A
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Will Crinoline
Come Again?
S MANY of the earlier fashions for
women have returned of lute,
nays the Indianapolis News, "peo
ple have been unking themselves,
Will crinoline come back, too?
Fashion is an uncertain arbiter, and the
Diodes that It proscribes one season are
6ot necessarily an Indication of those for
JJio next. Were not full sleeves dictated
Just when women were all comfortably
provided with close ones? Hut crinoline
no, not now, and probably never again.
Slio wide, sun-plaited skirts might seem to
Oenoto a tendency In that direction, Indeed,
but as women have been slow to adopt
them, It is llkoly that the fashion. Instead
of going further tn this direction, will
awing back in the opposite one.
"Carlylo found a whole phllosopy on
clothes. With less Ingenuity, social his
tory might be founded on them. How
greatly the life of women has changed
luce crinoline skirts were worn! The
change can only be realized by imagining
tho women of today wearing them. This
proves a difficult task, for, somehow, they
do not fit into the picture. The modern
drawing room does not provide the spacious
Betting they require. For the club or
business women they would be ridiculous.
And yet, crinoline skirts are charming
that is, they were. What reader, what
feminine reader, at least, of Trollope's
novels has not been, fusclnated by the pic
tures of the heroines In them? What ro
mnntlc figures Fanny and Lucy Rotmrts
make In their enormous skirts! With less
drapery would they bo so romuntie? Put
a tailor-made milt on one of these droop
ing creatures? It would be like robbing a
bird of its pluninge.
"Tho crinoline skirt, by some magic of
Its own. seemed to make more of a woman
not merely in the material, but In a poetic
sense. It Is a fact, as a grueeful modern
novelist points out, that women's person
ality permeates their garments na that of
men does not. Touch a man's clothing,
says this writer, and you, touch something
external to him, but touch Just the outer
most frill of a woman's gown, and behold,
the deloHte creature Is there before you.
And yet, crinoline was fearfully Ineon
venlent! Fancy a crowd of women In a
narrow spnec! Whnt a fluttering nnd
tilting! Pretty, and yet awkward, too.
Many women of this city can recall that
when Lincoln's body lay In state hers
there was an official request that women
going to view It should lay aside their
hoops. How queer they must have looked!
"Crhiollne belonged to a time when
women occupied pedestals, to the time of
senpe nnd sensibility, smelling salts and
leisure. As they have become more and
more a part of the workaday world, their
dress has Inevitably adapted Itself to their
new environment. Once In a while a
piece at the theater like 'When Johnnie
Comes Marching Home,' reminds us, by
Its exquisite charm, that something has
been lost In the transformation. Hut the
fact remains that crinoline Iwlongs to the
pnst. We have neither Urns nor space
for It tdoay."
Cysters' Secret Revealed
After yars of vain effort science has at
length discovered how to artificially propa
gate (he oyster.
New Jersey's laboratory at Tuckerton
consists of a rickety little cabin that looks
as though the first heavy wind would blow
it over and the first high tide wash It
away. Not even a chair adorns the quar
ters, a rough board to bio serving as a
stand for microscope and ghuut vessels lit
which are gathered oyster germs. At
every high tide tho water floods the labo
ratory, but settles through the sand floor
and passes off quickly. Such is the place
In which Prof. Julius Nelson, biologist of
the State Hureuu of Shell Fisheries, has
successfully solved his problem.
One of the first objects that strikes the
eye on entering the laboratory is a com
mon chicken egg incubator. "You see,"
aald Prof. NeUou, "the nights are fre
quently cold. It may be 80 or 90 degrees
at noon and before the next sunrise It may
fall below 60 degree. Now, in nature the
oysters are in water which Is almost sta
tionary in temperature during the twenty
four hours, say 75 or SO degrees, so I have
had to Install an incubator and keep the
temperature about SO degree all night
long."
So taylng, he opened the several oysters
and selected the most "milky," plunged the
point of his knife into their sides and
smeared a drop of this "milk" on a glass
slide. The microscope revealed tiny eggs,
somewhat resembling oyster shells in their
outline, only not so flat. They were so
small they could scarcely be seen with the
naked eye. Prof. Nelson wiped off the
polut of bis knife with a little sea water,
after Jabbing it alternately into the male
and the female oyster, until the water was
as turpid as If milk had twoit added.
Ten minutes later he declared fertilisation
had been completed.
"A oouple of hundred sperms, more or
less," he said, "will fasten to the egg. but
microscopic study reveals that It more
than one enters the result will be a mou-
THE ILLUSTRATED BEE. Oetuter wax
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FOWLER BASE BALL TEAM AT FREMONT.
Btroslty that will fail to develop."
Drawing off the spormatlzed water, Prof.
Nelson put It Into clear water, repeating
the operation several times. The sone
occupied by tho egfrs could be seen as they
slowly settled at the rate of one inch every
five minutes. In about an hour, at a
temperature of 80 degrees, the first develop
ment of the egg begins. It consisted of the
egg pinching off the bud, which, however,
still stuck fast. Soon a pair of buds ap
peared, and later each part pinched Into
two and so on until the egg looked much
like a mulberry or raspberry In form.
In about five hours this little egg, or em
bryo oyster, began to spin around. A drop
of highly magnified water revealed thou
sands of tiny oyster "fry" swimming
about. In twenty-four hours they began
to grow shells and stayed near tho bottom
of tho glass, forming layers. So sturdy
were the shells thus quickly formed that
they could be heard grating against each
other when stirred.
At this stage of development the embryo
oysters began to feed. Hitherto they had
lived on the nutriment stored within the
eggs. The uneaten food decays and kills
the oysters unless removed. Consequently
Prof. Nelson has devised a little shallow
"clalre," as he terms it, a sort of harbor
dug out of the bank of the creek which
runs past the laboratory, and covered with
a roof. The bottom Is coverod with sand,
end Is so high as to be exposed at every
low tldo. This Is to renew the water
with each tide, but there Is enough left
to keep the fry alive.
It was at this stage of the oyster's devel
opment that Prof. Nelson encountered one
of his hardest problems that of keeping
tho tiny "fry" from escaping from the
"clalre" and he Is still working to perfect
the gate which he now uses. The finest
bolting cloth he could obtain was too wide
In mesh to retain them. Finally he hit on
a gate made of absorbent cotton quilted
between two sheets of wire netting, but
it Is unfortunately too tight to allow the
water to pass through It freely and still
retain the oysters. The manufacture of
a proper gate Is the problem laid out for
next summer.
"The difficulty hitherto has been to raise
oyster fry in abundance that would live on
' until they got their shells, but now I be
lieve this has been mastered," said Prof.
Nelson. "The oystermcn want me to sup
ply them with spawn guaranteed to 'set
on their Bhells, planted In their planting
grounds. In other words, they want seed
by the bucketful Instead of by the bushel."
"One bucketful should contain enough
embryos. If all alive, to supply all the
seed a man would need, but the difficulty
would be to distribute it Just at the mo
ment It was going to set and distribute
itself evenly on the thousands of bushels
of shells. But that Is a matter eawlly
remedied."
With the problem of raising the embryo
worked out, the propagation of the bivalve,
in which New Jersey has over $?.000.000
Invested, and Deluvare, Maryland, Vir
ginia and several other states an equal
amount, has been successfully solved. Chi
cago Record-Herald.
Botanical Director
Nathaniel Lord BHtton, director of the
New York Botanical Gardens, Jamaica, for
the Chuuchona Botanical station In the
Blue mountains for the purpotte of entab-
llhhifr a laboratory and conducting re
searches among tropical Cora.
GENERAL JAMES RLI8H i,iCOLf, ,fHO WILL COMMAND THE NATIONAL
UUAIOt AT THE FORT RILEY MANEUVERS.
OLD GRAND CTJNTRAL nOTEL OMAHA. THE SHACK AT TIfE IJCFT 0
THE PltTl'RE WA8 THE HOME OF THOMAS MURRAY AT THii TIMH
THE PHOTOGRAPU WAS TAKEN IN lhTi