member his insisting very especially (among other, things) upon the idea that the principal source of error in all human investigations lay in the lia- bility of the understanding to under-rate or to over- 1 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 accom- plished should not fail to form an item in the esti- mate. Yet can you tell me one writer on the sub- ject of government, who has ever thought thisi particular branch of the subject worthy of dis- cussion at air;/* Apparition Identified and the Occurrences Explained HE here paused for a moment, stepped to a; bookcase, and brought forth one of the or- dinary synopses of Natural History. Ee- questing me then to exchange seats with him that he might the better distinguish the fine print of 1 the volume, he took my armchair at the window, and, opening the book, resumed his discourse very much in the same tone as before. ft "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 ac- count of the g«nus Sphinx, of the family Crepus- cularia, 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 form- ing 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 in- ferior 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 baa occasioned much terror among the vul- gar, 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 I" he presently exclaimed="It i^ re-ascending the face of the hill, and a very remark- able 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." 3TE: Acheronta Atrat habitat Europe and A Improvements Y. 1 OU will note two h!g 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. us issue to use a much better grade of paper. As

me goes on, still better paper will be used.

Then the other Jay some one on the Pacific Coast: rrotc in and complained that, much as he liked lmazing Stories, it was rather difficult to read

because you had to hold the magazine in your

and with a vice-like grip. The usual magazines, radically without exception, are staple-bound, -hich binding clamps the edge of the magazine so ghtly that when you lay it on the table in front of ou it will not stay open. We investigated the complaint, and found it to lie lost reasonable. We therefore took immediate ways nd means to do away with the old-fashioned binding, nd you now hold in your hand a magazine bound 'ith the so-called "Perfect" binding. You will note lat you can lay this magazine down flat and it will

ay open. Nevertheless, the pages will not come off

i6ily unless you tear them, out forcibly. The "Perfect" binding process is a very much more >:penslve method of binding, and only a few concerns i the country have the machinery necessary to do the "Perfect" binding. The machine itself is most inter- esting^ 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 un- til 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 in- spected, 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 com- pletely bound issue emerges from this latest of wonders. The "Perfect" binder that binds Amazing Stories, is capable of turning out 250O 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 tech- nical advances in magazine publishing and the conveni- ences thereby brought about.