member his insisting very especially (among other things) upon the idea that the principal source of error in all human investigations lay in the liability of the understanding to under-rate or to over-value the importance of an object, through mere misadmeasurement of its propinquity. "To estimate properly, for example," he said, "the influence to be exercised on mankind at large by the thorough diffusion of Democracy, the distance of the epoch at which such diffusion may possibly be accomplished should not fail to form an item in the estimate. Yet can you tell me one writer on the subject of government, who has ever thought this particular branch of the subject worthy of discussion at all?"
Apparition Identified and the Occurrences Explained
HE here paused for a moment, stepped to a bookcase, and brought forth one of the ordinary synopses of Natural History. Requesting me then to exchange seats with him that he might the better distinguish the fine print of the volume, he took my armchair at the window, and, opening the book, resumed his discourse very much in the same tone as before.
"But for your exceeding minuteness," he said, "in describing the monster, I might never had had it in my power to demonstrate to you what it was. In the first place, let me read to you a schoolboy account of the genus Sphinx, of the family Crepuscularia, of the order Lepidoptera, of the class of Insecta—or insects. The account runs thus:
"'Four membranous wings covered with little colored scales of a metallic appearance; mouth forming a rolled proboscis, produced by an elongation of the jaws, upon the sides of which are found the rudiments of mandibles and downy palpi; the inferior wings retained to the superior by a stiff hair; antennae in the form of an elongated club, prismatic; abdomen pointed. The Death's-headed Sphinx has occasioned much terror among the vulgar, at times, by the melancholy kind of cry which it utters, and the insignia of death which it wears upon its corselet.'"
He here closed the book and leaned forward in the chair, placing himself accurately in the position which I had occupied at the moment of beholding "the monster."
"Ah, here it is!" he presently exclaimed. "It is re-ascending the face of the hill, and a very remarkable looking creature I admit it to be. Still, it is by no means so large or so distant as you imagined it; for the fact is that, as it wriggles its way up this thread, which some spider has wrought along the window sash, I find it to be about the sixteenth of an inch in its extreme length, and also about the sixteenth of an inch distant from the pupil of my eye."
NOTE: Acheronta Atratropos of the Sphingidae family of moths . . . habitat Europe and Africa.—Ed.
The End
Improvements
YOU will note two big improvements in this issue of Amazing Stories. We have had some suggestions as to the quality of the paper used, and heeding the requests, we are beginning with this issue to use a much better grade of paper. As time goes on, still better paper will be used.
Then the other day some one on the Pacific Coast wrote in and complained that, much as he liked Amazing Stories, it was rather difficult to read it because you had to hold the magazine in your hand with a vice-like grip. The usual magazines, practically without exception, are staple-bound, which binding clamps the edge of the magazine so tightly that when you lay it on the table in front of you it will not stay open.
We investigated the complaint, and found it to be most reasonable. We therefore took immediate ways and means to do away with the old-fashioned binding, and you now hold in your hand a magazine bound with the so-called "Perfect" binding. You will note that you can lay this magazine down flat and it will stay open. Nevertheless, the pages will not come off easily unless you tear them out forcibly.
The "Perfect" binding process is a very much more expensive method of binding, and only a few concerns in the country have the machinery necessary to do the "Perfect" binding. The machine itself is most interesting. It costs, by the way, over $30,000.00.
The process is as follows: When all the pages and all the signatures are gathered, the machine grasps them and cuts off the entire back of the magazine. This means that all the pages are loose. The pages that have been thus treated advance in the machine until they meet a glueing apparatus, whereby hot glue under pressure is forced against the cut pages. The glue, as will be noticed, if a copy is carefully inspected, impregnates the pages for a small distance. Traveling on, the magazine is then encased in a piece of stiff gauze, after which the cover is glued on. The magazine is then automatically compressed, and is soon ready for the freight car.
All of this goes on with lightning-like rapidity, so quickly, in fact, that the eye can hardly follow the magazine through the various processes, until a completely bound issue emerges from this latest of wonders. The "Perfect" binder that binds Amazing Stories, is capable of turning out 2500 copies per hour.
This process is, of course, more expensive than the old type of stapling, but we believe that the readers of Amazing Stories are entitled to the latest technical advances in magazine publishing and the conveniences thereby brought about.
