California Magazine

Congratulations on "Eureka! 25 brilliant California Ideas" (January/February 2007). [However], from a source outside of the Moore family and from within it, I have learned that Joseph Moore [rather than Lester Pelton] conceived of the idea of a more efficient bucket for waterwheels and presented the concept to a professor of engineering at Berkeley, who provided technical expertise. Moore was an immigrant from Scotland who arrived in California in 1849, skilled in engineering and the mechanical arts. He became the superintendent of the Risdon Iron Works of San Francisco. In this capacity he played a very important role in designing, building, and installing machinery for the silver mines of Virginia City, Nevada, and for a wide range of hydraulic machinery, including the first elevator on the Pacific Coast for the Palace Hotel of San Francisco. Although he was extraordinarily successful as an inventor, he felt that inventions should be for public use and benefit, and thus he did not patent his waterwheel.

Lester Pelton tested between 30 and 40 different shapes, combinations, and locations of buckets before deciding on the best, which was two curved buckets, which slit the stream of water. He brought the pattern of his waterwheel to the University of California in 1883, where a hydraulic model was made and tested at the University’s College of Mechanics. In his report on the tests under Professor F. G. Hesse, Ross E. Browne said, "Pelton furnished a pattern from which buckets were cast, and thirty of them attached to the wheel.… The angle [of the buckets] is just sufficient to provide against interference of the discharged water with the buckets following.… Experiments were first made with seven different settings of the nozzle.… It is plain that the Pelton Wheel, besides giving a higher efficiency than the partial turbine, is more easily built, has a decided advantage in the setting of the nozzle, and is not so dependent on the precise size of the nozzle used."

from the January/February issue (page 23) we learn that California Proposition 187 was the "worst shot heard ‘round the political world"—supposedly because only 27 percent of the Latino voters supported it, and somewhere between 70,000 and 250,000 marched against it. (Tellingly you default to the largest number.) According to the formulation in the item Pete Wilson was made to suffer. However, you are ignoring the fact that Wilson soundly beat Kathleen Brown in that very same election and Proposition 187 won with 58.8 percent of the vote. Wilson didn’t lose his mojo—he lost his voice while running for the presidency.

I enjoyed reading Rebecca Ruiz’s article in the January/February issue on Francesca Lia Block, ’86 ("Telling teen stories"). As a fan of Block’s novels, and of young adult literature in general, I was delighted to see the attention given to this wonderful writer who is so respectful of, and loved by, teens. However, there was one error. The Margaret A. Edwards Award for lasting and significant contribution to young adult literature is awarded by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), the fastest-growing division of the American Library Association. Interested persons can learn more about the award at www.ala.org/yalsa/edwards.

Erik Vance is to be commended for his excellent bit on mountain bikes in the January/ February issue’s "Inventing California" section ("Xtreme Cyclist"). Unfortunately he fails to note the pioneering role in that saga of John Finley Scott, a University of California, Davis Professor and UC Berkeley Ph.D. Quoting Michael Fitzgerald writing in the Stockton Record, "The Mountain Bike Hall of Fame credits him [Scott] as ‘probably the first mountain bike enthusiast in the United States.’" Others flat-out call him "the father of the mountain bike." To a Schwinn frame in 1953 Scott added not only balloon tires but also flat handlebars, derailleur gears and cantilever brakes to create what he called a "Woodsie Bike." His invention was one of the major steps in the development and popularization of an all-terrain bicycle that revolutionized buttoned-down cycling. Professor Scott appears to have been murdered in his home last June. This is a loss mourned not only by all that knew him [or] benefited from his creative mind and pioneering spirit.

Congratulations on your article "Beyond the silver bullet" in the (January/February) issue. It is very helpful in sorting through the multiple arguments (and illusions) that now populate the health care discussion. Perhaps it is also a reminder that good sense in the solution of social problems is not likely to be ideologically exciting.

POLK HONORS

In our September/October 2006 issue, "Global Warning," graduate students from Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism contributed stories from five climate change hotspots around the world—from glacial melting at Mount Kilimanjaro to flooding in Bangladesh and the Pacific island of Tuvalu to the loss of algae in Tanzania’s Lake Tanganyika. In February, the students and their project were honored with the George Polk Award, one of journalism’s highest awards, for a radio version of the reports broadcast on NPR. The students, from a class led by investigative reporter Sandy Tolan and climatologist John Harte, included Pauline Bartolone, Alexandra Berzon, Kate Cheney Davidson, Durrell Dawson, Jori Lewis, Felicia Mello, Nick Miroff, Jon Mooallem, Emilie Raguso, Aaron Selverston, and Sandhya Somashekhar. They make us proud.