[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. 

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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. ARCHÆOLOGY. --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

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FOUNDATIONS IN QUICKSAND. 

Foundations in quicksand often have to be built in places where leastexpected, and sometimes the writer has been able to convenientlyspan the vein with an arch and avoid trouble; but where it cannot beconveniently arched over, it will be necessary to sheath pile for atrench and lay in broad sections of concrete until the space is crossed, the sheath piling being drawn and reset in sections as fast as thetrenches are leveled up. The piling is left in permanently if it is notwanted again for use. 

Sometimes these bottoms are too soft to be treated in this manner; inthat case boxes or caissons are formed, loaded with stone and sunk intoplace 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, whichswell and become rapids as each winter breaks up. This kind is mosttroublesome and dangerous to rest upon if not properly treated. 

Retaining walls are frequently built season after season, and asregularly become undermined by the scouring of the water. Regulardocking with piles and timbers is resorted to, but it is so expensivefor small works that it is not often tried. 

Foundations are formed often with rock well planted out; and againsuccess has attended the use of bags of sand where rough rock was notconvenient or too expensive. 

In such cases it is well to try a mattress foundation, which may beformed of brushwood and small saplings with butts from ½ inch to2½ inches in diameter, compressed into bundles from 8 to 12 inchesdiameter, and from 12 to 16 feet long, and well tied with ropes everyfour 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 agood network, the long parts protruding and making whip ends. One ormore sets of netting are used as necessity seems to require. This kindof foundation may be filled in with a concrete of hydraulic cement andsand, and the walls built on them with usual footings, and it is verydurable, suiting the purpose as well as anything we have seen or heardof. --_Inland Architect_. 

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LIFT BRIDGE OVER THE OURCQ CANAL. 

This bridge, which was inaugurated in 1868, was constructed under thedirection 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 thatpresented itself, in view of the slight difference between the levelof the railway tracks and the maximum plane of the canal water. Thiscircumstance did not even permit of a thought of an ordinary revolvingbridge, since this, on a space of 10 inches being reserved between thelevel of the water and the bottom of the bridge, and on giving thelatter a minimum thickness of 33 inches up to the level of the rails, would have required the introduction into the profile of the railroadof approaches of at least one-quarter inch gradient, that would haveinterfered 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 thelatter would be but ten inches above the water level, and the rollerswould have to be of larger diameter than that, it would have beennecessary to suppose the roller channel placed beneath the level of thewater, and it would consequently have been necessary to isolate thischannel from the canal by a tight wall. The least fissure in the latterwould have inundated the channel. 

As the Ourcq Canal had no regular period of closing, it was necessaryto construct the bridge without hinderance to navigation. The idea ofaltering the canal's course could not be thought of, for the proximityof the fortifications and of the bridge over the military road wasopposed to it. Moreover, the canal administration insisted upon a freewidth 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 28feet actual opening in order to permit of building foundations withcaissons in such a way as to leave a passageway of 26 feet duringoperations. 

For these reasons it was decided to construct a metallic bridge thatshould be lifted by means of counterpoises and balanced after the mannerof gasometers. 

The free width secured to navigation is 28 feet. The bridge is usuallykept raised to a height of 16 feet above the level of the water in orderto allow boats to pass (Fig. 2). In this position it is balanced by fourcounterpoises suspended from the extremities of chains that pass overpulleys. These counterpoises are of cast iron, and weigh, altogether, 44, 000 pounds--the weight of the bridge to be balanced, say 11, 000pounds per counterpoise. Moreover, each of the four chains is prolongedbeneath the corresponding counterpoise by a chain of the same weight, called a compensating chain. 

The pulleys, B and C, that support the suspension chains haveprojections in their channels which engage with the links and thusprevent the chains from slipping. They are mounted at the extremity offour latticed girders that likewise carry girder pulleys, D. The pulleysthat are situated at the side of the bridge are provided laterallywith a conical toothing which gears with a pinion connected with themaneuvering apparatus. 

The two pinions of the same side of the bridge are keyed to alongitudinal shaft which is set in motion at one point of its length bya system of gearings. The winch upon which is exerted the stress thatis to effect the lifting or the descent of the bridge is fixed upon theshaft of the pinion of the said gearing, which is also provided with aflywheel, c. The longitudinal shafts are connected by a transverse one. E, which renders the two motions interdependent. This transverse shaftis provided with collars, against which bear stiff rods that give it theaspect of an elongated spindle, and that permit it to resist twistingstresses. 

The windlasses that lift the bridge are actuated by manual power. Twomen (or even one) suffice to do the maneuvering. 

This entire collection of pulleys and mechanism is established upon twobrick foot bridges between which the bridge moves. These arched bridgesoffer no obstruction to navigation. Moreover, they always allow freepassage to foot passengers, whatever be the position of the bridge. Theyare provided with four vertical apertures to the right of the suspensionchains, in order to allow of the passage of the latter. The girders thatsupport the pulleys rest at one extremity upon the upper part of thebridges, and at the other upon solid brick pillars with stone caps. 

Finally, in order to render the descent of the bridge easier, there areadded to it two water tanks that are filled from the station reservoirwhen the bridge is in its upper position, and that empty themselvesautomatically as soon as it reaches the level of the railroad tracks. 

A very simple system of fastening has been devised for keeping thebridge in a stationary position when raised. When it reaches the end ofits upward travel, four bolts engage with an aperture in the suspensionrod and prevent it from descending. These bolts are set in motion bytwo connecting rods carried by a longitudinal shaft and maneuvered by alever at the end of the windlass. 

At the lower part the bridge rests upon iron plates set into sills. Itis guided in its descent longitudinally by iron plates that have aninclination which is reproduced at the extremities of the bridgegirders, and transversely by two inclined angle irons into which fit theexternal 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, whichis much less than would have been that of a revolving bridge of the samespan. The maneuvering of the bridge is performed with the greatest easeand requires about two minutes. 

This system has been in operation at the market station of La Vilettesince the year 1868, and has required but insignificant repairs. Wethink the adoption of it might be recommended for all cases in which aslight difference between the level of a railroad and that of a watercourse would not permit of the establishment of a revolving bridge. --_LeGenie Civil_. 

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ST. PETERSBURG A SEAPORT. 

The Emperor and Empress of Russia, on Wednesday, May 27. 1885, thesecond anniversary of their coronation at Moscow, opened the MaritimeCanal, in the Bay of Cronstadt, the shallow upper extremity of the Gulfof Finland, by which great work the city of St. Petersburg is made aseaport as much as London. St. Petersburg, indeed, stands almost on thesea shore, at the very mouth of the Neva, though behind several lowislands which crowd the head of the Gulf; and though this is an inlandsea without saltness or tides, it is closed by ice in winter. Seventeenmiles to the west is the island of Cronstadt, a great fortress, withnaval dockyards and arsenals for the imperial fleet, and with a spaciousharbor for ships of commerce. The navigable entrance channel up theBay of Cronstadt to the mouth of the Neva lies under the south side ofCronstadt, and is commanded by its batteries. As the bay eastward has adepth not exceeding 12 ft. , and the depth of the Neva at its bar is but9 ft. , all large vessels have been obliged hitherto to discharge theircargoes at Cronstadt, to be there transferred to lighters and bargeswhich brought the goods up to the capital. "The delay and expense ofthis process, " says Mr. William Simpson, our special artist, "will beunderstood by stating that a cargo might be brought from England by asteamer in a week, but it would take three weeks at least to transportthe same cargo from Cronstadt to St. Petersburg. Of course, much of thistime was lost by custom house formalities. Sometimes it has taken evenlonger than is here stated, which made the delivery of goods at St. Petersburg a matter of great uncertainty, thus rendering time contractsalmost an impossibility. This state of things had continued from thetime of Peter the Great, and his great scheme had never been fullyrealized. The increase of commerce and shipping had long made this acrying evil; but even with all these difficulties, the trade here hasbeen rapidly growing. A scheme to bring the shipping direct to thecapital had thus become almost a necessity. As Manchester wishes tobring the ocean traffic to her doors without the intervention ofLiverpool, so St. Petersburg desired to have its steamers sailing up tothe city, delivering and loading their cargoes direct at the stores andwarehouses in her streets. If Glasgow had not improved the Clyde, andhad up to the present day to bring up all goods carried by her oceangoing steamers from Port Glasgow--a place constructed for that purposelast century, and which is twenty miles from Glasgow--she would havebeen handicapped exactly as St. Petersburg has been till now in thecommercial race. 

"For some years the subject was discussed at St. Petersburg, andmore than one scheme was proposed; at last the project of General N. Pooteeloff was adopted. According to this plan, a canal has been cutthrough the shallow bottom of the Gulf of Finland, all the way fromCronstadt to St. Petersburg. The line of this canal is from northwest tosoutheast; it may be said to run very nearly parallel to the coast lineon 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, wherethere are a number of islands, which have formed themselves, in thecourse 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 verylarge harbor, and capable of almost any amount of extension. It will bein connection with the whole railway system of Russia. One part of thescheme is that of a new canal, on the south side of the city, to connectthe maritime canal, as well as the new harbor, with the Neva, so thatthe 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 longerportion 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 isproposed to light with gas by a new self-acting process which has beenvery successful in other parts of the world; by this means the canalwill be navigable by night as well as by day. The original plan was tohave made the canal 20 feet deep, but this has been increased to 22feet. The Gulf of Finland gradually deepens toward Cronstadt, so thatthe dredging was less at the western end. This part was all done bydredgers, and the earth brought up was removed to a safe distance bymeans of steam hopper barges. The contract for this part of the workwas sublet to an American firm--Morris and Cummings, of New York. Theeastern 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 embankmentson each side. These embankments were formed by the output of thedredgers, and are all faced with granite bowlders brought from Finland;at their outer termination the work is of a more durable kind, thefacing is made of squared blocks of granite, so that it may stand theheavy surf which at times is raised by a west wind in the Gulf. Theseembankments, as already stated, extend over a space of nearly six miles, and represent a mass of work to which there is no counterpart in theSuez Canal; nor does the plan of the new Manchester Canal presentanything equivalent to it. The width of this canal also far exceeds anyof those notable undertakings. The open channel is, as stated above, 350ft. Wide; within the embankments the full depth of 22 ft. Extends to 280ft. , and the surface between the embankments is 700 ft. This is nearlytwice 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; theAmsterdam Canal is 78 ft. Wide. The new Manchester Canal is to be 100ft. Of full depth, and it boasts of this superiority over the great workof Lesseps. The figures given above will show how far short it comes ofthe dimensions of the St. Petersburg Canal. The Manchester Canal is tobe 24 ft. In depth; in that it has the advantage of 2 ft. More than theSt. 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 goingsteamers are rapidly increasing in size since the St. Petersburg Canalwas planned, and in a very few years the larger class of steamers mighthave to deliver their cargoes at Cronstadt, as before, if the waterwayto St. Petersburg be not adapted to their growing dimensions. 

[Illustration: THE ST. PETERSBURG AND CRONSTADT MARITIME CANAL, OPENEDBY THE EMPEROR OF RUSSIA, ON WEDNESDAY, MAY 27, 1885. ]

"The dredging between the embankments of the canal was done by animproved process, which may interest those connected with such works. Itmay be remembered that the Suez Canal was mostly made by dredging, andthat the dredgers had attached to them what the French called 'longcouloirs' or spouts, into which water was pumped, and by this means thestuff 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 toomuch for the long couloirs, hence some other plan had to be found. Theplan adopted was that invented by Mr. James Burt, and which had beenused with the greatest success on the New Amsterdam Canal. Instead ofthe 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 thickliquid. This, by means of a centrifugal pump, is propelled through thefloating pipes to any point required, where it can be deposited. Thecouloir can only run the output a comparatively short distance, whilethis system can send it a quarter of a mile, or even further, ifnecessary. 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 thefloating pipes lay on the water like a veritable sea-serpent, extendingto a long distance where the stuff had to be carried. At that point thepipe emerged from the water, and what looked very much like a vertebraor 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. Burtpointed out to me one part of the works where his pump had sent thestuff nearly half a mile away, and over undulating ground. This systemwill not suit all soils. Hard clay, for instance, will not mix with thewater; but where the matter brought up is soft and easily diluted, thisplan possesses many advantages, and its success here affords ampleevidence of its merits. 

"About five miles below St. Petersburg, a basin had been alreadyfinished, with landing quays, sheds, and offices; and there is anembankment connecting it with the railways of St. Petersburg, all readyfor ships to arrive. When the ships of all nations sail up to thecapital, then the ideas of Peter the Great, when he laid the foundationsof St. Petersburg, will be realized. St. Petersburg will be no longer aninland port. It will, with its ample harbor and numerous canals amongits streets, become the Venice of the North. Its era of commercialgreatness is now about to commence. The ceremony of letting the watersof 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 amillion and a half sterling, were begun in 1876, and have been carriedout 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 nationupon the accomplishment of this great and useful work of peace. It willcertainly benefit English trade. The value of British imports from thenorthern ports of Russia for the year 1883 was £13, 799, 033; Britishexports, £6, 459, 993; while from the southern ports of Russia our tradewas: British imports, £7, 177, 149; British exports, £1, 169, 890--making atotal British commerce with European Russia of £20, 976, 182 imports fromRussia and £7, 629, 883 exports to Russia. It cannot be to the interest ofnations which are such large customers of each other to go to warabout a few miles of Afguhan frontier. The London _Chamber of CommerceJournal_, ably edited by Mr. Kenric B. Murray, Secretary to the Chamber, has in its May number an article upon this subject well deserving ofperusal. It points out that in case of war most of the British exporttrade to Russia would go through Germany, and might possibly never againreturn under British control. In spite of Russian protective duties, this trade has been well maintained, even while the British importof Russian commodities, wheat, flax, hemp, tallow, and timber, wasdeclining 40 per cent. From 1883 to 1884. The St. Petersburg MaritimeCanal will evidently give much improved facilities to the direct exportof English goods to Russia. Without reference to our own manufactures, it should be observed that the Russian cotton mills, including those ofPoland, consume yearly 264 million pounds of cotton, most of which comesthrough England. The importation of English coal to Russia has affordeda noteworthy instance of the disadvantage hitherto occasioned by thewant of direct navigation to St. Petersburg; the freight of a ton ofcoal from Newcastle to Cronstadt was six shillings and sixpence, butfrom Cronstadt to St. Petersburg it cost two shillings more. It is oftensaid, in a tone of alarm and reproach, that Russia is very eager to getto the sea. The more Russia gets to the sea everywhere, the better itwill be for British trade with Russia; and friendly intercourse withan empire containing nearly a hundred millions of people is not to belightly rejected. --_Illustrated London News_. 

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THE NEW FRENCH DISPATCH BOAT MILAN. 

The Milan, a new dispatch boat, has recently been making trial trips atBrest. It was constructed at Saint Nazaire, by the "Societe des Atelierset Chantiers de la Loire, " and is the fastest man-of-war afloat. Ithas registered 17 knots with ordinary pressure, and with increaseof pressure can make 18 knots, but to attain such high speed a verypowerful engine is necessary. In fact, a vessel 303 ft. Long, 33 ft. Wide, and drawing 12 ft. Of water, requires an engine which can develop4, 000 H. P. 

[Illustration: THE NEW FRENCH DISPATCH BOAT MILAN. ]

The hull of the Milan is of steel, and is distinguished for its extremelightness. The vessel has two screws, actuated by four engines arrangedtwo by two on each shaft. 

The armament consists of five three inch cannons, eight revolvers, andfour tubes for throwing torpedoes. 

The Milan can carry 300 tons of coal, an insufficient quantity fora long cruise, but this vessel, which is a dispatch boat in everyacceptation of the word, was constructed for a definite purpose. Itis the first of a series of very rapid cruisers to be constructed inFrance, and yet many English packets can attain a speed at least equalto that of the Milan. We need war vessels which can attain twenty knots, to be master of the sea. --_L'Illustration_. 

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THE LAUNCHING AND DOCKING OF SHIPS SIDEWISE. 

The slips of the shipyards at Alt-Hofen (Hungary) belonging to theImperial and Royal Navigation Company of the Danube are so arranged thatthe vessels belonging to its fleet can be hauled up high and dry orbe launched sidewise. They comprise three distinct groups, which areadapted, according to needs, for the construction or repair of steamers, twenty of which can be put into the yard at a time. The operation, whichis facilitated by the current of the Danube, consists in receiving theships upon frames beneath the water and at the extremity of inclinedplanes running at right angles with them. After the ship has been madesecure by means of wedges, the frame is drawn up by chains thatwind round fixed windlasses. These apparatus are established upon ahorizontal surface 25. 5 feet above low-water mark so as to give thenecessary slope, and at which terminate the tracks. They may, moreover, be removed after the ships have been taken off, and be put down againfor launching. For 136 feet of their length the lower part of thesliding ways is permanent, and fixed first upon rubble masonry and thenupon the earth. 

Fig. 1 gives a general view of the arrangement. The eight sliding waysof the central part are usually reserved for the largest vessels. Thetwo 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. Atrack, FF, is laid parallel with the river, in order to facilitate, through lorries, the loading and unloading of the traction chains. Theselatter are ¾ inch in diameter, while those that pass around the hullsare 1 inch. 

The motive power is furnished by a 10 H. P. Steam engine, which serves atthe same time for actuating the machine tools employed in constructionor repairs. The shaft is situated at the head of the ways, and sets inmotion four double-gear windlasses of the type shown in Fig. 2. Theratio of the wheels is as 9 to 1. The speed at which the ships moveforward is from 10 to 13 feet per minute. Traction is effectedcontinuously and without shock. After the cables have been passed aroundthe hull, and fastened, they are attached to four pairs of blocks eachcomprising three pulleys. The lower one of these is carried by rollersthat run over a special track laid for this purpose on the inclinedplane. 

[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 behauled up on the ways; in the second it is being hauled up; and in thethird the frame has been removed and the boat is shoved up on framework, so that it can be examined and receive whatever repairs may benecessary. This arrangement, which is from plans by Mr. Murray Jackson, suffices to launch 16 or 18 new boats annually, and for the repairof sixty steamers and lighters. These latter are usually 180 feet inlength, 24 feet in width, and 8 feet in depth, and their displacement, when empty, is 120 tons. The dimensions of the largest steamers varybetween 205 and 244 feet in length, and 25 and 26 feet in width. Theyare 10 feet in depth, and, when empty, displace from 440 to 460 tons. The Austrian government has two monitors repaired from time to time inthe yards of the company. The short and wide forms of these impose aheavier load per running foot upon the ways than ordinary boats do, butnevertheless no difficulty has ever been experienced, either in haulingthem out or putting them back into the water. --_Le Genie Civil_. 

[Illustration: FIG. 2. --DETAILS OF WINDLASS. ]

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IMPROVED HIGH-SPEED ENGINE. 

This engine, exhibited at South Kensington by Fielding and Platt, ofGloucester, consists virtually of a universal joint connecting twoshafts whose axes form an obtuse angle of about 157 degrees. It has fourcylinders, two being mounted on a chair coupling on each shaft. The wordcylinder is used in a conventional sense only, since the cavities actingas such are circular, whose axes, instead of being straight lines, arearcs of circles struck from the center at which the axes of the shaftswould, if continued, intersect. The four pistons are carried uponthe gimbal ring, which connects, by means of pivots, the two chaircouplings. 

[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; DDthe low pressure; EEEE the four parts forming the gimbal ring, to whichare fixed in pairs the high and low pressure pistons, GG and FF; HHHHare 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 theshaft's rotation. The direction of rotation is shown by the arrow. InFig. 1 the lower high-pressure cylinder, C, is just about taking steam, the upper one just closing the exhaust; the low-pressure pistons are athalf stroke, that in sight exhausting, the opposite one, which cannot beseen in this view, taking steam. 

In Fig 2 the shaft has turned through one-eighth of a revolution; inFig. 3, a quarter turn; Fig. 4, three-eighths of a turn. Another eighthturn brings two parts into position represented by Fig. 1, except thesecond pair of cylinders now replace the first pair. The bearings, KL, support the two shafts and act as stationary valves, against which facesformed on the cylinders revolve; steam and exhaust ports are provided inthe faces of K and L, and two ports in the revolving faces, one to eachcylinder. The point at which steam is cut off is determined by thelength of the admission ports in K and L. The exhaust port is made ofsuch a length that steam may escape from the cylinders during the wholeof the return stroke of pistons. 

Fig. 5 shows the complete engine. It will be seen that the engine isentirely incased in a box frame, with, however, a lid for ready accessto the parts for examination, one great advantage being that the enginecan be worked with the cover removed, thus enabling any leakage past thepistons or valve faces to be at once detected. The casing also serves toretain 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 shaftbearings. 

Figs, 6 and 7 are an end elevation and plan of the same engine. There isnothing 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 agreat advantage in the event of reboring, etc. , being required in thecolonies or other countries where special tools are inaccessible. 

Figs. 11 and 12 are sections which explain themselves. --_The Engineer_. 

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THE NATIONAL TRANSIT CO'S PIPE LINES FOR THE TRANSPORTATION OF PETROLEUMTO THE SEABOARD. 

While Englishmen and Americans have been alike interested in the lateproject for forcing water by a pipe line over the mountainous regionlying between Suakim and Berber in the far-off Soudan, few men of eithernation have any proper conception of the vast expenditure of capital, natural and engineering difficulties overcome, and the bold andsuccessful enterprise which has brought into existence far greater pipelines in our own Atlantic States. We refer to the lines of the NationalTransit Company, which have for a purpose the economic transportation ofcrude 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, wemust go back to the discovery of petroleum in the existing oil regionsof Pennsylvania and adjacent States. Its presence as an oily scum on thesurface of ponds and streams had long been known, and among the Indiansthis "rock-oil" was highly appreciated as a vehicle for mixing their waxpaint, and for anointing their bodies; in later years it was gathered ina rude way by soaking it up in blankets, and sold at a high price formedicinal 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 artsand as a source of enormous national wealth was about 1854. In the yearnamed a certain Mr. George H. Bissell of New Orleans accidentally metwith a sample of the "Seneca Oil, " and being convinced that it had avalue far beyond that usually accorded it, associated himself withsome friends and leased for 99 years some of the best oil springs nearTitusville, Pa. This lease cost the company $5, 000, although only a fewyears before a cow had been considered a full equivalent in value forthe same land. The original prospectors began operations by diggingcollecting ditches, and then pumping off the oil which gathered upon thesurface of the water. But not long after this first crude attempt at oilgathering, the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Co. Was organized, with Prof. B. Silliman of Yale College as its president, and a more intelligent methodwas introduced into the development of the oil-producing formation. In1858, Col. Drake of New Haven was employed by the Pennsylvania Co. Tosink an artesian well; and, after considerable preparatory work, onAugust 28, 1859, the first oil vein was tapped at a depth of 69½ feetbelow the surface; the flow was at first 10 barrels per day, but in thefollowing 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 yearsfollowing 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 amultitude of adventurers were drawn by the "oil-craze" into this latewilderness, and the sinking of wells extended with unprecedentedrapidity over the region near Titusville and from there into moredistant fields. 

By June 1, 1862, 495 wells had been put down near Titusville, and thedaily output of oil was nearly 6, 000 barrels, selling at the wellsat from $4. 00 to $6. 00 per barrel. But the tapping of this vastsubterranean storehouse of oleaginous wealth continued, until theestimated annual production was swelled from 82, 000 barrels in 1859 to24, 385, 966 barrels in 1883; in the latter year 2, 949 wells were putdown, many of them, however, being simply dry holes. [1] The total outputof oil in the Pennsylvania regions, between 1859 and 1883, is estimatedat about 234, 800, 000 barrels--enough oil to fill a tank about 10, 000feet square, nearly two miles to a side, to a depth of over 13½ feet. 

[Footnote 1: The total number of wells in the Pennsylvania oil regionscannot be given. In the years 1876-1884, inclusive, 28, 619 wells weresunk; this is an average of 3, 179 per year. During the same period 2, 507dry 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. 00a barrel, the cost of transportation was an item hardly worthy ofconsideration, and railroad companies multiplied and waged a bitterwar with each other in their scramble after the traffic. But as theproduction increased with rapid strides, the market price of oil fellwith a corresponding rapidity, until the quotations for 1884 showfigures as low as 50 to 60 cents per barrel for the crude product at OilCity. 

In December, 1865, the freight charge per barrel for a carload of oilfrom Titusville to New York, and the return of the empty barrels, was $3. 50. [1] To this figure was added the cost of transportation bypipe-line from Pithole to Titusville, $1. 00; cost of barreling, 25cents; freight to Corry, Pa. , 80 cents; making the total cost of abarrel of crude oil in New York, $5. 55. In January, 1866, the barrelof oil in New York cost $10. 40, including in this figure, however, theGovernment 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 ofoil to New York was $7. 45. Steamboats charged $2. 00 per barrel from OilCity to Pittsburg, and the hauling from Oil Creek to Meadville cost$2. 25 per barrel. ]

The question of reducing these enormous transportation charges was firstbroached, apparently, in 1864, when a writer in the _North American_, of Philadelphia, outlined a scheme for laying a pipe-line down theAllegheny River to Pittsburg. This project was violently assailed byboth the transportation companies and the people of the oil region, who feared that its success would interfere with their then greatprosperity. But short pipe-lines, connecting the wells with storagetanks and shipping points, grew apace and prepared the way for the vastnetwork of the present day, which covers this region and throws out armsto the ocean and the lakes. 

Among the very first, if not the first, pipe lines laid was one put downbetween 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 anexaggerated idea of the pressure to be exercised, and at intervals of 50to 100 feet he set up air chambers 10 inches in diameter. The weak pointin this line, however, proved to be the joints; the pipes were of castiron, and the joint-leakage was so great that little, if any, oil everreached the end of the line, and the scheme was abandoned in despair. 

In connection with this question of oil transportation, a sketch of thevarious methods, other than pipelines, adopted in Pennsylvania may notbe out of place. We are mainly indebted to Mr. S. F. Peckham, in hisarticle on "Petroleum and its Products" in the U. S. Census Report of1880, for the information relating to tank-cars immediately following:

Originally the oil was carried in 40 and 42 gallon barrels, made of oakand hooped with iron; early in 1866, or possibly in 1865, tank-carswere introduced. These were at first ordinary flat-cars upon which wereplaced two wooden tanks, shaped like tubs, each holding about 2, 000gallons. 

On the rivers, bulk barges were also, after a time, introduced on theOhio and Allegheny; at first these were rude affairs, and often ofinadequate strength; but as now built they are 130 x 22 x 16 feet, intheir general dimensions, and divided into eight compartments, withwater-tight bulkheads; they hold about 2, 200 barrels. 

In 1871 iron-tank cars superseded those of wood, with tanks of varyingsizes, ranging from 3, 856 to 5, 000 gallons each. These tanks werecylinders, 24 feet 6 inches long, and 66 inches in diameter, and weighedabout 4, 500 lb. The heads are made of 5/46 in. Flange iron, the bottomof ½ in. , and the upper half of the shell of 3/16 in. Tank iron. 

In October, 1865, the Oil Transportation Co. Completed and tested apipe-line 32, 000 feet long; three pumps were used upon it, two atPithole and one at Little Pithole. July 1, 1876, the pipe-line ownersheld a meeting at Parkers to organize a pipe-line company to extend tothe 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 theynever reached the sea, stopping their line at Tamanend, Pa. The linesof the National Transit Co. , illustrated in our map, were completed in1880-81, and this company, to which the United Pipe Lines have alsobeen transferred, is said to have $15, 000, 000 invested in plant for thetransport of oil to tide water. 

The National Transit Co. Was organized under what was called thePennsylvania Co. Act, about four years ago, and succeeded to theproperties of the American Transit Co. , a corporation operating underthe laws of Pennsylvania. Since its organization the first named companyhas constructed and now owns the following systems:

The line from Olean, N. Y. , to Bayonne, N. J. , and to Brooklyn, N. Y. , ofwhich a full page profile is given, showing the various pumping stationsand the undulations over its route of about 300 miles. The Pennsylvanialine, 280 miles long, from Colegrove, Pa. , to Philadelphia. TheBaltimore line, 70 miles long, from Millway, Pa. , to Baltimore. TheCleveland 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 milesof 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 around total of 1, 330 miles, not including loops and shorter branches andthe immense network of the pipes in the oil regions proper. 

A general description of the longest line will practically suffice forall, as they differ only in diameter of pipe used and power of thepumping plant. As shown on the map and profile, this long line starts atOlean, near the southern boundary of New York State, and proceeds by theroute indicated to tide water at Bayonne, N. J. , and by a branch underthe North and East rivers and across the upper end of New York city tothe Long Island refineries. This last named pipe is of unusual strength, and passes through Central Park; few of the thousands who daily frequentthe latter spot being aware of the yellow stream of crude petroleum thatis constantly flowing beneath their feet. The following table gives thevarious pumping stations on this Olean New York line, and some datarelating 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 thirdsix-inch pipe runs between Wellsville and Cameron, and about half waybetween each of the other stations, "looped" around them. The pipe usedfor the transportation of oil is especially manufactured to withstandthe great strain to which it will be subjected, the most of it beingmade by the Chester Pipe and Tube Works, of Chester, Pa. , the AllisonManufacturing Co. , of Philadelphia and the Penna. Tube Works, ofPittsburg, Pa. It is a lap-welded, wrought-iron pipe of superiormaterial, and made with exceeding care and thoroughly tested at theworks. The pipe is made in lengths of 18 feet, and these pieces areconnected by threaded ends and extra strong sleeves. The pipe-thread andsleeves used on the ordinary steam and water pipe are not strong enoughfor the duty demanded of the oil-pipe. The socket for a 4-inch steamor water pipe is from 2½ to to 2¾ inches long, and is tapped with 8standard threads to the inch, straight or parallel to the axis of thepipe; with this straight tap only three or four threads come in contactwith the socket threads, or in any way assist in holding the pipestogether. In the oil-pipe, the pipe ends and sockets are cut on a taperof ¾ inch to 1 foot, for a 4-inch pipe, and the socket used is thickerthan the steam and water socket, is 3¾ inches long, and has entrance for1 5/8 inches of thread on each pipe end tapped with 9 standard threadsto the inch. In this taper socket you have iron to iron the whole lengthof the thread, and the joint is perfect and equal by test to the fullstrength of the pipe. Up to 1877 the largest pipe used on the oil lineswas 4-inch, with the usual steam thread, but the joints leaked under thepressure, 1, 200 pounds to the square inch being the maximum the 8-threadpipe 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, 500pounds pressure, while the average duty required is 1, 200 pounds; as theiron used in the manufacture of this line-pipe will average a tensiletest strain of 55, 000 pounds per square inch, the safety factor is thusabout one-sixth. 

[Illustration: PROFILE SHOWING NATIONAL TRANSIT CO. 'S PIPE-LINE, FROMOLEAN 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. Noexpansion joints or other special appliances of like nature are used onthe line as far as we can learn; the variations in temperature beingcompensated for, in exposed locations, by laying the pipe in longhorizontal curves. The usual depth below the surface is about 3 feet, though in some portions of the route the pipe lies for miles exposeddirectly upon the surface. As the oil pumped is crude oil, and this asit comes from the wells carries with it a considerable proportion ofbrine, freezing in the pipes is not to be apprehended. The oil, however, does thicken in very cold weather, and the temperature has aconsiderable influence on the delivery. 

A very ingenious patented device is used for cleaning out the pipes, andby it the delivery is said to have been increased in certain localities50 per cent. This is a stem about 2½ feet long, having at its front enda diaphragm made of wings which can fold on each other, and thus enableit to pass an obstruction it cannot remove; this machine carries a setof steel scrapers, somewhat like those used in cleaning boilers. Thedevice is put into the pipe, and propelled by the pressure transmittedfrom the pumps from one station to another; relays of men follow thescraper by the noise it makes as it goes through the pipe, one partytaking up the pursuit as the other is exhausted. They must never let itget out of their hearing, for if it stops unnoticed, its location canonly again be established by cutting the pipe. 

The pumping stations are substantial structures of brick, roofed withiron. The boiler house is removed some distance from the engine housefor greater safety from fire; the building, about 40 by 50 feet, contains from six to seven tubular boilers, each 5 by 14 feet, andcontaining 80 three-inch tubes. The pump house is a similar brickstructure about 40 by 60 feet, and contains the battery of pumpingengines to be described later. At each station are two iron tanks, 90feet in diameter and 30 feet high; into these tanks the oil is deliveredfrom the preceding station, and from them the oil is pumped into thetanks at the next station beyond. The pipe-system at each station issimple, and by means of the "loop-lines" before mentioned the oil can bepumped 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 ofthese pumps are, independent plungers with exterior packing, valve-boxessubdivided into separate small chambers capable of resisting very heavystrains, and leather-faced metallic valves with low lift and largesurfaces. 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 24hours, under a pressure equivalent to an elevation of 3, 500 feet. 

We have lately examined the latest pumping engine plant, and the largestyet built for this service, by the firm of H. R. Worthington; it is to beused at the Osborne Hollow Pumping Station. As patents are yet pendingon certain new features in this engine, we must defer a full descriptionof it for a later issue of our journal. 

The Pennsylvania line has a single 6-inch pipe 280 miles long, with sixpumping stations as shown in the map, and groups of shorter lines, witha loop extending from the main line to Milton, Pa. , a shipping point forloading on cars. At Millway, Pa. , a 5-inch pipe leaves the Pennsylvanialine and runs to Baltimore, a distance of 70 miles, and is operatedfrom the first named station alone, there being no intermediate pumpingstation. [1] The Cleveland pipe, 100 miles long, is 5 inches in diameter, and has upon it four pumping stations; it carries oil to the veryextensive refineries of the company at the terminal on Lake Erie. TheBuffalo line is 4 inches in diameter and 70 miles long; it has a pumpingstation at Four-Mile and at Ashford (omitted on the map). The Pittsburgline is 4 inches in diameter and 60 miles long; it has pumping stationsat 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 thelast named point. We regret that we have no profile on this 70 mile lineoperated by a single pumping plant. --_Ed. Engineering News_. ]

A very necessary and remarkably complete adjunct to the numerous pipelines of this company is an independent telegraph system extending toevery point on its widely diverging lines. The storage capacity of theNational Transit Co. 's system is placed at 1, 500, 000 barrels, andthis tankage is being constantly increased to meet the demands of theproducers. [1]

[Footnote 1: As showing the extent of the sea-coast transportation ofpetroleum, we should mention that the statistics for 1884 show a totalof crude equivalent exported from the United States in that year, equaling 16, 661, 086 barrels, of 51 gallons each. This is a daily averageof 42, 780 barrels. ]

The company is officially organized as follows: C. A. Griscom, President;Benjamin Brewster, Vice President; John Bushnell, Secretary; DanielO'Day, General Manager; J. H. Snow, General Superintendent. Mr. Snowwas the practical constructor of the entire system, and the generalperfection 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 thePennsylvania lines. 

The enterprise has been so far a great engineering success, and the oildelivery is stated on good authority to be within 2 per cent. Of thetheoretical capacity of the pipes. From a commercial standpoint, theultimate future of the undertaking will be determined by the lastingqualities of wrought iron pipe buried in the ground and subjected toenormous strain; time alone can determine this question. 

In preparing this article we are indebted for information to the firm ofH. R. Worthington, to General Manager O'Day, of the National TransitCo. , to the editor of the _Derrick_ of Oil City, Pa. , and to numerousengineering friends. --_Engineering News_. 

 * * * * *

THE FUEL OF THE FUTURE. 

By GEORGE WARDMAN. 

The practical application of natural gas, as an article of fuel, to thepurpose of manufacturing glass, iron, and steel, promises to work arevolution in the industrial interests of America--promises to work arevolution; for notwithstanding the fact that, in many of the largestiron, steel, and glass factories in Pittsburg and its vicinity, naturalgas has already been substituted for coal, the managers of some suchworks are shy of the new fuel, mainly for two reasons: 1. They doubtthe continuity and regularity of its supply. 2. They do not deem thedifference between the price of natural gas and coal sufficient as yetto justify the expenditure involved in the furnace changes necessary tothe substitution of the one for the other. These two objections willdoubtless disappear with additional experience in the production andregulation of the gas supply, and with enlarged competition among thecompanies engaging in its transmission from the wells to the works. At present the use of natural gas as a substitute for coal in themanufacture of glass, iron, and steel is in its infancy. 

Natural gas is as ancient as the universe. It was known to man inprehistoric times, we must suppose, for the very earliest historicalreference to the Magi of Asia records them as worshiping the eternalfires which then blazed, and still blaze, in the fissures of themountain heights overlooking the Caspian Sea. Those records appertainto a period at least 600 years before the birth of Christ; but the Magimust have lived and worshiped long anterior to that time. 

Zoroaster, reputed founder of the Parsee sect, is placed contemporarywith the prophet Daniel, from 2, 500 to 600 B. C. ; and, although Danielhas been doubted, and Zoroaster may never have seen the light, thefissures of the Caucasus have been flaming since the earliest authenticrecords. 

The Parsees (Persians) did not originally worship fire. They believedin two great powers--the Spirit of Light, or Good, and the Spirit ofDarkness, or Evil. Subsequent to Zoroaster, when the Persian empire roseto its greatest power and importance, overspreading the west to theshores of the Caspian and beyond, the tribes of the Caucasus sufferedpolitical subjugation; but the creed of the Magi, founded upon theeternal flame-altars of the mountains, proved sufficiently vigorous totransform the Parseeism of the conquerors to the fire worship of theconquered. 

About the beginning of the seventh century of the Christian era, theGrecian Emperor Heraclius overturned the fire altars of the Magi atBaku, the chief city on the Caspian, but the fire worshipers were notexpelled from the Caucasus until the Mohammedans subjugated the PersianEmpire, when they were driven into the Rangoon, on the Irrawaddy, inIndia, one of the most noted petroleum producing districts of the world. 

Petroleum and natural gas are so intimately related that one wouldhardly dare to say whether the gas proceeds from petroleum or thepetroleum is deposited from the gas. It is, however, safe to assume thatthey are the products of one material, the lighter element separatingfrom the heavier under certain degrees of temperature and pressure. Thus petroleum may separate from the gas as asphaltum separates frompetroleum. But some speculative minds consider natural gas to be aproduct of anthracite coal. The fact that the great supply-field ofnatural gas in Western Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia, andEastern Ohio is a bituminous and not an anthracite region does not ofitself confute that theory, as the argument for it is, that the gas maybe tapped at a remote distance from the source of supply; and, whereasanthracite is not a gas-coal, while bituminous is, we are told tosuppose that the gas which once may have been a component part of theanthracite was long ago expelled by Nature, and has since been held invast reservoirs with slight waste, awaiting the use of man. That is onetheory; and upon that supposition it is suggested that anthracitemay exist below the bituminous beds of the region lying between theAlleghany Mountains and the Great Lakes. Another theory is, that naturalgas is a product of the sea-weed deposited in the Devonian stratum. But, leaving modern theories on the origin of natural gas and petroleum, wemay suppose the natural gas jets now burning in the fissures of theCaucasus to have started up in flames about the time when, accordingto the Old Testament, Noah descended from Mount Ararat, or very soonthereafter. In the language of modern science it would be safe to saythat those flames sprang up when the Caucasus range was raised frombeneath the surface of the universal sea. The believer in biblicalchronology may say that those fires have been burning for four thousandyears--the geologist may say for four millions. 

We know that Alexander the Great penetrated to the Caspian; and inPlutarch we read: "Hence [Arbela] he marched through the provinceBabylon [Media?], which immediately submitted to him, and in Ecbatana[?] was much surprised at the sight of the place where fire issues in acontinuous 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 soabundantly as to form a large lake. This naphtha, in other respectsresembling bitumen, is so subject to take fire that, before it touchesthe flame, it will kindle at the very light that surrounds it, and ofteninflames the intermediate air also. The barbarians, to show the powerand nature of it, sprinkled the street that led to the king's lodgingswith little drops of it, and, when it was almost night, stood at thefarther 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 streetwas one continued flame. Among those who used to wait upon the king, andfind occasion to amuse him, when he anointed and washed himself, therewas one Athenophanus, an Athenian, who desired him to make an experimentof the naphtha upon Stephanus, who stood by in the bathing place, ayouth 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 mustundeniably be allowed to be of the most invincible strength. ' The youth, as it happened, readily consented to undergo the trial, and as soon ashe was anointed and rubbed with it, his whole body was broke out intosuch a flame, and was so seized by the fire, that Alexander was in thegreatest perplexity and alarm for him, and not without reason; fornothing could have prevented him from being consumed by it if, by goodchance, there had not been people at hand with a great many vessels ofwater for the service of the bath, with all which they had much ado toextinguish the fire; and his body was so burned all over that he wasnot cured of it a good while after. And thus it was not without someplausibility that they endeavor to reconcile the fable to truth, who saythis was the drug in the tragedies with which Medea anointed the crownand veils which she gave to Creon's daughter. "

An interesting reference to the fire-worshipers of the Caucasus iscontained in the "History of Zobeide, " a tale of the wonderful ArabianNights Entertainment. It runs thus:

"I bought a ship at Balsora, and freighted it; my sisters chose to gowith me, and we set sail with a fair wind. Some weeks after, we castanchor in a harbor which presented itself, with intent to water theship. As I was tired with having been so long on board, I landed withthe first boat, and walked up into the country. I soon came in sight ofa great town. When I arrived there, I was much surprised to see vastnumbers of people in different postures, but all immovable. Themerchants were in their shops, the soldiery on guard; every one seemedengaged in his proper avocation, yet all were become as stone.... Iheard the voice of a man reading Al Koran.... Being curious to know whyhe was the only living creature in the town, ... He proceeded to tellme that the city was the metropolis of a kingdom now governed by hisfather; that the former king and all his subjects were Magi, worshipersof fire and of Nardoun. The ancient king of the giants who rebelledagainst God. 'Though I was born, ' continued he, 'of idolatrous parents, it was my good fortune to have a woman governess who was a strictobserver of the Mohammedan religion. She taught me Arabic from Al Koran;by her I was instructed in the true religion, which I would neverafterward renounce. About three years ago a thundering voice was hearddistinctly throughout the city, saying, "Inhabitants, abandon theworship of Nardoun and of fire, and worship the only true God, whoshoweth mercy!" This voice was heard three years successively, but noone regarded it. At the end of the last year all the inhabitants were inan instant turned to stone. I alone was preserved. '"

In the foregoing tale we doubtless have reference to the destructionof Baku, on the Caspian (though to sail from Balsora to Baku isimpossible), and the driving away into India, by the Arabs under CaliphOmar, of all who refused to renounce fire-worship and adopt the creedof the Koran. The turning of the refractory inhabitants into stone isprobably the Arabian storyteller's figurative manner of referring to thefinding of dead bodies in a mummified condition. 

It is known that the Egyptians made use of bitumen, in some form, inthe preservation of their dead, a fact with which the Arabians werefamiliar. As the Magi held the four elements of earth, air, fire, andwater to be sacred, they feared to either bury, burn, sink, or exposeto air the corrupting bodies of their deceased. Therefore, it was theirpractice to envelop the corpse in a coating of wax or bitumen, so asto hermetically seal it from immediate contact with either of the foursacred elements. Hence the idea of all the bodies of the Magi left atBaku being turned to stone, while only the true believer in Mohammedremained in the flesh. 

Marco Polo, the famous traveler of the thirteenth century, makesreference to the burning jets of the Caucasus, and those fires are knownto the Russians as continuing in existence since the army of Peter theGreat wrested the regions about the Caspian from the modern Persians. The record of those flaming jets of natural gas is thus brought down inan 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 ofpetroleum 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 findthe following curious entries:

"We stayed in Grenoble till August 1st, and one day rode out, and, aftertwice fording the river Drac (which makes a great wash) at a league'sdistance, 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 largevillage called Vif, and about a league thence by S. Bathomew, anothervillage, and Chasteau Bernard, where we saw a flame breaking out of theside of a bank, which is vulgarly called La Fountaine qui Brule; itis by a small rivulet, and sometimes breaks out in other places; justbefore our coming some other strangers had fried eggs here. The soilhereabouts is full of a black stone, like our coal, which, perhaps, isthe continual fuel of the fire.... Near Peroul, about a league fromMontpelier, we saw a boiling fountain (as they call it), that is, thewater did heave up and bubble as if it boiled. This phenomenon in thewater was caused by a vapor ascending out of the earth through thewater, as was manifest, for if that one did but dig anywhere near theplace, and pour water upon the place new digged, one should observe init the like bubbling, the vapor arising not only in that place where thefountain was, but all thereabout; the like vapor ascending out of theearth and causing such ebullition in water it passes through hath beenobserved 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 notthis vapor at Peroul would in like manner catch fire and burn I cannotsay, 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 afountain of petroleum. It burns like oil, is of a pungent scent, and ablackish color. It distills out of several places of the rock all theyear long, but most in the summer time. They gather it up with ladlesand put it in a barrel set on end, which hath a spigot just at thebottom. When they have put in a good quantity, they open the spigot tolet 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, thatpetroleum was the very same with oil of jet, and not to be distinguishedfrom it by color, taste, smell, consistency, virtues, or any otheraccident, as he had by experience found upon the coast of theMediterranean Sea, in several places, as at Berre, near Martague, inProvence; at Messina, in Sicily, etc. "

In Harris' "Voyages, " published in 1764, an article on the empire ofPersia 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 thereis an oil extracted from it which is applied to several uses. The mostfamous springs of naphtha are in the neighborhood of Baku, which furnishvast quantities, and there are also upward of thirty springs aboutShamasky, both in the province of Schirwan. The Persians use it as oilfor their lamps and in making fireworks, of which they are extremelyfond, and in which they are great proficients. "

Petroleum has long been known to exist also in the northern part ofItaly, the cities of Parma and Genoa having been for many years lightedwith it. 

In the province of Szechuen, China, natural gas is obtained from beds ofrock-salt at a depth of fifteen to sixteen hundred feet. Being broughtto the surface, it is conveyed in bamboo tubes and used for lighting aswell as for evaporating water in the manufacture of salt. It is assertedthat the Chinese used this natural gas for illuminating purposeslong before gas-lighting was known to the Europeans. Remembering theunprogressive character of Chinese arts and industries, there is groundfor the belief that they may have been using this natural gas as anilluminant these hundreds of years. 

In the United States the existence of petroleum was known to the PilgrimFathers, who doubtless obtained their first information of it from theIndians, from whom, in New York and western Pennsylvania, it was calledSeneka 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 ofpetroleum, but we learn that an important gas spring was known in WestBloomfleld, N. Y. , seventy years ago. In 1864 a well was sunk to a depthof three hundred feet upon that vein, from which a sufficient supplyof gas was obtained to illuminate and heat the city of Rochester(twenty-five miles distant), it was supposed. But the pipes which werelaid for that purpose, being of wood, were unfitted to withstand thepressure, in consequence of which the scheme was abandoned; but gas fromthat well is now in use as an illuminant and as fuel both in the town ofWest Bloomfield and at Honeoye Falls. The village of Fredonia, N. Y. , hasbeen using natural gas in lighting the streets for thirty years or thereabout. On Big Sewickley Creek, in Westmoreland County, Pa. , natural gaswas used for evaporating water in the manufacture of salt thirty yearsago, and gas is still issuing at the same place. Natural gas has been inuse in several localities in eastern Ohio for twenty-five years, and thewells are flowing as vigorously as when first known. It has also beenin use in West Virginia for a quarter of a century, as well as inthe petroleum region of western Pennsylvania, where it has long beenutilized 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 fourhundred feet in depth; one of them affords a very strong and puresalt water, but not in great quantity; the other discharges such vastquantities of petroleum, or, as it is vulgarly called, 'Seneka oil, ' andbesides is so subject to such tremendous explosions of gas, as to forceout all the water and afford nothing but gas for several days, that theymake little or no salt. "

The value of the foregoing references is to be found in the testimonythey offer as to the duration of the supply of natural gas. Whether welook to the eternal flaming fissures of the Caucasus, or to New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, there is much to encourage the belief that theflow of natural gas may be, like the production of petroleum, increasedrather than diminished by the draughts made upon it. Petroleum, insteadof diminishing in quantity by the millions of barrels drawn from westernPennsylvania in the last quarter of a century, seems to increase, greater wells being known in 1884 than in any previous year, and priceshaving fallen from two dollars per bottle for "Seneka oil" to sixtycents 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 ofnatural gas available for use in the great manufacturing district ofPittsburg and vicinity will be increased, and the price of this fueldiminished in a corresponding ratio. 

Natural gas is now supplied in Pittsburg at a small discount onthe actual cost of coal used last year in the large manufacturingestablishments, an additional saving being made in dispensing withfiremen and avoidance of hauling ashes from the boiler-room. It issupplied, for domestic purposes, at twenty cents per thousand cubicfeet, which is not cheaper than coal in Pittsburg, but it is a thousandper cent cleaner, and in that respect it promises to prove a greatblessing, not only to those who can afford to use it, but to thecommunity at large, in the hope held out that the smoke and sootnuisance may be abated in part, if not wholly subdued, and that gleamsof sunshine there may become less phenomenal in the future than they areat the present time. Twenty cents per thousand feet is too high a priceto bring gas into general use for domestic purposes in a city wherecoal is cheap. Ten cents would be too much, and no doubt five cents perthousand would pay a profit. The fact is, the dealers in natural gasappear to be somewhat doubtful of the continuity of supply, andanxious to get back the cost of wells and pipes in one year, which, ifsuccessful, would be an enormous return on the investment. 

There are objections to the use of natural gas by mill operators--thatit 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 fromthe pipes, may fill a room and be ready to explode without giving thefragrant warning offered by common gas. Both of these objections willprobably disappear under the experience that time must furnish. Morewells and tributary lines will lessen the cost and tend to regulate thepressure for manufacturers. Cut-offs and escape pipes outside of thehouse will reduce the risk of explosions within. The danger in thehouse may also be lessened by providing healthful ventilation in allapartments wherein gas shall be consumed. 

This subject of, the ventilation of rooms in which common gas isordinarily used is beginning to attract attention. It is stated, uponscientific authority, that a jet of common gas, equivalent to twelvesperm candles, consumes 5. 45 cubic feet of oxygen per hour, producing3. 21 feet of carbonic acid gas, vitiating, according to Dr. Tidy's"Handbook of Chemistry, " 348. 25 cubic feet of air. In every five cubicfeet of pure air in a room there is one cubic foot of oxygen and fourof nitrogen. Without oxygen human life, as well as light, would becomeextinct. It is asserted that one common gas-jet consumes as much oxygenas five persons. 

Carbonic acid gas is the element which, in deep mines and vaults, causesalmost instant insensibility and suffocation to persons subjected to itsinfluences, and instantly extinguishes the flame of any light loweredinto it. The normal quantity of this gas contained in the air we breatheis 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 itis contained in air expelled from the lungs. According to Dr. Tidy'stable, each ordinary jet of common gas contributes to the air of a roomsixteen by ten feet on the sides and nine feet high, containing 1, 440cubic feet of air, twenty-two per cent, of carbonic acid gas, which, continued for twenty-four hours without ventilation, would reach thefatal four per cent. 

Prof. Huxley gives, as a result of chemical analyses, the followingtable of ratio of carbonic-acid gas in the atmosphere at the pointsnamed:

 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 acidby the use of common gas, the gas itself, owing to defectiveness of theburner, is projected into the air. Now, considering the deleteriousnature of all illuminating gases, the reasons for perfect ventilation ofrooms in which natural gas is used for heating and culinary purposes areself-evident, not alone as a protection against explosions, but for thehealth of the occupants of the house, remembering that a larger supplyof oxygen is said to be necessary for the perfect combustion of naturalthan of common gas. 

Carbonic oxide, formed by the consumption of carbon, with aninsufficient 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 thequantity of carbonic acid and the greater the amount of carbonic oxide. That is to say, at the time of ignition the chief product of combustionis carbonic oxide, and, unless sufficient air be added to convert theoxide to carbonic acid, a decidedly dangerous product is given off intothe room. Yet, by means of a flue to carry off the poisonous gases fromburning jets, the combustion of gas, creating a current, is made an aidto ventilation. Unfortunately, this important fact, if commonly known, is not much heeded by heads of families or builders of houses. But inany large community where gas comes into general use as an article offuel, this fact will gradually become recognized and respected. 

The property of indicating the presence of very minute quantities of gasin a room is claimed for an instrument recently described by C. Von Jahnin the _Revue Industrielle_. This is a porous cup, inverted and closedby a perforated rubber stopper. Through the perforation in the stopperthe interior of the cup is connected with a pressure gauge containingcolored water. It is claimed that the diffusion of gas through theearthenware raises the level of the water in the gauge so delicatelythat the presence of one-half of one per cent, of gas may be detected byit. Other instruments of a slightly different character are credited bytheir inventors with most sensitive power of indicating gas-leakages, but their practical efficiency remains to be demonstrated. An automaticcut-off for use outside of houses in which natural gas is consumed hasbeen invented, but this writer knows nothing of either its mode ofaction or its effectiveness. 

The great economic question, however, connected with the use of naturalgas is, how will it affect the industrial interests of the country?There are grounds for the belief that a sufficient supply of natural gasmay be found in the vicinity of Pittsburg to reduce the cost of fuel tosuch 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 ofthe question. Such a condition of affairs would probably result indriving the great manufacturing concerns of the country into the regionwhere natural gas is to obtained. That may be anywhere from the westernslope of the Alleghanies to Lake Erie or to Lake Michigan. And, if thecost of producing iron, steel, and glass can be so cheapened by the newfuel, the tariff question may undergo some important modification inpolitics. For, if the reduction in the cost of fuel should ever becomean offset to the lower rate of wages in Europe, the manufacturers ofPennsylvania, who have long been the chief support of the protectivepolicy of the country, may lose their present interest in that question, and leave the tariff to shift for itself elsewhere. It should beremembered that natural gas is not, as yet, much cheaper than coalin Pittsburg. But it may safely be assumed that it will cheapen, aspetroleum has done, by a development of the territory in which it isknown 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 mayultimately become an essential part of the "plant" of a mill or factory. Even now coal cannot compete with gas in the manufacture of windowglass, for, the gas being free from sulphur and other impuritiescontained in coal, produces a superior quality of glass; so that in thisbranch of industry the question of superiority seems already settled. 

Having said thus much of an industry now in its infancy but promisinggreat growth, I submit tables of analyses of common and of the naturalor marsh gas, the latter from a paper recently prepared by a committeeof the Engineers' Society of Western Pennsylvania, and for the use ofwhich 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 5-5/8inch pipe and one line of eight inch pipe. A line of ten inch pipe isalso being laid. The pressure of the gas at the wells is from 150 to 230pounds to the square inch. As the wells are on one side eighteen and onthe other about twenty-five miles distant, and as the consumption isvariable, the pressure at the city cannot be given. Greater pressuremight be obtained at the wells, but this would increase the liabilityto leakage and bursting of pipes. For the prevention of such casualtiessafety valves are provided at the wells, permitting the escape of allsuperfluous gas. The enormous force of this gas may be appreciated froma comparison of, say, 200 pounds pressure at the wells with a two ouncepressure of common gas for ordinary lighting. The amount of natural gasnow furnished for use in Pittsburg is supposed to be something like25, 000, 000 cubic feet per day; the ten inch pipe now laying is estimatedto increase the supply to 40, 000, 000 feet. The amount of manufacturedgas used for lighting the same city probably falls below 3, 000, 000 feet. 

About fifty mills and factories of various kinds in Pittsburg now usenatural gas. It is used for domestic purposes in two hundred houses. Its superiority over coal in the manufacture of window glass isunquestioned. That it is not used in all the glass houses of Pittsburgis due to the fact that its advantages were not fully known when thefurnaces were fired last summer, and it costs a large sum to permit thefurnaces to cool off after being heated for melting. When the fires cooldown, and before they are started up again, the furnaces now usingcoal will doubtless all be changed so as to admit natural gas. Thesuperiority of French over American glass is said to be due to the factthat the French use wood and the Americans coal in their furnaces, woodbeing free from sulphur, phosphorus, etc. The substitution of gas forcoal, while not increasing the cost, improves the quality of Americanglass, making it as nearly perfect as possible. 

While the gas is not used as yet in any smelting furnace nor in theBessemer converters, it is preferred in open hearth and crucible steelfurnaces, and is said to be vastly superior to coal for puddling. Thecharge of a puddling furnace, consisting of 500 pounds of pig-metal andeighty pounds of "fix, " produces with coal fuel 490 to 500 pounds ofiron. With gas for fuel, it is claimed that the same charge will yield520 to 530 pounds of iron. In an iron mill of thirty furnaces, runningeight heats each for twenty-four hours, this would make a difference infavor 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 withcoal and hauling ashes. 

For generating steam in large establishments, one man will attenda battery of twelve or twenty boilers, using gas as fuel, keep thepressure uniform, and have the fire room clean as a parlor. For burningbrick and earthenware, gas offers the double advantage of freedom fromsmoke and a uniform heat. The use of gas in public bakeries promises theabolition 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 tothose 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 tothe consumption of crude coal in factories, but, if necessary, convertit or petroleum into gas at their own works. 

It seems, indeed, that until we shall have acquired the wisdom enablingus to conserve and concentrate the heat of the sun, gas must be the fuelof 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. Fouqué, "Comptes Rendus, " lxvii, p. 1045. 2. H. Wurtz, "Am. Jour. Arts and Sci. " (2), xlix, p. 336. 3. Robert Young. 4. Fouqué, "Comptes Rendus, " lxvii. P. 1045. 5. Fouqué, "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. Fouqué, "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 insteam-boilers. Moreover, it acts as a strong grinding material on allmoving parts. 

For some years I have tested the applicability of artificialprecipitates to close the holes in boilers, cylinder-covers, andstuffing boxes. I took, generally with the best success, alternatelayers of hemp-cotton, thread, and absorbent paper, all well saturatedwith the chlorides of calcium and magnesium. The next layers of the samefiber are moistened with silicate of soda. By pressure the fluids aremixed and the pores are closed. A stuffing box filled with this mixturehas worked three years without grinding the piston-rod. 

In the same manner I close the screw-thread hole in gas tubes used forconducting steam. I moisten the thread in the sockets with oleic acidfrom 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 oleicacid. 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 themperfectly. 

After a year in use the tubes can be unscrewed with ease, and the screwthreads are perfectly smooth. 

With this kind of packing only one exception must be made--that is, itis only tight under pressure; condensation or vacuum must be thoroughlyavoided. --_Chem. News_. 

 * * * * *

LUMINOUS PAINT. 

In answer to various inquiries concerning the manufacture of thisarticle, we give herewith the process of William Henry Balmain, theoriginal discoverer of luminous paint, and also other processes. Theseparticulars are derived from the letters patent granted in this countryto the parties named. 

Balmain's invention was patented in England in 1877, and in this countryin 1882. It is styled as Improvements in Painting, Varnishing, andWhitewashing, of which the following is a specification:

The said invention consists in a luminous paint, the body of which is aphosphorescent compound, or is composed in part of such a compound, andthe vehicle of which is such as is used as the vehicle in ordinary paintcompounds, viz. , one which becomes dry by evaporation or oxidation. 

The objector article to which such paint or varnish or wash is appliedis itself rendered visible in the darkest place, and more or lesscapable of imparting light to other objects, so as to render themvisible also. The phosphorescent substance found most suitable for thepurpose is a compound obtained by simply heating together a mixtureof lime and sulphur, or carbonate of lime and sulphur, or some of thevarious substances containing in themselves both lime and sulphur--such, for example, as alabaster, gypsum, and the like--with carbon or otheragent to remove a portion of the oxygen contained in them, or by heatinglime 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 dryby evaporation or oxidation, in order that the paint may not become softor fluid by heat or be liable to be easily rubbed off by accident or usefrom the articles to which it has been applied. It may be any of thevehicles commonly used in oil-painting or any of those commonly used inwhat is known as "distemper" painting or whitewashing, according to theplace or purpose in or for which the paint is to be used. 

It is found the best results are obtained by mixing the phosphorescentsubstance with a colorless varnish made with mastic or other resinousbody and turpentine or spirit, making the paint as thick as convenientto apply with a brush, and with as much turpentine or spirit as canbe 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 beingvaried 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 uponthe circumstances of the case. For example, it may be applied by abrush, as in ordinary painting, or by dipping or steeping the articlein the paint, varnish, or wash; or a block or type may be used toadvantage, as in calico-printing and the like. For outdoor work, orwherever the surface illuminated is exposed to the vicissitudes ofweather or to injury from mechanical contingencies, it is desirable tocover it with glass, or, if the article will admit of it, to glaze itover with a flux, as in enameling, or as in ordinary pottery, and thismay be accomplished without injury to the effect, even when the flux orglaze 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 watchfaces and other indicators--such, for example, as compasses and thescales of barometers or thermometers--during the night or in dark placesduring the night time. In applying the invention to these and otherlike purposes there may be used either phosphorescent grounds withdark figures or dark grounds and phosphorescent figures or letters, preferring the former. In like manner there may be produced figures andletters for use on house-doors and ends of streets, wherever it is notconvenient or economical to have external source of light, signposts, and signals, and names or marks to show entries to avenues or gates, andthe like. 

The invention is also applicable to the illumination of railwaycarriages by painting with phosphorescent paint a portion of theinterior, thus obviating the necessity for the expense and inconvenienceof the use of lamps in passing through tunnels. It may also be appliedexternally as warning-lights at the front and end of trains passingthrough tunnels, and in other similar cases, also to ordinary carriages, either internally or externally. As a night-light in a bed-room or in aroom habitually dark, the application has been found quite effectual, avery small proportion of the surface rendered phosphorescent affordingsufficient light for moving about the room, or for fixing upon andselecting an article in the midst of a number of complicated scientificinstruments or other objects. 

The invention may also be applied to private and public buildings incases where it would be economical and advantageous to maintain for ashort time a waning or twilight, so as to obviate the necessity forlighting earlier the gas or other artificial light. It may also beused in powder-mills and stores of powder, and in other cases wherecombustion or heat would be a constant source of danger, and generallyfor all purposes of artificial light where it is applicable. 

In order to produce and maintain the phosphorescent light, full sunshineis not necessary, but, on the contrary, is undesirable. The illuminationis best started by leaving the article or surface exposed for a shorttime to ordinary daylight or even artificial light, which need not bestrong in order to make the illumination continue for many hours, eventwenty hours, without, the necessity of renewed exposure. 

The advantages of the invention consist in obtaining for the purposes ofdaily life a light which is maintained at no cost whatever, is free fromthe defects and contingent dangers arising from combustion or heat, andcan be applied in many cases where all other sources of light would beinconvenient 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 acidsand salts and mineral substances, and same have been inclosed andexhibited in closely-stopped bottles as a phosphorus; but such union Ido not claim; but what I claim is:

A luminous paint, the body of which is a phosphorescent substance, orcomposed in part of such substance, the vehicle of which is such as isordinarily used in paints, viz. , one which will become dry by oxidationor evaporation, substantially as herein described. 

A. Krause, of Buffalo, N. Y. , obtained a patent for improvement inphosphorescent substances dated December 30, 1879. The patentee says:This invention relates to a substance which, by exposure to direct orindirect sun-light, or to artificial light, is so affected or broughtinto such a peculiar condition that it will emit rays of light or becomeluminous in the dark. 

It is a well-known fact that various bodies and compositions of matter, more especially compositions containing sulphur in combination withearthy salts, possess the property of emitting rays of light in thedark after having been exposed to sun-light. All of these bodies andcompositions of matter are, however, not well adapted for practicalpurposes, because the light emitted by them is either too feeble to beof any practicable utility, or because the luminous condition is notof sufficient duration, or because the substances are decomposed byexposure to the atmosphere. 

Among the materials which have been employed with the best resultsfor producing these luminous compositions are sea-shells, especiallyoyster-shells. I have found by practical experiments that only the innersurface of these shells is of considerable value in the productionof luminous compositions, while the body of the shell, althoughsubstantially of the same chemical composition, does not, to anyappreciable extent, aid in producing the desired result. It follows fromthis observation that the smallest shells, which contain the largestsurface as compared with their cubic contents, will be best adapted forthis purpose. 

I have found that chalk, which is composed of the shells of microscopicanimals, possesses the desired property in the highest degree; and myinvention consists, therefore, of a luminous substance composed of suchchalk, sulphur, and bismuth, as will be hereinafter fully set forth. 

In preparing my improved composition I take cleaned or precipitatedchalk, and subject it to the process of calcination in a suitablecrucible 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 itsweight of sulphur, and heat the mixture for from forty-five to ninetyminutes, or thereabout. A small quantity of bismuth, in the proportionof about one per cent, or less of the mixture, is added together withthe sulphur. 

The metal may be introduced in the metallic form in the shape offillings, or in the form of a carbonate, sulphuret, sulphate, orsulphide, or oxide, as may be most convenient. 

The substance produced in this manner possesses the property of emittinglight in the dark in a very high degree. An exposure to light of veryshort duration, sometimes but for a moment, will cause the substanceto become luminous and to remain in this luminous condition, underfavorable circumstances, for upward of twenty-four hours. 

The intensity of the light emitted by this composition after exposure isconsiderable, and largely greater than the light produced by any of thesubstances heretofore known. 

The hereinbefore described substance may be ground with oil and usedlike ordinary paint; or it may be ground with any suitable varnish or bemixed in the manner of water colors; or it may be employed in any othersuitable and well-known manner in which paints are employed. 

My improved luminous substance is adapted for a great variety ofuses--for instance, for painting business and other signs, guide boards, clock and watch dials, for making the numbers on houses and railwaycars, and for painting all surfaces which are exposed periodically todirect or indirect light and desired to be easily seen during the night. 

When applied with oil or varnish, my improved luminous substance canbe exposed to the weather in the same manner as ordinary paint withoutsuffering any diminution of its luminous property. I claim as myinvention the herein described luminous substance, consisting ofcalcined chalk, sulphur, and bismuth, substantially as set forth. 

Merrill B. Sherwood, Jr. , of Buffalo, N. Y. , obtained a patent for aphosphorescent composition, dated August 9, 1881. 

The author says: My invention relates to an improvement inphosphorescent illuminants. 

I have taken advantage of the peculiar property which obtains in manybodies of absorbing light during the day and emitting it during thenight time. 

The object of my invention is the preparation by a prescribed formula, to be hereinafter given, of a composition embodying one of thewell-known phosphorescent substances above referred to, which will beapplicable to many practical uses. 

With this end in view my invention consists in a phosphorescentcomposition in which the chief illuminating element is monosulphide ofcalcium. 

The composition obtained by the formula may be used either in a powderedcondition by dusting it over articles previously coated, in whole or inpart, with an adhesive substance, or it may be intimately mixed withpaints, inks, or varnishes, serving as vehicles for its application, andin this way be applied to bodies to render them luminous. 

The formula for obtaining the composition is as follows: To one hundredparts of unslaked lime, that obtained from calcined oyster shellsproducing the best results, add five parts of carbonate of magnesia andfive parts of ground silex. Introduce these elements into a graphite orfire-clay crucible containing forty parts of sulphur and twenty-fiveparts 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 orsufficiently lowered in temperature to be conveniently handled, remove it from the crucible and grind it. The method of reducing thecomposition will depend upon the mode of its use. If it is to be appliedas a loose powder by the dusting process, it should be simply grounddry; 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 theelements 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 thecharcoal does not unite with the other elements, such uncombined portionshould be removed from the fused mass before it is ground. 

If it is designed to mix the composition with paints, those composed ofzinc-white and baryta should be chosen in preference to those composedof white lead and colored by vegetable matter, as chemical action willtake place between the composition and paint last mentioned, andits color will be destroyed or changed by the gradual action of thesulphureted hydrogen produced. However, by the addition of a weaksolution of gum in alcohol or other suitable sizing to the composition, it may be used with paints containing elements sensitive to sulphuretedhydrogen without danger of decomposing them and destroying their color. 

In many, and possibly in a majority of cases, the illuminatingcomposition applied as a dry powder will give the most satisfactoryresults, in view of the tendency to chemical action between the paintand composition when intimately mixed; in view of the fact that bythe addition to paint of any color of a sufficient quantity of thecomposition to render the product luminous, the original color of thepaint will be modified or destroyed; and, also, in view of the fact thatthe illuminating composition is so greatly in excess of the paint, theproportions in which they are united being substantially ten partsof the former to one of the latter, it will be difficult to impart aparticular color to the product of the union without detracting fromits luminosity. On the other hand, the union of dry powder with a bodyalready painted by the simple force of adhesion does not establisha sufficiently intimate relation between it and the paint to causechemical action, the application of a light coat of powder does notmaterially change the color of the article to which it is applied; and, further, by the use of the powder in an uncombined state its greatestilluminating effects are obtained. Again, if the appearance in thedaytime of the article which it is desired to have appear luminous atnight is not material, it may be left unpainted and simply sized toretain the powder. 

In printing it is probable that the composition will be employed almostexclusively in the form of dry powder, as printing-ink, normally pasty, becomes too thick to be well handled when it is combined with powder insufficient quantity to render the printed surface luminous. However, theprinted surface of a freshly printed sheet may be rendered luminous bydusting the sheet with powder, which will adhere to all of the inked andmay be easily shaken from the unmoistened surfaces thereof. 

I am aware that monosulphide of calcium and magnesia have beforebeen used together in phosphorescent compounds. What I claim is aphosphorescent composition consisting of monosulphide of calcium, combined with carbonate of lime, magnesia, and silex, substantially asdescribed. 

Orlando Thowless, of Newark, N. J. , obtained a patent for a process ofmanufacturing phosphorescent substances dated November 8, 1881. The inventor says: The object of my invention is to manufacturephosphorescent materials of intense luminosity at low cost and littleloss of materials. 

I first take clam shells and, after cleaning, place them in a solutioncomposed of about one part of commercial nitric acid and three parts ofwater, 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 andplaced, while still red-hot, in a saturated solution of sea salt, fromwhich they are immediately removed and dried. After this treatment andexposure to light the shells will have a blood-red luminous appearancein the dark. The shells thus prepared are used with sulphur andthe phosphide and sulphide of calcium to produce a phosphorescentcomposition, as follows: One hundred parts, by weight, of the shells, prepared as above, are intimately mixed with twenty parts, by weight, ofsulphur. This mixture is placed in a crucible or retort and heated to awhite heat for four or five hours, when it is to be removed and fortyparts more of sulphur, one and one-half parts of calcium phosphide, andone-half part of chemically pure sulphide of calcium added. The mixtureis then heated for about ninety minutes to an extreme white heat. Whencold, and after exposure to light, this mixture will become luminous. Instead of these two ignitions, the same object may be in a measureaccomplished by the addition of the full amount of sulphur with thephosphide and sulphide of calcium and raising it to a white heat butonce. The calcium phosphide is prepared by igniting phosphorus inconnection 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 willabsorb the salt to as great an extent as possible. Where calcined shellsare mixed with solid salt, the absorbing power of the shells is greatlydiminished by the necessary exposure, and there will be a lack ofuniformity in the saturation. On the contrary, by plunging the red-hotshells in the saline solution the greatest uniformity is attained. 

Instead of using clam shells as the base of my improved composition, Imay use other forms of sea shells--such as oyster shells, etc. 

I claim as new:

1. The herein described process of manufacturing phosphorescentmaterials, which consists in heating sea shells red-hot, treating themwhile heated with a bath of brine, then, after removal from the bath, mixing sulphur and phosphide and sulphide of calcium therewith, andfinally subjecting the mixture to a white heat, substantially as and forthe purpose described. 

2. The described process, which consists in placing clean and red-hotclam 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 ForestryExhibition, 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 grainedwood, having all the characteristics of boxwood, and for which it wouldform an efficient substitute, cannot be overestimated; and if sucha discovery should be one of the results of the present ForestryExhibition, one of its aims will have been fulfilled. 

For several years past the gradual diminution in the supplies ofboxwood, and the deterioration in its quality, have occupied theattention of hardwood merchants, of engravers, and of scientific men. 

Of merchants, because of the difficulties in obtaining supplies to meetthe ever increasing demand; of engravers, because of the higher pricesasked for the wood, and the difficulty of securing wood of good size andfirm texture, so that the artistic excellence of the engraving might bemaintained; and of the man of science, who was specially interestedin the preservation of the indigenous boxwood forests, and in theutilization of other woods, natives, it might be, of far distantcountries, whose adaptation would open not only a new source of revenue, but would also be the means of relieving the strain upon existingboxwood forests. 

While by far the most important use of boxwood is for engravingpurposes, it must be borne in mind that the wood is also applied tonumerous other uses, such, for instance, as weaving shuttles, formathematical instruments, turnery purposes, carving, and for variousornamental articles, as well as for inlaying in cabinet work. Thequestion, therefore, of finding suitable substitutes for boxwood dividesitself 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 purposesis unsuited for engraving, and can only therefore be used by the turneror cabinet maker. Nevertheless, the application of woods other than boxfor purposes for which that wood is now used would tend to lessen thedemand 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 futuresupplies of box. In the _Gardeners' Chronicle_ for September 25, of thatyear, page 398, it is said that the boxwood forests of Mingrelia in theCaucasian range were almost exhausted. Old forests, long abandoned, wereeven then explored in search of trees that might have escaped the noticeof former proprietors, and wood that was rejected by them was, in 1875, eagerly purchased at high prices for England. The export of wood was atthat time prohibited from Abhasia and all the government forests inthe Caucasus. A report, dated at about the same period from Trebizond, points out that the Porte had prohibited the cutting of boxwood in thecrown forests. (_Gardeners' Chronicle_, Aug. 19, 1876, p. 239. ) Lateron, the British Consul at Tiflis says: "_Bona fide_ Caucasian boxwoodmay be said to be commercially non-existent, almost every marketabletree having been exported. " (_Gardeners' Chronicle_, Dec. 6, 1879, p. 726. )

The characters of boxwood are so marked and so distinct from those ofmost other woods that some extracts from a report of Messrs. J. Gardner& Sons, of London and Liverpool, addressed to the Inspector-General ofForests 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 ofdirecting attention to this very important matter, and by pointingout the characters that make boxwood so valuable, may be the means ofdirecting observation to the detection of similar characters in otherwoods. Messrs. Gardner say:

"The most suitable texture of wood will be found growing upon the sidesof mountains. If grown in the plains the growth is usually too quick, and consequently the grain is too coarse, the wood of best texture beingof slow growth, and very fine in the grain. 

"It should be cut down in the winter, and, if possible, stored at oncein airy wooden sheds well protected from sun and rain, and not to havetoo much air through the sides of the sheds, more especially for thewood under four inches diameter. 

"The boxwood also must not be piled upon the ground, but be well skiddedunder, so as to be kept quite free from the effects of any damp from thesoil. 

"After the trees are cut down, the longer they are exposed the moredanger is there afterward of the wood splitting more than is absolutelynecessary during the necessary seasoning before shipment to thiscountry. 

"If shipped green, there is great danger of the wood sweating andbecoming mildewed during transit, which causes the wood afterward to drylight and of a defective color, and in fact rendering it of little valuefor commercial purposes. 

"There is no occasion to strip the bark off or to put cowdung oranything 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 wellas ivory, becomes scarcer. It is now used very considerably inmanufacturing concerns, but on account of its gradual advance in priceduring the past few years, cheaper woods are in some instances beingsubstituted. 

"Small wood under four inches is used principally by flax spinners forrollers, and by turners for various purposes, rollers for rink skates, etc. , etc. , and if free from splits, is of equal value with the largerwood. It is imported here as small as one a half inches in diameter, butthe most useful sizes are from 2½ to 3½ inches, and would therefore, we suppose, be from fifteen to thirty or forty years in growing, whilelarger wood would require fifty years and upward at least, perhaps weought to say one hundred years and upward. It is used principally forshuttles, for weaving silk, linen, and cotton, and also for rule makingand wood engraving. _Punch, The Illustrated London News, The Graphic_, and all the first class pictorial papers use large quantities ofboxwood. "

In 1880, Messrs. Churchill and Sim reported favorably on someconsignments of Indian boxwood, concluding with the remarks that if thewood could be regularly placed on the market at a moderate figure, therewas no reason why a trade should not be developed in it. Notwithstandingthese prospects, which seemed promising in 1877 and 1880, little ornothing has been accually done up to the present time in bringing Indianboxwood into general use, in consequence, as Mr. Gamble shows, ofthe cost of transit through India. The necessity, therefore, of thediscovery of some wood akin to box is even more important now than everit was. 

BOXWOOD SUBSTITUTES. 

First among the substitutes that have been proposed to replace boxwoodmay be mentioned an invention of Mr. Edward Badoureau, referred to inthe _Gardeners' Chronicle_, March 23, 1878, p. 374, under the title ofartificial boxwood. It is stated to consist of some soft wood which hasbeen subject to heavy pressure. It is stated that some English engravershave given their opinion on this prepared wood as follows:

It has not the power of resistance of boxwood, so that it would beimposible to make use of it, except in the shape of an electro obtainedfrom it, as it is too soft to sustain the pressure of a machine, andwould be easily worn out. In reply to these opinions, Mr. Badoureauwrote: "My wood resists the wear and tear of the press as well asboxwood, and I can show engravings of English and French artists whichhave been obtained direct from the wood, and are as perfect as they arepossible 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 anopinion of the qualities of compressed wood as a substitute for boxwood, as the inventor of the new process he considered that it possessesnumerous advantages both for artistic and industrial purposes. " Inshort, he says, "My wood is to other wood what steel is to iron. "

The following woods are those which have, from time to time, beenproposed or experimented upon as substitutes for boxwood, for engravingpurposes. They are arranged according to their scientific classificationin the natural orders to which they belong:

_Natural Order Pittosporeæ_. 

1. _Pittosporum undulatum_. Vent. --A tree growing in favorablesituations to a height of forty or even sixty feet, and is a native ofNew 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, ofKing'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 usedfor posters, and I have no doubt that it would answer for the rollersof mangles and wringing machines. " Mr. W. G. Smith, in a report in the_Gardeners' Chronicle_ for July 26, 1873, p. 1017, on some foreign woodswhich I submitted to him for trial, says that the wood of _Pittosporumundulatum_ is suitable only for bold outlines; compared with box, it issoft and tough, and requires more force to cut than box. The toughnessof the wood causes the tools to drag back, so that great care isrequired in cutting to prevent the lines clipping. The average diameterof the wood is from 18 to 30 inches. 

2. _Pittosporum bicolor_, Hook. --A closely allied species, sometimesforty feet high, native of New South Wales and Tasmania. This wood isstated to be decidedly superior to the last named. 

3. _Bursaria spinosa_, Cav. --A tree about forty feet high, native ofNorth, South, and West Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania, in which island it is known as boxwood. It has beenreported upon as being equal to common or inferior box, and withfurther trials might be found suitable for common subjects; it has thedisadvantage, however, of blunting the edges and points of the tools. 

_Natural Order Meliaceæ_. 

4. _Swietenia mahagoni_, L. (mahogany). --A large timber tree ofHonduras, Cuba, Central America, and Mexico. It is one of the mostvaluable of furniture woods, but for engraving purposes it is but oflittle value, nevertheless it has been used for large, coarse subjects. Spanish mahogany is the kind which has been so used. 

_Natural Order Ilicineæ_. 

_Ilex opaca_, L. (North American holly). --It is a widely diffused tree, the wood of which is said to closely resemble English holly, being whitein color, and hard, with a fine grain, so that it is used for agreat number of purposes by turners, engineers, cabinet makers, andphilosophical instrument makers. For engraving purposes it is not equalto the dog-wood of America (_Cornus florida_); it yields, however, morereadily to the graver's tools. 

_Natural Order Celastrineæ_. 

6. _Elæodendron australe_, Vent. --A tree twenty to twenty-five feethigh, native of Queensland and New South Wales. The wood is used in thecolony for turning and cabinet work, and Mr. W. G. Smith reports that forengraving 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. Attentionwas 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, thefollowing extract of a letter from Mr. W. M. Cooper, Her Majesty's Consulat Ningpo, is given: "The wood in universal use for book blocks, woodengravings, seals, etc. , is that of the pear tree, of which largequantities are grown in Shantung, and Shan-se, especially. Pai'cha issometimes used as an indifferent substitute. Pai'cha is a very finewhite wood of fine fiber, without apparent grains, and cuts easily; iswell suited for carved frames, cabinets, caskets, etc. , for which largequantities are manufactured here for export. The tree itself resemblessomewhat the _Stillingia_, but has a rougher bark, larger and thinnerleaves, which are serrated at the edge, more delicate twigs, and isdeciduous. " In 1879, a block of this wood was received at the KewMuseum, from Mr. Cooper, a specimen of which was submitted to Mr. RobsonJ. Scott, of Whitefriars Street, to whom I am much indebted for reportson various occasions, and upon this wood Mr. Scott reported as follows:"The most striking quality I have observed in this wood is its capacityfor retaining water, and the facility with which it surrenders it. Thissection (one prepared and sent to the Kew Museum), which representsone-tenth of the original piece, weighed 3 lb. 4½ ounces. At the end oftwenty one days it had lost 1 lb. 6¾ ounces in an unheated chamber. Atthe end of another fourteen days, in a much elevated temperature, itonly lost ¼ ounce. In its present state of reduced bulk its weight is 1lb. 10 ounces. It is not at all likely to supersede box, but it may befit 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: "Ilike the wood very much, and prefer it to box in some instances; it isfreer to work, and consequently quicker, and its being uniform in colorand quality is a great advantage; we often have great difficulty inbox in having to work from a hard piece into a soft. I think it a veryuseful wood, especially for solid bold work. I question if you could getso extreme a fine black line as on box, but am sure there would be alarge demand for it at a moderate price. " Referring to this letter, Mr. Scott remarks that the writer does not intend it to be understood thatpai'cha is qualified to supersede box, but for inferior subjects forwhich coarse brittle box is used. Mr. Scott further says that of thewoods he has tried he prefers pear and hawthorn to pai'cha. 

_Natural Order Sapindaceæ_. 

8. _Acer saccharinum_, L. (sugar or bird's eye maple). --A North Americantree, forming extensive forests in Canada, New Brunswick, and NovaScotia. The wood is well known as a cabinet or furniture wood. It hasbeen tried for engraving, but it does not seem to have attracted muchnotice. Mr. Scott says it is sufficiently good, so far as the grain isconcerned. From this it would seem not to promise favorably. 

_Natural Order Leguminoseæ. Sub-order Papilionaceæ_. 

9. _Brya ebenus_, [Delta]. DC. --A small tree of Jamaica, where the woodis known as green ebony, and is used for making various small articles. It is imported into this country under the name of cocus wood, andis used with us for making flutes and other wind instruments. Mr. Worthington Smith considers that the wood equals bad box for engravingpurposes. 

_Natural Order Rosaceæ_. 

10. _Pyrus communis_, L. (common pear). --A tree averaging from 20 to 40feet high. Found in a wild state, and very extensively cultivated as afruit tree. The wood is of a light brown color, and somewhat resembleslimewood in grain. It is, however, harder and tougher. It is considereda good wood for carving, because it can be cut with or across the grainwith equal facility. It stands well when well seasoned, and is used forengraved blocks for calico printers, paper stainers, and for variousother purposes. Pear-wood has been tried for engraving purposes, butwith no great success. Mr. Scott's opinion of its relative value isreferred to under pai'cha wood _(Euonymus sieboldianus)_. 

11. _Amelanchier canadensis_. L. (shade tree or service tree ofAmerica). --A shrub or small tree found throughout Canada, Newfoundland, and Virginia. Of this wood, Porcher says, in his "Resources of theSouthern Fields and Forests": "Upon examining with a sharp instrumentthe specimens of various southern woods deposited in the museum of theElliott Society, ... I was struck with the singular weight, density, andfineness of this wood. I think I can confidently recommend it as one ofthe best to be experimented upon by the wood engraver. "

12. _Cratoegus oxyacantha_, L. (hawthorn). --A well-known shrub or smalltree in forests and hedges in this country. The wood is very dense andclose grained. Of this wood, Mr. Scott reports that it is by far thebest wood after box that he has had the opportunity of testing. 

_Natural Order Myrtaceæ_. 

13. _Eugenia procera_, Poir. --A tree 20 to 30 feet high, native ofJamaica, Antigua, Martinique, and Santa Cruz. A badly seasoned sampleof this wood was submitted to Mr. R. H. Keene, who reported that "it issuited for bold, solid newspaper work. "

_Natural Order Cornaceæ_. 

14. _Cornus florida_, L. (North American dogwood). --A deciduous tree, about 30 feet high, common in the woods in various parts of NorthAmerica. The wood is hard, heavy, and very fine grained. It is used inAmerica for making the handles of light tools, as mallets, plane stocks, harrow teeth, cogwheels, etc. It has also been used in America forengraving. 

In a letter from Prof. Sargent, Director of the Arnold Arboretum, Brookline, Massachusetts, quoted in the Kew Report for 1882, p. 35, hesays: "I have been now, for a long time, examining our native woodsin the hope of finding something to take the place of boxwood forengraving, but so far I am sorry to say with no very brilliant success. The best work here is entirely done from boxwood, and some _Cornusflorida_ is used for less expensive engraving. This wood answers fairlywell for coarse work, but it is a difficult wood to manage, splitting, or rather 'checking, ' very badly in drying. " This, however, he states ina later letter, "can be overcome by sawing the logs through the centeras 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 Ericaceæ_. 

15. _Rhododendron maximum_, L. (mountain laurel of North America). --Ofthis wood it is stated in Porcher's "Resources of the Southern Fieldsand Forests, " p. 419, that upon the authority of a well-known engraverat Nashville, Tennessee, the wood is equaled only by the best boxwood. This species of _Rhododendron_ "abounds on every mountain from Mason andDixon's line to North Georgia that has a rocky branch. " Specimens ofthis wood submitted to Mr. Scott were so badly selected and seasonedthat it was almost impossible to give it a trial. In consideration ofits hardness and apparent good qualities, further experiments should bemade with it. 

16. _Rhododendron californicum_. --Likewise a North American species, thewood of which is similar to the last named. Specimens were sent to Kewby Professor Sargent for report in 1882, but were so badly seasoned thatno satisfactory opinion could be obtained regarding it. 

17. _Kalmia latifolia_, L. (calico bush or ivy bush of NorthAmerica). --The wood is hard and dense, and is much used in America formechanical purposes. It has been recommended as a substitute for boxwoodfor engraving, and trials should, therefore, be made with it. 

_Natural Order Epacrideæ_. 

18. _Monotoca elliptica_, R. Br. --A tall shrub or tree 20 or 30 feethigh, native of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania. The wood has been experimented upon in this country, and though to allappearances it is an excellent wood, yet Mr. Worthington Smith reportedupon it as having a bad surface, and readily breaking away so that thecuts require much retouching after engraving. 

_Natural Order Ebenaceæ_. 

19. _Diospyros texana_. --A North American tree, of the wood of whichProfessor Sargent speaks favorably. "It is, however, " he says, "inTexas, at least, rather small, scarcely six inches in diameter, and notvery common. In northern Mexico it is said to grow much larger, andcould probably be obtained with some trouble in sufficient quantitiesto become an article of commerce. " Of this wood Mr. Scott says: "It issufficiently good as regards the grain, but the specimen sent fortrial was much too small for practical purposes. " Mr. R. H. Keene, theengraver, says it "is nearly equal to the best box. "

20. _Diospyros virginiana_, L. (the persimmon of America). --A good-sizedtree, widely diffused, and common in some districts. The wood is of avery dark color, hard, and of a fairly close grain. It has been used inAmerica for engraving, but so far as I am aware has not been triedin this country. It has, however, been lately introduced for makingshuttles. 

21. _Dyospyros ebenum_, Koenig (ebony). --A wood so well known as toneed no description. It has been tried for engraving by Mr. WorthingtonSmith, who considers it nearly as good as box. 

_Natural Order Apocyneæ_. 

22. _Hunteria zeylanica_, Gard. --A small tree, common in the warmerparts of Ceylon. This is a very hard and compact wood, and is used forengraving purposes in Ceylon, where it is said, by residents, to comenearer to box than any other wood known. On this wood Mr. WorthingtonSmith gave a very favorable opinion, but it is doubtful whether it wouldever be brought from Ceylon in sufficient quantities to meet a demand. 

_Natural Order Bignoniaceæ_. 

23. _Tecoma pentaphylla_, Dl. --A moderate-sized tree, native of the WestIndies and Brazil. The wood is compact, very fine, and even grained, andmuch resembles box in general appearance. Blocks for engraving have beenprepared from it by Mr. R. J. Scott, who reported upon it as follows: "Itis the only likely successor to box that I have yet seen, but it is notembraced as a deliverer should be, but its time may not be far off. "

_Natural Order Corylaceæ_. 

24. _Carpinus betulus_, L. (hornbeam). --A tree from 20 to 70 feet high, with a trunk sometimes 10 feet in girth, indigenous in the southerncounties of England. The wood is very tough, heavy, and close grained. It is largely used in France for handles for agricultural and miningimplements, and of late years has been much used in this country forlasts. The wood of large growth is apt to became shaky, and it isconsequently not used as a building wood. It is said to have been usedas a substitute for box in engraving, but with what success does notappear. 

25. _Ostrya virginica_, Willd (ironwood, or American hornbeam). --Amoderate-sized tree, widely spread over North America. The wood islight-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. , andhas been suggested as a substitute for boxwood for engraving, though noactual trials, so far as I am aware, have been made with it. 

Besides the foregoing list of woods, there are others that have beenoccasionally used for posters and the coarser kinds of engraving, such, for instance, as lime, sycamore, yew, beech, and even pine; and inAmerica, _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 theengraver's hands, some which promised best, so far as their textureor grain is concerned, have been tried upon very imperfect or badlyseasoned samples. 

The subject is one of so much importance, as was pointed out at thecommencement of this paper, that a thoroughly organized series ofexperiments should be undertaken upon carefully seasoned and properlyprepared woods, not only of those mentioned in the preceding list, butalso of any others that may suggest themselves, as being suitable, Itmust, 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. WorthingtonSmith, he remarks in his report that any of them would be useful forsome classes of work, if they could be imported, prepared, and sold fora farthing, or less than a halfpenny, per square inch. 

Specimens of all the woods here enumerated are contained in the KewMuseum. 

 * * * * *

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, whenexamined more closely, was seen to represent two children caressinga dog. Since then we have had occasion to publish some landscapes ofKircher and his imitators, which, looked at sideways, exhibited humanprofiles. This sort of amusement has exercised the skill of artists ofall times, and engravings, and even paintings, of double aspect are verynumerous. Chance has recently put into our hands a very curious work ofthis kind, which is due to a skillful artist named Gaillot. It is analbum of quite ancient lithographs, which was published at Berlin bySenefelder. The author, under the title of "Arts and Trades, " has drawnsome very amusing faces that are formed through the tools and objectsused in the profession represented. We reproduce a few specimens ofthese essentially original compositions of Gaillot. The green grocer isformed of a melon for the head, of an artichoke and its stem for theforehead and nose, of a pannier for the bust, etc. The hunter is made upof a gun, of a powder horn, and of a hunting horn, etc. ; and so on forthe other professions. This is an amusing exercise in drawing that wehave thought worthy of reproducing. Any one who is skillful with hispencil might exercise himself in imagining other compositions of thesame 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 thanhandy-craft. I begin by saying "handy-craft, " for that is the form ofthe word now in vogue, that which we are wonted to see in print and hearin speech; but I like rather the old form, "hand-craft, " which was usedby our sires so long ago as the Anglo-Saxon days. Both words mean thesame 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 knowvery well, for people choose nowadays such Latin words as "technicalability, " "manual labor, " "industrial pursuits, " "dexterity, ""professional artisanship, " "manufacture, " "decorative art, " and"technological occupations, " not one of which is half as good as theplain, old, strong term "hand-craft. "

An aid to hand-craft is rede-craft--the power to read, to reason, and tothink; 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 menhave done; we get our book learning, we are made heirs to thoughts thatbreathe 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 worthyof all ages and all places; we learn, as says the peasant poet ofScotland, "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 themnot foes (as some would), but friends. They are brothers, partners, consorts, who can work together, as right hand and left hand, as scienceand art, as theory and practice. Rede-craft may call for books andhand-craft for tools, but it is by the help of both books and tools thatmankind moves on. Indeed, we shall not err wide of the mark if we saythat a book is a tool, for it is the instrument which we make use of incertain cases when we wish to find out what other men have thought anddone. 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 afirst-rate farm with that which is pictured on ancient stones long hidin Egypt--ages old. See how the idea of the plow has grown, and bear inmind that its graceful curves, it fitness for a special soil, or fora special crop, its labor-saving shape, came not by chance, but bythought. Indeed, a plow is made up from the thoughts and toils ofgenerations of plowmen. Look at a Collins ax; it is also the recordof man's thought. Lay it side by side with the hatchet of Uncas orMiantonomoh, or with an ax of the age of bronze, and think how manyminds have worked on the head and on the helve, how much skill has beenspent in getting the metal, in making it hard, in shaping the edge, infixing the weight, in forming the handle. From simple tools, turn tocomplex; to the printing press, the sewing machine, the locomotive, the telegraph, the ocean steamer; all are full of ideas. All are theoffspring of hand-craft and rede craft, of skill and thought, ofpractice put on record, of science and art. 

Now, the welfare of each one of us, the welfare of our land, the welfareof our race, rests on this union. You may almost take the measure of aman's brain, if you can find out what he sees with his eyes and what hedoes with hands; you may judge of a country, or of a city, if you knowwhat 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. " Attimes, hand-craft becomes rede-craft, for when the eye is blind the handtakes its place, and the finger learns to read, running over the printedpage to find out what is written, as quickly as the eye. 

In these days, there are too many who look down on hand-craft. Theythink only of the tasks of a drudge or a char-boy. They do not know thepleasure there is in working, and especially in making. They have neverlearned to guide the fingers by the brain. They like to hear, or see, orown, or eat, what others have made, but they do not like to put theirown hands to work. If you doubt what I say, put a notice in the paperasking for a clerk, and you will have a, hundred answers for every onethat will come when you ask for a workman. So it comes to pass thatyoung men grow up whose hands have not been trained to any kind ofskill; 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 walksof 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 handnow has but little to do, and that little is always the same, so thatlabor becomes tiresome and the workman dull. Machines can be made to cutstatuary, to weave beautiful tapestry, to fashion needles, to grindout music, to make long calculations; alas! the machine has alsobeen brought into politics. Of course, a land cannot thrive withoutmachinery; it is that mechanical giant, the steam engine, which carriesthe corn, the cotton, and the sugar from our rich valleys to the hungryof 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 fromhis path. A true artist and a true artisan are one. Hand-craft, thepower to shape, to curve, to beautify, to create, gives pleasure anddignity to labor. 

In other times and in other lands, hand-craft has had more honor than ithas had with us. Let me give some examples. Not long ago, I went to oneof the shrines of education, the Sorbonne in Paris. Two paintings adornthe chapel walls, not of saints or martyrs, nor of apostles orprophets, 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 monthsago, an American, scanning, with his practiced eye, the galleries of theLouvre, recognized a fragment of the work of Phidias, long separatedfrom the Parthenon frieze which Lord Elgin sent to London. Thesculptor's touch could not be mistaken. It was as truly his own as hissignature, his autograph. Ruskin, in a lecture on the relation of Art toMorals, calls attention to a note which Durer made on some drawings senthim by Raphael: "These figures Raphael drew and sent to Albert Durerin Nurnberg, to show him his hand, '_sein hand zu weisen_. "' Ruskincompares this phrase with other contests of hand-craft, Apelles andProtogenes showing their skill by drawing a line; Giotto in striking acircle. 

In the household of the Kings of Prussia, there is a custom, if nota 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 bea glazier, the Crown Prince a compositor, and on the Emperor's birthdaynot long ago his majesty received an engraving by Prince Henry and a, book bound by Prince Waldemar, two younger sons of the Crown Prince. Letme refer to sacred writ; the prophet Isaiah, telling of the golden dayswhich are to come, when the voice of weeping shall be no more heard inthe land, nor the voice of crying, when the child shall die an hundredyears old, and men shall eat of the fruit of the vineyards they haveplanted, adds this striking promise, as the culm of all hope, that theelect 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 haveto deal with the young, we all who love our fellow-men, we all whodesire 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 theyoung get "hand-craft" while they are getting "rede-craft. " How can thisbe done?

Mothers begin right in the nursery, teaching little fingers to playbefore the tongue can lisp a sentence. Alas! this natural training hasoften been stopped at school. Hitherto, until quite lately, in schoolsboth low and high, rede-craft has had the place of honor, hand-craft hashad no chance. But a change is coming. In the highest of all schools, universities, for example, work rooms, labor places, "laboratories, " arenow thought to be as useful as book rooms, reading rooms, libraries. 

What mean those buildings which you have seen spring up within a fewyears past in all the college greens of New England? They are librariesand laboratories. They show that rede-craft and hand-craft are alikeheld in honor, and that a liberal education means skill in getting andskill in using knowledge; that knowledge comes from searching books andsearching nature; that the brain and the hand are in close league. Sotoo, in the lowest school, as far as possible from the university, thekindergarten has won its place and the blocks, and straws, and bands, the chalk, the clay, the scissors, are in use to make young fingersdeft. Between the highest and the lowest schools there is a like callfor hand-craft. Seeing this need, the authorities in our public schoolshave begun to project special schools for such training, and are lookingfor guidance far and near. At this intermediate stage, for boy and girlswho are between the age of the kindergarten and the age of the collegeor the shop, for youth between eight and sixteen, there is much to bedone; people are hardly aware how much is needed to secure fit trainingfor the rising generation. 

It seems sometimes as if one of the most needed forms of hand-craftwould become a lost art, even good handwriting. We cannot give muchcredit to schools if they send out many who are skilled in algebra, orin Latin, but who cannot write a page of English so that it can be readwithout effort. 

Drawing is another kind of hand-craft, quite too much neglected. I thinkit should be laid down as a law of the road to knowledge, that everybodymust learn to draw as well as to write. The pencil maybe mastered justas readily as the pen. It is a simpler tool. The child draws beforehe writes, and savages begin their language with pictures; but, wewiseacres of this age of books let our young folks drop their slatepencils and their Fabers, and practice with their Gillotts and theirEsterbrooks. Let us say, in every school and in every house, the childmust not only learn to read and write, he must learn to draw. We cannotafford to let our young folks grow up without this power. A new Frenchbook is just now much talked about, with this droll title, "The Lifeof 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. Iturned to the book, eager to find out the key to such success, andI found the old story--"the child was father of the man. " Thisphilosopher, whose eye is so skilled in observing nature, and whose handis so apt in experiments, is the boy grown up whose pictures were sogood that the villagers thought him at thirteen an artist of rank. 

Girls should learn the first lesson of hand-craft with the needle; boysmay (and they will always prize the knowledge), but girls must. It iswise that our schools are going back to old fashioned ways, and sayingthat girls must be taught to sew. 

Boys should practice their hands upon the knife. John Bull used to laughat Brother Jonathan for whittling, and Mr. Punch always drew the Yankeewith a blade in his fingers; but they found out long ago in GreatBritain that whittling in this land led to something, a Boston notion, a wooden clock, a yacht America, a labor-saving machine, a cargo ofwooden-ware, a shop full of knick-knacks, an age of inventions. Boysneed not be kept back to the hand-craft of the knife. For in-doors thereare the type case and printing press, the paint box, the tool box, thelathe; and for out doors, the trowel, the spade, the grafting knife. Itmatters not how many of the minor arts the youth acquires. The more themerrier. Let each one gain the most he can in all such ways; for artslike these bring no harm in their train; quite otherwise, they lure goodfortune to their company. 

Play, as well as work, may bring out hand-craft. The gun, the bat, therein, the rod, the oar, all manly sports, are good training for thehand. Walking insures fresh air, but it does not train the body or mindlike games and sports which are played out of doors. A man of great fameas an explorer and as a student of nature (he who discovered, in theWest, bones of horses with two, three, and four toes, and who found theremains of birds with teeth) once told me that his success was largelydue to the sports of his youth. His boyish love of fishing gave him hismanly skill in exploration. 

I speak as if hand-craft was to be learned by sport. So it may. It mayalso be learned by labor. Day by day for weeks I have been watching frommy 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 ofan artist. He handled each brick as if it were porcelain, balanced itcarefully in his hand, measured with his eye just the amount of mortarwhich it needed, and dropped the block into its bed, without stainingits edge, without varying from the plumb line, by a stroke of hand-craftas 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 inhand-craft, help on with your voice and with your pocket, those whobring taste and skill and art into the works of their hand. If yourmeans 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; buthardly any one within the sound of my voice is so restricted as that;almost if not quite every one buys something every year for hispleasure, a curtain, a rug, a wall paper, a chair, or a table notcertainly needed, a vase, a clock, a, mantel ornament, a piece ofjewelry, a portrait, an etching, a picture. Now whenever you make such apurchase, to please your taste, to make your parlor or your chamber moreattractive, choose that which shows good handiwork. Such a choice willlast. You will not tire of it as you will of that which has but acommonplace form or pattern. 

I come now to a third point. That which has just been said applieschiefly to things whose price is fixed by beauty. But handicraft givesus many works not pleasing to the eye, yet of the highest skill--aJacquard loom, a Corliss engine, a Hoe printing press, a Winchesterrifle, an Edison dynamo, a Bell telephone. Ruskin may scout the work ofmachinery, and up to a certain point may take us with him. Let usallow that works of art marked by the artist's own touch--the gates ofParadise by Ghiberti, a shield by Cellini, a statue by Michael Angelo, are better than all reproductions and imitations, better than plastercasts by Eichler, electrotypes by Barbedienne, or chromos by Prang. Buteven Ruskin cannot suppress the fact that machinery brings to everythrifty cottage in New England comforts and adornments which, in thedays of Queen Bess, were not known outside of the palace. Be mindful, then, that handicraft makes machines which are wonders of productiveforce--weaving tissues such as Penelope never saw, of woolen, cotton, linen, and silk, to carpet our floors, cover our tables, cushion ourchairs, and clothe our bodies; machines of which Vulcan never dreamed, to point a needle, bore a rifle, cut a watch wheel, or rule a seriesof lines, measuring forty thousand to an inch, with sureness which theunaided hand can never equal. Machinery is a triumph of handicraft astruly as sculpture and architecture. The fingers which can plan andbuild a steamship or a suspension bridge, which can make the Quinebaugand the Blackstone turn spindles by the hundred thousand, which can turna rag heap into spotless paper, and make myriads of useful and artfularticles from rough metal, are fingers which this age alone has evolved. The craft which makes useful things cheap can make cheap thingsbeautiful. The Japanese will teach us how to form and finish, if we donot first teach them how to slight and sham. 

A fourth point is this. If hand-craft is of such worth, boys and girlsmust be trained in it. This, I am well aware is no new thought. Fortyyears ago schools of applied science were added to Harvard and Yalecolleges; twenty years ago Congress gave enough land-scrip to aid infounding at least one such school in every state; men of wealth, likemany whom you have known and whom you honor, have given large sums forlike 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? Knowthey the way? Far and near the cry is heard for a different trainingfrom that now given in the public schools. Many are trying to find it. Almost every large town has its experiment--and many smaller places havetheirs. Nobody seems to know just what is best. Even the words whichexpress the want are vague. Bright and thoughtful people differ as towhat might, can, and should be done. A society has been formed in NewYork to bring together the needed data. The Slater trustees, chargedwith the care of a large fund for the training of freedmen, have saidthat manual training must be given in all the schools they aid. Thetown of Toledo in Ohio opened, some time since, a school of practicaltraining for boys, which worked so well that another has lately beenopened for girls. St. Louis is doing famously. Philadelphia has severalexperiments in progress. Baltimore has made a start. In New York thereare many noteworthy movements--half a dozen at least full of life andhope. Boston was never behindhand in knowledge, and in the new educationis very alert, the efforts of a single lady deserving praise of highdegree. These are but signs of the times. 

Some things may be set down as fixed; for example, most of those whohave 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 infantschools of rich and poor. 

2. Drawing should be taught in schools of every grade, till the handuses 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 thecarpenter's, or both. 

5. Well planned exercises, fitted to strengthen the various bodilyorgans, 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 minordecorative 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 teensmay be taught in evening schools to practice the craft of carpentry, bricklaying, plastering, plumbing, gas fitting, etc. , as is shownsuccessfully in the Auchmuty schools of New York. Trade schools they arecalled; 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 woodand metals with precision, as I have lately seen in the College of theCity of New York, at Cornell University, and elsewhere-colleges or highschools with work-shops and practice classes. If they can take thetime to fit themselves to be foremen and leaders in machine shops andfactories, 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 thesehard paths. These are schools for foremen, or, if we may use a foreignword like Kindergarten, they are Meisterschaft schools. 

9. Youths who wish to enter the highest departments of engineering mustfollow advanced courses of mathematics and physics, and must learnto apply this knowledge. The better colleges and universities affordabundant opportunities for such training, but their scientificlaboratories are fitted only for those who love long study as well ashard. These are schools for engineers. 

10. Girls are most likely to excel in the lighter arts--to design (forfurniture or fabrics), to embroider, to carve, to engrave, to etch, tomodel, to paint. Here also success depends largely upon that which wasinborn, though girls of moderate talent in art, by patience, may becomeskilled in many kinds of art work. Schools for this instruction areschools of art (elementary, decorative, professional, etc. ). 

If there be those in this hall who think that hand-craft is adverse torede-craft, let me ask them to study the lives of men of mark. IsaacNewton 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 Universityof Glasgow; Porson, the great professor of Greek, was trained as aweaver; George Washington was a land surveyor; Benjamin Franklin aprinter. 

Before I close let me draw a lesson from the history of our land. Someof 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 cropwere so many and so strong that they ruled all others. The rise or fallof a penny in the price of cotton at Liverpool affected planters inthe South, spinners in the North, seamen on the ocean, bankersand money-changers everywhere. Now wheat and petroleum share thesovereignty; but then cotton was king. Who enthroned this harmlessplant? Two masters of hand-craft, one of whom was born a few miles eastof this place in Westborough; the other was a native of England whospent most of his days a few miles south of this city. Within fiveyears--not quite a century ago--these two men were putting in formswhich could be seen, ideas which brought our countrymen large measuresof both weal and woe. In 1790, Samuel Slater, once an apprentice toStrutt and Arkwright, built the mill at Pawtucket which taught Americansthe art of cotton-spinning; and before 1795, Eli Whitney had inventedthe gin which easily cleansed the cotton boll of its seeds, and so mademarketable the great crop we have spoken of. Many men have made morenoise in the world than Slater and Whitney; few if any can be namedwhose peaceable hand-craft has done so much to give this country itsfront place in the markets of the globe. 

Let me come nearer home, and as I take my seat let me name a son ofthis very town who loved hand-craft and rede-craft, and worthily aidedboth--Isaiah Thomas, the patriot printer, editor, and publisher, historian of the printer's craft in this land, and founder of the farfamed antiquarian library, eldest in that group of institutions whichgave to Worcester its rank in the world of letters, as its many productsgive 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 ofhandicraft; it will be no wonder if others like minded build on thefoundations which have been so fitly laid. 

 * * * * *

MAKING SEA WATER POTABLE. 

[Footnote: Read lately before the Manchester Literary and PhilosophicalSociety]

By THOMAS KAY, President of the Stockport Natural History Society. 

The author called attention to the absence of research in thisdirection, and how man, endowed to overcome every physical disabilitywhich 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, aboutfifty miles southwest of the Eddystone Lighthouse, and it was foundto correspond closely with the analysis of the Atlantic published byRoscoe, viz. : Total solids 35. 976, of which the total chlorides, are32. 730, representing 19. 868 of chlorine. 

The waters of the Irish Sea and the English Channel nearer to the GermanOcean, from their neighborhood to great rivers, are weaker than theabove. 

Schweitzer's analysis of the waters of the English Channel, nearBrighton, was taken as representing the composition of the sea, and ishere 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 inmid-ocean, the proportion of 32 per mille must be taken as the basis ofcalculation. 

This represents as near 20 per mille of chlorine as possible. 

From the analysis shown it will be perceived that the chlorides ofsodium and magnesium are in great preponderance. 

It is to the former of these that the baneful effects of sea water whendrunk are to be ascribed, for chloride of sodium or common salt producesthirst probably by its styptic action on the salivary glands, and scurvyby its deleterious action on the blood when taken in excess. 

Sodium chloride being the principal noxious element in sea water, andsoda in combination with a vegetable or organic acid, such as citricacid, tartaric acid, or malic acid, being innocuous, the conclusion isthat the element of evil to be avoided is _chlorine_. 

After describing various experiments, and calling attention to the powerof earthy matters in abstracting salts from solutions by which he hopedthe process would be perfected, an imperial pint of water from beyondthe Eddystone was shown mixed with 960 grains of citrate of silver and 4grains of the free citric acid. 

Each part of the chlorides requires three parts by weight of the silvercitrate 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 thesupernatant fluid was decanted and filtered through a rubber tube andhanded 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 thatsalts of potash are _diuretic_, salts of magnesia _aperient_, and saltsof soda _neutral_, except in excessive doses, or in combination withacids of varying medicinal action; thus, soda in nitric acid, nitrateof soda, is a _diuretic_, following the law of nitrates as nitrate ofpotash, a most powerful diuretic, nitrous ether, etc. ; while soda incombination with sulphuric acid as sulphate of soda is _aperient_, following the law of sulphates, which increase aperient action, as insulphate of magnesia, etc. 

Thus it would seem that soda holds the scales evenly between potash andmagnesia in this medical sense, and that it is weighed, so to speak, oneither side by the kind of mineral acid with which it may be combined. 

With non-poisonous vegetable acids, and these slightly in excess, thereis 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 salinedrinks in excess, yet, under especial circumstances, the solution of itin the form of citrate can hardly be hurtful when used to moisten thethroat and tongue, for it will never be used under circumstances whereit can be taken in large quantities. 

In the converted sea water the bulk of the solids is composed of inertcitrate of soda. There is a little citrate of potash, which is a feeblediuretic; 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 toindicate that they must be the best for administration in those ailmentsto which their use would be beneficial. 

Citrate of silver is an almost insoluble salt, and requires to bekept from the light, air, and organic matter, it being very easilydecomposed. 

A stoppered bottle covered with India-rubber was exhibited as indicatinga suitable preserver of the salt, as it affords protection againstlight, air, and breakage. As one ounce of silver citrate will converthalf a pint of sea water into a drinkable fluid, and a man can keepalive upon it a day, then seven ounces of it will keep him a week, andso on, it may not unreasonably be hoped, in proportion. 

It is proposed to pack the silver citrate in hermetically sealed rubbercovered bottles or tubes, to be inserted under the canisters or thwartsof the life-boats in ocean-going vessels, and this can be done at asimple 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, whichpermeates every portion of the fleece. The proportion of oil varies withthe breed of sheep. A difference in climate and soil materially affectsthe yield of oil. This is shown by analyses made of different kinds ofwool, both foreign and domestic. Spanish wool was found to have buteight per cent. Grease; Australian wool fifteen per cent. ; while in somefleeces of Pennsylvania wool as high as forty per cent. Was obtained. Toextract the oil from the wool, a fleece was put in a tall cylinder andnaphtha poured on it. The naphtha on being allowed to drain throughslowly dissolved out the grease. This naphtha solution was distilled;the naphtha passing off while grease remained--a dark oil having highspecific 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 treatmentof large quantities of wool. 

The object of these experiments was to find the readiest method ofseparating wool oil into its bases and acids, and further to identifythe various fatty acids. A solution of the oil in naphtha was cooled to15° C. This caused a separation of the oil into two portions: a whitesolid fat and a fluid dark oil. The first on examination proved to be amixture of palmitic and stearic acids existing uncombined in the wooloil. The original wool oil was saponified by boiling with alcoholicpotash. 

The soap formed was separated into two portions by shaking with etherand water. On standing, the solution separated into two layers, theupper or murial solution containing the bases, the lower or aqueoussolution containing the acids. This method of separation is very slow. In one case it worked very well, but as a rule appeared to be almostimpracticable. Benzol and naphtha were tried, instead of ether, but theresults were less satisfactory. On suggestion of Prof. Ordway, potassiumchloride was added to the soap solution partially separated by ether andwater. This caused an immediate and complete separation. By the use ofpotassium chloride it was found possible to effect a separation withbenzol and water, also with naphtha and water. 

Another means of separation was tried by precipitating the calciumsalts, from a solution of the potash soap. From the portion of thecalcium salts insoluble in alcohol, a fatty acid was obtained with amelting point and composition almost identical with the melting pointand composition of palmitic acid. The aqueous portion of the separationeffected by water and ether was examined for the fatty acid. The leadsalts of the fatty acids were digested with ether, which dissolved outthe lead oleate. From this oleic acid was obtained. This was furtherpurified by forming the Boreum salt of oleic acid. The lead salts notsoluble in ether were decomposed by acid. The fatty acids set free weresaponified by carbonate of potassium. A fractional precipitation waseffected by adding lead acetate in successive portions; each portionsufficient to precipitate one-fourth of all the acids present. 

The acid obtained from the first fractionation had the melting point at75°-76°, indicating an acid either in carbon then stearic or palmiticacids. 

The acids obtained from the third fractionation had a melting point of53°-54° C. This acid in composition and general properties was verysimilar 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 onlyon saponifying the oil and subsequently decomposing with acid. 

In conclusion, I should say that but a small proportion of the fattyacids exist in the wool oil uncombined; that the proportion of oleicacid is small, and can only be obtained in an oxidized condition; thatthe main portion of the fatty acids is composed of stearic and palmiticacids in nearly equal proportions; that the existence of a fatty acid, containing a higher per cent. Of carbon than those mentioned, is notfully established. --_N. W. Shedd, M. I. T. _

 * * * * *

A NEW ABSORBENT FOR OXYGEN. 

OTTO, BARON V. D. PFORDTEN. --The author makes use of a solution ofchromous chloride, which he prepares as follows:

He first heats chromic acid with concentrated hydrochloric acid, soas to obtain a strong green solution of chromic chloride free fromchlorine. This is then reduced with zinc and hydrochloric acid. The bluechromous chloride solution thus obtained is poured into a saturatedsolution of sodium acetate in an atmosphere of carbonic acid. Ared precipitate of chromous acetate is formed, which is washed bydecantation in water containing carbonic acid. This salt is relativelystable, and can be preserved for an indefinite time in a moist conditionin 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, whichfloat about in the acid liquid for a long time and give off minute gasbubbles. If poured into the solution of sodium acetate, they wouldcontaminate the precipitate; and when dissolved in hydrochloric acid, would occasion a slight escape of hydrogen. The solution of chromouschloride must therefore be freed from the zinc by filtration in theabsence of air. For this purpose the reduction is carried on in a flaskfitted up like a washing bottle. The long tube is bent down outside theflask, and is here provided with a small bulb tube containing glass woolor asbestos. The hydrogen gas liberated during reduction is at first letescape through this tube; afterward its outer end is closed, and it ispressed down into the liquid. The hydrogen must now pass through theshorter tube (the mouthpiece of the washing bottle), which has an Indiarubber valve. When the reduction is complete, the blue liquid is drivenup in the long tube by introducing carbonic acid through the short tube, so that it filters through the asbestos into the solution of sodiumacetate into which the reopened end of the long tube dips. When washingout the red precipitate, at first a little acetic acid is added todissolve any basic zinc carbonate which has been deposited. In thismanner a chromous acetate is obtained perfectly free from zinc. 

For the absorption of oxygen the compound just described is decomposedwith hydrochloric acid in the following simple washing apparatus: Upona shelf there are fixed side by side two ordinary preparation glasses, closed with caoutchouc stoppers, each having three perforations. Eachtwo apertures receive the glass tubes used in gas washing bottles, whilethe third holds a dropping funnel. It is filled with dilute hydrochloricacid, and after the expulsion of the air by a current of gas, plentifulquantities of chromous acetate are passed into the bottles. When thecurrent of gas has been passed in for some time, the hydrochloric acidis let enter, which dissolves the chromous acetate, and thus, in theabsence of air, produces a solution of blue chromous chloride. It isadvisable to use an excess of chromous acetate or an insufficientquantity of hydrochloric acid, so that there may be no free hydrochloricacid in the liquid. To keep back any free acetic acid which might beswept over by the current of gas, there is introduced after the washingapparatus another washing bottle with sodium carbonate. Also solidpotassium carbonate may be used instead of calcium chloride for dryingthe gas. If the two apertures of the washing apparatus are fitted withsmall pinch cocks, it is ready for use, and merely requires to beconnected with the gas apparatus in action in order to free the gasgenerated from oxygen. As but little chromous salt is decomposed by theoxygen 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 directingmagnet, proportionability between the intensities and deflections isobtained by means of a special form given the frame upon which the wireis wound. 

We give herewith a figure of the curve that Mr. Gaiffe has fixed uponafter numerous experiments. Upon examination it will be seen that theneedle approaches the current in measure as the directing action ofthe earth increases; and experiment proves that the two actionscounterbalance each other, and render the deflections very sensiblyproportional 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 maychange without the indications ceasing to have the same exactness up to65 degrees. As well known, Mr. Desains has demonstrated that this occurslikewise in sinus or tangent galvanometers; but these have helices thatare very large in proportion to the needle. In medical galvanometers theproportions are no longer the same, and the needle is always very nearthe directing helix. If this latter is square, or even elliptical, it isfound that, beyond an angle of 15 degrees, there are differences of 4 or5 degrees in the indications given with the same intensity of current bythe same needle, according to the latter's intensity of magnetism. Thisinconvenience is quite grave, for it often happens that a needle changesmagnetic intensity, either under the influence of too strong currentssent into the apparatus, or of other magnets in its vicinity, or asa consequence of the bad quality of the steel, etc. It was thereforeurgently required that this should be remedied, and from this pointof view the new mode of winding the wire is an important improvementintroduced into medical galvanometers. --_La Lumiere Electrique_. 

 * * * * *

THE SUSPENSION OF LIFE. 

Every one knows that life exists in a latent state in the seeds ofplants, and may be preserved therein, so to speak, indefinitely. In1853, Ridolfi deposited in the Egyptian Museum of Florence a sheaf ofwheat that he had obtained from seeds found in a mummy case dating backabout 3, 000 years. This aptitude of revivification is found to a highdegree in animalcules of low order. The air which we breathe is loadedwith impalpable dust that awaits, for ages perhaps, proper conditionsof heat and moisture to give it an ephemeral life that it will lose andacquire by turns. 

In 1707, Spallanzani found it possible, eleven times in succession, tosuspend the life of rotifers submitted to desiccation, and to call itback again by moistening this organic dust with water. A few yearsago Doyere brought to life some tardigrades that had been dried at atemperature of 150° and kept four weeks in a vacuum. If we ascend thescale of beings, we find analogous phenomena produced by diverse causes. Flies that have been imported in casks of Madeira have been resuscitatedin Europe, and chrysalids have been kept in this state for years. Cockchafers drowned, and then dried in the sun, have been revived aftera lapse of twenty-four hours, two days, and even five days, aftersubmersion. Frogs, salamanders, and spiders poisoned by curare ornicotine, have returned to life after several days of apparent death. 

Cold produces some extraordinary effects. Spallanzani kept several frogsin the center of a lump of ice for two years, and, although they becamedry, rigid, almost friable, and gave no external appearance of beingalive, it was only necessary to expose them to a gradual and moderateheat to put an end to the lethargic state in which they lay. 

Pikes and salamanders have at different epochs been revived before theeyes of Maupertuis and Constant Dumeril (members of the Academy ofSciences) after being frozen stiff. Auguste Dumeril, son of Constant, and who was the reporter of the committee relative to the Blois toad in1851, published a curious memoir the following year in which he narrateshow he interrupted life through congelation of the liquids and solids ofthe organism. Some frogs, whose internal temperature had been reduced to-2° in an atmosphere of -12°, returned to life before his eyes, and heobserved their tissues regain their usual elasticity and their heartpass from absolute immobility to its normal motion. 

There is therefore no reason for doubting the assertions of travelerswho tell us that the inhabitants of North America and Russia transportfish that are frozen stiff, and bring them to life again by dipping theminto water of ordinary temperature ten or fifteen days afterward. But Ithink too much reliance should not be put in the process devised bythe great English physiologist, Hunter, for prolonging the life of manindefinitely by successive freezings. It has been allowed to no one buta 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 animalsremains greater by one degree than that of the surrounding air, and themotions of the heart and respiration are simply retarded. Dr. Preyer hasobserved that a hamster sometimes goes five minutes without breathingappreciably after a fortnight's sleep. 

In man himself a suspension of life, or at least phenomena that seeminseparable therefrom, has been observed many times. In the _Journal desSavants_ for 1741 we read that a Col. Russel, having witnessed thedeath of his wife, whom he tenderly loved, did not wish her buried, andthreatened to kill any one who should attempt to remove the body beforehe witnessed its decomposition himself. Eight days passed by without thewoman giving the slightest sign of life, "when, at a moment when he washolding her hand and shedding tears over her, the church bell began toring, and, to his indescribable surprise, his wife sat up and said, 'Itis the last stroke, we shall be too late. ' She recovered. "

At a session of the Academy of Sciences, Oct. 17, 1864, Mr. Blaudetcommunicated a report upon a young woman of thirty summers who, beingsubject to nervous attacks, fell, after her crises, into a sort oflethargic sleep which lasted several weeks and sometimes several months. One of her sleeps, especially, lasted from the beginning of the year1862 until March, 1863. 

Dr. Paul Levasseur relates that, in a certain English family, lethargyseemed to have become hereditary. The first case was exhibited in an oldlady who remained for fifteen days in an immovable and insensible state, and who afterward, on regaining her consciousness, lived for quite along time. Warned by this fact, the family preserved a young man forseveral weeks who appeared to be dead, but who came to life again. 

Dr. Pfendler, in an inaugural thesis (Paris, 1833), minutely describes acase of apparent death of which he himself was a witness. A young girlof Vienna at the age of 15 was attacked by a nervous affection thatbrought on violent crises followed by lethargic states which lastedthree or four days. After a time she became so exhausted that the firstphysicians of the city declared that there was no more hope. It was notlong, in fact, before she was observed to rise in her bed and fall backas 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. Neithermirror, nor burned feather, nor ammonia, nor pricking succeeded ingiving us a sign of sensibility. Galvanism was tried without the patientshowing any contractility. Mr. Franck believed her to be dead, butnevertheless advised me to leave her on the bed. For twenty-eight hoursno change supervened, although it was thought that a little putrefactionwas observed. The death bell was sounded, the friends of the girl haddressed her in white and had crowned her with flowers, and all wasarranged for her burial. Desiring to convince myself of the course ofthe putrefaction, I visited the body again, and found that no furtheradvance had been made than before. What was my astonishment when Ibelieved that I saw a slight respiratory motion. I looked again, and sawthat I was not mistaken. I at once used friction and irritants, and inan hour and a half the respiration increased. The patient opened hereyes, and, struck with the funereal paraphernalia around her, returnedto consciousness, and said, 'I am too young to die. '" All this wasfollowed by a ten hours' sleep. Convalescence proceeded rapidly, and thegirl became free from all her nervous troubles. During her crisis sheheard everything. She quoted some Latin words that Mr. Franck had used. Her most fearful agony had been to hear the preparations for her burialwithout being able to get rid of her torpor. Medical dictionaries arefull 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 hisgeneral, who had been killed by a bullet, and who had been buried sincethe day before, disinterred him, and, upon putting him into a landau, and noticing that he was still breathing, brought him to life again bydint of care. A long time afterward this same general was one of thepall bearers at the funeral obsequies of the aide-de-camp who had buriedhim. In 1826 a young priest returned to life at the moment the bishopof the diocese was pronouncing the _De Profundis_ over his body. Fortyyears afterward, this priest, who had become Cardinal Donnett, preacheda feeling sermon upon the danger of premature burial. 

I trust I have now sufficiently prepared the mind of the reader for anexamination of the phenomena of the voluntary suspension of life that Ishall now treat of. 

The body of an animal may be compared to a machine that converts thefood that it receives into motion. It receives nothing, it will producenothing; but there is no reason why it should get out of order if it isnot deteriorated by external agents. The legendary rustic who wanted toaccustom his ass to go without food was therefore theoretically wrongonly because he at the same time wanted the animal to work. The wholedifficulty consists in breaking with old habits. To return to thecomparison that we just made, we shall run the risk of exploding theboiler of a steam engine if we heat it or cool it abruptly, but we canrun 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, althoughit may not be capable of setting the parts running, will suffice lateron to revivify the fireplace after it has been charged anew with fuel. 

We have recently had the example of Dr. Tanner, who went forty dayswithout any other nourishment than water. Not very long ago Liedovine deSchiedam, who had been bedridden for twenty years, affirmed that shehad taken no food for eight of them. It is said that Saint Catharine ofSienna gradually accustomed herself to do without food, and that shelived twenty years in total abstinence. We know of several examples ofprolonged sleep during which the sleeper naturally took no nourishment. In his Magic Disquisitions, Delvis cites the case of a countryman whoslept for an entire autumn and winter. Pfendler relates that a certainyoung and hysterical woman fell twice into a deep slumber which eachtime lasted six months. In 1883 an _enceinte_ woman was found asleepon a bench in the Grand Armee Avenue. She was taken to the BeaujonHospital, 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 awakenedfrom her lethargy. At this very moment, at Tremeille, a woman namedMarguerite Bouyenvalle is sleeping a sleep that has lasted nearly ayear, during which the only food that she has had is a few drops of soupdaily. 

What is more remarkable, Dr. Fournier says in his Dictionary of MedicalSciences that he knew of a distinguished writer at Paris, who sometimeswent 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 isnot absolutely indispensable, as we have seen in the cases of apparentdeath cited in our previous article. It is possible, through exercise, for a person to accustom himself, up to a certain point, to abstinencefrom air as he can from food. Those who dive for pearls, corals, orsponges succeed in remaining from two to three minutes under water. MissLurline, who exhibited in Paris in 1882, remained two and a half minutesbeneath the water of her aquarium without breathing. In his treatise Dela Nature, Henri de Rochas, physician to Louis XIII. , gives six minutesas the maximum length of time that can elapse between successiveinspirations of air. It is probable that this figure was based upon anobservation of hibernating animals. 

In his Encyclopedic Dictionary, Dr. Dechambre relates the history ofa Hindoo who hid himself in the waters of the Ganges where women werebathing, seized one of them by the legs, drowned her, and then removedher jewels. Her disappearance was attributed to crocodiles. One womanwho succeeded in escaping him denounced the assassin, who was seized andhanged in 1817. 

A well known case, is that of Col. Townshend, who possessed theremarkable faculty of stopping at will not only his respiration, butalso the beating of his heart. He performed the experiment one day inthe presence of Surgeon Gosch, who cared for him in his old age, twophysicians, and his apothecary, Mr. Shrine. In their presence, saysGosch, 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 tohis mouth. After a few seconds no pulse, movement of the heart, orrespiration could be observed. At the end of half an hour, as thespectators were beginning to get frightened, they observed the functionsprogressively resuming their course, and the Colonel came back to life. 

The fakirs of India habituate themselves to abstinence from air, eitherby introducing into the nostrils strings that come out through themouth, or by dwelling in subterranean cells that air and light neverenter except through narrow crevices that are sometimes filled withclay. Here they remain seated in profound silence, for hours at a time, without any other motion than that of the fingers as the latter slowlytake beads from a chaplet, the mind absorbed by the mental pronunciationof OM (the holy triune name), which they must repeat incessantly whileendeavoring to breathe as little as possible. They gradually lengthenthe intervals between their inspirations and expirations, until, inthree 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 speakingof 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 heembraces 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 tobring him out of his ecstasy. "

It will be conceived that by submitting themselves to such gymnasticsfrom infancy, certain men, already predisposed by atavism or a peculiarconformation, might succeed in doing things that would seem impossibleto the common run of mortals. Do we not daily see acrobats remaininghead downward for a length of time that would suffice to kill 99 percent, of their spectators through congestion if they were to placethemselves in the same posture? Can the savage who laboriously learnsto spell, letter by letter, comprehend how many people get the generalsense of an entire page at a single glance?

There is no reason, then, _a priori_, for assigning to the domain oflegerdemain the astonishing facts that are told us by a large number ofwitnesses, worthy of credence, regarding a young fakir who, forty yearsago, was accustomed to allow himself to be buried, and resuscitatedseveral months afterward. 

An English officer, Mr. Osborne, gives the following account of one ofthese operations, which took place in 1838 at the camp of King RandjetSingh:

"After a few preparations, which lasted some days, and that it wouldprove repugnant to enumerate, the fakir declared himself ready toundergo the ordeal. The Maharajah, the Sikhs chiefs, and Gen. Ventura, assembled near a masonry tomb that had been constructed expressly toreceive him. Before their eyes, the fakir closed with wax all theapertures in his body (except his mouth) that could give entranceto air. Then, having taken off the clothing that he had on, he wasenveloped in a canvas sack, and, according to his wish, his tongue wasturned 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 heldhim was closed and a seal was put upon it by the Maharajah. The bag wasthen put into a wooden box, which was fastened by a padlock, sealed, andlet down into the tomb. A large quantity of earth was thrown into thehole and rammed down, and then barley was sown on the surface andsentinels placed around with orders to watch day and night. 

"Despite all such precautions, the Maharajah had his doubts; so he cametwice in the space of ten months (the time during which the fakir wasburied), and had the tomb opened in his presence. The fakir was in thebag into which he had been put, cold and inanimate. The ten monthshaving expired, he was disinterred, Gen. Ventura and Capt. Ward saw thepadlock removed, the seals broken, and the box taken from the tomb. The fakir was taken out, and no pulsation either at the heart or pulseindicated the presence of life. As a first measure for reviving him, aperson introduced a finger gently into his mouth and placed his tonguein its natural position. The top of his head was the only place wherethere was any perceptible heat. By slowly pouring warm water over hisbody, signs of life were gradually obtained, and after about two hoursof care the patient got up and began to walk. 

"This truly extraordinary man says that during his burial he hasdelightful dreams, but that the moment of awakening is always verypainful to him. Before returning to a consciousness of his existence heexperiences vertigoes. His nails and hair cease to grow. His only fearis that he may be harmed by worms and insects, and it is to protecthimself from these that he has the box suspended in the center of thetomb. "

This sketch was published in the _Magasin Pittoresque_ in 1842 by awriter who had just seen Gen. Ventura in Paris, and had obtained fromhim 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 twoanalogous exhumations that they separately witnessed. The questiontherefore merits serious examination. --_A. De Rochas, in La Nature_. 

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Some experiments recently made by M. Olszewsky appear to show thatliquid oxygen is one of the best of refrigerants. He found that whenliquefied oxygen was allowed to vaporize under the pressure of oneatmosphere, a temperature as low as -181. 4° C. Was produced. Thetemperature fell still further when the pressure on the liquid oxygenwas reduced to nine millimeters of mercury. Though the pressure wasreduced still further to four millimeters of mercury, yet the oxygenremained liquid. Liquefied nitrogen, when allowed to evaporate under apressure of sixty millimeters of mercury, gave a temperature of -214°C. , only the surface of the liquid gas became opaque from incipientsolidification. Under lower pressures the nitrogen solidified, and temperatures as low as -225° C. Were recorded by the hydrogenthermometer. The lowest temperature obtained by allowing liquefiedcarbonic oxide to vaporize was -220. 5° C. 

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CONVALLARIA. 

By OTTO A. WALL, M. D. , Ph. G. 

Cnovallaria Majalis is a stemless perennial plant, found in boththe eastern and western hemispheres, with two elliptic leaves and aone-sided raceme bearing eight or ten bell-shaped flowers. The flowersare fragrant, and perfumes called "Lily of the Valley" are among thepopular odors. 

Both leaves and flowers have been used in medicine, but the rhizome isthe part most frequently used. 

[Illustration: CONVALLARIA. ]

The fresh rhizome is a creeping, branching rhizome of a pale yellowishwhite color, which, on drying, darkens to a straw color, or even abrown in places. When dry it is about the thickness of a thick knittingneedle, swelling to the thickness of a quill when soaked in water. Itis of uniform thickness, except near the leaf-bearing ends, which arethicker marked with numerous leafscars, or bare buds covered withscales, and often having attached the tattered remains of former leaves. Fig. A shows a portion of rhizome, natural size, and Fig. B showsanother piece enlarged to double linear size. 

The internodes are smooth, the rootlets being attached at the nodes. Therootlets are filiform, and darker in color. 

The rhizome is covered by an epidermis, composed of muriform cells of abright yellow color, after having been treated with liquor potassæ toclear up the tissues. These cells are shown in Fig. G. An examination ofthe transverse section shows us the endogenous structure, as we findit also in various other drugs (sarsaparilla, etc. ), namely, a nucleussheath, inclosing the fibrovascular bundles and pith, and surroundedby a peri-ligneous or peri-nuclear portion, consisting of soft-walledparenchyma cells, loosely arranged with many small, irregularlytriangular, intercellular spaces in the tranverse section. Some of thesecells contain bundles of raphides (Fig. 2), one of which bundles isshown crushed in Fig. J. Sometimes these crystals are coarser and lessneedle-like, as in Fig. K. Fig. C shows a transverse section through theleaf-bearing portion of the rhizome (at a), and is rather irregular onaccount of the fibrovascular bundles diverging into the base of theleaves 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 nuclearsheath, varying in width from one to three cells, and inclosing a numberof crescent-shaped fibrovascular bundles, with their convexities towardthe center and their horns toward the nuclear sheath. There are alsofrom two to four or five free closed fibrovascular bundles in thecentral pith. 

These fibrovascular bundles consist mainly of dotted or reticulatedducts (Fig. F), but all gradations from, this to the spiroids, or eventrue spiral ducts (Fig. E). May be found, though the annular and spiralducts are quite rare. These ducts are often prismatically compressedby each other. The fibrovascular bundles also contain soft-walledprosenchyma cells. The peri-nuclear portion consists of soft-walledparenchyma, smaller near the nuclear sheath and the epidermis, andlarger about midway between, and of the same character as the cells ofthe pith. In longitudinal section they appear rectangular, similar tothe walls of the epidermis (G), but with thinner walls. 

All parts of the plant have been used in medicine, either separately ortogether, and according to some authorities the whole flowering plant isthe 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 mechanicalimpediments rather than to organic degeneration. It is best given in theform of fluid extract in the dose of 1 to 5 cubic centimeters (15 to75 minims), commencing with the smaller doses, and increasing, ifnecessary, according to the effects produced in each individualcase. --_The Pharmacist_. 

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FLIGHT OF THE BUZZARD. 

During my visit to the Southern States of America, I have had severalopportunities of watching, under favorable conditions, the flight of thebuzzard, the scavenger of Southern cities. Although in most respect thisbird's manner of flight resembles that of the various sea-birds which Ihave often watched for hours sailing steadily after ocean steamships, yet, being a land bird, the buzzard is more apt to give examples of thatkind of flight in which a bird remains long over the same place. Insteadof sailing steadily on upon outstretched pinions, the buzzard oftenascends in a series of spirals, or descends along a similar course. Ihave not been able to time the continuance of the longest flights duringwhich 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 outof view either by upward or horizontal traveling. But I am satisfiedthat in many cases the bird sweeps onward or about on unflapping wingsfor more than half an hour. 

Now, many treat this problem of aerial flotation as if it were of thenature of a miracle--something not to be explained. Explanations whichhave been advanced have, it is true, been in many cases altogetheruntenable. For instance, some have asserted that the albatross, thecondor, and other birds which float for a long time without movingtheir wings--and that, too, in some cases, at great heights above thesea-level, where the air is very thin--are supported by some gas withinthe hollow parts of their bones, as the balloon is supported by thehydrogen within it. The answer to this is that a balloon is _not_supported by the hydrogen within it, but by the surrounding air, and injust such degree as the air is displaced by the lighter gas. The airaround a bird is only displaced by the bird's volume, and the pressureof the air corresponding to this displacement is not equivalent to morethan one five-hundredth part of the bird's weight. Another idea is thatwhen a bird seems to be floating on unmoving wings there is really arapid fluttering of the feathers of the wings, by which a sustainingpower is obtained. But no one who knows anything of the anatomy ofthe bird will adopt this idea for an instant, and no one who has everwatched with a good field-glass a floating bird of the albatross orbuzzard kind will suppose they are fluttering their feathers in thisway, even though he should be utterly ignorant of the anatomy of thewings. Moreover, any one acquainted with the laws of dynamics will knowthat there would be tremendous loss of power in the fluttering movementimagined as compared with the effect of sweeping downward and backwardthe whole of each wing. 

There is only one possible way of explaining the floating power ofbirds, and that is by associating it with the rapid motion acquiredoriginally by wing flapping, and afterward husbanded, so to speak, byabsolutely perfect adjustment and balancing. To this the answer is oftenadvanced that it implies ignorance of the laws of dynamics to supposethat rapid advance can affect the rate of falling, as is implied by thetheory that it enables the bird to float. 

Now, as a matter of fact, a slight slope of the wings would undoubtedlyproduce a raising power, and so an answer is at one obtained to thisobjection. But I venture to assert, with the utmost confidence, that aperfectly horizontal plane, advancing swiftly in a horizontal directionat first, will not sink as quickly, or anything like as quickly, as asimilar plane let fall from a position of rest. A cannon-ball, rushinghorizontally from the mouth of a cannon, begins to fall just as if itwere simply dropped. But the case of a horizontal plane is altogetherdifferent. If rapidly advancing, it passes continually over still air;if simply let fall, the air beneath it yields, and presently currentsare set up which facilitate the descent of the flat body; but there isno time to set up these aerial movements as the flat body passes rapidlyover still air. 

As a matter of fact, we know that this difference exists, fromthe difference in the observed behavior of a flat card set flyinghorizontally through the air and a similar card held horizontally andthen allowed to fall. 

I believe the whole mystery of aerial flotation lies here, and that assoon as aerial floating machines are planned on this system, it will befound that the problem of aerial transit--though presenting still manydifficulties 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 andAntiquarian Society, in Philadelphia, on May 7, an object of greatinterest to archæologists, with which, says _The Church_, is alsoconnected 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 amongplaces of interest the site of ancient Nineveh about the time thatAustin Henry Layard was making his famous explorations and discoveries;he wrote to a friend in Philadelphia that he had secured for him a finepiece of Assyrian sculpture from one of the recently opened temples orpalaces, 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 portionof the stone was covered with hieroglyphics, and was as sharply cut asthough it had been carved by a modern hand instead of by an artist whowas sleeping in his grave when Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, was yetan infant. 

The letter describing this treasure arrived duly, but the stones did notcome. It appears that the caravan bringing them down to Alexandretta, from whence they were to be shipped to Philadelphia, was attacked byrobbers, and the sculptured stones were thrown upon the desert asuseless, and there they remained for some years. Finally they wererecovered, shipped to this country (about twenty-five years ago), andarriving at their destination during the absence of the consignee, weredeposited temporarily in a subterranean storeroom at his manufactory. In some way they were overlooked, and here they have remained unopeneduntil they were rediscovered a few days ago; meanwhile the missionaryand his friend have both passed away, ignorant of the fact that the raregift 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 isestablished; it came from the temple of King Assur-nazir-pal, a famousconqueror who reigned from 883 to 859 B. C. 

The slab was cut into three sections, 3x3½ feet each, for convenienceof 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 themeeting of the Society, and gave an interesting account of the classicground from which the slab was obtained. It was one of a number liningthe walls of the palace of Assur-nazir-pal. The inscriptions, astranslated by Dr. Peters, indicate that this particular slab was carvedduring the first portion of this king's reign, and some conceptionof its great antiquity may be gained when it is stated that he was acontemporary of Ahab and Jehosaphat; he was born not more than acentury later than Solomon, and he reigned three centuries beforeNebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon. After the slabs were procured, it wasnecessary to send them on the backs of camels a journey of eight hundredmiles across the Great Desert, through a region which was more or lessinfested at all seasons with roving bands of robbers. Mr. Williams wellremembered the interview between his father and the Arab camel owner, who told several conflicting stories by way of preliminary to theconfession of the actual facts, in order to account for the non-arrivalof the stones at Alexandretta, the sea coast town from whence they wereto be shipped to Philadelphia. 

Mr. A. E. Outerbridge, Jr. , gave a brief account of the finding of thesestones in the subterranean storeroom where they had reposed for a periodof a quarter of a century. The space between the slabs and the boxeshad been packed with camels' hair, which had in progress of time becomeeaten by insects and reduced to a fine powder. The nails with which thecases were fastened were remarkable both for their peculiar shape andfor the extraordinary toughness of the iron, far excelling in thisrespect the wrought iron made in America to day. 

The Rev. Dr. J. P. Peters gave a very instructive exposition of thechronology of the kings of Assyria, their social and religious customsand ceremonies, their methods of warfare, their systems of architecture, etc. He stated that the finest Assyrian bass-reliefs in the BritishMuseum came from the same palace as this specimen, the carving of whichis not excelled by any period of the ancient glyptic art. The particularpiece of alabaster selected by the artist for this slab was unusuallyfine, 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 goodEnglish. The characters are so large and clearly cut that it is apleasure to read them after the laborious scrutiny of the minuteBabylonish clay tablets. The inscription on this slab is identical witha portion of that of the great "Standard Monolith, " on which this kingsubsequently caused to be transcribed the pages, as it were, from thedifferent slabs which were apparently cut at intervals in his reign. 

_Translation of a Portion of the Cuneiform, Inscription_. --"The palaceof Assur-nazir-pal, servant of Assur, servant of the god Beltis, thegod Ninit, the shining one of Anu and Dagon, servant of the GreatGods, Mighty King, king of hosts, king of the land of Assyria; son ofBin-nirari, a strong warrior, who in the service of Assur his Lordmarched vigorously among the princes of the four regions, who had noequal, a mighty leader who had no rival, a king subduing all disobedientto him; who rules multitudes of men; crushing all his foes, even themasses of the rebels.... The city of Calah, which my predecessor, Shalmanezer, King of Assyria had built had fallen into decay: His cityI rebuilt; a palace of cedar, box, cypress, for the seat of my royalty, for the fullness of my princedom, to endure for generations, I placedupon it. With plates of copper I roofed it, I hung in its gates foldingdoors of cedar wood, silver, gold, copper, and iron which my hands hadacquired in the lands which I ruled, I gathered in great quantities, andplaced 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, theformula given below for a solution and a brief explanation of its usewill be of service. 

The first sample of this solution was made as an experiment to see whatsubstances could be added to a solution of the double sulphate of nickeland ammonium without spoiling it. 

In addition to several other combinations and mixtures of solutions fromwhich I succeeded in obtaining a good deposit, I found that the solutionhere given would plate almost anything I put into it, and workedespecially well upon zinc. In its use no "scraping" or rescouring or anyof the many operations which I have seen recommended for zinc needsbe resorted to, as the metal "strikes" at once and is deposited ina continuous adherent film of reguline metal, and can be laid on asheavily as nickel is deposited generally. 

I believe that the addition of the ammonium chloride simply reducesthe resistance of the double sulphate solution, but the office of thepotassium chloride is not so easily explained. At least, I have neverbeen able to explain it satisfactorily to myself. It is certain, however, that the solution does not work as well without it, nor doesthe addition of ammonium chloride in its stead give as fine a result. 

Some care is necessary in the management of the current, which shouldhave a density of about 17 amperes per square foot of surface--not muchabove or below. This may seem a high figure, especially when it isdiscovered that there is a considerable evolution of gas during theoperation. 

I have repeatedly used this solution for coating articles of zinc, andalways with good success. I have exhibited samples of zinc plated inthis solution to those conversant with the deposition of nickel, andthey have expressed surprise at the appearance of the work. Some stripsof sheet-zinc in my possession have been bent and cut into everyconceivable shape without a sign of fracture or curling up at the edgesof 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 workedat the ordinary temperature, about 16 degrees C. 

The zinc may be cleansed in any suitable manner, but must be perfectlyclean, of course, and finally rinsed in clean cold water and placed inthe bath as quickly as possible; care being taken that it is connectedbefore it touches the solution. --_Electrical World_. 

 * * * * *

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