Thursday, May 26, 2011

Flashpowder and More

The Cape Cod Mystery, (1931) pg 31
Young Sullivan adjusted a rickety tripod and with a great deal of difficulty succeeded in fixing his antiquated camera to his satisfaction. He poured out a liberal portion of powder on a t-shaped holder and touched it with a match. Instantly we were blinded and almost asphyxiated by the smoke.

The earliest flashes had of a quantity of thermite flash powder that was ignited by hand. Later (first patented in 1930), magnesium filaments were contained in flash bulbs, and electrically ignited by a contact in the camera shutter; such a bulb could only be used once, and was too hot to handle immediately after use, but the confinement of what would otherwise have amounted to a small explosion was an important advance. An innovation was coating flashbulbs with a blue plastic coating to match the spectral quality to daylight balanced colour film and to make it look more moderate, as well as providing shielding for the bulb in the unlikely event of it shattering during the flash. Later bulbs substituted zirconium for the magnesium, which produced a brighter flash and tended to temporarily blind people.
Coroner vs medical examiner

The post of coroner is ancient, dating from approximately the 11th century, shortly after the Norman conquest of England in 1066.

The office of Coroner was formally established in England by Article 20 of the "Articles of Eyre" in September 1194 to "keep the pleas of the Crown" (Latin, custos placitorum coronas) from which the word "coroner" is derived. This role provided a local county official whose primary duty was to protect the financial interest of the crown in criminal proceedings. The office of coroner is, "in many instances, a necessary substitute: for if the sheriff is interested in a suit, or if he is of affinity with one of the parties to a suit, the coroner must execute and return the process of the courts of justice."

This role was qualified in Chapter 24 of Magna Carta in 1215, which states: "No sheriff, constable, coroner or bailiff shall hold pleas of our Crown." "Keeping the pleas" was an administrative task, while "holding the pleas" was a judicial one that was not assigned to the locally resident coroner but left to judges who traveled around the country holding Assize Courts. The role of Custos rotulorum or keeper of the county records became an independent office, which after 1836 was held by the Lord Lieutenant of each county. The person who found a body from a death thought sudden or unnatural was required to raise the "hue and cry" and to notify the coroner.

Coroners were introduced into Wales following its military conquest by Edward I of England in 1282 through the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284.

As of 2004, of the 2,342 death investigation offices in the United States, 1,590 are coroners offices. Of those, only 82 serve jurisdictions of more than 250,000 people.[13] Qualifications for coroners are set by individual states and counties in the U.S. and vary widely. In many jurisdictions, little or no training is required, even though a coroner may overrule a forensic pathologist in naming a cause of death. A coroner may be elected or appointed. Some coroners hold office by virtue of holding another office: in Nebraska, the county district attorney is the coroner; in many counties in Texas, the Justice of the Peace may be in charge of death investigation; in other places, the sheriff is the coroner.

Because of the differences between jurisdictions, the terms "coroner" and "medical examiner" are defined differently from place to place. In some places, stringent rules require that the medical examiner be a forensic pathologist. In others, the medical examiner must be a physician, though not necessarily a forensic pathologist or even a pathologist. General practitioners, obstetricians, and other types of physicians with no experience in forensic medicine have become medical examiners. In others, such as Wisconsin, each county sets standards, and in some, the medical examiner does not need to meet any medical or educational qualifications of any type.
"At least, they're (Oriental daggers and untraceable South American poisons) rare from Sagamore Bridge to Race Point."

The Sagamore Bridge in Sagamore, Massachusetts carries U.S. Route 6 across the Cape Cod Canal, connecting Cape Cod with the rest of Massachusetts, USA. [The bridge Taylor is referring to is a drawbridge built in 1912, replaced in 1933 by the current structure.]

Race Point Light is a historic lighthouse on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. It was first established in 1816, the third light on Cape Cod (after Highland Light, 1797, and Chatham Light, 1808), a rubblestone tower with one of the first rotating beacons. In 1858 the light got a fourth order Fresnel lens and, in 1874, a second keeper's quarters. In 1875, after significant deterioration of the original tower, it was replaced with an iron tower lined with brick. The original keeper's house was rebuilt as part of the project. The station was electrified in 1957. The larger keeper's house was removed in 1960 and the other was updated.

The station has been restored by the Cape Cod Chapter of the American Lighthouse Foundation and both the keeper's house and the whistle house are available for vacation rental.
rolled up copy of the Saturday Evening Post

The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.

Each issue featured several original short stories and often included an installment of a serial appearing in successive issues. Most of the fiction was written for mainstream tastes by popular writers, but some literary writers were featured. The opening pages of stories featured paintings by the leading magazine illustrators. The Post published stories and essays by Ray Bradbury, Kay Boyle, Agatha Christie, Brian Cleeve, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, C. S. Forester, Ernest Haycox, Robert A. Heinlein, Kurt Vonnegut, Paul Gallico, Hammond Innes, Louis L'Amour, Sinclair Lewis, Joseph C. Lincoln, John P. Marquand, Edgar Allan Poe, Sax Rohmer, William Saroyan, John Steinbeck and Rex Stout and Rob Wagner. It also published poetry by such noted poets as Carl Sandburg, Ogden Nash, Dorothy Parker, and Hannah Kahn.

Jack London's best known novel The Call of the Wild was first published, in serialized form, in the Saturday Evening Post in 1903

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