Brown and White Vol. 3 no. 47

              dr worcester also read copious extracts from the rock inscriptions of king asoka whom he described as an older better and wiser constantino these inscriptions which remind one strikingly of pages of marcus aurelius are very beautiful in their humane and tolerant spirit next the lecturer spoke of the chinese pilgrim hioner trary a de vout buddhist who in the seventh century made his way alone over the terrible tracts of country lying between china and india the adventures of this monk were most in teresting in his account of his life trans lated from chinese by julien we are able to see the inmost conscience of a devout buddhist of olden times reflected as in a mirror several quaint and touching stories were told of this man the thief who attempted to steal the diamonds from buddha's head the cavern in which buddha left his shadow and the goose which voluntarily fell from the sky to fur nish a dinner for the monks were all much appreciated the lecture closed with a fable from the yataka birth stories called the crane and the crab the next lecture in this delight fully interesting course will be de livered next tuesday evening subject : " the eeligion of persia — zoroaster and the rend avesta agora meeting a meeting of the agora was held in the lounging room on saturday evening president lar amy presiding a short business meeting was first held in which a committee was appointed to con sider plans and arrangements for fixing a room for the society by reason of an appropriation from the college authorities this com mittee will have 150 at its dis posal the subject for the even ing's debate was : " eesolved that the united states should grant belligerent rights to the cubans the men upholding the affimative were j thurston 96 bieber 96 homer 98 while those on the negative were hess 96 benedict 99 and padgett 99 the judges by a vote of two to one decided that the debate had been won by the affirmative the society then voted in regard to the merit of the question and the result was a tie the men chosen to enter the final debate were hess 96 and homer 98 j w thurston asked that his name be not voted upon on account of press of college work one of the three cups which will be presented to the men who suc ceed in obtaining places in the le high-lafayette debate was exhibi ted the next meeting of the so ciety will be held on saturday evening march 28 or if not possi ble at that time early the follow ing week inter-collegiate ora torical union th,e fourth annual contest of the pennsylvania inter-collegiate ora torical union took place at swarth more college on friday evening march 20 e n hood 97 was lehigh's representative the other colleges taking part were : lafay ette franklin and marshall ursi nus gettysburg muhlenberg and swarthmore the judges awarded the first prize of 50 to f g blair of swarthmore and the sec ond of 25 to j f kramlich of muhlenberg a meeting of the electrical en gineering society was held iik christmas hall on thursday even ing the first paper of the evening was read by instructor webb on the " student course in the expert department of the general electric company's works at schenectadv n y mr webb having taken this course was well qualified to speak on it and gave an interesting and instructive talk on the various phases of the work encountered by a student in the two years required for a course the course is de signed to give the student a good general knowledge of the processes through which a dynamo passes from its inception to the finished product and of the various electri cal and mechanical principles em ployed the course is divided in to four periods of six months each during which the pay is respec tively 8 10 12 and 16 cents per hour per week of sixty hours as the applications are far in excess of the number of students that may be accommodated any influence which a student may have over the gen eral superintendent is a great aid if not an absolute necessity to ad mittance mr webb now gave a short account of the different de partments in which a student was placed during the course and the number of weeks spent in each concluding with some good advice to anyone who might intend to take the course mr eden read the second paper of the evening on " the american institute of electrical engineers mr eden gave a short account of its foundation in may of 1884 taken from one of its journals and then enumerated some of the ad vantages of membership in the so ciety the principal advantages are concentration of energy of the electrical engineers scattered all over this country promotion of systematic research putting elec trical science and research on a firm continued on third page junior m e shop visit mr heck took the junior me chanicals on a trip of inspection to new york last tuesday morning returning on saturday evening upon arriving in new york the party proceeded at once to the amerinan liner st paul the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon was spent in going over the big vessel first assistant en gineer taylor very kindly showed us through the engine room dy namo room and all other places of interest the st paul's engines are quadruple expansion and rated at 20,000 horse-power the steam is generated in sixteen babcock-wil cox boilers from here we went to the store of armington & sims where detail drawings of the en gines were made the next place visited was the potter building where the electric lighting and elevator machinery was inspected on wednesday morning the first place visited was the storeroom of the new york safety power com pany here detail drawings were made of the engines from this place we went to the manhattan life insurance building where the engines directly connected to the generators were seen in operation the elevator apparatus was also inspected we proceeded to the mutual life insurance building where the lighting and elevator plant was inspected ; the arrange ment in this building is better than any of the others visited in the afternoon we met at the brooklyn bridge and then went to the dekalb avenue power house of the brooklyn city railroad here seven 250-horse-power west inghouse engines are directly con nected with westinghouse genera tors the eidgewood station of the same railroad contains low speed engines belt connected to general electric company genera tors there are three engines and six generators each of 750 horse power the eastern power station was then visited it consists of four general electric company generators directly coupled to four corliss engines of 2000 horse-power each in this station the surface condensers using sea water were inspected on thursday morning we met at the second district station of the edison illuminating company where the power is generated by three triple expansion engines equipped with joy's valve gear and seven single expansion engines from here we went to the power house of the broadway cable car line ; this plant is ran by corliss engines all the arrangements for carrying the cable and taking up the slack were seen in the after noon owing to a misunderstanding but a small section showed up at the worthington pump works minus the instructor neverthe less we were shown through the harvard will play no more foot ball games with athletic clubs or non-intercollegiate teams lehigh university south bethlehem pa monday maech 23 1896 vol 111 no 47 the brown and white calendar tuesday march 24 — lecture by dr worcester vine street high school 8 p m wednesday march 25 — meeting of mechanical section of en gineering society physical laboratory 7.15 p m thursday march 26 — meeting of 97 epitome board phi delta theta house 7 p m friday march 27 — meeting of chess club lounging room 8 p m saturday march 28 — mr meaker's class in calculus 10 a m notices members of the 96 epitome board will please meet at phi gamma delta house this evening at 7 o'clock important e e society meeting extensive works and the different processes explained on friday morning we went to elizabethport n j to visit the ball & wood engine works we were met and conducted through the works by messrs ball and cor bett who explained everything and showed their methods in designing engines while in elizabethport we went to nixon's shipyard where ferryboats canalboats and yachts were seen in the course of construe tion in the afternoon the brook lyn bridge power house was visited where the engines for running the cable and the engines for the elec tric generators were inspected attention was given to the friction clutch on the main shaft the visit to the navy yard was short owing to the late hour in arriving there but the machine shops were investigated several united states war vessels were seen from the dock but lateness prevented going over them saturday morning was spent at the de la yergne refrigerating machine works here the refrig erating machinery was explained and the manufacture of it seen the rest of the day was spent in seeing the city returning to beth lehem in the evening after a pleas ant and profitable visit dr worcester's lec ture the fourth of dr worcester's course of lectures was delivered last thursday evening the subject being the buddhist church owing to the inclemency of the evening not so many persons were present as usual although it was one of the most interesting lectures of the course gautama said dr worcester did not intend merely to teach a set of philosophical opinions he aspired rather to found a church or a religious order and he founded the church that has lasted longest and con tamed the largest number of believers the rules of the order were given in de tail and many amusing stories were related from the vinaya pitaka to show how these ancient monks endeavored to make life a little pleasanter for themselves at first buddha thought he would admit boys into the order but having had some experience with them the blessed one decided that the society was better off without them next dr worcester gave an account of the first three general councils of the bndd hist church of which the third and most im portant was convened by king asoka about 250 b c it was this council that gave the first great impetus to foreign missions in consequence of which more than a million souls were converted to buddhism in a single generation strangely enough the coffin containing the relics of two of these devoted missionaries was discovered in a tope at sanchi not long ago