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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Scientific American Supplement, No. 497,
+July 11, 1885, 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. 497, July 11, 1885
+
+Author: Various
+
+Posting Date: November 3, 2011 [EBook #9666]
+Release Date: January, 2006
+First Posted: October 14, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPP., JULY 11, 1885 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Josephine Paolucci, Don Kretz, Juliet Sutherland
+and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT NO. 497
+
+
+
+
+NEW YORK, JULY 11, 1885
+
+Scientific American Supplement. Vol. XX, No. 497.
+
+Scientific American established 1845
+
+Scientific American Supplement, $5 a year.
+
+Scientific American and Supplement, $7 a year.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS.
+
+I.    CHEMISTRY AND METALLURGY.--Making Sea Water Potable.
+      --By THOS. KAY
+
+      The Acids of Wool Oil
+
+      The New Absorbent for Oxygen
+
+      Depositing Nickel upon Zinc.--By H.B. SLATER
+
+II.   ENGINEERING AND MECHANICS.--Foundations in Quicksand,
+      Lift Bridge over the Ourcq Canal.--3 figures
+
+      St. Petersburg a Seaport.--A canal cut from Cronstadt to
+      St. Petersburg.--Opening of same by the Emperor and
+      Empress.--With full page engraving
+
+      The New French Dispatch Boat Milan.--With engraving
+
+      The Launching and Docking of Ships Sidewise.--4 figures
+
+      Improved High Speed Engine.--12 figures
+
+      The National Transit Co.'s Pipe Lines for the Transportation
+      of Oil to the Seaboard.--With map and diagram
+
+      The Fuel of the Future.--History of natural gas.--Relation to
+      petroleum.--Duration of gas, etc.--With table of analyses
+      Closing Leakages for Packing.--Use of asbestos in stuffing
+      boxes
+
+III.  TECHNOLOGY.--Luminous Paint.--Processes of manufacture
+      Boxwood and its Substitutes.--Preparation of same for market,
+      etc.--A paper written by J.A. JACKSON for the International
+      Forestry Exhibition
+
+IV.   ARCHAEOLOGY.--An Assyrian Bass-Relief 2,700 years old
+
+V.    NATURAL HISTORY.-The Flight of the Buzzard.--By R.A.
+      PROCTOR
+
+VI.   BOTANY, ETC.--Convallaria.--A stemless perennial.--By OTTO
+      A. WALL, M.D.--Several figures
+
+VII.  MEDICINE, HYGIENE, ETC.--Gaiffe's New Medical
+      Galvanometer.--1 figure
+
+      The Suspension of Life in Plants and Animals
+
+VIII. MISCELLANEOUS.--Composite Portraits.--6 illustrations
+      Hand-Craft and Rede-Craft.--A plea for the first
+      named.--By D.G. GILMAN
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+FOUNDATIONS IN QUICKSAND.
+
+
+Foundations in quicksand often have to be built in places where least
+expected, and sometimes the writer has been able to conveniently
+span the vein with an arch and avoid trouble; but where it cannot be
+conveniently arched over, it will be necessary to sheath pile for a
+trench and lay in broad sections of concrete until the space is crossed,
+the sheath piling being drawn and reset in sections as fast as the
+trenches are leveled up. The piling is left in permanently if it is not
+wanted again for use.
+
+Sometimes these bottoms are too soft to be treated in this manner; in
+that case boxes or caissons are formed, loaded with stone and sunk into
+place with pig iron until the weight they are to carry is approximated.
+When settled, the weights are removed and building begins.
+
+Foundations on shifting sand are met with in banks of streams, which
+swell and become rapids as each winter breaks up. This kind is most
+troublesome and dangerous to rest upon if not properly treated.
+
+Retaining walls are frequently built season after season, and as
+regularly become undermined by the scouring of the water. Regular
+docking with piles and timbers is resorted to, but it is so expensive
+for small works that it is not often tried.
+
+Foundations are formed often with rock well planted out; and again
+success has attended the use of bags of sand where rough rock was not
+convenient or too expensive.
+
+In such cases it is well to try a mattress foundation, which may be
+formed of brushwood and small saplings with butts from 1/2 inch to
+21/2 inches in diameter, compressed into bundles from 8 to 12 inches
+diameter, and from 12 to 16 feet long, and well tied with ropes every
+four feet. Other bundles, from 4 to 6 inches diameter and 16 feet long,
+are used as binders, and these bundles are now cross-woven and make a
+good network, the long parts protruding and making whip ends. One or
+more sets of netting are used as necessity seems to require. This kind
+of foundation may be filled in with a concrete of hydraulic cement and
+sand, and the walls built on them with usual footings, and it is very
+durable, suiting the purpose as well as anything we have seen or heard
+of.--_Inland Architect_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+LIFT BRIDGE OVER THE OURCQ CANAL.
+
+
+This bridge, which was inaugurated in 1868, was constructed under the
+direction of Mr. Mantion, then engineer-in-chief of the Belt Railway.
+Fig. 1 shows the bridge raised.
+
+The solution adopted in this case was the only feasible one that
+presented itself, in view of the slight difference between the level
+of the railway tracks and the maximum plane of the canal water. This
+circumstance did not even permit of a thought of an ordinary revolving
+bridge, since this, on a space of 10 inches being reserved between the
+level of the water and the bottom of the bridge, and on giving the
+latter a minimum thickness of 33 inches up to the level of the rails,
+would have required the introduction into the profile of the railroad
+of approaches of at least one-quarter inch gradient, that would have
+interfered with operations at the station close by.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 1.--LIFT BRIDGE OVER THE OURCQ CANAL.]
+
+Besides, in the case of a revolving bridge, since the bottom of the
+latter would be but ten inches above the water level, and the rollers
+would have to be of larger diameter than that, it would have been
+necessary to suppose the roller channel placed beneath the level of the
+water, and it would consequently have been necessary to isolate this
+channel from the canal by a tight wall. The least fissure in the latter
+would have inundated the channel.
+
+As the Ourcq Canal had no regular period of closing, it was necessary
+to construct the bridge without hinderance to navigation. The idea of
+altering the canal's course could not be thought of, for the proximity
+of the fortifications and of the bridge over the military road was
+opposed to it. Moreover, the canal administration insisted upon a free
+width of 26 feet, which is that of the sluices of the St. Denis Canal,
+and which would have led to the projection of a revolving bridge of 28
+feet actual opening in order to permit of building foundations with
+caissons in such a way as to leave a passageway of 26 feet during
+operations.
+
+For these reasons it was decided to construct a metallic bridge that
+should be lifted by means of counterpoises and balanced after the manner
+of gasometers.
+
+The free width secured to navigation is 28 feet. The bridge is usually
+kept raised to a height of 16 feet above the level of the water in order
+to allow boats to pass (Fig. 2). In this position it is balanced by four
+counterpoises suspended from the extremities of chains that pass over
+pulleys. These counterpoises are of cast iron, and weigh, altogether,
+44,000 pounds--the weight of the bridge to be balanced, say 11,000
+pounds per counterpoise. Moreover, each of the four chains is prolonged
+beneath the corresponding counterpoise by a chain of the same weight,
+called a compensating chain.
+
+The pulleys, B and C, that support the suspension chains have
+projections in their channels which engage with the links and thus
+prevent the chains from slipping. They are mounted at the extremity of
+four latticed girders that likewise carry girder pulleys, D. The pulleys
+that are situated at the side of the bridge are provided laterally
+with a conical toothing which gears with a pinion connected with the
+maneuvering apparatus.
+
+The two pinions of the same side of the bridge are keyed to a
+longitudinal shaft which is set in motion at one point of its length by
+a system of gearings. The winch upon which is exerted the stress that
+is to effect the lifting or the descent of the bridge is fixed upon the
+shaft of the pinion of the said gearing, which is also provided with a
+flywheel, c. The longitudinal shafts are connected by a transverse one.
+e, which renders the two motions interdependent. This transverse shaft
+is provided with collars, against which bear stiff rods that give it the
+aspect of an elongated spindle, and that permit it to resist twisting
+stresses.
+
+The windlasses that lift the bridge are actuated by manual power. Two
+men (or even one) suffice to do the maneuvering.
+
+This entire collection of pulleys and mechanism is established upon two
+brick foot bridges between which the bridge moves. These arched bridges
+offer no obstruction to navigation. Moreover, they always allow free
+passage to foot passengers, whatever be the position of the bridge. They
+are provided with four vertical apertures to the right of the suspension
+chains, in order to allow of the passage of the latter. The girders that
+support the pulleys rest at one extremity upon the upper part of the
+bridges, and at the other upon solid brick pillars with stone caps.
+
+Finally, in order to render the descent of the bridge easier, there are
+added to it two water tanks that are filled from the station reservoir
+when the bridge is in its upper position, and that empty themselves
+automatically as soon as it reaches the level of the railroad tracks.
+
+A very simple system of fastening has been devised for keeping the
+bridge in a stationary position when raised. When it reaches the end of
+its upward travel, four bolts engage with an aperture in the suspension
+rod and prevent it from descending. These bolts are set in motion by
+two connecting rods carried by a longitudinal shaft and maneuvered by a
+lever at the end of the windlass.
+
+At the lower part the bridge rests upon iron plates set into sills. It
+is guided in its descent longitudinally by iron plates that have an
+inclination which is reproduced at the extremities of the bridge
+girders, and transversely by two inclined angle irons into which fit the
+external edges of the bottoms of the extreme girders.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 2.--ELEVATION AND PLAN.]
+
+The total weight of the bridge is, as we have said, 44,000 pounds, which
+is much less than would have been that of a revolving bridge of the same
+span. The maneuvering of the bridge is performed with the greatest ease
+and requires about two minutes.
+
+This system has been in operation at the market station of La Vilette
+since the year 1868, and has required but insignificant repairs. We
+think the adoption of it might be recommended for all cases in which a
+slight difference between the level of a railroad and that of a water
+course would not permit of the establishment of a revolving bridge.--_Le
+Genie Civil_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ST. PETERSBURG A SEAPORT.
+
+
+The Emperor and Empress of Russia, on Wednesday, May 27. 1885, the
+second anniversary of their coronation at Moscow, opened the Maritime
+Canal, in the Bay of Cronstadt, the shallow upper extremity of the Gulf
+of Finland, by which great work the city of St. Petersburg is made a
+seaport as much as London. St. Petersburg, indeed, stands almost on the
+sea shore, at the very mouth of the Neva, though behind several low
+islands which crowd the head of the Gulf; and though this is an inland
+sea without saltness or tides, it is closed by ice in winter. Seventeen
+miles to the west is the island of Cronstadt, a great fortress, with
+naval dockyards and arsenals for the imperial fleet, and with a spacious
+harbor for ships of commerce. The navigable entrance channel up the
+Bay of Cronstadt to the mouth of the Neva lies under the south side of
+Cronstadt, and is commanded by its batteries. As the bay eastward has a
+depth not exceeding 12 ft., and the depth of the Neva at its bar is but
+9 ft., all large vessels have been obliged hitherto to discharge their
+cargoes at Cronstadt, to be there transferred to lighters and barges
+which brought the goods up to the capital. "The delay and expense of
+this process," says Mr. William Simpson, our special artist, "will be
+understood by stating that a cargo might be brought from England by a
+steamer in a week, but it would take three weeks at least to transport
+the same cargo from Cronstadt to St. Petersburg. Of course, much of this
+time was lost by custom house formalities. Sometimes it has taken even
+longer than is here stated, which made the delivery of goods at St.
+Petersburg a matter of great uncertainty, thus rendering time contracts
+almost an impossibility. This state of things had continued from the
+time of Peter the Great, and his great scheme had never been fully
+realized. The increase of commerce and shipping had long made this a
+crying evil; but even with all these difficulties, the trade here has
+been rapidly growing. A scheme to bring the shipping direct to the
+capital had thus become almost a necessity. As Manchester wishes to
+bring the ocean traffic to her doors without the intervention of
+Liverpool, so St. Petersburg desired to have its steamers sailing up to
+the city, delivering and loading their cargoes direct at the stores and
+warehouses in her streets. If Glasgow had not improved the Clyde, and
+had up to the present day to bring up all goods carried by her ocean
+going steamers from Port Glasgow--a place constructed for that purpose
+last century, and which is twenty miles from Glasgow--she would have
+been handicapped exactly as St. Petersburg has been till now in the
+commercial race.
+
+"For some years the subject was discussed at St. Petersburg, and
+more than one scheme was proposed; at last the project of General N.
+Pooteeloff was adopted. According to this plan, a canal has been cut
+through the shallow bottom of the Gulf of Finland, all the way from
+Cronstadt to St. Petersburg. The line of this canal is from northwest to
+southeast; it may be said to run very nearly parallel to the coast line
+on the south side of the Gulf, and about three miles distant from it.
+This line brings the canal to the southwest end of St. Petersburg, where
+there are a number of islands, which have formed themselves, in the
+course of ages, where the Bolshaya, or Great Neva, flows into the Gulf.
+It is on these islands that the new port is to be formed. It is a very
+large harbor, and capable of almost any amount of extension. It will be
+in connection with the whole railway system of Russia. One part of the
+scheme is that of a new canal, on the south side of the city, to connect
+the maritime canal, as well as the new harbor, with the Neva, so that
+the large barges may pass, by a short route, to the river on the east,
+and thus avoid the bridges and traffic of the city.
+
+"The whole length of the canal is about eighteen miles. The longer
+portion of it is an open channel, which is made 350 feet wide at bottom.
+Its course will be marked by large iron floating buoys; these it is
+proposed to light with gas by a new self-acting process which has been
+very successful in other parts of the world; by this means the canal
+will be navigable by night as well as by day. The original plan was to
+have made the canal 20 feet deep, but this has been increased to 22
+feet. The Gulf of Finland gradually deepens toward Cronstadt, so that
+the dredging was less at the western end. This part was all done by
+dredgers, and the earth brought up was removed to a safe distance by
+means of steam hopper barges. The contract for this part of the work
+was sublet to an American firm--Morris and Cummings, of New York. The
+eastern portion of the work on the canal is by far the most important,
+and about six miles of it is protected by large and strong embankments
+on each side. These embankments were formed by the output of the
+dredgers, and are all faced with granite bowlders brought from Finland;
+at their outer termination the work is of a more durable kind, the
+facing is made of squared blocks of granite, so that it may stand the
+heavy surf which at times is raised by a west wind in the Gulf. These
+embankments, as already stated, extend over a space of nearly six miles,
+and represent a mass of work to which there is no counterpart in the
+Suez Canal; nor does the plan of the new Manchester Canal present
+anything equivalent to it. The width of this canal also far exceeds any
+of those notable undertakings. The open channel is, as stated above, 350
+ft. wide; within the embankments the full depth of 22 ft. extends to 280
+ft., and the surface between the embankments is 700 ft. This is nearly
+twice the size of the Suez Canal at the surface, which is 100 meters,
+or about 320 ft., while it is only about 75 ft. at the bottom; the
+Amsterdam Canal is 78 ft. wide. The new Manchester Canal is to be 100
+ft. of full depth, and it boasts of this superiority over the great work
+of Lesseps. The figures given above will show how far short it comes of
+the dimensions of the St. Petersburg Canal. The Manchester Canal is to
+be 24 ft. in depth; in that it has the advantage of 2 ft. more than the
+St. Petersburg Canal; but with the ample width this one possesses, this,
+or even a greater depth, can be given if it should be found necessary.
+Most probably this will have ultimately to be done, for ocean going
+steamers are rapidly increasing in size since the St. Petersburg Canal
+was planned, and in a very few years the larger class of steamers might
+have to deliver their cargoes at Cronstadt, as before, if the waterway
+to St. Petersburg be not adapted to their growing dimensions.
+
+[Illustration: THE ST. PETERSBURG AND CRONSTADT MARITIME CANAL, OPENED
+BY THE EMPEROR OF RUSSIA, ON WEDNESDAY, MAY 27, 1885.]
+
+"The dredging between the embankments of the canal was done by an
+improved process, which may interest those connected with such works. It
+may be remembered that the Suez Canal was mostly made by dredging, and
+that the dredgers had attached to them what the French called 'long
+couloirs' or spouts, into which water was pumped, and by this means the
+stuff brought up by the dredgers was carried to the sides of the canal,
+and there deposited. The great width of the St. Petersburg Canal was too
+much for the long couloirs, hence some other plan had to be found. The
+plan adopted was that invented by Mr. James Burt, and which had been
+used with the greatest success on the New Amsterdam Canal. Instead of
+the couloir, floating pipes, made of wood, are in this system employed;
+the earth or mud brought up has a copious stream of water poured on it,
+which mixes in the process of descending, and the whole becomes a thick
+liquid. This, by means of a centrifugal pump, is propelled through the
+floating pipes to any point required, where it can be deposited. The
+couloir can only run the output a comparatively short distance, while
+this system can send it a quarter of a mile, or even further, if
+necessary. Its power is not limited to the level surface of the water.
+I saw on my visit to the canal one of the dredgers at work, and the
+floating pipes lay on the water like a veritable sea-serpent, extending
+to a long distance where the stuff had to be carried. At that point the
+pipe emerged from the water, and what looked very much like a vertebra
+or two of the serpent crossed the embankment, went down the other side,
+and there the muddy deposit was pouring out in a steady flow. Mr. Burt
+pointed out to me one part of the works where his pump had sent the
+stuff nearly half a mile away, and over undulating ground. This system
+will not suit all soils. Hard clay, for instance, will not mix with the
+water; but where the matter brought up is soft and easily diluted, this
+plan possesses many advantages, and its success here affords ample
+evidence of its merits.
+
+"About five miles below St. Petersburg, a basin had been already
+finished, with landing quays, sheds, and offices; and there is an
+embankment connecting it with the railways of St. Petersburg, all ready
+for ships to arrive. When the ships of all nations sail up to the
+capital, then the ideas of Peter the Great, when he laid the foundations
+of St. Petersburg, will be realized. St. Petersburg will be no longer an
+inland port. It will, with its ample harbor and numerous canals among
+its streets, become the Venice of the North. Its era of commercial
+greatness is now about to commence. The ceremony of letting the waters
+of the canal into the new docks was performed by the Emperor in October,
+1883. The Empress and heir apparent, with a large number of the Court,
+were present on the occasion. The works on the canal, costing about a
+million and a half sterling, were begun in 1876, and have been carried
+out under the direction of a committee appointed by the Government,
+presided over by his Excellency, N. Sarloff. The resident engineer is M.
+Phofiesky; and the contractors are Messrs. Maximovitch and Boreysha."
+
+We heartily congratulate the Russian government and the Russian nation
+upon the accomplishment of this great and useful work of peace. It will
+certainly benefit English trade. The value of British imports from the
+northern ports of Russia for the year 1883 was L13,799,033; British
+exports, L6,459,993; while from the southern ports of Russia our trade
+was: British imports, L7,177,149; British exports, L1,169,890--making a
+total British commerce with European Russia of L20,976,182 imports from
+Russia and L7,629,883 exports to Russia. It cannot be to the interest of
+nations which are such large customers of each other to go to war
+about a few miles of Afguhan frontier. The London _Chamber of Commerce
+Journal_, ably edited by Mr. Kenric B. Murray, Secretary to the Chamber,
+has in its May number an article upon this subject well deserving of
+perusal. It points out that in case of war most of the British export
+trade to Russia would go through Germany, and might possibly never again
+return under British control. In spite of Russian protective duties,
+this trade has been well maintained, even while the British import
+of Russian commodities, wheat, flax, hemp, tallow, and timber, was
+declining 40 per cent. from 1883 to 1884. The St. Petersburg Maritime
+Canal will evidently give much improved facilities to the direct export
+of English goods to Russia. Without reference to our own manufactures,
+it should be observed that the Russian cotton mills, including those of
+Poland, consume yearly 264 million pounds of cotton, most of which comes
+through England. The importation of English coal to Russia has afforded
+a noteworthy instance of the disadvantage hitherto occasioned by the
+want of direct navigation to St. Petersburg; the freight of a ton of
+coal from Newcastle to Cronstadt was six shillings and sixpence, but
+from Cronstadt to St. Petersburg it cost two shillings more. It is often
+said, in a tone of alarm and reproach, that Russia is very eager to get
+to the sea. The more Russia gets to the sea everywhere, the better it
+will be for British trade with Russia; and friendly intercourse with
+an empire containing nearly a hundred millions of people is not to be
+lightly rejected.--_Illustrated London News_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE NEW FRENCH DISPATCH BOAT MILAN.
+
+
+The Milan, a new dispatch boat, has recently been making trial trips at
+Brest. It was constructed at Saint Nazaire, by the "Societe des Ateliers
+et Chantiers de la Loire," and is the fastest man-of-war afloat. It
+has registered 17 knots with ordinary pressure, and with increase
+of pressure can make 18 knots, but to attain such high speed a very
+powerful engine is necessary. In fact, a vessel 303 ft. long, 33 ft.
+wide, and drawing 12 ft. of water, requires an engine which can develop
+4,000 H.P.
+
+[Illustration: THE NEW FRENCH DISPATCH BOAT MILAN.]
+
+The hull of the Milan is of steel, and is distinguished for its extreme
+lightness. The vessel has two screws, actuated by four engines arranged
+two by two on each shaft.
+
+The armament consists of five three inch cannons, eight revolvers, and
+four tubes for throwing torpedoes.
+
+The Milan can carry 300 tons of coal, an insufficient quantity for
+a long cruise, but this vessel, which is a dispatch boat in every
+acceptation of the word, was constructed for a definite purpose. It
+is the first of a series of very rapid cruisers to be constructed in
+France, and yet many English packets can attain a speed at least equal
+to that of the Milan. We need war vessels which can attain twenty knots,
+to be master of the sea.--_L'Illustration_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE LAUNCHING AND DOCKING OF SHIPS SIDEWISE.
+
+
+The slips of the shipyards at Alt-Hofen (Hungary) belonging to the
+Imperial and Royal Navigation Company of the Danube are so arranged that
+the vessels belonging to its fleet can be hauled up high and dry or
+be launched sidewise. They comprise three distinct groups, which are
+adapted, according to needs, for the construction or repair of steamers,
+twenty of which can be put into the yard at a time. The operation, which
+is facilitated by the current of the Danube, consists in receiving the
+ships upon frames beneath the water and at the extremity of inclined
+planes running at right angles with them. After the ship has been made
+secure by means of wedges, the frame is drawn up by chains that
+wind round fixed windlasses. These apparatus are established upon a
+horizontal surface 25.5 feet above low-water mark so as to give the
+necessary slope, and at which terminate the tracks. They may, moreover,
+be removed after the ships have been taken off, and be put down again
+for launching. For 136 feet of their length the lower part of the
+sliding ways is permanent, and fixed first upon rubble masonry and then
+upon the earth.
+
+Fig. 1 gives a general view of the arrangement. The eight sliding ways
+of the central part are usually reserved for the largest vessels. The
+two extreme ones comprise, one of them 7, and the other 6, tracks only,
+and are maneuvered by means of the same windlasses as the others. A
+track, FF, is laid parallel with the river, in order to facilitate,
+through lorries, the loading and unloading of the traction chains. These
+latter are 3/4 inch in diameter, while those that pass around the hulls
+are 1 inch.
+
+The motive power is furnished by a 10 H.P. steam engine, which serves at
+the same time for actuating the machine tools employed in construction
+or repairs. The shaft is situated at the head of the ways, and sets in
+motion four double-gear windlasses of the type shown in Fig. 2. The
+ratio of the wheels is as 9 to 1. The speed at which the ships move
+forward is from 10 to 13 feet per minute. Traction is effected
+continuously and without shock. After the cables have been passed around
+the hull, and fastened, they are attached to four pairs of blocks each
+comprising three pulleys. The lower one of these is carried by rollers
+that run over a special track laid for this purpose on the inclined
+plane.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 1.--WAYS OF LAUNCHING VESSELS SIDEWISE.]
+
+The three successive positions that a boat takes are shown in Fig. 1.
+In the first it has just passed on to the frame, and is waiting to be
+hauled up on the ways; in the second it is being hauled up; and in the
+third the frame has been removed and the boat is shoved up on framework,
+so that it can be examined and receive whatever repairs may be
+necessary. This arrangement, which is from plans by Mr. Murray Jackson,
+suffices to launch 16 or 18 new boats annually, and for the repair
+of sixty steamers and lighters. These latter are usually 180 feet in
+length, 24 feet in width, and 8 feet in depth, and their displacement,
+when empty, is 120 tons. The dimensions of the largest steamers vary
+between 205 and 244 feet in length, and 25 and 26 feet in width. They
+are 10 feet in depth, and, when empty, displace from 440 to 460 tons.
+The Austrian government has two monitors repaired from time to time in
+the yards of the company. The short and wide forms of these impose a
+heavier load per running foot upon the ways than ordinary boats do, but
+nevertheless no difficulty has ever been experienced, either in hauling
+them out or putting them back into the water.--_Le Genie Civil_.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 2.--DETAILS OF WINDLASS.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+IMPROVED HIGH-SPEED ENGINE.
+
+
+This engine, exhibited at South Kensington by Fielding and Platt, of
+Gloucester, consists virtually of a universal joint connecting two
+shafts whose axes form an obtuse angle of about 157 degrees. It has four
+cylinders, two being mounted on a chair coupling on each shaft. The word
+cylinder is used in a conventional sense only, since the cavities acting
+as such are circular, whose axes, instead of being straight lines, are
+arcs of circles struck from the center at which the axes of the shafts
+would, if continued, intersect. The four pistons are carried upon
+the gimbal ring, which connects, by means of pivots, the two chair
+couplings.
+
+[Illustration: THE FIELDING HIGH SPEED ENGINE.]
+
+Fig. 10 shows clearly the parts constituting the coupling, cylinders,
+and pistons of a compound engine. CC are the high-pressure cylinders; DD
+the low pressure; EEEE the four parts forming the gimbal ring, to which
+are fixed in pairs the high and low pressure pistons, GG and FF; HHHH
+are the chair arms formed with the cylinders carrying pivots, IIII,
+which latter fit into the bearings, JJJJ, in the gimbal ring. Figs.
+1, 2, 3, 4 show these parts connected and at different points of the
+shaft's rotation. The direction of rotation is shown by the arrow. In
+Fig. 1 the lower high-pressure cylinder, C, is just about taking steam,
+the upper one just closing the exhaust; the low-pressure pistons are at
+half stroke, that in sight exhausting, the opposite one, which cannot be
+seen in this view, taking steam.
+
+In Fig 2 the shaft has turned through one-eighth of a revolution; in
+Fig. 3, a quarter turn; Fig. 4, three-eighths of a turn. Another eighth
+turn brings two parts into position represented by Fig. 1, except the
+second pair of cylinders now replace the first pair. The bearings, KL,
+support the two shafts and act as stationary valves, against which faces
+formed on the cylinders revolve; steam and exhaust ports are provided in
+the faces of K and L, and two ports in the revolving faces, one to each
+cylinder. The point at which steam is cut off is determined by the
+length of the admission ports in K and L. The exhaust port is made of
+such a length that steam may escape from the cylinders during the whole
+of the return stroke of pistons.
+
+Fig. 5 shows the complete engine. It will be seen that the engine is
+entirely incased in a box frame, with, however, a lid for ready access
+to the parts for examination, one great advantage being that the engine
+can be worked with the cover removed, thus enabling any leakage past the
+pistons or valve faces to be at once detected. The casing also serves to
+retain a certain amount of lubricant.
+
+The lubrication is effected by means of a triple sight-feed lubricator,
+one feeder delivering to steam inlet, and two serving the main shaft
+bearings.
+
+Figs, 6 and 7 are an end elevation and plan of the same engine. There is
+nothing in the other details calling for special notice.
+
+Figs. 8 and 9 show the method of machining the cylinders and pistons,
+the whole of which can be done by ordinary lathes, which is evidently a
+great advantage in the event of reboring, etc., being required in the
+colonies or other countries where special tools are inaccessible.
+
+Figs. 11 and 12 are sections which explain themselves.--_The Engineer_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE NATIONAL TRANSIT CO'S PIPE LINES FOR THE TRANSPORTATION OF PETROLEUM
+TO THE SEABOARD.
+
+
+While Englishmen and Americans have been alike interested in the late
+project for forcing water by a pipe line over the mountainous region
+lying between Suakim and Berber in the far-off Soudan, few men of either
+nation have any proper conception of the vast expenditure of capital,
+natural and engineering difficulties overcome, and the bold and
+successful enterprise which has brought into existence far greater pipe
+lines in our own Atlantic States. We refer to the lines of the National
+Transit Company, which have for a purpose the economic transportation of
+crude petroleum from Western Pennsylvania to the sea coast at New York,
+Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and to the Lakes at Cleveland and Buffalo.
+
+To properly commence our sketch of this truly gigantic enterprise, we
+must go back to the discovery of petroleum in the existing oil regions
+of Pennsylvania and adjacent States. Its presence as an oily scum on the
+surface of ponds and streams had long been known, and among the Indians
+this "rock-oil" was highly appreciated as a vehicle for mixing their wax
+paint, and for anointing their bodies; in later years it was gathered in
+a rude way by soaking it up in blankets, and sold at a high price for
+medicinal purposes only, under the name of Seneca rock oil, Genesee oil,
+Indian oil, etc.
+
+But the date of its discovery as an important factor in the useful arts
+and as a source of enormous national wealth was about 1854. In the year
+named a certain Mr. George H. Bissell of New Orleans accidentally met
+with a sample of the "Seneca Oil," and being convinced that it had a
+value far beyond that usually accorded it, associated himself with
+some friends and leased for 99 years some of the best oil springs near
+Titusville, Pa. This lease cost the company $5,000, although only a few
+years before a cow had been considered a full equivalent in value for
+the same land. The original prospectors began operations by digging
+collecting ditches, and then pumping off the oil which gathered upon the
+surface of the water. But not long after this first crude attempt at oil
+gathering, the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Co. was organized, with Prof. B.
+Silliman of Yale College as its president, and a more intelligent method
+was introduced into the development of the oil-producing formation. In
+1858, Col. Drake of New Haven was employed by the Pennsylvania Co. to
+sink an artesian well; and, after considerable preparatory work, on
+August 28, 1859, the first oil vein was tapped at a depth of 691/2 feet
+below the surface; the flow was at first 10 barrels per day, but in the
+following September this increased to 40 barrels daily.
+
+[Illustration: MAP SHOWING THE NATIONAL TRANSIT CO.'S PIPE LINES.]
+
+The popular excitement and the fortunes made and lost in the years
+following the sinking of the initial well are a matter of history,
+with which we have here nothing to do. It is sufficient to say that a
+multitude of adventurers were drawn by the "oil-craze" into this late
+wilderness, and the sinking of wells extended with unprecedented
+rapidity over the region near Titusville and from there into more
+distant fields.
+
+By June 1, 1862, 495 wells had been put down near Titusville, and the
+daily output of oil was nearly 6,000 barrels, selling at the wells
+at from $4.00 to $6.00 per barrel. But the tapping of this vast
+subterranean storehouse of oleaginous wealth continued, until the
+estimated annual production was swelled from 82,000 barrels in 1859 to
+24,385,966 barrels in 1883; in the latter year 2,949 wells were put
+down, many of them, however, being simply dry holes.[1] The total output
+of oil in the Pennsylvania regions, between 1859 and 1883, is estimated
+at about 234,800,000 barrels--enough oil to fill a tank about 10,000
+feet square, nearly two miles to a side, to a depth of over 131/2 feet.
+
+[Footnote 1: The total number of wells in the Pennsylvania oil regions
+cannot be given. In the years 1876-1884, inclusive, 28,619 wells were
+sunk; this is an average of 3,179 per year. During the same period 2,507
+dry holes were drilled at an average cost of $1,500 each.]
+
+As long as oil could be sold at the wells at from $4.00 to $10.00
+a barrel, the cost of transportation was an item hardly worthy of
+consideration, and railroad companies multiplied and waged a bitter
+war with each other in their scramble after the traffic. But as the
+production increased with rapid strides, the market price of oil fell
+with a corresponding rapidity, until the quotations for 1884 show
+figures as low as 50 to 60 cents per barrel for the crude product at Oil
+City.
+
+In December, 1865, the freight charge per barrel for a carload of oil
+from Titusville to New York, and the return of the empty barrels,
+was $3.50.[1] To this figure was added the cost of transportation by
+pipe-line from Pithole to Titusville, $1.00; cost of barreling, 25
+cents; freight to Corry, Pa., 80 cents; making the total cost of a
+barrel of crude oil in New York, $5.55. In January, 1866, the barrel
+of oil in New York cost $10.40, including in this figure, however, the
+Government tax of $1.00 and the price of the barrel, $3.25.
+
+[Footnote 1: It is stated that in 1862 the cost of sending one barrel of
+oil to New York was $7.45. Steamboats charged $2.00 per barrel from Oil
+City to Pittsburg, and the hauling from Oil Creek to Meadville cost
+$2.25 per barrel.]
+
+The question of reducing these enormous transportation charges was first
+broached, apparently, in 1864, when a writer in the _North American_,
+of Philadelphia, outlined a scheme for laying a pipe-line down the
+Allegheny River to Pittsburg. This project was violently assailed by
+both the transportation companies and the people of the oil region,
+who feared that its success would interfere with their then great
+prosperity. But short pipe-lines, connecting the wells with storage
+tanks and shipping points, grew apace and prepared the way for the vast
+network of the present day, which covers this region and throws out arms
+to the ocean and the lakes.
+
+Among the very first, if not the first, pipe lines laid was one put down
+between the Sherman well and the railway terminus on the Miller farm.
+It was about 3 miles long, and designed by a Mr. Hutchinson; he had an
+exaggerated idea of the pressure to be exercised, and at intervals of 50
+to 100 feet he set up air chambers 10 inches in diameter. The weak point
+in this line, however, proved to be the joints; the pipes were of cast
+iron, and the joint-leakage was so great that little, if any, oil ever
+reached the end of the line, and the scheme was abandoned in despair.
+
+In connection with this question of oil transportation, a sketch of the
+various methods, other than pipelines, adopted in Pennsylvania may not
+be out of place. We are mainly indebted to Mr. S.F. Peckham, in his
+article on "Petroleum and its Products" in the U. S. Census Report of
+1880, for the information relating to tank-cars immediately following:
+
+Originally the oil was carried in 40 and 42 gallon barrels, made of oak
+and hooped with iron; early in 1866, or possibly in 1865, tank-cars
+were introduced. These were at first ordinary flat-cars upon which were
+placed two wooden tanks, shaped like tubs, each holding about 2,000
+gallons.
+
+On the rivers, bulk barges were also, after a time, introduced on the
+Ohio and Allegheny; at first these were rude affairs, and often of
+inadequate strength; but as now built they are 130 x 22 x 16 feet, in
+their general dimensions, and divided into eight compartments, with
+water-tight bulkheads; they hold about 2,200 barrels.
+
+In 1871 iron-tank cars superseded those of wood, with tanks of varying
+sizes, ranging from 3,856 to 5,000 gallons each. These tanks were
+cylinders, 24 feet 6 inches long, and 66 inches in diameter, and weighed
+about 4,500 lb. The heads are made of 5/46 in. flange iron, the bottom
+of 1/2 in., and the upper half of the shell of 3/16 in. tank iron.
+
+In October, 1865, the Oil Transportation Co. completed and tested a
+pipe-line 32,000 feet long; three pumps were used upon it, two at
+Pithole and one at Little Pithole. July 1, 1876, the pipe-line owners
+held a meeting at Parkers to organize a pipe-line company to extend to
+the seaboard under the charter of the Pennsylvania Transportation Co.,
+but the scheme was never carried out. In January, 1878, the Producers'
+Union organized for a similar seaboard line, and laid pipes, but they
+never reached the sea, stopping their line at Tamanend, Pa. The lines
+of the National Transit Co., illustrated in our map, were completed in
+1880-81, and this company, to which the United Pipe Lines have also
+been transferred, is said to have $15,000,000 invested in plant for the
+transport of oil to tide water.
+
+The National Transit Co. was organized under what was called the
+Pennsylvania Co. act, about four years ago, and succeeded to the
+properties of the American Transit Co., a corporation operating under
+the laws of Pennsylvania. Since its organization the first named company
+has constructed and now owns the following systems:
+
+The line from Olean, N.Y., to Bayonne, N.J., and to Brooklyn, N.Y., of
+which a full page profile is given, showing the various pumping stations
+and the undulations over its route of about 300 miles. The Pennsylvania
+line, 280 miles long, from Colegrove, Pa., to Philadelphia. The
+Baltimore line, 70 miles long, from Millway, Pa., to Baltimore. The
+Cleveland line, 100 miles long, from Hilliards, Pa., to Cleveland, O.
+The Buffalo line, 70 miles long, from Four Mile, Cattaraugus County,
+N.Y., to Buffalo, and the line from Carbon Center, Butler County, Pa.,
+to Pittsburg, 60 miles in length. This amounts to a total of 880 miles
+of main pipe-line alone, ranging from 4 inches to 6 inches in diameter;
+or, adding the duplicate pipes on the Olean New York line, we have a
+round total of 1,330 miles, not including loops and shorter branches and
+the immense network of the pipes in the oil regions proper.
+
+A general description of the longest line will practically suffice for
+all, as they differ only in diameter of pipe used and power of the
+pumping plant. As shown on the map and profile, this long line starts at
+Olean, near the southern boundary of New York State, and proceeds by the
+route indicated to tide water at Bayonne, N.J., and by a branch under
+the North and East rivers and across the upper end of New York city to
+the Long Island refineries. This last named pipe is of unusual strength,
+and passes through Central Park; few of the thousands who daily frequent
+the latter spot being aware of the yellow stream of crude petroleum that
+is constantly flowing beneath their feet. The following table gives the
+various pumping stations on this Olean New York line, and some data
+relating to distances between stations and elevations overcome:
+
+  |----------------------------------------------------------------|
+  |                      |           |                |  Greatest  |
+  |                      |           |                |   Summit   |
+  |                      |   Miles   |   Elevation    |   between  |
+  |                      |  between  |  above Tide.   |  Stations. |
+  |  Pumping Stations.   | Stations. |     Ft.        |     Ft.    |
+  |______________________|___________|________________|____________|
+  | Olean                |    --     |     1,490      |     --     |
+  | Wellsville           |   28.20   |     1,510      |   2,490    |
+  | Cameron              |   27.91   |     1,042      |   2,530    |
+  | West Junction        |   29.70   |       911      |   1,917    |
+  | Catatonk             |   27.37   |       869      |   1,768    |
+  | Osborne              |   27.99   |     1,092      |   1,539    |
+  | Hancock              |   29.86   |       922      |   1,873    |
+  | Cochecton            |   26.22   |       748      |   1,854    |
+  | Swartwout            |   28.94   |       475      |   1,478    |
+  | Newfoundland         |   29.00   |       768      |   1,405    |
+  | Saddle River         |   28.77   |        35      |     398    |
+  |______________________|___________|________________|____________|
+
+On this line two six-inch pipes are laid the entire length, and a third
+six-inch pipe runs between Wellsville and Cameron, and about half way
+between each of the other stations, "looped" around them. The pipe used
+for the transportation of oil is especially manufactured to withstand
+the great strain to which it will be subjected, the most of it being
+made by the Chester Pipe and Tube Works, of Chester, Pa., the Allison
+Manufacturing Co., of Philadelphia and the Penna. Tube Works, of
+Pittsburg, Pa. It is a lap-welded, wrought-iron pipe of superior
+material, and made with exceeding care and thoroughly tested at the
+works. The pipe is made in lengths of 18 feet, and these pieces are
+connected by threaded ends and extra strong sleeves. The pipe-thread and
+sleeves used on the ordinary steam and water pipe are not strong enough
+for the duty demanded of the oil-pipe. The socket for a 4-inch steam
+or water pipe is from 21/2 to to 23/4 inches long, and is tapped with 8
+standard threads to the inch, straight or parallel to the axis of the
+pipe; with this straight tap only three or four threads come in contact
+with the socket threads, or in any way assist in holding the pipes
+together. In the oil-pipe, the pipe ends and sockets are cut on a taper
+of 3/4 inch to 1 foot, for a 4-inch pipe, and the socket used is thicker
+than the steam and water socket, is 33/4 inches long, and has entrance for
+1 5/8 inches of thread on each pipe end tapped with 9 standard threads
+to the inch. In this taper socket you have iron to iron the whole length
+of the thread, and the joint is perfect and equal by test to the full
+strength of the pipe. Up to 1877 the largest pipe used on the oil lines
+was 4-inch, with the usual steam thread, but the joints leaked under the
+pressure, 1,200 pounds to the square inch being the maximum the 8-thread
+pipe would stand. This trouble has been remedied by the 9-thread,
+taper-cut pipe of the present day, which is tested at the mill to 1,500
+pounds pressure, while the average duty required is 1,200 pounds; as the
+iron used in the manufacture of this line-pipe will average a tensile
+test strain of 55,000 pounds per square inch, the safety factor is thus
+about one-sixth.
+
+[Illustration: PROFILE SHOWING NATIONAL TRANSIT CO.'S PIPE-LINE, FROM
+OLEAN TO SADDLE RIVER.]
+
+The line-pipe is laid between the stations in the ordinary manner,
+excepting that great care is exercised in perfecting the joints. No
+expansion joints or other special appliances of like nature are used on
+the line as far as we can learn; the variations in temperature being
+compensated for, in exposed locations, by laying the pipe in long
+horizontal curves. The usual depth below the surface is about 3 feet,
+though in some portions of the route the pipe lies for miles exposed
+directly upon the surface. As the oil pumped is crude oil, and this as
+it comes from the wells carries with it a considerable proportion of
+brine, freezing in the pipes is not to be apprehended. The oil,
+however, does thicken in very cold weather, and the temperature has a
+considerable influence on the delivery.
+
+A very ingenious patented device is used for cleaning out the pipes, and
+by it the delivery is said to have been increased in certain localities
+50 per cent. This is a stem about 21/2 feet long, having at its front end
+a diaphragm made of wings which can fold on each other, and thus enable
+it to pass an obstruction it cannot remove; this machine carries a set
+of steel scrapers, somewhat like those used in cleaning boilers. The
+device is put into the pipe, and propelled by the pressure transmitted
+from the pumps from one station to another; relays of men follow the
+scraper by the noise it makes as it goes through the pipe, one party
+taking up the pursuit as the other is exhausted. They must never let it
+get out of their hearing, for if it stops unnoticed, its location can
+only again be established by cutting the pipe.
+
+The pumping stations are substantial structures of brick, roofed with
+iron. The boiler house is removed some distance from the engine house
+for greater safety from fire; the building, about 40 by 50 feet,
+contains from six to seven tubular boilers, each 5 by 14 feet, and
+containing 80 three-inch tubes. The pump house is a similar brick
+structure about 40 by 60 feet, and contains the battery of pumping
+engines to be described later. At each station are two iron tanks, 90
+feet in diameter and 30 feet high; into these tanks the oil is delivered
+from the preceding station, and from them the oil is pumped into the
+tanks at the next station beyond. The pipe-system at each station is
+simple, and by means of the "loop-lines" before mentioned the oil can be
+pumped directly around any station if occasion would require it.
+
+The pumps used on all these lines are the Worthington compound,
+condensing, pressure pumping engines. The general characteristics of
+these pumps are, independent plungers with exterior packing, valve-boxes
+subdivided into separate small chambers capable of resisting very heavy
+strains, and leather-faced metallic valves with low lift and large
+surfaces. These engines vary in power from 200 to 800 horse-power,
+according to duty required. They are in continuous use, day and night,
+and are required to deliver about 15,000 barrels of crude oil per 24
+hours, under a pressure equivalent to an elevation of 3,500 feet.
+
+We have lately examined the latest pumping engine plant, and the largest
+yet built for this service, by the firm of H.R. Worthington; it is to be
+used at the Osborne Hollow Pumping Station. As patents are yet pending
+on certain new features in this engine, we must defer a full description
+of it for a later issue of our journal.
+
+The Pennsylvania line has a single 6-inch pipe 280 miles long, with six
+pumping stations as shown in the map, and groups of shorter lines, with
+a loop extending from the main line to Milton, Pa., a shipping point for
+loading on cars. At Millway, Pa., a 5-inch pipe leaves the Pennsylvania
+line and runs to Baltimore, a distance of 70 miles, and is operated
+from the first named station alone, there being no intermediate pumping
+station.[1] The Cleveland pipe, 100 miles long, is 5 inches in diameter,
+and has upon it four pumping stations; it carries oil to the very
+extensive refineries of the company at the terminal on Lake Erie. The
+Buffalo line is 4 inches in diameter and 70 miles long; it has a pumping
+station at Four-Mile and at Ashford (omitted on the map). The Pittsburg
+line is 4 inches in diameter and 60 miles long; it has pumping stations
+at Carbon Center and at Freeport.
+
+[Footnote 1: Millway is about 400 feet above tide-water at Baltimore,
+but the line passes over a very undulating country in its passage to the
+last named point. We regret that we have no profile on this 70 mile line
+operated by a single pumping plant.--_Ed. Engineering News_.]
+
+A very necessary and remarkably complete adjunct to the numerous pipe
+lines of this company is an independent telegraph system extending to
+every point on its widely diverging lines. The storage capacity of the
+National Transit Co.'s system is placed at 1,500,000 barrels, and
+this tankage is being constantly increased to meet the demands of the
+producers.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: As showing the extent of the sea-coast transportation of
+petroleum, we should mention that the statistics for 1884 show a total
+of crude equivalent exported from the United States in that year,
+equaling 16,661,086 barrels, of 51 gallons each. This is a daily average
+of 42,780 barrels.]
+
+The company is officially organized as follows: C.A. Griscom, President;
+Benjamin Brewster, Vice President; John Bushnell, Secretary; Daniel
+O'Day, General Manager; J.H. Snow, General Superintendent. Mr. Snow
+was the practical constructor of the entire system, and the general
+perfection of the work is mainly due to his personal experience, energy,
+and careful supervision. His engineering assistants were Theodore M.
+Towe and C.J. Hepburn on the New York line and J.B. Barbour on the
+Pennsylvania lines.
+
+The enterprise has been so far a great engineering success, and the oil
+delivery is stated on good authority to be within 2 per cent. of the
+theoretical capacity of the pipes. From a commercial standpoint, the
+ultimate future of the undertaking will be determined by the lasting
+qualities of wrought iron pipe buried in the ground and subjected to
+enormous strain; time alone can determine this question.
+
+In preparing this article we are indebted for information to the firm of
+H.R. Worthington, to General Manager O'Day, of the National Transit
+Co., to the editor of the _Derrick_ of Oil City, Pa., and to numerous
+engineering friends.--_Engineering News_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE FUEL OF THE FUTURE.
+
+By GEORGE WARDMAN.
+
+
+The practical application of natural gas, as an article of fuel, to the
+purpose of manufacturing glass, iron, and steel, promises to work a
+revolution in the industrial interests of America--promises to work a
+revolution; for notwithstanding the fact that, in many of the largest
+iron, steel, and glass factories in Pittsburg and its vicinity, natural
+gas has already been substituted for coal, the managers of some such
+works are shy of the new fuel, mainly for two reasons: 1. They doubt
+the continuity and regularity of its supply. 2. They do not deem the
+difference between the price of natural gas and coal sufficient as yet
+to justify the expenditure involved in the furnace changes necessary to
+the substitution of the one for the other. These two objections will
+doubtless disappear with additional experience in the production and
+regulation of the gas supply, and with enlarged competition among the
+companies engaging in its transmission from the wells to the works.
+At present the use of natural gas as a substitute for coal in the
+manufacture of glass, iron, and steel is in its infancy.
+
+Natural gas is as ancient as the universe. It was known to man in
+prehistoric times, we must suppose, for the very earliest historical
+reference to the Magi of Asia records them as worshiping the eternal
+fires which then blazed, and still blaze, in the fissures of the
+mountain heights overlooking the Caspian Sea. Those records appertain
+to a period at least 600 years before the birth of Christ; but the Magi
+must have lived and worshiped long anterior to that time.
+
+Zoroaster, reputed founder of the Parsee sect, is placed contemporary
+with the prophet Daniel, from 2,500 to 600 B.C.; and, although Daniel
+has been doubted, and Zoroaster may never have seen the light, the
+fissures of the Caucasus have been flaming since the earliest authentic
+records.
+
+The Parsees (Persians) did not originally worship fire. They believed
+in two great powers--the Spirit of Light, or Good, and the Spirit of
+Darkness, or Evil. Subsequent to Zoroaster, when the Persian empire rose
+to its greatest power and importance, overspreading the west to the
+shores of the Caspian and beyond, the tribes of the Caucasus suffered
+political subjugation; but the creed of the Magi, founded upon the
+eternal flame-altars of the mountains, proved sufficiently vigorous to
+transform the Parseeism of the conquerors to the fire worship of the
+conquered.
+
+About the beginning of the seventh century of the Christian era, the
+Grecian Emperor Heraclius overturned the fire altars of the Magi at
+Baku, the chief city on the Caspian, but the fire worshipers were not
+expelled from the Caucasus until the Mohammedans subjugated the Persian
+Empire, when they were driven into the Rangoon, on the Irrawaddy, in
+India, one of the most noted petroleum producing districts of the world.
+
+Petroleum and natural gas are so intimately related that one would
+hardly dare to say whether the gas proceeds from petroleum or the
+petroleum is deposited from the gas. It is, however, safe to assume that
+they are the products of one material, the lighter element separating
+from the heavier under certain degrees of temperature and pressure.
+Thus petroleum may separate from the gas as asphaltum separates from
+petroleum. But some speculative minds consider natural gas to be a
+product of anthracite coal. The fact that the great supply-field of
+natural gas in Western Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia, and
+Eastern Ohio is a bituminous and not an anthracite region does not of
+itself confute that theory, as the argument for it is, that the gas may
+be tapped at a remote distance from the source of supply; and, whereas
+anthracite is not a gas-coal, while bituminous is, we are told to
+suppose that the gas which once may have been a component part of the
+anthracite was long ago expelled by Nature, and has since been held in
+vast reservoirs with slight waste, awaiting the use of man. That is one
+theory; and upon that supposition it is suggested that anthracite
+may exist below the bituminous beds of the region lying between the
+Alleghany Mountains and the Great Lakes. Another theory is, that natural
+gas is a product of the sea-weed deposited in the Devonian stratum. But,
+leaving modern theories on the origin of natural gas and petroleum, we
+may suppose the natural gas jets now burning in the fissures of the
+Caucasus to have started up in flames about the time when, according
+to the Old Testament, Noah descended from Mount Ararat, or very soon
+thereafter. In the language of modern science it would be safe to say
+that those flames sprang up when the Caucasus range was raised from
+beneath the surface of the universal sea. The believer in biblical
+chronology may say that those fires have been burning for four thousand
+years--the geologist may say for four millions.
+
+We know that Alexander the Great penetrated to the Caspian; and in
+Plutarch we read: "Hence [Arbela] he marched through the province
+Babylon [Media?], which immediately submitted to him, and in Ecbatana
+[?] was much surprised at the sight of the place where fire issues in a
+continuous stream, like a spring of water, out of a cleft in the earth,
+and the stream of naphtha, which not far from this spot flows out so
+abundantly as to form a large lake. This naphtha, in other respects
+resembling bitumen, is so subject to take fire that, before it touches
+the flame, it will kindle at the very light that surrounds it, and often
+inflames the intermediate air also. The barbarians, to show the power
+and nature of it, sprinkled the street that led to the king's lodgings
+with little drops of it, and, when it was almost night, stood at the
+farther end with torches, which being applied to the moistened places,
+the first taking fire, instantly, as quick as a man could think of it,
+it caught from one end to another in such manner that the whole street
+was one continued flame. Among those who used to wait upon the king, and
+find occasion to amuse him, when he anointed and washed himself, there
+was one Athenophanus, an Athenian, who desired him to make an experiment
+of the naphtha upon Stephanus, who stood by in the bathing place, a
+youth with a ridiculously ugly face, whose talent was singing well.
+'For,' said he, 'if it take hold of him, and is not put out, it must
+undeniably be allowed to be of the most invincible strength.' The youth,
+as it happened, readily consented to undergo the trial, and as soon as
+he was anointed and rubbed with it, his whole body was broke out into
+such a flame, and was so seized by the fire, that Alexander was in the
+greatest perplexity and alarm for him, and not without reason; for
+nothing could have prevented him from being consumed by it if, by good
+chance, there had not been people at hand with a great many vessels of
+water for the service of the bath, with all which they had much ado to
+extinguish the fire; and his body was so burned all over that he was
+not cured of it a good while after. And thus it was not without some
+plausibility that they endeavor to reconcile the fable to truth, who say
+this was the drug in the tragedies with which Medea anointed the crown
+and veils which she gave to Creon's daughter."
+
+An interesting reference to the fire-worshipers of the Caucasus is
+contained in the "History of Zobeide," a tale of the wonderful Arabian
+Nights Entertainment. It runs thus:
+
+"I bought a ship at Balsora, and freighted it; my sisters chose to go
+with me, and we set sail with a fair wind. Some weeks after, we cast
+anchor in a harbor which presented itself, with intent to water the
+ship. As I was tired with having been so long on board, I landed with
+the first boat, and walked up into the country. I soon came in sight of
+a great town. When I arrived there, I was much surprised to see vast
+numbers of people in different postures, but all immovable. The
+merchants were in their shops, the soldiery on guard; every one seemed
+engaged in his proper avocation, yet all were become as stone.... I
+heard the voice of a man reading Al Koran.... Being curious to know why
+he was the only living creature in the town,... he proceeded to tell
+me that the city was the metropolis of a kingdom now governed by his
+father; that the former king and all his subjects were Magi, worshipers
+of fire and of Nardoun. the ancient king of the giants who rebelled
+against God. 'Though I was born,' continued he, 'of idolatrous parents,
+it was my good fortune to have a woman governess who was a strict
+observer of the Mohammedan religion. She taught me Arabic from Al Koran;
+by her I was instructed in the true religion, which I would never
+afterward renounce. About three years ago a thundering voice was heard
+distinctly throughout the city, saying, "Inhabitants, abandon the
+worship of Nardoun and of fire, and worship the only true God, who
+showeth mercy!" This voice was heard three years successively, but no
+one regarded it. At the end of the last year all the inhabitants were in
+an instant turned to stone. I alone was preserved.'"
+
+In the foregoing tale we doubtless have reference to the destruction
+of Baku, on the Caspian (though to sail from Balsora to Baku is
+impossible), and the driving away into India, by the Arabs under Caliph
+Omar, of all who refused to renounce fire-worship and adopt the creed
+of the Koran. The turning of the refractory inhabitants into stone is
+probably the Arabian storyteller's figurative manner of referring to the
+finding of dead bodies in a mummified condition.
+
+It is known that the Egyptians made use of bitumen, in some form, in
+the preservation of their dead, a fact with which the Arabians were
+familiar. As the Magi held the four elements of earth, air, fire, and
+water to be sacred, they feared to either bury, burn, sink, or expose
+to air the corrupting bodies of their deceased. Therefore, it was their
+practice to envelop the corpse in a coating of wax or bitumen, so as
+to hermetically seal it from immediate contact with either of the four
+sacred elements. Hence the idea of all the bodies of the Magi left at
+Baku being turned to stone, while only the true believer in Mohammed
+remained in the flesh.
+
+Marco Polo, the famous traveler of the thirteenth century, makes
+reference to the burning jets of the Caucasus, and those fires are known
+to the Russians as continuing in existence since the army of Peter the
+Great wrested the regions about the Caspian from the modern Persians.
+The record of those flaming jets of natural gas is thus brought down in
+an unbroken chain of evidence from remote antiquity to the present day,
+and they are still burning.
+
+Numerous Greek and Latin writers testify to the known existence of
+petroleum about the shores of the Mediterranean two thousand years ago.
+More modern citations may, however, be read with equal interest. In the
+"Journal of Sir Philip Skippon's Travels in France," in 1663, we find
+the following curious entries:
+
+"We stayed in Grenoble till August 1st, and one day rode out, and, after
+twice fording the river Drac (which makes a great wash) at a league's
+distance, went over to Pont de Clef, a large arch across that river,
+where we paid one sol a man; a league further we passed through a large
+village called Vif, and about a league thence by S. Bathomew, another
+village, and Chasteau Bernard, where we saw a flame breaking out of the
+side of a bank, which is vulgarly called La Fountaine qui Brule; it
+is by a small rivulet, and sometimes breaks out in other places; just
+before our coming some other strangers had fried eggs here. The soil
+hereabouts is full of a black stone, like our coal, which, perhaps, is
+the continual fuel of the fire.... Near Peroul, about a league from
+Montpelier, we saw a boiling fountain (as they call it), that is, the
+water did heave up and bubble as if it boiled. This phenomenon in the
+water was caused by a vapor ascending out of the earth through the
+water, as was manifest, for if that one did but dig anywhere near the
+place, and pour water upon the place new digged, one should observe in
+it the like bubbling, the vapor arising not only in that place where the
+fountain was, but all thereabout; the like vapor ascending out of the
+earth and causing such ebullition in water it passes through hath been
+observed in Mr. Hawkley's ground, about a mile from the town of Wigan,
+in Lancashire, which vapor, by the application of a lighted candle,
+paper; or the like, catches fire and flames vigorously. Whether or not
+this vapor at Peroul would in like manner catch fire and burn I cannot
+say, it coming not in our minds to make the experiment.... At Gabian,
+about a day's journey from Montpelier, in the way to Beziers, is a
+fountain of petroleum. It burns like oil, is of a pungent scent, and a
+blackish color. It distills out of several places of the rock all the
+year long, but most in the summer time. They gather it up with ladles
+and put it in a barrel set on end, which hath a spigot just at the
+bottom. When they have put in a good quantity, they open the spigot to
+let out the water, and when the oil begins to come presently stop it.
+They pay for the farm of this fountain about fifty crowns per annum.
+We were told by one Monsieur Beaushoste, a chymist in Montpelier, that
+petroleum was the very same with oil of jet, and not to be distinguished
+from it by color, taste, smell, consistency, virtues, or any other
+accident, as he had by experience found upon the coast of the
+Mediterranean Sea, in several places, as at Berre, near Martague, in
+Provence; at Messina, in Sicily, etc."
+
+In Harris' "Voyages," published in 1764, an article on the empire of
+Persia thus refers to petroleum:
+
+"In several parts of Persia we meet with naphtha, both white and black;
+it is used in painting and varnish, and sometimes in physic, and there
+is an oil extracted from it which is applied to several uses. The most
+famous springs of naphtha are in the neighborhood of Baku, which furnish
+vast quantities, and there are also upward of thirty springs about
+Shamasky, both in the province of Schirwan. The Persians use it as oil
+for their lamps and in making fireworks, of which they are extremely
+fond, and in which they are great proficients."
+
+Petroleum has long been known to exist also in the northern part of
+Italy, the cities of Parma and Genoa having been for many years lighted
+with it.
+
+In the province of Szechuen, China, natural gas is obtained from beds of
+rock-salt at a depth of fifteen to sixteen hundred feet. Being brought
+to the surface, it is conveyed in bamboo tubes and used for lighting as
+well as for evaporating water in the manufacture of salt. It is asserted
+that the Chinese used this natural gas for illuminating purposes
+long before gas-lighting was known to the Europeans. Remembering the
+unprogressive character of Chinese arts and industries, there is ground
+for the belief that they may have been using this natural gas as an
+illuminant these hundreds of years.
+
+In the United States the existence of petroleum was known to the Pilgrim
+Fathers, who doubtless obtained their first information of it from the
+Indians, from whom, in New York and western Pennsylvania, it was called
+Seneka oil. It was otherwise known as "British" oil and oil of naphtha,
+and was considered "a sovereign remedy for an inward bruise."
+
+The record of natural gas in this country is not so complete as that of
+petroleum, but we learn that an important gas spring was known in West
+Bloomfleld, N.Y., seventy years ago. In 1864 a well was sunk to a depth
+of three hundred feet upon that vein, from which a sufficient supply
+of gas was obtained to illuminate and heat the city of Rochester
+(twenty-five miles distant), it was supposed. But the pipes which were
+laid for that purpose, being of wood, were unfitted to withstand the
+pressure, in consequence of which the scheme was abandoned; but gas from
+that well is now in use as an illuminant and as fuel both in the town of
+West Bloomfield and at Honeoye Falls. The village of Fredonia, N.Y., has
+been using natural gas in lighting the streets for thirty years or there
+about. On Big Sewickley Creek, in Westmoreland County, Pa., natural gas
+was used for evaporating water in the manufacture of salt thirty years
+ago, and gas is still issuing at the same place. Natural gas has been in
+use in several localities in eastern Ohio for twenty-five years, and the
+wells are flowing as vigorously as when first known. It has also been
+in use in West Virginia for a quarter of a century, as well as in
+the petroleum region of western Pennsylvania, where it has long been
+utilized in generating steam for drilling oil wells.
+
+In 1826 the _American Journal of Science_ contained a letter from Dr.
+S.P. Hildreth, who, in writing of the products of the Muskingum (Ohio)
+Valley, said: "They have sunk two wells, which are now more than four
+hundred feet in depth; one of them affords a very strong and pure
+salt water, but not in great quantity; the other discharges such vast
+quantities of petroleum, or, as it is vulgarly called, 'Seneka oil,' and
+besides is so subject to such tremendous explosions of gas, as to force
+out all the water and afford nothing but gas for several days, that they
+make little or no salt."
+
+The value of the foregoing references is to be found in the testimony
+they offer as to the duration of the supply of natural gas. Whether we
+look to the eternal flaming fissures of the Caucasus, or to New York,
+Pennsylvania, and Ohio, there is much to encourage the belief that the
+flow of natural gas may be, like the production of petroleum, increased
+rather than diminished by the draughts made upon it. Petroleum, instead
+of diminishing in quantity by the millions of barrels drawn from western
+Pennsylvania in the last quarter of a century, seems to increase,
+greater wells being known in 1884 than in any previous year, and prices
+having fallen from two dollars per bottle for "Seneka oil" to sixty
+cents per barrel for the same article under the name of crude petroleum.
+Hence we may assume that, as new pipe-lines are laid, the supply of
+natural gas available for use in the great manufacturing district of
+Pittsburg and vicinity will be increased, and the price of this fuel
+diminished in a corresponding ratio.
+
+Natural gas is now supplied in Pittsburg at a small discount on
+the actual cost of coal used last year in the large manufacturing
+establishments, an additional saving being made in dispensing with
+firemen and avoidance of hauling ashes from the boiler-room. It is
+supplied, for domestic purposes, at twenty cents per thousand cubic
+feet, which is not cheaper than coal in Pittsburg, but it is a thousand
+per cent cleaner, and in that respect it promises to prove a great
+blessing, not only to those who can afford to use it, but to the
+community at large, in the hope held out that the smoke and soot
+nuisance may be abated in part, if not wholly subdued, and that gleams
+of sunshine there may become less phenomenal in the future than they are
+at the present time. Twenty cents per thousand feet is too high a price
+to bring gas into general use for domestic purposes in a city where
+coal is cheap. Ten cents would be too much, and no doubt five cents per
+thousand would pay a profit. The fact is, the dealers in natural gas
+appear to be somewhat doubtful of the continuity of supply, and
+anxious to get back the cost of wells and pipes in one year, which, if
+successful, would be an enormous return on the investment.
+
+There are objections to the use of natural gas by mill operators--that
+it costs too much, and that the continuity of the supply is uncertain;
+by heads of families, that it is odorless, and, in case of leakage from
+the pipes, may fill a room and be ready to explode without giving the
+fragrant warning offered by common gas. Both of these objections will
+probably disappear under the experience that time must furnish. More
+wells and tributary lines will lessen the cost and tend to regulate the
+pressure for manufacturers. Cut-offs and escape pipes outside of the
+house will reduce the risk of explosions within. The danger in the
+house may also be lessened by providing healthful ventilation in all
+apartments wherein gas shall be consumed.
+
+This subject of, the ventilation of rooms in which common gas is
+ordinarily used is beginning to attract attention. It is stated, upon
+scientific authority, that a jet of common gas, equivalent to twelve
+sperm candles, consumes 5.45 cubic feet of oxygen per hour, producing
+3.21 feet of carbonic acid gas, vitiating, according to Dr. Tidy's
+"Handbook of Chemistry," 348.25 cubic feet of air. In every five cubic
+feet of pure air in a room there is one cubic foot of oxygen and four
+of nitrogen. Without oxygen human life, as well as light, would become
+extinct. It is asserted that one common gas-jet consumes as much oxygen
+as five persons.
+
+Carbonic acid gas is the element which, in deep mines and vaults, causes
+almost instant insensibility and suffocation to persons subjected to its
+influences, and instantly extinguishes the flame of any light lowered
+into it. The normal quantity of this gas contained in the air we breathe
+is 0.04; one per cent, of it causes distress in breathing; two per cent,
+is dangerous; four per cent, extinguishes life, and four per cent of it
+is contained in air expelled from the lungs. According to Dr. Tidy's
+table, each ordinary jet of common gas contributes to the air of a room
+sixteen by ten feet on the sides and nine feet high, containing 1,440
+cubic feet of air, twenty-two per cent, of carbonic acid gas, which,
+continued for twenty-four hours without ventilation, would reach the
+fatal four per cent.
+
+Prof. Huxley gives, as a result of chemical analyses, the following
+table of ratio of carbonic-acid gas in the atmosphere at the points
+named:
+
+  On the Thames, at London                           0.0343
+  In the streets of London                           0.0380
+  Top of Ben Nevis                                   0.0327
+  Dress circle of Haymarket theater (11:30 P.M.)     0.0757
+  Chancery Court (seven feet from the ground)        0.1930
+  From working mines (average of 339 samples)        0.7853
+  Largest amount in a Cornish mine                   2.0500
+
+In addition to the consumption of oxygen and production of carbonic acid
+by the use of common gas, the gas itself, owing to defectiveness of the
+burner, is projected into the air. Now, considering the deleterious
+nature of all illuminating gases, the reasons for perfect ventilation of
+rooms in which natural gas is used for heating and culinary purposes are
+self-evident, not alone as a protection against explosions, but for the
+health of the occupants of the house, remembering that a larger supply
+of oxygen is said to be necessary for the perfect combustion of natural
+than of common gas.
+
+Carbonic oxide, formed by the consumption of carbon, with an
+insufficient supply of air, is the fatal poison of the charcoal furnace,
+not infrequently resorted to, in close rooms, as a means of suicide.
+The less sufficient the air toward perfect combustion, the smaller the
+quantity of carbonic acid and the greater the amount of carbonic oxide.
+That is to say, at the time of ignition the chief product of combustion
+is carbonic oxide, and, unless sufficient air be added to convert the
+oxide to carbonic acid, a decidedly dangerous product is given off into
+the room. Yet, by means of a flue to carry off the poisonous gases from
+burning jets, the combustion of gas, creating a current, is made an aid
+to ventilation. Unfortunately, this important fact, if commonly known,
+is not much heeded by heads of families or builders of houses. But in
+any large community where gas comes into general use as an article of
+fuel, this fact will gradually become recognized and respected.
+
+The property of indicating the presence of very minute quantities of gas
+in a room is claimed for an instrument recently described by C. Von Jahn
+in the _Revue Industrielle_. This is a porous cup, inverted and closed
+by a perforated rubber stopper. Through the perforation in the stopper
+the interior of the cup is connected with a pressure gauge containing
+colored water. It is claimed that the diffusion of gas through the
+earthenware raises the level of the water in the gauge so delicately
+that the presence of one-half of one per cent, of gas may be detected by
+it. Other instruments of a slightly different character are credited by
+their inventors with most sensitive power of indicating gas-leakages,
+but their practical efficiency remains to be demonstrated. An automatic
+cut-off for use outside of houses in which natural gas is consumed has
+been invented, but this writer knows nothing of either its mode of
+action or its effectiveness.
+
+The great economic question, however, connected with the use of natural
+gas is, how will it affect the industrial interests of the country?
+There are grounds for the belief that a sufficient supply of natural gas
+may be found in the vicinity of Pittsburg to reduce the cost of fuel to
+such a degree as to make competition in the manufacture of iron, steel,
+and glass, in any part of the country where coal must be used, out of
+the question. Such a condition of affairs would probably result in
+driving the great manufacturing concerns of the country into the region
+where natural gas is to obtained. That may be anywhere from the western
+slope of the Alleghanies to Lake Erie or to Lake Michigan. And, if the
+cost of producing iron, steel, and glass can be so cheapened by the new
+fuel, the tariff question may undergo some important modification in
+politics. For, if the reduction in the cost of fuel should ever become
+an offset to the lower rate of wages in Europe, the manufacturers of
+Pennsylvania, who have long been the chief support of the protective
+policy of the country, may lose their present interest in that question,
+and leave the tariff to shift for itself elsewhere. It should be
+remembered that natural gas is not, as yet, much cheaper than coal
+in Pittsburg. But it may safely be assumed that it will cheapen, as
+petroleum has done, by a development of the territory in which it is
+known to exist in enormous quantities. It is quite possible that,
+instead of buying gas, many factories will bore for it with success,
+or remove convenient to its natural sources, so that a gas well may
+ultimately become an essential part of the "plant" of a mill or factory.
+Even now coal cannot compete with gas in the manufacture of window
+glass, for, the gas being free from sulphur and other impurities
+contained in coal, produces a superior quality of glass; so that in this
+branch of industry the question of superiority seems already settled.
+
+Having said thus much of an industry now in its infancy but promising
+great growth, I submit tables of analyses of common and of the natural
+or marsh gas, the latter from a paper recently prepared by a committee
+of the Engineers' Society of Western Pennsylvania, and for the use of
+which I am indebted to that association:
+
+COMMON GAS.
+
+  Hydrogen                                 46.0
+  Light carbureted hydrogen (marsh gas)    39.5
+  Condensible hydrocarbon                   3.8
+  Carbonic oxide                            7.5
+     "     acid                             0.6
+  Aqueous vapor                             2.0
+  Oxygen                                    0.1
+  Nitrogen                                  0.5
+                                          -----
+                                          100.0
+
+Natural gas is now conveyed to Pittsburg through four lines of 5-5/8
+inch pipe and one line of eight inch pipe. A line of ten inch pipe is
+also being laid. The pressure of the gas at the wells is from 150 to 230
+pounds to the square inch. As the wells are on one side eighteen and on
+the other about twenty-five miles distant, and as the consumption is
+variable, the pressure at the city cannot be given. Greater pressure
+might be obtained at the wells, but this would increase the liability
+to leakage and bursting of pipes. For the prevention of such casualties
+safety valves are provided at the wells, permitting the escape of all
+superfluous gas. The enormous force of this gas may be appreciated from
+a comparison of, say, 200 pounds pressure at the wells with a two ounce
+pressure of common gas for ordinary lighting. The amount of natural gas
+now furnished for use in Pittsburg is supposed to be something like
+25,000,000 cubic feet per day; the ten inch pipe now laying is estimated
+to increase the supply to 40,000,000 feet. The amount of manufactured
+gas used for lighting the same city probably falls below 3,000,000 feet.
+
+About fifty mills and factories of various kinds in Pittsburg now use
+natural gas. It is used for domestic purposes in two hundred houses.
+Its superiority over coal in the manufacture of window glass is
+unquestioned. That it is not used in all the glass houses of Pittsburg
+is due to the fact that its advantages were not fully known when the
+furnaces were fired last summer, and it costs a large sum to permit the
+furnaces to cool off after being heated for melting. When the fires cool
+down, and before they are started up again, the furnaces now using
+coal will doubtless all be changed so as to admit natural gas. The
+superiority of French over American glass is said to be due to the fact
+that the French use wood and the Americans coal in their furnaces, wood
+being free from sulphur, phosphorus, etc. The substitution of gas for
+coal, while not increasing the cost, improves the quality of American
+glass, making it as nearly perfect as possible.
+
+While the gas is not used as yet in any smelting furnace nor in the
+Bessemer converters, it is preferred in open hearth and crucible steel
+furnaces, and is said to be vastly superior to coal for puddling. The
+charge of a puddling furnace, consisting of 500 pounds of pig-metal and
+eighty pounds of "fix," produces with coal fuel 490 to 500 pounds of
+iron. With gas for fuel, it is claimed that the same charge will yield
+520 to 530 pounds of iron. In an iron mill of thirty furnaces, running
+eight heats each for twenty-four hours, this would make a difference in
+favor of the gas of, say, 8 x 30 x 25 = 6,000 pounds of iron per day.
+This is an important item of itself, leaving out the cost of firing with
+coal and hauling ashes.
+
+For generating steam in large establishments, one man will attend
+a battery of twelve or twenty boilers, using gas as fuel, keep the
+pressure uniform, and have the fire room clean as a parlor. For burning
+brick and earthenware, gas offers the double advantage of freedom from
+smoke and a uniform heat. The use of gas in public bakeries promises the
+abolition of the ash-box and its accumulation of miscellaneous filth,
+which is said to often impregnate the "sponge" with impurities.
+
+In short, the advantages of natural gas as a fuel are so obvious to
+those who have given it a trial, that the prediction is made that,
+should the supply fail, many who are now using it will never return to
+the consumption of crude coal in factories, but, if necessary, convert
+it or petroleum into gas at their own works.
+
+It seems, indeed, that until we shall have acquired the wisdom enabling
+us to conserve and concentrate the heat of the sun, gas must be the fuel
+of the future.--_Popular Science Monthly_.
+
+          TABLE OF ANALYSIS OF NATURAL GAS--FROM VARIOUS SOURCES.
+   _____________________________________________________________________
+  |               |        |        |        |        |        |        |
+  | CONSTITUENTS  |   [2.] |   [3.] |   [6.] |   [7.] |   [8.] |   [9.] |
+  |_______________|________|________|________|________|________|_________
+  |               |        |        |        |        |        |        |
+  | Hydrogen      |   .... |   .... |   6.10 |  13.50 |  22.50 |   4.79 |
+  |               |        |        |        |        |        |        |
+  | Marsh Gas     |  82.41 |  96.50 |  75.44 |  80.11 |  60.27 |  89.65 |
+  |               |        |        |        |        |        |        |
+  | Ethane        |   .... |   .... |  18.12 |   5.72 |   6.80 |   4.39 |
+  |               |        |        |        |        |        |        |
+  | Propane       |   .... |   .... | trace. |   .... |   .... | trace. |
+  |               |        |        |        |        |        |        |
+  | Carbonic acid |  10.11 |   .... |   0.34 |   0.66 |   2.28 |   0.35 |
+  |               |        |        |        |        |        |        |
+  | Carbonic oxide|   .... |   0.50 | trace. | trace. | trace. |   0.26 |
+  |               |        |        |        |        |        |        |
+  | Nitrogen      |   4.31 |   .... |   .... |   .... |   7.32 |   .... |
+  |               |        |        |        |        |        |        |
+  | Oxygen        |   0.23 |   2.00 |   .... |   .... |   0.83 |   .... |
+  |               |        |        |        |        |        |        |
+  | "Illuminating |   2.94 |   1.00 |   .... |   .... |   .... |   0.56 |
+  | hydrocarbons."|________|________|________|________|________|________|
+  |               |        |        |        |        |        |        |
+  |               | 100.00 | 100.00 | 100.00 |  99.99 | 100.00 | 100.00 |
+  |_______________|________|________|________|________|________|________|
+  |                                                                     |
+  | Specific gravity 0.693    0.692   0.6148   0.5119            0.5580 |
+  |_____________________________________________________________________|
+   ______________________________________________________________________
+  |               |        |        |        |        |        |        |
+  | CONSTITUENTS  |  [10.] |  [12.] |  [14.] |  [15.] |  [16.] |  [17.] |
+  |_______________|________|________|________|________|________|_________
+  |               |        |        |        |        |        |        |
+  | Hydrogen      |   .... |  19.56 |   .... |   0.98 |   .... |   .... |
+  |               |        |        |        |        |        |        |
+  | Marsh Gas     |  96.34 |  78.24 |  47.37 |  93.09 |  80.69 |  95.42 |
+  |               |        |        |        |        |        |        |
+  | Ethane        |   .... |   .... |   .... |   .... |   4.75 |   .... |
+  |               |        |        |        |        |        |        |
+  | Propane       |   .... |   .... |   .... |   .... |   .... |   .... |
+  |               |        |        |        |        |        |        |
+  | Carbonic acid |   3.64 |   .... |   3.10 |   2.18 |   6.44 |   0.60 |
+  |               |        |        |        |        |        |        |
+  | Carbonic oxide|        |   .... |   .... |   .... |   .... |   .... |
+  |               |        |        |        |        |        |        |
+  | Nitrogen      |        |   .... |  49.39 |   0.49 |   8.12 |   3.98 |
+  |               |        |        |        |        |        |        |
+  | Oxygen        |        |   2.20 |   0.17 |   .... |   .... |   .... |
+  |               |        |        |        |        |        |        |
+  | "Illuminating |  [10.] |   .... |   .... |   3.26 |   .... |   .... |
+  | hydrocarbons."|________|________|________|________|________|________|
+  |               |        |        |        |        |        |        |
+  |               |        | 100.00 | 100.03 | 100.00 | 100.00 | 100.00 |
+  |_______________|________|________|________|________|________|________|
+  |                                                                     |
+  |Specific gravity 0.5923    0.56                                      |
+  |_____________________________________________________________________|
+
+  Petroleum is composed of about 85 per cent of carbon and 15 per cent of
+  nitrogen.
+
+  Locations:
+
+  1. Petrolia, Canada.
+  2. West Bloomfield, N.Y.
+  3. Olean, N.Y.
+  4. Fredonis, N.Y.
+  5. Pioneer Run, Venango Co., Pa.
+  6. Burn's Well, near St. Joe., Butler Co., Pa.
+  7. Harvey Well, Butler Co., Pa.
+  8. Cherry Tree, Indiana Co., Pa.
+  9. Leechburg, Pa.
+  10. Creighton, Pa.
+  11. Penn Fuel Co.'s Well, Murraysville, Pa.
+  12. Fuel Gas Co.'s Well, Murraysville.
+  13. Roger's Gulch, Wirt Co., W. Va.
+  14. Gas from Marsh Ground
+  15. Baku, on the Caspian Sea.
+  16. Gas occluded in Wigan cannel-coal.
+  17. Blower in coal-mine. South Wales.
+
+  Notes:
+
+  1. Chiefly marsh-gas with ethane and some carbonic acid.
+  4. A mixture of marsh-gas, ethane and butane.
+  5. Chiefly propane, with small quantities of carbonic acid and
+  nitrogen.
+  10. Trace of heavy hydrocarbons.
+  11. Marsh-gas, with a little carbonic acid.
+  13. Chiefly marsh-gas, with small quantities of nitrogen and
+      15.86 per cent
+  carbonic acid.
+
+  References:
+
+  1. Fouque, "Comptes Rendus," lxvii, p. 1045.
+  2. H. Wurtz, "Am. Jour. Arts and Sci." (2), xlix, p. 336.
+  3. Robert Young.
+  4. Fouque, "Comptes Rendus," lxvii. p. 1045.
+  5. Fouque, "Comptes Rendus," lxvii. p. 1045.
+  6. S.P. Sadler, "Report L, 2d Geol. Sur. Pa.," p. 153.
+  7. S.P. Sadler, "Report L, 3d Geol. Sur. Pa.," p. 152.
+  8. S.P. Sadler, "Report L, 3d Geol. Sur. Pa.," p. 153.
+  9. S.P. Sadler, "Report L, 3d Geol. Sur. Pa.," p. 153.
+  10. F.C. Phillips.
+  11. Robert Young.
+  12. Rogers.
+  13. Fouque, "Comptes Rendus," lxvii, p. 1045.
+  14. Bischof's Chemical Geology," I, p. 730.
+  15. Bischof's Chemical Geology," I, p. 730.
+  16. J.W. Thomas, London, "Chemical Society's Journal," 1876, p. 793.
+  17. Same, 1875, p. 793.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CLOSING LEAKAGES FOR PACKING.
+
+By L. C. LEVOIR.
+
+
+The mineral asbestos is but a very poor packing material in
+steam-boilers. Moreover, it acts as a strong grinding material on all
+moving parts.
+
+For some years I have tested the applicability of artificial
+precipitates to close the holes in boilers, cylinder-covers, and
+stuffing boxes. I took, generally with the best success, alternate
+layers of hemp-cotton, thread, and absorbent paper, all well saturated
+with the chlorides of calcium and magnesium. The next layers of the same
+fiber are moistened with silicate of soda. By pressure the fluids are
+mixed and the pores are closed. A stuffing box filled with this mixture
+has worked three years without grinding the piston-rod.
+
+In the same manner I close the screw-thread hole in gas tubes used for
+conducting steam. I moisten the thread in the sockets with oleic acid
+from the candle-works, and dust over it a mixture of 1 part of minium,
+2 parts of quick-lime, and 1 part of linseed powder (without the oil).
+When the tube is screwed in the socket, the powder mixes with the oleic
+acid. The water coming in at first makes the linseed powder viscid.
+Later the steam forming the oleate of lime and the oleate of lead,
+on its way to the outer air, presses it in the holes and closes them
+perfectly.
+
+After a year in use the tubes can be unscrewed with ease, and the screw
+threads are perfectly smooth.
+
+With this kind of packing only one exception must be made--that is, it
+is only tight under pressure; condensation or vacuum must be thoroughly
+avoided.--_Chem. News_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+LUMINOUS PAINT.
+
+
+In answer to various inquiries concerning the manufacture of this
+article, we give herewith the process of William Henry Balmain, the
+original discoverer of luminous paint, and also other processes. These
+particulars are derived from the letters patent granted in this country
+to the parties named.
+
+Balmain's invention was patented in England in 1877, and in this country
+in 1882. It is styled as Improvements in Painting, Varnishing, and
+Whitewashing, of which the following is a specification:
+
+The said invention consists in a luminous paint, the body of which is a
+phosphorescent compound, or is composed in part of such a compound, and
+the vehicle of which is such as is used as the vehicle in ordinary paint
+compounds, viz., one which becomes dry by evaporation or oxidation.
+
+The objector article to which such paint or varnish or wash is applied
+is itself rendered visible in the darkest place, and more or less
+capable of imparting light to other objects, so as to render them
+visible also. The phosphorescent substance found most suitable for the
+purpose is a compound obtained by simply heating together a mixture
+of lime and sulphur, or carbonate of lime and sulphur, or some of the
+various substances containing in themselves both lime and sulphur--such,
+for example, as alabaster, gypsum, and the like--with carbon or other
+agent to remove a portion of the oxygen contained in them, or by heating
+lime or carbonate of lime in a gas or vapor containing sulphur.
+
+The vehicle to be used for the luminous paint must be one which will dry
+by evaporation or oxidation, in order that the paint may not become soft
+or fluid by heat or be liable to be easily rubbed off by accident or use
+from the articles to which it has been applied. It may be any of the
+vehicles commonly used in oil-painting or any of those commonly used in
+what is known as "distemper" painting or whitewashing, according to the
+place or purpose in or for which the paint is to be used.
+
+It is found the best results are obtained by mixing the phosphorescent
+substance with a colorless varnish made with mastic or other resinous
+body and turpentine or spirit, making the paint as thick as convenient
+to apply with a brush, and with as much turpentine or spirit as can
+be added without impairing the required thickness. Good results may,
+however, be obtained with drying oils, spirit varnishes, gums, pastes,
+sizes, and gelatine solutions of every description, the choice being
+varied to meet the object in view or the nature of the article in hand.
+
+The mode of applying the paint, varnish, or wash will also depend upon
+the circumstances of the case. For example, it may be applied by a
+brush, as in ordinary painting, or by dipping or steeping the article
+in the paint, varnish, or wash; or a block or type may be used to
+advantage, as in calico-printing and the like. For outdoor work, or
+wherever the surface illuminated is exposed to the vicissitudes of
+weather or to injury from mechanical contingencies, it is desirable to
+cover it with glass, or, if the article will admit of it, to glaze it
+over with a flux, as in enameling, or as in ordinary pottery, and this
+may be accomplished without injury to the effect, even when the flux or
+glaze requires a red heat for fusion.
+
+Among other applications of the said invention which may be enumerated,
+it is particularly advantageous for rendering visible clock or watch
+faces and other indicators--such, for example, as compasses and the
+scales of barometers or thermometers--during the night or in dark places
+during the night time. In applying the invention to these and other
+like purposes there may be used either phosphorescent grounds with
+dark figures or dark grounds and phosphorescent figures or letters,
+preferring the former. In like manner there may be produced figures and
+letters for use on house-doors and ends of streets, wherever it is not
+convenient or economical to have external source of light, signposts,
+and signals, and names or marks to show entries to avenues or gates, and
+the like.
+
+The invention is also applicable to the illumination of railway
+carriages by painting with phosphorescent paint a portion of the
+interior, thus obviating the necessity for the expense and inconvenience
+of the use of lamps in passing through tunnels. It may also be applied
+externally as warning-lights at the front and end of trains passing
+through tunnels, and in other similar cases, also to ordinary carriages,
+either internally or externally. As a night-light in a bed-room or in a
+room habitually dark, the application has been found quite effectual, a
+very small proportion of the surface rendered phosphorescent affording
+sufficient light for moving about the room, or for fixing upon and
+selecting an article in the midst of a number of complicated scientific
+instruments or other objects.
+
+The invention may also be applied to private and public buildings in
+cases where it would be economical and advantageous to maintain for a
+short time a waning or twilight, so as to obviate the necessity for
+lighting earlier the gas or other artificial light. It may also be
+used in powder-mills and stores of powder, and in other cases where
+combustion or heat would be a constant source of danger, and generally
+for all purposes of artificial light where it is applicable.
+
+In order to produce and maintain the phosphorescent light, full sunshine
+is not necessary, but, on the contrary, is undesirable. The illumination
+is best started by leaving the article or surface exposed for a short
+time to ordinary daylight or even artificial light, which need not be
+strong in order to make the illumination continue for many hours, even
+twenty hours, without, the necessity of renewed exposure.
+
+The advantages of the invention consist in obtaining for the purposes of
+daily life a light which is maintained at no cost whatever, is free from
+the defects and contingent dangers arising from combustion or heat, and
+can be applied in many cases where all other sources of light would be
+inconvenient or incapable of application.
+
+Heretofore phosphorus has been mixed with earthy oxides, carbonates,
+and sulphates, and with oxides and carbonates of metal, as tin, zinc,
+magnesia, antimony, and chlorides of the same, also crystallized acids
+and salts and mineral substances, and same have been inclosed and
+exhibited in closely-stopped bottles as a phosphorus; but such union I
+do not claim; but what I claim is:
+
+A luminous paint, the body of which is a phosphorescent substance, or
+composed in part of such substance, the vehicle of which is such as is
+ordinarily used in paints, viz., one which will become dry by oxidation
+or evaporation, substantially as herein described.
+
+A. Krause, of Buffalo, N.Y., obtained a patent for improvement in
+phosphorescent substances dated December 30, 1879. The patentee says:
+This invention relates to a substance which, by exposure to direct or
+indirect sun-light, or to artificial light, is so affected or brought
+into such a peculiar condition that it will emit rays of light or become
+luminous in the dark.
+
+It is a well-known fact that various bodies and compositions of matter,
+more especially compositions containing sulphur in combination with
+earthy salts, possess the property of emitting rays of light in the
+dark after having been exposed to sun-light. All of these bodies and
+compositions of matter are, however, not well adapted for practical
+purposes, because the light emitted by them is either too feeble to be
+of any practicable utility, or because the luminous condition is not
+of sufficient duration, or because the substances are decomposed by
+exposure to the atmosphere.
+
+Among the materials which have been employed with the best results
+for producing these luminous compositions are sea-shells, especially
+oyster-shells. I have found by practical experiments that only the inner
+surface of these shells is of considerable value in the production
+of luminous compositions, while the body of the shell, although
+substantially of the same chemical composition, does not, to any
+appreciable extent, aid in producing the desired result. It follows from
+this observation that the smallest shells, which contain the largest
+surface as compared with their cubic contents, will be best adapted for
+this purpose.
+
+I have found that chalk, which is composed of the shells of microscopic
+animals, possesses the desired property in the highest degree; and my
+invention consists, therefore, of a luminous substance composed of such
+chalk, sulphur, and bismuth, as will be hereinafter fully set forth.
+
+In preparing my improved composition I take cleaned or precipitated
+chalk, and subject it to the process of calcination in a suitable
+crucible over a clear coal or charcoal fire for three or four hours,
+or thereabout. I then add to the calcined chalk about one-third of its
+weight of sulphur, and heat the mixture for from forty-five to ninety
+minutes, or thereabout. A small quantity of bismuth, in the proportion
+of about one per cent, or less of the mixture, is added together with
+the sulphur.
+
+The metal may be introduced in the metallic form in the shape of
+fillings, or in the form of a carbonate, sulphuret, sulphate, or
+sulphide, or oxide, as may be most convenient.
+
+The substance produced in this manner possesses the property of emitting
+light in the dark in a very high degree. An exposure to light of very
+short duration, sometimes but for a moment, will cause the substance
+to become luminous and to remain in this luminous condition, under
+favorable circumstances, for upward of twenty-four hours.
+
+The intensity of the light emitted by this composition after exposure is
+considerable, and largely greater than the light produced by any of the
+substances heretofore known.
+
+The hereinbefore described substance may be ground with oil and used
+like ordinary paint; or it may be ground with any suitable varnish or be
+mixed in the manner of water colors; or it may be employed in any other
+suitable and well-known manner in which paints are employed.
+
+My improved luminous substance is adapted for a great variety of
+uses--for instance, for painting business and other signs, guide boards,
+clock and watch dials, for making the numbers on houses and railway
+cars, and for painting all surfaces which are exposed periodically to
+direct or indirect light and desired to be easily seen during the night.
+
+When applied with oil or varnish, my improved luminous substance can
+be exposed to the weather in the same manner as ordinary paint without
+suffering any diminution of its luminous property. I claim as my
+invention the herein described luminous substance, consisting of
+calcined chalk, sulphur, and bismuth, substantially as set forth.
+
+Merrill B. Sherwood, Jr., of Buffalo, N. Y., obtained a patent for a
+phosphorescent composition, dated August 9, 1881.
+
+The author says: My invention relates to an improvement in
+phosphorescent illuminants.
+
+I have taken advantage of the peculiar property which obtains in many
+bodies of absorbing light during the day and emitting it during the
+night time.
+
+The object of my invention is the preparation by a prescribed formula,
+to be hereinafter given, of a composition embodying one of the
+well-known phosphorescent substances above referred to, which will be
+applicable to many practical uses.
+
+With this end in view my invention consists in a phosphorescent
+composition in which the chief illuminating element is monosulphide of
+calcium.
+
+The composition obtained by the formula may be used either in a powdered
+condition by dusting it over articles previously coated, in whole or in
+part, with an adhesive substance, or it may be intimately mixed with
+paints, inks, or varnishes, serving as vehicles for its application, and
+in this way be applied to bodies to render them luminous.
+
+The formula for obtaining the composition is as follows: To one hundred
+parts of unslaked lime, that obtained from calcined oyster shells
+producing the best results, add five parts of carbonate of magnesia and
+five parts of ground silex. Introduce these elements into a graphite or
+fire-clay crucible containing forty parts of sulphur and twenty-five
+parts of charcoal, raise the whole mass nearly or quite to a white heat,
+remove from the fire, allow it to cool slowly, and, when it is cold or
+sufficiently lowered in temperature to be conveniently handled,
+remove it from the crucible and grind it. The method of reducing the
+composition will depend upon the mode of its use. If it is to be applied
+as a loose powder by the dusting process, it should be simply ground
+dry; but if it is to be mixed with paint or other similar substance,
+it should be ground with linseed or other suitable oil. In heating the
+elements aforesaid, certain chemical combinations will have taken place,
+and monosulphide of calcium, combined with carbonate of lime, magnesia,
+and silex, will be the result of such ignition.
+
+If, in the firing of the elements, as above set forth, all of the
+charcoal does not unite with the other elements, such uncombined portion
+should be removed from the fused mass before it is ground.
+
+If it is designed to mix the composition with paints, those composed of
+zinc-white and baryta should be chosen in preference to those composed
+of white lead and colored by vegetable matter, as chemical action will
+take place between the composition and paint last mentioned, and
+its color will be destroyed or changed by the gradual action of the
+sulphureted hydrogen produced. However, by the addition of a weak
+solution of gum in alcohol or other suitable sizing to the composition,
+it may be used with paints containing elements sensitive to sulphureted
+hydrogen without danger of decomposing them and destroying their color.
+
+In many, and possibly in a majority of cases, the illuminating
+composition applied as a dry powder will give the most satisfactory
+results, in view of the tendency to chemical action between the paint
+and composition when intimately mixed; in view of the fact that by
+the addition to paint of any color of a sufficient quantity of the
+composition to render the product luminous, the original color of the
+paint will be modified or destroyed; and, also, in view of the fact that
+the illuminating composition is so greatly in excess of the paint, the
+proportions in which they are united being substantially ten parts
+of the former to one of the latter, it will be difficult to impart a
+particular color to the product of the union without detracting from
+its luminosity. On the other hand, the union of dry powder with a body
+already painted by the simple force of adhesion does not establish
+a sufficiently intimate relation between it and the paint to cause
+chemical action, the application of a light coat of powder does not
+materially change the color of the article to which it is applied; and,
+further, by the use of the powder in an uncombined state its greatest
+illuminating effects are obtained. Again, if the appearance in the
+daytime of the article which it is desired to have appear luminous at
+night is not material, it may be left unpainted and simply sized to
+retain the powder.
+
+In printing it is probable that the composition will be employed almost
+exclusively in the form of dry powder, as printing-ink, normally pasty,
+becomes too thick to be well handled when it is combined with powder in
+sufficient quantity to render the printed surface luminous. However, the
+printed surface of a freshly printed sheet may be rendered luminous by
+dusting the sheet with powder, which will adhere to all of the inked and
+may be easily shaken from the unmoistened surfaces thereof.
+
+I am aware that monosulphide of calcium and magnesia have before
+been used together in phosphorescent compounds. What I claim is a
+phosphorescent composition consisting of monosulphide of calcium,
+combined with carbonate of lime, magnesia, and silex, substantially as
+described.
+
+Orlando Thowless, of Newark, N.J., obtained a patent for a process of
+manufacturing phosphorescent substances dated November 8, 1881.
+The inventor says: The object of my invention is to manufacture
+phosphorescent materials of intense luminosity at low cost and little
+loss of materials.
+
+I first take clam shells and, after cleaning, place them in a solution
+composed of about one part of commercial nitric acid and three parts of
+water, in which the shells are allowed to remain about twenty minutes.
+The shells are then to be well rinsed in water, placed in a crucible,
+and heated to a red heat for about four hours. They are then removed and
+placed, while still red-hot, in a saturated solution of sea salt, from
+which they are immediately removed and dried. After this treatment and
+exposure to light the shells will have a blood-red luminous appearance
+in the dark. The shells thus prepared are used with sulphur and
+the phosphide and sulphide of calcium to produce a phosphorescent
+composition, as follows: One hundred parts, by weight, of the shells,
+prepared as above, are intimately mixed with twenty parts, by weight, of
+sulphur. This mixture is placed in a crucible or retort and heated to a
+white heat for four or five hours, when it is to be removed and forty
+parts more of sulphur, one and one-half parts of calcium phosphide, and
+one-half part of chemically pure sulphide of calcium added. The mixture
+is then heated for about ninety minutes to an extreme white heat. When
+cold, and after exposure to light, this mixture will become luminous.
+Instead of these two ignitions, the same object may be in a measure
+accomplished by the addition of the full amount of sulphur with the
+phosphide and sulphide of calcium and raising it to a white heat but
+once. The calcium phosphide is prepared by igniting phosphorus in
+connection with newly slaked lime made chemically pure by calcination.
+The condition of the shells when the sulphur is added is not material;
+but the heat renders them porous and without moisture, so that they will
+absorb the salt to as great an extent as possible. Where calcined shells
+are mixed with solid salt, the absorbing power of the shells is greatly
+diminished by the necessary exposure, and there will be a lack of
+uniformity in the saturation. On the contrary, by plunging the red-hot
+shells in the saline solution the greatest uniformity is attained.
+
+Instead of using clam shells as the base of my improved composition, I
+may use other forms of sea shells--such as oyster shells, etc.
+
+I claim as new:
+
+1. The herein described process of manufacturing phosphorescent
+materials, which consists in heating sea shells red-hot, treating them
+while heated with a bath of brine, then, after removal from the bath,
+mixing sulphur and phosphide and sulphide of calcium therewith, and
+finally subjecting the mixture to a white heat, substantially as and for
+the purpose described.
+
+2. The described process, which consists in placing clean and red-hot
+clam shells in a saturated solution of sea salt, and then drying them,
+for the purpose specified.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+BOXWOOD AND ITS SUBSTITUTES.
+
+[Footnote: Prize essay written for the International Forestry
+Exhibition, Edinburgh.]
+
+By JOHN R. JACKSON. A.L.S., Curator of the Museums, Royal Gardens, Ken.
+
+
+The importance of the discovery of a hard, compact, and even grained
+wood, having all the characteristics of boxwood, and for which it would
+form an efficient substitute, cannot be overestimated; and if such
+a discovery should be one of the results of the present Forestry
+Exhibition, one of its aims will have been fulfilled.
+
+For several years past the gradual diminution in the supplies of
+boxwood, and the deterioration in its quality, have occupied the
+attention of hardwood merchants, of engravers, and of scientific men.
+
+Of merchants, because of the difficulties in obtaining supplies to meet
+the ever increasing demand; of engravers, because of the higher prices
+asked for the wood, and the difficulty of securing wood of good size and
+firm texture, so that the artistic excellence of the engraving might be
+maintained; and of the man of science, who was specially interested
+in the preservation of the indigenous boxwood forests, and in the
+utilization of other woods, natives, it might be, of far distant
+countries, whose adaptation would open not only a new source of revenue,
+but would also be the means of relieving the strain upon existing
+boxwood forests.
+
+While by far the most important use of boxwood is for engraving
+purposes, it must be borne in mind that the wood is also applied to
+numerous other uses, such, for instance, as weaving shuttles, for
+mathematical instruments, turnery purposes, carving, and for various
+ornamental articles, as well as for inlaying in cabinet work. The
+question, therefore, of finding suitable substitutes for boxwood divides
+itself into two branches, first, directly for engraving purposes, and,
+secondly, to supply its place for the other uses to which it is now put.
+This, to a certain extent, might set free some of the boxwood so used,
+and leave it available for the higher purposes of art. At the same time,
+it must not be forgotten that much of the wood used for general purposes
+is unsuited for engraving, and can only therefore be used by the turner
+or cabinet maker. Nevertheless, the application of woods other than box
+for purposes for which that wood is now used would tend to lessen the
+demand for box, and thus might have an effect in lowering the price.
+
+So far back as 1875 a real uneasiness began to be felt as to the future
+supplies of box. In the _Gardeners' Chronicle_ for September 25, of that
+year, page 398, it is said that the boxwood forests of Mingrelia in the
+Caucasian range were almost exhausted. Old forests, long abandoned, were
+even then explored in search of trees that might have escaped the notice
+of former proprietors, and wood that was rejected by them was, in 1875,
+eagerly purchased at high prices for England. The export of wood was at
+that time prohibited from Abhasia and all the government forests in
+the Caucasus. A report, dated at about the same period from Trebizond,
+points out that the Porte had prohibited the cutting of boxwood in the
+crown forests. (_Gardeners' Chronicle_, Aug. 19, 1876, p. 239.) Later
+on, the British Consul at Tiflis says: "_Bona fide_ Caucasian boxwood
+may be said to be commercially non-existent, almost every marketable
+tree having been exported." (_Gardeners' Chronicle_, Dec. 6, 1879, p.
+726.)
+
+The characters of boxwood are so marked and so distinct from those of
+most other woods that some extracts from a report of Messrs. J. Gardner
+& Sons, of London and Liverpool, addressed to the Inspector-General of
+Forests in India, bearing on this subject, will not be without value;
+indeed, its more general circulation than its reprint in Mr. J.S.
+Gamble's "Manual of Indian Timbers" will, it is hoped, be the means of
+directing attention to this very important matter, and by pointing
+out the characters that make boxwood so valuable, may be the means of
+directing observation to the detection of similar characters in other
+woods. Messrs. Gardner say:
+
+"The most suitable texture of wood will be found growing upon the sides
+of mountains. If grown in the plains the growth is usually too quick,
+and consequently the grain is too coarse, the wood of best texture being
+of slow growth, and very fine in the grain.
+
+"It should be cut down in the winter, and, if possible, stored at once
+in airy wooden sheds well protected from sun and rain, and not to have
+too much air through the sides of the sheds, more especially for the
+wood under four inches diameter.
+
+"The boxwood also must not be piled upon the ground, but be well skidded
+under, so as to be kept quite free from the effects of any damp from the
+soil.
+
+"After the trees are cut down, the longer they are exposed the more
+danger is there afterward of the wood splitting more than is absolutely
+necessary during the necessary seasoning before shipment to this
+country.
+
+"If shipped green, there is great danger of the wood sweating and
+becoming mildewed during transit, which causes the wood afterward to dry
+light and of a defective color, and in fact rendering it of little value
+for commercial purposes.
+
+"There is no occasion to strip the bark off or to put cowdung or
+anything else upon the ends of the pieces to prevent their splitting.
+
+"Boxwood is the nearest approach to ivory of any wood known, and will,
+therefore, probably gradually increase in value, as it, as well
+as ivory, becomes scarcer. It is now used very considerably in
+manufacturing concerns, but on account of its gradual advance in price
+during the past few years, cheaper woods are in some instances being
+substituted.
+
+"Small wood under four inches is used principally by flax spinners for
+rollers, and by turners for various purposes, rollers for rink skates,
+etc., etc., and if free from splits, is of equal value with the larger
+wood. It is imported here as small as one a half inches in diameter, but
+the most useful sizes are from 21/2 to 31/2 inches, and would therefore,
+we suppose, be from fifteen to thirty or forty years in growing, while
+larger wood would require fifty years and upward at least, perhaps we
+ought to say one hundred years and upward. It is used principally for
+shuttles, for weaving silk, linen, and cotton, and also for rule making
+and wood engraving. _Punch, The Illustrated London News, The Graphic_,
+and all the first class pictorial papers use large quantities of
+boxwood."
+
+In 1880, Messrs. Churchill and Sim reported favorably on some
+consignments of Indian boxwood, concluding with the remarks that if the
+wood could be regularly placed on the market at a moderate figure, there
+was no reason why a trade should not be developed in it. Notwithstanding
+these prospects, which seemed promising in 1877 and 1880, little or
+nothing has been accually done up to the present time in bringing Indian
+boxwood into general use, in consequence, as Mr. Gamble shows, of
+the cost of transit through India. The necessity, therefore, of the
+discovery of some wood akin to box is even more important now than ever
+it was.
+
+
+BOXWOOD SUBSTITUTES.
+
+First among the substitutes that have been proposed to replace boxwood
+may be mentioned an invention of Mr. Edward Badoureau, referred to in
+the _Gardeners' Chronicle_, March 23, 1878, p. 374, under the title of
+artificial boxwood. It is stated to consist of some soft wood which has
+been subject to heavy pressure. It is stated that some English engravers
+have given their opinion on this prepared wood as follows:
+
+It has not the power of resistance of boxwood, so that it would be
+imposible to make use of it, except in the shape of an electro obtained
+from it, as it is too soft to sustain the pressure of a machine, and
+would be easily worn out. In reply to these opinions, Mr. Badoureau
+wrote: "My wood resists the wear and tear of the press as well as
+boxwood, and I can show engravings of English and French artists which
+have been obtained direct from the wood, and are as perfect as they are
+possible to be; several of them have been drawn by Mr. Gustave Dore."
+
+Mr. Badoureau further says that "while as an engraver he has so high an
+opinion of the qualities of compressed wood as a substitute for boxwood,
+as the inventor of the new process he considered that it possesses
+numerous advantages both for artistic and industrial purposes." In
+short, he says, "My wood is to other wood what steel is to iron."
+
+The following woods are those which have, from time to time, been
+proposed or experimented upon as substitutes for boxwood, for engraving
+purposes. They are arranged according to their scientific classification
+in the natural orders to which they belong:
+
+
+_Natural Order Pittosporeae_.
+
+1. _Pittosporum undulatum_. Vent.--A tree growing in favorable
+situations to a height of forty or even sixty feet, and is a native of
+New South Wales and Victoria. It furnishes a light, even grained wood,
+which attracted some attention at the International Exhibition in 1862;
+blocks were prepared from it, and submitted to Prof. De la Motte, of
+King's College, who reported as follows:
+
+"I consider this wood well adapted to certain kinds of wood engraving.
+It is not equal to Turkey box, but it is superior to that generally used
+for posters, and I have no doubt that it would answer for the rollers
+of mangles and wringing machines." Mr. W.G. Smith, in a report in the
+_Gardeners' Chronicle_ for July 26, 1873, p. 1017, on some foreign woods
+which I submitted to him for trial, says that the wood of _Pittosporum
+undulatum_ is suitable only for bold outlines; compared with box, it is
+soft and tough, and requires more force to cut than box. The toughness
+of the wood causes the tools to drag back, so that great care is
+required in cutting to prevent the lines clipping. The average diameter
+of the wood is from 18 to 30 inches.
+
+2. _Pittosporum bicolor_, Hook.--A closely allied species, sometimes
+forty feet high, native of New South Wales and Tasmania. This wood is
+stated to be decidedly superior to the last named.
+
+3. _Bursaria spinosa_, Cav.--A tree about forty feet high, native of
+North, South, and West Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria,
+and Tasmania, in which island it is known as boxwood. It has been
+reported upon as being equal to common or inferior box, and with
+further trials might be found suitable for common subjects; it has the
+disadvantage, however, of blunting the edges and points of the tools.
+
+
+_Natural Order Meliaceae_.
+
+4. _Swietenia mahagoni_, L. (mahogany).--A large timber tree of
+Honduras, Cuba, Central America, and Mexico. It is one of the most
+valuable of furniture woods, but for engraving purposes it is but of
+little value, nevertheless it has been used for large, coarse subjects.
+Spanish mahogany is the kind which has been so used.
+
+
+_Natural Order Ilicineae_.
+
+_Ilex opaca_, L. (North American holly).--It is a widely diffused tree,
+the wood of which is said to closely resemble English holly, being white
+in color, and hard, with a fine grain, so that it is used for a
+great number of purposes by turners, engineers, cabinet makers, and
+philosophical instrument makers. For engraving purposes it is not equal
+to the dog-wood of America (_Cornus florida_); it yields, however, more
+readily to the graver's tools.
+
+
+_Natural Order Celastrineae_.
+
+6. _Elaeodendron australe_, Vent.--A tree twenty to twenty-five feet
+high, native of Queensland and New South Wales. The wood is used in the
+colony for turning and cabinet work, and Mr. W.G. Smith reports that for
+engraving purposes it seems suitable only for rough work, as diagrams,
+posters, etc.
+
+7. _Euonymus sieboldianus_, Blume.--A Chinese tree, where the wood,
+which is known as pai'cha, is used for carving and engraving. Attention
+was first drawn to this wood by Mr. Jean von Volxem, in the _Gardeners'
+Chronicle_ for April 20, 1878. In the Kew Report for 1878, p. 41, the
+following extract of a letter from Mr. W.M. Cooper, Her Majesty's Consul
+at Ningpo, is given: "The wood in universal use for book blocks, wood
+engravings, seals, etc., is that of the pear tree, of which large
+quantities are grown in Shantung, and Shan-se, especially. Pai'cha is
+sometimes used as an indifferent substitute. Pai'cha is a very fine
+white wood of fine fiber, without apparent grains, and cuts easily; is
+well suited for carved frames, cabinets, caskets, etc., for which large
+quantities are manufactured here for export. The tree itself resembles
+somewhat the _Stillingia_, but has a rougher bark, larger and thinner
+leaves, which are serrated at the edge, more delicate twigs, and is
+deciduous." In 1879, a block of this wood was received at the Kew
+Museum, from Mr. Cooper, a specimen of which was submitted to Mr. Robson
+J. Scott, of Whitefriars Street, to whom I am much indebted for reports
+on various occasions, and upon this wood Mr. Scott reported as follows:
+"The most striking quality I have observed in this wood is its capacity
+for retaining water, and the facility with which it surrenders it. This
+section (one prepared and sent to the Kew Museum), which represents
+one-tenth of the original piece, weighed 3 lb. 41/2 ounces. At the end of
+twenty one days it had lost 1 lb. 63/4 ounces in an unheated chamber. At
+the end of another fourteen days, in a much elevated temperature, it
+only lost 1/4 ounce. In its present state of reduced bulk its weight is 1
+lb. 10 ounces. It is not at all likely to supersede box, but it may be
+fit for coarser work than that for which box is necessary." Later on,
+namely in the Kew Report for 1880, p. 51, Mr. R.D. Keene, an engraver,
+to whom Mr. Scott submitted specimens of the wood for trial, writes: "I
+like the wood very much, and prefer it to box in some instances; it is
+freer to work, and consequently quicker, and its being uniform in color
+and quality is a great advantage; we often have great difficulty in
+box in having to work from a hard piece into a soft. I think it a very
+useful wood, especially for solid bold work. I question if you could get
+so extreme a fine black line as on box, but am sure there would be a
+large demand for it at a moderate price." Referring to this letter, Mr.
+Scott remarks that the writer does not intend it to be understood that
+pai'cha is qualified to supersede box, but for inferior subjects for
+which coarse brittle box is used. Mr. Scott further says that of the
+woods he has tried he prefers pear and hawthorn to pai'cha.
+
+
+_Natural Order Sapindaceae_.
+
+8. _Acer saccharinum_, L. (sugar or bird's eye maple).--A North American
+tree, forming extensive forests in Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova
+Scotia. The wood is well known as a cabinet or furniture wood. It has
+been tried for engraving, but it does not seem to have attracted much
+notice. Mr. Scott says it is sufficiently good, so far as the grain is
+concerned. From this it would seem not to promise favorably.
+
+
+_Natural Order Leguminoseae. Sub-order Papilionaceae_.
+
+9. _Brya ebenus_, [Delta]. DC.--A small tree of Jamaica, where the wood
+is known as green ebony, and is used for making various small articles.
+It is imported into this country under the name of cocus wood, and
+is used with us for making flutes and other wind instruments. Mr.
+Worthington Smith considers that the wood equals bad box for engraving
+purposes.
+
+
+_Natural Order Rosaceae_.
+
+10. _Pyrus communis_, L. (common pear).--A tree averaging from 20 to 40
+feet high. Found in a wild state, and very extensively cultivated as a
+fruit tree. The wood is of a light brown color, and somewhat resembles
+limewood in grain. It is, however, harder and tougher. It is considered
+a good wood for carving, because it can be cut with or across the grain
+with equal facility. It stands well when well seasoned, and is used for
+engraved blocks for calico printers, paper stainers, and for various
+other purposes. Pear-wood has been tried for engraving purposes, but
+with no great success. Mr. Scott's opinion of its relative value is
+referred to under pai'cha wood _(Euonymus sieboldianus)_.
+
+11. _Amelanchier canadensis_. L. (shade tree or service tree of
+America).--A shrub or small tree found throughout Canada, Newfoundland,
+and Virginia. Of this wood, Porcher says, in his "Resources of the
+Southern Fields and Forests": "Upon examining with a sharp instrument
+the specimens of various southern woods deposited in the museum of the
+Elliott Society, ... I was struck with the singular weight, density, and
+fineness of this wood. I think I can confidently recommend it as one of
+the best to be experimented upon by the wood engraver."
+
+12. _Cratoegus oxyacantha_, L. (hawthorn).--A well-known shrub or small
+tree in forests and hedges in this country. The wood is very dense and
+close grained. Of this wood, Mr. Scott reports that it is by far the
+best wood after box that he has had the opportunity of testing.
+
+
+_Natural Order Myrtaceae_.
+
+13. _Eugenia procera_, Poir.--A tree 20 to 30 feet high, native of
+Jamaica, Antigua, Martinique, and Santa Cruz. A badly seasoned sample
+of this wood was submitted to Mr. R.H. Keene, who reported that "it is
+suited for bold, solid newspaper work."
+
+
+_Natural Order Cornaceae_.
+
+14. _Cornus florida_, L. (North American dogwood).--A deciduous tree,
+about 30 feet high, common in the woods in various parts of North
+America. The wood is hard, heavy, and very fine grained. It is used in
+America for making the handles of light tools, as mallets, plane stocks,
+harrow teeth, cogwheels, etc. It has also been used in America for
+engraving.
+
+In a letter from Prof. Sargent, Director of the Arnold Arboretum,
+Brookline, Massachusetts, quoted in the Kew Report for 1882, p. 35, he
+says: "I have been now, for a long time, examining our native woods
+in the hope of finding something to take the place of boxwood for
+engraving, but so far I am sorry to say with no very brilliant success.
+The best work here is entirely done from boxwood, and some _Cornus
+florida_ is used for less expensive engraving. This wood answers fairly
+well for coarse work, but it is a difficult wood to manage, splitting,
+or rather 'checking,' very badly in drying." This, however, he states in
+a later letter, "can be overcome by sawing the logs through the center
+as soon as cut. It can be obtained in large quantities." Mr. R.H. Keene,
+the engraver before referred to, reports that the wood is very rough,
+and suitable for bold work.
+
+
+_Natural Order Ericaceae_.
+
+15. _Rhododendron maximum_, L. (mountain laurel of North America).--Of
+this wood it is stated in Porcher's "Resources of the Southern Fields
+and Forests," p. 419, that upon the authority of a well-known engraver
+at Nashville, Tennessee, the wood is equaled only by the best boxwood.
+This species of _Rhododendron_ "abounds on every mountain from Mason and
+Dixon's line to North Georgia that has a rocky branch." Specimens of
+this wood submitted to Mr. Scott were so badly selected and seasoned
+that it was almost impossible to give it a trial. In consideration of
+its hardness and apparent good qualities, further experiments should be
+made with it.
+
+16. _Rhododendron californicum_.--Likewise a North American species, the
+wood of which is similar to the last named. Specimens were sent to Kew
+by Professor Sargent for report in 1882, but were so badly seasoned that
+no satisfactory opinion could be obtained regarding it.
+
+17. _Kalmia latifolia_, L. (calico bush or ivy bush of North
+America).--The wood is hard and dense, and is much used in America for
+mechanical purposes. It has been recommended as a substitute for boxwood
+for engraving, and trials should, therefore, be made with it.
+
+
+_Natural Order Epacrideae_.
+
+18. _Monotoca elliptica_, R. Br.--A tall shrub or tree 20 or 30 feet
+high, native of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania.
+The wood has been experimented upon in this country, and though to all
+appearances it is an excellent wood, yet Mr. Worthington Smith reported
+upon it as having a bad surface, and readily breaking away so that the
+cuts require much retouching after engraving.
+
+
+_Natural Order Ebenaceae_.
+
+19. _Diospyros texana_.--A North American tree, of the wood of which
+Professor Sargent speaks favorably. "It is, however," he says, "in
+Texas, at least, rather small, scarcely six inches in diameter, and not
+very common. In northern Mexico it is said to grow much larger, and
+could probably be obtained with some trouble in sufficient quantities
+to become an article of commerce." Of this wood Mr. Scott says: "It is
+sufficiently good as regards the grain, but the specimen sent for
+trial was much too small for practical purposes." Mr. R.H. Keene, the
+engraver, says it "is nearly equal to the best box."
+
+20. _Diospyros virginiana_, L. (the persimmon of America).--A good-sized
+tree, widely diffused, and common in some districts. The wood is of a
+very dark color, hard, and of a fairly close grain. It has been used in
+America for engraving, but so far as I am aware has not been tried
+in this country. It has, however, been lately introduced for making
+shuttles.
+
+21. _Dyospyros ebenum_, Koenig (ebony).--A wood so well known as to
+need no description. It has been tried for engraving by Mr. Worthington
+Smith, who considers it nearly as good as box.
+
+
+_Natural Order Apocyneae_.
+
+22. _Hunteria zeylanica_, Gard.--A small tree, common in the warmer
+parts of Ceylon. This is a very hard and compact wood, and is used for
+engraving purposes in Ceylon, where it is said, by residents, to come
+nearer to box than any other wood known. On this wood Mr. Worthington
+Smith gave a very favorable opinion, but it is doubtful whether it would
+ever be brought from Ceylon in sufficient quantities to meet a demand.
+
+
+_Natural Order Bignoniaceae_.
+
+23. _Tecoma pentaphylla_, Dl.--A moderate-sized tree, native of the West
+Indies and Brazil. The wood is compact, very fine, and even grained, and
+much resembles box in general appearance. Blocks for engraving have been
+prepared from it by Mr. R.J. Scott, who reported upon it as follows: "It
+is the only likely successor to box that I have yet seen, but it is not
+embraced as a deliverer should be, but its time may not be far off."
+
+
+_Natural Order Corylaceae_.
+
+24. _Carpinus betulus_, L. (hornbeam).--A tree from 20 to 70 feet high,
+with a trunk sometimes 10 feet in girth, indigenous in the southern
+counties of England. The wood is very tough, heavy, and close grained.
+It is largely used in France for handles for agricultural and mining
+implements, and of late years has been much used in this country for
+lasts. The wood of large growth is apt to became shaky, and it is
+consequently not used as a building wood. It is said to have been used
+as a substitute for box in engraving, but with what success does not
+appear.
+
+25. _Ostrya virginica_, Willd (ironwood, or American hornbeam).--A
+moderate-sized tree, widely spread over North America. The wood is
+light-colored, and extremely hard and heavy; hence the name of ironwood.
+It is used in America by turners, as well as for mill cogs, etc., and
+has been suggested as a substitute for boxwood for engraving, though no
+actual trials, so far as I am aware, have been made with it.
+
+Besides the foregoing list of woods, there are others that have been
+occasionally used for posters and the coarser kinds of engraving, such,
+for instance, as lime, sycamore, yew, beech, and even pine; and in
+America, _Vaccinium arboreum_ and _Azalea nudiflora_. Of these, however,
+but little is known as to their value.
+
+It will be noticed that in those woods that have passed through the
+engraver's hands, some which promised best, so far as their texture
+or grain is concerned, have been tried upon very imperfect or badly
+seasoned samples.
+
+The subject is one of so much importance, as was pointed out at the
+commencement of this paper, that a thoroughly organized series of
+experiments should be undertaken upon carefully seasoned and properly
+prepared woods, not only of those mentioned in the preceding list, but
+also of any others that may suggest themselves, as being suitable, It
+must, moreover, always be borne in mind that the questions of price,
+and the considerations of supply and demand, must, to a great extent,
+regulate the adaptation of any particular wood.
+
+With regard to those woods referred to as being tried by Mr. Worthington
+Smith, he remarks in his report that any of them would be useful for
+some classes of work, if they could be imported, prepared, and sold for
+a farthing, or less than a halfpenny, per square inch.
+
+Specimens of all the woods here enumerated are contained in the Kew
+Museum.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+COMPOSITE PORTRAITS.
+
+
+Not long since we gave a figure from a drawing by Mr. Grallieni, which,
+looked at from a distance, seemed to be a death's head, but which, when
+examined more closely, was seen to represent two children caressing
+a dog. Since then we have had occasion to publish some landscapes of
+Kircher and his imitators, which, looked at sideways, exhibited human
+profiles. This sort of amusement has exercised the skill of artists of
+all times, and engravings, and even paintings, of double aspect are very
+numerous. Chance has recently put into our hands a very curious work of
+this kind, which is due to a skillful artist named Gaillot. It is an
+album of quite ancient lithographs, which was published at Berlin by
+Senefelder. The author, under the title of "Arts and Trades," has drawn
+some very amusing faces that are formed through the tools and objects
+used in the profession represented. We reproduce a few specimens of
+these essentially original compositions of Gaillot. The green grocer is
+formed of a melon for the head, of an artichoke and its stem for the
+forehead and nose, of a pannier for the bust, etc. The hunter is made up
+of a gun, of a powder horn, and of a hunting horn, etc.; and so on for
+the other professions. This is an amusing exercise in drawing that we
+have thought worthy of reproducing. Any one who is skillful with his
+pencil might exercise himself in imagining other compositions of the
+same kind.--_La Nature_.
+
+[Illustration: COMPOSITE PORTRAITS.--OCCUPATIONS. 1. Green-grocer. 2.
+Hunter. 3. Artist. 4. Cobbler. 5. Chemist 6. Cooper.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+HAND-CRAFT AND REDE-CRAFT.--A PLEA FOR THE FIRST NAMED.
+
+[Footnote: Read before the Worcester Free Industrial Institute, June 25,
+1885.]
+
+By DANIEL C. GILMAN, President of the Johns Hopkins University,
+Baltimore.
+
+
+I cannot think of a theme more fit for this hour and place than
+handy-craft. I begin by saying "handy-craft," for that is the form of
+the word now in vogue, that which we are wonted to see in print and hear
+in speech; but I like rather the old form, "hand-craft," which was used
+by our sires so long ago as the Anglo-Saxon days. Both words mean the
+same thing, the power of the hand to seize, hold, shape, match, carve,
+paint, dig, bake, make, or weave. Neither form is in fashion, as we know
+very well, for people choose nowadays such Latin words as "technical
+ability," "manual labor," "industrial pursuits," "dexterity,"
+"professional artisanship," "manufacture," "decorative art," and
+"technological occupations," not one of which is half as good as the
+plain, old, strong term "hand-craft."
+
+An aid to hand-craft is rede-craft--the power to read, to reason, and to
+think; or, as it is said in the book of Common Prayer, "to read, mark,
+learn, and inwardly digest." By rede craft we find out what other men
+have done; we get our book learning, we are made heirs to thoughts that
+breathe and words that burn, we enter into the life, the acts, the arts,
+the loves, the lore of the wise, the witty, the cunning, and the worthy
+of all ages and all places; we learn, as says the peasant poet of
+Scotland,
+
+  "The song whose thunderous chime
+    Eternal echoes render--
+  The mournful Tuscan's haunted rhyme,
+    And Milton's starry splendor!"
+
+I do not pit rede-craft against hand-craft. Quite otherwise, I call them
+not foes (as some would), but friends. They are brothers, partners,
+consorts, who can work together, as right hand and left hand, as science
+and art, as theory and practice. Rede-craft may call for books and
+hand-craft for tools, but it is by the help of both books and tools that
+mankind moves on. Indeed, we shall not err wide of the mark if we say
+that a book is a tool, for it is the instrument which we make use of in
+certain cases when we wish to find out what other men have thought and
+done. Perhaps you will not be as ready to admit that a tool is a book.
+But take for example the plow. Compare the form in use to-day on a
+first-rate farm with that which is pictured on ancient stones long hid
+in Egypt--ages old. See how the idea of the plow has grown, and bear in
+mind that its graceful curves, it fitness for a special soil, or for
+a special crop, its labor-saving shape, came not by chance, but by
+thought. Indeed, a plow is made up from the thoughts and toils of
+generations of plowmen. Look at a Collins ax; it is also the record
+of man's thought. Lay it side by side with the hatchet of Uncas or
+Miantonomoh, or with an ax of the age of bronze, and think how many
+minds have worked on the head and on the helve, how much skill has been
+spent in getting the metal, in making it hard, in shaping the edge, in
+fixing the weight, in forming the handle. From simple tools, turn to
+complex; to the printing press, the sewing machine, the locomotive,
+the telegraph, the ocean steamer; all are full of ideas. All are the
+offspring of hand-craft and rede craft, of skill and thought, of
+practice put on record, of science and art.
+
+Now, the welfare of each one of us, the welfare of our land, the welfare
+of our race, rests on this union. You may almost take the measure of a
+man's brain, if you can find out what he sees with his eyes and what he
+does with hands; you may judge of a country, or of a city, if you know
+what it makes.
+
+I do not know that we need ask which is best, hand-craft or rede-craft.
+Certainly "the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee." At
+times, hand-craft becomes rede-craft, for when the eye is blind the hand
+takes its place, and the finger learns to read, running over the printed
+page to find out what is written, as quickly as the eye.
+
+In these days, there are too many who look down on hand-craft. They
+think only of the tasks of a drudge or a char-boy. They do not know the
+pleasure there is in working, and especially in making. They have never
+learned to guide the fingers by the brain. They like to hear, or see, or
+own, or eat, what others have made, but they do not like to put their
+own hands to work. If you doubt what I say, put a notice in the paper
+asking for a clerk, and you will have a, hundred answers for every one
+that will come when you ask for a workman. So it comes to pass that
+young men grow up whose hands have not been trained to any kind of
+skill; they wish, therefore, to be buyers and sellers, traders, dealers,
+and so the market is overstocked with clerks, book-keepers, salesmen,
+and small shop-keepers, while it is understocked in all the higher walks
+of hand-craft. Some men can only get on by force of arms, lifting,
+pounding, heaving, or by power of sitting at counter or a desk and
+"clerking it."
+
+Machinery works against hand-craft. In many branches of labor, the hand
+now has but little to do, and that little is always the same, so that
+labor becomes tiresome and the workman dull. Machines can be made to cut
+statuary, to weave beautiful tapestry, to fashion needles, to grind
+out music, to make long calculations; alas! the machine has also
+been brought into politics. Of course, a land cannot thrive without
+machinery; it is that mechanical giant, the steam engine, which carries
+the corn, the cotton, and the sugar from our rich valleys to the hungry
+of other lands, and brings back to us the product of their looms.
+Nevertheless, he who lives by the machine alone lives but half a life;
+while he who uses his hand to contrive and to adorn drives dullness from
+his path. A true artist and a true artisan are one. Hand-craft, the
+power to shape, to curve, to beautify, to create, gives pleasure and
+dignity to labor.
+
+In other times and in other lands, hand-craft has had more honor than it
+has had with us. Let me give some examples. Not long ago, I went to one
+of the shrines of education, the Sorbonne in Paris. Two paintings adorn
+the chapel walls, not of saints or martyrs, nor of apostles or
+prophets, perhaps I should say of both saints and prophets, _Labor_ and
+_Humilitas_, Industry and Modesty.
+
+The touch of Phidias was his own, and so inimitable that a few months
+ago, an American, scanning, with his practiced eye, the galleries of the
+Louvre, recognized a fragment of the work of Phidias, long separated
+from the Parthenon frieze which Lord Elgin sent to London. The
+sculptor's touch could not be mistaken. It was as truly his own as his
+signature, his autograph. Ruskin, in a lecture on the relation of Art to
+Morals, calls attention to a note which Durer made on some drawings sent
+him by Raphael: "These figures Raphael drew and sent to Albert Durer
+in Nurnberg, to show him his hand, '_sein hand zu weisen_."' Ruskin
+compares this phrase with other contests of hand-craft, Apelles and
+Protogenes showing their skill by drawing a line; Giotto in striking a
+circle.
+
+In the household of the Kings of Prussia, there is a custom, if not
+a law, that every boy shall learn a trade. I believe this is a fact,
+though I have no certain proof of it. The Emperor Wilhelm is said to be
+a glazier, the Crown Prince a compositor, and on the Emperor's birthday
+not long ago his majesty received an engraving by Prince Henry and a,
+book bound by Prince Waldemar, two younger sons of the Crown Prince. Let
+me refer to sacred writ; the prophet Isaiah, telling of the golden days
+which are to come, when the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in
+the land, nor the voice of crying, when the child shall die an hundred
+years old, and men shall eat of the fruit of the vineyards they have
+planted, adds this striking promise, as the culm of all hope, that the
+elect of the Lord shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
+
+Now, in view of what has been said, my first point is this: We who have
+to deal with the young, we all who love our fellow-men, we all who
+desire that our times, our city, our country, should be thrifty, happy,
+and content, must each in his place and way give high honor to labor.
+We, especially, who are teachers and parents, should see to it that the
+young get "hand-craft" while they are getting "rede-craft." How can this
+be done?
+
+Mothers begin right in the nursery, teaching little fingers to play
+before the tongue can lisp a sentence. Alas! this natural training has
+often been stopped at school. Hitherto, until quite lately, in schools
+both low and high, rede-craft has had the place of honor, hand-craft has
+had no chance. But a change is coming. In the highest of all schools,
+universities, for example, work rooms, labor places, "laboratories," are
+now thought to be as useful as book rooms, reading rooms, libraries.
+
+What mean those buildings which you have seen spring up within a few
+years past in all the college greens of New England? They are libraries
+and laboratories. They show that rede-craft and hand-craft are alike
+held in honor, and that a liberal education means skill in getting and
+skill in using knowledge; that knowledge comes from searching books and
+searching nature; that the brain and the hand are in close league. So
+too, in the lowest school, as far as possible from the university, the
+kindergarten has won its place and the blocks, and straws, and bands,
+the chalk, the clay, the scissors, are in use to make young fingers
+deft. Between the highest and the lowest schools there is a like call
+for hand-craft. Seeing this need, the authorities in our public schools
+have begun to project special schools for such training, and are looking
+for guidance far and near. At this intermediate stage, for boy and girls
+who are between the age of the kindergarten and the age of the college
+or the shop, for youth between eight and sixteen, there is much to be
+done; people are hardly aware how much is needed to secure fit training
+for the rising generation.
+
+It seems sometimes as if one of the most needed forms of hand-craft
+would become a lost art, even good handwriting. We cannot give much
+credit to schools if they send out many who are skilled in algebra, or
+in Latin, but who cannot write a page of English so that it can be read
+without effort.
+
+Drawing is another kind of hand-craft, quite too much neglected. I think
+it should be laid down as a law of the road to knowledge, that everybody
+must learn to draw as well as to write. The pencil maybe mastered just
+as readily as the pen. It is a simpler tool. The child draws before
+he writes, and savages begin their language with pictures; but, we
+wiseacres of this age of books let our young folks drop their slate
+pencils and their Fabers, and practice with their Gillotts and their
+Esterbrooks. Let us say, in every school and in every house, the child
+must not only learn to read and write, he must learn to draw. We cannot
+afford to let our young folks grow up without this power. A new French
+book is just now much talked about, with this droll title, "The Life
+of a Wise Man, by an Ignoramus." It is the story of the great Pasteur,
+whose discoveries in respect to life have made him world renowned. I
+turned to the book, eager to find out the key to such success, and
+I found the old story--"the child was father of the man." This
+philosopher, whose eye is so skilled in observing nature, and whose hand
+is so apt in experiments, is the boy grown up whose pictures were so
+good that the villagers thought him at thirteen an artist of rank.
+
+Girls should learn the first lesson of hand-craft with the needle; boys
+may (and they will always prize the knowledge), but girls must. It is
+wise that our schools are going back to old fashioned ways, and saying
+that girls must be taught to sew.
+
+Boys should practice their hands upon the knife. John Bull used to laugh
+at Brother Jonathan for whittling, and Mr. Punch always drew the Yankee
+with a blade in his fingers; but they found out long ago in Great
+Britain that whittling in this land led to something, a Boston notion,
+a wooden clock, a yacht America, a labor-saving machine, a cargo of
+wooden-ware, a shop full of knick-knacks, an age of inventions. Boys
+need not be kept back to the hand-craft of the knife. For in-doors there
+are the type case and printing press, the paint box, the tool box, the
+lathe; and for out doors, the trowel, the spade, the grafting knife. It
+matters not how many of the minor arts the youth acquires. The more the
+merrier. Let each one gain the most he can in all such ways; for arts
+like these bring no harm in their train; quite otherwise, they lure good
+fortune to their company.
+
+Play, as well as work, may bring out hand-craft. The gun, the bat, the
+rein, the rod, the oar, all manly sports, are good training for the
+hand. Walking insures fresh air, but it does not train the body or mind
+like games and sports which are played out of doors. A man of great fame
+as an explorer and as a student of nature (he who discovered, in the
+West, bones of horses with two, three, and four toes, and who found the
+remains of birds with teeth) once told me that his success was largely
+due to the sports of his youth. His boyish love of fishing gave him his
+manly skill in exploration.
+
+I speak as if hand-craft was to be learned by sport. So it may. It may
+also be learned by labor. Day by day for weeks I have been watching from
+my study window a stately inn rise from the cellar just across the road.
+A bricklayer has been there employed whose touch is like the stroke of
+an artist. He handled each brick as if it were porcelain, balanced it
+carefully in his hand, measured with his eye just the amount of mortar
+which it needed, and dropped the block into its bed, without staining
+its edge, without varying from the plumb line, by a stroke of hand-craft
+as true as the sculptor's. Toil gave him skill.
+
+The second point I make is this: If you really value hand-craft,
+buy that which shows hand-craft, encourage those who are engaged in
+hand-craft, help on with your voice and with your pocket, those who
+bring taste and skill and art into the works of their hand. If your
+means are so small that you only buy what you need for your daily wants,
+you cannot have much choice, you must buy that which is cheapest; but
+hardly any one within the sound of my voice is so restricted as that;
+almost if not quite every one buys something every year for his
+pleasure, a curtain, a rug, a wall paper, a chair, or a table not
+certainly needed, a vase, a clock, a, mantel ornament, a piece of
+jewelry, a portrait, an etching, a picture. Now whenever you make such a
+purchase, to please your taste, to make your parlor or your chamber more
+attractive, choose that which shows good handiwork. Such a choice will
+last. You will not tire of it as you will of that which has but a
+commonplace form or pattern.
+
+I come now to a third point. That which has just been said applies
+chiefly to things whose price is fixed by beauty. But handicraft gives
+us many works not pleasing to the eye, yet of the highest skill--a
+Jacquard loom, a Corliss engine, a Hoe printing press, a Winchester
+rifle, an Edison dynamo, a Bell telephone. Ruskin may scout the work of
+machinery, and up to a certain point may take us with him. Let us
+allow that works of art marked by the artist's own touch--the gates of
+Paradise by Ghiberti, a shield by Cellini, a statue by Michael Angelo,
+are better than all reproductions and imitations, better than plaster
+casts by Eichler, electrotypes by Barbedienne, or chromos by Prang. But
+even Ruskin cannot suppress the fact that machinery brings to every
+thrifty cottage in New England comforts and adornments which, in the
+days of Queen Bess, were not known outside of the palace. Be mindful,
+then, that handicraft makes machines which are wonders of productive
+force--weaving tissues such as Penelope never saw, of woolen, cotton,
+linen, and silk, to carpet our floors, cover our tables, cushion our
+chairs, and clothe our bodies; machines of which Vulcan never dreamed,
+to point a needle, bore a rifle, cut a watch wheel, or rule a series
+of lines, measuring forty thousand to an inch, with sureness which the
+unaided hand can never equal. Machinery is a triumph of handicraft as
+truly as sculpture and architecture. The fingers which can plan and
+build a steamship or a suspension bridge, which can make the Quinebaug
+and the Blackstone turn spindles by the hundred thousand, which can turn
+a rag heap into spotless paper, and make myriads of useful and artful
+articles from rough metal, are fingers which this age alone has evolved.
+The craft which makes useful things cheap can make cheap things
+beautiful. The Japanese will teach us how to form and finish, if we do
+not first teach them how to slight and sham.
+
+A fourth point is this. If hand-craft is of such worth, boys and girls
+must be trained in it. This, I am well aware is no new thought. Forty
+years ago schools of applied science were added to Harvard and Yale
+colleges; twenty years ago Congress gave enough land-scrip to aid in
+founding at least one such school in every state; men of wealth, like
+many whom you have known and whom you honor, have given large sums for
+like ends. Now the people at large are waking up. They see their needs;
+they have the means to supply what they want. Is there the will? Know
+they the way? Far and near the cry is heard for a different training
+from that now given in the public schools. Many are trying to find it.
+Almost every large town has its experiment--and many smaller places have
+theirs. Nobody seems to know just what is best. Even the words which
+express the want are vague. Bright and thoughtful people differ as to
+what might, can, and should be done. A society has been formed in New
+York to bring together the needed data. The Slater trustees, charged
+with the care of a large fund for the training of freedmen, have said
+that manual training must be given in all the schools they aid. The
+town of Toledo in Ohio opened, some time since, a school of practical
+training for boys, which worked so well that another has lately been
+opened for girls. St. Louis is doing famously. Philadelphia has several
+experiments in progress. Baltimore has made a start. In New York there
+are many noteworthy movements--half a dozen at least full of life and
+hope. Boston was never behindhand in knowledge, and in the new education
+is very alert, the efforts of a single lady deserving praise of high
+degree. These are but signs of the times.
+
+Some things may be set down as fixed; for example, most of those who
+have thought on this theme will agree on the points I am about to name,
+though they may or may not like the names which I venture to propose:
+
+1. Kindergarten work should be taught in the nurseries and infant
+schools of rich and poor.
+
+2. Drawing should be taught in schools of every grade, till the hand
+uses the pencil as readily as the pen.
+
+3. Every girl at school if not at home should learn to sew.
+
+4. Every boy should learn the use of tools, the gardener's or the
+carpenter's, or both.
+
+5. Well planned exercises, fitted to strengthen the various bodily
+organs, arms, fingers, wrists, lungs, etc., are good. Driving, swimming,
+rowing, and other manly sports should be favored.
+
+What precedes is at the basis of good work.
+
+In addition:
+
+6. With good teachers, quite young children may learn the minor
+decorative arts, carving, leather stamping, brass beating and the like,
+as is shown in the Leland classes of Philadelphia.
+
+7. In towns, boys who begin to earn a living when they enter their teens
+may be taught in evening schools to practice the craft of carpentry,
+bricklaying, plastering, plumbing, gas fitting, etc., as is shown
+successfully in the Auchmuty schools of New York. Trade schools they are
+called; schools of practice for workmen would be a better name.
+
+8. Boys who can carry their studies through the later teens may learn,
+while at the high school or technical school or college, to work in wood
+and metals with precision, as I have lately seen in the College of the
+City of New York, at Cornell University, and elsewhere-colleges or high
+schools with work-shops and practice classes. If they can take the
+time to fit themselves to be foremen and leaders in machine shops and
+factories, they may be trained in theoretical and practical mechanics,
+as in the Worcester Industrial Institute and in a score of other places;
+but the youth must have talent as well as time to win the race in these
+hard paths. These are schools for foremen, or, if we may use a foreign
+word like Kindergarten, they are Meisterschaft schools.
+
+9. Youths who wish to enter the highest departments of engineering must
+follow advanced courses of mathematics and physics, and must learn
+to apply this knowledge. The better colleges and universities afford
+abundant opportunities for such training, but their scientific
+laboratories are fitted only for those who love long study as well as
+hard. These are schools for engineers.
+
+10. Girls are most likely to excel in the lighter arts--to design (for
+furniture or fabrics), to embroider, to carve, to engrave, to etch, to
+model, to paint. Here also success depends largely upon that which was
+inborn, though girls of moderate talent in art, by patience, may become
+skilled in many kinds of art work. Schools for this instruction are
+schools of art (elementary, decorative, professional, etc.).
+
+If there be those in this hall who think that hand-craft is adverse to
+rede-craft, let me ask them to study the lives of men of mark. Isaac
+Newton began his life as a farm-boy who carried truck to a market town;
+Spinoza, the philosopher of Amsterdam, ground lenses for his livelihood;
+Watt, the inventor of the steam engine, was mechanic to the University
+of Glasgow; Porson, the great professor of Greek, was trained as a
+weaver; George Washington was a land surveyor; Benjamin Franklin a
+printer.
+
+Before I close let me draw a lesson from the history of our land. Some
+of you doubtless bear in mind that before the late war men used to say,
+"Cotton is king;" and why so? Because the trades which hung on this crop
+were so many and so strong that they ruled all others. The rise or fall
+of a penny in the price of cotton at Liverpool affected planters in
+the South, spinners in the North, seamen on the ocean, bankers
+and money-changers everywhere. Now wheat and petroleum share the
+sovereignty; but then cotton was king. Who enthroned this harmless
+plant? Two masters of hand-craft, one of whom was born a few miles east
+of this place in Westborough; the other was a native of England who
+spent most of his days a few miles south of this city. Within five
+years--not quite a century ago--these two men were putting in forms
+which could be seen, ideas which brought our countrymen large measures
+of both weal and woe. In 1790, Samuel Slater, once an apprentice to
+Strutt and Arkwright, built the mill at Pawtucket which taught Americans
+the art of cotton-spinning; and before 1795, Eli Whitney had invented
+the gin which easily cleansed the cotton boll of its seeds, and so made
+marketable the great crop we have spoken of. Many men have made more
+noise in the world than Slater and Whitney; few if any can be named
+whose peaceable hand-craft has done so much to give this country its
+front place in the markets of the globe.
+
+Let me come nearer home, and as I take my seat let me name a son of
+this very town who loved hand-craft and rede-craft, and worthily aided
+both--Isaiah Thomas, the patriot printer, editor, and publisher,
+historian of the printer's craft in this land, and founder of the far
+famed antiquarian library, eldest in that group of institutions which
+gave to Worcester its rank in the world of letters, as its many products
+give it standing in the world of industry and art.
+
+Mindful of three such worthies, it is not strange that Salisbury,
+Washburn, Boylston, and many more have built up this high school of
+handicraft; it will be no wonder if others like minded build on the
+foundations which have been so fitly laid.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+MAKING SEA WATER POTABLE.
+
+[Footnote: Read lately before the Manchester Literary and Philosophical
+Society]
+
+By THOMAS KAY, President of the Stockport Natural History Society.
+
+
+The author called attention to the absence of research in this
+direction, and how man, endowed to overcome every physical disability
+which encompassed him on land, was powerless to live on the wide ocean,
+although it is teeming with life.
+
+The water for experiment was taken from the English Channel, about
+fifty miles southwest of the Eddystone Lighthouse, and it was found
+to correspond closely with the analysis of the Atlantic published by
+Roscoe, viz.: Total solids 35.976, of which the total chlorides, are
+32.730, representing 19.868 of chlorine.
+
+The waters of the Irish Sea and the English Channel nearer to the German
+Ocean, from their neighborhood to great rivers, are weaker than the
+above.
+
+Schweitzer's analysis of the waters of the English Channel, near
+Brighton, was taken as representing the composition of the sea, and is
+here given:
+
+    Sodium chloride                27.059
+    Potassium   "                   0.766
+    Magnesium   "                   3.666
+        "     bromide               0.029
+        "     sulphate              2.296
+    Calcium     "                   1.406
+        "    carbonate              0.033
+    Iodine and ammoniacal salts    traces
+    Water                         964.795
+                                 ________
+                                 1000.000
+
+The chlorides in the--
+
+    Irish Sea are about         30 per mille.
+    English Channel are about   31    "
+    Beyond the Eddystone are    32    "
+
+As the requirement for a potable sea water does not arise except in
+mid-ocean, the proportion of 32 per mille must be taken as the basis of
+calculation.
+
+This represents as near 20 per mille of chlorine as possible.
+
+From the analysis shown it will be perceived that the chlorides of
+sodium and magnesium are in great preponderance.
+
+It is to the former of these that the baneful effects of sea water when
+drunk are to be ascribed, for chloride of sodium or common salt produces
+thirst probably by its styptic action on the salivary glands, and scurvy
+by its deleterious action on the blood when taken in excess.
+
+Sodium chloride being the principal noxious element in sea water, and
+soda in combination with a vegetable or organic acid, such as citric
+acid, tartaric acid, or malic acid, being innocuous, the conclusion is
+that the element of evil to be avoided is _chlorine_.
+
+After describing various experiments, and calling attention to the power
+of earthy matters in abstracting salts from solutions by which he hoped
+the process would be perfected, an imperial pint of water from beyond
+the Eddystone was shown mixed with 960 grains of citrate of silver and 4
+grains of the free citric acid.
+
+Each part of the chlorides requires three parts by weight of the silver
+citrate to throw down the chlorine, thus:
+
+3NaCl + Ag_{3}C_{6}H_{5}O_{7} = Na3.C_{6}H_{5}O_{7}+3AgCl.
+
+The silver chloride formed a dense insoluble precipitate, and the
+supernatant fluid was decanted and filtered through a rubber tube and
+handed round as a beverage.
+
+It contained in each fluid ounce by calculation about:
+
+    18       grains of citrate of soda.
+     1-1/2       "        "      magnesia.
+       1/2       "        "      potash.
+     1           "    sulphate of magnesia.
+       1/2       "        "      lime.
+       1/5       "    citric acid.
+
+with less than half a grain of undecomposed chlorides.
+
+To analyze this liquid therapeutically, it may be broadly stated that
+salts of potash are _diuretic_, salts of magnesia _aperient_, and salts
+of soda _neutral_, except in excessive doses, or in combination with
+acids of varying medicinal action; thus, soda in nitric acid, nitrate
+of soda, is a _diuretic_, following the law of nitrates as nitrate of
+potash, a most powerful diuretic, nitrous ether, etc.; while soda in
+combination with sulphuric acid as sulphate of soda is _aperient_,
+following the law of sulphates, which increase aperient action, as in
+sulphate of magnesia, etc.
+
+Thus it would seem that soda holds the scales evenly between potash and
+magnesia in this medical sense, and that it is weighed, so to speak, on
+either side by the kind of mineral acid with which it may be combined.
+
+With non-poisonous vegetable acids, and these slightly in excess, there
+is not such an effect produced.
+
+Sodium is an important constituent of the human body, and citric acid,
+from its carbon, almost a food. Although no one would advocate saline
+drinks in excess, yet, under especial circumstances, the solution of it
+in the form of citrate can hardly be hurtful when used to moisten the
+throat and tongue, for it will never be used under circumstances where
+it can be taken in large quantities.
+
+In the converted sea water the bulk of the solids is composed of inert
+citrate of soda. There is a little citrate of potash, which is a feeble
+diuretic; a little citrate and sulphate of magnesia, a slight aperient,
+corrected, however, by the constipatory half grain of sulphate of lime;
+so that the whole practically is inoperative.
+
+The combination of these salts in nature's proportions would seem to
+indicate that they must be the best for administration in those ailments
+to which their use would be beneficial.
+
+Citrate of silver is an almost insoluble salt, and requires to be
+kept from the light, air, and organic matter, it being very easily
+decomposed.
+
+A stoppered bottle covered with India-rubber was exhibited as indicating
+a suitable preserver of the salt, as it affords protection against
+light, air, and breakage. As one ounce of silver citrate will convert
+half a pint of sea water into a drinkable fluid, and a man can keep
+alive upon it a day, then seven ounces of it will keep him a week, and
+so on, it may not unreasonably be hoped, in proportion.
+
+It is proposed to pack the silver citrate in hermetically sealed rubber
+covered bottles or tubes, to be inserted under the canisters or thwarts
+of the life-boats in ocean-going vessels, and this can be done at a
+simple interest on the first outlay, without any loss by depreciation,
+as it will always be worth its cost, and be invaluable in case of need.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE ACIDS OF WOOL OIL.
+
+
+All wools contain a certain amount of animal oil or grease, which
+permeates every portion of the fleece. The proportion of oil varies with
+the breed of sheep. A difference in climate and soil materially affects
+the yield of oil. This is shown by analyses made of different kinds of
+wool, both foreign and domestic. Spanish wool was found to have but
+eight per cent. grease; Australian wool fifteen per cent.; while in some
+fleeces of Pennsylvania wool as high as forty per cent. was obtained. To
+extract the oil from the wool, a fleece was put in a tall cylinder and
+naphtha poured on it. The naphtha on being allowed to drain through
+slowly dissolved out the grease. This naphtha solution was distilled;
+the naphtha passing off while grease remained--a dark oil having high
+specific gravity and remaining nearly solid at the ordinary temperature.
+I am indebted to Mrs. Richards for this method of extracting the oil.
+The process is quick and inexpensive, and is applicable to the treatment
+of large quantities of wool.
+
+The object of these experiments was to find the readiest method of
+separating wool oil into its bases and acids, and further to identify
+the various fatty acids. A solution of the oil in naphtha was cooled to
+15 deg. C. This caused a separation of the oil into two portions: a white
+solid fat and a fluid dark oil. The first on examination proved to be a
+mixture of palmitic and stearic acids existing uncombined in the wool
+oil. The original wool oil was saponified by boiling with alcoholic
+potash.
+
+The soap formed was separated into two portions by shaking with ether
+and water. On standing, the solution separated into two layers, the
+upper or murial solution containing the bases, the lower or aqueous
+solution containing the acids. This method of separation is very slow.
+In one case it worked very well, but as a rule appeared to be almost
+impracticable. Benzol and naphtha were tried, instead of ether, but the
+results were less satisfactory. On suggestion of Prof. Ordway, potassium
+chloride was added to the soap solution partially separated by ether and
+water. This caused an immediate and complete separation. By the use of
+potassium chloride it was found possible to effect a separation with
+benzol and water, also with naphtha and water.
+
+Another means of separation was tried by precipitating the calcium
+salts, from a solution of the potash soap. From the portion of the
+calcium salts insoluble in alcohol, a fatty acid was obtained with a
+melting point and composition almost identical with the melting point
+and composition of palmitic acid. The aqueous portion of the separation
+effected by water and ether was examined for the fatty acid. The lead
+salts of the fatty acids were digested with ether, which dissolved out
+the lead oleate. From this oleic acid was obtained. This was further
+purified by forming the Boreum salt of oleic acid. The lead salts not
+soluble in ether were decomposed by acid. The fatty acids set free were
+saponified by carbonate of potassium. A fractional precipitation was
+effected by adding lead acetate in successive portions; each portion
+sufficient to precipitate one-fourth of all the acids present.
+
+The acid obtained from the first fractionation had the melting point at
+75 deg.-76 deg., indicating an acid either in carbon then stearic or palmitic
+acids.
+
+The acids obtained from the third fractionation had a melting point of
+53 deg.-54 deg. C. This acid in composition and general properties was very
+similar to that obtained by freezing the naphtha solution of the oil,
+and is probably a mixture of stearic and palmitic acids. These acids,
+being in combination with the bases of the oil, would be set free only
+on saponifying the oil and subsequently decomposing with acid.
+
+In conclusion, I should say that but a small proportion of the fatty
+acids exist in the wool oil uncombined; that the proportion of oleic
+acid is small, and can only be obtained in an oxidized condition; that
+the main portion of the fatty acids is composed of stearic and palmitic
+acids in nearly equal proportions; that the existence of a fatty acid,
+containing a higher per cent. of carbon than those mentioned, is not
+fully established.--_N.W. Shedd, M.I.T._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+A NEW ABSORBENT FOR OXYGEN.
+
+
+OTTO, BARON V.D. PFORDTEN.--The author makes use of a solution of
+chromous chloride, which he prepares as follows:
+
+He first heats chromic acid with concentrated hydrochloric acid, so
+as to obtain a strong green solution of chromic chloride free from
+chlorine. This is then reduced with zinc and hydrochloric acid. The blue
+chromous chloride solution thus obtained is poured into a saturated
+solution of sodium acetate in an atmosphere of carbonic acid. A
+red precipitate of chromous acetate is formed, which is washed by
+decantation in water containing carbonic acid. This salt is relatively
+stable, and can be preserved for an indefinite time in a moist condition
+in stoppered bottles filled with carbonic acid.
+
+In this process the following precautions are to be observed:
+
+Spongy flocks always separate from the zinc used in the reduction, which
+float about in the acid liquid for a long time and give off minute gas
+bubbles. If poured into the solution of sodium acetate, they would
+contaminate the precipitate; and when dissolved in hydrochloric acid,
+would occasion a slight escape of hydrogen. The solution of chromous
+chloride must therefore be freed from the zinc by filtration in the
+absence of air. For this purpose the reduction is carried on in a flask
+fitted up like a washing bottle. The long tube is bent down outside the
+flask, and is here provided with a small bulb tube containing glass wool
+or asbestos. The hydrogen gas liberated during reduction is at first let
+escape through this tube; afterward its outer end is closed, and it is
+pressed down into the liquid. The hydrogen must now pass through the
+shorter tube (the mouthpiece of the washing bottle), which has an India
+rubber valve. When the reduction is complete, the blue liquid is driven
+up in the long tube by introducing carbonic acid through the short tube,
+so that it filters through the asbestos into the solution of sodium
+acetate into which the reopened end of the long tube dips. When washing
+out the red precipitate, at first a little acetic acid is added to
+dissolve any basic zinc carbonate which has been deposited. In this
+manner a chromous acetate is obtained perfectly free from zinc.
+
+For the absorption of oxygen the compound just described is decomposed
+with hydrochloric acid in the following simple washing apparatus: Upon
+a shelf there are fixed side by side two ordinary preparation glasses,
+closed with caoutchouc stoppers, each having three perforations. Each
+two apertures receive the glass tubes used in gas washing bottles, while
+the third holds a dropping funnel. It is filled with dilute hydrochloric
+acid, and after the expulsion of the air by a current of gas, plentiful
+quantities of chromous acetate are passed into the bottles. When the
+current of gas has been passed in for some time, the hydrochloric acid
+is let enter, which dissolves the chromous acetate, and thus, in the
+absence of air, produces a solution of blue chromous chloride. It is
+advisable to use an excess of chromous acetate or an insufficient
+quantity of hydrochloric acid, so that there may be no free hydrochloric
+acid in the liquid. To keep back any free acetic acid which might be
+swept over by the current of gas, there is introduced after the washing
+apparatus another washing bottle with sodium carbonate. Also solid
+potassium carbonate may be used instead of calcium chloride for drying
+the gas. If the two apertures of the washing apparatus are fitted with
+small pinch cocks, it is ready for use, and merely requires to be
+connected with the gas apparatus in action in order to free the gas
+generated from oxygen. As but little chromous salt is decomposed by the
+oxygen such a washing apparatus may serve for many experiments.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+GAIFFE'S NEW MEDICAL GALVANOMETER.
+
+
+In this apparatus, which contains but one needle, and has no directing
+magnet, proportionability between the intensities and deflections is
+obtained by means of a special form given the frame upon which the wire
+is wound.
+
+We give herewith a figure of the curve that Mr. Gaiffe has fixed upon
+after numerous experiments. Upon examination it will be seen that the
+needle approaches the current in measure as the directing action of
+the earth increases; and experiment proves that the two actions
+counterbalance each other, and render the deflections very sensibly
+proportional to the intensities up to an angle of from 65 to 75 degrees.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Another important fact has likewise been ascertained, and that is that,
+under such circumstances, the magnetic intensity of the needle may
+change without the indications ceasing to have the same exactness up to
+65 degrees. As well known, Mr. Desains has demonstrated that this occurs
+likewise in sinus or tangent galvanometers; but these have helices that
+are very large in proportion to the needle. In medical galvanometers the
+proportions are no longer the same, and the needle is always very near
+the directing helix. If this latter is square, or even elliptical, it is
+found that, beyond an angle of 15 degrees, there are differences of 4 or
+5 degrees in the indications given with the same intensity of current by
+the same needle, according to the latter's intensity of magnetism. This
+inconvenience is quite grave, for it often happens that a needle changes
+magnetic intensity, either under the influence of too strong currents
+sent into the apparatus, or of other magnets in its vicinity, or as
+a consequence of the bad quality of the steel, etc. It was therefore
+urgently required that this should be remedied, and from this point
+of view the new mode of winding the wire is an important improvement
+introduced into medical galvanometers.--_La Lumiere Electrique_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE SUSPENSION OF LIFE.
+
+
+Every one knows that life exists in a latent state in the seeds of
+plants, and may be preserved therein, so to speak, indefinitely. In
+1853, Ridolfi deposited in the Egyptian Museum of Florence a sheaf of
+wheat that he had obtained from seeds found in a mummy case dating back
+about 3,000 years. This aptitude of revivification is found to a high
+degree in animalcules of low order. The air which we breathe is loaded
+with impalpable dust that awaits, for ages perhaps, proper conditions
+of heat and moisture to give it an ephemeral life that it will lose and
+acquire by turns.
+
+In 1707, Spallanzani found it possible, eleven times in succession, to
+suspend the life of rotifers submitted to desiccation, and to call it
+back again by moistening this organic dust with water. A few years
+ago Doyere brought to life some tardigrades that had been dried at a
+temperature of 150 deg. and kept four weeks in a vacuum. If we ascend the
+scale of beings, we find analogous phenomena produced by diverse causes.
+Flies that have been imported in casks of Madeira have been resuscitated
+in Europe, and chrysalids have been kept in this state for years.
+Cockchafers drowned, and then dried in the sun, have been revived after
+a lapse of twenty-four hours, two days, and even five days, after
+submersion. Frogs, salamanders, and spiders poisoned by curare or
+nicotine, have returned to life after several days of apparent death.
+
+Cold produces some extraordinary effects. Spallanzani kept several frogs
+in the center of a lump of ice for two years, and, although they became
+dry, rigid, almost friable, and gave no external appearance of being
+alive, it was only necessary to expose them to a gradual and moderate
+heat to put an end to the lethargic state in which they lay.
+
+Pikes and salamanders have at different epochs been revived before the
+eyes of Maupertuis and Constant Dumeril (members of the Academy of
+Sciences) after being frozen stiff. Auguste Dumeril, son of Constant,
+and who was the reporter of the committee relative to the Blois toad in
+1851, published a curious memoir the following year in which he narrates
+how he interrupted life through congelation of the liquids and solids of
+the organism. Some frogs, whose internal temperature had been reduced to
+-2 deg. in an atmosphere of -12 deg., returned to life before his eyes, and he
+observed their tissues regain their usual elasticity and their heart
+pass from absolute immobility to its normal motion.
+
+There is therefore no reason for doubting the assertions of travelers
+who tell us that the inhabitants of North America and Russia transport
+fish that are frozen stiff, and bring them to life again by dipping them
+into water of ordinary temperature ten or fifteen days afterward. But I
+think too much reliance should not be put in the process devised by
+the great English physiologist, Hunter, for prolonging the life of man
+indefinitely by successive freezings. It has been allowed to no one but
+a romancer, Mr. Edmond About, to be present at this curious operation.
+
+Among the mammifera we find appearances of death in their winter sleep;
+but these are incomplete, since the temperature of hibernating animals
+remains greater by one degree than that of the surrounding air, and the
+motions of the heart and respiration are simply retarded. Dr. Preyer has
+observed that a hamster sometimes goes five minutes without breathing
+appreciably after a fortnight's sleep.
+
+In man himself a suspension of life, or at least phenomena that seem
+inseparable therefrom, has been observed many times. In the _Journal des
+Savants_ for 1741 we read that a Col. Russel, having witnessed the
+death of his wife, whom he tenderly loved, did not wish her buried, and
+threatened to kill any one who should attempt to remove the body before
+he witnessed its decomposition himself. Eight days passed by without the
+woman giving the slightest sign of life, "when, at a moment when he was
+holding her hand and shedding tears over her, the church bell began to
+ring, and, to his indescribable surprise, his wife sat up and said, 'It
+is the last stroke, we shall be too late.' She recovered."
+
+At a session of the Academy of Sciences, Oct. 17, 1864, Mr. Blaudet
+communicated a report upon a young woman of thirty summers who, being
+subject to nervous attacks, fell, after her crises, into a sort of
+lethargic sleep which lasted several weeks and sometimes several months.
+One of her sleeps, especially, lasted from the beginning of the year
+1862 until March, 1863.
+
+Dr. Paul Levasseur relates that, in a certain English family, lethargy
+seemed to have become hereditary. The first case was exhibited in an old
+lady who remained for fifteen days in an immovable and insensible state,
+and who afterward, on regaining her consciousness, lived for quite a
+long time. Warned by this fact, the family preserved a young man for
+several weeks who appeared to be dead, but who came to life again.
+
+Dr. Pfendler, in an inaugural thesis (Paris, 1833), minutely describes a
+case of apparent death of which he himself was a witness. A young girl
+of Vienna at the age of 15 was attacked by a nervous affection that
+brought on violent crises followed by lethargic states which lasted
+three or four days. After a time she became so exhausted that the first
+physicians of the city declared that there was no more hope. It was not
+long, in fact, before she was observed to rise in her bed and fall back
+as if struck with death. "For four hours she appeared to me," says Dr.
+Pfendler, "completely inanimate. With Messrs. Franck and Schaeffer,
+I made every possible effort to rekindle the spark of life. Neither
+mirror, nor burned feather, nor ammonia, nor pricking succeeded in
+giving us a sign of sensibility. Galvanism was tried without the patient
+showing any contractility. Mr. Franck believed her to be dead, but
+nevertheless advised me to leave her on the bed. For twenty-eight hours
+no change supervened, although it was thought that a little putrefaction
+was observed. The death bell was sounded, the friends of the girl had
+dressed her in white and had crowned her with flowers, and all was
+arranged for her burial. Desiring to convince myself of the course of
+the putrefaction, I visited the body again, and found that no further
+advance had been made than before. What was my astonishment when I
+believed that I saw a slight respiratory motion. I looked again, and saw
+that I was not mistaken. I at once used friction and irritants, and in
+an hour and a half the respiration increased. The patient opened her
+eyes, and, struck with the funereal paraphernalia around her, returned
+to consciousness, and said, 'I am too young to die.'" All this was
+followed by a ten hours' sleep. Convalescence proceeded rapidly, and the
+girl became free from all her nervous troubles. During her crisis she
+heard everything. She quoted some Latin words that Mr. Franck had used.
+Her most fearful agony had been to hear the preparations for her burial
+without being able to get rid of her torpor. Medical dictionaries are
+full of anecdotes of this nature, but I shall cite but two more.
+
+On the 10th of November, 1812, during the fatal retreat from Russia,
+Commandant Tascher, desiring to bring back to France the body of his
+general, who had been killed by a bullet, and who had been buried since
+the day before, disinterred him, and, upon putting him into a landau,
+and noticing that he was still breathing, brought him to life again by
+dint of care. A long time afterward this same general was one of the
+pall bearers at the funeral obsequies of the aide-de-camp who had buried
+him. In 1826 a young priest returned to life at the moment the bishop
+of the diocese was pronouncing the _De Profundis_ over his body. Forty
+years afterward, this priest, who had become Cardinal Donnett, preached
+a feeling sermon upon the danger of premature burial.
+
+I trust I have now sufficiently prepared the mind of the reader for an
+examination of the phenomena of the voluntary suspension of life that I
+shall now treat of.
+
+The body of an animal may be compared to a machine that converts the
+food that it receives into motion. It receives nothing, it will produce
+nothing; but there is no reason why it should get out of order if it is
+not deteriorated by external agents. The legendary rustic who wanted to
+accustom his ass to go without food was therefore theoretically wrong
+only because he at the same time wanted the animal to work. The whole
+difficulty consists in breaking with old habits. To return to the
+comparison that we just made, we shall run the risk of exploding the
+boiler of a steam engine if we heat it or cool it abruptly, but we can
+run it very slowly and for a very long time with but very little fuel.
+We may even preserve a little fire under the ashes, and this, although
+it may not be capable of setting the parts running, will suffice later
+on to revivify the fireplace after it has been charged anew with fuel.
+
+We have recently had the example of Dr. Tanner, who went forty days
+without any other nourishment than water. Not very long ago Liedovine de
+Schiedam, who had been bedridden for twenty years, affirmed that she
+had taken no food for eight of them. It is said that Saint Catharine of
+Sienna gradually accustomed herself to do without food, and that she
+lived twenty years in total abstinence. We know of several examples of
+prolonged sleep during which the sleeper naturally took no nourishment.
+In his Magic Disquisitions, Delvis cites the case of a countryman who
+slept for an entire autumn and winter. Pfendler relates that a certain
+young and hysterical woman fell twice into a deep slumber which each
+time lasted six months. In 1883 an _enceinte_ woman was found asleep
+on a bench in the Grand Armee Avenue. She was taken to the Beaujon
+Hospital, where she was delivered a few days after while still asleep,
+and it was not till the end of three months that she could be awakened
+from her lethargy. At this very moment, at Tremeille, a woman named
+Marguerite Bouyenvalle is sleeping a sleep that has lasted nearly a
+year, during which the only food that she has had is a few drops of soup
+daily.
+
+What is more remarkable, Dr. Fournier says in his Dictionary of Medical
+Sciences that he knew of a distinguished writer at Paris, who sometimes
+went for months at a time without taking anything but emollient drinks,
+while at the same time living along like other people.
+
+Respiration is certainly more necessary to life than food is; but it is
+not absolutely indispensable, as we have seen in the cases of apparent
+death cited in our previous article. It is possible, through exercise,
+for a person to accustom himself, up to a certain point, to abstinence
+from air as he can from food. Those who dive for pearls, corals, or
+sponges succeed in remaining from two to three minutes under water. Miss
+Lurline, who exhibited in Paris in 1882, remained two and a half minutes
+beneath the water of her aquarium without breathing. In his treatise De
+la Nature, Henri de Rochas, physician to Louis XIII., gives six minutes
+as the maximum length of time that can elapse between successive
+inspirations of air. It is probable that this figure was based upon an
+observation of hibernating animals.
+
+In his Encyclopedic Dictionary, Dr. Dechambre relates the history of
+a Hindoo who hid himself in the waters of the Ganges where women were
+bathing, seized one of them by the legs, drowned her, and then removed
+her jewels. Her disappearance was attributed to crocodiles. One woman
+who succeeded in escaping him denounced the assassin, who was seized and
+hanged in 1817.
+
+A well known case, is that of Col. Townshend, who possessed the
+remarkable faculty of stopping at will not only his respiration, but
+also the beating of his heart. He performed the experiment one day in
+the presence of Surgeon Gosch, who cared for him in his old age, two
+physicians, and his apothecary, Mr. Shrine. In their presence, says
+Gosch, the Colonel lay upon his back, Dr. Cheyne watched his pulse, Dr.
+Baynard put his hand upon his heart, and Mr. Shrine held a mirror to
+his mouth. After a few seconds no pulse, movement of the heart, or
+respiration could be observed. At the end of half an hour, as the
+spectators were beginning to get frightened, they observed the functions
+progressively resuming their course, and the Colonel came back to life.
+
+The fakirs of India habituate themselves to abstinence from air, either
+by introducing into the nostrils strings that come out through the
+mouth, or by dwelling in subterranean cells that air and light never
+enter except through narrow crevices that are sometimes filled with
+clay. Here they remain seated in profound silence, for hours at a time,
+without any other motion than that of the fingers as the latter slowly
+take beads from a chaplet, the mind absorbed by the mental pronunciation
+of OM (the holy triune name), which they must repeat incessantly while
+endeavoring to breathe as little as possible. They gradually lengthen
+the intervals between their inspirations and expirations, until, in
+three or four months, they succeed in making them an hour and a half.
+This is not the ideal, for one of their sacred books says, in speaking
+of a saint: "At the fourth month he no longer takes any food but air,
+and that only every twelve days, and, master of his respiration he
+embraces God in his thought. At the fifth he stands as still as a pole;
+he no longer sees anything but Baghavat, and God touches his cheek to
+bring him out of his ecstasy."
+
+It will be conceived that by submitting themselves to such gymnastics
+from infancy, certain men, already predisposed by atavism or a peculiar
+conformation, might succeed in doing things that would seem impossible
+to the common run of mortals. Do we not daily see acrobats remaining
+head downward for a length of time that would suffice to kill 99 per
+cent, of their spectators through congestion if they were to place
+themselves in the same posture? Can the savage who laboriously learns
+to spell, letter by letter, comprehend how many people get the general
+sense of an entire page at a single glance?
+
+There is no reason, then, _a priori_, for assigning to the domain of
+legerdemain the astonishing facts that are told us by a large number of
+witnesses, worthy of credence, regarding a young fakir who, forty years
+ago, was accustomed to allow himself to be buried, and resuscitated
+several months afterward.
+
+An English officer, Mr. Osborne, gives the following account of one of
+these operations, which took place in 1838 at the camp of King Randjet
+Singh:
+
+"After a few preparations, which lasted some days, and that it would
+prove repugnant to enumerate, the fakir declared himself ready to
+undergo the ordeal. The Maharajah, the Sikhs chiefs, and Gen. Ventura,
+assembled near a masonry tomb that had been constructed expressly to
+receive him. Before their eyes, the fakir closed with wax all the
+apertures in his body (except his mouth) that could give entrance
+to air. Then, having taken off the clothing that he had on, he was
+enveloped in a canvas sack, and, according to his wish, his tongue was
+turned back in such a way as to close the entrance to his windpipe.
+Immediately after this he fell into a sort of trance. The bag that held
+him was closed and a seal was put upon it by the Maharajah. The bag was
+then put into a wooden box, which was fastened by a padlock, sealed, and
+let down into the tomb. A large quantity of earth was thrown into the
+hole and rammed down, and then barley was sown on the surface and
+sentinels placed around with orders to watch day and night.
+
+"Despite all such precautions, the Maharajah had his doubts; so he came
+twice in the space of ten months (the time during which the fakir was
+buried), and had the tomb opened in his presence. The fakir was in the
+bag into which he had been put, cold and inanimate. The ten months
+having expired, he was disinterred, Gen. Ventura and Capt. Ward saw the
+padlock removed, the seals broken, and the box taken from the tomb.
+The fakir was taken out, and no pulsation either at the heart or pulse
+indicated the presence of life. As a first measure for reviving him, a
+person introduced a finger gently into his mouth and placed his tongue
+in its natural position. The top of his head was the only place where
+there was any perceptible heat. By slowly pouring warm water over his
+body, signs of life were gradually obtained, and after about two hours
+of care the patient got up and began to walk.
+
+"This truly extraordinary man says that during his burial he has
+delightful dreams, but that the moment of awakening is always very
+painful to him. Before returning to a consciousness of his existence he
+experiences vertigoes. His nails and hair cease to grow. His only fear
+is that he may be harmed by worms and insects, and it is to protect
+himself from these that he has the box suspended in the center of the
+tomb."
+
+This sketch was published in the _Magasin Pittoresque_ in 1842 by a
+writer who had just seen Gen. Ventura in Paris, and had obtained from
+him a complete confirmation of the story told by Capt. Wade.
+
+Another English officer, Mr. Boileau, in a work published in 1840,
+and Dr. MacGregor, in his medical topography of Lodhiana, narrate two
+analogous exhumations that they separately witnessed. The question
+therefore merits serious examination.--_A. de Rochas, in La Nature_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Some experiments recently made by M. Olszewsky appear to show that
+liquid oxygen is one of the best of refrigerants. He found that when
+liquefied oxygen was allowed to vaporize under the pressure of one
+atmosphere, a temperature as low as -181.4 deg. C. was produced. The
+temperature fell still further when the pressure on the liquid oxygen
+was reduced to nine millimeters of mercury. Though the pressure was
+reduced still further to four millimeters of mercury, yet the oxygen
+remained liquid. Liquefied nitrogen, when allowed to evaporate under a
+pressure of sixty millimeters of mercury, gave a temperature of -214 deg.
+C., only the surface of the liquid gas became opaque from incipient
+solidification. Under lower pressures the nitrogen solidified,
+and temperatures as low as -225 deg. C. were recorded by the hydrogen
+thermometer. The lowest temperature obtained by allowing liquefied
+carbonic oxide to vaporize was -220.5 deg. C.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CONVALLARIA.
+
+By OTTO A. WALL, M.D., Ph.G.
+
+
+Cnovallaria Majalis is a stemless perennial plant, found in both
+the eastern and western hemispheres, with two elliptic leaves and a
+one-sided raceme bearing eight or ten bell-shaped flowers. The flowers
+are fragrant, and perfumes called "Lily of the Valley" are among the
+popular odors.
+
+Both leaves and flowers have been used in medicine, but the rhizome is
+the part most frequently used.
+
+[Illustration: CONVALLARIA.]
+
+The fresh rhizome is a creeping, branching rhizome of a pale yellowish
+white color, which, on drying, darkens to a straw color, or even a
+brown in places. When dry it is about the thickness of a thick knitting
+needle, swelling to the thickness of a quill when soaked in water. It
+is of uniform thickness, except near the leaf-bearing ends, which are
+thicker marked with numerous leafscars, or bare buds covered with
+scales, and often having attached the tattered remains of former leaves.
+Fig. A shows a portion of rhizome, natural size, and Fig. B shows
+another piece enlarged to double linear size.
+
+The internodes are smooth, the rootlets being attached at the nodes. The
+rootlets are filiform, and darker in color.
+
+The rhizome is covered by an epidermis, composed of muriform cells of a
+bright yellow color, after having been treated with liquor potassae to
+clear up the tissues. These cells are shown in Fig. G. An examination of
+the transverse section shows us the endogenous structure, as we find
+it also in various other drugs (sarsaparilla, etc.), namely, a nucleus
+sheath, inclosing the fibrovascular bundles and pith, and surrounded
+by a peri-ligneous or peri-nuclear portion, consisting of soft-walled
+parenchyma cells, loosely arranged with many small, irregularly
+triangular, intercellular spaces in the tranverse section. Some of these
+cells contain bundles of raphides (Fig. 2), one of which bundles is
+shown crushed in Fig. J. Sometimes these crystals are coarser and less
+needle-like, as in Fig. K. Fig. C shows a transverse section through the
+leaf-bearing portion of the rhizome (at a), and is rather irregular on
+account of the fibrovascular bundles diverging into the base of the
+leaves of flower-stalks. A more regular appearance is seen in Fig. D,
+which is a section through the internode (b). In it we see the nuclear
+sheath, varying in width from one to three cells, and inclosing a number
+of crescent-shaped fibrovascular bundles, with their convexities toward
+the center and their horns toward the nuclear sheath. There are also
+from two to four or five free closed fibrovascular bundles in the
+central pith.
+
+These fibrovascular bundles consist mainly of dotted or reticulated
+ducts (Fig. F), but all gradations from, this to the spiroids, or even
+true spiral ducts (Fig. E). may be found, though the annular and spiral
+ducts are quite rare. These ducts are often prismatically compressed
+by each other. The fibrovascular bundles also contain soft-walled
+prosenchyma cells. The peri-nuclear portion consists of soft-walled
+parenchyma, smaller near the nuclear sheath and the epidermis, and
+larger about midway between, and of the same character as the cells of
+the pith. In longitudinal section they appear rectangular, similar to
+the walls of the epidermis (G), but with thinner walls.
+
+All parts of the plant have been used in medicine, either separately or
+together, and according to some authorities the whole flowering plant is
+the best form in which to use this drug.
+
+The active principles are _convallaramin_ and _convallarin_.
+
+It is considered to act similarly to digitalis as a heart-stimulant,
+especially when the failure of the heart's action is due to mechanical
+impediments rather than to organic degeneration. It is best given in the
+form of fluid extract in the dose of 1 to 5 cubic centimeters (15 to
+75 minims), commencing with the smaller doses, and increasing, if
+necessary, according to the effects produced in each individual
+case.--_The Pharmacist_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+FLIGHT OF THE BUZZARD.
+
+
+During my visit to the Southern States of America, I have had several
+opportunities of watching, under favorable conditions, the flight of the
+buzzard, the scavenger of Southern cities. Although in most respect this
+bird's manner of flight resembles that of the various sea-birds which I
+have often watched for hours sailing steadily after ocean steamships,
+yet, being a land bird, the buzzard is more apt to give examples of that
+kind of flight in which a bird remains long over the same place. Instead
+of sailing steadily on upon outstretched pinions, the buzzard often
+ascends in a series of spirals, or descends along a similar course. I
+have not been able to time the continuance of the longest flights during
+which the wings have not once been flapped, for the simple reason that,
+in every case where I have attempted to do so, the bird has passed out
+of view either by upward or horizontal traveling. But I am satisfied
+that in many cases the bird sweeps onward or about on unflapping wings
+for more than half an hour.
+
+Now, many treat this problem of aerial flotation as if it were of the
+nature of a miracle--something not to be explained. Explanations which
+have been advanced have, it is true, been in many cases altogether
+untenable. For instance, some have asserted that the albatross, the
+condor, and other birds which float for a long time without moving
+their wings--and that, too, in some cases, at great heights above the
+sea-level, where the air is very thin--are supported by some gas within
+the hollow parts of their bones, as the balloon is supported by the
+hydrogen within it. The answer to this is that a balloon is _not_
+supported by the hydrogen within it, but by the surrounding air, and in
+just such degree as the air is displaced by the lighter gas. The air
+around a bird is only displaced by the bird's volume, and the pressure
+of the air corresponding to this displacement is not equivalent to more
+than one five-hundredth part of the bird's weight. Another idea is that
+when a bird seems to be floating on unmoving wings there is really a
+rapid fluttering of the feathers of the wings, by which a sustaining
+power is obtained. But no one who knows anything of the anatomy of
+the bird will adopt this idea for an instant, and no one who has ever
+watched with a good field-glass a floating bird of the albatross or
+buzzard kind will suppose they are fluttering their feathers in this
+way, even though he should be utterly ignorant of the anatomy of the
+wings. Moreover, any one acquainted with the laws of dynamics will know
+that there would be tremendous loss of power in the fluttering movement
+imagined as compared with the effect of sweeping downward and backward
+the whole of each wing.
+
+There is only one possible way of explaining the floating power of
+birds, and that is by associating it with the rapid motion acquired
+originally by wing flapping, and afterward husbanded, so to speak, by
+absolutely perfect adjustment and balancing. To this the answer is often
+advanced that it implies ignorance of the laws of dynamics to suppose
+that rapid advance can affect the rate of falling, as is implied by the
+theory that it enables the bird to float.
+
+Now, as a matter of fact, a slight slope of the wings would undoubtedly
+produce a raising power, and so an answer is at one obtained to this
+objection. But I venture to assert, with the utmost confidence, that a
+perfectly horizontal plane, advancing swiftly in a horizontal direction
+at first, will not sink as quickly, or anything like as quickly, as a
+similar plane let fall from a position of rest. A cannon-ball, rushing
+horizontally from the mouth of a cannon, begins to fall just as if it
+were simply dropped. But the case of a horizontal plane is altogether
+different. If rapidly advancing, it passes continually over still air;
+if simply let fall, the air beneath it yields, and presently currents
+are set up which facilitate the descent of the flat body; but there is
+no time to set up these aerial movements as the flat body passes rapidly
+over still air.
+
+As a matter of fact, we know that this difference exists, from
+the difference in the observed behavior of a flat card set flying
+horizontally through the air and a similar card held horizontally and
+then allowed to fall.
+
+I believe the whole mystery of aerial flotation lies here, and that as
+soon as aerial floating machines are planned on this system, it will be
+found that the problem of aerial transit--though presenting still many
+difficulties of detail--is, nevertheless, perfectly soluble.--_R.A.
+Proctor, in Newcastle Weekly Chronicle_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+AN ASSYRIAN BASS-RELIEF 2,700 YEARS OLD.
+
+
+There was exhibited at the last meeting of the Numismatic and
+Antiquarian Society, in Philadelphia, on May 7, an object of great
+interest to archaeologists, with which, says _The Church_, is also
+connected a very curious history.
+
+It appears that about forty years ago a young American minister, Rev.
+W.F. Williams, went as a missionary to Syria, and he visited among
+places of interest the site of ancient Nineveh about the time that
+Austin Henry Layard was making his famous explorations and discoveries;
+he wrote to a friend in Philadelphia that he had secured for him a fine
+piece of Assyrian sculpture from one of the recently opened temples or
+palaces, representing a life size figure of a king, clad in royal robes,
+bearing in one hand a basket and in the other a fir cone. One portion
+of the stone was covered with hieroglyphics, and was as sharply cut as
+though it had been carved by a modern hand instead of by an artist who
+was sleeping in his grave when Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, was yet
+an infant.
+
+The letter describing this treasure arrived duly, but the stones did not
+come. It appears that the caravan bringing them down to Alexandretta,
+from whence they were to be shipped to Philadelphia, was attacked by
+robbers, and the sculptured stones were thrown upon the desert as
+useless, and there they remained for some years. Finally they were
+recovered, shipped to this country (about twenty-five years ago), and
+arriving at their destination during the absence of the consignee, were
+deposited temporarily in a subterranean storeroom at his manufactory.
+In some way they were overlooked, and here they have remained unopened
+until they were rediscovered a few days ago; meanwhile the missionary
+and his friend have both passed away, ignorant of the fact that the rare
+gift had finally reached its destination and had become again lost.
+
+The cuneiform inscription is now being translated by an Assyrian scholar
+(Rev. Dr. J.P. Peters, of the Divinity School), and its identity is
+established; it came from the temple of King Assur-nazir-pal, a famous
+conqueror who reigned from 883 to 859 B.C.
+
+The slab was cut into three sections, 3x31/2 feet each, for convenience
+of transportation, and they have been somewhat broken on the journey;
+fortunately, however, this does not obliterate the writing.
+
+Mr. Tolcott Williams, a son of the late missionary, was present at the
+meeting of the Society, and gave an interesting account of the classic
+ground from which the slab was obtained. It was one of a number lining
+the walls of the palace of Assur-nazir-pal. The inscriptions, as
+translated by Dr. Peters, indicate that this particular slab was carved
+during the first portion of this king's reign, and some conception
+of its great antiquity may be gained when it is stated that he was a
+contemporary of Ahab and Jehosaphat; he was born not more than a
+century later than Solomon, and he reigned three centuries before
+Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon. After the slabs were procured, it was
+necessary to send them on the backs of camels a journey of eight hundred
+miles across the Great Desert, through a region which was more or less
+infested at all seasons with roving bands of robbers. Mr. Williams well
+remembered the interview between his father and the Arab camel owner,
+who told several conflicting stories by way of preliminary to the
+confession of the actual facts, in order to account for the non-arrival
+of the stones at Alexandretta, the sea coast town from whence they were
+to be shipped to Philadelphia.
+
+Mr. A.E. Outerbridge, Jr., gave a brief account of the finding of these
+stones in the subterranean storeroom where they had reposed for a period
+of a quarter of a century. The space between the slabs and the boxes
+had been packed with camels' hair, which had in progress of time become
+eaten by insects and reduced to a fine powder. The nails with which the
+cases were fastened were remarkable both for their peculiar shape and
+for the extraordinary toughness of the iron, far excelling in this
+respect the wrought iron made in America to day.
+
+The Rev. Dr. J.P. Peters gave a very instructive exposition of the
+chronology of the kings of Assyria, their social and religious customs
+and ceremonies, their methods of warfare, their systems of architecture,
+etc. He stated that the finest Assyrian bass-reliefs in the British
+Museum came from the same palace as this specimen, the carving of which
+is not excelled by any period of the ancient glyptic art. The particular
+piece of alabaster selected by the artist for this slab was unusually
+fine, being mottled with nodules of crystallized gypsum.
+
+The cuneiform inscription is not unlike the Hebrew in its character,
+resembling it about as closely as the Yorkshire dialect resembles good
+English. The characters are so large and clearly cut that it is a
+pleasure to read them after the laborious scrutiny of the minute
+Babylonish clay tablets. The inscription on this slab is identical with
+a portion of that of the great "Standard Monolith," on which this king
+subsequently caused to be transcribed the pages, as it were, from the
+different slabs which were apparently cut at intervals in his reign.
+
+_Translation of a Portion of the Cuneiform, Inscription_.--"The palace
+of Assur-nazir-pal, servant of Assur, servant of the god Beltis, the
+god Ninit, the shining one of Anu and Dagon, servant of the Great
+Gods, Mighty King, king of hosts, king of the land of Assyria; son of
+Bin-nirari, a strong warrior, who in the service of Assur his Lord
+marched vigorously among the princes of the four regions, who had no
+equal, a mighty leader who had no rival, a king subduing all disobedient
+to him; who rules multitudes of men; crushing all his foes, even the
+masses of the rebels.... The city of Calah, which my predecessor,
+Shalmanezer, King of Assyria had built had fallen into decay: His city
+I rebuilt; a palace of cedar, box, cypress, for the seat of my royalty,
+for the fullness of my princedom, to endure for generations, I placed
+upon it. With plates of copper I roofed it, I hung in its gates folding
+doors of cedar wood, silver, gold, copper, and iron which my hands had
+acquired in the lands which I ruled, I gathered in great quantities, and
+placed them in the midst thereof." O.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+DEPOSITING NICKEL UPON ZINC.
+
+By H.B. SLATER.
+
+
+To those interested in the electro deposition of nickel upon zinc, the
+formula given below for a solution and a brief explanation of its use
+will be of service.
+
+The first sample of this solution was made as an experiment to see what
+substances could be added to a solution of the double sulphate of nickel
+and ammonium without spoiling it.
+
+In addition to several other combinations and mixtures of solutions from
+which I succeeded in obtaining a good deposit, I found that the solution
+here given would plate almost anything I put into it, and worked
+especially well upon zinc. In its use no "scraping" or rescouring or any
+of the many operations which I have seen recommended for zinc needs
+be resorted to, as the metal "strikes" at once and is deposited in
+a continuous adherent film of reguline metal, and can be laid on as
+heavily as nickel is deposited generally.
+
+I believe that the addition of the ammonium chloride simply reduces
+the resistance of the double sulphate solution, but the office of the
+potassium chloride is not so easily explained. At least, I have never
+been able to explain it satisfactorily to myself. It is certain,
+however, that the solution does not work as well without it, nor does
+the addition of ammonium chloride in its stead give as fine a result.
+
+Some care is necessary in the management of the current, which should
+have a density of about 17 amperes per square foot of surface--not much
+above or below. This may seem a high figure, especially when it is
+discovered that there is a considerable evolution of gas during the
+operation.
+
+I have repeatedly used this solution for coating articles of zinc, and
+always with good success. I have exhibited samples of zinc plated in
+this solution to those conversant with the deposition of nickel, and
+they have expressed surprise at the appearance of the work. Some strips
+of sheet-zinc in my possession have been bent and cut into every
+conceivable shape without a sign of fracture or curling up at the edges
+of the nickel coating.
+
+The solution is composed of--
+
+  Double sulphate of nickel and ammonium        10 ounces.
+  Ammonium chloride                              4   "
+  Potassium chloride                             2   "
+  Distilled water                                1 gallon.
+
+The salts are dissolved in the water (hot), and the solution is worked
+at the ordinary temperature, about 16 degrees C.
+
+The zinc may be cleansed in any suitable manner, but must be perfectly
+clean, of course, and finally rinsed in clean cold water and placed in
+the bath as quickly as possible; care being taken that it is connected
+before it touches the solution.--_Electrical World_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
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+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Scientific American Supplement, No.
+497, July 11, 1885, by Various
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