Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 August 1889 — How Rockets are Made. [ARTICLE]

How Rockets are Made.

Rockets are made for three purposes; for signalling; for decorations or celebrations, or as projectiles in in war. For signals, the charge consists 0t.12 parts of niter, 2 of sulphur, and 8 of charcoal. The ornamental, or decorative, rocket is the one we see used on the Fourth of July, and the composition of which it is made comprises 122 parts of mealed or finely pulverised powder, 80 of niter, 40 of sulphur, and 50 of cast-iron filings. The main part of the rocket is a case, made by rolling stout paper, covered on one side with pasle.aroun d a wooden form, at the same time applying considerable pressure. The end is then “choke.l,” or brought tightly together, with twine. The paper case thu3 made is next placed in a copper mold, so that a conical copper spindle will pass up through the choke, and the composition is then poured in and p icked by blows of a mallet on a copper drift or pack-ing-tool made to fit over the spindle. The top of tho case is now closed with a layer of moist plaster-of-paris one inch thick, perforated with a small hole for the passage of the flame to the upper part, or “pot.” The pot re formed of another paper cylinder slipped over and pasted to the top of the case and surmounted by a paper eono filled with tow. The “decorations” are placed in the pot and are scattered through the air when the flame, having passed through the aperture of the plaster, roac hes a small charge of mealed powder, placed in the pot. Tho stick is a piece ol pine wood, tapering, and about nine times the length of the rocket It i< to guide the rocket in its flight. The decorations in the pot may be “stars,” “serpents,” “marrons,” “gold-rain,’ and so on. “Marrons” are smal piper shells filled with grained powder and pinned with quick-match. Serpents” are small eases about \ inches in diameter in which is a com position of 3 parts niter, 3 sulphur, 16 mealed powder, J charcoal. This com position is driven in the case, the top of which is closed by plaster-of-paris, having a small aperture through which passes a piece of quick-match. —Lieut W. R. Hamilton, U. S. A., ir St Nicholas. "

Ton Can’t Get to Europe Now. ~TSTewTork Sun: IF you haven’t bought your ticket you can't go to Europe this season before midsummer. The transportation facilities ki« greater than over before, but the craze for European travel beats anything ever known. The same story is told at all the steamship odices. A few berths will be surrendered by per* sons whose plans miscarry, but practically all the lines are booked to their full capacity up to the middle of July. If the great fleet which will sail eastward from this port in Juno could b« doubled in number and capacity every boat would carry its full complement of passengers. The rush lasts frort the middle of May until about July lit Then it sudden’y stops and sets in is the opposite direction about two wee!;* ! later. All the accommodations on lh< favorite boats are engaged for the return trip* between the middle of August and the middle of October.

A Romance of Courage. A few miles distant from tbe old college town of Hanover, N. H., there is a farm-house that was once the scene of a midnight fracas, in which a pretty girl was the heroine, and a set of Dartmouth college boys a most amazed crowd. As it happens, the girl is flow married to the ringleader in that escapade and they live very happily in a great city near the Atlantic coast, so the young woman must be called Jennie Smith merely to indicate that that was not her name. It was in the autumn of 188—that the Dartmouth college sophomores, having got over being freshmen, decided that the new freshmen were rising above their places in a way that was intolerable, and that a concreted system of hazing must be inaugurated to even up things. One of their chief oujects of sophomoric wrath was Gilbert Smith, a big, good-natured fellow, bho calmly refuse,! to recognizo in a sophomore anything superhuman. 1 •is Smith lived in the large farmhouse on the road to Lyme. A few C the more daring sophs got together and voted to raid the farm-house and instruct Smith a little. S was a black, chilly night when 11.0 band of regulators crept up the Lyme road toward the Smith farmhouse. It was dark in the house, exept one window, from which a light g.earned, as if to welcome friends instead of enemies. With no particular compunctions; however, the sophomores, after drawing over their head masks made of 6hirt-sleeves, stamped up the porch, and without knocking, filed into the sitting-room where JenSmith sat reading alone. Anyone no has ever seen a shirt-sleeve mask vill understand that the fiendish sight nade the girl’s pretty eyes fill with error. But while asking what they ranted in as steady a tone as she could itnmand, she knew what the answer would be. “Where's your brother Gil?” was the gruff chorus. “What do you want him for?” "To teach ‘him better manners,*’ came the sepulchral reply. “He is very sick in the next room,” said the girl, pleadingly. “You would not touch a sick man, would you?” Had the expletive “Rats!” then been invented the students would have used it unanimously,- As it was, they in various other ways expressed their conviction that the sickness was an invention to shield the big freshman, and they proceeded toward the chamber door with evident intention oJ opening it. The young ffi*\ vith blazing cheeks and flashing eye?, went over to the door and stixnJ ihc-e to bar the way. “Stop!” s v * cjrr>m.widcd, with both arms uplift »l -.s ir to ward off the whole world fiom the s’.ek mau within. The students, still disbelieving th« story of illness, though thoroughly admired her bravery, pressed a little nearer, and one raado as if to open tho door. Quick as a flash the girl caught a big cavalry saber from the wall where it hung and luuged savagely at the masked figures. This time they fell back, but not before the cloth over the face of the foremost wjas dyed with blood from a cut in the cheek. This ended the hazing, for uie boys valiantly begged her pardon and marched back to Hanover lost is admiration. The husband of Jennie Smith, who was not Jennie Smith, wears a saber mark on his cheek to-day—New York ■vess. ______________ 7 ha Under Dog in the Fight Upon one of Boston’s most fashionable boulevards serenely sits a statue in bronze of William Lloyd Garrison. He Is the same roan whom a well-dressed mob at one time pursued through the streets of the city which his statue now honors, and the, authorities wore obliged to confine him in jail to protect him from the fury of the mobbers. Giodarno Bruno, an Italian philosopher and heretic, was burned at th* stake in 1603. After almost three hundred years his statue has just been unveiled in Rome to the great acclamation of the people. For successive generations his nafhe has been hold in in fumy and has become a favorite appellation to give to dogs. Bruno, like many canine namesakes of his, was the under do’g in the fight So was Garrison, and so have been all the martyrs.* We may trust the sympathy of the people to Inevitably go to the bottom dog in the tussle, but someSmes it takes three hundred years to * so. Though the mills of Gods grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small. —Yankee Blade.