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may come across some highly valuable discovery or useful hint which could not be found "in the books," but is none the less valuable on that account.

One part of the work is in the laboratory. It is there where the machines used in the business are "thought out," where they are designed, tested, and made ready for use. An engineer, for example, may have put so many pounds of soft iron in conjunction with so many pounds of copper wire, of such a size, and he may think, from the knowledge he has at that time acquired, that they will produce such and such magnetic results. After putting them together, he finds that they do not come up to the standard he has in mind, and so he has to begin all over again.

It is said, also, that the sizes of the wire used and the proportion of one part of the mechanism to another is a matter of very nice calculation, because any lack of proportion entails a constant expense in running the light, which, in a year, would amount to a considerable sum.

The factory is the place where the machines are put up and run. The student, when he enters there, either from the college or the laboratory, follows up what he has been learning, and sees some of the practical operations of his labor. The station I have already mentioned. Though the work there is, in its way, important, a thoroughly qualified electrical engineer is too far advanced to stay there any length of time. He needs to go to work as a maker of the machines, and to strive to invent contrivances to make them cheaper or better. If he remained at the station, his duty would be to see that the machines were taken care of, to properly make the circuits with the machines, to watch them while they run, and to keep them in good condition.

In considering the chances of obtaining employment, it must be borne in mind that the three large

electric-light companies may be said to control the business. In some cities in the United States all three of the companies are in operation, but in the smaller cities and in the towns only one company is represented, the territory on which they work having been previously bought by them. The light is being constantly introduced in new places, and, after a time, when the scientific men have found some method by which it can be made cheaper, we shall doubtless have it in our houses, and shall miss the grave, quiet gasman, with the mysterious book, who comes to our dwellings once a month to "look at the meter."

This is a good profession for a boy with a taste for mechanics, and, as I have intimated, it is certain to become a better one year by year. Starting at low wages, say from three to six dollars a week, it would seem to be a boy's own fault if he did not "work up in the business." There are a few electrical engineers that are now receiving five thousand a year; but the great majority get much less than this sum. From fifteen hundred to five thousand dollars a year would, I believe, be a fair statement of the salaries they receive.

But in the present condition of things, it would seem best for a boy, or a young man bent on succeeding in this occupation, to identify himself with one of the three great companies, the Edison, the Brush, or the Weston. Especially is this true if his principal aim is to get a large salary in the quickest possible space of time. If he goes first with one company and then with another, he can not hope to do as well; and, indeed, he might pursue that policy to such an extent as to be looked upon as a sort of electrical tramp, in whom there dwelt no settled purpose, and who is therefore of no value. Each system has its peculiarities. Let the youth who aspires to be an electrical engineer select the one he deems the best and then master it thoroughly, -as the boys say, "from a to z."

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THE FIRM OF BIG BRAIN, LITTLE BRAIN & CO.
BY FRANK BELLEW.

We all know that we have brains, but, beyond a general idea that they are the seat of the senses, most of us are wofully ignorant as to what they do or how they do it. Now I am going to tell you a few simple things about your brains, which I think will be both interesting and valuable.

In the first place, the brain consists of five principal divisions, which attend to all the business affairs of the rest of the body. They are the Cerebrum, or Big Brain; the Cerebellum, or Little Brain; the Medulla Oblongata, or Life Department; the Pons Varolii, or Bridge; the Central Ganglia, or Gang. The big words are the scientific and correct names; the others are those I have given them for convenience. Now, each of these parts has a separate and distinct set of duties to perform, and each is divided again into many other parts, which in turn have their particular details to attend to just as it is in any large establishment. Before telling you what each part of the brain has to do, I must explain that it is made up of two different but closely interwoven substances,the gray matter and the white matter. The gray matter consists of a lot of extremely tiny round balls, or cells, in which nervous force is collected and stored up. The white matter consists of a lot of little strings, or tubes, which carry the nervous force from the gray matter in every direction. What nervous force is, or where it comes from, no man in the world has ever yet found out, but it is the force that the Great God has put in us which makes us live and think and move.

The Big Brain (mostly gray matter) is that part which does all the thinking. Like the head of a large establishment, it collects all the information, makes all the plans, and gives all the directions.

The Little Brain is somewhat in the position of a foreman in a workshop; it sees that certain orders are properly carried out. It directs the motions of the arms, legs, and body. It does not give them motion, for they would move without its help, but it tells them how to move. The Big Brain might give the legs an order to walk, but if the Little Brain did not guide and direct them, they would go staggering about and you would tumble down. If you wanted to pick up something from the floor or the table, and you had no Little Brain, your hands would go groping about and would not reach it. It is to such matters that the Little Brain has to attend.

The Medulla, or Life department, as I call it, is a very important organ in a man's brain; for, without it, life would cease to exist. If the Medulla is broken, a man dies at once; but if the whole of the rest of the brain be taken away, so long as the Medulla remains uninjured, life will go on.

What the Medulla has to do is to look after our breathing, or, in other words, to keep our lungs constantly pumping air in and out. It also has to see to the heart and blood-vessels,— that they do their pumping of blood to every part of the body and back again to the heart in a regular and vigorous manner. These are its principal duties, though it has some other minor affairs to attend to, such as the movement of our lips, tongue, and throat, so that we may speak and swallow properly. But its chief work is to keep the lungs and heart going all the time, night and day, from the hour we are born until we die. If it neglects its duty for one moment, then there is an end of us. Now, although this organ is so important, it is a very little bit of a fellow, only an inch and a half long, and weighs but a quarter of an ounce. Still, there it sits at its post at the base of the skull, just where it joins the spine, never sleeping for sixty, eighty, or ninety years, with its fingers on a lot of thread-like nerves leading all over the body, by which it sends telegraphic messages to the lungs, the heart, the lips, the tongue, the throat; always guarding our life, and keeping the pumps and machinery in motion. It is very much like the engineer in a large manufactory or great steamship. It has nothing to do with what they are manufacturing or whither the vessel is bound, but only to keep the fires burning and the engine going till the end of the voyage, when it draws its fires, and that is called death. So you see the Medulla is a very important organ.

The Bridge is assisted in its work by two organs called the Eye Lobes, or Optic Lobes. What these fellows have to do is to run a kind of central telegraph or telephone office-a receiving and distributing department, to which all messages are first sent, and then forwarded; or perhaps it would be more correct to say, where the wires of different lines are connected just as they are with our city telephone companies, for the different organs do not run independent lines between one another. Besides which, I have a fancy that the Big Brain likes to have a look at all messages which pass, so that it may know what is going on. Now, a

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THE FIRM OF BIG BRAIN, LITTLE BRAIN & CO.

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moment's reflection will show you that if this Bridge department is out of order all business will come to a standstill. Each department may attend to its duties, but nothing comes of it. Medulla may be working away at the bellows, all the Gang may be ready for work, and Little Brain ready too, but no orders reach them from Big Brain,- and Big Brain receiving no demands from the sub-departments thinks everything is all right and does nothing. For example, the stomach may be running out of fuel, and may try to telegraph to that effect, but the Bridge is out of order, no message is delivered, and no one knows anything about the

VOL. XIII.-20.

matter till all the fires go out, and the whole factory stops.

To prove what this organ does, the experiment has been tried on many animals of removing it from the brain, leaving all the rest uninjured. The animal so treated did not seem to suffer any pain nor care about anything, but just sat perfectly still until it starved to death. It seemed to have lost all impulse and desire. And I am inclined to think

that it is a good healthy condition of this bundle of nerves that gives men energy, push, and dash; for how often we find a man with plenty of brains, and capable of doing great deeds, who does not go ahead. It is more than probable that, in such cases, the messages are not being delivered promptly between the departments in his brain.

out.

The Central Ganglia, or Gang as I have named them, are five little gray lumps varying in size from a pea to a pin's head. The Ganglia are nervecenters, and are strung on the nerves somewhat like shot on a fishing-line, or perhaps they are more like junctions on a railroad, where several lines meet. Their business is to store up certain kinds of knowledge which the Big Brain has studied There are many things we habitually do that would seem to require a great deal of thought, and yet we do them with perfect accuracy, although we are all the time thinking of something entirely different. I speak of such actions as walking, dancing, skating, riding, playing the piano, and the like. When we first begin to learn to skate or to play on a musical instrument, we can think of nothing else at the moment we are so engaged; but having once learned we can do either, whenever we please, while our minds are wholly occupied with other matters. This is the kind of knowledge these little Ganglia store up, so that they can attend to this or that duty ever afterwards without troubling the Big Brain about it. They become, as it were, his confidential clerks, agents, or assistants.

So we find our brain is like the business office of a large manufactory or warehouse. And we can imagine some such scene as this enacted in the head and body of a man living in New York city, as he goes about his business for the day:

There, in the large domed upper office of the man's head, sits gray Big Brain, thinking, planning, arranging for the wants and welfare of the rest of the body. Presently an idea strikes him— he telephones down to the Ganglia department:

"Take the body down to the Battery and from there to Union Square, as quickly as you can, and don't bother me about it. I have other things to think of."

"All right, sir," answers the particular Gang who has charge of the legs department, as he telegraphs to Little Brain to look after the walking, and to the Bridge to hurry up the Life department, and off the whole body goes. All this time Big Brain sits quietly in his vaulted office arranging his plans. By and by the body reaches the desired spot at the Battery, and Big Brain telephones the Life department to put his speaking apparatus in motion.

"All right," is telephoned back.

Then Big Brain, by the aid of the Life department, communicates his business to the people he has come to see, and is ready to start again. Suddenly he hears "tingle, tingle," at the telephone.

"Well, what is it?" he inquires.

It is a message from the Stomach; it wants filling up.

"Bother the Stomach!" cries Big Brain; "it gives me more trouble than all the rest of the concern put together. Tell the Stomach it must wait."

The Stomach growls, "I'll make you pay for this by and by."

Then there are more messages to the Gang department, to Little Brain, the Bridge and Life departments, and off goes the whole establishment to Union Square. After a while, Big Brain having finished his business, telephones down:

"Take the Stomach to dinner."

The dining-room being reached, Big Brain telephones to the Life department to set the chewing and swallowing apparatus in motion, which is immediately done; and the Stomach is filled, while Big Brain goes on thinking and thinking, in his big office at the top of the house.

I shall not enlarge on the doings of Big Brain and his subordinates, as I think I have said enough to show you how the brain works; but I shall only ask you to take a careful look at our picture. In the larger head you will see the positions of the different organs, and a rude indication of the various offices performed by them. At the top is gray old Big Brain giving orders to a little member of the Gang, who, book in hand, is referring to some previous and perhaps half-forgotten order he has received. Around Big Brain are his books, maps, papers, etc., while close at hand are telephones ready to communicate with the four other departments. In Little Brain's department you see him directing the machinery. In the Life department Medulla is hard at work. In the Pons department you see the superintendent of this division, Bridge, with his assistants working away at telegraphic machines which operate innumerable wires that communicate with every part of the establishment; in the office of the Gang there are three little clerks hard at work, and one listening at the telephone, whilst an empty stool marks the place of another who has gone upstairs to interview the head of the firm, Mr. Big Brain.

In the lower corner you will see an outline diagram showing the positions of the various parts of the human brain.

And now through this little allegory - I hope you know more about the contents of your knowl edge-box than you did before.

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