Science: Versatile Researcher

Last week the scientific world heard of a noise that was literally “killing.” Inaudible to human ears, it consisted of extremely short, rapid sound waves produced from electrically driven quartz crystals. Similar waves had been used in submarine detection, during the War, when it was noticed that fish in the experimental tanks were occasionally killed. Subsequent experiment had shown that stagnant water could be freed from microorganisms; that small fish died in convulsions after “hearing” the quartz waves; that the blood count of a swimming mouse was reduced one half after 20 minutes’ exposure. Possible significance: swift purification of water.

The authors of these experiments were one Alfred Loomis of Tuxedo Park, N. Y., and Professor Robert W. Wood of Johns Hopkins University. The latter, many a layman recalled, is a genius of wide and varied activities. It was he who devised the method now so common of thawing frozen water pipes by passing electricity through them. Color photography and extensive researches on light have earned him important medals. He has studied secret signaling. He has written diverting fiction as well as three volumes on physical optics. His woodcuts are well-known, especially those illustrating the nonsense rhymes, How to Tell the Birds from the Flowers. And besides these things he performed, for many months in and around the year 1919, an exhaustive series of experiments which earned him the gratitude of many of his fellow citizens and caused him to be rebuked by others.

In Professor Wood’s summer laboratory at Easthampton, L. I., there were, for long periods, heaps and masses of strange fruits, herbs, berries. Distilling out their essential oils, combining and recombining, adding and subtracting now orange, now pungent juniper, Professor Wood satisfied himself at last that he had the exact formula of essential oils that were added to glycerine, alcohol and distilled water to produce the finest commercial gin. Professor Wood then told his secret to manufacturing chemists and had prepared many tiny vials which he called “Eastwood Essence” and gave to friends at Christmas time. His friends urged him to have more and more vials prepared. In time, Eastwood Essence became almost as popular with some members of the New York Stock Exchange as a soaring stock. Other gin essences* appeared after Eastwood, but none so uniformly palatable as that first of them all, which has never yet been commercialized.

* Every gin essence has its own formula for mixing, varying between 16 and 48 drops per quart. The proportions of other ingredients remain about constant: three parts of distilled water to two parts of alcohol (pour the water into the alcohol, not vice versa). Shake with great patience. Add glycerine by the teaspoonful to suit the taste. Some authorities maintain that the best blends are obtained by diluting the essence in a small quantity of alcohol before adding it to the whole “batch.”