6 tbsp. chopped onion

Butter

2 lb. ground chuck or round

1 lb. mushrooms

1 bay leaf

3/4c. chopped celery

2 c. cream of chicken soup

1 1/4 tsp. celery or garlic salt 1/2 c. slivered almonds

Wash, and soak wild rice for 15 minutes in 3 cups boiling water; drain. Saute onion in butter; add meat and brown. Simmer mushrooms in 1 cup water with bay leaf until done. Combine all ingredients except almonds. Put in casserole; top with almonds. Refrigerate overnight. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour and 30 minutes. Yield: 10 servings.

The oldest abrasive of all is sand, which was used for polishing stone weapons as early as 25,000 BC. Other abrasive materials in use from early times include garnet (a hard, glasslike gemstone), emery, pumice, and silica (silicon dioxide) which occurs in various forms as quartz, flint and agate. In the Middle Ages, grinding wheels of quartz and flint fragments naturally bonded together in rock were used. Gemstones were lapped or polished by the use of emery or sandstone powder rubbed on with metal plates.

Sandpaper was discovered slightly later, and was followed by emery paper and cloth, which are finer grained and longer lasting, and corundum, discovered in 1825.

The most important step in the development of synthetic abrasives was made in 1891, when Edward Acheson first produced crystals of silicon carbide. This material was called Carborundum, and has been one of the most versatile synthetic abrasives. The crystals, which can be made in any required degree of fineness, can be bonded together in a solid block or used for coating metal discs or belts for use in machine tools such as sanders.

Other, more recent developments include aluminum oxide, a synthetic form of corundum, silicon carbide and synthetic diamonds. These have not ousted natural diamonds, however, which are still better for bonding on to the steel discs which are used for cutting stone and concrete. Synthetic diamonds are used mainly for cutting and shaping other very hard substances, such as tungsten carbide. They are produced from carbon at high temperature and pressure, as are natural ones.

Already, improvements in abrasive technology have displaced some intermediate stages in the shaping and finishing of materials. As new wonder materials are developed to meet the needs of modern industry, this trend will continue and new super-abrasives will be required. In meeting this need, modern technology might not be able to improve on all the properties to be found in diamond but it can certainly attain a close second best.

There is a long stretch of the small intestine, over twenty feet, through which the food passes after this admixture, becoming more fully digested.
What causes the digestive juices to be poured out? It is a very interesting and pertinent question. We know that they are not flowing all the time. We know this by observation about the saliva for instance. At times the mouth is dry - when food is taken into the mouth, the saliva begins to flow. This is also true of the stomach and intestinal juices. They appear in the presence of food.

Why? Pawlow, a Russian physiologist, supplied a very interesting part of the answer. He showed that the digestive juices flow at the sight and especially at the smell of food. The more appetizing the food, the larger the amount of secretion. We say the mouth ” waters ” at the sight or smell of something we like to eat; this is literally true: the mouth does water, and so does the stomach. Carlson confirmed Pawlow’s experiments, which were done on animals, in man. He obtained a man whose cesophagus had been burned and who had to have an opening made in his stomach by a surgeon. Carlson could thus measure the amount of gastric juice secreted under different circumstances. When the man smelled something he liked to eat, the gastric juice was poured out in large quantities; when something disgusting or unappetizing was seen or smelled, the stomach wall became dry. Chewing food of pleasant taste also stimulated the flow of stomach juices.

Abrasives are used in three main ways. One is to use the abrasive material directly on a substance: sharpening a knife on a grinding wheel is an example of this. Another is to coat another substance, such as a piece of paper, cloth or rubber on a metal disc, with granules of abrasive material, and use this as a tool; sandpaper is the commonest application of this technique. The third method is sandblasting or gritblasting, where a powerful stream of air containing abrasive particles is directed at an object to abrade its surface.

Apart from their use in sharpening-stones and grinding wheels, direct-action abrasives are also used in powder form. Most domestic cleaning agents (except soap and washing powder) contain abrasives, which are generally silica, pumice or aluminum oxide ground to a very fine powder. The chemical action of the cleaning agent is helped by the abrasive, and the two substances clean faster than either would alone.

Toothpaste also contains a mild abrasive, which is generally finely powdered chalk. Old-fashioned tooth powder often contained powdered pumice or silica, which wore the enamel off the teeth in a short time, but manufacturers now claim that the cleaning action of their product is mostly chemical.

Most abrasives used in industry are applied indirectly by being stuck to a backing. This saves expense because less abrasive is used.

The simplest type of coated abrasive material is sandpaper, which is made by simply glueing granules of abrasive material to a sheet of paper.

Abrasive papers are made in a vast range of types, and have many uses. One unusual application is in the printing industry, where a sheet of paper to be printed on both sides is laid on a sheet of abrasive paper called tympan (abrasive side up) while the second side is printed. In this way, the printed side can rest on the abrasive points, which hold it steady and prevent the wet ink from smearing.

Abrasive-coated belts are used in many industrial sanding machines. These may be made of extra strong paper, or else a fine, strong cloth such as linen or gaberdine is used.
Gritblasting with a machine is a versatile technique. It has the important feature that the workpiece is abraded more or less evenly all over the surface that faces the blast. It is used for cleaning metal objects thoroughly before they are electroplated - electro-plating will not stick to dirt or corrosion. It is also used for incising patterns on plate glass. The area of the glass that is to be left smooth is protected with a tough paper stencil that is only partly eaten away by the blasting. This technique has replaced the older one of etching patterns on glass with hydrofluoric acid.

Today’s nuclear warheads are smaller and more powerful than ever before, in order to maximize the efficiency of the delivery system. At the outset of the Manhattan Project, Albert Einstein was one of the scientists who forecast that an A-Bomb would have to be so large and heavy that it would need a ship to deliver it to its target.

A one-megaton bomb detonated at ground zero would produce a crater 200 feet deep and a thousand feet across. Nuclear shelters have been designed both for private purchase and national use. Sweden and Switzerland have laid plans to shelter their entire populations.

The essential process of digestion is a chemical change, a conversion of the complex foodstuffs into a form which can be absorbed into the blood and utilized by the body. The digestive juices which accomplish this change are many in number, each one fitted for the conversion of a particular sort of food - the lipase of the pancreas for fat, saliva for starches, gastric juice for proteins. They are all of the general chemical nature of enzymes. An enzyme is a catalyzer and exerts its properties not by uniting with a given substance to form a new substance, but by exerting an influence. It is a kind of exhorter, leading chemical compounds to turn themselves into something different, if not better. For instance, oxygen and hydrogen brought together will effect no union, but if brought together in the presence of spongy platinum they form water. The platinum does not change at all: it is a catalyzer.

The action of most of these enzymes is astonishingly rapid. You may test this on yourself by chewing a piece of cracker or bread. The saliva, through its digestive enzyme, ptyalin, is amylolytic ; that is, it digests starch exclusively. It does so by breaking down the complex starches into simple sugars. So, almost five seconds after the bread has been in your mouth, it begins to turn sweet. That rapidly does an enzyme work. The highly complex starch of the bread has been converted into maltose. The digestive enzyme of the stomach is pepsin. It splits only proteins or albuminous foods: meats, eggs, etc. It is secreted by small glands all over the wall of the stomach. It acts only in an acid medium, so that the stomach glands also secrete hydrochloric acid.