Star-Phoenix from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada • 30

THE PRAIRIE PALS. SATURDAY, JULY 22, 39G1 Alexander Bain Inventor Of First Electric Clock world famous Synchronome, writing in 1948, exactly 1W years after the first patent, said about Bain: We can only consider his patent as a remarkable achievement. We are today, in the main, doing what Bam told us to do. TODAYS CLOCKS One point must be made clear. The inventions of Alexander Bam, and those who followed his footsteps, had nothing to do with the synchronous clocks which are plugged into the domestic lighting supply today.

These are no more than electric motors, taking their time from the alternating current generators at the power stations. The raw young man from Edinburgh, unaided by modern supplies, po uted the wav to independent electrical timekeeping ing, as beautiful in concept-on as it has Since turned out to be in practice. Alexander the Great, Marco Polo and Charles I All Liked Ice Cream Puzzle Corner Bothered by bugs: INSECT REBUS Puzzle Pete has hidden four insects in his rebus, but you can find them easily if you use the words and pictures correctly: SIMILAR SOUNDING Massing words in Puzzle Pete's sentence sound alike, but they are spelled ditterently. Can you outwit him? Even Rovers insistent scratching didnt make the Irani its hiding place. CROSSWORD Everyone loves ice cream.

That is, almost everyone. It ts the dessert that is relished the wo Id over. Ice cream can also be said to be one of the oldest kinds of dessert. It was known to the Chinese more Hum years before Christ was born. But in some ways it is very new.

For instance, the first ice cream pone was introduced at the St. Louis Worlds Fair J9T4 Ail ice cream cones until a few years ago tapered at the bottom or were cone-shaped. But today, more than half are the cup kind. They became popular when used by the soft-served ice cream stands which sprang up after World War 1L Tasty ice cream has been a favorite dessert in Europe dating back to Alexander the Greats time. Marco Polo, Charles I and other famous per- ms played a part in popularizing it.

George Washington served ice cream at Mount Veinon He bought "a cream machine for making ice when he was in Philadelphia attending a convention. He enjoyed to sit on the brood veranda -of his home overlooking the Potomac ver and eat ice cream. Dolly Madison introduced ice cream to the White House. The ice cream mix' was placed in a metal pot which in turn was put in a large pan. A mixture of salt and ice was piled around the pot.

The entire contraption was then picked up and shaken until the ice cream was of the desired thickness. A housewife in 1846 gave ice cream eaters a boost when she! invented the handcranked freez-, er. A Baltimore produce dealer named Jacob Fussell in 1851 es-tabhshed the wholesale ice! Nearly 125 years ago, in 1837, a young Scotsman named Alexander Bain, who had served bis apprenticeship with a ckck-ra ker, set out from his native city, Edinburgh, Scotland, and travelled by coach the 400 miles to London. At that time It was the first of the 3 years of Queen Victorias reign ambitious youngsters who lived far away from it almost believed the legend that the streets of London are paved with gold. Not much gold came the way of Alexander Bam, but his intelligence and ability brought a lot of money to other people.

For Bain is now acknowledged as the inventor of the first electric clock, and he put Britain to the forefront by discovering the principles on which sychron-lzed electric clocks now function all over the world. It has been said that no outstanding invention has ever been the work of one man: one idea leads to another. The ideas and experiments of many pioneers will pile up. and yet fall short of the desired object. Then along comes some gifted person who, hsviag studied all that has been done before, gets the vital spark of inspiration, and a new inven-in js born.

SAW THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH Alexander Bains case is a classic instance of one good in-v ention triggering off another. He went to London in 1837 looking for employment as a clock-maker. One of the first things i that excited him was the electric telegraph. It had just been patented by the British inventors, Charles Wheatstone and W. F.

Cooke. If, he argued to himself, an electric current could be made to actuate a key over a distance, why not employ it to control a clock pendu'um? He fixed cod on the lower end of a pendulum, and permanent magnets at opposite ends of the swing which attracted the pendulum to and fro. This was the basis of his patent No. 8783 of October 1846, the first electric clock patent ever taken out. Bam next developed a system -whereby the pendulum of a master clock, driven by an ordinary key -wound movement, could send out electrical impulses to drive slave clocks in different parts of a budding.

He did this by having a little carved bracket on the master pendulum -which rubbed backwards and forwards along a surface of insulating material with a band of metal in the middle of it. This metal was connected to an electric battery, and every time the pendulum bracket brushed across it, a pulse of electric current was transmitted to the other clocks. LACKED PROPER MATERIALS The idea was brilliant, consid-eiing the elementary state of electrical knowledge at the time. Unfortunately, Bam was handicapped by poor materials, he had to make most of i equipment himself, including the insulation for his copper wires, and the contact was unreliable. More disastrous still, the energy needed to make the electrical contact robbed the pendulum of energy, upsetting its natural period of vibration and making timekeeping erratic.

Despite many experiments, Bain never overcame these disadvantages, but we must remember he was working in the dark ages of electrical science. What he did was to light a path for other investigators. One of his most illustrious successors, the late Mr. Frank Hope Jones, chairman of the British HoroJogical Institute and co-inventor of the cream business in the United States- He used Hand cranked freezers. The first commercially successful continuous process freeze was developed about 1926.

This discovery enabled mix to be fed into one end, and ice cream to be poured out the other. Each person on an average in the United States eats 42 pints of ice ci earn a year. It can truly be said that Americans are a nation of ice cream fanciers. Weldon D. Woodson Grandmas Recipe For Gingerbread Young cooks of today might like to try grandmothers Guess and by Gum Gingerbread.

This recipe was among those listed in the recent Pion-Era piogram. Grandmother said this was how she did it: I always take some flour, just enough for the cake you want to make. I mix it up with some buttermilk, if I happen to, have any around, just enough for the flour. Then I take some ginger; some like more, some fake less. I put in a little salt! and pearl ash and ten tell one; of my children to pour in mol as-, ses until I tell him to stop.

Then the children bring in wood to build up a good fire and we have gingerbread for company. From this recipe. Rais can see cooking in grandmas day was far from the exact science of measuring with spoons and cups they find in mothers kitchen today. Baking temperatures re judged as casually. Usually grandmother put her hand in the oven to judge by the heat; whether or not the oven was hot enough.

ACROSS laFour-w inged insects 7 Make a mistake 8 Mr. Baba 3 Printers term II Snare 11 Marry 12 Boys name 14 Laughter sound 16 Distress signal 17 Grown boys 13 Grass DOWN 1 Honey making insect 2 Sea b.rd 3 East River (ab 4 Cooking fat 5 Note Guidos scale 6 Small taste 10 Number 11 Stinging insect 12 Tree 13 Card game 14 She 15 Answer fab 17 Pronoun Monkey liusiness By Frances Cnnm Rtssvr The chimpanzee sailed round the the moon In icy outer space; He cried: I will be famous now! A grin upon his face. The moon man winked as round and round The speeding rocket flew. And said: I think somebody's made A monkey out of you! i tilt 13 I a a 1 I i 1 I I I.