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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Scientific American Supplement, No. 362,
+December 9, 1882, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882
+
+Author: Various
+
+Posting Date: October 10, 2012 [EBook #8687]
+Release Date: August, 2005
+First Posted: August 1, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPL., NO. 362 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Olaf Voss, Don Kretz, Juliet Sutherland, Charles
+Franks and the Distributed Proofreaders Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT NO. 362
+
+
+
+
+NEW YORK, DECEMBER 9, 1882
+
+Scientific American Supplement. Vol. XIV, No. 362.
+
+Scientific American established 1845
+
+Scientific American Supplement, $5 a year.
+
+Scientific American and Supplement, $7 a year.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS.
+
+I.    ENGINEERING AND MECHANICS--Recent Improvements in
+      Textile Machinery.--Harris's revolving ring spinning frame.--
+      New electric stop motion.--New positive motion loom. 6 figures.
+
+      Spinning Without a Mule.--Harris's improvements in ring
+      spinning.
+
+      New Binding Machines. 3 figures.
+
+      Flumes and their construction. 1 figure.
+
+      Chuwab's Rolling Mill for Dressing and Rounding Bar Iron.
+      9 figures.
+
+      Burning of Town Refuse at Leeds. 6 figures.--Sections and
+      elevations of destructor and carbonizer.
+
+II.   TECHNOLOGY AND CHEMISTRY.--Friedrich Wohler.--His
+      labors and discoveries.
+
+      New Gas Burner. 3 figures.--Grimstone's improved gas burner.
+
+      Defty's Improvements in Gas Burners and Heaters. 4 figures.
+
+      The Collotype in Practice.
+
+      Determination of Potassa in Manures.--By M. E. DREYFUS.
+
+III.  HYGIENE, MEDICINE, ETC.--The Air in Relation to Health.
+      By Prof. C. F. CHANDLER.
+
+      The Plantain as a Styptic.
+
+      Bacteria.
+
+IV.   ELECTRICITY, ETC.--Gustavo Trouvé and his Electrical Inventions.
+      --Portrait of Gustave Trouvé.--Trouvé's electric boat competing
+      in the regatta at Troyes.
+
+      Domestic Electricity.--Loiseau's electric naphtha and gas
+      lighters.--Ranque's new form of lighter with extinguisher.
+
+      Theiler's Telephone Receiver. 2 figures.
+
+      An Electric Power Hammer. By MARCEL DEPRETZ. 1 figure.
+
+      Solignac's New Electric Lamp. 3 figures.
+
+      Mondos's Electric Lamp. 2 figures.
+
+V.    METALLURGY AND MINERALOGY.--Aluminum.--Its properties,
+      cost, and uses.
+
+      The Origin and Relations of the Carbon Minerals.
+      By J.S. NEWBERRY.--An elaborate and extremely valuable review
+      of the genesis of carbon minerals, and the modes and conditions
+      of their occurrence.
+
+      Estimation of Sulphur in Iron and Steel. By GEORGE CRAIG.
+      1 figure.
+
+VI.   ARCHITECTURE, ETC.--The Armitage House.
+
+      Suggestions in Architecture.--An English country residence.
+
+VII.  BOTANY, HORTICULTURE, ETC.--The Soy Bean. 1 figure.--
+      The Soy bean (_Soja hispida_).
+
+      Erica Cavendishiana. 1 figure.
+
+      Philesia Buxifolia. 1 figure.
+
+      Mahogany.
+
+VIII. MISCELLANEOUS.--Our Hebrew Population.
+
+      The Mysteries of Lake Baikal.
+
+      Traveling Sand Hills on Lake Ontario.
+
+      Animals in the Arts.--Corals.--The conch shell.--Living beetles,
+      etc.--Pearls.--Sepia and silk.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+GUSTAVE TROUVÉ.
+
+
+The accompanying portrait of M. Gustave Trouvé is taken from a small
+volume devoted to an account of his labors recently published by M.
+Georges Dary. M. Trouvé, who may be said to have had no ancestors from
+an electric point of view, was born in 1839 in the little village of
+Haye-Descartes. He was sent by his parents to the College of Chinon,
+whence he entered the École des Arts et Metiers, and afterward went
+to Paris to work in the shop of a clock-maker. This was an excellent
+apprenticeship for our future electrician, since it is in small works
+that electricity excels; and, if its domain is to be increased, it is
+only on condition that the electric mechanician shall never lose sight
+of the fact that he should be a clock-maker, and that his fingers, to
+use M. Dumas's apt words, should possess at once the strength of those
+of the Titans and the delicacy of those of fairies. It was not long ere
+Trouvé set up a shop of his own, whither inventors flocked in crowds;
+and the work he did for these soon gave up to him the secrets of the art
+of creating. The first applications that he attempted related to the use
+of electricity in surgery, a wonderfully fecund branch, but one whose
+importance was scarcely suspected, notwithstanding the results
+already obtained through the application of the insufflation pile to
+galvano-cautery. What the surgeon needed was to see plainly into the
+cavities of the human body. Trouvé found a means of lighting these
+up with lamps whose illuminating power was fitted for that sort of
+exploration. This new mode of illumination having been adopted, it was
+but natural that it should afterward find an application in dangerous
+mines, powder mills, and for a host of different purposes. But the
+perfection of this sort of instruments was the wound explorer, by the
+aid of which a great surgeon sounded the wounds that Italian balls had
+made in Garibaldi's foot.
+
+[Illustration: GUSTAVE TROUVE.]
+
+The misfortunes of France afterward directed Trouvé's attention to
+military electricity, and led him to devise a perfect system of portable
+telegraphy, in which his hermetic pile lends itself perfectly to all
+maneuvers and withstands all sorts of moving about.
+
+The small volume of which we have spoken is devoted more particularly to
+electric navigation, for which M. Trouvé specially designed the motor of
+his invention, and by the aid of which he performed numerous experiments
+on the ocean, on the Seine at Paris, and before Rouen and at Troyes. In
+this latter case M. Trouvé gained a medal of honor on the occasion of a
+regatta. Our engraving represents him competing with the rowers of whom
+he kept ahead with so distinguished success. We could not undertake to
+enumerate all the inventions which we owe to M. Trouvé; but we cannot,
+however, omit mention of the pendulum escapement that beats the second
+or half second without any variation in the length of the balance; of
+the electric gyroscope constructed at the request of M. Louis Foucault;
+of the electro-medical pocket-case; of the apparatus for determining the
+most advantageous inclination to give a helix; of the electric bit for
+stopping unruly horses; and of the universal caustic-holder. He has
+given the electric polyscope features such that every cavity in the
+human body may be explored by its aid. As for his electric motor, he
+has given that a form that makes the rotation regular and suppresses
+dead-centers--a result that he has obtained by utilizing the
+eccentrization of the Siemens bobbin.
+
+Although devoting himself mainly to improving his motor (which, by
+the way, he has applied to the tricycle), M. Trouvé does not disdain
+telephony, but has introduced into the manufacture of magnets for the
+purpose many valuable improvements.--_Electricité_.
+
+[Illustration: TROUVE'S ELECTRIC BOAT COMPETING IN THE REGATTA AT
+TROYES, AUG. 6, 1882.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+FRIEDRICH WÖHLER.
+
+
+At the age of eighty-two years, and full of honor, after a life actively
+devoted to scientific work of the highest and most accurate kind, which
+has contributed more than that of any other contemporary to establish
+the principles on which an exact science like chemistry is founded, the
+illustrious Wöhler has gone to his rest.
+
+After he had worked for some time with Berzelius in Sweden, he taught
+chemistry from 1825 to 1831 at the Polytechnic School in Berlin; then
+till 1836 he was stationed at the Higher Polytechnic School at Cassel,
+and then he became Ordinary Professor of Chemistry in the University of
+Göttingen, where he remained till his death. He was born, July 31, 1800,
+at Eschersheim, near Frankfort-on-the-Main.
+
+Until the year 1828 it was believed that organic substances could only
+be formed under the influence of the vital force in the bodies of
+animals and plants. It was Wöhler who proved by the artificial
+preparation of urea from inorganic materials that this view could not be
+maintained. This discovery has always been considered as one of the most
+important contributions to our scientific knowledge. By showing that
+ammonium cyanate can become urea by an internal arrangement of its
+atoms, without gaining or losing in weight, Wöhler furnished one of the
+first and best examples of isomerism, which helped to demolish the old
+view that equality of composition could not coexist in two bodies, A
+and B, with differences in their respective physical and chemical
+properties. Two years later, in 1830, Wöhler published, jointly with
+Liebig, the results of a research on cyanic and cyanuric acid and on
+urea. Berzelius, in his report to the Swedish Academy of Sciences,
+called it the most important of all researches in physics, chemistry,
+and mineralogy published in that year. The results obtained were quite
+unexpected, and furnished additional and most important evidence in
+favor of the doctrine of isomerism. In the year 1834, Wöhler and Liebig
+published an investigation of the oil of bitter almonds. They prove by
+their experiments that a group of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms
+can behave like an element, take the place of an element, and can be
+exchanged for elements in chemical compounds. Thus the foundation was
+laid of the doctrine of compound radicals, a doctrine which has had
+and has still the most profound influence on the development of
+chemistry--so much so that its importance can hardly be exaggerated.
+Since the discovery of potassium by Davy, it was assumed that alumina
+also, the basis of clay, contained a metal in combination with oxygen.
+Davy, Oerstedt, and Berzelius attempted the extraction of this metal,
+but could not succeed. Wöhler then worked on the same subject, and
+discovered the metal aluminum. To him also is due the isolation of the
+elements yttrium, beryllium, and titanium, the observation that silicium
+can be obtained in crystals, and that some meteoric stones contain
+organic matter. He analyzed a number of meteorites, and for many years
+wrote the digest on the literature of meteorites in the _Jahresbericht
+der Chemie_; he possessed, perhaps, the best private collection of
+meteoric stones and irons existing. Wöhler and Sainte Claire Deville
+discovered the crystalline form of boron, and Wöhler and Buff the
+hydrogen compounds of silicium and a lower oxide of the same element.
+This is by no means a full statement of Wöhler's scientific work; it
+even does not mention all the discoveries which have had great influence
+on the theory of chemistry. The mere titles of the papers would fill
+several closely-printed pages. The journals of every year from 1820 to
+1881 contain contributions from his pen, and even his minor publications
+are always interesting. As was truly remarked ten years ago, when it was
+proposed by a Fellow of the Royal Society that a Copley medal should be
+conferred upon him, "for two or three of his researches he deserves the
+highest honor a scientific man can obtain, but the sum of his work is
+absolutely overwhelming. Had he never lived, the aspect of chemistry
+would be very different from that it is now."
+
+While sojourning at Cassel, Wöhler made, among other chemical
+discoveries, one for obtaining the metal nickel in a state of purity,
+and with two attached friends he founded a factory there for the
+preparation of the metal.
+
+Among the works which he published were "Grundriss der Anorganischen
+Chemie," Berlin, 1830, and the "Grundriss der Organischen Chemie,"
+Berlin, 1840. Nor must we omit to mention "Praktischen Uebringen der
+Chemischen Analyse," Berlin, 1854, and the "Lehrbuch der Chemie,"
+Dresden, 1825, 4 vols.
+
+At a sitting of the Academy, held on October 2, 1882, M. Jean Baptiste
+Dumas, the permanent secretary, with profound regret, made known
+the intelligence of the death of the illustrious foreign associate,
+Friedrich Wöhler, professor in the University of Göttingen. He said: "M.
+Friedrich Wöhler, the favorite pupil of Berzelius, had followed in the
+lines and methods of work of his master. From 1821 till his last year he
+has continuously published memoirs or simple notes, always remarkable
+for their exactness, and often of such a nature that they took among
+contemporaneous production the first rank by their importance, their
+novelty, or their fullness. Employed chiefly, during his sojourn in
+Sweden, in work on mineral chemistry, he has remained all his life the
+undisputed chief in this branch of science in German universities. This
+preparation and preoccupation, which one might have thought sufficient
+to occupy his time, did not, however, prevent him from taking the chief
+part in the development of organic chemistry, and of filling one of the
+most elevated positions in it.
+
+"His contemporaries have not forgotten the unusual sensation produced by
+the unexpected discovery by which he was enabled to make artificially,
+and by a purely chemical method, urea, the most nitrogenous of animal
+substances. Other transformations or combinations giving birth to
+substances which, until then, had only been met with in animals or
+plants, have since been obtained, but the artificial formation of urea
+still remains the neatest and most elegant example of this order of
+creation. All chemists know and admire the classical memoir in which
+Wöhler and Liebig some time after made known the nature of the benzoic
+series, and connected them with the radicals of which we may consider
+them as being the derivatives comparable with products of a mineral
+nature. Their memoirs on the derivatives of uric acid, a prolific source
+of new and remarkable substances, has been an inexhaustible mine in the
+hands of their successors.
+
+"This is not a moment when we should pretend to review the work which M.
+Wöhler has done in mineral chemistry. Among the 240 papers which he has
+published in scientific journals, there are few which the treatises of
+chemistry have not immediately turned to account. We need only confine
+ourselves to the discovery of aluminum, to which the energy and
+inventive genius of our _confrère_, Henry Deville, soon gave a place
+near the noble metals. United by a rivalry which would have divided
+less noble minds, these two great chemists carried on together their
+researches in chemistry, and joined their forces to clear up points
+still obscure in the history of boron, silicium, and the metals of
+the platinum group, and remained closely united, which each year only
+strengthened.
+
+"The reader will pardon me a souvenir entirely personal. We were born,
+M. Wöhler and I, in 1800. I am his senior by a few days. Our scientific
+life began at the same date, and during sixty years everything has
+combined to bind more closely the links of brotherhood which has existed
+for so long a time."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+OUR HEBREW POPULATION.
+
+
+The United Jewish Association has made a canvass of the denomination in
+this country, finding 278 congregations, and a total Jewish population
+of 230,984. New York has the largest number--80,565. Then follows
+Pennsylvania, with 20,000; California, with 18,580; Ohio with 14,581;
+Illinois, with 12,625, and Maryland, with 10,357.
+
+The Jewish population in the largest cities is as follows:
+
+  New York         60,000
+  San Francisco    16,000
+  Brooklyn         14,000
+  Philadelphia     13,000
+  Chicago          12,000
+  Baltimore        10,000
+  Cincinnati        8,000
+  Boston            7,000
+  St. Louis         6,500
+  New Orleans       5,000
+  Cleveland         3,500
+  Newark            3,500
+  Milwaukee         3,500
+  Louisville        2,500
+  Pittsburg         2,000
+  Detroit           2,000
+  Washington        1,500
+  New Haven         1,000
+  Rochester         1,000
+
+This total Jewish population of 230,984 has six hospitals, eleven
+orphan asylums and homes, fourteen free colleges and schools, and 602
+benevolent lodges. Of the free schools maintained by the Hebrews, five
+are in New York, four in Philadelphia, and one each in Cincinnati, St.
+Louis, Chicago, and San Francisco. Their hospitals are in New York,
+Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cincinnati, New Orleans, and Chicago, while
+their orphan asylums, homes, and other benevolent institutions are
+scattered all over the country.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE MYSTERIES OF THE BAIKAL.
+
+
+The Angara is cold as ice all the summer through, so cold, indeed, that
+to bathe in it is to court inevitable illness, and in winter a sled
+drive over its frozen surface is made in a temperature some degrees
+lower than that prevailing on the banks. This comes from the fact that
+its waters are fresh from the yet unfathomed depths of the Baikal, which
+during the five short months of summer has scarcely time to properly
+unfreeze. In winter the lake resembles in all respects a miniature
+Arctic Ocean, having its great ice hummocks and immense leads, over
+which the caravan sleds have to be ferried on large pieces of ice, just
+as in the frozen North. In winter, too, the air is so cold in the region
+above the lake that birds flying across its icy bosom sometimes drop
+down dead on the surface. Some authors say that seals have been caught
+in the lake of the same character as those found in the Arctic seas; for
+this assertion I have no proof. An immense caravan traffic is carried
+across the frozen lake every season between Russia and China. To
+accommodate this the Russian postal authorities once established a post
+house on the middle of the lake, where horses were kept for travelers.
+But this was discontinued after one winter, when an early thaw suddenly
+set in, and horses, yemschliks and post house all disappeared beneath
+the ice, and were never seen more. In summer the lake is navigated by an
+antiquated steamer called the General Korsakoff, which ventures out
+in calm weather, but cannot face the violent storms and squalls that
+sometimes rise with sudden impetuosity. Irkutskians say, indeed, that it
+is only upon Lake Baikal and upon this old hull that a man really learns
+to pray from his heart. The lake is held in superstitious reverence by
+the natives. It is called by them Svyatoe More, or the Holy Lake, and
+they believe that no Christian was ever lost in its waters, for even
+when a person is drowned in it the waves always take the trouble to cast
+the body on shore.
+
+Its length is 400 miles, its width an average of 35 miles, covers an
+area of 14,000 square miles and has a circumference of nearly 1,200
+miles, being the largest fresh water lake in the Old World, and, next to
+the Caspian and the Aral, the largest inland sheet of water in Asia. Its
+shores are bold and rugged and very picturesque, in some places 1,000
+feet high. In the surrounding forests are found game of the largest
+description, bears, deer, foxes, wolves, elk and these afford capital
+sport for the sportsmen of Irkutsk.
+
+Around the coasts are many mineral springs, hot and cold, which have a
+great reputation among the Irkutskians. The hot springs of Yurka, on the
+Selenga, 200 versts from Verchore Udevisk and not many miles from the
+eastern shore of the Baikal, which have a temperature of 48 degrees
+Réaumur and whose waters are strongly impregnated with sulphur, are
+a favorite watering place for natives as well as Russians and
+Buriats.--_Herald Correspondent with the Jeannette Search Expedition_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+TRAVELING SAND HILLS ON LAKE ONTARIO.
+
+
+An interesting example of sand-drift occurs near Wellington Bay, on Lake
+Ontario, ten miles from Pictou. The lake shore near the sand banks is
+indented with a succession of rock-paved bays, whose gradually shoaling
+margins afford rare bathing grounds. East and West Lakes, each five
+miles long, and the latter dotted with islands, are separated from
+Lake Ontario by narrow strips of beach. Over the two mile-wide isthmus
+separating the little lakes, the sand banks, whose glistening heights
+are visible miles away, are approached. On near approach they are hidden
+by the cedar woods, till the roadway in front is barred by the advancing
+bank, to avoid which a roadway through the woods has been constructed
+up to the eastern end of the sand range. The sand banks stretch like a
+crescent along the shore, the concave side turned to the lake, along
+which it leaves a pebbly beach. The length of the crescent is over two
+miles, the width 600 to 3,000 or 4,000 feet.
+
+Clambering up the steep end of the range among trees and grapevines, the
+wooded summit is gained, at an elevation of nearly 150 feet. Passing
+along the top, the woods soon disappear, and the visitor emerges on a
+wild waste of delicately tinted saffron, rising from the slate-colored
+beach in gentle undulation, and sleepily falling on the other side down
+to green pastures and into the cedar woods. The whole surface of this
+gradually undulating mountain desert is ribbed by little wavelets a few
+inches apart, but the general aspect is one of perfect smoothness. The
+sand is almost as fine as flour, and contains no admixture of dust The
+foot sinks only an inch or two in walking over it; children roll about
+on it and down its slopes, and, rising, shake themselves till their
+clothing loses every trace of sand. Occasionally gusts stream over the
+wild waste, raising a dense drift to a height of a foot or two only, and
+streaming like a fringe over the steep northern edge. Though the sun is
+blazing down on the glistening wilderness there is little sensation of
+heat, for the cool lake breeze is ever blowing. On the landward side,
+the insidious approach of the devouring sand is well marked. One hundred
+and fifty feet below, the foot of this moving mountain is sharply
+defined against the vivid green of the pastures, on which the grass
+grows luxuriantly to within an inch of the sand wall. The ferns of the
+cedar woods almost droop against the sandy slope. The roots of the trees
+are bare along the white edge; a foot or two nearer the sand buries the
+feet of the cedars: a few yards nearer still the bare trunks disappear;
+still nearer only the withered topmast twigs of the submerged forest are
+seen, and then far over the tree tops stands the sand range. Perpetual
+ice is found under the foot of this steep slope, the sand covering and
+consolidating the snows drifted over the hill during the winter months.
+There is something awe-inspiring, says the correspondent of the Toronto
+Globe, in the slow, quiet, but resistless advance of the mountain front.
+Field and forest alike become completely submerged. Ten years ago a
+farm-house was swallowed up, not to emerge in light until the huge sand
+wave has passed over.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+RECENT IMPROVEMENTS IN TEXTILE MACHINERY.
+
+
+At the recent exhibition at Boston of the New England Institute, several
+interesting novelties were shown which have a promise of considerable
+economic and industrial value.
+
+Fig. 1 represents the general plan and pulley connections of the Harris
+Revolving-Ring Spinning Frame. The purpose of the improvements which
+it embodies is to avoid the uneven draught of the yarn in spinning and
+winding incident to the use of a fixed ring. With the non-revolving ring
+the strain upon the yarn varies greatly, owing to the difference
+in diameter of the full and empty bobbin. At the base of the cone,
+especially in spinning weft, or filling, the diameter of the cop is five
+or six times that of the quill at the tip. As the yarn is wound upon the
+cone, the line of draught upon the traveler varies continually, the pull
+being almost direct where the bobbin is full, and nearly at right angles
+where it is empty. With the increasing angle the drag upon the traveler
+increases, not only causing frequent breakages of the yarn, but also an
+unequal stretching of the yarn, so that the yarn perceptibly varies in
+fineness. The unequal strain further causes the yarn to be more tightly
+wound upon the outside than upon the inside of the bobbin, giving rise
+to snarls and wastage.
+
+[Illustration: RECENT IMPROVEMENTS IN TEXTILE MACHINERY.--1,
+2.--SPINNING WITHOUT A MULE--THE HARRIS REVOLVING RING SPINNING FRAME.
+3, 4, 5.--NEW ELECTRIC STOP MOTION FOR DRAWING FRAMES. 6.--NEW POSITIVE
+MOTION LOOM.]
+
+These difficulties have hitherto prevented the application of ring
+spinning to the finer grades of yarn. They are overcome in the new
+spinning frame by an ingenious device by which a revolving motion is
+given to the ring in the same direction as the motion of the traveler,
+thereby reducing its friction upon the ring, the speed of the ring being
+variable, and so controlled as to secure a uniform tension upon the yarn
+at all stages of the winding.
+
+The construction of the revolving ring is shown in Fig. 2. C is the
+revolving ring; D, the hollow axis support; H, a section of the ring
+frame; E, the traveler.
+
+To give the required variable speed to the revolving ring there is
+placed directly over the drum, Fig. 1, A, for driving the spindle a
+smaller drum, B, from which bands drive each ring separately. The shaft,
+which is attached by cross girts to the ring rail, and moves up and down
+with it, is driven by a pair of conical drums from the main cylinder
+shaft; and is so arranged with a loose pulley on the large end of the
+receiving cone as to remain stationary while the wind is on or near the
+base of the bobbin. When the cone of the bobbin diminishes so as to
+materially increase the pull on the traveler, the conical drums are
+started by a belt shipper attached to the lilt motion. By the movement
+of the belt on these drums a continually accelerated motion is given to
+the rings, their maximum speed being about one-twentieth the number
+of revolutions per minute as the spindle has at the same moment. This
+action is reversed when the lift falls. The tension of the wind upon
+the bobbin is thus kept uniform, the desired hardness of the wind being
+secured by the use of a heavier or lighter traveler according to the
+compactness of cop required.
+
+The model frame shown at the fair did its work admirably well, spinning
+yarns as high as No. 400, a fineness hitherto unattainable on ring
+frames. It is claimed that this invention can do whatever can be done
+with the mule, and without the skilled labor which mule spinning
+demands.
+
+This invention is exhibited by E. & A. W. Harris, Providence, R.I.
+
+
+NEW ELECTRIC STOP MOTION.
+
+Figs. 3, 4, and 5 illustrate some of the applications of the electric
+stop motion in connection with cotton machinery. The merit of this
+invention lies in simplifying the means by which machinery may be
+stopped automatically the instant, its work, from accident or otherwise,
+begins to be improperly done. The use of electricity for this purpose
+is made possible by the fact that comparatively dry cotton is a
+nonconductor of electricity. In the process of carding, drawing or
+spinning, the cotton is made to pass between rollers or other pieces
+forming parts of an electric circuit. So long as the machine is properly
+fed and in proper working condition, the stopping apparatus rests;
+the moment the continuity of the cotton is broken or any irregularity
+occurs, electric contact results, completing the circuit and causing an
+electro magnet to act upon a lever or other device, and the machine is
+stopped. The current is supplied by a small magneto-electric machine
+driven by a band from the main driving shaft, and is always available
+while the engine is running.
+
+Fig. 3 shows the general arrangement of the apparatus as applied to a
+drawing frame. In the process of drawing down the roll of cotton--the
+sliver--four things may happen making it necessary to stop the machine.
+A sliver may break on the way from the can to the drawing rollers,
+or the supply of cotton may become exhausted; the cotton may lap or
+accumulate on the drawing rollers; the sliver may break between the
+drawing rollers and the calender rollers; or the front can may overflow.
+In each and all of these cases the electric circuit is instantly
+completed; the parts between which the cotton flows either come
+together, as when breakage occurs, or, if there is lapping, they are
+separated so as to make contact above. In any case, the current causes
+the electro-magnet, S, against the side of the machine to move its
+armature and set the stop motion in play.
+
+Figs. 4 and 5 represent in detail the manner in which electric
+connection is made in two cases requiring the intervention of the stop
+motion. In Fig. 4 the upper part of a receiving can is shown. When
+the can is full the cotton lifts the tube wheel, J, until it makes an
+electrical connection, and the stop motion is brought into instant
+action. In Fig. 5, the traction upon the yarn holds the hook borne by
+the spring, F, away from G, and the electric circuit is interrupted. A
+breakage of the yarn allows this spring to act; contact is made, and the
+stop motion operates as before.
+
+This simple and efficient device is exhibited by Howard & Bullough &
+Riley, of Boston.
+
+
+NEW POSITIVE MOTION LOOM.
+
+Fig. 6 shows the essential features of a positive motion loom, intended
+for weaving narrow fabrics, exhibited by Knowles, of Worcester, Mass.
+The engraving shows so clearly how, by a right and left movement of the
+rack, the shuttle is thrown by the action of the intermediate cogwheels,
+that further description is unnecessary.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+SPINNING WITHOUT A MULE.
+
+
+At the recent semi-annual meeting of the New England Cotton
+Manufacturers' Association, held at the Institute of Technology, Boston,
+the following paper on the Harris system of revolving ring spinning was
+read by Col. Webber for the author:
+
+It is well known that one of the most serious difficulties in ring
+spinning is the variable pull upon the traveler, caused by the
+difference in diameter of the full and empty bobbins, and this is
+especially noticeable in spinning weft, or filling, when the diameter of
+the quill at the tip is not over 3-16 of an inch, while that of the base
+of the cone, or full bobbin, is from an inch to an inch and one-eighth.
+This variation in diameter causes the line of draught upon the traveler,
+which, with the full bobbin, forms nearly a tangent to the interior
+circle of the ring, to be nearly radial to it with an empty one, and
+this increased drag upon the traveler not only causes frequent breakage
+in spinning, but also stretches the yarn, so that it is perceptibly
+finer when it is spun on the nose of the bobbin than when it is spun on
+the bottom of the cone.
+
+Endeavors have been made to compensate for this difficulty by making
+a less draught at that period of the operation; but we believe the
+principle of curing one error by adding another to be wrong, and aim by
+our improvement to avoid the cause of the trouble, which we do by giving
+a revolving motion to the ring itself in the same direction as that of
+the traveler, at a variable speed, so as to aid its slip, and reduce its
+friction on the ring. This we accomplish by means of a shaft with whorls
+on it, located directly over the drum for driving the spindle, from
+which bands drive each ring separately; and attached by cross-girts to
+the ring-rail, and moving up and down with it.
+
+This shaft is driven by a pair of conical drums from the main cylinder
+shaft, and is so arranged with a loose pulley on the large end of the
+receiving cone as to remain stationary while the wind is on or near the
+base of the bobbin, or nearly parallel to the path of the traveler.
+
+When the cone of the bobbin begins to diminish to such a point as to
+materially increase the radial pull on the traveler, these conical drums
+are put in operation by a belt shipper attached to the lift motion,
+which moves the belt on to the cones, and gives a continually
+accelerated motion to the rings, so that when the wind reaches the top
+of the bobbin the rings will have their maximum speed of about 300
+revolutions per minute, or about one-twentieth the number of revolutions
+of the spindle at this point, if the latter make 6000 revolutions per
+minute, and this we find in actual practice to produce results which are
+highly satisfactory.
+
+As the lift falls again, the belt is moved back on the cones, giving a
+retarding motion to the rings, until it reaches the point at which it
+began to operate, and is then either moved on to the loose pulley, and
+the rings remain stationary, or for very fine yarn are kept in motion at
+a slow speed. We are often asked if this does not affect the twist, but
+answer that it does not in the least, as the relative speeds of the
+rolls and spindles remain the same, and the only thing that can be
+affected is the hardness of the wind upon the bobbin, and this is
+adjustable by the use of a heavier or lighter traveler, according to the
+compactness of cop required.
+
+We claim by means of this improvement the ability to use a much smaller
+quill or bobbin, and consequently holding as much yarn in a less outside
+diameter, enabling us to use a smaller ring, thus saving power both in
+the weight of bobbin to be carried and in the distance to be moved by
+the traveler; and we believe the power to be saved in this manner and by
+the diminution of the dead pull on the traveler, when the wind is at
+the tip of the bobbin, to be more than sufficient to give the necessary
+motion to the revolving rings. We are as yet unable to answer this
+question of power fully, as we have not yet tested a full size frame,
+but we propose to do this in season to answer all questions at the next
+meeting of your association.
+
+The same invention is also applicable to warp spinning, by giving the
+ring a continuous accelerating and retarding motion, in which the
+maximum speed is given to the ring at the first start of the frame when
+the bobbin is empty, sufficient to diminish the strain on the yarn,
+and gradually reducing the motion at each traverse of the rail, as the
+bobbin is filled; but we claim the great advantage of our invention to
+be the capability of spinning any grade of yarn on the ring frame that
+can be spun on the hand or self-operating mule, and in proof of this we
+call your attention to the model frame now in operation at the fair of
+the New England Manufacturers' and Mechanics' Institute, where we are
+spinning on a quill only 5-32 inches diameter at top, and where we can
+show you samples of yarn from No. 80 to No. 400 spun on this frame from
+combed roving from the Conant Thread Company and Willimantic Linen
+Company, which we believe has never before been accomplished on any ring
+frame.
+
+We invite you to examine this invention at the fair, and also call your
+attention to the adjustable roller beam, by means of which the rolls can
+be adjusted at any desirable angle or pitch, so as to throw the twist
+more or less directly spinning, and an improvement in the quality of the
+yarn from the same cause, which will increase the production from the
+loom, and finally eradicate other objectionable features of the labor
+question, which so often disturb the peaceful harmony between labor and
+capital.
+
+Mr, Goulding asked if it had been demonstrated whether more or less
+power was required for the same numbers than effect of running the
+machine a little out of true, and the reply was that the advantage of
+the new method over the old would be more apparent in such a case than
+with a perfect frame. In regard to speed, the inventor proposed as
+a maximum rate, when the wind was at the tip of the bobbin, 300
+revolutions per minute, but from this point the speed would diminish.
+
+Conant Thread Company and Willimantic Linen Company, which we believe
+has never before been accomplished on any ring frame.
+
+We invite you to examine this invention at the fair, and also call your
+attention to the adjustable roller beam, by means of which the rolls can
+be adjusted at any desirable angle or pitch, so as to throw the twist
+more or less directly into the bite of the rolls, according to the
+character of the yarn desired, or the quality of the stock used.
+
+Finally, we claim, by the use of this invention, to be able to spin any
+fibrous material which can be drawn by draught-rolls, of any required
+degree of softness of twist, such as can be spun by any mule whatever,
+and to do this with the attention only of children of from twelve to
+fourteen years of age.
+
+We also claim an increased production, owing to less breakage of ends,
+from the yarn not being overstrained in spinning, and an improvement in
+the quality of the yarn from the same cause, which will increase the
+production from the loom, and finally eradicate other objectionable
+features of the labor question, which so often disturb the peaceful
+harmony between labor and capital.
+
+Mr. Goulding asked if it had been demonstrated whether more or less
+power was required for the same numbers than by other methods, and Col.
+Webber replied that no more power was required to move the rings than
+was saved by friction on the ring and the saving of weight of the
+bobbins. He thought it required no more power than the old way.
+
+_The method of lubricating the ring_.--The inventor, who was present,
+stated, in response to a query, that he claimed an advantage for his
+ring in spinning all numbers from the very coarsest up, both in quality
+and quantity, and especially the former.
+
+Mr. Garsed inquired of Col Webber what would be the effect of running
+the machine a little out of true, and the reply was that the advantage
+of the new method over the old would be more apparent in such a case
+than with a perfect frame. In regard to speed, the inventor proposed
+as a maximum rate, when the wind was at the tip of the bobbin, 300
+revolutions per minute, but from this point the speed would diminish.
+
+It was suggested by a member that the only advantage of a revolving ring
+was to relieve the strain on the traveler just to the extent of the
+ring's revolutions. If the ring were making 300 revolutions per minute,
+and the traveler 6,000, the strain on the latter would be equal to 5,700
+revolutions on a stationary ring. Col. Webber, however, thought that the
+motion of the ring gave the traveler a lift that prevented its stopping
+at any particular point, and cited the fact that all numbers up to 400
+could be spun with this ring as proof of its superiority over the old
+method.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+NEW GAS BURNER.
+
+
+Speaking at the last meeting of the Gaslight and Coke Company, Mr.
+George Livesey said many things with a view to inspire confidence of the
+future in the minds of timid gas proprietors. Among others he mentioned
+the advances now being made by invention in regard to improved
+appliances for developing the illuminating power of coal gas, with
+especial reference to a new burner just patented by Mr. Grimston. Mr.
+Livesey passed a very high encomium upon the burner, and this expression
+of opinion by such an authority is sufficient to arouse deep interest in
+the apparatus in question. It is therefore with much pleasure that we
+present our readers with the following early account of Mr. Grimston's
+burner, for which we are indebted to the inventor and Mr. George Bower,
+of St. Neots, in whose manufactory the burners are now being made in all
+sizes. It should be premised, to save disappointment, that the invention
+is yet so fresh that its ultimate capabilities are unknown. The
+accompanying illustration, therefore, represents the bare skeleton of
+one of the first models; and the actual performance of only the very
+earliest burner, made in great part by Mr. Grimston himself, has been
+fully tested. Before proceeding to describe the invention, a brief
+history may be interesting of how it happened that Mr. Grimston, an
+electric lighting engineer, became a gas burner maker. The story will
+undoubtedly help to explain the reasons for many of the characteristics
+of the new burner.
+
+[Illustration: IMPROVED GAS BURNER. FIG. 1.--Sectional Elevation.]
+
+It appears, then, that Mr. Grimston, who was connected with the
+electrical engineering establishment of Siemens Bros. & Co., Limited,
+was some months ago shown the construction and working of the Siemens
+regenerative gas burner, which is now sufficiently well known to render
+a description unnecessary here. In common with most spectators of this
+very ingeniously and philosophically designed appliance, Mr. Grimston
+was struck with its bulk and the superficial clumsiness of the
+arrangement whereby the air and gas supply are heated in it by the
+products of combustion. These lamps have, of course, materially improved
+of late; but when Mr. Grimston first saw them, perhaps 18 months ago,
+they certainly could not be called neat and compact in design. He
+at once grasped the idea embodied in these lamps, and set about
+constructing an arrangement which should be based on a similar
+principle, but at the same time avoid the inconveniences complained of.
+It is not too much to say that he has succeeded in both these aims, and
+the burner which now bears his name strikes the observer at once by
+the brilliant light which it produces by the simplest and most
+obvious means. We may now describe, by reference to the accompanying
+illustrations, how Mr. Grimston produces the regenerative effect which
+is likewise the central idea of the Siemens burner.
+
+[Illustration: IMPROVED GAS BURNER. FIG. 2.--Section through A B.]
+
+The light is simply that produced by an arrangement of a kind of Argand
+burner turned upside down. The central gas-pipe, _a_ (Figs. 1 and 3), is
+connected to a distributing chamber, whence the annular cluster of brass
+tubes, _a', a_, (Figs. 1 and 2), are prolonged downward, forming the
+burner. The burner is inclosed in an iron or brass annular casing, b, b,
+which forms the main framework of the apparatus. The annular space which
+it affords is the outlet chimney or flue for the products of combustion
+of the burner beneath, and is crossed by a number of thin brass tubes,
+c, c, which lead from the outer air into the inner space containing
+the burner tubes, a', a', already described. The upper openings of the
+annular body, b, are shown at e, e (Fig. 3), which communicate direct
+with the chimney proper, e', e'. The burner is lighted by opening the
+hinged glass cover, d, which fits practically air-tight on the bottom
+of the body, so that the air needed to support combustion must all pass
+through the tubes, c, c, the outer ends of which are protected by the
+casing, k, k.
+
+[Illustration: IMPROVED GAS BURNER. FIG. 3.--Section through C D.]
+
+When the gas is lighted at the burner, and the glass closed, the burner
+begins to act at once, although some minutes are necessarily required
+to elapse before its full brilliancy is gained. The cold air passes in
+through the tubes provided for it, and when these are heated to the
+fullest extent on their outside, by the hot fumes from the burner, they
+so readily part with their heat to the air that a temperature of 1,000°
+to 1,200° Fahr. is easily obtained in the air when it arrives inside,
+and commences in turn to heat the burner-tubes. The air-tubes are placed
+so as to intercept the hot gases as completely as possible; and also, of
+course, obtain heat by conduction from the sides of the annular body.
+It is evident that the number and dimensions of these tubes might be
+increased so as to abstract almost all the heat from the escaping fumes,
+but for the limitations imposed, first, by a consideration of the actual
+quantity of air required to support combustion, and, secondly, by the
+obligation to let sufficient ascensional power remain in the gases which
+are left to pass out through the upper chimney. If the gases are cooled
+too much, they will either fall back into the lamp and extinguish the
+flame, or will be removable only by the draught of a long chimney. It
+will probably be the aim of the inventor to balance these requirements,
+and so to produce burners with very short or longer chimneys, according
+as appearance is to be consulted or the highest possible effect
+produced. The burner is a ring of brass tubes of considerable diameter,
+in proportion to the quantity of gas consumed, and thus provides for
+the delivery of gas expanded by heat. In connection with this device
+an explanation may be found of the failure of the British Association
+Committee on Gas Burners to find any advantage from previously heating
+the air and gas consumed. The Committee did not make the necessary
+provision for the increased bulk of the combustible and its air supply,
+caused by their heightened temperature; and the same quantity of gas
+measured cold (at the meter) could only be driven through the ordinary
+small burner holes at a velocity destructive of good results. Herr
+Frederick Siemens perceived this in his early experiments, and not only
+increased the orifices of his burners, but provided for the closer
+contact of the more rarefied gas and air by the use of notched
+deflectors, which are now an essential part of his apparatus. Mr.
+Grimston also uses separate tubes of large area for his hot gas, but
+dispenses with deflectors, save in so far as the same duty may be
+performed by the plain lower edge of the inner cylinder of the lamp
+body, and the indentation of the glass beneath, which, as will be
+noticed, is made to follow the shape of the flame. It only remains now
+to speak of the flame and its qualities. It is, in the first place, a
+flame of hot gas, burning at an extremly small velocity of flow, and
+wholly exposed to view from the exact point which it is required to
+light. In this latter respect it differs materially, and with advantage,
+from the Siemens burner, which, while presenting an extremely brilliant
+and beautiful ball of flame outside its central tube of porcelain, may
+yet be tailing smokily downward inside this opaque screen, and thereby
+causing unperceived waste. The flame of the Grimston burner, on the
+other hand, is quite exposed, and all its light, from the ends of the
+burner-tubes to the point where visible combustion ceases, is made
+available for use. As a perfect Argand flame in the usual position has
+been likened in form to a tulip flower, so the flame of this burner
+presents the appearance of an inverted convolvulus. So far as he has
+already gone, Mr. Grimston prefers to keep the tubes of the burner at
+such a distance from each other that the several jets part at the point
+where they turn upward, so that the convolvulus figure is not maintained
+to the edge of the flame. From its peculiar position the light is, of
+course, completely shadowless as regards the lamp which affords it; and
+this, of itself, is no small recommendation for a pendant. It shows well
+for the simplicity and effectiveness of the perfected burners that Mr.
+Grimston's experimental example, although necessarily imperfect In many
+ways, burns with a remarkably steady light, of great brilliancy, which
+is assured by the fact that the products of combustion are robbed of all
+their heat to magnify the useful effect, so that the hand may be borne
+with ease over the outlet of the chimney. With respect to the endurance
+of the apparatus, it will be sufficient to remark that there is nothing
+in the gas or air heating arrangements to get out of order, and they are
+all easily accessible while the burner is in action. The glass is not
+liable to breakage, although it is in close proximity to the flame, as
+may be gathered from the testimony of the inventor, who has never broken
+one, notwithstanding the severity of some of his experimental studies
+upon his first lamp. The consumption of gas in the first working-model
+burner made by Mr. Grimston was 10 cubic feet per hour, and its
+illuminating power averaged 60 candles. The diameter of this burner was
+1¼ inches across the tubes. It is scarcely necessary to state that if
+this high duty, which was obtained with the ordinary 16-candle gas of
+the Gaslight and Coke Company, can be maintained, to say nothing of
+being exceeded, in the commercial article, the Grimston burner, with its
+other advantages over all existing methods of obtaining equal results,
+has a great future before it. For example, it does not require a
+separate air supply under high pressure, or any extra material to render
+incandescent, and it may be turned on full immediately upon lighting. It
+throws a shadowless light, and lends itself to ventilating arrangements;
+and it is not by any means cumbersome, delicate in construction, or
+costly in manufacture. One of the greatest advantages to which it lays
+claim is, however, the power of yielding almost as good results in a
+small burner as in a large one. This is a consideration of great moment,
+when it is remembered that the tendency of most of the high power
+burners hitherto introduced is to benefit the lighting of streets,
+large interiors, and, generally speaking, points of great consumption.
+Meanwhile, the private user of burners, consuming from 3 to 5 cubic feet
+of gas per hour, has been left to attain as best he might, by the use of
+burners excellent of their kind, to the maximum effect of the standard
+Argand. Now, however, Mr. Grimston seeks to make the small consumer
+partake of the advantages erstwhile reserved for the wholesale user of
+large and costly Siemens and other lamps, and he even looks to this
+class of patrons with particular care. The example which we now
+illustrate, in Fig. 1, is a sectional presentment precisely half the
+actual size of a 5-foot burner, which it is intended to prepare for
+the market before all others. Another simple form of the burner, with
+vertical tubes, will, we understand, be introduced as soon as possible.
+It will be readily understood that the principle is capable of being
+embodied in many shapes; and it is satisfactory to learn that the
+inventor is quite alive to the necessity of producing a cheap as well as
+a good burner.
+
+Gas companies, as Mr. Livesey has expressed it, will be well content
+with a slower relative growth of consumption, if their consumers are at
+the same time making their gas go as far again as formerly, by the use
+of burners which turn nominal 16-candle gas into gas of 30-candle actual
+illuminating power. How far Mr. Grimston's invention may succeed in this
+work it is not for us to say. It is sufficient for the present that
+he has done excellently well in showing how Herr Frederick Siemens'
+scientific principles of regenerative gas burner construction may
+be carried out yet in another way. There is nothing more common in
+industrial annals than for one man to begin a work which another is
+destined to bring to greater perfection. Whether this natural process is
+to be repeated in the present instance must be left for the future to
+decide. In any case, Mr. Grimston's success, if success is to be his
+reward, though it will be well merited by his ingenuity and perseverance
+in solving a difficult problem, will never cause us to forget the
+prior claims of Herr Frederick Siemens, of Dresden, to the palm of the
+discoverer. Mr. Grimston may or may not be the happy inventor of the
+best gas-burner of the day; but there is the consolation of knowing that
+in the same field in which he will find his recompense there is room for
+any number and variety of useful improvements of a like character and
+object.--_Journal of Gas Lighting_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+DEFTY'S IMPROVEMENTS IN GAS BURNERS AND HEATERS.
+
+
+Among other inventors who have turned their attention to gas consumption
+is to be found Mr. H. Defty, who has made several forms both of heating
+and lighting burners. Mr. Defty has sought in the latter to apply the
+principle of heating the air and gas in a simple manner, with the object
+of obtaining improved photometrical results. The double-chimney
+Argand, as tried many years since by Dr. Frankland and others, makes
+a reappearance in one of Mr. Defty's models, illustrated in the
+accompanying diagram (Fig. 1).
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 1.]
+
+Here we have the double-chimney, a and b, for heating the air supplied
+to an ordinary Argand, by causing it to pass downward between the two
+chimneys, and inward to the point of combustion through a wire-gauze
+screen, c, under the inner chimney; but, in addition thereto, Mr. Defty
+hopes to gain an improved result by causing the gas to pass through the
+internal tube, s, which rises up in the middle of the flame. The gas,
+which enters at e, is made to pass up through the inner tube and down
+through the annular space to the burner.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 2.]
+
+A more important form of lantern is the subject of the next diagram
+(Fig. 2), which shows a suspended globe lantern in which there is an
+attempt made to heat the air by the waste heat of the products of
+combustion. It will be perceived by the diagram that a globe lantern is
+furnished with a double chimney; the annular space, C, between the
+inner and outer chimneys allowing for the access of air in a downward
+direction. At the lower of this annular channel are the tubes D,
+protected by the graduated mesh, E, and which admit the air to the
+burner below. The products of combustion of the flame rise through the
+inner chimney, passing around the tubes, and thereby giving up some of
+their heat to the incoming air. Farther up, the chimney is partly filled
+with the convoluted gas-pipe, A, which also takes up some of the waste
+heat, and delivers the gas to the burner at a correspondingly high
+temperature. A very simple method of lighting this burner, which in
+itself does not present anything remarkable, is arranged at the lower
+part of the globe, where a hole is cut and a loose conical glass plug
+(which can, of course, be made to partake of the general ornamentation
+of the globe) may be pushed up to allow of the passage of the lighting
+agent, and is then dropped in its place again. Formal tests of the
+performances of these burners are not available; and the same may be
+said of the heating burners which are shown in the following diagrams.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 3.]
+
+The first of these (Fig. 3) is called by Mr. Defty a "pyramid heater,"
+and is designed to heat the mixture of air and gas before ignition, by
+conduction from its own flame. The inventor claims to effect a perfect
+combustion in this manner with considerable economy of fuel. It is
+evident, however, that a good deal of the gas consumed goes to heat the
+burner itself.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 4.]
+
+The next and last of Mr. Defty's productions to be at present described
+is the so-called "crater burner," shown herewith (Fig. 4). This is an
+atmospheric burner which is purposely made to "fire back," as well as
+to burn on the top of the apparatus. The body of the burner, like the
+pyramid heater just described, is full of fire-clay balls, which become
+very hot from the lower flame, and thus, after the burner has been for
+some time in action, a pale, lambent blaze crowns the top, apparently
+greater in volume than when it is first lighted. Here, again, there is a
+lamentable absence of reliable data as to economic results, which will,
+perhaps, be afforded when the apparatus in question is ready to be
+offered to the public.
+
+Whether one inventor or another succeeds in distancing his rivals, it is
+matter, says _The Journal of Gas Lighting_, for sincere congratulation
+among the friends of gas lighting that so much attention is being
+concentrated upon the improvement of gas burners for all purposes. This
+is an open field which affords scope for more workers than have yet
+entered upon it, and there is the certainty of substantial reward to
+whoever can realize a worthy advance upon the established practice.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+NEW BINDING MACHINES.
+
+
+The accompanying cuts represent two new machines for binding together
+books and pamphlets. They are the invention of Messrs. Brehmer & Co.,
+and are now much used in England and Germany. The material used for
+binding is galvanized iron wire.
+
+_Machine Operated by Hand_ (Fig. 1).--This machine serves for fastening
+together the pages of pamphlets through the middle of the fold, or for
+binding together several sheets to form books up to a thickness of about
+half an inch.
+
+It consists of a small cast-iron frame, with which is articulated a
+lever, _i_, maneuvered by a handle, _h_. This lever is provided at its
+extremity with a curved slat, in which engages a stud, fixed to the
+lower part of a movable arm, _c_, whose extremity, _d_, rises and
+descends when the lever handle, _h_, is acted upon. This maneuver can be
+likewise performed by the foot, if the handle, _h_, be connected with a
+pedal, X, placed at the foot of the table that supports the machine,
+as shown in Fig. 2. The lever, _i_, is always drawn back to its first
+position, when left to itself, by means of the spring, _z_.
+
+[Illustration: IMPROVED BINDING MACHINE.]
+
+The staples for binding have nearly the form of the letter U, and are
+placed, to the number of 250 or 300, on small blocks of wood, _m_. To
+prepare the machine for work, the catch, _a_, is shoved back, and the
+whole upper part of the piece, _b_, is removed. The rod, _e_, with its
+spring, is then drawn back until a small hole in _e_ is perceived,
+and into this there is introduced the hook, _f_, which then holds the
+spring. The block of wood, _m_, filled with staples, is then rested
+against a rectangular horizontal rod, and into this latter the staples
+are slipped by hand. The upper part of the piece, _b_, is next put in
+place and fastened with the catch, _a_. Finally, the spring is freed
+from the hook, _f_. When it is desired to bind the pages of a pamphlet,
+the latter is placed open on the support, _g_, which, as will be
+noticed, is angular above, so that the staple may enter exactly on the
+line of the fold. Then the handle, _h_, is shoved down so as to act on
+the arm, _c_, and cause the descent of the extremity, _d_, as well as
+the vertical piece, _b_, with which it engages. This latter, in its
+downward travel, takes up one of the staples, which are continually
+thrust forward by the rod and spring, and causes it to penetrate the
+paper. At this moment, the handle, _h_, makes the lever, _n_, oscillate,
+and this raises, through its other extremity, a vertical slide whose
+head bends the two points of the staple toward each other. The handle,
+_h_, is afterward lifted, the position of the pamphlet is changed, and
+the same operation is repeated. When it is desired to form a book from
+a number of sheets, the table, _l_, is mounted on the support, _g_, its
+two movable registers are regulated, and the sheets are spread out flat
+on it. The machine, in operating, drives the staples in along the edge
+of the sheets, and the points are bent over, as above indicated.
+
+The axis on which the lever, _i_, is articulated is eccentric, and is
+provided on the side opposite the lever with a needle, _k_, revolving
+on a dial. The object of this arrangement is to regulate the machine
+according to the thickness of the book.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
+
+_Machine to be Operated by a Motor_ (Fig. 3).--This machine, although
+working on the same principle, is of an entirely different construction.
+It is designed for binding books of all dimensions. It consists of a
+frame, _a_, in two pieces, connected by cross-pieces, and carries a
+table, _u_, designed to receive the sheets before being bound together.
+Motion is transmitted by means of a cone, _c_, mounted loose on the
+shaft, _b_. To start the machine, the foot is pressed on the pedal, _m_,
+which, through the intermedium of links and arms, brings together the
+friction plates, _d_, one of which is connected with the shaft, _b_, and
+the other with the cone, _c_. When it is desired to stop the machine,
+the pedal is left free to itself, while the counterpoise, _s_, ungears
+the friction plates. The machine fastens the paper with galvanized iron
+wire wound round bobbins placed at the side of the apparatus. This wire
+it cuts, and forms into staples.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
+
+The book to be bound is placed on the support, _h_, and the arms, _k_,
+that carry the fasteners cause it to move backward and forward. It also
+undergoes a second motion--that is, it moves downward according to the
+number and thickness of its pages. This motion, which takes place
+every time the operator adds a new sheet, is regulated by a cog-wheel
+register, _l_, which is divided, and provided with a needle.
+
+The iron wires pass from the bobbins on a support to the left of the
+machine by means of feed rollers, which thrust them through the eight
+clips. In the interior of these latter there is a double knife, which,
+actuated by one of the cams of the wheel, _e_, cuts the wire and bends
+it thus [Inline Illustration]. The extremities of the staples are thrust
+through the back of the half opened leaves, and then bent toward each
+other thus [Inline Illustration], by the front fastener. This motion is
+effected by means of two levers, _p_ (moved by the cams, _e_), whose
+extremities at every revolution of the machine seize by the two ends a
+link that maneuvers the fasteners. The binding of one sheet finished,
+the lower arms of the machine again take their position, the wires move
+forward the length necessary to form new staples, a new sheet is laid,
+and the same operation is proceeded with. The number of staples and
+their distance are changed, according to the size of the book, by
+introducing into the machine as much wire as will be necessary for the
+staples. To prevent their number from increasing the thickness of the
+back of the book (as would happen were they superposed), the support,
+_h_, moves laterally at every blow, so as to cause the third staple to
+be driven over the first, the second over the fourth, etc.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+FLUMES AND THEIR CONSTRUCTION.
+
+
+In crossing ravines in this State, flumes or wrought iron pipes are
+used. Many miners object to flumes on account of their continual cost
+and danger of destruction by fire. Where used and practicable, they
+are set on heavier grades than ditches, 30 to 35 ft. per mile, and,
+consequently, are proportionately of smaller area than the ditches. In
+their construction a straight line is the most desirable. Curves, where
+required, should be carefully set, so that the flume may discharge its
+maximum quantity. Many ditches in California have miles of fluming. The
+annexed sketch, drawn by A. J. Bowie, Jr., will show the ordinary style
+of construction.
+
+[Illustration: SKETCH OF FLUME.]
+
+The planking ordinarily used is of heart sugar pine, one and a half to
+two inches thick, and 12 to 18 inches wide. Where the boards join, pine
+battens three inches wide by one and a half thick cover the seam. Sills,
+posts, and caps support and strengthen the flume every four feet. The
+posts are mortised into the caps and sills. The sills extend about
+20 inches beyond the posts, and to them side braces are nailed to
+strengthen the structure. This extension of the sill timbers affords a
+place for the accumulation of snow and ice, and in the mountains such
+accumulations frequently break them off, and occasionally destroy a
+flume.
+
+To avoid damage from slides, snow, and wind storms, the flumes are set
+in as close as possible to the bank, and rest, wholly or partially, on
+a solid bed, as the general topography and costs will admit. Stringers
+running the entire length of the flume are placed beneath the sills just
+outside of the posts. They are not absolutely necessary, but in point of
+economy are most valuable, as they preserve the timbers. As occasion
+may demand, the flume is trestled, the main supports being placed every
+eight feet. The scantling and struts used are in accordance with the
+requirements of the work.--_Min. and Sci. Press_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHUWAB'S ROLLING MILL FOR DRESSING AND ROUNDING BAR IRON.
+
+
+This new forge apparatus has been devised for the purpose of finishing
+up round irons of all diameters while hot, as they come out of
+the ordinary rolling mill, by rendering them perfectly circular,
+cylindrical, straight, smooth, and level at the extremities, as if they
+had passed through a slide lathe. Such a high degree of external finish
+is a very valuable feature in those round irons that are employed in so
+great quantity for shafting, cylindrical axles, etc., as well as in the
+manufacture of bolts and locks. Figs. 1, 2, 3, and 4 of the opposite
+engraving will allow it to be seen that this apparatus which is usually
+installed at the side of the finishing cylinder is, in part, beneath
+the general level of the forge floor. It may be placed parallel with or
+perpendicular to the apparatus that it does duty for, this depending
+upon the site at disposal or the mode of transmission.
+
+The apparatus consists essentially of two tempered iron cylinders, A,
+0.5 of a meter in diameter by 1.5 meters in length, revolving in the
+_same direction_ (contrary to what takes place in ordinary rolling
+mills) between two frames, B, that are open on one side to allow of
+the entrance of the finishing bar. This latter is held between the
+cylinders, A, which roll it so much the faster in proportion as its
+diameter is smaller, and by a scraper guide, C, of the same length as
+the cylinder table, and which may be regulated at will by bolts, c,
+fixed to the frame, B. The bottom cylinder remains always in the same
+position, while the axle, D, which carries the intermediate wheels, E,
+moves about to gear in all the relative positions of the cylinders. The
+displacement of the upper cylinder is effected through the clamping
+screws, b, which are actuated by toothed disks that gear with two
+endless screws keyed at the extremities of one shaft in common, d, which
+is set in motion by hand through the winches, m m. The scraper guards, e
+e, take up and throw aside all scales that might become attached to the
+cylinders, which are constantly moistened by small streams of water
+coming from an ordinary conduit.
+
+[Illustration: CHUWAB'S DRESSING AND ROUNDING ROLLING MILL.
+
+Fig. 1--Elevation and Longitudinal Section.
+
+Fig. 2--Side View.
+
+Fig. 3--Transvers Section.
+
+Fig. 4--Plan View.
+
+Figs. 5 & 6--Saws for Dressing the Extremities of the Bars.
+
+Fig. 7--Diagram Showing the Motion of the Wheels and Guide.
+
+Figs. 8 & 9--Apparatus for Shifting tha Bars.]
+
+As the driving belts are mounted on pulleys, G, of a diameter
+proportioned to the velocity of the shafting, the iron pinions, h, in
+order to produce 60 revolutions per minute in the first shaft, H, gear
+on each side with the intermediate wheels, E, and these actuate the
+two bronze pinions, a a, that are mounted on the extremities of the
+cylinders, A A. The axle, D, of the intermediate wheels does not revolve
+with them, but is capable of rising and descending in the elongated
+aperture that traverses the frames, B. The displacement of this axle is
+secured through the arms, L L, whose extremities articulate on the one
+hand with the cylinders, A A, and on the other with D. The result of
+this is that every displacement upward of the top cylinder corresponds
+to a different position of the intermediate shaft, and one that is
+always equidistant from the centers of the cylinders, A A, thus securing
+a constant gearing of the wheels in all the positions of the cylinders,
+A A.
+
+The diagram in Fig. 7 shows the relative displacements of all these
+parts, as well as those of the scraper guide, C. The diameter to be
+obtained is determined beforehand by the two contact screws, P.
+
+The whole thus regulated, the bar of iron, still very hot, coming from
+the ordinary rollers, is straightened up, if need be, by a few blows of
+a hammer, so that it may roll forward over the pavement, N, between the
+rounding cylinders, A A; these being held apart sufficiently to allow
+of its easy introduction. Next, a few revolutions of the winches that
+control the screws suffice to lower the upper cylinder to the exact
+position limited by the contact screws, P, and the bar is rolled between
+the two cylinder tables with a constant velocity in the generatrices. As
+a consequence, the number of revolutions made is so much the greater in
+proportion as the diameter of the shaft is smaller with respect to that
+of the cylinders.
+
+It should be remarked that the bar, during its rotation under pressure,
+is held by the guide, C, so that its diagrammatic axis (Fig. 7) exceeds
+the line, A A, joining the centers of the cylinders just enough to
+prevent its escape to the opposite, and so that the pressure upon the
+said guide (which performs the role of scraper) is merely sufficient to
+detach the scales which form during the operation.
+
+Under such conditions, and at a velocity of 30 revolutions per minute in
+the two cylinders, it will take but a fraction of a minute to finish
+a bar the length of the table, that is to say, 1.5 meters. Then, by
+loosening the upper cylinder, the bar may be easily shoved along in one
+direction or the other, so as to continue the finishing operation
+on successive lengths. This moving of the bar forward is further
+facilitated by the aid of a clamp with rollers and a movable socket,
+V (Figs. 8 and 9). For large diameters (150 millimeters and beyond)
+traction is employed by the aid of two small windlasses placed opposite
+each other, and at a distance apart twice the greatest length of the
+bars to be finished. The chains of these windlasses are attached to the
+extremities by clamps that lock by the pulling exerted.
+
+The details of the arrangement of the saws (Figs. 5 and 6) show that to
+make a section of the ends or of any other part of the bar, it is only
+necessary to lower the lever of one them. By reason of the contrary
+rotation of the bar, the effective stress on the lever will be very
+moderate, while the cut produced will be a clean and quickly performed
+one. It should be remarked that, as a consequence of the cone on the
+projecting extremity of the cylinder journals (Fig. 5), and on the
+rollers that control the saws, it is only necessary to move the lever to
+the right or left in order to stop the motion of each of the saws. These
+latter, to prevent all possibility of accident, are inclosed within
+semicircular guards. Finally, the controlling rollers are made of a
+material which is quite elastic (compressed cardboard, for example), so
+that they may roll smoothly and adhere well.
+
+From what precedes, it will be seen that round iron bars of any diameter
+will come from this apparatus completely finished. It will be seen
+also that with cylinders of suitable profile, there might likewise be
+finished axles, or pieces that are more or less conical as well as those
+provided with shoulders.
+
+The apparatus may, if preferred, be driven by small special motors
+affixed to the frame. Such an arrangement, which is more costly than the
+preceding, is, nevertheless, indicated in cases where shafting would be
+in the way.
+
+The weight of the materials entering into the construction of this
+machine, proposed by Mr. Chuwab, includes about 15 tons of metal,
+of which 5,000 kilogrammes are for the two tempered cylinders; 250
+kilogrammes of iron screws, and 350 of bolts; and 500 kilogrammes of
+bronze, 90 of which are for nuts.--_Revue Industrielle_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE BURNING OF TOWN REFUSE AT LEEDS.
+
+[Footnote: From selected papers of the Institution of Civil Engineers,
+London, by Charles Slagg, Assoc. Memb. Inst. C.E.]
+
+
+In large towns it is necessary to adopt some regular system of removal
+and disposal of the cinders and ashes of house fires, and of the animal
+and vegetable refuse of the houses, and, in short, of everything thrown
+away which cannot be admitted into the sewers. In towns where the
+excreta are separated by means of water closets, the disposal of the
+other refuse presents less difficulty, but still a considerable one,
+because the animal and vegetable refuse is not kept separate from the
+cinders and ashes, all being thrown together into the ash pit or dust
+bin. The contents, therefore, cannot be deposited upon ground which may
+afterward be built upon, although that custom obtained generally in
+former times. Hence the refuse has been removed to a depot where that
+wretched industry is created of picking out the other parts from the
+cinders and ashes.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 1.--DESTRUCTOR.
+
+Elevation.
+
+Section through feeding-holes of cells.
+
+Section through air-passages of cells.]
+
+But in towns unprovided with water closets, or so far as they are not
+adopted in any town, where the privies are connected with the ash pits,
+and where, consequently, the excreta of the population are added to the
+other contents of ash pits, the difficulties of removal and disposal of
+the refuse are much increased.
+
+Where the privy-ashpit system is in use--as it still is to a large
+extent--as much of the contents of the ash pits as can be sold at any
+price, however small, are collected separately from the drier portions,
+and sent out of town as manure; but what remains is still too offensive
+to be deposited on ground near the town; and when it is attempted to
+collect the excreta separately by the pail system, the process is no
+less unsatisfactory. These difficulties led to the adoption, under the
+advice of the late Mr. A.W. Morant, M. Inst. C.E., the Borough Engineer
+at Leeds, of Fryer's method of destruction by burning--that is, of the
+dry ashes and cinders and the animal and vegetable refuse. The
+author was Mr. Morant's assistant. The first kiln was constructed at
+Burmantofts, 1½ miles from the center of the town in a northeasterly
+direction, and has been in use since the beginning of the year 1878. In
+1879 another kiln was constructed at Armley Road, a mile from the center
+of the town in a west-southwesterly direction, which has been in use
+since the beginning of 1880.
+
+Each destructor kiln has six cells, three in each face of a block of
+brick work 22 feet long, 24 feet through from face to face, and 12 feet
+high. Each cell is 8 feet long and 5 feet wide, arched over, the height
+being 3 feet 4 inches, and both the bottom and arch of the cell slope
+down to the furnace doors with an inclination of 1 in 3. The lower end
+of each cell has about 26 square feet of wrought-iron firebars, the
+hearth being 4½ feet above the ground.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 2.--CARBONIZER.
+
+Section through furnaces.
+
+Longitudinal section.
+
+Cross section.]
+
+There are two floors, one on the ground level, a few feet only above the
+outlet for drainage, the other floor, or raised platform, being 15 feet
+above it. The refuse is taken in carts up an incline of 1 in 14 on
+cast-iron tram plates to the upper floor, and deposited upon and
+alongside of the destructor, and is shoveled into a row of hoppers at
+the head of the cells. These hoppers are in the middle of the width of
+the destructor, and each communicates with a cell on each side of it.
+The refuse is always damp, and often wet, and after being put into
+the cells is gradually dried by the heat reflected upon it from the
+firebrick arch of the cell, before it descends to the furnace. This
+distinguishes the system from the common furnace, and enables the wet
+material to be burned without other fuel. No fresh fuel is used after
+the fires are once lighted. The vapor passes off with the gases of
+combustion into a horizontal flue between the two rows of cells, through
+an opening at the head of each cell, alongside that through which the
+refuse is fed into it, the two openings being separated by a firebrick
+wall. The refuse is prevented from falling into the flue by a bridge
+wall across the outlet opening, over which the gases pass into the flue.
+
+Between the destructor and the chimney a multitubular boiler is placed,
+which makes steam enough for grinding into sand the clinkers which are
+the solid residue of the burnt refuse. At Burmantofts an old chimney was
+made use of, which is but 84 feet high; but at Armley Road a new chimney
+was built, 6 feet square inside and 120 feet high. It is necessary to
+make the horizontal flue large; that at Armley Road is 9 feet high and 4
+feet wide. A large quantity of dust escapes from the cells--about 7 cwt.
+a month--and unless the velocity of the air in the flue between the
+destructor and the chimney were checked, the dust would be carried up
+the chimney and might cause complaints; as, indeed, it has done with the
+120-foot chimney, but whether with any substantial grounds is uncertain.
+The dust is removed from the horizontal flue or dust chamber once a
+month. Experience seems to indicate that there should be some sort of
+guard or grating to prevent the entry into the chimney of charred paper
+and similar light substances which do not fall to dust, and which are
+sometimes carried up with the draught.
+
+A six-celled destructor kiln burns about 42 tons of refuse in
+twenty-four hours, leaving about one-fourth of its bulk of clinkers and
+ashes. The clinkers are withdrawn from the furnaces five times each day
+and night, or about every two-and-a-half hours, into iron barrows, and
+wheeled outside the shed which covers the destructor, and when cold are
+wheeled back to the mortar mills, of which there are two at each depot,
+each having a revolving pan 8 feet in diameter, with 27-cwt. rollers,
+the pan making twenty two revolutions a minute. Forty shovelfuls of
+clinkers and twelve of slaked lime make 7 cwt. of mortar in thirty-five
+minutes in each pan, which is sold at 5s. 6d. per ton. The engine
+driving the two mortar mills has a 14 inch cylinder, 30 inches length
+of stroke, and makes sixty revolutions per minute with 45 pounds steam
+pressure per square inch in the boiler, when both mortar mills are
+running. The boiler is 11 feet long, 8 feet in diameter, and has 132
+tubes 4 inches in external diameter, which, together with the external
+flues, are cleaned out once a month.
+
+At first sight it would probably appear that no good mortar could be
+made from such refuse as has been described, but having passed through
+the furnace, the clinkers are, of course, perfectly clean, and with good
+lime make a really strong and excellent mortar. They are also largely
+used for the foundation of roadways.
+
+The number of men employed is as follows: Two furnace men in the daytime
+and two at night. They work from midnight on Sundays to 2 P.M. on
+Saturdays, the fires being fully charged and left to burn through the
+Sundays. One foreman, who attends also to the running of the engine, and
+one mortar man. A watchman attends while the workmen are off.
+
+In addition to a destructor, there is at the Burmautofts depot a
+"carbonizer" kiln, in which the sweepings of the vegetable markets are
+burned into charcoal. The carbonizer consists of eight vertical cells,
+in two sets or stacks of four, separated by a space containing two
+double furnaces, back to back, there being a double furnace also at each
+end of the eight cells. Each of the stacks of four cells is 15 feet
+6 inches high; the ends and middle parts, forming the tops of the
+furnaces, being 6 feet high. The block of brick work containing the
+eight cells and furnaces is 26 feet 6 inches long and 12 feet 4 inches
+wide at the floor level. Each cell is 3 feet 6 inches by 2 feet, and
+about 10 feet deep, with a chamber below about 3 feet deep, into which
+the charred material falls and is completely burned. The top of the
+cells is level with the upper platform, and they are fed through a loose
+cover, which is immediately replaced. Inside the cells cast-iron sloping
+shelves are hung upon the walls so that their upper edges touch the
+walls, but the lower edges are some inches off, so that the hot air of
+the furnaces passes upward behind the shelves round the four sides of
+the cell in a spiral manner, and out near the top into a vertical flue,
+which conducts it down to the horizontal flue at the bottom, which leads
+to the chimney. The charcoal is withdrawn from the bottom of the heating
+chamber through a sliding plate 2 feet above the floor, and is wheeled
+red hot to the charcoal cooler, which is a revolving cylinder, nearly
+horizontal, kept cool by water falling upon it, and delivers the
+charcoal in two degrees of fineness at the end. It is worked by a small
+attached engine, supplied with steam from the boiler before mentioned.
+Each cell of the carbonizer can reduce to charcoal 50 cwt. of vegetable
+refuse in twenty four hours, but at Leeds not quite so much is put
+through. The quantity of market refuse passed through six cells of the
+carbonizer varies from 3 to 10 tons a day, and averages about 4½ tons,
+from which 15 cwt. of charcoal is obtained. The fuel for burning the
+charcoal is derived from the ash pit refuse, some selected loads being
+for that purpose passed over a sloping screen fixed between the upper
+platform and the furnace floor, the fine ashes which pass through the
+screen being taken away to the manure heaps, and the combustible parts
+to the furnaces of the carbonizer. In this way a good deal of the ash
+pit refuse is got rid of; it is often one-twelfth part of the whole
+quantity.
+
+The carbonizer and the destructor are set 33 feet apart, to allow room
+for drawing the furnaces and for the mortar mills, but the space is
+hardly sufficient. One man is employed in attending to the carbonizer.
+
+Besides the openings at the top of the destructor through which the ash
+pit refuse is fed into the cells, there is a larger opening in each
+cell, kept covered usually, through which bed mattresses ordered by the
+medical sanitary office to be destroyed can be put into the cells. These
+openings are midway between the central openings and the furnace doors,
+and whatever is put into the cells through these comes into immediate
+contact with the fire. Advantage is taken of these openings for the
+destruction of dead animals and diseased meat, and as much as 20 tons in
+a year have been passed through the destructor.
+
+The whole works are roofed over. The lower floor is open on two sides,
+but the upper one is closed in, with weather boarding at Burmantofts and
+with corrugated iron at Armley Road. At the former place the works
+were in some measure experimental, and the platform was constructed
+of timber, but at Armley Road it is of plate-iron girders, with brick
+arching, weight being considered advantageous in reducing the vibration
+of carting heavy loads over it.
+
+The cost of each depot has been £4,500, exclusive of land, of which
+about an acre is required for the destructor, carbonizer, inclined road,
+weigh office, and space. A supply of water is necessary, a good deal
+being required for cooling the clinkers. The population of the two
+districts belonging to these works is about 160,000.
+
+The author has no longer any connection with the works described, and
+for the recent experience of their working he is indebted to Mr.
+John Newhouse, the superintendent of the sanitary department of the
+corporation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+GREEN WOOD.
+
+
+The specific volume of the different constituents of green woods has
+been estimated by M. Hartig to be as follows, per 1,000 parts: Hard
+green wood, fiber stuff, 441; water, 247; air, 312. Soft green wood,
+fiber stuff, 279; water, 317, air, 404. Evergreen wood, fiber stuff,
+270; water, 335; air, 395. A certain amount of water--7 or 8 per cent in
+all--is included with the fiber stuff, showing that about one-third only
+of the mass of the wood is solid stuff; the remainder is either water or
+air space.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE ARMITAGE HOUSE.
+
+
+This house is now in course of erection under the superintendence
+of Messrs. Salomons and Ely, in the Claremont road, Pendleton, near
+Manchester. The walls are faced in the lower part with red bricks,
+and red stone, from the neighborhood of Liverpool, is used for the
+window-dressings, etc. The upper part of walls will be faced with
+red tiles and half-timber work, and the roof will be covered with
+Staffordshire tiles. Lead lights will be largely used in the windows.
+Internally, the finish will be almost entirely in real woods, including
+walnut for the dining-room and vestibule, pitch-pine for the large hall,
+staircase, and billiard-room, ash for the morning-room, and oak for Mr.
+Armitage's own room. In all these the ceilings and dados are to be in
+wood. The contract for the whole of the above work, amounting to £6,507,
+is let to Mr. James Herd, of Manchester.--_Building News_.
+
+[Illustration: SUGGESTIONS IN ARCHITECTURE.--AN ENGLISH COUNTRY
+RESIDENCE.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE COLLOTYPE PROCESS IN PRACTICE.
+
+
+That theory and practice are two very different things holds good in
+photography especially, and perhaps in no other branch of our art have
+so many theoretical formulæ been promulgated as in the collotype or
+Lichtdruck process. As our readers are aware, we have had an opportunity
+of seeing collotype printing in operation in several European
+establishments of note, and have, from time to time, published in these
+columns our experiences. But requests still come to us so frequently
+for information on the process that we have deemed it well to make a
+practical summary for the benefit of those who are working--or desire to
+work--the method.
+
+The formulæ and manipulations here set down are those of Löwy, Albert,
+Allgeyer, and Obernetter, four of the best authorities on the subject,
+and we can assure our readers there is nothing described but what is
+actually practiced.
+
+_Glass Plate for the Printing Block_.--Herr Albert, of Munich, uses
+patent plate of nearly half an inch in thickness, as most of his work
+is printed upon the Schnell press (machine press). Herr Obernetter, of
+Vienna, since he only employs the slower and more careful hand
+press, prefers plate glass of ordinary thickness as being handier in
+manipulation and better adapted to the common printing-frame.
+
+Herr Löwy, of Vienna, again, uses plate glass a quarter of an inch
+thick, as his productions range from the finest to the roughest.
+
+_Preliminary Coating of the Glass Plate_.--Herr Albert's original plan
+was to apply a preliminary coating of bichromated gelatine to the thick
+glass plate, the film being exposed to light through the back of the
+glass, and thus rendered insoluble and tightly cemented to the surface;
+this film serving as a basis for the second sensitive coating, that
+was afterward impressed by the negative. This double treatment is now
+definitely abandoned in most Lichtdruck establishments, and, instead, a
+preliminary coating of soluble silicate and albumen dissolved in water
+is used.
+
+Herr Löwy's method and formula are as follows: The glass plate is
+cleaned, and coated with--
+
+    Soluble glass.             3 parts.
+    White of egg.              7 "
+    Water.               9 to 10 "
+
+The soluble glass must be free from caustic potash. The mixture, which
+must be used fresh, is carefully filtered, and spread evenly over the
+previously cleaned glass plate. The superfluous liquid is flowed off,
+and the film dried either spontaneously or by slightly warming. The film
+is generally dry in a few minutes, when it is rinsed with water, and
+again dried; at this stage the plate bears an open, porous film,
+slightly opalescent--so slight, however, as only to be observed by an
+experienced eye.
+
+_Application of the Sensitive Film_.--We now come to the second stage of
+the process, the application of a film of bichromated gelatine to the
+plate.
+
+Herr Löwy's formula is as follows:
+
+    Bichromate of potash.             16  grammes.
+    Gelatine.                          2½ ounces.
+    Water.                      20 to 22    "
+
+According to the weather, the amount of water must be varied; but in any
+case the solution is a very fluid one. An ounce is about 35 grammes, as
+most of our readers know. A practical collotypist sees at a glance the
+quality of the prepared plate, without any preliminary testing. A good
+preliminary film is a glass that is transparent, yet slightly dull; the
+film is so thin, you can scarcely believe it is there. The plate is
+slightly warmed upon a slate slab, underneath which is a water bath; it
+is then flooded with the above mixture of bichromated gelatine, leaving
+only sufficient to make a very thin film. When coated, the plate is
+placed in the drying chamber.
+
+_Drying the Sensitive Film_.--Much depends upon the drying. A water
+bath with gas burner underneath is used for heating, and a slate slab,
+perfectly level, receives the glass plate. The drying chamber is kept at
+an even temperature of 50° C.
+
+The object to be attained is a fine grain throughout the surface of the
+gelatine, and unless this grain is satisfactory the finished printing
+block never will be. If the gelatine film be too thick, then the grain
+will be coarse; or, again, if the temperature in drying be too high,
+there will be no grain at all. The drying is complete in two or three
+hours, and should not take longer.
+
+_The Negative to be Printed from_.--The sensitive film being upon the
+surface of a thick glass plate, it is necessary that the cliché or
+negative employed should be upon patent plate, or not upon glass at all,
+so as to insure perfect contact. Best of all, is to employ a stripped
+negative, in which case absolute contact is insured in printing. It is
+only in these circumstances that the most perfect impression can be
+secured. If the negative is otherwise satisfactory, and only requires
+stripping, it must be upon a leveling stand, and fluid gelatine of a
+tolerable consistence is poured over it. When dry, a pen-knife is run
+around the margin, and the film leaves the glass without any trouble.
+
+Herr Obernetter says that many of the negatives he receives have to be
+reproduced before they can be transformed into Lichtdruck plates, and
+he employs either the wet collodion process or the graphite method,
+according to circumstances. If the copy is desired to be softer than the
+original, collodion is employed; if vigor be desired, graphite is used,
+and here is his formula:
+
+    Dextrine.                        62    grains.
+    Ordinary white sugar.            77       "
+    Bichromate of ammonia.           30.8     "
+    Water.                            3.21 ounces.
+    Glycerine.                   2 to 8    drops.
+
+The film is dried at a temperature of 130° to 140° F. in about ten
+minutes, and while still warm is printed under a negative in diffused
+light for a period of five to fifteen minutes. In a well-timed print
+the image is slightly visible; the plate is again warmed a little above
+atmospheric temperature in a darkened room, and then fine levigated
+graphite is applied with a fine dusting brush, a sheet of white paper
+being held underneath to judge of the effect. Breathing upon the film
+renders it more capable of attracting the powder. When the desired vigor
+has been attained, the superfluous powder is dusted off, and the plate
+coated with normal collodion. Afterward the film is cut through at the
+margins of the plate by means of a sharp knife, and put into water. In a
+little while--from two to five minutes--the collodion, with the image,
+will be detached from the glass; the film is at once turned over in the
+water, and brought out upon the glass plate. Under a soft jet of water
+any air-bubbles that may exist between the collodion and the glass are
+removed, and then a solution of gum arabic (two grammes of gum dissolved
+in one hundred grammes of water) is poured over, and the film is allowed
+to dry spontaneously.
+
+_Exposure of the Printing Block under the Negative_.--The exposure
+is very rapid. Any one conversant with photolithographic work will
+understand this. At any rate, every photographer knows that bichromated
+gelatine is much more rapid than the chloride of silver he generally has
+to do with.
+
+There is no other way of measuring the exposure than by the photometer
+or personal experience, and the latter is by far the best.
+
+After leaving the printing frame, the plate is immersed in cold water.
+Here it remains at discretion for half an hour, or an hour; the purpose,
+of course, being to wash out the soluble bichromate. It is when the
+print comes out of this bath that judgment is passed upon it. An
+experienced eye tells at once what it is fit for. If it is yellow, the
+yellowness must be of the slightest; indeed, Herr Furkl (the manager of
+Herr Löwy's Lichtdruck department) will not admit that a good plate is
+yellow at all. A yellow tint means that it will take up too much ink
+when the roller is passed over it. The plates of Herr Obernetter,
+however, are rather more yellow than Herr Löwy's--certainly only a
+tinge, but still yellow; and Herr Obernetter's work proves, at any rate,
+that the yellowish tinge is by no means inseparable from good results.
+
+The washed and dried plate should appear like a design of ground and
+polished glass. The ground glass appearance is given by the grain. If
+there are pure high-lights (almost transparent) and opalescent shadows,
+the plate is a good one.
+
+_Printing from the Block_.--We have now a printing-block ready for the
+press. If it is to be printed by machinery--that is to say, upon a
+Schnell press--the surface is etched; if it has to be more carefully
+handled in a hand press, etching is rarely resorted to; it is moistened
+only with glycerine and water. To etch a plate for a Schnell press, it
+is placed upon a leveling stand, and the following solution is poured
+upon it:
+
+    Glycerine............................. 150 parts.
+    Ammonia................................ 50   "
+    Nitrate of potash (saltpeter)..........  5   "
+    Water.................................. 25   "
+
+Another equally good formula, recommended by Allgeyer, who managed Herr
+Albert's Lichtdruck printing for some years, is:
+
+    Glycerine............................. 500 parts.
+    Water................................. 500   "
+    Chloride of sodium (common salt)......  15   "
+
+In lieu of common salt, 15 parts of hyposulphite of soda, or other
+hygroscopic salt, such as chloride of calcium, may be employed.
+
+The etching fluid is permitted to remain upon the image for half an
+hour. During this time, by gently moving the finger to and fro over the
+surface, the swelling or relief of the image can be distinctly felt. The
+plate is not washed, but the etching fluid simply poured off, so that
+the film remains impregnated with the glycerine and water; at the most,
+a piece of bibulous paper is used to absorb any superfluous quantity of
+the etching fluid. After etching, the plate is taken straight to the
+printing press. The inking up and printing are done very much as
+in lithography. If it requires a practiced hand to produce a good
+lithographic print, it stands to reason that in dealing with a gelatine
+printing block, instead of a stone, skill and practice are more
+necessary still. Therefore at this point the photographer should hand
+over the work to the lithographer, or rather the Lichtdruck printer.
+It is only by coaxing judiciously, with roller and sponge, that a good
+printing block can be obtained, and no amount of teaching theoretically
+can beget a good printer. To appreciate how skillful a printer must be,
+it is only necessary to see the imperfect proofs that first result, and
+to watch how these are gradually improved by dint of rolling, rubbing,
+etching, cleaning, etc. In all Lichldruck establishments, two kinds of
+rollers are used, viz., of leather and glue. In some establishments,
+too, they employ two kinds of ink; but Herr Löwy manages to secure
+delicacy and vigor at the same time by using one ink, but rolling up
+with two kinds of roller.
+
+Collotype printing is not merely done by hand presses, but is also
+done by machinery. At Herr Albert's a gas engine of six-horse power is
+employed to drive the machines, and each machine requires the
+attention of a skilled mechanic and a girl. The press is very like the
+lithographic quick press. Upon a big steel bed lies the little collotype
+block. The glass printing block, with its brownish film of gelatine,
+moves horizontally to and fro, and, as it does so, passes under half a
+dozen rollers, which not only supply ink, but disperse it. Some of the
+rollers are of leather and others of glue, and, whenever the printing
+block retires from underneath them, an ink slab takes the place of the
+block, and imparts more ink to the rollers; sometimes as many as eight
+rollers are used, for the difficulty of machine printing is to apply the
+ink as delicately and equally as possible. It is necessary at intervals
+to damp the block, and when the printer in charge finds this to be the
+case, he stops the press, and applies a little glycerine and water
+with a cloth or sponge; then a leather roller is passed over to remove
+superfluous moisture, and the press is again started.
+
+Herr Obernetter relies upon the Star or Stern press--a small
+lithographic press--one man sufficing to manage it, who turns a wheel
+with large spokes, reminding one of the steering wheel of a ship. The
+Lichtdruck plate, gelatine film upward, is laid upon a sheet of plate
+glass by way of a bed, the plate having first been treated with a
+solution of glycerine and water; it is then inked up as previously
+described, except that Herr Obernetter uses two kinds of ink--a thick
+one and a thin--applied by two rollers of glue. In the first place, a
+moist sponge is rubbed over the surface; then a soft roller covered with
+wash-leather, and of the appearance of crêpe, is passed over two or
+three times to remove surplus moisture; then a roller charged with thick
+ink is put on, and then another with thin is applied. It takes fully
+five minutes to sponge and roll up a plate, the rolling being done
+gently and firmly. A sheet of paper is now laid upon the plate, the
+tympan is lowered, and the scraper adjusted with due pressure; a
+revolution of the wheel completes the printing, the well-known scraping
+action of the lithographic press being used in the operation.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 1.--ORDINARY NAPHTHA LIGHTER OF MR. LOISEAU.]
+
+Some Lichtdruck prints are printed upon thick plate-paper, and are ready
+for binding without further ado, these being for book illustrations.
+Other pictures, that are to pass muster among silver photographs, are,
+on the other hand, printed upon fine thin paper, and then sized by
+dipping in a thin solution of gelatine; after drying, they are further
+dipped in a solution of shellac and spirit.--_Photo. News_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+DOMESTIC ELECTRICITY.
+
+
+Among the most valuable, and, up to the present time, the least
+generally appreciated services that electricity can render for domestic
+purposes is that of its application in lighters. At the present epoch
+of indifferent matches, to have, instantaneously, a light by pulling
+a cord, pressing on a button, or turning a cock, is a thing worthy of
+being taken into serious consideration; and our own personal experience
+permits us to assert that, regarded from this point of view, electricity
+is capable of daily rendering inappreciable services.
+
+According to the nature of the application that is to be made of them,
+the places in which they are to be put, and the combustible that they
+are to inflame, etc., electric lighters vary greatly in form and
+arrangement.
+
+We shall limit ourselves here to pointing out the simplest and most
+practical of the numerous models of such apparatus that have been
+constructed up to the present time. All those that we shall describe
+are based on the incandescence of a platinum wire. A few have been
+constructed based on the induction spark, but they are more complicated
+and expensive, and have not entered into practical use. Before
+commencing to describe these apparatus, we shall make a remark in regard
+to the piles for working them, and that is that we prefer for this
+purpose Leclanché elements with agglomerated plates and a large surface
+of zinc. In order to bring about combustion in any given substance, it
+is necessary to bring near it an incandescent body raised to a certain
+temperature, which varies with the nature of the said substance, and
+which is quite low for illuminating gas, higher for petroleum, and a
+white heat for a wax taper or a candle. We have said that we make use
+exclusively of a platinum wire raised momentarily to incandescence by
+the passage of an electric current. The temperature of such wire will
+depend especially upon the intensity of the current traversing it;
+and, if this is too great, the platinum (chosen because of its
+inoxidizability and its elevated melting point) will rapidly melt;
+while, if the intensity is too little, the temperature reached by the
+wire will itself be too low, and no inflammation will be brought about.
+Practice soon indicates a means of obviating these two inconveniences,
+and teaches how each apparatus may be placed under such conditions that
+the wire will hardly ever melt, and that the lighting will always be
+effected. For the same intensity of current that traverses the wire,
+the temperature of the latter might be made to vary by diminishing or
+increasing its diameter. A very fine wire will attain a red heat through
+a very weak current, but it would be very brittle, and subject to break
+at the least accident. For this reason it becomes necessary to employ
+wires a little stronger, and varying generally from one to two-tenths
+of a millimeter in diameter. The current then requires to be a little
+intenser. The requisite intensity is easily obtained with elements
+of large surface, which have a much feebler internal resistance than
+porous-cup elements; and since, for a given number of elements, the
+intensity of the current decreases in measure as the internal resistance
+of the elements increases, it becomes of interest to diminish such
+internal resistance as much as possible. The platinum wires are usually
+rolled spirally, with the object in view of concentrating the heat into
+a small space, in order to raise the temperature of the wire as much as
+possible. There is thus need of a less intense current to produce the
+inflammation than with a wire simply stretched out. In fact, the same
+wire traversed by a current of constant intensity scarcely reaches a
+_red_ heat when it is straight, while it attains a _white_ heat when it
+is wound spirally, because, in the latter case, the cooling surface is
+less.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 2--RANQUE'S NEW FORM OF LIGHTER WITH EXTINGUISHER.]
+
+We shall now proceed to the examination of a few practical forms of
+electric lighters.
+
+In Fig. 1 will be seen quite a convenient spirit or naphtha lighter,
+which has been devised more especially for the use of smokers. By
+pushing the lamp toward the wall, the wick is brought into proximity
+with the spiral, and the lamp, acting on a button behind it, closes
+the current. Pressure on the lamp being removed, the latter moves back
+slightly, through the pressure of a small spring which thrusts on the
+button. Owing to this latter simple arrangement, the spiral never comes
+in contact with the flame, and may thus last for a long time. Mr.
+Loiseau, the proprietor of this apparatus, employs a very fine platinum
+wire, flattened into the form of a ribbon, and it takes only the current
+from a _single element_ to effect the inflammation of the wick. The
+system is so arranged that any one can easily replace in a moment the
+spiral that has accidentally got out of order; and, in order that this
+may be done, the maker has placed the spiral on a small, distinct piece
+that he styles the "conflagrator." The latter consists of two small,
+thin tubes of brass, held parallel and firmly by means of a brass
+cross-piece. A small bit of paper wound round each tube in front of the
+cross-brace insures insulation. The outer extremity of the two tubes
+supports the platinum spiral, which is fixed to them very simply by the
+aid of two small brass needles of conical form, which pinch the wire
+in the tube and hold it in place. There is nothing easier to do than
+replace the wire. All that is necessary is to remove the two little rods
+with a pair of pincers; to make a spiral of suitable length by rolling
+the wire round a pin; and to fix it into the tubes, as we have just
+explained. With two or three extra "conflagrators" on hand, there need
+never any trouble occur.
+
+In Fig. 2 we show a new and simple form of Mr. Ranque's lighter, in
+which an electro-magnet concealed in the base brings the spiral and
+the wick into juxtaposition. The extinguisher, which is balanced by
+a counterpoise, oscillates about a horizontal axis, and its support
+carries two small pins, against which act successively two notches in a
+piece of oval form, fixed on the side of the movable rods.
+
+In the position shown in the cut, on the first emission of a current the
+upper notch acts so as to depress the extinguisher, but the travel of
+the rods that carry the spiral is so limited that the latter does not
+strike against the extinguisher. On the next emission, the lower notch
+acts so as to raise the extinguisher, while the spiral approaches the
+wick and lights it. It is well to actuate these extinguishing-lighters,
+which may be located at a distance, not by a contact button, but by some
+pulling arrangement, which is always much more easy to find in the dark
+without much groping about. There might be used for such a purpose the
+very motion of the front door, when opened, for lighting the hall; but
+that would offer the inconvenience of operating likewise in the daytime,
+and of thus needlessly using up the pile and the naphtha. In all these
+spirit or naphtha lighters it is important that the spiral _shall not
+touch_ the wick, but that it shall be placed a little above and on the
+side, in the mixture of air and combustible vapor.
+
+Several apparatus have likewise been devised for lighting gas by
+electricity, and a few of these we shall describe.
+
+The simplest form of these is Mr. Barbier's lighter for the use of
+smokers, for lighting candles, sealing letters, etc. It consists of a
+small gas-burner affixed to a round box, seven to eight centimeters in
+diameter, and connected to the gas-pipe by a rubber tube. By maneuvering
+the handle, the cock is opened and an electric contact set up of
+sufficient duration to raise to a red heat the spiral, and to light the
+gas. It is well in this case, for the sake of economizing in wire, to
+utilize the lead gas-pipe as a return wire, especially if the pile is
+located at some little distance from the lighter. In the arrangement
+generally in use the key is provided with a special spring, which tends
+to cause it to turn in such a way as to assume a vertical position, and
+with a tooth, which, on engaging with a piece moving on a joint, holds
+it in a horizontal position as soon as it has been brought thereto. In
+order to extinguish the burner, it is only necessary to depress the
+lever, and thus allow the key to assume again the vertical position,
+that is to say, the position that closes the aperture through which the
+gas flows out. In a new arrangement, the notch, spring, and the lever
+are done away with, the cock alone taking the two positions open or
+closed.
+
+Another very ingenious system is that of Mr. Loiseau, consisting of an
+ordinary gas-burner (fish-tail, bat's-wing, etc.), carrying at its side
+a "conflagrator," analogous to that of the spirit-lighter (Fig. 1), but
+arranged vertically. One of the rods of the "conflagrator" is connected
+with the positive of the pile, and the other with the little horizontal
+brass rod which is placed at the bottom of the burner. On turning the
+cock so as to open it, a small flow of gas occurs opposite the platinum
+spiral, while at the same time a rigid projecting piece affixed to the
+cock bears against a small, vertical metallic piece, and brings it in
+contact with the brass rod. The circuit is thus closed for an instant,
+the spiral is raised to a red heat, and lights the gas, and the flame
+rises and finally lights the burner. It goes without saying that on
+continuing the motion the contact is broken, so as not uselessly to
+waste the pile and so as to stop the escape of gas.
+
+For gas furnaces, Mr. Loiseau is constructing a _handle-lighter_ which
+is connected with the side of the furnace by flexible cords. The contact
+button is on the sleeve itself, and the spiral is protected against
+shocks by a metallic covering which is cleft at the extremity and the
+points bent over at a right angle. All the lighters here described work
+well, and are rendering valuable services. They may be considered as the
+natural and indispensable auxiliaries of electric call bells, and their
+use has most certainly been rendered practical through the Leclanche
+pile.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THEILER'S TELEPHONE RECEIVER.
+
+
+This telephone receiver differs from its predecessors in dispensing with
+an armature, the lateral vibration of the electro-magnet itself being
+utilized. In previous systems in which an electro-magnet is used, the
+sonorous vibrations are due either to the motion of an iron diaphragm
+or armature placed close to the poles of the electro-magnet, or to the
+expansion and contraction of the magnet itself. In Theiler's telephone
+the electro-magnet may be of the usual U-shape, and may consist either
+of soft iron or of hardened steel permanently magnetized, wound with a
+suitable number of turns of insulated wire. This electro magnet is fixed
+in such a manner that the vibration of either one or of both its limbs
+is communicated to a diaphragm or diaphragms The patentees also employ
+two or more electro-magnets in the same circuit, and utilize the
+vibration of both magnets in the manner described. By attaching a light
+disk or disks to the vibrating limbs, the diaphragm may be dispensed
+with. Fig. 1 represents one of the telephone receivers provided with two
+diaphragms or sounding boards, connected to the two limbs or cores of
+the U-shaped electro-magnet by short tongues. These tongues are firmly
+inserted in the diaphragms and fixed to the magnet, as shown. The poles
+of the electro-magnet are brought very close together by being shaped as
+shown, and the middle part of the magnet is firmly screwed to the case
+of the instrument. The ends of the helix surrounding the magnet cores
+may be attached as usual to two terminals, or soldered to a flexible
+conductor communicating with the other parts of the telephone
+apparatus. When a vibratory current is sent through the helix of the
+electro-magnet, the extremities are rapidly attracted and repelled, and
+this vibratory motion of the magnet cores being communicated to the
+diaphragms or sounding boards, the latter are set in vibration of
+varying amplitude produced by a current of varying strength, as in all
+other telephones. Instead of making the electro-magnet of one continuous
+piece of iron, as represented in Fig. 1, the patentees find it
+more practicable to make it of the form shown in Fig. 2, where the
+electro-magnet represented consists of two limbs or cores, a sole piece,
+and pole extensions, the whole being screwed together, and practically
+constituting one continuous piece of iron carrying the two coils. In
+Fig. 2 only one of the limbs or cores of the electro-magnet is attached
+to the diaphragm, the other limb being held fixed by a screw. Sometimes
+the patentees hinge one of the magnet cores, or both, in the sole piece,
+in which case the diaphragms or sounding boards can be made much thicker
+than when the cores are rigidly fixed to the sole piece, because
+the magnetic attraction of the poles has then only to overcome the
+resistance of the diaphragm. Instead of using a diaphragm, they
+sometimes fix a stem to one of the cores of the electro-magnet, and
+mount thereon a light disk of vulcanite, wood, ivory, gutta-percha, or
+any other substance which it is capable of vibrating. When using this
+telephone receiver, the disk is pressed to the ear in such a manner
+that its surface covers the aperture of the ear. When these telephone
+receivers are used on a line of some considerable length, the patentees
+prefer to magnetize the electro-magnet by a constant current from
+a local battery, and to effect the variation of this constant
+magnetization inductively and not directly. The electro-magnet is,
+then, not inserted in the line at all, but in the primary circuit of
+an induction coil, and connected with a local battery. The line is
+connected to the secondry circuit of the induction coil. This device
+possesses the advantage that the electro-magnet can be powerfully
+magnetized with very little battery power, no matter how long the line
+may be, and that steel magnets are entirely dispensed with. It is not
+necessary to have a separate battery for this purpose, as the microphone
+battery may also be used for the telephone receiver. The shape of the
+vibrating electro-magnets is immaterial, as they may be made of a
+variety of forms.--_Eng. Mechanic_.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 1. FIG. 2]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ON AN ELECTRIC POWER HAMMER.
+
+By MARCEL DEPREZ.
+
+[Footnote: _La Lumiére Electrique_.]
+
+
+In a lecture delivered by me on the 15th of last June in the
+amphitheater of the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, on the
+application of electricity to the production, transmission, and division
+of power, I operated for the first time an electric power hammer that I
+shall here describe. Its essential part is a sectional solenoid that
+I have likewise made an application of in an electric motor which I
+presented in July, 1830, to the Societé de Physique. Let us suppose we
+superpose, one on the other, a hundred flat bobbins of a centimeter
+in thickness in such a way as to form a single solenoid one meter in
+height, and that the incoming and outgoing wires of each of them be
+connected with the contiguous bobbins exactly in the same way as they
+are in the consecutive sections or a dynamo-electric machine ring.
+Finally, let us complete the resemblance by causing each junction of the
+wire of one of the bobbins with the wire of its neighbor to end in a
+metallic plate set into an insulating piece containing as many plates as
+there are bobbins, plus one. Over this species of collector, which maybe
+rectilinear or wound around a cylinder, let us pass two brushes fixed to
+an insulating piece that may be moved by hand. Now, if we place these
+two brushes at a distance such that the number of the plates of the
+collector included between them be, for example, equal to ten, and we
+give them any degree of displacement whatever, after rendering them
+interdependent, the current entering through one of these brushes and
+making its exit through the other will always traverse 10 bobbins.
+Everything will occur, then, as if we caused the ten-bobbin solenoid to
+move instead of the brushes. This granted, and the brushes being in any
+position whatever, let us send a current into the apparatus, and place
+therein a soft iron cylinder. By virtue of a well known law, such
+cylinder will remain suspended in the interior of the solenoid, and its
+longitudinal center will place itself at so much the greater distance
+from that of the solenoid the more the current increases in intensity.
+It would even fall entirely if the current had not an intensity above a
+minimum value dependent upon many elements concerning which we have not
+now to occupy ourselves. We will suppose the current intense enough to
+keep the distance of the two centers much below that which would bring
+about a fall of the cylinder. When such a condition is fulfilled, it is
+found that if we try to remove the iron cylinder from the equilibrium
+that it is in, we must apply a pressure that increases with the amount
+of separation, just exactly as if it were suspended from a spring. It
+results from this fact that if we displace the brushes a distance equal
+to the thickness of one plate of the collector, the active solenoid will
+undergo the same displacement, and its longitudinal center will move
+away from that of the iron cylinder, and that the attraction exerted
+upon the latter will increase. It will not be able to assume its first
+value, and equilibrium cannot be re-established unless the cylinder
+undergoes a displacement identical with that of the solenoid. Now,
+as this latter depends upon the motion communicated to the system
+of brushes, we see that, definitively, the cylinder will faithfully
+reproduce the motion communicated to the brushes by the hand of
+the operator. This apparatus, then, constitutes a genuine electric
+servo-motor in which the current is never interrupted nor modified in
+quantity or direction, no more indeed than the magnetization developed
+in the soft iron cylinder. Everything takes place as if the iron
+cylinder were suspended in a solenoid ten centimeters in length that
+was caused to rise and fall; with the difference that the weight of the
+cylinder exerts no action on the hand of the operator.
+
+[Illustration: ELECTRIC POWER HAMMER.]
+
+These explanations being understood, there remain but few things to be
+said to cause the operation of the hammer to be thoroughly comprehended.
+The elementary sections constituting the electric cylinder, A B, of the
+hammer are 80 in number, and form a total length of one meter. Their
+ingoing and outcoming wires end in a collector of circular form shown at
+F G. The brushes are replaced by two strips, C E and C D, fixed to the
+double winch, H C I, which is movable around the fixed center, C. They
+can make any angle whatever with each other, so that by trial there
+maybe given the active solenoid the most suitable length. When such
+angle has been determined, the angle, E C D, is rendered invariable by
+means of a set screw, and the apparatus is maneuvered by imparting to
+the double winch, H C I, an alternating circular motion.
+
+The iron cylinder weighs 23 kilogrammes; but, when the current has an
+intensity of 43 amperes and traverses 15 sections, the stress developed
+may reach 70 kilogrammes; that is to say, three times the weight of the
+hammer. So this latter obeys with absolute docility the motions of the
+operator's hands, as those who were present at the lecture were enabled
+to see.
+
+I will incidentally add that this power hammer was placed on a circuit
+derived from one that served likewise to supply three Hefner-Alteneck
+machines (Siemens D{5} model) and a Gramme machine (Breguet model P.L.).
+Each of these machines was making 1,500 revolutions per minute and
+developing 25 kilogrammeters per second, measured by means of a
+Carpentier brake. All these apparatus were operating with absolute
+independence, and had for generator the double excitation machine that
+figured at the Exhibition of Electricity.
+
+In an experiment made since then, I have succeeded in developing in each
+of these four machines 50 kilogrammeters per second, whatever was the
+number of those that were running; and I found it possible to add the
+hammer on a derived circuit without notably affecting the operation of
+the receivers.
+
+It results from this that with my system of double excitation machine I
+have been enabled to easily run with absolute independence six machines,
+each giving a two-third horse-power. The economic performance, e/E,
+moreover, slightly exceeded 0.50.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+SOLIGNAC'S NEW ELECTRIC LAMP.
+
+
+When it becomes a question of practical lighting, it is very certain
+that the best electric lamp will be the one that is most simple and
+requires the fewest mechanical parts. It is to such simplicity that is
+due all the success of the Jablochkoff candle and the Reynier-Werdermann
+lamp. Yet, in the former of these lamps, it is to be regretted that the
+somewhat great and variable resistance opposed to the current in its
+passage through two carbons that keep diminishing in length, in measure
+as they burn, proves a cause of loss of light and of variation in it.
+And it is also to be regretted that the duration of combustion of the
+carbons is not longer; and, finally, it is allowable to believe that the
+power employed in volatilizing the insulator placed between the carbons
+is prejudicial to the economical use of this system. In order to obviate
+this latter inconvenience, an endeavor has been made in the Wilde candle
+to do away with the insulator, but the results obtained have scarcely
+been encouraging. An endeavor has also been made to render the duration
+of the carbons greater by employing quite long ones, and causing these
+to move forward successively through the intermedium of a species
+of rollers, or of counterpoises, as in the lamps of Mersanne and
+Werdermann; but then the system becomes more complicated. Finally, in
+order to keep the resistance of the carbons at a minimum and constant,
+their contact with the rheophores of the circuit has been established
+at a short distance from the arc, and this is one of the principal
+advantages possessed by the Reynier-Werdermann system. At a certain
+epoch it was thought that the problem might be simply solved by
+arranging in front of each other two carbons actuated by a spiral
+spring, as in car lamps, and kept at a proper distance apart for forming
+the electric arc by two funnel-shaped pieces of calcined magnesia, into
+which they entered like a wedge in measure as their conical point were
+away through combustion. This was the system of Mr. De Baillehache,
+and the trials that were made therewith were very satisfactory. But,
+unfortunately, the magnesia was not able to resist very long the
+temperature to which it was submitted. The problem found a better
+solution in the sun-lamp but has been solved in another manner, and just
+as simply, by Mr. Solignac, and the results obtained by him have been
+very satisfactory as regarded from the standpoint of steadiness of the
+luminous point.
+
+In this system, a general view of which is given in Fig. 1, and the
+arrangement in Figs. 2 and 3, the carbons, F F, which are horizontal and
+about fifty centimeters in length, are thrust toward each other by
+two barrels, K, K, which wind up two chains, E, E, passing around the
+pulleys, D, D, fitted to the extremities of the carbons. These latter
+are provided beneath with small glass rods, G, G, whose extremities
+toward the arc abut at a short distance from the latter against a nickel
+stop, L (Fig. 3), which supports them, moreover, at M, by means of
+a tappet whose position is regulated by a screw. The current is
+transmitted to the carbons by two friction rollers, I, I, which serve at
+the same time as a guide for them, and which give the electric flux a
+passage of only one or two centimeters over the front of the carbon
+to form the arc. Finally, the whole is held by a support, A, and two
+pieces, CB, CB, which at the same time lead the current to the friction
+rollers through projections, J. The two systems are made to approach
+or recede from each other, in order to form the arc, by means of a
+regulating screw, H.
+
+At present, the lighting of these lamps is effected by means of this
+screw, H, but Mr. Solignac is now constructing a model in which the
+lighting will be performed automatically by means of a solenoid that
+will react upon a carbon lighter, as in several already well known
+systems.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 1]
+
+If the preceding description has been well-understood, it will be seen
+that the carbons are arrested in their movement toward each other only
+by the glass rods, G, abutting against L; but, as the stops, L, are not
+far from the arc, and as the heat to which they are exposed is so much
+the greater in proportion as the incandescent part of the carbons is
+nearer them, it results that for a certain elongation of the arc the
+temperature becomes sufficient to soften the glass of the rods, G, G,
+so that they bend as shown at O (Fig. 3), and allow the carbons to move
+onward until the heat has sufficiently diminished to prevent any further
+softening of the glass. In measure as the wearing away progresses, the
+preceding effects are reproduced; and, as these are produced in an
+imperceptible and continuous manner, there is perceived no jumping nor
+inconstancy in the light of the arc. Under such conditions, then, the
+regulation of the arc is effected under the very influence of the
+effect produced; and not under that of an action of a different nature
+(electro-magnetism), as happens in other regulators. It is certain that
+this idea is new and original, and the results that we have witnessed
+from it have been very satisfactory. There is but one regulation to
+perform, and that at the beginning, but this once done the apparatus
+operates with certainty, and for a long time. With a Meritens machine of
+the first model it has been found possible to light five lamps of this
+kind placed in the same circuit.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 2]
+
+According to the inventor, this lamp will give a light of 100 carcels
+per one horse-power, and with a three horse-power six lamps may be
+lighted; but we have made no experiments to ascertain the correctness of
+these figures.
+
+As for the cost of the glass rods, that amounts to one franc per
+two hundred meters length. They can, then, be considered only as an
+insignificant expense in the cost of the carbons. We consequently
+believe that it will be possible to employ this system advantageously in
+practice.--_Th. du Moncel_.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 3]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+MONDOS'S ELECTRIC LAMP.
+
+
+Since the month of May last, the concert at the Champs Elysées has been
+lighted by sixteen voltaic arc lamps on a new and very simple system,
+which gives excellent results in the installation under consideration.
+The sixteen lamps are on the divisible system, and their regulation is
+based upon the principle of derivation. They are supplied by a Siemens
+alternating current machine and arranged in four circuits, on each of
+which are mounted four lamps in series. The accompanying figures will
+allow the reader to readily understand the system, which is as simple
+as it is ingenious, and which has been combined by Mr. Mondos so as to
+obtain a continuous and independent regulation of each lamp.
+
+In this system the lower carbon is stationary, the luminous point
+descending in measure as the carbons wear away through combustion. The
+upper carbon descends by its own weight, and imperceptibly, so as to
+keep the arc at its normal length.
+
+The mechanism that controls the motions of the upper rod that supports
+the carbon-holder consists of two bobbins of fine wire, E (Fig. 2),
+mounted on a derived circuit on the terminals of the lamp; of a lever,
+L, articulated at O, and supporting a tube, TT', and the whole movable
+part balanced by a counterpoise, P. This lever, P, carries two soft iron
+cores, F, which enter the bobbins, E, and become magnetized under the
+influence of the current that passes through them. The upper part of
+the tube, T, carries a square upon which is articulated at O' a second
+lever, L', balanced by a second counterpoise, P', and carrying a flat
+armature, _p_, opposite the cores, F', that are fixed to the first
+horizontal lever, L. The carbon-holder rod, CC', slides freely in the
+tube, TT', and is wedged therein by a small piece, _a m l_, fixed to
+the lever, L'. For this reason the tube, TT', is provided with a notch
+opposite the piece _a m l_, and the two arms, _a_ and _m_, of the latter
+are shaped like a V, as may be seen in part in the plan in Fig. 2. It is
+now easy to understand how the system operates; when the current is not
+traversing the circuit, the carbons are separated; but, at the moment
+the circuit is closed for lighting a series of lamps, it traverses the
+electro-magnet, which then becomes very powerful, and draws down the
+cores, F, along with the lever, L, the tube, TT', and the carbon-holder,
+CC', and brings the carbons in contact. The arc then forms, and the
+current divides between the arc and the bobbins, E. Its action upon the
+cores, F, becomes weak, and it can no longer balance the counterpoise,
+P, which falls back, and raises the system again. The arc thus
+becomes _primed_. The cores, F, however, preserve a certain amount of
+magnetization; the armature, _p_, is attracted, and the lever, L',
+assumes a position of equilibrium such that the piece, _a m l_, wedges
+the rod, CC', in the tube, TT', and holds it suspended. When, through
+wear of the carbons, the arc elongates, a greater portion of the current
+passes into the bobbins, E, the armature, _p_, is attracted with more
+force, and the lever, L', swings around the point, O'. The rotation of
+L' separates the piece, _a m l_, from the rod, CC', which, being thus
+set free, slides by its own weight and shortens the arc. The current
+then becomes weak in E, the armature, _p_, is not so strongly attracted,
+the lever, L', pivots slightly around O' under the action of the weight,
+P', and the brake or wedge enters the notch anew, and stops the descent
+of the carbon. In practice, the motions that we have just described are
+exceedingly slight; the carbon moves imperceptibly, and the length of
+the arc remains invariable.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 1--MONDOS'S ELECTRIC LAMP.]
+
+It will be seen, then, that the lever, L, and the tube, TT', serve
+exclusively for _lighting_, and the lever, L', exclusively for
+regulating the distance of the carbons.
+
+This lamp exhibits great elasticity, and can operate, without a
+change of any part of its mechanism, with currents of very different
+intensities. It suffices for obtaining a proper working of the apparatus
+in each case, to regulate the distance from the weight, P', to the point
+of suspension, O', and the distance from the armature, _p_, to the
+cores, F. At the Champs Elysées concerts the lamps are operating with
+alternating currents; but they are capable of operating with continuous
+ones also, although the slight tremor of the electro-magnetic system,
+due to the use of alternating currents and as a consequence of rapid
+changes of magnetization, seems in principle very favorable to systems
+in which the descent of the carbon is based upon friction instead of a
+clutch. At the Champs Elysées concerts the lamps burn crayons of 9 to
+10 millimeters with a current of 9 to 10 amperes and an effective
+electro-motive power of 60 volts per lamp. The light is very steady,
+and the effect produced is most satisfactory. The dispensing with all
+clock-work movement and regulating springs makes this electric lamp
+of Mr. Mondos a simple and plain apparatus, capable of numerous
+applications in the industries, in wide, open spaces, in all cases where
+foci of medium intensity have to be employed, and where it is desired to
+arrange several lamps in the same circuit.--_La Nature_.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 2--REGULATING MECHANISM.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[AMERICAN POTTERY AND GLASSWARE REPORTER.]
+
+
+
+
+ALUMINUM--ITS PROPERTIES, COST, AND USES.
+
+
+Aluminum is a shining, white, sonorous metal, having a shade between
+silver and platinum. It is a very light metal, being lighter than glass
+and only about one-fourth as heavy as silver of the same bulk. It is
+very malleable and ductile, and is remarkable for its resistance to
+oxidation, being unaffected by moist or dry air, or by hot or cold
+water. Sulphureted hydrogen gas, which so readily tarnishes silver,
+forming a black film on the surface, has no action on this metal.
+
+Next to silica, the oxide of aluminum (alumina) forms, in combination,
+the most abundant constituent of the crust of the earth (hydrated
+silicate of alumina, clay).
+
+Common alum is sulphate of alumina combined with another sulphate, as
+potash, soda, etc. It is much used as a mordant in dyeing and calico
+printing, also in tanning.
+
+Aluminum is of great value in mechanical dentistry, as, in addition
+to its lightness and strength, it is not affected by the presence of
+sulphur in the food--as by eggs, for instance.
+
+Dr. Fowler, of Yarmouthport, Mass., obtained patents for its combination
+with vulcanite as applied to dentistry and other uses. It resists
+sulphur in the process of vulcanization in a manner which renders it an
+efficient and economical substitute for platinum or gold.
+
+Aluminum is derived from the oxide alumina, which is the principal
+constituent of common clay. Lavoissier, a celebrated French chemist,
+first suggested the existence of the metallic bases of the earths and
+alkalies, which fact was demonstrated twenty years thereafter by
+Sir Humphry Davy, by eliminating potassium and sodium from their
+combinations; and afterward by the discovery of the metallic bases of
+baryta, strontium, and lime. The earth alumina resisting the action of
+the voltaic pile and the other agents then used to induce decomposition,
+twenty years more passed before the chloride was obtained by Oerstadt,
+by subjecting alumina to the action of potassium in a crucible heated
+over a spirit lamp. The discovery of aluminum was at last made by Wohler
+in 1827, who succeeded in 1846 in obtaining minute globules or beads
+of this metal by heating a mixture of chloride of alumina and sodium.
+Deville afterward conducted some experiments in obtaining this metal at
+the expense of Napoleon III., who subscribed £1,500, and was rewarded by
+the presentation of two bars of aluminum. The process of manufacture was
+afterward so simplified that in 1857 its price at Paris was about two
+dollars an ounce. It was at first manufactured from common clay, which
+contains about one-fourth its weight of aluminum, but in 1855 Rose
+announced to the scientific world that it could be obtained from a
+material called "cryolite," found in Greenland in large quantities,
+imported into Germany under the name of "mineral soda," and used as a
+washing soda and in the manufacture of soap. It consists of a double
+fluoride of aluminum, and only requires to be mixed with an excess of
+sodium and heated, when the mineral aluminum at once separates. Its cost
+of manufacture is given in this estimate for one pound of metal: 16 lb.
+of cryolite at 8 cents per pound, $1.28: 2½ lb. metallic sodium at about
+26 cents per pound, 70 cents; flux and cost of reduction, $2.02; total,
+$4.
+
+Aluminum is used largely in the manufacture of cheap jewelry by making a
+hard, gold-colored alloy with copper, called aluminum bronze, consisting
+of 90 per cent. of copper and 10 per cent. of aluminum. Like iron, it
+does not amalgamate directly with mercury, nor is it readily alloyed
+with lead, but many alloys with other metals, as copper, iron, gold,
+etc., have been made with it and found to be valuable combinations.
+One part of it to 100 parts of gold gives a hard, malleable alloy of
+a greenish gold color, and an alloy of ¾ iron and ¼ aluminum does not
+oxidize when exposed to a moist atmosphere. It has also been used to
+form a metallic coating upon other metals, as copper, brass, and German
+silver, by the electro-galvanic process. Copper has also been deposited,
+by the same process, upon aluminum plates to facilitate their being
+rolled very thin; for unless the metal be pure, it requires to be
+annealed at each passage through the rolls, and it is found that its
+flexibility is greatly increased by rolling. To avoid the bluish white
+appearance, like zinc, Dr. Stevenson McAdam recommends immersing the
+article made from aluminum in a heated solution of potash, which will
+give a beautiful white frosted appearance, like that of frosted silver.
+
+F.W. Gerhard obtained a patent in 1856, in England, for an improved
+means of obtaining aluminum metal, and the adaptation thereof to the
+manufacture of certain useful articles. Powdered fluoride of aluminum is
+placed alone or in combination with other fluorides in a closed furnace,
+heated to a red heat, and exposed to the action of hydrogen gas, which
+is used as a reagent in the place of sodium. A reverberating furnace is
+used by preference. The fluoride of aluminum is placed in shallow trays
+or dishes, each dish being surrounded by clean iron filings placed in
+suitable receptacles; dry hydrogen gas is forced in, and suitable entry
+and exit pipes and stop-cocks are provided. The hydrogen gas, combining
+with the fluoride, "forms hydrofluoric acid, which is taken up by the
+iron and is thereby converted into fluoride of iron." The resulting
+aluminum "remains in a metallic state in the bottom of the trays
+containing the fluoride," and may be used for a variety of manufacturing
+and ornamental purposes.
+
+The most important alloy of aluminum is composed of aluminum 10, copper
+90. It possesses a pale gold color, a hardness surpassing that of
+bronze, and is susceptible of taking a fine polish. This alloy has found
+a ready market, and, if less costly, would replace red and yellow brass.
+Its hardness and tenacity render it peculiarly adapted for journals and
+bearings. Its tensile strength is 100,000 lb., and when drawn into wire,
+128,000 lb., and its elasticity is one-half that of wrought iron.
+
+General Morin believes this alloy to be a perfect chemical combination,
+as it exhibits, unlike the gun metal, a most complete homogeneousness,
+its preparation being also attended by a great development of heat, not
+seen in the manufacture of most other alloys. The specific gravity of
+this alloy is 7.7. It is malleable and ductile, may be forged cold as
+well as hot, but is not susceptible of rolling; it may, however, be
+drawn into tubes. It is extremely tough and fibrous.
+
+Aluminum bronze, when exposed to the air, tarnishes less quickly than
+either silver, brass, or common bronze, and less, of course, than iron
+or steel. The contact of fatty matters or the juice of fruits does not
+result in the production of any soluble metallic salt, an immunity which
+highly recommends it for various articles for table use.
+
+The uses to which aluminum bronze is applicable are various. Spoons,
+forks, knives, candle-sticks, locks, knobs, door-handles, window
+fastenings, harness trimmings, and pistols are made from it; also
+objects of art, such as busts, statuettes, vases, and groups. In France,
+aluminum bronze is used for the eagles or military standards, for armor,
+for the works of watches, as also watch chains and ornaments. For
+certain parts, such as journals of engines, lathe-head boxes, pinions,
+and running gear, it has proved itself superior to all other metals.
+
+Hulot, director of the Imperial postage stamp manufactory in Paris, uses
+it in the construction of a punching machine. It is well known that the
+best edges of tempered steel become very generally blunted by paper.
+This is even more the case when the paper is coated with a solution of
+gum arabic and then dried, as in the instance of postage stamp sheets.
+The sheets are punched by a machine the upper part of which moves
+vertically and is armed with 300 needles of tempered steel, sharpened in
+a right angle. At every blow of the machine they pass through the
+holes in the lower fixed piece, which correspond with the needles, and
+perforate five sheets at every blow. Hulot now substitutes this piece by
+aluminum bronze. Each machine makes daily 120,000 blows, or 180,000,000
+perforations, and it has been found that a cushion of the aluminum alloy
+was unaffected after some months' use, while one of brass is useless
+after one day.
+
+Various formulæ are given for the production of alloys of aluminum, but
+they are too numerous and intricate to enter into here.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+DETERMINATION OF POTASSA IN MANURES.
+
+By M.E. DREYFUS.
+
+
+The method generally adopted for the determination of potassa in
+manures, i. e., the direct incineration of the sample, may in certain
+cases occasion considerable errors in consequence of the volatilization
+of a portion of the potassium products.
+
+To avoid this inconvenience, the author proposes a preliminary treatment
+of the manure with sulphuric acid at 1.845 sp. gr., to convert potassium
+nitrate and chloride into the fixed sulphate. The sulphuric acid attacks
+the manure energetically, and much facilitates the incineration, which
+may be effected at a dark red heat. The ignited portion (10 grms.) is
+exhausted with boiling distilled water acidulated with hydrochloric
+acid, and the filtrate, when cold, is made up to 500 c. c. Of this
+solution 50 c c., representing 1 grm. of the sample, are taken, and,
+after being heated until close upon ebullition, baryta-water is added
+until a strong alkaline reaction is obtained. The sulphuric and
+phosphoric acids, alumina, magnesia, etc, are thus precipitated. The
+filtrate is heated to a boil, and mixed with ammonia and ammonium
+carbonate, to precipitate the excess of baryta in solution. The last
+traces of lime are eliminated by means of a few drops of ammonium
+oxalate. The filtrate is evaporated down on the water-bath, and the
+ammoniacal salts are expelled by carefully raising the temperature to
+dull redness. After having taken up the residue in distilled water it
+is treated with platinum chloride, and the potassium chloro-platinate
+obtained is reduced with oxalic acid. The quantity of potassa present
+in the manure can be calculated from the weight of platinum
+obtained.--_Bull. de la Soc. Chim. de Paris_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE ORIGIN AND RELATIONS OF THE CARBON MINERALS.
+
+[Footnote: Read before the New York Academy of Sciences, February 6,
+1882.]
+
+By J.S. NEWBERRY.
+
+
+What are called the carbon minerals--peat, lignite, coal, graphite,
+asphalt, petroleum, etc.--are, properly speaking, not minerals at
+all, as they are organic substances, and have no definite chemical
+composition or crystalline forms. They are, in fact, chiefly the
+products or phases of a progressive and inevitable change in
+plant-tissue, which, like all organic matter, is an unstable compound
+and destined to decomposition.
+
+In virtue of a mysterious and inscrutable force which resides in the
+microscopic embryo of the seed, a tree begins its growth. For a brief
+interval, this growth is maintained by the prepared food stored in the
+cotyledons, and this suffices to produce and to bring into functional
+activity--some root-fibrils below and leaves above, with which
+the independent and self-sustained life of the individual begins.
+Henceforward, perhaps for a thousand years, this life goes on, active in
+summer and dormant in winter, absorbing the sunlight as a motive power
+which it controls and guides. Its instruments are the discriminating
+cells at the extremities of the root-fibrils, which search for, select,
+and absorb the crude aliment adapted to the needs of the plant to which
+they belong, and the chlorophyl cells--the lungs and stomach of the
+tree--in the leaves. During all the years of the growth of the plant,
+these organs are mainly occupied in breaking the strongly riveted bonds
+that unite oxygen and carbon in carbonic acid; appropriating the carbon
+and driving off most of the oxygen. In the end, if the tree is, e. g.,
+a _Sequoia_, some hundreds of tons of solid, organized tissue have been
+raised into a column hundreds of feet in height, in opposition to the
+force of gravitation and to the affinities of inorganic chemistry.
+
+The time comes, however, sooner or later, when the power which has
+created and the life that has pervaded this wonderful structure
+abandon it. The affinities of inorganic chemistry immediately reassert
+themselves, in ordinary circumstances rapidly tearing down the ephemeral
+fabric.
+
+The disintegration of organic tissue, when deserted by the force which
+has animated and preserved it, gives rise to the phenomena which form
+the theme of this paper.
+
+Most animal-tissue decomposes with great rapidity, and plant tissue,
+when not protected, soon decays. This decay is essentially oxidation,
+since its final result is the restoration to the atmosphere of carbonic
+acid, which is broken up in plant-growth by the appropriation of its
+carbon. Hence it is a kind of combustion, although this term is more
+generally applied to very rapid oxidation, with the evolution of
+sensible light and heat. But, whether the process goes on rapidly or
+slowly, the same force is evolved that is absorbed in the growth of
+plant-tissue; and by accelerating and guiding its evolution, we are able
+to utilize this force in the production at will of heat, light, and
+their correlatives, chemical affinity, motive power, electricity, and
+magnetism. The decomposition of plants may, however, be more or less
+retarded, and it then takes the form of a destructive distillation,
+the constituents reacting upon each other, and forming temporary
+combinations, part of which are evolved, and part remain behind. Water
+is the great extinguisher of this as of the more rapid oxidation that we
+call combustion; and the decomposition of plant-tissue under water is
+extremely slow, from the partial exclusion of oxygen. Buried under thick
+and nearly impervious masses of clay, where the exclusion of oxygen is
+still more nearly complete, the decomposition is so far retarded that
+plant-tissue, which is destroyed by combustion almost instantaneously,
+and if exposed to "the elements"--moisture with a free access of
+oxygen--decays in a year or two, may be but partially consumed when
+millions of years have passed. The final result is, however, inevitable,
+and always the same, viz., the oxidation and escape of the organic
+mutter, and the concentration of the inorganic matter woven into its
+composition--in it, but not of it--forming what we call the ash of the
+plant.
+
+Since the decomposition of organic matter commences the instant it is
+abandoned by the creative and conservative vital force, and proceeds
+uninterruptedly, whether slowly or rapidly, to the final result, it is
+evident that each moment in the progress of this decomposition presents
+us with a phase of structure and composition different from that which
+preceded and from that which follows it. Hence the succession of these
+phases forms a complete sliding scale, which is graphically shown in
+the following diagram, where the organic constituents of plant
+tissue--carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen--appear gradually
+diminishing to extinction, while the ash remains nearly constant, but
+relatively increasing, till it is the sole representative of the fabric.
+
+[Illustration: DIAGRAM SHOWING THE GENETIC RELATIONS OF THE CARBON
+MINERALS.]
+
+We may cut this triangle of residual products where we please, and by
+careful analysis determine accurately the chemical composition of a
+section at this point, and we may please ourselves with the illusion, as
+many chemists have done, that the definite proportions found represent
+the formula of a specific compound; but an adjacent section above or
+below would show a different composition, and so in the entire triangle
+we should find an infinite series of formulae, or rather no constant
+formulae at all. We should also find that the slice, taken at any point
+while lying in the laboratory or undergoing chemical treatment, would
+change in composition, and become a different substance.
+
+In the same way we can snatch a brand from the fire at any stage of its
+decomposition, or analyze a decaying tree trunk during any month of its
+existence, and thus manufacture as many chemical formulae as we like,
+and give them specific names; but it is evident that this is child's
+play, not science. The truth is, the slowly decomposing tissue of the
+plants of past ages has given us a series of phases which we have
+grouped under distinct names, and we have called one group peat, one
+lignite, another coal, another anthracite, and another graphite. We have
+spaced off the scale, and called all within certain lines by a common
+name; but this does not give us a common composition for all the
+material within these lines. Hence we see that any effort to define or
+describe coal, lignite, or anthracite accurately must be a failure,
+because neither has a fixed composition, neither is a distinct
+substance, but simply a conventional group of substances which form part
+of an infinite and indivisible series.
+
+But this sliding scale of solid compounds, which we designate by
+the names given above, is not the only product of the natural and
+spontaneous distillation of plant tissue. Part of the original organic
+mass remains, though constantly wasting, to represent it; another part
+escapes, either completely oxidized as carbonic acid and water, or in
+a volatile or liquid form, still retaining its organic character, and
+destined to future oxidation, known as carbureted hydrogen, olefiant
+gas, petroleum, etc.
+
+Hence, in the decomposition of vegetable tissue, two classes of
+resultant compounds are formed, one residual and the other evolved; and
+the genesis and relation of the carbon minerals may be accurately shown
+by the following diagram:
+
+                       PLANT TISSUE
+                           _________________
+                        |
+  _Residual Products_   |   _Evolved Products_
+                        |
+         Peat.        }
+          |           }
+       Lignite.       }
+          |           }   { Carbonic Acid.
+    Bitumious Coal.   }   { Carbonic Oxide.
+          |           }   { Carbureted Hydrogen, etc.
+ Semi-bitumious "     }   { Water.
+          |           }   {         {Maltha.
+      Anthracite.     }   {         {  |
+          |           }   {         {Asphalt etc.
+Graphitie Anthracite. }   { Petro-  {  |
+          |           }   { leum    {Asphaltic Coal.
+       Graphite.      }             {  |
+          |           }             {Asphaltic Anthracite.
+         Ash.         }             {  |
+                                    {     "    Graphite.
+
+[NOTE.--In this diagram, the vertical line connecting the names of the
+residual products (and of the derivatives of petroleum) indicates that
+each succeeding one is produced by further alteration from that which
+precedes it, and not independently. Also, the arrangement of the braces
+is designed to show that any or all of the evolved products are given
+off at each stage of alteration.]
+
+The theory here proposed has not been evolved from my inner
+consciousness, but has grown from careful study, through many years, of
+facts in the field. A brief sketch of the evidence in favor of it is all
+that we have space for here.
+
+
+RESIDUAL PRODUCTS.
+
+_Peat_.--Dry plant-tissue consists of about 50 per cent, of carbon,
+44 per cent, of oxygen, with a little nitrogen, and 6 per cent. of
+hydrogen. In a peat-bog, we find the upper part of the scale represented
+above very well shown: plants are growing on the surface with the normal
+composition of cellulose. The first stratum of peat consists of browned
+and partially decomposed plant-tissue, which is found to have lost
+perhaps 20 per cent. of the components of wood, and to have acquired an
+increasing percentage of carbon. As we descend in the peat, it becomes
+more homogeneous and darker until at the bottom of the marsh ten or
+twenty feet from the surface, we have a black, carbonaceous paste,
+which, when dried, resembles some varieties of coal, and approaches them
+in composition. It has lost half the substance of the original plant,
+and shows a marked increase in the relative proportion of carbon.
+
+_Lignite_.--Each inch in vertical thickness of the peat-bog represents a
+phase in the progressive change from wood-tissue to lignite, using
+this term with its common signification to indicate, not necessarily
+carbonized ligneous tissue, but plant-tissue that belongs to a past
+though modern geological age--i.e., Tertiary, Cretaceous, Jurassic, or
+Triassic. These lignites or modern coals are only peat beds which have
+been buried for a longer or shorter time under clay, sand, or solidified
+rock, and have progressed farther or less far on the road to coal. As
+with peats, so with lignites, we find that at different geological
+levels they exhibit different stages of this distillation--the Tertiary
+lignites being usually distinguished without difficulty by the presence
+of a larger quantity of combined water and oxygen, and a less quantity
+of carbon, than the Cretaceous coals, and these in turn differ in the
+same respects from the Triassic.
+
+All the coals of the Tertiary and Mesozoic ages are grouped under one
+name; but it is evident that they are as different from each other as
+the new and spongy from the old and well-rotted peat in the peat-bog.
+
+_Coal_.--By mere convention, we call the peat which accumulated in the
+Carboniferous age by the name of bituminous coal; and an examination
+of the Carboniferous strata in different countries has shown that the
+peat-beds formed in the Carboniferous age, though varying somewhat, like
+others, with the kind of vegetation from which they were derived, have a
+common character by which they may be distinguished from the more modern
+coals; containing less water, less oxygen, and more carbon, and usually
+exhibiting the property of coking, which is rare in coals of later date.
+Though there is great diversity in the Carboniferous coals, and it would
+be absurd to express their composition by a single formula, it may be
+said that, over the whole world, these coals have characteristics, as
+a group, by which they can be recognized, the result of the slow
+decomposition of the tissue of plants which lived in the Carboniferous
+age, and which have, by a broad and general change, approximated to
+a certain phase in the spontaneous distillation of plant-tissue. An
+experienced geologist will not fail to refer to their proper horizon
+a group of coals of Carboniferous age any more than those of the
+Cretaceous or Tertiary.
+
+_Anthracite_--In the ages anterior to the Carboniferous, the quantity
+of land vegetation was apparently not sufficient to form thick and
+extensive beds of peat; but the remains of plant-tissue are contained
+in all the older formations, though there only as anthracite or
+graphite--the last two groups of residual products. Of these we have
+examples in the beds of graphite in the Laurentian rocks of Canada,
+and of anthracite of the lower Silurian strata of Upper Church and
+Kilnaleck, Ireland.
+
+From these facts it is apparent that the carbon series is graded
+geologically, that is, by the lapse of time during which plant-tissue
+has been subjected to this natural and spontaneous distillation. But we
+have better evidence than this of the derivation of one from another
+of the groups of residual products which have been enumerated. In many
+localities, the coals and lignites of different ages have been exposed
+to local influences--such as the outbursts of trap-rock, or the
+metamorphism of mountain chains--which have hastened the distillation,
+and out of known earlier groups have produced the last. For example,
+trap outbursts have converted Tertiary lignites in Alaska into good
+bituminous coals; on Queen Charlotte's Island, on Anthracite Creek, in
+southwestern Colorado, and at the Placer Mountains, near Santa Fe,
+New Mexico, Cretaceous lignites into anthracite; those from Queen
+Charlotte's Island and southwestern Colorado are as bright, hard, and
+valuable as any from Pennsylvania. At a little distance from the focus
+of volcanic action, the Cretaceous coals of southwestern Colorado have
+been made bituminous and coking, while at the Placer Mountains the same
+stratum may be seen in its anthracitic and lignitic stages.
+
+A still better series, illustrating the derivation of one form of carbon
+solids from another, is furnished by the coals of Ohio, Pennsylvania,
+and Rhode Island. These are of the same age; in Ohio, presenting the
+normal composition and physical characters of bituminous coals, that
+is, of plant tissue generally and uniformly descending the scale in
+the lapse of time from the Carboniferous age to the present. In the
+mountains of Pennsylvania the same coal beds, somewhat affected by the
+metamorphism which all the rocks of the Alleghanies have shared, have
+reached the stage of _semi-bituminous_ coals, where half the volatile
+constituents have been driven off; again, in the anthracite basins of
+eastern Pennsylvania, the distillation further effected has formed from
+these coals _anthracite_, containing only from three to ten per cent. of
+volatile matter; while in the focus of metamorphic action, at Newport,
+Rhode Island, the Carboniferous coals have been changed to _graphitic
+anthracite_, that is, are half anthracite and half graphite. Here,
+traveling from west to east, a progressive change is noted, similar to
+that which may be observed in making a vertical section of a peat bog,
+or in comparing the coals of Tertiary, Mesozoic, and Carboniferous age,
+only the latter is the continuation and natural sequence of the former
+series of changes.
+
+In the Laurentian rocks of Canada are large accumulations of
+carbonaceous matter, all of which is graphite, and that which is
+universally conceded to be derived from plant-tissue. The oxidation of
+graphite is artificially difficult, and in nature's laboratory slow; but
+it is inevitable, as we see in the decomposition of its outcrops and the
+blanching of exposed surfaces of clouded marbles, where the coloring is
+graphite. Thus the end is reached, and by observations in the field,
+the origin and relationship of the different carbon solids derived from
+organic tissue are demonstrated.
+
+It only remains to be said, in regard to them, that all the changes
+enumerated may be imitated artificially, and that the stages of
+decomposition which we have designated by the names graphite,
+anthracite, coal, lignite, are not necessary results of the
+decomposition of plant-tissue. A fallen tree may slowly consume away,
+and all its carbonaceous matter may be oxidized and dissipated without
+exhibiting the phases of lignite, coal, etc.; and lignite and coal,
+when exposed to air and moisture, are burned away to ashes in the same
+manner, simply because in these cases complete oxidation of the carbon
+takes place, particle by particle, and the mass is not affected as a
+whole in such a way as to assume the intermediate stages referred to.
+Chemical analysis, however, proves that the process is essentially the
+same, although the physical results are different.
+
+
+EVOLVED PRODUCTS.
+
+The gradual wasting of plant-tissue in the formation of peat, lignite,
+coal, etc., may be estimated as averaging for peat, 20 to 30 per cent.;
+lignite, 30 to 50 per cent.; coal, 50 to 70 per cent.; anthracite, 70
+to 80; and graphite, 90 per cent. of the original mass. The evolved
+products ultimately represent the entire organic portion of the
+wood--the mineral matter, or ash, being the only residuum. These evolved
+products include both liquids and gases, and by subsequent changes,
+solids are produced from some of them. Carbonic acid, carbonic oxide,
+nitrogenous and hydrocarbon gases, water, and petroleum, are mentioned
+above as the substances which escape from wood-tissue during its
+decomposition. That all these are eliminated in the decay of vegetable
+and animal structures is now generally conceded by chemists and
+geologists, although there is a wide difference of opinion as to the
+nature of the process.
+
+It has been claimed that the evolved products enumerated above are the
+results of the primary decomposition of organic matter, and never of
+further changes in the residual products; i.e., that in the breaking-up
+of organic tissue, variable quantities of coal, anthracite, petroleum,
+marsh gas, etc., are formed, but that these are never derived, the one
+from the other. This opinion is, however, certainly erroneous, and the
+formation of any or all the evolved products may take place throughout
+the entire progress of the decomposition. Marsh gas and carbonic acid
+are seen escaping from the surface of pools where recent vegetable
+matter is submerged, and they are also eliminated in the further
+decomposition of peat, lignite, coal, and carbonaceous shale. Fire damp
+and choke-damp, common names for the gases mentioned above, are produced
+in large quantities in the mines where Tertiary or Cretaceous lignites,
+or Carboniferous coals or anthracites are mined. It has been said that
+these gases are simply locked up in the interstices of the carbonaceous
+matter and are liberated in its excavation; but all who have worked coal
+mines know that such accumulations are not sufficient to supply the
+enormous and continuous flow which comes from all parts of the mass
+penetrated. We have ample proof, moreover, that coal, when exposed to
+the air, undergoes a kind of distillation, in which the evolution
+of carbonic acid and hydrocarbon gases is a necessary and prominent
+feature.
+
+The gas makers know that if their coal is permitted to lie for months or
+years after being mined, it suffers serious deterioration, yielding a
+less and less quantity of illuminating gas with the lapse of time.
+So coking coals are rendered dry, non-caking, and valueless for this
+purpose by long exposure.
+
+Carbureted hydrogen, olefiant gas, etc., are constant associates of the
+petroleum of springs or wells, and this escape of gas and oil has been
+going on in some localities, without apparent diminution, for two or
+three thousand years. We can only account for the persistence of this
+flow by supposing that it is maintained by the gradual distillation of
+the carbonaceous masses with which such evolutions of gas or of liquid
+hydro-carbons are always connected. If it were true that carbureted
+hydrogen and petroleum are produced only from the primary decomposition
+of organic tissue, it would be inevitable that at least the elastic
+gases would have escaped long since.
+
+Oil wells which have been nominally exhausted--that is, from which the
+accumulations of centuries in rock reservoirs have been pumped--and
+therefore have been abandoned, have in all cases been found to be slowly
+replenished by a current and constant secretion, apparently the product
+of an unceasing distillation.
+
+In the valley of the Cumberland, about Burkesville, one of the oil
+regions of the country, the gases escaping from the equivalent of the
+Utica shale accumulate under the plates of impervious limestone above
+until masses of rock and earth, hundreds of tons in weight, are
+sometimes thrown out with great violence. Unless these gases had been
+produced by comparatively recent distillation, such explosions could not
+occur.
+
+In opening a coal mine on a hillside, the first traces of the coal seam
+are found in a dark stain in the superficial clay; then a substance like
+rotten wood is reached, from which all the volatile constituents have
+escaped. These appear, however, later, and continue to increase as the
+mine is deepened, until under water or a heavy covering of rock the coal
+attains its normal physical and chemical characters. Here it is evident
+that the coal has undergone a long-continued distillation, which must
+have resulted in the constant production of carbonic acid and carbureted
+hydrogen.
+
+A line of perennial oil and gas springs marks the outcrop of every
+great stratum of carbonaceous matter in the country. Of these, the most
+considerable and remarkable are the bituminous shales of the Silurian
+(Utica shale), of the Devonian (Hamilton and Huron shales), the
+Carboniferous, etc. Here the carbonaceous constituent (10 to 20 per
+cent.) is disseminated through a great proportion of inorganic material,
+clay and sand, and seems, both from the nature of the materials which
+furnished it--cellular plants and minute animal organisms--and its
+dissemination, to be specially prone to spontaneous distillation. The
+Utica shale is the lowest of these great sheets of carbonaceous matter,
+and that supplies the hydro-carbon gases and liquids which issue from
+the earth at Collingwood, Canada, and in the valley of the Cumberland.
+The next carbonaceous sheet is formed by the great bituminous shale
+beds of the upper Devonian, which underlie and supply the oil wells in
+western Pennsylvania. In some places the shale is several hundred
+feet in thickness, and contains more carbonaceous matter than all the
+overlying coal strata. The outcrop of this formation, from central New
+York to Tennessee, is conspicuously marked by gas springs, the flow from
+which is apparently unfailing.
+
+Petroleum is scarcely less constant in its connection with these
+carbonaceous rocks than carbureted hydrogen, and it only escapes notice
+from the little space it occupies. The two substances are so closely
+allied that they must have a common origin, and they are, in fact,
+generated simultaneously in thousands of localities.
+
+During the oil excitement of some years since, when the whole country
+was hunted over for "oil sign," in many lagoons, from which bubbles of
+marsh-gas were constantly escaping, films of genuine petroleum were
+found on the surface; and as the underlying strata were barren of oil,
+this could only have been derived from the decaying vegetable tissue
+below. In the Bay of Marquette, two or three miles north of the town,
+where the shore is a peat bog underlain by Archæan rocks, I have seen
+bubbles of carbureted hydrogen rising in great numbers attended by drops
+of petroleum which spread as iridescent films on the surface.
+
+The remarks which have been made in regard to the heterogeneous nature
+of the solid hydrocarbons apply with scarcely less force to the gaseous
+and liquid products of vegetable decomposition. The gases which escape
+from marshes contain carbonic acid, a number of hydrocarbon gases (or
+the materials out of which they may be composed in the process of
+analysis), and finally a larger or smaller volume of nitrogenous gas.
+It is possible that the elimination of these gases takes the form of
+fractional distillation, and definite compounds may be formed directly
+from the wood-tissue or its derivatives, and mingle as they escape. This
+is, however, not certain, for the gases, as we find them, are always
+mixtures and never pure. In the liquid evolved products, the petroleums,
+this is emphatically true, for we combine under this name fluids which
+vary greatly in both their physical and chemical characters; some are
+light and ethereal, others are thick and tarry; some are transparent,
+some opaque; some red, some brown, others green; some have an offensive
+and others an agreeable odor; some contain asphalt in large quantity,
+others paraffine, etc. Thus they form a heterogeneous assemblage of
+liquid hydrocarbons, of which naphtha and maltha may be said to form
+the extremes, and which have little in common, except their undefinable
+name. The causes of these differences are but imperfectly understood,
+but we know that they are in part dependent on the nature of the organic
+material that has furnished the petroleums, and in part upon influences
+affecting them after their formation. For example, the oil which
+saturates the Niagara limestone at Chicago, and--which is undoubtedly
+indigenous in this rock, and probably of animal origin, is black and
+thick; that from Enniskillen, Canada, is also black, has a vile odor,
+probably in virtue of sulphur compounds, and, we have reason to believe,
+is derived from animal matter. The oils of northwestern Pennsylvania are
+mostly brown, sometimes green by reflected light, and have a pungent and
+characteristic odor. These are undoubtedly derived from the Hamilton
+shales, which contain ten or twenty per cent, of carbonaceous matter,
+apparently produced from the decomposition of sea-weeds, since these are
+in places exceedingly abundant, and nearly all other fossils are absent.
+
+The oils of Italy, though varying much in appearance, have usually an
+ethereal odor that is rather agreeable; they are of Tertiary age. The
+oils of Japan, differing much among themselves, have as, a common
+character an odor quite different from the Pennsylvania oils. So the
+petroleums of the Caspian, of India, California, etc., occurring at
+different geological horizons, exhibit a diversity of physical and
+chemical characters which may be fairly supposed to depend upon the
+material from which they have been distilled. The oils in the same
+region, however, are found to exhibit a series of differences which are
+plainly the result of causes operating upon them after their production.
+Near the surface, they are thicker and darker; below, and near the
+carbonaceous mass from which they have been generated, they are of
+lighter gravity and color. We find, in limited quantity, oils which are
+nearly white and may be used in lamps without refining--which have been
+refined, in fact, in Nature's laboratory. Others, that are reddish
+yellow by transmitted light, sometimes green by reflected light, are
+called amber oils; these also occur in small quantity, and, as I am led
+to believe, have acquired their characteristics by filtration through
+masses of sandstone. Whatever the variety of petroleum may be,
+if exposed for a long time to the air it undergoes a spontaneous
+distillation, in which gases and vapors, existing or formed, escape,
+and solid residues are left. The nature of these solids varies with
+the petroleums from which they come, some producing asphaltum,
+others paraffine, others ozokerite, and so on through a long list of
+substances, which have received distinct names as mineral species,
+though rarely, if ever, possessing a definite and invariable
+composition. The change of petroleum to asphalt may be witnessed at a
+great number of localities. In Canada, the black asphaltic oil forms by
+its evaporation great sheets of hard or tarry asphalt, called gum
+beds, around the oil-springs. In the far West are numerous springs of
+petroleum, which are known to the hunters as "_tar springs_," because
+of the accumulations about them of the products of the evaporation and
+oxidation of petroleum to tar or asphalt. Certain less common oils yield
+ozokerite as a solid, and considerable accumulations of this are known
+in Galicia and Utah.
+
+Natural paraffine is less abundant, and yet in places it occurs in
+considerable quantity. Asphalt is the common name for the solid residue
+from the evaporation and oxidation of petroleum; and large accumulations
+of this substance are known in many parts of the world, perhaps the most
+noted of all being that of the "Pitch Lake". of the Island of Trinidad;
+there, as everywhere else, the derivation of asphalt from petroleum is
+obvious, and traceable in all stages. The asphalts, then, have a common
+history in this, that they are produced by the evaporation and oxidation
+of petroleum. But it should also be said that they share the diversity
+of character of petroleums, and the term asphalt represents a group of
+substances of which the physical characters and chemical composition
+differ greatly in virtue of their derivation, and also differ from
+changes which they are constantly undergoing. Thus at the Pitch Lake in
+Trinidad, the central portion is a tarry petroleum, near the sides a
+plastic asphalt, and finally that which is of almost rock-like solidity.
+Hence we see that the solid residues from petroleum are unstable
+compounds like the coals and lignites, and in virtue of their organic
+nature are constantly undergoing a series of changes of which the final
+term is combustion or oxidation. From these facts we might fairly infer
+that asphalts formed in geological ages anterior to the present would
+exhibit characters resulting from still further distillation; that they
+would be harder and drier, i.e., containing less volatile ingredients
+and more fixed carbon. Such is, in fact, the case; and these older
+asphalts are represented by _Grahamite, Albertite_, etc., which I have
+designated as asphaltic coals. These are found in fissures and cavities
+in rocks of various ages, which have been more or less disturbed, and
+usually in regions where springs of petroleum now exist. The Albertite
+fills fissures in Carboniferous rocks in New Brunswick, on a line of
+disturbance and near oil-springs. Precisely the same may be said of the
+Grahamite of West Virginia. It fills a vertical fissure, which was
+cut through the sandstones and shales of the coal-measures; in the
+sandstones it remained open, in the shales it has been closed by the
+yielding of the rock. The Grahamite fills the open fissure in the
+sandstone, and was plainly introduced when in a liquid state. In the
+vicinity are oil springs, and it is on an axis of disturbance. From
+near Tampico, Mexico, I have received a hydrocarbon solid--essentially
+Grahamite, asphalt, and petroleum. These are described as occurring near
+together, and evidently represent phases of different dates in the same
+substance. I have collected asphaltic coals, very similar to Grahamite
+and Albertite in appearance and chemical composition, in Colorado and
+Utah, where they occur with the game associates as at Tampico. I have
+found at Canajoharie, New York, in cavities in the lead-veins which rut
+the Utica shale, a hydrocarbon solid which must have infiltrated into
+these cavities as petroleum, but which, since the remote period when the
+fissures were formed, has been distilled until it is now _anthracite_.
+Similar anthracitic asphalt or asphaltic anthracite is common in
+the Calciferous sand-rock in Herkimer County, New York, where it is
+associated with, and often contained in, the beautiful crystals of
+quartz for which the locality is famous. Here the same phase of
+distillation is reached as in the coke residuum of the petroleum stills.
+
+Again, in some crystalline limestones, detached scales or crystals of
+_graphite_ occur, which are undoubtedly the product of the complete
+distillation of liquid hydrocarbons with which the rock was once
+impregnated. The remarkable purity of such graphite is the natural
+result of its mode of formation, and such cases resemble the occurrence
+of graphite in cast iron and basalt. The black clouds and bands which
+stain many otherwise white marbles are generally due to specks of
+graphite, the residue of hydrocarbons which once saturated the rock.
+Some limestones are quite black from the carbonaceous matter they
+contain (Lycoming Valley, Pa., Glenn's Falls, N. Y., and Collingwood,
+Canada), and these are sold as black marbles, but if exposed to heat,
+such limestones are blanched by the expulsion of the contained carbon;
+usually a residue of anthracite or graphite is left, forming dark spots
+or streaks, as we find in the clouded and banded marbles.
+
+Finally, the great work going on in Nature's laboratory may be closely
+imitated by art; the differences in the results being simply the
+consequence of differing conditions in the experiments. Vegetable tissue
+has been converted artificially into the equivalents of lignite, coal,
+anthracite, and graphite, with the emission of vapors, gases, and oils
+closely resembling those evolved in natural processes. So petroleum may
+be distilled to form asphalt, and this in turn converted into Albertite
+and coke (i.e., anthracite). Grahamite has been artificially produced
+from petroleum by Mr. W. P. Jenney.
+
+In the preceding remarks, no effort has been made even to enumerate
+all the so-called carbon minerals which have been described. This was
+unnecessary in a discussion of the relations of the more important
+groups, and would have extended this article much beyond its prescribed
+length. Those who care to gain a fuller knowledge of the different
+members of the various groups are referred to the admirable chapter on
+the "Hydrocarbon Compounds" in Dana's Mineralogy.
+
+It will, however, add to the value of this paper, if brief mention be
+made of a few carbon minerals of which the genesis and relations are not
+generally known, and in regard to which special interest is felt, such
+as the diamond, jet, the hydrocarbon jellies, "Dopplerite," etc.
+
+The diamond is found in the _débris_ of metamorphic rocks in many
+countries, and is probably one of the evolved products of the
+distillation of organic matter they once contained. Under peculiar
+circumstances it has apparently been formed by precipitation from
+sulphide of carbon or some other volatile carbon compound by elective
+affinity. Laboratory experiments have proved the possibility of
+producing it by such a process, but the artificial crystals are
+microscopic, perhaps only because a long time is required to build up
+those of larger size.
+
+Jet is a carbonaceous solid which in most cases is a true lignite, and
+generally retains more or less of the structure of wood. Masses are
+sometimes found that show no structure, and these are probably formed
+from bitumen which has separated from the wood of which it once formed
+part, and which it generally saturates or invests. In some cases,
+however, these masses of jet-like substance are plainly the residuum of
+excrementitious matter voided by fishes or reptiles. These latter are
+often found in the Triassic fish-beds of Connecticut and New Jersey, and
+in the Cretaceous marls of the latter State.
+
+The discovery of a quantity of hydrocarbon jelly, recently, in a
+peat-bed at Scranton, Pa., has caused some wonder, but similar
+substances (Dopplerite, etc.) have been met with in the peat-beds of
+other countries; and while the history of the formation of this singular
+group of hydrocarbons is not yet well understood, and offers an
+interesting subject for future research, we have reason to believe that
+these jellies have been of common occurrence among the evolved products
+of the decomposition of vegetable tissue in all ages.
+
+The fossil resins--often erroneously called gums--amber, kauri, copal,
+etc., though interestingly related to the hydro-carbons enumerated on
+the preceding pages, form no essential part of the series, and demand
+only the briefest notice here.
+
+_Amber_ is the resin which exuded from certain coniferous trees that,
+in Tertiary times, grew abundantly in northern Europe. The leaves and
+trunks of these trees have generally perished; but masses of their
+resin, more enduring, buried in the earth on the shores of the Baltic,
+have in the lapse of time changed physically and chemically, and have
+become fitted for the ornamental purposes for which they have been used
+by all civilized nations.
+
+_Kauri_ is the resin of _Dammara australis_, a living coniferous tree of
+New Zealand, and the "gum" is dug from the earth on the sites of forests
+which have now disappeared.
+
+_Copal_ is a commercial name given to the resins of several different
+trees, but the most esteemed, and indeed the only true copal, is the
+product of _Trachylobium Mozambicense_, a tree which grows along the
+Zanzibar coast, and has left its resin buried in the sands of old raised
+beaches which it has abandoned.
+
+The diversity of character which the fossil resins exhibit shows the
+complexity of the vital processes in operation in the vegetable kingdom,
+and gives probability to the theory that some of the differences we find
+in the carbon minerals are due to differences in the plants from which
+they have been derived.
+
+The variations in the physical and chemical characters of different
+coals from the same basin, and from different parts of the same stratum,
+have been sometimes credited to the same cause; but they are probably
+in greater degree due to the differences in the conditions under which
+these varieties have been formed.
+
+Cannel coal, as I have shown elsewhere (_Amer. Jour. Science_, March,
+1857), is completely macerated vegetable tissue which was deposited as
+carbonaceous mud at the bottom of lagoons in the coal-marshes.
+
+Caking coals were probably peat, which accumulated under somewhat
+uniform conditions, was constantly saturated with moisture, and became
+a comparatively homogeneous and partially gelatinous carbonaceous mass;
+while the open-burning coals which show a distinctly laminated structure
+and consist of layers of pitch-coal, alternating with bands of mineral
+charcoal or cannel, seem to have been formed in alternating conditions,
+of more or less moisture, and the bituminous portions are inclosed in
+cells or are separated by partitions, so that the mass does not melt
+down, but more or less perfectly holds its form when exposed to heat.
+
+The generalities of the origin and relations of the carbon minerals
+have now been briefly considered; but a review of the subject would
+be incomplete without some reference to the theories which have been
+advanced by others, that are in conflict with the views now presented.
+There have always been some who denied the organic nature of the mineral
+hydrocarbons, but it has been regarded as a sufficient answer to their
+theories, that chemists and geologists are generally agreed in saying
+that no instances are known of the occurrence in nature of hydrocarbons,
+solid, liquid, or gaseous, in which the evidence was not satisfactory
+that they had been derived from animal or vegetable tissue. A few
+exceptional cases, however, in which chemists and geologists of deserved
+distinction have claimed the possibility and even probability of the
+production of marsh gas, petroleum, etc., through inorganic agencies,
+require notice.
+
+In a paper published in the _Annales de Chimie et de Physique_, Vol.
+IX., p.481, M. Berthelot attempts to show that the formation of
+petroleum and carbureted hydrogen from inorganic substances is possible,
+if it be true, as suggested by Daubre, that there are vast masses of the
+alkaline metals--potassium, sodium, etc.--deeply buried in the earth,
+and at a high temperature, to which carbonic acid should gain access;
+and he demonstrates that, these premises being granted, the formation of
+hydrocarbons would necessarily follow.
+
+But it should be said that no satisfactory evidence has ever been
+offered of the existence of zones or masses of the unoxidized alkaline
+metals in the earth, and it is not claimed by Berthelot that there are
+any facts in the occurrence of petroleum and carbureted hydrogen in
+nature which seem to exemplify the chemical action which he simply
+claims is theoretically possible. Berthelot also says that, in most
+cases, there can be no doubt of the organic origin of the hydrocarbons.
+
+Mendeleeff, in the _Revue Scientifique_, 1877, p. 409, discusses at
+considerable length the genesis of petroleum, and attempts to sustain
+the view that it is of inorganic origin. His arguments and illustrations
+are chiefly drawn from the oil wells of Pennsylvania and Canada, and
+for the petroleum of these two districts he claims an inorganic origin,
+because, as he says, there are no accumulations of organic matter below
+the horizons at which the oils and gases occur. He then goes into a
+lengthy discussion of the possible and probable source of petroleum,
+where, as in the instances cited, an organic origin "is not possible."
+It is a sufficient answer to M. Mendeleeff to say, that beneath the oil
+bearing strata of western Pennsylvania are sheets of bituminous shale,
+from one hundred to five hundred feet in thickness, which afford an
+adequate, and it may be proved the true source, of the petroleum, and
+that no petroleum has been found below these shales; also that the
+oil-fields of Canada are all underlain by the Collingwood shales, the
+equivalent of the Utica carbonaceous shales of New York, and that from
+the out-crops of these shales petroleum and hydrocarbon gases are
+constantly escaping. With a better knowledge of the geology of the
+districts he refers to, he would have seen that the facts in the
+cases he cites afford the strongest evidence of the organic origin of
+petroleum.
+
+Among those who are agreed as to the organic origin of the hydrocarbons,
+there is yet some diversity of opinion in regard to the nature of the
+process by which they have been produced.
+
+Prof. J. P. Lesley has at various times advocated the theory that
+petroleum is indigenous in the sand-rocks which hold it, and has been
+derived from plants buried in them. ("Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc.," Vol.
+X., pp. 33, 187, etc.)
+
+My own observations do not sanction this view, as the limited number of
+plants buried in the sandstones which are now reservoirs of petroleum
+must always have borne a small proportion in volume to the mass of
+inorganic matter; and some of those which are saturated with petroleum
+are almost completely destitute of the impressions of plants.
+
+In all cases where sandstones contain petroleum in quantity, I think it
+will be found that there are sheets of carbonaceous matter below, from
+which carbureted hydrogen and petroleum are constantly issuing. A more
+probable explanation of the occurrence of petrolem in the sandstones is
+that they have, from their porosity, become convenient receptacles for
+that which flowed from some organic stratum below.
+
+Dr. T. Sterry Hunt has regarded limestones, and especially the Niagara
+and corniferous, as the principal sources of our petroleum; but, as I
+have elsewhere suggested, no considerable flow of petroleum has ever
+been obtained from the Niagara limestone, though at Chicago and Niagara
+Falls it contains a large quantity of bituminous matter; also, that the
+corniferous limestone which Dr. Hunt has regarded as the source of the
+oil of Canada and Pennsylvania is too thin, and too barren of petroleum,
+or the material out of which it is made, to justify the inference.
+
+The corniferous limestone is never more than fifty or sixty feet thick,
+and does not contain even one per cent. of hydrocarbons; and in southern
+Kentucky, where oil is produced in large quantity, this limestone does
+not exist.
+
+That many limestones are more or less charged with petroleum is well
+known; and in addition to those mentioned above, the Silurian limestone
+at Collingwood, Canada, may be cited as an example. As I have elsewhere
+shown, we have reason to believe that the petroleum here is indigenous,
+and has been derived, in part, at least, from animal organisms; but the
+limestones are generally compact, and if cellular, their cavities are
+closed, and the amount of petroleum which, under any circumstances,
+flows from or can be extracted from limestone rock is small. On the
+other hand, the bituminous shales which underlie the different oil
+regions afford an abundant source of supply, holding the proper
+relations with the reservoirs that contain the oil, and are
+spontaneously and constantly evolving gas and oil, as may be observed
+in a great number of localities. For this reason, while confessing
+the occurrence of petroleum and asphaltum in many limestones, I am
+thoroughly convinced that little or none of the petroleum of commerce is
+derived from them.
+
+Prof. S.F. Peckham, who has studied the petroleum field of southern
+California, attributes the abundant hydrocarbon emanations in that
+locality to microscopic animals. It is quite possible that this is
+true in this and other localities, but the bituminous shales which are
+evidently the sources of the petroleum of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky,
+etc., generally contain abundant impressions of sea weeds, and indeed
+these are almost the only organisms which have left any traces in them.
+I am inclined, therefore, now, as in my report on the rock oils of Ohio,
+published in 1860, to ascribe the carbonaceous matter of the bituminous
+shales of Pennsylvania and Ohio, and hence the petroleum derived from
+them, to the easily decomposed cellular tissue of algæ which have
+in their decomposition contributed a large percentage of diffused
+carbonaceous matter to the sediments accumulating at the bottom of the
+water where they grew. In a recent communication to the National Academy
+of Sciences, Dr. T. Sterry Hunt has proposed the theory that anthracite
+is the result of the decomposition of vegetable tissue when buried in
+porous strata like sandstone; but an examination of even a few of the
+important deposits of anthracite in the world will show that no such
+relationship as he suggests obtains.
+
+Anthracite may and does occur in sedimentary rocks of varied character,
+but, so far as my observation has extended, never in quantity in
+sandstone. In the Lower Silurian rocks anthracite occurs, both in the
+Old World and in the New, where no metamorphism has affected it, and
+where it is simply the normal result of the long continued distillation
+of plant tissue; but the anthracite beds which are known and mined in so
+many countries are the results of the metamorphism of coal-beds of one
+or another age, by local outbursts of trap, or the steaming and baking
+of the disturbed strata in mountain chains, numerous instances of which
+are given on a preceding page.
+
+M. Mendeleeff, in his article already referred to, misled by a want of
+knowledge of the geology of our oil-fields, and ascribing the petroleum
+to an inorganic cause, connects the production of oil in Pennsylvania
+and Caucasia with the neighboring mountain chains of the Alleghanies and
+the Caucasus; but in these localities a sufficient amount of organic
+matter can be found to supply a source for the petroleum, while the
+upheaval and loosening of the strata along lines parallel with the axes
+of elevation has favored the decomposition (spontaneous distillation) of
+the carbonaceous strata. It should be distinctly stated, also, that no
+igneous rocks are found in the vicinity of productive oil-wells, here or
+elsewhere, and there are no facts to sustain the view that petroleum is
+a volcanic product.
+
+In the valley of the Mississippi, in Ohio, Illinois, and Kentucky, are
+great deposits of petroleum, far removed from any mountain chain or
+volcanic vent, and the cases which have been cited of the limited
+production of hydrocarbons in the vicinity of, and probably in
+connection with, volcanic centers may be explained by supposing that
+in these cases the petroleum is distilled from sedimentary strata
+containing organic matter by the proximity of melted rock, or steam.
+
+Everything indicates that the distillation which has produced
+the greatest quantities of petroleum known was effected at a low
+temperature, and the constant escape of petroleum and carbureted
+hydrogen from the outcrops of bituminous shales, as well as the result
+of weathering on the shales, depriving them of all their carbon, shows
+that the distillation and complete elimination of the organic matter
+they contain may take place at the ordinary temperature.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ESTIMATION OF SULPHUR IN IRON AND STEEL.
+
+By GEORGE CRAIG.
+
+
+For wellnigh two years I have been estimating sulphur in iron and steel
+by a modification of the evolution process, which consists in passing
+the evolved gases through an ammoniacal solution of peroxide of
+hydrogen, which oxidizes the sulphureted hydrogen to sulphuric acid,
+which latter is estimated as usual. The _modus operandi_ is as follows:
+
+[Illustration]
+
+100 grains of the iron or steel are placed in the 10 oz. flask, a, along
+with ½ oz. water; 1½ oz. hydrochloric acid are added from the stoppered
+funnel, b, in such quantities at a time as to produce a moderate
+evolution of gas through the nitrogen bulb, c, which contains 1/8 oz.
+(20 vols.) peroxide of hydrogen and ½ oz. ammonia. The tube, d, is to
+condense the bulk of the hydrochloric acid which distills over during
+the operation. When all the acid has been added and the evolution of gas
+becomes sluggish, heat is applied and the liquid boiled till all action
+ceases. Air is blown through the aparatus for a few minutes and the
+contents of c and d washed into a small beaker and acidified with
+hydrochloric acid, boiled, barium chloride added, and the barium
+sulphate filtered off after standing a short time. A blank experiment
+must be done with each new lot of peroxide of hydrogen obtained, which
+always gives under 0.1 barium sulphate with me.
+
+The whole operation is finished within two hours, the usual oxidation
+process occupying nearly two days; and the results obtained are
+invariably slightly higher than by the oxidation processes.
+
+Until lately I have always added excess of chlorate of potash to the
+residue left in a, evaporated it nearly to dryness, diluted, filtered,
+and added chloride of barium to the diluted filtrate, but only once
+have I obtained a trace of precipitate after standing 48 hours, and the
+pig-iron in that case contained 8 per cent. of silicon, so that all
+the sulphur is evolved during the process. It has been objected to the
+evolution process that when the iron contains copper all the sulphur is
+not evolved, but theoretically it ought to be evolved whether copper is
+present or not; and to test the point I fused 3 lb. of ordinary Scotch
+pig-iron with some copper for half an hour in a Fletcher's gas furnace.
+No copper could be detected in the iron by mere observation with a
+microscope, but it gave on analysis 0.225 per cent. of copper, and on
+estimating the sulphur in it by the above process and by oxidation with
+chlorate of potash and hydrochloric acid, using 100 grains in each case,
+and performing blank experiments, I found:
+
+  By peroxide of hydrogen process          0.0357 per cent.
+  By oxidation (KClO_{3} and HCl) process, 0.0302     "
+
+so that even in highly cupriferous pig-iron all the sulphur is evolved
+on treatment with strong hydrochloric acid.--_Chem. News_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE AIR IN RELATION TO HEALTH.
+
+[Footnote: Abstract of a lecture before the Master Plumbers'
+Association, New York, Nov. 2. 1882.]
+
+By Prof. C. F. CHANDLER.
+
+
+It is only about one hundred years since the first important facts were
+discovered which threw light upon the chemistry of atmosphere. It was in
+1774 that Dr. Priestley, in London, and Scheele, in Sweden, discovered
+the vital constituents of the atmosphere--the oxygen gas which supports
+life. The inert gas, nitrogen, had been discovered a year or two before.
+When we examine our atmosphere, we find it is composed of oxygen and
+nitrogen. The nitrogen constitutes no less than 80 per cent, of the
+atmosphere; the remaining 20 percent, consists of oxygen, so that the
+atmosphere consists almost entirely of these two gases, odorless and
+colorless and invisible. The atmosphere is, however, never free from
+moisture; a certain amount of aqueous vapor is always present. The
+quantity can hardly be stated, as it varies from day to day and month
+to month; it depends upon the temperature and other conditions. Then
+we have the gas commonly called carbonic acid in extremely minute
+quantities, about one part in 2,500, or four one-hundredths of one per
+cent. A small quantity of ammonia and a small quantity of ozone are also
+present.
+
+Besides these gases which have been enumerated, and which play an
+important part in supporting life in both the kingdoms of nature, we
+find a great many solids. Every housewife knows how dust settles upon
+everything about the house. This dust has recently been the subject of
+most active study, and it proves to be quite as important as the vital
+oxygen that actually supports life. When we examine this dust--and it
+falls everywhere, not only in the city streets, but upon the tops of
+mountains, upon the deck of the ocean steamer, and the Arctic snow--we
+find some of it does not belong to the earth, and, as it is not
+terrestrial, we call it cosmical. And when it falls in large pieces we
+call it a meteorite or shooting star. When the Challenger crossed the
+Atlantic, and soundings were made in the deep sea, in the mud that was
+brought up and examined there were found various little particles that
+were not terrestrial. They were dust particles that were dropped into
+the atmosphere of the earth from outer space. Then we have terrestrial
+dust, and we divide that into mineral and organic. The mineral consists
+chiefly of clay, sand, and, near the ocean, salt. Then we have organic
+matter. Some of this is dead leaves which have been ground to powder.
+Animal matter has also become dry and reduced to powder, and we actually
+find the remains of animals and plants floating upon the atmosphere,
+especially in the city. Examinations of the dust which had collected
+upon the basement and higher windows of a Fifth avenue residence showed
+that the dust upon the basement floor was chiefly composed of sand.
+And the higher up I went, the smaller proportion of sand and a larger
+proportion of animal matter, so that the dust that blows into our faces
+is largely decomposing animal substance.
+
+But we have a living matter in the atmosphere. We often notice in the
+summer, after a rain, that the ground is yellow. On gathering up the
+yellow powder and examining it under the microscope, we find that it
+consists of pollen. The pollen of rag weed and other plants is supposed
+to be the cause of hay fever. But we also have something far more
+important in the germs of certain classes of vegetation. The effects
+are familiar. If food is put away, it becomes mouldy. This mould is a
+peculiar kind of vegetation which is called a fungus, and the plants
+fungi. In order for this mould to develop a certain temperature and a
+certain degree of moisture are necessary. Our food, we say, decays.
+Now, what we call decay is really the growth of these fungi. Animal and
+vegetable substances which these fungi seize upon are destroyed. All
+ordinary fermentations and putrefactions are due to mould fungi, yeast
+plants, or bacteria, and liquids undergoing these processes carry these
+fungi and their germs wherever they go. The refuse of the city pollutes
+the air. You have only to pass along any street to find more or less
+rubbish. That furnishes the nidus for the growth and development of
+these germs, and until we adopt better methods of getting rid of that
+refuse, we never shall have the air of this city in the condition that
+it should be.
+
+One of the most constant sources of the pollution of the air in
+inhabited localities is the decomposition that takes place in the
+ground. Refuse of every kind gets into it. Our sewers are leaky, and
+putrefaction is constantly going on. The soil down to the limit of
+the ground water contains a large amount of air. This air, when the
+atmospheric pressure in the house is diminished, is drawn in with such
+organic impurities as it contains. A cement floor in the cellar is not
+a protection against this entrance of the ground air, for the cement is
+porous to the passage of air, but a remedy may be found by laying on the
+cement a covering of coal tar pitch, in which bricks are set on edge,
+the spaces between the bricks are filled with the melted pitch, and the
+bricks then covered with coal tar pitch. When the house is building, the
+foundation walls should also be similarly coated, outside as well as
+inside. Such a cellar floor was considered to be absolutely impervious
+to ground air and moisture. The lecturer had recently laid this floor in
+his own house with the greatest success. The atmosphere of the entire
+house is improved, and the expense is very moderate. Another source of
+the contamination of the air of houses is the heating apparatus.
+Stoves and furnaces, however well constructed at first, will, from the
+contraction and expansion of the metal, soon allow the escape of coal
+gas, and this danger is greatly increased by the use of dampers in
+the stove-pipe. When, to regulate the fire, the damper in the pipe is
+closed, the gases, having their passage to the chimney cut off, will
+escape through any cracks or openings in the stove into the room.
+Prof. Chandler, having kept a record of accidents from this cause, had
+accumulated a formidable list of suffocations due to the use of the
+damper. The danger was now somewhat lessened by providing dampers with
+perforations in the center, which allowed the gases to escape when the
+damper was closed. As regards the maintenance of pure air in houses,
+the preference was given to the open fire-place. The hot-air furnace
+deriving a supply of pure air from out of doors was, when properly
+constructed, a very satisfactory method of heating, but in city houses
+the mistake was often made of carrying the cold air duct of the furnace
+to the front of the house, where it was exposed to the dust of the
+streets. It should be taken from the rear end of the house, and carried
+some distance above the surface of the yard. It was an excellent
+expedient to insert in the cold air duct a wire screen to hold a layer
+of cotton to retain the floating impurities which might enter the
+air-box. This could be removed from time to time, and the cotton
+replaced. Steam heating has been objected to by many for reasons in
+no wise due to the apparatus, but to neglect in the use of it. The
+complaint of closeness where steam is used is due to the fact that a
+room containing a steam radiator can be heated with every door and
+window closed, and no fresh air admitted, while with stoves and open
+fire-places a certain quantity of fresh air must be admitted to maintain
+the fire. Where radiators are used, the ventilation of the rooms should,
+therefore, be looked after. Again, the complaint that steam apparatus
+has an unpleasant odor is due to the fact that the radiators are allowed
+to become covered with dust, which is cooked, and gives rise to the
+smells complained of. The radiator should be from time to time
+cleaned. When these precautions are taken, no means of heating is more
+satisfactory than steam.
+
+Sewer gas is another source of contamination; this is a very indefinite
+term, to which formerly many false and exaggerated properties of causing
+specific diseases were attributed. It is now, however, recognized to
+mean simply the air of sewers, generally not differing very greatly from
+common air, containing a certain proportion of marsh gas, carbonic
+acid, and sulphureted hydrogen, etc. No one of these gases, however,
+is capable of producing the diseases attributed to sewer gas. Careful
+research has shown that it is the sewage itself, containing germs of
+specific disease, which is added to the air in the sewer by the breaking
+of bubbles of gas on its surface, which is the cause of the diseases
+associated with sewers.
+
+An intimate connection is believed to exist between the germs of sewer
+air and diphtheria, and probably also between sewer air and scarlet
+fever. This sewer gas is to be excluded from our houses by proper
+systems of plumbing, and to such an extent have these now been
+perfected, that there is no objection to having plumbing fixtures in
+all parts of the house. This opinion has lately been objected to in the
+_Popular Science Monthly_, as it was at a meeting of the Academy of
+Medicine last spring, but on wholly insufficient grounds.
+
+The objectors all insist that a trap will allow sewer gas to pass
+through it, and the experiments made at the Academy of Medicine showed
+that sulphureted hydrogen gas, etc., would so pass. The advocates of the
+trap have never denied that the water seal would absorb gases on one
+side and give them off on the other, but they do deny that, in the
+conditions existing in good plumbing, such gases will be given off in
+quantities to do any damage, and they confidently assert that the germ
+which is the dangerous element will not pass the seal at all. Pumpelly
+investigated the matter for the National Board of Health, and in no
+instance was he able to make the germ pass the seal of the trap. It is
+now proposed to set up against the weight of this scientific testimony
+the results of an investigator in Chicago, whose work was at once
+appropriated as an advertisement by stock jobbing disinfectant companies
+in a manner which raises a suspicion that the investigation was made in
+their interest. He described tersely the essentials of good plumbing,
+the necessity of a trap on the house drain, the ventilation of the
+soil-pipe, and the ventilation of the trap against siphonage. Of the
+first, he said that it offered protection to each householder against
+the entrance into his house of the germs of a contagious disease which
+passed into the common sewer from the house of a neighbor. Were the trap
+dispensed with, the contagion in the sewer would have free entrance into
+the houses connecting with it.
+
+Prof. Chandler, in conclusion, alluded to the cordial relations now
+existing between the Board of Health and the majority of the master
+plumbers of the city. He said that for himself his opinion of the craft
+had greatly risen during his intimate connection with plumbers the last
+two years. He thought the majority of the jobs now done in the city are
+well executed. He believed that the Board of Health had not been obliged
+to proceed against more than eight master plumbers since the new law
+went into force. He called upon the Association to adopt a "code of
+ethics," which should define what an honest plumber can do and cannot
+do, and he illustrated his meaning by citing an extraordinary case of
+fraudulent workmanship which had been recently reported to him. His
+remarks on this point were greeted with frequent outbursts of applause.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE PLANTAIN AS A STYPTIC.
+
+
+The following abstract of a paper read by Dr. Quinlan at the recent
+British Pharmaceutical Congress, may prove of interest to medical
+readers in this country, where the plant mentioned is a common weed:
+
+"About a year ago Dr. Quinlan had seen the chewed leaves of the
+_Plantago lanceolata_ successfully used to stop a dangerous hemorrhage
+from leech bites in a situation where pressure could not be employed. He
+had searched out the literature of the subject, and found that, although
+this herb is highly spoken of by Culpepper and other old writers as
+a styptic, and alluded to as such in the plays of Shakespeare, its
+employment seems to have died out. Professor Quinlan described the
+suitable varieties of plantain, and exhibited preparations which had
+been made for him by Dr. J. Evans, of Dublin, State apothecary. They
+dried leaves and powdered leaves, conserved with glycerine, for external
+use; the juice preserved by alcohol, as also by glycerine, for internal
+use; and a green extract. He gave an account of the chemistry of the
+juice, from which it appeared that it was not a member of the tannin
+series; and also described its physiological effect in causing a
+tendency to stasia in the capillaries of the tail of a goldfish,
+examined with a microscopic power of 400 X. He regarded its styptic
+power as partly mechanical and partly physiological. The juice, in large
+doses, he had found useful in internal hemorrhages. The knowledge of
+the properties of this plant he thought would be useful in cases of
+emergency, because it could be obtained in any field and by the most
+uninstructed persons."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+BACTERIA.
+
+
+Bacteria, whether significant of disease or decline of health, are found
+more or less numerous in everything we eat and drink. The germs or
+spores of many kinds, known as _termo_, _lineola_, tenue, spirillum,
+vibriones, etc, exist in almost infinite numbers; some of the smallest
+are too small to be seen by the highest powers, which, being lodged in
+all vegetable and animal substances, spring into life and develop very
+rapidly under favorable circumstances. They develop most rapidly when
+decomposition commences, and seem to indicate the degree or activity
+of that decomposition, also hastening the same. They are found most
+numerous in the feces, and usually fully developed in the fresh
+evacuations of persons of all ages. They may be seen plainly under
+a thin glass with high powers with strong or clear light, when the
+material is much diluted with water.
+
+These bacteria appear almost as numerously, yet more slowly, in urine,
+either upon exposure to air or when freshly evacuated, when the general
+health of the individual is declining, or any tendency to decomposition.
+A diagnosis can be aided very greatly by a study of these bacteria,
+as they indicate or determine the vitality, vigor, and purity of the
+system, whether more or less subject to disease, even before any signs
+of disease appear. They seem to preindicate the hold of the life force
+on the material, and always appear when that force is broken. Their
+relative quantity found in feces is as a barometric indication of the
+general health or some particular disturbance, and it is surprising
+how very fast they multiply while simply passing the intestines under
+circumstances favorable for their growth. These forms, so small, are
+important, because so very numerous, and their study has been, perhaps,
+avoided by many; yet they certainly mean something and effect something,
+even the non-malignant varieties as mentioned above, and it is certainly
+worth while to continue to study their meaning, even beyond what has
+already been written by others on the subject.--_J.M. Adams, in The
+Microscope_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE SOY BEAN
+
+(_Soja hispida_.)
+
+
+A good deal of attention has lately been directed to this plant in
+consequence of the enormous extent to which it is cultivated in China
+for the sake of the small seeds which it produces, and which are known
+as soy beans. These vary considerably in size, shape, and color,
+according to the variety of the plant which produces them. They are for
+the most part about the size and shape of an ordinary field pea, and,
+like the pea, are of a yellow color; some, however, are of a greenish
+tint. These seeds contain a large quantity of oil, which is expressed
+from them in China and used for a variety of purposes. The residue is
+moulded with a considerable amount of pressure into large circular
+cakes, two feet or more across, and six inches or eight inches thick.
+This cake is used either for feeding cattle or for manuring the land;
+indeed, a very large trade is done in China with bean cake (as it is
+always called) for these purposes. The well-known sauce called soy is
+also prepared from seeds of this bean. The plant generally known as Soja
+hispida is by modern botanists referred to Glycine soja. It is an
+erect, hairy, herbaceous plant. The leaves are three-parted and the
+papilionaceous flowers are born in axillary racemes. It is too tender
+for outdoor cultivation in this country, but, has been recommended for
+extended growth in our colonies as a commercial plant. The plants are
+readily used from seed.--_J.R.F., in The Garden_.
+
+[Illustration: THE SOY BEAN. _(Soja Lispida)_]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ERICA CAVENDISHIANA.
+
+
+The plant of which the illustration is given is one of those fine
+specimens which has made the collection of J. Lawless, Esq., The
+Cottage, Exeter, famous all over the south and west of England. It is
+only one specimen among a considerable collection of hard-wooded plants
+which are cultivated and trained in first rate style by Mr. George Cole,
+the gardener, one of the most successful plant growers of the day. The
+plant was in the winning collection of Mr. Cole exhibited at the late
+spring show held at Plymouth.--_The Gardeners' Chronicle_.
+
+[Illustration: ERICA CAVENDISHIANA.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+PHILESIA BUXIFOLIA.
+
+
+We figure this plant, not as a novelty, but for the purpose of showing
+what a fine thing it is when grown under propitious circumstances.
+Generally, we see it more or less starved in the greenhouse, and even
+when planted out in the winter garden its flowers lack the size and
+richness of color they attain out-of-doors. It comes from the extreme
+south of South America, which accounts for its hardihood, and is a near
+ally of the Lapageria: the latter is remarkable for withstanding even
+the noxious fumes of the copper smelting works in Chili, and as the
+Philesia has similar tough leaves, it is probable that it would support
+the vitiated atmosphere of a town better than most evergreens. In any
+case, there is no reasonable doubt but that, if cultivators would take
+the necessary pains, they might select perfectly hardy varieties both
+of the Lapageria and of the Philesia. As it is, we can only call the
+Philesea half-hardy north of the Thames, while the Lapageria is not even
+that. The curious Philageria, raised in Messrs. Veitch's nursery and
+described and figured in our columns in 1872, p. 358, is a hybrid raised
+between the two genera. For the specimen of Philesia figured we are
+indebted to Mr. Dartnall.--_The Gardeners' Chronicle_.
+
+[Illustration: PHILESIA BUXIFOLIA--HARDY SHRUB--FLOWERS, ROSE PINK.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+MAHOGANY.
+
+
+The mahogany tree, says the _Lumber World_, is a native of the West
+Indies, the Bahamas, and that portion of Central America that lies
+adjacent to the Bay of Honduras, and has also been found in Florida. It
+is stated to be of moderately rapid growth, reaching its full maturity
+in about two hundred years. Full grown, it is one of the monarchs of
+tropical America. Its trunk, which often exceeds forty feet in length
+and six in diameter, and massive arms, rising to a lofty height,
+and spreading with graceful sweep over immense spaces, covered with
+beautiful foliage, bright, glossy, light, and airy, clinging so long to
+the spray as to make it almost an evergreen, present a rare combination
+of loveliness and grandeur. The leaves are small, delicate, and polished
+like those of the laurel. The flowers are small and white, or greenish
+yellow. The fruit is a hard, woody capsule, oval, not unlike the head of
+a turkey in size and shape, and contains five cells, in each of which
+are inclosed about fifteen seeds.
+
+The mahogany tree was not discovered till the end of the sixteenth
+century, and was not brought into European use till nearly a century
+later. The first mention of it is that it was used in the repair of
+some of Sir Walter Raleigh's ships, at Trinidad, in 1597. Its finely
+variegated tints were admired, but in that age the dream of El Dorado
+caused matters of more value to be neglected. The first that was brought
+to England was about 1724, a few planks having been sent to Dr. Gibbons,
+of London, by a brother who was a West Indian captain. The doctor was
+erecting a house, and gave the planks to the workmen, who rejected them
+as being too hard. The doctor then had a candle-box made of the wood,
+his cabinet-maker also complaining of the hardness of the timber.
+But, when finished, the box became an object of general curiosity and
+admiration. He had one bureau, and her Grace of Buckingham had another,
+made of this beautiful wood, and the despised mahogany now became a
+prominent article of luxury, and at the same time raised the fortunes
+of the cabinet-maker by whom it had been so little regarded. Since that
+lime it has taken a leading rank among the ornamental woods, having come
+to be considered indispensable where luxury is intended to be indicated.
+
+A few facts will furnish a tolerably distinct idea of the size of this
+splendid tree. The mahogany lumbermen, having selected a tree, surround
+it with a platform about twelve feet above the ground, and cut it above
+the platform. Some twelve or fifteen feet of the largest part of the
+trunk are thus lost. Yet a single log not unfrequently weighs from six
+or seven to fifteen tons, and sometimes measures as much as seventeen
+feet in length and four and a half to five and a half feet in diameter,
+one tree furnishing two, three, or four such logs. Some trees have
+yielded 12,000 superficial feet, and at average price pieces have sold
+for $15,000. Messrs. Broadwood London, pianoforte manufacturers, paid
+£3,000 for three logs, all cut from one tree, and each about fifteen
+feet long and more than three feet square. The tree is cut at two
+seasons of the year--in the autumn and about Christmas time. The trunk,
+of course, furnishes timber of the largest dimensions, but that from the
+branches is preferred for ornamental purposes, owing to its closer grain
+and more variegated color.
+
+In low and damp soil its growth is rapid; but the most valuable trees
+grow slowly among rocks on sterile soil, and seem to gather compactness
+and beauty from the very struggle which they make for an existence.
+In the Bahamas, in the most desolate regions, once flourished that
+curiously veined and much esteemed variety once known in Europe as
+"Madeira wood," but which has long since been exterminated. Jamaica,
+also, which used to be a fruitful source of mahogany, and whence in 1753
+not less than 521,000 feet were shipped, is now almost depleted. That
+which is now furnished from there is very inferior, pale, and porous,
+and is less esteemed than that of Cuba, San Domingo, or Honduras.
+
+In a dry state mahogany Is very durable, and not liable to the attack of
+worms, but, when exposed to the weather it does not last long. It would
+therefore make excellent material for floors, roofs, etc., but its
+costliness limits its utility in this direction, and it is chiefly
+employed for furniture, doors, and a few other articles of joinery, for
+which it is among the best materials known. It has been used for sashes
+and window frames, but is not desirable for this purpose on account of
+the ease with which it is affected by the weather. It has also been used
+in England to some extent for the framing of machinery in cotton-mills.
+Its color is a reddish brown of different shades and luster, sometimes
+becoming a yellowish brown, and often much veined and mottled with
+darker shades of the same color. Its texture is uniform, and the rings
+indicating its annual growth are not very distinct. The larger medullary
+rays are absent, but the smaller ones are often very distinct, with
+pores between them. In the Jamaica woods these pores are often filled
+with a white substance, but in that brought from Central America they
+are generally empty. It has neither taste nor odor, shrinks very
+slightly, and warps, it is said, less than any other wood.
+
+The variety called Spanish mahogany comes from the West Indies, and is
+in smaller logs than the Honduras mahogany, being generally about two
+feet square and ten feet long. It is close grained and hard, generally
+darker than the Honduras, free from black specks, and sometimes strongly
+marked; the pores appear as though chalk had been rubbed into them.
+
+The Honduras mahogany comes in logs from two to four feet square and
+twelve to fourteen long; planks have been obtained seven feet wide. Its
+grain is very open and often irregular, with black or gray specks. The
+veins and figures are often very distinct and handsome, and that of a
+fine golden color and free from gray specks is considered the best. It
+holds the glue better than any other wood. The weight of a cubic foot of
+mahogany varies from thirty-five to fifty-three pounds. Its strength
+is between sixty-seven and ninety-six, stiffness seventy-three to
+ninety-three, and toughness sixty-one to ninety-nine--oak being
+considered as one hundred in each case.
+
+There are three other species of the genus _Swietania_ besides the
+mahogany tree, two of them natives of the East Indies. One is a very
+large tree, growing in the mountainous parts of central Hindostan, and
+rises to a great height, throwing out many branches toward the top. The
+head is spreading and the leaves bear some resemblance to those of the
+American species. The wood is a dull red, not so beautiful as that known
+to commerce, but harder, heavier, and more durable. The natives of India
+consider it the most durable timber which their forests afford, and
+consequently use it, when it can be procured, wherever strength and
+durability are particularly desired. The other East Indian species is
+found in the mountains of Sircars, which run parallel to the Bay of
+Bengal. The tree is not so large as any of the other species described,
+and the wood is of much different appearance, being of a deep yellow,
+considerably resembling box. The grain is close, and the wood both heavy
+and durable. The third species, known as African mahogany, is brought
+from Sierra Leone. It is hard and durable, and used for purposes
+requiring these properties in an eminent degree. If, however, the heart
+of the tree be exposed or crossed in cutting or trimming the timber, it
+is very liable to premature and rapid decay.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ANIMALS AND THE ARTS.
+
+
+In many of the museums efforts are made to perfect economic collections
+of animals, so as to show how they can be applied to advantage in the
+arts and sciences. The collection and preparation of the corals, for
+example, form an important industry. The fossil corals are richly
+polished and set in studs and sleeve-buttons, forming rich and
+ornamental objects. The fossil coral that resembles a delicate chain has
+been often copied by designers, while the red and black corals have long
+been used. The best fisheries are along the coasts of Tunis, Algeria,
+and Morocco, from 2 to 10 miles from shore, in from 30 to 150 fathoms.
+Good coral is also common at Naples, near Leghorn and Genoa, and on
+various parts of the sea, as Sardinia, Corsica, Catalonia, Provence,
+etc. It ranges in color from pure white through all the shades of
+pink, red, and crimson. The rose pink is most valued. For a long time
+Marseilles was the market, but now Italy is the great center of the
+trade, the greater number of boats hailing from Torre del Greco,
+while outside persons are forced to pay a heavy tax. The vessels are
+schooners, lateen-rigged, from three to fourteen tons. Large nets are
+used, which, during the months between March and October, are dragged,
+dredge-like, over the rocks. A large crew will haul in a season from 600
+to 900 pounds. To prevent the destruction of the industry, the reef is
+divided into ten parts, only one being worked a year, and by the time
+the tenth is reached the first is overgrown again with a new growth. In
+1873 the Algerian fisheries alone, employing 3,150 men, realized half a
+million of dollars. The choice grades are always valuable, the finest
+tints bringing over $5 per ounce, while the small pieces, used for
+necklaces, and called collette, are worth only $1.50 per ounce. The
+large oval pieces are sent to China, where they are used as buttons of
+office by the mandarins.
+
+
+THE CONCH-SHELL.
+
+Somewhat similar in appearance to coral is the conch jewelry, sets of
+which have been sold for $300. The tint is exquisite, but liable to fade
+when exposed to the sun. It is made from the great conch, common in
+Southern Florida and the West Indies. The shells are imported into
+Europe by thousands, and cut up into studs, sleeve-buttons, and various
+articles of ornament. These conches are supposed to be the producers of
+pink pearls, but I have opened hundreds of them and failed to find a
+single pearl. The conch shell is used by the cameo cutter. Rome and
+Paris are the principal seats of the trade, and immense numbers of
+shell cameos are imported by England and America, and mounted in rings,
+brooches, etc. The one showing a pale salmon-color upon an orange ground
+is much used. In 1847, 300 persons worked upon these shells in Paris
+alone, the number of shells used being immense. In Paris 300,000
+helmet-shells were used in one year, valued at $40,000 of the bull's
+mouth, 80,000, averaging a little over a shilling apiece, equal to
+$34,000. Eight thousand black helmets were used, valued at $9,000. The
+value of the large cameos produced in Paris in the year 1847 was about
+$160,000, and the small ones $40,000. In the Wolfe collection of shells
+at the Museum of Natural History, Central Park, is a fine specimen of
+the queen conch from the Florida reef, with a fine head cut into the
+outer surface, showing how it is done. The tools of the worker in cameos
+are of the most delicate description. Fine files, knitting-needle like
+implements, triangular-shaped steel cutters, are arranged in a seemingly
+endless confusion before the worker. The shell or piece of shell to be
+cut is either lashed or glued to a heavy block or held in the hand, and
+the face, animal, or other object outlined first with a delicate lead;
+having thus laid the foundation, the lines are gone over with a delicate
+needle first, then various kinds, the work gradually growing before the
+eye, reminding one of the work of the engraver on wood.
+
+
+LIVING BEETLES, ETC.
+
+Insects have always been used more or less in decoration, especially in
+Brazil, where the richly-colored beetles of the country are affected as
+articles of personal adornment. Recently in a Union Square jewelry store
+a monster beetle was on exhibition, having been sent there for repairs.
+It was alive, and about its body was a delicate gold band, locked with
+a minute padlock; a gold chain attached it to the shawl of the owner.
+Sometimes they are worn upon the headgear, their slow, cumbersome
+movements preventing them from attracting great attention. They are
+valued at from $50 to $100 apiece. Snakes, the rich green variety so
+common in New England, are worn by some ladies as bracelets, while the
+gorgeous reptiles are often imitated in gold and silver, with eyes of
+diamonds, rubies, or black pearls. Gold bears are the proper thing now
+for pins. In the East the chameleon is often worn as a head ornament,
+the animal rarely moving, and forming at least a picturesque decoration,
+with its odd shape and sculptured outlines. Various other reptiles, as
+small turtles, alligators, etc., are pressed into service. The curious
+soldier-crab has been used as a pin. Placed in a box with a rich pearly
+shell prepared for the purpose, it will change houses, and then, secured
+by a gold or silver chain, roams about the wearer, waving its red and
+blue claws in a warlike manner. Birds are, perhaps, more commonly used
+as natural ornaments than any other, and a cloak of the skins of humming
+birds is one of the most magnificent objects to be imagined. One, of a
+rare species, was once sold in Europe for $5,000. Single birds are often
+worth $700 or $800. A cloak of the skin of the great auk would bring
+$8,000 or $10,000. Some of the most beautiful pheasants are extremely
+valuable--worth their weight in gold. Tiger claws are used in the
+decoration of hats, and are extremely valuable and hard to obtain.
+
+Within ten years the alligator has become an important factor to the
+artistic manufacturer. The hide, by a new process, is tanned to an
+agreeable softness and used in innumerable ways. The most costly bags
+and trunks are made from it; pocket-books, card-cases, dining-room
+chairs are covered with it, and it has been used as a dado on the
+library wall of a well-known naturalist. It makes an excellent binding
+for certain books. Among fishes the shark provides a skin used in a
+variety of ways. The shagreen of the shark's ray is of great value.
+Canes are made of the shark's backbone, the interstices being filled
+with silver or shell plates. Shark's teeth are used to decorate the
+weapons of various nations. The magnificent scales, nearly four inches
+across and tipped with seemingly solid silver, of the giant herring,
+are used, while scales of many of the tribe have long been used in the
+manufacture of artificial pearls.
+
+
+PEARLS.
+
+The latter are perhaps the most valuable of all the offerings of animate
+nature, and are the results of the efforts of the bivalve to protect
+itself from injury. A parasite bores into the shell of the pearl bearer,
+and when felt by the animal it immediately fortifies itself by covering
+up the spot with its pearly secretion; the parasite pushes on, the
+oyster piling up until an imperfect pearl attached to the shell is the
+result. The clear oval pearls are formed in a similar way, only in this
+case a bit of sand has become lodged in the folds of the creature, and
+in its efforts to protect itself from the sharp edges, the bit becomes
+covered, layer by layer, and assumes naturally an oval shape. This
+growth of the pearl, as it is incorrectly termed, can be seen by
+breaking open a $500 gem, when the nacre will be seen in layers,
+resembling the section of an onion. The Romans were particularly fond of
+pearls, and, according to Pliny, the wife of Caius Caligula possessed
+a collection valued at over $8,000,000 of our money. Julius Caesar
+presented a jewel to the mother of Brutus valued at $250,000, while
+the pearl drank by Cleopatra was estimated at $400,000. Tavernier, the
+famous traveler, sold a pearl to the Shah of Persia for $550,000. A
+twenty-thousand-dollar pearl was taken from American waters in the
+time of Philip II. It was pear-shaped, and as large as a pigeon's egg.
+Another, taken from the same locality, is now owned by a lady in Madrid
+who values it at $30,000.
+
+Fresh water pearls are often of great value. The streams of St. Clair
+County. Ill., and Rutherford County, Tenn., produce large quantities,
+but the largest one was found near Salem, N. J. It was about an inch
+across, and brought $2,000 in Paris. The pearls from the Tay, Doon, and
+Isla rivers, in Scotland, are preferred by many to the Oriental, and in
+one summer $50,000 worth of pearls have been taken from these localities
+by men and children. Mother-of-pearl used in the arts is sold by the
+ton, from $50 to $700 being average prices. The last year's pearl
+fisheries in Ceylon alone realized $80,000, to obtain which more than
+7,000,000 pearl oysters were brought up.
+
+
+SEPIA AND SILK.
+
+The sepia of the artist comes from a mollusk, and is the fossil or
+extant ink-bag of a cephalopod or squid, while the cuttle-fish bone is
+used for a variety of purposes. In the islands of the Pacific the young
+of the pearly nautilus are strung upon strings and sold for $25 and $20
+as necklaces. The tritons are in fair demand, and many tons of cowries
+are sent to Europe yearly, while the shipment of a thick-lipped strombus
+in one year to Liverpool amounted to 300,000. The rich coloring of the
+haliotis is used for inlaying art furniture. From the pinna, silk of a
+peculiar quality is obtained. It is the byssus or cable of the animal.
+The threads are extremely fine, and equal in diameter throughout their
+entire length. It is first cleaned with soap and water, and dried by
+rubbing through the hands, and finally passed through combs of bone,
+iron, or wood, of different sizes, so that a pound of the material in
+the rough gives only about three ounces of pure thread. It is mixed with
+a third of real silk and spun into gloves, stockings, etc., having a
+beautiful yellow hue. The articles made from it are, however, not in
+general use. A pair of gloves from pinna silk would cost $1.50, and
+stockings about $3. Fine specimens of such work can be seen in the
+British Museum.
+
+Though not of animal origin, amber is one of the choicest vegetable
+productions used in the arts. It is the fossil gum of pines. Great beds
+of it occur at various points in Europe. On the Prussian seaboard it is
+mined, and often washes ashore. In 1576 a piece of amber was found
+that weighed thirteen pounds, and for which $5,000 was refused. In the
+cabinet of the Berlin Museum there is a piece weighing eighteen pounds.
+Ambergris, from which perfumery is made, is a secretion taken from the
+intestines of the whale, and a piece purchased from the King of Tydore
+by the East India Company is reported to have cost $18,000. Whales'
+teeth, the tusks of elephants, and those of the walrus and narwhal, are
+all used. Elephants' feet are cut off at a convenient length, richly
+upholstered, and used as seats; the great toe-nails, when finely
+polished, giving the novel article of furniture an attractive and unique
+appearance.
+
+It is probably not generally known that the web of certain spiders has
+been used. Over 150 years ago, Le Bon, of France, succeeded in weaving
+the web material into delicate gloves. Prof. B.G. Wilder investigated
+the question thoroughly, and was a firm believer that the web of the
+spider had a commercial value, but as yet this has not been realized.
+It would be difficult to find an animal that does not in some way
+contribute to the useful or decorative arts.--_C.F.H., in N.Y. Post_.
+
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+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Scientific American Supplement, No.
+362, December 9, 1882, by Various
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+<html>
+<head>
+<meta name="generator" content="HTML Tidy, see www.w3.org">
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content=
+"text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Scientific American
+Supplement, December 9, 1882</title>
+<style type="text/css">
+<!--
+body {margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; background-color: white}
+img {border: 0;}
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+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Scientific American Supplement, No. 362,
+December 9, 1882, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882
+
+Author: Various
+
+Posting Date: October 10, 2012 [EBook #8687]
+Release Date: August, 2005
+First Posted: August 1, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPL., NO. 362 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Olaf Voss, Don Kretz, Juliet Sutherland, Charles
+Franks and the Distributed Proofreaders Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<p class="ctr"><a href="images/1a.png"><img src=
+"images/1a_th.jpg" alt=""></a></p>
+
+<h1>SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT NO. 362</h1>
+
+<h2>NEW YORK, DECEMBER 9, 1882</h2>
+
+<h4>Scientific American Supplement. Vol. XIV, No. 362.</h4>
+
+<h4>Scientific American established 1845</h4>
+
+<h4>Scientific American Supplement, $5 a year.</h4>
+
+<h4>Scientific American and Supplement, $7 a year.</h4>
+
+<hr>
+<table summary="Contents" border="0" cellspacing="5">
+<tr>
+<th colspan="2">TABLE OF CONTENTS.</th>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td valign="top">I.</td>
+<td><a href="#1">ENGINEERING AND MECHANICS--Recent Improvements in
+Textile Machinery.--Harris's revolving ring spinning frame.-- New
+electric stop motion.--New positive motion loom. 6
+figures.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td><a href="#2">Spinning Without a Mule.--Harris's improvements in
+ring spinning.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td><a href="#3">New Binding Machines. 3 figures.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td><a href="#4">Flumes and their construction. 1 figure.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td><a href="#5">Chuwab's Rolling Mill for Dressing and Rounding
+Bar Iron. 9 figures.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td><a href="#6">Burning of Town Refuse at Leeds. 6
+figures.--Sections and elevations of destructor and
+carbonizer.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td valign="top">II.</td>
+<td><a href="#7">TECHNOLOGY AND CHEMISTRY.--Friedrich Wohler.--His
+labors and discoveries.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td><a href="#8">New Gas Burner. 3 figures.--Grimstone's improved
+gas burner.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td><a href="#9">Defty's Improvements in Gas Burners and Heaters. 4
+figures.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td><a href="#10">The Collotype in Practice.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td><a href="#11">Determination of Potassa in Manures.--By M. E.
+DREYFUS.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td valign="top">III.</td>
+<td><a href="#12">HYGIENE, MEDICINE, ETC.--The Air in Relation to
+Health. By Prof. C. F. CHANDLER.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td><a href="#13">The Plantain as a Styptic.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td><a href="#14">Bacteria.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td valign="top">IV.</td>
+<td><a href="#15">ELECTRICITY, ETC.--Gustavo Trouv&eacute; and his
+Electrical Inventions. --Portrait of Gustave
+Trouv&eacute;.--Trouv&eacute;'s electric boat competing in the
+regatta at Troyes.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td><a href="#16">Domestic Electricity.--Loiseau's electric naphtha
+and gas lighters.--Ranque's new form of lighter with
+extinguisher.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td><a href="#17">Theiler's Telephone Receiver. 2 figures.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td><a href="#18">An Electric Power Hammer. By MARCEL DEPRETZ. 1
+figure.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td><a href="#19">Solignac's New Electric Lamp. 3 figures.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td><a href="#20">Mondos's Electric Lamp. 2 figures.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td valign="top">V.</td>
+<td><a href="#21">METALLURGY AND MINERALOGY.--Aluminum.--Its
+properties, cost, and uses.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td><a href="#22">The Origin and Relations of the Carbon Minerals.
+By J.S. NEWBERRY.--An elaborate and extremely valuable review of
+the genesis of carbon minerals, and the modes and conditions of
+their occurrence.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td><a href="#23">Estimation of Sulphur in Iron and Steel. By
+GEORGE CRAIG. 1 figure.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td valign="top">VI.</td>
+<td><a href="#24">ARCHITECTURE, ETC.--The Armitage House.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td><a href="#25">Suggestions in Architecture.--An English country
+residence.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td valign="top">VII.</td>
+<td><a href="#26">BOTANY, HORTICULTURE, ETC.--The Soy Bean. 1
+figure.-- The Soy bean (<i>Soja hispida</i>).</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td><a href="#27">Erica Cavendishiana. 1 figure.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td><a href="#28">Philesia Buxifolia. 1 figure.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td><a href="#29">Mahogany.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td valign="top">VIII.</td>
+<td><a href="#30">MISCELLANEOUS.--Our Hebrew Population.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td><a href="#31">The Mysteries of Lake Baikal.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td><a href="#32">Traveling Sand Hills on Lake Ontario.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td><a href="#33">Animals in the Arts.--Corals.--The conch
+shell.--Living beetles, etc.--Pearls.--Sepia and silk.</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr>
+<p><a name="15"></a></p>
+
+<h2>GUSTAVE TROUV&Eacute;.</h2>
+
+<p>The accompanying portrait of M. Gustave Trouv&eacute; is taken
+from a small volume devoted to an account of his labors recently
+published by M. Georges Dary. M. Trouv&eacute;, who may be said to
+have had no ancestors from an electric point of view, was born in
+1839 in the little village of Haye-Descartes. He was sent by his
+parents to the College of Chinon, whence he entered the
+&Eacute;cole des Arts et Metiers, and afterward went to Paris to
+work in the shop of a clock-maker. This was an excellent
+apprenticeship for our future electrician, since it is in small
+works that electricity excels; and, if its domain is to be
+increased, it is only on condition that the electric mechanician
+shall never lose sight of the fact that he should be a clock-maker,
+and that his fingers, to use M. Dumas's apt words, should possess
+at once the strength of those of the Titans and the delicacy of
+those of fairies. It was not long ere Trouv&eacute; set up a shop
+of his own, whither inventors flocked in crowds; and the work he
+did for these soon gave up to him the secrets of the art of
+creating. The first applications that he attempted related to the
+use of electricity in surgery, a wonderfully fecund branch, but one
+whose importance was scarcely suspected, notwithstanding the
+results already obtained through the application of the
+insufflation pile to galvano-cautery. What the surgeon needed was
+to see plainly into the cavities of the human body. Trouv&eacute;
+found a means of lighting these up with lamps whose illuminating
+power was fitted for that sort of exploration. This new mode of
+illumination having been adopted, it was but natural that it should
+afterward find an application in dangerous mines, powder mills, and
+for a host of different purposes. But the perfection of this sort
+of instruments was the wound explorer, by the aid of which a great
+surgeon sounded the wounds that Italian balls had made in
+Garibaldi's foot.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a href="images/1b.png"><img src=
+"images/1b_th.jpg" alt="GUSTAVE TROUVE."></a></p>
+
+<p class="ctr">GUSTAVE TROUVE.</p>
+
+<p>The misfortunes of France afterward directed Trouv&eacute;'s
+attention to military electricity, and led him to devise a perfect
+system of portable telegraphy, in which his hermetic pile lends
+itself perfectly to all maneuvers and withstands all sorts of
+moving about.</p>
+
+<p>The small volume of which we have spoken is devoted more
+particularly to electric navigation, for which M. Trouv&eacute;
+specially designed the motor of his invention, and by the aid of
+which he performed numerous experiments on the ocean, on the Seine
+at Paris, and before Rouen and at Troyes. In this latter case M.
+Trouv&eacute; gained a medal of honor on the occasion of a regatta.
+Our engraving represents him competing with the rowers of whom he
+kept ahead with so distinguished success. We could not undertake to
+enumerate all the inventions which we owe to M. Trouv&eacute;; but
+we cannot, however, omit mention of the pendulum escapement that
+beats the second or half second without any variation in the length
+of the balance; of the electric gyroscope constructed at the
+request of M. Louis Foucault; of the electro-medical pocket-case;
+of the apparatus for determining the most advantageous inclination
+to give a helix; of the electric bit for stopping unruly horses;
+and of the universal caustic-holder. He has given the electric
+polyscope features such that every cavity in the human body may be
+explored by its aid. As for his electric motor, he has given that a
+form that makes the rotation regular and suppresses dead-centers--a
+result that he has obtained by utilizing the eccentrization of the
+Siemens bobbin.</p>
+
+<p>Although devoting himself mainly to improving his motor (which,
+by the way, he has applied to the tricycle), M. Trouv&eacute; does
+not disdain telephony, but has introduced into the manufacture of
+magnets for the purpose many valuable
+improvements.--<i>Electricit&eacute;</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a href="images/1c.png"><img src=
+"images/1c_th.jpg" alt=
+"TROUVE'S ELECTRIC BOAT COMPETING IN THE REGATTA AT TROYES, AUG. 6, 1882.">
+</a></p>
+
+<p class="ctr">TROUVE'S ELECTRIC BOAT COMPETING IN THE REGATTA AT
+TROYES, AUG. 6, 1882.</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p><a name="7"></a></p>
+
+<h2>FRIEDRICH W&Ouml;HLER.</h2>
+
+<p>At the age of eighty-two years, and full of honor, after a life
+actively devoted to scientific work of the highest and most
+accurate kind, which has contributed more than that of any other
+contemporary to establish the principles on which an exact science
+like chemistry is founded, the illustrious W&ouml;hler has gone to
+his rest.</p>
+
+<p>After he had worked for some time with Berzelius in Sweden, he
+taught chemistry from 1825 to 1831 at the Polytechnic School in
+Berlin; then till 1836 he was stationed at the Higher Polytechnic
+School at Cassel, and then he became Ordinary Professor of
+Chemistry in the University of G&ouml;ttingen, where he remained
+till his death. He was born, July 31, 1800, at Eschersheim, near
+Frankfort-on-the-Main.</p>
+
+<p>Until the year 1828 it was believed that organic substances
+could only be formed under the influence of the vital force in the
+bodies of animals and plants. It was W&ouml;hler who proved by the
+artificial preparation of urea from inorganic materials that this
+view could not be maintained. This discovery has always been
+considered as one of the most important contributions to our
+scientific knowledge. By showing that ammonium cyanate can become
+urea by an internal arrangement of its atoms, without gaining or
+losing in weight, W&ouml;hler furnished one of the first and best
+examples of isomerism, which helped to demolish the old view that
+equality of composition could not coexist in two bodies, A and B,
+with differences in their respective physical and chemical
+properties. Two years later, in 1830, W&ouml;hler published,
+jointly with Liebig, the results of a research on cyanic and
+cyanuric acid and on urea. Berzelius, in his report to the Swedish
+Academy of Sciences, called it the most important of all researches
+in physics, chemistry, and mineralogy published in that year. The
+results obtained were quite unexpected, and furnished additional
+and most important evidence in favor of the doctrine of isomerism.
+In the year 1834, W&ouml;hler and Liebig published an investigation
+of the oil of bitter almonds. They prove by their experiments that
+a group of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms can behave like an
+element, take the place of an element, and can be exchanged for
+elements in chemical compounds. Thus the foundation was laid of the
+doctrine of compound radicals, a doctrine which has had and has
+still the most profound influence on the development of
+chemistry--so much so that its importance can hardly be
+exaggerated. Since the discovery of potassium by Davy, it was
+assumed that alumina also, the basis of clay, contained a metal in
+combination with oxygen. Davy, Oerstedt, and Berzelius attempted
+the extraction of this metal, but could not succeed. W&ouml;hler
+then worked on the same subject, and discovered the metal aluminum.
+To him also is due the isolation of the elements yttrium,
+beryllium, and titanium, the observation that silicium can be
+obtained in crystals, and that some meteoric stones contain organic
+matter. He analyzed a number of meteorites, and for many years
+wrote the digest on the literature of meteorites in the
+<i>Jahresbericht der Chemie</i>; he possessed, perhaps, the best
+private collection of meteoric stones and irons existing.
+W&ouml;hler and Sainte Claire Deville discovered the crystalline
+form of boron, and W&ouml;hler and Buff the hydrogen compounds of
+silicium and a lower oxide of the same element. This is by no means
+a full statement of W&ouml;hler's scientific work; it even does not
+mention all the discoveries which have had great influence on the
+theory of chemistry. The mere titles of the papers would fill
+several closely-printed pages. The journals of every year from 1820
+to 1881 contain contributions from his pen, and even his minor
+publications are always interesting. As was truly remarked ten
+years ago, when it was proposed by a Fellow of the Royal Society
+that a Copley medal should be conferred upon him, "for two or three
+of his researches he deserves the highest honor a scientific man
+can obtain, but the sum of his work is absolutely overwhelming. Had
+he never lived, the aspect of chemistry would be very different
+from that it is now."</p>
+
+<p>While sojourning at Cassel, W&ouml;hler made, among other
+chemical discoveries, one for obtaining the metal nickel in a state
+of purity, and with two attached friends he founded a factory there
+for the preparation of the metal.</p>
+
+<p>Among the works which he published were "Grundriss der
+Anorganischen Chemie," Berlin, 1830, and the "Grundriss der
+Organischen Chemie," Berlin, 1840. Nor must we omit to mention
+"Praktischen Uebringen der Chemischen Analyse," Berlin, 1854, and
+the "Lehrbuch der Chemie," Dresden, 1825, 4 vols.</p>
+
+<p>At a sitting of the Academy, held on October 2, 1882, M. Jean
+Baptiste Dumas, the permanent secretary, with profound regret, made
+known the intelligence of the death of the illustrious foreign
+associate, Friedrich W&ouml;hler, professor in the University of
+G&ouml;ttingen. He said: "M. Friedrich W&ouml;hler, the favorite
+pupil of Berzelius, had followed in the lines and methods of work
+of his master. From 1821 till his last year he has continuously
+published memoirs or simple notes, always remarkable for their
+exactness, and often of such a nature that they took among
+contemporaneous production the first rank by their importance,
+their novelty, or their fullness. Employed chiefly, during his
+sojourn in Sweden, in work on mineral chemistry, he has remained
+all his life the undisputed chief in this branch of science in
+German universities. This preparation and preoccupation, which one
+might have thought sufficient to occupy his time, did not, however,
+prevent him from taking the chief part in the development of
+organic chemistry, and of filling one of the most elevated
+positions in it.</p>
+
+<p>"His contemporaries have not forgotten the unusual sensation
+produced by the unexpected discovery by which he was enabled to
+make artificially, and by a purely chemical method, urea, the most
+nitrogenous of animal substances. Other transformations or
+combinations giving birth to substances which, until then, had only
+been met with in animals or plants, have since been obtained, but
+the artificial formation of urea still remains the neatest and most
+elegant example of this order of creation. All chemists know and
+admire the classical memoir in which W&ouml;hler and Liebig some
+time after made known the nature of the benzoic series, and
+connected them with the radicals of which we may consider them as
+being the derivatives comparable with products of a mineral nature.
+Their memoirs on the derivatives of uric acid, a prolific source of
+new and remarkable substances, has been an inexhaustible mine in
+the hands of their successors.</p>
+
+<p>"This is not a moment when we should pretend to review the work
+which M. W&ouml;hler has done in mineral chemistry. Among the 240
+papers which he has published in scientific journals, there are few
+which the treatises of chemistry have not immediately turned to
+account. We need only confine ourselves to the discovery of
+aluminum, to which the energy and inventive genius of our
+<i>confr&egrave;re</i>, Henry Deville, soon gave a place near the
+noble metals. United by a rivalry which would have divided less
+noble minds, these two great chemists carried on together their
+researches in chemistry, and joined their forces to clear up points
+still obscure in the history of boron, silicium, and the metals of
+the platinum group, and remained closely united, which each year
+only strengthened.</p>
+
+<p>"The reader will pardon me a souvenir entirely personal. We were
+born, M. W&ouml;hler and I, in 1800. I am his senior by a few days.
+Our scientific life began at the same date, and during sixty years
+everything has combined to bind more closely the links of
+brotherhood which has existed for so long a time."</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p><a name="30"></a></p>
+
+<h2>OUR HEBREW POPULATION.</h2>
+
+<p>The United Jewish Association has made a canvass of the
+denomination in this country, finding 278 congregations, and a
+total Jewish population of 230,984. New York has the largest
+number--80,565. Then follows Pennsylvania, with 20,000; California,
+with 18,580; Ohio with 14,581; Illinois, with 12,625, and Maryland,
+with 10,357.</p>
+
+<p>The Jewish population in the largest cities is as follows:</p>
+
+<pre>
+  New York         60,000
+  San Francisco    16,000
+  Brooklyn         14,000
+  Philadelphia     13,000
+  Chicago          12,000
+  Baltimore        10,000
+  Cincinnati        8,000
+  Boston            7,000
+  St. Louis         6,500
+  New Orleans       5,000
+  Cleveland         3,500
+  Newark            3,500
+  Milwaukee         3,500
+  Louisville        2,500
+  Pittsburg         2,000
+  Detroit           2,000
+  Washington        1,500
+  New Haven         1,000
+  Rochester         1,000
+</pre>
+
+<p>This total Jewish population of 230,984 has six hospitals,
+eleven orphan asylums and homes, fourteen free colleges and
+schools, and 602 benevolent lodges. Of the free schools maintained
+by the Hebrews, five are in New York, four in Philadelphia, and one
+each in Cincinnati, St. Louis, Chicago, and San Francisco. Their
+hospitals are in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cincinnati, New
+Orleans, and Chicago, while their orphan asylums, homes, and other
+benevolent institutions are scattered all over the country.</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p><a name="31"></a></p>
+
+<h2>THE MYSTERIES OF THE BAIKAL.</h2>
+
+<p>The Angara is cold as ice all the summer through, so cold,
+indeed, that to bathe in it is to court inevitable illness, and in
+winter a sled drive over its frozen surface is made in a
+temperature some degrees lower than that prevailing on the banks.
+This comes from the fact that its waters are fresh from the yet
+unfathomed depths of the Baikal, which during the five short months
+of summer has scarcely time to properly unfreeze. In winter the
+lake resembles in all respects a miniature Arctic Ocean, having its
+great ice hummocks and immense leads, over which the caravan sleds
+have to be ferried on large pieces of ice, just as in the frozen
+North. In winter, too, the air is so cold in the region above the
+lake that birds flying across its icy bosom sometimes drop down
+dead on the surface. Some authors say that seals have been caught
+in the lake of the same character as those found in the Arctic
+seas; for this assertion I have no proof. An immense caravan
+traffic is carried across the frozen lake every season between
+Russia and China. To accommodate this the Russian postal
+authorities once established a post house on the middle of the
+lake, where horses were kept for travelers. But this was
+discontinued after one winter, when an early thaw suddenly set in,
+and horses, yemschliks and post house all disappeared beneath the
+ice, and were never seen more. In summer the lake is navigated by
+an antiquated steamer called the General Korsakoff, which ventures
+out in calm weather, but cannot face the violent storms and squalls
+that sometimes rise with sudden impetuosity. Irkutskians say,
+indeed, that it is only upon Lake Baikal and upon this old hull
+that a man really learns to pray from his heart. The lake is held
+in superstitious reverence by the natives. It is called by them
+Svyatoe More, or the Holy Lake, and they believe that no Christian
+was ever lost in its waters, for even when a person is drowned in
+it the waves always take the trouble to cast the body on shore.</p>
+
+<p>Its length is 400 miles, its width an average of 35 miles,
+covers an area of 14,000 square miles and has a circumference of
+nearly 1,200 miles, being the largest fresh water lake in the Old
+World, and, next to the Caspian and the Aral, the largest inland
+sheet of water in Asia. Its shores are bold and rugged and very
+picturesque, in some places 1,000 feet high. In the surrounding
+forests are found game of the largest description, bears, deer,
+foxes, wolves, elk and these afford capital sport for the sportsmen
+of Irkutsk.</p>
+
+<p>Around the coasts are many mineral springs, hot and cold, which
+have a great reputation among the Irkutskians. The hot springs of
+Yurka, on the Selenga, 200 versts from Verchore Udevisk and not
+many miles from the eastern shore of the Baikal, which have a
+temperature of 48 degrees R&eacute;aumur and whose waters are
+strongly impregnated with sulphur, are a favorite watering place
+for natives as well as Russians and Buriats.--<i>Herald
+Correspondent with the Jeannette Search Expedition</i>.</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p><a name="32"></a></p>
+
+<h2>TRAVELING SAND HILLS ON LAKE ONTARIO.</h2>
+
+<p>An interesting example of sand-drift occurs near Wellington Bay,
+on Lake Ontario, ten miles from Pictou. The lake shore near the
+sand banks is indented with a succession of rock-paved bays, whose
+gradually shoaling margins afford rare bathing grounds. East and
+West Lakes, each five miles long, and the latter dotted with
+islands, are separated from Lake Ontario by narrow strips of beach.
+Over the two mile-wide isthmus separating the little lakes, the
+sand banks, whose glistening heights are visible miles away, are
+approached. On near approach they are hidden by the cedar woods,
+till the roadway in front is barred by the advancing bank, to avoid
+which a roadway through the woods has been constructed up to the
+eastern end of the sand range. The sand banks stretch like a
+crescent along the shore, the concave side turned to the lake,
+along which it leaves a pebbly beach. The length of the crescent is
+over two miles, the width 600 to 3,000 or 4,000 feet.</p>
+
+<p>Clambering up the steep end of the range among trees and
+grapevines, the wooded summit is gained, at an elevation of nearly
+150 feet. Passing along the top, the woods soon disappear, and the
+visitor emerges on a wild waste of delicately tinted saffron,
+rising from the slate-colored beach in gentle undulation, and
+sleepily falling on the other side down to green pastures and into
+the cedar woods. The whole surface of this gradually undulating
+mountain desert is ribbed by little wavelets a few inches apart,
+but the general aspect is one of perfect smoothness. The sand is
+almost as fine as flour, and contains no admixture of dust The foot
+sinks only an inch or two in walking over it; children roll about
+on it and down its slopes, and, rising, shake themselves till their
+clothing loses every trace of sand. Occasionally gusts stream over
+the wild waste, raising a dense drift to a height of a foot or two
+only, and streaming like a fringe over the steep northern edge.
+Though the sun is blazing down on the glistening wilderness there
+is little sensation of heat, for the cool lake breeze is ever
+blowing. On the landward side, the insidious approach of the
+devouring sand is well marked. One hundred and fifty feet below,
+the foot of this moving mountain is sharply defined against the
+vivid green of the pastures, on which the grass grows luxuriantly
+to within an inch of the sand wall. The ferns of the cedar woods
+almost droop against the sandy slope. The roots of the trees are
+bare along the white edge; a foot or two nearer the sand buries the
+feet of the cedars: a few yards nearer still the bare trunks
+disappear; still nearer only the withered topmast twigs of the
+submerged forest are seen, and then far over the tree tops stands
+the sand range. Perpetual ice is found under the foot of this steep
+slope, the sand covering and consolidating the snows drifted over
+the hill during the winter months. There is something
+awe-inspiring, says the correspondent of the Toronto Globe, in the
+slow, quiet, but resistless advance of the mountain front. Field
+and forest alike become completely submerged. Ten years ago a
+farm-house was swallowed up, not to emerge in light until the huge
+sand wave has passed over.</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p><a name="1"></a></p>
+
+<h2>RECENT IMPROVEMENTS IN TEXTILE MACHINERY.</h2>
+
+<p>At the recent exhibition at Boston of the New England Institute,
+several interesting novelties were shown which have a promise of
+considerable economic and industrial value.</p>
+
+<p>Fig. 1 represents the general plan and pulley connections of the
+Harris Revolving-Ring Spinning Frame. The purpose of the
+improvements which it embodies is to avoid the uneven draught of
+the yarn in spinning and winding incident to the use of a fixed
+ring. With the non-revolving ring the strain upon the yarn varies
+greatly, owing to the difference in diameter of the full and empty
+bobbin. At the base of the cone, especially in spinning weft, or
+filling, the diameter of the cop is five or six times that of the
+quill at the tip. As the yarn is wound upon the cone, the line of
+draught upon the traveler varies continually, the pull being almost
+direct where the bobbin is full, and nearly at right angles where
+it is empty. With the increasing angle the drag upon the traveler
+increases, not only causing frequent breakages of the yarn, but
+also an unequal stretching of the yarn, so that the yarn
+perceptibly varies in fineness. The unequal strain further causes
+the yarn to be more tightly wound upon the outside than upon the
+inside of the bobbin, giving rise to snarls and wastage.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a href="images/3a.png"><img src=
+"images/3a_th.jpg" alt=""></a></p>
+
+<p class="ctr">RECENT IMPROVEMENTS IN TEXTILE MACHINERY.--1,
+2.--SPINNING<br>
+WITHOUT A MULE--THE HARRIS REVOLVING RING SPINNING FRAME.<br>
+3, 4, 5.--NEW ELECTRIC STOP MOTION FOR DRAWING FRAMES.<br>
+6.--NEW POSITIVE MOTION LOOM.</p>
+
+<p>These difficulties have hitherto prevented the application of
+ring spinning to the finer grades of yarn. They are overcome in the
+new spinning frame by an ingenious device by which a revolving
+motion is given to the ring in the same direction as the motion of
+the traveler, thereby reducing its friction upon the ring, the
+speed of the ring being variable, and so controlled as to secure a
+uniform tension upon the yarn at all stages of the winding.</p>
+
+<p>The construction of the revolving ring is shown in Fig. 2. C is
+the revolving ring; D, the hollow axis support; H, a section of the
+ring frame; E, the traveler.</p>
+
+<p>To give the required variable speed to the revolving ring there
+is placed directly over the drum, Fig. 1, A, for driving the
+spindle a smaller drum, B, from which bands drive each ring
+separately. The shaft, which is attached by cross girts to the ring
+rail, and moves up and down with it, is driven by a pair of conical
+drums from the main cylinder shaft; and is so arranged with a loose
+pulley on the large end of the receiving cone as to remain
+stationary while the wind is on or near the base of the bobbin.
+When the cone of the bobbin diminishes so as to materially increase
+the pull on the traveler, the conical drums are started by a belt
+shipper attached to the lilt motion. By the movement of the belt on
+these drums a continually accelerated motion is given to the rings,
+their maximum speed being about one-twentieth the number of
+revolutions per minute as the spindle has at the same moment. This
+action is reversed when the lift falls. The tension of the wind
+upon the bobbin is thus kept uniform, the desired hardness of the
+wind being secured by the use of a heavier or lighter traveler
+according to the compactness of cop required.</p>
+
+<p>The model frame shown at the fair did its work admirably well,
+spinning yarns as high as No. 400, a fineness hitherto unattainable
+on ring frames. It is claimed that this invention can do whatever
+can be done with the mule, and without the skilled labor which mule
+spinning demands.</p>
+
+<p>This invention is exhibited by E. &amp; A. W. Harris,
+Providence, R.I.</p>
+
+<h3>NEW ELECTRIC STOP MOTION.</h3>
+
+<p>Figs. 3, 4, and 5 illustrate some of the applications of the
+electric stop motion in connection with cotton machinery. The merit
+of this invention lies in simplifying the means by which machinery
+may be stopped automatically the instant, its work, from accident
+or otherwise, begins to be improperly done. The use of electricity
+for this purpose is made possible by the fact that comparatively
+dry cotton is a nonconductor of electricity. In the process of
+carding, drawing or spinning, the cotton is made to pass between
+rollers or other pieces forming parts of an electric circuit. So
+long as the machine is properly fed and in proper working
+condition, the stopping apparatus rests; the moment the continuity
+of the cotton is broken or any irregularity occurs, electric
+contact results, completing the circuit and causing an electro
+magnet to act upon a lever or other device, and the machine is
+stopped. The current is supplied by a small magneto-electric
+machine driven by a band from the main driving shaft, and is always
+available while the engine is running.</p>
+
+<p>Fig. 3 shows the general arrangement of the apparatus as applied
+to a drawing frame. In the process of drawing down the roll of
+cotton--the sliver--four things may happen making it necessary to
+stop the machine. A sliver may break on the way from the can to the
+drawing rollers, or the supply of cotton may become exhausted; the
+cotton may lap or accumulate on the drawing rollers; the sliver may
+break between the drawing rollers and the calender rollers; or the
+front can may overflow. In each and all of these cases the electric
+circuit is instantly completed; the parts between which the cotton
+flows either come together, as when breakage occurs, or, if there
+is lapping, they are separated so as to make contact above. In any
+case, the current causes the electro-magnet, S, against the side of
+the machine to move its armature and set the stop motion in
+play.</p>
+
+<p>Figs. 4 and 5 represent in detail the manner in which electric
+connection is made in two cases requiring the intervention of the
+stop motion. In Fig. 4 the upper part of a receiving can is shown.
+When the can is full the cotton lifts the tube wheel, J, until it
+makes an electrical connection, and the stop motion is brought into
+instant action. In Fig. 5, the traction upon the yarn holds the
+hook borne by the spring, F, away from G, and the electric circuit
+is interrupted. A breakage of the yarn allows this spring to act;
+contact is made, and the stop motion operates as before.</p>
+
+<p>This simple and efficient device is exhibited by Howard &amp;
+Bullough &amp; Riley, of Boston.</p>
+
+<h3>NEW POSITIVE MOTION LOOM.</h3>
+
+<p>Fig. 6 shows the essential features of a positive motion loom,
+intended for weaving narrow fabrics, exhibited by Knowles, of
+Worcester, Mass. The engraving shows so clearly how, by a right and
+left movement of the rack, the shuttle is thrown by the action of
+the intermediate cogwheels, that further description is
+unnecessary.</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p><a name="2"></a></p>
+
+<h2>SPINNING WITHOUT A MULE.</h2>
+
+<p>At the recent semi-annual meeting of the New England Cotton
+Manufacturers' Association, held at the Institute of Technology,
+Boston, the following paper on the Harris system of revolving ring
+spinning was read by Col. Webber for the author:</p>
+
+<p>It is well known that one of the most serious difficulties in
+ring spinning is the variable pull upon the traveler, caused by the
+difference in diameter of the full and empty bobbins, and this is
+especially noticeable in spinning weft, or filling, when the
+diameter of the quill at the tip is not over 3-16 of an inch, while
+that of the base of the cone, or full bobbin, is from an inch to an
+inch and one-eighth. This variation in diameter causes the line of
+draught upon the traveler, which, with the full bobbin, forms
+nearly a tangent to the interior circle of the ring, to be nearly
+radial to it with an empty one, and this increased drag upon the
+traveler not only causes frequent breakage in spinning, but also
+stretches the yarn, so that it is perceptibly finer when it is spun
+on the nose of the bobbin than when it is spun on the bottom of the
+cone.</p>
+
+<p>Endeavors have been made to compensate for this difficulty by
+making a less draught at that period of the operation; but we
+believe the principle of curing one error by adding another to be
+wrong, and aim by our improvement to avoid the cause of the
+trouble, which we do by giving a revolving motion to the ring
+itself in the same direction as that of the traveler, at a variable
+speed, so as to aid its slip, and reduce its friction on the ring.
+This we accomplish by means of a shaft with whorls on it, located
+directly over the drum for driving the spindle, from which bands
+drive each ring separately; and attached by cross-girts to the
+ring-rail, and moving up and down with it.</p>
+
+<p>This shaft is driven by a pair of conical drums from the main
+cylinder shaft, and is so arranged with a loose pulley on the large
+end of the receiving cone as to remain stationary while the wind is
+on or near the base of the bobbin, or nearly parallel to the path
+of the traveler.</p>
+
+<p>When the cone of the bobbin begins to diminish to such a point
+as to materially increase the radial pull on the traveler, these
+conical drums are put in operation by a belt shipper attached to
+the lift motion, which moves the belt on to the cones, and gives a
+continually accelerated motion to the rings, so that when the wind
+reaches the top of the bobbin the rings will have their maximum
+speed of about 300 revolutions per minute, or about one-twentieth
+the number of revolutions of the spindle at this point, if the
+latter make 6000 revolutions per minute, and this we find in actual
+practice to produce results which are highly satisfactory.</p>
+
+<p>As the lift falls again, the belt is moved back on the cones,
+giving a retarding motion to the rings, until it reaches the point
+at which it began to operate, and is then either moved on to the
+loose pulley, and the rings remain stationary, or for very fine
+yarn are kept in motion at a slow speed. We are often asked if this
+does not affect the twist, but answer that it does not in the
+least, as the relative speeds of the rolls and spindles remain the
+same, and the only thing that can be affected is the hardness of
+the wind upon the bobbin, and this is adjustable by the use of a
+heavier or lighter traveler, according to the compactness of cop
+required.</p>
+
+<p>We claim by means of this improvement the ability to use a much
+smaller quill or bobbin, and consequently holding as much yarn in a
+less outside diameter, enabling us to use a smaller ring, thus
+saving power both in the weight of bobbin to be carried and in the
+distance to be moved by the traveler; and we believe the power to
+be saved in this manner and by the diminution of the dead pull on
+the traveler, when the wind is at the tip of the bobbin, to be more
+than sufficient to give the necessary motion to the revolving
+rings. We are as yet unable to answer this question of power fully,
+as we have not yet tested a full size frame, but we propose to do
+this in season to answer all questions at the next meeting of your
+association.</p>
+
+<p>The same invention is also applicable to warp spinning, by
+giving the ring a continuous accelerating and retarding motion, in
+which the maximum speed is given to the ring at the first start of
+the frame when the bobbin is empty, sufficient to diminish the
+strain on the yarn, and gradually reducing the motion at each
+traverse of the rail, as the bobbin is filled; but we claim the
+great advantage of our invention to be the capability of spinning
+any grade of yarn on the ring frame that can be spun on the hand or
+self-operating mule, and in proof of this we call your attention to
+the model frame now in operation at the fair of the New England
+Manufacturers' and Mechanics' Institute, where we are spinning on a
+quill only 5-32 inches diameter at top, and where we can show you
+samples of yarn from No. 80 to No. 400 spun on this frame from
+combed roving from the Conant Thread Company and Willimantic Linen
+Company, which we believe has never before been accomplished on any
+ring frame.</p>
+
+<p>We invite you to examine this invention at the fair, and also
+call your attention to the adjustable roller beam, by means of
+which the rolls can be adjusted at any desirable angle or pitch, so
+as to throw the twist more or less directly spinning, and an
+improvement in the quality of the yarn from the same cause, which
+will increase the production from the loom, and finally eradicate
+other objectionable features of the labor question, which so often
+disturb the peaceful harmony between labor and capital.</p>
+
+<p>Mr, Goulding asked if it had been demonstrated whether more or
+less power was required for the same numbers than effect of running
+the machine a little out of true, and the reply was that the
+advantage of the new method over the old would be more apparent in
+such a case than with a perfect frame. In regard to speed, the
+inventor proposed as a maximum rate, when the wind was at the tip
+of the bobbin, 300 revolutions per minute, but from this point the
+speed would diminish.</p>
+
+<p>Conant Thread Company and Willimantic Linen Company, which we
+believe has never before been accomplished on any ring frame.</p>
+
+<p>We invite you to examine this invention at the fair, and also
+call your attention to the adjustable roller beam, by means of
+which the rolls can be adjusted at any desirable angle or pitch, so
+as to throw the twist more or less directly into the bite of the
+rolls, according to the character of the yarn desired, or the
+quality of the stock used.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, we claim, by the use of this invention, to be able to
+spin any fibrous material which can be drawn by draught-rolls, of
+any required degree of softness of twist, such as can be spun by
+any mule whatever, and to do this with the attention only of
+children of from twelve to fourteen years of age.</p>
+
+<p>We also claim an increased production, owing to less breakage of
+ends, from the yarn not being overstrained in spinning, and an
+improvement in the quality of the yarn from the same cause, which
+will increase the production from the loom, and finally eradicate
+other objectionable features of the labor question, which so often
+disturb the peaceful harmony between labor and capital.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Goulding asked if it had been demonstrated whether more or
+less power was required for the same numbers than by other methods,
+and Col. Webber replied that no more power was required to move the
+rings than was saved by friction on the ring and the saving of
+weight of the bobbins. He thought it required no more power than
+the old way.</p>
+
+<p><i>The method of lubricating the ring</i>.--The inventor, who
+was present, stated, in response to a query, that he claimed an
+advantage for his ring in spinning all numbers from the very
+coarsest up, both in quality and quantity, and especially the
+former.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Garsed inquired of Col Webber what would be the effect of
+running the machine a little out of true, and the reply was that
+the advantage of the new method over the old would be more apparent
+in such a case than with a perfect frame. In regard to speed, the
+inventor proposed as a maximum rate, when the wind was at the tip
+of the bobbin, 300 revolutions per minute, but from this point the
+speed would diminish.</p>
+
+<p>It was suggested by a member that the only advantage of a
+revolving ring was to relieve the strain on the traveler just to
+the extent of the ring's revolutions. If the ring were making 300
+revolutions per minute, and the traveler 6,000, the strain on the
+latter would be equal to 5,700 revolutions on a stationary ring.
+Col. Webber, however, thought that the motion of the ring gave the
+traveler a lift that prevented its stopping at any particular
+point, and cited the fact that all numbers up to 400 could be spun
+with this ring as proof of its superiority over the old method.</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p><a name="8"></a></p>
+
+<h2>NEW GAS BURNER.</h2>
+
+<p>Speaking at the last meeting of the Gaslight and Coke Company,
+Mr. George Livesey said many things with a view to inspire
+confidence of the future in the minds of timid gas proprietors.
+Among others he mentioned the advances now being made by invention
+in regard to improved appliances for developing the illuminating
+power of coal gas, with especial reference to a new burner just
+patented by Mr. Grimston. Mr. Livesey passed a very high encomium
+upon the burner, and this expression of opinion by such an
+authority is sufficient to arouse deep interest in the apparatus in
+question. It is therefore with much pleasure that we present our
+readers with the following early account of Mr. Grimston's burner,
+for which we are indebted to the inventor and Mr. George Bower, of
+St. Neots, in whose manufactory the burners are now being made in
+all sizes. It should be premised, to save disappointment, that the
+invention is yet so fresh that its ultimate capabilities are
+unknown. The accompanying illustration, therefore, represents the
+bare skeleton of one of the first models; and the actual
+performance of only the very earliest burner, made in great part by
+Mr. Grimston himself, has been fully tested. Before proceeding to
+describe the invention, a brief history may be interesting of how
+it happened that Mr. Grimston, an electric lighting engineer,
+became a gas burner maker. The story will undoubtedly help to
+explain the reasons for many of the characteristics of the new
+burner.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a href="images/4a.png"><img src=
+"images/4a_th.jpg" alt=
+"IMPROVED GAS BURNER. FIG. 1.--Sectional Elevation."></a></p>
+
+<p class="ctr">IMPROVED GAS BURNER. FIG. 1.--Sectional
+Elevation.</p>
+
+<p>It appears, then, that Mr. Grimston, who was connected with the
+electrical engineering establishment of Siemens Bros. &amp; Co.,
+Limited, was some months ago shown the construction and working of
+the Siemens regenerative gas burner, which is now sufficiently well
+known to render a description unnecessary here. In common with most
+spectators of this very ingeniously and philosophically designed
+appliance, Mr. Grimston was struck with its bulk and the
+superficial clumsiness of the arrangement whereby the air and gas
+supply are heated in it by the products of combustion. These lamps
+have, of course, materially improved of late; but when Mr. Grimston
+first saw them, perhaps 18 months ago, they certainly could not be
+called neat and compact in design. He at once grasped the idea
+embodied in these lamps, and set about constructing an arrangement
+which should be based on a similar principle, but at the same time
+avoid the inconveniences complained of. It is not too much to say
+that he has succeeded in both these aims, and the burner which now
+bears his name strikes the observer at once by the brilliant light
+which it produces by the simplest and most obvious means. We may
+now describe, by reference to the accompanying illustrations, how
+Mr. Grimston produces the regenerative effect which is likewise the
+central idea of the Siemens burner.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><img src="images/4b.png" alt=
+"IMPROVED GAS BURNER. FIG. 2.--Section through A B."></p>
+
+<p class="ctr">IMPROVED GAS BURNER. FIG. 2.--Section through A
+B.</p>
+
+<p>The light is simply that produced by an arrangement of a kind of
+Argand burner turned upside down. The central gas-pipe, <i>a</i>
+(Figs. 1 and 3), is connected to a distributing chamber, whence the
+annular cluster of brass tubes, <i>a', a</i>, (Figs. 1 and 2), are
+prolonged downward, forming the burner. The burner is inclosed in
+an iron or brass annular casing, b, b, which forms the main
+framework of the apparatus. The annular space which it affords is
+the outlet chimney or flue for the products of combustion of the
+burner beneath, and is crossed by a number of thin brass tubes, c,
+c, which lead from the outer air into the inner space containing
+the burner tubes, a', a', already described. The upper openings of
+the annular body, b, are shown at e, e (Fig. 3), which communicate
+direct with the chimney proper, e', e'. The burner is lighted by
+opening the hinged glass cover, d, which fits practically air-tight
+on the bottom of the body, so that the air needed to support
+combustion must all pass through the tubes, c, c, the outer ends of
+which are protected by the casing, k, k.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><img src="images/4c.png" alt=
+"IMPROVED GAS BURNER. FIG. 3.--Section through C D."></p>
+
+<p class="ctr">IMPROVED GAS BURNER. FIG. 3.--Section through C
+D.</p>
+
+<p>When the gas is lighted at the burner, and the glass closed, the
+burner begins to act at once, although some minutes are necessarily
+required to elapse before its full brilliancy is gained. The cold
+air passes in through the tubes provided for it, and when these are
+heated to the fullest extent on their outside, by the hot fumes
+from the burner, they so readily part with their heat to the air
+that a temperature of 1,000&deg; to 1,200&deg; Fahr. is easily
+obtained in the air when it arrives inside, and commences in turn
+to heat the burner-tubes. The air-tubes are placed so as to
+intercept the hot gases as completely as possible; and also, of
+course, obtain heat by conduction from the sides of the annular
+body. It is evident that the number and dimensions of these tubes
+might be increased so as to abstract almost all the heat from the
+escaping fumes, but for the limitations imposed, first, by a
+consideration of the actual quantity of air required to support
+combustion, and, secondly, by the obligation to let sufficient
+ascensional power remain in the gases which are left to pass out
+through the upper chimney. If the gases are cooled too much, they
+will either fall back into the lamp and extinguish the flame, or
+will be removable only by the draught of a long chimney. It will
+probably be the aim of the inventor to balance these requirements,
+and so to produce burners with very short or longer chimneys,
+according as appearance is to be consulted or the highest possible
+effect produced. The burner is a ring of brass tubes of
+considerable diameter, in proportion to the quantity of gas
+consumed, and thus provides for the delivery of gas expanded by
+heat. In connection with this device an explanation may be found of
+the failure of the British Association Committee on Gas Burners to
+find any advantage from previously heating the air and gas
+consumed. The Committee did not make the necessary provision for
+the increased bulk of the combustible and its air supply, caused by
+their heightened temperature; and the same quantity of gas measured
+cold (at the meter) could only be driven through the ordinary small
+burner holes at a velocity destructive of good results. Herr
+Frederick Siemens perceived this in his early experiments, and not
+only increased the orifices of his burners, but provided for the
+closer contact of the more rarefied gas and air by the use of
+notched deflectors, which are now an essential part of his
+apparatus. Mr. Grimston also uses separate tubes of large area for
+his hot gas, but dispenses with deflectors, save in so far as the
+same duty may be performed by the plain lower edge of the inner
+cylinder of the lamp body, and the indentation of the glass
+beneath, which, as will be noticed, is made to follow the shape of
+the flame. It only remains now to speak of the flame and its
+qualities. It is, in the first place, a flame of hot gas, burning
+at an extremly small velocity of flow, and wholly exposed to view
+from the exact point which it is required to light. In this latter
+respect it differs materially, and with advantage, from the Siemens
+burner, which, while presenting an extremely brilliant and
+beautiful ball of flame outside its central tube of porcelain, may
+yet be tailing smokily downward inside this opaque screen, and
+thereby causing unperceived waste. The flame of the Grimston
+burner, on the other hand, is quite exposed, and all its light,
+from the ends of the burner-tubes to the point where visible
+combustion ceases, is made available for use. As a perfect Argand
+flame in the usual position has been likened in form to a tulip
+flower, so the flame of this burner presents the appearance of an
+inverted convolvulus. So far as he has already gone, Mr. Grimston
+prefers to keep the tubes of the burner at such a distance from
+each other that the several jets part at the point where they turn
+upward, so that the convolvulus figure is not maintained to the
+edge of the flame. From its peculiar position the light is, of
+course, completely shadowless as regards the lamp which affords it;
+and this, of itself, is no small recommendation for a pendant. It
+shows well for the simplicity and effectiveness of the perfected
+burners that Mr. Grimston's experimental example, although
+necessarily imperfect In many ways, burns with a remarkably steady
+light, of great brilliancy, which is assured by the fact that the
+products of combustion are robbed of all their heat to magnify the
+useful effect, so that the hand may be borne with ease over the
+outlet of the chimney. With respect to the endurance of the
+apparatus, it will be sufficient to remark that there is nothing in
+the gas or air heating arrangements to get out of order, and they
+are all easily accessible while the burner is in action. The glass
+is not liable to breakage, although it is in close proximity to the
+flame, as may be gathered from the testimony of the inventor, who
+has never broken one, notwithstanding the severity of some of his
+experimental studies upon his first lamp. The consumption of gas in
+the first working-model burner made by Mr. Grimston was 10 cubic
+feet per hour, and its illuminating power averaged 60 candles. The
+diameter of this burner was 1&frac14; inches across the tubes. It
+is scarcely necessary to state that if this high duty, which was
+obtained with the ordinary 16-candle gas of the Gaslight and Coke
+Company, can be maintained, to say nothing of being exceeded, in
+the commercial article, the Grimston burner, with its other
+advantages over all existing methods of obtaining equal results,
+has a great future before it. For example, it does not require a
+separate air supply under high pressure, or any extra material to
+render incandescent, and it may be turned on full immediately upon
+lighting. It throws a shadowless light, and lends itself to
+ventilating arrangements; and it is not by any means cumbersome,
+delicate in construction, or costly in manufacture. One of the
+greatest advantages to which it lays claim is, however, the power
+of yielding almost as good results in a small burner as in a large
+one. This is a consideration of great moment, when it is remembered
+that the tendency of most of the high power burners hitherto
+introduced is to benefit the lighting of streets, large interiors,
+and, generally speaking, points of great consumption. Meanwhile,
+the private user of burners, consuming from 3 to 5 cubic feet of
+gas per hour, has been left to attain as best he might, by the use
+of burners excellent of their kind, to the maximum effect of the
+standard Argand. Now, however, Mr. Grimston seeks to make the small
+consumer partake of the advantages erstwhile reserved for the
+wholesale user of large and costly Siemens and other lamps, and he
+even looks to this class of patrons with particular care. The
+example which we now illustrate, in Fig. 1, is a sectional
+presentment precisely half the actual size of a 5-foot burner,
+which it is intended to prepare for the market before all others.
+Another simple form of the burner, with vertical tubes, will, we
+understand, be introduced as soon as possible. It will be readily
+understood that the principle is capable of being embodied in many
+shapes; and it is satisfactory to learn that the inventor is quite
+alive to the necessity of producing a cheap as well as a good
+burner.</p>
+
+<p>Gas companies, as Mr. Livesey has expressed it, will be well
+content with a slower relative growth of consumption, if their
+consumers are at the same time making their gas go as far again as
+formerly, by the use of burners which turn nominal 16-candle gas
+into gas of 30-candle actual illuminating power. How far Mr.
+Grimston's invention may succeed in this work it is not for us to
+say. It is sufficient for the present that he has done excellently
+well in showing how Herr Frederick Siemens' scientific principles
+of regenerative gas burner construction may be carried out yet in
+another way. There is nothing more common in industrial annals than
+for one man to begin a work which another is destined to bring to
+greater perfection. Whether this natural process is to be repeated
+in the present instance must be left for the future to decide. In
+any case, Mr. Grimston's success, if success is to be his reward,
+though it will be well merited by his ingenuity and perseverance in
+solving a difficult problem, will never cause us to forget the
+prior claims of Herr Frederick Siemens, of Dresden, to the palm of
+the discoverer. Mr. Grimston may or may not be the happy inventor
+of the best gas-burner of the day; but there is the consolation of
+knowing that in the same field in which he will find his recompense
+there is room for any number and variety of useful improvements of
+a like character and object.--<i>Journal of Gas Lighting</i>.</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p><a name="9"></a></p>
+
+<h2>DEFTY'S IMPROVEMENTS IN GAS BURNERS AND HEATERS.</h2>
+
+<p>Among other inventors who have turned their attention to gas
+consumption is to be found Mr. H. Defty, who has made several forms
+both of heating and lighting burners. Mr. Defty has sought in the
+latter to apply the principle of heating the air and gas in a
+simple manner, with the object of obtaining improved photometrical
+results. The double-chimney Argand, as tried many years since by
+Dr. Frankland and others, makes a reappearance in one of Mr.
+Defty's models, illustrated in the accompanying diagram (Fig.
+1).</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><img src="images/4d.png" alt="Fig. 1."></p>
+
+<p class="ctr">Fig. 1.</p>
+
+<p>Here we have the double-chimney, a and b, for heating the air
+supplied to an ordinary Argand, by causing it to pass downward
+between the two chimneys, and inward to the point of combustion
+through a wire-gauze screen, c, under the inner chimney; but, in
+addition thereto, Mr. Defty hopes to gain an improved result by
+causing the gas to pass through the internal tube, s, which rises
+up in the middle of the flame. The gas, which enters at e, is made
+to pass up through the inner tube and down through the annular
+space to the burner.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><img src="images/4e.png" alt="Fig. 2."></p>
+
+<p class="ctr">Fig. 2.</p>
+
+<p>A more important form of lantern is the subject of the next
+diagram (Fig. 2), which shows a suspended globe lantern in which
+there is an attempt made to heat the air by the waste heat of the
+products of combustion. It will be perceived by the diagram that a
+globe lantern is furnished with a double chimney; the annular
+space, C, between the inner and outer chimneys allowing for the
+access of air in a downward direction. At the lower of this annular
+channel are the tubes D, protected by the graduated mesh, E, and
+which admit the air to the burner below. The products of combustion
+of the flame rise through the inner chimney, passing around the
+tubes, and thereby giving up some of their heat to the incoming
+air. Farther up, the chimney is partly filled with the convoluted
+gas-pipe, A, which also takes up some of the waste heat, and
+delivers the gas to the burner at a correspondingly high
+temperature. A very simple method of lighting this burner, which in
+itself does not present anything remarkable, is arranged at the
+lower part of the globe, where a hole is cut and a loose conical
+glass plug (which can, of course, be made to partake of the general
+ornamentation of the globe) may be pushed up to allow of the
+passage of the lighting agent, and is then dropped in its place
+again. Formal tests of the performances of these burners are not
+available; and the same may be said of the heating burners which
+are shown in the following diagrams.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><img src="images/5a.png" alt="FIG. 3."></p>
+
+<p class="ctr">FIG. 3.</p>
+
+<p>The first of these (Fig. 3) is called by Mr. Defty a "pyramid
+heater," and is designed to heat the mixture of air and gas before
+ignition, by conduction from its own flame. The inventor claims to
+effect a perfect combustion in this manner with considerable
+economy of fuel. It is evident, however, that a good deal of the
+gas consumed goes to heat the burner itself.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><img src="images/5b.png" alt="FIG. 4."></p>
+
+<p class="ctr">FIG. 4.</p>
+
+<p>The next and last of Mr. Defty's productions to be at present
+described is the so-called "crater burner," shown herewith (Fig.
+4). This is an atmospheric burner which is purposely made to "fire
+back," as well as to burn on the top of the apparatus. The body of
+the burner, like the pyramid heater just described, is full of
+fire-clay balls, which become very hot from the lower flame, and
+thus, after the burner has been for some time in action, a pale,
+lambent blaze crowns the top, apparently greater in volume than
+when it is first lighted. Here, again, there is a lamentable
+absence of reliable data as to economic results, which will,
+perhaps, be afforded when the apparatus in question is ready to be
+offered to the public.</p>
+
+<p>Whether one inventor or another succeeds in distancing his
+rivals, it is matter, says <i>The Journal of Gas Lighting</i>, for
+sincere congratulation among the friends of gas lighting that so
+much attention is being concentrated upon the improvement of gas
+burners for all purposes. This is an open field which affords scope
+for more workers than have yet entered upon it, and there is the
+certainty of substantial reward to whoever can realize a worthy
+advance upon the established practice.</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p><a name="3"></a></p>
+
+<h2>NEW BINDING MACHINES.</h2>
+
+<p>The accompanying cuts represent two new machines for binding
+together books and pamphlets. They are the invention of Messrs.
+Brehmer &amp; Co., and are now much used in England and Germany.
+The material used for binding is galvanized iron wire.</p>
+
+<p><i>Machine Operated by Hand</i> (Fig. 1).--This machine serves
+for fastening together the pages of pamphlets through the middle of
+the fold, or for binding together several sheets to form books up
+to a thickness of about half an inch.</p>
+
+<p>It consists of a small cast-iron frame, with which is
+articulated a lever, <i>i</i>, maneuvered by a handle, <i>h</i>.
+This lever is provided at its extremity with a curved slat, in
+which engages a stud, fixed to the lower part of a movable arm,
+<i>c</i>, whose extremity, <i>d</i>, rises and descends when the
+lever handle, <i>h</i>, is acted upon. This maneuver can be
+likewise performed by the foot, if the handle, <i>h</i>, be
+connected with a pedal, X, placed at the foot of the table that
+supports the machine, as shown in Fig. 2. The lever, <i>i</i>, is
+always drawn back to its first position, when left to itself, by
+means of the spring, <i>z</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a href="images/5c.png"><img src=
+"images/5c_th.jpg" alt="IMPROVED BINDING MACHINE.">
+</a></p>
+
+<p class="ctr">IMPROVED BINDING MACHINE.</p>
+
+<p>The staples for binding have nearly the form of the letter U,
+and are placed, to the number of 250 or 300, on small blocks of
+wood, <i>m</i>. To prepare the machine for work, the catch,
+<i>a</i>, is shoved back, and the whole upper part of the piece,
+<i>b</i>, is removed. The rod, <i>e</i>, with its spring, is then
+drawn back until a small hole in <i>e</i> is perceived, and into
+this there is introduced the hook, <i>f</i>, which then holds the
+spring. The block of wood, <i>m</i>, filled with staples, is then
+rested against a rectangular horizontal rod, and into this latter
+the staples are slipped by hand. The upper part of the piece,
+<i>b</i>, is next put in place and fastened with the catch,
+<i>a</i>. Finally, the spring is freed from the hook, <i>f</i>.
+When it is desired to bind the pages of a pamphlet, the latter is
+placed open on the support, <i>g</i>, which, as will be noticed, is
+angular above, so that the staple may enter exactly on the line of
+the fold. Then the handle, <i>h</i>, is shoved down so as to act on
+the arm, <i>c</i>, and cause the descent of the extremity,
+<i>d</i>, as well as the vertical piece, <i>b</i>, with which it
+engages. This latter, in its downward travel, takes up one of the
+staples, which are continually thrust forward by the rod and
+spring, and causes it to penetrate the paper. At this moment, the
+handle, <i>h</i>, makes the lever, <i>n</i>, oscillate, and this
+raises, through its other extremity, a vertical slide whose head
+bends the two points of the staple toward each other. The handle,
+<i>h</i>, is afterward lifted, the position of the pamphlet is
+changed, and the same operation is repeated. When it is desired to
+form a book from a number of sheets, the table, <i>l</i>, is
+mounted on the support, <i>g</i>, its two movable registers are
+regulated, and the sheets are spread out flat on it. The machine,
+in operating, drives the staples in along the edge of the sheets,
+and the points are bent over, as above indicated.</p>
+
+<p>The axis on which the lever, <i>i</i>, is articulated is
+eccentric, and is provided on the side opposite the lever with a
+needle, <i>k</i>, revolving on a dial. The object of this
+arrangement is to regulate the machine according to the thickness
+of the book.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a href="images/5d.png"><img src=
+"images/5d_th.jpg" alt="FIG. 1."></a></p>
+
+<p class="ctr">FIG. 1.</p>
+
+<p><i>Machine to be Operated by a Motor</i> (Fig. 3).--This
+machine, although working on the same principle, is of an entirely
+different construction. It is designed for binding books of all
+dimensions. It consists of a frame, <i>a</i>, in two pieces,
+connected by cross-pieces, and carries a table, <i>u</i>, designed
+to receive the sheets before being bound together. Motion is
+transmitted by means of a cone, <i>c</i>, mounted loose on the
+shaft, <i>b</i>. To start the machine, the foot is pressed on the
+pedal, <i>m</i>, which, through the intermedium of links and arms,
+brings together the friction plates, <i>d</i>, one of which is
+connected with the shaft, <i>b</i>, and the other with the cone,
+<i>c</i>. When it is desired to stop the machine, the pedal is left
+free to itself, while the counterpoise, <i>s</i>, ungears the
+friction plates. The machine fastens the paper with galvanized iron
+wire wound round bobbins placed at the side of the apparatus. This
+wire it cuts, and forms into staples.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><img src="images/5e.png" alt="FIG. 2."></p>
+
+<p class="ctr">FIG. 2.</p>
+
+<p>The book to be bound is placed on the support, <i>h</i>, and the
+arms, <i>k</i>, that carry the fasteners cause it to move backward
+and forward. It also undergoes a second motion--that is, it moves
+downward according to the number and thickness of its pages. This
+motion, which takes place every time the operator adds a new sheet,
+is regulated by a cog-wheel register, <i>l</i>, which is divided,
+and provided with a needle.</p>
+
+<p>The iron wires pass from the bobbins on a support to the left of
+the machine by means of feed rollers, which thrust them through the
+eight clips. In the interior of these latter there is a double
+knife, which, actuated by one of the cams of the wheel, <i>e</i>,
+cuts the wire and bends it thus <img src="images/5m1.png"
+align="middle" alt="">. The extremities of the staples are thrust
+through the back of the half opened leaves, and then bent toward
+each other thus <img src="images/5m2.png" align="middle"
+alt="">, by the front fastener. This motion is effected by means of
+two levers, <i>p</i> (moved by the cams, <i>e</i>), whose
+extremities at every revolution of the machine seize by the two
+ends a link that maneuvers the fasteners. The binding of one sheet
+finished, the lower arms of the machine again take their position,
+the wires move forward the length necessary to form new staples, a
+new sheet is laid, and the same operation is proceeded with. The
+number of staples and their distance are changed, according to the
+size of the book, by introducing into the machine as much wire as
+will be necessary for the staples. To prevent their number from
+increasing the thickness of the back of the book (as would happen
+were they superposed), the support, <i>h</i>, moves laterally at
+every blow, so as to cause the third staple to be driven over the
+first, the second over the fourth, etc.</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p><a name="4"></a></p>
+
+<h2>FLUMES AND THEIR CONSTRUCTION.</h2>
+
+<p>In crossing ravines in this State, flumes or wrought iron pipes
+are used. Many miners object to flumes on account of their
+continual cost and danger of destruction by fire. Where used and
+practicable, they are set on heavier grades than ditches, 30 to 35
+ft. per mile, and, consequently, are proportionately of smaller
+area than the ditches. In their construction a straight line is the
+most desirable. Curves, where required, should be carefully set, so
+that the flume may discharge its maximum quantity. Many ditches in
+California have miles of fluming. The annexed sketch, drawn by A.
+J. Bowie, Jr., will show the ordinary style of construction.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><img src="images/5f.png" alt=
+"SKETCH OF FLUME."></p>
+
+<p class="ctr">SKETCH OF FLUME.</p>
+
+<p>The planking ordinarily used is of heart sugar pine, one and a
+half to two inches thick, and 12 to 18 inches wide. Where the
+boards join, pine battens three inches wide by one and a half thick
+cover the seam. Sills, posts, and caps support and strengthen the
+flume every four feet. The posts are mortised into the caps and
+sills. The sills extend about 20 inches beyond the posts, and to
+them side braces are nailed to strengthen the structure. This
+extension of the sill timbers affords a place for the accumulation
+of snow and ice, and in the mountains such accumulations frequently
+break them off, and occasionally destroy a flume.</p>
+
+<p>To avoid damage from slides, snow, and wind storms, the flumes
+are set in as close as possible to the bank, and rest, wholly or
+partially, on a solid bed, as the general topography and costs will
+admit. Stringers running the entire length of the flume are placed
+beneath the sills just outside of the posts. They are not
+absolutely necessary, but in point of economy are most valuable, as
+they preserve the timbers. As occasion may demand, the flume is
+trestled, the main supports being placed every eight feet. The
+scantling and struts used are in accordance with the requirements
+of the work.--<i>Min. and Sci. Press</i>.</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p><a name="5"></a></p>
+
+<h2>CHUWAB'S ROLLING MILL FOR DRESSING AND ROUNDING BAR IRON.</h2>
+
+<p>This new forge apparatus has been devised for the purpose of
+finishing up round irons of all diameters while hot, as they come
+out of the ordinary rolling mill, by rendering them perfectly
+circular, cylindrical, straight, smooth, and level at the
+extremities, as if they had passed through a slide lathe. Such a
+high degree of external finish is a very valuable feature in those
+round irons that are employed in so great quantity for shafting,
+cylindrical axles, etc., as well as in the manufacture of bolts and
+locks. Figs. 1, 2, 3, and 4 of the opposite engraving will allow it
+to be seen that this apparatus which is usually installed at the
+side of the finishing cylinder is, in part, beneath the general
+level of the forge floor. It may be placed parallel with or
+perpendicular to the apparatus that it does duty for, this
+depending upon the site at disposal or the mode of
+transmission.</p>
+
+<p>The apparatus consists essentially of two tempered iron
+cylinders, A, 0.5 of a meter in diameter by 1.5 meters in length,
+revolving in the <i>same direction</i> (contrary to what takes
+place in ordinary rolling mills) between two frames, B, that are
+open on one side to allow of the entrance of the finishing bar.
+This latter is held between the cylinders, A, which roll it so much
+the faster in proportion as its diameter is smaller, and by a
+scraper guide, C, of the same length as the cylinder table, and
+which may be regulated at will by bolts, c, fixed to the frame, B.
+The bottom cylinder remains always in the same position, while the
+axle, D, which carries the intermediate wheels, E, moves about to
+gear in all the relative positions of the cylinders. The
+displacement of the upper cylinder is effected through the clamping
+screws, b, which are actuated by toothed disks that gear with two
+endless screws keyed at the extremities of one shaft in common, d,
+which is set in motion by hand through the winches, m m. The
+scraper guards, e e, take up and throw aside all scales that might
+become attached to the cylinders, which are constantly moistened by
+small streams of water coming from an ordinary conduit.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a href="images/6a.png"><img src=
+"images/6a_th.jpg" alt=""></a></p>
+
+<p class="ctr">CHUWAB'S DRESSING AND ROUNDING ROLLING MILL.<br>
+<br>
+Fig. 1--Elevation and Longitudinal Section.<br>
+<br>
+Fig. 2--Side View.<br>
+<br>
+Fig. 3--Transvers Section.<br>
+<br>
+Fig. 4--Plan View.<br>
+<br>
+Figs. 5 &amp; 6--Saws for Dressing the Extremities of the Bars.<br>
+<br>
+Fig. 7--Diagram Showing the Motion of the Wheels and Guide.<br>
+<br>
+Figs. 8 &amp; 9--Apparatus for Shifting tha Bars.</p>
+
+<p>As the driving belts are mounted on pulleys, G, of a diameter
+proportioned to the velocity of the shafting, the iron pinions, h,
+in order to produce 60 revolutions per minute in the first shaft,
+H, gear on each side with the intermediate wheels, E, and these
+actuate the two bronze pinions, a a, that are mounted on the
+extremities of the cylinders, A A. The axle, D, of the intermediate
+wheels does not revolve with them, but is capable of rising and
+descending in the elongated aperture that traverses the frames, B.
+The displacement of this axle is secured through the arms, L L,
+whose extremities articulate on the one hand with the cylinders, A
+A, and on the other with D. The result of this is that every
+displacement upward of the top cylinder corresponds to a different
+position of the intermediate shaft, and one that is always
+equidistant from the centers of the cylinders, A A, thus securing a
+constant gearing of the wheels in all the positions of the
+cylinders, A A.</p>
+
+<p>The diagram in Fig. 7 shows the relative displacements of all
+these parts, as well as those of the scraper guide, C. The diameter
+to be obtained is determined beforehand by the two contact screws,
+P.</p>
+
+<p>The whole thus regulated, the bar of iron, still very hot,
+coming from the ordinary rollers, is straightened up, if need be,
+by a few blows of a hammer, so that it may roll forward over the
+pavement, N, between the rounding cylinders, A A; these being held
+apart sufficiently to allow of its easy introduction. Next, a few
+revolutions of the winches that control the screws suffice to lower
+the upper cylinder to the exact position limited by the contact
+screws, P, and the bar is rolled between the two cylinder tables
+with a constant velocity in the generatrices. As a consequence, the
+number of revolutions made is so much the greater in proportion as
+the diameter of the shaft is smaller with respect to that of the
+cylinders.</p>
+
+<p>It should be remarked that the bar, during its rotation under
+pressure, is held by the guide, C, so that its diagrammatic axis
+(Fig. 7) exceeds the line, A A, joining the centers of the
+cylinders just enough to prevent its escape to the opposite, and so
+that the pressure upon the said guide (which performs the role of
+scraper) is merely sufficient to detach the scales which form
+during the operation.</p>
+
+<p>Under such conditions, and at a velocity of 30 revolutions per
+minute in the two cylinders, it will take but a fraction of a
+minute to finish a bar the length of the table, that is to say, 1.5
+meters. Then, by loosening the upper cylinder, the bar may be
+easily shoved along in one direction or the other, so as to
+continue the finishing operation on successive lengths. This moving
+of the bar forward is further facilitated by the aid of a clamp
+with rollers and a movable socket, V (Figs. 8 and 9). For large
+diameters (150 millimeters and beyond) traction is employed by the
+aid of two small windlasses placed opposite each other, and at a
+distance apart twice the greatest length of the bars to be
+finished. The chains of these windlasses are attached to the
+extremities by clamps that lock by the pulling exerted.</p>
+
+<p>The details of the arrangement of the saws (Figs. 5 and 6) show
+that to make a section of the ends or of any other part of the bar,
+it is only necessary to lower the lever of one them. By reason of
+the contrary rotation of the bar, the effective stress on the lever
+will be very moderate, while the cut produced will be a clean and
+quickly performed one. It should be remarked that, as a consequence
+of the cone on the projecting extremity of the cylinder journals
+(Fig. 5), and on the rollers that control the saws, it is only
+necessary to move the lever to the right or left in order to stop
+the motion of each of the saws. These latter, to prevent all
+possibility of accident, are inclosed within semicircular guards.
+Finally, the controlling rollers are made of a material which is
+quite elastic (compressed cardboard, for example), so that they may
+roll smoothly and adhere well.</p>
+
+<p>From what precedes, it will be seen that round iron bars of any
+diameter will come from this apparatus completely finished. It will
+be seen also that with cylinders of suitable profile, there might
+likewise be finished axles, or pieces that are more or less conical
+as well as those provided with shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>The apparatus may, if preferred, be driven by small special
+motors affixed to the frame. Such an arrangement, which is more
+costly than the preceding, is, nevertheless, indicated in cases
+where shafting would be in the way.</p>
+
+<p>The weight of the materials entering into the construction of
+this machine, proposed by Mr. Chuwab, includes about 15 tons of
+metal, of which 5,000 kilogrammes are for the two tempered
+cylinders; 250 kilogrammes of iron screws, and 350 of bolts; and
+500 kilogrammes of bronze, 90 of which are for nuts.--<i>Revue
+Industrielle</i>.</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p><a name="6"></a></p>
+
+<h2>THE BURNING OF TOWN REFUSE AT LEEDS.</h2>
+
+<p>[Footnote: From selected papers of the Institution of Civil
+Engineers, London, by Charles Slagg, Assoc. Memb. Inst. C.E.]</p>
+
+<p>In large towns it is necessary to adopt some regular system of
+removal and disposal of the cinders and ashes of house fires, and
+of the animal and vegetable refuse of the houses, and, in short, of
+everything thrown away which cannot be admitted into the sewers. In
+towns where the excreta are separated by means of water closets,
+the disposal of the other refuse presents less difficulty, but
+still a considerable one, because the animal and vegetable refuse
+is not kept separate from the cinders and ashes, all being thrown
+together into the ash pit or dust bin. The contents, therefore,
+cannot be deposited upon ground which may afterward be built upon,
+although that custom obtained generally in former times. Hence the
+refuse has been removed to a depot where that wretched industry is
+created of picking out the other parts from the cinders and
+ashes.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><img src="images/7a.png" alt=""></p>
+
+<p class="ctr">FIG. 1.--DESTRUCTOR.<br>
+<br>
+Elevation.<br>
+<br>
+Section through feeding-holes of cells.<br>
+<br>
+Section through air-passages of cells.</p>
+
+<p>But in towns unprovided with water closets, or so far as they
+are not adopted in any town, where the privies are connected with
+the ash pits, and where, consequently, the excreta of the
+population are added to the other contents of ash pits, the
+difficulties of removal and disposal of the refuse are much
+increased.</p>
+
+<p>Where the privy-ashpit system is in use--as it still is to a
+large extent--as much of the contents of the ash pits as can be
+sold at any price, however small, are collected separately from the
+drier portions, and sent out of town as manure; but what remains is
+still too offensive to be deposited on ground near the town; and
+when it is attempted to collect the excreta separately by the pail
+system, the process is no less unsatisfactory. These difficulties
+led to the adoption, under the advice of the late Mr. A.W. Morant,
+M. Inst. C.E., the Borough Engineer at Leeds, of Fryer's method of
+destruction by burning--that is, of the dry ashes and cinders and
+the animal and vegetable refuse. The author was Mr. Morant's
+assistant. The first kiln was constructed at Burmantofts, 1&frac12;
+miles from the center of the town in a northeasterly direction, and
+has been in use since the beginning of the year 1878. In 1879
+another kiln was constructed at Armley Road, a mile from the center
+of the town in a west-southwesterly direction, which has been in
+use since the beginning of 1880.</p>
+
+<p>Each destructor kiln has six cells, three in each face of a
+block of brick work 22 feet long, 24 feet through from face to
+face, and 12 feet high. Each cell is 8 feet long and 5 feet wide,
+arched over, the height being 3 feet 4 inches, and both the bottom
+and arch of the cell slope down to the furnace doors with an
+inclination of 1 in 3. The lower end of each cell has about 26
+square feet of wrought-iron firebars, the hearth being 4&frac12;
+feet above the ground.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><img src="images/7b.png" alt=""></p>
+
+<p class="ctr">FIG. 2.--CARBONIZER.<br>
+<br>
+Section through furnaces.<br>
+<br>
+Longitudinal section.<br>
+<br>
+Cross section.</p>
+
+<p>There are two floors, one on the ground level, a few feet only
+above the outlet for drainage, the other floor, or raised platform,
+being 15 feet above it. The refuse is taken in carts up an incline
+of 1 in 14 on cast-iron tram plates to the upper floor, and
+deposited upon and alongside of the destructor, and is shoveled
+into a row of hoppers at the head of the cells. These hoppers are
+in the middle of the width of the destructor, and each communicates
+with a cell on each side of it. The refuse is always damp, and
+often wet, and after being put into the cells is gradually dried by
+the heat reflected upon it from the firebrick arch of the cell,
+before it descends to the furnace. This distinguishes the system
+from the common furnace, and enables the wet material to be burned
+without other fuel. No fresh fuel is used after the fires are once
+lighted. The vapor passes off with the gases of combustion into a
+horizontal flue between the two rows of cells, through an opening
+at the head of each cell, alongside that through which the refuse
+is fed into it, the two openings being separated by a firebrick
+wall. The refuse is prevented from falling into the flue by a
+bridge wall across the outlet opening, over which the gases pass
+into the flue.</p>
+
+<p>Between the destructor and the chimney a multitubular boiler is
+placed, which makes steam enough for grinding into sand the
+clinkers which are the solid residue of the burnt refuse. At
+Burmantofts an old chimney was made use of, which is but 84 feet
+high; but at Armley Road a new chimney was built, 6 feet square
+inside and 120 feet high. It is necessary to make the horizontal
+flue large; that at Armley Road is 9 feet high and 4 feet wide. A
+large quantity of dust escapes from the cells--about 7 cwt. a
+month--and unless the velocity of the air in the flue between the
+destructor and the chimney were checked, the dust would be carried
+up the chimney and might cause complaints; as, indeed, it has done
+with the 120-foot chimney, but whether with any substantial grounds
+is uncertain. The dust is removed from the horizontal flue or dust
+chamber once a month. Experience seems to indicate that there
+should be some sort of guard or grating to prevent the entry into
+the chimney of charred paper and similar light substances which do
+not fall to dust, and which are sometimes carried up with the
+draught.</p>
+
+<p>A six-celled destructor kiln burns about 42 tons of refuse in
+twenty-four hours, leaving about one-fourth of its bulk of clinkers
+and ashes. The clinkers are withdrawn from the furnaces five times
+each day and night, or about every two-and-a-half hours, into iron
+barrows, and wheeled outside the shed which covers the destructor,
+and when cold are wheeled back to the mortar mills, of which there
+are two at each depot, each having a revolving pan 8 feet in
+diameter, with 27-cwt. rollers, the pan making twenty two
+revolutions a minute. Forty shovelfuls of clinkers and twelve of
+slaked lime make 7 cwt. of mortar in thirty-five minutes in each
+pan, which is sold at 5s. 6d. per ton. The engine driving the two
+mortar mills has a 14 inch cylinder, 30 inches length of stroke,
+and makes sixty revolutions per minute with 45 pounds steam
+pressure per square inch in the boiler, when both mortar mills are
+running. The boiler is 11 feet long, 8 feet in diameter, and has
+132 tubes 4 inches in external diameter, which, together with the
+external flues, are cleaned out once a month.</p>
+
+<p>At first sight it would probably appear that no good mortar
+could be made from such refuse as has been described, but having
+passed through the furnace, the clinkers are, of course, perfectly
+clean, and with good lime make a really strong and excellent
+mortar. They are also largely used for the foundation of
+roadways.</p>
+
+<p>The number of men employed is as follows: Two furnace men in the
+daytime and two at night. They work from midnight on Sundays to 2
+P.M. on Saturdays, the fires being fully charged and left to burn
+through the Sundays. One foreman, who attends also to the running
+of the engine, and one mortar man. A watchman attends while the
+workmen are off.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to a destructor, there is at the Burmautofts depot a
+"carbonizer" kiln, in which the sweepings of the vegetable markets
+are burned into charcoal. The carbonizer consists of eight vertical
+cells, in two sets or stacks of four, separated by a space
+containing two double furnaces, back to back, there being a double
+furnace also at each end of the eight cells. Each of the stacks of
+four cells is 15 feet 6 inches high; the ends and middle parts,
+forming the tops of the furnaces, being 6 feet high. The block of
+brick work containing the eight cells and furnaces is 26 feet 6
+inches long and 12 feet 4 inches wide at the floor level. Each cell
+is 3 feet 6 inches by 2 feet, and about 10 feet deep, with a
+chamber below about 3 feet deep, into which the charred material
+falls and is completely burned. The top of the cells is level with
+the upper platform, and they are fed through a loose cover, which
+is immediately replaced. Inside the cells cast-iron sloping shelves
+are hung upon the walls so that their upper edges touch the walls,
+but the lower edges are some inches off, so that the hot air of the
+furnaces passes upward behind the shelves round the four sides of
+the cell in a spiral manner, and out near the top into a vertical
+flue, which conducts it down to the horizontal flue at the bottom,
+which leads to the chimney. The charcoal is withdrawn from the
+bottom of the heating chamber through a sliding plate 2 feet above
+the floor, and is wheeled red hot to the charcoal cooler, which is
+a revolving cylinder, nearly horizontal, kept cool by water falling
+upon it, and delivers the charcoal in two degrees of fineness at
+the end. It is worked by a small attached engine, supplied with
+steam from the boiler before mentioned. Each cell of the carbonizer
+can reduce to charcoal 50 cwt. of vegetable refuse in twenty four
+hours, but at Leeds not quite so much is put through. The quantity
+of market refuse passed through six cells of the carbonizer varies
+from 3 to 10 tons a day, and averages about 4&frac12; tons, from
+which 15 cwt. of charcoal is obtained. The fuel for burning the
+charcoal is derived from the ash pit refuse, some selected loads
+being for that purpose passed over a sloping screen fixed between
+the upper platform and the furnace floor, the fine ashes which pass
+through the screen being taken away to the manure heaps, and the
+combustible parts to the furnaces of the carbonizer. In this way a
+good deal of the ash pit refuse is got rid of; it is often
+one-twelfth part of the whole quantity.</p>
+
+<p>The carbonizer and the destructor are set 33 feet apart, to
+allow room for drawing the furnaces and for the mortar mills, but
+the space is hardly sufficient. One man is employed in attending to
+the carbonizer.</p>
+
+<p>Besides the openings at the top of the destructor through which
+the ash pit refuse is fed into the cells, there is a larger opening
+in each cell, kept covered usually, through which bed mattresses
+ordered by the medical sanitary office to be destroyed can be put
+into the cells. These openings are midway between the central
+openings and the furnace doors, and whatever is put into the cells
+through these comes into immediate contact with the fire. Advantage
+is taken of these openings for the destruction of dead animals and
+diseased meat, and as much as 20 tons in a year have been passed
+through the destructor.</p>
+
+<p>The whole works are roofed over. The lower floor is open on two
+sides, but the upper one is closed in, with weather boarding at
+Burmantofts and with corrugated iron at Armley Road. At the former
+place the works were in some measure experimental, and the platform
+was constructed of timber, but at Armley Road it is of plate-iron
+girders, with brick arching, weight being considered advantageous
+in reducing the vibration of carting heavy loads over it.</p>
+
+<p>The cost of each depot has been &pound;4,500, exclusive of land,
+of which about an acre is required for the destructor, carbonizer,
+inclined road, weigh office, and space. A supply of water is
+necessary, a good deal being required for cooling the clinkers. The
+population of the two districts belonging to these works is about
+160,000.</p>
+
+<p>The author has no longer any connection with the works
+described, and for the recent experience of their working he is
+indebted to Mr. John Newhouse, the superintendent of the sanitary
+department of the corporation.</p>
+
+<hr>
+<h2>GREEN WOOD.</h2>
+
+<p>The specific volume of the different constituents of green woods
+has been estimated by M. Hartig to be as follows, per 1,000 parts:
+Hard green wood, fiber stuff, 441; water, 247; air, 312. Soft green
+wood, fiber stuff, 279; water, 317, air, 404. Evergreen wood, fiber
+stuff, 270; water, 335; air, 395. A certain amount of water--7 or 8
+per cent in all--is included with the fiber stuff, showing that
+about one-third only of the mass of the wood is solid stuff; the
+remainder is either water or air space.</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p><a name="24"></a></p>
+
+<h2>THE ARMITAGE HOUSE.</h2>
+
+<p>This house is now in course of erection under the
+superintendence of Messrs. Salomons and Ely, in the Claremont road,
+Pendleton, near Manchester. The walls are faced in the lower part
+with red bricks, and red stone, from the neighborhood of Liverpool,
+is used for the window-dressings, etc. The upper part of walls will
+be faced with red tiles and half-timber work, and the roof will be
+covered with Staffordshire tiles. Lead lights will be largely used
+in the windows. Internally, the finish will be almost entirely in
+real woods, including walnut for the dining-room and vestibule,
+pitch-pine for the large hall, staircase, and billiard-room, ash
+for the morning-room, and oak for Mr. Armitage's own room. In all
+these the ceilings and dados are to be in wood. The contract for
+the whole of the above work, amounting to &pound;6,507, is let to
+Mr. James Herd, of Manchester.--<i>Building News</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="25"></a></p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a href="images/8a.png"><img src=
+"images/8a_th.jpg" alt=
+"SUGGESTIONS IN ARCHITECTURE.--AN ENGLISH COUNTRY RESIDENCE.">
+</a></p>
+
+<p class="ctr">SUGGESTIONS IN ARCHITECTURE.--AN ENGLISH COUNTRY
+RESIDENCE.</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p><a name="10"></a></p>
+
+<h2>THE COLLOTYPE PROCESS IN PRACTICE.</h2>
+
+<p>That theory and practice are two very different things holds
+good in photography especially, and perhaps in no other branch of
+our art have so many theoretical formul&aelig; been promulgated as
+in the collotype or Lichtdruck process. As our readers are aware,
+we have had an opportunity of seeing collotype printing in
+operation in several European establishments of note, and have,
+from time to time, published in these columns our experiences. But
+requests still come to us so frequently for information on the
+process that we have deemed it well to make a practical summary for
+the benefit of those who are working--or desire to work--the
+method.</p>
+
+<p>The formul&aelig; and manipulations here set down are those of
+L&ouml;wy, Albert, Allgeyer, and Obernetter, four of the best
+authorities on the subject, and we can assure our readers there is
+nothing described but what is actually practiced.</p>
+
+<p><i>Glass Plate for the Printing Block</i>.--Herr Albert, of
+Munich, uses patent plate of nearly half an inch in thickness, as
+most of his work is printed upon the Schnell press (machine press).
+Herr Obernetter, of Vienna, since he only employs the slower and
+more careful hand press, prefers plate glass of ordinary thickness
+as being handier in manipulation and better adapted to the common
+printing-frame.</p>
+
+<p>Herr L&ouml;wy, of Vienna, again, uses plate glass a quarter of
+an inch thick, as his productions range from the finest to the
+roughest.</p>
+
+<p><i>Preliminary Coating of the Glass Plate</i>.--Herr Albert's
+original plan was to apply a preliminary coating of bichromated
+gelatine to the thick glass plate, the film being exposed to light
+through the back of the glass, and thus rendered insoluble and
+tightly cemented to the surface; this film serving as a basis for
+the second sensitive coating, that was afterward impressed by the
+negative. This double treatment is now definitely abandoned in most
+Lichtdruck establishments, and, instead, a preliminary coating of
+soluble silicate and albumen dissolved in water is used.</p>
+
+<p>Herr L&ouml;wy's method and formula are as follows: The glass
+plate is cleaned, and coated with--</p>
+
+<pre>
+    Soluble glass.             3 parts.
+    White of egg.              7 "
+    Water.               9 to 10 "
+</pre>
+
+<p>The soluble glass must be free from caustic potash. The mixture,
+which must be used fresh, is carefully filtered, and spread evenly
+over the previously cleaned glass plate. The superfluous liquid is
+flowed off, and the film dried either spontaneously or by slightly
+warming. The film is generally dry in a few minutes, when it is
+rinsed with water, and again dried; at this stage the plate bears
+an open, porous film, slightly opalescent--so slight, however, as
+only to be observed by an experienced eye.</p>
+
+<p><i>Application of the Sensitive Film</i>.--We now come to the
+second stage of the process, the application of a film of
+bichromated gelatine to the plate.</p>
+
+<p>Herr L&ouml;wy's formula is as follows:</p>
+
+<pre>
+    Bichromate of potash.             16  grammes.
+    Gelatine.                          2&frac12; ounces.
+    Water.                      20 to 22    "
+</pre>
+
+<p>According to the weather, the amount of water must be varied;
+but in any case the solution is a very fluid one. An ounce is about
+35 grammes, as most of our readers know. A practical collotypist
+sees at a glance the quality of the prepared plate, without any
+preliminary testing. A good preliminary film is a glass that is
+transparent, yet slightly dull; the film is so thin, you can
+scarcely believe it is there. The plate is slightly warmed upon a
+slate slab, underneath which is a water bath; it is then flooded
+with the above mixture of bichromated gelatine, leaving only
+sufficient to make a very thin film. When coated, the plate is
+placed in the drying chamber.</p>
+
+<p><i>Drying the Sensitive Film</i>.--Much depends upon the drying.
+A water bath with gas burner underneath is used for heating, and a
+slate slab, perfectly level, receives the glass plate. The drying
+chamber is kept at an even temperature of 50&deg; C.</p>
+
+<p>The object to be attained is a fine grain throughout the surface
+of the gelatine, and unless this grain is satisfactory the finished
+printing block never will be. If the gelatine film be too thick,
+then the grain will be coarse; or, again, if the temperature in
+drying be too high, there will be no grain at all. The drying is
+complete in two or three hours, and should not take longer.</p>
+
+<p><i>The Negative to be Printed from</i>.--The sensitive film
+being upon the surface of a thick glass plate, it is necessary that
+the clich&eacute; or negative employed should be upon patent plate,
+or not upon glass at all, so as to insure perfect contact. Best of
+all, is to employ a stripped negative, in which case absolute
+contact is insured in printing. It is only in these circumstances
+that the most perfect impression can be secured. If the negative is
+otherwise satisfactory, and only requires stripping, it must be
+upon a leveling stand, and fluid gelatine of a tolerable
+consistence is poured over it. When dry, a pen-knife is run around
+the margin, and the film leaves the glass without any trouble.</p>
+
+<p>Herr Obernetter says that many of the negatives he receives have
+to be reproduced before they can be transformed into Lichtdruck
+plates, and he employs either the wet collodion process or the
+graphite method, according to circumstances. If the copy is desired
+to be softer than the original, collodion is employed; if vigor be
+desired, graphite is used, and here is his formula:</p>
+
+<pre>
+    Dextrine.                        62    grains.
+    Ordinary white sugar.            77       "
+    Bichromate of ammonia.           30.8     "
+    Water.                            3.21 ounces.
+    Glycerine.                   2 to 8    drops.
+</pre>
+
+<p>The film is dried at a temperature of 130&deg; to 140&deg; F. in
+about ten minutes, and while still warm is printed under a negative
+in diffused light for a period of five to fifteen minutes. In a
+well-timed print the image is slightly visible; the plate is again
+warmed a little above atmospheric temperature in a darkened room,
+and then fine levigated graphite is applied with a fine dusting
+brush, a sheet of white paper being held underneath to judge of the
+effect. Breathing upon the film renders it more capable of
+attracting the powder. When the desired vigor has been attained,
+the superfluous powder is dusted off, and the plate coated with
+normal collodion. Afterward the film is cut through at the margins
+of the plate by means of a sharp knife, and put into water. In a
+little while--from two to five minutes--the collodion, with the
+image, will be detached from the glass; the film is at once turned
+over in the water, and brought out upon the glass plate. Under a
+soft jet of water any air-bubbles that may exist between the
+collodion and the glass are removed, and then a solution of gum
+arabic (two grammes of gum dissolved in one hundred grammes of
+water) is poured over, and the film is allowed to dry
+spontaneously.</p>
+
+<p><i>Exposure of the Printing Block under the Negative</i>.--The
+exposure is very rapid. Any one conversant with photolithographic
+work will understand this. At any rate, every photographer knows
+that bichromated gelatine is much more rapid than the chloride of
+silver he generally has to do with.</p>
+
+<p>There is no other way of measuring the exposure than by the
+photometer or personal experience, and the latter is by far the
+best.</p>
+
+<p>After leaving the printing frame, the plate is immersed in cold
+water. Here it remains at discretion for half an hour, or an hour;
+the purpose, of course, being to wash out the soluble bichromate.
+It is when the print comes out of this bath that judgment is passed
+upon it. An experienced eye tells at once what it is fit for. If it
+is yellow, the yellowness must be of the slightest; indeed, Herr
+Furkl (the manager of Herr L&ouml;wy's Lichtdruck department) will
+not admit that a good plate is yellow at all. A yellow tint means
+that it will take up too much ink when the roller is passed over
+it. The plates of Herr Obernetter, however, are rather more yellow
+than Herr L&ouml;wy's--certainly only a tinge, but still yellow;
+and Herr Obernetter's work proves, at any rate, that the yellowish
+tinge is by no means inseparable from good results.</p>
+
+<p>The washed and dried plate should appear like a design of ground
+and polished glass. The ground glass appearance is given by the
+grain. If there are pure high-lights (almost transparent) and
+opalescent shadows, the plate is a good one.</p>
+
+<p><i>Printing from the Block</i>.--We have now a printing-block
+ready for the press. If it is to be printed by machinery--that is
+to say, upon a Schnell press--the surface is etched; if it has to
+be more carefully handled in a hand press, etching is rarely
+resorted to; it is moistened only with glycerine and water. To etch
+a plate for a Schnell press, it is placed upon a leveling stand,
+and the following solution is poured upon it:</p>
+
+<pre>
+    Glycerine............................. 150 parts.
+    Ammonia................................ 50   "
+    Nitrate of potash (saltpeter)..........  5   "
+    Water.................................. 25   "
+</pre>
+
+<p>Another equally good formula, recommended by Allgeyer, who
+managed Herr Albert's Lichtdruck printing for some years, is:</p>
+
+<pre>
+    Glycerine............................. 500 parts.
+    Water................................. 500   "
+    Chloride of sodium (common salt)......  15   "
+</pre>
+
+<p>In lieu of common salt, 15 parts of hyposulphite of soda, or
+other hygroscopic salt, such as chloride of calcium, may be
+employed.</p>
+
+<p>The etching fluid is permitted to remain upon the image for half
+an hour. During this time, by gently moving the finger to and fro
+over the surface, the swelling or relief of the image can be
+distinctly felt. The plate is not washed, but the etching fluid
+simply poured off, so that the film remains impregnated with the
+glycerine and water; at the most, a piece of bibulous paper is used
+to absorb any superfluous quantity of the etching fluid. After
+etching, the plate is taken straight to the printing press. The
+inking up and printing are done very much as in lithography. If it
+requires a practiced hand to produce a good lithographic print, it
+stands to reason that in dealing with a gelatine printing block,
+instead of a stone, skill and practice are more necessary still.
+Therefore at this point the photographer should hand over the work
+to the lithographer, or rather the Lichtdruck printer. It is only
+by coaxing judiciously, with roller and sponge, that a good
+printing block can be obtained, and no amount of teaching
+theoretically can beget a good printer. To appreciate how skillful
+a printer must be, it is only necessary to see the imperfect proofs
+that first result, and to watch how these are gradually improved by
+dint of rolling, rubbing, etching, cleaning, etc. In all Lichldruck
+establishments, two kinds of rollers are used, viz., of leather and
+glue. In some establishments, too, they employ two kinds of ink;
+but Herr L&ouml;wy manages to secure delicacy and vigor at the same
+time by using one ink, but rolling up with two kinds of roller.</p>
+
+<p>Collotype printing is not merely done by hand presses, but is
+also done by machinery. At Herr Albert's a gas engine of six-horse
+power is employed to drive the machines, and each machine requires
+the attention of a skilled mechanic and a girl. The press is very
+like the lithographic quick press. Upon a big steel bed lies the
+little collotype block. The glass printing block, with its brownish
+film of gelatine, moves horizontally to and fro, and, as it does
+so, passes under half a dozen rollers, which not only supply ink,
+but disperse it. Some of the rollers are of leather and others of
+glue, and, whenever the printing block retires from underneath
+them, an ink slab takes the place of the block, and imparts more
+ink to the rollers; sometimes as many as eight rollers are used,
+for the difficulty of machine printing is to apply the ink as
+delicately and equally as possible. It is necessary at intervals to
+damp the block, and when the printer in charge finds this to be the
+case, he stops the press, and applies a little glycerine and water
+with a cloth or sponge; then a leather roller is passed over to
+remove superfluous moisture, and the press is again started.</p>
+
+<p>Herr Obernetter relies upon the Star or Stern press--a small
+lithographic press--one man sufficing to manage it, who turns a
+wheel with large spokes, reminding one of the steering wheel of a
+ship. The Lichtdruck plate, gelatine film upward, is laid upon a
+sheet of plate glass by way of a bed, the plate having first been
+treated with a solution of glycerine and water; it is then inked up
+as previously described, except that Herr Obernetter uses two kinds
+of ink--a thick one and a thin--applied by two rollers of glue. In
+the first place, a moist sponge is rubbed over the surface; then a
+soft roller covered with wash-leather, and of the appearance of
+cr&ecirc;pe, is passed over two or three times to remove surplus
+moisture; then a roller charged with thick ink is put on, and then
+another with thin is applied. It takes fully five minutes to sponge
+and roll up a plate, the rolling being done gently and firmly. A
+sheet of paper is now laid upon the plate, the tympan is lowered,
+and the scraper adjusted with due pressure; a revolution of the
+wheel completes the printing, the well-known scraping action of the
+lithographic press being used in the operation.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a href="images/9a.png"><img src=
+"images/9a_th.jpg" alt=""></a></p>
+
+<p class="ctr">FIG. 1.--ORDINARY NAPHTHA LIGHTER OF<br>
+MR. LOISEAU.</p>
+
+<p>Some Lichtdruck prints are printed upon thick plate-paper, and
+are ready for binding without further ado, these being for book
+illustrations. Other pictures, that are to pass muster among silver
+photographs, are, on the other hand, printed upon fine thin paper,
+and then sized by dipping in a thin solution of gelatine; after
+drying, they are further dipped in a solution of shellac and
+spirit.--<i>Photo. News</i>.</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p><a name="16"></a></p>
+
+<h2>DOMESTIC ELECTRICITY.</h2>
+
+<p>Among the most valuable, and, up to the present time, the least
+generally appreciated services that electricity can render for
+domestic purposes is that of its application in lighters. At the
+present epoch of indifferent matches, to have, instantaneously, a
+light by pulling a cord, pressing on a button, or turning a cock,
+is a thing worthy of being taken into serious consideration; and
+our own personal experience permits us to assert that, regarded
+from this point of view, electricity is capable of daily rendering
+inappreciable services.</p>
+
+<p>According to the nature of the application that is to be made of
+them, the places in which they are to be put, and the combustible
+that they are to inflame, etc., electric lighters vary greatly in
+form and arrangement.</p>
+
+<p>We shall limit ourselves here to pointing out the simplest and
+most practical of the numerous models of such apparatus that have
+been constructed up to the present time. All those that we shall
+describe are based on the incandescence of a platinum wire. A few
+have been constructed based on the induction spark, but they are
+more complicated and expensive, and have not entered into practical
+use. Before commencing to describe these apparatus, we shall make a
+remark in regard to the piles for working them, and that is that we
+prefer for this purpose Leclanch&eacute; elements with agglomerated
+plates and a large surface of zinc. In order to bring about
+combustion in any given substance, it is necessary to bring near it
+an incandescent body raised to a certain temperature, which varies
+with the nature of the said substance, and which is quite low for
+illuminating gas, higher for petroleum, and a white heat for a wax
+taper or a candle. We have said that we make use exclusively of a
+platinum wire raised momentarily to incandescence by the passage of
+an electric current. The temperature of such wire will depend
+especially upon the intensity of the current traversing it; and, if
+this is too great, the platinum (chosen because of its
+inoxidizability and its elevated melting point) will rapidly melt;
+while, if the intensity is too little, the temperature reached by
+the wire will itself be too low, and no inflammation will be
+brought about. Practice soon indicates a means of obviating these
+two inconveniences, and teaches how each apparatus may be placed
+under such conditions that the wire will hardly ever melt, and that
+the lighting will always be effected. For the same intensity of
+current that traverses the wire, the temperature of the latter
+might be made to vary by diminishing or increasing its diameter. A
+very fine wire will attain a red heat through a very weak current,
+but it would be very brittle, and subject to break at the least
+accident. For this reason it becomes necessary to employ wires a
+little stronger, and varying generally from one to two-tenths of a
+millimeter in diameter. The current then requires to be a little
+intenser. The requisite intensity is easily obtained with elements
+of large surface, which have a much feebler internal resistance
+than porous-cup elements; and since, for a given number of
+elements, the intensity of the current decreases in measure as the
+internal resistance of the elements increases, it becomes of
+interest to diminish such internal resistance as much as possible.
+The platinum wires are usually rolled spirally, with the object in
+view of concentrating the heat into a small space, in order to
+raise the temperature of the wire as much as possible. There is
+thus need of a less intense current to produce the inflammation
+than with a wire simply stretched out. In fact, the same wire
+traversed by a current of constant intensity scarcely reaches a
+<i>red</i> heat when it is straight, while it attains a
+<i>white</i> heat when it is wound spirally, because, in the latter
+case, the cooling surface is less.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a href="images/9b.png"><img src=
+"images/9b_th.jpg" alt=""></a></p>
+
+<p class="ctr">FIG. 2--RANQUE'S NEW FORM OF LIGHTER<br>
+WITH EXTINGUISHER.</p>
+
+<p>We shall now proceed to the examination of a few practical forms
+of electric lighters.</p>
+
+<p>In Fig. 1 will be seen quite a convenient spirit or naphtha
+lighter, which has been devised more especially for the use of
+smokers. By pushing the lamp toward the wall, the wick is brought
+into proximity with the spiral, and the lamp, acting on a button
+behind it, closes the current. Pressure on the lamp being removed,
+the latter moves back slightly, through the pressure of a small
+spring which thrusts on the button. Owing to this latter simple
+arrangement, the spiral never comes in contact with the flame, and
+may thus last for a long time. Mr. Loiseau, the proprietor of this
+apparatus, employs a very fine platinum wire, flattened into the
+form of a ribbon, and it takes only the current from a <i>single
+element</i> to effect the inflammation of the wick. The system is
+so arranged that any one can easily replace in a moment the spiral
+that has accidentally got out of order; and, in order that this may
+be done, the maker has placed the spiral on a small, distinct piece
+that he styles the "conflagrator." The latter consists of two
+small, thin tubes of brass, held parallel and firmly by means of a
+brass cross-piece. A small bit of paper wound round each tube in
+front of the cross-brace insures insulation. The outer extremity of
+the two tubes supports the platinum spiral, which is fixed to them
+very simply by the aid of two small brass needles of conical form,
+which pinch the wire in the tube and hold it in place. There is
+nothing easier to do than replace the wire. All that is necessary
+is to remove the two little rods with a pair of pincers; to make a
+spiral of suitable length by rolling the wire round a pin; and to
+fix it into the tubes, as we have just explained. With two or three
+extra "conflagrators" on hand, there need never any trouble
+occur.</p>
+
+<p>In Fig. 2 we show a new and simple form of Mr. Ranque's lighter,
+in which an electro-magnet concealed in the base brings the spiral
+and the wick into juxtaposition. The extinguisher, which is
+balanced by a counterpoise, oscillates about a horizontal axis, and
+its support carries two small pins, against which act successively
+two notches in a piece of oval form, fixed on the side of the
+movable rods.</p>
+
+<p>In the position shown in the cut, on the first emission of a
+current the upper notch acts so as to depress the extinguisher, but
+the travel of the rods that carry the spiral is so limited that the
+latter does not strike against the extinguisher. On the next
+emission, the lower notch acts so as to raise the extinguisher,
+while the spiral approaches the wick and lights it. It is well to
+actuate these extinguishing-lighters, which may be located at a
+distance, not by a contact button, but by some pulling arrangement,
+which is always much more easy to find in the dark without much
+groping about. There might be used for such a purpose the very
+motion of the front door, when opened, for lighting the hall; but
+that would offer the inconvenience of operating likewise in the
+daytime, and of thus needlessly using up the pile and the naphtha.
+In all these spirit or naphtha lighters it is important that the
+spiral <i>shall not touch</i> the wick, but that it shall be placed
+a little above and on the side, in the mixture of air and
+combustible vapor.</p>
+
+<p>Several apparatus have likewise been devised for lighting gas by
+electricity, and a few of these we shall describe.</p>
+
+<p>The simplest form of these is Mr. Barbier's lighter for the use
+of smokers, for lighting candles, sealing letters, etc. It consists
+of a small gas-burner affixed to a round box, seven to eight
+centimeters in diameter, and connected to the gas-pipe by a rubber
+tube. By maneuvering the handle, the cock is opened and an electric
+contact set up of sufficient duration to raise to a red heat the
+spiral, and to light the gas. It is well in this case, for the sake
+of economizing in wire, to utilize the lead gas-pipe as a return
+wire, especially if the pile is located at some little distance
+from the lighter. In the arrangement generally in use the key is
+provided with a special spring, which tends to cause it to turn in
+such a way as to assume a vertical position, and with a tooth,
+which, on engaging with a piece moving on a joint, holds it in a
+horizontal position as soon as it has been brought thereto. In
+order to extinguish the burner, it is only necessary to depress the
+lever, and thus allow the key to assume again the vertical
+position, that is to say, the position that closes the aperture
+through which the gas flows out. In a new arrangement, the notch,
+spring, and the lever are done away with, the cock alone taking the
+two positions open or closed.</p>
+
+<p>Another very ingenious system is that of Mr. Loiseau, consisting
+of an ordinary gas-burner (fish-tail, bat's-wing, etc.), carrying
+at its side a "conflagrator," analogous to that of the
+spirit-lighter (Fig. 1), but arranged vertically. One of the rods
+of the "conflagrator" is connected with the positive of the pile,
+and the other with the little horizontal brass rod which is placed
+at the bottom of the burner. On turning the cock so as to open it,
+a small flow of gas occurs opposite the platinum spiral, while at
+the same time a rigid projecting piece affixed to the cock bears
+against a small, vertical metallic piece, and brings it in contact
+with the brass rod. The circuit is thus closed for an instant, the
+spiral is raised to a red heat, and lights the gas, and the flame
+rises and finally lights the burner. It goes without saying that on
+continuing the motion the contact is broken, so as not uselessly to
+waste the pile and so as to stop the escape of gas.</p>
+
+<p>For gas furnaces, Mr. Loiseau is constructing a
+<i>handle-lighter</i> which is connected with the side of the
+furnace by flexible cords. The contact button is on the sleeve
+itself, and the spiral is protected against shocks by a metallic
+covering which is cleft at the extremity and the points bent over
+at a right angle. All the lighters here described work well, and
+are rendering valuable services. They may be considered as the
+natural and indispensable auxiliaries of electric call bells, and
+their use has most certainly been rendered practical through the
+Leclanche pile.</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p><a name="17"></a></p>
+
+<h2>THEILER'S TELEPHONE RECEIVER.</h2>
+
+<p>This telephone receiver differs from its predecessors in
+dispensing with an armature, the lateral vibration of the
+electro-magnet itself being utilized. In previous systems in which
+an electro-magnet is used, the sonorous vibrations are due either
+to the motion of an iron diaphragm or armature placed close to the
+poles of the electro-magnet, or to the expansion and contraction of
+the magnet itself. In Theiler's telephone the electro-magnet may be
+of the usual U-shape, and may consist either of soft iron or of
+hardened steel permanently magnetized, wound with a suitable number
+of turns of insulated wire. This electro magnet is fixed in such a
+manner that the vibration of either one or of both its limbs is
+communicated to a diaphragm or diaphragms The patentees also employ
+two or more electro-magnets in the same circuit, and utilize the
+vibration of both magnets in the manner described. By attaching a
+light disk or disks to the vibrating limbs, the diaphragm may be
+dispensed with. Fig. 1 represents one of the telephone receivers
+provided with two diaphragms or sounding boards, connected to the
+two limbs or cores of the U-shaped electro-magnet by short tongues.
+These tongues are firmly inserted in the diaphragms and fixed to
+the magnet, as shown. The poles of the electro-magnet are brought
+very close together by being shaped as shown, and the middle part
+of the magnet is firmly screwed to the case of the instrument. The
+ends of the helix surrounding the magnet cores may be attached as
+usual to two terminals, or soldered to a flexible conductor
+communicating with the other parts of the telephone apparatus. When
+a vibratory current is sent through the helix of the
+electro-magnet, the extremities are rapidly attracted and repelled,
+and this vibratory motion of the magnet cores being communicated to
+the diaphragms or sounding boards, the latter are set in vibration
+of varying amplitude produced by a current of varying strength, as
+in all other telephones. Instead of making the electro-magnet of
+one continuous piece of iron, as represented in Fig. 1, the
+patentees find it more practicable to make it of the form shown in
+Fig. 2, where the electro-magnet represented consists of two limbs
+or cores, a sole piece, and pole extensions, the whole being
+screwed together, and practically constituting one continuous piece
+of iron carrying the two coils. In Fig. 2 only one of the limbs or
+cores of the electro-magnet is attached to the diaphragm, the other
+limb being held fixed by a screw. Sometimes the patentees hinge one
+of the magnet cores, or both, in the sole piece, in which case the
+diaphragms or sounding boards can be made much thicker than when
+the cores are rigidly fixed to the sole piece, because the magnetic
+attraction of the poles has then only to overcome the resistance of
+the diaphragm. Instead of using a diaphragm, they sometimes fix a
+stem to one of the cores of the electro-magnet, and mount thereon a
+light disk of vulcanite, wood, ivory, gutta-percha, or any other
+substance which it is capable of vibrating. When using this
+telephone receiver, the disk is pressed to the ear in such a manner
+that its surface covers the aperture of the ear. When these
+telephone receivers are used on a line of some considerable length,
+the patentees prefer to magnetize the electro-magnet by a constant
+current from a local battery, and to effect the variation of this
+constant magnetization inductively and not directly. The
+electro-magnet is, then, not inserted in the line at all, but in
+the primary circuit of an induction coil, and connected with a
+local battery. The line is connected to the secondry circuit of the
+induction coil. This device possesses the advantage that the
+electro-magnet can be powerfully magnetized with very little
+battery power, no matter how long the line may be, and that steel
+magnets are entirely dispensed with. It is not necessary to have a
+separate battery for this purpose, as the microphone battery may
+also be used for the telephone receiver. The shape of the vibrating
+electro-magnets is immaterial, as they may be made of a variety of
+forms.--<i>Eng. Mechanic</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><img src="images/9c.png" alt=
+"FIG. 1. FIG. 2"></p>
+
+<p class="ctr">FIG. 1. FIG. 2</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p><a name="18"></a></p>
+
+<h2>ON AN ELECTRIC POWER HAMMER.</h2>
+
+<h3>By MARCEL DEPREZ.</h3>
+
+<p>[Footnote: <i>La Lumi&eacute;re Electrique</i>.]</p>
+
+<p>In a lecture delivered by me on the 15th of last June in the
+amphitheater of the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, on the
+application of electricity to the production, transmission, and
+division of power, I operated for the first time an electric power
+hammer that I shall here describe. Its essential part is a
+sectional solenoid that I have likewise made an application of in
+an electric motor which I presented in July, 1830, to the
+Societ&eacute; de Physique. Let us suppose we superpose, one on the
+other, a hundred flat bobbins of a centimeter in thickness in such
+a way as to form a single solenoid one meter in height, and that
+the incoming and outgoing wires of each of them be connected with
+the contiguous bobbins exactly in the same way as they are in the
+consecutive sections or a dynamo-electric machine ring. Finally,
+let us complete the resemblance by causing each junction of the
+wire of one of the bobbins with the wire of its neighbor to end in
+a metallic plate set into an insulating piece containing as many
+plates as there are bobbins, plus one. Over this species of
+collector, which maybe rectilinear or wound around a cylinder, let
+us pass two brushes fixed to an insulating piece that may be moved
+by hand. Now, if we place these two brushes at a distance such that
+the number of the plates of the collector included between them be,
+for example, equal to ten, and we give them any degree of
+displacement whatever, after rendering them interdependent, the
+current entering through one of these brushes and making its exit
+through the other will always traverse 10 bobbins. Everything will
+occur, then, as if we caused the ten-bobbin solenoid to move
+instead of the brushes. This granted, and the brushes being in any
+position whatever, let us send a current into the apparatus, and
+place therein a soft iron cylinder. By virtue of a well known law,
+such cylinder will remain suspended in the interior of the
+solenoid, and its longitudinal center will place itself at so much
+the greater distance from that of the solenoid the more the current
+increases in intensity. It would even fall entirely if the current
+had not an intensity above a minimum value dependent upon many
+elements concerning which we have not now to occupy ourselves. We
+will suppose the current intense enough to keep the distance of the
+two centers much below that which would bring about a fall of the
+cylinder. When such a condition is fulfilled, it is found that if
+we try to remove the iron cylinder from the equilibrium that it is
+in, we must apply a pressure that increases with the amount of
+separation, just exactly as if it were suspended from a spring. It
+results from this fact that if we displace the brushes a distance
+equal to the thickness of one plate of the collector, the active
+solenoid will undergo the same displacement, and its longitudinal
+center will move away from that of the iron cylinder, and that the
+attraction exerted upon the latter will increase. It will not be
+able to assume its first value, and equilibrium cannot be
+re-established unless the cylinder undergoes a displacement
+identical with that of the solenoid. Now, as this latter depends
+upon the motion communicated to the system of brushes, we see that,
+definitively, the cylinder will faithfully reproduce the motion
+communicated to the brushes by the hand of the operator. This
+apparatus, then, constitutes a genuine electric servo-motor in
+which the current is never interrupted nor modified in quantity or
+direction, no more indeed than the magnetization developed in the
+soft iron cylinder. Everything takes place as if the iron cylinder
+were suspended in a solenoid ten centimeters in length that was
+caused to rise and fall; with the difference that the weight of the
+cylinder exerts no action on the hand of the operator.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a href="images/10a.png"><img src=
+"images/10a_th.jpg" alt="ELECTRIC POWER HAMMER."></a></p>
+
+<p class="ctr">ELECTRIC POWER HAMMER.</p>
+
+<p>These explanations being understood, there remain but few things
+to be said to cause the operation of the hammer to be thoroughly
+comprehended. The elementary sections constituting the electric
+cylinder, A B, of the hammer are 80 in number, and form a total
+length of one meter. Their ingoing and outcoming wires end in a
+collector of circular form shown at F G. The brushes are replaced
+by two strips, C E and C D, fixed to the double winch, H C I, which
+is movable around the fixed center, C. They can make any angle
+whatever with each other, so that by trial there maybe given the
+active solenoid the most suitable length. When such angle has been
+determined, the angle, E C D, is rendered invariable by means of a
+set screw, and the apparatus is maneuvered by imparting to the
+double winch, H C I, an alternating circular motion.</p>
+
+<p>The iron cylinder weighs 23 kilogrammes; but, when the current
+has an intensity of 43 amperes and traverses 15 sections, the
+stress developed may reach 70 kilogrammes; that is to say, three
+times the weight of the hammer. So this latter obeys with absolute
+docility the motions of the operator's hands, as those who were
+present at the lecture were enabled to see.</p>
+
+<p>I will incidentally add that this power hammer was placed on a
+circuit derived from one that served likewise to supply three
+Hefner-Alteneck machines (Siemens D<sub>5</sub> model) and a Gramme
+machine (Breguet model P.L.). Each of these machines was making
+1,500 revolutions per minute and developing 25 kilogrammeters per
+second, measured by means of a Carpentier brake. All these
+apparatus were operating with absolute independence, and had for
+generator the double excitation machine that figured at the
+Exhibition of Electricity.</p>
+
+<p>In an experiment made since then, I have succeeded in developing
+in each of these four machines 50 kilogrammeters per second,
+whatever was the number of those that were running; and I found it
+possible to add the hammer on a derived circuit without notably
+affecting the operation of the receivers.</p>
+
+<p>It results from this that with my system of double excitation
+machine I have been enabled to easily run with absolute
+independence six machines, each giving a two-third horse-power. The
+economic performance, e/E, moreover, slightly exceeded 0.50.</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p><a name="19"></a></p>
+
+<h2>SOLIGNAC'S NEW ELECTRIC LAMP.</h2>
+
+<p>When it becomes a question of practical lighting, it is very
+certain that the best electric lamp will be the one that is most
+simple and requires the fewest mechanical parts. It is to such
+simplicity that is due all the success of the Jablochkoff candle
+and the Reynier-Werdermann lamp. Yet, in the former of these lamps,
+it is to be regretted that the somewhat great and variable
+resistance opposed to the current in its passage through two
+carbons that keep diminishing in length, in measure as they burn,
+proves a cause of loss of light and of variation in it. And it is
+also to be regretted that the duration of combustion of the carbons
+is not longer; and, finally, it is allowable to believe that the
+power employed in volatilizing the insulator placed between the
+carbons is prejudicial to the economical use of this system. In
+order to obviate this latter inconvenience, an endeavor has been
+made in the Wilde candle to do away with the insulator, but the
+results obtained have scarcely been encouraging. An endeavor has
+also been made to render the duration of the carbons greater by
+employing quite long ones, and causing these to move forward
+successively through the intermedium of a species of rollers, or of
+counterpoises, as in the lamps of Mersanne and Werdermann; but then
+the system becomes more complicated. Finally, in order to keep the
+resistance of the carbons at a minimum and constant, their contact
+with the rheophores of the circuit has been established at a short
+distance from the arc, and this is one of the principal advantages
+possessed by the Reynier-Werdermann system. At a certain epoch it
+was thought that the problem might be simply solved by arranging in
+front of each other two carbons actuated by a spiral spring, as in
+car lamps, and kept at a proper distance apart for forming the
+electric arc by two funnel-shaped pieces of calcined magnesia, into
+which they entered like a wedge in measure as their conical point
+were away through combustion. This was the system of Mr. De
+Baillehache, and the trials that were made therewith were very
+satisfactory. But, unfortunately, the magnesia was not able to
+resist very long the temperature to which it was submitted. The
+problem found a better solution in the sun-lamp but has been solved
+in another manner, and just as simply, by Mr. Solignac, and the
+results obtained by him have been very satisfactory as regarded
+from the standpoint of steadiness of the luminous point.</p>
+
+<p>In this system, a general view of which is given in Fig. 1, and
+the arrangement in Figs. 2 and 3, the carbons, F F, which are
+horizontal and about fifty centimeters in length, are thrust toward
+each other by two barrels, K, K, which wind up two chains, E, E,
+passing around the pulleys, D, D, fitted to the extremities of the
+carbons. These latter are provided beneath with small glass rods,
+G, G, whose extremities toward the arc abut at a short distance
+from the latter against a nickel stop, L (Fig. 3), which supports
+them, moreover, at M, by means of a tappet whose position is
+regulated by a screw. The current is transmitted to the carbons by
+two friction rollers, I, I, which serve at the same time as a guide
+for them, and which give the electric flux a passage of only one or
+two centimeters over the front of the carbon to form the arc.
+Finally, the whole is held by a support, A, and two pieces, CB, CB,
+which at the same time lead the current to the friction rollers
+through projections, J. The two systems are made to approach or
+recede from each other, in order to form the arc, by means of a
+regulating screw, H.</p>
+
+<p>At present, the lighting of these lamps is effected by means of
+this screw, H, but Mr. Solignac is now constructing a model in
+which the lighting will be performed automatically by means of a
+solenoid that will react upon a carbon lighter, as in several
+already well known systems.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><img src="images/10b.png" alt="Fig. 1"></p>
+
+<p class="ctr">Fig. 1</p>
+
+<p>If the preceding description has been well-understood, it will
+be seen that the carbons are arrested in their movement toward each
+other only by the glass rods, G, abutting against L; but, as the
+stops, L, are not far from the arc, and as the heat to which they
+are exposed is so much the greater in proportion as the
+incandescent part of the carbons is nearer them, it results that
+for a certain elongation of the arc the temperature becomes
+sufficient to soften the glass of the rods, G, G, so that they bend
+as shown at O (Fig. 3), and allow the carbons to move onward until
+the heat has sufficiently diminished to prevent any further
+softening of the glass. In measure as the wearing away progresses,
+the preceding effects are reproduced; and, as these are produced in
+an imperceptible and continuous manner, there is perceived no
+jumping nor inconstancy in the light of the arc. Under such
+conditions, then, the regulation of the arc is effected under the
+very influence of the effect produced; and not under that of an
+action of a different nature (electro-magnetism), as happens in
+other regulators. It is certain that this idea is new and original,
+and the results that we have witnessed from it have been very
+satisfactory. There is but one regulation to perform, and that at
+the beginning, but this once done the apparatus operates with
+certainty, and for a long time. With a Meritens machine of the
+first model it has been found possible to light five lamps of this
+kind placed in the same circuit.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><img src="images/10c.png" alt="Fig. 2"></p>
+
+<p class="ctr">Fig. 2</p>
+
+<p>According to the inventor, this lamp will give a light of 100
+carcels per one horse-power, and with a three horse-power six lamps
+may be lighted; but we have made no experiments to ascertain the
+correctness of these figures.</p>
+
+<p>As for the cost of the glass rods, that amounts to one franc per
+two hundred meters length. They can, then, be considered only as an
+insignificant expense in the cost of the carbons. We consequently
+believe that it will be possible to employ this system
+advantageously in practice.--<i>Th. du Moncel</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><img src="images/10d.png" alt="Fig. 3"></p>
+
+<p class="ctr">Fig. 3</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p><a name="20"></a></p>
+
+<h2>MONDOS'S ELECTRIC LAMP.</h2>
+
+<p>Since the month of May last, the concert at the Champs
+Elys&eacute;es has been lighted by sixteen voltaic arc lamps on a
+new and very simple system, which gives excellent results in the
+installation under consideration. The sixteen lamps are on the
+divisible system, and their regulation is based upon the principle
+of derivation. They are supplied by a Siemens alternating current
+machine and arranged in four circuits, on each of which are mounted
+four lamps in series. The accompanying figures will allow the
+reader to readily understand the system, which is as simple as it
+is ingenious, and which has been combined by Mr. Mondos so as to
+obtain a continuous and independent regulation of each lamp.</p>
+
+<p>In this system the lower carbon is stationary, the luminous
+point descending in measure as the carbons wear away through
+combustion. The upper carbon descends by its own weight, and
+imperceptibly, so as to keep the arc at its normal length.</p>
+
+<p>The mechanism that controls the motions of the upper rod that
+supports the carbon-holder consists of two bobbins of fine wire, E
+(Fig. 2), mounted on a derived circuit on the terminals of the
+lamp; of a lever, L, articulated at O, and supporting a tube, TT',
+and the whole movable part balanced by a counterpoise, P. This
+lever, P, carries two soft iron cores, F, which enter the bobbins,
+E, and become magnetized under the influence of the current that
+passes through them. The upper part of the tube, T, carries a
+square upon which is articulated at O' a second lever, L', balanced
+by a second counterpoise, P', and carrying a flat armature,
+<i>p</i>, opposite the cores, F', that are fixed to the first
+horizontal lever, L. The carbon-holder rod, CC', slides freely in
+the tube, TT', and is wedged therein by a small piece, <i>a m
+l</i>, fixed to the lever, L'. For this reason the tube, TT', is
+provided with a notch opposite the piece <i>a m l</i>, and the two
+arms, <i>a</i> and <i>m</i>, of the latter are shaped like a V, as
+may be seen in part in the plan in Fig. 2. It is now easy to
+understand how the system operates; when the current is not
+traversing the circuit, the carbons are separated; but, at the
+moment the circuit is closed for lighting a series of lamps, it
+traverses the electro-magnet, which then becomes very powerful, and
+draws down the cores, F, along with the lever, L, the tube, TT',
+and the carbon-holder, CC', and brings the carbons in contact. The
+arc then forms, and the current divides between the arc and the
+bobbins, E. Its action upon the cores, F, becomes weak, and it can
+no longer balance the counterpoise, P, which falls back, and raises
+the system again. The arc thus becomes <i>primed</i>. The cores, F,
+however, preserve a certain amount of magnetization; the armature,
+<i>p</i>, is attracted, and the lever, L', assumes a position of
+equilibrium such that the piece, <i>a m l</i>, wedges the rod, CC',
+in the tube, TT', and holds it suspended. When, through wear of the
+carbons, the arc elongates, a greater portion of the current passes
+into the bobbins, E, the armature, <i>p</i>, is attracted with more
+force, and the lever, L', swings around the point, O'. The rotation
+of L' separates the piece, <i>a m l</i>, from the rod, CC', which,
+being thus set free, slides by its own weight and shortens the arc.
+The current then becomes weak in E, the armature, <i>p</i>, is not
+so strongly attracted, the lever, L', pivots slightly around O'
+under the action of the weight, P', and the brake or wedge enters
+the notch anew, and stops the descent of the carbon. In practice,
+the motions that we have just described are exceedingly slight; the
+carbon moves imperceptibly, and the length of the arc remains
+invariable.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a href="images/11a.png"><img src=
+"images/11a_th.jpg" alt="Fig. 1--MONDOS'S ELECTRIC LAMP.">
+</a></p>
+
+<p class="ctr">Fig. 1--MONDOS'S ELECTRIC LAMP.</p>
+
+<p>It will be seen, then, that the lever, L, and the tube, TT',
+serve exclusively for <i>lighting</i>, and the lever, L',
+exclusively for regulating the distance of the carbons.</p>
+
+<p>This lamp exhibits great elasticity, and can operate, without a
+change of any part of its mechanism, with currents of very
+different intensities. It suffices for obtaining a proper working
+of the apparatus in each case, to regulate the distance from the
+weight, P', to the point of suspension, O', and the distance from
+the armature, <i>p</i>, to the cores, F. At the Champs
+Elys&eacute;es concerts the lamps are operating with alternating
+currents; but they are capable of operating with continuous ones
+also, although the slight tremor of the electro-magnetic system,
+due to the use of alternating currents and as a consequence of
+rapid changes of magnetization, seems in principle very favorable
+to systems in which the descent of the carbon is based upon
+friction instead of a clutch. At the Champs Elys&eacute;es concerts
+the lamps burn crayons of 9 to 10 millimeters with a current of 9
+to 10 amperes and an effective electro-motive power of 60 volts per
+lamp. The light is very steady, and the effect produced is most
+satisfactory. The dispensing with all clock-work movement and
+regulating springs makes this electric lamp of Mr. Mondos a simple
+and plain apparatus, capable of numerous applications in the
+industries, in wide, open spaces, in all cases where foci of medium
+intensity have to be employed, and where it is desired to arrange
+several lamps in the same circuit.--<i>La Nature</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><img src="images/11b.png" alt=
+"Fig. 2--REGULATING MECHANISM."></p>
+
+<p class="ctr">Fig. 2--REGULATING MECHANISM.</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p>[AMERICAN POTTERY AND GLASSWARE REPORTER.]</p>
+
+<p><a name="21"></a></p>
+
+<h2>ALUMINUM--ITS PROPERTIES, COST, AND USES.</h2>
+
+<p>Aluminum is a shining, white, sonorous metal, having a shade
+between silver and platinum. It is a very light metal, being
+lighter than glass and only about one-fourth as heavy as silver of
+the same bulk. It is very malleable and ductile, and is remarkable
+for its resistance to oxidation, being unaffected by moist or dry
+air, or by hot or cold water. Sulphureted hydrogen gas, which so
+readily tarnishes silver, forming a black film on the surface, has
+no action on this metal.</p>
+
+<p>Next to silica, the oxide of aluminum (alumina) forms, in
+combination, the most abundant constituent of the crust of the
+earth (hydrated silicate of alumina, clay).</p>
+
+<p>Common alum is sulphate of alumina combined with another
+sulphate, as potash, soda, etc. It is much used as a mordant in
+dyeing and calico printing, also in tanning.</p>
+
+<p>Aluminum is of great value in mechanical dentistry, as, in
+addition to its lightness and strength, it is not affected by the
+presence of sulphur in the food--as by eggs, for instance.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Fowler, of Yarmouthport, Mass., obtained patents for its
+combination with vulcanite as applied to dentistry and other uses.
+It resists sulphur in the process of vulcanization in a manner
+which renders it an efficient and economical substitute for
+platinum or gold.</p>
+
+<p>Aluminum is derived from the oxide alumina, which is the
+principal constituent of common clay. Lavoissier, a celebrated
+French chemist, first suggested the existence of the metallic bases
+of the earths and alkalies, which fact was demonstrated twenty
+years thereafter by Sir Humphry Davy, by eliminating potassium and
+sodium from their combinations; and afterward by the discovery of
+the metallic bases of baryta, strontium, and lime. The earth
+alumina resisting the action of the voltaic pile and the other
+agents then used to induce decomposition, twenty years more passed
+before the chloride was obtained by Oerstadt, by subjecting alumina
+to the action of potassium in a crucible heated over a spirit lamp.
+The discovery of aluminum was at last made by Wohler in 1827, who
+succeeded in 1846 in obtaining minute globules or beads of this
+metal by heating a mixture of chloride of alumina and sodium.
+Deville afterward conducted some experiments in obtaining this
+metal at the expense of Napoleon III., who subscribed &pound;1,500,
+and was rewarded by the presentation of two bars of aluminum. The
+process of manufacture was afterward so simplified that in 1857 its
+price at Paris was about two dollars an ounce. It was at first
+manufactured from common clay, which contains about one-fourth its
+weight of aluminum, but in 1855 Rose announced to the scientific
+world that it could be obtained from a material called "cryolite,"
+found in Greenland in large quantities, imported into Germany under
+the name of "mineral soda," and used as a washing soda and in the
+manufacture of soap. It consists of a double fluoride of aluminum,
+and only requires to be mixed with an excess of sodium and heated,
+when the mineral aluminum at once separates. Its cost of
+manufacture is given in this estimate for one pound of metal: 16
+lb. of cryolite at 8 cents per pound, $1.28: 2&frac12; lb. metallic
+sodium at about 26 cents per pound, 70 cents; flux and cost of
+reduction, $2.02; total, $4.</p>
+
+<p>Aluminum is used largely in the manufacture of cheap jewelry by
+making a hard, gold-colored alloy with copper, called aluminum
+bronze, consisting of 90 per cent. of copper and 10 per cent. of
+aluminum. Like iron, it does not amalgamate directly with mercury,
+nor is it readily alloyed with lead, but many alloys with other
+metals, as copper, iron, gold, etc., have been made with it and
+found to be valuable combinations. One part of it to 100 parts of
+gold gives a hard, malleable alloy of a greenish gold color, and an
+alloy of &frac34; iron and &frac14; aluminum does not oxidize when
+exposed to a moist atmosphere. It has also been used to form a
+metallic coating upon other metals, as copper, brass, and German
+silver, by the electro-galvanic process. Copper has also been
+deposited, by the same process, upon aluminum plates to facilitate
+their being rolled very thin; for unless the metal be pure, it
+requires to be annealed at each passage through the rolls, and it
+is found that its flexibility is greatly increased by rolling. To
+avoid the bluish white appearance, like zinc, Dr. Stevenson McAdam
+recommends immersing the article made from aluminum in a heated
+solution of potash, which will give a beautiful white frosted
+appearance, like that of frosted silver.</p>
+
+<p>F.W. Gerhard obtained a patent in 1856, in England, for an
+improved means of obtaining aluminum metal, and the adaptation
+thereof to the manufacture of certain useful articles. Powdered
+fluoride of aluminum is placed alone or in combination with other
+fluorides in a closed furnace, heated to a red heat, and exposed to
+the action of hydrogen gas, which is used as a reagent in the place
+of sodium. A reverberating furnace is used by preference. The
+fluoride of aluminum is placed in shallow trays or dishes, each
+dish being surrounded by clean iron filings placed in suitable
+receptacles; dry hydrogen gas is forced in, and suitable entry and
+exit pipes and stop-cocks are provided. The hydrogen gas, combining
+with the fluoride, "forms hydrofluoric acid, which is taken up by
+the iron and is thereby converted into fluoride of iron." The
+resulting aluminum "remains in a metallic state in the bottom of
+the trays containing the fluoride," and may be used for a variety
+of manufacturing and ornamental purposes.</p>
+
+<p>The most important alloy of aluminum is composed of aluminum 10,
+copper 90. It possesses a pale gold color, a hardness surpassing
+that of bronze, and is susceptible of taking a fine polish. This
+alloy has found a ready market, and, if less costly, would replace
+red and yellow brass. Its hardness and tenacity render it
+peculiarly adapted for journals and bearings. Its tensile strength
+is 100,000 lb., and when drawn into wire, 128,000 lb., and its
+elasticity is one-half that of wrought iron.</p>
+
+<p>General Morin believes this alloy to be a perfect chemical
+combination, as it exhibits, unlike the gun metal, a most complete
+homogeneousness, its preparation being also attended by a great
+development of heat, not seen in the manufacture of most other
+alloys. The specific gravity of this alloy is 7.7. It is malleable
+and ductile, may be forged cold as well as hot, but is not
+susceptible of rolling; it may, however, be drawn into tubes. It is
+extremely tough and fibrous.</p>
+
+<p>Aluminum bronze, when exposed to the air, tarnishes less quickly
+than either silver, brass, or common bronze, and less, of course,
+than iron or steel. The contact of fatty matters or the juice of
+fruits does not result in the production of any soluble metallic
+salt, an immunity which highly recommends it for various articles
+for table use.</p>
+
+<p>The uses to which aluminum bronze is applicable are various.
+Spoons, forks, knives, candle-sticks, locks, knobs, door-handles,
+window fastenings, harness trimmings, and pistols are made from it;
+also objects of art, such as busts, statuettes, vases, and groups.
+In France, aluminum bronze is used for the eagles or military
+standards, for armor, for the works of watches, as also watch
+chains and ornaments. For certain parts, such as journals of
+engines, lathe-head boxes, pinions, and running gear, it has proved
+itself superior to all other metals.</p>
+
+<p>Hulot, director of the Imperial postage stamp manufactory in
+Paris, uses it in the construction of a punching machine. It is
+well known that the best edges of tempered steel become very
+generally blunted by paper. This is even more the case when the
+paper is coated with a solution of gum arabic and then dried, as in
+the instance of postage stamp sheets. The sheets are punched by a
+machine the upper part of which moves vertically and is armed with
+300 needles of tempered steel, sharpened in a right angle. At every
+blow of the machine they pass through the holes in the lower fixed
+piece, which correspond with the needles, and perforate five sheets
+at every blow. Hulot now substitutes this piece by aluminum bronze.
+Each machine makes daily 120,000 blows, or 180,000,000
+perforations, and it has been found that a cushion of the aluminum
+alloy was unaffected after some months' use, while one of brass is
+useless after one day.</p>
+
+<p>Various formul&aelig; are given for the production of alloys of
+aluminum, but they are too numerous and intricate to enter into
+here.</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p><a name="11"></a></p>
+
+<h2>DETERMINATION OF POTASSA IN MANURES.</h2>
+
+<h3>By M.E. DREYFUS.</h3>
+
+<p>The method generally adopted for the determination of potassa in
+manures, i. e., the direct incineration of the sample, may in
+certain cases occasion considerable errors in consequence of the
+volatilization of a portion of the potassium products.</p>
+
+<p>To avoid this inconvenience, the author proposes a preliminary
+treatment of the manure with sulphuric acid at 1.845 sp. gr., to
+convert potassium nitrate and chloride into the fixed sulphate. The
+sulphuric acid attacks the manure energetically, and much
+facilitates the incineration, which may be effected at a dark red
+heat. The ignited portion (10 grms.) is exhausted with boiling
+distilled water acidulated with hydrochloric acid, and the
+filtrate, when cold, is made up to 500 c. c. Of this solution 50 c
+c., representing 1 grm. of the sample, are taken, and, after being
+heated until close upon ebullition, baryta-water is added until a
+strong alkaline reaction is obtained. The sulphuric and phosphoric
+acids, alumina, magnesia, etc, are thus precipitated. The filtrate
+is heated to a boil, and mixed with ammonia and ammonium carbonate,
+to precipitate the excess of baryta in solution. The last traces of
+lime are eliminated by means of a few drops of ammonium oxalate.
+The filtrate is evaporated down on the water-bath, and the
+ammoniacal salts are expelled by carefully raising the temperature
+to dull redness. After having taken up the residue in distilled
+water it is treated with platinum chloride, and the potassium
+chloro-platinate obtained is reduced with oxalic acid. The quantity
+of potassa present in the manure can be calculated from the weight
+of platinum obtained.--<i>Bull. de la Soc. Chim. de Paris</i>.</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p><a name="22"></a></p>
+
+<h2>THE ORIGIN AND RELATIONS OF THE CARBON MINERALS.</h2>
+
+<p>[Footnote: Read before the New York Academy of Sciences,
+February 6, 1882.]</p>
+
+<h3>By J.S. NEWBERRY.</h3>
+
+<p>What are called the carbon minerals--peat, lignite, coal,
+graphite, asphalt, petroleum, etc.--are, properly speaking, not
+minerals at all, as they are organic substances, and have no
+definite chemical composition or crystalline forms. They are, in
+fact, chiefly the products or phases of a progressive and
+inevitable change in plant-tissue, which, like all organic matter,
+is an unstable compound and destined to decomposition.</p>
+
+<p>In virtue of a mysterious and inscrutable force which resides in
+the microscopic embryo of the seed, a tree begins its growth. For a
+brief interval, this growth is maintained by the prepared food
+stored in the cotyledons, and this suffices to produce and to bring
+into functional activity--some root-fibrils below and leaves above,
+with which the independent and self-sustained life of the
+individual begins. Henceforward, perhaps for a thousand years, this
+life goes on, active in summer and dormant in winter, absorbing the
+sunlight as a motive power which it controls and guides. Its
+instruments are the discriminating cells at the extremities of the
+root-fibrils, which search for, select, and absorb the crude
+aliment adapted to the needs of the plant to which they belong, and
+the chlorophyl cells--the lungs and stomach of the tree--in the
+leaves. During all the years of the growth of the plant, these
+organs are mainly occupied in breaking the strongly riveted bonds
+that unite oxygen and carbon in carbonic acid; appropriating the
+carbon and driving off most of the oxygen. In the end, if the tree
+is, e. g., a <i>Sequoia</i>, some hundreds of tons of solid,
+organized tissue have been raised into a column hundreds of feet in
+height, in opposition to the force of gravitation and to the
+affinities of inorganic chemistry.</p>
+
+<p>The time comes, however, sooner or later, when the power which
+has created and the life that has pervaded this wonderful structure
+abandon it. The affinities of inorganic chemistry immediately
+reassert themselves, in ordinary circumstances rapidly tearing down
+the ephemeral fabric.</p>
+
+<p>The disintegration of organic tissue, when deserted by the force
+which has animated and preserved it, gives rise to the phenomena
+which form the theme of this paper.</p>
+
+<p>Most animal-tissue decomposes with great rapidity, and plant
+tissue, when not protected, soon decays. This decay is essentially
+oxidation, since its final result is the restoration to the
+atmosphere of carbonic acid, which is broken up in plant-growth by
+the appropriation of its carbon. Hence it is a kind of combustion,
+although this term is more generally applied to very rapid
+oxidation, with the evolution of sensible light and heat. But,
+whether the process goes on rapidly or slowly, the same force is
+evolved that is absorbed in the growth of plant-tissue; and by
+accelerating and guiding its evolution, we are able to utilize this
+force in the production at will of heat, light, and their
+correlatives, chemical affinity, motive power, electricity, and
+magnetism. The decomposition of plants may, however, be more or
+less retarded, and it then takes the form of a destructive
+distillation, the constituents reacting upon each other, and
+forming temporary combinations, part of which are evolved, and part
+remain behind. Water is the great extinguisher of this as of the
+more rapid oxidation that we call combustion; and the decomposition
+of plant-tissue under water is extremely slow, from the partial
+exclusion of oxygen. Buried under thick and nearly impervious
+masses of clay, where the exclusion of oxygen is still more nearly
+complete, the decomposition is so far retarded that plant-tissue,
+which is destroyed by combustion almost instantaneously, and if
+exposed to "the elements"--moisture with a free access of
+oxygen--decays in a year or two, may be but partially consumed when
+millions of years have passed. The final result is, however,
+inevitable, and always the same, viz., the oxidation and escape of
+the organic mutter, and the concentration of the inorganic matter
+woven into its composition--in it, but not of it--forming what we
+call the ash of the plant.</p>
+
+<p>Since the decomposition of organic matter commences the instant
+it is abandoned by the creative and conservative vital force, and
+proceeds uninterruptedly, whether slowly or rapidly, to the final
+result, it is evident that each moment in the progress of this
+decomposition presents us with a phase of structure and composition
+different from that which preceded and from that which follows it.
+Hence the succession of these phases forms a complete sliding
+scale, which is graphically shown in the following diagram, where
+the organic constituents of plant tissue--carbon, hydrogen, oxygen,
+and nitrogen--appear gradually diminishing to extinction, while the
+ash remains nearly constant, but relatively increasing, till it is
+the sole representative of the fabric.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><img src="images/12a.png" alt=""></p>
+
+<p class="ctr">DIAGRAM SHOWING THE GENETIC RELATIONS OF THE
+CARBON<br>
+MINERALS.</p>
+
+<p>We may cut this triangle of residual products where we please,
+and by careful analysis determine accurately the chemical
+composition of a section at this point, and we may please ourselves
+with the illusion, as many chemists have done, that the definite
+proportions found represent the formula of a specific compound; but
+an adjacent section above or below would show a different
+composition, and so in the entire triangle we should find an
+infinite series of formulae, or rather no constant formulae at all.
+We should also find that the slice, taken at any point while lying
+in the laboratory or undergoing chemical treatment, would change in
+composition, and become a different substance.</p>
+
+<p>In the same way we can snatch a brand from the fire at any stage
+of its decomposition, or analyze a decaying tree trunk during any
+month of its existence, and thus manufacture as many chemical
+formulae as we like, and give them specific names; but it is
+evident that this is child's play, not science. The truth is, the
+slowly decomposing tissue of the plants of past ages has given us a
+series of phases which we have grouped under distinct names, and we
+have called one group peat, one lignite, another coal, another
+anthracite, and another graphite. We have spaced off the scale, and
+called all within certain lines by a common name; but this does not
+give us a common composition for all the material within these
+lines. Hence we see that any effort to define or describe coal,
+lignite, or anthracite accurately must be a failure, because
+neither has a fixed composition, neither is a distinct substance,
+but simply a conventional group of substances which form part of an
+infinite and indivisible series.</p>
+
+<p>But this sliding scale of solid compounds, which we designate by
+the names given above, is not the only product of the natural and
+spontaneous distillation of plant tissue. Part of the original
+organic mass remains, though constantly wasting, to represent it;
+another part escapes, either completely oxidized as carbonic acid
+and water, or in a volatile or liquid form, still retaining its
+organic character, and destined to future oxidation, known as
+carbureted hydrogen, olefiant gas, petroleum, etc.</p>
+
+<p>Hence, in the decomposition of vegetable tissue, two classes of
+resultant compounds are formed, one residual and the other evolved;
+and the genesis and relation of the carbon minerals may be
+accurately shown by the following diagram:</p>
+
+<pre>
+                       PLANT TISSUE
+                           _________________
+                        |
+  _Residual Products_   |   _Evolved Products_
+                        |
+         Peat.        }
+          |           }
+       Lignite.       }
+          |           }   { Carbonic Acid.
+    Bitumious Coal.   }   { Carbonic Oxide.
+          |           }   { Carbureted Hydrogen, etc.
+ Semi-bitumious "     }   { Water.
+          |           }   {         {Maltha.
+      Anthracite.     }   {         {  |
+          |           }   {         {Asphalt etc.
+Graphitie Anthracite. }   { Petro-  {  |
+          |           }   { leum    {Asphaltic Coal.
+       Graphite.      }             {  |
+          |           }             {Asphaltic Anthracite.
+         Ash.         }             {  |
+                                    {     "    Graphite.
+</pre>
+
+<p>[NOTE.--In this diagram, the vertical line connecting the names
+of the residual products (and of the derivatives of petroleum)
+indicates that each succeeding one is produced by further
+alteration from that which precedes it, and not independently.
+Also, the arrangement of the braces is designed to show that any or
+all of the evolved products are given off at each stage of
+alteration.]</p>
+
+<p>The theory here proposed has not been evolved from my inner
+consciousness, but has grown from careful study, through many
+years, of facts in the field. A brief sketch of the evidence in
+favor of it is all that we have space for here.</p>
+
+<h3>RESIDUAL PRODUCTS.</h3>
+
+<p><i>Peat</i>.--Dry plant-tissue consists of about 50 per cent, of
+carbon, 44 per cent, of oxygen, with a little nitrogen, and 6 per
+cent. of hydrogen. In a peat-bog, we find the upper part of the
+scale represented above very well shown: plants are growing on the
+surface with the normal composition of cellulose. The first stratum
+of peat consists of browned and partially decomposed plant-tissue,
+which is found to have lost perhaps 20 per cent. of the components
+of wood, and to have acquired an increasing percentage of carbon.
+As we descend in the peat, it becomes more homogeneous and darker
+until at the bottom of the marsh ten or twenty feet from the
+surface, we have a black, carbonaceous paste, which, when dried,
+resembles some varieties of coal, and approaches them in
+composition. It has lost half the substance of the original plant,
+and shows a marked increase in the relative proportion of
+carbon.</p>
+
+<p><i>Lignite</i>.--Each inch in vertical thickness of the peat-bog
+represents a phase in the progressive change from wood-tissue to
+lignite, using this term with its common signification to indicate,
+not necessarily carbonized ligneous tissue, but plant-tissue that
+belongs to a past though modern geological age--i.e., Tertiary,
+Cretaceous, Jurassic, or Triassic. These lignites or modern coals
+are only peat beds which have been buried for a longer or shorter
+time under clay, sand, or solidified rock, and have progressed
+farther or less far on the road to coal. As with peats, so with
+lignites, we find that at different geological levels they exhibit
+different stages of this distillation--the Tertiary lignites being
+usually distinguished without difficulty by the presence of a
+larger quantity of combined water and oxygen, and a less quantity
+of carbon, than the Cretaceous coals, and these in turn differ in
+the same respects from the Triassic.</p>
+
+<p>All the coals of the Tertiary and Mesozoic ages are grouped
+under one name; but it is evident that they are as different from
+each other as the new and spongy from the old and well-rotted peat
+in the peat-bog.</p>
+
+<p><i>Coal</i>.--By mere convention, we call the peat which
+accumulated in the Carboniferous age by the name of bituminous
+coal; and an examination of the Carboniferous strata in different
+countries has shown that the peat-beds formed in the Carboniferous
+age, though varying somewhat, like others, with the kind of
+vegetation from which they were derived, have a common character by
+which they may be distinguished from the more modern coals;
+containing less water, less oxygen, and more carbon, and usually
+exhibiting the property of coking, which is rare in coals of later
+date. Though there is great diversity in the Carboniferous coals,
+and it would be absurd to express their composition by a single
+formula, it may be said that, over the whole world, these coals
+have characteristics, as a group, by which they can be recognized,
+the result of the slow decomposition of the tissue of plants which
+lived in the Carboniferous age, and which have, by a broad and
+general change, approximated to a certain phase in the spontaneous
+distillation of plant-tissue. An experienced geologist will not
+fail to refer to their proper horizon a group of coals of
+Carboniferous age any more than those of the Cretaceous or
+Tertiary.</p>
+
+<p><i>Anthracite</i>--In the ages anterior to the Carboniferous,
+the quantity of land vegetation was apparently not sufficient to
+form thick and extensive beds of peat; but the remains of
+plant-tissue are contained in all the older formations, though
+there only as anthracite or graphite--the last two groups of
+residual products. Of these we have examples in the beds of
+graphite in the Laurentian rocks of Canada, and of anthracite of
+the lower Silurian strata of Upper Church and Kilnaleck,
+Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>From these facts it is apparent that the carbon series is graded
+geologically, that is, by the lapse of time during which
+plant-tissue has been subjected to this natural and spontaneous
+distillation. But we have better evidence than this of the
+derivation of one from another of the groups of residual products
+which have been enumerated. In many localities, the coals and
+lignites of different ages have been exposed to local
+influences--such as the outbursts of trap-rock, or the metamorphism
+of mountain chains--which have hastened the distillation, and out
+of known earlier groups have produced the last. For example, trap
+outbursts have converted Tertiary lignites in Alaska into good
+bituminous coals; on Queen Charlotte's Island, on Anthracite Creek,
+in southwestern Colorado, and at the Placer Mountains, near Santa
+Fe, New Mexico, Cretaceous lignites into anthracite; those from
+Queen Charlotte's Island and southwestern Colorado are as bright,
+hard, and valuable as any from Pennsylvania. At a little distance
+from the focus of volcanic action, the Cretaceous coals of
+southwestern Colorado have been made bituminous and coking, while
+at the Placer Mountains the same stratum may be seen in its
+anthracitic and lignitic stages.</p>
+
+<p>A still better series, illustrating the derivation of one form
+of carbon solids from another, is furnished by the coals of Ohio,
+Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. These are of the same age; in Ohio,
+presenting the normal composition and physical characters of
+bituminous coals, that is, of plant tissue generally and uniformly
+descending the scale in the lapse of time from the Carboniferous
+age to the present. In the mountains of Pennsylvania the same coal
+beds, somewhat affected by the metamorphism which all the rocks of
+the Alleghanies have shared, have reached the stage of
+<i>semi-bituminous</i> coals, where half the volatile constituents
+have been driven off; again, in the anthracite basins of eastern
+Pennsylvania, the distillation further effected has formed from
+these coals <i>anthracite</i>, containing only from three to ten
+per cent. of volatile matter; while in the focus of metamorphic
+action, at Newport, Rhode Island, the Carboniferous coals have been
+changed to <i>graphitic anthracite</i>, that is, are half
+anthracite and half graphite. Here, traveling from west to east, a
+progressive change is noted, similar to that which may be observed
+in making a vertical section of a peat bog, or in comparing the
+coals of Tertiary, Mesozoic, and Carboniferous age, only the latter
+is the continuation and natural sequence of the former series of
+changes.</p>
+
+<p>In the Laurentian rocks of Canada are large accumulations of
+carbonaceous matter, all of which is graphite, and that which is
+universally conceded to be derived from plant-tissue. The oxidation
+of graphite is artificially difficult, and in nature's laboratory
+slow; but it is inevitable, as we see in the decomposition of its
+outcrops and the blanching of exposed surfaces of clouded marbles,
+where the coloring is graphite. Thus the end is reached, and by
+observations in the field, the origin and relationship of the
+different carbon solids derived from organic tissue are
+demonstrated.</p>
+
+<p>It only remains to be said, in regard to them, that all the
+changes enumerated may be imitated artificially, and that the
+stages of decomposition which we have designated by the names
+graphite, anthracite, coal, lignite, are not necessary results of
+the decomposition of plant-tissue. A fallen tree may slowly consume
+away, and all its carbonaceous matter may be oxidized and
+dissipated without exhibiting the phases of lignite, coal, etc.;
+and lignite and coal, when exposed to air and moisture, are burned
+away to ashes in the same manner, simply because in these cases
+complete oxidation of the carbon takes place, particle by particle,
+and the mass is not affected as a whole in such a way as to assume
+the intermediate stages referred to. Chemical analysis, however,
+proves that the process is essentially the same, although the
+physical results are different.</p>
+
+<h3>EVOLVED PRODUCTS.</h3>
+
+<p>The gradual wasting of plant-tissue in the formation of peat,
+lignite, coal, etc., may be estimated as averaging for peat, 20 to
+30 per cent.; lignite, 30 to 50 per cent.; coal, 50 to 70 per
+cent.; anthracite, 70 to 80; and graphite, 90 per cent. of the
+original mass. The evolved products ultimately represent the entire
+organic portion of the wood--the mineral matter, or ash, being the
+only residuum. These evolved products include both liquids and
+gases, and by subsequent changes, solids are produced from some of
+them. Carbonic acid, carbonic oxide, nitrogenous and hydrocarbon
+gases, water, and petroleum, are mentioned above as the substances
+which escape from wood-tissue during its decomposition. That all
+these are eliminated in the decay of vegetable and animal
+structures is now generally conceded by chemists and geologists,
+although there is a wide difference of opinion as to the nature of
+the process.</p>
+
+<p>It has been claimed that the evolved products enumerated above
+are the results of the primary decomposition of organic matter, and
+never of further changes in the residual products; i.e., that in
+the breaking-up of organic tissue, variable quantities of coal,
+anthracite, petroleum, marsh gas, etc., are formed, but that these
+are never derived, the one from the other. This opinion is,
+however, certainly erroneous, and the formation of any or all the
+evolved products may take place throughout the entire progress of
+the decomposition. Marsh gas and carbonic acid are seen escaping
+from the surface of pools where recent vegetable matter is
+submerged, and they are also eliminated in the further
+decomposition of peat, lignite, coal, and carbonaceous shale. Fire
+damp and choke-damp, common names for the gases mentioned above,
+are produced in large quantities in the mines where Tertiary or
+Cretaceous lignites, or Carboniferous coals or anthracites are
+mined. It has been said that these gases are simply locked up in
+the interstices of the carbonaceous matter and are liberated in its
+excavation; but all who have worked coal mines know that such
+accumulations are not sufficient to supply the enormous and
+continuous flow which comes from all parts of the mass penetrated.
+We have ample proof, moreover, that coal, when exposed to the air,
+undergoes a kind of distillation, in which the evolution of
+carbonic acid and hydrocarbon gases is a necessary and prominent
+feature.</p>
+
+<p>The gas makers know that if their coal is permitted to lie for
+months or years after being mined, it suffers serious
+deterioration, yielding a less and less quantity of illuminating
+gas with the lapse of time. So coking coals are rendered dry,
+non-caking, and valueless for this purpose by long exposure.</p>
+
+<p>Carbureted hydrogen, olefiant gas, etc., are constant associates
+of the petroleum of springs or wells, and this escape of gas and
+oil has been going on in some localities, without apparent
+diminution, for two or three thousand years. We can only account
+for the persistence of this flow by supposing that it is maintained
+by the gradual distillation of the carbonaceous masses with which
+such evolutions of gas or of liquid hydro-carbons are always
+connected. If it were true that carbureted hydrogen and petroleum
+are produced only from the primary decomposition of organic tissue,
+it would be inevitable that at least the elastic gases would have
+escaped long since.</p>
+
+<p>Oil wells which have been nominally exhausted--that is, from
+which the accumulations of centuries in rock reservoirs have been
+pumped--and therefore have been abandoned, have in all cases been
+found to be slowly replenished by a current and constant secretion,
+apparently the product of an unceasing distillation.</p>
+
+<p>In the valley of the Cumberland, about Burkesville, one of the
+oil regions of the country, the gases escaping from the equivalent
+of the Utica shale accumulate under the plates of impervious
+limestone above until masses of rock and earth, hundreds of tons in
+weight, are sometimes thrown out with great violence. Unless these
+gases had been produced by comparatively recent distillation, such
+explosions could not occur.</p>
+
+<p>In opening a coal mine on a hillside, the first traces of the
+coal seam are found in a dark stain in the superficial clay; then a
+substance like rotten wood is reached, from which all the volatile
+constituents have escaped. These appear, however, later, and
+continue to increase as the mine is deepened, until under water or
+a heavy covering of rock the coal attains its normal physical and
+chemical characters. Here it is evident that the coal has undergone
+a long-continued distillation, which must have resulted in the
+constant production of carbonic acid and carbureted hydrogen.</p>
+
+<p>A line of perennial oil and gas springs marks the outcrop of
+every great stratum of carbonaceous matter in the country. Of
+these, the most considerable and remarkable are the bituminous
+shales of the Silurian (Utica shale), of the Devonian (Hamilton and
+Huron shales), the Carboniferous, etc. Here the carbonaceous
+constituent (10 to 20 per cent.) is disseminated through a great
+proportion of inorganic material, clay and sand, and seems, both
+from the nature of the materials which furnished it--cellular
+plants and minute animal organisms--and its dissemination, to be
+specially prone to spontaneous distillation. The Utica shale is the
+lowest of these great sheets of carbonaceous matter, and that
+supplies the hydro-carbon gases and liquids which issue from the
+earth at Collingwood, Canada, and in the valley of the Cumberland.
+The next carbonaceous sheet is formed by the great bituminous shale
+beds of the upper Devonian, which underlie and supply the oil wells
+in western Pennsylvania. In some places the shale is several
+hundred feet in thickness, and contains more carbonaceous matter
+than all the overlying coal strata. The outcrop of this formation,
+from central New York to Tennessee, is conspicuously marked by gas
+springs, the flow from which is apparently unfailing.</p>
+
+<p>Petroleum is scarcely less constant in its connection with these
+carbonaceous rocks than carbureted hydrogen, and it only escapes
+notice from the little space it occupies. The two substances are so
+closely allied that they must have a common origin, and they are,
+in fact, generated simultaneously in thousands of localities.</p>
+
+<p>During the oil excitement of some years since, when the whole
+country was hunted over for "oil sign," in many lagoons, from which
+bubbles of marsh-gas were constantly escaping, films of genuine
+petroleum were found on the surface; and as the underlying strata
+were barren of oil, this could only have been derived from the
+decaying vegetable tissue below. In the Bay of Marquette, two or
+three miles north of the town, where the shore is a peat bog
+underlain by Arch&aelig;an rocks, I have seen bubbles of carbureted
+hydrogen rising in great numbers attended by drops of petroleum
+which spread as iridescent films on the surface.</p>
+
+<p>The remarks which have been made in regard to the heterogeneous
+nature of the solid hydrocarbons apply with scarcely less force to
+the gaseous and liquid products of vegetable decomposition. The
+gases which escape from marshes contain carbonic acid, a number of
+hydrocarbon gases (or the materials out of which they may be
+composed in the process of analysis), and finally a larger or
+smaller volume of nitrogenous gas. It is possible that the
+elimination of these gases takes the form of fractional
+distillation, and definite compounds may be formed directly from
+the wood-tissue or its derivatives, and mingle as they escape. This
+is, however, not certain, for the gases, as we find them, are
+always mixtures and never pure. In the liquid evolved products, the
+petroleums, this is emphatically true, for we combine under this
+name fluids which vary greatly in both their physical and chemical
+characters; some are light and ethereal, others are thick and
+tarry; some are transparent, some opaque; some red, some brown,
+others green; some have an offensive and others an agreeable odor;
+some contain asphalt in large quantity, others paraffine, etc. Thus
+they form a heterogeneous assemblage of liquid hydrocarbons, of
+which naphtha and maltha may be said to form the extremes, and
+which have little in common, except their undefinable name. The
+causes of these differences are but imperfectly understood, but we
+know that they are in part dependent on the nature of the organic
+material that has furnished the petroleums, and in part upon
+influences affecting them after their formation. For example, the
+oil which saturates the Niagara limestone at Chicago, and--which is
+undoubtedly indigenous in this rock, and probably of animal origin,
+is black and thick; that from Enniskillen, Canada, is also black,
+has a vile odor, probably in virtue of sulphur compounds, and, we
+have reason to believe, is derived from animal matter. The oils of
+northwestern Pennsylvania are mostly brown, sometimes green by
+reflected light, and have a pungent and characteristic odor. These
+are undoubtedly derived from the Hamilton shales, which contain ten
+or twenty per cent, of carbonaceous matter, apparently produced
+from the decomposition of sea-weeds, since these are in places
+exceedingly abundant, and nearly all other fossils are absent.</p>
+
+<p>The oils of Italy, though varying much in appearance, have
+usually an ethereal odor that is rather agreeable; they are of
+Tertiary age. The oils of Japan, differing much among themselves,
+have as, a common character an odor quite different from the
+Pennsylvania oils. So the petroleums of the Caspian, of India,
+California, etc., occurring at different geological horizons,
+exhibit a diversity of physical and chemical characters which may
+be fairly supposed to depend upon the material from which they have
+been distilled. The oils in the same region, however, are found to
+exhibit a series of differences which are plainly the result of
+causes operating upon them after their production. Near the
+surface, they are thicker and darker; below, and near the
+carbonaceous mass from which they have been generated, they are of
+lighter gravity and color. We find, in limited quantity, oils which
+are nearly white and may be used in lamps without refining--which
+have been refined, in fact, in Nature's laboratory. Others, that
+are reddish yellow by transmitted light, sometimes green by
+reflected light, are called amber oils; these also occur in small
+quantity, and, as I am led to believe, have acquired their
+characteristics by filtration through masses of sandstone. Whatever
+the variety of petroleum may be, if exposed for a long time to the
+air it undergoes a spontaneous distillation, in which gases and
+vapors, existing or formed, escape, and solid residues are left.
+The nature of these solids varies with the petroleums from which
+they come, some producing asphaltum, others paraffine, others
+ozokerite, and so on through a long list of substances, which have
+received distinct names as mineral species, though rarely, if ever,
+possessing a definite and invariable composition. The change of
+petroleum to asphalt may be witnessed at a great number of
+localities. In Canada, the black asphaltic oil forms by its
+evaporation great sheets of hard or tarry asphalt, called gum beds,
+around the oil-springs. In the far West are numerous springs of
+petroleum, which are known to the hunters as "<i>tar springs</i>,"
+because of the accumulations about them of the products of the
+evaporation and oxidation of petroleum to tar or asphalt. Certain
+less common oils yield ozokerite as a solid, and considerable
+accumulations of this are known in Galicia and Utah.</p>
+
+<p>Natural paraffine is less abundant, and yet in places it occurs
+in considerable quantity. Asphalt is the common name for the solid
+residue from the evaporation and oxidation of petroleum; and large
+accumulations of this substance are known in many parts of the
+world, perhaps the most noted of all being that of the "Pitch
+Lake". of the Island of Trinidad; there, as everywhere else, the
+derivation of asphalt from petroleum is obvious, and traceable in
+all stages. The asphalts, then, have a common history in this, that
+they are produced by the evaporation and oxidation of petroleum.
+But it should also be said that they share the diversity of
+character of petroleums, and the term asphalt represents a group of
+substances of which the physical characters and chemical
+composition differ greatly in virtue of their derivation, and also
+differ from changes which they are constantly undergoing. Thus at
+the Pitch Lake in Trinidad, the central portion is a tarry
+petroleum, near the sides a plastic asphalt, and finally that which
+is of almost rock-like solidity. Hence we see that the solid
+residues from petroleum are unstable compounds like the coals and
+lignites, and in virtue of their organic nature are constantly
+undergoing a series of changes of which the final term is
+combustion or oxidation. From these facts we might fairly infer
+that asphalts formed in geological ages anterior to the present
+would exhibit characters resulting from still further distillation;
+that they would be harder and drier, i.e., containing less volatile
+ingredients and more fixed carbon. Such is, in fact, the case; and
+these older asphalts are represented by <i>Grahamite,
+Albertite</i>, etc., which I have designated as asphaltic coals.
+These are found in fissures and cavities in rocks of various ages,
+which have been more or less disturbed, and usually in regions
+where springs of petroleum now exist. The Albertite fills fissures
+in Carboniferous rocks in New Brunswick, on a line of disturbance
+and near oil-springs. Precisely the same may be said of the
+Grahamite of West Virginia. It fills a vertical fissure, which was
+cut through the sandstones and shales of the coal-measures; in the
+sandstones it remained open, in the shales it has been closed by
+the yielding of the rock. The Grahamite fills the open fissure in
+the sandstone, and was plainly introduced when in a liquid state.
+In the vicinity are oil springs, and it is on an axis of
+disturbance. From near Tampico, Mexico, I have received a
+hydrocarbon solid--essentially Grahamite, asphalt, and petroleum.
+These are described as occurring near together, and evidently
+represent phases of different dates in the same substance. I have
+collected asphaltic coals, very similar to Grahamite and Albertite
+in appearance and chemical composition, in Colorado and Utah, where
+they occur with the game associates as at Tampico. I have found at
+Canajoharie, New York, in cavities in the lead-veins which rut the
+Utica shale, a hydrocarbon solid which must have infiltrated into
+these cavities as petroleum, but which, since the remote period
+when the fissures were formed, has been distilled until it is now
+<i>anthracite</i>. Similar anthracitic asphalt or asphaltic
+anthracite is common in the Calciferous sand-rock in Herkimer
+County, New York, where it is associated with, and often contained
+in, the beautiful crystals of quartz for which the locality is
+famous. Here the same phase of distillation is reached as in the
+coke residuum of the petroleum stills.</p>
+
+<p>Again, in some crystalline limestones, detached scales or
+crystals of <i>graphite</i> occur, which are undoubtedly the
+product of the complete distillation of liquid hydrocarbons with
+which the rock was once impregnated. The remarkable purity of such
+graphite is the natural result of its mode of formation, and such
+cases resemble the occurrence of graphite in cast iron and basalt.
+The black clouds and bands which stain many otherwise white marbles
+are generally due to specks of graphite, the residue of
+hydrocarbons which once saturated the rock. Some limestones are
+quite black from the carbonaceous matter they contain (Lycoming
+Valley, Pa., Glenn's Falls, N. Y., and Collingwood, Canada), and
+these are sold as black marbles, but if exposed to heat, such
+limestones are blanched by the expulsion of the contained carbon;
+usually a residue of anthracite or graphite is left, forming dark
+spots or streaks, as we find in the clouded and banded marbles.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, the great work going on in Nature's laboratory may be
+closely imitated by art; the differences in the results being
+simply the consequence of differing conditions in the experiments.
+Vegetable tissue has been converted artificially into the
+equivalents of lignite, coal, anthracite, and graphite, with the
+emission of vapors, gases, and oils closely resembling those
+evolved in natural processes. So petroleum may be distilled to form
+asphalt, and this in turn converted into Albertite and coke (i.e.,
+anthracite). Grahamite has been artificially produced from
+petroleum by Mr. W. P. Jenney.</p>
+
+<p>In the preceding remarks, no effort has been made even to
+enumerate all the so-called carbon minerals which have been
+described. This was unnecessary in a discussion of the relations of
+the more important groups, and would have extended this article
+much beyond its prescribed length. Those who care to gain a fuller
+knowledge of the different members of the various groups are
+referred to the admirable chapter on the "Hydrocarbon Compounds" in
+Dana's Mineralogy.</p>
+
+<p>It will, however, add to the value of this paper, if brief
+mention be made of a few carbon minerals of which the genesis and
+relations are not generally known, and in regard to which special
+interest is felt, such as the diamond, jet, the hydrocarbon
+jellies, "Dopplerite," etc.</p>
+
+<p>The diamond is found in the <i>d&eacute;bris</i> of metamorphic
+rocks in many countries, and is probably one of the evolved
+products of the distillation of organic matter they once contained.
+Under peculiar circumstances it has apparently been formed by
+precipitation from sulphide of carbon or some other volatile carbon
+compound by elective affinity. Laboratory experiments have proved
+the possibility of producing it by such a process, but the
+artificial crystals are microscopic, perhaps only because a long
+time is required to build up those of larger size.</p>
+
+<p>Jet is a carbonaceous solid which in most cases is a true
+lignite, and generally retains more or less of the structure of
+wood. Masses are sometimes found that show no structure, and these
+are probably formed from bitumen which has separated from the wood
+of which it once formed part, and which it generally saturates or
+invests. In some cases, however, these masses of jet-like substance
+are plainly the residuum of excrementitious matter voided by fishes
+or reptiles. These latter are often found in the Triassic fish-beds
+of Connecticut and New Jersey, and in the Cretaceous marls of the
+latter State.</p>
+
+<p>The discovery of a quantity of hydrocarbon jelly, recently, in a
+peat-bed at Scranton, Pa., has caused some wonder, but similar
+substances (Dopplerite, etc.) have been met with in the peat-beds
+of other countries; and while the history of the formation of this
+singular group of hydrocarbons is not yet well understood, and
+offers an interesting subject for future research, we have reason
+to believe that these jellies have been of common occurrence among
+the evolved products of the decomposition of vegetable tissue in
+all ages.</p>
+
+<p>The fossil resins--often erroneously called gums--amber, kauri,
+copal, etc., though interestingly related to the hydro-carbons
+enumerated on the preceding pages, form no essential part of the
+series, and demand only the briefest notice here.</p>
+
+<p><i>Amber</i> is the resin which exuded from certain coniferous
+trees that, in Tertiary times, grew abundantly in northern Europe.
+The leaves and trunks of these trees have generally perished; but
+masses of their resin, more enduring, buried in the earth on the
+shores of the Baltic, have in the lapse of time changed physically
+and chemically, and have become fitted for the ornamental purposes
+for which they have been used by all civilized nations.</p>
+
+<p><i>Kauri</i> is the resin of <i>Dammara australis</i>, a living
+coniferous tree of New Zealand, and the "gum" is dug from the earth
+on the sites of forests which have now disappeared.</p>
+
+<p><i>Copal</i> is a commercial name given to the resins of several
+different trees, but the most esteemed, and indeed the only true
+copal, is the product of <i>Trachylobium Mozambicense</i>, a tree
+which grows along the Zanzibar coast, and has left its resin buried
+in the sands of old raised beaches which it has abandoned.</p>
+
+<p>The diversity of character which the fossil resins exhibit shows
+the complexity of the vital processes in operation in the vegetable
+kingdom, and gives probability to the theory that some of the
+differences we find in the carbon minerals are due to differences
+in the plants from which they have been derived.</p>
+
+<p>The variations in the physical and chemical characters of
+different coals from the same basin, and from different parts of
+the same stratum, have been sometimes credited to the same cause;
+but they are probably in greater degree due to the differences in
+the conditions under which these varieties have been formed.</p>
+
+<p>Cannel coal, as I have shown elsewhere (<i>Amer. Jour.
+Science</i>, March, 1857), is completely macerated vegetable tissue
+which was deposited as carbonaceous mud at the bottom of lagoons in
+the coal-marshes.</p>
+
+<p>Caking coals were probably peat, which accumulated under
+somewhat uniform conditions, was constantly saturated with
+moisture, and became a comparatively homogeneous and partially
+gelatinous carbonaceous mass; while the open-burning coals which
+show a distinctly laminated structure and consist of layers of
+pitch-coal, alternating with bands of mineral charcoal or cannel,
+seem to have been formed in alternating conditions, of more or less
+moisture, and the bituminous portions are inclosed in cells or are
+separated by partitions, so that the mass does not melt down, but
+more or less perfectly holds its form when exposed to heat.</p>
+
+<p>The generalities of the origin and relations of the carbon
+minerals have now been briefly considered; but a review of the
+subject would be incomplete without some reference to the theories
+which have been advanced by others, that are in conflict with the
+views now presented. There have always been some who denied the
+organic nature of the mineral hydrocarbons, but it has been
+regarded as a sufficient answer to their theories, that chemists
+and geologists are generally agreed in saying that no instances are
+known of the occurrence in nature of hydrocarbons, solid, liquid,
+or gaseous, in which the evidence was not satisfactory that they
+had been derived from animal or vegetable tissue. A few exceptional
+cases, however, in which chemists and geologists of deserved
+distinction have claimed the possibility and even probability of
+the production of marsh gas, petroleum, etc., through inorganic
+agencies, require notice.</p>
+
+<p>In a paper published in the <i>Annales de Chimie et de
+Physique</i>, Vol. IX., p.481, M. Berthelot attempts to show that
+the formation of petroleum and carbureted hydrogen from inorganic
+substances is possible, if it be true, as suggested by Daubre, that
+there are vast masses of the alkaline metals--potassium, sodium,
+etc.--deeply buried in the earth, and at a high temperature, to
+which carbonic acid should gain access; and he demonstrates that,
+these premises being granted, the formation of hydrocarbons would
+necessarily follow.</p>
+
+<p>But it should be said that no satisfactory evidence has ever
+been offered of the existence of zones or masses of the unoxidized
+alkaline metals in the earth, and it is not claimed by Berthelot
+that there are any facts in the occurrence of petroleum and
+carbureted hydrogen in nature which seem to exemplify the chemical
+action which he simply claims is theoretically possible. Berthelot
+also says that, in most cases, there can be no doubt of the organic
+origin of the hydrocarbons.</p>
+
+<p>Mendeleeff, in the <i>Revue Scientifique</i>, 1877, p. 409,
+discusses at considerable length the genesis of petroleum, and
+attempts to sustain the view that it is of inorganic origin. His
+arguments and illustrations are chiefly drawn from the oil wells of
+Pennsylvania and Canada, and for the petroleum of these two
+districts he claims an inorganic origin, because, as he says, there
+are no accumulations of organic matter below the horizons at which
+the oils and gases occur. He then goes into a lengthy discussion of
+the possible and probable source of petroleum, where, as in the
+instances cited, an organic origin "is not possible." It is a
+sufficient answer to M. Mendeleeff to say, that beneath the oil
+bearing strata of western Pennsylvania are sheets of bituminous
+shale, from one hundred to five hundred feet in thickness, which
+afford an adequate, and it may be proved the true source, of the
+petroleum, and that no petroleum has been found below these shales;
+also that the oil-fields of Canada are all underlain by the
+Collingwood shales, the equivalent of the Utica carbonaceous shales
+of New York, and that from the out-crops of these shales petroleum
+and hydrocarbon gases are constantly escaping. With a better
+knowledge of the geology of the districts he refers to, he would
+have seen that the facts in the cases he cites afford the strongest
+evidence of the organic origin of petroleum.</p>
+
+<p>Among those who are agreed as to the organic origin of the
+hydrocarbons, there is yet some diversity of opinion in regard to
+the nature of the process by which they have been produced.</p>
+
+<p>Prof. J. P. Lesley has at various times advocated the theory
+that petroleum is indigenous in the sand-rocks which hold it, and
+has been derived from plants buried in them. ("Proc. Amer. Philos.
+Soc.," Vol. X., pp. 33, 187, etc.)</p>
+
+<p>My own observations do not sanction this view, as the limited
+number of plants buried in the sandstones which are now reservoirs
+of petroleum must always have borne a small proportion in volume to
+the mass of inorganic matter; and some of those which are saturated
+with petroleum are almost completely destitute of the impressions
+of plants.</p>
+
+<p>In all cases where sandstones contain petroleum in quantity, I
+think it will be found that there are sheets of carbonaceous matter
+below, from which carbureted hydrogen and petroleum are constantly
+issuing. A more probable explanation of the occurrence of petrolem
+in the sandstones is that they have, from their porosity, become
+convenient receptacles for that which flowed from some organic
+stratum below.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. T. Sterry Hunt has regarded limestones, and especially the
+Niagara and corniferous, as the principal sources of our petroleum;
+but, as I have elsewhere suggested, no considerable flow of
+petroleum has ever been obtained from the Niagara limestone, though
+at Chicago and Niagara Falls it contains a large quantity of
+bituminous matter; also, that the corniferous limestone which Dr.
+Hunt has regarded as the source of the oil of Canada and
+Pennsylvania is too thin, and too barren of petroleum, or the
+material out of which it is made, to justify the inference.</p>
+
+<p>The corniferous limestone is never more than fifty or sixty feet
+thick, and does not contain even one per cent. of hydrocarbons; and
+in southern Kentucky, where oil is produced in large quantity, this
+limestone does not exist.</p>
+
+<p>That many limestones are more or less charged with petroleum is
+well known; and in addition to those mentioned above, the Silurian
+limestone at Collingwood, Canada, may be cited as an example. As I
+have elsewhere shown, we have reason to believe that the petroleum
+here is indigenous, and has been derived, in part, at least, from
+animal organisms; but the limestones are generally compact, and if
+cellular, their cavities are closed, and the amount of petroleum
+which, under any circumstances, flows from or can be extracted from
+limestone rock is small. On the other hand, the bituminous shales
+which underlie the different oil regions afford an abundant source
+of supply, holding the proper relations with the reservoirs that
+contain the oil, and are spontaneously and constantly evolving gas
+and oil, as may be observed in a great number of localities. For
+this reason, while confessing the occurrence of petroleum and
+asphaltum in many limestones, I am thoroughly convinced that little
+or none of the petroleum of commerce is derived from them.</p>
+
+<p>Prof. S.F. Peckham, who has studied the petroleum field of
+southern California, attributes the abundant hydrocarbon emanations
+in that locality to microscopic animals. It is quite possible that
+this is true in this and other localities, but the bituminous
+shales which are evidently the sources of the petroleum of
+Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, etc., generally contain abundant
+impressions of sea weeds, and indeed these are almost the only
+organisms which have left any traces in them. I am inclined,
+therefore, now, as in my report on the rock oils of Ohio, published
+in 1860, to ascribe the carbonaceous matter of the bituminous
+shales of Pennsylvania and Ohio, and hence the petroleum derived
+from them, to the easily decomposed cellular tissue of alg&aelig;
+which have in their decomposition contributed a large percentage of
+diffused carbonaceous matter to the sediments accumulating at the
+bottom of the water where they grew. In a recent communication to
+the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. T. Sterry Hunt has proposed
+the theory that anthracite is the result of the decomposition of
+vegetable tissue when buried in porous strata like sandstone; but
+an examination of even a few of the important deposits of
+anthracite in the world will show that no such relationship as he
+suggests obtains.</p>
+
+<p>Anthracite may and does occur in sedimentary rocks of varied
+character, but, so far as my observation has extended, never in
+quantity in sandstone. In the Lower Silurian rocks anthracite
+occurs, both in the Old World and in the New, where no metamorphism
+has affected it, and where it is simply the normal result of the
+long continued distillation of plant tissue; but the anthracite
+beds which are known and mined in so many countries are the results
+of the metamorphism of coal-beds of one or another age, by local
+outbursts of trap, or the steaming and baking of the disturbed
+strata in mountain chains, numerous instances of which are given on
+a preceding page.</p>
+
+<p>M. Mendeleeff, in his article already referred to, misled by a
+want of knowledge of the geology of our oil-fields, and ascribing
+the petroleum to an inorganic cause, connects the production of oil
+in Pennsylvania and Caucasia with the neighboring mountain chains
+of the Alleghanies and the Caucasus; but in these localities a
+sufficient amount of organic matter can be found to supply a source
+for the petroleum, while the upheaval and loosening of the strata
+along lines parallel with the axes of elevation has favored the
+decomposition (spontaneous distillation) of the carbonaceous
+strata. It should be distinctly stated, also, that no igneous rocks
+are found in the vicinity of productive oil-wells, here or
+elsewhere, and there are no facts to sustain the view that
+petroleum is a volcanic product.</p>
+
+<p>In the valley of the Mississippi, in Ohio, Illinois, and
+Kentucky, are great deposits of petroleum, far removed from any
+mountain chain or volcanic vent, and the cases which have been
+cited of the limited production of hydrocarbons in the vicinity of,
+and probably in connection with, volcanic centers may be explained
+by supposing that in these cases the petroleum is distilled from
+sedimentary strata containing organic matter by the proximity of
+melted rock, or steam.</p>
+
+<p>Everything indicates that the distillation which has produced
+the greatest quantities of petroleum known was effected at a low
+temperature, and the constant escape of petroleum and carbureted
+hydrogen from the outcrops of bituminous shales, as well as the
+result of weathering on the shales, depriving them of all their
+carbon, shows that the distillation and complete elimination of the
+organic matter they contain may take place at the ordinary
+temperature.</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p><a name="23"></a></p>
+
+<h2>ESTIMATION OF SULPHUR IN IRON AND STEEL.</h2>
+
+<h3>By GEORGE CRAIG.</h3>
+
+<p>For wellnigh two years I have been estimating sulphur in iron
+and steel by a modification of the evolution process, which
+consists in passing the evolved gases through an ammoniacal
+solution of peroxide of hydrogen, which oxidizes the sulphureted
+hydrogen to sulphuric acid, which latter is estimated as usual. The
+<i>modus operandi</i> is as follows:</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><img src="images/14a.png" alt=""></p>
+
+<p>100 grains of the iron or steel are placed in the 10 oz. flask,
+a, along with &frac12; oz. water; 1&frac12; oz. hydrochloric acid
+are added from the stoppered funnel, b, in such quantities at a
+time as to produce a moderate evolution of gas through the nitrogen
+bulb, c, which contains 1/8 oz. (20 vols.) peroxide of hydrogen and
+&frac12; oz. ammonia. The tube, d, is to condense the bulk of the
+hydrochloric acid which distills over during the operation. When
+all the acid has been added and the evolution of gas becomes
+sluggish, heat is applied and the liquid boiled till all action
+ceases. Air is blown through the aparatus for a few minutes and the
+contents of c and d washed into a small beaker and acidified with
+hydrochloric acid, boiled, barium chloride added, and the barium
+sulphate filtered off after standing a short time. A blank
+experiment must be done with each new lot of peroxide of hydrogen
+obtained, which always gives under 0.1 barium sulphate with me.</p>
+
+<p>The whole operation is finished within two hours, the usual
+oxidation process occupying nearly two days; and the results
+obtained are invariably slightly higher than by the oxidation
+processes.</p>
+
+<p>Until lately I have always added excess of chlorate of potash to
+the residue left in a, evaporated it nearly to dryness, diluted,
+filtered, and added chloride of barium to the diluted filtrate, but
+only once have I obtained a trace of precipitate after standing 48
+hours, and the pig-iron in that case contained 8 per cent. of
+silicon, so that all the sulphur is evolved during the process. It
+has been objected to the evolution process that when the iron
+contains copper all the sulphur is not evolved, but theoretically
+it ought to be evolved whether copper is present or not; and to
+test the point I fused 3 lb. of ordinary Scotch pig-iron with some
+copper for half an hour in a Fletcher's gas furnace. No copper
+could be detected in the iron by mere observation with a
+microscope, but it gave on analysis 0.225 per cent. of copper, and
+on estimating the sulphur in it by the above process and by
+oxidation with chlorate of potash and hydrochloric acid, using 100
+grains in each case, and performing blank experiments, I found:</p>
+
+<table summary="" border="0" cellspacing="5">
+<tr>
+<td>By peroxide of hydrogen process</td>
+<td>0.0357 per cent.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>By oxidation (KClO<sub>3</sub> and HCl) process,</td>
+<td>0.0302 per cent.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+so that even in highly cupriferous pig-iron all the sulphur is
+evolved on treatment with strong hydrochloric acid.--<i>Chem.
+News</i>.
+
+<hr>
+<p><a name="12"></a></p>
+
+<h2>THE AIR IN RELATION TO HEALTH.</h2>
+
+<p>[Footnote: Abstract of a lecture before the Master Plumbers'
+Association, New York, Nov. 2. 1882.]</p>
+
+<h3>By Prof. C. F. CHANDLER.</h3>
+
+<p>It is only about one hundred years since the first important
+facts were discovered which threw light upon the chemistry of
+atmosphere. It was in 1774 that Dr. Priestley, in London, and
+Scheele, in Sweden, discovered the vital constituents of the
+atmosphere--the oxygen gas which supports life. The inert gas,
+nitrogen, had been discovered a year or two before. When we examine
+our atmosphere, we find it is composed of oxygen and nitrogen. The
+nitrogen constitutes no less than 80 per cent, of the atmosphere;
+the remaining 20 percent, consists of oxygen, so that the
+atmosphere consists almost entirely of these two gases, odorless
+and colorless and invisible. The atmosphere is, however, never free
+from moisture; a certain amount of aqueous vapor is always present.
+The quantity can hardly be stated, as it varies from day to day and
+month to month; it depends upon the temperature and other
+conditions. Then we have the gas commonly called carbonic acid in
+extremely minute quantities, about one part in 2,500, or four
+one-hundredths of one per cent. A small quantity of ammonia and a
+small quantity of ozone are also present.</p>
+
+<p>Besides these gases which have been enumerated, and which play
+an important part in supporting life in both the kingdoms of
+nature, we find a great many solids. Every housewife knows how dust
+settles upon everything about the house. This dust has recently
+been the subject of most active study, and it proves to be quite as
+important as the vital oxygen that actually supports life. When we
+examine this dust--and it falls everywhere, not only in the city
+streets, but upon the tops of mountains, upon the deck of the ocean
+steamer, and the Arctic snow--we find some of it does not belong to
+the earth, and, as it is not terrestrial, we call it cosmical. And
+when it falls in large pieces we call it a meteorite or shooting
+star. When the Challenger crossed the Atlantic, and soundings were
+made in the deep sea, in the mud that was brought up and examined
+there were found various little particles that were not
+terrestrial. They were dust particles that were dropped into the
+atmosphere of the earth from outer space. Then we have terrestrial
+dust, and we divide that into mineral and organic. The mineral
+consists chiefly of clay, sand, and, near the ocean, salt. Then we
+have organic matter. Some of this is dead leaves which have been
+ground to powder. Animal matter has also become dry and reduced to
+powder, and we actually find the remains of animals and plants
+floating upon the atmosphere, especially in the city. Examinations
+of the dust which had collected upon the basement and higher
+windows of a Fifth avenue residence showed that the dust upon the
+basement floor was chiefly composed of sand. And the higher up I
+went, the smaller proportion of sand and a larger proportion of
+animal matter, so that the dust that blows into our faces is
+largely decomposing animal substance.</p>
+
+<p>But we have a living matter in the atmosphere. We often notice
+in the summer, after a rain, that the ground is yellow. On
+gathering up the yellow powder and examining it under the
+microscope, we find that it consists of pollen. The pollen of rag
+weed and other plants is supposed to be the cause of hay fever. But
+we also have something far more important in the germs of certain
+classes of vegetation. The effects are familiar. If food is put
+away, it becomes mouldy. This mould is a peculiar kind of
+vegetation which is called a fungus, and the plants fungi. In order
+for this mould to develop a certain temperature and a certain
+degree of moisture are necessary. Our food, we say, decays. Now,
+what we call decay is really the growth of these fungi. Animal and
+vegetable substances which these fungi seize upon are destroyed.
+All ordinary fermentations and putrefactions are due to mould
+fungi, yeast plants, or bacteria, and liquids undergoing these
+processes carry these fungi and their germs wherever they go. The
+refuse of the city pollutes the air. You have only to pass along
+any street to find more or less rubbish. That furnishes the nidus
+for the growth and development of these germs, and until we adopt
+better methods of getting rid of that refuse, we never shall have
+the air of this city in the condition that it should be.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most constant sources of the pollution of the air in
+inhabited localities is the decomposition that takes place in the
+ground. Refuse of every kind gets into it. Our sewers are leaky,
+and putrefaction is constantly going on. The soil down to the limit
+of the ground water contains a large amount of air. This air, when
+the atmospheric pressure in the house is diminished, is drawn in
+with such organic impurities as it contains. A cement floor in the
+cellar is not a protection against this entrance of the ground air,
+for the cement is porous to the passage of air, but a remedy may be
+found by laying on the cement a covering of coal tar pitch, in
+which bricks are set on edge, the spaces between the bricks are
+filled with the melted pitch, and the bricks then covered with coal
+tar pitch. When the house is building, the foundation walls should
+also be similarly coated, outside as well as inside. Such a cellar
+floor was considered to be absolutely impervious to ground air and
+moisture. The lecturer had recently laid this floor in his own
+house with the greatest success. The atmosphere of the entire house
+is improved, and the expense is very moderate. Another source of
+the contamination of the air of houses is the heating apparatus.
+Stoves and furnaces, however well constructed at first, will, from
+the contraction and expansion of the metal, soon allow the escape
+of coal gas, and this danger is greatly increased by the use of
+dampers in the stove-pipe. When, to regulate the fire, the damper
+in the pipe is closed, the gases, having their passage to the
+chimney cut off, will escape through any cracks or openings in the
+stove into the room. Prof. Chandler, having kept a record of
+accidents from this cause, had accumulated a formidable list of
+suffocations due to the use of the damper. The danger was now
+somewhat lessened by providing dampers with perforations in the
+center, which allowed the gases to escape when the damper was
+closed. As regards the maintenance of pure air in houses, the
+preference was given to the open fire-place. The hot-air furnace
+deriving a supply of pure air from out of doors was, when properly
+constructed, a very satisfactory method of heating, but in city
+houses the mistake was often made of carrying the cold air duct of
+the furnace to the front of the house, where it was exposed to the
+dust of the streets. It should be taken from the rear end of the
+house, and carried some distance above the surface of the yard. It
+was an excellent expedient to insert in the cold air duct a wire
+screen to hold a layer of cotton to retain the floating impurities
+which might enter the air-box. This could be removed from time to
+time, and the cotton replaced. Steam heating has been objected to
+by many for reasons in no wise due to the apparatus, but to neglect
+in the use of it. The complaint of closeness where steam is used is
+due to the fact that a room containing a steam radiator can be
+heated with every door and window closed, and no fresh air
+admitted, while with stoves and open fire-places a certain quantity
+of fresh air must be admitted to maintain the fire. Where radiators
+are used, the ventilation of the rooms should, therefore, be looked
+after. Again, the complaint that steam apparatus has an unpleasant
+odor is due to the fact that the radiators are allowed to become
+covered with dust, which is cooked, and gives rise to the smells
+complained of. The radiator should be from time to time cleaned.
+When these precautions are taken, no means of heating is more
+satisfactory than steam.</p>
+
+<p>Sewer gas is another source of contamination; this is a very
+indefinite term, to which formerly many false and exaggerated
+properties of causing specific diseases were attributed. It is now,
+however, recognized to mean simply the air of sewers, generally not
+differing very greatly from common air, containing a certain
+proportion of marsh gas, carbonic acid, and sulphureted hydrogen,
+etc. No one of these gases, however, is capable of producing the
+diseases attributed to sewer gas. Careful research has shown that
+it is the sewage itself, containing germs of specific disease,
+which is added to the air in the sewer by the breaking of bubbles
+of gas on its surface, which is the cause of the diseases
+associated with sewers.</p>
+
+<p>An intimate connection is believed to exist between the germs of
+sewer air and diphtheria, and probably also between sewer air and
+scarlet fever. This sewer gas is to be excluded from our houses by
+proper systems of plumbing, and to such an extent have these now
+been perfected, that there is no objection to having plumbing
+fixtures in all parts of the house. This opinion has lately been
+objected to in the <i>Popular Science Monthly</i>, as it was at a
+meeting of the Academy of Medicine last spring, but on wholly
+insufficient grounds.</p>
+
+<p>The objectors all insist that a trap will allow sewer gas to
+pass through it, and the experiments made at the Academy of
+Medicine showed that sulphureted hydrogen gas, etc., would so pass.
+The advocates of the trap have never denied that the water seal
+would absorb gases on one side and give them off on the other, but
+they do deny that, in the conditions existing in good plumbing,
+such gases will be given off in quantities to do any damage, and
+they confidently assert that the germ which is the dangerous
+element will not pass the seal at all. Pumpelly investigated the
+matter for the National Board of Health, and in no instance was he
+able to make the germ pass the seal of the trap. It is now proposed
+to set up against the weight of this scientific testimony the
+results of an investigator in Chicago, whose work was at once
+appropriated as an advertisement by stock jobbing disinfectant
+companies in a manner which raises a suspicion that the
+investigation was made in their interest. He described tersely the
+essentials of good plumbing, the necessity of a trap on the house
+drain, the ventilation of the soil-pipe, and the ventilation of the
+trap against siphonage. Of the first, he said that it offered
+protection to each householder against the entrance into his house
+of the germs of a contagious disease which passed into the common
+sewer from the house of a neighbor. Were the trap dispensed with,
+the contagion in the sewer would have free entrance into the houses
+connecting with it.</p>
+
+<p>Prof. Chandler, in conclusion, alluded to the cordial relations
+now existing between the Board of Health and the majority of the
+master plumbers of the city. He said that for himself his opinion
+of the craft had greatly risen during his intimate connection with
+plumbers the last two years. He thought the majority of the jobs
+now done in the city are well executed. He believed that the Board
+of Health had not been obliged to proceed against more than eight
+master plumbers since the new law went into force. He called upon
+the Association to adopt a "code of ethics," which should define
+what an honest plumber can do and cannot do, and he illustrated his
+meaning by citing an extraordinary case of fraudulent workmanship
+which had been recently reported to him. His remarks on this point
+were greeted with frequent outbursts of applause.</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p><a name="13"></a></p>
+
+<h2>THE PLANTAIN AS A STYPTIC.</h2>
+
+<p>The following abstract of a paper read by Dr. Quinlan at the
+recent British Pharmaceutical Congress, may prove of interest to
+medical readers in this country, where the plant mentioned is a
+common weed:</p>
+
+<p>"About a year ago Dr. Quinlan had seen the chewed leaves of the
+<i>Plantago lanceolata</i> successfully used to stop a dangerous
+hemorrhage from leech bites in a situation where pressure could not
+be employed. He had searched out the literature of the subject, and
+found that, although this herb is highly spoken of by Culpepper and
+other old writers as a styptic, and alluded to as such in the plays
+of Shakespeare, its employment seems to have died out. Professor
+Quinlan described the suitable varieties of plantain, and exhibited
+preparations which had been made for him by Dr. J. Evans, of
+Dublin, State apothecary. They dried leaves and powdered leaves,
+conserved with glycerine, for external use; the juice preserved by
+alcohol, as also by glycerine, for internal use; and a green
+extract. He gave an account of the chemistry of the juice, from
+which it appeared that it was not a member of the tannin series;
+and also described its physiological effect in causing a tendency
+to stasia in the capillaries of the tail of a goldfish, examined
+with a microscopic power of 400 X. He regarded its styptic power as
+partly mechanical and partly physiological. The juice, in large
+doses, he had found useful in internal hemorrhages. The knowledge
+of the properties of this plant he thought would be useful in cases
+of emergency, because it could be obtained in any field and by the
+most uninstructed persons."</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p><a name="14"></a></p>
+
+<h2>BACTERIA.</h2>
+
+<p>Bacteria, whether significant of disease or decline of health,
+are found more or less numerous in everything we eat and drink. The
+germs or spores of many kinds, known as <i>termo</i>,
+<i>lineola</i>, tenue, spirillum, vibriones, etc, exist in almost
+infinite numbers; some of the smallest are too small to be seen by
+the highest powers, which, being lodged in all vegetable and animal
+substances, spring into life and develop very rapidly under
+favorable circumstances. They develop most rapidly when
+decomposition commences, and seem to indicate the degree or
+activity of that decomposition, also hastening the same. They are
+found most numerous in the feces, and usually fully developed in
+the fresh evacuations of persons of all ages. They may be seen
+plainly under a thin glass with high powers with strong or clear
+light, when the material is much diluted with water.</p>
+
+<p>These bacteria appear almost as numerously, yet more slowly, in
+urine, either upon exposure to air or when freshly evacuated, when
+the general health of the individual is declining, or any tendency
+to decomposition. A diagnosis can be aided very greatly by a study
+of these bacteria, as they indicate or determine the vitality,
+vigor, and purity of the system, whether more or less subject to
+disease, even before any signs of disease appear. They seem to
+preindicate the hold of the life force on the material, and always
+appear when that force is broken. Their relative quantity found in
+feces is as a barometric indication of the general health or some
+particular disturbance, and it is surprising how very fast they
+multiply while simply passing the intestines under circumstances
+favorable for their growth. These forms, so small, are important,
+because so very numerous, and their study has been, perhaps,
+avoided by many; yet they certainly mean something and effect
+something, even the non-malignant varieties as mentioned above, and
+it is certainly worth while to continue to study their meaning,
+even beyond what has already been written by others on the
+subject.--<i>J.M. Adams, in The Microscope</i>.</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p><a name="26"></a></p>
+
+<h2>THE SOY BEAN</h2>
+
+<h3>(<i>Soja hispida</i>.)</h3>
+
+<p>A good deal of attention has lately been directed to this plant
+in consequence of the enormous extent to which it is cultivated in
+China for the sake of the small seeds which it produces, and which
+are known as soy beans. These vary considerably in size, shape, and
+color, according to the variety of the plant which produces them.
+They are for the most part about the size and shape of an ordinary
+field pea, and, like the pea, are of a yellow color; some, however,
+are of a greenish tint. These seeds contain a large quantity of
+oil, which is expressed from them in China and used for a variety
+of purposes. The residue is moulded with a considerable amount of
+pressure into large circular cakes, two feet or more across, and
+six inches or eight inches thick. This cake is used either for
+feeding cattle or for manuring the land; indeed, a very large trade
+is done in China with bean cake (as it is always called) for these
+purposes. The well-known sauce called soy is also prepared from
+seeds of this bean. The plant generally known as Soja hispida is by
+modern botanists referred to Glycine soja. It is an erect, hairy,
+herbaceous plant. The leaves are three-parted and the
+papilionaceous flowers are born in axillary racemes. It is too
+tender for outdoor cultivation in this country, but, has been
+recommended for extended growth in our colonies as a commercial
+plant. The plants are readily used from seed.--<i>J.R.F., in The
+Garden</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><img src="images/15a.png" alt=
+"THE SOY BEAN. &lt;i&gt;(Soja Lispida)&lt;/i&gt;"></p>
+
+<p class="ctr">THE SOY BEAN. <i>(Soja Lispida)</i></p>
+
+<hr>
+<p><a name="27"></a></p>
+
+<h2>ERICA CAVENDISHIANA.</h2>
+
+<p>The plant of which the illustration is given is one of those
+fine specimens which has made the collection of J. Lawless, Esq.,
+The Cottage, Exeter, famous all over the south and west of England.
+It is only one specimen among a considerable collection of
+hard-wooded plants which are cultivated and trained in first rate
+style by Mr. George Cole, the gardener, one of the most successful
+plant growers of the day. The plant was in the winning collection
+of Mr. Cole exhibited at the late spring show held at
+Plymouth.--<i>The Gardeners' Chronicle</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a href="images/15b.png"><img src=
+"images/15b_th.jpg" alt="ERICA CAVENDISHIANA."></a></p>
+
+<p class="ctr">ERICA CAVENDISHIANA.</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p><a name="28"></a></p>
+
+<h2>PHILESIA BUXIFOLIA.</h2>
+
+<p>We figure this plant, not as a novelty, but for the purpose of
+showing what a fine thing it is when grown under propitious
+circumstances. Generally, we see it more or less starved in the
+greenhouse, and even when planted out in the winter garden its
+flowers lack the size and richness of color they attain
+out-of-doors. It comes from the extreme south of South America,
+which accounts for its hardihood, and is a near ally of the
+Lapageria: the latter is remarkable for withstanding even the
+noxious fumes of the copper smelting works in Chili, and as the
+Philesia has similar tough leaves, it is probable that it would
+support the vitiated atmosphere of a town better than most
+evergreens. In any case, there is no reasonable doubt but that, if
+cultivators would take the necessary pains, they might select
+perfectly hardy varieties both of the Lapageria and of the
+Philesia. As it is, we can only call the Philesea half-hardy north
+of the Thames, while the Lapageria is not even that. The curious
+Philageria, raised in Messrs. Veitch's nursery and described and
+figured in our columns in 1872, p. 358, is a hybrid raised between
+the two genera. For the specimen of Philesia figured we are
+indebted to Mr. Dartnall.--<i>The Gardeners' Chronicle</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a href="images/15c.png"><img src=
+"images/15c_th.jpg" alt=
+"PHILESIA BUXIFOLIA--HARDY SHRUB--FLOWERS, ROSE PINK."></a></p>
+
+<p class="ctr">PHILESIA BUXIFOLIA--HARDY SHRUB--FLOWERS, ROSE
+PINK.</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p><a name="29"></a></p>
+
+<h2>MAHOGANY.</h2>
+
+<p>The mahogany tree, says the <i>Lumber World</i>, is a native of
+the West Indies, the Bahamas, and that portion of Central America
+that lies adjacent to the Bay of Honduras, and has also been found
+in Florida. It is stated to be of moderately rapid growth, reaching
+its full maturity in about two hundred years. Full grown, it is one
+of the monarchs of tropical America. Its trunk, which often exceeds
+forty feet in length and six in diameter, and massive arms, rising
+to a lofty height, and spreading with graceful sweep over immense
+spaces, covered with beautiful foliage, bright, glossy, light, and
+airy, clinging so long to the spray as to make it almost an
+evergreen, present a rare combination of loveliness and grandeur.
+The leaves are small, delicate, and polished like those of the
+laurel. The flowers are small and white, or greenish yellow. The
+fruit is a hard, woody capsule, oval, not unlike the head of a
+turkey in size and shape, and contains five cells, in each of which
+are inclosed about fifteen seeds.</p>
+
+<p>The mahogany tree was not discovered till the end of the
+sixteenth century, and was not brought into European use till
+nearly a century later. The first mention of it is that it was used
+in the repair of some of Sir Walter Raleigh's ships, at Trinidad,
+in 1597. Its finely variegated tints were admired, but in that age
+the dream of El Dorado caused matters of more value to be
+neglected. The first that was brought to England was about 1724, a
+few planks having been sent to Dr. Gibbons, of London, by a brother
+who was a West Indian captain. The doctor was erecting a house, and
+gave the planks to the workmen, who rejected them as being too
+hard. The doctor then had a candle-box made of the wood, his
+cabinet-maker also complaining of the hardness of the timber. But,
+when finished, the box became an object of general curiosity and
+admiration. He had one bureau, and her Grace of Buckingham had
+another, made of this beautiful wood, and the despised mahogany now
+became a prominent article of luxury, and at the same time raised
+the fortunes of the cabinet-maker by whom it had been so little
+regarded. Since that lime it has taken a leading rank among the
+ornamental woods, having come to be considered indispensable where
+luxury is intended to be indicated.</p>
+
+<p>A few facts will furnish a tolerably distinct idea of the size
+of this splendid tree. The mahogany lumbermen, having selected a
+tree, surround it with a platform about twelve feet above the
+ground, and cut it above the platform. Some twelve or fifteen feet
+of the largest part of the trunk are thus lost. Yet a single log
+not unfrequently weighs from six or seven to fifteen tons, and
+sometimes measures as much as seventeen feet in length and four and
+a half to five and a half feet in diameter, one tree furnishing
+two, three, or four such logs. Some trees have yielded 12,000
+superficial feet, and at average price pieces have sold for
+$15,000. Messrs. Broadwood London, pianoforte manufacturers, paid
+&pound;3,000 for three logs, all cut from one tree, and each about
+fifteen feet long and more than three feet square. The tree is cut
+at two seasons of the year--in the autumn and about Christmas time.
+The trunk, of course, furnishes timber of the largest dimensions,
+but that from the branches is preferred for ornamental purposes,
+owing to its closer grain and more variegated color.</p>
+
+<p>In low and damp soil its growth is rapid; but the most valuable
+trees grow slowly among rocks on sterile soil, and seem to gather
+compactness and beauty from the very struggle which they make for
+an existence. In the Bahamas, in the most desolate regions, once
+flourished that curiously veined and much esteemed variety once
+known in Europe as "Madeira wood," but which has long since been
+exterminated. Jamaica, also, which used to be a fruitful source of
+mahogany, and whence in 1753 not less than 521,000 feet were
+shipped, is now almost depleted. That which is now furnished from
+there is very inferior, pale, and porous, and is less esteemed than
+that of Cuba, San Domingo, or Honduras.</p>
+
+<p>In a dry state mahogany Is very durable, and not liable to the
+attack of worms, but, when exposed to the weather it does not last
+long. It would therefore make excellent material for floors, roofs,
+etc., but its costliness limits its utility in this direction, and
+it is chiefly employed for furniture, doors, and a few other
+articles of joinery, for which it is among the best materials
+known. It has been used for sashes and window frames, but is not
+desirable for this purpose on account of the ease with which it is
+affected by the weather. It has also been used in England to some
+extent for the framing of machinery in cotton-mills. Its color is a
+reddish brown of different shades and luster, sometimes becoming a
+yellowish brown, and often much veined and mottled with darker
+shades of the same color. Its texture is uniform, and the rings
+indicating its annual growth are not very distinct. The larger
+medullary rays are absent, but the smaller ones are often very
+distinct, with pores between them. In the Jamaica woods these pores
+are often filled with a white substance, but in that brought from
+Central America they are generally empty. It has neither taste nor
+odor, shrinks very slightly, and warps, it is said, less than any
+other wood.</p>
+
+<p>The variety called Spanish mahogany comes from the West Indies,
+and is in smaller logs than the Honduras mahogany, being generally
+about two feet square and ten feet long. It is close grained and
+hard, generally darker than the Honduras, free from black specks,
+and sometimes strongly marked; the pores appear as though chalk had
+been rubbed into them.</p>
+
+<p>The Honduras mahogany comes in logs from two to four feet square
+and twelve to fourteen long; planks have been obtained seven feet
+wide. Its grain is very open and often irregular, with black or
+gray specks. The veins and figures are often very distinct and
+handsome, and that of a fine golden color and free from gray specks
+is considered the best. It holds the glue better than any other
+wood. The weight of a cubic foot of mahogany varies from
+thirty-five to fifty-three pounds. Its strength is between
+sixty-seven and ninety-six, stiffness seventy-three to
+ninety-three, and toughness sixty-one to ninety-nine--oak being
+considered as one hundred in each case.</p>
+
+<p>There are three other species of the genus <i>Swietania</i>
+besides the mahogany tree, two of them natives of the East Indies.
+One is a very large tree, growing in the mountainous parts of
+central Hindostan, and rises to a great height, throwing out many
+branches toward the top. The head is spreading and the leaves bear
+some resemblance to those of the American species. The wood is a
+dull red, not so beautiful as that known to commerce, but harder,
+heavier, and more durable. The natives of India consider it the
+most durable timber which their forests afford, and consequently
+use it, when it can be procured, wherever strength and durability
+are particularly desired. The other East Indian species is found in
+the mountains of Sircars, which run parallel to the Bay of Bengal.
+The tree is not so large as any of the other species described, and
+the wood is of much different appearance, being of a deep yellow,
+considerably resembling box. The grain is close, and the wood both
+heavy and durable. The third species, known as African mahogany, is
+brought from Sierra Leone. It is hard and durable, and used for
+purposes requiring these properties in an eminent degree. If,
+however, the heart of the tree be exposed or crossed in cutting or
+trimming the timber, it is very liable to premature and rapid
+decay.</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p><a name="33"></a></p>
+
+<h2>ANIMALS AND THE ARTS.</h2>
+
+<p>In many of the museums efforts are made to perfect economic
+collections of animals, so as to show how they can be applied to
+advantage in the arts and sciences. The collection and preparation
+of the corals, for example, form an important industry. The fossil
+corals are richly polished and set in studs and sleeve-buttons,
+forming rich and ornamental objects. The fossil coral that
+resembles a delicate chain has been often copied by designers,
+while the red and black corals have long been used. The best
+fisheries are along the coasts of Tunis, Algeria, and Morocco, from
+2 to 10 miles from shore, in from 30 to 150 fathoms. Good coral is
+also common at Naples, near Leghorn and Genoa, and on various parts
+of the sea, as Sardinia, Corsica, Catalonia, Provence, etc. It
+ranges in color from pure white through all the shades of pink,
+red, and crimson. The rose pink is most valued. For a long time
+Marseilles was the market, but now Italy is the great center of the
+trade, the greater number of boats hailing from Torre del Greco,
+while outside persons are forced to pay a heavy tax. The vessels
+are schooners, lateen-rigged, from three to fourteen tons. Large
+nets are used, which, during the months between March and October,
+are dragged, dredge-like, over the rocks. A large crew will haul in
+a season from 600 to 900 pounds. To prevent the destruction of the
+industry, the reef is divided into ten parts, only one being worked
+a year, and by the time the tenth is reached the first is overgrown
+again with a new growth. In 1873 the Algerian fisheries alone,
+employing 3,150 men, realized half a million of dollars. The choice
+grades are always valuable, the finest tints bringing over $5 per
+ounce, while the small pieces, used for necklaces, and called
+collette, are worth only $1.50 per ounce. The large oval pieces are
+sent to China, where they are used as buttons of office by the
+mandarins.</p>
+
+<h3>THE CONCH-SHELL.</h3>
+
+<p>Somewhat similar in appearance to coral is the conch jewelry,
+sets of which have been sold for $300. The tint is exquisite, but
+liable to fade when exposed to the sun. It is made from the great
+conch, common in Southern Florida and the West Indies. The shells
+are imported into Europe by thousands, and cut up into studs,
+sleeve-buttons, and various articles of ornament. These conches are
+supposed to be the producers of pink pearls, but I have opened
+hundreds of them and failed to find a single pearl. The conch shell
+is used by the cameo cutter. Rome and Paris are the principal seats
+of the trade, and immense numbers of shell cameos are imported by
+England and America, and mounted in rings, brooches, etc. The one
+showing a pale salmon-color upon an orange ground is much used. In
+1847, 300 persons worked upon these shells in Paris alone, the
+number of shells used being immense. In Paris 300,000 helmet-shells
+were used in one year, valued at $40,000 of the bull's mouth,
+80,000, averaging a little over a shilling apiece, equal to
+$34,000. Eight thousand black helmets were used, valued at $9,000.
+The value of the large cameos produced in Paris in the year 1847
+was about $160,000, and the small ones $40,000. In the Wolfe
+collection of shells at the Museum of Natural History, Central
+Park, is a fine specimen of the queen conch from the Florida reef,
+with a fine head cut into the outer surface, showing how it is
+done. The tools of the worker in cameos are of the most delicate
+description. Fine files, knitting-needle like implements,
+triangular-shaped steel cutters, are arranged in a seemingly
+endless confusion before the worker. The shell or piece of shell to
+be cut is either lashed or glued to a heavy block or held in the
+hand, and the face, animal, or other object outlined first with a
+delicate lead; having thus laid the foundation, the lines are gone
+over with a delicate needle first, then various kinds, the work
+gradually growing before the eye, reminding one of the work of the
+engraver on wood.</p>
+
+<h3>LIVING BEETLES, ETC.</h3>
+
+<p>Insects have always been used more or less in decoration,
+especially in Brazil, where the richly-colored beetles of the
+country are affected as articles of personal adornment. Recently in
+a Union Square jewelry store a monster beetle was on exhibition,
+having been sent there for repairs. It was alive, and about its
+body was a delicate gold band, locked with a minute padlock; a gold
+chain attached it to the shawl of the owner. Sometimes they are
+worn upon the headgear, their slow, cumbersome movements preventing
+them from attracting great attention. They are valued at from $50
+to $100 apiece. Snakes, the rich green variety so common in New
+England, are worn by some ladies as bracelets, while the gorgeous
+reptiles are often imitated in gold and silver, with eyes of
+diamonds, rubies, or black pearls. Gold bears are the proper thing
+now for pins. In the East the chameleon is often worn as a head
+ornament, the animal rarely moving, and forming at least a
+picturesque decoration, with its odd shape and sculptured outlines.
+Various other reptiles, as small turtles, alligators, etc., are
+pressed into service. The curious soldier-crab has been used as a
+pin. Placed in a box with a rich pearly shell prepared for the
+purpose, it will change houses, and then, secured by a gold or
+silver chain, roams about the wearer, waving its red and blue claws
+in a warlike manner. Birds are, perhaps, more commonly used as
+natural ornaments than any other, and a cloak of the skins of
+humming birds is one of the most magnificent objects to be
+imagined. One, of a rare species, was once sold in Europe for
+$5,000. Single birds are often worth $700 or $800. A cloak of the
+skin of the great auk would bring $8,000 or $10,000. Some of the
+most beautiful pheasants are extremely valuable--worth their weight
+in gold. Tiger claws are used in the decoration of hats, and are
+extremely valuable and hard to obtain.</p>
+
+<p>Within ten years the alligator has become an important factor to
+the artistic manufacturer. The hide, by a new process, is tanned to
+an agreeable softness and used in innumerable ways. The most costly
+bags and trunks are made from it; pocket-books, card-cases,
+dining-room chairs are covered with it, and it has been used as a
+dado on the library wall of a well-known naturalist. It makes an
+excellent binding for certain books. Among fishes the shark
+provides a skin used in a variety of ways. The shagreen of the
+shark's ray is of great value. Canes are made of the shark's
+backbone, the interstices being filled with silver or shell plates.
+Shark's teeth are used to decorate the weapons of various nations.
+The magnificent scales, nearly four inches across and tipped with
+seemingly solid silver, of the giant herring, are used, while
+scales of many of the tribe have long been used in the manufacture
+of artificial pearls.</p>
+
+<h3>PEARLS.</h3>
+
+<p>The latter are perhaps the most valuable of all the offerings of
+animate nature, and are the results of the efforts of the bivalve
+to protect itself from injury. A parasite bores into the shell of
+the pearl bearer, and when felt by the animal it immediately
+fortifies itself by covering up the spot with its pearly secretion;
+the parasite pushes on, the oyster piling up until an imperfect
+pearl attached to the shell is the result. The clear oval pearls
+are formed in a similar way, only in this case a bit of sand has
+become lodged in the folds of the creature, and in its efforts to
+protect itself from the sharp edges, the bit becomes covered, layer
+by layer, and assumes naturally an oval shape. This growth of the
+pearl, as it is incorrectly termed, can be seen by breaking open a
+$500 gem, when the nacre will be seen in layers, resembling the
+section of an onion. The Romans were particularly fond of pearls,
+and, according to Pliny, the wife of Caius Caligula possessed a
+collection valued at over $8,000,000 of our money. Julius Caesar
+presented a jewel to the mother of Brutus valued at $250,000, while
+the pearl drank by Cleopatra was estimated at $400,000. Tavernier,
+the famous traveler, sold a pearl to the Shah of Persia for
+$550,000. A twenty-thousand-dollar pearl was taken from American
+waters in the time of Philip II. It was pear-shaped, and as large
+as a pigeon's egg. Another, taken from the same locality, is now
+owned by a lady in Madrid who values it at $30,000.</p>
+
+<p>Fresh water pearls are often of great value. The streams of St.
+Clair County. Ill., and Rutherford County, Tenn., produce large
+quantities, but the largest one was found near Salem, N. J. It was
+about an inch across, and brought $2,000 in Paris. The pearls from
+the Tay, Doon, and Isla rivers, in Scotland, are preferred by many
+to the Oriental, and in one summer $50,000 worth of pearls have
+been taken from these localities by men and children.
+Mother-of-pearl used in the arts is sold by the ton, from $50 to
+$700 being average prices. The last year's pearl fisheries in
+Ceylon alone realized $80,000, to obtain which more than 7,000,000
+pearl oysters were brought up.</p>
+
+<h3>SEPIA AND SILK.</h3>
+
+<p>The sepia of the artist comes from a mollusk, and is the fossil
+or extant ink-bag of a cephalopod or squid, while the cuttle-fish
+bone is used for a variety of purposes. In the islands of the
+Pacific the young of the pearly nautilus are strung upon strings
+and sold for $25 and $20 as necklaces. The tritons are in fair
+demand, and many tons of cowries are sent to Europe yearly, while
+the shipment of a thick-lipped strombus in one year to Liverpool
+amounted to 300,000. The rich coloring of the haliotis is used for
+inlaying art furniture. From the pinna, silk of a peculiar quality
+is obtained. It is the byssus or cable of the animal. The threads
+are extremely fine, and equal in diameter throughout their entire
+length. It is first cleaned with soap and water, and dried by
+rubbing through the hands, and finally passed through combs of
+bone, iron, or wood, of different sizes, so that a pound of the
+material in the rough gives only about three ounces of pure thread.
+It is mixed with a third of real silk and spun into gloves,
+stockings, etc., having a beautiful yellow hue. The articles made
+from it are, however, not in general use. A pair of gloves from
+pinna silk would cost $1.50, and stockings about $3. Fine specimens
+of such work can be seen in the British Museum.</p>
+
+<p>Though not of animal origin, amber is one of the choicest
+vegetable productions used in the arts. It is the fossil gum of
+pines. Great beds of it occur at various points in Europe. On the
+Prussian seaboard it is mined, and often washes ashore. In 1576 a
+piece of amber was found that weighed thirteen pounds, and for
+which $5,000 was refused. In the cabinet of the Berlin Museum there
+is a piece weighing eighteen pounds. Ambergris, from which
+perfumery is made, is a secretion taken from the intestines of the
+whale, and a piece purchased from the King of Tydore by the East
+India Company is reported to have cost $18,000. Whales' teeth, the
+tusks of elephants, and those of the walrus and narwhal, are all
+used. Elephants' feet are cut off at a convenient length, richly
+upholstered, and used as seats; the great toe-nails, when finely
+polished, giving the novel article of furniture an attractive and
+unique appearance.</p>
+
+<p>It is probably not generally known that the web of certain
+spiders has been used. Over 150 years ago, Le Bon, of France,
+succeeded in weaving the web material into delicate gloves. Prof.
+B.G. Wilder investigated the question thoroughly, and was a firm
+believer that the web of the spider had a commercial value, but as
+yet this has not been realized. It would be difficult to find an
+animal that does not in some way contribute to the useful or
+decorative arts.--<i>C.F.H., in N.Y. Post</i>.</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p>A catalogue, containing brief notices of many important
+scientific papers heretofore published in the SUPPLEMENT, may be
+had gratis at this office.</p>
+
+<hr>
+<h2>THE SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT.</h2>
+
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+January 1, 1876, can be had. Price, 10 cents each.</p>
+
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+<hr>
+<h2><b>PATENTS.</b></h2>
+
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+&amp; Co. are Solicitors of American and Foreign Patents, have had
+35 years' experience, and now have the largest establishment in the
+world. Patents are obtained on the best terms.</p>
+
+<p>A special notice is made in the <b>Scientific American</b> of
+all Inventions patented through this Agency, with the name and
+residence of the Patentee. By the immense circulation thus given,
+public attention is directed to the merits of the new patent, and
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+
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+ascertain, free of charge, whether a patent can probably be
+obtained, by writing to MUNN &amp; Co.</p>
+
+<p>We also send free our Hand Book about the Patent Laws, Patents,
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+
+<p><b>MUNN &amp; CO., 261 Broadway, New York.</b></p>
+
+<p>Branch Office, cor. F and 7th Sts., Washington, D. C.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Scientific American Supplement, No.
+362, December 9, 1882, by Various
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+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Scientific American Supplement, No. 362,
+December 9, 1882, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882
+
+Author: Various
+
+Posting Date: October 10, 2012 [EBook #8687]
+Release Date: August, 2005
+First Posted: August 1, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPL., NO. 362 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Olaf Voss, Don Kretz, Juliet Sutherland, Charles
+Franks and the Distributed Proofreaders Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT NO. 362
+
+
+
+
+NEW YORK, DECEMBER 9, 1882
+
+Scientific American Supplement. Vol. XIV, No. 362.
+
+Scientific American established 1845
+
+Scientific American Supplement, $5 a year.
+
+Scientific American and Supplement, $7 a year.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS.
+
+I.    ENGINEERING AND MECHANICS--Recent Improvements in
+      Textile Machinery.--Harris's revolving ring spinning frame.--
+      New electric stop motion.--New positive motion loom. 6 figures.
+
+      Spinning Without a Mule.--Harris's improvements in ring
+      spinning.
+
+      New Binding Machines. 3 figures.
+
+      Flumes and their construction. 1 figure.
+
+      Chuwab's Rolling Mill for Dressing and Rounding Bar Iron.
+      9 figures.
+
+      Burning of Town Refuse at Leeds. 6 figures.--Sections and
+      elevations of destructor and carbonizer.
+
+II.   TECHNOLOGY AND CHEMISTRY.--Friedrich Wohler.--His
+      labors and discoveries.
+
+      New Gas Burner. 3 figures.--Grimstone's improved gas burner.
+
+      Defty's Improvements in Gas Burners and Heaters. 4 figures.
+
+      The Collotype in Practice.
+
+      Determination of Potassa in Manures.--By M. E. DREYFUS.
+
+III.  HYGIENE, MEDICINE, ETC.--The Air in Relation to Health.
+      By Prof. C. F. CHANDLER.
+
+      The Plantain as a Styptic.
+
+      Bacteria.
+
+IV.   ELECTRICITY, ETC.--Gustavo Trouve and his Electrical Inventions.
+      --Portrait of Gustave Trouve.--Trouve's electric boat competing
+      in the regatta at Troyes.
+
+      Domestic Electricity.--Loiseau's electric naphtha and gas
+      lighters.--Ranque's new form of lighter with extinguisher.
+
+      Theiler's Telephone Receiver. 2 figures.
+
+      An Electric Power Hammer. By MARCEL DEPRETZ. 1 figure.
+
+      Solignac's New Electric Lamp. 3 figures.
+
+      Mondos's Electric Lamp. 2 figures.
+
+V.    METALLURGY AND MINERALOGY.--Aluminum.--Its properties,
+      cost, and uses.
+
+      The Origin and Relations of the Carbon Minerals.
+      By J.S. NEWBERRY.--An elaborate and extremely valuable review
+      of the genesis of carbon minerals, and the modes and conditions
+      of their occurrence.
+
+      Estimation of Sulphur in Iron and Steel. By GEORGE CRAIG.
+      1 figure.
+
+VI.   ARCHITECTURE, ETC.--The Armitage House.
+
+      Suggestions in Architecture.--An English country residence.
+
+VII.  BOTANY, HORTICULTURE, ETC.--The Soy Bean. 1 figure.--
+      The Soy bean (_Soja hispida_).
+
+      Erica Cavendishiana. 1 figure.
+
+      Philesia Buxifolia. 1 figure.
+
+      Mahogany.
+
+VIII. MISCELLANEOUS.--Our Hebrew Population.
+
+      The Mysteries of Lake Baikal.
+
+      Traveling Sand Hills on Lake Ontario.
+
+      Animals in the Arts.--Corals.--The conch shell.--Living beetles,
+      etc.--Pearls.--Sepia and silk.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+GUSTAVE TROUVE.
+
+
+The accompanying portrait of M. Gustave Trouve is taken from a small
+volume devoted to an account of his labors recently published by M.
+Georges Dary. M. Trouve, who may be said to have had no ancestors from
+an electric point of view, was born in 1839 in the little village of
+Haye-Descartes. He was sent by his parents to the College of Chinon,
+whence he entered the Ecole des Arts et Metiers, and afterward went
+to Paris to work in the shop of a clock-maker. This was an excellent
+apprenticeship for our future electrician, since it is in small works
+that electricity excels; and, if its domain is to be increased, it is
+only on condition that the electric mechanician shall never lose sight
+of the fact that he should be a clock-maker, and that his fingers, to
+use M. Dumas's apt words, should possess at once the strength of those
+of the Titans and the delicacy of those of fairies. It was not long ere
+Trouve set up a shop of his own, whither inventors flocked in crowds;
+and the work he did for these soon gave up to him the secrets of the art
+of creating. The first applications that he attempted related to the use
+of electricity in surgery, a wonderfully fecund branch, but one whose
+importance was scarcely suspected, notwithstanding the results
+already obtained through the application of the insufflation pile to
+galvano-cautery. What the surgeon needed was to see plainly into the
+cavities of the human body. Trouve found a means of lighting these
+up with lamps whose illuminating power was fitted for that sort of
+exploration. This new mode of illumination having been adopted, it was
+but natural that it should afterward find an application in dangerous
+mines, powder mills, and for a host of different purposes. But the
+perfection of this sort of instruments was the wound explorer, by the
+aid of which a great surgeon sounded the wounds that Italian balls had
+made in Garibaldi's foot.
+
+[Illustration: GUSTAVE TROUVE.]
+
+The misfortunes of France afterward directed Trouve's attention to
+military electricity, and led him to devise a perfect system of portable
+telegraphy, in which his hermetic pile lends itself perfectly to all
+maneuvers and withstands all sorts of moving about.
+
+The small volume of which we have spoken is devoted more particularly to
+electric navigation, for which M. Trouve specially designed the motor of
+his invention, and by the aid of which he performed numerous experiments
+on the ocean, on the Seine at Paris, and before Rouen and at Troyes. In
+this latter case M. Trouve gained a medal of honor on the occasion of a
+regatta. Our engraving represents him competing with the rowers of whom
+he kept ahead with so distinguished success. We could not undertake to
+enumerate all the inventions which we owe to M. Trouve; but we cannot,
+however, omit mention of the pendulum escapement that beats the second
+or half second without any variation in the length of the balance; of
+the electric gyroscope constructed at the request of M. Louis Foucault;
+of the electro-medical pocket-case; of the apparatus for determining the
+most advantageous inclination to give a helix; of the electric bit for
+stopping unruly horses; and of the universal caustic-holder. He has
+given the electric polyscope features such that every cavity in the
+human body may be explored by its aid. As for his electric motor, he
+has given that a form that makes the rotation regular and suppresses
+dead-centers--a result that he has obtained by utilizing the
+eccentrization of the Siemens bobbin.
+
+Although devoting himself mainly to improving his motor (which, by
+the way, he has applied to the tricycle), M. Trouve does not disdain
+telephony, but has introduced into the manufacture of magnets for the
+purpose many valuable improvements.--_Electricite_.
+
+[Illustration: TROUVE'S ELECTRIC BOAT COMPETING IN THE REGATTA AT
+TROYES, AUG. 6, 1882.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+FRIEDRICH WOeHLER.
+
+
+At the age of eighty-two years, and full of honor, after a life actively
+devoted to scientific work of the highest and most accurate kind, which
+has contributed more than that of any other contemporary to establish
+the principles on which an exact science like chemistry is founded, the
+illustrious Woehler has gone to his rest.
+
+After he had worked for some time with Berzelius in Sweden, he taught
+chemistry from 1825 to 1831 at the Polytechnic School in Berlin; then
+till 1836 he was stationed at the Higher Polytechnic School at Cassel,
+and then he became Ordinary Professor of Chemistry in the University of
+Goettingen, where he remained till his death. He was born, July 31, 1800,
+at Eschersheim, near Frankfort-on-the-Main.
+
+Until the year 1828 it was believed that organic substances could only
+be formed under the influence of the vital force in the bodies of
+animals and plants. It was Woehler who proved by the artificial
+preparation of urea from inorganic materials that this view could not be
+maintained. This discovery has always been considered as one of the most
+important contributions to our scientific knowledge. By showing that
+ammonium cyanate can become urea by an internal arrangement of its
+atoms, without gaining or losing in weight, Woehler furnished one of the
+first and best examples of isomerism, which helped to demolish the old
+view that equality of composition could not coexist in two bodies, A
+and B, with differences in their respective physical and chemical
+properties. Two years later, in 1830, Woehler published, jointly with
+Liebig, the results of a research on cyanic and cyanuric acid and on
+urea. Berzelius, in his report to the Swedish Academy of Sciences,
+called it the most important of all researches in physics, chemistry,
+and mineralogy published in that year. The results obtained were quite
+unexpected, and furnished additional and most important evidence in
+favor of the doctrine of isomerism. In the year 1834, Woehler and Liebig
+published an investigation of the oil of bitter almonds. They prove by
+their experiments that a group of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms
+can behave like an element, take the place of an element, and can be
+exchanged for elements in chemical compounds. Thus the foundation was
+laid of the doctrine of compound radicals, a doctrine which has had
+and has still the most profound influence on the development of
+chemistry--so much so that its importance can hardly be exaggerated.
+Since the discovery of potassium by Davy, it was assumed that alumina
+also, the basis of clay, contained a metal in combination with oxygen.
+Davy, Oerstedt, and Berzelius attempted the extraction of this metal,
+but could not succeed. Woehler then worked on the same subject, and
+discovered the metal aluminum. To him also is due the isolation of the
+elements yttrium, beryllium, and titanium, the observation that silicium
+can be obtained in crystals, and that some meteoric stones contain
+organic matter. He analyzed a number of meteorites, and for many years
+wrote the digest on the literature of meteorites in the _Jahresbericht
+der Chemie_; he possessed, perhaps, the best private collection of
+meteoric stones and irons existing. Woehler and Sainte Claire Deville
+discovered the crystalline form of boron, and Woehler and Buff the
+hydrogen compounds of silicium and a lower oxide of the same element.
+This is by no means a full statement of Woehler's scientific work; it
+even does not mention all the discoveries which have had great influence
+on the theory of chemistry. The mere titles of the papers would fill
+several closely-printed pages. The journals of every year from 1820 to
+1881 contain contributions from his pen, and even his minor publications
+are always interesting. As was truly remarked ten years ago, when it was
+proposed by a Fellow of the Royal Society that a Copley medal should be
+conferred upon him, "for two or three of his researches he deserves the
+highest honor a scientific man can obtain, but the sum of his work is
+absolutely overwhelming. Had he never lived, the aspect of chemistry
+would be very different from that it is now."
+
+While sojourning at Cassel, Woehler made, among other chemical
+discoveries, one for obtaining the metal nickel in a state of purity,
+and with two attached friends he founded a factory there for the
+preparation of the metal.
+
+Among the works which he published were "Grundriss der Anorganischen
+Chemie," Berlin, 1830, and the "Grundriss der Organischen Chemie,"
+Berlin, 1840. Nor must we omit to mention "Praktischen Uebringen der
+Chemischen Analyse," Berlin, 1854, and the "Lehrbuch der Chemie,"
+Dresden, 1825, 4 vols.
+
+At a sitting of the Academy, held on October 2, 1882, M. Jean Baptiste
+Dumas, the permanent secretary, with profound regret, made known
+the intelligence of the death of the illustrious foreign associate,
+Friedrich Woehler, professor in the University of Goettingen. He said: "M.
+Friedrich Woehler, the favorite pupil of Berzelius, had followed in the
+lines and methods of work of his master. From 1821 till his last year he
+has continuously published memoirs or simple notes, always remarkable
+for their exactness, and often of such a nature that they took among
+contemporaneous production the first rank by their importance, their
+novelty, or their fullness. Employed chiefly, during his sojourn in
+Sweden, in work on mineral chemistry, he has remained all his life the
+undisputed chief in this branch of science in German universities. This
+preparation and preoccupation, which one might have thought sufficient
+to occupy his time, did not, however, prevent him from taking the chief
+part in the development of organic chemistry, and of filling one of the
+most elevated positions in it.
+
+"His contemporaries have not forgotten the unusual sensation produced by
+the unexpected discovery by which he was enabled to make artificially,
+and by a purely chemical method, urea, the most nitrogenous of animal
+substances. Other transformations or combinations giving birth to
+substances which, until then, had only been met with in animals or
+plants, have since been obtained, but the artificial formation of urea
+still remains the neatest and most elegant example of this order of
+creation. All chemists know and admire the classical memoir in which
+Woehler and Liebig some time after made known the nature of the benzoic
+series, and connected them with the radicals of which we may consider
+them as being the derivatives comparable with products of a mineral
+nature. Their memoirs on the derivatives of uric acid, a prolific source
+of new and remarkable substances, has been an inexhaustible mine in the
+hands of their successors.
+
+"This is not a moment when we should pretend to review the work which M.
+Woehler has done in mineral chemistry. Among the 240 papers which he has
+published in scientific journals, there are few which the treatises of
+chemistry have not immediately turned to account. We need only confine
+ourselves to the discovery of aluminum, to which the energy and
+inventive genius of our _confrere_, Henry Deville, soon gave a place
+near the noble metals. United by a rivalry which would have divided
+less noble minds, these two great chemists carried on together their
+researches in chemistry, and joined their forces to clear up points
+still obscure in the history of boron, silicium, and the metals of
+the platinum group, and remained closely united, which each year only
+strengthened.
+
+"The reader will pardon me a souvenir entirely personal. We were born,
+M. Woehler and I, in 1800. I am his senior by a few days. Our scientific
+life began at the same date, and during sixty years everything has
+combined to bind more closely the links of brotherhood which has existed
+for so long a time."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+OUR HEBREW POPULATION.
+
+
+The United Jewish Association has made a canvass of the denomination in
+this country, finding 278 congregations, and a total Jewish population
+of 230,984. New York has the largest number--80,565. Then follows
+Pennsylvania, with 20,000; California, with 18,580; Ohio with 14,581;
+Illinois, with 12,625, and Maryland, with 10,357.
+
+The Jewish population in the largest cities is as follows:
+
+  New York         60,000
+  San Francisco    16,000
+  Brooklyn         14,000
+  Philadelphia     13,000
+  Chicago          12,000
+  Baltimore        10,000
+  Cincinnati        8,000
+  Boston            7,000
+  St. Louis         6,500
+  New Orleans       5,000
+  Cleveland         3,500
+  Newark            3,500
+  Milwaukee         3,500
+  Louisville        2,500
+  Pittsburg         2,000
+  Detroit           2,000
+  Washington        1,500
+  New Haven         1,000
+  Rochester         1,000
+
+This total Jewish population of 230,984 has six hospitals, eleven
+orphan asylums and homes, fourteen free colleges and schools, and 602
+benevolent lodges. Of the free schools maintained by the Hebrews, five
+are in New York, four in Philadelphia, and one each in Cincinnati, St.
+Louis, Chicago, and San Francisco. Their hospitals are in New York,
+Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cincinnati, New Orleans, and Chicago, while
+their orphan asylums, homes, and other benevolent institutions are
+scattered all over the country.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE MYSTERIES OF THE BAIKAL.
+
+
+The Angara is cold as ice all the summer through, so cold, indeed, that
+to bathe in it is to court inevitable illness, and in winter a sled
+drive over its frozen surface is made in a temperature some degrees
+lower than that prevailing on the banks. This comes from the fact that
+its waters are fresh from the yet unfathomed depths of the Baikal, which
+during the five short months of summer has scarcely time to properly
+unfreeze. In winter the lake resembles in all respects a miniature
+Arctic Ocean, having its great ice hummocks and immense leads, over
+which the caravan sleds have to be ferried on large pieces of ice, just
+as in the frozen North. In winter, too, the air is so cold in the region
+above the lake that birds flying across its icy bosom sometimes drop
+down dead on the surface. Some authors say that seals have been caught
+in the lake of the same character as those found in the Arctic seas; for
+this assertion I have no proof. An immense caravan traffic is carried
+across the frozen lake every season between Russia and China. To
+accommodate this the Russian postal authorities once established a post
+house on the middle of the lake, where horses were kept for travelers.
+But this was discontinued after one winter, when an early thaw suddenly
+set in, and horses, yemschliks and post house all disappeared beneath
+the ice, and were never seen more. In summer the lake is navigated by an
+antiquated steamer called the General Korsakoff, which ventures out
+in calm weather, but cannot face the violent storms and squalls that
+sometimes rise with sudden impetuosity. Irkutskians say, indeed, that it
+is only upon Lake Baikal and upon this old hull that a man really learns
+to pray from his heart. The lake is held in superstitious reverence by
+the natives. It is called by them Svyatoe More, or the Holy Lake, and
+they believe that no Christian was ever lost in its waters, for even
+when a person is drowned in it the waves always take the trouble to cast
+the body on shore.
+
+Its length is 400 miles, its width an average of 35 miles, covers an
+area of 14,000 square miles and has a circumference of nearly 1,200
+miles, being the largest fresh water lake in the Old World, and, next to
+the Caspian and the Aral, the largest inland sheet of water in Asia. Its
+shores are bold and rugged and very picturesque, in some places 1,000
+feet high. In the surrounding forests are found game of the largest
+description, bears, deer, foxes, wolves, elk and these afford capital
+sport for the sportsmen of Irkutsk.
+
+Around the coasts are many mineral springs, hot and cold, which have a
+great reputation among the Irkutskians. The hot springs of Yurka, on the
+Selenga, 200 versts from Verchore Udevisk and not many miles from the
+eastern shore of the Baikal, which have a temperature of 48 degrees
+Reaumur and whose waters are strongly impregnated with sulphur, are
+a favorite watering place for natives as well as Russians and
+Buriats.--_Herald Correspondent with the Jeannette Search Expedition_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+TRAVELING SAND HILLS ON LAKE ONTARIO.
+
+
+An interesting example of sand-drift occurs near Wellington Bay, on Lake
+Ontario, ten miles from Pictou. The lake shore near the sand banks is
+indented with a succession of rock-paved bays, whose gradually shoaling
+margins afford rare bathing grounds. East and West Lakes, each five
+miles long, and the latter dotted with islands, are separated from
+Lake Ontario by narrow strips of beach. Over the two mile-wide isthmus
+separating the little lakes, the sand banks, whose glistening heights
+are visible miles away, are approached. On near approach they are hidden
+by the cedar woods, till the roadway in front is barred by the advancing
+bank, to avoid which a roadway through the woods has been constructed
+up to the eastern end of the sand range. The sand banks stretch like a
+crescent along the shore, the concave side turned to the lake, along
+which it leaves a pebbly beach. The length of the crescent is over two
+miles, the width 600 to 3,000 or 4,000 feet.
+
+Clambering up the steep end of the range among trees and grapevines, the
+wooded summit is gained, at an elevation of nearly 150 feet. Passing
+along the top, the woods soon disappear, and the visitor emerges on a
+wild waste of delicately tinted saffron, rising from the slate-colored
+beach in gentle undulation, and sleepily falling on the other side down
+to green pastures and into the cedar woods. The whole surface of this
+gradually undulating mountain desert is ribbed by little wavelets a few
+inches apart, but the general aspect is one of perfect smoothness. The
+sand is almost as fine as flour, and contains no admixture of dust The
+foot sinks only an inch or two in walking over it; children roll about
+on it and down its slopes, and, rising, shake themselves till their
+clothing loses every trace of sand. Occasionally gusts stream over the
+wild waste, raising a dense drift to a height of a foot or two only, and
+streaming like a fringe over the steep northern edge. Though the sun is
+blazing down on the glistening wilderness there is little sensation of
+heat, for the cool lake breeze is ever blowing. On the landward side,
+the insidious approach of the devouring sand is well marked. One hundred
+and fifty feet below, the foot of this moving mountain is sharply
+defined against the vivid green of the pastures, on which the grass
+grows luxuriantly to within an inch of the sand wall. The ferns of the
+cedar woods almost droop against the sandy slope. The roots of the trees
+are bare along the white edge; a foot or two nearer the sand buries the
+feet of the cedars: a few yards nearer still the bare trunks disappear;
+still nearer only the withered topmast twigs of the submerged forest are
+seen, and then far over the tree tops stands the sand range. Perpetual
+ice is found under the foot of this steep slope, the sand covering and
+consolidating the snows drifted over the hill during the winter months.
+There is something awe-inspiring, says the correspondent of the Toronto
+Globe, in the slow, quiet, but resistless advance of the mountain front.
+Field and forest alike become completely submerged. Ten years ago a
+farm-house was swallowed up, not to emerge in light until the huge sand
+wave has passed over.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+RECENT IMPROVEMENTS IN TEXTILE MACHINERY.
+
+
+At the recent exhibition at Boston of the New England Institute, several
+interesting novelties were shown which have a promise of considerable
+economic and industrial value.
+
+Fig. 1 represents the general plan and pulley connections of the Harris
+Revolving-Ring Spinning Frame. The purpose of the improvements which
+it embodies is to avoid the uneven draught of the yarn in spinning and
+winding incident to the use of a fixed ring. With the non-revolving ring
+the strain upon the yarn varies greatly, owing to the difference
+in diameter of the full and empty bobbin. At the base of the cone,
+especially in spinning weft, or filling, the diameter of the cop is five
+or six times that of the quill at the tip. As the yarn is wound upon the
+cone, the line of draught upon the traveler varies continually, the pull
+being almost direct where the bobbin is full, and nearly at right angles
+where it is empty. With the increasing angle the drag upon the traveler
+increases, not only causing frequent breakages of the yarn, but also an
+unequal stretching of the yarn, so that the yarn perceptibly varies in
+fineness. The unequal strain further causes the yarn to be more tightly
+wound upon the outside than upon the inside of the bobbin, giving rise
+to snarls and wastage.
+
+[Illustration: RECENT IMPROVEMENTS IN TEXTILE MACHINERY.--1,
+2.--SPINNING WITHOUT A MULE--THE HARRIS REVOLVING RING SPINNING FRAME.
+3, 4, 5.--NEW ELECTRIC STOP MOTION FOR DRAWING FRAMES. 6.--NEW POSITIVE
+MOTION LOOM.]
+
+These difficulties have hitherto prevented the application of ring
+spinning to the finer grades of yarn. They are overcome in the new
+spinning frame by an ingenious device by which a revolving motion is
+given to the ring in the same direction as the motion of the traveler,
+thereby reducing its friction upon the ring, the speed of the ring being
+variable, and so controlled as to secure a uniform tension upon the yarn
+at all stages of the winding.
+
+The construction of the revolving ring is shown in Fig. 2. C is the
+revolving ring; D, the hollow axis support; H, a section of the ring
+frame; E, the traveler.
+
+To give the required variable speed to the revolving ring there is
+placed directly over the drum, Fig. 1, A, for driving the spindle a
+smaller drum, B, from which bands drive each ring separately. The shaft,
+which is attached by cross girts to the ring rail, and moves up and down
+with it, is driven by a pair of conical drums from the main cylinder
+shaft; and is so arranged with a loose pulley on the large end of the
+receiving cone as to remain stationary while the wind is on or near the
+base of the bobbin. When the cone of the bobbin diminishes so as to
+materially increase the pull on the traveler, the conical drums are
+started by a belt shipper attached to the lilt motion. By the movement
+of the belt on these drums a continually accelerated motion is given to
+the rings, their maximum speed being about one-twentieth the number
+of revolutions per minute as the spindle has at the same moment. This
+action is reversed when the lift falls. The tension of the wind upon
+the bobbin is thus kept uniform, the desired hardness of the wind being
+secured by the use of a heavier or lighter traveler according to the
+compactness of cop required.
+
+The model frame shown at the fair did its work admirably well, spinning
+yarns as high as No. 400, a fineness hitherto unattainable on ring
+frames. It is claimed that this invention can do whatever can be done
+with the mule, and without the skilled labor which mule spinning
+demands.
+
+This invention is exhibited by E. & A. W. Harris, Providence, R.I.
+
+
+NEW ELECTRIC STOP MOTION.
+
+Figs. 3, 4, and 5 illustrate some of the applications of the electric
+stop motion in connection with cotton machinery. The merit of this
+invention lies in simplifying the means by which machinery may be
+stopped automatically the instant, its work, from accident or otherwise,
+begins to be improperly done. The use of electricity for this purpose
+is made possible by the fact that comparatively dry cotton is a
+nonconductor of electricity. In the process of carding, drawing or
+spinning, the cotton is made to pass between rollers or other pieces
+forming parts of an electric circuit. So long as the machine is properly
+fed and in proper working condition, the stopping apparatus rests;
+the moment the continuity of the cotton is broken or any irregularity
+occurs, electric contact results, completing the circuit and causing an
+electro magnet to act upon a lever or other device, and the machine is
+stopped. The current is supplied by a small magneto-electric machine
+driven by a band from the main driving shaft, and is always available
+while the engine is running.
+
+Fig. 3 shows the general arrangement of the apparatus as applied to a
+drawing frame. In the process of drawing down the roll of cotton--the
+sliver--four things may happen making it necessary to stop the machine.
+A sliver may break on the way from the can to the drawing rollers,
+or the supply of cotton may become exhausted; the cotton may lap or
+accumulate on the drawing rollers; the sliver may break between the
+drawing rollers and the calender rollers; or the front can may overflow.
+In each and all of these cases the electric circuit is instantly
+completed; the parts between which the cotton flows either come
+together, as when breakage occurs, or, if there is lapping, they are
+separated so as to make contact above. In any case, the current causes
+the electro-magnet, S, against the side of the machine to move its
+armature and set the stop motion in play.
+
+Figs. 4 and 5 represent in detail the manner in which electric
+connection is made in two cases requiring the intervention of the stop
+motion. In Fig. 4 the upper part of a receiving can is shown. When
+the can is full the cotton lifts the tube wheel, J, until it makes an
+electrical connection, and the stop motion is brought into instant
+action. In Fig. 5, the traction upon the yarn holds the hook borne by
+the spring, F, away from G, and the electric circuit is interrupted. A
+breakage of the yarn allows this spring to act; contact is made, and the
+stop motion operates as before.
+
+This simple and efficient device is exhibited by Howard & Bullough &
+Riley, of Boston.
+
+
+NEW POSITIVE MOTION LOOM.
+
+Fig. 6 shows the essential features of a positive motion loom, intended
+for weaving narrow fabrics, exhibited by Knowles, of Worcester, Mass.
+The engraving shows so clearly how, by a right and left movement of the
+rack, the shuttle is thrown by the action of the intermediate cogwheels,
+that further description is unnecessary.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+SPINNING WITHOUT A MULE.
+
+
+At the recent semi-annual meeting of the New England Cotton
+Manufacturers' Association, held at the Institute of Technology, Boston,
+the following paper on the Harris system of revolving ring spinning was
+read by Col. Webber for the author:
+
+It is well known that one of the most serious difficulties in ring
+spinning is the variable pull upon the traveler, caused by the
+difference in diameter of the full and empty bobbins, and this is
+especially noticeable in spinning weft, or filling, when the diameter of
+the quill at the tip is not over 3-16 of an inch, while that of the base
+of the cone, or full bobbin, is from an inch to an inch and one-eighth.
+This variation in diameter causes the line of draught upon the traveler,
+which, with the full bobbin, forms nearly a tangent to the interior
+circle of the ring, to be nearly radial to it with an empty one, and
+this increased drag upon the traveler not only causes frequent breakage
+in spinning, but also stretches the yarn, so that it is perceptibly
+finer when it is spun on the nose of the bobbin than when it is spun on
+the bottom of the cone.
+
+Endeavors have been made to compensate for this difficulty by making
+a less draught at that period of the operation; but we believe the
+principle of curing one error by adding another to be wrong, and aim by
+our improvement to avoid the cause of the trouble, which we do by giving
+a revolving motion to the ring itself in the same direction as that of
+the traveler, at a variable speed, so as to aid its slip, and reduce its
+friction on the ring. This we accomplish by means of a shaft with whorls
+on it, located directly over the drum for driving the spindle, from
+which bands drive each ring separately; and attached by cross-girts to
+the ring-rail, and moving up and down with it.
+
+This shaft is driven by a pair of conical drums from the main cylinder
+shaft, and is so arranged with a loose pulley on the large end of the
+receiving cone as to remain stationary while the wind is on or near the
+base of the bobbin, or nearly parallel to the path of the traveler.
+
+When the cone of the bobbin begins to diminish to such a point as to
+materially increase the radial pull on the traveler, these conical drums
+are put in operation by a belt shipper attached to the lift motion,
+which moves the belt on to the cones, and gives a continually
+accelerated motion to the rings, so that when the wind reaches the top
+of the bobbin the rings will have their maximum speed of about 300
+revolutions per minute, or about one-twentieth the number of revolutions
+of the spindle at this point, if the latter make 6000 revolutions per
+minute, and this we find in actual practice to produce results which are
+highly satisfactory.
+
+As the lift falls again, the belt is moved back on the cones, giving a
+retarding motion to the rings, until it reaches the point at which it
+began to operate, and is then either moved on to the loose pulley, and
+the rings remain stationary, or for very fine yarn are kept in motion at
+a slow speed. We are often asked if this does not affect the twist, but
+answer that it does not in the least, as the relative speeds of the
+rolls and spindles remain the same, and the only thing that can be
+affected is the hardness of the wind upon the bobbin, and this is
+adjustable by the use of a heavier or lighter traveler, according to the
+compactness of cop required.
+
+We claim by means of this improvement the ability to use a much smaller
+quill or bobbin, and consequently holding as much yarn in a less outside
+diameter, enabling us to use a smaller ring, thus saving power both in
+the weight of bobbin to be carried and in the distance to be moved by
+the traveler; and we believe the power to be saved in this manner and by
+the diminution of the dead pull on the traveler, when the wind is at
+the tip of the bobbin, to be more than sufficient to give the necessary
+motion to the revolving rings. We are as yet unable to answer this
+question of power fully, as we have not yet tested a full size frame,
+but we propose to do this in season to answer all questions at the next
+meeting of your association.
+
+The same invention is also applicable to warp spinning, by giving the
+ring a continuous accelerating and retarding motion, in which the
+maximum speed is given to the ring at the first start of the frame when
+the bobbin is empty, sufficient to diminish the strain on the yarn,
+and gradually reducing the motion at each traverse of the rail, as the
+bobbin is filled; but we claim the great advantage of our invention to
+be the capability of spinning any grade of yarn on the ring frame that
+can be spun on the hand or self-operating mule, and in proof of this we
+call your attention to the model frame now in operation at the fair of
+the New England Manufacturers' and Mechanics' Institute, where we are
+spinning on a quill only 5-32 inches diameter at top, and where we can
+show you samples of yarn from No. 80 to No. 400 spun on this frame from
+combed roving from the Conant Thread Company and Willimantic Linen
+Company, which we believe has never before been accomplished on any ring
+frame.
+
+We invite you to examine this invention at the fair, and also call your
+attention to the adjustable roller beam, by means of which the rolls can
+be adjusted at any desirable angle or pitch, so as to throw the twist
+more or less directly spinning, and an improvement in the quality of the
+yarn from the same cause, which will increase the production from the
+loom, and finally eradicate other objectionable features of the labor
+question, which so often disturb the peaceful harmony between labor and
+capital.
+
+Mr, Goulding asked if it had been demonstrated whether more or less
+power was required for the same numbers than effect of running the
+machine a little out of true, and the reply was that the advantage of
+the new method over the old would be more apparent in such a case than
+with a perfect frame. In regard to speed, the inventor proposed as
+a maximum rate, when the wind was at the tip of the bobbin, 300
+revolutions per minute, but from this point the speed would diminish.
+
+Conant Thread Company and Willimantic Linen Company, which we believe
+has never before been accomplished on any ring frame.
+
+We invite you to examine this invention at the fair, and also call your
+attention to the adjustable roller beam, by means of which the rolls can
+be adjusted at any desirable angle or pitch, so as to throw the twist
+more or less directly into the bite of the rolls, according to the
+character of the yarn desired, or the quality of the stock used.
+
+Finally, we claim, by the use of this invention, to be able to spin any
+fibrous material which can be drawn by draught-rolls, of any required
+degree of softness of twist, such as can be spun by any mule whatever,
+and to do this with the attention only of children of from twelve to
+fourteen years of age.
+
+We also claim an increased production, owing to less breakage of ends,
+from the yarn not being overstrained in spinning, and an improvement in
+the quality of the yarn from the same cause, which will increase the
+production from the loom, and finally eradicate other objectionable
+features of the labor question, which so often disturb the peaceful
+harmony between labor and capital.
+
+Mr. Goulding asked if it had been demonstrated whether more or less
+power was required for the same numbers than by other methods, and Col.
+Webber replied that no more power was required to move the rings than
+was saved by friction on the ring and the saving of weight of the
+bobbins. He thought it required no more power than the old way.
+
+_The method of lubricating the ring_.--The inventor, who was present,
+stated, in response to a query, that he claimed an advantage for his
+ring in spinning all numbers from the very coarsest up, both in quality
+and quantity, and especially the former.
+
+Mr. Garsed inquired of Col Webber what would be the effect of running
+the machine a little out of true, and the reply was that the advantage
+of the new method over the old would be more apparent in such a case
+than with a perfect frame. In regard to speed, the inventor proposed
+as a maximum rate, when the wind was at the tip of the bobbin, 300
+revolutions per minute, but from this point the speed would diminish.
+
+It was suggested by a member that the only advantage of a revolving ring
+was to relieve the strain on the traveler just to the extent of the
+ring's revolutions. If the ring were making 300 revolutions per minute,
+and the traveler 6,000, the strain on the latter would be equal to 5,700
+revolutions on a stationary ring. Col. Webber, however, thought that the
+motion of the ring gave the traveler a lift that prevented its stopping
+at any particular point, and cited the fact that all numbers up to 400
+could be spun with this ring as proof of its superiority over the old
+method.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+NEW GAS BURNER.
+
+
+Speaking at the last meeting of the Gaslight and Coke Company, Mr.
+George Livesey said many things with a view to inspire confidence of the
+future in the minds of timid gas proprietors. Among others he mentioned
+the advances now being made by invention in regard to improved
+appliances for developing the illuminating power of coal gas, with
+especial reference to a new burner just patented by Mr. Grimston. Mr.
+Livesey passed a very high encomium upon the burner, and this expression
+of opinion by such an authority is sufficient to arouse deep interest in
+the apparatus in question. It is therefore with much pleasure that we
+present our readers with the following early account of Mr. Grimston's
+burner, for which we are indebted to the inventor and Mr. George Bower,
+of St. Neots, in whose manufactory the burners are now being made in all
+sizes. It should be premised, to save disappointment, that the invention
+is yet so fresh that its ultimate capabilities are unknown. The
+accompanying illustration, therefore, represents the bare skeleton of
+one of the first models; and the actual performance of only the very
+earliest burner, made in great part by Mr. Grimston himself, has been
+fully tested. Before proceeding to describe the invention, a brief
+history may be interesting of how it happened that Mr. Grimston, an
+electric lighting engineer, became a gas burner maker. The story will
+undoubtedly help to explain the reasons for many of the characteristics
+of the new burner.
+
+[Illustration: IMPROVED GAS BURNER. FIG. 1.--Sectional Elevation.]
+
+It appears, then, that Mr. Grimston, who was connected with the
+electrical engineering establishment of Siemens Bros. & Co., Limited,
+was some months ago shown the construction and working of the Siemens
+regenerative gas burner, which is now sufficiently well known to render
+a description unnecessary here. In common with most spectators of this
+very ingeniously and philosophically designed appliance, Mr. Grimston
+was struck with its bulk and the superficial clumsiness of the
+arrangement whereby the air and gas supply are heated in it by the
+products of combustion. These lamps have, of course, materially improved
+of late; but when Mr. Grimston first saw them, perhaps 18 months ago,
+they certainly could not be called neat and compact in design. He
+at once grasped the idea embodied in these lamps, and set about
+constructing an arrangement which should be based on a similar
+principle, but at the same time avoid the inconveniences complained of.
+It is not too much to say that he has succeeded in both these aims, and
+the burner which now bears his name strikes the observer at once by
+the brilliant light which it produces by the simplest and most
+obvious means. We may now describe, by reference to the accompanying
+illustrations, how Mr. Grimston produces the regenerative effect which
+is likewise the central idea of the Siemens burner.
+
+[Illustration: IMPROVED GAS BURNER. FIG. 2.--Section through A B.]
+
+The light is simply that produced by an arrangement of a kind of Argand
+burner turned upside down. The central gas-pipe, _a_ (Figs. 1 and 3), is
+connected to a distributing chamber, whence the annular cluster of brass
+tubes, _a', a_, (Figs. 1 and 2), are prolonged downward, forming the
+burner. The burner is inclosed in an iron or brass annular casing, b, b,
+which forms the main framework of the apparatus. The annular space which
+it affords is the outlet chimney or flue for the products of combustion
+of the burner beneath, and is crossed by a number of thin brass tubes,
+c, c, which lead from the outer air into the inner space containing
+the burner tubes, a', a', already described. The upper openings of the
+annular body, b, are shown at e, e (Fig. 3), which communicate direct
+with the chimney proper, e', e'. The burner is lighted by opening the
+hinged glass cover, d, which fits practically air-tight on the bottom
+of the body, so that the air needed to support combustion must all pass
+through the tubes, c, c, the outer ends of which are protected by the
+casing, k, k.
+
+[Illustration: IMPROVED GAS BURNER. FIG. 3.--Section through C D.]
+
+When the gas is lighted at the burner, and the glass closed, the burner
+begins to act at once, although some minutes are necessarily required
+to elapse before its full brilliancy is gained. The cold air passes in
+through the tubes provided for it, and when these are heated to the
+fullest extent on their outside, by the hot fumes from the burner, they
+so readily part with their heat to the air that a temperature of 1,000 deg.
+to 1,200 deg. Fahr. is easily obtained in the air when it arrives inside,
+and commences in turn to heat the burner-tubes. The air-tubes are placed
+so as to intercept the hot gases as completely as possible; and also, of
+course, obtain heat by conduction from the sides of the annular body.
+It is evident that the number and dimensions of these tubes might be
+increased so as to abstract almost all the heat from the escaping fumes,
+but for the limitations imposed, first, by a consideration of the actual
+quantity of air required to support combustion, and, secondly, by the
+obligation to let sufficient ascensional power remain in the gases which
+are left to pass out through the upper chimney. If the gases are cooled
+too much, they will either fall back into the lamp and extinguish the
+flame, or will be removable only by the draught of a long chimney. It
+will probably be the aim of the inventor to balance these requirements,
+and so to produce burners with very short or longer chimneys, according
+as appearance is to be consulted or the highest possible effect
+produced. The burner is a ring of brass tubes of considerable diameter,
+in proportion to the quantity of gas consumed, and thus provides for
+the delivery of gas expanded by heat. In connection with this device
+an explanation may be found of the failure of the British Association
+Committee on Gas Burners to find any advantage from previously heating
+the air and gas consumed. The Committee did not make the necessary
+provision for the increased bulk of the combustible and its air supply,
+caused by their heightened temperature; and the same quantity of gas
+measured cold (at the meter) could only be driven through the ordinary
+small burner holes at a velocity destructive of good results. Herr
+Frederick Siemens perceived this in his early experiments, and not only
+increased the orifices of his burners, but provided for the closer
+contact of the more rarefied gas and air by the use of notched
+deflectors, which are now an essential part of his apparatus. Mr.
+Grimston also uses separate tubes of large area for his hot gas, but
+dispenses with deflectors, save in so far as the same duty may be
+performed by the plain lower edge of the inner cylinder of the lamp
+body, and the indentation of the glass beneath, which, as will be
+noticed, is made to follow the shape of the flame. It only remains now
+to speak of the flame and its qualities. It is, in the first place, a
+flame of hot gas, burning at an extremly small velocity of flow, and
+wholly exposed to view from the exact point which it is required to
+light. In this latter respect it differs materially, and with advantage,
+from the Siemens burner, which, while presenting an extremely brilliant
+and beautiful ball of flame outside its central tube of porcelain, may
+yet be tailing smokily downward inside this opaque screen, and thereby
+causing unperceived waste. The flame of the Grimston burner, on the
+other hand, is quite exposed, and all its light, from the ends of the
+burner-tubes to the point where visible combustion ceases, is made
+available for use. As a perfect Argand flame in the usual position has
+been likened in form to a tulip flower, so the flame of this burner
+presents the appearance of an inverted convolvulus. So far as he has
+already gone, Mr. Grimston prefers to keep the tubes of the burner at
+such a distance from each other that the several jets part at the point
+where they turn upward, so that the convolvulus figure is not maintained
+to the edge of the flame. From its peculiar position the light is, of
+course, completely shadowless as regards the lamp which affords it; and
+this, of itself, is no small recommendation for a pendant. It shows well
+for the simplicity and effectiveness of the perfected burners that Mr.
+Grimston's experimental example, although necessarily imperfect In many
+ways, burns with a remarkably steady light, of great brilliancy, which
+is assured by the fact that the products of combustion are robbed of all
+their heat to magnify the useful effect, so that the hand may be borne
+with ease over the outlet of the chimney. With respect to the endurance
+of the apparatus, it will be sufficient to remark that there is nothing
+in the gas or air heating arrangements to get out of order, and they are
+all easily accessible while the burner is in action. The glass is not
+liable to breakage, although it is in close proximity to the flame, as
+may be gathered from the testimony of the inventor, who has never broken
+one, notwithstanding the severity of some of his experimental studies
+upon his first lamp. The consumption of gas in the first working-model
+burner made by Mr. Grimston was 10 cubic feet per hour, and its
+illuminating power averaged 60 candles. The diameter of this burner was
+11/4 inches across the tubes. It is scarcely necessary to state that if
+this high duty, which was obtained with the ordinary 16-candle gas of
+the Gaslight and Coke Company, can be maintained, to say nothing of
+being exceeded, in the commercial article, the Grimston burner, with its
+other advantages over all existing methods of obtaining equal results,
+has a great future before it. For example, it does not require a
+separate air supply under high pressure, or any extra material to render
+incandescent, and it may be turned on full immediately upon lighting. It
+throws a shadowless light, and lends itself to ventilating arrangements;
+and it is not by any means cumbersome, delicate in construction, or
+costly in manufacture. One of the greatest advantages to which it lays
+claim is, however, the power of yielding almost as good results in a
+small burner as in a large one. This is a consideration of great moment,
+when it is remembered that the tendency of most of the high power
+burners hitherto introduced is to benefit the lighting of streets,
+large interiors, and, generally speaking, points of great consumption.
+Meanwhile, the private user of burners, consuming from 3 to 5 cubic feet
+of gas per hour, has been left to attain as best he might, by the use of
+burners excellent of their kind, to the maximum effect of the standard
+Argand. Now, however, Mr. Grimston seeks to make the small consumer
+partake of the advantages erstwhile reserved for the wholesale user of
+large and costly Siemens and other lamps, and he even looks to this
+class of patrons with particular care. The example which we now
+illustrate, in Fig. 1, is a sectional presentment precisely half the
+actual size of a 5-foot burner, which it is intended to prepare for
+the market before all others. Another simple form of the burner, with
+vertical tubes, will, we understand, be introduced as soon as possible.
+It will be readily understood that the principle is capable of being
+embodied in many shapes; and it is satisfactory to learn that the
+inventor is quite alive to the necessity of producing a cheap as well as
+a good burner.
+
+Gas companies, as Mr. Livesey has expressed it, will be well content
+with a slower relative growth of consumption, if their consumers are at
+the same time making their gas go as far again as formerly, by the use
+of burners which turn nominal 16-candle gas into gas of 30-candle actual
+illuminating power. How far Mr. Grimston's invention may succeed in this
+work it is not for us to say. It is sufficient for the present that
+he has done excellently well in showing how Herr Frederick Siemens'
+scientific principles of regenerative gas burner construction may
+be carried out yet in another way. There is nothing more common in
+industrial annals than for one man to begin a work which another is
+destined to bring to greater perfection. Whether this natural process is
+to be repeated in the present instance must be left for the future to
+decide. In any case, Mr. Grimston's success, if success is to be his
+reward, though it will be well merited by his ingenuity and perseverance
+in solving a difficult problem, will never cause us to forget the
+prior claims of Herr Frederick Siemens, of Dresden, to the palm of the
+discoverer. Mr. Grimston may or may not be the happy inventor of the
+best gas-burner of the day; but there is the consolation of knowing that
+in the same field in which he will find his recompense there is room for
+any number and variety of useful improvements of a like character and
+object.--_Journal of Gas Lighting_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+DEFTY'S IMPROVEMENTS IN GAS BURNERS AND HEATERS.
+
+
+Among other inventors who have turned their attention to gas consumption
+is to be found Mr. H. Defty, who has made several forms both of heating
+and lighting burners. Mr. Defty has sought in the latter to apply the
+principle of heating the air and gas in a simple manner, with the object
+of obtaining improved photometrical results. The double-chimney
+Argand, as tried many years since by Dr. Frankland and others, makes
+a reappearance in one of Mr. Defty's models, illustrated in the
+accompanying diagram (Fig. 1).
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 1.]
+
+Here we have the double-chimney, a and b, for heating the air supplied
+to an ordinary Argand, by causing it to pass downward between the two
+chimneys, and inward to the point of combustion through a wire-gauze
+screen, c, under the inner chimney; but, in addition thereto, Mr. Defty
+hopes to gain an improved result by causing the gas to pass through the
+internal tube, s, which rises up in the middle of the flame. The gas,
+which enters at e, is made to pass up through the inner tube and down
+through the annular space to the burner.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 2.]
+
+A more important form of lantern is the subject of the next diagram
+(Fig. 2), which shows a suspended globe lantern in which there is an
+attempt made to heat the air by the waste heat of the products of
+combustion. It will be perceived by the diagram that a globe lantern is
+furnished with a double chimney; the annular space, C, between the
+inner and outer chimneys allowing for the access of air in a downward
+direction. At the lower of this annular channel are the tubes D,
+protected by the graduated mesh, E, and which admit the air to the
+burner below. The products of combustion of the flame rise through the
+inner chimney, passing around the tubes, and thereby giving up some of
+their heat to the incoming air. Farther up, the chimney is partly filled
+with the convoluted gas-pipe, A, which also takes up some of the waste
+heat, and delivers the gas to the burner at a correspondingly high
+temperature. A very simple method of lighting this burner, which in
+itself does not present anything remarkable, is arranged at the lower
+part of the globe, where a hole is cut and a loose conical glass plug
+(which can, of course, be made to partake of the general ornamentation
+of the globe) may be pushed up to allow of the passage of the lighting
+agent, and is then dropped in its place again. Formal tests of the
+performances of these burners are not available; and the same may be
+said of the heating burners which are shown in the following diagrams.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 3.]
+
+The first of these (Fig. 3) is called by Mr. Defty a "pyramid heater,"
+and is designed to heat the mixture of air and gas before ignition, by
+conduction from its own flame. The inventor claims to effect a perfect
+combustion in this manner with considerable economy of fuel. It is
+evident, however, that a good deal of the gas consumed goes to heat the
+burner itself.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 4.]
+
+The next and last of Mr. Defty's productions to be at present described
+is the so-called "crater burner," shown herewith (Fig. 4). This is an
+atmospheric burner which is purposely made to "fire back," as well as
+to burn on the top of the apparatus. The body of the burner, like the
+pyramid heater just described, is full of fire-clay balls, which become
+very hot from the lower flame, and thus, after the burner has been for
+some time in action, a pale, lambent blaze crowns the top, apparently
+greater in volume than when it is first lighted. Here, again, there is a
+lamentable absence of reliable data as to economic results, which will,
+perhaps, be afforded when the apparatus in question is ready to be
+offered to the public.
+
+Whether one inventor or another succeeds in distancing his rivals, it is
+matter, says _The Journal of Gas Lighting_, for sincere congratulation
+among the friends of gas lighting that so much attention is being
+concentrated upon the improvement of gas burners for all purposes. This
+is an open field which affords scope for more workers than have yet
+entered upon it, and there is the certainty of substantial reward to
+whoever can realize a worthy advance upon the established practice.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+NEW BINDING MACHINES.
+
+
+The accompanying cuts represent two new machines for binding together
+books and pamphlets. They are the invention of Messrs. Brehmer & Co.,
+and are now much used in England and Germany. The material used for
+binding is galvanized iron wire.
+
+_Machine Operated by Hand_ (Fig. 1).--This machine serves for fastening
+together the pages of pamphlets through the middle of the fold, or for
+binding together several sheets to form books up to a thickness of about
+half an inch.
+
+It consists of a small cast-iron frame, with which is articulated a
+lever, _i_, maneuvered by a handle, _h_. This lever is provided at its
+extremity with a curved slat, in which engages a stud, fixed to the
+lower part of a movable arm, _c_, whose extremity, _d_, rises and
+descends when the lever handle, _h_, is acted upon. This maneuver can be
+likewise performed by the foot, if the handle, _h_, be connected with a
+pedal, X, placed at the foot of the table that supports the machine,
+as shown in Fig. 2. The lever, _i_, is always drawn back to its first
+position, when left to itself, by means of the spring, _z_.
+
+[Illustration: IMPROVED BINDING MACHINE.]
+
+The staples for binding have nearly the form of the letter U, and are
+placed, to the number of 250 or 300, on small blocks of wood, _m_. To
+prepare the machine for work, the catch, _a_, is shoved back, and the
+whole upper part of the piece, _b_, is removed. The rod, _e_, with its
+spring, is then drawn back until a small hole in _e_ is perceived,
+and into this there is introduced the hook, _f_, which then holds the
+spring. The block of wood, _m_, filled with staples, is then rested
+against a rectangular horizontal rod, and into this latter the staples
+are slipped by hand. The upper part of the piece, _b_, is next put in
+place and fastened with the catch, _a_. Finally, the spring is freed
+from the hook, _f_. When it is desired to bind the pages of a pamphlet,
+the latter is placed open on the support, _g_, which, as will be
+noticed, is angular above, so that the staple may enter exactly on the
+line of the fold. Then the handle, _h_, is shoved down so as to act on
+the arm, _c_, and cause the descent of the extremity, _d_, as well as
+the vertical piece, _b_, with which it engages. This latter, in its
+downward travel, takes up one of the staples, which are continually
+thrust forward by the rod and spring, and causes it to penetrate the
+paper. At this moment, the handle, _h_, makes the lever, _n_, oscillate,
+and this raises, through its other extremity, a vertical slide whose
+head bends the two points of the staple toward each other. The handle,
+_h_, is afterward lifted, the position of the pamphlet is changed, and
+the same operation is repeated. When it is desired to form a book from
+a number of sheets, the table, _l_, is mounted on the support, _g_, its
+two movable registers are regulated, and the sheets are spread out flat
+on it. The machine, in operating, drives the staples in along the edge
+of the sheets, and the points are bent over, as above indicated.
+
+The axis on which the lever, _i_, is articulated is eccentric, and is
+provided on the side opposite the lever with a needle, _k_, revolving
+on a dial. The object of this arrangement is to regulate the machine
+according to the thickness of the book.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
+
+_Machine to be Operated by a Motor_ (Fig. 3).--This machine, although
+working on the same principle, is of an entirely different construction.
+It is designed for binding books of all dimensions. It consists of a
+frame, _a_, in two pieces, connected by cross-pieces, and carries a
+table, _u_, designed to receive the sheets before being bound together.
+Motion is transmitted by means of a cone, _c_, mounted loose on the
+shaft, _b_. To start the machine, the foot is pressed on the pedal, _m_,
+which, through the intermedium of links and arms, brings together the
+friction plates, _d_, one of which is connected with the shaft, _b_, and
+the other with the cone, _c_. When it is desired to stop the machine,
+the pedal is left free to itself, while the counterpoise, _s_, ungears
+the friction plates. The machine fastens the paper with galvanized iron
+wire wound round bobbins placed at the side of the apparatus. This wire
+it cuts, and forms into staples.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
+
+The book to be bound is placed on the support, _h_, and the arms, _k_,
+that carry the fasteners cause it to move backward and forward. It also
+undergoes a second motion--that is, it moves downward according to the
+number and thickness of its pages. This motion, which takes place
+every time the operator adds a new sheet, is regulated by a cog-wheel
+register, _l_, which is divided, and provided with a needle.
+
+The iron wires pass from the bobbins on a support to the left of the
+machine by means of feed rollers, which thrust them through the eight
+clips. In the interior of these latter there is a double knife, which,
+actuated by one of the cams of the wheel, _e_, cuts the wire and bends
+it thus [Inline Illustration]. The extremities of the staples are thrust
+through the back of the half opened leaves, and then bent toward each
+other thus [Inline Illustration], by the front fastener. This motion is
+effected by means of two levers, _p_ (moved by the cams, _e_), whose
+extremities at every revolution of the machine seize by the two ends a
+link that maneuvers the fasteners. The binding of one sheet finished,
+the lower arms of the machine again take their position, the wires move
+forward the length necessary to form new staples, a new sheet is laid,
+and the same operation is proceeded with. The number of staples and
+their distance are changed, according to the size of the book, by
+introducing into the machine as much wire as will be necessary for the
+staples. To prevent their number from increasing the thickness of the
+back of the book (as would happen were they superposed), the support,
+_h_, moves laterally at every blow, so as to cause the third staple to
+be driven over the first, the second over the fourth, etc.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+FLUMES AND THEIR CONSTRUCTION.
+
+
+In crossing ravines in this State, flumes or wrought iron pipes are
+used. Many miners object to flumes on account of their continual cost
+and danger of destruction by fire. Where used and practicable, they
+are set on heavier grades than ditches, 30 to 35 ft. per mile, and,
+consequently, are proportionately of smaller area than the ditches. In
+their construction a straight line is the most desirable. Curves, where
+required, should be carefully set, so that the flume may discharge its
+maximum quantity. Many ditches in California have miles of fluming. The
+annexed sketch, drawn by A. J. Bowie, Jr., will show the ordinary style
+of construction.
+
+[Illustration: SKETCH OF FLUME.]
+
+The planking ordinarily used is of heart sugar pine, one and a half to
+two inches thick, and 12 to 18 inches wide. Where the boards join, pine
+battens three inches wide by one and a half thick cover the seam. Sills,
+posts, and caps support and strengthen the flume every four feet. The
+posts are mortised into the caps and sills. The sills extend about
+20 inches beyond the posts, and to them side braces are nailed to
+strengthen the structure. This extension of the sill timbers affords a
+place for the accumulation of snow and ice, and in the mountains such
+accumulations frequently break them off, and occasionally destroy a
+flume.
+
+To avoid damage from slides, snow, and wind storms, the flumes are set
+in as close as possible to the bank, and rest, wholly or partially, on
+a solid bed, as the general topography and costs will admit. Stringers
+running the entire length of the flume are placed beneath the sills just
+outside of the posts. They are not absolutely necessary, but in point of
+economy are most valuable, as they preserve the timbers. As occasion
+may demand, the flume is trestled, the main supports being placed every
+eight feet. The scantling and struts used are in accordance with the
+requirements of the work.--_Min. and Sci. Press_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHUWAB'S ROLLING MILL FOR DRESSING AND ROUNDING BAR IRON.
+
+
+This new forge apparatus has been devised for the purpose of finishing
+up round irons of all diameters while hot, as they come out of
+the ordinary rolling mill, by rendering them perfectly circular,
+cylindrical, straight, smooth, and level at the extremities, as if they
+had passed through a slide lathe. Such a high degree of external finish
+is a very valuable feature in those round irons that are employed in so
+great quantity for shafting, cylindrical axles, etc., as well as in the
+manufacture of bolts and locks. Figs. 1, 2, 3, and 4 of the opposite
+engraving will allow it to be seen that this apparatus which is usually
+installed at the side of the finishing cylinder is, in part, beneath
+the general level of the forge floor. It may be placed parallel with or
+perpendicular to the apparatus that it does duty for, this depending
+upon the site at disposal or the mode of transmission.
+
+The apparatus consists essentially of two tempered iron cylinders, A,
+0.5 of a meter in diameter by 1.5 meters in length, revolving in the
+_same direction_ (contrary to what takes place in ordinary rolling
+mills) between two frames, B, that are open on one side to allow of
+the entrance of the finishing bar. This latter is held between the
+cylinders, A, which roll it so much the faster in proportion as its
+diameter is smaller, and by a scraper guide, C, of the same length as
+the cylinder table, and which may be regulated at will by bolts, c,
+fixed to the frame, B. The bottom cylinder remains always in the same
+position, while the axle, D, which carries the intermediate wheels, E,
+moves about to gear in all the relative positions of the cylinders. The
+displacement of the upper cylinder is effected through the clamping
+screws, b, which are actuated by toothed disks that gear with two
+endless screws keyed at the extremities of one shaft in common, d, which
+is set in motion by hand through the winches, m m. The scraper guards, e
+e, take up and throw aside all scales that might become attached to the
+cylinders, which are constantly moistened by small streams of water
+coming from an ordinary conduit.
+
+[Illustration: CHUWAB'S DRESSING AND ROUNDING ROLLING MILL.
+
+Fig. 1--Elevation and Longitudinal Section.
+
+Fig. 2--Side View.
+
+Fig. 3--Transvers Section.
+
+Fig. 4--Plan View.
+
+Figs. 5 & 6--Saws for Dressing the Extremities of the Bars.
+
+Fig. 7--Diagram Showing the Motion of the Wheels and Guide.
+
+Figs. 8 & 9--Apparatus for Shifting tha Bars.]
+
+As the driving belts are mounted on pulleys, G, of a diameter
+proportioned to the velocity of the shafting, the iron pinions, h, in
+order to produce 60 revolutions per minute in the first shaft, H, gear
+on each side with the intermediate wheels, E, and these actuate the
+two bronze pinions, a a, that are mounted on the extremities of the
+cylinders, A A. The axle, D, of the intermediate wheels does not revolve
+with them, but is capable of rising and descending in the elongated
+aperture that traverses the frames, B. The displacement of this axle is
+secured through the arms, L L, whose extremities articulate on the one
+hand with the cylinders, A A, and on the other with D. The result of
+this is that every displacement upward of the top cylinder corresponds
+to a different position of the intermediate shaft, and one that is
+always equidistant from the centers of the cylinders, A A, thus securing
+a constant gearing of the wheels in all the positions of the cylinders,
+A A.
+
+The diagram in Fig. 7 shows the relative displacements of all these
+parts, as well as those of the scraper guide, C. The diameter to be
+obtained is determined beforehand by the two contact screws, P.
+
+The whole thus regulated, the bar of iron, still very hot, coming from
+the ordinary rollers, is straightened up, if need be, by a few blows of
+a hammer, so that it may roll forward over the pavement, N, between the
+rounding cylinders, A A; these being held apart sufficiently to allow
+of its easy introduction. Next, a few revolutions of the winches that
+control the screws suffice to lower the upper cylinder to the exact
+position limited by the contact screws, P, and the bar is rolled between
+the two cylinder tables with a constant velocity in the generatrices. As
+a consequence, the number of revolutions made is so much the greater in
+proportion as the diameter of the shaft is smaller with respect to that
+of the cylinders.
+
+It should be remarked that the bar, during its rotation under pressure,
+is held by the guide, C, so that its diagrammatic axis (Fig. 7) exceeds
+the line, A A, joining the centers of the cylinders just enough to
+prevent its escape to the opposite, and so that the pressure upon the
+said guide (which performs the role of scraper) is merely sufficient to
+detach the scales which form during the operation.
+
+Under such conditions, and at a velocity of 30 revolutions per minute in
+the two cylinders, it will take but a fraction of a minute to finish
+a bar the length of the table, that is to say, 1.5 meters. Then, by
+loosening the upper cylinder, the bar may be easily shoved along in one
+direction or the other, so as to continue the finishing operation
+on successive lengths. This moving of the bar forward is further
+facilitated by the aid of a clamp with rollers and a movable socket,
+V (Figs. 8 and 9). For large diameters (150 millimeters and beyond)
+traction is employed by the aid of two small windlasses placed opposite
+each other, and at a distance apart twice the greatest length of the
+bars to be finished. The chains of these windlasses are attached to the
+extremities by clamps that lock by the pulling exerted.
+
+The details of the arrangement of the saws (Figs. 5 and 6) show that to
+make a section of the ends or of any other part of the bar, it is only
+necessary to lower the lever of one them. By reason of the contrary
+rotation of the bar, the effective stress on the lever will be very
+moderate, while the cut produced will be a clean and quickly performed
+one. It should be remarked that, as a consequence of the cone on the
+projecting extremity of the cylinder journals (Fig. 5), and on the
+rollers that control the saws, it is only necessary to move the lever to
+the right or left in order to stop the motion of each of the saws. These
+latter, to prevent all possibility of accident, are inclosed within
+semicircular guards. Finally, the controlling rollers are made of a
+material which is quite elastic (compressed cardboard, for example), so
+that they may roll smoothly and adhere well.
+
+From what precedes, it will be seen that round iron bars of any diameter
+will come from this apparatus completely finished. It will be seen
+also that with cylinders of suitable profile, there might likewise be
+finished axles, or pieces that are more or less conical as well as those
+provided with shoulders.
+
+The apparatus may, if preferred, be driven by small special motors
+affixed to the frame. Such an arrangement, which is more costly than the
+preceding, is, nevertheless, indicated in cases where shafting would be
+in the way.
+
+The weight of the materials entering into the construction of this
+machine, proposed by Mr. Chuwab, includes about 15 tons of metal,
+of which 5,000 kilogrammes are for the two tempered cylinders; 250
+kilogrammes of iron screws, and 350 of bolts; and 500 kilogrammes of
+bronze, 90 of which are for nuts.--_Revue Industrielle_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE BURNING OF TOWN REFUSE AT LEEDS.
+
+[Footnote: From selected papers of the Institution of Civil Engineers,
+London, by Charles Slagg, Assoc. Memb. Inst. C.E.]
+
+
+In large towns it is necessary to adopt some regular system of removal
+and disposal of the cinders and ashes of house fires, and of the animal
+and vegetable refuse of the houses, and, in short, of everything thrown
+away which cannot be admitted into the sewers. In towns where the
+excreta are separated by means of water closets, the disposal of the
+other refuse presents less difficulty, but still a considerable one,
+because the animal and vegetable refuse is not kept separate from the
+cinders and ashes, all being thrown together into the ash pit or dust
+bin. The contents, therefore, cannot be deposited upon ground which may
+afterward be built upon, although that custom obtained generally in
+former times. Hence the refuse has been removed to a depot where that
+wretched industry is created of picking out the other parts from the
+cinders and ashes.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 1.--DESTRUCTOR.
+
+Elevation.
+
+Section through feeding-holes of cells.
+
+Section through air-passages of cells.]
+
+But in towns unprovided with water closets, or so far as they are not
+adopted in any town, where the privies are connected with the ash pits,
+and where, consequently, the excreta of the population are added to the
+other contents of ash pits, the difficulties of removal and disposal of
+the refuse are much increased.
+
+Where the privy-ashpit system is in use--as it still is to a large
+extent--as much of the contents of the ash pits as can be sold at any
+price, however small, are collected separately from the drier portions,
+and sent out of town as manure; but what remains is still too offensive
+to be deposited on ground near the town; and when it is attempted to
+collect the excreta separately by the pail system, the process is no
+less unsatisfactory. These difficulties led to the adoption, under the
+advice of the late Mr. A.W. Morant, M. Inst. C.E., the Borough Engineer
+at Leeds, of Fryer's method of destruction by burning--that is, of the
+dry ashes and cinders and the animal and vegetable refuse. The
+author was Mr. Morant's assistant. The first kiln was constructed at
+Burmantofts, 11/2 miles from the center of the town in a northeasterly
+direction, and has been in use since the beginning of the year 1878. In
+1879 another kiln was constructed at Armley Road, a mile from the center
+of the town in a west-southwesterly direction, which has been in use
+since the beginning of 1880.
+
+Each destructor kiln has six cells, three in each face of a block of
+brick work 22 feet long, 24 feet through from face to face, and 12 feet
+high. Each cell is 8 feet long and 5 feet wide, arched over, the height
+being 3 feet 4 inches, and both the bottom and arch of the cell slope
+down to the furnace doors with an inclination of 1 in 3. The lower end
+of each cell has about 26 square feet of wrought-iron firebars, the
+hearth being 41/2 feet above the ground.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 2.--CARBONIZER.
+
+Section through furnaces.
+
+Longitudinal section.
+
+Cross section.]
+
+There are two floors, one on the ground level, a few feet only above the
+outlet for drainage, the other floor, or raised platform, being 15 feet
+above it. The refuse is taken in carts up an incline of 1 in 14 on
+cast-iron tram plates to the upper floor, and deposited upon and
+alongside of the destructor, and is shoveled into a row of hoppers at
+the head of the cells. These hoppers are in the middle of the width of
+the destructor, and each communicates with a cell on each side of it.
+The refuse is always damp, and often wet, and after being put into
+the cells is gradually dried by the heat reflected upon it from the
+firebrick arch of the cell, before it descends to the furnace. This
+distinguishes the system from the common furnace, and enables the wet
+material to be burned without other fuel. No fresh fuel is used after
+the fires are once lighted. The vapor passes off with the gases of
+combustion into a horizontal flue between the two rows of cells, through
+an opening at the head of each cell, alongside that through which the
+refuse is fed into it, the two openings being separated by a firebrick
+wall. The refuse is prevented from falling into the flue by a bridge
+wall across the outlet opening, over which the gases pass into the flue.
+
+Between the destructor and the chimney a multitubular boiler is placed,
+which makes steam enough for grinding into sand the clinkers which are
+the solid residue of the burnt refuse. At Burmantofts an old chimney was
+made use of, which is but 84 feet high; but at Armley Road a new chimney
+was built, 6 feet square inside and 120 feet high. It is necessary to
+make the horizontal flue large; that at Armley Road is 9 feet high and 4
+feet wide. A large quantity of dust escapes from the cells--about 7 cwt.
+a month--and unless the velocity of the air in the flue between the
+destructor and the chimney were checked, the dust would be carried up
+the chimney and might cause complaints; as, indeed, it has done with the
+120-foot chimney, but whether with any substantial grounds is uncertain.
+The dust is removed from the horizontal flue or dust chamber once a
+month. Experience seems to indicate that there should be some sort of
+guard or grating to prevent the entry into the chimney of charred paper
+and similar light substances which do not fall to dust, and which are
+sometimes carried up with the draught.
+
+A six-celled destructor kiln burns about 42 tons of refuse in
+twenty-four hours, leaving about one-fourth of its bulk of clinkers and
+ashes. The clinkers are withdrawn from the furnaces five times each day
+and night, or about every two-and-a-half hours, into iron barrows, and
+wheeled outside the shed which covers the destructor, and when cold are
+wheeled back to the mortar mills, of which there are two at each depot,
+each having a revolving pan 8 feet in diameter, with 27-cwt. rollers,
+the pan making twenty two revolutions a minute. Forty shovelfuls of
+clinkers and twelve of slaked lime make 7 cwt. of mortar in thirty-five
+minutes in each pan, which is sold at 5s. 6d. per ton. The engine
+driving the two mortar mills has a 14 inch cylinder, 30 inches length
+of stroke, and makes sixty revolutions per minute with 45 pounds steam
+pressure per square inch in the boiler, when both mortar mills are
+running. The boiler is 11 feet long, 8 feet in diameter, and has 132
+tubes 4 inches in external diameter, which, together with the external
+flues, are cleaned out once a month.
+
+At first sight it would probably appear that no good mortar could be
+made from such refuse as has been described, but having passed through
+the furnace, the clinkers are, of course, perfectly clean, and with good
+lime make a really strong and excellent mortar. They are also largely
+used for the foundation of roadways.
+
+The number of men employed is as follows: Two furnace men in the daytime
+and two at night. They work from midnight on Sundays to 2 P.M. on
+Saturdays, the fires being fully charged and left to burn through the
+Sundays. One foreman, who attends also to the running of the engine, and
+one mortar man. A watchman attends while the workmen are off.
+
+In addition to a destructor, there is at the Burmautofts depot a
+"carbonizer" kiln, in which the sweepings of the vegetable markets are
+burned into charcoal. The carbonizer consists of eight vertical cells,
+in two sets or stacks of four, separated by a space containing two
+double furnaces, back to back, there being a double furnace also at each
+end of the eight cells. Each of the stacks of four cells is 15 feet
+6 inches high; the ends and middle parts, forming the tops of the
+furnaces, being 6 feet high. The block of brick work containing the
+eight cells and furnaces is 26 feet 6 inches long and 12 feet 4 inches
+wide at the floor level. Each cell is 3 feet 6 inches by 2 feet, and
+about 10 feet deep, with a chamber below about 3 feet deep, into which
+the charred material falls and is completely burned. The top of the
+cells is level with the upper platform, and they are fed through a loose
+cover, which is immediately replaced. Inside the cells cast-iron sloping
+shelves are hung upon the walls so that their upper edges touch the
+walls, but the lower edges are some inches off, so that the hot air of
+the furnaces passes upward behind the shelves round the four sides of
+the cell in a spiral manner, and out near the top into a vertical flue,
+which conducts it down to the horizontal flue at the bottom, which leads
+to the chimney. The charcoal is withdrawn from the bottom of the heating
+chamber through a sliding plate 2 feet above the floor, and is wheeled
+red hot to the charcoal cooler, which is a revolving cylinder, nearly
+horizontal, kept cool by water falling upon it, and delivers the
+charcoal in two degrees of fineness at the end. It is worked by a small
+attached engine, supplied with steam from the boiler before mentioned.
+Each cell of the carbonizer can reduce to charcoal 50 cwt. of vegetable
+refuse in twenty four hours, but at Leeds not quite so much is put
+through. The quantity of market refuse passed through six cells of the
+carbonizer varies from 3 to 10 tons a day, and averages about 41/2 tons,
+from which 15 cwt. of charcoal is obtained. The fuel for burning the
+charcoal is derived from the ash pit refuse, some selected loads being
+for that purpose passed over a sloping screen fixed between the upper
+platform and the furnace floor, the fine ashes which pass through the
+screen being taken away to the manure heaps, and the combustible parts
+to the furnaces of the carbonizer. In this way a good deal of the ash
+pit refuse is got rid of; it is often one-twelfth part of the whole
+quantity.
+
+The carbonizer and the destructor are set 33 feet apart, to allow room
+for drawing the furnaces and for the mortar mills, but the space is
+hardly sufficient. One man is employed in attending to the carbonizer.
+
+Besides the openings at the top of the destructor through which the ash
+pit refuse is fed into the cells, there is a larger opening in each
+cell, kept covered usually, through which bed mattresses ordered by the
+medical sanitary office to be destroyed can be put into the cells. These
+openings are midway between the central openings and the furnace doors,
+and whatever is put into the cells through these comes into immediate
+contact with the fire. Advantage is taken of these openings for the
+destruction of dead animals and diseased meat, and as much as 20 tons in
+a year have been passed through the destructor.
+
+The whole works are roofed over. The lower floor is open on two sides,
+but the upper one is closed in, with weather boarding at Burmantofts and
+with corrugated iron at Armley Road. At the former place the works
+were in some measure experimental, and the platform was constructed
+of timber, but at Armley Road it is of plate-iron girders, with brick
+arching, weight being considered advantageous in reducing the vibration
+of carting heavy loads over it.
+
+The cost of each depot has been L4,500, exclusive of land, of which
+about an acre is required for the destructor, carbonizer, inclined road,
+weigh office, and space. A supply of water is necessary, a good deal
+being required for cooling the clinkers. The population of the two
+districts belonging to these works is about 160,000.
+
+The author has no longer any connection with the works described, and
+for the recent experience of their working he is indebted to Mr.
+John Newhouse, the superintendent of the sanitary department of the
+corporation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+GREEN WOOD.
+
+
+The specific volume of the different constituents of green woods has
+been estimated by M. Hartig to be as follows, per 1,000 parts: Hard
+green wood, fiber stuff, 441; water, 247; air, 312. Soft green wood,
+fiber stuff, 279; water, 317, air, 404. Evergreen wood, fiber stuff,
+270; water, 335; air, 395. A certain amount of water--7 or 8 per cent in
+all--is included with the fiber stuff, showing that about one-third only
+of the mass of the wood is solid stuff; the remainder is either water or
+air space.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE ARMITAGE HOUSE.
+
+
+This house is now in course of erection under the superintendence
+of Messrs. Salomons and Ely, in the Claremont road, Pendleton, near
+Manchester. The walls are faced in the lower part with red bricks,
+and red stone, from the neighborhood of Liverpool, is used for the
+window-dressings, etc. The upper part of walls will be faced with
+red tiles and half-timber work, and the roof will be covered with
+Staffordshire tiles. Lead lights will be largely used in the windows.
+Internally, the finish will be almost entirely in real woods, including
+walnut for the dining-room and vestibule, pitch-pine for the large hall,
+staircase, and billiard-room, ash for the morning-room, and oak for Mr.
+Armitage's own room. In all these the ceilings and dados are to be in
+wood. The contract for the whole of the above work, amounting to L6,507,
+is let to Mr. James Herd, of Manchester.--_Building News_.
+
+[Illustration: SUGGESTIONS IN ARCHITECTURE.--AN ENGLISH COUNTRY
+RESIDENCE.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE COLLOTYPE PROCESS IN PRACTICE.
+
+
+That theory and practice are two very different things holds good in
+photography especially, and perhaps in no other branch of our art have
+so many theoretical formulae been promulgated as in the collotype or
+Lichtdruck process. As our readers are aware, we have had an opportunity
+of seeing collotype printing in operation in several European
+establishments of note, and have, from time to time, published in these
+columns our experiences. But requests still come to us so frequently
+for information on the process that we have deemed it well to make a
+practical summary for the benefit of those who are working--or desire to
+work--the method.
+
+The formulae and manipulations here set down are those of Loewy, Albert,
+Allgeyer, and Obernetter, four of the best authorities on the subject,
+and we can assure our readers there is nothing described but what is
+actually practiced.
+
+_Glass Plate for the Printing Block_.--Herr Albert, of Munich, uses
+patent plate of nearly half an inch in thickness, as most of his work
+is printed upon the Schnell press (machine press). Herr Obernetter, of
+Vienna, since he only employs the slower and more careful hand
+press, prefers plate glass of ordinary thickness as being handier in
+manipulation and better adapted to the common printing-frame.
+
+Herr Loewy, of Vienna, again, uses plate glass a quarter of an inch
+thick, as his productions range from the finest to the roughest.
+
+_Preliminary Coating of the Glass Plate_.--Herr Albert's original plan
+was to apply a preliminary coating of bichromated gelatine to the thick
+glass plate, the film being exposed to light through the back of the
+glass, and thus rendered insoluble and tightly cemented to the surface;
+this film serving as a basis for the second sensitive coating, that
+was afterward impressed by the negative. This double treatment is now
+definitely abandoned in most Lichtdruck establishments, and, instead, a
+preliminary coating of soluble silicate and albumen dissolved in water
+is used.
+
+Herr Loewy's method and formula are as follows: The glass plate is
+cleaned, and coated with--
+
+    Soluble glass.             3 parts.
+    White of egg.              7 "
+    Water.               9 to 10 "
+
+The soluble glass must be free from caustic potash. The mixture, which
+must be used fresh, is carefully filtered, and spread evenly over the
+previously cleaned glass plate. The superfluous liquid is flowed off,
+and the film dried either spontaneously or by slightly warming. The film
+is generally dry in a few minutes, when it is rinsed with water, and
+again dried; at this stage the plate bears an open, porous film,
+slightly opalescent--so slight, however, as only to be observed by an
+experienced eye.
+
+_Application of the Sensitive Film_.--We now come to the second stage of
+the process, the application of a film of bichromated gelatine to the
+plate.
+
+Herr Loewy's formula is as follows:
+
+    Bichromate of potash.             16  grammes.
+    Gelatine.                          21/2 ounces.
+    Water.                      20 to 22    "
+
+According to the weather, the amount of water must be varied; but in any
+case the solution is a very fluid one. An ounce is about 35 grammes, as
+most of our readers know. A practical collotypist sees at a glance the
+quality of the prepared plate, without any preliminary testing. A good
+preliminary film is a glass that is transparent, yet slightly dull; the
+film is so thin, you can scarcely believe it is there. The plate is
+slightly warmed upon a slate slab, underneath which is a water bath; it
+is then flooded with the above mixture of bichromated gelatine, leaving
+only sufficient to make a very thin film. When coated, the plate is
+placed in the drying chamber.
+
+_Drying the Sensitive Film_.--Much depends upon the drying. A water
+bath with gas burner underneath is used for heating, and a slate slab,
+perfectly level, receives the glass plate. The drying chamber is kept at
+an even temperature of 50 deg. C.
+
+The object to be attained is a fine grain throughout the surface of the
+gelatine, and unless this grain is satisfactory the finished printing
+block never will be. If the gelatine film be too thick, then the grain
+will be coarse; or, again, if the temperature in drying be too high,
+there will be no grain at all. The drying is complete in two or three
+hours, and should not take longer.
+
+_The Negative to be Printed from_.--The sensitive film being upon the
+surface of a thick glass plate, it is necessary that the cliche or
+negative employed should be upon patent plate, or not upon glass at all,
+so as to insure perfect contact. Best of all, is to employ a stripped
+negative, in which case absolute contact is insured in printing. It is
+only in these circumstances that the most perfect impression can be
+secured. If the negative is otherwise satisfactory, and only requires
+stripping, it must be upon a leveling stand, and fluid gelatine of a
+tolerable consistence is poured over it. When dry, a pen-knife is run
+around the margin, and the film leaves the glass without any trouble.
+
+Herr Obernetter says that many of the negatives he receives have to be
+reproduced before they can be transformed into Lichtdruck plates, and
+he employs either the wet collodion process or the graphite method,
+according to circumstances. If the copy is desired to be softer than the
+original, collodion is employed; if vigor be desired, graphite is used,
+and here is his formula:
+
+    Dextrine.                        62    grains.
+    Ordinary white sugar.            77       "
+    Bichromate of ammonia.           30.8     "
+    Water.                            3.21 ounces.
+    Glycerine.                   2 to 8    drops.
+
+The film is dried at a temperature of 130 deg. to 140 deg. F. in about ten
+minutes, and while still warm is printed under a negative in diffused
+light for a period of five to fifteen minutes. In a well-timed print
+the image is slightly visible; the plate is again warmed a little above
+atmospheric temperature in a darkened room, and then fine levigated
+graphite is applied with a fine dusting brush, a sheet of white paper
+being held underneath to judge of the effect. Breathing upon the film
+renders it more capable of attracting the powder. When the desired vigor
+has been attained, the superfluous powder is dusted off, and the plate
+coated with normal collodion. Afterward the film is cut through at the
+margins of the plate by means of a sharp knife, and put into water. In a
+little while--from two to five minutes--the collodion, with the image,
+will be detached from the glass; the film is at once turned over in the
+water, and brought out upon the glass plate. Under a soft jet of water
+any air-bubbles that may exist between the collodion and the glass are
+removed, and then a solution of gum arabic (two grammes of gum dissolved
+in one hundred grammes of water) is poured over, and the film is allowed
+to dry spontaneously.
+
+_Exposure of the Printing Block under the Negative_.--The exposure
+is very rapid. Any one conversant with photolithographic work will
+understand this. At any rate, every photographer knows that bichromated
+gelatine is much more rapid than the chloride of silver he generally has
+to do with.
+
+There is no other way of measuring the exposure than by the photometer
+or personal experience, and the latter is by far the best.
+
+After leaving the printing frame, the plate is immersed in cold water.
+Here it remains at discretion for half an hour, or an hour; the purpose,
+of course, being to wash out the soluble bichromate. It is when the
+print comes out of this bath that judgment is passed upon it. An
+experienced eye tells at once what it is fit for. If it is yellow, the
+yellowness must be of the slightest; indeed, Herr Furkl (the manager of
+Herr Loewy's Lichtdruck department) will not admit that a good plate is
+yellow at all. A yellow tint means that it will take up too much ink
+when the roller is passed over it. The plates of Herr Obernetter,
+however, are rather more yellow than Herr Loewy's--certainly only a
+tinge, but still yellow; and Herr Obernetter's work proves, at any rate,
+that the yellowish tinge is by no means inseparable from good results.
+
+The washed and dried plate should appear like a design of ground and
+polished glass. The ground glass appearance is given by the grain. If
+there are pure high-lights (almost transparent) and opalescent shadows,
+the plate is a good one.
+
+_Printing from the Block_.--We have now a printing-block ready for the
+press. If it is to be printed by machinery--that is to say, upon a
+Schnell press--the surface is etched; if it has to be more carefully
+handled in a hand press, etching is rarely resorted to; it is moistened
+only with glycerine and water. To etch a plate for a Schnell press, it
+is placed upon a leveling stand, and the following solution is poured
+upon it:
+
+    Glycerine............................. 150 parts.
+    Ammonia................................ 50   "
+    Nitrate of potash (saltpeter)..........  5   "
+    Water.................................. 25   "
+
+Another equally good formula, recommended by Allgeyer, who managed Herr
+Albert's Lichtdruck printing for some years, is:
+
+    Glycerine............................. 500 parts.
+    Water................................. 500   "
+    Chloride of sodium (common salt)......  15   "
+
+In lieu of common salt, 15 parts of hyposulphite of soda, or other
+hygroscopic salt, such as chloride of calcium, may be employed.
+
+The etching fluid is permitted to remain upon the image for half an
+hour. During this time, by gently moving the finger to and fro over the
+surface, the swelling or relief of the image can be distinctly felt. The
+plate is not washed, but the etching fluid simply poured off, so that
+the film remains impregnated with the glycerine and water; at the most,
+a piece of bibulous paper is used to absorb any superfluous quantity of
+the etching fluid. After etching, the plate is taken straight to the
+printing press. The inking up and printing are done very much as
+in lithography. If it requires a practiced hand to produce a good
+lithographic print, it stands to reason that in dealing with a gelatine
+printing block, instead of a stone, skill and practice are more
+necessary still. Therefore at this point the photographer should hand
+over the work to the lithographer, or rather the Lichtdruck printer.
+It is only by coaxing judiciously, with roller and sponge, that a good
+printing block can be obtained, and no amount of teaching theoretically
+can beget a good printer. To appreciate how skillful a printer must be,
+it is only necessary to see the imperfect proofs that first result, and
+to watch how these are gradually improved by dint of rolling, rubbing,
+etching, cleaning, etc. In all Lichldruck establishments, two kinds of
+rollers are used, viz., of leather and glue. In some establishments,
+too, they employ two kinds of ink; but Herr Loewy manages to secure
+delicacy and vigor at the same time by using one ink, but rolling up
+with two kinds of roller.
+
+Collotype printing is not merely done by hand presses, but is also
+done by machinery. At Herr Albert's a gas engine of six-horse power is
+employed to drive the machines, and each machine requires the
+attention of a skilled mechanic and a girl. The press is very like the
+lithographic quick press. Upon a big steel bed lies the little collotype
+block. The glass printing block, with its brownish film of gelatine,
+moves horizontally to and fro, and, as it does so, passes under half a
+dozen rollers, which not only supply ink, but disperse it. Some of the
+rollers are of leather and others of glue, and, whenever the printing
+block retires from underneath them, an ink slab takes the place of the
+block, and imparts more ink to the rollers; sometimes as many as eight
+rollers are used, for the difficulty of machine printing is to apply the
+ink as delicately and equally as possible. It is necessary at intervals
+to damp the block, and when the printer in charge finds this to be the
+case, he stops the press, and applies a little glycerine and water
+with a cloth or sponge; then a leather roller is passed over to remove
+superfluous moisture, and the press is again started.
+
+Herr Obernetter relies upon the Star or Stern press--a small
+lithographic press--one man sufficing to manage it, who turns a wheel
+with large spokes, reminding one of the steering wheel of a ship. The
+Lichtdruck plate, gelatine film upward, is laid upon a sheet of plate
+glass by way of a bed, the plate having first been treated with a
+solution of glycerine and water; it is then inked up as previously
+described, except that Herr Obernetter uses two kinds of ink--a thick
+one and a thin--applied by two rollers of glue. In the first place, a
+moist sponge is rubbed over the surface; then a soft roller covered with
+wash-leather, and of the appearance of crepe, is passed over two or
+three times to remove surplus moisture; then a roller charged with thick
+ink is put on, and then another with thin is applied. It takes fully
+five minutes to sponge and roll up a plate, the rolling being done
+gently and firmly. A sheet of paper is now laid upon the plate, the
+tympan is lowered, and the scraper adjusted with due pressure; a
+revolution of the wheel completes the printing, the well-known scraping
+action of the lithographic press being used in the operation.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 1.--ORDINARY NAPHTHA LIGHTER OF MR. LOISEAU.]
+
+Some Lichtdruck prints are printed upon thick plate-paper, and are ready
+for binding without further ado, these being for book illustrations.
+Other pictures, that are to pass muster among silver photographs, are,
+on the other hand, printed upon fine thin paper, and then sized by
+dipping in a thin solution of gelatine; after drying, they are further
+dipped in a solution of shellac and spirit.--_Photo. News_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+DOMESTIC ELECTRICITY.
+
+
+Among the most valuable, and, up to the present time, the least
+generally appreciated services that electricity can render for domestic
+purposes is that of its application in lighters. At the present epoch
+of indifferent matches, to have, instantaneously, a light by pulling
+a cord, pressing on a button, or turning a cock, is a thing worthy of
+being taken into serious consideration; and our own personal experience
+permits us to assert that, regarded from this point of view, electricity
+is capable of daily rendering inappreciable services.
+
+According to the nature of the application that is to be made of them,
+the places in which they are to be put, and the combustible that they
+are to inflame, etc., electric lighters vary greatly in form and
+arrangement.
+
+We shall limit ourselves here to pointing out the simplest and most
+practical of the numerous models of such apparatus that have been
+constructed up to the present time. All those that we shall describe
+are based on the incandescence of a platinum wire. A few have been
+constructed based on the induction spark, but they are more complicated
+and expensive, and have not entered into practical use. Before
+commencing to describe these apparatus, we shall make a remark in regard
+to the piles for working them, and that is that we prefer for this
+purpose Leclanche elements with agglomerated plates and a large surface
+of zinc. In order to bring about combustion in any given substance, it
+is necessary to bring near it an incandescent body raised to a certain
+temperature, which varies with the nature of the said substance, and
+which is quite low for illuminating gas, higher for petroleum, and a
+white heat for a wax taper or a candle. We have said that we make use
+exclusively of a platinum wire raised momentarily to incandescence by
+the passage of an electric current. The temperature of such wire will
+depend especially upon the intensity of the current traversing it;
+and, if this is too great, the platinum (chosen because of its
+inoxidizability and its elevated melting point) will rapidly melt;
+while, if the intensity is too little, the temperature reached by the
+wire will itself be too low, and no inflammation will be brought about.
+Practice soon indicates a means of obviating these two inconveniences,
+and teaches how each apparatus may be placed under such conditions that
+the wire will hardly ever melt, and that the lighting will always be
+effected. For the same intensity of current that traverses the wire,
+the temperature of the latter might be made to vary by diminishing or
+increasing its diameter. A very fine wire will attain a red heat through
+a very weak current, but it would be very brittle, and subject to break
+at the least accident. For this reason it becomes necessary to employ
+wires a little stronger, and varying generally from one to two-tenths
+of a millimeter in diameter. The current then requires to be a little
+intenser. The requisite intensity is easily obtained with elements
+of large surface, which have a much feebler internal resistance than
+porous-cup elements; and since, for a given number of elements, the
+intensity of the current decreases in measure as the internal resistance
+of the elements increases, it becomes of interest to diminish such
+internal resistance as much as possible. The platinum wires are usually
+rolled spirally, with the object in view of concentrating the heat into
+a small space, in order to raise the temperature of the wire as much as
+possible. There is thus need of a less intense current to produce the
+inflammation than with a wire simply stretched out. In fact, the same
+wire traversed by a current of constant intensity scarcely reaches a
+_red_ heat when it is straight, while it attains a _white_ heat when it
+is wound spirally, because, in the latter case, the cooling surface is
+less.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 2--RANQUE'S NEW FORM OF LIGHTER WITH EXTINGUISHER.]
+
+We shall now proceed to the examination of a few practical forms of
+electric lighters.
+
+In Fig. 1 will be seen quite a convenient spirit or naphtha lighter,
+which has been devised more especially for the use of smokers. By
+pushing the lamp toward the wall, the wick is brought into proximity
+with the spiral, and the lamp, acting on a button behind it, closes
+the current. Pressure on the lamp being removed, the latter moves back
+slightly, through the pressure of a small spring which thrusts on the
+button. Owing to this latter simple arrangement, the spiral never comes
+in contact with the flame, and may thus last for a long time. Mr.
+Loiseau, the proprietor of this apparatus, employs a very fine platinum
+wire, flattened into the form of a ribbon, and it takes only the current
+from a _single element_ to effect the inflammation of the wick. The
+system is so arranged that any one can easily replace in a moment the
+spiral that has accidentally got out of order; and, in order that this
+may be done, the maker has placed the spiral on a small, distinct piece
+that he styles the "conflagrator." The latter consists of two small,
+thin tubes of brass, held parallel and firmly by means of a brass
+cross-piece. A small bit of paper wound round each tube in front of the
+cross-brace insures insulation. The outer extremity of the two tubes
+supports the platinum spiral, which is fixed to them very simply by the
+aid of two small brass needles of conical form, which pinch the wire
+in the tube and hold it in place. There is nothing easier to do than
+replace the wire. All that is necessary is to remove the two little rods
+with a pair of pincers; to make a spiral of suitable length by rolling
+the wire round a pin; and to fix it into the tubes, as we have just
+explained. With two or three extra "conflagrators" on hand, there need
+never any trouble occur.
+
+In Fig. 2 we show a new and simple form of Mr. Ranque's lighter, in
+which an electro-magnet concealed in the base brings the spiral and
+the wick into juxtaposition. The extinguisher, which is balanced by
+a counterpoise, oscillates about a horizontal axis, and its support
+carries two small pins, against which act successively two notches in a
+piece of oval form, fixed on the side of the movable rods.
+
+In the position shown in the cut, on the first emission of a current the
+upper notch acts so as to depress the extinguisher, but the travel of
+the rods that carry the spiral is so limited that the latter does not
+strike against the extinguisher. On the next emission, the lower notch
+acts so as to raise the extinguisher, while the spiral approaches the
+wick and lights it. It is well to actuate these extinguishing-lighters,
+which may be located at a distance, not by a contact button, but by some
+pulling arrangement, which is always much more easy to find in the dark
+without much groping about. There might be used for such a purpose the
+very motion of the front door, when opened, for lighting the hall; but
+that would offer the inconvenience of operating likewise in the daytime,
+and of thus needlessly using up the pile and the naphtha. In all these
+spirit or naphtha lighters it is important that the spiral _shall not
+touch_ the wick, but that it shall be placed a little above and on the
+side, in the mixture of air and combustible vapor.
+
+Several apparatus have likewise been devised for lighting gas by
+electricity, and a few of these we shall describe.
+
+The simplest form of these is Mr. Barbier's lighter for the use of
+smokers, for lighting candles, sealing letters, etc. It consists of a
+small gas-burner affixed to a round box, seven to eight centimeters in
+diameter, and connected to the gas-pipe by a rubber tube. By maneuvering
+the handle, the cock is opened and an electric contact set up of
+sufficient duration to raise to a red heat the spiral, and to light the
+gas. It is well in this case, for the sake of economizing in wire, to
+utilize the lead gas-pipe as a return wire, especially if the pile is
+located at some little distance from the lighter. In the arrangement
+generally in use the key is provided with a special spring, which tends
+to cause it to turn in such a way as to assume a vertical position, and
+with a tooth, which, on engaging with a piece moving on a joint, holds
+it in a horizontal position as soon as it has been brought thereto. In
+order to extinguish the burner, it is only necessary to depress the
+lever, and thus allow the key to assume again the vertical position,
+that is to say, the position that closes the aperture through which the
+gas flows out. In a new arrangement, the notch, spring, and the lever
+are done away with, the cock alone taking the two positions open or
+closed.
+
+Another very ingenious system is that of Mr. Loiseau, consisting of an
+ordinary gas-burner (fish-tail, bat's-wing, etc.), carrying at its side
+a "conflagrator," analogous to that of the spirit-lighter (Fig. 1), but
+arranged vertically. One of the rods of the "conflagrator" is connected
+with the positive of the pile, and the other with the little horizontal
+brass rod which is placed at the bottom of the burner. On turning the
+cock so as to open it, a small flow of gas occurs opposite the platinum
+spiral, while at the same time a rigid projecting piece affixed to the
+cock bears against a small, vertical metallic piece, and brings it in
+contact with the brass rod. The circuit is thus closed for an instant,
+the spiral is raised to a red heat, and lights the gas, and the flame
+rises and finally lights the burner. It goes without saying that on
+continuing the motion the contact is broken, so as not uselessly to
+waste the pile and so as to stop the escape of gas.
+
+For gas furnaces, Mr. Loiseau is constructing a _handle-lighter_ which
+is connected with the side of the furnace by flexible cords. The contact
+button is on the sleeve itself, and the spiral is protected against
+shocks by a metallic covering which is cleft at the extremity and the
+points bent over at a right angle. All the lighters here described work
+well, and are rendering valuable services. They may be considered as the
+natural and indispensable auxiliaries of electric call bells, and their
+use has most certainly been rendered practical through the Leclanche
+pile.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THEILER'S TELEPHONE RECEIVER.
+
+
+This telephone receiver differs from its predecessors in dispensing with
+an armature, the lateral vibration of the electro-magnet itself being
+utilized. In previous systems in which an electro-magnet is used, the
+sonorous vibrations are due either to the motion of an iron diaphragm
+or armature placed close to the poles of the electro-magnet, or to the
+expansion and contraction of the magnet itself. In Theiler's telephone
+the electro-magnet may be of the usual U-shape, and may consist either
+of soft iron or of hardened steel permanently magnetized, wound with a
+suitable number of turns of insulated wire. This electro magnet is fixed
+in such a manner that the vibration of either one or of both its limbs
+is communicated to a diaphragm or diaphragms The patentees also employ
+two or more electro-magnets in the same circuit, and utilize the
+vibration of both magnets in the manner described. By attaching a light
+disk or disks to the vibrating limbs, the diaphragm may be dispensed
+with. Fig. 1 represents one of the telephone receivers provided with two
+diaphragms or sounding boards, connected to the two limbs or cores of
+the U-shaped electro-magnet by short tongues. These tongues are firmly
+inserted in the diaphragms and fixed to the magnet, as shown. The poles
+of the electro-magnet are brought very close together by being shaped as
+shown, and the middle part of the magnet is firmly screwed to the case
+of the instrument. The ends of the helix surrounding the magnet cores
+may be attached as usual to two terminals, or soldered to a flexible
+conductor communicating with the other parts of the telephone
+apparatus. When a vibratory current is sent through the helix of the
+electro-magnet, the extremities are rapidly attracted and repelled, and
+this vibratory motion of the magnet cores being communicated to the
+diaphragms or sounding boards, the latter are set in vibration of
+varying amplitude produced by a current of varying strength, as in all
+other telephones. Instead of making the electro-magnet of one continuous
+piece of iron, as represented in Fig. 1, the patentees find it
+more practicable to make it of the form shown in Fig. 2, where the
+electro-magnet represented consists of two limbs or cores, a sole piece,
+and pole extensions, the whole being screwed together, and practically
+constituting one continuous piece of iron carrying the two coils. In
+Fig. 2 only one of the limbs or cores of the electro-magnet is attached
+to the diaphragm, the other limb being held fixed by a screw. Sometimes
+the patentees hinge one of the magnet cores, or both, in the sole piece,
+in which case the diaphragms or sounding boards can be made much thicker
+than when the cores are rigidly fixed to the sole piece, because
+the magnetic attraction of the poles has then only to overcome the
+resistance of the diaphragm. Instead of using a diaphragm, they
+sometimes fix a stem to one of the cores of the electro-magnet, and
+mount thereon a light disk of vulcanite, wood, ivory, gutta-percha, or
+any other substance which it is capable of vibrating. When using this
+telephone receiver, the disk is pressed to the ear in such a manner
+that its surface covers the aperture of the ear. When these telephone
+receivers are used on a line of some considerable length, the patentees
+prefer to magnetize the electro-magnet by a constant current from
+a local battery, and to effect the variation of this constant
+magnetization inductively and not directly. The electro-magnet is,
+then, not inserted in the line at all, but in the primary circuit of
+an induction coil, and connected with a local battery. The line is
+connected to the secondry circuit of the induction coil. This device
+possesses the advantage that the electro-magnet can be powerfully
+magnetized with very little battery power, no matter how long the line
+may be, and that steel magnets are entirely dispensed with. It is not
+necessary to have a separate battery for this purpose, as the microphone
+battery may also be used for the telephone receiver. The shape of the
+vibrating electro-magnets is immaterial, as they may be made of a
+variety of forms.--_Eng. Mechanic_.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 1. FIG. 2]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ON AN ELECTRIC POWER HAMMER.
+
+By MARCEL DEPREZ.
+
+[Footnote: _La Lumiere Electrique_.]
+
+
+In a lecture delivered by me on the 15th of last June in the
+amphitheater of the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, on the
+application of electricity to the production, transmission, and division
+of power, I operated for the first time an electric power hammer that I
+shall here describe. Its essential part is a sectional solenoid that
+I have likewise made an application of in an electric motor which I
+presented in July, 1830, to the Societe de Physique. Let us suppose we
+superpose, one on the other, a hundred flat bobbins of a centimeter
+in thickness in such a way as to form a single solenoid one meter in
+height, and that the incoming and outgoing wires of each of them be
+connected with the contiguous bobbins exactly in the same way as they
+are in the consecutive sections or a dynamo-electric machine ring.
+Finally, let us complete the resemblance by causing each junction of the
+wire of one of the bobbins with the wire of its neighbor to end in a
+metallic plate set into an insulating piece containing as many plates as
+there are bobbins, plus one. Over this species of collector, which maybe
+rectilinear or wound around a cylinder, let us pass two brushes fixed to
+an insulating piece that may be moved by hand. Now, if we place these
+two brushes at a distance such that the number of the plates of the
+collector included between them be, for example, equal to ten, and we
+give them any degree of displacement whatever, after rendering them
+interdependent, the current entering through one of these brushes and
+making its exit through the other will always traverse 10 bobbins.
+Everything will occur, then, as if we caused the ten-bobbin solenoid to
+move instead of the brushes. This granted, and the brushes being in any
+position whatever, let us send a current into the apparatus, and place
+therein a soft iron cylinder. By virtue of a well known law, such
+cylinder will remain suspended in the interior of the solenoid, and its
+longitudinal center will place itself at so much the greater distance
+from that of the solenoid the more the current increases in intensity.
+It would even fall entirely if the current had not an intensity above a
+minimum value dependent upon many elements concerning which we have not
+now to occupy ourselves. We will suppose the current intense enough to
+keep the distance of the two centers much below that which would bring
+about a fall of the cylinder. When such a condition is fulfilled, it is
+found that if we try to remove the iron cylinder from the equilibrium
+that it is in, we must apply a pressure that increases with the amount
+of separation, just exactly as if it were suspended from a spring. It
+results from this fact that if we displace the brushes a distance equal
+to the thickness of one plate of the collector, the active solenoid will
+undergo the same displacement, and its longitudinal center will move
+away from that of the iron cylinder, and that the attraction exerted
+upon the latter will increase. It will not be able to assume its first
+value, and equilibrium cannot be re-established unless the cylinder
+undergoes a displacement identical with that of the solenoid. Now,
+as this latter depends upon the motion communicated to the system
+of brushes, we see that, definitively, the cylinder will faithfully
+reproduce the motion communicated to the brushes by the hand of
+the operator. This apparatus, then, constitutes a genuine electric
+servo-motor in which the current is never interrupted nor modified in
+quantity or direction, no more indeed than the magnetization developed
+in the soft iron cylinder. Everything takes place as if the iron
+cylinder were suspended in a solenoid ten centimeters in length that
+was caused to rise and fall; with the difference that the weight of the
+cylinder exerts no action on the hand of the operator.
+
+[Illustration: ELECTRIC POWER HAMMER.]
+
+These explanations being understood, there remain but few things to be
+said to cause the operation of the hammer to be thoroughly comprehended.
+The elementary sections constituting the electric cylinder, A B, of the
+hammer are 80 in number, and form a total length of one meter. Their
+ingoing and outcoming wires end in a collector of circular form shown at
+F G. The brushes are replaced by two strips, C E and C D, fixed to the
+double winch, H C I, which is movable around the fixed center, C. They
+can make any angle whatever with each other, so that by trial there
+maybe given the active solenoid the most suitable length. When such
+angle has been determined, the angle, E C D, is rendered invariable by
+means of a set screw, and the apparatus is maneuvered by imparting to
+the double winch, H C I, an alternating circular motion.
+
+The iron cylinder weighs 23 kilogrammes; but, when the current has an
+intensity of 43 amperes and traverses 15 sections, the stress developed
+may reach 70 kilogrammes; that is to say, three times the weight of the
+hammer. So this latter obeys with absolute docility the motions of the
+operator's hands, as those who were present at the lecture were enabled
+to see.
+
+I will incidentally add that this power hammer was placed on a circuit
+derived from one that served likewise to supply three Hefner-Alteneck
+machines (Siemens D{5} model) and a Gramme machine (Breguet model P.L.).
+Each of these machines was making 1,500 revolutions per minute and
+developing 25 kilogrammeters per second, measured by means of a
+Carpentier brake. All these apparatus were operating with absolute
+independence, and had for generator the double excitation machine that
+figured at the Exhibition of Electricity.
+
+In an experiment made since then, I have succeeded in developing in each
+of these four machines 50 kilogrammeters per second, whatever was the
+number of those that were running; and I found it possible to add the
+hammer on a derived circuit without notably affecting the operation of
+the receivers.
+
+It results from this that with my system of double excitation machine I
+have been enabled to easily run with absolute independence six machines,
+each giving a two-third horse-power. The economic performance, e/E,
+moreover, slightly exceeded 0.50.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+SOLIGNAC'S NEW ELECTRIC LAMP.
+
+
+When it becomes a question of practical lighting, it is very certain
+that the best electric lamp will be the one that is most simple and
+requires the fewest mechanical parts. It is to such simplicity that is
+due all the success of the Jablochkoff candle and the Reynier-Werdermann
+lamp. Yet, in the former of these lamps, it is to be regretted that the
+somewhat great and variable resistance opposed to the current in its
+passage through two carbons that keep diminishing in length, in measure
+as they burn, proves a cause of loss of light and of variation in it.
+And it is also to be regretted that the duration of combustion of the
+carbons is not longer; and, finally, it is allowable to believe that the
+power employed in volatilizing the insulator placed between the carbons
+is prejudicial to the economical use of this system. In order to obviate
+this latter inconvenience, an endeavor has been made in the Wilde candle
+to do away with the insulator, but the results obtained have scarcely
+been encouraging. An endeavor has also been made to render the duration
+of the carbons greater by employing quite long ones, and causing these
+to move forward successively through the intermedium of a species
+of rollers, or of counterpoises, as in the lamps of Mersanne and
+Werdermann; but then the system becomes more complicated. Finally, in
+order to keep the resistance of the carbons at a minimum and constant,
+their contact with the rheophores of the circuit has been established
+at a short distance from the arc, and this is one of the principal
+advantages possessed by the Reynier-Werdermann system. At a certain
+epoch it was thought that the problem might be simply solved by
+arranging in front of each other two carbons actuated by a spiral
+spring, as in car lamps, and kept at a proper distance apart for forming
+the electric arc by two funnel-shaped pieces of calcined magnesia, into
+which they entered like a wedge in measure as their conical point were
+away through combustion. This was the system of Mr. De Baillehache,
+and the trials that were made therewith were very satisfactory. But,
+unfortunately, the magnesia was not able to resist very long the
+temperature to which it was submitted. The problem found a better
+solution in the sun-lamp but has been solved in another manner, and just
+as simply, by Mr. Solignac, and the results obtained by him have been
+very satisfactory as regarded from the standpoint of steadiness of the
+luminous point.
+
+In this system, a general view of which is given in Fig. 1, and the
+arrangement in Figs. 2 and 3, the carbons, F F, which are horizontal and
+about fifty centimeters in length, are thrust toward each other by
+two barrels, K, K, which wind up two chains, E, E, passing around the
+pulleys, D, D, fitted to the extremities of the carbons. These latter
+are provided beneath with small glass rods, G, G, whose extremities
+toward the arc abut at a short distance from the latter against a nickel
+stop, L (Fig. 3), which supports them, moreover, at M, by means of
+a tappet whose position is regulated by a screw. The current is
+transmitted to the carbons by two friction rollers, I, I, which serve at
+the same time as a guide for them, and which give the electric flux a
+passage of only one or two centimeters over the front of the carbon
+to form the arc. Finally, the whole is held by a support, A, and two
+pieces, CB, CB, which at the same time lead the current to the friction
+rollers through projections, J. The two systems are made to approach
+or recede from each other, in order to form the arc, by means of a
+regulating screw, H.
+
+At present, the lighting of these lamps is effected by means of this
+screw, H, but Mr. Solignac is now constructing a model in which the
+lighting will be performed automatically by means of a solenoid that
+will react upon a carbon lighter, as in several already well known
+systems.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 1]
+
+If the preceding description has been well-understood, it will be seen
+that the carbons are arrested in their movement toward each other only
+by the glass rods, G, abutting against L; but, as the stops, L, are not
+far from the arc, and as the heat to which they are exposed is so much
+the greater in proportion as the incandescent part of the carbons is
+nearer them, it results that for a certain elongation of the arc the
+temperature becomes sufficient to soften the glass of the rods, G, G,
+so that they bend as shown at O (Fig. 3), and allow the carbons to move
+onward until the heat has sufficiently diminished to prevent any further
+softening of the glass. In measure as the wearing away progresses, the
+preceding effects are reproduced; and, as these are produced in an
+imperceptible and continuous manner, there is perceived no jumping nor
+inconstancy in the light of the arc. Under such conditions, then, the
+regulation of the arc is effected under the very influence of the
+effect produced; and not under that of an action of a different nature
+(electro-magnetism), as happens in other regulators. It is certain that
+this idea is new and original, and the results that we have witnessed
+from it have been very satisfactory. There is but one regulation to
+perform, and that at the beginning, but this once done the apparatus
+operates with certainty, and for a long time. With a Meritens machine of
+the first model it has been found possible to light five lamps of this
+kind placed in the same circuit.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 2]
+
+According to the inventor, this lamp will give a light of 100 carcels
+per one horse-power, and with a three horse-power six lamps may be
+lighted; but we have made no experiments to ascertain the correctness of
+these figures.
+
+As for the cost of the glass rods, that amounts to one franc per
+two hundred meters length. They can, then, be considered only as an
+insignificant expense in the cost of the carbons. We consequently
+believe that it will be possible to employ this system advantageously in
+practice.--_Th. du Moncel_.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 3]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+MONDOS'S ELECTRIC LAMP.
+
+
+Since the month of May last, the concert at the Champs Elysees has been
+lighted by sixteen voltaic arc lamps on a new and very simple system,
+which gives excellent results in the installation under consideration.
+The sixteen lamps are on the divisible system, and their regulation is
+based upon the principle of derivation. They are supplied by a Siemens
+alternating current machine and arranged in four circuits, on each of
+which are mounted four lamps in series. The accompanying figures will
+allow the reader to readily understand the system, which is as simple
+as it is ingenious, and which has been combined by Mr. Mondos so as to
+obtain a continuous and independent regulation of each lamp.
+
+In this system the lower carbon is stationary, the luminous point
+descending in measure as the carbons wear away through combustion. The
+upper carbon descends by its own weight, and imperceptibly, so as to
+keep the arc at its normal length.
+
+The mechanism that controls the motions of the upper rod that supports
+the carbon-holder consists of two bobbins of fine wire, E (Fig. 2),
+mounted on a derived circuit on the terminals of the lamp; of a lever,
+L, articulated at O, and supporting a tube, TT', and the whole movable
+part balanced by a counterpoise, P. This lever, P, carries two soft iron
+cores, F, which enter the bobbins, E, and become magnetized under the
+influence of the current that passes through them. The upper part of
+the tube, T, carries a square upon which is articulated at O' a second
+lever, L', balanced by a second counterpoise, P', and carrying a flat
+armature, _p_, opposite the cores, F', that are fixed to the first
+horizontal lever, L. The carbon-holder rod, CC', slides freely in the
+tube, TT', and is wedged therein by a small piece, _a m l_, fixed to
+the lever, L'. For this reason the tube, TT', is provided with a notch
+opposite the piece _a m l_, and the two arms, _a_ and _m_, of the latter
+are shaped like a V, as may be seen in part in the plan in Fig. 2. It is
+now easy to understand how the system operates; when the current is not
+traversing the circuit, the carbons are separated; but, at the moment
+the circuit is closed for lighting a series of lamps, it traverses the
+electro-magnet, which then becomes very powerful, and draws down the
+cores, F, along with the lever, L, the tube, TT', and the carbon-holder,
+CC', and brings the carbons in contact. The arc then forms, and the
+current divides between the arc and the bobbins, E. Its action upon the
+cores, F, becomes weak, and it can no longer balance the counterpoise,
+P, which falls back, and raises the system again. The arc thus
+becomes _primed_. The cores, F, however, preserve a certain amount of
+magnetization; the armature, _p_, is attracted, and the lever, L',
+assumes a position of equilibrium such that the piece, _a m l_, wedges
+the rod, CC', in the tube, TT', and holds it suspended. When, through
+wear of the carbons, the arc elongates, a greater portion of the current
+passes into the bobbins, E, the armature, _p_, is attracted with more
+force, and the lever, L', swings around the point, O'. The rotation of
+L' separates the piece, _a m l_, from the rod, CC', which, being thus
+set free, slides by its own weight and shortens the arc. The current
+then becomes weak in E, the armature, _p_, is not so strongly attracted,
+the lever, L', pivots slightly around O' under the action of the weight,
+P', and the brake or wedge enters the notch anew, and stops the descent
+of the carbon. In practice, the motions that we have just described are
+exceedingly slight; the carbon moves imperceptibly, and the length of
+the arc remains invariable.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 1--MONDOS'S ELECTRIC LAMP.]
+
+It will be seen, then, that the lever, L, and the tube, TT', serve
+exclusively for _lighting_, and the lever, L', exclusively for
+regulating the distance of the carbons.
+
+This lamp exhibits great elasticity, and can operate, without a
+change of any part of its mechanism, with currents of very different
+intensities. It suffices for obtaining a proper working of the apparatus
+in each case, to regulate the distance from the weight, P', to the point
+of suspension, O', and the distance from the armature, _p_, to the
+cores, F. At the Champs Elysees concerts the lamps are operating with
+alternating currents; but they are capable of operating with continuous
+ones also, although the slight tremor of the electro-magnetic system,
+due to the use of alternating currents and as a consequence of rapid
+changes of magnetization, seems in principle very favorable to systems
+in which the descent of the carbon is based upon friction instead of a
+clutch. At the Champs Elysees concerts the lamps burn crayons of 9 to
+10 millimeters with a current of 9 to 10 amperes and an effective
+electro-motive power of 60 volts per lamp. The light is very steady,
+and the effect produced is most satisfactory. The dispensing with all
+clock-work movement and regulating springs makes this electric lamp
+of Mr. Mondos a simple and plain apparatus, capable of numerous
+applications in the industries, in wide, open spaces, in all cases where
+foci of medium intensity have to be employed, and where it is desired to
+arrange several lamps in the same circuit.--_La Nature_.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 2--REGULATING MECHANISM.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[AMERICAN POTTERY AND GLASSWARE REPORTER.]
+
+
+
+
+ALUMINUM--ITS PROPERTIES, COST, AND USES.
+
+
+Aluminum is a shining, white, sonorous metal, having a shade between
+silver and platinum. It is a very light metal, being lighter than glass
+and only about one-fourth as heavy as silver of the same bulk. It is
+very malleable and ductile, and is remarkable for its resistance to
+oxidation, being unaffected by moist or dry air, or by hot or cold
+water. Sulphureted hydrogen gas, which so readily tarnishes silver,
+forming a black film on the surface, has no action on this metal.
+
+Next to silica, the oxide of aluminum (alumina) forms, in combination,
+the most abundant constituent of the crust of the earth (hydrated
+silicate of alumina, clay).
+
+Common alum is sulphate of alumina combined with another sulphate, as
+potash, soda, etc. It is much used as a mordant in dyeing and calico
+printing, also in tanning.
+
+Aluminum is of great value in mechanical dentistry, as, in addition
+to its lightness and strength, it is not affected by the presence of
+sulphur in the food--as by eggs, for instance.
+
+Dr. Fowler, of Yarmouthport, Mass., obtained patents for its combination
+with vulcanite as applied to dentistry and other uses. It resists
+sulphur in the process of vulcanization in a manner which renders it an
+efficient and economical substitute for platinum or gold.
+
+Aluminum is derived from the oxide alumina, which is the principal
+constituent of common clay. Lavoissier, a celebrated French chemist,
+first suggested the existence of the metallic bases of the earths and
+alkalies, which fact was demonstrated twenty years thereafter by
+Sir Humphry Davy, by eliminating potassium and sodium from their
+combinations; and afterward by the discovery of the metallic bases of
+baryta, strontium, and lime. The earth alumina resisting the action of
+the voltaic pile and the other agents then used to induce decomposition,
+twenty years more passed before the chloride was obtained by Oerstadt,
+by subjecting alumina to the action of potassium in a crucible heated
+over a spirit lamp. The discovery of aluminum was at last made by Wohler
+in 1827, who succeeded in 1846 in obtaining minute globules or beads
+of this metal by heating a mixture of chloride of alumina and sodium.
+Deville afterward conducted some experiments in obtaining this metal at
+the expense of Napoleon III., who subscribed L1,500, and was rewarded by
+the presentation of two bars of aluminum. The process of manufacture was
+afterward so simplified that in 1857 its price at Paris was about two
+dollars an ounce. It was at first manufactured from common clay, which
+contains about one-fourth its weight of aluminum, but in 1855 Rose
+announced to the scientific world that it could be obtained from a
+material called "cryolite," found in Greenland in large quantities,
+imported into Germany under the name of "mineral soda," and used as a
+washing soda and in the manufacture of soap. It consists of a double
+fluoride of aluminum, and only requires to be mixed with an excess of
+sodium and heated, when the mineral aluminum at once separates. Its cost
+of manufacture is given in this estimate for one pound of metal: 16 lb.
+of cryolite at 8 cents per pound, $1.28: 21/2 lb. metallic sodium at about
+26 cents per pound, 70 cents; flux and cost of reduction, $2.02; total,
+$4.
+
+Aluminum is used largely in the manufacture of cheap jewelry by making a
+hard, gold-colored alloy with copper, called aluminum bronze, consisting
+of 90 per cent. of copper and 10 per cent. of aluminum. Like iron, it
+does not amalgamate directly with mercury, nor is it readily alloyed
+with lead, but many alloys with other metals, as copper, iron, gold,
+etc., have been made with it and found to be valuable combinations.
+One part of it to 100 parts of gold gives a hard, malleable alloy of
+a greenish gold color, and an alloy of 3/4 iron and 1/4 aluminum does not
+oxidize when exposed to a moist atmosphere. It has also been used to
+form a metallic coating upon other metals, as copper, brass, and German
+silver, by the electro-galvanic process. Copper has also been deposited,
+by the same process, upon aluminum plates to facilitate their being
+rolled very thin; for unless the metal be pure, it requires to be
+annealed at each passage through the rolls, and it is found that its
+flexibility is greatly increased by rolling. To avoid the bluish white
+appearance, like zinc, Dr. Stevenson McAdam recommends immersing the
+article made from aluminum in a heated solution of potash, which will
+give a beautiful white frosted appearance, like that of frosted silver.
+
+F.W. Gerhard obtained a patent in 1856, in England, for an improved
+means of obtaining aluminum metal, and the adaptation thereof to the
+manufacture of certain useful articles. Powdered fluoride of aluminum is
+placed alone or in combination with other fluorides in a closed furnace,
+heated to a red heat, and exposed to the action of hydrogen gas, which
+is used as a reagent in the place of sodium. A reverberating furnace is
+used by preference. The fluoride of aluminum is placed in shallow trays
+or dishes, each dish being surrounded by clean iron filings placed in
+suitable receptacles; dry hydrogen gas is forced in, and suitable entry
+and exit pipes and stop-cocks are provided. The hydrogen gas, combining
+with the fluoride, "forms hydrofluoric acid, which is taken up by the
+iron and is thereby converted into fluoride of iron." The resulting
+aluminum "remains in a metallic state in the bottom of the trays
+containing the fluoride," and may be used for a variety of manufacturing
+and ornamental purposes.
+
+The most important alloy of aluminum is composed of aluminum 10, copper
+90. It possesses a pale gold color, a hardness surpassing that of
+bronze, and is susceptible of taking a fine polish. This alloy has found
+a ready market, and, if less costly, would replace red and yellow brass.
+Its hardness and tenacity render it peculiarly adapted for journals and
+bearings. Its tensile strength is 100,000 lb., and when drawn into wire,
+128,000 lb., and its elasticity is one-half that of wrought iron.
+
+General Morin believes this alloy to be a perfect chemical combination,
+as it exhibits, unlike the gun metal, a most complete homogeneousness,
+its preparation being also attended by a great development of heat, not
+seen in the manufacture of most other alloys. The specific gravity of
+this alloy is 7.7. It is malleable and ductile, may be forged cold as
+well as hot, but is not susceptible of rolling; it may, however, be
+drawn into tubes. It is extremely tough and fibrous.
+
+Aluminum bronze, when exposed to the air, tarnishes less quickly than
+either silver, brass, or common bronze, and less, of course, than iron
+or steel. The contact of fatty matters or the juice of fruits does not
+result in the production of any soluble metallic salt, an immunity which
+highly recommends it for various articles for table use.
+
+The uses to which aluminum bronze is applicable are various. Spoons,
+forks, knives, candle-sticks, locks, knobs, door-handles, window
+fastenings, harness trimmings, and pistols are made from it; also
+objects of art, such as busts, statuettes, vases, and groups. In France,
+aluminum bronze is used for the eagles or military standards, for armor,
+for the works of watches, as also watch chains and ornaments. For
+certain parts, such as journals of engines, lathe-head boxes, pinions,
+and running gear, it has proved itself superior to all other metals.
+
+Hulot, director of the Imperial postage stamp manufactory in Paris, uses
+it in the construction of a punching machine. It is well known that the
+best edges of tempered steel become very generally blunted by paper.
+This is even more the case when the paper is coated with a solution of
+gum arabic and then dried, as in the instance of postage stamp sheets.
+The sheets are punched by a machine the upper part of which moves
+vertically and is armed with 300 needles of tempered steel, sharpened in
+a right angle. At every blow of the machine they pass through the
+holes in the lower fixed piece, which correspond with the needles, and
+perforate five sheets at every blow. Hulot now substitutes this piece by
+aluminum bronze. Each machine makes daily 120,000 blows, or 180,000,000
+perforations, and it has been found that a cushion of the aluminum alloy
+was unaffected after some months' use, while one of brass is useless
+after one day.
+
+Various formulae are given for the production of alloys of aluminum, but
+they are too numerous and intricate to enter into here.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+DETERMINATION OF POTASSA IN MANURES.
+
+By M.E. DREYFUS.
+
+
+The method generally adopted for the determination of potassa in
+manures, i. e., the direct incineration of the sample, may in certain
+cases occasion considerable errors in consequence of the volatilization
+of a portion of the potassium products.
+
+To avoid this inconvenience, the author proposes a preliminary treatment
+of the manure with sulphuric acid at 1.845 sp. gr., to convert potassium
+nitrate and chloride into the fixed sulphate. The sulphuric acid attacks
+the manure energetically, and much facilitates the incineration, which
+may be effected at a dark red heat. The ignited portion (10 grms.) is
+exhausted with boiling distilled water acidulated with hydrochloric
+acid, and the filtrate, when cold, is made up to 500 c. c. Of this
+solution 50 c c., representing 1 grm. of the sample, are taken, and,
+after being heated until close upon ebullition, baryta-water is added
+until a strong alkaline reaction is obtained. The sulphuric and
+phosphoric acids, alumina, magnesia, etc, are thus precipitated. The
+filtrate is heated to a boil, and mixed with ammonia and ammonium
+carbonate, to precipitate the excess of baryta in solution. The last
+traces of lime are eliminated by means of a few drops of ammonium
+oxalate. The filtrate is evaporated down on the water-bath, and the
+ammoniacal salts are expelled by carefully raising the temperature to
+dull redness. After having taken up the residue in distilled water it
+is treated with platinum chloride, and the potassium chloro-platinate
+obtained is reduced with oxalic acid. The quantity of potassa present
+in the manure can be calculated from the weight of platinum
+obtained.--_Bull. de la Soc. Chim. de Paris_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE ORIGIN AND RELATIONS OF THE CARBON MINERALS.
+
+[Footnote: Read before the New York Academy of Sciences, February 6,
+1882.]
+
+By J.S. NEWBERRY.
+
+
+What are called the carbon minerals--peat, lignite, coal, graphite,
+asphalt, petroleum, etc.--are, properly speaking, not minerals at
+all, as they are organic substances, and have no definite chemical
+composition or crystalline forms. They are, in fact, chiefly the
+products or phases of a progressive and inevitable change in
+plant-tissue, which, like all organic matter, is an unstable compound
+and destined to decomposition.
+
+In virtue of a mysterious and inscrutable force which resides in the
+microscopic embryo of the seed, a tree begins its growth. For a brief
+interval, this growth is maintained by the prepared food stored in the
+cotyledons, and this suffices to produce and to bring into functional
+activity--some root-fibrils below and leaves above, with which
+the independent and self-sustained life of the individual begins.
+Henceforward, perhaps for a thousand years, this life goes on, active in
+summer and dormant in winter, absorbing the sunlight as a motive power
+which it controls and guides. Its instruments are the discriminating
+cells at the extremities of the root-fibrils, which search for, select,
+and absorb the crude aliment adapted to the needs of the plant to which
+they belong, and the chlorophyl cells--the lungs and stomach of the
+tree--in the leaves. During all the years of the growth of the plant,
+these organs are mainly occupied in breaking the strongly riveted bonds
+that unite oxygen and carbon in carbonic acid; appropriating the carbon
+and driving off most of the oxygen. In the end, if the tree is, e. g.,
+a _Sequoia_, some hundreds of tons of solid, organized tissue have been
+raised into a column hundreds of feet in height, in opposition to the
+force of gravitation and to the affinities of inorganic chemistry.
+
+The time comes, however, sooner or later, when the power which has
+created and the life that has pervaded this wonderful structure
+abandon it. The affinities of inorganic chemistry immediately reassert
+themselves, in ordinary circumstances rapidly tearing down the ephemeral
+fabric.
+
+The disintegration of organic tissue, when deserted by the force which
+has animated and preserved it, gives rise to the phenomena which form
+the theme of this paper.
+
+Most animal-tissue decomposes with great rapidity, and plant tissue,
+when not protected, soon decays. This decay is essentially oxidation,
+since its final result is the restoration to the atmosphere of carbonic
+acid, which is broken up in plant-growth by the appropriation of its
+carbon. Hence it is a kind of combustion, although this term is more
+generally applied to very rapid oxidation, with the evolution of
+sensible light and heat. But, whether the process goes on rapidly or
+slowly, the same force is evolved that is absorbed in the growth of
+plant-tissue; and by accelerating and guiding its evolution, we are able
+to utilize this force in the production at will of heat, light, and
+their correlatives, chemical affinity, motive power, electricity, and
+magnetism. The decomposition of plants may, however, be more or less
+retarded, and it then takes the form of a destructive distillation,
+the constituents reacting upon each other, and forming temporary
+combinations, part of which are evolved, and part remain behind. Water
+is the great extinguisher of this as of the more rapid oxidation that we
+call combustion; and the decomposition of plant-tissue under water is
+extremely slow, from the partial exclusion of oxygen. Buried under thick
+and nearly impervious masses of clay, where the exclusion of oxygen is
+still more nearly complete, the decomposition is so far retarded that
+plant-tissue, which is destroyed by combustion almost instantaneously,
+and if exposed to "the elements"--moisture with a free access of
+oxygen--decays in a year or two, may be but partially consumed when
+millions of years have passed. The final result is, however, inevitable,
+and always the same, viz., the oxidation and escape of the organic
+mutter, and the concentration of the inorganic matter woven into its
+composition--in it, but not of it--forming what we call the ash of the
+plant.
+
+Since the decomposition of organic matter commences the instant it is
+abandoned by the creative and conservative vital force, and proceeds
+uninterruptedly, whether slowly or rapidly, to the final result, it is
+evident that each moment in the progress of this decomposition presents
+us with a phase of structure and composition different from that which
+preceded and from that which follows it. Hence the succession of these
+phases forms a complete sliding scale, which is graphically shown in
+the following diagram, where the organic constituents of plant
+tissue--carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen--appear gradually
+diminishing to extinction, while the ash remains nearly constant, but
+relatively increasing, till it is the sole representative of the fabric.
+
+[Illustration: DIAGRAM SHOWING THE GENETIC RELATIONS OF THE CARBON
+MINERALS.]
+
+We may cut this triangle of residual products where we please, and by
+careful analysis determine accurately the chemical composition of a
+section at this point, and we may please ourselves with the illusion, as
+many chemists have done, that the definite proportions found represent
+the formula of a specific compound; but an adjacent section above or
+below would show a different composition, and so in the entire triangle
+we should find an infinite series of formulae, or rather no constant
+formulae at all. We should also find that the slice, taken at any point
+while lying in the laboratory or undergoing chemical treatment, would
+change in composition, and become a different substance.
+
+In the same way we can snatch a brand from the fire at any stage of its
+decomposition, or analyze a decaying tree trunk during any month of its
+existence, and thus manufacture as many chemical formulae as we like,
+and give them specific names; but it is evident that this is child's
+play, not science. The truth is, the slowly decomposing tissue of the
+plants of past ages has given us a series of phases which we have
+grouped under distinct names, and we have called one group peat, one
+lignite, another coal, another anthracite, and another graphite. We have
+spaced off the scale, and called all within certain lines by a common
+name; but this does not give us a common composition for all the
+material within these lines. Hence we see that any effort to define or
+describe coal, lignite, or anthracite accurately must be a failure,
+because neither has a fixed composition, neither is a distinct
+substance, but simply a conventional group of substances which form part
+of an infinite and indivisible series.
+
+But this sliding scale of solid compounds, which we designate by
+the names given above, is not the only product of the natural and
+spontaneous distillation of plant tissue. Part of the original organic
+mass remains, though constantly wasting, to represent it; another part
+escapes, either completely oxidized as carbonic acid and water, or in
+a volatile or liquid form, still retaining its organic character, and
+destined to future oxidation, known as carbureted hydrogen, olefiant
+gas, petroleum, etc.
+
+Hence, in the decomposition of vegetable tissue, two classes of
+resultant compounds are formed, one residual and the other evolved; and
+the genesis and relation of the carbon minerals may be accurately shown
+by the following diagram:
+
+                       PLANT TISSUE
+                           _________________
+                        |
+  _Residual Products_   |   _Evolved Products_
+                        |
+         Peat.        }
+          |           }
+       Lignite.       }
+          |           }   { Carbonic Acid.
+    Bitumious Coal.   }   { Carbonic Oxide.
+          |           }   { Carbureted Hydrogen, etc.
+ Semi-bitumious "     }   { Water.
+          |           }   {         {Maltha.
+      Anthracite.     }   {         {  |
+          |           }   {         {Asphalt etc.
+Graphitie Anthracite. }   { Petro-  {  |
+          |           }   { leum    {Asphaltic Coal.
+       Graphite.      }             {  |
+          |           }             {Asphaltic Anthracite.
+         Ash.         }             {  |
+                                    {     "    Graphite.
+
+[NOTE.--In this diagram, the vertical line connecting the names of the
+residual products (and of the derivatives of petroleum) indicates that
+each succeeding one is produced by further alteration from that which
+precedes it, and not independently. Also, the arrangement of the braces
+is designed to show that any or all of the evolved products are given
+off at each stage of alteration.]
+
+The theory here proposed has not been evolved from my inner
+consciousness, but has grown from careful study, through many years, of
+facts in the field. A brief sketch of the evidence in favor of it is all
+that we have space for here.
+
+
+RESIDUAL PRODUCTS.
+
+_Peat_.--Dry plant-tissue consists of about 50 per cent, of carbon,
+44 per cent, of oxygen, with a little nitrogen, and 6 per cent. of
+hydrogen. In a peat-bog, we find the upper part of the scale represented
+above very well shown: plants are growing on the surface with the normal
+composition of cellulose. The first stratum of peat consists of browned
+and partially decomposed plant-tissue, which is found to have lost
+perhaps 20 per cent. of the components of wood, and to have acquired an
+increasing percentage of carbon. As we descend in the peat, it becomes
+more homogeneous and darker until at the bottom of the marsh ten or
+twenty feet from the surface, we have a black, carbonaceous paste,
+which, when dried, resembles some varieties of coal, and approaches them
+in composition. It has lost half the substance of the original plant,
+and shows a marked increase in the relative proportion of carbon.
+
+_Lignite_.--Each inch in vertical thickness of the peat-bog represents a
+phase in the progressive change from wood-tissue to lignite, using
+this term with its common signification to indicate, not necessarily
+carbonized ligneous tissue, but plant-tissue that belongs to a past
+though modern geological age--i.e., Tertiary, Cretaceous, Jurassic, or
+Triassic. These lignites or modern coals are only peat beds which have
+been buried for a longer or shorter time under clay, sand, or solidified
+rock, and have progressed farther or less far on the road to coal. As
+with peats, so with lignites, we find that at different geological
+levels they exhibit different stages of this distillation--the Tertiary
+lignites being usually distinguished without difficulty by the presence
+of a larger quantity of combined water and oxygen, and a less quantity
+of carbon, than the Cretaceous coals, and these in turn differ in the
+same respects from the Triassic.
+
+All the coals of the Tertiary and Mesozoic ages are grouped under one
+name; but it is evident that they are as different from each other as
+the new and spongy from the old and well-rotted peat in the peat-bog.
+
+_Coal_.--By mere convention, we call the peat which accumulated in the
+Carboniferous age by the name of bituminous coal; and an examination
+of the Carboniferous strata in different countries has shown that the
+peat-beds formed in the Carboniferous age, though varying somewhat, like
+others, with the kind of vegetation from which they were derived, have a
+common character by which they may be distinguished from the more modern
+coals; containing less water, less oxygen, and more carbon, and usually
+exhibiting the property of coking, which is rare in coals of later date.
+Though there is great diversity in the Carboniferous coals, and it would
+be absurd to express their composition by a single formula, it may be
+said that, over the whole world, these coals have characteristics, as
+a group, by which they can be recognized, the result of the slow
+decomposition of the tissue of plants which lived in the Carboniferous
+age, and which have, by a broad and general change, approximated to
+a certain phase in the spontaneous distillation of plant-tissue. An
+experienced geologist will not fail to refer to their proper horizon
+a group of coals of Carboniferous age any more than those of the
+Cretaceous or Tertiary.
+
+_Anthracite_--In the ages anterior to the Carboniferous, the quantity
+of land vegetation was apparently not sufficient to form thick and
+extensive beds of peat; but the remains of plant-tissue are contained
+in all the older formations, though there only as anthracite or
+graphite--the last two groups of residual products. Of these we have
+examples in the beds of graphite in the Laurentian rocks of Canada,
+and of anthracite of the lower Silurian strata of Upper Church and
+Kilnaleck, Ireland.
+
+From these facts it is apparent that the carbon series is graded
+geologically, that is, by the lapse of time during which plant-tissue
+has been subjected to this natural and spontaneous distillation. But we
+have better evidence than this of the derivation of one from another
+of the groups of residual products which have been enumerated. In many
+localities, the coals and lignites of different ages have been exposed
+to local influences--such as the outbursts of trap-rock, or the
+metamorphism of mountain chains--which have hastened the distillation,
+and out of known earlier groups have produced the last. For example,
+trap outbursts have converted Tertiary lignites in Alaska into good
+bituminous coals; on Queen Charlotte's Island, on Anthracite Creek, in
+southwestern Colorado, and at the Placer Mountains, near Santa Fe,
+New Mexico, Cretaceous lignites into anthracite; those from Queen
+Charlotte's Island and southwestern Colorado are as bright, hard, and
+valuable as any from Pennsylvania. At a little distance from the focus
+of volcanic action, the Cretaceous coals of southwestern Colorado have
+been made bituminous and coking, while at the Placer Mountains the same
+stratum may be seen in its anthracitic and lignitic stages.
+
+A still better series, illustrating the derivation of one form of carbon
+solids from another, is furnished by the coals of Ohio, Pennsylvania,
+and Rhode Island. These are of the same age; in Ohio, presenting the
+normal composition and physical characters of bituminous coals, that
+is, of plant tissue generally and uniformly descending the scale in
+the lapse of time from the Carboniferous age to the present. In the
+mountains of Pennsylvania the same coal beds, somewhat affected by the
+metamorphism which all the rocks of the Alleghanies have shared, have
+reached the stage of _semi-bituminous_ coals, where half the volatile
+constituents have been driven off; again, in the anthracite basins of
+eastern Pennsylvania, the distillation further effected has formed from
+these coals _anthracite_, containing only from three to ten per cent. of
+volatile matter; while in the focus of metamorphic action, at Newport,
+Rhode Island, the Carboniferous coals have been changed to _graphitic
+anthracite_, that is, are half anthracite and half graphite. Here,
+traveling from west to east, a progressive change is noted, similar to
+that which may be observed in making a vertical section of a peat bog,
+or in comparing the coals of Tertiary, Mesozoic, and Carboniferous age,
+only the latter is the continuation and natural sequence of the former
+series of changes.
+
+In the Laurentian rocks of Canada are large accumulations of
+carbonaceous matter, all of which is graphite, and that which is
+universally conceded to be derived from plant-tissue. The oxidation of
+graphite is artificially difficult, and in nature's laboratory slow; but
+it is inevitable, as we see in the decomposition of its outcrops and the
+blanching of exposed surfaces of clouded marbles, where the coloring is
+graphite. Thus the end is reached, and by observations in the field,
+the origin and relationship of the different carbon solids derived from
+organic tissue are demonstrated.
+
+It only remains to be said, in regard to them, that all the changes
+enumerated may be imitated artificially, and that the stages of
+decomposition which we have designated by the names graphite,
+anthracite, coal, lignite, are not necessary results of the
+decomposition of plant-tissue. A fallen tree may slowly consume away,
+and all its carbonaceous matter may be oxidized and dissipated without
+exhibiting the phases of lignite, coal, etc.; and lignite and coal,
+when exposed to air and moisture, are burned away to ashes in the same
+manner, simply because in these cases complete oxidation of the carbon
+takes place, particle by particle, and the mass is not affected as a
+whole in such a way as to assume the intermediate stages referred to.
+Chemical analysis, however, proves that the process is essentially the
+same, although the physical results are different.
+
+
+EVOLVED PRODUCTS.
+
+The gradual wasting of plant-tissue in the formation of peat, lignite,
+coal, etc., may be estimated as averaging for peat, 20 to 30 per cent.;
+lignite, 30 to 50 per cent.; coal, 50 to 70 per cent.; anthracite, 70
+to 80; and graphite, 90 per cent. of the original mass. The evolved
+products ultimately represent the entire organic portion of the
+wood--the mineral matter, or ash, being the only residuum. These evolved
+products include both liquids and gases, and by subsequent changes,
+solids are produced from some of them. Carbonic acid, carbonic oxide,
+nitrogenous and hydrocarbon gases, water, and petroleum, are mentioned
+above as the substances which escape from wood-tissue during its
+decomposition. That all these are eliminated in the decay of vegetable
+and animal structures is now generally conceded by chemists and
+geologists, although there is a wide difference of opinion as to the
+nature of the process.
+
+It has been claimed that the evolved products enumerated above are the
+results of the primary decomposition of organic matter, and never of
+further changes in the residual products; i.e., that in the breaking-up
+of organic tissue, variable quantities of coal, anthracite, petroleum,
+marsh gas, etc., are formed, but that these are never derived, the one
+from the other. This opinion is, however, certainly erroneous, and the
+formation of any or all the evolved products may take place throughout
+the entire progress of the decomposition. Marsh gas and carbonic acid
+are seen escaping from the surface of pools where recent vegetable
+matter is submerged, and they are also eliminated in the further
+decomposition of peat, lignite, coal, and carbonaceous shale. Fire damp
+and choke-damp, common names for the gases mentioned above, are produced
+in large quantities in the mines where Tertiary or Cretaceous lignites,
+or Carboniferous coals or anthracites are mined. It has been said that
+these gases are simply locked up in the interstices of the carbonaceous
+matter and are liberated in its excavation; but all who have worked coal
+mines know that such accumulations are not sufficient to supply the
+enormous and continuous flow which comes from all parts of the mass
+penetrated. We have ample proof, moreover, that coal, when exposed to
+the air, undergoes a kind of distillation, in which the evolution
+of carbonic acid and hydrocarbon gases is a necessary and prominent
+feature.
+
+The gas makers know that if their coal is permitted to lie for months or
+years after being mined, it suffers serious deterioration, yielding a
+less and less quantity of illuminating gas with the lapse of time.
+So coking coals are rendered dry, non-caking, and valueless for this
+purpose by long exposure.
+
+Carbureted hydrogen, olefiant gas, etc., are constant associates of the
+petroleum of springs or wells, and this escape of gas and oil has been
+going on in some localities, without apparent diminution, for two or
+three thousand years. We can only account for the persistence of this
+flow by supposing that it is maintained by the gradual distillation of
+the carbonaceous masses with which such evolutions of gas or of liquid
+hydro-carbons are always connected. If it were true that carbureted
+hydrogen and petroleum are produced only from the primary decomposition
+of organic tissue, it would be inevitable that at least the elastic
+gases would have escaped long since.
+
+Oil wells which have been nominally exhausted--that is, from which the
+accumulations of centuries in rock reservoirs have been pumped--and
+therefore have been abandoned, have in all cases been found to be slowly
+replenished by a current and constant secretion, apparently the product
+of an unceasing distillation.
+
+In the valley of the Cumberland, about Burkesville, one of the oil
+regions of the country, the gases escaping from the equivalent of the
+Utica shale accumulate under the plates of impervious limestone above
+until masses of rock and earth, hundreds of tons in weight, are
+sometimes thrown out with great violence. Unless these gases had been
+produced by comparatively recent distillation, such explosions could not
+occur.
+
+In opening a coal mine on a hillside, the first traces of the coal seam
+are found in a dark stain in the superficial clay; then a substance like
+rotten wood is reached, from which all the volatile constituents have
+escaped. These appear, however, later, and continue to increase as the
+mine is deepened, until under water or a heavy covering of rock the coal
+attains its normal physical and chemical characters. Here it is evident
+that the coal has undergone a long-continued distillation, which must
+have resulted in the constant production of carbonic acid and carbureted
+hydrogen.
+
+A line of perennial oil and gas springs marks the outcrop of every
+great stratum of carbonaceous matter in the country. Of these, the most
+considerable and remarkable are the bituminous shales of the Silurian
+(Utica shale), of the Devonian (Hamilton and Huron shales), the
+Carboniferous, etc. Here the carbonaceous constituent (10 to 20 per
+cent.) is disseminated through a great proportion of inorganic material,
+clay and sand, and seems, both from the nature of the materials which
+furnished it--cellular plants and minute animal organisms--and its
+dissemination, to be specially prone to spontaneous distillation. The
+Utica shale is the lowest of these great sheets of carbonaceous matter,
+and that supplies the hydro-carbon gases and liquids which issue from
+the earth at Collingwood, Canada, and in the valley of the Cumberland.
+The next carbonaceous sheet is formed by the great bituminous shale
+beds of the upper Devonian, which underlie and supply the oil wells in
+western Pennsylvania. In some places the shale is several hundred
+feet in thickness, and contains more carbonaceous matter than all the
+overlying coal strata. The outcrop of this formation, from central New
+York to Tennessee, is conspicuously marked by gas springs, the flow from
+which is apparently unfailing.
+
+Petroleum is scarcely less constant in its connection with these
+carbonaceous rocks than carbureted hydrogen, and it only escapes notice
+from the little space it occupies. The two substances are so closely
+allied that they must have a common origin, and they are, in fact,
+generated simultaneously in thousands of localities.
+
+During the oil excitement of some years since, when the whole country
+was hunted over for "oil sign," in many lagoons, from which bubbles of
+marsh-gas were constantly escaping, films of genuine petroleum were
+found on the surface; and as the underlying strata were barren of oil,
+this could only have been derived from the decaying vegetable tissue
+below. In the Bay of Marquette, two or three miles north of the town,
+where the shore is a peat bog underlain by Archaean rocks, I have seen
+bubbles of carbureted hydrogen rising in great numbers attended by drops
+of petroleum which spread as iridescent films on the surface.
+
+The remarks which have been made in regard to the heterogeneous nature
+of the solid hydrocarbons apply with scarcely less force to the gaseous
+and liquid products of vegetable decomposition. The gases which escape
+from marshes contain carbonic acid, a number of hydrocarbon gases (or
+the materials out of which they may be composed in the process of
+analysis), and finally a larger or smaller volume of nitrogenous gas.
+It is possible that the elimination of these gases takes the form of
+fractional distillation, and definite compounds may be formed directly
+from the wood-tissue or its derivatives, and mingle as they escape. This
+is, however, not certain, for the gases, as we find them, are always
+mixtures and never pure. In the liquid evolved products, the petroleums,
+this is emphatically true, for we combine under this name fluids which
+vary greatly in both their physical and chemical characters; some are
+light and ethereal, others are thick and tarry; some are transparent,
+some opaque; some red, some brown, others green; some have an offensive
+and others an agreeable odor; some contain asphalt in large quantity,
+others paraffine, etc. Thus they form a heterogeneous assemblage of
+liquid hydrocarbons, of which naphtha and maltha may be said to form
+the extremes, and which have little in common, except their undefinable
+name. The causes of these differences are but imperfectly understood,
+but we know that they are in part dependent on the nature of the organic
+material that has furnished the petroleums, and in part upon influences
+affecting them after their formation. For example, the oil which
+saturates the Niagara limestone at Chicago, and--which is undoubtedly
+indigenous in this rock, and probably of animal origin, is black and
+thick; that from Enniskillen, Canada, is also black, has a vile odor,
+probably in virtue of sulphur compounds, and, we have reason to believe,
+is derived from animal matter. The oils of northwestern Pennsylvania are
+mostly brown, sometimes green by reflected light, and have a pungent and
+characteristic odor. These are undoubtedly derived from the Hamilton
+shales, which contain ten or twenty per cent, of carbonaceous matter,
+apparently produced from the decomposition of sea-weeds, since these are
+in places exceedingly abundant, and nearly all other fossils are absent.
+
+The oils of Italy, though varying much in appearance, have usually an
+ethereal odor that is rather agreeable; they are of Tertiary age. The
+oils of Japan, differing much among themselves, have as, a common
+character an odor quite different from the Pennsylvania oils. So the
+petroleums of the Caspian, of India, California, etc., occurring at
+different geological horizons, exhibit a diversity of physical and
+chemical characters which may be fairly supposed to depend upon the
+material from which they have been distilled. The oils in the same
+region, however, are found to exhibit a series of differences which are
+plainly the result of causes operating upon them after their production.
+Near the surface, they are thicker and darker; below, and near the
+carbonaceous mass from which they have been generated, they are of
+lighter gravity and color. We find, in limited quantity, oils which are
+nearly white and may be used in lamps without refining--which have been
+refined, in fact, in Nature's laboratory. Others, that are reddish
+yellow by transmitted light, sometimes green by reflected light, are
+called amber oils; these also occur in small quantity, and, as I am led
+to believe, have acquired their characteristics by filtration through
+masses of sandstone. Whatever the variety of petroleum may be,
+if exposed for a long time to the air it undergoes a spontaneous
+distillation, in which gases and vapors, existing or formed, escape,
+and solid residues are left. The nature of these solids varies with
+the petroleums from which they come, some producing asphaltum,
+others paraffine, others ozokerite, and so on through a long list of
+substances, which have received distinct names as mineral species,
+though rarely, if ever, possessing a definite and invariable
+composition. The change of petroleum to asphalt may be witnessed at a
+great number of localities. In Canada, the black asphaltic oil forms by
+its evaporation great sheets of hard or tarry asphalt, called gum
+beds, around the oil-springs. In the far West are numerous springs of
+petroleum, which are known to the hunters as "_tar springs_," because
+of the accumulations about them of the products of the evaporation and
+oxidation of petroleum to tar or asphalt. Certain less common oils yield
+ozokerite as a solid, and considerable accumulations of this are known
+in Galicia and Utah.
+
+Natural paraffine is less abundant, and yet in places it occurs in
+considerable quantity. Asphalt is the common name for the solid residue
+from the evaporation and oxidation of petroleum; and large accumulations
+of this substance are known in many parts of the world, perhaps the most
+noted of all being that of the "Pitch Lake". of the Island of Trinidad;
+there, as everywhere else, the derivation of asphalt from petroleum is
+obvious, and traceable in all stages. The asphalts, then, have a common
+history in this, that they are produced by the evaporation and oxidation
+of petroleum. But it should also be said that they share the diversity
+of character of petroleums, and the term asphalt represents a group of
+substances of which the physical characters and chemical composition
+differ greatly in virtue of their derivation, and also differ from
+changes which they are constantly undergoing. Thus at the Pitch Lake in
+Trinidad, the central portion is a tarry petroleum, near the sides a
+plastic asphalt, and finally that which is of almost rock-like solidity.
+Hence we see that the solid residues from petroleum are unstable
+compounds like the coals and lignites, and in virtue of their organic
+nature are constantly undergoing a series of changes of which the final
+term is combustion or oxidation. From these facts we might fairly infer
+that asphalts formed in geological ages anterior to the present would
+exhibit characters resulting from still further distillation; that they
+would be harder and drier, i.e., containing less volatile ingredients
+and more fixed carbon. Such is, in fact, the case; and these older
+asphalts are represented by _Grahamite, Albertite_, etc., which I have
+designated as asphaltic coals. These are found in fissures and cavities
+in rocks of various ages, which have been more or less disturbed, and
+usually in regions where springs of petroleum now exist. The Albertite
+fills fissures in Carboniferous rocks in New Brunswick, on a line of
+disturbance and near oil-springs. Precisely the same may be said of the
+Grahamite of West Virginia. It fills a vertical fissure, which was
+cut through the sandstones and shales of the coal-measures; in the
+sandstones it remained open, in the shales it has been closed by the
+yielding of the rock. The Grahamite fills the open fissure in the
+sandstone, and was plainly introduced when in a liquid state. In the
+vicinity are oil springs, and it is on an axis of disturbance. From
+near Tampico, Mexico, I have received a hydrocarbon solid--essentially
+Grahamite, asphalt, and petroleum. These are described as occurring near
+together, and evidently represent phases of different dates in the same
+substance. I have collected asphaltic coals, very similar to Grahamite
+and Albertite in appearance and chemical composition, in Colorado and
+Utah, where they occur with the game associates as at Tampico. I have
+found at Canajoharie, New York, in cavities in the lead-veins which rut
+the Utica shale, a hydrocarbon solid which must have infiltrated into
+these cavities as petroleum, but which, since the remote period when the
+fissures were formed, has been distilled until it is now _anthracite_.
+Similar anthracitic asphalt or asphaltic anthracite is common in
+the Calciferous sand-rock in Herkimer County, New York, where it is
+associated with, and often contained in, the beautiful crystals of
+quartz for which the locality is famous. Here the same phase of
+distillation is reached as in the coke residuum of the petroleum stills.
+
+Again, in some crystalline limestones, detached scales or crystals of
+_graphite_ occur, which are undoubtedly the product of the complete
+distillation of liquid hydrocarbons with which the rock was once
+impregnated. The remarkable purity of such graphite is the natural
+result of its mode of formation, and such cases resemble the occurrence
+of graphite in cast iron and basalt. The black clouds and bands which
+stain many otherwise white marbles are generally due to specks of
+graphite, the residue of hydrocarbons which once saturated the rock.
+Some limestones are quite black from the carbonaceous matter they
+contain (Lycoming Valley, Pa., Glenn's Falls, N. Y., and Collingwood,
+Canada), and these are sold as black marbles, but if exposed to heat,
+such limestones are blanched by the expulsion of the contained carbon;
+usually a residue of anthracite or graphite is left, forming dark spots
+or streaks, as we find in the clouded and banded marbles.
+
+Finally, the great work going on in Nature's laboratory may be closely
+imitated by art; the differences in the results being simply the
+consequence of differing conditions in the experiments. Vegetable tissue
+has been converted artificially into the equivalents of lignite, coal,
+anthracite, and graphite, with the emission of vapors, gases, and oils
+closely resembling those evolved in natural processes. So petroleum may
+be distilled to form asphalt, and this in turn converted into Albertite
+and coke (i.e., anthracite). Grahamite has been artificially produced
+from petroleum by Mr. W. P. Jenney.
+
+In the preceding remarks, no effort has been made even to enumerate
+all the so-called carbon minerals which have been described. This was
+unnecessary in a discussion of the relations of the more important
+groups, and would have extended this article much beyond its prescribed
+length. Those who care to gain a fuller knowledge of the different
+members of the various groups are referred to the admirable chapter on
+the "Hydrocarbon Compounds" in Dana's Mineralogy.
+
+It will, however, add to the value of this paper, if brief mention be
+made of a few carbon minerals of which the genesis and relations are not
+generally known, and in regard to which special interest is felt, such
+as the diamond, jet, the hydrocarbon jellies, "Dopplerite," etc.
+
+The diamond is found in the _debris_ of metamorphic rocks in many
+countries, and is probably one of the evolved products of the
+distillation of organic matter they once contained. Under peculiar
+circumstances it has apparently been formed by precipitation from
+sulphide of carbon or some other volatile carbon compound by elective
+affinity. Laboratory experiments have proved the possibility of
+producing it by such a process, but the artificial crystals are
+microscopic, perhaps only because a long time is required to build up
+those of larger size.
+
+Jet is a carbonaceous solid which in most cases is a true lignite, and
+generally retains more or less of the structure of wood. Masses are
+sometimes found that show no structure, and these are probably formed
+from bitumen which has separated from the wood of which it once formed
+part, and which it generally saturates or invests. In some cases,
+however, these masses of jet-like substance are plainly the residuum of
+excrementitious matter voided by fishes or reptiles. These latter are
+often found in the Triassic fish-beds of Connecticut and New Jersey, and
+in the Cretaceous marls of the latter State.
+
+The discovery of a quantity of hydrocarbon jelly, recently, in a
+peat-bed at Scranton, Pa., has caused some wonder, but similar
+substances (Dopplerite, etc.) have been met with in the peat-beds of
+other countries; and while the history of the formation of this singular
+group of hydrocarbons is not yet well understood, and offers an
+interesting subject for future research, we have reason to believe that
+these jellies have been of common occurrence among the evolved products
+of the decomposition of vegetable tissue in all ages.
+
+The fossil resins--often erroneously called gums--amber, kauri, copal,
+etc., though interestingly related to the hydro-carbons enumerated on
+the preceding pages, form no essential part of the series, and demand
+only the briefest notice here.
+
+_Amber_ is the resin which exuded from certain coniferous trees that,
+in Tertiary times, grew abundantly in northern Europe. The leaves and
+trunks of these trees have generally perished; but masses of their
+resin, more enduring, buried in the earth on the shores of the Baltic,
+have in the lapse of time changed physically and chemically, and have
+become fitted for the ornamental purposes for which they have been used
+by all civilized nations.
+
+_Kauri_ is the resin of _Dammara australis_, a living coniferous tree of
+New Zealand, and the "gum" is dug from the earth on the sites of forests
+which have now disappeared.
+
+_Copal_ is a commercial name given to the resins of several different
+trees, but the most esteemed, and indeed the only true copal, is the
+product of _Trachylobium Mozambicense_, a tree which grows along the
+Zanzibar coast, and has left its resin buried in the sands of old raised
+beaches which it has abandoned.
+
+The diversity of character which the fossil resins exhibit shows the
+complexity of the vital processes in operation in the vegetable kingdom,
+and gives probability to the theory that some of the differences we find
+in the carbon minerals are due to differences in the plants from which
+they have been derived.
+
+The variations in the physical and chemical characters of different
+coals from the same basin, and from different parts of the same stratum,
+have been sometimes credited to the same cause; but they are probably
+in greater degree due to the differences in the conditions under which
+these varieties have been formed.
+
+Cannel coal, as I have shown elsewhere (_Amer. Jour. Science_, March,
+1857), is completely macerated vegetable tissue which was deposited as
+carbonaceous mud at the bottom of lagoons in the coal-marshes.
+
+Caking coals were probably peat, which accumulated under somewhat
+uniform conditions, was constantly saturated with moisture, and became
+a comparatively homogeneous and partially gelatinous carbonaceous mass;
+while the open-burning coals which show a distinctly laminated structure
+and consist of layers of pitch-coal, alternating with bands of mineral
+charcoal or cannel, seem to have been formed in alternating conditions,
+of more or less moisture, and the bituminous portions are inclosed in
+cells or are separated by partitions, so that the mass does not melt
+down, but more or less perfectly holds its form when exposed to heat.
+
+The generalities of the origin and relations of the carbon minerals
+have now been briefly considered; but a review of the subject would
+be incomplete without some reference to the theories which have been
+advanced by others, that are in conflict with the views now presented.
+There have always been some who denied the organic nature of the mineral
+hydrocarbons, but it has been regarded as a sufficient answer to their
+theories, that chemists and geologists are generally agreed in saying
+that no instances are known of the occurrence in nature of hydrocarbons,
+solid, liquid, or gaseous, in which the evidence was not satisfactory
+that they had been derived from animal or vegetable tissue. A few
+exceptional cases, however, in which chemists and geologists of deserved
+distinction have claimed the possibility and even probability of the
+production of marsh gas, petroleum, etc., through inorganic agencies,
+require notice.
+
+In a paper published in the _Annales de Chimie et de Physique_, Vol.
+IX., p.481, M. Berthelot attempts to show that the formation of
+petroleum and carbureted hydrogen from inorganic substances is possible,
+if it be true, as suggested by Daubre, that there are vast masses of the
+alkaline metals--potassium, sodium, etc.--deeply buried in the earth,
+and at a high temperature, to which carbonic acid should gain access;
+and he demonstrates that, these premises being granted, the formation of
+hydrocarbons would necessarily follow.
+
+But it should be said that no satisfactory evidence has ever been
+offered of the existence of zones or masses of the unoxidized alkaline
+metals in the earth, and it is not claimed by Berthelot that there are
+any facts in the occurrence of petroleum and carbureted hydrogen in
+nature which seem to exemplify the chemical action which he simply
+claims is theoretically possible. Berthelot also says that, in most
+cases, there can be no doubt of the organic origin of the hydrocarbons.
+
+Mendeleeff, in the _Revue Scientifique_, 1877, p. 409, discusses at
+considerable length the genesis of petroleum, and attempts to sustain
+the view that it is of inorganic origin. His arguments and illustrations
+are chiefly drawn from the oil wells of Pennsylvania and Canada, and
+for the petroleum of these two districts he claims an inorganic origin,
+because, as he says, there are no accumulations of organic matter below
+the horizons at which the oils and gases occur. He then goes into a
+lengthy discussion of the possible and probable source of petroleum,
+where, as in the instances cited, an organic origin "is not possible."
+It is a sufficient answer to M. Mendeleeff to say, that beneath the oil
+bearing strata of western Pennsylvania are sheets of bituminous shale,
+from one hundred to five hundred feet in thickness, which afford an
+adequate, and it may be proved the true source, of the petroleum, and
+that no petroleum has been found below these shales; also that the
+oil-fields of Canada are all underlain by the Collingwood shales, the
+equivalent of the Utica carbonaceous shales of New York, and that from
+the out-crops of these shales petroleum and hydrocarbon gases are
+constantly escaping. With a better knowledge of the geology of the
+districts he refers to, he would have seen that the facts in the
+cases he cites afford the strongest evidence of the organic origin of
+petroleum.
+
+Among those who are agreed as to the organic origin of the hydrocarbons,
+there is yet some diversity of opinion in regard to the nature of the
+process by which they have been produced.
+
+Prof. J. P. Lesley has at various times advocated the theory that
+petroleum is indigenous in the sand-rocks which hold it, and has been
+derived from plants buried in them. ("Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc.," Vol.
+X., pp. 33, 187, etc.)
+
+My own observations do not sanction this view, as the limited number of
+plants buried in the sandstones which are now reservoirs of petroleum
+must always have borne a small proportion in volume to the mass of
+inorganic matter; and some of those which are saturated with petroleum
+are almost completely destitute of the impressions of plants.
+
+In all cases where sandstones contain petroleum in quantity, I think it
+will be found that there are sheets of carbonaceous matter below, from
+which carbureted hydrogen and petroleum are constantly issuing. A more
+probable explanation of the occurrence of petrolem in the sandstones is
+that they have, from their porosity, become convenient receptacles for
+that which flowed from some organic stratum below.
+
+Dr. T. Sterry Hunt has regarded limestones, and especially the Niagara
+and corniferous, as the principal sources of our petroleum; but, as I
+have elsewhere suggested, no considerable flow of petroleum has ever
+been obtained from the Niagara limestone, though at Chicago and Niagara
+Falls it contains a large quantity of bituminous matter; also, that the
+corniferous limestone which Dr. Hunt has regarded as the source of the
+oil of Canada and Pennsylvania is too thin, and too barren of petroleum,
+or the material out of which it is made, to justify the inference.
+
+The corniferous limestone is never more than fifty or sixty feet thick,
+and does not contain even one per cent. of hydrocarbons; and in southern
+Kentucky, where oil is produced in large quantity, this limestone does
+not exist.
+
+That many limestones are more or less charged with petroleum is well
+known; and in addition to those mentioned above, the Silurian limestone
+at Collingwood, Canada, may be cited as an example. As I have elsewhere
+shown, we have reason to believe that the petroleum here is indigenous,
+and has been derived, in part, at least, from animal organisms; but the
+limestones are generally compact, and if cellular, their cavities are
+closed, and the amount of petroleum which, under any circumstances,
+flows from or can be extracted from limestone rock is small. On the
+other hand, the bituminous shales which underlie the different oil
+regions afford an abundant source of supply, holding the proper
+relations with the reservoirs that contain the oil, and are
+spontaneously and constantly evolving gas and oil, as may be observed
+in a great number of localities. For this reason, while confessing
+the occurrence of petroleum and asphaltum in many limestones, I am
+thoroughly convinced that little or none of the petroleum of commerce is
+derived from them.
+
+Prof. S.F. Peckham, who has studied the petroleum field of southern
+California, attributes the abundant hydrocarbon emanations in that
+locality to microscopic animals. It is quite possible that this is
+true in this and other localities, but the bituminous shales which are
+evidently the sources of the petroleum of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky,
+etc., generally contain abundant impressions of sea weeds, and indeed
+these are almost the only organisms which have left any traces in them.
+I am inclined, therefore, now, as in my report on the rock oils of Ohio,
+published in 1860, to ascribe the carbonaceous matter of the bituminous
+shales of Pennsylvania and Ohio, and hence the petroleum derived from
+them, to the easily decomposed cellular tissue of algae which have
+in their decomposition contributed a large percentage of diffused
+carbonaceous matter to the sediments accumulating at the bottom of the
+water where they grew. In a recent communication to the National Academy
+of Sciences, Dr. T. Sterry Hunt has proposed the theory that anthracite
+is the result of the decomposition of vegetable tissue when buried in
+porous strata like sandstone; but an examination of even a few of the
+important deposits of anthracite in the world will show that no such
+relationship as he suggests obtains.
+
+Anthracite may and does occur in sedimentary rocks of varied character,
+but, so far as my observation has extended, never in quantity in
+sandstone. In the Lower Silurian rocks anthracite occurs, both in the
+Old World and in the New, where no metamorphism has affected it, and
+where it is simply the normal result of the long continued distillation
+of plant tissue; but the anthracite beds which are known and mined in so
+many countries are the results of the metamorphism of coal-beds of one
+or another age, by local outbursts of trap, or the steaming and baking
+of the disturbed strata in mountain chains, numerous instances of which
+are given on a preceding page.
+
+M. Mendeleeff, in his article already referred to, misled by a want of
+knowledge of the geology of our oil-fields, and ascribing the petroleum
+to an inorganic cause, connects the production of oil in Pennsylvania
+and Caucasia with the neighboring mountain chains of the Alleghanies and
+the Caucasus; but in these localities a sufficient amount of organic
+matter can be found to supply a source for the petroleum, while the
+upheaval and loosening of the strata along lines parallel with the axes
+of elevation has favored the decomposition (spontaneous distillation) of
+the carbonaceous strata. It should be distinctly stated, also, that no
+igneous rocks are found in the vicinity of productive oil-wells, here or
+elsewhere, and there are no facts to sustain the view that petroleum is
+a volcanic product.
+
+In the valley of the Mississippi, in Ohio, Illinois, and Kentucky, are
+great deposits of petroleum, far removed from any mountain chain or
+volcanic vent, and the cases which have been cited of the limited
+production of hydrocarbons in the vicinity of, and probably in
+connection with, volcanic centers may be explained by supposing that
+in these cases the petroleum is distilled from sedimentary strata
+containing organic matter by the proximity of melted rock, or steam.
+
+Everything indicates that the distillation which has produced
+the greatest quantities of petroleum known was effected at a low
+temperature, and the constant escape of petroleum and carbureted
+hydrogen from the outcrops of bituminous shales, as well as the result
+of weathering on the shales, depriving them of all their carbon, shows
+that the distillation and complete elimination of the organic matter
+they contain may take place at the ordinary temperature.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ESTIMATION OF SULPHUR IN IRON AND STEEL.
+
+By GEORGE CRAIG.
+
+
+For wellnigh two years I have been estimating sulphur in iron and steel
+by a modification of the evolution process, which consists in passing
+the evolved gases through an ammoniacal solution of peroxide of
+hydrogen, which oxidizes the sulphureted hydrogen to sulphuric acid,
+which latter is estimated as usual. The _modus operandi_ is as follows:
+
+[Illustration]
+
+100 grains of the iron or steel are placed in the 10 oz. flask, a, along
+with 1/2 oz. water; 11/2 oz. hydrochloric acid are added from the stoppered
+funnel, b, in such quantities at a time as to produce a moderate
+evolution of gas through the nitrogen bulb, c, which contains 1/8 oz.
+(20 vols.) peroxide of hydrogen and 1/2 oz. ammonia. The tube, d, is to
+condense the bulk of the hydrochloric acid which distills over during
+the operation. When all the acid has been added and the evolution of gas
+becomes sluggish, heat is applied and the liquid boiled till all action
+ceases. Air is blown through the aparatus for a few minutes and the
+contents of c and d washed into a small beaker and acidified with
+hydrochloric acid, boiled, barium chloride added, and the barium
+sulphate filtered off after standing a short time. A blank experiment
+must be done with each new lot of peroxide of hydrogen obtained, which
+always gives under 0.1 barium sulphate with me.
+
+The whole operation is finished within two hours, the usual oxidation
+process occupying nearly two days; and the results obtained are
+invariably slightly higher than by the oxidation processes.
+
+Until lately I have always added excess of chlorate of potash to the
+residue left in a, evaporated it nearly to dryness, diluted, filtered,
+and added chloride of barium to the diluted filtrate, but only once
+have I obtained a trace of precipitate after standing 48 hours, and the
+pig-iron in that case contained 8 per cent. of silicon, so that all
+the sulphur is evolved during the process. It has been objected to the
+evolution process that when the iron contains copper all the sulphur is
+not evolved, but theoretically it ought to be evolved whether copper is
+present or not; and to test the point I fused 3 lb. of ordinary Scotch
+pig-iron with some copper for half an hour in a Fletcher's gas furnace.
+No copper could be detected in the iron by mere observation with a
+microscope, but it gave on analysis 0.225 per cent. of copper, and on
+estimating the sulphur in it by the above process and by oxidation with
+chlorate of potash and hydrochloric acid, using 100 grains in each case,
+and performing blank experiments, I found:
+
+  By peroxide of hydrogen process          0.0357 per cent.
+  By oxidation (KClO_{3} and HCl) process, 0.0302     "
+
+so that even in highly cupriferous pig-iron all the sulphur is evolved
+on treatment with strong hydrochloric acid.--_Chem. News_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE AIR IN RELATION TO HEALTH.
+
+[Footnote: Abstract of a lecture before the Master Plumbers'
+Association, New York, Nov. 2. 1882.]
+
+By Prof. C. F. CHANDLER.
+
+
+It is only about one hundred years since the first important facts were
+discovered which threw light upon the chemistry of atmosphere. It was in
+1774 that Dr. Priestley, in London, and Scheele, in Sweden, discovered
+the vital constituents of the atmosphere--the oxygen gas which supports
+life. The inert gas, nitrogen, had been discovered a year or two before.
+When we examine our atmosphere, we find it is composed of oxygen and
+nitrogen. The nitrogen constitutes no less than 80 per cent, of the
+atmosphere; the remaining 20 percent, consists of oxygen, so that the
+atmosphere consists almost entirely of these two gases, odorless and
+colorless and invisible. The atmosphere is, however, never free from
+moisture; a certain amount of aqueous vapor is always present. The
+quantity can hardly be stated, as it varies from day to day and month
+to month; it depends upon the temperature and other conditions. Then
+we have the gas commonly called carbonic acid in extremely minute
+quantities, about one part in 2,500, or four one-hundredths of one per
+cent. A small quantity of ammonia and a small quantity of ozone are also
+present.
+
+Besides these gases which have been enumerated, and which play an
+important part in supporting life in both the kingdoms of nature, we
+find a great many solids. Every housewife knows how dust settles upon
+everything about the house. This dust has recently been the subject of
+most active study, and it proves to be quite as important as the vital
+oxygen that actually supports life. When we examine this dust--and it
+falls everywhere, not only in the city streets, but upon the tops of
+mountains, upon the deck of the ocean steamer, and the Arctic snow--we
+find some of it does not belong to the earth, and, as it is not
+terrestrial, we call it cosmical. And when it falls in large pieces we
+call it a meteorite or shooting star. When the Challenger crossed the
+Atlantic, and soundings were made in the deep sea, in the mud that was
+brought up and examined there were found various little particles that
+were not terrestrial. They were dust particles that were dropped into
+the atmosphere of the earth from outer space. Then we have terrestrial
+dust, and we divide that into mineral and organic. The mineral consists
+chiefly of clay, sand, and, near the ocean, salt. Then we have organic
+matter. Some of this is dead leaves which have been ground to powder.
+Animal matter has also become dry and reduced to powder, and we actually
+find the remains of animals and plants floating upon the atmosphere,
+especially in the city. Examinations of the dust which had collected
+upon the basement and higher windows of a Fifth avenue residence showed
+that the dust upon the basement floor was chiefly composed of sand.
+And the higher up I went, the smaller proportion of sand and a larger
+proportion of animal matter, so that the dust that blows into our faces
+is largely decomposing animal substance.
+
+But we have a living matter in the atmosphere. We often notice in the
+summer, after a rain, that the ground is yellow. On gathering up the
+yellow powder and examining it under the microscope, we find that it
+consists of pollen. The pollen of rag weed and other plants is supposed
+to be the cause of hay fever. But we also have something far more
+important in the germs of certain classes of vegetation. The effects
+are familiar. If food is put away, it becomes mouldy. This mould is a
+peculiar kind of vegetation which is called a fungus, and the plants
+fungi. In order for this mould to develop a certain temperature and a
+certain degree of moisture are necessary. Our food, we say, decays.
+Now, what we call decay is really the growth of these fungi. Animal and
+vegetable substances which these fungi seize upon are destroyed. All
+ordinary fermentations and putrefactions are due to mould fungi, yeast
+plants, or bacteria, and liquids undergoing these processes carry these
+fungi and their germs wherever they go. The refuse of the city pollutes
+the air. You have only to pass along any street to find more or less
+rubbish. That furnishes the nidus for the growth and development of
+these germs, and until we adopt better methods of getting rid of that
+refuse, we never shall have the air of this city in the condition that
+it should be.
+
+One of the most constant sources of the pollution of the air in
+inhabited localities is the decomposition that takes place in the
+ground. Refuse of every kind gets into it. Our sewers are leaky, and
+putrefaction is constantly going on. The soil down to the limit of
+the ground water contains a large amount of air. This air, when the
+atmospheric pressure in the house is diminished, is drawn in with such
+organic impurities as it contains. A cement floor in the cellar is not
+a protection against this entrance of the ground air, for the cement is
+porous to the passage of air, but a remedy may be found by laying on the
+cement a covering of coal tar pitch, in which bricks are set on edge,
+the spaces between the bricks are filled with the melted pitch, and the
+bricks then covered with coal tar pitch. When the house is building, the
+foundation walls should also be similarly coated, outside as well as
+inside. Such a cellar floor was considered to be absolutely impervious
+to ground air and moisture. The lecturer had recently laid this floor in
+his own house with the greatest success. The atmosphere of the entire
+house is improved, and the expense is very moderate. Another source of
+the contamination of the air of houses is the heating apparatus.
+Stoves and furnaces, however well constructed at first, will, from the
+contraction and expansion of the metal, soon allow the escape of coal
+gas, and this danger is greatly increased by the use of dampers in
+the stove-pipe. When, to regulate the fire, the damper in the pipe is
+closed, the gases, having their passage to the chimney cut off, will
+escape through any cracks or openings in the stove into the room.
+Prof. Chandler, having kept a record of accidents from this cause, had
+accumulated a formidable list of suffocations due to the use of the
+damper. The danger was now somewhat lessened by providing dampers with
+perforations in the center, which allowed the gases to escape when the
+damper was closed. As regards the maintenance of pure air in houses,
+the preference was given to the open fire-place. The hot-air furnace
+deriving a supply of pure air from out of doors was, when properly
+constructed, a very satisfactory method of heating, but in city houses
+the mistake was often made of carrying the cold air duct of the furnace
+to the front of the house, where it was exposed to the dust of the
+streets. It should be taken from the rear end of the house, and carried
+some distance above the surface of the yard. It was an excellent
+expedient to insert in the cold air duct a wire screen to hold a layer
+of cotton to retain the floating impurities which might enter the
+air-box. This could be removed from time to time, and the cotton
+replaced. Steam heating has been objected to by many for reasons in
+no wise due to the apparatus, but to neglect in the use of it. The
+complaint of closeness where steam is used is due to the fact that a
+room containing a steam radiator can be heated with every door and
+window closed, and no fresh air admitted, while with stoves and open
+fire-places a certain quantity of fresh air must be admitted to maintain
+the fire. Where radiators are used, the ventilation of the rooms should,
+therefore, be looked after. Again, the complaint that steam apparatus
+has an unpleasant odor is due to the fact that the radiators are allowed
+to become covered with dust, which is cooked, and gives rise to the
+smells complained of. The radiator should be from time to time
+cleaned. When these precautions are taken, no means of heating is more
+satisfactory than steam.
+
+Sewer gas is another source of contamination; this is a very indefinite
+term, to which formerly many false and exaggerated properties of causing
+specific diseases were attributed. It is now, however, recognized to
+mean simply the air of sewers, generally not differing very greatly from
+common air, containing a certain proportion of marsh gas, carbonic
+acid, and sulphureted hydrogen, etc. No one of these gases, however,
+is capable of producing the diseases attributed to sewer gas. Careful
+research has shown that it is the sewage itself, containing germs of
+specific disease, which is added to the air in the sewer by the breaking
+of bubbles of gas on its surface, which is the cause of the diseases
+associated with sewers.
+
+An intimate connection is believed to exist between the germs of sewer
+air and diphtheria, and probably also between sewer air and scarlet
+fever. This sewer gas is to be excluded from our houses by proper
+systems of plumbing, and to such an extent have these now been
+perfected, that there is no objection to having plumbing fixtures in
+all parts of the house. This opinion has lately been objected to in the
+_Popular Science Monthly_, as it was at a meeting of the Academy of
+Medicine last spring, but on wholly insufficient grounds.
+
+The objectors all insist that a trap will allow sewer gas to pass
+through it, and the experiments made at the Academy of Medicine showed
+that sulphureted hydrogen gas, etc., would so pass. The advocates of the
+trap have never denied that the water seal would absorb gases on one
+side and give them off on the other, but they do deny that, in the
+conditions existing in good plumbing, such gases will be given off in
+quantities to do any damage, and they confidently assert that the germ
+which is the dangerous element will not pass the seal at all. Pumpelly
+investigated the matter for the National Board of Health, and in no
+instance was he able to make the germ pass the seal of the trap. It is
+now proposed to set up against the weight of this scientific testimony
+the results of an investigator in Chicago, whose work was at once
+appropriated as an advertisement by stock jobbing disinfectant companies
+in a manner which raises a suspicion that the investigation was made in
+their interest. He described tersely the essentials of good plumbing,
+the necessity of a trap on the house drain, the ventilation of the
+soil-pipe, and the ventilation of the trap against siphonage. Of the
+first, he said that it offered protection to each householder against
+the entrance into his house of the germs of a contagious disease which
+passed into the common sewer from the house of a neighbor. Were the trap
+dispensed with, the contagion in the sewer would have free entrance into
+the houses connecting with it.
+
+Prof. Chandler, in conclusion, alluded to the cordial relations now
+existing between the Board of Health and the majority of the master
+plumbers of the city. He said that for himself his opinion of the craft
+had greatly risen during his intimate connection with plumbers the last
+two years. He thought the majority of the jobs now done in the city are
+well executed. He believed that the Board of Health had not been obliged
+to proceed against more than eight master plumbers since the new law
+went into force. He called upon the Association to adopt a "code of
+ethics," which should define what an honest plumber can do and cannot
+do, and he illustrated his meaning by citing an extraordinary case of
+fraudulent workmanship which had been recently reported to him. His
+remarks on this point were greeted with frequent outbursts of applause.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE PLANTAIN AS A STYPTIC.
+
+
+The following abstract of a paper read by Dr. Quinlan at the recent
+British Pharmaceutical Congress, may prove of interest to medical
+readers in this country, where the plant mentioned is a common weed:
+
+"About a year ago Dr. Quinlan had seen the chewed leaves of the
+_Plantago lanceolata_ successfully used to stop a dangerous hemorrhage
+from leech bites in a situation where pressure could not be employed. He
+had searched out the literature of the subject, and found that, although
+this herb is highly spoken of by Culpepper and other old writers as
+a styptic, and alluded to as such in the plays of Shakespeare, its
+employment seems to have died out. Professor Quinlan described the
+suitable varieties of plantain, and exhibited preparations which had
+been made for him by Dr. J. Evans, of Dublin, State apothecary. They
+dried leaves and powdered leaves, conserved with glycerine, for external
+use; the juice preserved by alcohol, as also by glycerine, for internal
+use; and a green extract. He gave an account of the chemistry of the
+juice, from which it appeared that it was not a member of the tannin
+series; and also described its physiological effect in causing a
+tendency to stasia in the capillaries of the tail of a goldfish,
+examined with a microscopic power of 400 X. He regarded its styptic
+power as partly mechanical and partly physiological. The juice, in large
+doses, he had found useful in internal hemorrhages. The knowledge of
+the properties of this plant he thought would be useful in cases of
+emergency, because it could be obtained in any field and by the most
+uninstructed persons."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+BACTERIA.
+
+
+Bacteria, whether significant of disease or decline of health, are found
+more or less numerous in everything we eat and drink. The germs or
+spores of many kinds, known as _termo_, _lineola_, tenue, spirillum,
+vibriones, etc, exist in almost infinite numbers; some of the smallest
+are too small to be seen by the highest powers, which, being lodged in
+all vegetable and animal substances, spring into life and develop very
+rapidly under favorable circumstances. They develop most rapidly when
+decomposition commences, and seem to indicate the degree or activity
+of that decomposition, also hastening the same. They are found most
+numerous in the feces, and usually fully developed in the fresh
+evacuations of persons of all ages. They may be seen plainly under
+a thin glass with high powers with strong or clear light, when the
+material is much diluted with water.
+
+These bacteria appear almost as numerously, yet more slowly, in urine,
+either upon exposure to air or when freshly evacuated, when the general
+health of the individual is declining, or any tendency to decomposition.
+A diagnosis can be aided very greatly by a study of these bacteria,
+as they indicate or determine the vitality, vigor, and purity of the
+system, whether more or less subject to disease, even before any signs
+of disease appear. They seem to preindicate the hold of the life force
+on the material, and always appear when that force is broken. Their
+relative quantity found in feces is as a barometric indication of the
+general health or some particular disturbance, and it is surprising
+how very fast they multiply while simply passing the intestines under
+circumstances favorable for their growth. These forms, so small, are
+important, because so very numerous, and their study has been, perhaps,
+avoided by many; yet they certainly mean something and effect something,
+even the non-malignant varieties as mentioned above, and it is certainly
+worth while to continue to study their meaning, even beyond what has
+already been written by others on the subject.--_J.M. Adams, in The
+Microscope_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE SOY BEAN
+
+(_Soja hispida_.)
+
+
+A good deal of attention has lately been directed to this plant in
+consequence of the enormous extent to which it is cultivated in China
+for the sake of the small seeds which it produces, and which are known
+as soy beans. These vary considerably in size, shape, and color,
+according to the variety of the plant which produces them. They are for
+the most part about the size and shape of an ordinary field pea, and,
+like the pea, are of a yellow color; some, however, are of a greenish
+tint. These seeds contain a large quantity of oil, which is expressed
+from them in China and used for a variety of purposes. The residue is
+moulded with a considerable amount of pressure into large circular
+cakes, two feet or more across, and six inches or eight inches thick.
+This cake is used either for feeding cattle or for manuring the land;
+indeed, a very large trade is done in China with bean cake (as it is
+always called) for these purposes. The well-known sauce called soy is
+also prepared from seeds of this bean. The plant generally known as Soja
+hispida is by modern botanists referred to Glycine soja. It is an
+erect, hairy, herbaceous plant. The leaves are three-parted and the
+papilionaceous flowers are born in axillary racemes. It is too tender
+for outdoor cultivation in this country, but, has been recommended for
+extended growth in our colonies as a commercial plant. The plants are
+readily used from seed.--_J.R.F., in The Garden_.
+
+[Illustration: THE SOY BEAN. _(Soja Lispida)_]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ERICA CAVENDISHIANA.
+
+
+The plant of which the illustration is given is one of those fine
+specimens which has made the collection of J. Lawless, Esq., The
+Cottage, Exeter, famous all over the south and west of England. It is
+only one specimen among a considerable collection of hard-wooded plants
+which are cultivated and trained in first rate style by Mr. George Cole,
+the gardener, one of the most successful plant growers of the day. The
+plant was in the winning collection of Mr. Cole exhibited at the late
+spring show held at Plymouth.--_The Gardeners' Chronicle_.
+
+[Illustration: ERICA CAVENDISHIANA.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+PHILESIA BUXIFOLIA.
+
+
+We figure this plant, not as a novelty, but for the purpose of showing
+what a fine thing it is when grown under propitious circumstances.
+Generally, we see it more or less starved in the greenhouse, and even
+when planted out in the winter garden its flowers lack the size and
+richness of color they attain out-of-doors. It comes from the extreme
+south of South America, which accounts for its hardihood, and is a near
+ally of the Lapageria: the latter is remarkable for withstanding even
+the noxious fumes of the copper smelting works in Chili, and as the
+Philesia has similar tough leaves, it is probable that it would support
+the vitiated atmosphere of a town better than most evergreens. In any
+case, there is no reasonable doubt but that, if cultivators would take
+the necessary pains, they might select perfectly hardy varieties both
+of the Lapageria and of the Philesia. As it is, we can only call the
+Philesea half-hardy north of the Thames, while the Lapageria is not even
+that. The curious Philageria, raised in Messrs. Veitch's nursery and
+described and figured in our columns in 1872, p. 358, is a hybrid raised
+between the two genera. For the specimen of Philesia figured we are
+indebted to Mr. Dartnall.--_The Gardeners' Chronicle_.
+
+[Illustration: PHILESIA BUXIFOLIA--HARDY SHRUB--FLOWERS, ROSE PINK.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+MAHOGANY.
+
+
+The mahogany tree, says the _Lumber World_, is a native of the West
+Indies, the Bahamas, and that portion of Central America that lies
+adjacent to the Bay of Honduras, and has also been found in Florida. It
+is stated to be of moderately rapid growth, reaching its full maturity
+in about two hundred years. Full grown, it is one of the monarchs of
+tropical America. Its trunk, which often exceeds forty feet in length
+and six in diameter, and massive arms, rising to a lofty height,
+and spreading with graceful sweep over immense spaces, covered with
+beautiful foliage, bright, glossy, light, and airy, clinging so long to
+the spray as to make it almost an evergreen, present a rare combination
+of loveliness and grandeur. The leaves are small, delicate, and polished
+like those of the laurel. The flowers are small and white, or greenish
+yellow. The fruit is a hard, woody capsule, oval, not unlike the head of
+a turkey in size and shape, and contains five cells, in each of which
+are inclosed about fifteen seeds.
+
+The mahogany tree was not discovered till the end of the sixteenth
+century, and was not brought into European use till nearly a century
+later. The first mention of it is that it was used in the repair of
+some of Sir Walter Raleigh's ships, at Trinidad, in 1597. Its finely
+variegated tints were admired, but in that age the dream of El Dorado
+caused matters of more value to be neglected. The first that was brought
+to England was about 1724, a few planks having been sent to Dr. Gibbons,
+of London, by a brother who was a West Indian captain. The doctor was
+erecting a house, and gave the planks to the workmen, who rejected them
+as being too hard. The doctor then had a candle-box made of the wood,
+his cabinet-maker also complaining of the hardness of the timber.
+But, when finished, the box became an object of general curiosity and
+admiration. He had one bureau, and her Grace of Buckingham had another,
+made of this beautiful wood, and the despised mahogany now became a
+prominent article of luxury, and at the same time raised the fortunes
+of the cabinet-maker by whom it had been so little regarded. Since that
+lime it has taken a leading rank among the ornamental woods, having come
+to be considered indispensable where luxury is intended to be indicated.
+
+A few facts will furnish a tolerably distinct idea of the size of this
+splendid tree. The mahogany lumbermen, having selected a tree, surround
+it with a platform about twelve feet above the ground, and cut it above
+the platform. Some twelve or fifteen feet of the largest part of the
+trunk are thus lost. Yet a single log not unfrequently weighs from six
+or seven to fifteen tons, and sometimes measures as much as seventeen
+feet in length and four and a half to five and a half feet in diameter,
+one tree furnishing two, three, or four such logs. Some trees have
+yielded 12,000 superficial feet, and at average price pieces have sold
+for $15,000. Messrs. Broadwood London, pianoforte manufacturers, paid
+L3,000 for three logs, all cut from one tree, and each about fifteen
+feet long and more than three feet square. The tree is cut at two
+seasons of the year--in the autumn and about Christmas time. The trunk,
+of course, furnishes timber of the largest dimensions, but that from the
+branches is preferred for ornamental purposes, owing to its closer grain
+and more variegated color.
+
+In low and damp soil its growth is rapid; but the most valuable trees
+grow slowly among rocks on sterile soil, and seem to gather compactness
+and beauty from the very struggle which they make for an existence.
+In the Bahamas, in the most desolate regions, once flourished that
+curiously veined and much esteemed variety once known in Europe as
+"Madeira wood," but which has long since been exterminated. Jamaica,
+also, which used to be a fruitful source of mahogany, and whence in 1753
+not less than 521,000 feet were shipped, is now almost depleted. That
+which is now furnished from there is very inferior, pale, and porous,
+and is less esteemed than that of Cuba, San Domingo, or Honduras.
+
+In a dry state mahogany Is very durable, and not liable to the attack of
+worms, but, when exposed to the weather it does not last long. It would
+therefore make excellent material for floors, roofs, etc., but its
+costliness limits its utility in this direction, and it is chiefly
+employed for furniture, doors, and a few other articles of joinery, for
+which it is among the best materials known. It has been used for sashes
+and window frames, but is not desirable for this purpose on account of
+the ease with which it is affected by the weather. It has also been used
+in England to some extent for the framing of machinery in cotton-mills.
+Its color is a reddish brown of different shades and luster, sometimes
+becoming a yellowish brown, and often much veined and mottled with
+darker shades of the same color. Its texture is uniform, and the rings
+indicating its annual growth are not very distinct. The larger medullary
+rays are absent, but the smaller ones are often very distinct, with
+pores between them. In the Jamaica woods these pores are often filled
+with a white substance, but in that brought from Central America they
+are generally empty. It has neither taste nor odor, shrinks very
+slightly, and warps, it is said, less than any other wood.
+
+The variety called Spanish mahogany comes from the West Indies, and is
+in smaller logs than the Honduras mahogany, being generally about two
+feet square and ten feet long. It is close grained and hard, generally
+darker than the Honduras, free from black specks, and sometimes strongly
+marked; the pores appear as though chalk had been rubbed into them.
+
+The Honduras mahogany comes in logs from two to four feet square and
+twelve to fourteen long; planks have been obtained seven feet wide. Its
+grain is very open and often irregular, with black or gray specks. The
+veins and figures are often very distinct and handsome, and that of a
+fine golden color and free from gray specks is considered the best. It
+holds the glue better than any other wood. The weight of a cubic foot of
+mahogany varies from thirty-five to fifty-three pounds. Its strength
+is between sixty-seven and ninety-six, stiffness seventy-three to
+ninety-three, and toughness sixty-one to ninety-nine--oak being
+considered as one hundred in each case.
+
+There are three other species of the genus _Swietania_ besides the
+mahogany tree, two of them natives of the East Indies. One is a very
+large tree, growing in the mountainous parts of central Hindostan, and
+rises to a great height, throwing out many branches toward the top. The
+head is spreading and the leaves bear some resemblance to those of the
+American species. The wood is a dull red, not so beautiful as that known
+to commerce, but harder, heavier, and more durable. The natives of India
+consider it the most durable timber which their forests afford, and
+consequently use it, when it can be procured, wherever strength and
+durability are particularly desired. The other East Indian species is
+found in the mountains of Sircars, which run parallel to the Bay of
+Bengal. The tree is not so large as any of the other species described,
+and the wood is of much different appearance, being of a deep yellow,
+considerably resembling box. The grain is close, and the wood both heavy
+and durable. The third species, known as African mahogany, is brought
+from Sierra Leone. It is hard and durable, and used for purposes
+requiring these properties in an eminent degree. If, however, the heart
+of the tree be exposed or crossed in cutting or trimming the timber, it
+is very liable to premature and rapid decay.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ANIMALS AND THE ARTS.
+
+
+In many of the museums efforts are made to perfect economic collections
+of animals, so as to show how they can be applied to advantage in the
+arts and sciences. The collection and preparation of the corals, for
+example, form an important industry. The fossil corals are richly
+polished and set in studs and sleeve-buttons, forming rich and
+ornamental objects. The fossil coral that resembles a delicate chain has
+been often copied by designers, while the red and black corals have long
+been used. The best fisheries are along the coasts of Tunis, Algeria,
+and Morocco, from 2 to 10 miles from shore, in from 30 to 150 fathoms.
+Good coral is also common at Naples, near Leghorn and Genoa, and on
+various parts of the sea, as Sardinia, Corsica, Catalonia, Provence,
+etc. It ranges in color from pure white through all the shades of
+pink, red, and crimson. The rose pink is most valued. For a long time
+Marseilles was the market, but now Italy is the great center of the
+trade, the greater number of boats hailing from Torre del Greco,
+while outside persons are forced to pay a heavy tax. The vessels are
+schooners, lateen-rigged, from three to fourteen tons. Large nets are
+used, which, during the months between March and October, are dragged,
+dredge-like, over the rocks. A large crew will haul in a season from 600
+to 900 pounds. To prevent the destruction of the industry, the reef is
+divided into ten parts, only one being worked a year, and by the time
+the tenth is reached the first is overgrown again with a new growth. In
+1873 the Algerian fisheries alone, employing 3,150 men, realized half a
+million of dollars. The choice grades are always valuable, the finest
+tints bringing over $5 per ounce, while the small pieces, used for
+necklaces, and called collette, are worth only $1.50 per ounce. The
+large oval pieces are sent to China, where they are used as buttons of
+office by the mandarins.
+
+
+THE CONCH-SHELL.
+
+Somewhat similar in appearance to coral is the conch jewelry, sets of
+which have been sold for $300. The tint is exquisite, but liable to fade
+when exposed to the sun. It is made from the great conch, common in
+Southern Florida and the West Indies. The shells are imported into
+Europe by thousands, and cut up into studs, sleeve-buttons, and various
+articles of ornament. These conches are supposed to be the producers of
+pink pearls, but I have opened hundreds of them and failed to find a
+single pearl. The conch shell is used by the cameo cutter. Rome and
+Paris are the principal seats of the trade, and immense numbers of
+shell cameos are imported by England and America, and mounted in rings,
+brooches, etc. The one showing a pale salmon-color upon an orange ground
+is much used. In 1847, 300 persons worked upon these shells in Paris
+alone, the number of shells used being immense. In Paris 300,000
+helmet-shells were used in one year, valued at $40,000 of the bull's
+mouth, 80,000, averaging a little over a shilling apiece, equal to
+$34,000. Eight thousand black helmets were used, valued at $9,000. The
+value of the large cameos produced in Paris in the year 1847 was about
+$160,000, and the small ones $40,000. In the Wolfe collection of shells
+at the Museum of Natural History, Central Park, is a fine specimen of
+the queen conch from the Florida reef, with a fine head cut into the
+outer surface, showing how it is done. The tools of the worker in cameos
+are of the most delicate description. Fine files, knitting-needle like
+implements, triangular-shaped steel cutters, are arranged in a seemingly
+endless confusion before the worker. The shell or piece of shell to be
+cut is either lashed or glued to a heavy block or held in the hand, and
+the face, animal, or other object outlined first with a delicate lead;
+having thus laid the foundation, the lines are gone over with a delicate
+needle first, then various kinds, the work gradually growing before the
+eye, reminding one of the work of the engraver on wood.
+
+
+LIVING BEETLES, ETC.
+
+Insects have always been used more or less in decoration, especially in
+Brazil, where the richly-colored beetles of the country are affected as
+articles of personal adornment. Recently in a Union Square jewelry store
+a monster beetle was on exhibition, having been sent there for repairs.
+It was alive, and about its body was a delicate gold band, locked with
+a minute padlock; a gold chain attached it to the shawl of the owner.
+Sometimes they are worn upon the headgear, their slow, cumbersome
+movements preventing them from attracting great attention. They are
+valued at from $50 to $100 apiece. Snakes, the rich green variety so
+common in New England, are worn by some ladies as bracelets, while the
+gorgeous reptiles are often imitated in gold and silver, with eyes of
+diamonds, rubies, or black pearls. Gold bears are the proper thing now
+for pins. In the East the chameleon is often worn as a head ornament,
+the animal rarely moving, and forming at least a picturesque decoration,
+with its odd shape and sculptured outlines. Various other reptiles, as
+small turtles, alligators, etc., are pressed into service. The curious
+soldier-crab has been used as a pin. Placed in a box with a rich pearly
+shell prepared for the purpose, it will change houses, and then, secured
+by a gold or silver chain, roams about the wearer, waving its red and
+blue claws in a warlike manner. Birds are, perhaps, more commonly used
+as natural ornaments than any other, and a cloak of the skins of humming
+birds is one of the most magnificent objects to be imagined. One, of a
+rare species, was once sold in Europe for $5,000. Single birds are often
+worth $700 or $800. A cloak of the skin of the great auk would bring
+$8,000 or $10,000. Some of the most beautiful pheasants are extremely
+valuable--worth their weight in gold. Tiger claws are used in the
+decoration of hats, and are extremely valuable and hard to obtain.
+
+Within ten years the alligator has become an important factor to the
+artistic manufacturer. The hide, by a new process, is tanned to an
+agreeable softness and used in innumerable ways. The most costly bags
+and trunks are made from it; pocket-books, card-cases, dining-room
+chairs are covered with it, and it has been used as a dado on the
+library wall of a well-known naturalist. It makes an excellent binding
+for certain books. Among fishes the shark provides a skin used in a
+variety of ways. The shagreen of the shark's ray is of great value.
+Canes are made of the shark's backbone, the interstices being filled
+with silver or shell plates. Shark's teeth are used to decorate the
+weapons of various nations. The magnificent scales, nearly four inches
+across and tipped with seemingly solid silver, of the giant herring,
+are used, while scales of many of the tribe have long been used in the
+manufacture of artificial pearls.
+
+
+PEARLS.
+
+The latter are perhaps the most valuable of all the offerings of animate
+nature, and are the results of the efforts of the bivalve to protect
+itself from injury. A parasite bores into the shell of the pearl bearer,
+and when felt by the animal it immediately fortifies itself by covering
+up the spot with its pearly secretion; the parasite pushes on, the
+oyster piling up until an imperfect pearl attached to the shell is the
+result. The clear oval pearls are formed in a similar way, only in this
+case a bit of sand has become lodged in the folds of the creature, and
+in its efforts to protect itself from the sharp edges, the bit becomes
+covered, layer by layer, and assumes naturally an oval shape. This
+growth of the pearl, as it is incorrectly termed, can be seen by
+breaking open a $500 gem, when the nacre will be seen in layers,
+resembling the section of an onion. The Romans were particularly fond of
+pearls, and, according to Pliny, the wife of Caius Caligula possessed
+a collection valued at over $8,000,000 of our money. Julius Caesar
+presented a jewel to the mother of Brutus valued at $250,000, while
+the pearl drank by Cleopatra was estimated at $400,000. Tavernier, the
+famous traveler, sold a pearl to the Shah of Persia for $550,000. A
+twenty-thousand-dollar pearl was taken from American waters in the
+time of Philip II. It was pear-shaped, and as large as a pigeon's egg.
+Another, taken from the same locality, is now owned by a lady in Madrid
+who values it at $30,000.
+
+Fresh water pearls are often of great value. The streams of St. Clair
+County. Ill., and Rutherford County, Tenn., produce large quantities,
+but the largest one was found near Salem, N. J. It was about an inch
+across, and brought $2,000 in Paris. The pearls from the Tay, Doon, and
+Isla rivers, in Scotland, are preferred by many to the Oriental, and in
+one summer $50,000 worth of pearls have been taken from these localities
+by men and children. Mother-of-pearl used in the arts is sold by the
+ton, from $50 to $700 being average prices. The last year's pearl
+fisheries in Ceylon alone realized $80,000, to obtain which more than
+7,000,000 pearl oysters were brought up.
+
+
+SEPIA AND SILK.
+
+The sepia of the artist comes from a mollusk, and is the fossil or
+extant ink-bag of a cephalopod or squid, while the cuttle-fish bone is
+used for a variety of purposes. In the islands of the Pacific the young
+of the pearly nautilus are strung upon strings and sold for $25 and $20
+as necklaces. The tritons are in fair demand, and many tons of cowries
+are sent to Europe yearly, while the shipment of a thick-lipped strombus
+in one year to Liverpool amounted to 300,000. The rich coloring of the
+haliotis is used for inlaying art furniture. From the pinna, silk of a
+peculiar quality is obtained. It is the byssus or cable of the animal.
+The threads are extremely fine, and equal in diameter throughout their
+entire length. It is first cleaned with soap and water, and dried by
+rubbing through the hands, and finally passed through combs of bone,
+iron, or wood, of different sizes, so that a pound of the material in
+the rough gives only about three ounces of pure thread. It is mixed with
+a third of real silk and spun into gloves, stockings, etc., having a
+beautiful yellow hue. The articles made from it are, however, not in
+general use. A pair of gloves from pinna silk would cost $1.50, and
+stockings about $3. Fine specimens of such work can be seen in the
+British Museum.
+
+Though not of animal origin, amber is one of the choicest vegetable
+productions used in the arts. It is the fossil gum of pines. Great beds
+of it occur at various points in Europe. On the Prussian seaboard it is
+mined, and often washes ashore. In 1576 a piece of amber was found
+that weighed thirteen pounds, and for which $5,000 was refused. In the
+cabinet of the Berlin Museum there is a piece weighing eighteen pounds.
+Ambergris, from which perfumery is made, is a secretion taken from the
+intestines of the whale, and a piece purchased from the King of Tydore
+by the East India Company is reported to have cost $18,000. Whales'
+teeth, the tusks of elephants, and those of the walrus and narwhal, are
+all used. Elephants' feet are cut off at a convenient length, richly
+upholstered, and used as seats; the great toe-nails, when finely
+polished, giving the novel article of furniture an attractive and unique
+appearance.
+
+It is probably not generally known that the web of certain spiders has
+been used. Over 150 years ago, Le Bon, of France, succeeded in weaving
+the web material into delicate gloves. Prof. B.G. Wilder investigated
+the question thoroughly, and was a firm believer that the web of the
+spider had a commercial value, but as yet this has not been realized.
+It would be difficult to find an animal that does not in some way
+contribute to the useful or decorative arts.--_C.F.H., in N.Y. Post_.
+
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+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Scientific American Supplement, No.
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Scientific American Supplement, No. 362,
+December 9, 1882, by Various
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
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+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: August, 2005 [EBook #8687]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on August 1, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUP. NO. 362 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Olaf Voss, Don Kretz, Juliet Sutherland,
+Charles Franks and the DP Team
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT NO. 362
+
+
+
+
+NEW YORK, DECEMBER 9, 1882
+
+Scientific American Supplement. Vol. XIV, No. 362.
+
+Scientific American established 1845
+
+Scientific American Supplement, $5 a year.
+
+Scientific American and Supplement, $7 a year.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS.
+
+I.    ENGINEERING AND MECHANICS--Recent Improvements in
+      Textile Machinery.--Harris's revolving ring spinning frame.--
+      New electric stop motion.--New positive motion loom. 6 figures.
+
+      Spinning Without a Mule.--Harris's improvements in ring
+      spinning.
+
+      New Binding Machines. 3 figures.
+
+      Flumes and their construction. 1 figure.
+
+      Chuwab's Rolling Mill for Dressing and Rounding Bar Iron.
+      9 figures.
+
+      Burning of Town Refuse at Leeds. 6 figures.--Sections and
+      elevations of destructor and carbonizer.
+
+II.   TECHNOLOGY AND CHEMISTRY.--Friedrich Wohler.--His
+      labors and discoveries.
+
+      New Gas Burner. 3 figures.--Grimstone's improved gas burner.
+
+      Defty's Improvements in Gas Burners and Heaters. 4 figures.
+
+      The Collotype in Practice.
+
+      Determination of Potassa in Manures.--By M. E. DREYFUS.
+
+III.  HYGIENE, MEDICINE, ETC.--The Air in Relation to Health.
+      By Prof. C. F. CHANDLER.
+
+      The Plantain as a Styptic.
+
+      Bacteria.
+
+IV.   ELECTRICITY, ETC.--Gustavo Trouve and his Electrical Inventions.
+      --Portrait of Gustave Trouve.--Trouve's electric boat competing
+      in the regatta at Troyes.
+
+      Domestic Electricity.--Loiseau's electric naphtha and gas
+      lighters.--Ranque's new form of lighter with extinguisher.
+
+      Theiler's Telephone Receiver. 2 figures.
+
+      An Electric Power Hammer. By MARCEL DEPRETZ. 1 figure.
+
+      Solignac's New Electric Lamp. 3 figures.
+
+      Mondos's Electric Lamp. 2 figures.
+
+V.    METALLURGY AND MINERALOGY.--Aluminum.--Its properties,
+      cost, and uses.
+
+      The Origin and Relations of the Carbon Minerals.
+      By J.S. NEWBERRY.--An elaborate and extremely valuable review
+      of the genesis of carbon minerals, and the modes and conditions
+      of their occurrence.
+
+      Estimation of Sulphur in Iron and Steel. By GEORGE CRAIG.
+      1 figure.
+
+VI.   ARCHITECTURE, ETC.--The Armitage House.
+
+      Suggestions in Architecture.--An English country residence.
+
+VII.  BOTANY, HORTICULTURE, ETC.--The Soy Bean. 1 figure.--
+      The Soy bean (_Soja hispida_).
+
+      Erica Cavendishiana. 1 figure.
+
+      Philesia Buxifolia. 1 figure.
+
+      Mahogany.
+
+VIII. MISCELLANEOUS.--Our Hebrew Population.
+
+      The Mysteries of Lake Baikal.
+
+      Traveling Sand Hills on Lake Ontario.
+
+      Animals in the Arts.--Corals.--The conch shell.--Living beetles,
+      etc.--Pearls.--Sepia and silk.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+GUSTAVE TROUVE.
+
+
+The accompanying portrait of M. Gustave Trouve is taken from a small
+volume devoted to an account of his labors recently published by M.
+Georges Dary. M. Trouve, who may be said to have had no ancestors from
+an electric point of view, was born in 1839 in the little village of
+Haye-Descartes. He was sent by his parents to the College of Chinon,
+whence he entered the Ecole des Arts et Metiers, and afterward went
+to Paris to work in the shop of a clock-maker. This was an excellent
+apprenticeship for our future electrician, since it is in small works
+that electricity excels; and, if its domain is to be increased, it is
+only on condition that the electric mechanician shall never lose sight
+of the fact that he should be a clock-maker, and that his fingers, to
+use M. Dumas's apt words, should possess at once the strength of those
+of the Titans and the delicacy of those of fairies. It was not long ere
+Trouve set up a shop of his own, whither inventors flocked in crowds;
+and the work he did for these soon gave up to him the secrets of the art
+of creating. The first applications that he attempted related to the use
+of electricity in surgery, a wonderfully fecund branch, but one whose
+importance was scarcely suspected, notwithstanding the results
+already obtained through the application of the insufflation pile to
+galvano-cautery. What the surgeon needed was to see plainly into the
+cavities of the human body. Trouve found a means of lighting these
+up with lamps whose illuminating power was fitted for that sort of
+exploration. This new mode of illumination having been adopted, it was
+but natural that it should afterward find an application in dangerous
+mines, powder mills, and for a host of different purposes. But the
+perfection of this sort of instruments was the wound explorer, by the
+aid of which a great surgeon sounded the wounds that Italian balls had
+made in Garibaldi's foot.
+
+[Illustration: GUSTAVE TROUVE.]
+
+The misfortunes of France afterward directed Trouve's attention to
+military electricity, and led him to devise a perfect system of portable
+telegraphy, in which his hermetic pile lends itself perfectly to all
+maneuvers and withstands all sorts of moving about.
+
+The small volume of which we have spoken is devoted more particularly to
+electric navigation, for which M. Trouve specially designed the motor of
+his invention, and by the aid of which he performed numerous experiments
+on the ocean, on the Seine at Paris, and before Rouen and at Troyes. In
+this latter case M. Trouve gained a medal of honor on the occasion of a
+regatta. Our engraving represents him competing with the rowers of whom
+he kept ahead with so distinguished success. We could not undertake to
+enumerate all the inventions which we owe to M. Trouve; but we cannot,
+however, omit mention of the pendulum escapement that beats the second
+or half second without any variation in the length of the balance; of
+the electric gyroscope constructed at the request of M. Louis Foucault;
+of the electro-medical pocket-case; of the apparatus for determining the
+most advantageous inclination to give a helix; of the electric bit for
+stopping unruly horses; and of the universal caustic-holder. He has
+given the electric polyscope features such that every cavity in the
+human body may be explored by its aid. As for his electric motor, he
+has given that a form that makes the rotation regular and suppresses
+dead-centers--a result that he has obtained by utilizing the
+eccentrization of the Siemens bobbin.
+
+Although devoting himself mainly to improving his motor (which, by
+the way, he has applied to the tricycle), M. Trouve does not disdain
+telephony, but has introduced into the manufacture of magnets for the
+purpose many valuable improvements.--_Electricite_.
+
+[Illustration: TROUVE'S ELECTRIC BOAT COMPETING IN THE REGATTA AT
+TROYES, AUG. 6, 1882.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+FRIEDRICH WOeHLER.
+
+
+At the age of eighty-two years, and full of honor, after a life actively
+devoted to scientific work of the highest and most accurate kind, which
+has contributed more than that of any other contemporary to establish
+the principles on which an exact science like chemistry is founded, the
+illustrious Woehler has gone to his rest.
+
+After he had worked for some time with Berzelius in Sweden, he taught
+chemistry from 1825 to 1831 at the Polytechnic School in Berlin; then
+till 1836 he was stationed at the Higher Polytechnic School at Cassel,
+and then he became Ordinary Professor of Chemistry in the University of
+Goettingen, where he remained till his death. He was born, July 31, 1800,
+at Eschersheim, near Frankfort-on-the-Main.
+
+Until the year 1828 it was believed that organic substances could only
+be formed under the influence of the vital force in the bodies of
+animals and plants. It was Woehler who proved by the artificial
+preparation of urea from inorganic materials that this view could not be
+maintained. This discovery has always been considered as one of the most
+important contributions to our scientific knowledge. By showing that
+ammonium cyanate can become urea by an internal arrangement of its
+atoms, without gaining or losing in weight, Woehler furnished one of the
+first and best examples of isomerism, which helped to demolish the old
+view that equality of composition could not coexist in two bodies, A
+and B, with differences in their respective physical and chemical
+properties. Two years later, in 1830, Woehler published, jointly with
+Liebig, the results of a research on cyanic and cyanuric acid and on
+urea. Berzelius, in his report to the Swedish Academy of Sciences,
+called it the most important of all researches in physics, chemistry,
+and mineralogy published in that year. The results obtained were quite
+unexpected, and furnished additional and most important evidence in
+favor of the doctrine of isomerism. In the year 1834, Woehler and Liebig
+published an investigation of the oil of bitter almonds. They prove by
+their experiments that a group of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms
+can behave like an element, take the place of an element, and can be
+exchanged for elements in chemical compounds. Thus the foundation was
+laid of the doctrine of compound radicals, a doctrine which has had
+and has still the most profound influence on the development of
+chemistry--so much so that its importance can hardly be exaggerated.
+Since the discovery of potassium by Davy, it was assumed that alumina
+also, the basis of clay, contained a metal in combination with oxygen.
+Davy, Oerstedt, and Berzelius attempted the extraction of this metal,
+but could not succeed. Woehler then worked on the same subject, and
+discovered the metal aluminum. To him also is due the isolation of the
+elements yttrium, beryllium, and titanium, the observation that silicium
+can be obtained in crystals, and that some meteoric stones contain
+organic matter. He analyzed a number of meteorites, and for many years
+wrote the digest on the literature of meteorites in the _Jahresbericht
+der Chemie_; he possessed, perhaps, the best private collection of
+meteoric stones and irons existing. Woehler and Sainte Claire Deville
+discovered the crystalline form of boron, and Woehler and Buff the
+hydrogen compounds of silicium and a lower oxide of the same element.
+This is by no means a full statement of Woehler's scientific work; it
+even does not mention all the discoveries which have had great influence
+on the theory of chemistry. The mere titles of the papers would fill
+several closely-printed pages. The journals of every year from 1820 to
+1881 contain contributions from his pen, and even his minor publications
+are always interesting. As was truly remarked ten years ago, when it was
+proposed by a Fellow of the Royal Society that a Copley medal should be
+conferred upon him, "for two or three of his researches he deserves the
+highest honor a scientific man can obtain, but the sum of his work is
+absolutely overwhelming. Had he never lived, the aspect of chemistry
+would be very different from that it is now."
+
+While sojourning at Cassel, Woehler made, among other chemical
+discoveries, one for obtaining the metal nickel in a state of purity,
+and with two attached friends he founded a factory there for the
+preparation of the metal.
+
+Among the works which he published were "Grundriss der Anorganischen
+Chemie," Berlin, 1830, and the "Grundriss der Organischen Chemie,"
+Berlin, 1840. Nor must we omit to mention "Praktischen Uebringen der
+Chemischen Analyse," Berlin, 1854, and the "Lehrbuch der Chemie,"
+Dresden, 1825, 4 vols.
+
+At a sitting of the Academy, held on October 2, 1882, M. Jean Baptiste
+Dumas, the permanent secretary, with profound regret, made known
+the intelligence of the death of the illustrious foreign associate,
+Friedrich Woehler, professor in the University of Goettingen. He said: "M.
+Friedrich Woehler, the favorite pupil of Berzelius, had followed in the
+lines and methods of work of his master. From 1821 till his last year he
+has continuously published memoirs or simple notes, always remarkable
+for their exactness, and often of such a nature that they took among
+contemporaneous production the first rank by their importance, their
+novelty, or their fullness. Employed chiefly, during his sojourn in
+Sweden, in work on mineral chemistry, he has remained all his life the
+undisputed chief in this branch of science in German universities. This
+preparation and preoccupation, which one might have thought sufficient
+to occupy his time, did not, however, prevent him from taking the chief
+part in the development of organic chemistry, and of filling one of the
+most elevated positions in it.
+
+"His contemporaries have not forgotten the unusual sensation produced by
+the unexpected discovery by which he was enabled to make artificially,
+and by a purely chemical method, urea, the most nitrogenous of animal
+substances. Other transformations or combinations giving birth to
+substances which, until then, had only been met with in animals or
+plants, have since been obtained, but the artificial formation of urea
+still remains the neatest and most elegant example of this order of
+creation. All chemists know and admire the classical memoir in which
+Woehler and Liebig some time after made known the nature of the benzoic
+series, and connected them with the radicals of which we may consider
+them as being the derivatives comparable with products of a mineral
+nature. Their memoirs on the derivatives of uric acid, a prolific source
+of new and remarkable substances, has been an inexhaustible mine in the
+hands of their successors.
+
+"This is not a moment when we should pretend to review the work which M.
+Woehler has done in mineral chemistry. Among the 240 papers which he has
+published in scientific journals, there are few which the treatises of
+chemistry have not immediately turned to account. We need only confine
+ourselves to the discovery of aluminum, to which the energy and
+inventive genius of our _confrere_, Henry Deville, soon gave a place
+near the noble metals. United by a rivalry which would have divided
+less noble minds, these two great chemists carried on together their
+researches in chemistry, and joined their forces to clear up points
+still obscure in the history of boron, silicium, and the metals of
+the platinum group, and remained closely united, which each year only
+strengthened.
+
+"The reader will pardon me a souvenir entirely personal. We were born,
+M. Woehler and I, in 1800. I am his senior by a few days. Our scientific
+life began at the same date, and during sixty years everything has
+combined to bind more closely the links of brotherhood which has existed
+for so long a time."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+OUR HEBREW POPULATION.
+
+
+The United Jewish Association has made a canvass of the denomination in
+this country, finding 278 congregations, and a total Jewish population
+of 230,984. New York has the largest number--80,565. Then follows
+Pennsylvania, with 20,000; California, with 18,580; Ohio with 14,581;
+Illinois, with 12,625, and Maryland, with 10,357.
+
+The Jewish population in the largest cities is as follows:
+
+  New York         60,000
+  San Francisco    16,000
+  Brooklyn         14,000
+  Philadelphia     13,000
+  Chicago          12,000
+  Baltimore        10,000
+  Cincinnati        8,000
+  Boston            7,000
+  St. Louis         6,500
+  New Orleans       5,000
+  Cleveland         3,500
+  Newark            3,500
+  Milwaukee         3,500
+  Louisville        2,500
+  Pittsburg         2,000
+  Detroit           2,000
+  Washington        1,500
+  New Haven         1,000
+  Rochester         1,000
+
+This total Jewish population of 230,984 has six hospitals, eleven
+orphan asylums and homes, fourteen free colleges and schools, and 602
+benevolent lodges. Of the free schools maintained by the Hebrews, five
+are in New York, four in Philadelphia, and one each in Cincinnati, St.
+Louis, Chicago, and San Francisco. Their hospitals are in New York,
+Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cincinnati, New Orleans, and Chicago, while
+their orphan asylums, homes, and other benevolent institutions are
+scattered all over the country.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE MYSTERIES OF THE BAIKAL.
+
+
+The Angara is cold as ice all the summer through, so cold, indeed, that
+to bathe in it is to court inevitable illness, and in winter a sled
+drive over its frozen surface is made in a temperature some degrees
+lower than that prevailing on the banks. This comes from the fact that
+its waters are fresh from the yet unfathomed depths of the Baikal, which
+during the five short months of summer has scarcely time to properly
+unfreeze. In winter the lake resembles in all respects a miniature
+Arctic Ocean, having its great ice hummocks and immense leads, over
+which the caravan sleds have to be ferried on large pieces of ice, just
+as in the frozen North. In winter, too, the air is so cold in the region
+above the lake that birds flying across its icy bosom sometimes drop
+down dead on the surface. Some authors say that seals have been caught
+in the lake of the same character as those found in the Arctic seas; for
+this assertion I have no proof. An immense caravan traffic is carried
+across the frozen lake every season between Russia and China. To
+accommodate this the Russian postal authorities once established a post
+house on the middle of the lake, where horses were kept for travelers.
+But this was discontinued after one winter, when an early thaw suddenly
+set in, and horses, yemschliks and post house all disappeared beneath
+the ice, and were never seen more. In summer the lake is navigated by an
+antiquated steamer called the General Korsakoff, which ventures out
+in calm weather, but cannot face the violent storms and squalls that
+sometimes rise with sudden impetuosity. Irkutskians say, indeed, that it
+is only upon Lake Baikal and upon this old hull that a man really learns
+to pray from his heart. The lake is held in superstitious reverence by
+the natives. It is called by them Svyatoe More, or the Holy Lake, and
+they believe that no Christian was ever lost in its waters, for even
+when a person is drowned in it the waves always take the trouble to cast
+the body on shore.
+
+Its length is 400 miles, its width an average of 35 miles, covers an
+area of 14,000 square miles and has a circumference of nearly 1,200
+miles, being the largest fresh water lake in the Old World, and, next to
+the Caspian and the Aral, the largest inland sheet of water in Asia. Its
+shores are bold and rugged and very picturesque, in some places 1,000
+feet high. In the surrounding forests are found game of the largest
+description, bears, deer, foxes, wolves, elk and these afford capital
+sport for the sportsmen of Irkutsk.
+
+Around the coasts are many mineral springs, hot and cold, which have a
+great reputation among the Irkutskians. The hot springs of Yurka, on the
+Selenga, 200 versts from Verchore Udevisk and not many miles from the
+eastern shore of the Baikal, which have a temperature of 48 degrees
+Reaumur and whose waters are strongly impregnated with sulphur, are
+a favorite watering place for natives as well as Russians and
+Buriats.--_Herald Correspondent with the Jeannette Search Expedition_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+TRAVELING SAND HILLS ON LAKE ONTARIO.
+
+
+An interesting example of sand-drift occurs near Wellington Bay, on Lake
+Ontario, ten miles from Pictou. The lake shore near the sand banks is
+indented with a succession of rock-paved bays, whose gradually shoaling
+margins afford rare bathing grounds. East and West Lakes, each five
+miles long, and the latter dotted with islands, are separated from
+Lake Ontario by narrow strips of beach. Over the two mile-wide isthmus
+separating the little lakes, the sand banks, whose glistening heights
+are visible miles away, are approached. On near approach they are hidden
+by the cedar woods, till the roadway in front is barred by the advancing
+bank, to avoid which a roadway through the woods has been constructed
+up to the eastern end of the sand range. The sand banks stretch like a
+crescent along the shore, the concave side turned to the lake, along
+which it leaves a pebbly beach. The length of the crescent is over two
+miles, the width 600 to 3,000 or 4,000 feet.
+
+Clambering up the steep end of the range among trees and grapevines, the
+wooded summit is gained, at an elevation of nearly 150 feet. Passing
+along the top, the woods soon disappear, and the visitor emerges on a
+wild waste of delicately tinted saffron, rising from the slate-colored
+beach in gentle undulation, and sleepily falling on the other side down
+to green pastures and into the cedar woods. The whole surface of this
+gradually undulating mountain desert is ribbed by little wavelets a few
+inches apart, but the general aspect is one of perfect smoothness. The
+sand is almost as fine as flour, and contains no admixture of dust The
+foot sinks only an inch or two in walking over it; children roll about
+on it and down its slopes, and, rising, shake themselves till their
+clothing loses every trace of sand. Occasionally gusts stream over the
+wild waste, raising a dense drift to a height of a foot or two only, and
+streaming like a fringe over the steep northern edge. Though the sun is
+blazing down on the glistening wilderness there is little sensation of
+heat, for the cool lake breeze is ever blowing. On the landward side,
+the insidious approach of the devouring sand is well marked. One hundred
+and fifty feet below, the foot of this moving mountain is sharply
+defined against the vivid green of the pastures, on which the grass
+grows luxuriantly to within an inch of the sand wall. The ferns of the
+cedar woods almost droop against the sandy slope. The roots of the trees
+are bare along the white edge; a foot or two nearer the sand buries the
+feet of the cedars: a few yards nearer still the bare trunks disappear;
+still nearer only the withered topmast twigs of the submerged forest are
+seen, and then far over the tree tops stands the sand range. Perpetual
+ice is found under the foot of this steep slope, the sand covering and
+consolidating the snows drifted over the hill during the winter months.
+There is something awe-inspiring, says the correspondent of the Toronto
+Globe, in the slow, quiet, but resistless advance of the mountain front.
+Field and forest alike become completely submerged. Ten years ago a
+farm-house was swallowed up, not to emerge in light until the huge sand
+wave has passed over.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+RECENT IMPROVEMENTS IN TEXTILE MACHINERY.
+
+
+At the recent exhibition at Boston of the New England Institute, several
+interesting novelties were shown which have a promise of considerable
+economic and industrial value.
+
+Fig. 1 represents the general plan and pulley connections of the Harris
+Revolving-Ring Spinning Frame. The purpose of the improvements which
+it embodies is to avoid the uneven draught of the yarn in spinning and
+winding incident to the use of a fixed ring. With the non-revolving ring
+the strain upon the yarn varies greatly, owing to the difference
+in diameter of the full and empty bobbin. At the base of the cone,
+especially in spinning weft, or filling, the diameter of the cop is five
+or six times that of the quill at the tip. As the yarn is wound upon the
+cone, the line of draught upon the traveler varies continually, the pull
+being almost direct where the bobbin is full, and nearly at right angles
+where it is empty. With the increasing angle the drag upon the traveler
+increases, not only causing frequent breakages of the yarn, but also an
+unequal stretching of the yarn, so that the yarn perceptibly varies in
+fineness. The unequal strain further causes the yarn to be more tightly
+wound upon the outside than upon the inside of the bobbin, giving rise
+to snarls and wastage.
+
+[Illustration: RECENT IMPROVEMENTS IN TEXTILE MACHINERY.--1,
+2.--SPINNING WITHOUT A MULE--THE HARRIS REVOLVING RING SPINNING FRAME.
+3, 4, 5.--NEW ELECTRIC STOP MOTION FOR DRAWING FRAMES. 6.--NEW POSITIVE
+MOTION LOOM.]
+
+These difficulties have hitherto prevented the application of ring
+spinning to the finer grades of yarn. They are overcome in the new
+spinning frame by an ingenious device by which a revolving motion is
+given to the ring in the same direction as the motion of the traveler,
+thereby reducing its friction upon the ring, the speed of the ring being
+variable, and so controlled as to secure a uniform tension upon the yarn
+at all stages of the winding.
+
+The construction of the revolving ring is shown in Fig. 2. C is the
+revolving ring; D, the hollow axis support; H, a section of the ring
+frame; E, the traveler.
+
+To give the required variable speed to the revolving ring there is
+placed directly over the drum, Fig. 1, A, for driving the spindle a
+smaller drum, B, from which bands drive each ring separately. The shaft,
+which is attached by cross girts to the ring rail, and moves up and down
+with it, is driven by a pair of conical drums from the main cylinder
+shaft; and is so arranged with a loose pulley on the large end of the
+receiving cone as to remain stationary while the wind is on or near the
+base of the bobbin. When the cone of the bobbin diminishes so as to
+materially increase the pull on the traveler, the conical drums are
+started by a belt shipper attached to the lilt motion. By the movement
+of the belt on these drums a continually accelerated motion is given to
+the rings, their maximum speed being about one-twentieth the number
+of revolutions per minute as the spindle has at the same moment. This
+action is reversed when the lift falls. The tension of the wind upon
+the bobbin is thus kept uniform, the desired hardness of the wind being
+secured by the use of a heavier or lighter traveler according to the
+compactness of cop required.
+
+The model frame shown at the fair did its work admirably well, spinning
+yarns as high as No. 400, a fineness hitherto unattainable on ring
+frames. It is claimed that this invention can do whatever can be done
+with the mule, and without the skilled labor which mule spinning
+demands.
+
+This invention is exhibited by E. & A. W. Harris, Providence, R.I.
+
+
+NEW ELECTRIC STOP MOTION.
+
+Figs. 3, 4, and 5 illustrate some of the applications of the electric
+stop motion in connection with cotton machinery. The merit of this
+invention lies in simplifying the means by which machinery may be
+stopped automatically the instant, its work, from accident or otherwise,
+begins to be improperly done. The use of electricity for this purpose
+is made possible by the fact that comparatively dry cotton is a
+nonconductor of electricity. In the process of carding, drawing or
+spinning, the cotton is made to pass between rollers or other pieces
+forming parts of an electric circuit. So long as the machine is properly
+fed and in proper working condition, the stopping apparatus rests;
+the moment the continuity of the cotton is broken or any irregularity
+occurs, electric contact results, completing the circuit and causing an
+electro magnet to act upon a lever or other device, and the machine is
+stopped. The current is supplied by a small magneto-electric machine
+driven by a band from the main driving shaft, and is always available
+while the engine is running.
+
+Fig. 3 shows the general arrangement of the apparatus as applied to a
+drawing frame. In the process of drawing down the roll of cotton--the
+sliver--four things may happen making it necessary to stop the machine.
+A sliver may break on the way from the can to the drawing rollers,
+or the supply of cotton may become exhausted; the cotton may lap or
+accumulate on the drawing rollers; the sliver may break between the
+drawing rollers and the calender rollers; or the front can may overflow.
+In each and all of these cases the electric circuit is instantly
+completed; the parts between which the cotton flows either come
+together, as when breakage occurs, or, if there is lapping, they are
+separated so as to make contact above. In any case, the current causes
+the electro-magnet, S, against the side of the machine to move its
+armature and set the stop motion in play.
+
+Figs. 4 and 5 represent in detail the manner in which electric
+connection is made in two cases requiring the intervention of the stop
+motion. In Fig. 4 the upper part of a receiving can is shown. When
+the can is full the cotton lifts the tube wheel, J, until it makes an
+electrical connection, and the stop motion is brought into instant
+action. In Fig. 5, the traction upon the yarn holds the hook borne by
+the spring, F, away from G, and the electric circuit is interrupted. A
+breakage of the yarn allows this spring to act; contact is made, and the
+stop motion operates as before.
+
+This simple and efficient device is exhibited by Howard & Bullough &
+Riley, of Boston.
+
+
+NEW POSITIVE MOTION LOOM.
+
+Fig. 6 shows the essential features of a positive motion loom, intended
+for weaving narrow fabrics, exhibited by Knowles, of Worcester, Mass.
+The engraving shows so clearly how, by a right and left movement of the
+rack, the shuttle is thrown by the action of the intermediate cogwheels,
+that further description is unnecessary.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+SPINNING WITHOUT A MULE.
+
+
+At the recent semi-annual meeting of the New England Cotton
+Manufacturers' Association, held at the Institute of Technology, Boston,
+the following paper on the Harris system of revolving ring spinning was
+read by Col. Webber for the author:
+
+It is well known that one of the most serious difficulties in ring
+spinning is the variable pull upon the traveler, caused by the
+difference in diameter of the full and empty bobbins, and this is
+especially noticeable in spinning weft, or filling, when the diameter of
+the quill at the tip is not over 3-16 of an inch, while that of the base
+of the cone, or full bobbin, is from an inch to an inch and one-eighth.
+This variation in diameter causes the line of draught upon the traveler,
+which, with the full bobbin, forms nearly a tangent to the interior
+circle of the ring, to be nearly radial to it with an empty one, and
+this increased drag upon the traveler not only causes frequent breakage
+in spinning, but also stretches the yarn, so that it is perceptibly
+finer when it is spun on the nose of the bobbin than when it is spun on
+the bottom of the cone.
+
+Endeavors have been made to compensate for this difficulty by making
+a less draught at that period of the operation; but we believe the
+principle of curing one error by adding another to be wrong, and aim by
+our improvement to avoid the cause of the trouble, which we do by giving
+a revolving motion to the ring itself in the same direction as that of
+the traveler, at a variable speed, so as to aid its slip, and reduce its
+friction on the ring. This we accomplish by means of a shaft with whorls
+on it, located directly over the drum for driving the spindle, from
+which bands drive each ring separately; and attached by cross-girts to
+the ring-rail, and moving up and down with it.
+
+This shaft is driven by a pair of conical drums from the main cylinder
+shaft, and is so arranged with a loose pulley on the large end of the
+receiving cone as to remain stationary while the wind is on or near the
+base of the bobbin, or nearly parallel to the path of the traveler.
+
+When the cone of the bobbin begins to diminish to such a point as to
+materially increase the radial pull on the traveler, these conical drums
+are put in operation by a belt shipper attached to the lift motion,
+which moves the belt on to the cones, and gives a continually
+accelerated motion to the rings, so that when the wind reaches the top
+of the bobbin the rings will have their maximum speed of about 300
+revolutions per minute, or about one-twentieth the number of revolutions
+of the spindle at this point, if the latter make 6000 revolutions per
+minute, and this we find in actual practice to produce results which are
+highly satisfactory.
+
+As the lift falls again, the belt is moved back on the cones, giving a
+retarding motion to the rings, until it reaches the point at which it
+began to operate, and is then either moved on to the loose pulley, and
+the rings remain stationary, or for very fine yarn are kept in motion at
+a slow speed. We are often asked if this does not affect the twist, but
+answer that it does not in the least, as the relative speeds of the
+rolls and spindles remain the same, and the only thing that can be
+affected is the hardness of the wind upon the bobbin, and this is
+adjustable by the use of a heavier or lighter traveler, according to the
+compactness of cop required.
+
+We claim by means of this improvement the ability to use a much smaller
+quill or bobbin, and consequently holding as much yarn in a less outside
+diameter, enabling us to use a smaller ring, thus saving power both in
+the weight of bobbin to be carried and in the distance to be moved by
+the traveler; and we believe the power to be saved in this manner and by
+the diminution of the dead pull on the traveler, when the wind is at
+the tip of the bobbin, to be more than sufficient to give the necessary
+motion to the revolving rings. We are as yet unable to answer this
+question of power fully, as we have not yet tested a full size frame,
+but we propose to do this in season to answer all questions at the next
+meeting of your association.
+
+The same invention is also applicable to warp spinning, by giving the
+ring a continuous accelerating and retarding motion, in which the
+maximum speed is given to the ring at the first start of the frame when
+the bobbin is empty, sufficient to diminish the strain on the yarn,
+and gradually reducing the motion at each traverse of the rail, as the
+bobbin is filled; but we claim the great advantage of our invention to
+be the capability of spinning any grade of yarn on the ring frame that
+can be spun on the hand or self-operating mule, and in proof of this we
+call your attention to the model frame now in operation at the fair of
+the New England Manufacturers' and Mechanics' Institute, where we are
+spinning on a quill only 5-32 inches diameter at top, and where we can
+show you samples of yarn from No. 80 to No. 400 spun on this frame from
+combed roving from the Conant Thread Company and Willimantic Linen
+Company, which we believe has never before been accomplished on any ring
+frame.
+
+We invite you to examine this invention at the fair, and also call your
+attention to the adjustable roller beam, by means of which the rolls can
+be adjusted at any desirable angle or pitch, so as to throw the twist
+more or less directly spinning, and an improvement in the quality of the
+yarn from the same cause, which will increase the production from the
+loom, and finally eradicate other objectionable features of the labor
+question, which so often disturb the peaceful harmony between labor and
+capital.
+
+Mr, Goulding asked if it had been demonstrated whether more or less
+power was required for the same numbers than effect of running the
+machine a little out of true, and the reply was that the advantage of
+the new method over the old would be more apparent in such a case than
+with a perfect frame. In regard to speed, the inventor proposed as
+a maximum rate, when the wind was at the tip of the bobbin, 300
+revolutions per minute, but from this point the speed would diminish.
+
+Conant Thread Company and Willimantic Linen Company, which we believe
+has never before been accomplished on any ring frame.
+
+We invite you to examine this invention at the fair, and also call your
+attention to the adjustable roller beam, by means of which the rolls can
+be adjusted at any desirable angle or pitch, so as to throw the twist
+more or less directly into the bite of the rolls, according to the
+character of the yarn desired, or the quality of the stock used.
+
+Finally, we claim, by the use of this invention, to be able to spin any
+fibrous material which can be drawn by draught-rolls, of any required
+degree of softness of twist, such as can be spun by any mule whatever,
+and to do this with the attention only of children of from twelve to
+fourteen years of age.
+
+We also claim an increased production, owing to less breakage of ends,
+from the yarn not being overstrained in spinning, and an improvement in
+the quality of the yarn from the same cause, which will increase the
+production from the loom, and finally eradicate other objectionable
+features of the labor question, which so often disturb the peaceful
+harmony between labor and capital.
+
+Mr. Goulding asked if it had been demonstrated whether more or less
+power was required for the same numbers than by other methods, and Col.
+Webber replied that no more power was required to move the rings than
+was saved by friction on the ring and the saving of weight of the
+bobbins. He thought it required no more power than the old way.
+
+_The method of lubricating the ring_.--The inventor, who was present,
+stated, in response to a query, that he claimed an advantage for his
+ring in spinning all numbers from the very coarsest up, both in quality
+and quantity, and especially the former.
+
+Mr. Garsed inquired of Col Webber what would be the effect of running
+the machine a little out of true, and the reply was that the advantage
+of the new method over the old would be more apparent in such a case
+than with a perfect frame. In regard to speed, the inventor proposed
+as a maximum rate, when the wind was at the tip of the bobbin, 300
+revolutions per minute, but from this point the speed would diminish.
+
+It was suggested by a member that the only advantage of a revolving ring
+was to relieve the strain on the traveler just to the extent of the
+ring's revolutions. If the ring were making 300 revolutions per minute,
+and the traveler 6,000, the strain on the latter would be equal to 5,700
+revolutions on a stationary ring. Col. Webber, however, thought that the
+motion of the ring gave the traveler a lift that prevented its stopping
+at any particular point, and cited the fact that all numbers up to 400
+could be spun with this ring as proof of its superiority over the old
+method.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+NEW GAS BURNER.
+
+
+Speaking at the last meeting of the Gaslight and Coke Company, Mr.
+George Livesey said many things with a view to inspire confidence of the
+future in the minds of timid gas proprietors. Among others he mentioned
+the advances now being made by invention in regard to improved
+appliances for developing the illuminating power of coal gas, with
+especial reference to a new burner just patented by Mr. Grimston. Mr.
+Livesey passed a very high encomium upon the burner, and this expression
+of opinion by such an authority is sufficient to arouse deep interest in
+the apparatus in question. It is therefore with much pleasure that we
+present our readers with the following early account of Mr. Grimston's
+burner, for which we are indebted to the inventor and Mr. George Bower,
+of St. Neots, in whose manufactory the burners are now being made in all
+sizes. It should be premised, to save disappointment, that the invention
+is yet so fresh that its ultimate capabilities are unknown. The
+accompanying illustration, therefore, represents the bare skeleton of
+one of the first models; and the actual performance of only the very
+earliest burner, made in great part by Mr. Grimston himself, has been
+fully tested. Before proceeding to describe the invention, a brief
+history may be interesting of how it happened that Mr. Grimston, an
+electric lighting engineer, became a gas burner maker. The story will
+undoubtedly help to explain the reasons for many of the characteristics
+of the new burner.
+
+[Illustration: IMPROVED GAS BURNER. FIG. 1.--Sectional Elevation.]
+
+It appears, then, that Mr. Grimston, who was connected with the
+electrical engineering establishment of Siemens Bros. & Co., Limited,
+was some months ago shown the construction and working of the Siemens
+regenerative gas burner, which is now sufficiently well known to render
+a description unnecessary here. In common with most spectators of this
+very ingeniously and philosophically designed appliance, Mr. Grimston
+was struck with its bulk and the superficial clumsiness of the
+arrangement whereby the air and gas supply are heated in it by the
+products of combustion. These lamps have, of course, materially improved
+of late; but when Mr. Grimston first saw them, perhaps 18 months ago,
+they certainly could not be called neat and compact in design. He
+at once grasped the idea embodied in these lamps, and set about
+constructing an arrangement which should be based on a similar
+principle, but at the same time avoid the inconveniences complained of.
+It is not too much to say that he has succeeded in both these aims, and
+the burner which now bears his name strikes the observer at once by
+the brilliant light which it produces by the simplest and most
+obvious means. We may now describe, by reference to the accompanying
+illustrations, how Mr. Grimston produces the regenerative effect which
+is likewise the central idea of the Siemens burner.
+
+[Illustration: IMPROVED GAS BURNER. FIG. 2.--Section through A B.]
+
+The light is simply that produced by an arrangement of a kind of Argand
+burner turned upside down. The central gas-pipe, _a_ (Figs. 1 and 3), is
+connected to a distributing chamber, whence the annular cluster of brass
+tubes, _a', a_, (Figs. 1 and 2), are prolonged downward, forming the
+burner. The burner is inclosed in an iron or brass annular casing, b, b,
+which forms the main framework of the apparatus. The annular space which
+it affords is the outlet chimney or flue for the products of combustion
+of the burner beneath, and is crossed by a number of thin brass tubes,
+c, c, which lead from the outer air into the inner space containing
+the burner tubes, a', a', already described. The upper openings of the
+annular body, b, are shown at e, e (Fig. 3), which communicate direct
+with the chimney proper, e', e'. The burner is lighted by opening the
+hinged glass cover, d, which fits practically air-tight on the bottom
+of the body, so that the air needed to support combustion must all pass
+through the tubes, c, c, the outer ends of which are protected by the
+casing, k, k.
+
+[Illustration: IMPROVED GAS BURNER. FIG. 3.--Section through C D.]
+
+When the gas is lighted at the burner, and the glass closed, the burner
+begins to act at once, although some minutes are necessarily required
+to elapse before its full brilliancy is gained. The cold air passes in
+through the tubes provided for it, and when these are heated to the
+fullest extent on their outside, by the hot fumes from the burner, they
+so readily part with their heat to the air that a temperature of 1,000 deg.
+to 1,200 deg. Fahr. is easily obtained in the air when it arrives inside,
+and commences in turn to heat the burner-tubes. The air-tubes are placed
+so as to intercept the hot gases as completely as possible; and also, of
+course, obtain heat by conduction from the sides of the annular body.
+It is evident that the number and dimensions of these tubes might be
+increased so as to abstract almost all the heat from the escaping fumes,
+but for the limitations imposed, first, by a consideration of the actual
+quantity of air required to support combustion, and, secondly, by the
+obligation to let sufficient ascensional power remain in the gases which
+are left to pass out through the upper chimney. If the gases are cooled
+too much, they will either fall back into the lamp and extinguish the
+flame, or will be removable only by the draught of a long chimney. It
+will probably be the aim of the inventor to balance these requirements,
+and so to produce burners with very short or longer chimneys, according
+as appearance is to be consulted or the highest possible effect
+produced. The burner is a ring of brass tubes of considerable diameter,
+in proportion to the quantity of gas consumed, and thus provides for
+the delivery of gas expanded by heat. In connection with this device
+an explanation may be found of the failure of the British Association
+Committee on Gas Burners to find any advantage from previously heating
+the air and gas consumed. The Committee did not make the necessary
+provision for the increased bulk of the combustible and its air supply,
+caused by their heightened temperature; and the same quantity of gas
+measured cold (at the meter) could only be driven through the ordinary
+small burner holes at a velocity destructive of good results. Herr
+Frederick Siemens perceived this in his early experiments, and not only
+increased the orifices of his burners, but provided for the closer
+contact of the more rarefied gas and air by the use of notched
+deflectors, which are now an essential part of his apparatus. Mr.
+Grimston also uses separate tubes of large area for his hot gas, but
+dispenses with deflectors, save in so far as the same duty may be
+performed by the plain lower edge of the inner cylinder of the lamp
+body, and the indentation of the glass beneath, which, as will be
+noticed, is made to follow the shape of the flame. It only remains now
+to speak of the flame and its qualities. It is, in the first place, a
+flame of hot gas, burning at an extremly small velocity of flow, and
+wholly exposed to view from the exact point which it is required to
+light. In this latter respect it differs materially, and with advantage,
+from the Siemens burner, which, while presenting an extremely brilliant
+and beautiful ball of flame outside its central tube of porcelain, may
+yet be tailing smokily downward inside this opaque screen, and thereby
+causing unperceived waste. The flame of the Grimston burner, on the
+other hand, is quite exposed, and all its light, from the ends of the
+burner-tubes to the point where visible combustion ceases, is made
+available for use. As a perfect Argand flame in the usual position has
+been likened in form to a tulip flower, so the flame of this burner
+presents the appearance of an inverted convolvulus. So far as he has
+already gone, Mr. Grimston prefers to keep the tubes of the burner at
+such a distance from each other that the several jets part at the point
+where they turn upward, so that the convolvulus figure is not maintained
+to the edge of the flame. From its peculiar position the light is, of
+course, completely shadowless as regards the lamp which affords it; and
+this, of itself, is no small recommendation for a pendant. It shows well
+for the simplicity and effectiveness of the perfected burners that Mr.
+Grimston's experimental example, although necessarily imperfect In many
+ways, burns with a remarkably steady light, of great brilliancy, which
+is assured by the fact that the products of combustion are robbed of all
+their heat to magnify the useful effect, so that the hand may be borne
+with ease over the outlet of the chimney. With respect to the endurance
+of the apparatus, it will be sufficient to remark that there is nothing
+in the gas or air heating arrangements to get out of order, and they are
+all easily accessible while the burner is in action. The glass is not
+liable to breakage, although it is in close proximity to the flame, as
+may be gathered from the testimony of the inventor, who has never broken
+one, notwithstanding the severity of some of his experimental studies
+upon his first lamp. The consumption of gas in the first working-model
+burner made by Mr. Grimston was 10 cubic feet per hour, and its
+illuminating power averaged 60 candles. The diameter of this burner was
+11/4 inches across the tubes. It is scarcely necessary to state that if
+this high duty, which was obtained with the ordinary 16-candle gas of
+the Gaslight and Coke Company, can be maintained, to say nothing of
+being exceeded, in the commercial article, the Grimston burner, with its
+other advantages over all existing methods of obtaining equal results,
+has a great future before it. For example, it does not require a
+separate air supply under high pressure, or any extra material to render
+incandescent, and it may be turned on full immediately upon lighting. It
+throws a shadowless light, and lends itself to ventilating arrangements;
+and it is not by any means cumbersome, delicate in construction, or
+costly in manufacture. One of the greatest advantages to which it lays
+claim is, however, the power of yielding almost as good results in a
+small burner as in a large one. This is a consideration of great moment,
+when it is remembered that the tendency of most of the high power
+burners hitherto introduced is to benefit the lighting of streets,
+large interiors, and, generally speaking, points of great consumption.
+Meanwhile, the private user of burners, consuming from 3 to 5 cubic feet
+of gas per hour, has been left to attain as best he might, by the use of
+burners excellent of their kind, to the maximum effect of the standard
+Argand. Now, however, Mr. Grimston seeks to make the small consumer
+partake of the advantages erstwhile reserved for the wholesale user of
+large and costly Siemens and other lamps, and he even looks to this
+class of patrons with particular care. The example which we now
+illustrate, in Fig. 1, is a sectional presentment precisely half the
+actual size of a 5-foot burner, which it is intended to prepare for
+the market before all others. Another simple form of the burner, with
+vertical tubes, will, we understand, be introduced as soon as possible.
+It will be readily understood that the principle is capable of being
+embodied in many shapes; and it is satisfactory to learn that the
+inventor is quite alive to the necessity of producing a cheap as well as
+a good burner.
+
+Gas companies, as Mr. Livesey has expressed it, will be well content
+with a slower relative growth of consumption, if their consumers are at
+the same time making their gas go as far again as formerly, by the use
+of burners which turn nominal 16-candle gas into gas of 30-candle actual
+illuminating power. How far Mr. Grimston's invention may succeed in this
+work it is not for us to say. It is sufficient for the present that
+he has done excellently well in showing how Herr Frederick Siemens'
+scientific principles of regenerative gas burner construction may
+be carried out yet in another way. There is nothing more common in
+industrial annals than for one man to begin a work which another is
+destined to bring to greater perfection. Whether this natural process is
+to be repeated in the present instance must be left for the future to
+decide. In any case, Mr. Grimston's success, if success is to be his
+reward, though it will be well merited by his ingenuity and perseverance
+in solving a difficult problem, will never cause us to forget the
+prior claims of Herr Frederick Siemens, of Dresden, to the palm of the
+discoverer. Mr. Grimston may or may not be the happy inventor of the
+best gas-burner of the day; but there is the consolation of knowing that
+in the same field in which he will find his recompense there is room for
+any number and variety of useful improvements of a like character and
+object.--_Journal of Gas Lighting_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+DEFTY'S IMPROVEMENTS IN GAS BURNERS AND HEATERS.
+
+
+Among other inventors who have turned their attention to gas consumption
+is to be found Mr. H. Defty, who has made several forms both of heating
+and lighting burners. Mr. Defty has sought in the latter to apply the
+principle of heating the air and gas in a simple manner, with the object
+of obtaining improved photometrical results. The double-chimney
+Argand, as tried many years since by Dr. Frankland and others, makes
+a reappearance in one of Mr. Defty's models, illustrated in the
+accompanying diagram (Fig. 1).
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 1.]
+
+Here we have the double-chimney, a and b, for heating the air supplied
+to an ordinary Argand, by causing it to pass downward between the two
+chimneys, and inward to the point of combustion through a wire-gauze
+screen, c, under the inner chimney; but, in addition thereto, Mr. Defty
+hopes to gain an improved result by causing the gas to pass through the
+internal tube, s, which rises up in the middle of the flame. The gas,
+which enters at e, is made to pass up through the inner tube and down
+through the annular space to the burner.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 2.]
+
+A more important form of lantern is the subject of the next diagram
+(Fig. 2), which shows a suspended globe lantern in which there is an
+attempt made to heat the air by the waste heat of the products of
+combustion. It will be perceived by the diagram that a globe lantern is
+furnished with a double chimney; the annular space, C, between the
+inner and outer chimneys allowing for the access of air in a downward
+direction. At the lower of this annular channel are the tubes D,
+protected by the graduated mesh, E, and which admit the air to the
+burner below. The products of combustion of the flame rise through the
+inner chimney, passing around the tubes, and thereby giving up some of
+their heat to the incoming air. Farther up, the chimney is partly filled
+with the convoluted gas-pipe, A, which also takes up some of the waste
+heat, and delivers the gas to the burner at a correspondingly high
+temperature. A very simple method of lighting this burner, which in
+itself does not present anything remarkable, is arranged at the lower
+part of the globe, where a hole is cut and a loose conical glass plug
+(which can, of course, be made to partake of the general ornamentation
+of the globe) may be pushed up to allow of the passage of the lighting
+agent, and is then dropped in its place again. Formal tests of the
+performances of these burners are not available; and the same may be
+said of the heating burners which are shown in the following diagrams.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 3.]
+
+The first of these (Fig. 3) is called by Mr. Defty a "pyramid heater,"
+and is designed to heat the mixture of air and gas before ignition, by
+conduction from its own flame. The inventor claims to effect a perfect
+combustion in this manner with considerable economy of fuel. It is
+evident, however, that a good deal of the gas consumed goes to heat the
+burner itself.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 4.]
+
+The next and last of Mr. Defty's productions to be at present described
+is the so-called "crater burner," shown herewith (Fig. 4). This is an
+atmospheric burner which is purposely made to "fire back," as well as
+to burn on the top of the apparatus. The body of the burner, like the
+pyramid heater just described, is full of fire-clay balls, which become
+very hot from the lower flame, and thus, after the burner has been for
+some time in action, a pale, lambent blaze crowns the top, apparently
+greater in volume than when it is first lighted. Here, again, there is a
+lamentable absence of reliable data as to economic results, which will,
+perhaps, be afforded when the apparatus in question is ready to be
+offered to the public.
+
+Whether one inventor or another succeeds in distancing his rivals, it is
+matter, says _The Journal of Gas Lighting_, for sincere congratulation
+among the friends of gas lighting that so much attention is being
+concentrated upon the improvement of gas burners for all purposes. This
+is an open field which affords scope for more workers than have yet
+entered upon it, and there is the certainty of substantial reward to
+whoever can realize a worthy advance upon the established practice.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+NEW BINDING MACHINES.
+
+
+The accompanying cuts represent two new machines for binding together
+books and pamphlets. They are the invention of Messrs. Brehmer & Co.,
+and are now much used in England and Germany. The material used for
+binding is galvanized iron wire.
+
+_Machine Operated by Hand_ (Fig. 1).--This machine serves for fastening
+together the pages of pamphlets through the middle of the fold, or for
+binding together several sheets to form books up to a thickness of about
+half an inch.
+
+It consists of a small cast-iron frame, with which is articulated a
+lever, _i_, maneuvered by a handle, _h_. This lever is provided at its
+extremity with a curved slat, in which engages a stud, fixed to the
+lower part of a movable arm, _c_, whose extremity, _d_, rises and
+descends when the lever handle, _h_, is acted upon. This maneuver can be
+likewise performed by the foot, if the handle, _h_, be connected with a
+pedal, X, placed at the foot of the table that supports the machine,
+as shown in Fig. 2. The lever, _i_, is always drawn back to its first
+position, when left to itself, by means of the spring, _z_.
+
+[Illustration: IMPROVED BINDING MACHINE.]
+
+The staples for binding have nearly the form of the letter U, and are
+placed, to the number of 250 or 300, on small blocks of wood, _m_. To
+prepare the machine for work, the catch, _a_, is shoved back, and the
+whole upper part of the piece, _b_, is removed. The rod, _e_, with its
+spring, is then drawn back until a small hole in _e_ is perceived,
+and into this there is introduced the hook, _f_, which then holds the
+spring. The block of wood, _m_, filled with staples, is then rested
+against a rectangular horizontal rod, and into this latter the staples
+are slipped by hand. The upper part of the piece, _b_, is next put in
+place and fastened with the catch, _a_. Finally, the spring is freed
+from the hook, _f_. When it is desired to bind the pages of a pamphlet,
+the latter is placed open on the support, _g_, which, as will be
+noticed, is angular above, so that the staple may enter exactly on the
+line of the fold. Then the handle, _h_, is shoved down so as to act on
+the arm, _c_, and cause the descent of the extremity, _d_, as well as
+the vertical piece, _b_, with which it engages. This latter, in its
+downward travel, takes up one of the staples, which are continually
+thrust forward by the rod and spring, and causes it to penetrate the
+paper. At this moment, the handle, _h_, makes the lever, _n_, oscillate,
+and this raises, through its other extremity, a vertical slide whose
+head bends the two points of the staple toward each other. The handle,
+_h_, is afterward lifted, the position of the pamphlet is changed, and
+the same operation is repeated. When it is desired to form a book from
+a number of sheets, the table, _l_, is mounted on the support, _g_, its
+two movable registers are regulated, and the sheets are spread out flat
+on it. The machine, in operating, drives the staples in along the edge
+of the sheets, and the points are bent over, as above indicated.
+
+The axis on which the lever, _i_, is articulated is eccentric, and is
+provided on the side opposite the lever with a needle, _k_, revolving
+on a dial. The object of this arrangement is to regulate the machine
+according to the thickness of the book.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
+
+_Machine to be Operated by a Motor_ (Fig. 3).--This machine, although
+working on the same principle, is of an entirely different construction.
+It is designed for binding books of all dimensions. It consists of a
+frame, _a_, in two pieces, connected by cross-pieces, and carries a
+table, _u_, designed to receive the sheets before being bound together.
+Motion is transmitted by means of a cone, _c_, mounted loose on the
+shaft, _b_. To start the machine, the foot is pressed on the pedal, _m_,
+which, through the intermedium of links and arms, brings together the
+friction plates, _d_, one of which is connected with the shaft, _b_, and
+the other with the cone, _c_. When it is desired to stop the machine,
+the pedal is left free to itself, while the counterpoise, _s_, ungears
+the friction plates. The machine fastens the paper with galvanized iron
+wire wound round bobbins placed at the side of the apparatus. This wire
+it cuts, and forms into staples.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
+
+The book to be bound is placed on the support, _h_, and the arms, _k_,
+that carry the fasteners cause it to move backward and forward. It also
+undergoes a second motion--that is, it moves downward according to the
+number and thickness of its pages. This motion, which takes place
+every time the operator adds a new sheet, is regulated by a cog-wheel
+register, _l_, which is divided, and provided with a needle.
+
+The iron wires pass from the bobbins on a support to the left of the
+machine by means of feed rollers, which thrust them through the eight
+clips. In the interior of these latter there is a double knife, which,
+actuated by one of the cams of the wheel, _e_, cuts the wire and bends
+it thus [Inline Illustration]. The extremities of the staples are thrust
+through the back of the half opened leaves, and then bent toward each
+other thus [Inline Illustration], by the front fastener. This motion is
+effected by means of two levers, _p_ (moved by the cams, _e_), whose
+extremities at every revolution of the machine seize by the two ends a
+link that maneuvers the fasteners. The binding of one sheet finished,
+the lower arms of the machine again take their position, the wires move
+forward the length necessary to form new staples, a new sheet is laid,
+and the same operation is proceeded with. The number of staples and
+their distance are changed, according to the size of the book, by
+introducing into the machine as much wire as will be necessary for the
+staples. To prevent their number from increasing the thickness of the
+back of the book (as would happen were they superposed), the support,
+_h_, moves laterally at every blow, so as to cause the third staple to
+be driven over the first, the second over the fourth, etc.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+FLUMES AND THEIR CONSTRUCTION.
+
+
+In crossing ravines in this State, flumes or wrought iron pipes are
+used. Many miners object to flumes on account of their continual cost
+and danger of destruction by fire. Where used and practicable, they
+are set on heavier grades than ditches, 30 to 35 ft. per mile, and,
+consequently, are proportionately of smaller area than the ditches. In
+their construction a straight line is the most desirable. Curves, where
+required, should be carefully set, so that the flume may discharge its
+maximum quantity. Many ditches in California have miles of fluming. The
+annexed sketch, drawn by A. J. Bowie, Jr., will show the ordinary style
+of construction.
+
+[Illustration: SKETCH OF FLUME.]
+
+The planking ordinarily used is of heart sugar pine, one and a half to
+two inches thick, and 12 to 18 inches wide. Where the boards join, pine
+battens three inches wide by one and a half thick cover the seam. Sills,
+posts, and caps support and strengthen the flume every four feet. The
+posts are mortised into the caps and sills. The sills extend about
+20 inches beyond the posts, and to them side braces are nailed to
+strengthen the structure. This extension of the sill timbers affords a
+place for the accumulation of snow and ice, and in the mountains such
+accumulations frequently break them off, and occasionally destroy a
+flume.
+
+To avoid damage from slides, snow, and wind storms, the flumes are set
+in as close as possible to the bank, and rest, wholly or partially, on
+a solid bed, as the general topography and costs will admit. Stringers
+running the entire length of the flume are placed beneath the sills just
+outside of the posts. They are not absolutely necessary, but in point of
+economy are most valuable, as they preserve the timbers. As occasion
+may demand, the flume is trestled, the main supports being placed every
+eight feet. The scantling and struts used are in accordance with the
+requirements of the work.--_Min. and Sci. Press_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHUWAB'S ROLLING MILL FOR DRESSING AND ROUNDING BAR IRON.
+
+
+This new forge apparatus has been devised for the purpose of finishing
+up round irons of all diameters while hot, as they come out of
+the ordinary rolling mill, by rendering them perfectly circular,
+cylindrical, straight, smooth, and level at the extremities, as if they
+had passed through a slide lathe. Such a high degree of external finish
+is a very valuable feature in those round irons that are employed in so
+great quantity for shafting, cylindrical axles, etc., as well as in the
+manufacture of bolts and locks. Figs. 1, 2, 3, and 4 of the opposite
+engraving will allow it to be seen that this apparatus which is usually
+installed at the side of the finishing cylinder is, in part, beneath
+the general level of the forge floor. It may be placed parallel with or
+perpendicular to the apparatus that it does duty for, this depending
+upon the site at disposal or the mode of transmission.
+
+The apparatus consists essentially of two tempered iron cylinders, A,
+0.5 of a meter in diameter by 1.5 meters in length, revolving in the
+_same direction_ (contrary to what takes place in ordinary rolling
+mills) between two frames, B, that are open on one side to allow of
+the entrance of the finishing bar. This latter is held between the
+cylinders, A, which roll it so much the faster in proportion as its
+diameter is smaller, and by a scraper guide, C, of the same length as
+the cylinder table, and which may be regulated at will by bolts, c,
+fixed to the frame, B. The bottom cylinder remains always in the same
+position, while the axle, D, which carries the intermediate wheels, E,
+moves about to gear in all the relative positions of the cylinders. The
+displacement of the upper cylinder is effected through the clamping
+screws, b, which are actuated by toothed disks that gear with two
+endless screws keyed at the extremities of one shaft in common, d, which
+is set in motion by hand through the winches, m m. The scraper guards, e
+e, take up and throw aside all scales that might become attached to the
+cylinders, which are constantly moistened by small streams of water
+coming from an ordinary conduit.
+
+[Illustration: CHUWAB'S DRESSING AND ROUNDING ROLLING MILL.
+
+Fig. 1--Elevation and Longitudinal Section.
+
+Fig. 2--Side View.
+
+Fig. 3--Transvers Section.
+
+Fig. 4--Plan View.
+
+Figs. 5 & 6--Saws for Dressing the Extremities of the Bars.
+
+Fig. 7--Diagram Showing the Motion of the Wheels and Guide.
+
+Figs. 8 & 9--Apparatus for Shifting tha Bars.]
+
+As the driving belts are mounted on pulleys, G, of a diameter
+proportioned to the velocity of the shafting, the iron pinions, h, in
+order to produce 60 revolutions per minute in the first shaft, H, gear
+on each side with the intermediate wheels, E, and these actuate the
+two bronze pinions, a a, that are mounted on the extremities of the
+cylinders, A A. The axle, D, of the intermediate wheels does not revolve
+with them, but is capable of rising and descending in the elongated
+aperture that traverses the frames, B. The displacement of this axle is
+secured through the arms, L L, whose extremities articulate on the one
+hand with the cylinders, A A, and on the other with D. The result of
+this is that every displacement upward of the top cylinder corresponds
+to a different position of the intermediate shaft, and one that is
+always equidistant from the centers of the cylinders, A A, thus securing
+a constant gearing of the wheels in all the positions of the cylinders,
+A A.
+
+The diagram in Fig. 7 shows the relative displacements of all these
+parts, as well as those of the scraper guide, C. The diameter to be
+obtained is determined beforehand by the two contact screws, P.
+
+The whole thus regulated, the bar of iron, still very hot, coming from
+the ordinary rollers, is straightened up, if need be, by a few blows of
+a hammer, so that it may roll forward over the pavement, N, between the
+rounding cylinders, A A; these being held apart sufficiently to allow
+of its easy introduction. Next, a few revolutions of the winches that
+control the screws suffice to lower the upper cylinder to the exact
+position limited by the contact screws, P, and the bar is rolled between
+the two cylinder tables with a constant velocity in the generatrices. As
+a consequence, the number of revolutions made is so much the greater in
+proportion as the diameter of the shaft is smaller with respect to that
+of the cylinders.
+
+It should be remarked that the bar, during its rotation under pressure,
+is held by the guide, C, so that its diagrammatic axis (Fig. 7) exceeds
+the line, A A, joining the centers of the cylinders just enough to
+prevent its escape to the opposite, and so that the pressure upon the
+said guide (which performs the role of scraper) is merely sufficient to
+detach the scales which form during the operation.
+
+Under such conditions, and at a velocity of 30 revolutions per minute in
+the two cylinders, it will take but a fraction of a minute to finish
+a bar the length of the table, that is to say, 1.5 meters. Then, by
+loosening the upper cylinder, the bar may be easily shoved along in one
+direction or the other, so as to continue the finishing operation
+on successive lengths. This moving of the bar forward is further
+facilitated by the aid of a clamp with rollers and a movable socket,
+V (Figs. 8 and 9). For large diameters (150 millimeters and beyond)
+traction is employed by the aid of two small windlasses placed opposite
+each other, and at a distance apart twice the greatest length of the
+bars to be finished. The chains of these windlasses are attached to the
+extremities by clamps that lock by the pulling exerted.
+
+The details of the arrangement of the saws (Figs. 5 and 6) show that to
+make a section of the ends or of any other part of the bar, it is only
+necessary to lower the lever of one them. By reason of the contrary
+rotation of the bar, the effective stress on the lever will be very
+moderate, while the cut produced will be a clean and quickly performed
+one. It should be remarked that, as a consequence of the cone on the
+projecting extremity of the cylinder journals (Fig. 5), and on the
+rollers that control the saws, it is only necessary to move the lever to
+the right or left in order to stop the motion of each of the saws. These
+latter, to prevent all possibility of accident, are inclosed within
+semicircular guards. Finally, the controlling rollers are made of a
+material which is quite elastic (compressed cardboard, for example), so
+that they may roll smoothly and adhere well.
+
+From what precedes, it will be seen that round iron bars of any diameter
+will come from this apparatus completely finished. It will be seen
+also that with cylinders of suitable profile, there might likewise be
+finished axles, or pieces that are more or less conical as well as those
+provided with shoulders.
+
+The apparatus may, if preferred, be driven by small special motors
+affixed to the frame. Such an arrangement, which is more costly than the
+preceding, is, nevertheless, indicated in cases where shafting would be
+in the way.
+
+The weight of the materials entering into the construction of this
+machine, proposed by Mr. Chuwab, includes about 15 tons of metal,
+of which 5,000 kilogrammes are for the two tempered cylinders; 250
+kilogrammes of iron screws, and 350 of bolts; and 500 kilogrammes of
+bronze, 90 of which are for nuts.--_Revue Industrielle_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE BURNING OF TOWN REFUSE AT LEEDS.
+
+[Footnote: From selected papers of the Institution of Civil Engineers,
+London, by Charles Slagg, Assoc. Memb. Inst. C.E.]
+
+
+In large towns it is necessary to adopt some regular system of removal
+and disposal of the cinders and ashes of house fires, and of the animal
+and vegetable refuse of the houses, and, in short, of everything thrown
+away which cannot be admitted into the sewers. In towns where the
+excreta are separated by means of water closets, the disposal of the
+other refuse presents less difficulty, but still a considerable one,
+because the animal and vegetable refuse is not kept separate from the
+cinders and ashes, all being thrown together into the ash pit or dust
+bin. The contents, therefore, cannot be deposited upon ground which may
+afterward be built upon, although that custom obtained generally in
+former times. Hence the refuse has been removed to a depot where that
+wretched industry is created of picking out the other parts from the
+cinders and ashes.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 1.--DESTRUCTOR.
+
+Elevation.
+
+Section through feeding-holes of cells.
+
+Section through air-passages of cells.]
+
+But in towns unprovided with water closets, or so far as they are not
+adopted in any town, where the privies are connected with the ash pits,
+and where, consequently, the excreta of the population are added to the
+other contents of ash pits, the difficulties of removal and disposal of
+the refuse are much increased.
+
+Where the privy-ashpit system is in use--as it still is to a large
+extent--as much of the contents of the ash pits as can be sold at any
+price, however small, are collected separately from the drier portions,
+and sent out of town as manure; but what remains is still too offensive
+to be deposited on ground near the town; and when it is attempted to
+collect the excreta separately by the pail system, the process is no
+less unsatisfactory. These difficulties led to the adoption, under the
+advice of the late Mr. A.W. Morant, M. Inst. C.E., the Borough Engineer
+at Leeds, of Fryer's method of destruction by burning--that is, of the
+dry ashes and cinders and the animal and vegetable refuse. The
+author was Mr. Morant's assistant. The first kiln was constructed at
+Burmantofts, 11/2 miles from the center of the town in a northeasterly
+direction, and has been in use since the beginning of the year 1878. In
+1879 another kiln was constructed at Armley Road, a mile from the center
+of the town in a west-southwesterly direction, which has been in use
+since the beginning of 1880.
+
+Each destructor kiln has six cells, three in each face of a block of
+brick work 22 feet long, 24 feet through from face to face, and 12 feet
+high. Each cell is 8 feet long and 5 feet wide, arched over, the height
+being 3 feet 4 inches, and both the bottom and arch of the cell slope
+down to the furnace doors with an inclination of 1 in 3. The lower end
+of each cell has about 26 square feet of wrought-iron firebars, the
+hearth being 41/2 feet above the ground.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 2.--CARBONIZER.
+
+Section through furnaces.
+
+Longitudinal section.
+
+Cross section.]
+
+There are two floors, one on the ground level, a few feet only above the
+outlet for drainage, the other floor, or raised platform, being 15 feet
+above it. The refuse is taken in carts up an incline of 1 in 14 on
+cast-iron tram plates to the upper floor, and deposited upon and
+alongside of the destructor, and is shoveled into a row of hoppers at
+the head of the cells. These hoppers are in the middle of the width of
+the destructor, and each communicates with a cell on each side of it.
+The refuse is always damp, and often wet, and after being put into
+the cells is gradually dried by the heat reflected upon it from the
+firebrick arch of the cell, before it descends to the furnace. This
+distinguishes the system from the common furnace, and enables the wet
+material to be burned without other fuel. No fresh fuel is used after
+the fires are once lighted. The vapor passes off with the gases of
+combustion into a horizontal flue between the two rows of cells, through
+an opening at the head of each cell, alongside that through which the
+refuse is fed into it, the two openings being separated by a firebrick
+wall. The refuse is prevented from falling into the flue by a bridge
+wall across the outlet opening, over which the gases pass into the flue.
+
+Between the destructor and the chimney a multitubular boiler is placed,
+which makes steam enough for grinding into sand the clinkers which are
+the solid residue of the burnt refuse. At Burmantofts an old chimney was
+made use of, which is but 84 feet high; but at Armley Road a new chimney
+was built, 6 feet square inside and 120 feet high. It is necessary to
+make the horizontal flue large; that at Armley Road is 9 feet high and 4
+feet wide. A large quantity of dust escapes from the cells--about 7 cwt.
+a month--and unless the velocity of the air in the flue between the
+destructor and the chimney were checked, the dust would be carried up
+the chimney and might cause complaints; as, indeed, it has done with the
+120-foot chimney, but whether with any substantial grounds is uncertain.
+The dust is removed from the horizontal flue or dust chamber once a
+month. Experience seems to indicate that there should be some sort of
+guard or grating to prevent the entry into the chimney of charred paper
+and similar light substances which do not fall to dust, and which are
+sometimes carried up with the draught.
+
+A six-celled destructor kiln burns about 42 tons of refuse in
+twenty-four hours, leaving about one-fourth of its bulk of clinkers and
+ashes. The clinkers are withdrawn from the furnaces five times each day
+and night, or about every two-and-a-half hours, into iron barrows, and
+wheeled outside the shed which covers the destructor, and when cold are
+wheeled back to the mortar mills, of which there are two at each depot,
+each having a revolving pan 8 feet in diameter, with 27-cwt. rollers,
+the pan making twenty two revolutions a minute. Forty shovelfuls of
+clinkers and twelve of slaked lime make 7 cwt. of mortar in thirty-five
+minutes in each pan, which is sold at 5s. 6d. per ton. The engine
+driving the two mortar mills has a 14 inch cylinder, 30 inches length
+of stroke, and makes sixty revolutions per minute with 45 pounds steam
+pressure per square inch in the boiler, when both mortar mills are
+running. The boiler is 11 feet long, 8 feet in diameter, and has 132
+tubes 4 inches in external diameter, which, together with the external
+flues, are cleaned out once a month.
+
+At first sight it would probably appear that no good mortar could be
+made from such refuse as has been described, but having passed through
+the furnace, the clinkers are, of course, perfectly clean, and with good
+lime make a really strong and excellent mortar. They are also largely
+used for the foundation of roadways.
+
+The number of men employed is as follows: Two furnace men in the daytime
+and two at night. They work from midnight on Sundays to 2 P.M. on
+Saturdays, the fires being fully charged and left to burn through the
+Sundays. One foreman, who attends also to the running of the engine, and
+one mortar man. A watchman attends while the workmen are off.
+
+In addition to a destructor, there is at the Burmautofts depot a
+"carbonizer" kiln, in which the sweepings of the vegetable markets are
+burned into charcoal. The carbonizer consists of eight vertical cells,
+in two sets or stacks of four, separated by a space containing two
+double furnaces, back to back, there being a double furnace also at each
+end of the eight cells. Each of the stacks of four cells is 15 feet
+6 inches high; the ends and middle parts, forming the tops of the
+furnaces, being 6 feet high. The block of brick work containing the
+eight cells and furnaces is 26 feet 6 inches long and 12 feet 4 inches
+wide at the floor level. Each cell is 3 feet 6 inches by 2 feet, and
+about 10 feet deep, with a chamber below about 3 feet deep, into which
+the charred material falls and is completely burned. The top of the
+cells is level with the upper platform, and they are fed through a loose
+cover, which is immediately replaced. Inside the cells cast-iron sloping
+shelves are hung upon the walls so that their upper edges touch the
+walls, but the lower edges are some inches off, so that the hot air of
+the furnaces passes upward behind the shelves round the four sides of
+the cell in a spiral manner, and out near the top into a vertical flue,
+which conducts it down to the horizontal flue at the bottom, which leads
+to the chimney. The charcoal is withdrawn from the bottom of the heating
+chamber through a sliding plate 2 feet above the floor, and is wheeled
+red hot to the charcoal cooler, which is a revolving cylinder, nearly
+horizontal, kept cool by water falling upon it, and delivers the
+charcoal in two degrees of fineness at the end. It is worked by a small
+attached engine, supplied with steam from the boiler before mentioned.
+Each cell of the carbonizer can reduce to charcoal 50 cwt. of vegetable
+refuse in twenty four hours, but at Leeds not quite so much is put
+through. The quantity of market refuse passed through six cells of the
+carbonizer varies from 3 to 10 tons a day, and averages about 41/2 tons,
+from which 15 cwt. of charcoal is obtained. The fuel for burning the
+charcoal is derived from the ash pit refuse, some selected loads being
+for that purpose passed over a sloping screen fixed between the upper
+platform and the furnace floor, the fine ashes which pass through the
+screen being taken away to the manure heaps, and the combustible parts
+to the furnaces of the carbonizer. In this way a good deal of the ash
+pit refuse is got rid of; it is often one-twelfth part of the whole
+quantity.
+
+The carbonizer and the destructor are set 33 feet apart, to allow room
+for drawing the furnaces and for the mortar mills, but the space is
+hardly sufficient. One man is employed in attending to the carbonizer.
+
+Besides the openings at the top of the destructor through which the ash
+pit refuse is fed into the cells, there is a larger opening in each
+cell, kept covered usually, through which bed mattresses ordered by the
+medical sanitary office to be destroyed can be put into the cells. These
+openings are midway between the central openings and the furnace doors,
+and whatever is put into the cells through these comes into immediate
+contact with the fire. Advantage is taken of these openings for the
+destruction of dead animals and diseased meat, and as much as 20 tons in
+a year have been passed through the destructor.
+
+The whole works are roofed over. The lower floor is open on two sides,
+but the upper one is closed in, with weather boarding at Burmantofts and
+with corrugated iron at Armley Road. At the former place the works
+were in some measure experimental, and the platform was constructed
+of timber, but at Armley Road it is of plate-iron girders, with brick
+arching, weight being considered advantageous in reducing the vibration
+of carting heavy loads over it.
+
+The cost of each depot has been L4,500, exclusive of land, of which
+about an acre is required for the destructor, carbonizer, inclined road,
+weigh office, and space. A supply of water is necessary, a good deal
+being required for cooling the clinkers. The population of the two
+districts belonging to these works is about 160,000.
+
+The author has no longer any connection with the works described, and
+for the recent experience of their working he is indebted to Mr.
+John Newhouse, the superintendent of the sanitary department of the
+corporation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+GREEN WOOD.
+
+
+The specific volume of the different constituents of green woods has
+been estimated by M. Hartig to be as follows, per 1,000 parts: Hard
+green wood, fiber stuff, 441; water, 247; air, 312. Soft green wood,
+fiber stuff, 279; water, 317, air, 404. Evergreen wood, fiber stuff,
+270; water, 335; air, 395. A certain amount of water--7 or 8 per cent in
+all--is included with the fiber stuff, showing that about one-third only
+of the mass of the wood is solid stuff; the remainder is either water or
+air space.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE ARMITAGE HOUSE.
+
+
+This house is now in course of erection under the superintendence
+of Messrs. Salomons and Ely, in the Claremont road, Pendleton, near
+Manchester. The walls are faced in the lower part with red bricks,
+and red stone, from the neighborhood of Liverpool, is used for the
+window-dressings, etc. The upper part of walls will be faced with
+red tiles and half-timber work, and the roof will be covered with
+Staffordshire tiles. Lead lights will be largely used in the windows.
+Internally, the finish will be almost entirely in real woods, including
+walnut for the dining-room and vestibule, pitch-pine for the large hall,
+staircase, and billiard-room, ash for the morning-room, and oak for Mr.
+Armitage's own room. In all these the ceilings and dados are to be in
+wood. The contract for the whole of the above work, amounting to L6,507,
+is let to Mr. James Herd, of Manchester.--_Building News_.
+
+[Illustration: SUGGESTIONS IN ARCHITECTURE.--AN ENGLISH COUNTRY
+RESIDENCE.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE COLLOTYPE PROCESS IN PRACTICE.
+
+
+That theory and practice are two very different things holds good in
+photography especially, and perhaps in no other branch of our art have
+so many theoretical formulae been promulgated as in the collotype or
+Lichtdruck process. As our readers are aware, we have had an opportunity
+of seeing collotype printing in operation in several European
+establishments of note, and have, from time to time, published in these
+columns our experiences. But requests still come to us so frequently
+for information on the process that we have deemed it well to make a
+practical summary for the benefit of those who are working--or desire to
+work--the method.
+
+The formulae and manipulations here set down are those of Loewy, Albert,
+Allgeyer, and Obernetter, four of the best authorities on the subject,
+and we can assure our readers there is nothing described but what is
+actually practiced.
+
+_Glass Plate for the Printing Block_.--Herr Albert, of Munich, uses
+patent plate of nearly half an inch in thickness, as most of his work
+is printed upon the Schnell press (machine press). Herr Obernetter, of
+Vienna, since he only employs the slower and more careful hand
+press, prefers plate glass of ordinary thickness as being handier in
+manipulation and better adapted to the common printing-frame.
+
+Herr Loewy, of Vienna, again, uses plate glass a quarter of an inch
+thick, as his productions range from the finest to the roughest.
+
+_Preliminary Coating of the Glass Plate_.--Herr Albert's original plan
+was to apply a preliminary coating of bichromated gelatine to the thick
+glass plate, the film being exposed to light through the back of the
+glass, and thus rendered insoluble and tightly cemented to the surface;
+this film serving as a basis for the second sensitive coating, that
+was afterward impressed by the negative. This double treatment is now
+definitely abandoned in most Lichtdruck establishments, and, instead, a
+preliminary coating of soluble silicate and albumen dissolved in water
+is used.
+
+Herr Loewy's method and formula are as follows: The glass plate is
+cleaned, and coated with--
+
+    Soluble glass.             3 parts.
+    White of egg.              7 "
+    Water.               9 to 10 "
+
+The soluble glass must be free from caustic potash. The mixture, which
+must be used fresh, is carefully filtered, and spread evenly over the
+previously cleaned glass plate. The superfluous liquid is flowed off,
+and the film dried either spontaneously or by slightly warming. The film
+is generally dry in a few minutes, when it is rinsed with water, and
+again dried; at this stage the plate bears an open, porous film,
+slightly opalescent--so slight, however, as only to be observed by an
+experienced eye.
+
+_Application of the Sensitive Film_.--We now come to the second stage of
+the process, the application of a film of bichromated gelatine to the
+plate.
+
+Herr Loewy's formula is as follows:
+
+    Bichromate of potash.             16  grammes.
+    Gelatine.                          21/2 ounces.
+    Water.                      20 to 22    "
+
+According to the weather, the amount of water must be varied; but in any
+case the solution is a very fluid one. An ounce is about 35 grammes, as
+most of our readers know. A practical collotypist sees at a glance the
+quality of the prepared plate, without any preliminary testing. A good
+preliminary film is a glass that is transparent, yet slightly dull; the
+film is so thin, you can scarcely believe it is there. The plate is
+slightly warmed upon a slate slab, underneath which is a water bath; it
+is then flooded with the above mixture of bichromated gelatine, leaving
+only sufficient to make a very thin film. When coated, the plate is
+placed in the drying chamber.
+
+_Drying the Sensitive Film_.--Much depends upon the drying. A water
+bath with gas burner underneath is used for heating, and a slate slab,
+perfectly level, receives the glass plate. The drying chamber is kept at
+an even temperature of 50 deg. C.
+
+The object to be attained is a fine grain throughout the surface of the
+gelatine, and unless this grain is satisfactory the finished printing
+block never will be. If the gelatine film be too thick, then the grain
+will be coarse; or, again, if the temperature in drying be too high,
+there will be no grain at all. The drying is complete in two or three
+hours, and should not take longer.
+
+_The Negative to be Printed from_.--The sensitive film being upon the
+surface of a thick glass plate, it is necessary that the cliche or
+negative employed should be upon patent plate, or not upon glass at all,
+so as to insure perfect contact. Best of all, is to employ a stripped
+negative, in which case absolute contact is insured in printing. It is
+only in these circumstances that the most perfect impression can be
+secured. If the negative is otherwise satisfactory, and only requires
+stripping, it must be upon a leveling stand, and fluid gelatine of a
+tolerable consistence is poured over it. When dry, a pen-knife is run
+around the margin, and the film leaves the glass without any trouble.
+
+Herr Obernetter says that many of the negatives he receives have to be
+reproduced before they can be transformed into Lichtdruck plates, and
+he employs either the wet collodion process or the graphite method,
+according to circumstances. If the copy is desired to be softer than the
+original, collodion is employed; if vigor be desired, graphite is used,
+and here is his formula:
+
+    Dextrine.                        62    grains.
+    Ordinary white sugar.            77       "
+    Bichromate of ammonia.           30.8     "
+    Water.                            3.21 ounces.
+    Glycerine.                   2 to 8    drops.
+
+The film is dried at a temperature of 130 deg. to 140 deg. F. in about ten
+minutes, and while still warm is printed under a negative in diffused
+light for a period of five to fifteen minutes. In a well-timed print
+the image is slightly visible; the plate is again warmed a little above
+atmospheric temperature in a darkened room, and then fine levigated
+graphite is applied with a fine dusting brush, a sheet of white paper
+being held underneath to judge of the effect. Breathing upon the film
+renders it more capable of attracting the powder. When the desired vigor
+has been attained, the superfluous powder is dusted off, and the plate
+coated with normal collodion. Afterward the film is cut through at the
+margins of the plate by means of a sharp knife, and put into water. In a
+little while--from two to five minutes--the collodion, with the image,
+will be detached from the glass; the film is at once turned over in the
+water, and brought out upon the glass plate. Under a soft jet of water
+any air-bubbles that may exist between the collodion and the glass are
+removed, and then a solution of gum arabic (two grammes of gum dissolved
+in one hundred grammes of water) is poured over, and the film is allowed
+to dry spontaneously.
+
+_Exposure of the Printing Block under the Negative_.--The exposure
+is very rapid. Any one conversant with photolithographic work will
+understand this. At any rate, every photographer knows that bichromated
+gelatine is much more rapid than the chloride of silver he generally has
+to do with.
+
+There is no other way of measuring the exposure than by the photometer
+or personal experience, and the latter is by far the best.
+
+After leaving the printing frame, the plate is immersed in cold water.
+Here it remains at discretion for half an hour, or an hour; the purpose,
+of course, being to wash out the soluble bichromate. It is when the
+print comes out of this bath that judgment is passed upon it. An
+experienced eye tells at once what it is fit for. If it is yellow, the
+yellowness must be of the slightest; indeed, Herr Furkl (the manager of
+Herr Loewy's Lichtdruck department) will not admit that a good plate is
+yellow at all. A yellow tint means that it will take up too much ink
+when the roller is passed over it. The plates of Herr Obernetter,
+however, are rather more yellow than Herr Loewy's--certainly only a
+tinge, but still yellow; and Herr Obernetter's work proves, at any rate,
+that the yellowish tinge is by no means inseparable from good results.
+
+The washed and dried plate should appear like a design of ground and
+polished glass. The ground glass appearance is given by the grain. If
+there are pure high-lights (almost transparent) and opalescent shadows,
+the plate is a good one.
+
+_Printing from the Block_.--We have now a printing-block ready for the
+press. If it is to be printed by machinery--that is to say, upon a
+Schnell press--the surface is etched; if it has to be more carefully
+handled in a hand press, etching is rarely resorted to; it is moistened
+only with glycerine and water. To etch a plate for a Schnell press, it
+is placed upon a leveling stand, and the following solution is poured
+upon it:
+
+    Glycerine............................. 150 parts.
+    Ammonia................................ 50   "
+    Nitrate of potash (saltpeter)..........  5   "
+    Water.................................. 25   "
+
+Another equally good formula, recommended by Allgeyer, who managed Herr
+Albert's Lichtdruck printing for some years, is:
+
+    Glycerine............................. 500 parts.
+    Water................................. 500   "
+    Chloride of sodium (common salt)......  15   "
+
+In lieu of common salt, 15 parts of hyposulphite of soda, or other
+hygroscopic salt, such as chloride of calcium, may be employed.
+
+The etching fluid is permitted to remain upon the image for half an
+hour. During this time, by gently moving the finger to and fro over the
+surface, the swelling or relief of the image can be distinctly felt. The
+plate is not washed, but the etching fluid simply poured off, so that
+the film remains impregnated with the glycerine and water; at the most,
+a piece of bibulous paper is used to absorb any superfluous quantity of
+the etching fluid. After etching, the plate is taken straight to the
+printing press. The inking up and printing are done very much as
+in lithography. If it requires a practiced hand to produce a good
+lithographic print, it stands to reason that in dealing with a gelatine
+printing block, instead of a stone, skill and practice are more
+necessary still. Therefore at this point the photographer should hand
+over the work to the lithographer, or rather the Lichtdruck printer.
+It is only by coaxing judiciously, with roller and sponge, that a good
+printing block can be obtained, and no amount of teaching theoretically
+can beget a good printer. To appreciate how skillful a printer must be,
+it is only necessary to see the imperfect proofs that first result, and
+to watch how these are gradually improved by dint of rolling, rubbing,
+etching, cleaning, etc. In all Lichldruck establishments, two kinds of
+rollers are used, viz., of leather and glue. In some establishments,
+too, they employ two kinds of ink; but Herr Loewy manages to secure
+delicacy and vigor at the same time by using one ink, but rolling up
+with two kinds of roller.
+
+Collotype printing is not merely done by hand presses, but is also
+done by machinery. At Herr Albert's a gas engine of six-horse power is
+employed to drive the machines, and each machine requires the
+attention of a skilled mechanic and a girl. The press is very like the
+lithographic quick press. Upon a big steel bed lies the little collotype
+block. The glass printing block, with its brownish film of gelatine,
+moves horizontally to and fro, and, as it does so, passes under half a
+dozen rollers, which not only supply ink, but disperse it. Some of the
+rollers are of leather and others of glue, and, whenever the printing
+block retires from underneath them, an ink slab takes the place of the
+block, and imparts more ink to the rollers; sometimes as many as eight
+rollers are used, for the difficulty of machine printing is to apply the
+ink as delicately and equally as possible. It is necessary at intervals
+to damp the block, and when the printer in charge finds this to be the
+case, he stops the press, and applies a little glycerine and water
+with a cloth or sponge; then a leather roller is passed over to remove
+superfluous moisture, and the press is again started.
+
+Herr Obernetter relies upon the Star or Stern press--a small
+lithographic press--one man sufficing to manage it, who turns a wheel
+with large spokes, reminding one of the steering wheel of a ship. The
+Lichtdruck plate, gelatine film upward, is laid upon a sheet of plate
+glass by way of a bed, the plate having first been treated with a
+solution of glycerine and water; it is then inked up as previously
+described, except that Herr Obernetter uses two kinds of ink--a thick
+one and a thin--applied by two rollers of glue. In the first place, a
+moist sponge is rubbed over the surface; then a soft roller covered with
+wash-leather, and of the appearance of crepe, is passed over two or
+three times to remove surplus moisture; then a roller charged with thick
+ink is put on, and then another with thin is applied. It takes fully
+five minutes to sponge and roll up a plate, the rolling being done
+gently and firmly. A sheet of paper is now laid upon the plate, the
+tympan is lowered, and the scraper adjusted with due pressure; a
+revolution of the wheel completes the printing, the well-known scraping
+action of the lithographic press being used in the operation.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 1.--ORDINARY NAPHTHA LIGHTER OF MR. LOISEAU.]
+
+Some Lichtdruck prints are printed upon thick plate-paper, and are ready
+for binding without further ado, these being for book illustrations.
+Other pictures, that are to pass muster among silver photographs, are,
+on the other hand, printed upon fine thin paper, and then sized by
+dipping in a thin solution of gelatine; after drying, they are further
+dipped in a solution of shellac and spirit.--_Photo. News_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+DOMESTIC ELECTRICITY.
+
+
+Among the most valuable, and, up to the present time, the least
+generally appreciated services that electricity can render for domestic
+purposes is that of its application in lighters. At the present epoch
+of indifferent matches, to have, instantaneously, a light by pulling
+a cord, pressing on a button, or turning a cock, is a thing worthy of
+being taken into serious consideration; and our own personal experience
+permits us to assert that, regarded from this point of view, electricity
+is capable of daily rendering inappreciable services.
+
+According to the nature of the application that is to be made of them,
+the places in which they are to be put, and the combustible that they
+are to inflame, etc., electric lighters vary greatly in form and
+arrangement.
+
+We shall limit ourselves here to pointing out the simplest and most
+practical of the numerous models of such apparatus that have been
+constructed up to the present time. All those that we shall describe
+are based on the incandescence of a platinum wire. A few have been
+constructed based on the induction spark, but they are more complicated
+and expensive, and have not entered into practical use. Before
+commencing to describe these apparatus, we shall make a remark in regard
+to the piles for working them, and that is that we prefer for this
+purpose Leclanche elements with agglomerated plates and a large surface
+of zinc. In order to bring about combustion in any given substance, it
+is necessary to bring near it an incandescent body raised to a certain
+temperature, which varies with the nature of the said substance, and
+which is quite low for illuminating gas, higher for petroleum, and a
+white heat for a wax taper or a candle. We have said that we make use
+exclusively of a platinum wire raised momentarily to incandescence by
+the passage of an electric current. The temperature of such wire will
+depend especially upon the intensity of the current traversing it;
+and, if this is too great, the platinum (chosen because of its
+inoxidizability and its elevated melting point) will rapidly melt;
+while, if the intensity is too little, the temperature reached by the
+wire will itself be too low, and no inflammation will be brought about.
+Practice soon indicates a means of obviating these two inconveniences,
+and teaches how each apparatus may be placed under such conditions that
+the wire will hardly ever melt, and that the lighting will always be
+effected. For the same intensity of current that traverses the wire,
+the temperature of the latter might be made to vary by diminishing or
+increasing its diameter. A very fine wire will attain a red heat through
+a very weak current, but it would be very brittle, and subject to break
+at the least accident. For this reason it becomes necessary to employ
+wires a little stronger, and varying generally from one to two-tenths
+of a millimeter in diameter. The current then requires to be a little
+intenser. The requisite intensity is easily obtained with elements
+of large surface, which have a much feebler internal resistance than
+porous-cup elements; and since, for a given number of elements, the
+intensity of the current decreases in measure as the internal resistance
+of the elements increases, it becomes of interest to diminish such
+internal resistance as much as possible. The platinum wires are usually
+rolled spirally, with the object in view of concentrating the heat into
+a small space, in order to raise the temperature of the wire as much as
+possible. There is thus need of a less intense current to produce the
+inflammation than with a wire simply stretched out. In fact, the same
+wire traversed by a current of constant intensity scarcely reaches a
+_red_ heat when it is straight, while it attains a _white_ heat when it
+is wound spirally, because, in the latter case, the cooling surface is
+less.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 2--RANQUE'S NEW FORM OF LIGHTER WITH EXTINGUISHER.]
+
+We shall now proceed to the examination of a few practical forms of
+electric lighters.
+
+In Fig. 1 will be seen quite a convenient spirit or naphtha lighter,
+which has been devised more especially for the use of smokers. By
+pushing the lamp toward the wall, the wick is brought into proximity
+with the spiral, and the lamp, acting on a button behind it, closes
+the current. Pressure on the lamp being removed, the latter moves back
+slightly, through the pressure of a small spring which thrusts on the
+button. Owing to this latter simple arrangement, the spiral never comes
+in contact with the flame, and may thus last for a long time. Mr.
+Loiseau, the proprietor of this apparatus, employs a very fine platinum
+wire, flattened into the form of a ribbon, and it takes only the current
+from a _single element_ to effect the inflammation of the wick. The
+system is so arranged that any one can easily replace in a moment the
+spiral that has accidentally got out of order; and, in order that this
+may be done, the maker has placed the spiral on a small, distinct piece
+that he styles the "conflagrator." The latter consists of two small,
+thin tubes of brass, held parallel and firmly by means of a brass
+cross-piece. A small bit of paper wound round each tube in front of the
+cross-brace insures insulation. The outer extremity of the two tubes
+supports the platinum spiral, which is fixed to them very simply by the
+aid of two small brass needles of conical form, which pinch the wire
+in the tube and hold it in place. There is nothing easier to do than
+replace the wire. All that is necessary is to remove the two little rods
+with a pair of pincers; to make a spiral of suitable length by rolling
+the wire round a pin; and to fix it into the tubes, as we have just
+explained. With two or three extra "conflagrators" on hand, there need
+never any trouble occur.
+
+In Fig. 2 we show a new and simple form of Mr. Ranque's lighter, in
+which an electro-magnet concealed in the base brings the spiral and
+the wick into juxtaposition. The extinguisher, which is balanced by
+a counterpoise, oscillates about a horizontal axis, and its support
+carries two small pins, against which act successively two notches in a
+piece of oval form, fixed on the side of the movable rods.
+
+In the position shown in the cut, on the first emission of a current the
+upper notch acts so as to depress the extinguisher, but the travel of
+the rods that carry the spiral is so limited that the latter does not
+strike against the extinguisher. On the next emission, the lower notch
+acts so as to raise the extinguisher, while the spiral approaches the
+wick and lights it. It is well to actuate these extinguishing-lighters,
+which may be located at a distance, not by a contact button, but by some
+pulling arrangement, which is always much more easy to find in the dark
+without much groping about. There might be used for such a purpose the
+very motion of the front door, when opened, for lighting the hall; but
+that would offer the inconvenience of operating likewise in the daytime,
+and of thus needlessly using up the pile and the naphtha. In all these
+spirit or naphtha lighters it is important that the spiral _shall not
+touch_ the wick, but that it shall be placed a little above and on the
+side, in the mixture of air and combustible vapor.
+
+Several apparatus have likewise been devised for lighting gas by
+electricity, and a few of these we shall describe.
+
+The simplest form of these is Mr. Barbier's lighter for the use of
+smokers, for lighting candles, sealing letters, etc. It consists of a
+small gas-burner affixed to a round box, seven to eight centimeters in
+diameter, and connected to the gas-pipe by a rubber tube. By maneuvering
+the handle, the cock is opened and an electric contact set up of
+sufficient duration to raise to a red heat the spiral, and to light the
+gas. It is well in this case, for the sake of economizing in wire, to
+utilize the lead gas-pipe as a return wire, especially if the pile is
+located at some little distance from the lighter. In the arrangement
+generally in use the key is provided with a special spring, which tends
+to cause it to turn in such a way as to assume a vertical position, and
+with a tooth, which, on engaging with a piece moving on a joint, holds
+it in a horizontal position as soon as it has been brought thereto. In
+order to extinguish the burner, it is only necessary to depress the
+lever, and thus allow the key to assume again the vertical position,
+that is to say, the position that closes the aperture through which the
+gas flows out. In a new arrangement, the notch, spring, and the lever
+are done away with, the cock alone taking the two positions open or
+closed.
+
+Another very ingenious system is that of Mr. Loiseau, consisting of an
+ordinary gas-burner (fish-tail, bat's-wing, etc.), carrying at its side
+a "conflagrator," analogous to that of the spirit-lighter (Fig. 1), but
+arranged vertically. One of the rods of the "conflagrator" is connected
+with the positive of the pile, and the other with the little horizontal
+brass rod which is placed at the bottom of the burner. On turning the
+cock so as to open it, a small flow of gas occurs opposite the platinum
+spiral, while at the same time a rigid projecting piece affixed to the
+cock bears against a small, vertical metallic piece, and brings it in
+contact with the brass rod. The circuit is thus closed for an instant,
+the spiral is raised to a red heat, and lights the gas, and the flame
+rises and finally lights the burner. It goes without saying that on
+continuing the motion the contact is broken, so as not uselessly to
+waste the pile and so as to stop the escape of gas.
+
+For gas furnaces, Mr. Loiseau is constructing a _handle-lighter_ which
+is connected with the side of the furnace by flexible cords. The contact
+button is on the sleeve itself, and the spiral is protected against
+shocks by a metallic covering which is cleft at the extremity and the
+points bent over at a right angle. All the lighters here described work
+well, and are rendering valuable services. They may be considered as the
+natural and indispensable auxiliaries of electric call bells, and their
+use has most certainly been rendered practical through the Leclanche
+pile.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THEILER'S TELEPHONE RECEIVER.
+
+
+This telephone receiver differs from its predecessors in dispensing with
+an armature, the lateral vibration of the electro-magnet itself being
+utilized. In previous systems in which an electro-magnet is used, the
+sonorous vibrations are due either to the motion of an iron diaphragm
+or armature placed close to the poles of the electro-magnet, or to the
+expansion and contraction of the magnet itself. In Theiler's telephone
+the electro-magnet may be of the usual U-shape, and may consist either
+of soft iron or of hardened steel permanently magnetized, wound with a
+suitable number of turns of insulated wire. This electro magnet is fixed
+in such a manner that the vibration of either one or of both its limbs
+is communicated to a diaphragm or diaphragms The patentees also employ
+two or more electro-magnets in the same circuit, and utilize the
+vibration of both magnets in the manner described. By attaching a light
+disk or disks to the vibrating limbs, the diaphragm may be dispensed
+with. Fig. 1 represents one of the telephone receivers provided with two
+diaphragms or sounding boards, connected to the two limbs or cores of
+the U-shaped electro-magnet by short tongues. These tongues are firmly
+inserted in the diaphragms and fixed to the magnet, as shown. The poles
+of the electro-magnet are brought very close together by being shaped as
+shown, and the middle part of the magnet is firmly screwed to the case
+of the instrument. The ends of the helix surrounding the magnet cores
+may be attached as usual to two terminals, or soldered to a flexible
+conductor communicating with the other parts of the telephone
+apparatus. When a vibratory current is sent through the helix of the
+electro-magnet, the extremities are rapidly attracted and repelled, and
+this vibratory motion of the magnet cores being communicated to the
+diaphragms or sounding boards, the latter are set in vibration of
+varying amplitude produced by a current of varying strength, as in all
+other telephones. Instead of making the electro-magnet of one continuous
+piece of iron, as represented in Fig. 1, the patentees find it
+more practicable to make it of the form shown in Fig. 2, where the
+electro-magnet represented consists of two limbs or cores, a sole piece,
+and pole extensions, the whole being screwed together, and practically
+constituting one continuous piece of iron carrying the two coils. In
+Fig. 2 only one of the limbs or cores of the electro-magnet is attached
+to the diaphragm, the other limb being held fixed by a screw. Sometimes
+the patentees hinge one of the magnet cores, or both, in the sole piece,
+in which case the diaphragms or sounding boards can be made much thicker
+than when the cores are rigidly fixed to the sole piece, because
+the magnetic attraction of the poles has then only to overcome the
+resistance of the diaphragm. Instead of using a diaphragm, they
+sometimes fix a stem to one of the cores of the electro-magnet, and
+mount thereon a light disk of vulcanite, wood, ivory, gutta-percha, or
+any other substance which it is capable of vibrating. When using this
+telephone receiver, the disk is pressed to the ear in such a manner
+that its surface covers the aperture of the ear. When these telephone
+receivers are used on a line of some considerable length, the patentees
+prefer to magnetize the electro-magnet by a constant current from
+a local battery, and to effect the variation of this constant
+magnetization inductively and not directly. The electro-magnet is,
+then, not inserted in the line at all, but in the primary circuit of
+an induction coil, and connected with a local battery. The line is
+connected to the secondry circuit of the induction coil. This device
+possesses the advantage that the electro-magnet can be powerfully
+magnetized with very little battery power, no matter how long the line
+may be, and that steel magnets are entirely dispensed with. It is not
+necessary to have a separate battery for this purpose, as the microphone
+battery may also be used for the telephone receiver. The shape of the
+vibrating electro-magnets is immaterial, as they may be made of a
+variety of forms.--_Eng. Mechanic_.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 1. FIG. 2]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ON AN ELECTRIC POWER HAMMER.
+
+By MARCEL DEPREZ.
+
+[Footnote: _La Lumiere Electrique_.]
+
+
+In a lecture delivered by me on the 15th of last June in the
+amphitheater of the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, on the
+application of electricity to the production, transmission, and division
+of power, I operated for the first time an electric power hammer that I
+shall here describe. Its essential part is a sectional solenoid that
+I have likewise made an application of in an electric motor which I
+presented in July, 1830, to the Societe de Physique. Let us suppose we
+superpose, one on the other, a hundred flat bobbins of a centimeter
+in thickness in such a way as to form a single solenoid one meter in
+height, and that the incoming and outgoing wires of each of them be
+connected with the contiguous bobbins exactly in the same way as they
+are in the consecutive sections or a dynamo-electric machine ring.
+Finally, let us complete the resemblance by causing each junction of the
+wire of one of the bobbins with the wire of its neighbor to end in a
+metallic plate set into an insulating piece containing as many plates as
+there are bobbins, plus one. Over this species of collector, which maybe
+rectilinear or wound around a cylinder, let us pass two brushes fixed to
+an insulating piece that may be moved by hand. Now, if we place these
+two brushes at a distance such that the number of the plates of the
+collector included between them be, for example, equal to ten, and we
+give them any degree of displacement whatever, after rendering them
+interdependent, the current entering through one of these brushes and
+making its exit through the other will always traverse 10 bobbins.
+Everything will occur, then, as if we caused the ten-bobbin solenoid to
+move instead of the brushes. This granted, and the brushes being in any
+position whatever, let us send a current into the apparatus, and place
+therein a soft iron cylinder. By virtue of a well known law, such
+cylinder will remain suspended in the interior of the solenoid, and its
+longitudinal center will place itself at so much the greater distance
+from that of the solenoid the more the current increases in intensity.
+It would even fall entirely if the current had not an intensity above a
+minimum value dependent upon many elements concerning which we have not
+now to occupy ourselves. We will suppose the current intense enough to
+keep the distance of the two centers much below that which would bring
+about a fall of the cylinder. When such a condition is fulfilled, it is
+found that if we try to remove the iron cylinder from the equilibrium
+that it is in, we must apply a pressure that increases with the amount
+of separation, just exactly as if it were suspended from a spring. It
+results from this fact that if we displace the brushes a distance equal
+to the thickness of one plate of the collector, the active solenoid will
+undergo the same displacement, and its longitudinal center will move
+away from that of the iron cylinder, and that the attraction exerted
+upon the latter will increase. It will not be able to assume its first
+value, and equilibrium cannot be re-established unless the cylinder
+undergoes a displacement identical with that of the solenoid. Now,
+as this latter depends upon the motion communicated to the system
+of brushes, we see that, definitively, the cylinder will faithfully
+reproduce the motion communicated to the brushes by the hand of
+the operator. This apparatus, then, constitutes a genuine electric
+servo-motor in which the current is never interrupted nor modified in
+quantity or direction, no more indeed than the magnetization developed
+in the soft iron cylinder. Everything takes place as if the iron
+cylinder were suspended in a solenoid ten centimeters in length that
+was caused to rise and fall; with the difference that the weight of the
+cylinder exerts no action on the hand of the operator.
+
+[Illustration: ELECTRIC POWER HAMMER.]
+
+These explanations being understood, there remain but few things to be
+said to cause the operation of the hammer to be thoroughly comprehended.
+The elementary sections constituting the electric cylinder, A B, of the
+hammer are 80 in number, and form a total length of one meter. Their
+ingoing and outcoming wires end in a collector of circular form shown at
+F G. The brushes are replaced by two strips, C E and C D, fixed to the
+double winch, H C I, which is movable around the fixed center, C. They
+can make any angle whatever with each other, so that by trial there
+maybe given the active solenoid the most suitable length. When such
+angle has been determined, the angle, E C D, is rendered invariable by
+means of a set screw, and the apparatus is maneuvered by imparting to
+the double winch, H C I, an alternating circular motion.
+
+The iron cylinder weighs 23 kilogrammes; but, when the current has an
+intensity of 43 amperes and traverses 15 sections, the stress developed
+may reach 70 kilogrammes; that is to say, three times the weight of the
+hammer. So this latter obeys with absolute docility the motions of the
+operator's hands, as those who were present at the lecture were enabled
+to see.
+
+I will incidentally add that this power hammer was placed on a circuit
+derived from one that served likewise to supply three Hefner-Alteneck
+machines (Siemens D{5} model) and a Gramme machine (Breguet model P.L.).
+Each of these machines was making 1,500 revolutions per minute and
+developing 25 kilogrammeters per second, measured by means of a
+Carpentier brake. All these apparatus were operating with absolute
+independence, and had for generator the double excitation machine that
+figured at the Exhibition of Electricity.
+
+In an experiment made since then, I have succeeded in developing in each
+of these four machines 50 kilogrammeters per second, whatever was the
+number of those that were running; and I found it possible to add the
+hammer on a derived circuit without notably affecting the operation of
+the receivers.
+
+It results from this that with my system of double excitation machine I
+have been enabled to easily run with absolute independence six machines,
+each giving a two-third horse-power. The economic performance, e/E,
+moreover, slightly exceeded 0.50.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+SOLIGNAC'S NEW ELECTRIC LAMP.
+
+
+When it becomes a question of practical lighting, it is very certain
+that the best electric lamp will be the one that is most simple and
+requires the fewest mechanical parts. It is to such simplicity that is
+due all the success of the Jablochkoff candle and the Reynier-Werdermann
+lamp. Yet, in the former of these lamps, it is to be regretted that the
+somewhat great and variable resistance opposed to the current in its
+passage through two carbons that keep diminishing in length, in measure
+as they burn, proves a cause of loss of light and of variation in it.
+And it is also to be regretted that the duration of combustion of the
+carbons is not longer; and, finally, it is allowable to believe that the
+power employed in volatilizing the insulator placed between the carbons
+is prejudicial to the economical use of this system. In order to obviate
+this latter inconvenience, an endeavor has been made in the Wilde candle
+to do away with the insulator, but the results obtained have scarcely
+been encouraging. An endeavor has also been made to render the duration
+of the carbons greater by employing quite long ones, and causing these
+to move forward successively through the intermedium of a species
+of rollers, or of counterpoises, as in the lamps of Mersanne and
+Werdermann; but then the system becomes more complicated. Finally, in
+order to keep the resistance of the carbons at a minimum and constant,
+their contact with the rheophores of the circuit has been established
+at a short distance from the arc, and this is one of the principal
+advantages possessed by the Reynier-Werdermann system. At a certain
+epoch it was thought that the problem might be simply solved by
+arranging in front of each other two carbons actuated by a spiral
+spring, as in car lamps, and kept at a proper distance apart for forming
+the electric arc by two funnel-shaped pieces of calcined magnesia, into
+which they entered like a wedge in measure as their conical point were
+away through combustion. This was the system of Mr. De Baillehache,
+and the trials that were made therewith were very satisfactory. But,
+unfortunately, the magnesia was not able to resist very long the
+temperature to which it was submitted. The problem found a better
+solution in the sun-lamp but has been solved in another manner, and just
+as simply, by Mr. Solignac, and the results obtained by him have been
+very satisfactory as regarded from the standpoint of steadiness of the
+luminous point.
+
+In this system, a general view of which is given in Fig. 1, and the
+arrangement in Figs. 2 and 3, the carbons, F F, which are horizontal and
+about fifty centimeters in length, are thrust toward each other by
+two barrels, K, K, which wind up two chains, E, E, passing around the
+pulleys, D, D, fitted to the extremities of the carbons. These latter
+are provided beneath with small glass rods, G, G, whose extremities
+toward the arc abut at a short distance from the latter against a nickel
+stop, L (Fig. 3), which supports them, moreover, at M, by means of
+a tappet whose position is regulated by a screw. The current is
+transmitted to the carbons by two friction rollers, I, I, which serve at
+the same time as a guide for them, and which give the electric flux a
+passage of only one or two centimeters over the front of the carbon
+to form the arc. Finally, the whole is held by a support, A, and two
+pieces, CB, CB, which at the same time lead the current to the friction
+rollers through projections, J. The two systems are made to approach
+or recede from each other, in order to form the arc, by means of a
+regulating screw, H.
+
+At present, the lighting of these lamps is effected by means of this
+screw, H, but Mr. Solignac is now constructing a model in which the
+lighting will be performed automatically by means of a solenoid that
+will react upon a carbon lighter, as in several already well known
+systems.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 1]
+
+If the preceding description has been well-understood, it will be seen
+that the carbons are arrested in their movement toward each other only
+by the glass rods, G, abutting against L; but, as the stops, L, are not
+far from the arc, and as the heat to which they are exposed is so much
+the greater in proportion as the incandescent part of the carbons is
+nearer them, it results that for a certain elongation of the arc the
+temperature becomes sufficient to soften the glass of the rods, G, G,
+so that they bend as shown at O (Fig. 3), and allow the carbons to move
+onward until the heat has sufficiently diminished to prevent any further
+softening of the glass. In measure as the wearing away progresses, the
+preceding effects are reproduced; and, as these are produced in an
+imperceptible and continuous manner, there is perceived no jumping nor
+inconstancy in the light of the arc. Under such conditions, then, the
+regulation of the arc is effected under the very influence of the
+effect produced; and not under that of an action of a different nature
+(electro-magnetism), as happens in other regulators. It is certain that
+this idea is new and original, and the results that we have witnessed
+from it have been very satisfactory. There is but one regulation to
+perform, and that at the beginning, but this once done the apparatus
+operates with certainty, and for a long time. With a Meritens machine of
+the first model it has been found possible to light five lamps of this
+kind placed in the same circuit.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 2]
+
+According to the inventor, this lamp will give a light of 100 carcels
+per one horse-power, and with a three horse-power six lamps may be
+lighted; but we have made no experiments to ascertain the correctness of
+these figures.
+
+As for the cost of the glass rods, that amounts to one franc per
+two hundred meters length. They can, then, be considered only as an
+insignificant expense in the cost of the carbons. We consequently
+believe that it will be possible to employ this system advantageously in
+practice.--_Th. du Moncel_.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 3]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+MONDOS'S ELECTRIC LAMP.
+
+
+Since the month of May last, the concert at the Champs Elysees has been
+lighted by sixteen voltaic arc lamps on a new and very simple system,
+which gives excellent results in the installation under consideration.
+The sixteen lamps are on the divisible system, and their regulation is
+based upon the principle of derivation. They are supplied by a Siemens
+alternating current machine and arranged in four circuits, on each of
+which are mounted four lamps in series. The accompanying figures will
+allow the reader to readily understand the system, which is as simple
+as it is ingenious, and which has been combined by Mr. Mondos so as to
+obtain a continuous and independent regulation of each lamp.
+
+In this system the lower carbon is stationary, the luminous point
+descending in measure as the carbons wear away through combustion. The
+upper carbon descends by its own weight, and imperceptibly, so as to
+keep the arc at its normal length.
+
+The mechanism that controls the motions of the upper rod that supports
+the carbon-holder consists of two bobbins of fine wire, E (Fig. 2),
+mounted on a derived circuit on the terminals of the lamp; of a lever,
+L, articulated at O, and supporting a tube, TT', and the whole movable
+part balanced by a counterpoise, P. This lever, P, carries two soft iron
+cores, F, which enter the bobbins, E, and become magnetized under the
+influence of the current that passes through them. The upper part of
+the tube, T, carries a square upon which is articulated at O' a second
+lever, L', balanced by a second counterpoise, P', and carrying a flat
+armature, _p_, opposite the cores, F', that are fixed to the first
+horizontal lever, L. The carbon-holder rod, CC', slides freely in the
+tube, TT', and is wedged therein by a small piece, _a m l_, fixed to
+the lever, L'. For this reason the tube, TT', is provided with a notch
+opposite the piece _a m l_, and the two arms, _a_ and _m_, of the latter
+are shaped like a V, as may be seen in part in the plan in Fig. 2. It is
+now easy to understand how the system operates; when the current is not
+traversing the circuit, the carbons are separated; but, at the moment
+the circuit is closed for lighting a series of lamps, it traverses the
+electro-magnet, which then becomes very powerful, and draws down the
+cores, F, along with the lever, L, the tube, TT', and the carbon-holder,
+CC', and brings the carbons in contact. The arc then forms, and the
+current divides between the arc and the bobbins, E. Its action upon the
+cores, F, becomes weak, and it can no longer balance the counterpoise,
+P, which falls back, and raises the system again. The arc thus
+becomes _primed_. The cores, F, however, preserve a certain amount of
+magnetization; the armature, _p_, is attracted, and the lever, L',
+assumes a position of equilibrium such that the piece, _a m l_, wedges
+the rod, CC', in the tube, TT', and holds it suspended. When, through
+wear of the carbons, the arc elongates, a greater portion of the current
+passes into the bobbins, E, the armature, _p_, is attracted with more
+force, and the lever, L', swings around the point, O'. The rotation of
+L' separates the piece, _a m l_, from the rod, CC', which, being thus
+set free, slides by its own weight and shortens the arc. The current
+then becomes weak in E, the armature, _p_, is not so strongly attracted,
+the lever, L', pivots slightly around O' under the action of the weight,
+P', and the brake or wedge enters the notch anew, and stops the descent
+of the carbon. In practice, the motions that we have just described are
+exceedingly slight; the carbon moves imperceptibly, and the length of
+the arc remains invariable.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 1--MONDOS'S ELECTRIC LAMP.]
+
+It will be seen, then, that the lever, L, and the tube, TT', serve
+exclusively for _lighting_, and the lever, L', exclusively for
+regulating the distance of the carbons.
+
+This lamp exhibits great elasticity, and can operate, without a
+change of any part of its mechanism, with currents of very different
+intensities. It suffices for obtaining a proper working of the apparatus
+in each case, to regulate the distance from the weight, P', to the point
+of suspension, O', and the distance from the armature, _p_, to the
+cores, F. At the Champs Elysees concerts the lamps are operating with
+alternating currents; but they are capable of operating with continuous
+ones also, although the slight tremor of the electro-magnetic system,
+due to the use of alternating currents and as a consequence of rapid
+changes of magnetization, seems in principle very favorable to systems
+in which the descent of the carbon is based upon friction instead of a
+clutch. At the Champs Elysees concerts the lamps burn crayons of 9 to
+10 millimeters with a current of 9 to 10 amperes and an effective
+electro-motive power of 60 volts per lamp. The light is very steady,
+and the effect produced is most satisfactory. The dispensing with all
+clock-work movement and regulating springs makes this electric lamp
+of Mr. Mondos a simple and plain apparatus, capable of numerous
+applications in the industries, in wide, open spaces, in all cases where
+foci of medium intensity have to be employed, and where it is desired to
+arrange several lamps in the same circuit.--_La Nature_.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 2--REGULATING MECHANISM.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[AMERICAN POTTERY AND GLASSWARE REPORTER.]
+
+
+
+
+ALUMINUM--ITS PROPERTIES, COST, AND USES.
+
+
+Aluminum is a shining, white, sonorous metal, having a shade between
+silver and platinum. It is a very light metal, being lighter than glass
+and only about one-fourth as heavy as silver of the same bulk. It is
+very malleable and ductile, and is remarkable for its resistance to
+oxidation, being unaffected by moist or dry air, or by hot or cold
+water. Sulphureted hydrogen gas, which so readily tarnishes silver,
+forming a black film on the surface, has no action on this metal.
+
+Next to silica, the oxide of aluminum (alumina) forms, in combination,
+the most abundant constituent of the crust of the earth (hydrated
+silicate of alumina, clay).
+
+Common alum is sulphate of alumina combined with another sulphate, as
+potash, soda, etc. It is much used as a mordant in dyeing and calico
+printing, also in tanning.
+
+Aluminum is of great value in mechanical dentistry, as, in addition
+to its lightness and strength, it is not affected by the presence of
+sulphur in the food--as by eggs, for instance.
+
+Dr. Fowler, of Yarmouthport, Mass., obtained patents for its combination
+with vulcanite as applied to dentistry and other uses. It resists
+sulphur in the process of vulcanization in a manner which renders it an
+efficient and economical substitute for platinum or gold.
+
+Aluminum is derived from the oxide alumina, which is the principal
+constituent of common clay. Lavoissier, a celebrated French chemist,
+first suggested the existence of the metallic bases of the earths and
+alkalies, which fact was demonstrated twenty years thereafter by
+Sir Humphry Davy, by eliminating potassium and sodium from their
+combinations; and afterward by the discovery of the metallic bases of
+baryta, strontium, and lime. The earth alumina resisting the action of
+the voltaic pile and the other agents then used to induce decomposition,
+twenty years more passed before the chloride was obtained by Oerstadt,
+by subjecting alumina to the action of potassium in a crucible heated
+over a spirit lamp. The discovery of aluminum was at last made by Wohler
+in 1827, who succeeded in 1846 in obtaining minute globules or beads
+of this metal by heating a mixture of chloride of alumina and sodium.
+Deville afterward conducted some experiments in obtaining this metal at
+the expense of Napoleon III., who subscribed L1,500, and was rewarded by
+the presentation of two bars of aluminum. The process of manufacture was
+afterward so simplified that in 1857 its price at Paris was about two
+dollars an ounce. It was at first manufactured from common clay, which
+contains about one-fourth its weight of aluminum, but in 1855 Rose
+announced to the scientific world that it could be obtained from a
+material called "cryolite," found in Greenland in large quantities,
+imported into Germany under the name of "mineral soda," and used as a
+washing soda and in the manufacture of soap. It consists of a double
+fluoride of aluminum, and only requires to be mixed with an excess of
+sodium and heated, when the mineral aluminum at once separates. Its cost
+of manufacture is given in this estimate for one pound of metal: 16 lb.
+of cryolite at 8 cents per pound, $1.28: 21/2 lb. metallic sodium at about
+26 cents per pound, 70 cents; flux and cost of reduction, $2.02; total,
+$4.
+
+Aluminum is used largely in the manufacture of cheap jewelry by making a
+hard, gold-colored alloy with copper, called aluminum bronze, consisting
+of 90 per cent. of copper and 10 per cent. of aluminum. Like iron, it
+does not amalgamate directly with mercury, nor is it readily alloyed
+with lead, but many alloys with other metals, as copper, iron, gold,
+etc., have been made with it and found to be valuable combinations.
+One part of it to 100 parts of gold gives a hard, malleable alloy of
+a greenish gold color, and an alloy of 3/4 iron and 1/4 aluminum does not
+oxidize when exposed to a moist atmosphere. It has also been used to
+form a metallic coating upon other metals, as copper, brass, and German
+silver, by the electro-galvanic process. Copper has also been deposited,
+by the same process, upon aluminum plates to facilitate their being
+rolled very thin; for unless the metal be pure, it requires to be
+annealed at each passage through the rolls, and it is found that its
+flexibility is greatly increased by rolling. To avoid the bluish white
+appearance, like zinc, Dr. Stevenson McAdam recommends immersing the
+article made from aluminum in a heated solution of potash, which will
+give a beautiful white frosted appearance, like that of frosted silver.
+
+F.W. Gerhard obtained a patent in 1856, in England, for an improved
+means of obtaining aluminum metal, and the adaptation thereof to the
+manufacture of certain useful articles. Powdered fluoride of aluminum is
+placed alone or in combination with other fluorides in a closed furnace,
+heated to a red heat, and exposed to the action of hydrogen gas, which
+is used as a reagent in the place of sodium. A reverberating furnace is
+used by preference. The fluoride of aluminum is placed in shallow trays
+or dishes, each dish being surrounded by clean iron filings placed in
+suitable receptacles; dry hydrogen gas is forced in, and suitable entry
+and exit pipes and stop-cocks are provided. The hydrogen gas, combining
+with the fluoride, "forms hydrofluoric acid, which is taken up by the
+iron and is thereby converted into fluoride of iron." The resulting
+aluminum "remains in a metallic state in the bottom of the trays
+containing the fluoride," and may be used for a variety of manufacturing
+and ornamental purposes.
+
+The most important alloy of aluminum is composed of aluminum 10, copper
+90. It possesses a pale gold color, a hardness surpassing that of
+bronze, and is susceptible of taking a fine polish. This alloy has found
+a ready market, and, if less costly, would replace red and yellow brass.
+Its hardness and tenacity render it peculiarly adapted for journals and
+bearings. Its tensile strength is 100,000 lb., and when drawn into wire,
+128,000 lb., and its elasticity is one-half that of wrought iron.
+
+General Morin believes this alloy to be a perfect chemical combination,
+as it exhibits, unlike the gun metal, a most complete homogeneousness,
+its preparation being also attended by a great development of heat, not
+seen in the manufacture of most other alloys. The specific gravity of
+this alloy is 7.7. It is malleable and ductile, may be forged cold as
+well as hot, but is not susceptible of rolling; it may, however, be
+drawn into tubes. It is extremely tough and fibrous.
+
+Aluminum bronze, when exposed to the air, tarnishes less quickly than
+either silver, brass, or common bronze, and less, of course, than iron
+or steel. The contact of fatty matters or the juice of fruits does not
+result in the production of any soluble metallic salt, an immunity which
+highly recommends it for various articles for table use.
+
+The uses to which aluminum bronze is applicable are various. Spoons,
+forks, knives, candle-sticks, locks, knobs, door-handles, window
+fastenings, harness trimmings, and pistols are made from it; also
+objects of art, such as busts, statuettes, vases, and groups. In France,
+aluminum bronze is used for the eagles or military standards, for armor,
+for the works of watches, as also watch chains and ornaments. For
+certain parts, such as journals of engines, lathe-head boxes, pinions,
+and running gear, it has proved itself superior to all other metals.
+
+Hulot, director of the Imperial postage stamp manufactory in Paris, uses
+it in the construction of a punching machine. It is well known that the
+best edges of tempered steel become very generally blunted by paper.
+This is even more the case when the paper is coated with a solution of
+gum arabic and then dried, as in the instance of postage stamp sheets.
+The sheets are punched by a machine the upper part of which moves
+vertically and is armed with 300 needles of tempered steel, sharpened in
+a right angle. At every blow of the machine they pass through the
+holes in the lower fixed piece, which correspond with the needles, and
+perforate five sheets at every blow. Hulot now substitutes this piece by
+aluminum bronze. Each machine makes daily 120,000 blows, or 180,000,000
+perforations, and it has been found that a cushion of the aluminum alloy
+was unaffected after some months' use, while one of brass is useless
+after one day.
+
+Various formulae are given for the production of alloys of aluminum, but
+they are too numerous and intricate to enter into here.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+DETERMINATION OF POTASSA IN MANURES.
+
+By M.E. DREYFUS.
+
+
+The method generally adopted for the determination of potassa in
+manures, i. e., the direct incineration of the sample, may in certain
+cases occasion considerable errors in consequence of the volatilization
+of a portion of the potassium products.
+
+To avoid this inconvenience, the author proposes a preliminary treatment
+of the manure with sulphuric acid at 1.845 sp. gr., to convert potassium
+nitrate and chloride into the fixed sulphate. The sulphuric acid attacks
+the manure energetically, and much facilitates the incineration, which
+may be effected at a dark red heat. The ignited portion (10 grms.) is
+exhausted with boiling distilled water acidulated with hydrochloric
+acid, and the filtrate, when cold, is made up to 500 c. c. Of this
+solution 50 c c., representing 1 grm. of the sample, are taken, and,
+after being heated until close upon ebullition, baryta-water is added
+until a strong alkaline reaction is obtained. The sulphuric and
+phosphoric acids, alumina, magnesia, etc, are thus precipitated. The
+filtrate is heated to a boil, and mixed with ammonia and ammonium
+carbonate, to precipitate the excess of baryta in solution. The last
+traces of lime are eliminated by means of a few drops of ammonium
+oxalate. The filtrate is evaporated down on the water-bath, and the
+ammoniacal salts are expelled by carefully raising the temperature to
+dull redness. After having taken up the residue in distilled water it
+is treated with platinum chloride, and the potassium chloro-platinate
+obtained is reduced with oxalic acid. The quantity of potassa present
+in the manure can be calculated from the weight of platinum
+obtained.--_Bull. de la Soc. Chim. de Paris_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE ORIGIN AND RELATIONS OF THE CARBON MINERALS.
+
+[Footnote: Read before the New York Academy of Sciences, February 6,
+1882.]
+
+By J.S. NEWBERRY.
+
+
+What are called the carbon minerals--peat, lignite, coal, graphite,
+asphalt, petroleum, etc.--are, properly speaking, not minerals at
+all, as they are organic substances, and have no definite chemical
+composition or crystalline forms. They are, in fact, chiefly the
+products or phases of a progressive and inevitable change in
+plant-tissue, which, like all organic matter, is an unstable compound
+and destined to decomposition.
+
+In virtue of a mysterious and inscrutable force which resides in the
+microscopic embryo of the seed, a tree begins its growth. For a brief
+interval, this growth is maintained by the prepared food stored in the
+cotyledons, and this suffices to produce and to bring into functional
+activity--some root-fibrils below and leaves above, with which
+the independent and self-sustained life of the individual begins.
+Henceforward, perhaps for a thousand years, this life goes on, active in
+summer and dormant in winter, absorbing the sunlight as a motive power
+which it controls and guides. Its instruments are the discriminating
+cells at the extremities of the root-fibrils, which search for, select,
+and absorb the crude aliment adapted to the needs of the plant to which
+they belong, and the chlorophyl cells--the lungs and stomach of the
+tree--in the leaves. During all the years of the growth of the plant,
+these organs are mainly occupied in breaking the strongly riveted bonds
+that unite oxygen and carbon in carbonic acid; appropriating the carbon
+and driving off most of the oxygen. In the end, if the tree is, e. g.,
+a _Sequoia_, some hundreds of tons of solid, organized tissue have been
+raised into a column hundreds of feet in height, in opposition to the
+force of gravitation and to the affinities of inorganic chemistry.
+
+The time comes, however, sooner or later, when the power which has
+created and the life that has pervaded this wonderful structure
+abandon it. The affinities of inorganic chemistry immediately reassert
+themselves, in ordinary circumstances rapidly tearing down the ephemeral
+fabric.
+
+The disintegration of organic tissue, when deserted by the force which
+has animated and preserved it, gives rise to the phenomena which form
+the theme of this paper.
+
+Most animal-tissue decomposes with great rapidity, and plant tissue,
+when not protected, soon decays. This decay is essentially oxidation,
+since its final result is the restoration to the atmosphere of carbonic
+acid, which is broken up in plant-growth by the appropriation of its
+carbon. Hence it is a kind of combustion, although this term is more
+generally applied to very rapid oxidation, with the evolution of
+sensible light and heat. But, whether the process goes on rapidly or
+slowly, the same force is evolved that is absorbed in the growth of
+plant-tissue; and by accelerating and guiding its evolution, we are able
+to utilize this force in the production at will of heat, light, and
+their correlatives, chemical affinity, motive power, electricity, and
+magnetism. The decomposition of plants may, however, be more or less
+retarded, and it then takes the form of a destructive distillation,
+the constituents reacting upon each other, and forming temporary
+combinations, part of which are evolved, and part remain behind. Water
+is the great extinguisher of this as of the more rapid oxidation that we
+call combustion; and the decomposition of plant-tissue under water is
+extremely slow, from the partial exclusion of oxygen. Buried under thick
+and nearly impervious masses of clay, where the exclusion of oxygen is
+still more nearly complete, the decomposition is so far retarded that
+plant-tissue, which is destroyed by combustion almost instantaneously,
+and if exposed to "the elements"--moisture with a free access of
+oxygen--decays in a year or two, may be but partially consumed when
+millions of years have passed. The final result is, however, inevitable,
+and always the same, viz., the oxidation and escape of the organic
+mutter, and the concentration of the inorganic matter woven into its
+composition--in it, but not of it--forming what we call the ash of the
+plant.
+
+Since the decomposition of organic matter commences the instant it is
+abandoned by the creative and conservative vital force, and proceeds
+uninterruptedly, whether slowly or rapidly, to the final result, it is
+evident that each moment in the progress of this decomposition presents
+us with a phase of structure and composition different from that which
+preceded and from that which follows it. Hence the succession of these
+phases forms a complete sliding scale, which is graphically shown in
+the following diagram, where the organic constituents of plant
+tissue--carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen--appear gradually
+diminishing to extinction, while the ash remains nearly constant, but
+relatively increasing, till it is the sole representative of the fabric.
+
+[Illustration: DIAGRAM SHOWING THE GENETIC RELATIONS OF THE CARBON
+MINERALS.]
+
+We may cut this triangle of residual products where we please, and by
+careful analysis determine accurately the chemical composition of a
+section at this point, and we may please ourselves with the illusion, as
+many chemists have done, that the definite proportions found represent
+the formula of a specific compound; but an adjacent section above or
+below would show a different composition, and so in the entire triangle
+we should find an infinite series of formulae, or rather no constant
+formulae at all. We should also find that the slice, taken at any point
+while lying in the laboratory or undergoing chemical treatment, would
+change in composition, and become a different substance.
+
+In the same way we can snatch a brand from the fire at any stage of its
+decomposition, or analyze a decaying tree trunk during any month of its
+existence, and thus manufacture as many chemical formulae as we like,
+and give them specific names; but it is evident that this is child's
+play, not science. The truth is, the slowly decomposing tissue of the
+plants of past ages has given us a series of phases which we have
+grouped under distinct names, and we have called one group peat, one
+lignite, another coal, another anthracite, and another graphite. We have
+spaced off the scale, and called all within certain lines by a common
+name; but this does not give us a common composition for all the
+material within these lines. Hence we see that any effort to define or
+describe coal, lignite, or anthracite accurately must be a failure,
+because neither has a fixed composition, neither is a distinct
+substance, but simply a conventional group of substances which form part
+of an infinite and indivisible series.
+
+But this sliding scale of solid compounds, which we designate by
+the names given above, is not the only product of the natural and
+spontaneous distillation of plant tissue. Part of the original organic
+mass remains, though constantly wasting, to represent it; another part
+escapes, either completely oxidized as carbonic acid and water, or in
+a volatile or liquid form, still retaining its organic character, and
+destined to future oxidation, known as carbureted hydrogen, olefiant
+gas, petroleum, etc.
+
+Hence, in the decomposition of vegetable tissue, two classes of
+resultant compounds are formed, one residual and the other evolved; and
+the genesis and relation of the carbon minerals may be accurately shown
+by the following diagram:
+
+                       PLANT TISSUE
+                           _________________
+                        |
+  _Residual Products_   |   _Evolved Products_
+                        |
+         Peat.        }
+          |           }
+       Lignite.       }
+          |           }   { Carbonic Acid.
+    Bitumious Coal.   }   { Carbonic Oxide.
+          |           }   { Carbureted Hydrogen, etc.
+ Semi-bitumious "     }   { Water.
+          |           }   {         {Maltha.
+      Anthracite.     }   {         {  |
+          |           }   {         {Asphalt etc.
+Graphitie Anthracite. }   { Petro-  {  |
+          |           }   { leum    {Asphaltic Coal.
+       Graphite.      }             {  |
+          |           }             {Asphaltic Anthracite.
+         Ash.         }             {  |
+                                    {     "    Graphite.
+
+[NOTE.--In this diagram, the vertical line connecting the names of the
+residual products (and of the derivatives of petroleum) indicates that
+each succeeding one is produced by further alteration from that which
+precedes it, and not independently. Also, the arrangement of the braces
+is designed to show that any or all of the evolved products are given
+off at each stage of alteration.]
+
+The theory here proposed has not been evolved from my inner
+consciousness, but has grown from careful study, through many years, of
+facts in the field. A brief sketch of the evidence in favor of it is all
+that we have space for here.
+
+
+RESIDUAL PRODUCTS.
+
+_Peat_.--Dry plant-tissue consists of about 50 per cent, of carbon,
+44 per cent, of oxygen, with a little nitrogen, and 6 per cent. of
+hydrogen. In a peat-bog, we find the upper part of the scale represented
+above very well shown: plants are growing on the surface with the normal
+composition of cellulose. The first stratum of peat consists of browned
+and partially decomposed plant-tissue, which is found to have lost
+perhaps 20 per cent. of the components of wood, and to have acquired an
+increasing percentage of carbon. As we descend in the peat, it becomes
+more homogeneous and darker until at the bottom of the marsh ten or
+twenty feet from the surface, we have a black, carbonaceous paste,
+which, when dried, resembles some varieties of coal, and approaches them
+in composition. It has lost half the substance of the original plant,
+and shows a marked increase in the relative proportion of carbon.
+
+_Lignite_.--Each inch in vertical thickness of the peat-bog represents a
+phase in the progressive change from wood-tissue to lignite, using
+this term with its common signification to indicate, not necessarily
+carbonized ligneous tissue, but plant-tissue that belongs to a past
+though modern geological age--i.e., Tertiary, Cretaceous, Jurassic, or
+Triassic. These lignites or modern coals are only peat beds which have
+been buried for a longer or shorter time under clay, sand, or solidified
+rock, and have progressed farther or less far on the road to coal. As
+with peats, so with lignites, we find that at different geological
+levels they exhibit different stages of this distillation--the Tertiary
+lignites being usually distinguished without difficulty by the presence
+of a larger quantity of combined water and oxygen, and a less quantity
+of carbon, than the Cretaceous coals, and these in turn differ in the
+same respects from the Triassic.
+
+All the coals of the Tertiary and Mesozoic ages are grouped under one
+name; but it is evident that they are as different from each other as
+the new and spongy from the old and well-rotted peat in the peat-bog.
+
+_Coal_.--By mere convention, we call the peat which accumulated in the
+Carboniferous age by the name of bituminous coal; and an examination
+of the Carboniferous strata in different countries has shown that the
+peat-beds formed in the Carboniferous age, though varying somewhat, like
+others, with the kind of vegetation from which they were derived, have a
+common character by which they may be distinguished from the more modern
+coals; containing less water, less oxygen, and more carbon, and usually
+exhibiting the property of coking, which is rare in coals of later date.
+Though there is great diversity in the Carboniferous coals, and it would
+be absurd to express their composition by a single formula, it may be
+said that, over the whole world, these coals have characteristics, as
+a group, by which they can be recognized, the result of the slow
+decomposition of the tissue of plants which lived in the Carboniferous
+age, and which have, by a broad and general change, approximated to
+a certain phase in the spontaneous distillation of plant-tissue. An
+experienced geologist will not fail to refer to their proper horizon
+a group of coals of Carboniferous age any more than those of the
+Cretaceous or Tertiary.
+
+_Anthracite_--In the ages anterior to the Carboniferous, the quantity
+of land vegetation was apparently not sufficient to form thick and
+extensive beds of peat; but the remains of plant-tissue are contained
+in all the older formations, though there only as anthracite or
+graphite--the last two groups of residual products. Of these we have
+examples in the beds of graphite in the Laurentian rocks of Canada,
+and of anthracite of the lower Silurian strata of Upper Church and
+Kilnaleck, Ireland.
+
+From these facts it is apparent that the carbon series is graded
+geologically, that is, by the lapse of time during which plant-tissue
+has been subjected to this natural and spontaneous distillation. But we
+have better evidence than this of the derivation of one from another
+of the groups of residual products which have been enumerated. In many
+localities, the coals and lignites of different ages have been exposed
+to local influences--such as the outbursts of trap-rock, or the
+metamorphism of mountain chains--which have hastened the distillation,
+and out of known earlier groups have produced the last. For example,
+trap outbursts have converted Tertiary lignites in Alaska into good
+bituminous coals; on Queen Charlotte's Island, on Anthracite Creek, in
+southwestern Colorado, and at the Placer Mountains, near Santa Fe,
+New Mexico, Cretaceous lignites into anthracite; those from Queen
+Charlotte's Island and southwestern Colorado are as bright, hard, and
+valuable as any from Pennsylvania. At a little distance from the focus
+of volcanic action, the Cretaceous coals of southwestern Colorado have
+been made bituminous and coking, while at the Placer Mountains the same
+stratum may be seen in its anthracitic and lignitic stages.
+
+A still better series, illustrating the derivation of one form of carbon
+solids from another, is furnished by the coals of Ohio, Pennsylvania,
+and Rhode Island. These are of the same age; in Ohio, presenting the
+normal composition and physical characters of bituminous coals, that
+is, of plant tissue generally and uniformly descending the scale in
+the lapse of time from the Carboniferous age to the present. In the
+mountains of Pennsylvania the same coal beds, somewhat affected by the
+metamorphism which all the rocks of the Alleghanies have shared, have
+reached the stage of _semi-bituminous_ coals, where half the volatile
+constituents have been driven off; again, in the anthracite basins of
+eastern Pennsylvania, the distillation further effected has formed from
+these coals _anthracite_, containing only from three to ten per cent. of
+volatile matter; while in the focus of metamorphic action, at Newport,
+Rhode Island, the Carboniferous coals have been changed to _graphitic
+anthracite_, that is, are half anthracite and half graphite. Here,
+traveling from west to east, a progressive change is noted, similar to
+that which may be observed in making a vertical section of a peat bog,
+or in comparing the coals of Tertiary, Mesozoic, and Carboniferous age,
+only the latter is the continuation and natural sequence of the former
+series of changes.
+
+In the Laurentian rocks of Canada are large accumulations of
+carbonaceous matter, all of which is graphite, and that which is
+universally conceded to be derived from plant-tissue. The oxidation of
+graphite is artificially difficult, and in nature's laboratory slow; but
+it is inevitable, as we see in the decomposition of its outcrops and the
+blanching of exposed surfaces of clouded marbles, where the coloring is
+graphite. Thus the end is reached, and by observations in the field,
+the origin and relationship of the different carbon solids derived from
+organic tissue are demonstrated.
+
+It only remains to be said, in regard to them, that all the changes
+enumerated may be imitated artificially, and that the stages of
+decomposition which we have designated by the names graphite,
+anthracite, coal, lignite, are not necessary results of the
+decomposition of plant-tissue. A fallen tree may slowly consume away,
+and all its carbonaceous matter may be oxidized and dissipated without
+exhibiting the phases of lignite, coal, etc.; and lignite and coal,
+when exposed to air and moisture, are burned away to ashes in the same
+manner, simply because in these cases complete oxidation of the carbon
+takes place, particle by particle, and the mass is not affected as a
+whole in such a way as to assume the intermediate stages referred to.
+Chemical analysis, however, proves that the process is essentially the
+same, although the physical results are different.
+
+
+EVOLVED PRODUCTS.
+
+The gradual wasting of plant-tissue in the formation of peat, lignite,
+coal, etc., may be estimated as averaging for peat, 20 to 30 per cent.;
+lignite, 30 to 50 per cent.; coal, 50 to 70 per cent.; anthracite, 70
+to 80; and graphite, 90 per cent. of the original mass. The evolved
+products ultimately represent the entire organic portion of the
+wood--the mineral matter, or ash, being the only residuum. These evolved
+products include both liquids and gases, and by subsequent changes,
+solids are produced from some of them. Carbonic acid, carbonic oxide,
+nitrogenous and hydrocarbon gases, water, and petroleum, are mentioned
+above as the substances which escape from wood-tissue during its
+decomposition. That all these are eliminated in the decay of vegetable
+and animal structures is now generally conceded by chemists and
+geologists, although there is a wide difference of opinion as to the
+nature of the process.
+
+It has been claimed that the evolved products enumerated above are the
+results of the primary decomposition of organic matter, and never of
+further changes in the residual products; i.e., that in the breaking-up
+of organic tissue, variable quantities of coal, anthracite, petroleum,
+marsh gas, etc., are formed, but that these are never derived, the one
+from the other. This opinion is, however, certainly erroneous, and the
+formation of any or all the evolved products may take place throughout
+the entire progress of the decomposition. Marsh gas and carbonic acid
+are seen escaping from the surface of pools where recent vegetable
+matter is submerged, and they are also eliminated in the further
+decomposition of peat, lignite, coal, and carbonaceous shale. Fire damp
+and choke-damp, common names for the gases mentioned above, are produced
+in large quantities in the mines where Tertiary or Cretaceous lignites,
+or Carboniferous coals or anthracites are mined. It has been said that
+these gases are simply locked up in the interstices of the carbonaceous
+matter and are liberated in its excavation; but all who have worked coal
+mines know that such accumulations are not sufficient to supply the
+enormous and continuous flow which comes from all parts of the mass
+penetrated. We have ample proof, moreover, that coal, when exposed to
+the air, undergoes a kind of distillation, in which the evolution
+of carbonic acid and hydrocarbon gases is a necessary and prominent
+feature.
+
+The gas makers know that if their coal is permitted to lie for months or
+years after being mined, it suffers serious deterioration, yielding a
+less and less quantity of illuminating gas with the lapse of time.
+So coking coals are rendered dry, non-caking, and valueless for this
+purpose by long exposure.
+
+Carbureted hydrogen, olefiant gas, etc., are constant associates of the
+petroleum of springs or wells, and this escape of gas and oil has been
+going on in some localities, without apparent diminution, for two or
+three thousand years. We can only account for the persistence of this
+flow by supposing that it is maintained by the gradual distillation of
+the carbonaceous masses with which such evolutions of gas or of liquid
+hydro-carbons are always connected. If it were true that carbureted
+hydrogen and petroleum are produced only from the primary decomposition
+of organic tissue, it would be inevitable that at least the elastic
+gases would have escaped long since.
+
+Oil wells which have been nominally exhausted--that is, from which the
+accumulations of centuries in rock reservoirs have been pumped--and
+therefore have been abandoned, have in all cases been found to be slowly
+replenished by a current and constant secretion, apparently the product
+of an unceasing distillation.
+
+In the valley of the Cumberland, about Burkesville, one of the oil
+regions of the country, the gases escaping from the equivalent of the
+Utica shale accumulate under the plates of impervious limestone above
+until masses of rock and earth, hundreds of tons in weight, are
+sometimes thrown out with great violence. Unless these gases had been
+produced by comparatively recent distillation, such explosions could not
+occur.
+
+In opening a coal mine on a hillside, the first traces of the coal seam
+are found in a dark stain in the superficial clay; then a substance like
+rotten wood is reached, from which all the volatile constituents have
+escaped. These appear, however, later, and continue to increase as the
+mine is deepened, until under water or a heavy covering of rock the coal
+attains its normal physical and chemical characters. Here it is evident
+that the coal has undergone a long-continued distillation, which must
+have resulted in the constant production of carbonic acid and carbureted
+hydrogen.
+
+A line of perennial oil and gas springs marks the outcrop of every
+great stratum of carbonaceous matter in the country. Of these, the most
+considerable and remarkable are the bituminous shales of the Silurian
+(Utica shale), of the Devonian (Hamilton and Huron shales), the
+Carboniferous, etc. Here the carbonaceous constituent (10 to 20 per
+cent.) is disseminated through a great proportion of inorganic material,
+clay and sand, and seems, both from the nature of the materials which
+furnished it--cellular plants and minute animal organisms--and its
+dissemination, to be specially prone to spontaneous distillation. The
+Utica shale is the lowest of these great sheets of carbonaceous matter,
+and that supplies the hydro-carbon gases and liquids which issue from
+the earth at Collingwood, Canada, and in the valley of the Cumberland.
+The next carbonaceous sheet is formed by the great bituminous shale
+beds of the upper Devonian, which underlie and supply the oil wells in
+western Pennsylvania. In some places the shale is several hundred
+feet in thickness, and contains more carbonaceous matter than all the
+overlying coal strata. The outcrop of this formation, from central New
+York to Tennessee, is conspicuously marked by gas springs, the flow from
+which is apparently unfailing.
+
+Petroleum is scarcely less constant in its connection with these
+carbonaceous rocks than carbureted hydrogen, and it only escapes notice
+from the little space it occupies. The two substances are so closely
+allied that they must have a common origin, and they are, in fact,
+generated simultaneously in thousands of localities.
+
+During the oil excitement of some years since, when the whole country
+was hunted over for "oil sign," in many lagoons, from which bubbles of
+marsh-gas were constantly escaping, films of genuine petroleum were
+found on the surface; and as the underlying strata were barren of oil,
+this could only have been derived from the decaying vegetable tissue
+below. In the Bay of Marquette, two or three miles north of the town,
+where the shore is a peat bog underlain by Archaean rocks, I have seen
+bubbles of carbureted hydrogen rising in great numbers attended by drops
+of petroleum which spread as iridescent films on the surface.
+
+The remarks which have been made in regard to the heterogeneous nature
+of the solid hydrocarbons apply with scarcely less force to the gaseous
+and liquid products of vegetable decomposition. The gases which escape
+from marshes contain carbonic acid, a number of hydrocarbon gases (or
+the materials out of which they may be composed in the process of
+analysis), and finally a larger or smaller volume of nitrogenous gas.
+It is possible that the elimination of these gases takes the form of
+fractional distillation, and definite compounds may be formed directly
+from the wood-tissue or its derivatives, and mingle as they escape. This
+is, however, not certain, for the gases, as we find them, are always
+mixtures and never pure. In the liquid evolved products, the petroleums,
+this is emphatically true, for we combine under this name fluids which
+vary greatly in both their physical and chemical characters; some are
+light and ethereal, others are thick and tarry; some are transparent,
+some opaque; some red, some brown, others green; some have an offensive
+and others an agreeable odor; some contain asphalt in large quantity,
+others paraffine, etc. Thus they form a heterogeneous assemblage of
+liquid hydrocarbons, of which naphtha and maltha may be said to form
+the extremes, and which have little in common, except their undefinable
+name. The causes of these differences are but imperfectly understood,
+but we know that they are in part dependent on the nature of the organic
+material that has furnished the petroleums, and in part upon influences
+affecting them after their formation. For example, the oil which
+saturates the Niagara limestone at Chicago, and--which is undoubtedly
+indigenous in this rock, and probably of animal origin, is black and
+thick; that from Enniskillen, Canada, is also black, has a vile odor,
+probably in virtue of sulphur compounds, and, we have reason to believe,
+is derived from animal matter. The oils of northwestern Pennsylvania are
+mostly brown, sometimes green by reflected light, and have a pungent and
+characteristic odor. These are undoubtedly derived from the Hamilton
+shales, which contain ten or twenty per cent, of carbonaceous matter,
+apparently produced from the decomposition of sea-weeds, since these are
+in places exceedingly abundant, and nearly all other fossils are absent.
+
+The oils of Italy, though varying much in appearance, have usually an
+ethereal odor that is rather agreeable; they are of Tertiary age. The
+oils of Japan, differing much among themselves, have as, a common
+character an odor quite different from the Pennsylvania oils. So the
+petroleums of the Caspian, of India, California, etc., occurring at
+different geological horizons, exhibit a diversity of physical and
+chemical characters which may be fairly supposed to depend upon the
+material from which they have been distilled. The oils in the same
+region, however, are found to exhibit a series of differences which are
+plainly the result of causes operating upon them after their production.
+Near the surface, they are thicker and darker; below, and near the
+carbonaceous mass from which they have been generated, they are of
+lighter gravity and color. We find, in limited quantity, oils which are
+nearly white and may be used in lamps without refining--which have been
+refined, in fact, in Nature's laboratory. Others, that are reddish
+yellow by transmitted light, sometimes green by reflected light, are
+called amber oils; these also occur in small quantity, and, as I am led
+to believe, have acquired their characteristics by filtration through
+masses of sandstone. Whatever the variety of petroleum may be,
+if exposed for a long time to the air it undergoes a spontaneous
+distillation, in which gases and vapors, existing or formed, escape,
+and solid residues are left. The nature of these solids varies with
+the petroleums from which they come, some producing asphaltum,
+others paraffine, others ozokerite, and so on through a long list of
+substances, which have received distinct names as mineral species,
+though rarely, if ever, possessing a definite and invariable
+composition. The change of petroleum to asphalt may be witnessed at a
+great number of localities. In Canada, the black asphaltic oil forms by
+its evaporation great sheets of hard or tarry asphalt, called gum
+beds, around the oil-springs. In the far West are numerous springs of
+petroleum, which are known to the hunters as "_tar springs_," because
+of the accumulations about them of the products of the evaporation and
+oxidation of petroleum to tar or asphalt. Certain less common oils yield
+ozokerite as a solid, and considerable accumulations of this are known
+in Galicia and Utah.
+
+Natural paraffine is less abundant, and yet in places it occurs in
+considerable quantity. Asphalt is the common name for the solid residue
+from the evaporation and oxidation of petroleum; and large accumulations
+of this substance are known in many parts of the world, perhaps the most
+noted of all being that of the "Pitch Lake". of the Island of Trinidad;
+there, as everywhere else, the derivation of asphalt from petroleum is
+obvious, and traceable in all stages. The asphalts, then, have a common
+history in this, that they are produced by the evaporation and oxidation
+of petroleum. But it should also be said that they share the diversity
+of character of petroleums, and the term asphalt represents a group of
+substances of which the physical characters and chemical composition
+differ greatly in virtue of their derivation, and also differ from
+changes which they are constantly undergoing. Thus at the Pitch Lake in
+Trinidad, the central portion is a tarry petroleum, near the sides a
+plastic asphalt, and finally that which is of almost rock-like solidity.
+Hence we see that the solid residues from petroleum are unstable
+compounds like the coals and lignites, and in virtue of their organic
+nature are constantly undergoing a series of changes of which the final
+term is combustion or oxidation. From these facts we might fairly infer
+that asphalts formed in geological ages anterior to the present would
+exhibit characters resulting from still further distillation; that they
+would be harder and drier, i.e., containing less volatile ingredients
+and more fixed carbon. Such is, in fact, the case; and these older
+asphalts are represented by _Grahamite, Albertite_, etc., which I have
+designated as asphaltic coals. These are found in fissures and cavities
+in rocks of various ages, which have been more or less disturbed, and
+usually in regions where springs of petroleum now exist. The Albertite
+fills fissures in Carboniferous rocks in New Brunswick, on a line of
+disturbance and near oil-springs. Precisely the same may be said of the
+Grahamite of West Virginia. It fills a vertical fissure, which was
+cut through the sandstones and shales of the coal-measures; in the
+sandstones it remained open, in the shales it has been closed by the
+yielding of the rock. The Grahamite fills the open fissure in the
+sandstone, and was plainly introduced when in a liquid state. In the
+vicinity are oil springs, and it is on an axis of disturbance. From
+near Tampico, Mexico, I have received a hydrocarbon solid--essentially
+Grahamite, asphalt, and petroleum. These are described as occurring near
+together, and evidently represent phases of different dates in the same
+substance. I have collected asphaltic coals, very similar to Grahamite
+and Albertite in appearance and chemical composition, in Colorado and
+Utah, where they occur with the game associates as at Tampico. I have
+found at Canajoharie, New York, in cavities in the lead-veins which rut
+the Utica shale, a hydrocarbon solid which must have infiltrated into
+these cavities as petroleum, but which, since the remote period when the
+fissures were formed, has been distilled until it is now _anthracite_.
+Similar anthracitic asphalt or asphaltic anthracite is common in
+the Calciferous sand-rock in Herkimer County, New York, where it is
+associated with, and often contained in, the beautiful crystals of
+quartz for which the locality is famous. Here the same phase of
+distillation is reached as in the coke residuum of the petroleum stills.
+
+Again, in some crystalline limestones, detached scales or crystals of
+_graphite_ occur, which are undoubtedly the product of the complete
+distillation of liquid hydrocarbons with which the rock was once
+impregnated. The remarkable purity of such graphite is the natural
+result of its mode of formation, and such cases resemble the occurrence
+of graphite in cast iron and basalt. The black clouds and bands which
+stain many otherwise white marbles are generally due to specks of
+graphite, the residue of hydrocarbons which once saturated the rock.
+Some limestones are quite black from the carbonaceous matter they
+contain (Lycoming Valley, Pa., Glenn's Falls, N. Y., and Collingwood,
+Canada), and these are sold as black marbles, but if exposed to heat,
+such limestones are blanched by the expulsion of the contained carbon;
+usually a residue of anthracite or graphite is left, forming dark spots
+or streaks, as we find in the clouded and banded marbles.
+
+Finally, the great work going on in Nature's laboratory may be closely
+imitated by art; the differences in the results being simply the
+consequence of differing conditions in the experiments. Vegetable tissue
+has been converted artificially into the equivalents of lignite, coal,
+anthracite, and graphite, with the emission of vapors, gases, and oils
+closely resembling those evolved in natural processes. So petroleum may
+be distilled to form asphalt, and this in turn converted into Albertite
+and coke (i.e., anthracite). Grahamite has been artificially produced
+from petroleum by Mr. W. P. Jenney.
+
+In the preceding remarks, no effort has been made even to enumerate
+all the so-called carbon minerals which have been described. This was
+unnecessary in a discussion of the relations of the more important
+groups, and would have extended this article much beyond its prescribed
+length. Those who care to gain a fuller knowledge of the different
+members of the various groups are referred to the admirable chapter on
+the "Hydrocarbon Compounds" in Dana's Mineralogy.
+
+It will, however, add to the value of this paper, if brief mention be
+made of a few carbon minerals of which the genesis and relations are not
+generally known, and in regard to which special interest is felt, such
+as the diamond, jet, the hydrocarbon jellies, "Dopplerite," etc.
+
+The diamond is found in the _debris_ of metamorphic rocks in many
+countries, and is probably one of the evolved products of the
+distillation of organic matter they once contained. Under peculiar
+circumstances it has apparently been formed by precipitation from
+sulphide of carbon or some other volatile carbon compound by elective
+affinity. Laboratory experiments have proved the possibility of
+producing it by such a process, but the artificial crystals are
+microscopic, perhaps only because a long time is required to build up
+those of larger size.
+
+Jet is a carbonaceous solid which in most cases is a true lignite, and
+generally retains more or less of the structure of wood. Masses are
+sometimes found that show no structure, and these are probably formed
+from bitumen which has separated from the wood of which it once formed
+part, and which it generally saturates or invests. In some cases,
+however, these masses of jet-like substance are plainly the residuum of
+excrementitious matter voided by fishes or reptiles. These latter are
+often found in the Triassic fish-beds of Connecticut and New Jersey, and
+in the Cretaceous marls of the latter State.
+
+The discovery of a quantity of hydrocarbon jelly, recently, in a
+peat-bed at Scranton, Pa., has caused some wonder, but similar
+substances (Dopplerite, etc.) have been met with in the peat-beds of
+other countries; and while the history of the formation of this singular
+group of hydrocarbons is not yet well understood, and offers an
+interesting subject for future research, we have reason to believe that
+these jellies have been of common occurrence among the evolved products
+of the decomposition of vegetable tissue in all ages.
+
+The fossil resins--often erroneously called gums--amber, kauri, copal,
+etc., though interestingly related to the hydro-carbons enumerated on
+the preceding pages, form no essential part of the series, and demand
+only the briefest notice here.
+
+_Amber_ is the resin which exuded from certain coniferous trees that,
+in Tertiary times, grew abundantly in northern Europe. The leaves and
+trunks of these trees have generally perished; but masses of their
+resin, more enduring, buried in the earth on the shores of the Baltic,
+have in the lapse of time changed physically and chemically, and have
+become fitted for the ornamental purposes for which they have been used
+by all civilized nations.
+
+_Kauri_ is the resin of _Dammara australis_, a living coniferous tree of
+New Zealand, and the "gum" is dug from the earth on the sites of forests
+which have now disappeared.
+
+_Copal_ is a commercial name given to the resins of several different
+trees, but the most esteemed, and indeed the only true copal, is the
+product of _Trachylobium Mozambicense_, a tree which grows along the
+Zanzibar coast, and has left its resin buried in the sands of old raised
+beaches which it has abandoned.
+
+The diversity of character which the fossil resins exhibit shows the
+complexity of the vital processes in operation in the vegetable kingdom,
+and gives probability to the theory that some of the differences we find
+in the carbon minerals are due to differences in the plants from which
+they have been derived.
+
+The variations in the physical and chemical characters of different
+coals from the same basin, and from different parts of the same stratum,
+have been sometimes credited to the same cause; but they are probably
+in greater degree due to the differences in the conditions under which
+these varieties have been formed.
+
+Cannel coal, as I have shown elsewhere (_Amer. Jour. Science_, March,
+1857), is completely macerated vegetable tissue which was deposited as
+carbonaceous mud at the bottom of lagoons in the coal-marshes.
+
+Caking coals were probably peat, which accumulated under somewhat
+uniform conditions, was constantly saturated with moisture, and became
+a comparatively homogeneous and partially gelatinous carbonaceous mass;
+while the open-burning coals which show a distinctly laminated structure
+and consist of layers of pitch-coal, alternating with bands of mineral
+charcoal or cannel, seem to have been formed in alternating conditions,
+of more or less moisture, and the bituminous portions are inclosed in
+cells or are separated by partitions, so that the mass does not melt
+down, but more or less perfectly holds its form when exposed to heat.
+
+The generalities of the origin and relations of the carbon minerals
+have now been briefly considered; but a review of the subject would
+be incomplete without some reference to the theories which have been
+advanced by others, that are in conflict with the views now presented.
+There have always been some who denied the organic nature of the mineral
+hydrocarbons, but it has been regarded as a sufficient answer to their
+theories, that chemists and geologists are generally agreed in saying
+that no instances are known of the occurrence in nature of hydrocarbons,
+solid, liquid, or gaseous, in which the evidence was not satisfactory
+that they had been derived from animal or vegetable tissue. A few
+exceptional cases, however, in which chemists and geologists of deserved
+distinction have claimed the possibility and even probability of the
+production of marsh gas, petroleum, etc., through inorganic agencies,
+require notice.
+
+In a paper published in the _Annales de Chimie et de Physique_, Vol.
+IX., p.481, M. Berthelot attempts to show that the formation of
+petroleum and carbureted hydrogen from inorganic substances is possible,
+if it be true, as suggested by Daubre, that there are vast masses of the
+alkaline metals--potassium, sodium, etc.--deeply buried in the earth,
+and at a high temperature, to which carbonic acid should gain access;
+and he demonstrates that, these premises being granted, the formation of
+hydrocarbons would necessarily follow.
+
+But it should be said that no satisfactory evidence has ever been
+offered of the existence of zones or masses of the unoxidized alkaline
+metals in the earth, and it is not claimed by Berthelot that there are
+any facts in the occurrence of petroleum and carbureted hydrogen in
+nature which seem to exemplify the chemical action which he simply
+claims is theoretically possible. Berthelot also says that, in most
+cases, there can be no doubt of the organic origin of the hydrocarbons.
+
+Mendeleeff, in the _Revue Scientifique_, 1877, p. 409, discusses at
+considerable length the genesis of petroleum, and attempts to sustain
+the view that it is of inorganic origin. His arguments and illustrations
+are chiefly drawn from the oil wells of Pennsylvania and Canada, and
+for the petroleum of these two districts he claims an inorganic origin,
+because, as he says, there are no accumulations of organic matter below
+the horizons at which the oils and gases occur. He then goes into a
+lengthy discussion of the possible and probable source of petroleum,
+where, as in the instances cited, an organic origin "is not possible."
+It is a sufficient answer to M. Mendeleeff to say, that beneath the oil
+bearing strata of western Pennsylvania are sheets of bituminous shale,
+from one hundred to five hundred feet in thickness, which afford an
+adequate, and it may be proved the true source, of the petroleum, and
+that no petroleum has been found below these shales; also that the
+oil-fields of Canada are all underlain by the Collingwood shales, the
+equivalent of the Utica carbonaceous shales of New York, and that from
+the out-crops of these shales petroleum and hydrocarbon gases are
+constantly escaping. With a better knowledge of the geology of the
+districts he refers to, he would have seen that the facts in the
+cases he cites afford the strongest evidence of the organic origin of
+petroleum.
+
+Among those who are agreed as to the organic origin of the hydrocarbons,
+there is yet some diversity of opinion in regard to the nature of the
+process by which they have been produced.
+
+Prof. J. P. Lesley has at various times advocated the theory that
+petroleum is indigenous in the sand-rocks which hold it, and has been
+derived from plants buried in them. ("Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc.," Vol.
+X., pp. 33, 187, etc.)
+
+My own observations do not sanction this view, as the limited number of
+plants buried in the sandstones which are now reservoirs of petroleum
+must always have borne a small proportion in volume to the mass of
+inorganic matter; and some of those which are saturated with petroleum
+are almost completely destitute of the impressions of plants.
+
+In all cases where sandstones contain petroleum in quantity, I think it
+will be found that there are sheets of carbonaceous matter below, from
+which carbureted hydrogen and petroleum are constantly issuing. A more
+probable explanation of the occurrence of petrolem in the sandstones is
+that they have, from their porosity, become convenient receptacles for
+that which flowed from some organic stratum below.
+
+Dr. T. Sterry Hunt has regarded limestones, and especially the Niagara
+and corniferous, as the principal sources of our petroleum; but, as I
+have elsewhere suggested, no considerable flow of petroleum has ever
+been obtained from the Niagara limestone, though at Chicago and Niagara
+Falls it contains a large quantity of bituminous matter; also, that the
+corniferous limestone which Dr. Hunt has regarded as the source of the
+oil of Canada and Pennsylvania is too thin, and too barren of petroleum,
+or the material out of which it is made, to justify the inference.
+
+The corniferous limestone is never more than fifty or sixty feet thick,
+and does not contain even one per cent. of hydrocarbons; and in southern
+Kentucky, where oil is produced in large quantity, this limestone does
+not exist.
+
+That many limestones are more or less charged with petroleum is well
+known; and in addition to those mentioned above, the Silurian limestone
+at Collingwood, Canada, may be cited as an example. As I have elsewhere
+shown, we have reason to believe that the petroleum here is indigenous,
+and has been derived, in part, at least, from animal organisms; but the
+limestones are generally compact, and if cellular, their cavities are
+closed, and the amount of petroleum which, under any circumstances,
+flows from or can be extracted from limestone rock is small. On the
+other hand, the bituminous shales which underlie the different oil
+regions afford an abundant source of supply, holding the proper
+relations with the reservoirs that contain the oil, and are
+spontaneously and constantly evolving gas and oil, as may be observed
+in a great number of localities. For this reason, while confessing
+the occurrence of petroleum and asphaltum in many limestones, I am
+thoroughly convinced that little or none of the petroleum of commerce is
+derived from them.
+
+Prof. S.F. Peckham, who has studied the petroleum field of southern
+California, attributes the abundant hydrocarbon emanations in that
+locality to microscopic animals. It is quite possible that this is
+true in this and other localities, but the bituminous shales which are
+evidently the sources of the petroleum of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky,
+etc., generally contain abundant impressions of sea weeds, and indeed
+these are almost the only organisms which have left any traces in them.
+I am inclined, therefore, now, as in my report on the rock oils of Ohio,
+published in 1860, to ascribe the carbonaceous matter of the bituminous
+shales of Pennsylvania and Ohio, and hence the petroleum derived from
+them, to the easily decomposed cellular tissue of algae which have
+in their decomposition contributed a large percentage of diffused
+carbonaceous matter to the sediments accumulating at the bottom of the
+water where they grew. In a recent communication to the National Academy
+of Sciences, Dr. T. Sterry Hunt has proposed the theory that anthracite
+is the result of the decomposition of vegetable tissue when buried in
+porous strata like sandstone; but an examination of even a few of the
+important deposits of anthracite in the world will show that no such
+relationship as he suggests obtains.
+
+Anthracite may and does occur in sedimentary rocks of varied character,
+but, so far as my observation has extended, never in quantity in
+sandstone. In the Lower Silurian rocks anthracite occurs, both in the
+Old World and in the New, where no metamorphism has affected it, and
+where it is simply the normal result of the long continued distillation
+of plant tissue; but the anthracite beds which are known and mined in so
+many countries are the results of the metamorphism of coal-beds of one
+or another age, by local outbursts of trap, or the steaming and baking
+of the disturbed strata in mountain chains, numerous instances of which
+are given on a preceding page.
+
+M. Mendeleeff, in his article already referred to, misled by a want of
+knowledge of the geology of our oil-fields, and ascribing the petroleum
+to an inorganic cause, connects the production of oil in Pennsylvania
+and Caucasia with the neighboring mountain chains of the Alleghanies and
+the Caucasus; but in these localities a sufficient amount of organic
+matter can be found to supply a source for the petroleum, while the
+upheaval and loosening of the strata along lines parallel with the axes
+of elevation has favored the decomposition (spontaneous distillation) of
+the carbonaceous strata. It should be distinctly stated, also, that no
+igneous rocks are found in the vicinity of productive oil-wells, here or
+elsewhere, and there are no facts to sustain the view that petroleum is
+a volcanic product.
+
+In the valley of the Mississippi, in Ohio, Illinois, and Kentucky, are
+great deposits of petroleum, far removed from any mountain chain or
+volcanic vent, and the cases which have been cited of the limited
+production of hydrocarbons in the vicinity of, and probably in
+connection with, volcanic centers may be explained by supposing that
+in these cases the petroleum is distilled from sedimentary strata
+containing organic matter by the proximity of melted rock, or steam.
+
+Everything indicates that the distillation which has produced
+the greatest quantities of petroleum known was effected at a low
+temperature, and the constant escape of petroleum and carbureted
+hydrogen from the outcrops of bituminous shales, as well as the result
+of weathering on the shales, depriving them of all their carbon, shows
+that the distillation and complete elimination of the organic matter
+they contain may take place at the ordinary temperature.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ESTIMATION OF SULPHUR IN IRON AND STEEL.
+
+By GEORGE CRAIG.
+
+
+For wellnigh two years I have been estimating sulphur in iron and steel
+by a modification of the evolution process, which consists in passing
+the evolved gases through an ammoniacal solution of peroxide of
+hydrogen, which oxidizes the sulphureted hydrogen to sulphuric acid,
+which latter is estimated as usual. The _modus operandi_ is as follows:
+
+[Illustration]
+
+100 grains of the iron or steel are placed in the 10 oz. flask, a, along
+with 1/2 oz. water; 11/2 oz. hydrochloric acid are added from the stoppered
+funnel, b, in such quantities at a time as to produce a moderate
+evolution of gas through the nitrogen bulb, c, which contains 1/8 oz.
+(20 vols.) peroxide of hydrogen and 1/2 oz. ammonia. The tube, d, is to
+condense the bulk of the hydrochloric acid which distills over during
+the operation. When all the acid has been added and the evolution of gas
+becomes sluggish, heat is applied and the liquid boiled till all action
+ceases. Air is blown through the aparatus for a few minutes and the
+contents of c and d washed into a small beaker and acidified with
+hydrochloric acid, boiled, barium chloride added, and the barium
+sulphate filtered off after standing a short time. A blank experiment
+must be done with each new lot of peroxide of hydrogen obtained, which
+always gives under 0.1 barium sulphate with me.
+
+The whole operation is finished within two hours, the usual oxidation
+process occupying nearly two days; and the results obtained are
+invariably slightly higher than by the oxidation processes.
+
+Until lately I have always added excess of chlorate of potash to the
+residue left in a, evaporated it nearly to dryness, diluted, filtered,
+and added chloride of barium to the diluted filtrate, but only once
+have I obtained a trace of precipitate after standing 48 hours, and the
+pig-iron in that case contained 8 per cent. of silicon, so that all
+the sulphur is evolved during the process. It has been objected to the
+evolution process that when the iron contains copper all the sulphur is
+not evolved, but theoretically it ought to be evolved whether copper is
+present or not; and to test the point I fused 3 lb. of ordinary Scotch
+pig-iron with some copper for half an hour in a Fletcher's gas furnace.
+No copper could be detected in the iron by mere observation with a
+microscope, but it gave on analysis 0.225 per cent. of copper, and on
+estimating the sulphur in it by the above process and by oxidation with
+chlorate of potash and hydrochloric acid, using 100 grains in each case,
+and performing blank experiments, I found:
+
+  By peroxide of hydrogen process          0.0357 per cent.
+  By oxidation (KClO_{3} and HCl) process, 0.0302     "
+
+so that even in highly cupriferous pig-iron all the sulphur is evolved
+on treatment with strong hydrochloric acid.--_Chem. News_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE AIR IN RELATION TO HEALTH.
+
+[Footnote: Abstract of a lecture before the Master Plumbers'
+Association, New York, Nov. 2. 1882.]
+
+By Prof. C. F. CHANDLER.
+
+
+It is only about one hundred years since the first important facts were
+discovered which threw light upon the chemistry of atmosphere. It was in
+1774 that Dr. Priestley, in London, and Scheele, in Sweden, discovered
+the vital constituents of the atmosphere--the oxygen gas which supports
+life. The inert gas, nitrogen, had been discovered a year or two before.
+When we examine our atmosphere, we find it is composed of oxygen and
+nitrogen. The nitrogen constitutes no less than 80 per cent, of the
+atmosphere; the remaining 20 percent, consists of oxygen, so that the
+atmosphere consists almost entirely of these two gases, odorless and
+colorless and invisible. The atmosphere is, however, never free from
+moisture; a certain amount of aqueous vapor is always present. The
+quantity can hardly be stated, as it varies from day to day and month
+to month; it depends upon the temperature and other conditions. Then
+we have the gas commonly called carbonic acid in extremely minute
+quantities, about one part in 2,500, or four one-hundredths of one per
+cent. A small quantity of ammonia and a small quantity of ozone are also
+present.
+
+Besides these gases which have been enumerated, and which play an
+important part in supporting life in both the kingdoms of nature, we
+find a great many solids. Every housewife knows how dust settles upon
+everything about the house. This dust has recently been the subject of
+most active study, and it proves to be quite as important as the vital
+oxygen that actually supports life. When we examine this dust--and it
+falls everywhere, not only in the city streets, but upon the tops of
+mountains, upon the deck of the ocean steamer, and the Arctic snow--we
+find some of it does not belong to the earth, and, as it is not
+terrestrial, we call it cosmical. And when it falls in large pieces we
+call it a meteorite or shooting star. When the Challenger crossed the
+Atlantic, and soundings were made in the deep sea, in the mud that was
+brought up and examined there were found various little particles that
+were not terrestrial. They were dust particles that were dropped into
+the atmosphere of the earth from outer space. Then we have terrestrial
+dust, and we divide that into mineral and organic. The mineral consists
+chiefly of clay, sand, and, near the ocean, salt. Then we have organic
+matter. Some of this is dead leaves which have been ground to powder.
+Animal matter has also become dry and reduced to powder, and we actually
+find the remains of animals and plants floating upon the atmosphere,
+especially in the city. Examinations of the dust which had collected
+upon the basement and higher windows of a Fifth avenue residence showed
+that the dust upon the basement floor was chiefly composed of sand.
+And the higher up I went, the smaller proportion of sand and a larger
+proportion of animal matter, so that the dust that blows into our faces
+is largely decomposing animal substance.
+
+But we have a living matter in the atmosphere. We often notice in the
+summer, after a rain, that the ground is yellow. On gathering up the
+yellow powder and examining it under the microscope, we find that it
+consists of pollen. The pollen of rag weed and other plants is supposed
+to be the cause of hay fever. But we also have something far more
+important in the germs of certain classes of vegetation. The effects
+are familiar. If food is put away, it becomes mouldy. This mould is a
+peculiar kind of vegetation which is called a fungus, and the plants
+fungi. In order for this mould to develop a certain temperature and a
+certain degree of moisture are necessary. Our food, we say, decays.
+Now, what we call decay is really the growth of these fungi. Animal and
+vegetable substances which these fungi seize upon are destroyed. All
+ordinary fermentations and putrefactions are due to mould fungi, yeast
+plants, or bacteria, and liquids undergoing these processes carry these
+fungi and their germs wherever they go. The refuse of the city pollutes
+the air. You have only to pass along any street to find more or less
+rubbish. That furnishes the nidus for the growth and development of
+these germs, and until we adopt better methods of getting rid of that
+refuse, we never shall have the air of this city in the condition that
+it should be.
+
+One of the most constant sources of the pollution of the air in
+inhabited localities is the decomposition that takes place in the
+ground. Refuse of every kind gets into it. Our sewers are leaky, and
+putrefaction is constantly going on. The soil down to the limit of
+the ground water contains a large amount of air. This air, when the
+atmospheric pressure in the house is diminished, is drawn in with such
+organic impurities as it contains. A cement floor in the cellar is not
+a protection against this entrance of the ground air, for the cement is
+porous to the passage of air, but a remedy may be found by laying on the
+cement a covering of coal tar pitch, in which bricks are set on edge,
+the spaces between the bricks are filled with the melted pitch, and the
+bricks then covered with coal tar pitch. When the house is building, the
+foundation walls should also be similarly coated, outside as well as
+inside. Such a cellar floor was considered to be absolutely impervious
+to ground air and moisture. The lecturer had recently laid this floor in
+his own house with the greatest success. The atmosphere of the entire
+house is improved, and the expense is very moderate. Another source of
+the contamination of the air of houses is the heating apparatus.
+Stoves and furnaces, however well constructed at first, will, from the
+contraction and expansion of the metal, soon allow the escape of coal
+gas, and this danger is greatly increased by the use of dampers in
+the stove-pipe. When, to regulate the fire, the damper in the pipe is
+closed, the gases, having their passage to the chimney cut off, will
+escape through any cracks or openings in the stove into the room.
+Prof. Chandler, having kept a record of accidents from this cause, had
+accumulated a formidable list of suffocations due to the use of the
+damper. The danger was now somewhat lessened by providing dampers with
+perforations in the center, which allowed the gases to escape when the
+damper was closed. As regards the maintenance of pure air in houses,
+the preference was given to the open fire-place. The hot-air furnace
+deriving a supply of pure air from out of doors was, when properly
+constructed, a very satisfactory method of heating, but in city houses
+the mistake was often made of carrying the cold air duct of the furnace
+to the front of the house, where it was exposed to the dust of the
+streets. It should be taken from the rear end of the house, and carried
+some distance above the surface of the yard. It was an excellent
+expedient to insert in the cold air duct a wire screen to hold a layer
+of cotton to retain the floating impurities which might enter the
+air-box. This could be removed from time to time, and the cotton
+replaced. Steam heating has been objected to by many for reasons in
+no wise due to the apparatus, but to neglect in the use of it. The
+complaint of closeness where steam is used is due to the fact that a
+room containing a steam radiator can be heated with every door and
+window closed, and no fresh air admitted, while with stoves and open
+fire-places a certain quantity of fresh air must be admitted to maintain
+the fire. Where radiators are used, the ventilation of the rooms should,
+therefore, be looked after. Again, the complaint that steam apparatus
+has an unpleasant odor is due to the fact that the radiators are allowed
+to become covered with dust, which is cooked, and gives rise to the
+smells complained of. The radiator should be from time to time
+cleaned. When these precautions are taken, no means of heating is more
+satisfactory than steam.
+
+Sewer gas is another source of contamination; this is a very indefinite
+term, to which formerly many false and exaggerated properties of causing
+specific diseases were attributed. It is now, however, recognized to
+mean simply the air of sewers, generally not differing very greatly from
+common air, containing a certain proportion of marsh gas, carbonic
+acid, and sulphureted hydrogen, etc. No one of these gases, however,
+is capable of producing the diseases attributed to sewer gas. Careful
+research has shown that it is the sewage itself, containing germs of
+specific disease, which is added to the air in the sewer by the breaking
+of bubbles of gas on its surface, which is the cause of the diseases
+associated with sewers.
+
+An intimate connection is believed to exist between the germs of sewer
+air and diphtheria, and probably also between sewer air and scarlet
+fever. This sewer gas is to be excluded from our houses by proper
+systems of plumbing, and to such an extent have these now been
+perfected, that there is no objection to having plumbing fixtures in
+all parts of the house. This opinion has lately been objected to in the
+_Popular Science Monthly_, as it was at a meeting of the Academy of
+Medicine last spring, but on wholly insufficient grounds.
+
+The objectors all insist that a trap will allow sewer gas to pass
+through it, and the experiments made at the Academy of Medicine showed
+that sulphureted hydrogen gas, etc., would so pass. The advocates of the
+trap have never denied that the water seal would absorb gases on one
+side and give them off on the other, but they do deny that, in the
+conditions existing in good plumbing, such gases will be given off in
+quantities to do any damage, and they confidently assert that the germ
+which is the dangerous element will not pass the seal at all. Pumpelly
+investigated the matter for the National Board of Health, and in no
+instance was he able to make the germ pass the seal of the trap. It is
+now proposed to set up against the weight of this scientific testimony
+the results of an investigator in Chicago, whose work was at once
+appropriated as an advertisement by stock jobbing disinfectant companies
+in a manner which raises a suspicion that the investigation was made in
+their interest. He described tersely the essentials of good plumbing,
+the necessity of a trap on the house drain, the ventilation of the
+soil-pipe, and the ventilation of the trap against siphonage. Of the
+first, he said that it offered protection to each householder against
+the entrance into his house of the germs of a contagious disease which
+passed into the common sewer from the house of a neighbor. Were the trap
+dispensed with, the contagion in the sewer would have free entrance into
+the houses connecting with it.
+
+Prof. Chandler, in conclusion, alluded to the cordial relations now
+existing between the Board of Health and the majority of the master
+plumbers of the city. He said that for himself his opinion of the craft
+had greatly risen during his intimate connection with plumbers the last
+two years. He thought the majority of the jobs now done in the city are
+well executed. He believed that the Board of Health had not been obliged
+to proceed against more than eight master plumbers since the new law
+went into force. He called upon the Association to adopt a "code of
+ethics," which should define what an honest plumber can do and cannot
+do, and he illustrated his meaning by citing an extraordinary case of
+fraudulent workmanship which had been recently reported to him. His
+remarks on this point were greeted with frequent outbursts of applause.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE PLANTAIN AS A STYPTIC.
+
+
+The following abstract of a paper read by Dr. Quinlan at the recent
+British Pharmaceutical Congress, may prove of interest to medical
+readers in this country, where the plant mentioned is a common weed:
+
+"About a year ago Dr. Quinlan had seen the chewed leaves of the
+_Plantago lanceolata_ successfully used to stop a dangerous hemorrhage
+from leech bites in a situation where pressure could not be employed. He
+had searched out the literature of the subject, and found that, although
+this herb is highly spoken of by Culpepper and other old writers as
+a styptic, and alluded to as such in the plays of Shakespeare, its
+employment seems to have died out. Professor Quinlan described the
+suitable varieties of plantain, and exhibited preparations which had
+been made for him by Dr. J. Evans, of Dublin, State apothecary. They
+dried leaves and powdered leaves, conserved with glycerine, for external
+use; the juice preserved by alcohol, as also by glycerine, for internal
+use; and a green extract. He gave an account of the chemistry of the
+juice, from which it appeared that it was not a member of the tannin
+series; and also described its physiological effect in causing a
+tendency to stasia in the capillaries of the tail of a goldfish,
+examined with a microscopic power of 400 X. He regarded its styptic
+power as partly mechanical and partly physiological. The juice, in large
+doses, he had found useful in internal hemorrhages. The knowledge of
+the properties of this plant he thought would be useful in cases of
+emergency, because it could be obtained in any field and by the most
+uninstructed persons."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+BACTERIA.
+
+
+Bacteria, whether significant of disease or decline of health, are found
+more or less numerous in everything we eat and drink. The germs or
+spores of many kinds, known as _termo_, _lineola_, tenue, spirillum,
+vibriones, etc, exist in almost infinite numbers; some of the smallest
+are too small to be seen by the highest powers, which, being lodged in
+all vegetable and animal substances, spring into life and develop very
+rapidly under favorable circumstances. They develop most rapidly when
+decomposition commences, and seem to indicate the degree or activity
+of that decomposition, also hastening the same. They are found most
+numerous in the feces, and usually fully developed in the fresh
+evacuations of persons of all ages. They may be seen plainly under
+a thin glass with high powers with strong or clear light, when the
+material is much diluted with water.
+
+These bacteria appear almost as numerously, yet more slowly, in urine,
+either upon exposure to air or when freshly evacuated, when the general
+health of the individual is declining, or any tendency to decomposition.
+A diagnosis can be aided very greatly by a study of these bacteria,
+as they indicate or determine the vitality, vigor, and purity of the
+system, whether more or less subject to disease, even before any signs
+of disease appear. They seem to preindicate the hold of the life force
+on the material, and always appear when that force is broken. Their
+relative quantity found in feces is as a barometric indication of the
+general health or some particular disturbance, and it is surprising
+how very fast they multiply while simply passing the intestines under
+circumstances favorable for their growth. These forms, so small, are
+important, because so very numerous, and their study has been, perhaps,
+avoided by many; yet they certainly mean something and effect something,
+even the non-malignant varieties as mentioned above, and it is certainly
+worth while to continue to study their meaning, even beyond what has
+already been written by others on the subject.--_J.M. Adams, in The
+Microscope_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE SOY BEAN
+
+(_Soja hispida_.)
+
+
+A good deal of attention has lately been directed to this plant in
+consequence of the enormous extent to which it is cultivated in China
+for the sake of the small seeds which it produces, and which are known
+as soy beans. These vary considerably in size, shape, and color,
+according to the variety of the plant which produces them. They are for
+the most part about the size and shape of an ordinary field pea, and,
+like the pea, are of a yellow color; some, however, are of a greenish
+tint. These seeds contain a large quantity of oil, which is expressed
+from them in China and used for a variety of purposes. The residue is
+moulded with a considerable amount of pressure into large circular
+cakes, two feet or more across, and six inches or eight inches thick.
+This cake is used either for feeding cattle or for manuring the land;
+indeed, a very large trade is done in China with bean cake (as it is
+always called) for these purposes. The well-known sauce called soy is
+also prepared from seeds of this bean. The plant generally known as Soja
+hispida is by modern botanists referred to Glycine soja. It is an
+erect, hairy, herbaceous plant. The leaves are three-parted and the
+papilionaceous flowers are born in axillary racemes. It is too tender
+for outdoor cultivation in this country, but, has been recommended for
+extended growth in our colonies as a commercial plant. The plants are
+readily used from seed.--_J.R.F., in The Garden_.
+
+[Illustration: THE SOY BEAN. _(Soja Lispida)_]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ERICA CAVENDISHIANA.
+
+
+The plant of which the illustration is given is one of those fine
+specimens which has made the collection of J. Lawless, Esq., The
+Cottage, Exeter, famous all over the south and west of England. It is
+only one specimen among a considerable collection of hard-wooded plants
+which are cultivated and trained in first rate style by Mr. George Cole,
+the gardener, one of the most successful plant growers of the day. The
+plant was in the winning collection of Mr. Cole exhibited at the late
+spring show held at Plymouth.--_The Gardeners' Chronicle_.
+
+[Illustration: ERICA CAVENDISHIANA.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+PHILESIA BUXIFOLIA.
+
+
+We figure this plant, not as a novelty, but for the purpose of showing
+what a fine thing it is when grown under propitious circumstances.
+Generally, we see it more or less starved in the greenhouse, and even
+when planted out in the winter garden its flowers lack the size and
+richness of color they attain out-of-doors. It comes from the extreme
+south of South America, which accounts for its hardihood, and is a near
+ally of the Lapageria: the latter is remarkable for withstanding even
+the noxious fumes of the copper smelting works in Chili, and as the
+Philesia has similar tough leaves, it is probable that it would support
+the vitiated atmosphere of a town better than most evergreens. In any
+case, there is no reasonable doubt but that, if cultivators would take
+the necessary pains, they might select perfectly hardy varieties both
+of the Lapageria and of the Philesia. As it is, we can only call the
+Philesea half-hardy north of the Thames, while the Lapageria is not even
+that. The curious Philageria, raised in Messrs. Veitch's nursery and
+described and figured in our columns in 1872, p. 358, is a hybrid raised
+between the two genera. For the specimen of Philesia figured we are
+indebted to Mr. Dartnall.--_The Gardeners' Chronicle_.
+
+[Illustration: PHILESIA BUXIFOLIA--HARDY SHRUB--FLOWERS, ROSE PINK.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+MAHOGANY.
+
+
+The mahogany tree, says the _Lumber World_, is a native of the West
+Indies, the Bahamas, and that portion of Central America that lies
+adjacent to the Bay of Honduras, and has also been found in Florida. It
+is stated to be of moderately rapid growth, reaching its full maturity
+in about two hundred years. Full grown, it is one of the monarchs of
+tropical America. Its trunk, which often exceeds forty feet in length
+and six in diameter, and massive arms, rising to a lofty height,
+and spreading with graceful sweep over immense spaces, covered with
+beautiful foliage, bright, glossy, light, and airy, clinging so long to
+the spray as to make it almost an evergreen, present a rare combination
+of loveliness and grandeur. The leaves are small, delicate, and polished
+like those of the laurel. The flowers are small and white, or greenish
+yellow. The fruit is a hard, woody capsule, oval, not unlike the head of
+a turkey in size and shape, and contains five cells, in each of which
+are inclosed about fifteen seeds.
+
+The mahogany tree was not discovered till the end of the sixteenth
+century, and was not brought into European use till nearly a century
+later. The first mention of it is that it was used in the repair of
+some of Sir Walter Raleigh's ships, at Trinidad, in 1597. Its finely
+variegated tints were admired, but in that age the dream of El Dorado
+caused matters of more value to be neglected. The first that was brought
+to England was about 1724, a few planks having been sent to Dr. Gibbons,
+of London, by a brother who was a West Indian captain. The doctor was
+erecting a house, and gave the planks to the workmen, who rejected them
+as being too hard. The doctor then had a candle-box made of the wood,
+his cabinet-maker also complaining of the hardness of the timber.
+But, when finished, the box became an object of general curiosity and
+admiration. He had one bureau, and her Grace of Buckingham had another,
+made of this beautiful wood, and the despised mahogany now became a
+prominent article of luxury, and at the same time raised the fortunes
+of the cabinet-maker by whom it had been so little regarded. Since that
+lime it has taken a leading rank among the ornamental woods, having come
+to be considered indispensable where luxury is intended to be indicated.
+
+A few facts will furnish a tolerably distinct idea of the size of this
+splendid tree. The mahogany lumbermen, having selected a tree, surround
+it with a platform about twelve feet above the ground, and cut it above
+the platform. Some twelve or fifteen feet of the largest part of the
+trunk are thus lost. Yet a single log not unfrequently weighs from six
+or seven to fifteen tons, and sometimes measures as much as seventeen
+feet in length and four and a half to five and a half feet in diameter,
+one tree furnishing two, three, or four such logs. Some trees have
+yielded 12,000 superficial feet, and at average price pieces have sold
+for $15,000. Messrs. Broadwood London, pianoforte manufacturers, paid
+L3,000 for three logs, all cut from one tree, and each about fifteen
+feet long and more than three feet square. The tree is cut at two
+seasons of the year--in the autumn and about Christmas time. The trunk,
+of course, furnishes timber of the largest dimensions, but that from the
+branches is preferred for ornamental purposes, owing to its closer grain
+and more variegated color.
+
+In low and damp soil its growth is rapid; but the most valuable trees
+grow slowly among rocks on sterile soil, and seem to gather compactness
+and beauty from the very struggle which they make for an existence.
+In the Bahamas, in the most desolate regions, once flourished that
+curiously veined and much esteemed variety once known in Europe as
+"Madeira wood," but which has long since been exterminated. Jamaica,
+also, which used to be a fruitful source of mahogany, and whence in 1753
+not less than 521,000 feet were shipped, is now almost depleted. That
+which is now furnished from there is very inferior, pale, and porous,
+and is less esteemed than that of Cuba, San Domingo, or Honduras.
+
+In a dry state mahogany Is very durable, and not liable to the attack of
+worms, but, when exposed to the weather it does not last long. It would
+therefore make excellent material for floors, roofs, etc., but its
+costliness limits its utility in this direction, and it is chiefly
+employed for furniture, doors, and a few other articles of joinery, for
+which it is among the best materials known. It has been used for sashes
+and window frames, but is not desirable for this purpose on account of
+the ease with which it is affected by the weather. It has also been used
+in England to some extent for the framing of machinery in cotton-mills.
+Its color is a reddish brown of different shades and luster, sometimes
+becoming a yellowish brown, and often much veined and mottled with
+darker shades of the same color. Its texture is uniform, and the rings
+indicating its annual growth are not very distinct. The larger medullary
+rays are absent, but the smaller ones are often very distinct, with
+pores between them. In the Jamaica woods these pores are often filled
+with a white substance, but in that brought from Central America they
+are generally empty. It has neither taste nor odor, shrinks very
+slightly, and warps, it is said, less than any other wood.
+
+The variety called Spanish mahogany comes from the West Indies, and is
+in smaller logs than the Honduras mahogany, being generally about two
+feet square and ten feet long. It is close grained and hard, generally
+darker than the Honduras, free from black specks, and sometimes strongly
+marked; the pores appear as though chalk had been rubbed into them.
+
+The Honduras mahogany comes in logs from two to four feet square and
+twelve to fourteen long; planks have been obtained seven feet wide. Its
+grain is very open and often irregular, with black or gray specks. The
+veins and figures are often very distinct and handsome, and that of a
+fine golden color and free from gray specks is considered the best. It
+holds the glue better than any other wood. The weight of a cubic foot of
+mahogany varies from thirty-five to fifty-three pounds. Its strength
+is between sixty-seven and ninety-six, stiffness seventy-three to
+ninety-three, and toughness sixty-one to ninety-nine--oak being
+considered as one hundred in each case.
+
+There are three other species of the genus _Swietania_ besides the
+mahogany tree, two of them natives of the East Indies. One is a very
+large tree, growing in the mountainous parts of central Hindostan, and
+rises to a great height, throwing out many branches toward the top. The
+head is spreading and the leaves bear some resemblance to those of the
+American species. The wood is a dull red, not so beautiful as that known
+to commerce, but harder, heavier, and more durable. The natives of India
+consider it the most durable timber which their forests afford, and
+consequently use it, when it can be procured, wherever strength and
+durability are particularly desired. The other East Indian species is
+found in the mountains of Sircars, which run parallel to the Bay of
+Bengal. The tree is not so large as any of the other species described,
+and the wood is of much different appearance, being of a deep yellow,
+considerably resembling box. The grain is close, and the wood both heavy
+and durable. The third species, known as African mahogany, is brought
+from Sierra Leone. It is hard and durable, and used for purposes
+requiring these properties in an eminent degree. If, however, the heart
+of the tree be exposed or crossed in cutting or trimming the timber, it
+is very liable to premature and rapid decay.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ANIMALS AND THE ARTS.
+
+
+In many of the museums efforts are made to perfect economic collections
+of animals, so as to show how they can be applied to advantage in the
+arts and sciences. The collection and preparation of the corals, for
+example, form an important industry. The fossil corals are richly
+polished and set in studs and sleeve-buttons, forming rich and
+ornamental objects. The fossil coral that resembles a delicate chain has
+been often copied by designers, while the red and black corals have long
+been used. The best fisheries are along the coasts of Tunis, Algeria,
+and Morocco, from 2 to 10 miles from shore, in from 30 to 150 fathoms.
+Good coral is also common at Naples, near Leghorn and Genoa, and on
+various parts of the sea, as Sardinia, Corsica, Catalonia, Provence,
+etc. It ranges in color from pure white through all the shades of
+pink, red, and crimson. The rose pink is most valued. For a long time
+Marseilles was the market, but now Italy is the great center of the
+trade, the greater number of boats hailing from Torre del Greco,
+while outside persons are forced to pay a heavy tax. The vessels are
+schooners, lateen-rigged, from three to fourteen tons. Large nets are
+used, which, during the months between March and October, are dragged,
+dredge-like, over the rocks. A large crew will haul in a season from 600
+to 900 pounds. To prevent the destruction of the industry, the reef is
+divided into ten parts, only one being worked a year, and by the time
+the tenth is reached the first is overgrown again with a new growth. In
+1873 the Algerian fisheries alone, employing 3,150 men, realized half a
+million of dollars. The choice grades are always valuable, the finest
+tints bringing over $5 per ounce, while the small pieces, used for
+necklaces, and called collette, are worth only $1.50 per ounce. The
+large oval pieces are sent to China, where they are used as buttons of
+office by the mandarins.
+
+
+THE CONCH-SHELL.
+
+Somewhat similar in appearance to coral is the conch jewelry, sets of
+which have been sold for $300. The tint is exquisite, but liable to fade
+when exposed to the sun. It is made from the great conch, common in
+Southern Florida and the West Indies. The shells are imported into
+Europe by thousands, and cut up into studs, sleeve-buttons, and various
+articles of ornament. These conches are supposed to be the producers of
+pink pearls, but I have opened hundreds of them and failed to find a
+single pearl. The conch shell is used by the cameo cutter. Rome and
+Paris are the principal seats of the trade, and immense numbers of
+shell cameos are imported by England and America, and mounted in rings,
+brooches, etc. The one showing a pale salmon-color upon an orange ground
+is much used. In 1847, 300 persons worked upon these shells in Paris
+alone, the number of shells used being immense. In Paris 300,000
+helmet-shells were used in one year, valued at $40,000 of the bull's
+mouth, 80,000, averaging a little over a shilling apiece, equal to
+$34,000. Eight thousand black helmets were used, valued at $9,000. The
+value of the large cameos produced in Paris in the year 1847 was about
+$160,000, and the small ones $40,000. In the Wolfe collection of shells
+at the Museum of Natural History, Central Park, is a fine specimen of
+the queen conch from the Florida reef, with a fine head cut into the
+outer surface, showing how it is done. The tools of the worker in cameos
+are of the most delicate description. Fine files, knitting-needle like
+implements, triangular-shaped steel cutters, are arranged in a seemingly
+endless confusion before the worker. The shell or piece of shell to be
+cut is either lashed or glued to a heavy block or held in the hand, and
+the face, animal, or other object outlined first with a delicate lead;
+having thus laid the foundation, the lines are gone over with a delicate
+needle first, then various kinds, the work gradually growing before the
+eye, reminding one of the work of the engraver on wood.
+
+
+LIVING BEETLES, ETC.
+
+Insects have always been used more or less in decoration, especially in
+Brazil, where the richly-colored beetles of the country are affected as
+articles of personal adornment. Recently in a Union Square jewelry store
+a monster beetle was on exhibition, having been sent there for repairs.
+It was alive, and about its body was a delicate gold band, locked with
+a minute padlock; a gold chain attached it to the shawl of the owner.
+Sometimes they are worn upon the headgear, their slow, cumbersome
+movements preventing them from attracting great attention. They are
+valued at from $50 to $100 apiece. Snakes, the rich green variety so
+common in New England, are worn by some ladies as bracelets, while the
+gorgeous reptiles are often imitated in gold and silver, with eyes of
+diamonds, rubies, or black pearls. Gold bears are the proper thing now
+for pins. In the East the chameleon is often worn as a head ornament,
+the animal rarely moving, and forming at least a picturesque decoration,
+with its odd shape and sculptured outlines. Various other reptiles, as
+small turtles, alligators, etc., are pressed into service. The curious
+soldier-crab has been used as a pin. Placed in a box with a rich pearly
+shell prepared for the purpose, it will change houses, and then, secured
+by a gold or silver chain, roams about the wearer, waving its red and
+blue claws in a warlike manner. Birds are, perhaps, more commonly used
+as natural ornaments than any other, and a cloak of the skins of humming
+birds is one of the most magnificent objects to be imagined. One, of a
+rare species, was once sold in Europe for $5,000. Single birds are often
+worth $700 or $800. A cloak of the skin of the great auk would bring
+$8,000 or $10,000. Some of the most beautiful pheasants are extremely
+valuable--worth their weight in gold. Tiger claws are used in the
+decoration of hats, and are extremely valuable and hard to obtain.
+
+Within ten years the alligator has become an important factor to the
+artistic manufacturer. The hide, by a new process, is tanned to an
+agreeable softness and used in innumerable ways. The most costly bags
+and trunks are made from it; pocket-books, card-cases, dining-room
+chairs are covered with it, and it has been used as a dado on the
+library wall of a well-known naturalist. It makes an excellent binding
+for certain books. Among fishes the shark provides a skin used in a
+variety of ways. The shagreen of the shark's ray is of great value.
+Canes are made of the shark's backbone, the interstices being filled
+with silver or shell plates. Shark's teeth are used to decorate the
+weapons of various nations. The magnificent scales, nearly four inches
+across and tipped with seemingly solid silver, of the giant herring,
+are used, while scales of many of the tribe have long been used in the
+manufacture of artificial pearls.
+
+
+PEARLS.
+
+The latter are perhaps the most valuable of all the offerings of animate
+nature, and are the results of the efforts of the bivalve to protect
+itself from injury. A parasite bores into the shell of the pearl bearer,
+and when felt by the animal it immediately fortifies itself by covering
+up the spot with its pearly secretion; the parasite pushes on, the
+oyster piling up until an imperfect pearl attached to the shell is the
+result. The clear oval pearls are formed in a similar way, only in this
+case a bit of sand has become lodged in the folds of the creature, and
+in its efforts to protect itself from the sharp edges, the bit becomes
+covered, layer by layer, and assumes naturally an oval shape. This
+growth of the pearl, as it is incorrectly termed, can be seen by
+breaking open a $500 gem, when the nacre will be seen in layers,
+resembling the section of an onion. The Romans were particularly fond of
+pearls, and, according to Pliny, the wife of Caius Caligula possessed
+a collection valued at over $8,000,000 of our money. Julius Caesar
+presented a jewel to the mother of Brutus valued at $250,000, while
+the pearl drank by Cleopatra was estimated at $400,000. Tavernier, the
+famous traveler, sold a pearl to the Shah of Persia for $550,000. A
+twenty-thousand-dollar pearl was taken from American waters in the
+time of Philip II. It was pear-shaped, and as large as a pigeon's egg.
+Another, taken from the same locality, is now owned by a lady in Madrid
+who values it at $30,000.
+
+Fresh water pearls are often of great value. The streams of St. Clair
+County. Ill., and Rutherford County, Tenn., produce large quantities,
+but the largest one was found near Salem, N. J. It was about an inch
+across, and brought $2,000 in Paris. The pearls from the Tay, Doon, and
+Isla rivers, in Scotland, are preferred by many to the Oriental, and in
+one summer $50,000 worth of pearls have been taken from these localities
+by men and children. Mother-of-pearl used in the arts is sold by the
+ton, from $50 to $700 being average prices. The last year's pearl
+fisheries in Ceylon alone realized $80,000, to obtain which more than
+7,000,000 pearl oysters were brought up.
+
+
+SEPIA AND SILK.
+
+The sepia of the artist comes from a mollusk, and is the fossil or
+extant ink-bag of a cephalopod or squid, while the cuttle-fish bone is
+used for a variety of purposes. In the islands of the Pacific the young
+of the pearly nautilus are strung upon strings and sold for $25 and $20
+as necklaces. The tritons are in fair demand, and many tons of cowries
+are sent to Europe yearly, while the shipment of a thick-lipped strombus
+in one year to Liverpool amounted to 300,000. The rich coloring of the
+haliotis is used for inlaying art furniture. From the pinna, silk of a
+peculiar quality is obtained. It is the byssus or cable of the animal.
+The threads are extremely fine, and equal in diameter throughout their
+entire length. It is first cleaned with soap and water, and dried by
+rubbing through the hands, and finally passed through combs of bone,
+iron, or wood, of different sizes, so that a pound of the material in
+the rough gives only about three ounces of pure thread. It is mixed with
+a third of real silk and spun into gloves, stockings, etc., having a
+beautiful yellow hue. The articles made from it are, however, not in
+general use. A pair of gloves from pinna silk would cost $1.50, and
+stockings about $3. Fine specimens of such work can be seen in the
+British Museum.
+
+Though not of animal origin, amber is one of the choicest vegetable
+productions used in the arts. It is the fossil gum of pines. Great beds
+of it occur at various points in Europe. On the Prussian seaboard it is
+mined, and often washes ashore. In 1576 a piece of amber was found
+that weighed thirteen pounds, and for which $5,000 was refused. In the
+cabinet of the Berlin Museum there is a piece weighing eighteen pounds.
+Ambergris, from which perfumery is made, is a secretion taken from the
+intestines of the whale, and a piece purchased from the King of Tydore
+by the East India Company is reported to have cost $18,000. Whales'
+teeth, the tusks of elephants, and those of the walrus and narwhal, are
+all used. Elephants' feet are cut off at a convenient length, richly
+upholstered, and used as seats; the great toe-nails, when finely
+polished, giving the novel article of furniture an attractive and unique
+appearance.
+
+It is probably not generally known that the web of certain spiders has
+been used. Over 150 years ago, Le Bon, of France, succeeded in weaving
+the web material into delicate gloves. Prof. B.G. Wilder investigated
+the question thoroughly, and was a firm believer that the web of the
+spider had a commercial value, but as yet this has not been realized.
+It would be difficult to find an animal that does not in some way
+contribute to the useful or decorative arts.--_C.F.H., in N.Y. Post_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A catalogue, containing brief notices of many important scientific
+papers heretofore published in the SUPPLEMENT, may be had gratis at this
+office.
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+
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+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
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+PATENTS.
+
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+Solicitors of American and Foreign Patents, have had 35 years'
+experience, and now have the largest establishment in the world. Patents
+are obtained on the best terms.
+
+A special notice is made in the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN of all Inventions
+patented through this Agency, with the name and residence of the
+Patentee. By the immense circulation thus given, public attention is
+directed to the merits of the new patent, and sales or introduction
+often easily effected.
+
+Any person who has made a new discovery or invention can ascertain, free
+of charge, whether a patent can probably be obtained, by writing to MUNN
+& Co.
+
+We also send free our Hand Book about the Patent Laws, Patents, Caveats.
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+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Scientific American Supplement, No.
+362, December 9, 1882, by Various
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUP. NO. 362 ***
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Scientific American Supplement, No. 362,
+December 9, 1882, by Various
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: August, 2005 [EBook #8687]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on August 1, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUP. NO. 362 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Olaf Voss, Don Kretz, Juliet Sutherland,
+Charles Franks and the DP Team
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT NO. 362
+
+
+
+
+NEW YORK, DECEMBER 9, 1882
+
+Scientific American Supplement. Vol. XIV, No. 362.
+
+Scientific American established 1845
+
+Scientific American Supplement, $5 a year.
+
+Scientific American and Supplement, $7 a year.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS.
+
+I.    ENGINEERING AND MECHANICS--Recent Improvements in
+      Textile Machinery.--Harris's revolving ring spinning frame.--
+      New electric stop motion.--New positive motion loom. 6 figures.
+
+      Spinning Without a Mule.--Harris's improvements in ring
+      spinning.
+
+      New Binding Machines. 3 figures.
+
+      Flumes and their construction. 1 figure.
+
+      Chuwab's Rolling Mill for Dressing and Rounding Bar Iron.
+      9 figures.
+
+      Burning of Town Refuse at Leeds. 6 figures.--Sections and
+      elevations of destructor and carbonizer.
+
+II.   TECHNOLOGY AND CHEMISTRY.--Friedrich Wohler.--His
+      labors and discoveries.
+
+      New Gas Burner. 3 figures.--Grimstone's improved gas burner.
+
+      Defty's Improvements in Gas Burners and Heaters. 4 figures.
+
+      The Collotype in Practice.
+
+      Determination of Potassa in Manures.--By M. E. DREYFUS.
+
+III.  HYGIENE, MEDICINE, ETC.--The Air in Relation to Health.
+      By Prof. C. F. CHANDLER.
+
+      The Plantain as a Styptic.
+
+      Bacteria.
+
+IV.   ELECTRICITY, ETC.--Gustavo Trouvé and his Electrical Inventions.
+      --Portrait of Gustave Trouvé.--Trouvé's electric boat competing
+      in the regatta at Troyes.
+
+      Domestic Electricity.--Loiseau's electric naphtha and gas
+      lighters.--Ranque's new form of lighter with extinguisher.
+
+      Theiler's Telephone Receiver. 2 figures.
+
+      An Electric Power Hammer. By MARCEL DEPRETZ. 1 figure.
+
+      Solignac's New Electric Lamp. 3 figures.
+
+      Mondos's Electric Lamp. 2 figures.
+
+V.    METALLURGY AND MINERALOGY.--Aluminum.--Its properties,
+      cost, and uses.
+
+      The Origin and Relations of the Carbon Minerals.
+      By J.S. NEWBERRY.--An elaborate and extremely valuable review
+      of the genesis of carbon minerals, and the modes and conditions
+      of their occurrence.
+
+      Estimation of Sulphur in Iron and Steel. By GEORGE CRAIG.
+      1 figure.
+
+VI.   ARCHITECTURE, ETC.--The Armitage House.
+
+      Suggestions in Architecture.--An English country residence.
+
+VII.  BOTANY, HORTICULTURE, ETC.--The Soy Bean. 1 figure.--
+      The Soy bean (_Soja hispida_).
+
+      Erica Cavendishiana. 1 figure.
+
+      Philesia Buxifolia. 1 figure.
+
+      Mahogany.
+
+VIII. MISCELLANEOUS.--Our Hebrew Population.
+
+      The Mysteries of Lake Baikal.
+
+      Traveling Sand Hills on Lake Ontario.
+
+      Animals in the Arts.--Corals.--The conch shell.--Living beetles,
+      etc.--Pearls.--Sepia and silk.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+GUSTAVE TROUVÉ.
+
+
+The accompanying portrait of M. Gustave Trouvé is taken from a small
+volume devoted to an account of his labors recently published by M.
+Georges Dary. M. Trouvé, who may be said to have had no ancestors from
+an electric point of view, was born in 1839 in the little village of
+Haye-Descartes. He was sent by his parents to the College of Chinon,
+whence he entered the École des Arts et Metiers, and afterward went
+to Paris to work in the shop of a clock-maker. This was an excellent
+apprenticeship for our future electrician, since it is in small works
+that electricity excels; and, if its domain is to be increased, it is
+only on condition that the electric mechanician shall never lose sight
+of the fact that he should be a clock-maker, and that his fingers, to
+use M. Dumas's apt words, should possess at once the strength of those
+of the Titans and the delicacy of those of fairies. It was not long ere
+Trouvé set up a shop of his own, whither inventors flocked in crowds;
+and the work he did for these soon gave up to him the secrets of the art
+of creating. The first applications that he attempted related to the use
+of electricity in surgery, a wonderfully fecund branch, but one whose
+importance was scarcely suspected, notwithstanding the results
+already obtained through the application of the insufflation pile to
+galvano-cautery. What the surgeon needed was to see plainly into the
+cavities of the human body. Trouvé found a means of lighting these
+up with lamps whose illuminating power was fitted for that sort of
+exploration. This new mode of illumination having been adopted, it was
+but natural that it should afterward find an application in dangerous
+mines, powder mills, and for a host of different purposes. But the
+perfection of this sort of instruments was the wound explorer, by the
+aid of which a great surgeon sounded the wounds that Italian balls had
+made in Garibaldi's foot.
+
+[Illustration: GUSTAVE TROUVE.]
+
+The misfortunes of France afterward directed Trouvé's attention to
+military electricity, and led him to devise a perfect system of portable
+telegraphy, in which his hermetic pile lends itself perfectly to all
+maneuvers and withstands all sorts of moving about.
+
+The small volume of which we have spoken is devoted more particularly to
+electric navigation, for which M. Trouvé specially designed the motor of
+his invention, and by the aid of which he performed numerous experiments
+on the ocean, on the Seine at Paris, and before Rouen and at Troyes. In
+this latter case M. Trouvé gained a medal of honor on the occasion of a
+regatta. Our engraving represents him competing with the rowers of whom
+he kept ahead with so distinguished success. We could not undertake to
+enumerate all the inventions which we owe to M. Trouvé; but we cannot,
+however, omit mention of the pendulum escapement that beats the second
+or half second without any variation in the length of the balance; of
+the electric gyroscope constructed at the request of M. Louis Foucault;
+of the electro-medical pocket-case; of the apparatus for determining the
+most advantageous inclination to give a helix; of the electric bit for
+stopping unruly horses; and of the universal caustic-holder. He has
+given the electric polyscope features such that every cavity in the
+human body may be explored by its aid. As for his electric motor, he
+has given that a form that makes the rotation regular and suppresses
+dead-centers--a result that he has obtained by utilizing the
+eccentrization of the Siemens bobbin.
+
+Although devoting himself mainly to improving his motor (which, by
+the way, he has applied to the tricycle), M. Trouvé does not disdain
+telephony, but has introduced into the manufacture of magnets for the
+purpose many valuable improvements.--_Electricité_.
+
+[Illustration: TROUVE'S ELECTRIC BOAT COMPETING IN THE REGATTA AT
+TROYES, AUG. 6, 1882.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+FRIEDRICH WÖHLER.
+
+
+At the age of eighty-two years, and full of honor, after a life actively
+devoted to scientific work of the highest and most accurate kind, which
+has contributed more than that of any other contemporary to establish
+the principles on which an exact science like chemistry is founded, the
+illustrious Wöhler has gone to his rest.
+
+After he had worked for some time with Berzelius in Sweden, he taught
+chemistry from 1825 to 1831 at the Polytechnic School in Berlin; then
+till 1836 he was stationed at the Higher Polytechnic School at Cassel,
+and then he became Ordinary Professor of Chemistry in the University of
+Göttingen, where he remained till his death. He was born, July 31, 1800,
+at Eschersheim, near Frankfort-on-the-Main.
+
+Until the year 1828 it was believed that organic substances could only
+be formed under the influence of the vital force in the bodies of
+animals and plants. It was Wöhler who proved by the artificial
+preparation of urea from inorganic materials that this view could not be
+maintained. This discovery has always been considered as one of the most
+important contributions to our scientific knowledge. By showing that
+ammonium cyanate can become urea by an internal arrangement of its
+atoms, without gaining or losing in weight, Wöhler furnished one of the
+first and best examples of isomerism, which helped to demolish the old
+view that equality of composition could not coexist in two bodies, A
+and B, with differences in their respective physical and chemical
+properties. Two years later, in 1830, Wöhler published, jointly with
+Liebig, the results of a research on cyanic and cyanuric acid and on
+urea. Berzelius, in his report to the Swedish Academy of Sciences,
+called it the most important of all researches in physics, chemistry,
+and mineralogy published in that year. The results obtained were quite
+unexpected, and furnished additional and most important evidence in
+favor of the doctrine of isomerism. In the year 1834, Wöhler and Liebig
+published an investigation of the oil of bitter almonds. They prove by
+their experiments that a group of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms
+can behave like an element, take the place of an element, and can be
+exchanged for elements in chemical compounds. Thus the foundation was
+laid of the doctrine of compound radicals, a doctrine which has had
+and has still the most profound influence on the development of
+chemistry--so much so that its importance can hardly be exaggerated.
+Since the discovery of potassium by Davy, it was assumed that alumina
+also, the basis of clay, contained a metal in combination with oxygen.
+Davy, Oerstedt, and Berzelius attempted the extraction of this metal,
+but could not succeed. Wöhler then worked on the same subject, and
+discovered the metal aluminum. To him also is due the isolation of the
+elements yttrium, beryllium, and titanium, the observation that silicium
+can be obtained in crystals, and that some meteoric stones contain
+organic matter. He analyzed a number of meteorites, and for many years
+wrote the digest on the literature of meteorites in the _Jahresbericht
+der Chemie_; he possessed, perhaps, the best private collection of
+meteoric stones and irons existing. Wöhler and Sainte Claire Deville
+discovered the crystalline form of boron, and Wöhler and Buff the
+hydrogen compounds of silicium and a lower oxide of the same element.
+This is by no means a full statement of Wöhler's scientific work; it
+even does not mention all the discoveries which have had great influence
+on the theory of chemistry. The mere titles of the papers would fill
+several closely-printed pages. The journals of every year from 1820 to
+1881 contain contributions from his pen, and even his minor publications
+are always interesting. As was truly remarked ten years ago, when it was
+proposed by a Fellow of the Royal Society that a Copley medal should be
+conferred upon him, "for two or three of his researches he deserves the
+highest honor a scientific man can obtain, but the sum of his work is
+absolutely overwhelming. Had he never lived, the aspect of chemistry
+would be very different from that it is now."
+
+While sojourning at Cassel, Wöhler made, among other chemical
+discoveries, one for obtaining the metal nickel in a state of purity,
+and with two attached friends he founded a factory there for the
+preparation of the metal.
+
+Among the works which he published were "Grundriss der Anorganischen
+Chemie," Berlin, 1830, and the "Grundriss der Organischen Chemie,"
+Berlin, 1840. Nor must we omit to mention "Praktischen Uebringen der
+Chemischen Analyse," Berlin, 1854, and the "Lehrbuch der Chemie,"
+Dresden, 1825, 4 vols.
+
+At a sitting of the Academy, held on October 2, 1882, M. Jean Baptiste
+Dumas, the permanent secretary, with profound regret, made known
+the intelligence of the death of the illustrious foreign associate,
+Friedrich Wöhler, professor in the University of Göttingen. He said: "M.
+Friedrich Wöhler, the favorite pupil of Berzelius, had followed in the
+lines and methods of work of his master. From 1821 till his last year he
+has continuously published memoirs or simple notes, always remarkable
+for their exactness, and often of such a nature that they took among
+contemporaneous production the first rank by their importance, their
+novelty, or their fullness. Employed chiefly, during his sojourn in
+Sweden, in work on mineral chemistry, he has remained all his life the
+undisputed chief in this branch of science in German universities. This
+preparation and preoccupation, which one might have thought sufficient
+to occupy his time, did not, however, prevent him from taking the chief
+part in the development of organic chemistry, and of filling one of the
+most elevated positions in it.
+
+"His contemporaries have not forgotten the unusual sensation produced by
+the unexpected discovery by which he was enabled to make artificially,
+and by a purely chemical method, urea, the most nitrogenous of animal
+substances. Other transformations or combinations giving birth to
+substances which, until then, had only been met with in animals or
+plants, have since been obtained, but the artificial formation of urea
+still remains the neatest and most elegant example of this order of
+creation. All chemists know and admire the classical memoir in which
+Wöhler and Liebig some time after made known the nature of the benzoic
+series, and connected them with the radicals of which we may consider
+them as being the derivatives comparable with products of a mineral
+nature. Their memoirs on the derivatives of uric acid, a prolific source
+of new and remarkable substances, has been an inexhaustible mine in the
+hands of their successors.
+
+"This is not a moment when we should pretend to review the work which M.
+Wöhler has done in mineral chemistry. Among the 240 papers which he has
+published in scientific journals, there are few which the treatises of
+chemistry have not immediately turned to account. We need only confine
+ourselves to the discovery of aluminum, to which the energy and
+inventive genius of our _confrère_, Henry Deville, soon gave a place
+near the noble metals. United by a rivalry which would have divided
+less noble minds, these two great chemists carried on together their
+researches in chemistry, and joined their forces to clear up points
+still obscure in the history of boron, silicium, and the metals of
+the platinum group, and remained closely united, which each year only
+strengthened.
+
+"The reader will pardon me a souvenir entirely personal. We were born,
+M. Wöhler and I, in 1800. I am his senior by a few days. Our scientific
+life began at the same date, and during sixty years everything has
+combined to bind more closely the links of brotherhood which has existed
+for so long a time."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+OUR HEBREW POPULATION.
+
+
+The United Jewish Association has made a canvass of the denomination in
+this country, finding 278 congregations, and a total Jewish population
+of 230,984. New York has the largest number--80,565. Then follows
+Pennsylvania, with 20,000; California, with 18,580; Ohio with 14,581;
+Illinois, with 12,625, and Maryland, with 10,357.
+
+The Jewish population in the largest cities is as follows:
+
+  New York         60,000
+  San Francisco    16,000
+  Brooklyn         14,000
+  Philadelphia     13,000
+  Chicago          12,000
+  Baltimore        10,000
+  Cincinnati        8,000
+  Boston            7,000
+  St. Louis         6,500
+  New Orleans       5,000
+  Cleveland         3,500
+  Newark            3,500
+  Milwaukee         3,500
+  Louisville        2,500
+  Pittsburg         2,000
+  Detroit           2,000
+  Washington        1,500
+  New Haven         1,000
+  Rochester         1,000
+
+This total Jewish population of 230,984 has six hospitals, eleven
+orphan asylums and homes, fourteen free colleges and schools, and 602
+benevolent lodges. Of the free schools maintained by the Hebrews, five
+are in New York, four in Philadelphia, and one each in Cincinnati, St.
+Louis, Chicago, and San Francisco. Their hospitals are in New York,
+Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cincinnati, New Orleans, and Chicago, while
+their orphan asylums, homes, and other benevolent institutions are
+scattered all over the country.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE MYSTERIES OF THE BAIKAL.
+
+
+The Angara is cold as ice all the summer through, so cold, indeed, that
+to bathe in it is to court inevitable illness, and in winter a sled
+drive over its frozen surface is made in a temperature some degrees
+lower than that prevailing on the banks. This comes from the fact that
+its waters are fresh from the yet unfathomed depths of the Baikal, which
+during the five short months of summer has scarcely time to properly
+unfreeze. In winter the lake resembles in all respects a miniature
+Arctic Ocean, having its great ice hummocks and immense leads, over
+which the caravan sleds have to be ferried on large pieces of ice, just
+as in the frozen North. In winter, too, the air is so cold in the region
+above the lake that birds flying across its icy bosom sometimes drop
+down dead on the surface. Some authors say that seals have been caught
+in the lake of the same character as those found in the Arctic seas; for
+this assertion I have no proof. An immense caravan traffic is carried
+across the frozen lake every season between Russia and China. To
+accommodate this the Russian postal authorities once established a post
+house on the middle of the lake, where horses were kept for travelers.
+But this was discontinued after one winter, when an early thaw suddenly
+set in, and horses, yemschliks and post house all disappeared beneath
+the ice, and were never seen more. In summer the lake is navigated by an
+antiquated steamer called the General Korsakoff, which ventures out
+in calm weather, but cannot face the violent storms and squalls that
+sometimes rise with sudden impetuosity. Irkutskians say, indeed, that it
+is only upon Lake Baikal and upon this old hull that a man really learns
+to pray from his heart. The lake is held in superstitious reverence by
+the natives. It is called by them Svyatoe More, or the Holy Lake, and
+they believe that no Christian was ever lost in its waters, for even
+when a person is drowned in it the waves always take the trouble to cast
+the body on shore.
+
+Its length is 400 miles, its width an average of 35 miles, covers an
+area of 14,000 square miles and has a circumference of nearly 1,200
+miles, being the largest fresh water lake in the Old World, and, next to
+the Caspian and the Aral, the largest inland sheet of water in Asia. Its
+shores are bold and rugged and very picturesque, in some places 1,000
+feet high. In the surrounding forests are found game of the largest
+description, bears, deer, foxes, wolves, elk and these afford capital
+sport for the sportsmen of Irkutsk.
+
+Around the coasts are many mineral springs, hot and cold, which have a
+great reputation among the Irkutskians. The hot springs of Yurka, on the
+Selenga, 200 versts from Verchore Udevisk and not many miles from the
+eastern shore of the Baikal, which have a temperature of 48 degrees
+Réaumur and whose waters are strongly impregnated with sulphur, are
+a favorite watering place for natives as well as Russians and
+Buriats.--_Herald Correspondent with the Jeannette Search Expedition_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+TRAVELING SAND HILLS ON LAKE ONTARIO.
+
+
+An interesting example of sand-drift occurs near Wellington Bay, on Lake
+Ontario, ten miles from Pictou. The lake shore near the sand banks is
+indented with a succession of rock-paved bays, whose gradually shoaling
+margins afford rare bathing grounds. East and West Lakes, each five
+miles long, and the latter dotted with islands, are separated from
+Lake Ontario by narrow strips of beach. Over the two mile-wide isthmus
+separating the little lakes, the sand banks, whose glistening heights
+are visible miles away, are approached. On near approach they are hidden
+by the cedar woods, till the roadway in front is barred by the advancing
+bank, to avoid which a roadway through the woods has been constructed
+up to the eastern end of the sand range. The sand banks stretch like a
+crescent along the shore, the concave side turned to the lake, along
+which it leaves a pebbly beach. The length of the crescent is over two
+miles, the width 600 to 3,000 or 4,000 feet.
+
+Clambering up the steep end of the range among trees and grapevines, the
+wooded summit is gained, at an elevation of nearly 150 feet. Passing
+along the top, the woods soon disappear, and the visitor emerges on a
+wild waste of delicately tinted saffron, rising from the slate-colored
+beach in gentle undulation, and sleepily falling on the other side down
+to green pastures and into the cedar woods. The whole surface of this
+gradually undulating mountain desert is ribbed by little wavelets a few
+inches apart, but the general aspect is one of perfect smoothness. The
+sand is almost as fine as flour, and contains no admixture of dust The
+foot sinks only an inch or two in walking over it; children roll about
+on it and down its slopes, and, rising, shake themselves till their
+clothing loses every trace of sand. Occasionally gusts stream over the
+wild waste, raising a dense drift to a height of a foot or two only, and
+streaming like a fringe over the steep northern edge. Though the sun is
+blazing down on the glistening wilderness there is little sensation of
+heat, for the cool lake breeze is ever blowing. On the landward side,
+the insidious approach of the devouring sand is well marked. One hundred
+and fifty feet below, the foot of this moving mountain is sharply
+defined against the vivid green of the pastures, on which the grass
+grows luxuriantly to within an inch of the sand wall. The ferns of the
+cedar woods almost droop against the sandy slope. The roots of the trees
+are bare along the white edge; a foot or two nearer the sand buries the
+feet of the cedars: a few yards nearer still the bare trunks disappear;
+still nearer only the withered topmast twigs of the submerged forest are
+seen, and then far over the tree tops stands the sand range. Perpetual
+ice is found under the foot of this steep slope, the sand covering and
+consolidating the snows drifted over the hill during the winter months.
+There is something awe-inspiring, says the correspondent of the Toronto
+Globe, in the slow, quiet, but resistless advance of the mountain front.
+Field and forest alike become completely submerged. Ten years ago a
+farm-house was swallowed up, not to emerge in light until the huge sand
+wave has passed over.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+RECENT IMPROVEMENTS IN TEXTILE MACHINERY.
+
+
+At the recent exhibition at Boston of the New England Institute, several
+interesting novelties were shown which have a promise of considerable
+economic and industrial value.
+
+Fig. 1 represents the general plan and pulley connections of the Harris
+Revolving-Ring Spinning Frame. The purpose of the improvements which
+it embodies is to avoid the uneven draught of the yarn in spinning and
+winding incident to the use of a fixed ring. With the non-revolving ring
+the strain upon the yarn varies greatly, owing to the difference
+in diameter of the full and empty bobbin. At the base of the cone,
+especially in spinning weft, or filling, the diameter of the cop is five
+or six times that of the quill at the tip. As the yarn is wound upon the
+cone, the line of draught upon the traveler varies continually, the pull
+being almost direct where the bobbin is full, and nearly at right angles
+where it is empty. With the increasing angle the drag upon the traveler
+increases, not only causing frequent breakages of the yarn, but also an
+unequal stretching of the yarn, so that the yarn perceptibly varies in
+fineness. The unequal strain further causes the yarn to be more tightly
+wound upon the outside than upon the inside of the bobbin, giving rise
+to snarls and wastage.
+
+[Illustration: RECENT IMPROVEMENTS IN TEXTILE MACHINERY.--1,
+2.--SPINNING WITHOUT A MULE--THE HARRIS REVOLVING RING SPINNING FRAME.
+3, 4, 5.--NEW ELECTRIC STOP MOTION FOR DRAWING FRAMES. 6.--NEW POSITIVE
+MOTION LOOM.]
+
+These difficulties have hitherto prevented the application of ring
+spinning to the finer grades of yarn. They are overcome in the new
+spinning frame by an ingenious device by which a revolving motion is
+given to the ring in the same direction as the motion of the traveler,
+thereby reducing its friction upon the ring, the speed of the ring being
+variable, and so controlled as to secure a uniform tension upon the yarn
+at all stages of the winding.
+
+The construction of the revolving ring is shown in Fig. 2. C is the
+revolving ring; D, the hollow axis support; H, a section of the ring
+frame; E, the traveler.
+
+To give the required variable speed to the revolving ring there is
+placed directly over the drum, Fig. 1, A, for driving the spindle a
+smaller drum, B, from which bands drive each ring separately. The shaft,
+which is attached by cross girts to the ring rail, and moves up and down
+with it, is driven by a pair of conical drums from the main cylinder
+shaft; and is so arranged with a loose pulley on the large end of the
+receiving cone as to remain stationary while the wind is on or near the
+base of the bobbin. When the cone of the bobbin diminishes so as to
+materially increase the pull on the traveler, the conical drums are
+started by a belt shipper attached to the lilt motion. By the movement
+of the belt on these drums a continually accelerated motion is given to
+the rings, their maximum speed being about one-twentieth the number
+of revolutions per minute as the spindle has at the same moment. This
+action is reversed when the lift falls. The tension of the wind upon
+the bobbin is thus kept uniform, the desired hardness of the wind being
+secured by the use of a heavier or lighter traveler according to the
+compactness of cop required.
+
+The model frame shown at the fair did its work admirably well, spinning
+yarns as high as No. 400, a fineness hitherto unattainable on ring
+frames. It is claimed that this invention can do whatever can be done
+with the mule, and without the skilled labor which mule spinning
+demands.
+
+This invention is exhibited by E. & A. W. Harris, Providence, R.I.
+
+
+NEW ELECTRIC STOP MOTION.
+
+Figs. 3, 4, and 5 illustrate some of the applications of the electric
+stop motion in connection with cotton machinery. The merit of this
+invention lies in simplifying the means by which machinery may be
+stopped automatically the instant, its work, from accident or otherwise,
+begins to be improperly done. The use of electricity for this purpose
+is made possible by the fact that comparatively dry cotton is a
+nonconductor of electricity. In the process of carding, drawing or
+spinning, the cotton is made to pass between rollers or other pieces
+forming parts of an electric circuit. So long as the machine is properly
+fed and in proper working condition, the stopping apparatus rests;
+the moment the continuity of the cotton is broken or any irregularity
+occurs, electric contact results, completing the circuit and causing an
+electro magnet to act upon a lever or other device, and the machine is
+stopped. The current is supplied by a small magneto-electric machine
+driven by a band from the main driving shaft, and is always available
+while the engine is running.
+
+Fig. 3 shows the general arrangement of the apparatus as applied to a
+drawing frame. In the process of drawing down the roll of cotton--the
+sliver--four things may happen making it necessary to stop the machine.
+A sliver may break on the way from the can to the drawing rollers,
+or the supply of cotton may become exhausted; the cotton may lap or
+accumulate on the drawing rollers; the sliver may break between the
+drawing rollers and the calender rollers; or the front can may overflow.
+In each and all of these cases the electric circuit is instantly
+completed; the parts between which the cotton flows either come
+together, as when breakage occurs, or, if there is lapping, they are
+separated so as to make contact above. In any case, the current causes
+the electro-magnet, S, against the side of the machine to move its
+armature and set the stop motion in play.
+
+Figs. 4 and 5 represent in detail the manner in which electric
+connection is made in two cases requiring the intervention of the stop
+motion. In Fig. 4 the upper part of a receiving can is shown. When
+the can is full the cotton lifts the tube wheel, J, until it makes an
+electrical connection, and the stop motion is brought into instant
+action. In Fig. 5, the traction upon the yarn holds the hook borne by
+the spring, F, away from G, and the electric circuit is interrupted. A
+breakage of the yarn allows this spring to act; contact is made, and the
+stop motion operates as before.
+
+This simple and efficient device is exhibited by Howard & Bullough &
+Riley, of Boston.
+
+
+NEW POSITIVE MOTION LOOM.
+
+Fig. 6 shows the essential features of a positive motion loom, intended
+for weaving narrow fabrics, exhibited by Knowles, of Worcester, Mass.
+The engraving shows so clearly how, by a right and left movement of the
+rack, the shuttle is thrown by the action of the intermediate cogwheels,
+that further description is unnecessary.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+SPINNING WITHOUT A MULE.
+
+
+At the recent semi-annual meeting of the New England Cotton
+Manufacturers' Association, held at the Institute of Technology, Boston,
+the following paper on the Harris system of revolving ring spinning was
+read by Col. Webber for the author:
+
+It is well known that one of the most serious difficulties in ring
+spinning is the variable pull upon the traveler, caused by the
+difference in diameter of the full and empty bobbins, and this is
+especially noticeable in spinning weft, or filling, when the diameter of
+the quill at the tip is not over 3-16 of an inch, while that of the base
+of the cone, or full bobbin, is from an inch to an inch and one-eighth.
+This variation in diameter causes the line of draught upon the traveler,
+which, with the full bobbin, forms nearly a tangent to the interior
+circle of the ring, to be nearly radial to it with an empty one, and
+this increased drag upon the traveler not only causes frequent breakage
+in spinning, but also stretches the yarn, so that it is perceptibly
+finer when it is spun on the nose of the bobbin than when it is spun on
+the bottom of the cone.
+
+Endeavors have been made to compensate for this difficulty by making
+a less draught at that period of the operation; but we believe the
+principle of curing one error by adding another to be wrong, and aim by
+our improvement to avoid the cause of the trouble, which we do by giving
+a revolving motion to the ring itself in the same direction as that of
+the traveler, at a variable speed, so as to aid its slip, and reduce its
+friction on the ring. This we accomplish by means of a shaft with whorls
+on it, located directly over the drum for driving the spindle, from
+which bands drive each ring separately; and attached by cross-girts to
+the ring-rail, and moving up and down with it.
+
+This shaft is driven by a pair of conical drums from the main cylinder
+shaft, and is so arranged with a loose pulley on the large end of the
+receiving cone as to remain stationary while the wind is on or near the
+base of the bobbin, or nearly parallel to the path of the traveler.
+
+When the cone of the bobbin begins to diminish to such a point as to
+materially increase the radial pull on the traveler, these conical drums
+are put in operation by a belt shipper attached to the lift motion,
+which moves the belt on to the cones, and gives a continually
+accelerated motion to the rings, so that when the wind reaches the top
+of the bobbin the rings will have their maximum speed of about 300
+revolutions per minute, or about one-twentieth the number of revolutions
+of the spindle at this point, if the latter make 6000 revolutions per
+minute, and this we find in actual practice to produce results which are
+highly satisfactory.
+
+As the lift falls again, the belt is moved back on the cones, giving a
+retarding motion to the rings, until it reaches the point at which it
+began to operate, and is then either moved on to the loose pulley, and
+the rings remain stationary, or for very fine yarn are kept in motion at
+a slow speed. We are often asked if this does not affect the twist, but
+answer that it does not in the least, as the relative speeds of the
+rolls and spindles remain the same, and the only thing that can be
+affected is the hardness of the wind upon the bobbin, and this is
+adjustable by the use of a heavier or lighter traveler, according to the
+compactness of cop required.
+
+We claim by means of this improvement the ability to use a much smaller
+quill or bobbin, and consequently holding as much yarn in a less outside
+diameter, enabling us to use a smaller ring, thus saving power both in
+the weight of bobbin to be carried and in the distance to be moved by
+the traveler; and we believe the power to be saved in this manner and by
+the diminution of the dead pull on the traveler, when the wind is at
+the tip of the bobbin, to be more than sufficient to give the necessary
+motion to the revolving rings. We are as yet unable to answer this
+question of power fully, as we have not yet tested a full size frame,
+but we propose to do this in season to answer all questions at the next
+meeting of your association.
+
+The same invention is also applicable to warp spinning, by giving the
+ring a continuous accelerating and retarding motion, in which the
+maximum speed is given to the ring at the first start of the frame when
+the bobbin is empty, sufficient to diminish the strain on the yarn,
+and gradually reducing the motion at each traverse of the rail, as the
+bobbin is filled; but we claim the great advantage of our invention to
+be the capability of spinning any grade of yarn on the ring frame that
+can be spun on the hand or self-operating mule, and in proof of this we
+call your attention to the model frame now in operation at the fair of
+the New England Manufacturers' and Mechanics' Institute, where we are
+spinning on a quill only 5-32 inches diameter at top, and where we can
+show you samples of yarn from No. 80 to No. 400 spun on this frame from
+combed roving from the Conant Thread Company and Willimantic Linen
+Company, which we believe has never before been accomplished on any ring
+frame.
+
+We invite you to examine this invention at the fair, and also call your
+attention to the adjustable roller beam, by means of which the rolls can
+be adjusted at any desirable angle or pitch, so as to throw the twist
+more or less directly spinning, and an improvement in the quality of the
+yarn from the same cause, which will increase the production from the
+loom, and finally eradicate other objectionable features of the labor
+question, which so often disturb the peaceful harmony between labor and
+capital.
+
+Mr, Goulding asked if it had been demonstrated whether more or less
+power was required for the same numbers than effect of running the
+machine a little out of true, and the reply was that the advantage of
+the new method over the old would be more apparent in such a case than
+with a perfect frame. In regard to speed, the inventor proposed as
+a maximum rate, when the wind was at the tip of the bobbin, 300
+revolutions per minute, but from this point the speed would diminish.
+
+Conant Thread Company and Willimantic Linen Company, which we believe
+has never before been accomplished on any ring frame.
+
+We invite you to examine this invention at the fair, and also call your
+attention to the adjustable roller beam, by means of which the rolls can
+be adjusted at any desirable angle or pitch, so as to throw the twist
+more or less directly into the bite of the rolls, according to the
+character of the yarn desired, or the quality of the stock used.
+
+Finally, we claim, by the use of this invention, to be able to spin any
+fibrous material which can be drawn by draught-rolls, of any required
+degree of softness of twist, such as can be spun by any mule whatever,
+and to do this with the attention only of children of from twelve to
+fourteen years of age.
+
+We also claim an increased production, owing to less breakage of ends,
+from the yarn not being overstrained in spinning, and an improvement in
+the quality of the yarn from the same cause, which will increase the
+production from the loom, and finally eradicate other objectionable
+features of the labor question, which so often disturb the peaceful
+harmony between labor and capital.
+
+Mr. Goulding asked if it had been demonstrated whether more or less
+power was required for the same numbers than by other methods, and Col.
+Webber replied that no more power was required to move the rings than
+was saved by friction on the ring and the saving of weight of the
+bobbins. He thought it required no more power than the old way.
+
+_The method of lubricating the ring_.--The inventor, who was present,
+stated, in response to a query, that he claimed an advantage for his
+ring in spinning all numbers from the very coarsest up, both in quality
+and quantity, and especially the former.
+
+Mr. Garsed inquired of Col Webber what would be the effect of running
+the machine a little out of true, and the reply was that the advantage
+of the new method over the old would be more apparent in such a case
+than with a perfect frame. In regard to speed, the inventor proposed
+as a maximum rate, when the wind was at the tip of the bobbin, 300
+revolutions per minute, but from this point the speed would diminish.
+
+It was suggested by a member that the only advantage of a revolving ring
+was to relieve the strain on the traveler just to the extent of the
+ring's revolutions. If the ring were making 300 revolutions per minute,
+and the traveler 6,000, the strain on the latter would be equal to 5,700
+revolutions on a stationary ring. Col. Webber, however, thought that the
+motion of the ring gave the traveler a lift that prevented its stopping
+at any particular point, and cited the fact that all numbers up to 400
+could be spun with this ring as proof of its superiority over the old
+method.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+NEW GAS BURNER.
+
+
+Speaking at the last meeting of the Gaslight and Coke Company, Mr.
+George Livesey said many things with a view to inspire confidence of the
+future in the minds of timid gas proprietors. Among others he mentioned
+the advances now being made by invention in regard to improved
+appliances for developing the illuminating power of coal gas, with
+especial reference to a new burner just patented by Mr. Grimston. Mr.
+Livesey passed a very high encomium upon the burner, and this expression
+of opinion by such an authority is sufficient to arouse deep interest in
+the apparatus in question. It is therefore with much pleasure that we
+present our readers with the following early account of Mr. Grimston's
+burner, for which we are indebted to the inventor and Mr. George Bower,
+of St. Neots, in whose manufactory the burners are now being made in all
+sizes. It should be premised, to save disappointment, that the invention
+is yet so fresh that its ultimate capabilities are unknown. The
+accompanying illustration, therefore, represents the bare skeleton of
+one of the first models; and the actual performance of only the very
+earliest burner, made in great part by Mr. Grimston himself, has been
+fully tested. Before proceeding to describe the invention, a brief
+history may be interesting of how it happened that Mr. Grimston, an
+electric lighting engineer, became a gas burner maker. The story will
+undoubtedly help to explain the reasons for many of the characteristics
+of the new burner.
+
+[Illustration: IMPROVED GAS BURNER. FIG. 1.--Sectional Elevation.]
+
+It appears, then, that Mr. Grimston, who was connected with the
+electrical engineering establishment of Siemens Bros. & Co., Limited,
+was some months ago shown the construction and working of the Siemens
+regenerative gas burner, which is now sufficiently well known to render
+a description unnecessary here. In common with most spectators of this
+very ingeniously and philosophically designed appliance, Mr. Grimston
+was struck with its bulk and the superficial clumsiness of the
+arrangement whereby the air and gas supply are heated in it by the
+products of combustion. These lamps have, of course, materially improved
+of late; but when Mr. Grimston first saw them, perhaps 18 months ago,
+they certainly could not be called neat and compact in design. He
+at once grasped the idea embodied in these lamps, and set about
+constructing an arrangement which should be based on a similar
+principle, but at the same time avoid the inconveniences complained of.
+It is not too much to say that he has succeeded in both these aims, and
+the burner which now bears his name strikes the observer at once by
+the brilliant light which it produces by the simplest and most
+obvious means. We may now describe, by reference to the accompanying
+illustrations, how Mr. Grimston produces the regenerative effect which
+is likewise the central idea of the Siemens burner.
+
+[Illustration: IMPROVED GAS BURNER. FIG. 2.--Section through A B.]
+
+The light is simply that produced by an arrangement of a kind of Argand
+burner turned upside down. The central gas-pipe, _a_ (Figs. 1 and 3), is
+connected to a distributing chamber, whence the annular cluster of brass
+tubes, _a', a_, (Figs. 1 and 2), are prolonged downward, forming the
+burner. The burner is inclosed in an iron or brass annular casing, b, b,
+which forms the main framework of the apparatus. The annular space which
+it affords is the outlet chimney or flue for the products of combustion
+of the burner beneath, and is crossed by a number of thin brass tubes,
+c, c, which lead from the outer air into the inner space containing
+the burner tubes, a', a', already described. The upper openings of the
+annular body, b, are shown at e, e (Fig. 3), which communicate direct
+with the chimney proper, e', e'. The burner is lighted by opening the
+hinged glass cover, d, which fits practically air-tight on the bottom
+of the body, so that the air needed to support combustion must all pass
+through the tubes, c, c, the outer ends of which are protected by the
+casing, k, k.
+
+[Illustration: IMPROVED GAS BURNER. FIG. 3.--Section through C D.]
+
+When the gas is lighted at the burner, and the glass closed, the burner
+begins to act at once, although some minutes are necessarily required
+to elapse before its full brilliancy is gained. The cold air passes in
+through the tubes provided for it, and when these are heated to the
+fullest extent on their outside, by the hot fumes from the burner, they
+so readily part with their heat to the air that a temperature of 1,000°
+to 1,200° Fahr. is easily obtained in the air when it arrives inside,
+and commences in turn to heat the burner-tubes. The air-tubes are placed
+so as to intercept the hot gases as completely as possible; and also, of
+course, obtain heat by conduction from the sides of the annular body.
+It is evident that the number and dimensions of these tubes might be
+increased so as to abstract almost all the heat from the escaping fumes,
+but for the limitations imposed, first, by a consideration of the actual
+quantity of air required to support combustion, and, secondly, by the
+obligation to let sufficient ascensional power remain in the gases which
+are left to pass out through the upper chimney. If the gases are cooled
+too much, they will either fall back into the lamp and extinguish the
+flame, or will be removable only by the draught of a long chimney. It
+will probably be the aim of the inventor to balance these requirements,
+and so to produce burners with very short or longer chimneys, according
+as appearance is to be consulted or the highest possible effect
+produced. The burner is a ring of brass tubes of considerable diameter,
+in proportion to the quantity of gas consumed, and thus provides for
+the delivery of gas expanded by heat. In connection with this device
+an explanation may be found of the failure of the British Association
+Committee on Gas Burners to find any advantage from previously heating
+the air and gas consumed. The Committee did not make the necessary
+provision for the increased bulk of the combustible and its air supply,
+caused by their heightened temperature; and the same quantity of gas
+measured cold (at the meter) could only be driven through the ordinary
+small burner holes at a velocity destructive of good results. Herr
+Frederick Siemens perceived this in his early experiments, and not only
+increased the orifices of his burners, but provided for the closer
+contact of the more rarefied gas and air by the use of notched
+deflectors, which are now an essential part of his apparatus. Mr.
+Grimston also uses separate tubes of large area for his hot gas, but
+dispenses with deflectors, save in so far as the same duty may be
+performed by the plain lower edge of the inner cylinder of the lamp
+body, and the indentation of the glass beneath, which, as will be
+noticed, is made to follow the shape of the flame. It only remains now
+to speak of the flame and its qualities. It is, in the first place, a
+flame of hot gas, burning at an extremly small velocity of flow, and
+wholly exposed to view from the exact point which it is required to
+light. In this latter respect it differs materially, and with advantage,
+from the Siemens burner, which, while presenting an extremely brilliant
+and beautiful ball of flame outside its central tube of porcelain, may
+yet be tailing smokily downward inside this opaque screen, and thereby
+causing unperceived waste. The flame of the Grimston burner, on the
+other hand, is quite exposed, and all its light, from the ends of the
+burner-tubes to the point where visible combustion ceases, is made
+available for use. As a perfect Argand flame in the usual position has
+been likened in form to a tulip flower, so the flame of this burner
+presents the appearance of an inverted convolvulus. So far as he has
+already gone, Mr. Grimston prefers to keep the tubes of the burner at
+such a distance from each other that the several jets part at the point
+where they turn upward, so that the convolvulus figure is not maintained
+to the edge of the flame. From its peculiar position the light is, of
+course, completely shadowless as regards the lamp which affords it; and
+this, of itself, is no small recommendation for a pendant. It shows well
+for the simplicity and effectiveness of the perfected burners that Mr.
+Grimston's experimental example, although necessarily imperfect In many
+ways, burns with a remarkably steady light, of great brilliancy, which
+is assured by the fact that the products of combustion are robbed of all
+their heat to magnify the useful effect, so that the hand may be borne
+with ease over the outlet of the chimney. With respect to the endurance
+of the apparatus, it will be sufficient to remark that there is nothing
+in the gas or air heating arrangements to get out of order, and they are
+all easily accessible while the burner is in action. The glass is not
+liable to breakage, although it is in close proximity to the flame, as
+may be gathered from the testimony of the inventor, who has never broken
+one, notwithstanding the severity of some of his experimental studies
+upon his first lamp. The consumption of gas in the first working-model
+burner made by Mr. Grimston was 10 cubic feet per hour, and its
+illuminating power averaged 60 candles. The diameter of this burner was
+1¼ inches across the tubes. It is scarcely necessary to state that if
+this high duty, which was obtained with the ordinary 16-candle gas of
+the Gaslight and Coke Company, can be maintained, to say nothing of
+being exceeded, in the commercial article, the Grimston burner, with its
+other advantages over all existing methods of obtaining equal results,
+has a great future before it. For example, it does not require a
+separate air supply under high pressure, or any extra material to render
+incandescent, and it may be turned on full immediately upon lighting. It
+throws a shadowless light, and lends itself to ventilating arrangements;
+and it is not by any means cumbersome, delicate in construction, or
+costly in manufacture. One of the greatest advantages to which it lays
+claim is, however, the power of yielding almost as good results in a
+small burner as in a large one. This is a consideration of great moment,
+when it is remembered that the tendency of most of the high power
+burners hitherto introduced is to benefit the lighting of streets,
+large interiors, and, generally speaking, points of great consumption.
+Meanwhile, the private user of burners, consuming from 3 to 5 cubic feet
+of gas per hour, has been left to attain as best he might, by the use of
+burners excellent of their kind, to the maximum effect of the standard
+Argand. Now, however, Mr. Grimston seeks to make the small consumer
+partake of the advantages erstwhile reserved for the wholesale user of
+large and costly Siemens and other lamps, and he even looks to this
+class of patrons with particular care. The example which we now
+illustrate, in Fig. 1, is a sectional presentment precisely half the
+actual size of a 5-foot burner, which it is intended to prepare for
+the market before all others. Another simple form of the burner, with
+vertical tubes, will, we understand, be introduced as soon as possible.
+It will be readily understood that the principle is capable of being
+embodied in many shapes; and it is satisfactory to learn that the
+inventor is quite alive to the necessity of producing a cheap as well as
+a good burner.
+
+Gas companies, as Mr. Livesey has expressed it, will be well content
+with a slower relative growth of consumption, if their consumers are at
+the same time making their gas go as far again as formerly, by the use
+of burners which turn nominal 16-candle gas into gas of 30-candle actual
+illuminating power. How far Mr. Grimston's invention may succeed in this
+work it is not for us to say. It is sufficient for the present that
+he has done excellently well in showing how Herr Frederick Siemens'
+scientific principles of regenerative gas burner construction may
+be carried out yet in another way. There is nothing more common in
+industrial annals than for one man to begin a work which another is
+destined to bring to greater perfection. Whether this natural process is
+to be repeated in the present instance must be left for the future to
+decide. In any case, Mr. Grimston's success, if success is to be his
+reward, though it will be well merited by his ingenuity and perseverance
+in solving a difficult problem, will never cause us to forget the
+prior claims of Herr Frederick Siemens, of Dresden, to the palm of the
+discoverer. Mr. Grimston may or may not be the happy inventor of the
+best gas-burner of the day; but there is the consolation of knowing that
+in the same field in which he will find his recompense there is room for
+any number and variety of useful improvements of a like character and
+object.--_Journal of Gas Lighting_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+DEFTY'S IMPROVEMENTS IN GAS BURNERS AND HEATERS.
+
+
+Among other inventors who have turned their attention to gas consumption
+is to be found Mr. H. Defty, who has made several forms both of heating
+and lighting burners. Mr. Defty has sought in the latter to apply the
+principle of heating the air and gas in a simple manner, with the object
+of obtaining improved photometrical results. The double-chimney
+Argand, as tried many years since by Dr. Frankland and others, makes
+a reappearance in one of Mr. Defty's models, illustrated in the
+accompanying diagram (Fig. 1).
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 1.]
+
+Here we have the double-chimney, a and b, for heating the air supplied
+to an ordinary Argand, by causing it to pass downward between the two
+chimneys, and inward to the point of combustion through a wire-gauze
+screen, c, under the inner chimney; but, in addition thereto, Mr. Defty
+hopes to gain an improved result by causing the gas to pass through the
+internal tube, s, which rises up in the middle of the flame. The gas,
+which enters at e, is made to pass up through the inner tube and down
+through the annular space to the burner.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 2.]
+
+A more important form of lantern is the subject of the next diagram
+(Fig. 2), which shows a suspended globe lantern in which there is an
+attempt made to heat the air by the waste heat of the products of
+combustion. It will be perceived by the diagram that a globe lantern is
+furnished with a double chimney; the annular space, C, between the
+inner and outer chimneys allowing for the access of air in a downward
+direction. At the lower of this annular channel are the tubes D,
+protected by the graduated mesh, E, and which admit the air to the
+burner below. The products of combustion of the flame rise through the
+inner chimney, passing around the tubes, and thereby giving up some of
+their heat to the incoming air. Farther up, the chimney is partly filled
+with the convoluted gas-pipe, A, which also takes up some of the waste
+heat, and delivers the gas to the burner at a correspondingly high
+temperature. A very simple method of lighting this burner, which in
+itself does not present anything remarkable, is arranged at the lower
+part of the globe, where a hole is cut and a loose conical glass plug
+(which can, of course, be made to partake of the general ornamentation
+of the globe) may be pushed up to allow of the passage of the lighting
+agent, and is then dropped in its place again. Formal tests of the
+performances of these burners are not available; and the same may be
+said of the heating burners which are shown in the following diagrams.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 3.]
+
+The first of these (Fig. 3) is called by Mr. Defty a "pyramid heater,"
+and is designed to heat the mixture of air and gas before ignition, by
+conduction from its own flame. The inventor claims to effect a perfect
+combustion in this manner with considerable economy of fuel. It is
+evident, however, that a good deal of the gas consumed goes to heat the
+burner itself.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 4.]
+
+The next and last of Mr. Defty's productions to be at present described
+is the so-called "crater burner," shown herewith (Fig. 4). This is an
+atmospheric burner which is purposely made to "fire back," as well as
+to burn on the top of the apparatus. The body of the burner, like the
+pyramid heater just described, is full of fire-clay balls, which become
+very hot from the lower flame, and thus, after the burner has been for
+some time in action, a pale, lambent blaze crowns the top, apparently
+greater in volume than when it is first lighted. Here, again, there is a
+lamentable absence of reliable data as to economic results, which will,
+perhaps, be afforded when the apparatus in question is ready to be
+offered to the public.
+
+Whether one inventor or another succeeds in distancing his rivals, it is
+matter, says _The Journal of Gas Lighting_, for sincere congratulation
+among the friends of gas lighting that so much attention is being
+concentrated upon the improvement of gas burners for all purposes. This
+is an open field which affords scope for more workers than have yet
+entered upon it, and there is the certainty of substantial reward to
+whoever can realize a worthy advance upon the established practice.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+NEW BINDING MACHINES.
+
+
+The accompanying cuts represent two new machines for binding together
+books and pamphlets. They are the invention of Messrs. Brehmer & Co.,
+and are now much used in England and Germany. The material used for
+binding is galvanized iron wire.
+
+_Machine Operated by Hand_ (Fig. 1).--This machine serves for fastening
+together the pages of pamphlets through the middle of the fold, or for
+binding together several sheets to form books up to a thickness of about
+half an inch.
+
+It consists of a small cast-iron frame, with which is articulated a
+lever, _i_, maneuvered by a handle, _h_. This lever is provided at its
+extremity with a curved slat, in which engages a stud, fixed to the
+lower part of a movable arm, _c_, whose extremity, _d_, rises and
+descends when the lever handle, _h_, is acted upon. This maneuver can be
+likewise performed by the foot, if the handle, _h_, be connected with a
+pedal, X, placed at the foot of the table that supports the machine,
+as shown in Fig. 2. The lever, _i_, is always drawn back to its first
+position, when left to itself, by means of the spring, _z_.
+
+[Illustration: IMPROVED BINDING MACHINE.]
+
+The staples for binding have nearly the form of the letter U, and are
+placed, to the number of 250 or 300, on small blocks of wood, _m_. To
+prepare the machine for work, the catch, _a_, is shoved back, and the
+whole upper part of the piece, _b_, is removed. The rod, _e_, with its
+spring, is then drawn back until a small hole in _e_ is perceived,
+and into this there is introduced the hook, _f_, which then holds the
+spring. The block of wood, _m_, filled with staples, is then rested
+against a rectangular horizontal rod, and into this latter the staples
+are slipped by hand. The upper part of the piece, _b_, is next put in
+place and fastened with the catch, _a_. Finally, the spring is freed
+from the hook, _f_. When it is desired to bind the pages of a pamphlet,
+the latter is placed open on the support, _g_, which, as will be
+noticed, is angular above, so that the staple may enter exactly on the
+line of the fold. Then the handle, _h_, is shoved down so as to act on
+the arm, _c_, and cause the descent of the extremity, _d_, as well as
+the vertical piece, _b_, with which it engages. This latter, in its
+downward travel, takes up one of the staples, which are continually
+thrust forward by the rod and spring, and causes it to penetrate the
+paper. At this moment, the handle, _h_, makes the lever, _n_, oscillate,
+and this raises, through its other extremity, a vertical slide whose
+head bends the two points of the staple toward each other. The handle,
+_h_, is afterward lifted, the position of the pamphlet is changed, and
+the same operation is repeated. When it is desired to form a book from
+a number of sheets, the table, _l_, is mounted on the support, _g_, its
+two movable registers are regulated, and the sheets are spread out flat
+on it. The machine, in operating, drives the staples in along the edge
+of the sheets, and the points are bent over, as above indicated.
+
+The axis on which the lever, _i_, is articulated is eccentric, and is
+provided on the side opposite the lever with a needle, _k_, revolving
+on a dial. The object of this arrangement is to regulate the machine
+according to the thickness of the book.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
+
+_Machine to be Operated by a Motor_ (Fig. 3).--This machine, although
+working on the same principle, is of an entirely different construction.
+It is designed for binding books of all dimensions. It consists of a
+frame, _a_, in two pieces, connected by cross-pieces, and carries a
+table, _u_, designed to receive the sheets before being bound together.
+Motion is transmitted by means of a cone, _c_, mounted loose on the
+shaft, _b_. To start the machine, the foot is pressed on the pedal, _m_,
+which, through the intermedium of links and arms, brings together the
+friction plates, _d_, one of which is connected with the shaft, _b_, and
+the other with the cone, _c_. When it is desired to stop the machine,
+the pedal is left free to itself, while the counterpoise, _s_, ungears
+the friction plates. The machine fastens the paper with galvanized iron
+wire wound round bobbins placed at the side of the apparatus. This wire
+it cuts, and forms into staples.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
+
+The book to be bound is placed on the support, _h_, and the arms, _k_,
+that carry the fasteners cause it to move backward and forward. It also
+undergoes a second motion--that is, it moves downward according to the
+number and thickness of its pages. This motion, which takes place
+every time the operator adds a new sheet, is regulated by a cog-wheel
+register, _l_, which is divided, and provided with a needle.
+
+The iron wires pass from the bobbins on a support to the left of the
+machine by means of feed rollers, which thrust them through the eight
+clips. In the interior of these latter there is a double knife, which,
+actuated by one of the cams of the wheel, _e_, cuts the wire and bends
+it thus [Inline Illustration]. The extremities of the staples are thrust
+through the back of the half opened leaves, and then bent toward each
+other thus [Inline Illustration], by the front fastener. This motion is
+effected by means of two levers, _p_ (moved by the cams, _e_), whose
+extremities at every revolution of the machine seize by the two ends a
+link that maneuvers the fasteners. The binding of one sheet finished,
+the lower arms of the machine again take their position, the wires move
+forward the length necessary to form new staples, a new sheet is laid,
+and the same operation is proceeded with. The number of staples and
+their distance are changed, according to the size of the book, by
+introducing into the machine as much wire as will be necessary for the
+staples. To prevent their number from increasing the thickness of the
+back of the book (as would happen were they superposed), the support,
+_h_, moves laterally at every blow, so as to cause the third staple to
+be driven over the first, the second over the fourth, etc.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+FLUMES AND THEIR CONSTRUCTION.
+
+
+In crossing ravines in this State, flumes or wrought iron pipes are
+used. Many miners object to flumes on account of their continual cost
+and danger of destruction by fire. Where used and practicable, they
+are set on heavier grades than ditches, 30 to 35 ft. per mile, and,
+consequently, are proportionately of smaller area than the ditches. In
+their construction a straight line is the most desirable. Curves, where
+required, should be carefully set, so that the flume may discharge its
+maximum quantity. Many ditches in California have miles of fluming. The
+annexed sketch, drawn by A. J. Bowie, Jr., will show the ordinary style
+of construction.
+
+[Illustration: SKETCH OF FLUME.]
+
+The planking ordinarily used is of heart sugar pine, one and a half to
+two inches thick, and 12 to 18 inches wide. Where the boards join, pine
+battens three inches wide by one and a half thick cover the seam. Sills,
+posts, and caps support and strengthen the flume every four feet. The
+posts are mortised into the caps and sills. The sills extend about
+20 inches beyond the posts, and to them side braces are nailed to
+strengthen the structure. This extension of the sill timbers affords a
+place for the accumulation of snow and ice, and in the mountains such
+accumulations frequently break them off, and occasionally destroy a
+flume.
+
+To avoid damage from slides, snow, and wind storms, the flumes are set
+in as close as possible to the bank, and rest, wholly or partially, on
+a solid bed, as the general topography and costs will admit. Stringers
+running the entire length of the flume are placed beneath the sills just
+outside of the posts. They are not absolutely necessary, but in point of
+economy are most valuable, as they preserve the timbers. As occasion
+may demand, the flume is trestled, the main supports being placed every
+eight feet. The scantling and struts used are in accordance with the
+requirements of the work.--_Min. and Sci. Press_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHUWAB'S ROLLING MILL FOR DRESSING AND ROUNDING BAR IRON.
+
+
+This new forge apparatus has been devised for the purpose of finishing
+up round irons of all diameters while hot, as they come out of
+the ordinary rolling mill, by rendering them perfectly circular,
+cylindrical, straight, smooth, and level at the extremities, as if they
+had passed through a slide lathe. Such a high degree of external finish
+is a very valuable feature in those round irons that are employed in so
+great quantity for shafting, cylindrical axles, etc., as well as in the
+manufacture of bolts and locks. Figs. 1, 2, 3, and 4 of the opposite
+engraving will allow it to be seen that this apparatus which is usually
+installed at the side of the finishing cylinder is, in part, beneath
+the general level of the forge floor. It may be placed parallel with or
+perpendicular to the apparatus that it does duty for, this depending
+upon the site at disposal or the mode of transmission.
+
+The apparatus consists essentially of two tempered iron cylinders, A,
+0.5 of a meter in diameter by 1.5 meters in length, revolving in the
+_same direction_ (contrary to what takes place in ordinary rolling
+mills) between two frames, B, that are open on one side to allow of
+the entrance of the finishing bar. This latter is held between the
+cylinders, A, which roll it so much the faster in proportion as its
+diameter is smaller, and by a scraper guide, C, of the same length as
+the cylinder table, and which may be regulated at will by bolts, c,
+fixed to the frame, B. The bottom cylinder remains always in the same
+position, while the axle, D, which carries the intermediate wheels, E,
+moves about to gear in all the relative positions of the cylinders. The
+displacement of the upper cylinder is effected through the clamping
+screws, b, which are actuated by toothed disks that gear with two
+endless screws keyed at the extremities of one shaft in common, d, which
+is set in motion by hand through the winches, m m. The scraper guards, e
+e, take up and throw aside all scales that might become attached to the
+cylinders, which are constantly moistened by small streams of water
+coming from an ordinary conduit.
+
+[Illustration: CHUWAB'S DRESSING AND ROUNDING ROLLING MILL.
+
+Fig. 1--Elevation and Longitudinal Section.
+
+Fig. 2--Side View.
+
+Fig. 3--Transvers Section.
+
+Fig. 4--Plan View.
+
+Figs. 5 & 6--Saws for Dressing the Extremities of the Bars.
+
+Fig. 7--Diagram Showing the Motion of the Wheels and Guide.
+
+Figs. 8 & 9--Apparatus for Shifting tha Bars.]
+
+As the driving belts are mounted on pulleys, G, of a diameter
+proportioned to the velocity of the shafting, the iron pinions, h, in
+order to produce 60 revolutions per minute in the first shaft, H, gear
+on each side with the intermediate wheels, E, and these actuate the
+two bronze pinions, a a, that are mounted on the extremities of the
+cylinders, A A. The axle, D, of the intermediate wheels does not revolve
+with them, but is capable of rising and descending in the elongated
+aperture that traverses the frames, B. The displacement of this axle is
+secured through the arms, L L, whose extremities articulate on the one
+hand with the cylinders, A A, and on the other with D. The result of
+this is that every displacement upward of the top cylinder corresponds
+to a different position of the intermediate shaft, and one that is
+always equidistant from the centers of the cylinders, A A, thus securing
+a constant gearing of the wheels in all the positions of the cylinders,
+A A.
+
+The diagram in Fig. 7 shows the relative displacements of all these
+parts, as well as those of the scraper guide, C. The diameter to be
+obtained is determined beforehand by the two contact screws, P.
+
+The whole thus regulated, the bar of iron, still very hot, coming from
+the ordinary rollers, is straightened up, if need be, by a few blows of
+a hammer, so that it may roll forward over the pavement, N, between the
+rounding cylinders, A A; these being held apart sufficiently to allow
+of its easy introduction. Next, a few revolutions of the winches that
+control the screws suffice to lower the upper cylinder to the exact
+position limited by the contact screws, P, and the bar is rolled between
+the two cylinder tables with a constant velocity in the generatrices. As
+a consequence, the number of revolutions made is so much the greater in
+proportion as the diameter of the shaft is smaller with respect to that
+of the cylinders.
+
+It should be remarked that the bar, during its rotation under pressure,
+is held by the guide, C, so that its diagrammatic axis (Fig. 7) exceeds
+the line, A A, joining the centers of the cylinders just enough to
+prevent its escape to the opposite, and so that the pressure upon the
+said guide (which performs the role of scraper) is merely sufficient to
+detach the scales which form during the operation.
+
+Under such conditions, and at a velocity of 30 revolutions per minute in
+the two cylinders, it will take but a fraction of a minute to finish
+a bar the length of the table, that is to say, 1.5 meters. Then, by
+loosening the upper cylinder, the bar may be easily shoved along in one
+direction or the other, so as to continue the finishing operation
+on successive lengths. This moving of the bar forward is further
+facilitated by the aid of a clamp with rollers and a movable socket,
+V (Figs. 8 and 9). For large diameters (150 millimeters and beyond)
+traction is employed by the aid of two small windlasses placed opposite
+each other, and at a distance apart twice the greatest length of the
+bars to be finished. The chains of these windlasses are attached to the
+extremities by clamps that lock by the pulling exerted.
+
+The details of the arrangement of the saws (Figs. 5 and 6) show that to
+make a section of the ends or of any other part of the bar, it is only
+necessary to lower the lever of one them. By reason of the contrary
+rotation of the bar, the effective stress on the lever will be very
+moderate, while the cut produced will be a clean and quickly performed
+one. It should be remarked that, as a consequence of the cone on the
+projecting extremity of the cylinder journals (Fig. 5), and on the
+rollers that control the saws, it is only necessary to move the lever to
+the right or left in order to stop the motion of each of the saws. These
+latter, to prevent all possibility of accident, are inclosed within
+semicircular guards. Finally, the controlling rollers are made of a
+material which is quite elastic (compressed cardboard, for example), so
+that they may roll smoothly and adhere well.
+
+From what precedes, it will be seen that round iron bars of any diameter
+will come from this apparatus completely finished. It will be seen
+also that with cylinders of suitable profile, there might likewise be
+finished axles, or pieces that are more or less conical as well as those
+provided with shoulders.
+
+The apparatus may, if preferred, be driven by small special motors
+affixed to the frame. Such an arrangement, which is more costly than the
+preceding, is, nevertheless, indicated in cases where shafting would be
+in the way.
+
+The weight of the materials entering into the construction of this
+machine, proposed by Mr. Chuwab, includes about 15 tons of metal,
+of which 5,000 kilogrammes are for the two tempered cylinders; 250
+kilogrammes of iron screws, and 350 of bolts; and 500 kilogrammes of
+bronze, 90 of which are for nuts.--_Revue Industrielle_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE BURNING OF TOWN REFUSE AT LEEDS.
+
+[Footnote: From selected papers of the Institution of Civil Engineers,
+London, by Charles Slagg, Assoc. Memb. Inst. C.E.]
+
+
+In large towns it is necessary to adopt some regular system of removal
+and disposal of the cinders and ashes of house fires, and of the animal
+and vegetable refuse of the houses, and, in short, of everything thrown
+away which cannot be admitted into the sewers. In towns where the
+excreta are separated by means of water closets, the disposal of the
+other refuse presents less difficulty, but still a considerable one,
+because the animal and vegetable refuse is not kept separate from the
+cinders and ashes, all being thrown together into the ash pit or dust
+bin. The contents, therefore, cannot be deposited upon ground which may
+afterward be built upon, although that custom obtained generally in
+former times. Hence the refuse has been removed to a depot where that
+wretched industry is created of picking out the other parts from the
+cinders and ashes.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 1.--DESTRUCTOR.
+
+Elevation.
+
+Section through feeding-holes of cells.
+
+Section through air-passages of cells.]
+
+But in towns unprovided with water closets, or so far as they are not
+adopted in any town, where the privies are connected with the ash pits,
+and where, consequently, the excreta of the population are added to the
+other contents of ash pits, the difficulties of removal and disposal of
+the refuse are much increased.
+
+Where the privy-ashpit system is in use--as it still is to a large
+extent--as much of the contents of the ash pits as can be sold at any
+price, however small, are collected separately from the drier portions,
+and sent out of town as manure; but what remains is still too offensive
+to be deposited on ground near the town; and when it is attempted to
+collect the excreta separately by the pail system, the process is no
+less unsatisfactory. These difficulties led to the adoption, under the
+advice of the late Mr. A.W. Morant, M. Inst. C.E., the Borough Engineer
+at Leeds, of Fryer's method of destruction by burning--that is, of the
+dry ashes and cinders and the animal and vegetable refuse. The
+author was Mr. Morant's assistant. The first kiln was constructed at
+Burmantofts, 1½ miles from the center of the town in a northeasterly
+direction, and has been in use since the beginning of the year 1878. In
+1879 another kiln was constructed at Armley Road, a mile from the center
+of the town in a west-southwesterly direction, which has been in use
+since the beginning of 1880.
+
+Each destructor kiln has six cells, three in each face of a block of
+brick work 22 feet long, 24 feet through from face to face, and 12 feet
+high. Each cell is 8 feet long and 5 feet wide, arched over, the height
+being 3 feet 4 inches, and both the bottom and arch of the cell slope
+down to the furnace doors with an inclination of 1 in 3. The lower end
+of each cell has about 26 square feet of wrought-iron firebars, the
+hearth being 4½ feet above the ground.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 2.--CARBONIZER.
+
+Section through furnaces.
+
+Longitudinal section.
+
+Cross section.]
+
+There are two floors, one on the ground level, a few feet only above the
+outlet for drainage, the other floor, or raised platform, being 15 feet
+above it. The refuse is taken in carts up an incline of 1 in 14 on
+cast-iron tram plates to the upper floor, and deposited upon and
+alongside of the destructor, and is shoveled into a row of hoppers at
+the head of the cells. These hoppers are in the middle of the width of
+the destructor, and each communicates with a cell on each side of it.
+The refuse is always damp, and often wet, and after being put into
+the cells is gradually dried by the heat reflected upon it from the
+firebrick arch of the cell, before it descends to the furnace. This
+distinguishes the system from the common furnace, and enables the wet
+material to be burned without other fuel. No fresh fuel is used after
+the fires are once lighted. The vapor passes off with the gases of
+combustion into a horizontal flue between the two rows of cells, through
+an opening at the head of each cell, alongside that through which the
+refuse is fed into it, the two openings being separated by a firebrick
+wall. The refuse is prevented from falling into the flue by a bridge
+wall across the outlet opening, over which the gases pass into the flue.
+
+Between the destructor and the chimney a multitubular boiler is placed,
+which makes steam enough for grinding into sand the clinkers which are
+the solid residue of the burnt refuse. At Burmantofts an old chimney was
+made use of, which is but 84 feet high; but at Armley Road a new chimney
+was built, 6 feet square inside and 120 feet high. It is necessary to
+make the horizontal flue large; that at Armley Road is 9 feet high and 4
+feet wide. A large quantity of dust escapes from the cells--about 7 cwt.
+a month--and unless the velocity of the air in the flue between the
+destructor and the chimney were checked, the dust would be carried up
+the chimney and might cause complaints; as, indeed, it has done with the
+120-foot chimney, but whether with any substantial grounds is uncertain.
+The dust is removed from the horizontal flue or dust chamber once a
+month. Experience seems to indicate that there should be some sort of
+guard or grating to prevent the entry into the chimney of charred paper
+and similar light substances which do not fall to dust, and which are
+sometimes carried up with the draught.
+
+A six-celled destructor kiln burns about 42 tons of refuse in
+twenty-four hours, leaving about one-fourth of its bulk of clinkers and
+ashes. The clinkers are withdrawn from the furnaces five times each day
+and night, or about every two-and-a-half hours, into iron barrows, and
+wheeled outside the shed which covers the destructor, and when cold are
+wheeled back to the mortar mills, of which there are two at each depot,
+each having a revolving pan 8 feet in diameter, with 27-cwt. rollers,
+the pan making twenty two revolutions a minute. Forty shovelfuls of
+clinkers and twelve of slaked lime make 7 cwt. of mortar in thirty-five
+minutes in each pan, which is sold at 5s. 6d. per ton. The engine
+driving the two mortar mills has a 14 inch cylinder, 30 inches length
+of stroke, and makes sixty revolutions per minute with 45 pounds steam
+pressure per square inch in the boiler, when both mortar mills are
+running. The boiler is 11 feet long, 8 feet in diameter, and has 132
+tubes 4 inches in external diameter, which, together with the external
+flues, are cleaned out once a month.
+
+At first sight it would probably appear that no good mortar could be
+made from such refuse as has been described, but having passed through
+the furnace, the clinkers are, of course, perfectly clean, and with good
+lime make a really strong and excellent mortar. They are also largely
+used for the foundation of roadways.
+
+The number of men employed is as follows: Two furnace men in the daytime
+and two at night. They work from midnight on Sundays to 2 P.M. on
+Saturdays, the fires being fully charged and left to burn through the
+Sundays. One foreman, who attends also to the running of the engine, and
+one mortar man. A watchman attends while the workmen are off.
+
+In addition to a destructor, there is at the Burmautofts depot a
+"carbonizer" kiln, in which the sweepings of the vegetable markets are
+burned into charcoal. The carbonizer consists of eight vertical cells,
+in two sets or stacks of four, separated by a space containing two
+double furnaces, back to back, there being a double furnace also at each
+end of the eight cells. Each of the stacks of four cells is 15 feet
+6 inches high; the ends and middle parts, forming the tops of the
+furnaces, being 6 feet high. The block of brick work containing the
+eight cells and furnaces is 26 feet 6 inches long and 12 feet 4 inches
+wide at the floor level. Each cell is 3 feet 6 inches by 2 feet, and
+about 10 feet deep, with a chamber below about 3 feet deep, into which
+the charred material falls and is completely burned. The top of the
+cells is level with the upper platform, and they are fed through a loose
+cover, which is immediately replaced. Inside the cells cast-iron sloping
+shelves are hung upon the walls so that their upper edges touch the
+walls, but the lower edges are some inches off, so that the hot air of
+the furnaces passes upward behind the shelves round the four sides of
+the cell in a spiral manner, and out near the top into a vertical flue,
+which conducts it down to the horizontal flue at the bottom, which leads
+to the chimney. The charcoal is withdrawn from the bottom of the heating
+chamber through a sliding plate 2 feet above the floor, and is wheeled
+red hot to the charcoal cooler, which is a revolving cylinder, nearly
+horizontal, kept cool by water falling upon it, and delivers the
+charcoal in two degrees of fineness at the end. It is worked by a small
+attached engine, supplied with steam from the boiler before mentioned.
+Each cell of the carbonizer can reduce to charcoal 50 cwt. of vegetable
+refuse in twenty four hours, but at Leeds not quite so much is put
+through. The quantity of market refuse passed through six cells of the
+carbonizer varies from 3 to 10 tons a day, and averages about 4½ tons,
+from which 15 cwt. of charcoal is obtained. The fuel for burning the
+charcoal is derived from the ash pit refuse, some selected loads being
+for that purpose passed over a sloping screen fixed between the upper
+platform and the furnace floor, the fine ashes which pass through the
+screen being taken away to the manure heaps, and the combustible parts
+to the furnaces of the carbonizer. In this way a good deal of the ash
+pit refuse is got rid of; it is often one-twelfth part of the whole
+quantity.
+
+The carbonizer and the destructor are set 33 feet apart, to allow room
+for drawing the furnaces and for the mortar mills, but the space is
+hardly sufficient. One man is employed in attending to the carbonizer.
+
+Besides the openings at the top of the destructor through which the ash
+pit refuse is fed into the cells, there is a larger opening in each
+cell, kept covered usually, through which bed mattresses ordered by the
+medical sanitary office to be destroyed can be put into the cells. These
+openings are midway between the central openings and the furnace doors,
+and whatever is put into the cells through these comes into immediate
+contact with the fire. Advantage is taken of these openings for the
+destruction of dead animals and diseased meat, and as much as 20 tons in
+a year have been passed through the destructor.
+
+The whole works are roofed over. The lower floor is open on two sides,
+but the upper one is closed in, with weather boarding at Burmantofts and
+with corrugated iron at Armley Road. At the former place the works
+were in some measure experimental, and the platform was constructed
+of timber, but at Armley Road it is of plate-iron girders, with brick
+arching, weight being considered advantageous in reducing the vibration
+of carting heavy loads over it.
+
+The cost of each depot has been £4,500, exclusive of land, of which
+about an acre is required for the destructor, carbonizer, inclined road,
+weigh office, and space. A supply of water is necessary, a good deal
+being required for cooling the clinkers. The population of the two
+districts belonging to these works is about 160,000.
+
+The author has no longer any connection with the works described, and
+for the recent experience of their working he is indebted to Mr.
+John Newhouse, the superintendent of the sanitary department of the
+corporation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+GREEN WOOD.
+
+
+The specific volume of the different constituents of green woods has
+been estimated by M. Hartig to be as follows, per 1,000 parts: Hard
+green wood, fiber stuff, 441; water, 247; air, 312. Soft green wood,
+fiber stuff, 279; water, 317, air, 404. Evergreen wood, fiber stuff,
+270; water, 335; air, 395. A certain amount of water--7 or 8 per cent in
+all--is included with the fiber stuff, showing that about one-third only
+of the mass of the wood is solid stuff; the remainder is either water or
+air space.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE ARMITAGE HOUSE.
+
+
+This house is now in course of erection under the superintendence
+of Messrs. Salomons and Ely, in the Claremont road, Pendleton, near
+Manchester. The walls are faced in the lower part with red bricks,
+and red stone, from the neighborhood of Liverpool, is used for the
+window-dressings, etc. The upper part of walls will be faced with
+red tiles and half-timber work, and the roof will be covered with
+Staffordshire tiles. Lead lights will be largely used in the windows.
+Internally, the finish will be almost entirely in real woods, including
+walnut for the dining-room and vestibule, pitch-pine for the large hall,
+staircase, and billiard-room, ash for the morning-room, and oak for Mr.
+Armitage's own room. In all these the ceilings and dados are to be in
+wood. The contract for the whole of the above work, amounting to £6,507,
+is let to Mr. James Herd, of Manchester.--_Building News_.
+
+[Illustration: SUGGESTIONS IN ARCHITECTURE.--AN ENGLISH COUNTRY
+RESIDENCE.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE COLLOTYPE PROCESS IN PRACTICE.
+
+
+That theory and practice are two very different things holds good in
+photography especially, and perhaps in no other branch of our art have
+so many theoretical formulæ been promulgated as in the collotype or
+Lichtdruck process. As our readers are aware, we have had an opportunity
+of seeing collotype printing in operation in several European
+establishments of note, and have, from time to time, published in these
+columns our experiences. But requests still come to us so frequently
+for information on the process that we have deemed it well to make a
+practical summary for the benefit of those who are working--or desire to
+work--the method.
+
+The formulæ and manipulations here set down are those of Löwy, Albert,
+Allgeyer, and Obernetter, four of the best authorities on the subject,
+and we can assure our readers there is nothing described but what is
+actually practiced.
+
+_Glass Plate for the Printing Block_.--Herr Albert, of Munich, uses
+patent plate of nearly half an inch in thickness, as most of his work
+is printed upon the Schnell press (machine press). Herr Obernetter, of
+Vienna, since he only employs the slower and more careful hand
+press, prefers plate glass of ordinary thickness as being handier in
+manipulation and better adapted to the common printing-frame.
+
+Herr Löwy, of Vienna, again, uses plate glass a quarter of an inch
+thick, as his productions range from the finest to the roughest.
+
+_Preliminary Coating of the Glass Plate_.--Herr Albert's original plan
+was to apply a preliminary coating of bichromated gelatine to the thick
+glass plate, the film being exposed to light through the back of the
+glass, and thus rendered insoluble and tightly cemented to the surface;
+this film serving as a basis for the second sensitive coating, that
+was afterward impressed by the negative. This double treatment is now
+definitely abandoned in most Lichtdruck establishments, and, instead, a
+preliminary coating of soluble silicate and albumen dissolved in water
+is used.
+
+Herr Löwy's method and formula are as follows: The glass plate is
+cleaned, and coated with--
+
+    Soluble glass.             3 parts.
+    White of egg.              7 "
+    Water.               9 to 10 "
+
+The soluble glass must be free from caustic potash. The mixture, which
+must be used fresh, is carefully filtered, and spread evenly over the
+previously cleaned glass plate. The superfluous liquid is flowed off,
+and the film dried either spontaneously or by slightly warming. The film
+is generally dry in a few minutes, when it is rinsed with water, and
+again dried; at this stage the plate bears an open, porous film,
+slightly opalescent--so slight, however, as only to be observed by an
+experienced eye.
+
+_Application of the Sensitive Film_.--We now come to the second stage of
+the process, the application of a film of bichromated gelatine to the
+plate.
+
+Herr Löwy's formula is as follows:
+
+    Bichromate of potash.             16  grammes.
+    Gelatine.                          2½ ounces.
+    Water.                      20 to 22    "
+
+According to the weather, the amount of water must be varied; but in any
+case the solution is a very fluid one. An ounce is about 35 grammes, as
+most of our readers know. A practical collotypist sees at a glance the
+quality of the prepared plate, without any preliminary testing. A good
+preliminary film is a glass that is transparent, yet slightly dull; the
+film is so thin, you can scarcely believe it is there. The plate is
+slightly warmed upon a slate slab, underneath which is a water bath; it
+is then flooded with the above mixture of bichromated gelatine, leaving
+only sufficient to make a very thin film. When coated, the plate is
+placed in the drying chamber.
+
+_Drying the Sensitive Film_.--Much depends upon the drying. A water
+bath with gas burner underneath is used for heating, and a slate slab,
+perfectly level, receives the glass plate. The drying chamber is kept at
+an even temperature of 50° C.
+
+The object to be attained is a fine grain throughout the surface of the
+gelatine, and unless this grain is satisfactory the finished printing
+block never will be. If the gelatine film be too thick, then the grain
+will be coarse; or, again, if the temperature in drying be too high,
+there will be no grain at all. The drying is complete in two or three
+hours, and should not take longer.
+
+_The Negative to be Printed from_.--The sensitive film being upon the
+surface of a thick glass plate, it is necessary that the cliché or
+negative employed should be upon patent plate, or not upon glass at all,
+so as to insure perfect contact. Best of all, is to employ a stripped
+negative, in which case absolute contact is insured in printing. It is
+only in these circumstances that the most perfect impression can be
+secured. If the negative is otherwise satisfactory, and only requires
+stripping, it must be upon a leveling stand, and fluid gelatine of a
+tolerable consistence is poured over it. When dry, a pen-knife is run
+around the margin, and the film leaves the glass without any trouble.
+
+Herr Obernetter says that many of the negatives he receives have to be
+reproduced before they can be transformed into Lichtdruck plates, and
+he employs either the wet collodion process or the graphite method,
+according to circumstances. If the copy is desired to be softer than the
+original, collodion is employed; if vigor be desired, graphite is used,
+and here is his formula:
+
+    Dextrine.                        62    grains.
+    Ordinary white sugar.            77       "
+    Bichromate of ammonia.           30.8     "
+    Water.                            3.21 ounces.
+    Glycerine.                   2 to 8    drops.
+
+The film is dried at a temperature of 130° to 140° F. in about ten
+minutes, and while still warm is printed under a negative in diffused
+light for a period of five to fifteen minutes. In a well-timed print
+the image is slightly visible; the plate is again warmed a little above
+atmospheric temperature in a darkened room, and then fine levigated
+graphite is applied with a fine dusting brush, a sheet of white paper
+being held underneath to judge of the effect. Breathing upon the film
+renders it more capable of attracting the powder. When the desired vigor
+has been attained, the superfluous powder is dusted off, and the plate
+coated with normal collodion. Afterward the film is cut through at the
+margins of the plate by means of a sharp knife, and put into water. In a
+little while--from two to five minutes--the collodion, with the image,
+will be detached from the glass; the film is at once turned over in the
+water, and brought out upon the glass plate. Under a soft jet of water
+any air-bubbles that may exist between the collodion and the glass are
+removed, and then a solution of gum arabic (two grammes of gum dissolved
+in one hundred grammes of water) is poured over, and the film is allowed
+to dry spontaneously.
+
+_Exposure of the Printing Block under the Negative_.--The exposure
+is very rapid. Any one conversant with photolithographic work will
+understand this. At any rate, every photographer knows that bichromated
+gelatine is much more rapid than the chloride of silver he generally has
+to do with.
+
+There is no other way of measuring the exposure than by the photometer
+or personal experience, and the latter is by far the best.
+
+After leaving the printing frame, the plate is immersed in cold water.
+Here it remains at discretion for half an hour, or an hour; the purpose,
+of course, being to wash out the soluble bichromate. It is when the
+print comes out of this bath that judgment is passed upon it. An
+experienced eye tells at once what it is fit for. If it is yellow, the
+yellowness must be of the slightest; indeed, Herr Furkl (the manager of
+Herr Löwy's Lichtdruck department) will not admit that a good plate is
+yellow at all. A yellow tint means that it will take up too much ink
+when the roller is passed over it. The plates of Herr Obernetter,
+however, are rather more yellow than Herr Löwy's--certainly only a
+tinge, but still yellow; and Herr Obernetter's work proves, at any rate,
+that the yellowish tinge is by no means inseparable from good results.
+
+The washed and dried plate should appear like a design of ground and
+polished glass. The ground glass appearance is given by the grain. If
+there are pure high-lights (almost transparent) and opalescent shadows,
+the plate is a good one.
+
+_Printing from the Block_.--We have now a printing-block ready for the
+press. If it is to be printed by machinery--that is to say, upon a
+Schnell press--the surface is etched; if it has to be more carefully
+handled in a hand press, etching is rarely resorted to; it is moistened
+only with glycerine and water. To etch a plate for a Schnell press, it
+is placed upon a leveling stand, and the following solution is poured
+upon it:
+
+    Glycerine............................. 150 parts.
+    Ammonia................................ 50   "
+    Nitrate of potash (saltpeter)..........  5   "
+    Water.................................. 25   "
+
+Another equally good formula, recommended by Allgeyer, who managed Herr
+Albert's Lichtdruck printing for some years, is:
+
+    Glycerine............................. 500 parts.
+    Water................................. 500   "
+    Chloride of sodium (common salt)......  15   "
+
+In lieu of common salt, 15 parts of hyposulphite of soda, or other
+hygroscopic salt, such as chloride of calcium, may be employed.
+
+The etching fluid is permitted to remain upon the image for half an
+hour. During this time, by gently moving the finger to and fro over the
+surface, the swelling or relief of the image can be distinctly felt. The
+plate is not washed, but the etching fluid simply poured off, so that
+the film remains impregnated with the glycerine and water; at the most,
+a piece of bibulous paper is used to absorb any superfluous quantity of
+the etching fluid. After etching, the plate is taken straight to the
+printing press. The inking up and printing are done very much as
+in lithography. If it requires a practiced hand to produce a good
+lithographic print, it stands to reason that in dealing with a gelatine
+printing block, instead of a stone, skill and practice are more
+necessary still. Therefore at this point the photographer should hand
+over the work to the lithographer, or rather the Lichtdruck printer.
+It is only by coaxing judiciously, with roller and sponge, that a good
+printing block can be obtained, and no amount of teaching theoretically
+can beget a good printer. To appreciate how skillful a printer must be,
+it is only necessary to see the imperfect proofs that first result, and
+to watch how these are gradually improved by dint of rolling, rubbing,
+etching, cleaning, etc. In all Lichldruck establishments, two kinds of
+rollers are used, viz., of leather and glue. In some establishments,
+too, they employ two kinds of ink; but Herr Löwy manages to secure
+delicacy and vigor at the same time by using one ink, but rolling up
+with two kinds of roller.
+
+Collotype printing is not merely done by hand presses, but is also
+done by machinery. At Herr Albert's a gas engine of six-horse power is
+employed to drive the machines, and each machine requires the
+attention of a skilled mechanic and a girl. The press is very like the
+lithographic quick press. Upon a big steel bed lies the little collotype
+block. The glass printing block, with its brownish film of gelatine,
+moves horizontally to and fro, and, as it does so, passes under half a
+dozen rollers, which not only supply ink, but disperse it. Some of the
+rollers are of leather and others of glue, and, whenever the printing
+block retires from underneath them, an ink slab takes the place of the
+block, and imparts more ink to the rollers; sometimes as many as eight
+rollers are used, for the difficulty of machine printing is to apply the
+ink as delicately and equally as possible. It is necessary at intervals
+to damp the block, and when the printer in charge finds this to be the
+case, he stops the press, and applies a little glycerine and water
+with a cloth or sponge; then a leather roller is passed over to remove
+superfluous moisture, and the press is again started.
+
+Herr Obernetter relies upon the Star or Stern press--a small
+lithographic press--one man sufficing to manage it, who turns a wheel
+with large spokes, reminding one of the steering wheel of a ship. The
+Lichtdruck plate, gelatine film upward, is laid upon a sheet of plate
+glass by way of a bed, the plate having first been treated with a
+solution of glycerine and water; it is then inked up as previously
+described, except that Herr Obernetter uses two kinds of ink--a thick
+one and a thin--applied by two rollers of glue. In the first place, a
+moist sponge is rubbed over the surface; then a soft roller covered with
+wash-leather, and of the appearance of crêpe, is passed over two or
+three times to remove surplus moisture; then a roller charged with thick
+ink is put on, and then another with thin is applied. It takes fully
+five minutes to sponge and roll up a plate, the rolling being done
+gently and firmly. A sheet of paper is now laid upon the plate, the
+tympan is lowered, and the scraper adjusted with due pressure; a
+revolution of the wheel completes the printing, the well-known scraping
+action of the lithographic press being used in the operation.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 1.--ORDINARY NAPHTHA LIGHTER OF MR. LOISEAU.]
+
+Some Lichtdruck prints are printed upon thick plate-paper, and are ready
+for binding without further ado, these being for book illustrations.
+Other pictures, that are to pass muster among silver photographs, are,
+on the other hand, printed upon fine thin paper, and then sized by
+dipping in a thin solution of gelatine; after drying, they are further
+dipped in a solution of shellac and spirit.--_Photo. News_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+DOMESTIC ELECTRICITY.
+
+
+Among the most valuable, and, up to the present time, the least
+generally appreciated services that electricity can render for domestic
+purposes is that of its application in lighters. At the present epoch
+of indifferent matches, to have, instantaneously, a light by pulling
+a cord, pressing on a button, or turning a cock, is a thing worthy of
+being taken into serious consideration; and our own personal experience
+permits us to assert that, regarded from this point of view, electricity
+is capable of daily rendering inappreciable services.
+
+According to the nature of the application that is to be made of them,
+the places in which they are to be put, and the combustible that they
+are to inflame, etc., electric lighters vary greatly in form and
+arrangement.
+
+We shall limit ourselves here to pointing out the simplest and most
+practical of the numerous models of such apparatus that have been
+constructed up to the present time. All those that we shall describe
+are based on the incandescence of a platinum wire. A few have been
+constructed based on the induction spark, but they are more complicated
+and expensive, and have not entered into practical use. Before
+commencing to describe these apparatus, we shall make a remark in regard
+to the piles for working them, and that is that we prefer for this
+purpose Leclanché elements with agglomerated plates and a large surface
+of zinc. In order to bring about combustion in any given substance, it
+is necessary to bring near it an incandescent body raised to a certain
+temperature, which varies with the nature of the said substance, and
+which is quite low for illuminating gas, higher for petroleum, and a
+white heat for a wax taper or a candle. We have said that we make use
+exclusively of a platinum wire raised momentarily to incandescence by
+the passage of an electric current. The temperature of such wire will
+depend especially upon the intensity of the current traversing it;
+and, if this is too great, the platinum (chosen because of its
+inoxidizability and its elevated melting point) will rapidly melt;
+while, if the intensity is too little, the temperature reached by the
+wire will itself be too low, and no inflammation will be brought about.
+Practice soon indicates a means of obviating these two inconveniences,
+and teaches how each apparatus may be placed under such conditions that
+the wire will hardly ever melt, and that the lighting will always be
+effected. For the same intensity of current that traverses the wire,
+the temperature of the latter might be made to vary by diminishing or
+increasing its diameter. A very fine wire will attain a red heat through
+a very weak current, but it would be very brittle, and subject to break
+at the least accident. For this reason it becomes necessary to employ
+wires a little stronger, and varying generally from one to two-tenths
+of a millimeter in diameter. The current then requires to be a little
+intenser. The requisite intensity is easily obtained with elements
+of large surface, which have a much feebler internal resistance than
+porous-cup elements; and since, for a given number of elements, the
+intensity of the current decreases in measure as the internal resistance
+of the elements increases, it becomes of interest to diminish such
+internal resistance as much as possible. The platinum wires are usually
+rolled spirally, with the object in view of concentrating the heat into
+a small space, in order to raise the temperature of the wire as much as
+possible. There is thus need of a less intense current to produce the
+inflammation than with a wire simply stretched out. In fact, the same
+wire traversed by a current of constant intensity scarcely reaches a
+_red_ heat when it is straight, while it attains a _white_ heat when it
+is wound spirally, because, in the latter case, the cooling surface is
+less.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 2--RANQUE'S NEW FORM OF LIGHTER WITH EXTINGUISHER.]
+
+We shall now proceed to the examination of a few practical forms of
+electric lighters.
+
+In Fig. 1 will be seen quite a convenient spirit or naphtha lighter,
+which has been devised more especially for the use of smokers. By
+pushing the lamp toward the wall, the wick is brought into proximity
+with the spiral, and the lamp, acting on a button behind it, closes
+the current. Pressure on the lamp being removed, the latter moves back
+slightly, through the pressure of a small spring which thrusts on the
+button. Owing to this latter simple arrangement, the spiral never comes
+in contact with the flame, and may thus last for a long time. Mr.
+Loiseau, the proprietor of this apparatus, employs a very fine platinum
+wire, flattened into the form of a ribbon, and it takes only the current
+from a _single element_ to effect the inflammation of the wick. The
+system is so arranged that any one can easily replace in a moment the
+spiral that has accidentally got out of order; and, in order that this
+may be done, the maker has placed the spiral on a small, distinct piece
+that he styles the "conflagrator." The latter consists of two small,
+thin tubes of brass, held parallel and firmly by means of a brass
+cross-piece. A small bit of paper wound round each tube in front of the
+cross-brace insures insulation. The outer extremity of the two tubes
+supports the platinum spiral, which is fixed to them very simply by the
+aid of two small brass needles of conical form, which pinch the wire
+in the tube and hold it in place. There is nothing easier to do than
+replace the wire. All that is necessary is to remove the two little rods
+with a pair of pincers; to make a spiral of suitable length by rolling
+the wire round a pin; and to fix it into the tubes, as we have just
+explained. With two or three extra "conflagrators" on hand, there need
+never any trouble occur.
+
+In Fig. 2 we show a new and simple form of Mr. Ranque's lighter, in
+which an electro-magnet concealed in the base brings the spiral and
+the wick into juxtaposition. The extinguisher, which is balanced by
+a counterpoise, oscillates about a horizontal axis, and its support
+carries two small pins, against which act successively two notches in a
+piece of oval form, fixed on the side of the movable rods.
+
+In the position shown in the cut, on the first emission of a current the
+upper notch acts so as to depress the extinguisher, but the travel of
+the rods that carry the spiral is so limited that the latter does not
+strike against the extinguisher. On the next emission, the lower notch
+acts so as to raise the extinguisher, while the spiral approaches the
+wick and lights it. It is well to actuate these extinguishing-lighters,
+which may be located at a distance, not by a contact button, but by some
+pulling arrangement, which is always much more easy to find in the dark
+without much groping about. There might be used for such a purpose the
+very motion of the front door, when opened, for lighting the hall; but
+that would offer the inconvenience of operating likewise in the daytime,
+and of thus needlessly using up the pile and the naphtha. In all these
+spirit or naphtha lighters it is important that the spiral _shall not
+touch_ the wick, but that it shall be placed a little above and on the
+side, in the mixture of air and combustible vapor.
+
+Several apparatus have likewise been devised for lighting gas by
+electricity, and a few of these we shall describe.
+
+The simplest form of these is Mr. Barbier's lighter for the use of
+smokers, for lighting candles, sealing letters, etc. It consists of a
+small gas-burner affixed to a round box, seven to eight centimeters in
+diameter, and connected to the gas-pipe by a rubber tube. By maneuvering
+the handle, the cock is opened and an electric contact set up of
+sufficient duration to raise to a red heat the spiral, and to light the
+gas. It is well in this case, for the sake of economizing in wire, to
+utilize the lead gas-pipe as a return wire, especially if the pile is
+located at some little distance from the lighter. In the arrangement
+generally in use the key is provided with a special spring, which tends
+to cause it to turn in such a way as to assume a vertical position, and
+with a tooth, which, on engaging with a piece moving on a joint, holds
+it in a horizontal position as soon as it has been brought thereto. In
+order to extinguish the burner, it is only necessary to depress the
+lever, and thus allow the key to assume again the vertical position,
+that is to say, the position that closes the aperture through which the
+gas flows out. In a new arrangement, the notch, spring, and the lever
+are done away with, the cock alone taking the two positions open or
+closed.
+
+Another very ingenious system is that of Mr. Loiseau, consisting of an
+ordinary gas-burner (fish-tail, bat's-wing, etc.), carrying at its side
+a "conflagrator," analogous to that of the spirit-lighter (Fig. 1), but
+arranged vertically. One of the rods of the "conflagrator" is connected
+with the positive of the pile, and the other with the little horizontal
+brass rod which is placed at the bottom of the burner. On turning the
+cock so as to open it, a small flow of gas occurs opposite the platinum
+spiral, while at the same time a rigid projecting piece affixed to the
+cock bears against a small, vertical metallic piece, and brings it in
+contact with the brass rod. The circuit is thus closed for an instant,
+the spiral is raised to a red heat, and lights the gas, and the flame
+rises and finally lights the burner. It goes without saying that on
+continuing the motion the contact is broken, so as not uselessly to
+waste the pile and so as to stop the escape of gas.
+
+For gas furnaces, Mr. Loiseau is constructing a _handle-lighter_ which
+is connected with the side of the furnace by flexible cords. The contact
+button is on the sleeve itself, and the spiral is protected against
+shocks by a metallic covering which is cleft at the extremity and the
+points bent over at a right angle. All the lighters here described work
+well, and are rendering valuable services. They may be considered as the
+natural and indispensable auxiliaries of electric call bells, and their
+use has most certainly been rendered practical through the Leclanche
+pile.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THEILER'S TELEPHONE RECEIVER.
+
+
+This telephone receiver differs from its predecessors in dispensing with
+an armature, the lateral vibration of the electro-magnet itself being
+utilized. In previous systems in which an electro-magnet is used, the
+sonorous vibrations are due either to the motion of an iron diaphragm
+or armature placed close to the poles of the electro-magnet, or to the
+expansion and contraction of the magnet itself. In Theiler's telephone
+the electro-magnet may be of the usual U-shape, and may consist either
+of soft iron or of hardened steel permanently magnetized, wound with a
+suitable number of turns of insulated wire. This electro magnet is fixed
+in such a manner that the vibration of either one or of both its limbs
+is communicated to a diaphragm or diaphragms The patentees also employ
+two or more electro-magnets in the same circuit, and utilize the
+vibration of both magnets in the manner described. By attaching a light
+disk or disks to the vibrating limbs, the diaphragm may be dispensed
+with. Fig. 1 represents one of the telephone receivers provided with two
+diaphragms or sounding boards, connected to the two limbs or cores of
+the U-shaped electro-magnet by short tongues. These tongues are firmly
+inserted in the diaphragms and fixed to the magnet, as shown. The poles
+of the electro-magnet are brought very close together by being shaped as
+shown, and the middle part of the magnet is firmly screwed to the case
+of the instrument. The ends of the helix surrounding the magnet cores
+may be attached as usual to two terminals, or soldered to a flexible
+conductor communicating with the other parts of the telephone
+apparatus. When a vibratory current is sent through the helix of the
+electro-magnet, the extremities are rapidly attracted and repelled, and
+this vibratory motion of the magnet cores being communicated to the
+diaphragms or sounding boards, the latter are set in vibration of
+varying amplitude produced by a current of varying strength, as in all
+other telephones. Instead of making the electro-magnet of one continuous
+piece of iron, as represented in Fig. 1, the patentees find it
+more practicable to make it of the form shown in Fig. 2, where the
+electro-magnet represented consists of two limbs or cores, a sole piece,
+and pole extensions, the whole being screwed together, and practically
+constituting one continuous piece of iron carrying the two coils. In
+Fig. 2 only one of the limbs or cores of the electro-magnet is attached
+to the diaphragm, the other limb being held fixed by a screw. Sometimes
+the patentees hinge one of the magnet cores, or both, in the sole piece,
+in which case the diaphragms or sounding boards can be made much thicker
+than when the cores are rigidly fixed to the sole piece, because
+the magnetic attraction of the poles has then only to overcome the
+resistance of the diaphragm. Instead of using a diaphragm, they
+sometimes fix a stem to one of the cores of the electro-magnet, and
+mount thereon a light disk of vulcanite, wood, ivory, gutta-percha, or
+any other substance which it is capable of vibrating. When using this
+telephone receiver, the disk is pressed to the ear in such a manner
+that its surface covers the aperture of the ear. When these telephone
+receivers are used on a line of some considerable length, the patentees
+prefer to magnetize the electro-magnet by a constant current from
+a local battery, and to effect the variation of this constant
+magnetization inductively and not directly. The electro-magnet is,
+then, not inserted in the line at all, but in the primary circuit of
+an induction coil, and connected with a local battery. The line is
+connected to the secondry circuit of the induction coil. This device
+possesses the advantage that the electro-magnet can be powerfully
+magnetized with very little battery power, no matter how long the line
+may be, and that steel magnets are entirely dispensed with. It is not
+necessary to have a separate battery for this purpose, as the microphone
+battery may also be used for the telephone receiver. The shape of the
+vibrating electro-magnets is immaterial, as they may be made of a
+variety of forms.--_Eng. Mechanic_.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 1. FIG. 2]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ON AN ELECTRIC POWER HAMMER.
+
+By MARCEL DEPREZ.
+
+[Footnote: _La Lumiére Electrique_.]
+
+
+In a lecture delivered by me on the 15th of last June in the
+amphitheater of the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, on the
+application of electricity to the production, transmission, and division
+of power, I operated for the first time an electric power hammer that I
+shall here describe. Its essential part is a sectional solenoid that
+I have likewise made an application of in an electric motor which I
+presented in July, 1830, to the Societé de Physique. Let us suppose we
+superpose, one on the other, a hundred flat bobbins of a centimeter
+in thickness in such a way as to form a single solenoid one meter in
+height, and that the incoming and outgoing wires of each of them be
+connected with the contiguous bobbins exactly in the same way as they
+are in the consecutive sections or a dynamo-electric machine ring.
+Finally, let us complete the resemblance by causing each junction of the
+wire of one of the bobbins with the wire of its neighbor to end in a
+metallic plate set into an insulating piece containing as many plates as
+there are bobbins, plus one. Over this species of collector, which maybe
+rectilinear or wound around a cylinder, let us pass two brushes fixed to
+an insulating piece that may be moved by hand. Now, if we place these
+two brushes at a distance such that the number of the plates of the
+collector included between them be, for example, equal to ten, and we
+give them any degree of displacement whatever, after rendering them
+interdependent, the current entering through one of these brushes and
+making its exit through the other will always traverse 10 bobbins.
+Everything will occur, then, as if we caused the ten-bobbin solenoid to
+move instead of the brushes. This granted, and the brushes being in any
+position whatever, let us send a current into the apparatus, and place
+therein a soft iron cylinder. By virtue of a well known law, such
+cylinder will remain suspended in the interior of the solenoid, and its
+longitudinal center will place itself at so much the greater distance
+from that of the solenoid the more the current increases in intensity.
+It would even fall entirely if the current had not an intensity above a
+minimum value dependent upon many elements concerning which we have not
+now to occupy ourselves. We will suppose the current intense enough to
+keep the distance of the two centers much below that which would bring
+about a fall of the cylinder. When such a condition is fulfilled, it is
+found that if we try to remove the iron cylinder from the equilibrium
+that it is in, we must apply a pressure that increases with the amount
+of separation, just exactly as if it were suspended from a spring. It
+results from this fact that if we displace the brushes a distance equal
+to the thickness of one plate of the collector, the active solenoid will
+undergo the same displacement, and its longitudinal center will move
+away from that of the iron cylinder, and that the attraction exerted
+upon the latter will increase. It will not be able to assume its first
+value, and equilibrium cannot be re-established unless the cylinder
+undergoes a displacement identical with that of the solenoid. Now,
+as this latter depends upon the motion communicated to the system
+of brushes, we see that, definitively, the cylinder will faithfully
+reproduce the motion communicated to the brushes by the hand of
+the operator. This apparatus, then, constitutes a genuine electric
+servo-motor in which the current is never interrupted nor modified in
+quantity or direction, no more indeed than the magnetization developed
+in the soft iron cylinder. Everything takes place as if the iron
+cylinder were suspended in a solenoid ten centimeters in length that
+was caused to rise and fall; with the difference that the weight of the
+cylinder exerts no action on the hand of the operator.
+
+[Illustration: ELECTRIC POWER HAMMER.]
+
+These explanations being understood, there remain but few things to be
+said to cause the operation of the hammer to be thoroughly comprehended.
+The elementary sections constituting the electric cylinder, A B, of the
+hammer are 80 in number, and form a total length of one meter. Their
+ingoing and outcoming wires end in a collector of circular form shown at
+F G. The brushes are replaced by two strips, C E and C D, fixed to the
+double winch, H C I, which is movable around the fixed center, C. They
+can make any angle whatever with each other, so that by trial there
+maybe given the active solenoid the most suitable length. When such
+angle has been determined, the angle, E C D, is rendered invariable by
+means of a set screw, and the apparatus is maneuvered by imparting to
+the double winch, H C I, an alternating circular motion.
+
+The iron cylinder weighs 23 kilogrammes; but, when the current has an
+intensity of 43 amperes and traverses 15 sections, the stress developed
+may reach 70 kilogrammes; that is to say, three times the weight of the
+hammer. So this latter obeys with absolute docility the motions of the
+operator's hands, as those who were present at the lecture were enabled
+to see.
+
+I will incidentally add that this power hammer was placed on a circuit
+derived from one that served likewise to supply three Hefner-Alteneck
+machines (Siemens D{5} model) and a Gramme machine (Breguet model P.L.).
+Each of these machines was making 1,500 revolutions per minute and
+developing 25 kilogrammeters per second, measured by means of a
+Carpentier brake. All these apparatus were operating with absolute
+independence, and had for generator the double excitation machine that
+figured at the Exhibition of Electricity.
+
+In an experiment made since then, I have succeeded in developing in each
+of these four machines 50 kilogrammeters per second, whatever was the
+number of those that were running; and I found it possible to add the
+hammer on a derived circuit without notably affecting the operation of
+the receivers.
+
+It results from this that with my system of double excitation machine I
+have been enabled to easily run with absolute independence six machines,
+each giving a two-third horse-power. The economic performance, e/E,
+moreover, slightly exceeded 0.50.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+SOLIGNAC'S NEW ELECTRIC LAMP.
+
+
+When it becomes a question of practical lighting, it is very certain
+that the best electric lamp will be the one that is most simple and
+requires the fewest mechanical parts. It is to such simplicity that is
+due all the success of the Jablochkoff candle and the Reynier-Werdermann
+lamp. Yet, in the former of these lamps, it is to be regretted that the
+somewhat great and variable resistance opposed to the current in its
+passage through two carbons that keep diminishing in length, in measure
+as they burn, proves a cause of loss of light and of variation in it.
+And it is also to be regretted that the duration of combustion of the
+carbons is not longer; and, finally, it is allowable to believe that the
+power employed in volatilizing the insulator placed between the carbons
+is prejudicial to the economical use of this system. In order to obviate
+this latter inconvenience, an endeavor has been made in the Wilde candle
+to do away with the insulator, but the results obtained have scarcely
+been encouraging. An endeavor has also been made to render the duration
+of the carbons greater by employing quite long ones, and causing these
+to move forward successively through the intermedium of a species
+of rollers, or of counterpoises, as in the lamps of Mersanne and
+Werdermann; but then the system becomes more complicated. Finally, in
+order to keep the resistance of the carbons at a minimum and constant,
+their contact with the rheophores of the circuit has been established
+at a short distance from the arc, and this is one of the principal
+advantages possessed by the Reynier-Werdermann system. At a certain
+epoch it was thought that the problem might be simply solved by
+arranging in front of each other two carbons actuated by a spiral
+spring, as in car lamps, and kept at a proper distance apart for forming
+the electric arc by two funnel-shaped pieces of calcined magnesia, into
+which they entered like a wedge in measure as their conical point were
+away through combustion. This was the system of Mr. De Baillehache,
+and the trials that were made therewith were very satisfactory. But,
+unfortunately, the magnesia was not able to resist very long the
+temperature to which it was submitted. The problem found a better
+solution in the sun-lamp but has been solved in another manner, and just
+as simply, by Mr. Solignac, and the results obtained by him have been
+very satisfactory as regarded from the standpoint of steadiness of the
+luminous point.
+
+In this system, a general view of which is given in Fig. 1, and the
+arrangement in Figs. 2 and 3, the carbons, F F, which are horizontal and
+about fifty centimeters in length, are thrust toward each other by
+two barrels, K, K, which wind up two chains, E, E, passing around the
+pulleys, D, D, fitted to the extremities of the carbons. These latter
+are provided beneath with small glass rods, G, G, whose extremities
+toward the arc abut at a short distance from the latter against a nickel
+stop, L (Fig. 3), which supports them, moreover, at M, by means of
+a tappet whose position is regulated by a screw. The current is
+transmitted to the carbons by two friction rollers, I, I, which serve at
+the same time as a guide for them, and which give the electric flux a
+passage of only one or two centimeters over the front of the carbon
+to form the arc. Finally, the whole is held by a support, A, and two
+pieces, CB, CB, which at the same time lead the current to the friction
+rollers through projections, J. The two systems are made to approach
+or recede from each other, in order to form the arc, by means of a
+regulating screw, H.
+
+At present, the lighting of these lamps is effected by means of this
+screw, H, but Mr. Solignac is now constructing a model in which the
+lighting will be performed automatically by means of a solenoid that
+will react upon a carbon lighter, as in several already well known
+systems.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 1]
+
+If the preceding description has been well-understood, it will be seen
+that the carbons are arrested in their movement toward each other only
+by the glass rods, G, abutting against L; but, as the stops, L, are not
+far from the arc, and as the heat to which they are exposed is so much
+the greater in proportion as the incandescent part of the carbons is
+nearer them, it results that for a certain elongation of the arc the
+temperature becomes sufficient to soften the glass of the rods, G, G,
+so that they bend as shown at O (Fig. 3), and allow the carbons to move
+onward until the heat has sufficiently diminished to prevent any further
+softening of the glass. In measure as the wearing away progresses, the
+preceding effects are reproduced; and, as these are produced in an
+imperceptible and continuous manner, there is perceived no jumping nor
+inconstancy in the light of the arc. Under such conditions, then, the
+regulation of the arc is effected under the very influence of the
+effect produced; and not under that of an action of a different nature
+(electro-magnetism), as happens in other regulators. It is certain that
+this idea is new and original, and the results that we have witnessed
+from it have been very satisfactory. There is but one regulation to
+perform, and that at the beginning, but this once done the apparatus
+operates with certainty, and for a long time. With a Meritens machine of
+the first model it has been found possible to light five lamps of this
+kind placed in the same circuit.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 2]
+
+According to the inventor, this lamp will give a light of 100 carcels
+per one horse-power, and with a three horse-power six lamps may be
+lighted; but we have made no experiments to ascertain the correctness of
+these figures.
+
+As for the cost of the glass rods, that amounts to one franc per
+two hundred meters length. They can, then, be considered only as an
+insignificant expense in the cost of the carbons. We consequently
+believe that it will be possible to employ this system advantageously in
+practice.--_Th. du Moncel_.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 3]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+MONDOS'S ELECTRIC LAMP.
+
+
+Since the month of May last, the concert at the Champs Elysées has been
+lighted by sixteen voltaic arc lamps on a new and very simple system,
+which gives excellent results in the installation under consideration.
+The sixteen lamps are on the divisible system, and their regulation is
+based upon the principle of derivation. They are supplied by a Siemens
+alternating current machine and arranged in four circuits, on each of
+which are mounted four lamps in series. The accompanying figures will
+allow the reader to readily understand the system, which is as simple
+as it is ingenious, and which has been combined by Mr. Mondos so as to
+obtain a continuous and independent regulation of each lamp.
+
+In this system the lower carbon is stationary, the luminous point
+descending in measure as the carbons wear away through combustion. The
+upper carbon descends by its own weight, and imperceptibly, so as to
+keep the arc at its normal length.
+
+The mechanism that controls the motions of the upper rod that supports
+the carbon-holder consists of two bobbins of fine wire, E (Fig. 2),
+mounted on a derived circuit on the terminals of the lamp; of a lever,
+L, articulated at O, and supporting a tube, TT', and the whole movable
+part balanced by a counterpoise, P. This lever, P, carries two soft iron
+cores, F, which enter the bobbins, E, and become magnetized under the
+influence of the current that passes through them. The upper part of
+the tube, T, carries a square upon which is articulated at O' a second
+lever, L', balanced by a second counterpoise, P', and carrying a flat
+armature, _p_, opposite the cores, F', that are fixed to the first
+horizontal lever, L. The carbon-holder rod, CC', slides freely in the
+tube, TT', and is wedged therein by a small piece, _a m l_, fixed to
+the lever, L'. For this reason the tube, TT', is provided with a notch
+opposite the piece _a m l_, and the two arms, _a_ and _m_, of the latter
+are shaped like a V, as may be seen in part in the plan in Fig. 2. It is
+now easy to understand how the system operates; when the current is not
+traversing the circuit, the carbons are separated; but, at the moment
+the circuit is closed for lighting a series of lamps, it traverses the
+electro-magnet, which then becomes very powerful, and draws down the
+cores, F, along with the lever, L, the tube, TT', and the carbon-holder,
+CC', and brings the carbons in contact. The arc then forms, and the
+current divides between the arc and the bobbins, E. Its action upon the
+cores, F, becomes weak, and it can no longer balance the counterpoise,
+P, which falls back, and raises the system again. The arc thus
+becomes _primed_. The cores, F, however, preserve a certain amount of
+magnetization; the armature, _p_, is attracted, and the lever, L',
+assumes a position of equilibrium such that the piece, _a m l_, wedges
+the rod, CC', in the tube, TT', and holds it suspended. When, through
+wear of the carbons, the arc elongates, a greater portion of the current
+passes into the bobbins, E, the armature, _p_, is attracted with more
+force, and the lever, L', swings around the point, O'. The rotation of
+L' separates the piece, _a m l_, from the rod, CC', which, being thus
+set free, slides by its own weight and shortens the arc. The current
+then becomes weak in E, the armature, _p_, is not so strongly attracted,
+the lever, L', pivots slightly around O' under the action of the weight,
+P', and the brake or wedge enters the notch anew, and stops the descent
+of the carbon. In practice, the motions that we have just described are
+exceedingly slight; the carbon moves imperceptibly, and the length of
+the arc remains invariable.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 1--MONDOS'S ELECTRIC LAMP.]
+
+It will be seen, then, that the lever, L, and the tube, TT', serve
+exclusively for _lighting_, and the lever, L', exclusively for
+regulating the distance of the carbons.
+
+This lamp exhibits great elasticity, and can operate, without a
+change of any part of its mechanism, with currents of very different
+intensities. It suffices for obtaining a proper working of the apparatus
+in each case, to regulate the distance from the weight, P', to the point
+of suspension, O', and the distance from the armature, _p_, to the
+cores, F. At the Champs Elysées concerts the lamps are operating with
+alternating currents; but they are capable of operating with continuous
+ones also, although the slight tremor of the electro-magnetic system,
+due to the use of alternating currents and as a consequence of rapid
+changes of magnetization, seems in principle very favorable to systems
+in which the descent of the carbon is based upon friction instead of a
+clutch. At the Champs Elysées concerts the lamps burn crayons of 9 to
+10 millimeters with a current of 9 to 10 amperes and an effective
+electro-motive power of 60 volts per lamp. The light is very steady,
+and the effect produced is most satisfactory. The dispensing with all
+clock-work movement and regulating springs makes this electric lamp
+of Mr. Mondos a simple and plain apparatus, capable of numerous
+applications in the industries, in wide, open spaces, in all cases where
+foci of medium intensity have to be employed, and where it is desired to
+arrange several lamps in the same circuit.--_La Nature_.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 2--REGULATING MECHANISM.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[AMERICAN POTTERY AND GLASSWARE REPORTER.]
+
+
+
+
+ALUMINUM--ITS PROPERTIES, COST, AND USES.
+
+
+Aluminum is a shining, white, sonorous metal, having a shade between
+silver and platinum. It is a very light metal, being lighter than glass
+and only about one-fourth as heavy as silver of the same bulk. It is
+very malleable and ductile, and is remarkable for its resistance to
+oxidation, being unaffected by moist or dry air, or by hot or cold
+water. Sulphureted hydrogen gas, which so readily tarnishes silver,
+forming a black film on the surface, has no action on this metal.
+
+Next to silica, the oxide of aluminum (alumina) forms, in combination,
+the most abundant constituent of the crust of the earth (hydrated
+silicate of alumina, clay).
+
+Common alum is sulphate of alumina combined with another sulphate, as
+potash, soda, etc. It is much used as a mordant in dyeing and calico
+printing, also in tanning.
+
+Aluminum is of great value in mechanical dentistry, as, in addition
+to its lightness and strength, it is not affected by the presence of
+sulphur in the food--as by eggs, for instance.
+
+Dr. Fowler, of Yarmouthport, Mass., obtained patents for its combination
+with vulcanite as applied to dentistry and other uses. It resists
+sulphur in the process of vulcanization in a manner which renders it an
+efficient and economical substitute for platinum or gold.
+
+Aluminum is derived from the oxide alumina, which is the principal
+constituent of common clay. Lavoissier, a celebrated French chemist,
+first suggested the existence of the metallic bases of the earths and
+alkalies, which fact was demonstrated twenty years thereafter by
+Sir Humphry Davy, by eliminating potassium and sodium from their
+combinations; and afterward by the discovery of the metallic bases of
+baryta, strontium, and lime. The earth alumina resisting the action of
+the voltaic pile and the other agents then used to induce decomposition,
+twenty years more passed before the chloride was obtained by Oerstadt,
+by subjecting alumina to the action of potassium in a crucible heated
+over a spirit lamp. The discovery of aluminum was at last made by Wohler
+in 1827, who succeeded in 1846 in obtaining minute globules or beads
+of this metal by heating a mixture of chloride of alumina and sodium.
+Deville afterward conducted some experiments in obtaining this metal at
+the expense of Napoleon III., who subscribed £1,500, and was rewarded by
+the presentation of two bars of aluminum. The process of manufacture was
+afterward so simplified that in 1857 its price at Paris was about two
+dollars an ounce. It was at first manufactured from common clay, which
+contains about one-fourth its weight of aluminum, but in 1855 Rose
+announced to the scientific world that it could be obtained from a
+material called "cryolite," found in Greenland in large quantities,
+imported into Germany under the name of "mineral soda," and used as a
+washing soda and in the manufacture of soap. It consists of a double
+fluoride of aluminum, and only requires to be mixed with an excess of
+sodium and heated, when the mineral aluminum at once separates. Its cost
+of manufacture is given in this estimate for one pound of metal: 16 lb.
+of cryolite at 8 cents per pound, $1.28: 2½ lb. metallic sodium at about
+26 cents per pound, 70 cents; flux and cost of reduction, $2.02; total,
+$4.
+
+Aluminum is used largely in the manufacture of cheap jewelry by making a
+hard, gold-colored alloy with copper, called aluminum bronze, consisting
+of 90 per cent. of copper and 10 per cent. of aluminum. Like iron, it
+does not amalgamate directly with mercury, nor is it readily alloyed
+with lead, but many alloys with other metals, as copper, iron, gold,
+etc., have been made with it and found to be valuable combinations.
+One part of it to 100 parts of gold gives a hard, malleable alloy of
+a greenish gold color, and an alloy of ¾ iron and ¼ aluminum does not
+oxidize when exposed to a moist atmosphere. It has also been used to
+form a metallic coating upon other metals, as copper, brass, and German
+silver, by the electro-galvanic process. Copper has also been deposited,
+by the same process, upon aluminum plates to facilitate their being
+rolled very thin; for unless the metal be pure, it requires to be
+annealed at each passage through the rolls, and it is found that its
+flexibility is greatly increased by rolling. To avoid the bluish white
+appearance, like zinc, Dr. Stevenson McAdam recommends immersing the
+article made from aluminum in a heated solution of potash, which will
+give a beautiful white frosted appearance, like that of frosted silver.
+
+F.W. Gerhard obtained a patent in 1856, in England, for an improved
+means of obtaining aluminum metal, and the adaptation thereof to the
+manufacture of certain useful articles. Powdered fluoride of aluminum is
+placed alone or in combination with other fluorides in a closed furnace,
+heated to a red heat, and exposed to the action of hydrogen gas, which
+is used as a reagent in the place of sodium. A reverberating furnace is
+used by preference. The fluoride of aluminum is placed in shallow trays
+or dishes, each dish being surrounded by clean iron filings placed in
+suitable receptacles; dry hydrogen gas is forced in, and suitable entry
+and exit pipes and stop-cocks are provided. The hydrogen gas, combining
+with the fluoride, "forms hydrofluoric acid, which is taken up by the
+iron and is thereby converted into fluoride of iron." The resulting
+aluminum "remains in a metallic state in the bottom of the trays
+containing the fluoride," and may be used for a variety of manufacturing
+and ornamental purposes.
+
+The most important alloy of aluminum is composed of aluminum 10, copper
+90. It possesses a pale gold color, a hardness surpassing that of
+bronze, and is susceptible of taking a fine polish. This alloy has found
+a ready market, and, if less costly, would replace red and yellow brass.
+Its hardness and tenacity render it peculiarly adapted for journals and
+bearings. Its tensile strength is 100,000 lb., and when drawn into wire,
+128,000 lb., and its elasticity is one-half that of wrought iron.
+
+General Morin believes this alloy to be a perfect chemical combination,
+as it exhibits, unlike the gun metal, a most complete homogeneousness,
+its preparation being also attended by a great development of heat, not
+seen in the manufacture of most other alloys. The specific gravity of
+this alloy is 7.7. It is malleable and ductile, may be forged cold as
+well as hot, but is not susceptible of rolling; it may, however, be
+drawn into tubes. It is extremely tough and fibrous.
+
+Aluminum bronze, when exposed to the air, tarnishes less quickly than
+either silver, brass, or common bronze, and less, of course, than iron
+or steel. The contact of fatty matters or the juice of fruits does not
+result in the production of any soluble metallic salt, an immunity which
+highly recommends it for various articles for table use.
+
+The uses to which aluminum bronze is applicable are various. Spoons,
+forks, knives, candle-sticks, locks, knobs, door-handles, window
+fastenings, harness trimmings, and pistols are made from it; also
+objects of art, such as busts, statuettes, vases, and groups. In France,
+aluminum bronze is used for the eagles or military standards, for armor,
+for the works of watches, as also watch chains and ornaments. For
+certain parts, such as journals of engines, lathe-head boxes, pinions,
+and running gear, it has proved itself superior to all other metals.
+
+Hulot, director of the Imperial postage stamp manufactory in Paris, uses
+it in the construction of a punching machine. It is well known that the
+best edges of tempered steel become very generally blunted by paper.
+This is even more the case when the paper is coated with a solution of
+gum arabic and then dried, as in the instance of postage stamp sheets.
+The sheets are punched by a machine the upper part of which moves
+vertically and is armed with 300 needles of tempered steel, sharpened in
+a right angle. At every blow of the machine they pass through the
+holes in the lower fixed piece, which correspond with the needles, and
+perforate five sheets at every blow. Hulot now substitutes this piece by
+aluminum bronze. Each machine makes daily 120,000 blows, or 180,000,000
+perforations, and it has been found that a cushion of the aluminum alloy
+was unaffected after some months' use, while one of brass is useless
+after one day.
+
+Various formulæ are given for the production of alloys of aluminum, but
+they are too numerous and intricate to enter into here.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+DETERMINATION OF POTASSA IN MANURES.
+
+By M.E. DREYFUS.
+
+
+The method generally adopted for the determination of potassa in
+manures, i. e., the direct incineration of the sample, may in certain
+cases occasion considerable errors in consequence of the volatilization
+of a portion of the potassium products.
+
+To avoid this inconvenience, the author proposes a preliminary treatment
+of the manure with sulphuric acid at 1.845 sp. gr., to convert potassium
+nitrate and chloride into the fixed sulphate. The sulphuric acid attacks
+the manure energetically, and much facilitates the incineration, which
+may be effected at a dark red heat. The ignited portion (10 grms.) is
+exhausted with boiling distilled water acidulated with hydrochloric
+acid, and the filtrate, when cold, is made up to 500 c. c. Of this
+solution 50 c c., representing 1 grm. of the sample, are taken, and,
+after being heated until close upon ebullition, baryta-water is added
+until a strong alkaline reaction is obtained. The sulphuric and
+phosphoric acids, alumina, magnesia, etc, are thus precipitated. The
+filtrate is heated to a boil, and mixed with ammonia and ammonium
+carbonate, to precipitate the excess of baryta in solution. The last
+traces of lime are eliminated by means of a few drops of ammonium
+oxalate. The filtrate is evaporated down on the water-bath, and the
+ammoniacal salts are expelled by carefully raising the temperature to
+dull redness. After having taken up the residue in distilled water it
+is treated with platinum chloride, and the potassium chloro-platinate
+obtained is reduced with oxalic acid. The quantity of potassa present
+in the manure can be calculated from the weight of platinum
+obtained.--_Bull. de la Soc. Chim. de Paris_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE ORIGIN AND RELATIONS OF THE CARBON MINERALS.
+
+[Footnote: Read before the New York Academy of Sciences, February 6,
+1882.]
+
+By J.S. NEWBERRY.
+
+
+What are called the carbon minerals--peat, lignite, coal, graphite,
+asphalt, petroleum, etc.--are, properly speaking, not minerals at
+all, as they are organic substances, and have no definite chemical
+composition or crystalline forms. They are, in fact, chiefly the
+products or phases of a progressive and inevitable change in
+plant-tissue, which, like all organic matter, is an unstable compound
+and destined to decomposition.
+
+In virtue of a mysterious and inscrutable force which resides in the
+microscopic embryo of the seed, a tree begins its growth. For a brief
+interval, this growth is maintained by the prepared food stored in the
+cotyledons, and this suffices to produce and to bring into functional
+activity--some root-fibrils below and leaves above, with which
+the independent and self-sustained life of the individual begins.
+Henceforward, perhaps for a thousand years, this life goes on, active in
+summer and dormant in winter, absorbing the sunlight as a motive power
+which it controls and guides. Its instruments are the discriminating
+cells at the extremities of the root-fibrils, which search for, select,
+and absorb the crude aliment adapted to the needs of the plant to which
+they belong, and the chlorophyl cells--the lungs and stomach of the
+tree--in the leaves. During all the years of the growth of the plant,
+these organs are mainly occupied in breaking the strongly riveted bonds
+that unite oxygen and carbon in carbonic acid; appropriating the carbon
+and driving off most of the oxygen. In the end, if the tree is, e. g.,
+a _Sequoia_, some hundreds of tons of solid, organized tissue have been
+raised into a column hundreds of feet in height, in opposition to the
+force of gravitation and to the affinities of inorganic chemistry.
+
+The time comes, however, sooner or later, when the power which has
+created and the life that has pervaded this wonderful structure
+abandon it. The affinities of inorganic chemistry immediately reassert
+themselves, in ordinary circumstances rapidly tearing down the ephemeral
+fabric.
+
+The disintegration of organic tissue, when deserted by the force which
+has animated and preserved it, gives rise to the phenomena which form
+the theme of this paper.
+
+Most animal-tissue decomposes with great rapidity, and plant tissue,
+when not protected, soon decays. This decay is essentially oxidation,
+since its final result is the restoration to the atmosphere of carbonic
+acid, which is broken up in plant-growth by the appropriation of its
+carbon. Hence it is a kind of combustion, although this term is more
+generally applied to very rapid oxidation, with the evolution of
+sensible light and heat. But, whether the process goes on rapidly or
+slowly, the same force is evolved that is absorbed in the growth of
+plant-tissue; and by accelerating and guiding its evolution, we are able
+to utilize this force in the production at will of heat, light, and
+their correlatives, chemical affinity, motive power, electricity, and
+magnetism. The decomposition of plants may, however, be more or less
+retarded, and it then takes the form of a destructive distillation,
+the constituents reacting upon each other, and forming temporary
+combinations, part of which are evolved, and part remain behind. Water
+is the great extinguisher of this as of the more rapid oxidation that we
+call combustion; and the decomposition of plant-tissue under water is
+extremely slow, from the partial exclusion of oxygen. Buried under thick
+and nearly impervious masses of clay, where the exclusion of oxygen is
+still more nearly complete, the decomposition is so far retarded that
+plant-tissue, which is destroyed by combustion almost instantaneously,
+and if exposed to "the elements"--moisture with a free access of
+oxygen--decays in a year or two, may be but partially consumed when
+millions of years have passed. The final result is, however, inevitable,
+and always the same, viz., the oxidation and escape of the organic
+mutter, and the concentration of the inorganic matter woven into its
+composition--in it, but not of it--forming what we call the ash of the
+plant.
+
+Since the decomposition of organic matter commences the instant it is
+abandoned by the creative and conservative vital force, and proceeds
+uninterruptedly, whether slowly or rapidly, to the final result, it is
+evident that each moment in the progress of this decomposition presents
+us with a phase of structure and composition different from that which
+preceded and from that which follows it. Hence the succession of these
+phases forms a complete sliding scale, which is graphically shown in
+the following diagram, where the organic constituents of plant
+tissue--carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen--appear gradually
+diminishing to extinction, while the ash remains nearly constant, but
+relatively increasing, till it is the sole representative of the fabric.
+
+[Illustration: DIAGRAM SHOWING THE GENETIC RELATIONS OF THE CARBON
+MINERALS.]
+
+We may cut this triangle of residual products where we please, and by
+careful analysis determine accurately the chemical composition of a
+section at this point, and we may please ourselves with the illusion, as
+many chemists have done, that the definite proportions found represent
+the formula of a specific compound; but an adjacent section above or
+below would show a different composition, and so in the entire triangle
+we should find an infinite series of formulae, or rather no constant
+formulae at all. We should also find that the slice, taken at any point
+while lying in the laboratory or undergoing chemical treatment, would
+change in composition, and become a different substance.
+
+In the same way we can snatch a brand from the fire at any stage of its
+decomposition, or analyze a decaying tree trunk during any month of its
+existence, and thus manufacture as many chemical formulae as we like,
+and give them specific names; but it is evident that this is child's
+play, not science. The truth is, the slowly decomposing tissue of the
+plants of past ages has given us a series of phases which we have
+grouped under distinct names, and we have called one group peat, one
+lignite, another coal, another anthracite, and another graphite. We have
+spaced off the scale, and called all within certain lines by a common
+name; but this does not give us a common composition for all the
+material within these lines. Hence we see that any effort to define or
+describe coal, lignite, or anthracite accurately must be a failure,
+because neither has a fixed composition, neither is a distinct
+substance, but simply a conventional group of substances which form part
+of an infinite and indivisible series.
+
+But this sliding scale of solid compounds, which we designate by
+the names given above, is not the only product of the natural and
+spontaneous distillation of plant tissue. Part of the original organic
+mass remains, though constantly wasting, to represent it; another part
+escapes, either completely oxidized as carbonic acid and water, or in
+a volatile or liquid form, still retaining its organic character, and
+destined to future oxidation, known as carbureted hydrogen, olefiant
+gas, petroleum, etc.
+
+Hence, in the decomposition of vegetable tissue, two classes of
+resultant compounds are formed, one residual and the other evolved; and
+the genesis and relation of the carbon minerals may be accurately shown
+by the following diagram:
+
+                       PLANT TISSUE
+                           _________________
+                        |
+  _Residual Products_   |   _Evolved Products_
+                        |
+         Peat.        }
+          |           }
+       Lignite.       }
+          |           }   { Carbonic Acid.
+    Bitumious Coal.   }   { Carbonic Oxide.
+          |           }   { Carbureted Hydrogen, etc.
+ Semi-bitumious "     }   { Water.
+          |           }   {         {Maltha.
+      Anthracite.     }   {         {  |
+          |           }   {         {Asphalt etc.
+Graphitie Anthracite. }   { Petro-  {  |
+          |           }   { leum    {Asphaltic Coal.
+       Graphite.      }             {  |
+          |           }             {Asphaltic Anthracite.
+         Ash.         }             {  |
+                                    {     "    Graphite.
+
+[NOTE.--In this diagram, the vertical line connecting the names of the
+residual products (and of the derivatives of petroleum) indicates that
+each succeeding one is produced by further alteration from that which
+precedes it, and not independently. Also, the arrangement of the braces
+is designed to show that any or all of the evolved products are given
+off at each stage of alteration.]
+
+The theory here proposed has not been evolved from my inner
+consciousness, but has grown from careful study, through many years, of
+facts in the field. A brief sketch of the evidence in favor of it is all
+that we have space for here.
+
+
+RESIDUAL PRODUCTS.
+
+_Peat_.--Dry plant-tissue consists of about 50 per cent, of carbon,
+44 per cent, of oxygen, with a little nitrogen, and 6 per cent. of
+hydrogen. In a peat-bog, we find the upper part of the scale represented
+above very well shown: plants are growing on the surface with the normal
+composition of cellulose. The first stratum of peat consists of browned
+and partially decomposed plant-tissue, which is found to have lost
+perhaps 20 per cent. of the components of wood, and to have acquired an
+increasing percentage of carbon. As we descend in the peat, it becomes
+more homogeneous and darker until at the bottom of the marsh ten or
+twenty feet from the surface, we have a black, carbonaceous paste,
+which, when dried, resembles some varieties of coal, and approaches them
+in composition. It has lost half the substance of the original plant,
+and shows a marked increase in the relative proportion of carbon.
+
+_Lignite_.--Each inch in vertical thickness of the peat-bog represents a
+phase in the progressive change from wood-tissue to lignite, using
+this term with its common signification to indicate, not necessarily
+carbonized ligneous tissue, but plant-tissue that belongs to a past
+though modern geological age--i.e., Tertiary, Cretaceous, Jurassic, or
+Triassic. These lignites or modern coals are only peat beds which have
+been buried for a longer or shorter time under clay, sand, or solidified
+rock, and have progressed farther or less far on the road to coal. As
+with peats, so with lignites, we find that at different geological
+levels they exhibit different stages of this distillation--the Tertiary
+lignites being usually distinguished without difficulty by the presence
+of a larger quantity of combined water and oxygen, and a less quantity
+of carbon, than the Cretaceous coals, and these in turn differ in the
+same respects from the Triassic.
+
+All the coals of the Tertiary and Mesozoic ages are grouped under one
+name; but it is evident that they are as different from each other as
+the new and spongy from the old and well-rotted peat in the peat-bog.
+
+_Coal_.--By mere convention, we call the peat which accumulated in the
+Carboniferous age by the name of bituminous coal; and an examination
+of the Carboniferous strata in different countries has shown that the
+peat-beds formed in the Carboniferous age, though varying somewhat, like
+others, with the kind of vegetation from which they were derived, have a
+common character by which they may be distinguished from the more modern
+coals; containing less water, less oxygen, and more carbon, and usually
+exhibiting the property of coking, which is rare in coals of later date.
+Though there is great diversity in the Carboniferous coals, and it would
+be absurd to express their composition by a single formula, it may be
+said that, over the whole world, these coals have characteristics, as
+a group, by which they can be recognized, the result of the slow
+decomposition of the tissue of plants which lived in the Carboniferous
+age, and which have, by a broad and general change, approximated to
+a certain phase in the spontaneous distillation of plant-tissue. An
+experienced geologist will not fail to refer to their proper horizon
+a group of coals of Carboniferous age any more than those of the
+Cretaceous or Tertiary.
+
+_Anthracite_--In the ages anterior to the Carboniferous, the quantity
+of land vegetation was apparently not sufficient to form thick and
+extensive beds of peat; but the remains of plant-tissue are contained
+in all the older formations, though there only as anthracite or
+graphite--the last two groups of residual products. Of these we have
+examples in the beds of graphite in the Laurentian rocks of Canada,
+and of anthracite of the lower Silurian strata of Upper Church and
+Kilnaleck, Ireland.
+
+From these facts it is apparent that the carbon series is graded
+geologically, that is, by the lapse of time during which plant-tissue
+has been subjected to this natural and spontaneous distillation. But we
+have better evidence than this of the derivation of one from another
+of the groups of residual products which have been enumerated. In many
+localities, the coals and lignites of different ages have been exposed
+to local influences--such as the outbursts of trap-rock, or the
+metamorphism of mountain chains--which have hastened the distillation,
+and out of known earlier groups have produced the last. For example,
+trap outbursts have converted Tertiary lignites in Alaska into good
+bituminous coals; on Queen Charlotte's Island, on Anthracite Creek, in
+southwestern Colorado, and at the Placer Mountains, near Santa Fe,
+New Mexico, Cretaceous lignites into anthracite; those from Queen
+Charlotte's Island and southwestern Colorado are as bright, hard, and
+valuable as any from Pennsylvania. At a little distance from the focus
+of volcanic action, the Cretaceous coals of southwestern Colorado have
+been made bituminous and coking, while at the Placer Mountains the same
+stratum may be seen in its anthracitic and lignitic stages.
+
+A still better series, illustrating the derivation of one form of carbon
+solids from another, is furnished by the coals of Ohio, Pennsylvania,
+and Rhode Island. These are of the same age; in Ohio, presenting the
+normal composition and physical characters of bituminous coals, that
+is, of plant tissue generally and uniformly descending the scale in
+the lapse of time from the Carboniferous age to the present. In the
+mountains of Pennsylvania the same coal beds, somewhat affected by the
+metamorphism which all the rocks of the Alleghanies have shared, have
+reached the stage of _semi-bituminous_ coals, where half the volatile
+constituents have been driven off; again, in the anthracite basins of
+eastern Pennsylvania, the distillation further effected has formed from
+these coals _anthracite_, containing only from three to ten per cent. of
+volatile matter; while in the focus of metamorphic action, at Newport,
+Rhode Island, the Carboniferous coals have been changed to _graphitic
+anthracite_, that is, are half anthracite and half graphite. Here,
+traveling from west to east, a progressive change is noted, similar to
+that which may be observed in making a vertical section of a peat bog,
+or in comparing the coals of Tertiary, Mesozoic, and Carboniferous age,
+only the latter is the continuation and natural sequence of the former
+series of changes.
+
+In the Laurentian rocks of Canada are large accumulations of
+carbonaceous matter, all of which is graphite, and that which is
+universally conceded to be derived from plant-tissue. The oxidation of
+graphite is artificially difficult, and in nature's laboratory slow; but
+it is inevitable, as we see in the decomposition of its outcrops and the
+blanching of exposed surfaces of clouded marbles, where the coloring is
+graphite. Thus the end is reached, and by observations in the field,
+the origin and relationship of the different carbon solids derived from
+organic tissue are demonstrated.
+
+It only remains to be said, in regard to them, that all the changes
+enumerated may be imitated artificially, and that the stages of
+decomposition which we have designated by the names graphite,
+anthracite, coal, lignite, are not necessary results of the
+decomposition of plant-tissue. A fallen tree may slowly consume away,
+and all its carbonaceous matter may be oxidized and dissipated without
+exhibiting the phases of lignite, coal, etc.; and lignite and coal,
+when exposed to air and moisture, are burned away to ashes in the same
+manner, simply because in these cases complete oxidation of the carbon
+takes place, particle by particle, and the mass is not affected as a
+whole in such a way as to assume the intermediate stages referred to.
+Chemical analysis, however, proves that the process is essentially the
+same, although the physical results are different.
+
+
+EVOLVED PRODUCTS.
+
+The gradual wasting of plant-tissue in the formation of peat, lignite,
+coal, etc., may be estimated as averaging for peat, 20 to 30 per cent.;
+lignite, 30 to 50 per cent.; coal, 50 to 70 per cent.; anthracite, 70
+to 80; and graphite, 90 per cent. of the original mass. The evolved
+products ultimately represent the entire organic portion of the
+wood--the mineral matter, or ash, being the only residuum. These evolved
+products include both liquids and gases, and by subsequent changes,
+solids are produced from some of them. Carbonic acid, carbonic oxide,
+nitrogenous and hydrocarbon gases, water, and petroleum, are mentioned
+above as the substances which escape from wood-tissue during its
+decomposition. That all these are eliminated in the decay of vegetable
+and animal structures is now generally conceded by chemists and
+geologists, although there is a wide difference of opinion as to the
+nature of the process.
+
+It has been claimed that the evolved products enumerated above are the
+results of the primary decomposition of organic matter, and never of
+further changes in the residual products; i.e., that in the breaking-up
+of organic tissue, variable quantities of coal, anthracite, petroleum,
+marsh gas, etc., are formed, but that these are never derived, the one
+from the other. This opinion is, however, certainly erroneous, and the
+formation of any or all the evolved products may take place throughout
+the entire progress of the decomposition. Marsh gas and carbonic acid
+are seen escaping from the surface of pools where recent vegetable
+matter is submerged, and they are also eliminated in the further
+decomposition of peat, lignite, coal, and carbonaceous shale. Fire damp
+and choke-damp, common names for the gases mentioned above, are produced
+in large quantities in the mines where Tertiary or Cretaceous lignites,
+or Carboniferous coals or anthracites are mined. It has been said that
+these gases are simply locked up in the interstices of the carbonaceous
+matter and are liberated in its excavation; but all who have worked coal
+mines know that such accumulations are not sufficient to supply the
+enormous and continuous flow which comes from all parts of the mass
+penetrated. We have ample proof, moreover, that coal, when exposed to
+the air, undergoes a kind of distillation, in which the evolution
+of carbonic acid and hydrocarbon gases is a necessary and prominent
+feature.
+
+The gas makers know that if their coal is permitted to lie for months or
+years after being mined, it suffers serious deterioration, yielding a
+less and less quantity of illuminating gas with the lapse of time.
+So coking coals are rendered dry, non-caking, and valueless for this
+purpose by long exposure.
+
+Carbureted hydrogen, olefiant gas, etc., are constant associates of the
+petroleum of springs or wells, and this escape of gas and oil has been
+going on in some localities, without apparent diminution, for two or
+three thousand years. We can only account for the persistence of this
+flow by supposing that it is maintained by the gradual distillation of
+the carbonaceous masses with which such evolutions of gas or of liquid
+hydro-carbons are always connected. If it were true that carbureted
+hydrogen and petroleum are produced only from the primary decomposition
+of organic tissue, it would be inevitable that at least the elastic
+gases would have escaped long since.
+
+Oil wells which have been nominally exhausted--that is, from which the
+accumulations of centuries in rock reservoirs have been pumped--and
+therefore have been abandoned, have in all cases been found to be slowly
+replenished by a current and constant secretion, apparently the product
+of an unceasing distillation.
+
+In the valley of the Cumberland, about Burkesville, one of the oil
+regions of the country, the gases escaping from the equivalent of the
+Utica shale accumulate under the plates of impervious limestone above
+until masses of rock and earth, hundreds of tons in weight, are
+sometimes thrown out with great violence. Unless these gases had been
+produced by comparatively recent distillation, such explosions could not
+occur.
+
+In opening a coal mine on a hillside, the first traces of the coal seam
+are found in a dark stain in the superficial clay; then a substance like
+rotten wood is reached, from which all the volatile constituents have
+escaped. These appear, however, later, and continue to increase as the
+mine is deepened, until under water or a heavy covering of rock the coal
+attains its normal physical and chemical characters. Here it is evident
+that the coal has undergone a long-continued distillation, which must
+have resulted in the constant production of carbonic acid and carbureted
+hydrogen.
+
+A line of perennial oil and gas springs marks the outcrop of every
+great stratum of carbonaceous matter in the country. Of these, the most
+considerable and remarkable are the bituminous shales of the Silurian
+(Utica shale), of the Devonian (Hamilton and Huron shales), the
+Carboniferous, etc. Here the carbonaceous constituent (10 to 20 per
+cent.) is disseminated through a great proportion of inorganic material,
+clay and sand, and seems, both from the nature of the materials which
+furnished it--cellular plants and minute animal organisms--and its
+dissemination, to be specially prone to spontaneous distillation. The
+Utica shale is the lowest of these great sheets of carbonaceous matter,
+and that supplies the hydro-carbon gases and liquids which issue from
+the earth at Collingwood, Canada, and in the valley of the Cumberland.
+The next carbonaceous sheet is formed by the great bituminous shale
+beds of the upper Devonian, which underlie and supply the oil wells in
+western Pennsylvania. In some places the shale is several hundred
+feet in thickness, and contains more carbonaceous matter than all the
+overlying coal strata. The outcrop of this formation, from central New
+York to Tennessee, is conspicuously marked by gas springs, the flow from
+which is apparently unfailing.
+
+Petroleum is scarcely less constant in its connection with these
+carbonaceous rocks than carbureted hydrogen, and it only escapes notice
+from the little space it occupies. The two substances are so closely
+allied that they must have a common origin, and they are, in fact,
+generated simultaneously in thousands of localities.
+
+During the oil excitement of some years since, when the whole country
+was hunted over for "oil sign," in many lagoons, from which bubbles of
+marsh-gas were constantly escaping, films of genuine petroleum were
+found on the surface; and as the underlying strata were barren of oil,
+this could only have been derived from the decaying vegetable tissue
+below. In the Bay of Marquette, two or three miles north of the town,
+where the shore is a peat bog underlain by Archæan rocks, I have seen
+bubbles of carbureted hydrogen rising in great numbers attended by drops
+of petroleum which spread as iridescent films on the surface.
+
+The remarks which have been made in regard to the heterogeneous nature
+of the solid hydrocarbons apply with scarcely less force to the gaseous
+and liquid products of vegetable decomposition. The gases which escape
+from marshes contain carbonic acid, a number of hydrocarbon gases (or
+the materials out of which they may be composed in the process of
+analysis), and finally a larger or smaller volume of nitrogenous gas.
+It is possible that the elimination of these gases takes the form of
+fractional distillation, and definite compounds may be formed directly
+from the wood-tissue or its derivatives, and mingle as they escape. This
+is, however, not certain, for the gases, as we find them, are always
+mixtures and never pure. In the liquid evolved products, the petroleums,
+this is emphatically true, for we combine under this name fluids which
+vary greatly in both their physical and chemical characters; some are
+light and ethereal, others are thick and tarry; some are transparent,
+some opaque; some red, some brown, others green; some have an offensive
+and others an agreeable odor; some contain asphalt in large quantity,
+others paraffine, etc. Thus they form a heterogeneous assemblage of
+liquid hydrocarbons, of which naphtha and maltha may be said to form
+the extremes, and which have little in common, except their undefinable
+name. The causes of these differences are but imperfectly understood,
+but we know that they are in part dependent on the nature of the organic
+material that has furnished the petroleums, and in part upon influences
+affecting them after their formation. For example, the oil which
+saturates the Niagara limestone at Chicago, and--which is undoubtedly
+indigenous in this rock, and probably of animal origin, is black and
+thick; that from Enniskillen, Canada, is also black, has a vile odor,
+probably in virtue of sulphur compounds, and, we have reason to believe,
+is derived from animal matter. The oils of northwestern Pennsylvania are
+mostly brown, sometimes green by reflected light, and have a pungent and
+characteristic odor. These are undoubtedly derived from the Hamilton
+shales, which contain ten or twenty per cent, of carbonaceous matter,
+apparently produced from the decomposition of sea-weeds, since these are
+in places exceedingly abundant, and nearly all other fossils are absent.
+
+The oils of Italy, though varying much in appearance, have usually an
+ethereal odor that is rather agreeable; they are of Tertiary age. The
+oils of Japan, differing much among themselves, have as, a common
+character an odor quite different from the Pennsylvania oils. So the
+petroleums of the Caspian, of India, California, etc., occurring at
+different geological horizons, exhibit a diversity of physical and
+chemical characters which may be fairly supposed to depend upon the
+material from which they have been distilled. The oils in the same
+region, however, are found to exhibit a series of differences which are
+plainly the result of causes operating upon them after their production.
+Near the surface, they are thicker and darker; below, and near the
+carbonaceous mass from which they have been generated, they are of
+lighter gravity and color. We find, in limited quantity, oils which are
+nearly white and may be used in lamps without refining--which have been
+refined, in fact, in Nature's laboratory. Others, that are reddish
+yellow by transmitted light, sometimes green by reflected light, are
+called amber oils; these also occur in small quantity, and, as I am led
+to believe, have acquired their characteristics by filtration through
+masses of sandstone. Whatever the variety of petroleum may be,
+if exposed for a long time to the air it undergoes a spontaneous
+distillation, in which gases and vapors, existing or formed, escape,
+and solid residues are left. The nature of these solids varies with
+the petroleums from which they come, some producing asphaltum,
+others paraffine, others ozokerite, and so on through a long list of
+substances, which have received distinct names as mineral species,
+though rarely, if ever, possessing a definite and invariable
+composition. The change of petroleum to asphalt may be witnessed at a
+great number of localities. In Canada, the black asphaltic oil forms by
+its evaporation great sheets of hard or tarry asphalt, called gum
+beds, around the oil-springs. In the far West are numerous springs of
+petroleum, which are known to the hunters as "_tar springs_," because
+of the accumulations about them of the products of the evaporation and
+oxidation of petroleum to tar or asphalt. Certain less common oils yield
+ozokerite as a solid, and considerable accumulations of this are known
+in Galicia and Utah.
+
+Natural paraffine is less abundant, and yet in places it occurs in
+considerable quantity. Asphalt is the common name for the solid residue
+from the evaporation and oxidation of petroleum; and large accumulations
+of this substance are known in many parts of the world, perhaps the most
+noted of all being that of the "Pitch Lake". of the Island of Trinidad;
+there, as everywhere else, the derivation of asphalt from petroleum is
+obvious, and traceable in all stages. The asphalts, then, have a common
+history in this, that they are produced by the evaporation and oxidation
+of petroleum. But it should also be said that they share the diversity
+of character of petroleums, and the term asphalt represents a group of
+substances of which the physical characters and chemical composition
+differ greatly in virtue of their derivation, and also differ from
+changes which they are constantly undergoing. Thus at the Pitch Lake in
+Trinidad, the central portion is a tarry petroleum, near the sides a
+plastic asphalt, and finally that which is of almost rock-like solidity.
+Hence we see that the solid residues from petroleum are unstable
+compounds like the coals and lignites, and in virtue of their organic
+nature are constantly undergoing a series of changes of which the final
+term is combustion or oxidation. From these facts we might fairly infer
+that asphalts formed in geological ages anterior to the present would
+exhibit characters resulting from still further distillation; that they
+would be harder and drier, i.e., containing less volatile ingredients
+and more fixed carbon. Such is, in fact, the case; and these older
+asphalts are represented by _Grahamite, Albertite_, etc., which I have
+designated as asphaltic coals. These are found in fissures and cavities
+in rocks of various ages, which have been more or less disturbed, and
+usually in regions where springs of petroleum now exist. The Albertite
+fills fissures in Carboniferous rocks in New Brunswick, on a line of
+disturbance and near oil-springs. Precisely the same may be said of the
+Grahamite of West Virginia. It fills a vertical fissure, which was
+cut through the sandstones and shales of the coal-measures; in the
+sandstones it remained open, in the shales it has been closed by the
+yielding of the rock. The Grahamite fills the open fissure in the
+sandstone, and was plainly introduced when in a liquid state. In the
+vicinity are oil springs, and it is on an axis of disturbance. From
+near Tampico, Mexico, I have received a hydrocarbon solid--essentially
+Grahamite, asphalt, and petroleum. These are described as occurring near
+together, and evidently represent phases of different dates in the same
+substance. I have collected asphaltic coals, very similar to Grahamite
+and Albertite in appearance and chemical composition, in Colorado and
+Utah, where they occur with the game associates as at Tampico. I have
+found at Canajoharie, New York, in cavities in the lead-veins which rut
+the Utica shale, a hydrocarbon solid which must have infiltrated into
+these cavities as petroleum, but which, since the remote period when the
+fissures were formed, has been distilled until it is now _anthracite_.
+Similar anthracitic asphalt or asphaltic anthracite is common in
+the Calciferous sand-rock in Herkimer County, New York, where it is
+associated with, and often contained in, the beautiful crystals of
+quartz for which the locality is famous. Here the same phase of
+distillation is reached as in the coke residuum of the petroleum stills.
+
+Again, in some crystalline limestones, detached scales or crystals of
+_graphite_ occur, which are undoubtedly the product of the complete
+distillation of liquid hydrocarbons with which the rock was once
+impregnated. The remarkable purity of such graphite is the natural
+result of its mode of formation, and such cases resemble the occurrence
+of graphite in cast iron and basalt. The black clouds and bands which
+stain many otherwise white marbles are generally due to specks of
+graphite, the residue of hydrocarbons which once saturated the rock.
+Some limestones are quite black from the carbonaceous matter they
+contain (Lycoming Valley, Pa., Glenn's Falls, N. Y., and Collingwood,
+Canada), and these are sold as black marbles, but if exposed to heat,
+such limestones are blanched by the expulsion of the contained carbon;
+usually a residue of anthracite or graphite is left, forming dark spots
+or streaks, as we find in the clouded and banded marbles.
+
+Finally, the great work going on in Nature's laboratory may be closely
+imitated by art; the differences in the results being simply the
+consequence of differing conditions in the experiments. Vegetable tissue
+has been converted artificially into the equivalents of lignite, coal,
+anthracite, and graphite, with the emission of vapors, gases, and oils
+closely resembling those evolved in natural processes. So petroleum may
+be distilled to form asphalt, and this in turn converted into Albertite
+and coke (i.e., anthracite). Grahamite has been artificially produced
+from petroleum by Mr. W. P. Jenney.
+
+In the preceding remarks, no effort has been made even to enumerate
+all the so-called carbon minerals which have been described. This was
+unnecessary in a discussion of the relations of the more important
+groups, and would have extended this article much beyond its prescribed
+length. Those who care to gain a fuller knowledge of the different
+members of the various groups are referred to the admirable chapter on
+the "Hydrocarbon Compounds" in Dana's Mineralogy.
+
+It will, however, add to the value of this paper, if brief mention be
+made of a few carbon minerals of which the genesis and relations are not
+generally known, and in regard to which special interest is felt, such
+as the diamond, jet, the hydrocarbon jellies, "Dopplerite," etc.
+
+The diamond is found in the _débris_ of metamorphic rocks in many
+countries, and is probably one of the evolved products of the
+distillation of organic matter they once contained. Under peculiar
+circumstances it has apparently been formed by precipitation from
+sulphide of carbon or some other volatile carbon compound by elective
+affinity. Laboratory experiments have proved the possibility of
+producing it by such a process, but the artificial crystals are
+microscopic, perhaps only because a long time is required to build up
+those of larger size.
+
+Jet is a carbonaceous solid which in most cases is a true lignite, and
+generally retains more or less of the structure of wood. Masses are
+sometimes found that show no structure, and these are probably formed
+from bitumen which has separated from the wood of which it once formed
+part, and which it generally saturates or invests. In some cases,
+however, these masses of jet-like substance are plainly the residuum of
+excrementitious matter voided by fishes or reptiles. These latter are
+often found in the Triassic fish-beds of Connecticut and New Jersey, and
+in the Cretaceous marls of the latter State.
+
+The discovery of a quantity of hydrocarbon jelly, recently, in a
+peat-bed at Scranton, Pa., has caused some wonder, but similar
+substances (Dopplerite, etc.) have been met with in the peat-beds of
+other countries; and while the history of the formation of this singular
+group of hydrocarbons is not yet well understood, and offers an
+interesting subject for future research, we have reason to believe that
+these jellies have been of common occurrence among the evolved products
+of the decomposition of vegetable tissue in all ages.
+
+The fossil resins--often erroneously called gums--amber, kauri, copal,
+etc., though interestingly related to the hydro-carbons enumerated on
+the preceding pages, form no essential part of the series, and demand
+only the briefest notice here.
+
+_Amber_ is the resin which exuded from certain coniferous trees that,
+in Tertiary times, grew abundantly in northern Europe. The leaves and
+trunks of these trees have generally perished; but masses of their
+resin, more enduring, buried in the earth on the shores of the Baltic,
+have in the lapse of time changed physically and chemically, and have
+become fitted for the ornamental purposes for which they have been used
+by all civilized nations.
+
+_Kauri_ is the resin of _Dammara australis_, a living coniferous tree of
+New Zealand, and the "gum" is dug from the earth on the sites of forests
+which have now disappeared.
+
+_Copal_ is a commercial name given to the resins of several different
+trees, but the most esteemed, and indeed the only true copal, is the
+product of _Trachylobium Mozambicense_, a tree which grows along the
+Zanzibar coast, and has left its resin buried in the sands of old raised
+beaches which it has abandoned.
+
+The diversity of character which the fossil resins exhibit shows the
+complexity of the vital processes in operation in the vegetable kingdom,
+and gives probability to the theory that some of the differences we find
+in the carbon minerals are due to differences in the plants from which
+they have been derived.
+
+The variations in the physical and chemical characters of different
+coals from the same basin, and from different parts of the same stratum,
+have been sometimes credited to the same cause; but they are probably
+in greater degree due to the differences in the conditions under which
+these varieties have been formed.
+
+Cannel coal, as I have shown elsewhere (_Amer. Jour. Science_, March,
+1857), is completely macerated vegetable tissue which was deposited as
+carbonaceous mud at the bottom of lagoons in the coal-marshes.
+
+Caking coals were probably peat, which accumulated under somewhat
+uniform conditions, was constantly saturated with moisture, and became
+a comparatively homogeneous and partially gelatinous carbonaceous mass;
+while the open-burning coals which show a distinctly laminated structure
+and consist of layers of pitch-coal, alternating with bands of mineral
+charcoal or cannel, seem to have been formed in alternating conditions,
+of more or less moisture, and the bituminous portions are inclosed in
+cells or are separated by partitions, so that the mass does not melt
+down, but more or less perfectly holds its form when exposed to heat.
+
+The generalities of the origin and relations of the carbon minerals
+have now been briefly considered; but a review of the subject would
+be incomplete without some reference to the theories which have been
+advanced by others, that are in conflict with the views now presented.
+There have always been some who denied the organic nature of the mineral
+hydrocarbons, but it has been regarded as a sufficient answer to their
+theories, that chemists and geologists are generally agreed in saying
+that no instances are known of the occurrence in nature of hydrocarbons,
+solid, liquid, or gaseous, in which the evidence was not satisfactory
+that they had been derived from animal or vegetable tissue. A few
+exceptional cases, however, in which chemists and geologists of deserved
+distinction have claimed the possibility and even probability of the
+production of marsh gas, petroleum, etc., through inorganic agencies,
+require notice.
+
+In a paper published in the _Annales de Chimie et de Physique_, Vol.
+IX., p.481, M. Berthelot attempts to show that the formation of
+petroleum and carbureted hydrogen from inorganic substances is possible,
+if it be true, as suggested by Daubre, that there are vast masses of the
+alkaline metals--potassium, sodium, etc.--deeply buried in the earth,
+and at a high temperature, to which carbonic acid should gain access;
+and he demonstrates that, these premises being granted, the formation of
+hydrocarbons would necessarily follow.
+
+But it should be said that no satisfactory evidence has ever been
+offered of the existence of zones or masses of the unoxidized alkaline
+metals in the earth, and it is not claimed by Berthelot that there are
+any facts in the occurrence of petroleum and carbureted hydrogen in
+nature which seem to exemplify the chemical action which he simply
+claims is theoretically possible. Berthelot also says that, in most
+cases, there can be no doubt of the organic origin of the hydrocarbons.
+
+Mendeleeff, in the _Revue Scientifique_, 1877, p. 409, discusses at
+considerable length the genesis of petroleum, and attempts to sustain
+the view that it is of inorganic origin. His arguments and illustrations
+are chiefly drawn from the oil wells of Pennsylvania and Canada, and
+for the petroleum of these two districts he claims an inorganic origin,
+because, as he says, there are no accumulations of organic matter below
+the horizons at which the oils and gases occur. He then goes into a
+lengthy discussion of the possible and probable source of petroleum,
+where, as in the instances cited, an organic origin "is not possible."
+It is a sufficient answer to M. Mendeleeff to say, that beneath the oil
+bearing strata of western Pennsylvania are sheets of bituminous shale,
+from one hundred to five hundred feet in thickness, which afford an
+adequate, and it may be proved the true source, of the petroleum, and
+that no petroleum has been found below these shales; also that the
+oil-fields of Canada are all underlain by the Collingwood shales, the
+equivalent of the Utica carbonaceous shales of New York, and that from
+the out-crops of these shales petroleum and hydrocarbon gases are
+constantly escaping. With a better knowledge of the geology of the
+districts he refers to, he would have seen that the facts in the
+cases he cites afford the strongest evidence of the organic origin of
+petroleum.
+
+Among those who are agreed as to the organic origin of the hydrocarbons,
+there is yet some diversity of opinion in regard to the nature of the
+process by which they have been produced.
+
+Prof. J. P. Lesley has at various times advocated the theory that
+petroleum is indigenous in the sand-rocks which hold it, and has been
+derived from plants buried in them. ("Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc.," Vol.
+X., pp. 33, 187, etc.)
+
+My own observations do not sanction this view, as the limited number of
+plants buried in the sandstones which are now reservoirs of petroleum
+must always have borne a small proportion in volume to the mass of
+inorganic matter; and some of those which are saturated with petroleum
+are almost completely destitute of the impressions of plants.
+
+In all cases where sandstones contain petroleum in quantity, I think it
+will be found that there are sheets of carbonaceous matter below, from
+which carbureted hydrogen and petroleum are constantly issuing. A more
+probable explanation of the occurrence of petrolem in the sandstones is
+that they have, from their porosity, become convenient receptacles for
+that which flowed from some organic stratum below.
+
+Dr. T. Sterry Hunt has regarded limestones, and especially the Niagara
+and corniferous, as the principal sources of our petroleum; but, as I
+have elsewhere suggested, no considerable flow of petroleum has ever
+been obtained from the Niagara limestone, though at Chicago and Niagara
+Falls it contains a large quantity of bituminous matter; also, that the
+corniferous limestone which Dr. Hunt has regarded as the source of the
+oil of Canada and Pennsylvania is too thin, and too barren of petroleum,
+or the material out of which it is made, to justify the inference.
+
+The corniferous limestone is never more than fifty or sixty feet thick,
+and does not contain even one per cent. of hydrocarbons; and in southern
+Kentucky, where oil is produced in large quantity, this limestone does
+not exist.
+
+That many limestones are more or less charged with petroleum is well
+known; and in addition to those mentioned above, the Silurian limestone
+at Collingwood, Canada, may be cited as an example. As I have elsewhere
+shown, we have reason to believe that the petroleum here is indigenous,
+and has been derived, in part, at least, from animal organisms; but the
+limestones are generally compact, and if cellular, their cavities are
+closed, and the amount of petroleum which, under any circumstances,
+flows from or can be extracted from limestone rock is small. On the
+other hand, the bituminous shales which underlie the different oil
+regions afford an abundant source of supply, holding the proper
+relations with the reservoirs that contain the oil, and are
+spontaneously and constantly evolving gas and oil, as may be observed
+in a great number of localities. For this reason, while confessing
+the occurrence of petroleum and asphaltum in many limestones, I am
+thoroughly convinced that little or none of the petroleum of commerce is
+derived from them.
+
+Prof. S.F. Peckham, who has studied the petroleum field of southern
+California, attributes the abundant hydrocarbon emanations in that
+locality to microscopic animals. It is quite possible that this is
+true in this and other localities, but the bituminous shales which are
+evidently the sources of the petroleum of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky,
+etc., generally contain abundant impressions of sea weeds, and indeed
+these are almost the only organisms which have left any traces in them.
+I am inclined, therefore, now, as in my report on the rock oils of Ohio,
+published in 1860, to ascribe the carbonaceous matter of the bituminous
+shales of Pennsylvania and Ohio, and hence the petroleum derived from
+them, to the easily decomposed cellular tissue of algæ which have
+in their decomposition contributed a large percentage of diffused
+carbonaceous matter to the sediments accumulating at the bottom of the
+water where they grew. In a recent communication to the National Academy
+of Sciences, Dr. T. Sterry Hunt has proposed the theory that anthracite
+is the result of the decomposition of vegetable tissue when buried in
+porous strata like sandstone; but an examination of even a few of the
+important deposits of anthracite in the world will show that no such
+relationship as he suggests obtains.
+
+Anthracite may and does occur in sedimentary rocks of varied character,
+but, so far as my observation has extended, never in quantity in
+sandstone. In the Lower Silurian rocks anthracite occurs, both in the
+Old World and in the New, where no metamorphism has affected it, and
+where it is simply the normal result of the long continued distillation
+of plant tissue; but the anthracite beds which are known and mined in so
+many countries are the results of the metamorphism of coal-beds of one
+or another age, by local outbursts of trap, or the steaming and baking
+of the disturbed strata in mountain chains, numerous instances of which
+are given on a preceding page.
+
+M. Mendeleeff, in his article already referred to, misled by a want of
+knowledge of the geology of our oil-fields, and ascribing the petroleum
+to an inorganic cause, connects the production of oil in Pennsylvania
+and Caucasia with the neighboring mountain chains of the Alleghanies and
+the Caucasus; but in these localities a sufficient amount of organic
+matter can be found to supply a source for the petroleum, while the
+upheaval and loosening of the strata along lines parallel with the axes
+of elevation has favored the decomposition (spontaneous distillation) of
+the carbonaceous strata. It should be distinctly stated, also, that no
+igneous rocks are found in the vicinity of productive oil-wells, here or
+elsewhere, and there are no facts to sustain the view that petroleum is
+a volcanic product.
+
+In the valley of the Mississippi, in Ohio, Illinois, and Kentucky, are
+great deposits of petroleum, far removed from any mountain chain or
+volcanic vent, and the cases which have been cited of the limited
+production of hydrocarbons in the vicinity of, and probably in
+connection with, volcanic centers may be explained by supposing that
+in these cases the petroleum is distilled from sedimentary strata
+containing organic matter by the proximity of melted rock, or steam.
+
+Everything indicates that the distillation which has produced
+the greatest quantities of petroleum known was effected at a low
+temperature, and the constant escape of petroleum and carbureted
+hydrogen from the outcrops of bituminous shales, as well as the result
+of weathering on the shales, depriving them of all their carbon, shows
+that the distillation and complete elimination of the organic matter
+they contain may take place at the ordinary temperature.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ESTIMATION OF SULPHUR IN IRON AND STEEL.
+
+By GEORGE CRAIG.
+
+
+For wellnigh two years I have been estimating sulphur in iron and steel
+by a modification of the evolution process, which consists in passing
+the evolved gases through an ammoniacal solution of peroxide of
+hydrogen, which oxidizes the sulphureted hydrogen to sulphuric acid,
+which latter is estimated as usual. The _modus operandi_ is as follows:
+
+[Illustration]
+
+100 grains of the iron or steel are placed in the 10 oz. flask, a, along
+with ½ oz. water; 1½ oz. hydrochloric acid are added from the stoppered
+funnel, b, in such quantities at a time as to produce a moderate
+evolution of gas through the nitrogen bulb, c, which contains 1/8 oz.
+(20 vols.) peroxide of hydrogen and ½ oz. ammonia. The tube, d, is to
+condense the bulk of the hydrochloric acid which distills over during
+the operation. When all the acid has been added and the evolution of gas
+becomes sluggish, heat is applied and the liquid boiled till all action
+ceases. Air is blown through the aparatus for a few minutes and the
+contents of c and d washed into a small beaker and acidified with
+hydrochloric acid, boiled, barium chloride added, and the barium
+sulphate filtered off after standing a short time. A blank experiment
+must be done with each new lot of peroxide of hydrogen obtained, which
+always gives under 0.1 barium sulphate with me.
+
+The whole operation is finished within two hours, the usual oxidation
+process occupying nearly two days; and the results obtained are
+invariably slightly higher than by the oxidation processes.
+
+Until lately I have always added excess of chlorate of potash to the
+residue left in a, evaporated it nearly to dryness, diluted, filtered,
+and added chloride of barium to the diluted filtrate, but only once
+have I obtained a trace of precipitate after standing 48 hours, and the
+pig-iron in that case contained 8 per cent. of silicon, so that all
+the sulphur is evolved during the process. It has been objected to the
+evolution process that when the iron contains copper all the sulphur is
+not evolved, but theoretically it ought to be evolved whether copper is
+present or not; and to test the point I fused 3 lb. of ordinary Scotch
+pig-iron with some copper for half an hour in a Fletcher's gas furnace.
+No copper could be detected in the iron by mere observation with a
+microscope, but it gave on analysis 0.225 per cent. of copper, and on
+estimating the sulphur in it by the above process and by oxidation with
+chlorate of potash and hydrochloric acid, using 100 grains in each case,
+and performing blank experiments, I found:
+
+  By peroxide of hydrogen process          0.0357 per cent.
+  By oxidation (KClO_{3} and HCl) process, 0.0302     "
+
+so that even in highly cupriferous pig-iron all the sulphur is evolved
+on treatment with strong hydrochloric acid.--_Chem. News_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE AIR IN RELATION TO HEALTH.
+
+[Footnote: Abstract of a lecture before the Master Plumbers'
+Association, New York, Nov. 2. 1882.]
+
+By Prof. C. F. CHANDLER.
+
+
+It is only about one hundred years since the first important facts were
+discovered which threw light upon the chemistry of atmosphere. It was in
+1774 that Dr. Priestley, in London, and Scheele, in Sweden, discovered
+the vital constituents of the atmosphere--the oxygen gas which supports
+life. The inert gas, nitrogen, had been discovered a year or two before.
+When we examine our atmosphere, we find it is composed of oxygen and
+nitrogen. The nitrogen constitutes no less than 80 per cent, of the
+atmosphere; the remaining 20 percent, consists of oxygen, so that the
+atmosphere consists almost entirely of these two gases, odorless and
+colorless and invisible. The atmosphere is, however, never free from
+moisture; a certain amount of aqueous vapor is always present. The
+quantity can hardly be stated, as it varies from day to day and month
+to month; it depends upon the temperature and other conditions. Then
+we have the gas commonly called carbonic acid in extremely minute
+quantities, about one part in 2,500, or four one-hundredths of one per
+cent. A small quantity of ammonia and a small quantity of ozone are also
+present.
+
+Besides these gases which have been enumerated, and which play an
+important part in supporting life in both the kingdoms of nature, we
+find a great many solids. Every housewife knows how dust settles upon
+everything about the house. This dust has recently been the subject of
+most active study, and it proves to be quite as important as the vital
+oxygen that actually supports life. When we examine this dust--and it
+falls everywhere, not only in the city streets, but upon the tops of
+mountains, upon the deck of the ocean steamer, and the Arctic snow--we
+find some of it does not belong to the earth, and, as it is not
+terrestrial, we call it cosmical. And when it falls in large pieces we
+call it a meteorite or shooting star. When the Challenger crossed the
+Atlantic, and soundings were made in the deep sea, in the mud that was
+brought up and examined there were found various little particles that
+were not terrestrial. They were dust particles that were dropped into
+the atmosphere of the earth from outer space. Then we have terrestrial
+dust, and we divide that into mineral and organic. The mineral consists
+chiefly of clay, sand, and, near the ocean, salt. Then we have organic
+matter. Some of this is dead leaves which have been ground to powder.
+Animal matter has also become dry and reduced to powder, and we actually
+find the remains of animals and plants floating upon the atmosphere,
+especially in the city. Examinations of the dust which had collected
+upon the basement and higher windows of a Fifth avenue residence showed
+that the dust upon the basement floor was chiefly composed of sand.
+And the higher up I went, the smaller proportion of sand and a larger
+proportion of animal matter, so that the dust that blows into our faces
+is largely decomposing animal substance.
+
+But we have a living matter in the atmosphere. We often notice in the
+summer, after a rain, that the ground is yellow. On gathering up the
+yellow powder and examining it under the microscope, we find that it
+consists of pollen. The pollen of rag weed and other plants is supposed
+to be the cause of hay fever. But we also have something far more
+important in the germs of certain classes of vegetation. The effects
+are familiar. If food is put away, it becomes mouldy. This mould is a
+peculiar kind of vegetation which is called a fungus, and the plants
+fungi. In order for this mould to develop a certain temperature and a
+certain degree of moisture are necessary. Our food, we say, decays.
+Now, what we call decay is really the growth of these fungi. Animal and
+vegetable substances which these fungi seize upon are destroyed. All
+ordinary fermentations and putrefactions are due to mould fungi, yeast
+plants, or bacteria, and liquids undergoing these processes carry these
+fungi and their germs wherever they go. The refuse of the city pollutes
+the air. You have only to pass along any street to find more or less
+rubbish. That furnishes the nidus for the growth and development of
+these germs, and until we adopt better methods of getting rid of that
+refuse, we never shall have the air of this city in the condition that
+it should be.
+
+One of the most constant sources of the pollution of the air in
+inhabited localities is the decomposition that takes place in the
+ground. Refuse of every kind gets into it. Our sewers are leaky, and
+putrefaction is constantly going on. The soil down to the limit of
+the ground water contains a large amount of air. This air, when the
+atmospheric pressure in the house is diminished, is drawn in with such
+organic impurities as it contains. A cement floor in the cellar is not
+a protection against this entrance of the ground air, for the cement is
+porous to the passage of air, but a remedy may be found by laying on the
+cement a covering of coal tar pitch, in which bricks are set on edge,
+the spaces between the bricks are filled with the melted pitch, and the
+bricks then covered with coal tar pitch. When the house is building, the
+foundation walls should also be similarly coated, outside as well as
+inside. Such a cellar floor was considered to be absolutely impervious
+to ground air and moisture. The lecturer had recently laid this floor in
+his own house with the greatest success. The atmosphere of the entire
+house is improved, and the expense is very moderate. Another source of
+the contamination of the air of houses is the heating apparatus.
+Stoves and furnaces, however well constructed at first, will, from the
+contraction and expansion of the metal, soon allow the escape of coal
+gas, and this danger is greatly increased by the use of dampers in
+the stove-pipe. When, to regulate the fire, the damper in the pipe is
+closed, the gases, having their passage to the chimney cut off, will
+escape through any cracks or openings in the stove into the room.
+Prof. Chandler, having kept a record of accidents from this cause, had
+accumulated a formidable list of suffocations due to the use of the
+damper. The danger was now somewhat lessened by providing dampers with
+perforations in the center, which allowed the gases to escape when the
+damper was closed. As regards the maintenance of pure air in houses,
+the preference was given to the open fire-place. The hot-air furnace
+deriving a supply of pure air from out of doors was, when properly
+constructed, a very satisfactory method of heating, but in city houses
+the mistake was often made of carrying the cold air duct of the furnace
+to the front of the house, where it was exposed to the dust of the
+streets. It should be taken from the rear end of the house, and carried
+some distance above the surface of the yard. It was an excellent
+expedient to insert in the cold air duct a wire screen to hold a layer
+of cotton to retain the floating impurities which might enter the
+air-box. This could be removed from time to time, and the cotton
+replaced. Steam heating has been objected to by many for reasons in
+no wise due to the apparatus, but to neglect in the use of it. The
+complaint of closeness where steam is used is due to the fact that a
+room containing a steam radiator can be heated with every door and
+window closed, and no fresh air admitted, while with stoves and open
+fire-places a certain quantity of fresh air must be admitted to maintain
+the fire. Where radiators are used, the ventilation of the rooms should,
+therefore, be looked after. Again, the complaint that steam apparatus
+has an unpleasant odor is due to the fact that the radiators are allowed
+to become covered with dust, which is cooked, and gives rise to the
+smells complained of. The radiator should be from time to time
+cleaned. When these precautions are taken, no means of heating is more
+satisfactory than steam.
+
+Sewer gas is another source of contamination; this is a very indefinite
+term, to which formerly many false and exaggerated properties of causing
+specific diseases were attributed. It is now, however, recognized to
+mean simply the air of sewers, generally not differing very greatly from
+common air, containing a certain proportion of marsh gas, carbonic
+acid, and sulphureted hydrogen, etc. No one of these gases, however,
+is capable of producing the diseases attributed to sewer gas. Careful
+research has shown that it is the sewage itself, containing germs of
+specific disease, which is added to the air in the sewer by the breaking
+of bubbles of gas on its surface, which is the cause of the diseases
+associated with sewers.
+
+An intimate connection is believed to exist between the germs of sewer
+air and diphtheria, and probably also between sewer air and scarlet
+fever. This sewer gas is to be excluded from our houses by proper
+systems of plumbing, and to such an extent have these now been
+perfected, that there is no objection to having plumbing fixtures in
+all parts of the house. This opinion has lately been objected to in the
+_Popular Science Monthly_, as it was at a meeting of the Academy of
+Medicine last spring, but on wholly insufficient grounds.
+
+The objectors all insist that a trap will allow sewer gas to pass
+through it, and the experiments made at the Academy of Medicine showed
+that sulphureted hydrogen gas, etc., would so pass. The advocates of the
+trap have never denied that the water seal would absorb gases on one
+side and give them off on the other, but they do deny that, in the
+conditions existing in good plumbing, such gases will be given off in
+quantities to do any damage, and they confidently assert that the germ
+which is the dangerous element will not pass the seal at all. Pumpelly
+investigated the matter for the National Board of Health, and in no
+instance was he able to make the germ pass the seal of the trap. It is
+now proposed to set up against the weight of this scientific testimony
+the results of an investigator in Chicago, whose work was at once
+appropriated as an advertisement by stock jobbing disinfectant companies
+in a manner which raises a suspicion that the investigation was made in
+their interest. He described tersely the essentials of good plumbing,
+the necessity of a trap on the house drain, the ventilation of the
+soil-pipe, and the ventilation of the trap against siphonage. Of the
+first, he said that it offered protection to each householder against
+the entrance into his house of the germs of a contagious disease which
+passed into the common sewer from the house of a neighbor. Were the trap
+dispensed with, the contagion in the sewer would have free entrance into
+the houses connecting with it.
+
+Prof. Chandler, in conclusion, alluded to the cordial relations now
+existing between the Board of Health and the majority of the master
+plumbers of the city. He said that for himself his opinion of the craft
+had greatly risen during his intimate connection with plumbers the last
+two years. He thought the majority of the jobs now done in the city are
+well executed. He believed that the Board of Health had not been obliged
+to proceed against more than eight master plumbers since the new law
+went into force. He called upon the Association to adopt a "code of
+ethics," which should define what an honest plumber can do and cannot
+do, and he illustrated his meaning by citing an extraordinary case of
+fraudulent workmanship which had been recently reported to him. His
+remarks on this point were greeted with frequent outbursts of applause.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE PLANTAIN AS A STYPTIC.
+
+
+The following abstract of a paper read by Dr. Quinlan at the recent
+British Pharmaceutical Congress, may prove of interest to medical
+readers in this country, where the plant mentioned is a common weed:
+
+"About a year ago Dr. Quinlan had seen the chewed leaves of the
+_Plantago lanceolata_ successfully used to stop a dangerous hemorrhage
+from leech bites in a situation where pressure could not be employed. He
+had searched out the literature of the subject, and found that, although
+this herb is highly spoken of by Culpepper and other old writers as
+a styptic, and alluded to as such in the plays of Shakespeare, its
+employment seems to have died out. Professor Quinlan described the
+suitable varieties of plantain, and exhibited preparations which had
+been made for him by Dr. J. Evans, of Dublin, State apothecary. They
+dried leaves and powdered leaves, conserved with glycerine, for external
+use; the juice preserved by alcohol, as also by glycerine, for internal
+use; and a green extract. He gave an account of the chemistry of the
+juice, from which it appeared that it was not a member of the tannin
+series; and also described its physiological effect in causing a
+tendency to stasia in the capillaries of the tail of a goldfish,
+examined with a microscopic power of 400 X. He regarded its styptic
+power as partly mechanical and partly physiological. The juice, in large
+doses, he had found useful in internal hemorrhages. The knowledge of
+the properties of this plant he thought would be useful in cases of
+emergency, because it could be obtained in any field and by the most
+uninstructed persons."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+BACTERIA.
+
+
+Bacteria, whether significant of disease or decline of health, are found
+more or less numerous in everything we eat and drink. The germs or
+spores of many kinds, known as _termo_, _lineola_, tenue, spirillum,
+vibriones, etc, exist in almost infinite numbers; some of the smallest
+are too small to be seen by the highest powers, which, being lodged in
+all vegetable and animal substances, spring into life and develop very
+rapidly under favorable circumstances. They develop most rapidly when
+decomposition commences, and seem to indicate the degree or activity
+of that decomposition, also hastening the same. They are found most
+numerous in the feces, and usually fully developed in the fresh
+evacuations of persons of all ages. They may be seen plainly under
+a thin glass with high powers with strong or clear light, when the
+material is much diluted with water.
+
+These bacteria appear almost as numerously, yet more slowly, in urine,
+either upon exposure to air or when freshly evacuated, when the general
+health of the individual is declining, or any tendency to decomposition.
+A diagnosis can be aided very greatly by a study of these bacteria,
+as they indicate or determine the vitality, vigor, and purity of the
+system, whether more or less subject to disease, even before any signs
+of disease appear. They seem to preindicate the hold of the life force
+on the material, and always appear when that force is broken. Their
+relative quantity found in feces is as a barometric indication of the
+general health or some particular disturbance, and it is surprising
+how very fast they multiply while simply passing the intestines under
+circumstances favorable for their growth. These forms, so small, are
+important, because so very numerous, and their study has been, perhaps,
+avoided by many; yet they certainly mean something and effect something,
+even the non-malignant varieties as mentioned above, and it is certainly
+worth while to continue to study their meaning, even beyond what has
+already been written by others on the subject.--_J.M. Adams, in The
+Microscope_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE SOY BEAN
+
+(_Soja hispida_.)
+
+
+A good deal of attention has lately been directed to this plant in
+consequence of the enormous extent to which it is cultivated in China
+for the sake of the small seeds which it produces, and which are known
+as soy beans. These vary considerably in size, shape, and color,
+according to the variety of the plant which produces them. They are for
+the most part about the size and shape of an ordinary field pea, and,
+like the pea, are of a yellow color; some, however, are of a greenish
+tint. These seeds contain a large quantity of oil, which is expressed
+from them in China and used for a variety of purposes. The residue is
+moulded with a considerable amount of pressure into large circular
+cakes, two feet or more across, and six inches or eight inches thick.
+This cake is used either for feeding cattle or for manuring the land;
+indeed, a very large trade is done in China with bean cake (as it is
+always called) for these purposes. The well-known sauce called soy is
+also prepared from seeds of this bean. The plant generally known as Soja
+hispida is by modern botanists referred to Glycine soja. It is an
+erect, hairy, herbaceous plant. The leaves are three-parted and the
+papilionaceous flowers are born in axillary racemes. It is too tender
+for outdoor cultivation in this country, but, has been recommended for
+extended growth in our colonies as a commercial plant. The plants are
+readily used from seed.--_J.R.F., in The Garden_.
+
+[Illustration: THE SOY BEAN. _(Soja Lispida)_]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ERICA CAVENDISHIANA.
+
+
+The plant of which the illustration is given is one of those fine
+specimens which has made the collection of J. Lawless, Esq., The
+Cottage, Exeter, famous all over the south and west of England. It is
+only one specimen among a considerable collection of hard-wooded plants
+which are cultivated and trained in first rate style by Mr. George Cole,
+the gardener, one of the most successful plant growers of the day. The
+plant was in the winning collection of Mr. Cole exhibited at the late
+spring show held at Plymouth.--_The Gardeners' Chronicle_.
+
+[Illustration: ERICA CAVENDISHIANA.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+PHILESIA BUXIFOLIA.
+
+
+We figure this plant, not as a novelty, but for the purpose of showing
+what a fine thing it is when grown under propitious circumstances.
+Generally, we see it more or less starved in the greenhouse, and even
+when planted out in the winter garden its flowers lack the size and
+richness of color they attain out-of-doors. It comes from the extreme
+south of South America, which accounts for its hardihood, and is a near
+ally of the Lapageria: the latter is remarkable for withstanding even
+the noxious fumes of the copper smelting works in Chili, and as the
+Philesia has similar tough leaves, it is probable that it would support
+the vitiated atmosphere of a town better than most evergreens. In any
+case, there is no reasonable doubt but that, if cultivators would take
+the necessary pains, they might select perfectly hardy varieties both
+of the Lapageria and of the Philesia. As it is, we can only call the
+Philesea half-hardy north of the Thames, while the Lapageria is not even
+that. The curious Philageria, raised in Messrs. Veitch's nursery and
+described and figured in our columns in 1872, p. 358, is a hybrid raised
+between the two genera. For the specimen of Philesia figured we are
+indebted to Mr. Dartnall.--_The Gardeners' Chronicle_.
+
+[Illustration: PHILESIA BUXIFOLIA--HARDY SHRUB--FLOWERS, ROSE PINK.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+MAHOGANY.
+
+
+The mahogany tree, says the _Lumber World_, is a native of the West
+Indies, the Bahamas, and that portion of Central America that lies
+adjacent to the Bay of Honduras, and has also been found in Florida. It
+is stated to be of moderately rapid growth, reaching its full maturity
+in about two hundred years. Full grown, it is one of the monarchs of
+tropical America. Its trunk, which often exceeds forty feet in length
+and six in diameter, and massive arms, rising to a lofty height,
+and spreading with graceful sweep over immense spaces, covered with
+beautiful foliage, bright, glossy, light, and airy, clinging so long to
+the spray as to make it almost an evergreen, present a rare combination
+of loveliness and grandeur. The leaves are small, delicate, and polished
+like those of the laurel. The flowers are small and white, or greenish
+yellow. The fruit is a hard, woody capsule, oval, not unlike the head of
+a turkey in size and shape, and contains five cells, in each of which
+are inclosed about fifteen seeds.
+
+The mahogany tree was not discovered till the end of the sixteenth
+century, and was not brought into European use till nearly a century
+later. The first mention of it is that it was used in the repair of
+some of Sir Walter Raleigh's ships, at Trinidad, in 1597. Its finely
+variegated tints were admired, but in that age the dream of El Dorado
+caused matters of more value to be neglected. The first that was brought
+to England was about 1724, a few planks having been sent to Dr. Gibbons,
+of London, by a brother who was a West Indian captain. The doctor was
+erecting a house, and gave the planks to the workmen, who rejected them
+as being too hard. The doctor then had a candle-box made of the wood,
+his cabinet-maker also complaining of the hardness of the timber.
+But, when finished, the box became an object of general curiosity and
+admiration. He had one bureau, and her Grace of Buckingham had another,
+made of this beautiful wood, and the despised mahogany now became a
+prominent article of luxury, and at the same time raised the fortunes
+of the cabinet-maker by whom it had been so little regarded. Since that
+lime it has taken a leading rank among the ornamental woods, having come
+to be considered indispensable where luxury is intended to be indicated.
+
+A few facts will furnish a tolerably distinct idea of the size of this
+splendid tree. The mahogany lumbermen, having selected a tree, surround
+it with a platform about twelve feet above the ground, and cut it above
+the platform. Some twelve or fifteen feet of the largest part of the
+trunk are thus lost. Yet a single log not unfrequently weighs from six
+or seven to fifteen tons, and sometimes measures as much as seventeen
+feet in length and four and a half to five and a half feet in diameter,
+one tree furnishing two, three, or four such logs. Some trees have
+yielded 12,000 superficial feet, and at average price pieces have sold
+for $15,000. Messrs. Broadwood London, pianoforte manufacturers, paid
+£3,000 for three logs, all cut from one tree, and each about fifteen
+feet long and more than three feet square. The tree is cut at two
+seasons of the year--in the autumn and about Christmas time. The trunk,
+of course, furnishes timber of the largest dimensions, but that from the
+branches is preferred for ornamental purposes, owing to its closer grain
+and more variegated color.
+
+In low and damp soil its growth is rapid; but the most valuable trees
+grow slowly among rocks on sterile soil, and seem to gather compactness
+and beauty from the very struggle which they make for an existence.
+In the Bahamas, in the most desolate regions, once flourished that
+curiously veined and much esteemed variety once known in Europe as
+"Madeira wood," but which has long since been exterminated. Jamaica,
+also, which used to be a fruitful source of mahogany, and whence in 1753
+not less than 521,000 feet were shipped, is now almost depleted. That
+which is now furnished from there is very inferior, pale, and porous,
+and is less esteemed than that of Cuba, San Domingo, or Honduras.
+
+In a dry state mahogany Is very durable, and not liable to the attack of
+worms, but, when exposed to the weather it does not last long. It would
+therefore make excellent material for floors, roofs, etc., but its
+costliness limits its utility in this direction, and it is chiefly
+employed for furniture, doors, and a few other articles of joinery, for
+which it is among the best materials known. It has been used for sashes
+and window frames, but is not desirable for this purpose on account of
+the ease with which it is affected by the weather. It has also been used
+in England to some extent for the framing of machinery in cotton-mills.
+Its color is a reddish brown of different shades and luster, sometimes
+becoming a yellowish brown, and often much veined and mottled with
+darker shades of the same color. Its texture is uniform, and the rings
+indicating its annual growth are not very distinct. The larger medullary
+rays are absent, but the smaller ones are often very distinct, with
+pores between them. In the Jamaica woods these pores are often filled
+with a white substance, but in that brought from Central America they
+are generally empty. It has neither taste nor odor, shrinks very
+slightly, and warps, it is said, less than any other wood.
+
+The variety called Spanish mahogany comes from the West Indies, and is
+in smaller logs than the Honduras mahogany, being generally about two
+feet square and ten feet long. It is close grained and hard, generally
+darker than the Honduras, free from black specks, and sometimes strongly
+marked; the pores appear as though chalk had been rubbed into them.
+
+The Honduras mahogany comes in logs from two to four feet square and
+twelve to fourteen long; planks have been obtained seven feet wide. Its
+grain is very open and often irregular, with black or gray specks. The
+veins and figures are often very distinct and handsome, and that of a
+fine golden color and free from gray specks is considered the best. It
+holds the glue better than any other wood. The weight of a cubic foot of
+mahogany varies from thirty-five to fifty-three pounds. Its strength
+is between sixty-seven and ninety-six, stiffness seventy-three to
+ninety-three, and toughness sixty-one to ninety-nine--oak being
+considered as one hundred in each case.
+
+There are three other species of the genus _Swietania_ besides the
+mahogany tree, two of them natives of the East Indies. One is a very
+large tree, growing in the mountainous parts of central Hindostan, and
+rises to a great height, throwing out many branches toward the top. The
+head is spreading and the leaves bear some resemblance to those of the
+American species. The wood is a dull red, not so beautiful as that known
+to commerce, but harder, heavier, and more durable. The natives of India
+consider it the most durable timber which their forests afford, and
+consequently use it, when it can be procured, wherever strength and
+durability are particularly desired. The other East Indian species is
+found in the mountains of Sircars, which run parallel to the Bay of
+Bengal. The tree is not so large as any of the other species described,
+and the wood is of much different appearance, being of a deep yellow,
+considerably resembling box. The grain is close, and the wood both heavy
+and durable. The third species, known as African mahogany, is brought
+from Sierra Leone. It is hard and durable, and used for purposes
+requiring these properties in an eminent degree. If, however, the heart
+of the tree be exposed or crossed in cutting or trimming the timber, it
+is very liable to premature and rapid decay.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ANIMALS AND THE ARTS.
+
+
+In many of the museums efforts are made to perfect economic collections
+of animals, so as to show how they can be applied to advantage in the
+arts and sciences. The collection and preparation of the corals, for
+example, form an important industry. The fossil corals are richly
+polished and set in studs and sleeve-buttons, forming rich and
+ornamental objects. The fossil coral that resembles a delicate chain has
+been often copied by designers, while the red and black corals have long
+been used. The best fisheries are along the coasts of Tunis, Algeria,
+and Morocco, from 2 to 10 miles from shore, in from 30 to 150 fathoms.
+Good coral is also common at Naples, near Leghorn and Genoa, and on
+various parts of the sea, as Sardinia, Corsica, Catalonia, Provence,
+etc. It ranges in color from pure white through all the shades of
+pink, red, and crimson. The rose pink is most valued. For a long time
+Marseilles was the market, but now Italy is the great center of the
+trade, the greater number of boats hailing from Torre del Greco,
+while outside persons are forced to pay a heavy tax. The vessels are
+schooners, lateen-rigged, from three to fourteen tons. Large nets are
+used, which, during the months between March and October, are dragged,
+dredge-like, over the rocks. A large crew will haul in a season from 600
+to 900 pounds. To prevent the destruction of the industry, the reef is
+divided into ten parts, only one being worked a year, and by the time
+the tenth is reached the first is overgrown again with a new growth. In
+1873 the Algerian fisheries alone, employing 3,150 men, realized half a
+million of dollars. The choice grades are always valuable, the finest
+tints bringing over $5 per ounce, while the small pieces, used for
+necklaces, and called collette, are worth only $1.50 per ounce. The
+large oval pieces are sent to China, where they are used as buttons of
+office by the mandarins.
+
+
+THE CONCH-SHELL.
+
+Somewhat similar in appearance to coral is the conch jewelry, sets of
+which have been sold for $300. The tint is exquisite, but liable to fade
+when exposed to the sun. It is made from the great conch, common in
+Southern Florida and the West Indies. The shells are imported into
+Europe by thousands, and cut up into studs, sleeve-buttons, and various
+articles of ornament. These conches are supposed to be the producers of
+pink pearls, but I have opened hundreds of them and failed to find a
+single pearl. The conch shell is used by the cameo cutter. Rome and
+Paris are the principal seats of the trade, and immense numbers of
+shell cameos are imported by England and America, and mounted in rings,
+brooches, etc. The one showing a pale salmon-color upon an orange ground
+is much used. In 1847, 300 persons worked upon these shells in Paris
+alone, the number of shells used being immense. In Paris 300,000
+helmet-shells were used in one year, valued at $40,000 of the bull's
+mouth, 80,000, averaging a little over a shilling apiece, equal to
+$34,000. Eight thousand black helmets were used, valued at $9,000. The
+value of the large cameos produced in Paris in the year 1847 was about
+$160,000, and the small ones $40,000. In the Wolfe collection of shells
+at the Museum of Natural History, Central Park, is a fine specimen of
+the queen conch from the Florida reef, with a fine head cut into the
+outer surface, showing how it is done. The tools of the worker in cameos
+are of the most delicate description. Fine files, knitting-needle like
+implements, triangular-shaped steel cutters, are arranged in a seemingly
+endless confusion before the worker. The shell or piece of shell to be
+cut is either lashed or glued to a heavy block or held in the hand, and
+the face, animal, or other object outlined first with a delicate lead;
+having thus laid the foundation, the lines are gone over with a delicate
+needle first, then various kinds, the work gradually growing before the
+eye, reminding one of the work of the engraver on wood.
+
+
+LIVING BEETLES, ETC.
+
+Insects have always been used more or less in decoration, especially in
+Brazil, where the richly-colored beetles of the country are affected as
+articles of personal adornment. Recently in a Union Square jewelry store
+a monster beetle was on exhibition, having been sent there for repairs.
+It was alive, and about its body was a delicate gold band, locked with
+a minute padlock; a gold chain attached it to the shawl of the owner.
+Sometimes they are worn upon the headgear, their slow, cumbersome
+movements preventing them from attracting great attention. They are
+valued at from $50 to $100 apiece. Snakes, the rich green variety so
+common in New England, are worn by some ladies as bracelets, while the
+gorgeous reptiles are often imitated in gold and silver, with eyes of
+diamonds, rubies, or black pearls. Gold bears are the proper thing now
+for pins. In the East the chameleon is often worn as a head ornament,
+the animal rarely moving, and forming at least a picturesque decoration,
+with its odd shape and sculptured outlines. Various other reptiles, as
+small turtles, alligators, etc., are pressed into service. The curious
+soldier-crab has been used as a pin. Placed in a box with a rich pearly
+shell prepared for the purpose, it will change houses, and then, secured
+by a gold or silver chain, roams about the wearer, waving its red and
+blue claws in a warlike manner. Birds are, perhaps, more commonly used
+as natural ornaments than any other, and a cloak of the skins of humming
+birds is one of the most magnificent objects to be imagined. One, of a
+rare species, was once sold in Europe for $5,000. Single birds are often
+worth $700 or $800. A cloak of the skin of the great auk would bring
+$8,000 or $10,000. Some of the most beautiful pheasants are extremely
+valuable--worth their weight in gold. Tiger claws are used in the
+decoration of hats, and are extremely valuable and hard to obtain.
+
+Within ten years the alligator has become an important factor to the
+artistic manufacturer. The hide, by a new process, is tanned to an
+agreeable softness and used in innumerable ways. The most costly bags
+and trunks are made from it; pocket-books, card-cases, dining-room
+chairs are covered with it, and it has been used as a dado on the
+library wall of a well-known naturalist. It makes an excellent binding
+for certain books. Among fishes the shark provides a skin used in a
+variety of ways. The shagreen of the shark's ray is of great value.
+Canes are made of the shark's backbone, the interstices being filled
+with silver or shell plates. Shark's teeth are used to decorate the
+weapons of various nations. The magnificent scales, nearly four inches
+across and tipped with seemingly solid silver, of the giant herring,
+are used, while scales of many of the tribe have long been used in the
+manufacture of artificial pearls.
+
+
+PEARLS.
+
+The latter are perhaps the most valuable of all the offerings of animate
+nature, and are the results of the efforts of the bivalve to protect
+itself from injury. A parasite bores into the shell of the pearl bearer,
+and when felt by the animal it immediately fortifies itself by covering
+up the spot with its pearly secretion; the parasite pushes on, the
+oyster piling up until an imperfect pearl attached to the shell is the
+result. The clear oval pearls are formed in a similar way, only in this
+case a bit of sand has become lodged in the folds of the creature, and
+in its efforts to protect itself from the sharp edges, the bit becomes
+covered, layer by layer, and assumes naturally an oval shape. This
+growth of the pearl, as it is incorrectly termed, can be seen by
+breaking open a $500 gem, when the nacre will be seen in layers,
+resembling the section of an onion. The Romans were particularly fond of
+pearls, and, according to Pliny, the wife of Caius Caligula possessed
+a collection valued at over $8,000,000 of our money. Julius Caesar
+presented a jewel to the mother of Brutus valued at $250,000, while
+the pearl drank by Cleopatra was estimated at $400,000. Tavernier, the
+famous traveler, sold a pearl to the Shah of Persia for $550,000. A
+twenty-thousand-dollar pearl was taken from American waters in the
+time of Philip II. It was pear-shaped, and as large as a pigeon's egg.
+Another, taken from the same locality, is now owned by a lady in Madrid
+who values it at $30,000.
+
+Fresh water pearls are often of great value. The streams of St. Clair
+County. Ill., and Rutherford County, Tenn., produce large quantities,
+but the largest one was found near Salem, N. J. It was about an inch
+across, and brought $2,000 in Paris. The pearls from the Tay, Doon, and
+Isla rivers, in Scotland, are preferred by many to the Oriental, and in
+one summer $50,000 worth of pearls have been taken from these localities
+by men and children. Mother-of-pearl used in the arts is sold by the
+ton, from $50 to $700 being average prices. The last year's pearl
+fisheries in Ceylon alone realized $80,000, to obtain which more than
+7,000,000 pearl oysters were brought up.
+
+
+SEPIA AND SILK.
+
+The sepia of the artist comes from a mollusk, and is the fossil or
+extant ink-bag of a cephalopod or squid, while the cuttle-fish bone is
+used for a variety of purposes. In the islands of the Pacific the young
+of the pearly nautilus are strung upon strings and sold for $25 and $20
+as necklaces. The tritons are in fair demand, and many tons of cowries
+are sent to Europe yearly, while the shipment of a thick-lipped strombus
+in one year to Liverpool amounted to 300,000. The rich coloring of the
+haliotis is used for inlaying art furniture. From the pinna, silk of a
+peculiar quality is obtained. It is the byssus or cable of the animal.
+The threads are extremely fine, and equal in diameter throughout their
+entire length. It is first cleaned with soap and water, and dried by
+rubbing through the hands, and finally passed through combs of bone,
+iron, or wood, of different sizes, so that a pound of the material in
+the rough gives only about three ounces of pure thread. It is mixed with
+a third of real silk and spun into gloves, stockings, etc., having a
+beautiful yellow hue. The articles made from it are, however, not in
+general use. A pair of gloves from pinna silk would cost $1.50, and
+stockings about $3. Fine specimens of such work can be seen in the
+British Museum.
+
+Though not of animal origin, amber is one of the choicest vegetable
+productions used in the arts. It is the fossil gum of pines. Great beds
+of it occur at various points in Europe. On the Prussian seaboard it is
+mined, and often washes ashore. In 1576 a piece of amber was found
+that weighed thirteen pounds, and for which $5,000 was refused. In the
+cabinet of the Berlin Museum there is a piece weighing eighteen pounds.
+Ambergris, from which perfumery is made, is a secretion taken from the
+intestines of the whale, and a piece purchased from the King of Tydore
+by the East India Company is reported to have cost $18,000. Whales'
+teeth, the tusks of elephants, and those of the walrus and narwhal, are
+all used. Elephants' feet are cut off at a convenient length, richly
+upholstered, and used as seats; the great toe-nails, when finely
+polished, giving the novel article of furniture an attractive and unique
+appearance.
+
+It is probably not generally known that the web of certain spiders has
+been used. Over 150 years ago, Le Bon, of France, succeeded in weaving
+the web material into delicate gloves. Prof. B.G. Wilder investigated
+the question thoroughly, and was a firm believer that the web of the
+spider had a commercial value, but as yet this has not been realized.
+It would be difficult to find an animal that does not in some way
+contribute to the useful or decorative arts.--_C.F.H., in N.Y. Post_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A catalogue, containing brief notices of many important scientific
+papers heretofore published in the SUPPLEMENT, may be had gratis at this
+office.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT.
+
+PUBLISHED WEEKLY.
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+TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION, $5 A YEAR.
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+
+Sent by mail, postage prepaid, to subscribers in any part of the United
+States or Canada. Six dollars a year, sent, prepaid, to any foreign
+country.
+
+All the back numbers of THE SUPPLEMENT, from the commencement, January
+1, 1876, can be had. Price, 10 cents each.
+
+All the back volumes of THE SUPPLEMENT can likewise be supplied. Two
+volumes are issued yearly. Price of each volume, $2.50, stitched in
+paper, or $3.50, bound in stiff covers.
+
+COMBINED RATES--One copy of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN and one copy of
+SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT, one year, postpaid, $7.00.
+
+A liberal discount to booksellers, news agents, and canvassers.
+
+MUNN & CO., PUBLISHERS,
+
+261 BROADWAY, NEW YORK, N. Y.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+PATENTS.
+
+
+In connection with the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, Messrs. MUNN & Co. are
+Solicitors of American and Foreign Patents, have had 35 years'
+experience, and now have the largest establishment in the world. Patents
+are obtained on the best terms.
+
+A special notice is made in the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN of all Inventions
+patented through this Agency, with the name and residence of the
+Patentee. By the immense circulation thus given, public attention is
+directed to the merits of the new patent, and sales or introduction
+often easily effected.
+
+Any person who has made a new discovery or invention can ascertain, free
+of charge, whether a patent can probably be obtained, by writing to MUNN
+& Co.
+
+We also send free our Hand Book about the Patent Laws, Patents, Caveats.
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+
+MUNN & CO., 261 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.
+
+Branch Office, cor. F and 7th Sts., Washington, D. C.
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+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Scientific American Supplement, No.
+362, December 9, 1882, by Various
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