and struts. Eleven of the thrown pigeons went missing in action, but the remaining 219 messages were delivered successfully."--Wiki quoting Adrian Van Wyen,  Naval Aviation in World War I.  1969. Washington, D.C.: Chief of Naval Operations. p. 30.

Here's the contiguous photograph, the gunner looking as though he was reading for some abusive weather: 

WWI Endgame Dataviz, 1918

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 I found this interesting graphic in the Illustrirte Zeitung (Leipzig) showing the production of bombs in Germany for last half-year of WWI. The aviator seems happy enough, at least for the readers of the magazine, reassuring that something was goign on in the defense of the country, even though the writing was pretty much on the wall when this image appeared in late August, 1918, six weeks away from the end.  It is a small graphical display--about 2.5x4 inches or so--and it is a congratulatory message on the massive amount of munitions that were produced from January-July 1918.  This was one among many that just wasn't enough.  

Dachau, 1915

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[Source:  Ex Libris Buchkunst und Angewandte Graphik, volume 25, 1915.]

"On the water tower of the former gunpowder factory, visible from far away, the black, white, and red flag flutter int eh wind...a sign that new life has moved into the once desolate compound..."Dachauer Zeitung, March 1933, --

"On Wednesday 22 March 1933 the first concentration camp will be opened in the vicinity of Dachau.  It can accommodate 5,000 people.  Here will be gathered together the entire Communist and, as much as necessary, the [left wing] Reichsbanner and Social Democratic Party functionaries who threaten the security of the state, since in the long term it is impossible and draining for the state to house them in government prisons.  It has become clear that it is not viable to leave these people free, as they continue to make trouble and disturb the peace.  We have adopted this measure, undeterred by paltry scruples, in the conviction that our action will help to restore calm to our country and is in the best interests of our people."--Heinrich Himmler, via Music and the Holocaust, http://holocaustmusic.ort.org/places/camps/music-early-camps/dachau/

At first glance this image looked to me to be be an image of destruction at Dachau in 1916. At this point Dachau had enjoyed some generations'-worth of beign a cultural/artistic community 18 miles or so away from Munich in Bavaria. At the beginning of the war a gunpowder/munitions factory was built there, which survived until the end of the war when the plant was closed. It seems to have been sitting vacant until the Nazis became interested in it and used the complex for a concentration camp, starting out housing political prisoners in 1933, which was the beginning of an horrific legacy. It became the longest-utilized of the KZ-Lager in the vast operation of Nazi concentration camps. 

The image sparked these thoughts--but as it turns out, the "Dachau" part of the image identification related to the artist, Georg Broel (1886-1940), who lived in the city.  It is called "Zerstorung", and no matter the association, once "Dachau" makes an appearance it is nothing but "destruction". 

• For a map of the munitions factory, 1916: http://www.hdbg.de/dachau/pdfs/07/07_26/07_26_04.PDF

Streamlined Mini-Monorail, 1935

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This terrific proposal for a miniature, semi-individual monorail appeared in Popular Science Monthly for April 1935:  

And the text, which makes you wonder why something like this would be necessary, at least for the version of the vehicle in the interior pages.  The cover version at least accommodates eight passengers, perhaps, though there's an awful lot of metal around them.  The interior version packs four in its bubbly self, and given the amount of effort that would go into powering and building the vehicle to move around a restricted number of people--though perhaps you can say the same about cars, and then some.  

A Mechanical Night Nurse, 1869

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[This bedside nurse's aid appeared in the July 17, 1869 issue of the Scientific American.]

According to the article, "The inventor of this nursing table has endeavored to afford greater comfort to the sick by providing them with the means of supplying in a measure their own wants during the absence of an attendant. In large hospitals the want of something of this kind has been long felt and in many cases its use in private houses would be a great convenience..." Mostly it was a drinking-and-spit-bucket apparatus--still it would no doubt come in handy and loosen the duties of the nurse somewhat.   

The Giant Zeppelin Biplane

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I found these schematics in the November 16, 1918 issue of Engineering, published just a few days after the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. No doubt the plans were made from a downed aircraft, and I suspect it was probably not published during the war.  This was about the largest plane produced during WWI, and it was a beast.  In any event, I've reproduced the plans below.

and

 

and

And a larger version of the above, just because it looks so cool:

Every Civilian a Fighter! Civilian Defense, U.S.A., 1943

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There's some very strong stuff in this U.S. Civilian Defense (CD) pamphlet--the graphics are as razor-sharp as the suggestions that the pamphlet was making.  This was issued in the hurtlocker year of 1943, and it called for all manner of civilian volunteers to train for keep-society-together stuff should there be an attack on the United States.  

 [Image depicts an air warden calling in his observation of a German air attack. The aircraft looks to me like a Dornier Do 17 "The Flying Pencil".]

The "Civilian Protection Jobs" on notice and advised in this pamphlet included calls to citizens for: command section (3 per 1,000 population, 20 hours training); Drivers Corps (5 per 1,000, 38 hours of training); Messengers, (8 per 1,000, 20 hours of training); rescue squad (2 per 1000, 40 hours of training); auxiliary police (4 per 1000, 23 hours of training); auxiliary firemen (4 per 1000, 27 hours of training); fire watchers (15 per 1000, 10 hours training); demolition and clearance units (2 per 1000, 10 hours of training); decontamination units (1 per 1000, 20 hours of training); emergency welfare units (1 per 1000, 7 hours of training).  There is also an index for another hundred or so jobs that needed to be filled in time of national emergency.  

The cover:

 

As it happens my copy was one of two sent to the Library of Congress for copyright purposes and it includes this press release, which explains the pamphlet:

Measuring Things in Terms of Aircraft Carriers--Tokyo, 1925

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Here's an unexpected bit of data visualization:  at the tail end of an obscure pamphlet --A Sketchbook of the Activities of the Japan Wireless Telegraph Co., Ltd.--a 26-page work published in Tokyo in 1925 was this fine and unusual-looking chart of comparative heights of Japanese structures. This also includes two of my favorite comparative unit comparables--upended ships (#s 10 & 11), including the aircraft carrier Akagi (#11).  

 

 

 

 

One of the Many Mona Lisas of Early Flying Machines

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I'm pretty sure that I've only written a plural of "Mona Lisa" a few times before in my history of writing--and that in reference to the real one, when it was stolen by Vincenzo Perugia (and company?) in 1911. (My guess is that it was stolen on demand for a collector and then offered for sale to a number of other underworld-y collectors who were sold fakes--at that point, what could they do (?) given that they couldn't exactly report the swindle to the police.) For me there are some iconic image of flying machines that made the news in the pre-Wright Brothers era, and I would consider the one here to be one of them.

It was designed by W. Ayres and happily and nattily appeared in the pages of the Scientific America (1885). It seems to have been a kind of helicopter/ornithopter, partially human powered and partially powered by compressed air that would run a generator that would run the little propellers situated around the aircraft.  The frame of the craft was made of 1/4" steel tubes, though there is no indication of their thickness. Given that there's something like 40 feet of this pipe superstructure, I'm going to guess that the pipe was a pound/foot; then given the weight of the pilot, and the other bits and pieces, this antique drone would have to work very hard to lift its 200' payload.  The (May 9th) article states that there is enough power generated to lift that 200 pounds, but...

In any event, I really like the image.