SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT NO. 401

NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 8, 1883

Scientific American Supplement. Vol. XVI, No. 401.

Scientific American established 1845

Scientific American Supplement, $5 a year.

Scientific American and Supplement, $7 a year.

MONUMENT TO CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, AT BARCELONA, SPAIN.

The cultivated and patriotic city of Barcelona is about to erect
a magnificent monument in honor of Columbus, the personage most
distinguished in the historic annals of all nations and all epochs.
The City of Earls does not forget that here the discoverer of
America disembarked on the 3d of April, 1493, to present to the
Catholic monarchs the evidences of the happy termination of his
enterprise. In honoring Columbus they honor and exalt the sons of
Catalonia, who also took part in the discovery and civilization of
the New World, among whom may be named the Treasurer Santangel,
Captain Margarit, Friar Benardo Boyl, first patriarch of the
Indies, and the twelve missionaries of Monserrat, who accompanied
the illustrious admiral on his second voyage.

In September, 1881, a national competition was opened by the
central executive committee for the monument, and by the unanimous
voice of the committee the premium plans of the architect, Don
Cayetano Buigas Monraba, were adopted. From these plans, which we
find in La Ilustracion Española, we give an
engraving. Richness, grandeur, and expression, worthily combined,
are the characteristics of these plans. The landing structure is
divided into three parts, a central and two laterals, each of which
extends forward, after the manner of a cutwater, in the form of the
bow of a vessel of the fifteenth century, bringing to mind the two
caravels, the Pinta and Niña; two great lights occupy the
advance points on each side; a rich balustrade and four statues of
celebrated persons complete the magnificent frontage. A noble
monument, surmounted by a statue of the discoverer, is seen on the
esplanade.

MONUMENTAL LANDING AND STATUE TO COLUMBUS, AT
BARCELONA, SPAIN.

The commission appointed in France to consider the phylloxera
has not awarded to anybody the prize of three hundred thousand
francs that was offered to the discoverer of a trustworthy remedy
or preventive for the fatal grape disease. There were not less than
182 competitors for the prize; but none had made a discovery that
filled the bill. It is said, however, that a Strasbourg physician
has found in naphthaline an absolutely trustworthy remedy. This
liquid is poured upon the ground about the root of the vine, and it
is said that it kills the parasites without hurting the grape.

SCENERY ON THE UTAH LINE OF THE DENVER AND RIO GRANDE.

Mr. R.W. Raymond gives the following interesting account of the
remarkable scenery on this recently opened route from Denver to
Salt Lake:

Having just made the trip from Salt Lake City to this place on
the Denver & Rio Grande line, I cannot write you on any other
subject at present. There is not in the world a railroad journey of
thirty hours so filled with grand and beautiful views. I should
perhaps qualify this statement by deducting the hours of darkness;
yet this is really a fortunate enhancement of the traveler’s
enjoyment; it seems providential that there is one part of the way
just long enough and uninteresting enough to permit one to go to
sleep without the fear of missing anything sublime. Leaving Salt
Lake City at noon, we sped through the fertile and populous Jordan
Valley, past the fresh and lovely Utah Lake, and up the Valley of
Spanish Fork. All the way the superb granite walls and summits of
the Wahsatch accompanied us on the east, while westward, across the
wide valley, were the blue outlines of the Oquirrh range. One after
another of the magnificent cañons of the Wahsatch we passed,
their mouths seeming mere gashes in the massive rock, but promising
wild and rugged variety to him who enters–a promise which I have
abundantly tested in other days. Parley’s Cañon, the Big and
Little Cottonwood, and most wonderful of all, the cañon of
the American Fork, form a series not inferior to those of Boulder,
Clear Creek, the Platte, and the Arkansas, in the front range of
the Rockies.

Following Spanish Fork eastward so far as it served our purpose,
we crossed the divide to the head waters of the South Fork of Price
River, a tributary of Green River. It was a regret to me, in
choosing this route, that I should miss the familiar and beloved
scenery of Weber and Echo cañons–the only part of the Union
Pacific road which tempts one to look out of a car window, unless
one may be tempted by the boundless monotony of the plains or the
chance of a prairie dog. Great was my satisfaction, therefore, to
find that this part of the new road, parallel with the Union
Pacific, but a hundred miles farther south, traverses the same belt
of rocks, and exhibits them in forms not less picturesque. Castle
Cañon, on the South Fork of the Price, is the equivalent of
Echo Cañon, and is equal or superior in everything except
color. The brilliant red of the Echo cliffs is wanting. The towers
and walls of Castle Cañon are yellowish-gray. But their
forms are incomparably various and grotesque–in some instances
sublime. The valley of Green River at this point is a cheerless
sage-brush desert, as it is further north. To be sure, this
uninviting stream, a couple of hundred miles further south, having
united with the Grande, and formed the Rio Colorado, does indeed,
by dint of burrowing deeper and deeper into the sunless chasms,
become at last sublime. But here it gives no hint of its future
somber glory. I remained awake till we had crossed Green River, to
make sure that no striking scenery should be missed by sleep. But I
got nothing for my pains except the moonlight on the muddy water;
and next time I shall go to bed comfortably, proving to the
conductor that I am a veteran and not a tender-foot.

In the morning, we breakfasted at Cimarron, having in the
interval passed the foot-hills of the Roan Mountains, crossed the
Grande, and ascended for some distance the Gunnison, a tributary of
the Grande, the Uncompahgre, a tributary of the Gunnison, and
finally a branch, flowing westward, of the Uncompahgre. A high
divide at the head of the latter was laboriously surmounted; and
then, one of our two engines shooting ahead and piloting us, we
slid speedily down to Cimarron. It is in such descents that the
unaccustomed traveler usually feels alarmed. But the experience of
the Rio Grande Railroad people is, that derailment is likely to
occur on up-grades, and almost never in going down.

From this point, comparison with the Union Pacific line in the
matter of scenery ceases. As everybody knows, that road crosses the
Rocky Mountains proper in a pass so wide and of such gradual ascent
that the high summits are quite out of sight. If it were not for
the monument to the Ameses, there would be nothing to mark the
highest point. For all the wonderful scenery on the Rio Grande
road, between Cimarron and Pueblo, the Union Pacific in the same
longitudes has nothing to show. From an artistic stand-point, one
road has crossed the ranges at the most tame and uninteresting
point that could be found, and the other at the most
picturesque.

At Cimarron, the road again strikes the Gunnison, and plunges
into the famous Black Cañon. In length, variety, and certain
elements of beauty, such as forest-ravines and waterfalls, this
cañon surpasses the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas. There is,
however, one spot in the latter (I mean, of course, the point where
the turbulent river fills the whole space between walls 2,800 ft.
high, and the railroad is hung over it) which is superior in
desolate, overwhelming grandeur to anything on the Gunnison. Take
them all in all, it is difficult to say which is the finer. I have
usually found the opinion of travelers to favor the Gunnison
Cañon. But why need the question be solved at all? This one
matchless journey comprises them both; and he who was overwhelmed
in the morning by the one, holds his breath in the afternoon before
the mighty precipices of the other. To excuse myself from even
hinting such folly as a comparison of scenery, I will merely remark
that these two cañons are more capable of a comparison than
different scenes usually are; for they belong to the same
type–deep cuts in crystalline rocks.

Between them come the Marshall Pass (nearly 11,000 ft. above
sea-level), over the continental divide, and the Poncha Pass, over
the Sangre di Cristo range. This range contains Harvard, Yale,
Princeton, Elbert, Massive (the peak opposite Leadville), and other
summits exceeding the altitude of 14,000 ft. To the east of it is
the valley of the Arkansas, into which and down which we pass, and
so through the Royal Gorge to Cañon City and Pueblo, where
we arrived before dark on the day after leaving Salt Lake.

Salt Lake, the Jordan Valley, Utah Lake, the Wahsatch, Castle
Cañon, the Black Cañon of the Gunnison, Marshall
Pass, Poncha Pass, the Arkansas Valley, the Royal Gorge–what a
catalogue for so brief a journey! No wonder everybody who has made
it is “wild about it!” If enthusiastic urgency of recommendation
from every passenger has any influence (and I know it has a great
deal), this road will continue to be, as it is at present, crowded
with tourists. It furnishes a delightful route for those who wish
on the overland journey to see Denver (as who does not?) and to
visit Colorado Springs and Manitou. All this can be done en
route, without retracing the steps.

PHOTOGRAPHY APPLIED TO TERRA-COTTA AND OPAL GLASS.

In the natural course of things it must necessarily have
occurred to practical men to utilize photography in the case of
terra-cotta, as it has already been employed in connection with so
many other wares; but I have not to this day known of its
successful application to terra-cotta. Now this is strange, if one
considers how fashionable plaque and plate painting have
become of late, and the good photographic results that are easily
obtained on these as on sundry articles of this same “burnt earth.”
Portraits, animals, landscapes, seascapes, and reproductions are
one and all easily transferred, whether for painting upon or to be
left purely photographic. As a matter of business, too, one fails
to see that it would not be remunerative, but rather the contrary.
It was with something of this feeling that I was led to try and see
what could be done to attain the end in view, and as I knew of no
data to go by, I had to use my own experience, or rather experiment
on my own account.

Since emulsion was constantly at hand in my establishment, in
the commercial production of my gelatine dry plates, it was but
natural I should first have turned to this as a mode of obtaining
the desired results; but, alas! all attempts in that direction
signally failed–the ware most persistently refused to have
anything to do with emulsion. The bugbear was the fixing agent or
hypo., which not only left indelible marks, but, despite any amount
of washing, the image on a finished plate vanished to nothing at
the end of an hour’s exposure in the show window. There was nothing
left but to seek other means for the attainment of my object. I
would not have troubled the reader as to this unsuccessful line of
experiment but that I wished to put him on his guard and save him
useless researches in the same direction. To cut matters short, the
method I found best and most direct was the now old but still
excellent wet collodion transfer. I will now proceed to detail my
system of working to facilitate the matter to the inexperienced in
collodion transfer.

TERRA-COTTA PHOTOGRAPHY IN PRACTICE.

The first and indispensable operation, in the preparation of the
surface to receive the transfer, is the “sizing of the surface.” It
simply consists of a solution of gelatine chrome-alumed, as
follows:

Coat with a soft camel’s hair brush and let dry. It is needless
to say that numbers of plaques, plates, vases, etc., may be
coated right off, and will then be ready for use at any time.

Having settled on the subject and carefully dusted the negative,
as well as placed it in situ for reproduction, the next
thing required is a suitable collodion, and the following will be
found all that can be desired:

The plate thoroughly cleaned and coated with the collodion is
now transferred to a bath, as follows:

Nitrate of silver (common) 25 grains to the ounce.

Made slightly acid with nitric acid.

After sensitizing, the plate is exposed in the usual way and
taken to the room where pictures are ordinarily developed, and
quantum suff. of the following poured into the developing
cup to bring out the image:

Or the following may be used:

After perfect development the picture is well washed and then
fixed in a saturated solution of hypo.; after which it is
thoroughly washed.

It will now be found that the picture is not altogether
satisfactory; it lacks both vigor and color. To improve matters
recourse is now had to

TONING.

With this a very fine depth is soon attained, and a nice picture
the result. Leave out the toning, and only a poor, sunken-looking
picture will be the outcome; but directly the toning bath is
employed richness at once comes to the fore. I have, however, known
of instances where the picture needed no toning.

OPAL PRODUCTION IN PRACTICE.

This is still a secret with some in the profession. A limited
number of workers have succeeded in bringing out good opals, and
their modus operandi is kept from the many. Now this is a
pity, when one considers the great charm attached to a good picture
on opal, with pure whites and rich blacks, and in many localities
the demand that might be created for them. Apart from their beauty,
another charm attaches to opals–their absolute permanence; and
this, it must be allowed, is no trifle. What, in fact, can be more
painful to the worker who values his work, and sets store by it,
than to feel it must ere long fade and pass into oblivion! A
properly executed opal will no more fade than the glass pictures so
common at one time, and which, wherever taken care of, are as
perfect now as they were when first taken.

Now, excellent pictures are to be made on opals by means of
emulsion; but I propose first taking the transfer method (mainly
applicable to ground opal and canvas) as given above for pottery,
since in practice it is found very ready, easy of manipulation, and
safe. The details are much the same as above, and necessitate
double transfer.

After the picture had been obtained on the plate (ordinary glass
plate), and after thoroughly fixing, washing, and toning, the
picture (and this, remember, is the case likewise with terra-cotta)
then has to be loosened from its support, and this is done with a
solution of sulphuric acid–one drachm to fifteen ounces of
water–which is made to flow between the image and the glass, after
which perfectly wash and mount. When the image is loosened a piece
of tracing paper is put on the image, evened out, raised (assisted
by some one else to hold the two opposite corners during the
operation), and with the aid of the helper the picture is carefully
centered, gently pressed out or down, and the transfer is so far
effected. But what will happen, and does happen, in the case of
vignettes, is impurity of the whites, when the picture becomes
positively objectionable. Now the way to remedy this lies simply in
the application, to the dirty-looking parts, of a solution of
iodine dissolved in iodide of potassium to sherry color; after
which, well wash and apply a weak solution of cyanide of potassium,
and wash well again. This, by the way, is equally applicable to
paper transfers; and it is to be remembered that the toning comes
last of all. It is a rather difficult matter to clean a ground opal
which has been used two or three times, and acid must then be had
recourse to (nitric acid is as good as any); but by transferring
from the support on the ground surface, all stains are at once
avoided.

On the flushed glass, or on the pot metal (unground), after well
cleaning the surface it should be covered with a substratum of egg.
Then the picture is taken direct, not transferred; that is, the
plate is exposed direct in the camera, regularly proceeded with,
and, when dried, varnished with a pale negative varnish, or with
dead varnish if intended for chalk or water-color. This, when a
good negative is used, gives a remarkably fine picture, not
requiring a vestige of retouching, and having likewise the
invaluable advantage of being perfectly durable if varnished with
the negative varnish. Moreover, on that, effective pictures may be
made in oil with simply tinting.

A gentleman, who has a right to be considered a good judge in
all art matters, on looking at one of these pictures transferred on
flushed glass, said it was one of the finest productions of
photography. He urged that negatives ad rem should be taken
most carefully, and that, like the picture I showed him, they
should be full of half-tone and detail, and yet have plenty of
vigor. They should, he said, be robust in the high lights, have
perfectly clear glass in the few points of deep shadows, and thus
have powerful relief. Moreover, the negatives should be retouched
only by a competent hand, and care taken that the likeness shall be
in no way altered, which is so frequently the case now.

If done as thus suggested there is no doubt that remarkably fine
pictures are to be produced on opal, whether ground or not. Most
artistic results are to be obtained, and, with proper care,
absolute permanency. In this age of keen competition, all have to
think of what may be really recommended to one’s
clientèle, and likely to meet with approbation from
strangers and friends when the picture has once been delivered; and
I candidly think that the opal, of all, is the picture most likely
to meet with this general approbation.

I hope I have left it clearly to be understood that the class of
opal picture to which I have chiefly alluded is one that remains
untouched after the transfer–that is, absolutely unpainted upon.
It is pure photography in every sense of the word, and the
resultant picture one hardly to be surpassed in any way. I have
rather laid a stress on this point, well knowing how pictures are
at times irretrievably ruined by the barbarous hand of would-be
artists, who by far exceed the true artists in number; and the hint
on retouching should not be lost sight of, either, at a period when
the tendency is to stereotype every one in marble-like texture, or
rather lack of texture, as if the face were devoid of all
fleshiness and as hard and rigid as cast-iron. It might be wise to
weigh this point carefully, and act upon it, before the enlightened
public have raised a cry against the pernicious practice and made
photographers smart for their want of applying timely remedial
measures to a decided evil.

On reading the above again, fearing lest any misconception
should arise in the mind of the reader, I deem it expedient, to
clearly state that for terra-cotta recourse is had to double
transfer; that is, the picture first taken is lifted from the
support on tracing paper, put in the right position on terra-cotta,
and pressed down while wet with blotting-paper, left to dry, and is
then so far ready.

Respecting the production of pictures by means of emulsion,
ground opal being the best, the system I employ is as follows:
After well cleaning the glass, coat it with emulsion (which had
better not be too thick). When dry it is exposed and developed with
the usual oxalate developer, to which a little bromide of potassium
has been added. The remainder of the operations is as usual. Those
varnished with dead varnish can be tinted and worked up with
colored crayons or black lead pencil and make very pleasing
pictures. It is needless to add that they are also to be finished
in water-colors if thought preferable.–G. W. Martyn, in Br.
Jour. Photo.

PAPER NEGATIVES.

The process of A.C.A. Thiebaut is as follows: the paper has the
following advantages:

First. The sensitive coating is regular, and its thickness is
uniform throughout the entire surface of each sheet.

Second. It can be exposed for a luminous impression in any kind
of slide as usually constructed.

Third. It can be developed and fixed as easily as a negative on
glass.

Fourth. The negative obtained dries quite flat on blotting
paper.

Fifth. The film which constitutes the negative can be detached
or peeled from its support or backing easily and readily by the
hand, without the assistance of any dissolving or other agent. Thus
this invention does away with all sensitive preparations on glass,
which latter is both a brittle and relatively heavy material, thus
diminishing the bulk and weight of amateur and scientific
photographers’ luggage when traveling; it produces photographic
negatives as fine and as transparent as those on glass, in so much
that the film does not contain any grain; and, lastly, it admits of
printing from either face of the film, as regards the production of
positives on paper or other material, as well as plates for
phototypy and photo-engraving, which latter processes require a
negative to be reversed.

For the manufacture of my sensitized film paper:

First. A gelatinized sheet of paper is properly damped with cold
water, and when evenly saturated it is placed on a glass, to which
it is attached by means of bands of paper pasted partially on the
glass, and partially on the edges of the said sheet; in this state
it is allowed to dry, whereby it is stretched quite flat.

Secondly. I coat the dry sheet with a solution of ordinary
collodion, containing from one to two per cent. cubic measure of
azotic cotton (1½ per cent. gives very good results) and
from 1½ to 2½ per cent. of castor oil (2 per cent.
gives very good results); this coating is allowed to dry; and,

Thirdly. The glass, with the prepared paper upward, is leveled,
and then it is coated, in a room from which all rays but red rays
of light are excluded, with a tepid emulsion of bromide of silver
to the extent of about one millimeter thick, and after leaving it
in this position until the gelatine has set (say) about five
minutes, with the film paper still attached, it is placed upright
in a drying-room, where it should remain about twelve hours exposed
to a temperature of from 62 to 66 degrees Fahrenheit; and,

Fourthly. The film paper is detached from the glass ready for
exposure, development, and fixing in the usual manner. For the
purpose of developing, oxalate of iron or pyrogallic acid answers
equally well; for the purpose of fixing, I have found that a
mixture by weight, water, 1,000, hyposulphite of soda 150, and
powdered alum 60, produces excellent results, after being allowed
to dry.

Fifthly. The film is peeled off the paper by hand, and can be
immediately used for producing negatives recto or
verso as above mentioned.

I claim as my invention:

First. The preparation or formation of gelatino-bromide film
paper for photographic negatives, in the manner and for the
purposes above described; and,

Secondly. The use for this purpose of castor oil, or any other
analogous oil, more especially with the view of peeling off the
film from the paper backing as above described.

SOME OF THE USES OF COMMON ALUM.

A substance very much used by photographers of late years–in
fact, so much used that no well-appointed laboratory could be
considered complete without it–is the substance known is common
alum, or potash alum, being a double sulphate of alumina and
potash; but it is interesting to note that much of the commercial
alum met with at the present time is ammonia alum, or the double
sulphate of alum and ammonia. It is quite a matter of indifference
to the photographer whether he uses potash alum or ammonia
alum.

Besides its great value to the autotype, Woodburytype, and
mechanical printers as an agent for hardening the gelatine films,
it has been recommended for all sorts of ailments photographic. The
silver printer adds a small portion to his sensitizing bath to keep
it in working order, and to prevent blistering of the albumen;
then, again, silver prints are soaked in a dilute solution of alum,
having for its object the thorough elimination of the last traces
of the fixing salt. A very good proportion to use for this latter
purpose is four fluid ounces of a saturated solution, diluted with
one gallon of water, the prints being well agitated during an
immersion of ten minutes.

Of all the uses to which alum is put, perhaps not in any single
instance can so much satisfaction be derived as when it is used to
arrest frilling of gelatine plates. This it has the power to do
instantaneously, and many of the most careful workers, both amateur
and professional, or at least those who do net care to run any
unnecessary risks with negatives which have cost them a good deal
of anxiety and trouble to secure, but prefer to make assurance
doubly sure–such individuals may be numbered by the hundred–make
it a point in every-day practice to immerse all their plates in a
solution of alum, either before fixing, or immediately afterward.
In fact, some operators have two alum baths in use, one a normal
bath, as above mentioned, for immersing the plates in when of the
ordinary printing intensity; and the other a saturated solution
strongly acidified by means of a vegetable acid (such as citric) or
a mineral acid (such as sulphuric), for use when there is too much
printing density, since it has been found in practice that an acid
solution of alum in contact with sodium thio-sulphate on the
gelatine image (after fixing, but before washing) not only removes
the color or stain caused by the alkaline or pyrogallol, but
perceptibly reduces the strength of the image. Moreover, the color
does not again reappear after washing, as it does sometimes when
the fixing salt has been partially washed away. In cases where
there is great tendency to frill–such, for instance, as when a
soft sample of gelatine has been employed, or old decomposed
emulsion worked in with the fresh emulsion–it will in such cases
be safer to put the plates in the normal-bath for a few minutes
previous to immersing them in the acid bath.

Potash alum is obtained tolerably pure in commerce in colorless
transparent crystalline masses, having an acid, sweetish,
astringent taste. It is soluble in 18 parts of water at 60° F.,
and in its own weight of water at 212° F.; but the excess
crystallizes out upon cooling. The solution reddens litmus paper,
and, when impure, usually contains traces of oxide of iron. Upon
the addition of either caustic soda or potash, a white gelatinous
precipitate is formed (hydrate of alumina), which is soluble in
excess of the reagent employed. The precipitate thus obtained has
much of the character of the opalescent film sometimes observed on
gelatine plates, when dry, which have been soaked in alum, and not
well washed afterward.

Alkaline carbonates–such as washing soda, for
instance–precipitate hydrate of alumina, which does not dissolve
in an excess of the reagents, and carbon dioxide is evolved.

Ammonia hydrate produces a precipitate in a much finer state of
divison, which does not dissolve in excess when examined in a
test-tube, it somewhat resembles thin starch paste.

The presence of traces of iron may be known by adding a few
drops of hydrochloric acid to a small quantity of a saturated
solution of alum in a test-tube, to which add strong liquid
ammonia; should any iron be present, the mixture will have a
reddish-brown tinge when examined over a sheet of white paper.
Other alums exist, such as the double sulphate of alumina and
sodium, and sodium or aluminum and ammonium; but hitherto their
uses have been confined to the experimental portion of the
community rather than the practical.–Photo. News.

CLOTH STRETCHING MACHINE.

As is well known, in the process of bleaching and dyeing, cotton
cloths become considerably contracted in the width, in consequence
of carrying on the operations when the cloth is in the form of a
rope. The effect is that, together with the tension, although
slight, and the drying, the weft partly shrinks and partly curls
up, the latter, however, being scarcely observable to the naked
eye. It may almost be said that as regards the width the shrinkage
is due to a number of minute crumples because the cloth is easily
streatched again by the fingers almost to its gray width. The main
use of a stretching machine, therefore, is not so much to make the
cloth more than it is as to bring it again to its normal or woven
width after operations that tend to shrinkage have been performed
upon it. The stretching operation, therefore, is especially useful
to calico printers, as it enables them to obtain when desired a
white margin of even width, the irregularities due to bleaching
being corrected before printing.

IMPROVED CLOTH STRETCHING MACHINE.

The machine now illustrated is one we have recently seen in
operation in a Salford finishing works. It is an improved form of
another stretching machine which had been turned out in
considerable numbers by Mr. Archibald Edmeston, engineer, of
Salford, who makes a specialty of calico printers’ and finishers’
machinery. The improvements consist mainly of a simplification of
the working parts and thoroughly substantial construction of the
machine. The principle adopted is a well-known one. The selvages of
the cloth, or more strictly the two edges of the cloth, of a width
of about two inches, are caused to pass over and at the same time
are held by the rims of two diverging pulleys. The rims are further
apart where the cloth leaves them than where they seize it, hence
the stretching is gradually, certainly, and uniformly performed.
The cloth is gripped by the pressure of an endless belt acting
against the lower half of each pulley, the edges being held between
them. In the engraving these stretching pulleys are indicated by
the letters AA; the endless leather band passes over the pulleys,
CC, of which there are a set of four provided for each stretching
pulley. The lower pair of pulleys in each case may be tightened up
by a screw for the purpose of imparting the requisite tension to
the bands. The stretching pulleys are mounted upon and driven by
the same shaft, an ingenious but simple swiveling joint in their
bosses enabling them to be set at any angle to the shaft and yet to
revolve and be driven by it without throwing any undue strain upon
the working parts. The piece, wound upon the ordinary batch shell,
is placed upon the running-off center, D; it is led off over the
rails, EE, and then downward to the nip of the bands and pulleys,
AA. As explained, the selvages are here gripped between the bands
and stretching pulleys, the rims of which are wider apart at the
back than the front, and thus, in being conveyed underneath, the
piece is suitably stretched. Leaving the grip at the back it passes
over leading-off rollers, FF, and the scrimp or opening rail, G,
and thence downward to the winding-on center, which cannot be seen.
The winding-on center is driven by friction. As the batch fills it
and tends to wind faster than the machine delivers the cloth, the
driving slips. In addition to a capability of being set at an angle
to the shaft, the stretching pulleys, AA, may be slided upon, so as
to separate or bring them closer together, to allow for the
treatment of different widths of cloths. This adjustment is
provided for by mounting the stretching pulleys, AA, and the band
pulleys, CC, etc., on frames, BB, the ends of which rest, as shown,
upon rails, at the back and front of the machine. The adjustment
either for width of piece or for the angularity (extent of
stretching) is easily made by the hand-wheel, L. By the bevel
wheels shown, two cross screws having nuts connected to the ends of
frames, BB, are actuated in such a way that as desired the space
between the back and front of the pulleys may be closed in or
opened out, or the two wheels, maintaining the same angularity, may
be separated or closed in, either adjustment being expeditiously
made. The wheels, HHH, are called center stretching wheels, the use
of which is sometimes advantageous. They act in conjunction with a
set of stretching pulleys, of which one, K, may be seen in
illustration. By a proper adjustment at the latter the piece is
bent into a wavy form, where it passes between the whole of them,
the effect of the corrugation being to loosen the center threads
and to allow the piece to be more equally stretched with those near
the selvages and more easily. This part of the machine may be used
or not as required. The production, we observe, was about 120 yards
per minute. The machine is solidly built and well fitted together,
as was obvious to us from an inspection of some in course of
construction at the maker’s works. It is also claimed to be of
considerable advantage to bleachers and finishers of white goods,
on account of the uniformity of the stretching causing but small
disturbance to the stiffening.–Textile Manufacturer.

WOOLEN FABRICS PURIFIED BY HYDROCHLORIC ACID GAS.

All known methods for chemically purifying woolen stuffs from
vegetable fibers depend on the action of acids or substances of
acid reaction. The excessive temperature, hitherto unavoidable in
the operation, acts injuriously on the woolen fibers, especially
during the formation of hydrochloric acid, with which process
especially the development of an injuriously high temperature has
been hitherto unavoidable. The best method of absorbing the heat
developed is in the evaporation of the moisture naturally present
in the wool. The patentees find agitation of the fabric and the use
of an exhauster during the process of material assistance. The
operation maybe successfully performed in two ways–either by
acting on the fabric at the ordinary pressure with constant
agitation, or by saturation without agitation in a vacuum. For the
first method the patentees employ a wooden cylinder with an
aperture at one end for inserting and removing the cloth, and
having apertures all round to allow free access of air. This
cylinder rests on a hollow axle, closed at one end and perforated
with holes, through which the acid gas is passed. By the rotation
of the cylinder the gas is drawn through the material and the
latter exposed to the atmosphere, whereby it gives up a quantity of
aqueous vapor. An average temperature of 30° Cent. is best
suited to the operation, and it can be regulated according to the
supply of gas by opening or shutting a three-way cock between the
gas generator and the revolving cylinder. This process is assisted
by the use of an exhauster of the usual construction. When fully
saturated, the fabric is allowed to remain until the vegetable
fibers are sufficiently friable. The treatment in vacuo is
as follows:

The hydrochloric acid gas passes into a vessel of suitable
material provided with a perforated false bottom. From under this
false bottom a pipe connects with a second similar vessel connected
itself with a vacuum pump having a let-off pipe. As soon as the
maximum vacuum is attained, the gas is turned on through a
three-way cock at a pressure of 40 mm. mercury. The gas fills the
first vessel and saturates the cloth. The warmth set free (about
500 calories per kilo, gas) is taken up by the combined water in
the wool, as, owing to the low pressure, a quantity of vapor is
formed sufficient to take up the heat. This vapor streams through
the second vessel at a temperature of 35° Cent., penetrates the
material, and passes out through the pump. After saturating the
contents of the first vessel the gas passes into the second. AS
soon as this is one-quarter or one-third saturated the first vessel
is taken out and replaced by a third, which receives the overplus
from No. 2 in like manner, and so on. This plan of working prevents
gas passing through and damaging the pump. Instead of working under
reduced pressure, the desired low temperature can be maintained by
passing alternately with the gas currents of air which absorb heat
in evaporating the moisture of the material. The cloth, after
saturation by these processes, is left from six to twelve hours in
the vessels, after which it is freely exposed to the air until the
vegetable particles are friable. As soon as this occurs, the
fabrics are washed. It is advantageous to add to the wash water
powdered carbonate of baryta, strontia, magnesia, or preferably
lime, and subsequently to rinse in pure water. Phosphate of lime
containing carbonate may also be employed for neutralizing the
acid, and the residue recovered and separated from the organic
residues mixed with it.–“H. J.,” Journal of the Society of
Chemical Industry.

APPLICATION OF ELECTRICITY TO THE BLEACHING OF VEGETABLE
TEXTILE MATERIALS.

It is a recognized fact that chemical bodies in a nascent state
are characterized by peculiarly energetic affinities, and the
results of numerous experiments permit us to affirm that animal and
vegetable fibers are rapidly bleached when they are placed in
contact with oxides and chlorides which, when submitted to
electrolysis, permit oxygen and chlorine to disengage themselves in
the nascent state.

The coloring matter that impregnates the majority of vegetable
textile substances, such as cotton, flax, and hemp, to cite only
those most generally known, is in fact completely destroyed only by
the combined action of oxygen and chlorine, which always act in the
same manner, whether the fibers be in a raw or woven state.

In the application of electrolysis to the bleaching of textile
materials, it is only necessary to have the electrodes of any
sufficiently powerful generator of electricity end in a vessel
containing in aqueous solution such decolorizing agents as the
hypochlorites in general, and chlorides, bromides, and iodides that
are capable of disengaging chlorine, and iodine or an iodide in a
nascent state. These gases perform the role of oxidizing or
decolorizing agents.

The fibers that are immersed in the solution during the passage
of the electric current must necessarily remain therein for a
greater or less length of time, according to the nature of the
material to be bleached, and must, after this first operation, be
washed, rinsed, and dried.

The use of an electric current for decomposing the metallic
chlorides and disengaging their elements is not new, and there have
been specially utilized for this purpose, up to the present time,
the alkaline hypochlorites that are obtained by well known
processes.

In the latter case the metal is brought to the state of oxide in
presence of the water that is necessary for the reaction. But the
results obtained in practicing this method are deceiving, as far as
bleaching is concerned, and it is evidently more rational and
economical to endeavor to compound the hypochlorite directly by
borrowing all its elements from the metallic chloride itself, and
from the water by means of which such transformation is to be
effected. This is a reversal of the problem, and, à
propos thereof, we would call the attention of the reader to an
apparatus invented by Messrs. Naudin & Schneider for effecting
such synthesis in a simple and practical manner.

If a solution of chloride of sodium or kitchen salt, NaCl, be
submitted to electrolysis in a hermetically closed vessel
containing the material to be bleached, a formation of hypochlorite
of soda is produced in the following way:

2NaCl + 2 H₂O = NaCl + NaO, ClO + 4H.

In operating in this manner we shall have the advantage that
results from the nascent body through the electrical double
decomposition of the chloride of sodium and water, which puts the
chlorine, the metal, the hydrogen, and the oxygen simultaneously in
presence. The chlorine and oxygen will combine their action to
decolorize the textile material.

While starting from this idea, it will nevertheless be
preferable to adopt Naudin & Schneider’s arrangement.

The apparatus consists of a hermetically closed electrolyzer, A,
into the lower part of which enters the electrodes, E and F, of any
electrical machine whatever. The receptacle, A, is provided with a
safety-tube, T, that issues from its upper part and communicates
with a reservoir, B. A second tube, D, forms a communication
between the electrolyzer and the vessel, C. The liquid contained in
this latter is sucked up by a pump, P, and forced to the lower part
of the vessel, A, by means of the tubes, G and H.

The apparatus operates as follows:

The closed vessel, C, in which the material to be bleached is
put, is filled, as is also the electrolyzer, with a solution of
chloride of sodium. This solution is then submitted to the action
of an electric current, when, as a consequence of the chemical
decomposition of the chloride and the water, the elements in a
nascent state form hypochlorite of soda. When the partial or total
conversion of the liquid has been effected (this being ascertained
by chlorometric tests), the pump, P, is set rapidly in operation,
and, as a consequence, draws up the chloride of sodium from the
bottom of the vessel, C, to the lower part of the electrolyzer, A.
The hypochlorite that has formed passes through the tube, D (as a
natural consequence of the elevation of the level of the liquid in
A brought about by the entrance of a new supply of chloride), and
distributes itself throughout the vessel, C, where it acts upon the
textile material.

APPARATUS FOR BLEACHING TEXTILE FIBERS
BY ELECTRICITY.

The safety-tube, T, which is attached to the electrolyzer,
permits of the escape of the hydrogen which is produced during the
chemical reaction, and fixes, through an alkaline solution
contained in the reservoir, B, the chloride whose escape might
discommode the operator.

As may be conceived, the slow transfer of the saline solution
from the receptacle, C, to the electrolyzer, and its rapid
conversion into decolorizing chloride, as well as its prompt
application upon the materials to be bleached, presents important
advantages.

While, in the present state of the industries that make use of
bleaching chlorides, the chloride of sodium is converted into
hydrochloric acid, which, in order to disengage chlorine, must in
its turn react upon binoxide of manganese, we shall be able, with
this new method, to utilize the chloride of sodium, which is
derived from ordinary salt works, and extract from it the
constituent elements of the hypochlorite by a simple displacement
of molecules produced under the influence of an electric
current.

Another and very serious advantage of electric bleaching is that
of having constantly at hand a fresh solution of hypochlorite
possessing a uniform decolorizing power, which may be regulated by
the always known intensity of the current.

We must remark that the hypochlorites require a certain length
of time to permit the chlorine to become disengaged, and that,
besides, all chlorides, bromides, and iodides that are isomorphous
are capable of undergoing an analogous chemical transformation and
of being employed for the same purpose. This is especially the case
with the chlorides of potassium or barium, the bromides of
strontium or calcium, and the iodides of aluminum or magnesium. On
another hand, as sea water contains different chlorides, it results
that it might serve directly as a raw material for bleaching
textile fibers. Then, when the solution of chloride of sodium has
been deprived of its chlorine by electrolysis, there remains a
solution of caustic soda which may be utilized for scouring
fibers.–H. Danzer, in Le Génie Civil.

IMPROVED SPRING TRACTION ENGINE.

Messrs. J. & H. McLaren, of the Midland Engine Works,
Hunslet, Leeds, England, for several years past have devoted
considerable attention to the question of mounting traction engines
on springs. The outcome of this is the engine in question, the
front end of which is carried by a pair of Timmis spiral springs,
resting on the center pin of the front axle, which is on Messrs.
McLaren’s principle, which enables it to accommodate itself to the
inequalities of the road without throwing any undue strain on the
front carriage. The chief difficulty hitherto has been to mount the
hind end on springs without interfering with the spur gearing,
which must be kept perfectly rigid to prevent breakage of the cogs.
This is entirely provided for by the new arrangement, whereby all
the spring is allowed for in the spokes of the wheel itself, which
will be clearly seen on reference to the illustrations, in which
Fig. 1 is a perspective view of the engine, while Fig. 2 shows a
detail view of the wheel. The rim of the wheel is built up in the
ordinary way of strong T-iron rings, with steel crossplates riveted
on. The nave of the wheel has wrought-iron ribs to which the spokes
are bolted. These spokes are made of the best spring steel,
specially manufactured and rolled for the purpose, 9 inches wide
and ½ inch thick. They are bent in a pear shape, with the
narrow ends fastened to the nave, and the crown resting upon the
rim of the wheel, where they are divided, and held in their places
by means of clip fastened with bolts. When the weight of the engine
comes on these spokes, those nearest the ground are compressed and
those, at the top are elongated a little. In order to avoid any of
the driving strain passing through the springs, a strong arm is
fixed on the differential wheel and attached to the rim as shown in
Fig. 2, so that the springs have really no work to do beyond
carrying the weight of the engine. Messrs. McLaren naturally felt a
certain amount of diffidence in placing their invention before the
public until they had thoroughly tested it in practical work. This,
we are informed, they have done, with the most satisfactory
results, during the last five or six months; and they have a set of
springs which ran during that time between 2,000 and 3,000 miles,
besides which there are several of these spring engines in daily
use.–Iron.

FIG 1. IMPROVED SPRING TRACTION ENGINE.

FIG. 2

TABLE SHOWING THE RELATIVE DIMENSIONS, LENGTHS, RESISTANCES,
AND WEIGHTS OF PURE COPPER WIRE.

LENGTH AND WEIGHT

LENGTH AND RESISTANCE

RESISTANCE & WEIGHT

PURE COPPER weighs 555 lbs. per cubic foot. The Resistance of 1
mil. foot at 60° Fahr. is, according to Dr. Matthiessen,
10.32311 ohms. Upon these data the above Table has been
calculated.

The Resistance of Copper varies with the temperature
about 0.38 per cent. per degree Centigrade, or 0.21 per cent. per
degree Fahrenheit.

STRANDED WIRES.–With a conductor of a definite lenght, made of
Stranded Wires, the total weight is greater,
and the Resistance less than is a similar length of
Conductor with Wires not Stranded.

PEPARED BY WALTER T. GLOVER & CO., ELECTRICAL WIRE AND CABLE
MAKERS, 25, BOOTH STREET MANCHESTER.

IRON FRAME GANG MILLS.

The gang mill is regarded as possessing material advantages in
the rapid and economical manufacture of lumber. Among the recent
improvements tending to perfect such mills, those which are shown
in the iron frame stock gang, manufactured by Wickes Bros., East
Saginaw, Mich., are eminently valuable. Our large engraving
represents one of these mills, constructed to be driven by belt,
friction, or direct engine, as may be desired. The important
requisite in this class of mills is such design and proportion of
parts as will insure durability and continued movement at the
highest speed, safely increasing the quantity and improving the
quality of work done at a lesser feed, and admitting the use of
thinner saws than is practical in the slower moving sash. These are
among the advantages gained in the iron frame machine, overcoming
the necessity of an expensive mill frame, saving time and expense
in setting up, and avoiding the liability of decay or change of
position.

IMPROVED IRON FRAME GANG SAW MILL.

Many improvements have been made in the mechanism of
oscillation, and from these the builders of this mill have adopted
what is known as the Wilkin movement, which oscillates the top and
bottom slides. The top slides are pivoted at the top end, and the
bottom ones from the bottom end, both being operated by one rock
shaft from the center. This movement when properly adjusted gives
an easy clearance and the easiest cut yet obtained. It adds no
extra weight to the sash, and avoids the cumbrous rock shaft and
its attendant joints, usually weighing from three hundred to five
hundred pounds, which have been found so objectionable in many
other movements. The feed is continuous, and is made variable from
¼ to 1¼ inch to each stroke, controllable by the
sawyer. Power is applied to the press rolls in the double screw
form with pivot point, also operated by the same hand. A special
feature of this machine is the spreading of the lower frame so that
its base rests upon an independent portion of the foundation from
the main pillow block or crank shaft. The solidity of the whole
structure is thus increased, both by the increased width at the
base and the prevention of connecting vibrations, which necessarily
communicate when resting upon the same part, as in other forms of
such machines heretofore in use.

The mill shown in the perspective view is one of twenty-six saws
4½ feet long, sash 38 inches wide in the clear, and stroke
20 inches, capable of making 230 strokes per minute. The crank
shaft is nine inches in diameter, of the best forged iron. The main
pillow block has a base 6½ feet long by 21 inches bearing,
weighing 2,800 pounds. The cap is secured by two forged bolts
3½ inches in diameter, and by this arrangement no unequal
strain upon the cap is possible. A disk crank is used with suitable
counterbalance, expressly adapted to the weight and speed of sash;
a hammered steel wrist pin five inches in diameter, and a forged
pitman of the most approved pattern, with best composition boxes.
The iron drive pulley is 4 to 4½ feet in diameter and 24
inches face; the fly-wheel six feet in diameter, and weighing 4,700
pounds, turned off at rim. When a wider and heavier sash is
required, a proportionate increase is made in all these parts.

In the construction of the sash the stiles are made of steel;
the lower girt and upper heads are made in one solid piece, without
rivets, giving the greatest strength possible, with the least
weight. The outfit also includes eight iron rollers for the floor,
8½ inches in diameter, with iron stands, and geared as live
rolls when desired, a full set of Lippencott’s steel saw hangings,
and gauges for one-inch lumber. The weight of the machine here
shown is 18½ tons. They are, however, built in larger or
smaller sizes, adapted to any locality, quality or quantity of work
desired.

It is said that the St. Gothard Tunnel is diverting the bulk of
the Italian trade into the hands of the Belgians, Germans, and
Hollanders with startling rapidity. Without breaking bulk, early
fruits are taken from all parts of Italy to Ostend, Antwerp, and
Rotterdam, whence they are carried by fast steamers to London and
other English ports. But, on the other hand, Germany is sending
into Italy large quantities of coal, iron, machinery, copper, and
other articles of which the latter received nothing before. In two
months alone, the Italians imported 1,446 tons of paper.

THE HEAT REGENERATIVE SYSTEM OF FIRING GAS RETORTS.

The system of heat regeneration in the firing of gas retorts, in
accordance with the principle which Dr. C.W. Siemens has worked out
in such a variety of ways in the industrial arts, has lately been
applied with very marked success at the Dalmarnock Station of the
Glasgow Corporation Gas Works. Notwithstanding the fact that a
period of about twenty years has elapsed since Dr. Siemens
successfully adapted his system to the firing of retorts at the
Paris Gas Works, it seems to have made but little progress up to
the present time; for what reasons it is perhaps difficult to
explain. It is certain, however, that so-called regenerator
furnaces of various forms have, from time to time, been brought
into use at gas works for the purpose in question both on the
Continent and in this country; and in recent years the subject has
received much attention from gas engineers, the general opinion
eventually being that the adoption of such a system of working
would be certain to result in so great an amount of economy as to
put gas as an illuminating agent on a more secure footing to
compete successfully with its modern and somewhat aggressive rival,
the electric light. Of course, it is now admitted that the mode of
adapting the heat regenerative principle at the Paris Gas Works was
attended with a degree of complexity in the structural arrangements
that was so great and so expensive as to place it practically
beyond the reach of gas companies and gas corporations generally,
when the expense as well as the scientific beauty and practical
efficiency of the new mode of applying and utilizing heat had to be
considered. Fortunately, however, Dr. Siemens was enabled two or
three years ago to demonstrate that there was no such thing as
“finality” in that department of invention which he had made almost
exclusively his own. About the time mentioned he placed his most
advanced views on gas producers and on the regeneration and
utilization of heat before the world, and within that period a most
decided step in advance has been made, the structural arrangements
now required for gas producers and regenerator furnaces having been
immensely simplified and cheapened, while their practical utility
has in no way been interfered with.

Scarcely had Dr. Siemens announced his new form of gas producer
and regenerator than communication was opened with him by Mr. W.
Foulis, the general manager to the Glasgow Corporation Gas Trust,
with the view of entering into arrangements for its adoption on an
experimental scale at one of the stations under his charge.
Encouraged by the hearty co-operation of the gas committee, two or
three of whose members were well known engineers, Mr. Foulis very
soon came to an understanding with Dr. Siemens to have the
regenerative system put to a thorough test at the Dalmarnock Gas
Works, situated in the extreme east end of the city, and the
largest establishment of the kind in Scotland, the total number of
retorts erected being about 750. The system in its most recent
shape was applied to four ovens, each of which had seven retorts,
but which number has since been increased to eight, owing to the
space occupied by the furnace in the ordinary settings being
rendered available for an additional retort in the new or “Siemens”
setting. For each oven or chamber of eight retorts there was
erected a separate gas-producer, so that even one set of eight
retorts might alone be used if thought necessary.

GAS RETORTS WITH REGENERATIVE FURNACES .–GLASGOW
CORPORATION GAS WORKS.

In Figs. 1 and 2 of our illustrations, the general arrangement
and the relationship of the gas producer, the regenerators, and the
retorts to each other are clearly shown. It was a sort of sine
qua non of the new method of firing the retorts that the
producer should be in as close proximity as possible to the place
where the gaseous fuel was to be used, and it was concluded that
the most convenient situation would be immediately in front of its
own set of eight retorts, and with its top on a level with the
working floor of the retort house. To place it in such a position
meant a good deal of excavation, which was also required, however,
for the regenerator flues. The excavation was carried down to a
depth of 10 ft. below the level of the retort house floor, and as a
matter of course the operation of underpinning had to be resorted
to for the purpose of carrying down the foundations of the division
walls, which, together with the main arches and the hydraulic main,
were in no way otherwise disturbed. As in most new inventions, a
good deal of difficulty was experienced at first in connection with
these gas producers and heat regenerator furnaces; but by dint of
application and by the adoption of modifications made here and
there in the arrangements from time to time, as also by a
determination not to be beaten, although often disheartened, Mr.
Foulis was ultimately rewarded with complete success. The new
system of firing being made so simple that there was scarcely any
possibility of failure likely to arise in ordinary practice if it
was superintended with but a moderate amount of care.

Fig. 3.

The results which were obtained in course of time with four
ovens, or a total of 32 retorts, were so exceedingly promising that
it was forthwith resolved to extend the new mode of firing to the
whole of a double bench of twelve ovens, now containing 96 retorts;
and all the improvements which had suggested themselves during the
working experiments with the four ovens were adopted from the first
in the reconstruction of the remaining eight ovens in the bench.
More recently the regenerator system has been applied to other 22
ovens, or 176 additional retorts, being the whole of one of the
main divisions of the retort house; and during the very depth of
the present winter, when the demand for gas was at its greatest
height, all the retorts of the converted or “Siemens” settings,
amounting to 272, were in full working activity, in which condition
they still remain. It is intended to make another very considerable
extension of the heat regenerative system of firing during the
ensuing spring and summer. The reconstruction of the present year
will extend to the ovens of seven retorts each, giving in this case
eighty gas fired retorts; and to twenty ovens of five retorts each,
which will become sixteen ovens, each having eight retorts, making
128 retorts in this division, and the total being 208 retorts in
place of 170 in the same amount of space. It is confidently
anticipated, therefore, that by the month of August of the present
year, 480 full sized retorts will be available for working out the
new method at the Dalmarnock Gas Works. Furthermore, the confidence
which has been inspired in the minds of the members of the Glasgow
Corporation Gas Committee and their engineer regarding the
actualities and possibilities of the Siemens system of firing gas
retorts, in its most improved state, is such that arrangements are
being made for starting shortly to apply it throughout at the
Dawsholm Station, which is situated in the suburban burgh of
Maryhill, and some four or five miles distant from the Dalmarnock
Works in a northwestern direction. The station just named, which is
also a very large one, will probably require two years for its
conversion.

We shall now give some account of the structural arrangements
adopted for producing cheap gaseous fuel, and for turning that fuel
to the greatest advantage in firing the retorts for the purpose of
carbonizing the cannel coal used as the source of the gas.

The gas producer, which is represented in vertical section in
Fig. 2, is a cylinder of brickwork inclosed in a casing of
malleable iron. It is 7 ft. 6 in. deep, and 3 ft. in diameter,
which becomes reduced to 20 in. above, where it is closed by means
of a cast-iron lid, which is continuous with the floor of the
retort house. There are no firebars at the bottom, so that the fuel
rests on a floor of firebrick. At the bottom of the walls of the
producer there are several holes about 1 ft. in length by 6 in. in
height. By means of these openings any clinker that may form and
the ashes of the spent fuel can readily be withdrawn. They also
allow of the admission of air to maintain the combustion in the
lower portion of the mass of fuel; and at each opening there is a
malleable iron tube for delivering a jet of steam direct from a
steam boiler. We shall subsequently explain the functions performed
by the steam.

The fuel employed is the coke or char resulting from cannel coal
when it has yielded up its hydrocarbons and other gases during the
process of carbonization in the gas retorts. Being entirely made
from Scotch cannel the coke is very poor in quality, as it contains
a large percentage of mineral matter or ash relatively to its fixed
carbon. The retorts are worked with three-hour charges, but the
producer is only charged once in every six hours For each set of
eight retorts the charge of raw cannel is about 18 cwt., and it is
found in practice that the coke drawn from five of the retorts is
quite sufficient to fill up the producer to the top. Formerly a set
of seven retorts fired in the ordinary way from a furnace
underneath, required from 60 to 75 per cent. of the coke made, but
now, with eight retorts in each oven, the quantity has been reduced
to about 30 per cent., or less than one-half of what it formerly
was. Before the retorts are drawn the lid is removed from the top
of the producer, and any fuel still remaining unconsumed is touched
up a bit by way of leveling it on the surface, and as soon as it
has been filled up to the constricted portion a shovelful of soft
luting is spread over the top of the coke, and the lid is laid upon
it and driven home, thereby making a perfectly air-tight joint. The
contents of the other three retorts, as also the contents of the
whole of the retorts at each alternate drawing, are taken to the
coke heap in the yard. We have already spoken of a charge of cannel
as being about 18 cwt. for each set of eight retorts, but in
connection with that matter we should mention that it was formerly
about 13 cwt. per oven containing seven retorts, and that there is
every prospect of it being increased without increasing the length
of time occupied in carbonizing the cannel of each charge.

It may be worth while now to notice briefly what takes place
among the mass of coke in the gas producer. The atmospheric air
admitted at the several openings previously spoken of ascends
through the lower layers of the incandescent coke, the carbon of
which burns to carbonic acid gas at the expense of the oxygen of
the air. Among the middle and upper layers of the incandescent coke
the carbonic acid gas takes up a further quantity of the fixed
carbon, and becomes transformed into carbonic oxide gas
(CO₂+C=2CO), which is an inflammable body, and possesses
considerable calorific power. Unless the carbonic acid gas is very
completely “baffled” in its ascent through the coke in the
producer, a quantity of it passes into the furnace along with the
carbonic oxide, the efficiency of which is diminished in proportion
as the former increases in quantity. Of course, also, the nitrogen
associated with the oxygen in the air admitted to the gas generator
passes on with the carbonic oxide gas, this nitrogen acting as a
dilutant and being of course absolutely useless as a generator of
heat. The steam which we previously spoke of serves two good
purposes. In contact with incandescent coke it suffers
decomposition, its oxygen uniting with some of the fixed carbon to
form carbonic oxide, while the hydrogen which is set free passes
onward, and mixes with the other gases to be subsequently consumed
with them. The admission of the steam thus causes the absorption of
heat in the gas generator where the decomposition takes place, this
heat being again evolved on the subsequent combustion of the
hydrogen. Then, again, as the steam is delivered in among the coke
in a jet, or a series of jets, it has the effect of almost entirely
preventing any clinkering or slagging of the earthy and silicious
materials, which form such a large portion of the substance of the
coke obtained from Scotch cannels, sometimes as much as from 15 to
20 per cent. It is scarcely necessary for the stokers to go down
below to the bottom of the producers to remove the ash above once
in every six hours. Referring to the composition of the gaseous
fuel obtained from cannel coke in one of these gas producers, we
give the following typical analysis on the authority of Dr. William
Wallace, F.R.S.E., gas examiner, and one of the public analysts for
the city of Glasgow:

By again referring to Fig. 2, it will be observed that an
opening is provided for the passage of the gaseous matter as it is
formed into the mass of brickwork, the upper half of which is
occupied by the retorts of the setting and the lower by the
regenerators.

Before following the gas we may first direct attention to the
arrangements for dealing with it, and with the air that has to be
admitted for the combustion of so much of it as is of a combustible
nature. It will be seen by reference to Fig. 1 that the oven proper
is occupied by eight
shaped retorts. These are 9 ft. long (set back to back) by 18 in.
by 13 in., and they are placed on arches which are 8 ft. 6 in.
wide. Underneath the level of the retort oven there are two
regenerators or regenerator chambers, which differ very materially
in form from the regenerators formerly applied by Dr. Siemens to
gas retort ovens, and which are still employed for high temperature
furnaces like those used for steel and glass melting. In the case
of these latter the regenerators are on the alternating
system–that is to say, a mass of brickwork is heated by the waste
heat of the effluent gases, and when that is made sufficiently hot,
the current of waste gases is turned into a second mass of
brickwork, while air is admitted to pass through the brickwork
already heated. The system thus briefly described entails a certain
amount of attention on the part of the workmen in the altering of
the valves or dampers to reverse the currents. The regenerator now
adopted consists of an arrangement of six zigzag flues, three on
each side of the setting. These flues run the whole length of the
setting. As indicated by the arrows pointing downward in Fig. 3,
the waste gases on their way to the chimney stack pass to and fro
through the side flues, thus giving up a large portion of their
contained heat by the process of conduction or contact to the
central flue through which the incoming air passes. The air
necessary for combustion is first admitted into a large chamber in
the center, and then it is divided into two currents, which pass
right and left into the central passages of the two regenerators.
As the air flue is at a very bright heat for a considerable
distance before the air leaves it, the temperature of the air must
be equally great, or nearly so. In its most improved form one of
these heat regenerative furnaces provides an amount of heating
surface extending to 234 square ft., which is exposed to the air on
its way to the combustion chamber.

Passing from the producer through the flue provided for it, the
gas enters the retort setting underneath the side retorts, where it
meets the air coming from the regenerator. It enters the setting,
not by a number of small openings, but by one large opening on each
side, and meets the air entering also by a large opening, the
effect of which is to avoid the localization of intense heat, as
all the retorts of the setting become enveloped in an intensely
heating flame, due to the combustion of the carbonic oxide and
hydrogen gases.

There are various advantages attending this system of firing gas
retorts. First of all, there is already a saving of fuel to the
extent of one-half, and not unlikely there will soon be a further
very decided increase in the saving of fuel to record, inasmuch as
it has been experimentally determined within the past two or three
weeks that, by increasing its diameter to 3 ft. 4 in., one producer
can be made to provide a sufficient amount of gaseous fuel to fire
two sets of eight retorts. By the arrangement just hinted at the
relative amount of fuel used will be still further reduced. Then,
again, an additional retort can well be placed in each oven, as it
occupies the position of the fire in ordinary settings. In the
third place, by the greater heat which is obtained, the charges can
be more rapidly distilled; or heavier charges can be carbonized in
a given space of time. When all the gains are put together, the
amount of coal carbonized is increased by about 40 per cent. over
any specified time. Of course, in the new or regenerator settings
there is much greater regularity of heat; and as the gaseous fuel
is perfectly free from all solid matter, and burns without any
trace of smoke, there is a total absence of deposit on the outside
of the retorts. From these two circumstances combined it is but
natural to expect that there should be greater durability of the
retorts–which is really the case. Another advantage is that, as
the fuel used in the furnaces is wholly gaseous, choking of the
flues cannot by any possibility arise. It is the confident opinion
of Mr. Foulis that the system in question can be applied with
advantage to all sizes of gas works, and that it is certainly well
adapted for all works where the summer consumption of gas is
sufficiently large to give employment to eight retorts.

As this is the first instance of the new form of gas producer
and regenerator having been adopted in any gas works, a very great
amount of scientific and practical interest attaches to it. Many
persons have visited the Dalmarnock Gas Works during their
reconstruction, in order to see the system in operation, and
doubtless many more will go and do likewise when they learn of the
numerous advantages which it possesses, and which are likely to
increase rather than diminish.–Engineering.

A NEW GAS-HEATED BAKER’S OVEN.

During the past few weeks, a highly interesting experiment–and
one, moreover, destined to materially influence the development of
the uses of gas in a fresh field–has been in progress, under the
guidance of Mr. Booer, at a baker’s shop in the Blackfriars Road,
London. The experiment in question is nothing less than the
application of gas for heating bakers’ ovens, in a manner not
hitherto attempted, and such as to bring the system within the
means of the poorest tradesman in all but the smallest towns. It
will be remembered that the success of the gas-heated muffles for
burning tiles and glass led to the attempted construction of a
model baker’s oven, heated by the same fuel, which was shown in
action at the Smoke Abatement Exhibition at South Kensington in the
winter of 1881-82. This model attained considerable success; but
its design demanded either a new structure in every case, or
considerable alteration of any existing oven. In the proposed
system, moreover, the oven was heated wholly from without–a
condition supposed to be necessary to meet the objections of the
bakers. It is evident, however, that there must be considerable
waste of gas in heating a mass of tiles and brickwork, such as go
to the construction of a common baker’s oven, from the outside; and
the objection to handicapping such a costly fuel as gas in this
manner becomes more apparent when it is remembered that in the
usual way the oven is always heated by an internal coal fire. When
it is further considered that the coal commonly used by bakers is
of the most ordinary quality, full of dirt that would condemn it in
the estimation of a gas manager, the sentimental objection to
allowing a purified gas flame to burn in a place which this rubbish
is permitted to fill with foul smoke becomes supremely ridiculous.
Consequently, when Mr. Booer, whose work in connection with the gas
muffle is well known in England and America, seriously addressed
himself to construct, upon altogether new lines, a cheap and
practical baker’s oven, he wisely put the gas inside.

There are many other conditions which Mr. Booer, after
consultation with practical bakers and others, set himself to
fulfill, the observance of which lends to the present Blackfriars
experiment much of its interesting character. Thus it was observed
that, while it is not difficult to build an oven in a given spot,
and bake bread in it, this cannot truly be called a baker’s
oven. By this term must be understood in particular an oven in an
ordinary bakehouse, set in the usual style and worked by a man with
his living to get by it. Before the problem of extending gas to
bakers’ ovens could be considered solved, it had to be attacked
from this aspect. Mr. Booer, to do him full credit, seems to have
early appreciated this fact in all its bearings. He not only saw
that it was necessary to save gas, as much as possible, by putting
it inside the oven; but he was told that, in order to meet with any
general success, the cost of converting an oven to the gas system
must be rigidly kept down to about ten or twelve guineas. The
latter seems a particularly hard condition, when it is remembered
that the only improved baker’s oven in practical use at the present
day is the steam oven invented by Mr. Perkins, which costs two or
three hundred pounds to erect. Mr. Booer also had in mind the
necessity that everything possible for a coal oven must likewise be
performed by a gas oven; and in this respect he set himself to
surpass the costly Perkins oven, which will not bake the common
“batch” or household bread, generally the principal article of
sale, more especially in populous and poor neighborhoods. The
peculiar efficacy of the common coal fire in this respect proceeds
from the essential principle of action of a brick oven, which is
found simply in the fact that the work is done entirely by heat
previously imparted to the tile bottom, roof, and sides of the
oven, and thence radiated to the bread. No other kind of heat will
bake batch-bread–i.e., loaves packed in contact with one
another–which requires to be thoroughly soaked by a radiant heat
in a close atmosphere of its own steam. Now, as a coal fire is
eminently qualified to impart, by radiation and otherwise, this
necessary store of heat to the brickwork, it is plainly a
difficulty to effect the same purpose with a fuel which, of itself,
can scarcely radiate heat at all. The system of the gas
cooking-oven–the utilization of the heat of the combustion
products as formed–is clearly inapplicable here; for a different
kind of heat is needed, under conditions that would not sustain
continuous combustion. Therefore, there is nothing for it but to
heat the bottom and sides of the brick oven by the direct contact
of powerful gas-flames; thus supplanting the coal fire, but leaving
the actual work of baking to be done afterward by stored-up heat in
the regular way.

Having settled the general principles of a system of this kind,
there still remain a number of scarcely less important details, in
the dealing with which lies the difference between practical
success and failure. Thus it is not merely sufficient to heat an
oven for bread baking; it is also necessary to heat it within the
times and according to the habits of work to which the baker has
been accustomed. Work in town bakeries begins at about midnight, or
shortly after, and the condition of the oven must conform to the
requirements of the dough, which vary from day to day and from
season to season. In order to master all these niceties, as far as
a knowledge of them is necessary to his purpose, Mr. Booer has
spent many nights in the bakehouse in the Blackfriars Road; and has
thereby obtained a command over the technicalities of the work
which has served him in good stead, not merely for adjusting his
gas heat, but in answering the innumerable objections always raised
when a revolution in an immemorial trade is threatened. It is with
considerable satisfaction that we are enabled to declare, after
duly weighing all the conditions as to first cost and otherwise
imposed by himself and others, that Mr. Booer has succeeded, upon
these terms, in vindicating the claims of gas to be a cheap,
efficient, and cleanly fuel for heating ovens under the control and
according to the methods of working of the baker himself.

The oven with which this success has been achieved is one of two
in the bakehouse of Mr. Loeber, of 161 Blackfriars Road. It
measures 7 feet by 6 feet internally; being what is technically
termed a 6 bushel oven. The alterations made by Mr. Booer consist
in the first place in the removal of the flooring tiles, and the
laying down of a new bottom, under which run a number of flues
radiating from the side furnace. The throat of the furnace, where
it enters the angle of the oven, is bricked up, and eight pieces of
¾-inch gun-barrel tubing project above this dwarf wall, and
radiate fan-shaped under the dome of the roof. These are the
gas-burners, which are supplied from a 1½-inch pipe led into
the old furnace. The same pipe supplies the similar burners which
are inserted in the flues under the oven bottom. This is really all
the plant required. It should be remarked that these bottom flues
are carried to different points of the side walls, and the products
of combustion are allowed to rise upward into the oven through gaps
left for the purpose. A supplementary supply of heated air is
provided to help the combustion of the gas in these flues, which
would otherwise be languid. When the gas is turned on from the main
cock in the furnace either to the top or the bottom set of burners,
a long match is used to light them from the same point. This is
effected without risk of firing back, by the adoption of a
specially constructed atmospheric nipple and shield, the pattern of
which is registered. The flame from the top burners unites in a
sheet of fire, which spreads out all over the crown of the oven, at
the same time that the burners below are doing their work, and the
products of combustion flow together through the oven to the
chimney, which is the same that was used for coal. At first, as
might be expected, there was considerable difficulty in finding the
most suitable position of the chimney damper, aggravated in this
case by the fact that the other oven worked with a coal fire into
the same shaft. Finally, however, the two flues were disconnected
with the happiest results. During the past fortnight the oven has
been in regular use, and the bread has been sold over the counter
in the ordinary course of trade. Two and three batches of bread
have been baked in one day in this oven; the economy of its use, of
course, increasing with the number of loaves turned out. As a rule
the gas is lighted for about an hour before the oven is wanted, and
about 250 cubic feet are used. Then the cocks are shut and the oven
is allowed to stand closed up for ten minutes, in which time it
ventilates itself, and the heat spreads over it. Then the batch is
set, and the baking occupies from an hour to an hour and a half,
according to the different classes of loaves. Two batches are baked
with a consumption of about 620 cubic feet of gas; costing, at 2s.
10d. per 1000 cubic feet, just 11d. each batch for fuel. This
cannot be considered costly. But the system possesses many other
advantages. In the first place, it is much more cleanly than coal;
for the oven never requires wiping out, which is usually done with
a bundle of old rope called a “scuffle” and the operation is
attended with a most unpleasant odor. Then there is no smoke–a
great advantage from the point of view of the Smoke Abatement
Institution. More to the purpose of the journeyman baker, however,
is the fact that there is no stoking to be done, and he can
therefore take his repose at night without having to attend to the
furnace. Besides this the master has the satisfaction of knowing
that the oven will always be hot enough if he simply attends to the
time of lighting the gas–a consideration of no small moment. It is
no mean testimony to the reality of Mr. Booer’s success that Mr.
Loeber, having seen his difficulties and troubles from the
beginning, and marked how they have been overcome, is content to
acknowledge that even this first example is capable of turning out
bread in a condition to be sold over the counter. There is a good
opening in this direction, for there are 6,000 bakeries in London
alone, to every one of which Mr. Booer’s system might be applied
with advantage to the tradesman and his customers. And what may be
done with gas at about 3s. per 1,000 cubic feet may certainly be
done to still greater advantage in many towns where the price is
lower. Mr. Booer has entered upon his work in a proper spirit. He
has begun at the beginning, with the necessities of the baker; and
has gone plodding on quietly, until he has achieved a noteworthy
success. It may be hoped he will receive the reward which his
perseverance merits.–Jour. of Gas Lighting.

CAPTAIN MATTHEW WEBB.

Who was drowned on July 24 in attempting to swim through the
whirlpool and rapids at the foot of the Falls of Niagara, was born
at Irongate, near Dawley, in Shropshire, January 18, 1848. He was 5
feet 8 inches in height, measured 43 inches round the chest, and
weighed about 14½ stone. He learnt to swim when about seven
years old, and was trained as a sailor on board the Conway
training-ship in the Mersey, where he saved the life of a fellow
seaman. In 1870 he dived under his ship in the Suez Canal and
cleared a foul hawser; and, on April 23, 1873, when serving on
board the Cunard steamer Russia, he jumped overboard to save the
life of a hand who had fallen from aloft, but failed, and it was an
hour before he was picked up almost exhausted. For this he received
a gold and other medals. He became captain of a merchant ship, but
soon after he relinquished the sea and devoted himself to the sport
of swimming.

At long distance swimming in salt water he was facile
princeps, but he did not show to such advantage in fresh water.
In June, 1874, he swam from Dover to the North-East Varne Buoy, a
distance of 11 statute miles. On July 3, 1875, he swam from
Blackwall Pier to Gravesend Town Pier, nearly 18 statute miles, in
4 hours 52 minutes. On the 19th of the same month he swam from
Dover to Ramsgate, 19¼ statute miles, in 8 hours 45 minutes.
On August 12, 1875, he tried to cross from England to France, and
although he failed, owing to the heavy sea, he compassed the
distance from Dover to the South Sand Head, 15½ statute
miles, in 6 hours 48 minutes. On the 24th of the same month he made
another attempt, which rendered his name famous all over the
English-speaking world. Starting from Dover, he reached the French
coast at Calais, after being immersed in the water for 21 hours 44
minutes. He had swum over 39 miles, or, according to another
calculation, 45½ miles, without having touched a boat or
artificial support of any kind. Subsequently he swam at the Lambeth
Baths, and the Westminster Aquarium, and last year, at Boston,
U.S., he remained in a tank nearly 128½ hours. Latterly he
had suffered from congestion of the lungs, and his health had
become much impaired.

CAPT. MATTHEW WEBB.

The story of his final and fatal effort needs here but a brief
description. At two minutes past four, on July 24, Webb dived from
the boat opposite the Maid of the Mist landing, and, amid the
shouts and applause of the crowd, struck the water. He swam
leisurely down the river, but made good progress. He passed along
the rapids at a great pace, and six minutes after making the first
plunge passed under the Suspension Bridge. Immediately below the
bridge the river becomes exceedingly violent, and as the water was
clear every movement of Webb could be seen. At one moment he was
lifted high on the crest of a wave, and the next he sank into the
awful hollow created. As the river became narrower, and still more
impetuous, Webb would sometimes be struck by a wave, and for a few
moments would sink out of sight. He, however, rose to the surface
without apparent effort. But his speed momentarily increased, and
he was hurried along at a frightful pace. At length he was swept
into the neck of the whirlpool. Rising on the crest of the highest
wave, he lifted his hands once, and then was precipitated into the
yawning gulf. For one moment his head appeared above the angry
waters, but he was motionless, and evidently at the mercy of the
waves. He was again drawn under the water, and was seen no more
alive. Some days later his body was found four miles below the
fatal Rapids. It bore tokens of the fearful violence of the
struggle which he had undergone. His bathing drawers were torn to
fragments, and there was a deep wound in his head. An inquest was
held, and the jury returned a verdict of “Found drowned.”

Captain Webb was married about three years ago, and leaves a
widow and two children. It is understood that he risked his life in
this last fatal attempt to obtain money for the support of his
family.–London Graphic.

SEMI-DETACHED VILLAS, BROMFIELD CRESCENT, HEADINGLEY.

These houses are situated in a pleasant part of Headingley,
which is the favorite residential suburb in the locality of Leeds.
As regards accommodation, the ground-floor of each house comprises
good-sized drawing and dining rooms, each with bay windows;
well-lighted entrance halls, opening upon wooden verandas; kitchen,
pantry, and scullery; on first floor are three good bedrooms, a
bathroom, and other necessary accommodation; on second floor are
two additional bedrooms. The basement contains coal-place and
larder.

In these houses an attempt has been made to produce
conveniently-planned and well-arranged habitations, combined with a
pleasing and picturesque exterior, without involving a large outlay
of money. The materials used are brick of a deep red color for
facings, red terra-cotta from Messrs. Wilcock & Co., of
Burmantofts, for moulded strings, sills, etc., and a very sparing
use of stone from the Harehills Quarries. The front gables are
constructed of timber in solid scantlings, well framed, and pinned
together with oak pegs, filled in and well backed behind with
brickwork; the panels faced with cement, which, together with the
cored cornice, are finished in vellum color. The whole of the
woodwork of exterior is painted a neutral shade of peacock blue,
forming an admirable contrast with the deep red of the bricks, the
sashes and casements only being finished in cream color. The whole
of the chimneypieces in the interior are carried out from the
architect’s special design; those in the drawing-rooms being of
mahogany, finished in rosewood color, and those in dining-rooms of
oak, stained with ammonia and dull wax polished.

SUGGESTIONS IN ARCHITECTURE.–SEMI-DETACHED
VILLAS,
BROMFIELD CRESCENT, HEADINGLEY, LEEDS.

The houses, with outbuildings and boundary walls, which have
been erected for Mr. John Hall Thorp, of Bromfield, Headingley,
have cost £1,450, or thereabouts, this amount not including
the price of land. They have been carried out from the designs and
under the superintendence of Mr. William H. Thorp, A.R.I.B.A.,
architect, of St. Andrew’s Chambers, Park Row, Leeds.–The
Architect.

THE DWELLINGS OF THE POOR IN PARIS.

In view of the possible approach of cholera, and the sanitary
precautions that even the most neglectful of authorities are
constrained to take, it is of some interest to us, says the
Building News, to know how the poor are housed in the city
of Paris, which contains, more than any city in the world, the
opposite poles of luxurious magnificence and of sordid, bestial
poverty. The statistics of the Parisian working classes in the way
of lodgings are not of an encouraging nature, and reflect great
discredit on the powers that be, who can be stern enough in the
case of any political question, but are blind to the spectacle of
fellow creatures living the life of beasts under their very eyes.
In 1880, the Prefect of Police gave licenses to 21,219 arrivals in
the city of French origin, and to 7,344 foreigners. In the
succeeding year, the former had increased to 22,061, while the
latter had somewhat diminished, being only 5,493. There was a
census taken in 1881, from which it appeared that Paris contained
677,253 operatives and 255,604 employes and clerks, while out of
every 1,000 inhabitants, 322 only were born in the city, and 565
came from the departments or the French colonies. The foreign
element in the working classes has increased very rapidly,
numbering 119,349 in 1876, to which by 1881 there was an addition
of 44,689. To every 1,000 inhabitants, Paris now numbers 75
foreigners, though in 1876 the proportion was only 60. It may not
be amiss to state that the annual increase of the Paris population
is at the rate of 56,043 persons, and that in the five years
1876-81, the city received 280,217 additional mouths. The total
population of the capital is 2,239,928, of whom 1,113,326 are
males.

Returning to the poorer classes, we find that in 1872 they were
estimated at 100,000; but that in 1873 they had risen to 113,733,
and in 1880 to 123,735. It is unfortunate to be obliged to say that
the majority of these people are housed worse in Paris than in
almost any other great city in the world. There are two classes of
lodgings for the poor–the one where the workman rents one or more
rooms for his family, and, perhaps, owns a little furniture; the
other, a single room tenanted for the night only by the unmarried
man who pays for his bed in the morning and gets his meals anywhere
that he can. Readers will remember how, under the auspices of M.
Haussmann, western Paris was almost pulled down and transformed
into a series of palatial boulevards and avenues. While the work
lasted the Paris workman was well pleased; but he did not like it
quite so much when the demon of restoration and renovation invaded
his own quarters, such as the Butte des Moulins, and all that
densely populated district through which the splendid Avenue de
l’Opera now runs. The effect of all this was to drive the workman
into the already crowded quarters at the barriers, such as La Gare,
St. Lambert, Javel, and Charonne, where, according to the last
statistics of the Annuaire, the increase was at the rate of
415 per 1,000. Of course the ill health that always pervaded these
quarters increased also; and, from the reports of Dr. Brouardel and
M. Muller, the number of deaths from typhoid and diphtheria were
doubled in ten years. Dr. Du Mesnil, in making his returns for 1881
of convalescents from typhoid, remarked that the most unsanitary
arrondissements were the 4th, 11th, 15th, 18th, and 19th–precisely
those to which the principal migrations of laborers had taken
place. The 18th arrondissement, which in 1876 had only 601 lodging
houses with 8,933 lodgers, had, in 1882, over 850, with 20,816
inmates. In the 19th arrondissement there were 517 houses in 1876,
with 9,074 lodgers, and 752 in 1882, with 17,662 inhabitants.

It is not only the crowded condition of the poor quarters that
is such a standing menace to the health of the city, but also the
shocking state of the rooms, which the unhappy lodgers are obliged
to put up with. The owners of the property are, as happens in other
places besides Paris, unscrupulous and grasping to the last degree,
and have not only divided and subdivided the accommodation wherever
possible, but have even raised the rental in nearly all cases.
Whole families are crowded into a small apartment, icy cold in
winter, an oven in summer, the only air and daylight which reaches
the interior coming from a window which looks on to a dirty
staircase or a still fouler court reeking with sewage. There are at
the present time in Paris 3,000 lodgings which have neither stove
nor chimney; over 5,000 lighted only by a skylight; while in 4,282
rooms there are four children in each below 14 years of age; 7,199
with three children; and 1,049 with four beds in each. The Parisian
population has augmented only 15 per cent. in seven years; but the
district of poor lodging houses has increased by twenty per cent.,
and the number of lodgings by about 80 per cent. It is true that a
law was passed in 1850 to provide for the sanitary supervision of
this class of property; but in Paris the law is a dead letter, and,
although it is now active in the provinces and in places like
Marseilles, Lyons, Bordeaux, and Nantes, it is applied, even there,
in a jerky and intermittent manner.

Perhaps the worst of the abominable dogkennels called houses was
the group known as the Cité des Kroumirs, in the 13th
arrondissement, which, by a strange irony, was built on land
belonging to the Department of Public Assistance, which was let out
by that body to a rich tenant, who sublet it to these lodging-house
owners. This veritable den of infection and misery has now been
demolished; but there are plenty of others quite as bad. Notably,
there is the Cite Jeanne d’Arc (a poor compliment to have named it
after that sturdy heroine), an enormous barrack of five stories,
which contains 1,200 lodgings and 2,486 lodgers. No wonder that it
was decimated in 1879 by smallpox, which committed terrible ravages
here. The Cité Dore is grimly known by the poor-law doctors
as the “Cemetery Gateway.” The Cite Gard, in the Rue de Meaux, is
inhabited by 1,700 lodgers, although it is almost in ruins. The
Cite Philippe is tenanted by 70 chiffonniers, and anybody who knows
what are the contents of the chiffonnier’s basket, or hotte,
may easily guess at the effluvia of that particular group of
houses. A large lodging-house in the Rue des Boulangers is tenanted
by 210 Italians, who get their living as models or itinerant
musicians. Both house and tenants are declared to be unapproachable
from the vermin.

It is some satisfaction to know that these houses have lately
awakened the apathy of some of the public bodies, and that more
than one scheme is being put forward with a view of erecting proper
industrial dwellings. The Municipal Council is negotiating with the
Credit Foncier for the erection of a certain number of cheap
houses, which, for the space of twenty years, will be exempt from
all taxes, such as octroi, highway, door and window tax, etc. There
are also one or two semi-private companies, which are occupying
themselves with the question, and it is to be hoped that the rumors
of the pestilence in Egypt may hasten the much-needed reform.

There can be no doubt, says the Engineer, that the
inventor who could supply in a really portable form a machine or
apparatus that could give out two or three horse power for a day
would reap an enormous fortune. Up to the present time, however,
nothing of the kind has been placed in the market. Gas is laid on
to most houses now, and gas engines are plenty enough, yet they do
not meet the want which a storage battery may be made yet perhaps
to supply.

RECENT EXPERIMENTS AFFECTING THE RECEIVED THEORY OF MUSIC.

To prove the incorrectness of Helmholtz’s statement that beats
do not colesce into musical sounds, but that the ear will
distinguish them as a rumbling noise, even when their number rises
as high as 132 vibrations per second, Rudolph Koenig has
constructed a series of tuning forks, recently presented by
President Morton to the Stevens Institute of Technology. The
following table exhibits the number of vibrations per second of
these forks, the ratios of their vibrations when two are sounded
together, the number of beats produced, and the resultant
sound:

On sounding two forks nearly in unison, the sound heard
corresponds to a number of vibrations equal to the difference of
the numbers of vibrations of the forks.

On sounding two forks, one of which is nearly the octave of the
other, the ear perceives a sound, which is that given by vibrations
whose number equals the difference in the number of vibrations of
the higher fork and the upper octave of the lower fork.

Koenig has also found out the laws of the resultant sounds
produced by other intervals than the octave, and has extended his
researces to intervals differing by any number of vibrations, as
may be seen from the above table.

His conclusion is that beats and resultant sounds are one and
the same phenomenon.

Thus, for example, the lowest number of vibrations capable of
producing a musical sound is 32 per second; in like manner, a clear
musical sound is produced by two simple notes of sufficient
intensity which produce 32 beats per second.

Koenig also made a very ingenious modification of the siren for
the purpose of enabling Seebeck to sound simultaneously notes whose
vibrations had any given ratio. It is furnished for this purpose
with eight disks, each of which contains a given number of circles
of holes arranged at different angular distances. A description of
this instrument, which is also the property of the Stevens
Institute, and of Seebeck’s experiments is thus given in a letter
by Koenig himself.

I.

Effects produced when the isochronism of the shocks is not
perfect.

A.

In order to produce a note, the succession of shocks must not
deviate much from isochronism.

If the isochronism is but little impaired, we obtain a note
corresponding to the mean interval of the shocks.

If the intervals between the shocks are alternately t and t’,
and if the difference between t and t’ is slight, we obtain the two
notes t+t’ and (t+t’)/2. If the intervals between the shocks are
alternately t, t’, and t”, we obtain the two notes t+t’+t” and
(t+t’+t”)/3.

Disk No. 1 has–

Circle No. 8 produces the two notes of circles 1 and 2; circle
No. 7 the same, but the low note is stronger than in 8.

Circle 6 produces the notes of circles 1 and 3, and so does
circle 5, but in the latter the low note is stronger than in 6.

Circle 4 produces a noise approximating only to the note of
circle 3.

By pulling out one of the buttons of the wind chest, we admit
the air through eleven holes at a time, having an angular distance
of 30° and directing it against the corresponding circle of
holes on the turning disk. If the arrangement of holes is not
repeated identically twelve times on the same circle, we cannot, of
course, make use of the above arrangements of holes of the wind
tube, and we must then employ one of the movable brass tubes, which
communicate with the interior of the wind chest by means of rubber
tubes and stopcocks. The experiment with disk 1, circle 4, for
example, requires the use of one of these two tubes, while the
perforated wind tube of the wind chest may be used with all the
other circles of the same disk.

B.

If t is much less than t’, while t’ is a multiple of t, the note
(t+t’)/2 disappears, and the notes t+t’ and t are heard.

Disk No. 2 has–

Circle 8 produces the notes of circles 1 and 2; circle 7, those
of 1 and 3; circle 6, those of 1 and 4; and circle 5, the note of
circle 1 and of its sixth harmonic.

C.

If the same circular arc is divided into m and n equal parts;
that is to say, if mt=nt’, we obtain the notes m and n.

Disk No. 3 has–

Circle 1 produces a single note, circle 2 a second, circle 3 a
third, circle 4 a fourth, 5 a fifth, 6 a sixth, 7 a seventh, and 8
a perfect chord.

II.

Experiments to prove that the shocks may proceed from two or
several different places to conspire in the formation of a note,
provided that the isochronism of the shocks is sufficiently exact,
and that the shocks are produced in the same direction.

Disk No. 4 has–

1. If from the same side two currents of air at an angular
distance of 15° are directed against circle No. 8 of 12 holes,
we obtain the octave of the note produced by the same circle if
only one current is used.

The wind-chest is provided with a special arrangement for this
experiment. By pulling out button 8, we give vent to 12 currents of
air spaced like the twelve holes of the disk; on pulling out button
9 we also produce 12 currents, but they are situated just between
the first. Each of these two buttons pulled out alone will produce
the same note corresponding to 12 holes, but drawn together they
produce the octave, or the note of circle 1.

2. If two currents of air are directed against two similar
circles whose holes are situated on the same radii, we obtain the
same result.

In this experiment, circles 7 and 8 are sounded by pulling out
buttons 7 and 9.

3. When two currents of air are directed on the same radius
against two circles of similar holes arranged alternately, these
circles sounded simultaneously will produce the octave of the note
which one of them would give alone.

This experiment is performed by sounding circles 6 and 7 and
pulling out buttons 6 and 7.

4. If we direct three currents of air on the same radius against
three similar circles having holes alternating by a third of the
distance between two holes of the same circle, the three circles
together produce the fifth of the octave (Note 3) of a single
circle.

Circles 3, 4, and 5 sounded together emit the note of circle
2.

(By sounding only two circles, 3 and 4, or 4 and 5, we make the
same experiment with two circles as disk No. 2 enabled us to make
with circle 8 alone; also, by sounding circle 3 alone, we obtain
the note corresponding to 12 holes; then pulling out button 4, the
notes corresponding to 12 and 36 holes are heard suddenly and very
strongly; but as soon as circle 5 is sounded also, the note of 12
disappears completely, and we have left only that corresponding to
36 holes.)

III.

Effects of interference produced by shocks in opposite
directions.

1. If we direct against a circle of holes two currents of air in
opposite directions, the note obtained with a single current is
very much weakened, if the two currents reach the holes
simultaneously. If the impulses are not isochronous, the intensity
of the note is increased.

2. If the two currents are directed against two circles of the
same number of holes, the effect is the same as for the two
preceding cases.

3. If two currents of air are directed against two circles, one
of which has twice as many holes as the other, we obtain only the
low note if every shock of one is isochronous with every shock of
the other.

We obtain the notes of both circles, one of which is the octave
of the other, if there is no isochronism between the shocks.

Disk No. 5 has three circles of 36, 36, and 72 holes. The air
currents are directed against the circles of holes through the
movable tubes, made so that they can be detached at pleasure. All
these experiments require great precision in the arrangement of
these wind tubes. To make sure that the tubes are simultaneously
before two holes of the disk, it is well to put little rods through
the holes, reaching into the wind tubes, and to remove them only
when the tubes are firmly attached. The experimenter should be
careful also to place the two tubes exactly at the same distance
from the turning disk. It is clear that notwithstanding all these
precautions we never obtain perfect interference, but only the
weakening of notes that ought to disappear entirely if all the
arrangements were made with mathematical exactness, and also if the
ear could have absolutely the same position with regard to impulses
produced in opposite directions.

IV.

Beats.

Disk No. 6 has–

8 circles of holes to the number of 1, 2, 23, 24, 25, 47, 48,
49.

Circles 3 and 4, 4 and 5, 6 and 7, and 7 and 8 ought to produce
as many beats as circle 1 produces simple shocks; and circles 3 and
5, 6 and 8, as many beats as circle 2 produces simple shocks; but
we must content ourselves in these experiments with a much less
perfect result, for the following reasons: The disk never being
rigorously plane, alternately approaches the single wind pipe and
recedes from it. No matter how slight this deviation is, every
sound given by a single circle is heard with periodical intensities
which complicate the phenomenon. This inconvenience could be
avoided by placing several wind-pipes around the circle; but while
we can extend the period of the holes in two circles (whose
difference is 1) around the whole circle by blowing through a
single wind tube, we would be compelled to limit it to the distance
between two wind tubes, and it would become too short; for, when
the disk rotates with a velocity sufficient to produce notes high
enough and intense enough, the beats become too numerous to be
easily perceived.

Besides these provisions, which sufficiently illustrate the
points to which we desire to call especial attention, Koenig also
furnishes two more disks.

The seventh contains 8 circles having 48, 54, 60, 64, 72, 80,
90, and 96 holes respectively. The 1st, 3d, 5th, and 8th will
produce a perfect chord when the air is admitted through the 11
holes in the wind chest; with one wind tube the entire gamut may be
obtained.

Finally the eighth disk contains 8 circles of holes, whose
numbers are in the ratio of 1:2:3:4, etc., and which may be used to
illustrate harmonics. C. F. K.

THE MOTIONS OF CAMPHOR UPON THE SURFACE OF WATER.

[Footnote: Continued from SUPPLEMENT No. 391, page 6240.]

To have these movements occur in a constant and invariable
manner upon the surface of water, and especially upon mercury, it
is necessary to take precautions in regard to cleanliness, this
being something that we have purposely neglected to mention to our
readers. For we wished, through this voluntary omission, to
stimulate their sagacity by bringing them face to face with
difficulties that they will perhaps have succeeded in overcoming,
with causes of error that they will have perceived, and the
principal one of which is the want of absolute cleanliness in the
water, vessels, and instruments that they may have used for the
experiments.

Thus, very probably, they will have more than once seen the
camphor remain immovable when placed in vessels in which they had
hoped to be able to see it undergo its gyratory and other motions.
Their astonishment will have been no less than our own was when we
noticed the sudden cessation of the camphor’s motions under the
influence of vitreous or metallic objects, such as glass rods or
tubes, pieces of gold, silver, or copper coin, table knives, etc.,
dipped into the liquid in which such motions were taking place
before the immersion of the objects under consideration.

The instantaneously sedative power of the human fingers,
or of a hair, will have, perhaps, reminded them of some sort of
sorcery, or of some diabolic art worthy of the great Albert.

APPARATUS FOR THE STUDY OF THE MOTIONS
OF CAMPHOR.

As for ourself, we confess that, after repeating the curious
experiments of Mr. Dutrochet day after day, and scrupulously
following his directions, we have, in the presence of our results,
that were exactly identical with his, almost been tempted to
believe ourself to be the victim of some occult power, or at least
of some optical illusion, the true cause of which remained a
mystery to us. Finally, after many fruitless attempts to find a key
to the enigma that engaged our attention, the light finally dawned
upon us, and then shone straight in our eyes.

In comparing the last results of our experiments with those that
we had obtained previously, we saw, for example, that the camphor
moved in the test glasses at a level that was notably higher than
that at which its gyration took place the day before, or the day
before that. And yet we had always used the same vessels, the same
water, and particles detached from the same lump of camphor.

To what, then, could be due the difference observed between the
two levels at which we had, in the first and last place, seen the
camphor execute its movements? In the absence of any answer that
was satisfactory, we finally suspected that the difference that we
had noticed was ascribable to the fact that, after the numerous
washings that the apparatus had been submitted to in having water
poured into them to repeat the experiments, they had gradually been
freed from impurities of whatever nature they might have been, and
which, unbeknown to us, might have soiled their sides.

Starting with this idea, which was as yet a hyphothetical one,
we began to wash our hands, glasses, etc., at first with very
dilute sulphuric acid, and then with ammonia. Afterward we rinsed
them with quantities of water and dried them carefully with white
linen rags that had been used for no other purpose; and finally we
plunged them again into very clean water. We thus cut the Gordian
knot, and were on the right track.

In fact, on again repeating Mr. Dutrochet’s experiments, with
that minute care as to cleanliness that we had observed to be
absolutely necessary, we saw crumble away, one after another, all
the pieces of the scaffolding that this master had with so much
trouble built up. The camphor moved in all our vessels, of glass or
metal, and of every form, at all heights. The immersed bodies, such
as glass tubes, table knives, pieces of money, etc., had lost their
pretended “sedative effect” on a pretended “activity of the water,”
and on the vessels that contained it. The so-called phenomenon of
habit “transported from physiology into physics,” no longer
existed.

The likening of the apparatus employed to obtain motions of
camphor upon water, with the entirely physiological apparatus by
means of which nature effects a circulation of the liquid contained
in the internodes of Chara vulgaris, had proved a grave
error that was to be erased from the science into which it had been
introduced by its author with entire good faith. The true cause of
life had not then been unveiled, and the new agent
designated as diluo-electricity vanished before the very
simple and authentic fact that camphor moves rapidly upon the
surface of very pure mercury, in which no one would assuredly
suppose that that volatile substance could dissolve.

Mr. Dutrochet attaches great importance to the manner in which
the water is poured (with or without agitation) into the vessel
with which the experiment is performed. The matter is in fact of
little or no importance, and to prove this, it is only necessary to
employ a test glass (see figure) provided with a lateral tube, A,
that terminates in a lower tubulure, B, above which there is a
contraction, C. Upon pouring water into the lateral tube until the
level reaches D, and placing a particle of camphor on its surface,
the camphor will be seen to continually move about, even when the
liquid has reached the upper edge of the vessel. To reduce the
level to various heights, it is only necessary to revolve the tube
in the cork through which it is fitted to the tubulure. In
proceeding thus, agitation or collision of the water is
avoided; and yet if the test glass is very clean, the camphor will
continue to move at every level of the water.

But, some one will doubtless say, how do you explain the
stoppage in the motions of the camphor on the surface of water
contained in vessels that are not perfectly clean? Before answering
this question, let us say in the first place that the cause of the
motions under consideration is due to nothing else but the
evaporation of this concrete oil–to effluvia that escape from all
parts and that exert upon the body whence they emanate a recoiling
action exactly like that which manifests itself in an ælopile
mounted upon a brasier, or, better yet, in the explosion of a
sky-rocket. A portion of these camphory vapors, as well as a small
portion of the camphor itself, dissolves in the water and forms
upon its surface an oily layer which is at first very slight, but
the thickness of which may increase in time until it becomes
(especially if the vessel is narrow) a mechanical obstacle to the
gyration of the small fragments of camphor that it imprisons, and
whose evaporation it prevents. Now, as this layer of volatile oil
may and does evaporate, in fact, after a certain length of time,
the camphor then resumes its gyratory motions; but there is not the
least reason in the world for saying on that account that it “has
habituated itself to the cause which had at first influenced
it, and that, too, in modifying itself in such a way as to render
null the influence of a cause that has not ceased to be present”
(Dutrochet, l.c.., p. 50).

We have been enabled to convince ourself of the existence of
this oily layer of camphor when it was of a certain thickness by
introducing under the water on which it, had formed, a few drops of
sulphuric ether whose sudden evaporation produced sufficient cold
to instantaneously congeal the layer in question and thus render it
perfectly visible to the eye. The slight layer of greasy matter
that habitually lines the sides of vessels from whence no effort
has been made to remove it, produces effects exactly like those of
the oil of camphor, that is to say, that in measure as it becomes
thicker it likewise arrests the motions of the concrete volatile
essence.

This is precisely what happens in a test-glass in which we see
the camphor in motion become immovable if the level of the water be
raised a few centimeters, and, more especially, if it be raised to
the upper edge of the apparatus. In its slow ascent the liquid
licks up, so to speak, the oily layer that lines the inner
surface of the vessel, and this material spreads over the surface
of the water and forms thereupon a layer which, in spreading over
the bit of camphor itself, prevents its evaporation, and,
consequently, its motions. The existence of the layer under
consideration cannot be doubted, since it is made to disappear by
causing the water to-overflow from the edges of the vessel, and,
more easily still, by spreading a piece of filtering paper over the
liquid in which the camphor is in a state of rest. As soon as the
paper is removed (without the water being touched by the fingers,
it should be understood), the camphor resumes its motions and
afterward continues them at all levels.

The fingers themselves, provided they are very clean, have no
power to stop the gyration. The following experiment, which is easy
to repeat, is an unquestionable proof of this.

Wash carefully the middle finger with aqua ammonia, and
afterward with plenty of water, and then dip it into a drinking
glass in which a fragment of camphor is rapidly moving, and the
gyration will not be stopped. But it will be made to stop instantly
if the finger in its natural state (that is, covered with the fatty
substances that ordinarily soil the fingers, especially in summer)
be dipped into this same glass.

Movements of Camphor upon Mercury.–In order to study the
motions of camphor, mercury possesses, as compared with water, a
great advantage, and that is that we can easily assure ourselves of
the degree of cleanliness of this metal by means of the condensed
breath. The vapory-deposits thereon in a uniform manner if the
mercury is perfectly clean, but forms variously shaded and more
persistent spots if it is soiled by foreign bodies But it is
extremely difficult to clean mercury completely. To do so Mr.
Boisgiraud and I take distilled mercury and leave it for a long
time in contact with concentrated sulphuric acid, taking care to
often shake the mixture. Then, after removing the greater part of
the acid, we throw the metal into a vessel containing quick lime in
powder, and finally pass it through a filter containing a few holes
in its lower part.

Purified by this process, mercury not only permits of the
motions of camphor on its surface, but renders visible the traces
of the vapors that escape from it, and which resemble small
tadpoles with a long tail that are endowed with very great agility.
Nothing is more curious than to see the particle of camphor
successively ascend and descend the strongly pronounced curves
presented by the mercury near the sides of the vessel that contains
it. On raising the temperature of the metal slightly, the motions
of the camphor on its surface are accelerated, and the same effects
occur with water that has been slightly heated.

The experiments that we have just called attention to show what
importance slight impurities may have upon certain results. “They
prove,” says our learned colleague Mr. Daquin, “that there exists
upon polished substances an imperceptible coating of those fatty
matters which serve to-day to explain Moser’s images.” We find
therein also a manifest proof and a rational explanation of those
grave errors into which the presence of these fatty matters, that
have hitherto been scarcely suspected, led so clever and so
distinguished a scientist as the illustrious discoverer of
endosmosis.–N. Joly, in La Nature.

CARBONIC ACID IN BEER.

We present a diagram, on exposition at the last Brewers’
Convention in Detroit, of the racking device, devised by J. E.
Siebel in 1872, and used at that time in the brewery of Messrs.
Bartholomae & Roesing, in Chicago. The object of the apparatus
is to retain as much carbonic acid in the beer as possible while
racking the same off into smaller packages from the storage vats.
The importance of this measure is apparent to every one who knows
what pains are taken to preserve the presence of this constituent
in all the former stages of the brewing process. In the method of
racking off which is in present use in most breweries, the beer is
forced through a rubber hose from the cask in the store vault to
the barrels, kegs, and smaller packages in the fill room. Owing to
the excess of pressure in the beer as it enters the keg, it is
evident that a large amount of the carbonic acid gas must escape.
The escape of carbonic acid during the process of racking off is
indeed so large that even a small difference in the pressure of the
atmosphere causes a remarkable difference in this respect. It is,
therefore, evident that if a larger pressure can be maintained
while racking off, a larger amount of carbonic acid gas will remain
in the beer. It is true that the racking off will take a little
longer time if done under pressure, but this inconvenience is
certainly insignificantly small, when compared with the other
labors and troubles daily undergone in a brewery, for the sole
purpose to preserve in the beer the carbonic acid in that form in
which it has been formed during the fermentation, and in which form
it has far more refreshing and other valuable properties than in
any other form in which it may be subsequently introduced into the
beer by artificial means. The apparatus designed in the
accompanying cut is calculated to artificially produce a higher
pressure of the atmosphere, at least within the keg which is to be
filled with beer. For this purpose, the beer from the store cask
running through the pipe, B, enters the keg through a hollow copper
bung, fitting light into the bung hole by means of a rubber washer.
The air contained in the keg, being replaced by the beer, is forced
out by means of the hollow copper bung, taking its course through
the pipe, inscribed “Glass Gauge,” until it is allowed to escape in
the standpipe, C, containing a column of water, the height of which
designates the pressure within the keg, and a consequently
increased retention of carbonic acid gas. If the keg or barrel is
filled with beer, the same becomes apparent from the beer showing
itself in the glass gauge; then the faucet, B, is closed, the
copper bung is lifted out of the bung hole, and the beer contained
in the pipe is just sufficient to completely fill the keg, which is
then bunged up, while the apparatus is transferred to the next keg.
Should the attendant carelessly neglect to close the faucet in
proper time, the surplus beer will not necessarily be wasted, but
will be collected in the vessel, D, whence it can be drawn off
through e.–Chemical Review.

ON THE DIFFERENT MODIFICATIONS OF SILVER BROMIDE AND SILVER
CHLORIDE.

Hermann W. Vogel has made a comparative study of the properties
of silver bromide, obtained by precipitation in an aqueous solution
of gelatin, and those of the same compound prepared by
precipitation in an alcoholic solution of collodion. In 1874 Stas
called attention to six modifications of silver bromide. One of
these, granular bromide of silver, obtained by boiling the
flocculent precipitate for several days with water, he stated, was
the most sensitive to light of all substances known; exposure for
two or three seconds to the pale blue flame of a Bunsen burner
being sufficient to blacken it. Important as this fact was for
photographers it was not applied for years, and it was only in
1878, when, it having been found that silver bromide precipitated
in a gelatine solution and boiled for several hours becomes much
more sensitive to light, that the remarks of Stas was recalled.
Today these observations have become of the greatest importance to
practical photography. They have led to the preparation of the
silver bromide gelatin emulsion and the silver bromide gelatin
plates, which are twenty times more sensitive than the silver
iodide collodion plates, and have become indispensable when
impressions are to be taken in a dim light.

The extraordinary sensitiveness of silver bromide in gelatin
seemed the more remarkable since it was known that silver bromide
in collodion is only moderately sensitive. The explanation was
sought for in various directions, but as the result of numerous
investigations it appears that the chief cause of the difference is
the presence of different modifications of silver bromide. From a
consideration of the work already done on the subject, Vogel
suspected that silver bromide precipitated in an aqueous colloidal
liquid would have notably different properties from silver bromide
precipitated in an alcoholic colloidal solution. Silver bromide was
prepared in many different ways. Emulsions were made in bromide
solutions containing gelatin or collodion (the former aqueous, the
latter alcoholic), some with the aid of heat, others without. Part
of the emulsion was then poured upon plates kept at a moderate
temperature and dried. The remainder was boiled or treated with
ammonia before being applied to the plates. He also precipitated
silver bromide in dilute gelatin or collodion solutions, allowed it
to settle completely, washed the precipitate, and mixed it with a
new portion of gelatin or collodion before applying it to the
plates. Finally he precipitated pure silver bromide, in the absence
of all colloids, by means of pure aqueous or alcoholic solutions of
bromides and attempted to bring this upon plates, using gelatin or
collodion as a cement. The result of all these experiments is that
there are essentially two modifications of silver bromide, the one
being obtained by precipitation in aqueous, the other in alcoholic
solutions. The first, on account of the position of the maximum of
sensitiveness for the solar spectrum, he calls blue sensitive, the
other, for the same reason, indigo sensitive.

It is of no consequence whether the aqueous or alcoholic
solution in which the silver bromide is formed contains gelatin or
collodion, or whether the precipitation is effected with excess of
bromide or of silver nitrate. It makes no difference whether the
solution is hot or cold, or whether the silver bromide is treated
with ammonia or whether it is boiled or not. The only necessary
condition is that in precipitating indigo sensitive silver bromide
the solutions must contain at least 96 per cent of alcohol. From
aqueous alcoholic solutions blue sensitive silver bromide is
precipitated.

Besides the difference of sensitiveness toward the solar
spectrum, these modifications of silver bromide exhibit other
characteristic differences in properties which indicate beyond a
doubt that they are two essentially different modifications of the
same substance. Among these are, 1st. Their unequal divisibility in
gelatin or collodion solutions. The indigo sensitive silver bromide
cannot be distributed through a gelatin solution, while the blue
sensitive modification does so very readily. 2d. Their unequal
reducibility; the blue sensitive silver bromide being reduced with
much greater difficulty than the indigo sensitive variety. 3d.
Their different action toward chemical and physical sensitizers.
4th. Their different action toward photographic developers. 5th.
Their different action under the influence of heat. The blue
sensitive variety if heated under water has its sensitiveness
perceptibly increased, while the other is not changed by such
treatment.

A direct transformation of one modification into the other has
not yet been accomplished. The effect of the light upon these
substances is incipient reduction, and we might hence suppose that
the more reducible indigo sensitive variety would be the more
sensitive to light. But this is not the case, because it is not
chemical reducibility, but the absorption power for light that is
of the greatest importance. Now the blue sensitive silver bromide
has a greater absorption power than the indigo sensitive variety,
and hence its greater sensitiveness. Silver chloride prepared by
methods similar to those used in making the two forms of bromides
was also found to exist in two modifications. One is designated as
ultra violet sensitive, the other as violet sensitive silver
chloride.–Amer. Chem. Jour.

ANALYSIS OF A SAMPLE OF NEW ZEALAND COAL.

[Footnote: Read before the Society of Public Analysts on the
28th June, 1883.]

By OTTO HEHNER

Some discussion having recently taken place as to the value of
New Zealand coal as a fuel, the following results of a somewhat
full analysis may be worthy of being placed on record.

The sample to which the results refer consisted of large
brownish black lumps, many of which showed woody structure; the
fractures were conchyloid, the surface shiny and highly reflecting.
It was interspersed with a considerable amount of an amber colored
resin. When powdered it appeared chocolate brown. It burned
readily, the flame being bright and very smoky. Its ash was light
and reddish brown.

It consisted of–

The organic and volatile constituents had the following
percentage composition–

From these figures the composition of the coal itself calculates
as under–

One ton furnished 8,458 cubic feet of gas and 8 cwt. of
coke.

The very high proportion of water contained in the sample is
very remarkable. It was so loosely combined, that even at ordinary
temperature it gradually escaped, the coal crumbling to small
pieces. The large amount as well as the high percentage of oxygen
characterize the so called coal as a lignite, with which
conclusion the physical characters of the sample are in perfect
harmony.

The resin to which I have referred has not been further
analyzed. It was found to be insoluble in all ordinary menstrua,
such as alcohol, ether, carbon disulphide, benzene, or chloroform,
and neither attacked by boiling alcoholic potash nor by fusing
alkali. On heating it swells up considerably and undergoes
decomposition, but does not fuse.

The coal may be valuable as a gas coal and for local
consumption, but the large proportions of water and of oxygen
militate against its use as a steam producer, only 58 per cent. of
it being really combustible.

DETERMINING MANGANESE IN STEEL, CAST IRON, FERRO-MANGANESE,
ETC.

By E. RAYMOND.

The method in question is recommended as easy, expeditious, and
accurate. It consists in precipitating all the manganese in the
state of peroxide, dissolving it in a ferrous solution so as to
bring back the manganese to the manganous slate, and determining
volumetrically, by means of potassium permanganate, the quantity of
ferrous salt which has been converted into ferric. The method of
rapidly precipitating manganese peroxide is peculiar. If we act
upon cast-iron or steel with nitric acid and potassium chlorate in
certain proportions, and boil the mixture, the manganese is
completely precipitated in the state of peroxide insoluble in
nitric acid, but retaining a small quantity of ferric oxide.
Suppose that we have a sample of steel or manganiferous cast-iron
containing less than 7 per cent of manganese. Three grammes are
treated in a small flask with 40 c. c. of nitric acid, of sp. gr.
1.20, added little by little. The liquid is stirred, and ultimately
heated to complete solution. It is withdrawn from the fire, and 15
grammes potassium chlorate are added, and then 20 c. c. of nitric
acid at sp. gr. 1.40. It is boiled for about fifteen minutes, until
the escape of chlorine ceases; all the manganese is found thrown
down as peroxide; hot water is added, the mixture is filtered, and
the precipitate washed with boiling water. To dissolve the
manganese peroxide thus obtained we measure exactly 50 c. c. of an
acid solution of ferrous sulphate, made up with 40 grammes ferrous
sulphate to 750 c. c. water and 230 c. c. sulphuric acid (full
strength). The 50 c. c. are poured into the flask in which the
sample has been dissolved, and to which a little peroxide adheres,
and it is then poured upon the precipitate and the filter in a
Berlin-ware capsule. The manganese peroxide dissolves very readily,
transforming its equivalent of ferrous sulphate into ferric
sulphate. The liquid is then diluted to 100 or 150 c. c. for the
next operation. We then take a solution of permanganate formed by
the same proportions as are used in determining iron by the process
of Margueritte (5.65 grammes of the crystalline salt per liter of
water), and determine its standard exactly. By means of this liquid
we determine volumetrically the quantity of ferrous sulphate
remaining in the solution of manganese. We take then 50 c. c. of
the original solution of ferrous sulphate diluted as above, and
determine the total ferrous salt.

The difference between the two determinations corresponds to the
ferrous salt which has been peroxidized by the manganese peroxide.
The quantity of iron thus peroxidized multiplied by 0.491 gives the
quantity of manganese contained in the portion operated upon. In
the case of a steel or cast iron containing but little manganese it
is convenient to dissolve the peroxide in 25 c. c. only of the
ferrous solution. Small Gay-Lussac burettes may then be used in the
titration of only 0.010 meter internal diameter, and graduated into
one-twentieth c. c., which allows of great exactitude in the
determination. For a spiegeleisen not more than 1 gramme of the
sample should be taken, and for a ferro-manganese 0.3 gramme.

MANGANESE AND ITS USES.

Manganese is one of the heavy metals of which iron may he taken
as the representative. It is of a grayish white color, presents a
metallic brilliancy, and is capable of a high degree of polish, is
so hard as to scratch glass and steel, is non-magnetic, and is only
fused at a white heat. As it oxidizes rapidly on exposure to the
atmosphere, it should be preserved under naphtha.

It occurs in small quantity in association with iron in meteoric
stones; with this exception it is not found native. The metal may
be obtained by the reduction of its sesquioxide by carbon at an
extreme heat.

Manganese forms no less than six different oxides–viz.,
protoxide, sesquioxide the red oxide, the binoxide or peroxide,
manganic acid, and permanganic acid. The protoxide occurs as
olive-green powder, and is obtained by igniting carbonate of
manganese in a current of hydrogen. Its salts are colorless, or of
a pale rose color, and have a strong tendency to form double salts
with the salts of ammonia. The carbonate forms the mineral known as
manganese spar. The sulphate is obtained by heating the peroxide
with sulphuric acid till there is faint ignition, dissolving the
residue in water and crystallizing. It is employed largely in
calico printing. The silicate occurs in various minerals.

The sesquioxide is found crystallized in an anhydrous form in
braunite, and hydrated in manganite. It is obtained artificially as
a black powder by exposing the peroxide to a prolonged heat. When
ignited it loses oxygen, and is converted into red oxide. Its salts
are isomorphous with those of alumina and sesquioxide of iron. It
imparts a violet color to glass, and gives the amethyst its
characteristic tint. Its sulphate is a powerful oxidizing
agent.

The red oxide corresponds to the black oxide of iron. It occurs
native in hausmannite, and may be obtained artificially by igniting
the sesquioxide or peroxide in the open air. It is a compound of
the two preceding oxides.

The binoxide, or peroxide, is the black manganese of commerce,
and the pyrolusite of mineralogists, and is by far the most
abundant of the manganese ores. It occurs in a hydrated form in
varvicite and wad. Its commercial value depends upon the proportion
of chlorine which a given weight of it will liberate when it is
heated with hydrochloric acid, the quantity of chlorine being
proportional to the excess of oxygen which this oxide contains over
that contained in the same weight of protoxide. When mixed with
chloride of sodium and sulphuric acid it causes an evolution of
chlorine, the other resulting products being sulphate of soda and
sulphate of protoxide of manganese. When mixed with acids, it is a
valuable oxidizing agent. It is much used for the preparation of
oxygen, either by simply heating it, when it yields 12 per cent. of
gas, or by heating it with sulphuric acid, when it yields 18 per
cent. Besides its many uses in the laboratory, it is employed in
the manufacture of glass, porcelain, and kindred wares.

Manganic acid is not known in a free state. Manganate of potash
is formed by fusing together hydrated potash and binoxide of
manganese. The black mass which results from this operation is
soluble in water, to which it communicates a green color, due to
the presence of the manganate. From this water the salt is obtained
in vacuo in beautiful green crystals. On allowing the
solution to stand exposed to the air, it rapidly becomes blue,
violet, purple, and finally red, by the gradual conversion of the
manganate into the permanganate of potash; and on account of these
changes of color the black mass has received the name of mineral
chameleon.

Permanganic acid is only known in solution or in a state of
combination. Its solution is of a splendid red color, but appears
of a dark violet tint when seen by transmitted light. It is
obtained by treating a solution of permanganate of baryta with
sulphuric acid, when sulphate of baryta falls, and the permanganic
acid remains dissolved in the water. Permanganate of potash, which
crystallizes in reddish purple prisms, is the most important of its
salts. It is largely employed in analytical chemistry, and is the
basis of Condy’s Disinfectant Fluid.

Manganese is a constituent of many mineral waters, and is found
in small quantities in the ash of most vegetables and animal
substances. It is always associated with iron.

Various preparations of manganese have been employed in
medicine. The sulphate of the protoxide in doses of one or two
drachms produces purgative effects, and is supposed to increase the
excretion of bile; and in small doses, both this salt and the
carbonate have been given with the intention of improving the
condition of the blood in cases of anæmia. Manganic acid and
permanganate of potash are of great use when applied in lotions (as
in Condy’s Fluid diluted) to foul and fetid ulcers. In connection
with the medicinal applications of manganese it may be mentioned
that manganic acid is the agent employed in Dr. Angus Smith’s
celebrated test for the impurity of the air.

It is the glass maker’s soap of glass manufacture, and is used
to correct the green color of glass, which is owing to the presence
of protoxide of iron. This it converts into the comparatively
colorless peroxide.

It is also used in the Bessemer and similar processes, to
decompose the oxide of iron. Spiegeleisen, an iron which contains a
natural alloy of from 10 to 12 per cent. of manganese, is used for
this purpose when conveniently attainable.–Glassware
Reporter.

OZOKERITE, OR EARTH-WAX.

By WILLIAM L. LAY.

ON THE DEPOSITS OF EARTH WAX (OZOKERITE) IN EUROPE AND
AMERICA.

[Footnote: Abstract from a paper read before the New York
Academy of Sciences.]

There exists a large mining and manufacturing industry in
Austria, that of ozokerite, or earth-wax, which has nothing like it
in any other part of the known world, an industry that supplies
Europe with a part of its beeswax, without the aid of the bees. It
may not be generally known that the mining of petroleum was a
profitable industry in Austria long before it was in this country.
In 1852, a druggist near Tarnow distilled the oil and had an
exhibit of it in the first World’s Fair in London. In America, the
first borings were made in 1859. Indeed, the use of petroleum as an
illuminator was common at a very early age in the world’s history.
In Persia at Baku, in India on the Irawada, also in the Crimea, and
on the river Kuban in Russia, petroleum has been used in lamps for
thousands of years. At Baku the fire worshipers have a
never-ceasing flame, which has burned from time immemorial. The
mines of ozokerite are located in Austrian Poland, now known as
Galicia. Near the city of Drohabich, on the railway line running
from Cracow to Lemberg, is a town of six thousand inhabitants,
called Borislau, which is entirely supported by the ozokerite
industry. It lies at the foot of the Carpathian Mountains. About
the year 1862, a shaft was sunk for petroleum at that place. After
descending about one hundred and eighty feet, the miners found all
the cracks in the clay or rock filled with a brown substance,
resembling beeswax. At first, the layers were not thicker than
writing paper; but they grew thicker gradually below, until at a
depth of three hundred feet they attained a thickness of three or
four inches. Upon examination, it was found that a yellow wax could
be made of a portion of this substance, and at once a substitute
for wax was manufactured.

The discovery caused an excitement like the oil fever of 1865 in
America. A large number of leases were made. When I saw the wells
of Pennsylvania, in 1879, there were more than two thousand. The
owner of the land received one-fourth of the product, and the
miners three-fourths. In the petroleum region, the leases at first
were whole farms, then they were reduced to 20, then 10, then 5,
and at last to 1 acre, which is a square of 209 feet.

But in the ozokerite region of Poland, where everything is done
on a small scale, when compared with like enterprises in this
country, the leases were on tracts thirty-two feet square. These
were so small that the surface was not large enough to contain the
earth that had to be raised to sink the shaft; consequently the
earth had to be transported to a distance, and, when I saw it,
there was a mound sixty or seventy feet high. Its weight had become
so great that it caused a sinking of the earth, and endangered the
shafts to such an extent that the government ordered its removal to
a distance and its deposit on ground that was not undermined. The
shafts are four feet square, and the sides are supported by timbers
six inches through, which leaves a shaft three feet square. The
miner digs the well or shaft just as we dig our water wells, and
the dirt and rock are hoisted up in a bucket by a rope and
windlass. But one man can work in the shaft at a time. For many
years no water was found; but, as there is a deposit of petroleum
under the ozokerite, at a depth of six hundred feet from the
surface, the miners were troubled with gas. This is got rid of by
blowing a current of fresh air from a rotary fan through a pipe
extending down the shaft as fast as the curbing of timber is put in
place. The ozokerite is embedded in a very stiff blue clay for a
depth of several hundred feet; below, it is interlaid with rock.
[Specimens of crude and manufactured ozokerite were on exhibition,
through the kindness of Dr. J. S. Newberry.]

That part of the earth’s surface has more miners’ shafts to the
acre than any other part of the globe. As wages are very low in
Poland, averaging not more than forty cents a day for men and ten
cents for children, a very small quantity of ozokerite pays for the
working. If thirty or forty pounds a day is obtained, it
remunerates the two men and one or two children required to work
each lease. When the bucket, containing the earth, rock, and wax,
is dumped in the little shed covering the shaft, it is picked over
by the children, who detach the wax from the clay or rock with
knives. The miners use galvanized wire ropes and wooden buckets.
When preparing to descend, they invariably cross themselves and
utter a short prayer. The business is not free from danger,
carelessness on the part of the boy supplying the fresh air, or the
caving in of the unsupported roof, causing a large number of
deaths. One of the government inspectors of the mines informed me
that in one week there had been eight deaths from accidents.

The ozokerite is taken to a crude furnace, and put into a common
cast iron kettle, and melted. This allows the dirt to sink to the
bottom, and the ozokerite, freed from all other solids, is skimmed
off with a ladle, poured into conical moulds, and allowed to cool,
in which form it is sold to the refiners, for about six cents per
pound. The quantity produced is uncertain, as the miners take care
to understate it, for the reason that the government lays a tax
upon all incomes, and the landowner demands his one-fourth of the
quantity mined. The best authority is Leo Strippelman, who states
the quantity produced in fifteen years at from 375,000,000 to
400,000,000 pounds, worth twenty-four millions of dollars. As the
owners of the land get one-fourth of the sum, they received six
millions. This is at the rate of four hundred thousand a year, a
rather valuable crop from some two hundred acres of land.

The miners do not support the earth by timber or pillars, as
they should; the result is that the whole plot of about two hundred
acres is gradually sinking, and this will eventually ruin the
industry in that part of the deposit. In another part of the same
field, a French company has purchased forty acres, and it is mining
the whole tract and hoisting through one shaft by steam power. In
that shaft they have sunk to a depth of six hundred feet, and are
troubled with water and petroleum. These they pump out very much
the same way as in coal and other mines, worked in a scientific
manner. The thickest layer of ozokerite found is about eighteen
inches, and this layer or pocket was a great curiosity. When first
removed at the bottom of the shaft, it was found to be so soft that
it was shoveled out like putty. During the night it oozed into the
space that had been emptied the day before; this continued for
weeks, or until the pressure of the gas had become too weak to
force it out.

I have been occupied in the petroleum region of Pennsylvania
since 1860, have seen all the wonderful development of the oil
wells, and was very much interested in contrasting the Austrian
ozokerite and petroleum industry with the American. It is a good
illustration of the difference between the lower class of Poles and
Jews and the Yankee. Borislau, after twenty years’ work, was
unimproved, dirty, squalid, and brutal. It contained one school
house, but no church nor printing office. None of its streets were
paved, and, in the main road through the town, the mud came up to
the hubs of the wagon wheels for over a mile of its length. In
places, plank had to be set up on edge to keep the mud out of the
houses, which were lower than the road. It contained numerous
shops, where potato whisky was sold to men, women, and children. It
depends on a dirty, muddy creek for its supply of water. Its houses
were generally one-story, built of logs and mud.

On the other hand, Oil City, a town of the same age and size,
contained eight school houses (one a high school building), twelve
churches, and two printing offices. It has paved streets, which, in
1863, were as deep with mud as those in Borislau in 1879. It has no
whisky shops where women and children can drink. Many of its houses
are of brick, two, three, four, and five stories high. Its water
works cost one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. All this has
been done since 1860, when it did not contain forty houses.

I saw in the market place of Borislau women standing ankle deep
in the mud, selling vegetables. One woman really had to build a
platform of straw, on which to place a bushel of potatoes; if the
straw foundation had not been there, the potatoes would have sunk
out of sight. Borislau is three miles from Drohobich, a city of
thirty thousand inhabitants; between the two places, in wet
weather, the road was impassable. For a third of the way, it was in
the bed of the creek; and I had to wait a day for the water to fall
so as to navigate it in a wagon. On inquiring why they did not
improve the road, I found the same difficulty as the Arkansas
settler encountered with his leaky roof; when it rained he could
not repair it, and when it was dry it did not need repair: so with
the road to Borislau.

Ozokerite (from the Greek words, “Ozein,” to smell, and “Keros,”
wax) is found in Turkistan, east of the Caspian Sea; in the
Caucasian Mountains, in Russia; in the Carpathian Mountains, in
Austria; in the Apennines, in Italy; in Texas, California, and in
the Wahsatch Mountains, in the United States. Commercially, it is
not worked anywhere but in Austria; although, I believe, we have in
Utah a larger deposit than in any other place. I made two journeys
to examine the deposits in the Wahsatch Mountains. For a distance
of forty miles, it crops out in many places, and on the Minnie
Maud, a stream emptying into the Colorado, I found a stratum of
sand rock, from ten to twelve feet thick, filled with
ozokerite.

No systematic effort has been made to ascertain the quantity of
ozokerite in Utah. I saw a drift of some fourteen feet at one
place, and a shaft twenty-three feet deep at another. In this
shaft, the vein was about ten inches wide; and it could be traced
along the slope of the hill, for several hundred feet. The largest
vein of pure ozokerite is seen on Soldiers’ Fork of Spanish
Cañon, which enters Salt Lake Valley near the town of Provo.
This vein is very much like the ozokerite of Austria, and contains
between thirty and forty per cent. of white ceresin (which
resembles bleached beeswax), about thirty per cent. of yellow
ceresin (which resembles yellow wax), and twenty per cent. of black
petroleum; the residue is dirt. Dr. J. S. Newberry, of Columbia
College, and Prof. S. B. Newberry, of Cornell University, made
examinations of the ozokerite found in Utah; those who are
interested in the subject will find the papers published in the
Engineering and Mining Journal for the year 1879.

A deposit of white ozokerite occurs on the top of the Apennine
Mountains, in Italy, of which a specimen is here exhibited. An
interesting story is told of its discovery. A church at Modena was
robbed; among other articles taken was a quantity of wax candles. A
short time afterward, a woman brought to a druggist a quantity of
wax and offered it for sale. The druggist bought it and afterward
suspected it consisted of the stolen candles melted down. Soon
after ward she brought another lot. He had her arrested. When
questioned by the magistrate, she said she found the wax in the
clay on her farm, about twenty miles from the city. This story
confirmed him in the belief that she had stolen the candles, or was
the receiver of the stolen goods; for such a thing as a deposit of
wax in the soil was unheard of. She was therefore remanded to jail.
On three several days, she was brought before the court, and, when
questioned, told the same story. She was a member of the church,
and requested the priest to be sent for. He came, and, after an
interview between them, he said it was easy to disprove her story,
if it was a lie, by sending her home, in company with an officer,
to investigate. The court sent the priest, who was the only one who
believed her. On coming to her house, she took her pick and shovel,
and going to the place at the top of the hill, she dug out of the
clay a quantity of while ozokerite, proved her case, and was at
once set at liberty. She performed the same service for me, and I
saw her dig the specimen and heard her tell the story as I have
told it to you. The hill was composed of loose clay and stones. It
appeared as if it had been forced up by gas or some power from
below the surface. The quantity that could be gathered, by one
person, laboring constantly for a week, was only twenty-five or
thirty pounds. An attempt had been made to sink a shaft; but, at a
depth of fourteen feet, the pressure of the clay was sufficient to
break the boards that held up the sides. The earth caved in, and
the shaft was abandoned.

It is not necessary here to describe the various processes of
manufacture; it will be sufficient to enumerate some of the forms
of ozokerite, and the uses to which it is put. At Borislau, there
are several refineries, where candles, tapers, and lubricating oils
are made. In Vienna, there are five factories; in one of these,
they make white wax, wax candles, matches, yellow beeswax, black
heel-ball, colored tapers, and crayon pencils. In Europe, large
quantities of the yellow wax are used to wax the floors of the
houses, many of the finer ones being waxed every day. It is a
curious fact that the Catholic Church does not allow the use of
paraffine, sperm, or stearine candles; at the same time nearly all
the candles used in the churches in Europe are made from ozokerite,
which is a natural paraffine, made from petroleum in nature’s
laboratory. In the United States, the only uses made of ozokerite,
so far as I know, are chewing gum and the adulteration of beeswax.
In this the Yankee gives another illustration of the ruling passion
strong in money making, which gives us wooden nutmegs, wooden hams,
shoddy cloth, glucose candy, chiccory coffee, oleomargarine butter,
mineral sperm oil made from petroleum, and beeswax made without
bees.

After this paper was written, the following translation from a
pamphlet, published by the First Hungarian Galician Railway
Company, in 1879, came to my notice. The writer’s name is not
published:

“Mineral wax, in the condition in which it is taken from the
shafts, is not well adapted for exportation, since it occurs with
much earthy matter; and, at any rate, an expensive packing in sacks
would be necessary. It is therefore first freed from all foreign
substances by melting, and cooled in conical cakes of about 25
kilos. weight, and these cakes are exported. There are now, in
Borislau, 25 melting works, which, in 1877, with 1 steam and 60
fire kettles, produced 95,000 metric centners (9,500,000 lb.).

“The melted earth wax is sent from Borislau to almost all
European countries, to be further refined. Outside of
Austro-Hungary, we may specially mention Germany, England, Italy,
France, Belgium, and Russia as large purchasers of this article of
commerce.

“PRODUCTS AND THEIR APPLICATIONS.

“The products of mineral wax, are:

“(a.) Ceresine, also called ozocerotine or refined
ozokerite, a product which possesses a striking resemblance to
ordinarily refined beeswax. It replaces this in almost all its
uses, and, by its cheapness, is employed for many purposes for
which beeswax is too dear. It is much used for wax candles, for
waxing floors, and for dressing linen and colored papers. Wax
crayons must be mentioned among these products. The house of
Offenheim & Ziffer, in Elbeteinitz, makes them of many colors.
These crayons are especially adapted to marking wood, stone, and
iron; also, for marking linen and paper, as well as for writing and
drawing. The writings and drawings made with these crayons can be
effaced neither by water, by acids, nor by rubbing.

“Concerning the technical process for the production of
ceresine, it should be said that, when the industry was new (the
production of ceresine has been known only about eight years, since
1874), it was controlled by patents, which are kept secret. This
much is known, that the color and odor are removed by fuming
sulphuric acid.

“From mineral wax of good quality about 70 per cent. of white
ceresine is obtained. The yellow ceresine is tinted by the addition
of coloring matter (annatto).

“(b.) Paraffine, a firm, white, translucent substance,
without odor. It is used, chiefly, in the manufacture of candles,
and also as a protection against the action of acids, and to make
casks and other wooden vessels water-tight, for coating corks,
etc., for air-tight wrappings, and, finally, for the preparation of
tracing paper. There are several methods of obtaining paraffine
from ozokerite (see the Encyclopedic Handbook of Chemistry, by
Benno Karl and F. Strohmann, vol. iv., Brunswick, 1877).

“The details of the technical process consists, in every case,
in the distillation of the crude material, pressure of the
distillate by hydraulic presses, melting, and treating by sulphuric
acid.

“In the manufacture of paraffine from ozokerite, there are
produced from 2 to 8 per cent. of benzine, from 15 to 20 per cent.
of naphtha, 36 to 50 per cent. of paraffine, 15 to 20 per cent. of
heavy oil for lubricating, and 10 to 20 per cent. of coke, as a
residue.

“(c.) Mineral oils, which are obtained at the same time
with paraffine, and are the same as those produced from crude
petroleum, described above. The process consists, as in the natural
rock oils, besides the distillation, in the treatment of the
incidental products with acids and alkalies.

“Of the products of ozokerite, manufactured in Galicia, the
greater part goes to Russia, Roumania, Turkey, Italy, and Upper
Hungary. The common paraffine candles made in Galicia–which are of
various sizes, from 28 to 160 per kilo–are used by the Jews in all
Galicia, Bukowuina, Roumania, Upper Hungary, and Southern Russia,
and form an important article of commerce. Ceresine is exported to
all the ports of the world. Of late a considerable quantity is said
to have been sent to the East Indies, where it is used in the
printing of cotton.”

The President, Dr. J. S. Newberry, stated that ozokerite was
undoubtedly a product of petroleum. Little was known by the public
concerning its use and value. He exhibited specimens of natural
brown ozokerite, of yellow ozokerite, sold as beeswax, and of a
white purified form, which had been treated by sulphuric acid.
Specimens from Utah had already been shown before the Academy.
There was no mystery as to its genesis in either region, as it had
been shown to be the result of inspissation of a thick and viscid
variety of petroleum. The term “petroleum” includes a great variety
of substances, from a limpid liquid, too light to burn, to one that
is thick and tarry. These differ widely also in chemical
composition: some yielding much asphalt by distillation, resembling
a solution of asphalt in turpentine; some containing so much
paraffine that a considerable quantity can be strained out in cold
weather. The asphalt in its natural form is a solid rock, to which
the term “gum beds” has been applied in Canada. These differences
in constitution have originated in the differences in the
bituminous shales from which the petroleum, ozokerite, etc., have
been derived. In Canada, as excavations are sunk through the
asphalt, this becomes softer and softer, and finally passes into
petroleum. This is also the case in Utah.

[Concluded from SUPPLEMENT No. 400, page 6390.]

[KANSAS CITY REVIEW.]

THE SOLAR ECLIPSE OF MAY 6, 1883.

Professor C. S. Hastings, of the Johns Hopkins University, also
includes many interesting details in his account of the trip:

The voyage from New York to Panama was pleasant with the
exception of a few hot days near Aspinwall. Somewhat further south
the wind changed, obliging them to call their overcoats from the
bottom of their trunks to keep out the cold when crossing the
equator. During a short stop in Lima the party had an opportunity
of studying South American life. The products of this country are
fruits and photographs of the young women. The party enjoyed both
eating the former and bringing the latter home for the admiration
of their friends. The expedition really began at Callao, where the
party embarked on the United States man-of-war Hartford. Few
circumstances contributed more to the enjoyment of the trip than
the lucky chance which threw this vessel in their way. The Hartford
was fitted out last August as flag ship of the South Pacific
squadron. The admiral had not yet removed his flag to the vessel,
but the extra accommodations provided for him and his train
condoned the dignity lost by his absence. On March 22 they weighed
anchor for a sail of more than four thousand miles over the blue
ocean which stretches between Callao and their destination,
Caroline Island. The southeast trade winds favored them, and from
the first day there was actually no necessity for altering the
position of a sail….

The inhabitants–five men, one woman and two children, according
to the eclipse census–are natives of Tahiti. The houses are one
story structures with clapboard sides, probably cut out in
California and brought out in ships, to be erected on this island.
The island on which they are built is about three-fourths of a mile
in diameter and nearly circular in outline. The edge, which rises
from five to twenty inches from the water, according to the tide’s
phase, goes down under the water to an even table of coral running
out many feet into the sea; and is impossible to step on it with
bare feet. At the end of this table the reef goes down
perpendicularly, a sheer precipice, into the unfathomable sea. No
vessel can anchor here, and to make a landing was an exciting
matter. The island was approached in small boats on the side
sheltered from the wind, and here, with the luck which
characterized the trip, was found the only opening in this barrier
of coral. A long cleft, perhaps eight feet wide, at the outer edge
of the reef, ran in, narrowing to a mere crack near the shore.
Watching a favorable chance, the boats were guided through the surf
into a cleft as far as shoal water, when the men jumped on to the
reef and carried baggage and instruments ashore as quickly as
possible. The boats, which were new when they entered the surf,
came out much the worse for wear, and the boat in which Dr.
Hastings landed was stove in. Once on shore, life became a
succession of wonders, rivaling the tales of Gulliver, and needing
the conscientious descriptions of exact scientists to make them
credible.

The members of the observing party took up their abode in the
larger of the three houses, sleeping in swinging cots slung from
the verandas, which afforded shade on three sides of the building.
The second house was occupied by the sailors, while the third was
left to the natives. These latter were sufficiently conversant with
English to serve as excellent guides. Each day the party bathed in
a lagoon in the center of the island. This lagoon was bordered by a
beach of dazzling white coral sand, and all through its water
extended reefs of living coral of the more delicate and elaborate
kinds. These corals gave the lake a wonderful variety of colors,
forming a picture impossible to paint or describe, and with the
least ripple from a passing breeze the whole scene changed to new
groups of color. The water was very clear, and in some places deep;
in others so filled with coral that a boat could barely skim over
the surface without scraping the keel. After crossing a long reef,
one day, they entered on a sheet of water so deep that their
longest line would not reach the bottom, plainly visible beneath.
Fish swarmed here, and it was characteristic of them that every
species, if not brilliantly colored, was marked in the most
peculiar manner. One variety which frequented the shallow water,
where it was heated to the degree uncomfortable to the touch, was a
pure milky white, with black eyes, fins, and tail.

The French party arrived two days after the Americans. They had
steamed directly from Panama with the hope of anticipating the
Americans.

It rained on the morning of the eclipse, but cleared off in good
time, and the definition was particularly good. Photographs
occupied the time of the English and French observers. Professor
Holden and Dr. Dickson searched for intra-mercurial planets; Mr.
Preston took the times of contact; Dr. Hastings and Mr. Rockwell
devoted their attention to spectroscopic observations of the
corona. Dr. Hastings’ observations have led to the production of a
new theory of the corona. Briefly stated, the theory is that the
light seen around the sun during a total eclipse is not due to a
material substance enveloping the sun, but is a phenomenon of
diffraction.

From his observation during the eclipse of 1878, made at Central
City, Dr. Hastings conceived the first idea of this explanation of
the solar corona. Further study served to convince him of the truth
of this theory, but he had no means of proving it. Before the
present eclipse, however, he devised a crucial test of his theory.
This test is based on the following already known phenomena: When
the moon covers the face of the sun, an envelope of light is seen
all round it; the envelope is not visible when the sun is shining,
on account of the sun’s greater brightness; this light is called
the corona; it is extremely irregular in outline. According to the
drawing of Mr. J. E. Keeler at the eclipse of 1878, it enveloped
the sun as a hazy glow, extending for a distance of several minutes
of arc from the sun’s limb and at two nearly opposite points is
extended out in two long streamers feathering off into space. The
opinion has been that this light was due to an atmosphere extending
millions of miles from the sun. According to Dr. Hastings’ view, it
must be light from the sun which has undergone refraction, i.e.,
which has been bent from its regular course by the interposition of
an opaque body like the moon.

In order to make this perfectly plain, suppose the front of a
surface of waves of any sort to be striking an object which resists
them. If an organ of sense is placed in the resisting object, it
will judge the direction of the waves or the direction of the
object producing them by a line at right angles with the wave
front. Now suppose a body is placed between the body producing the
waves and the sensitive organ. The waves must go around this body
and will produce an eddy behind it, so that the wave front will
have a different direction, and the organ of sense will conceive
the origin of the waves to lie in a direction different from that
before the body was interposed. Now consider the waves to be waves
of light, and their origin the sun. The organ of sense is the
retina of the eye. The moon is the opaque body interposed in the
course of the waves, and they, being bent, make the impression on
the eye that the light comes from beyond the edge of the sun. The
moon covers the sun during the eclipse and a little more, so that
it can move for about five minutes and still cover the sun
entirely. This movement is very slight, and if the corona consists
of light from a solar atmosphere, it should not change at all
during this movement of the moon. But if diffraction is the cause
of the light, then the slightest change in the relative positions
of the sun and the moon should change the configuration of the
corona, i.e., the corona should not remain exactly the same during
a total eclipse. The character of the light as shown by a spectrum
analysis should change.

To determine this point Dr. Hastings invented the following
instrument: Two lozenge-shaped prisms of glass were fastened in the
form of a letter V, and so arranged that all the light falling
within the aperture of the V was lost, and that falling on the ends
of the glass prisms was transmitted by a series of reflections to
the apex of the V, where the prisms touched; here was placed a
refracting prism, so that the light could be analyzed. This
instrument was attached to the eye piece of the telescope, and the
image of the eclipse reduced to such a size that the moon just
fitted into the aperture of the V, while opposite sides of the
corona were reflected through the prisms to the place where they
came together. In this way both sides of the corona were seen
through the eye-piece at the same time. On looking at the eclipse
this is what Dr. Hastings saw: The light of the corona was divided
into its constituents. Prominent among them was a bright green
line, which is designated by the number 1,474; to this line
attention was directed. Its presence in the spectrum has been an
argument in favor of the view that the corona is a solar
atmosphere. If this is the case, the line should remain fixed
during the eclipse; but if the corona is due to diffraction, this
line should change. It should grow shorter in the light from one
side of the corona, and longer on the other. The observation was
now reduced to watching for a change in the relative length of two
green lines.

At the beginning of totality the line from the west side was
much the longer, but as the eclipse progressed it shortened
notably, while the line from the east side, shorter by about
one-third at the beginning of the eclipse, grew longer. When the
eclipse ended, the proportions of the lines were exactly reversed.
There had been a change equal to two-thirds the length of the
lines, while the sun and moon had only changed their relative
positions by an extremely small amount. The only way in which this
phenomenon can be accounted for is on the diffraction theory. The
material view of the corona will not answer for it. But there are
other discrepancies in the older view which have been known for
some time. The principal ones are: 1. It is known from study of the
sun that the gaseous pressure at the surface must be less than an
inch of mercury, and is probably less than one-tenth of an inch,
but an atmosphere extending to the supposed limits would cause an
enormous pressure at the sun’s surface, especially since the force
of gravity on the sun is very much greater than on the earth. 2.
The laws of gravitation would require a solar atmosphere to be
distributed symmetrically around the sun, while the corona is
enormously irregular in form. The sun is irregular in outline,
which would make its diffracted phenomena show the observed
irregularity, but it is symmetrical as regards density. 3. The most
interesting discrepancy of the theory of the solar atmosphere is
the fact that while it is supposed to extend for millions of miles
from the sun, the recent comet passed within two hundred thousand
miles of the sun, and yet its orbit was not affected in the least,
as it would have been if it had plowed its way through a material
substance. In taking photographs of the corona it is seen to be
larger as the time of exposure is longer. This shows that the
corona extends indefinitely, and it decreases in brilliancy in
exact accordance with the mathematical laws of diffraction. These
laws involve very complicated mathematics, but by them alone Dr.
Hastings has proved that there must be diffraction where the corona
is, and that it must follow the same laws as those observed. There
is a small envelope around the sun, but in the opinion of Dr.
Hastings it does not extend beyond what is known as the
chromosphere.

The question seems to be settled, with considerable certainty,
that nothing exists inside of Mercury large enough to be dignified
by the name of planet. There may be, and there probably are, for
the perturbations of Mercury indicate it, multitudes of small
masses circulating around the sun like the planets, being fragments
of comets or condensations of primitive matter, whose combined
luster is seen in the zodiacal light.

The other results of the work of the Commission, so far as now
known, are connected with the structure of the corona, the solar
appendage which extends out for millions of miles from the sun’s
disk. In the photographs of the Egyptian eclipse of last summer
these streamers can be traced back of each other where they cross;
no better proof of their extreme tenuity could be given.

The duration of an eclipse of the sun depends on three things,
the distance of the sun from the earth, the distance of the moon
from the earth, and the distance of the station from the equator.
All of these were favorable to a long eclipse in the case of the
recent one, and the six minutes of totality gave opportunities for
deliberate work not often enjoyed.

A BURIED CITY OF THE EXODUS.

The excavations at Tell-el-Maskhutah, of which illustrations are
given, have resulted in some of the most interesting and important
discoveries that have ever rewarded the labors of
archæologists. The idea of founding an English society for
the purpose of exploring the buried cities of the Delta originated
with Miss A. B. Edwards, the well-known authoress of “One Thousand
Miles up the Nile,” and was carried into effect mainly by her own
efforts and the energy and zeal of Mr. Reginald Stuart Poole, of
the British Museum, aided by the substantial support of Sir Erasmus
Wilson, without whose munificent donations the work could never
have been accomplished. The “Egypt Exploration Fund,” thus founded
and maintained, was fortunate in securing the co-operation of M.
Naville, the distinguished Swiss Egyptologist, who set out for
Egypt in January of this year with the object of conducting the
explorations contemplated by the society. After a consultation with
M. Maspero, the Director of Archæology in Egypt, who has
throughout acted a friendly part toward the society’s enterprise,
M. Naville decided to begin his campaign by attacking the mounds at
Tell-el-Maskhutah, on the Freshwater Canal, a few miles from
Ismailia. The mounds of earth here were known to cover some ancient
city, for some sphinxes and statues had already been found; but
what city it could be, archæologists were at a loss to
determine; though some, with Professor Lepsius at their head,
believed it to be none other than the Rameses or “Raamses,” which
the Children of Israel built for Pharaoh, and whence they started
on their final Exodus. Any identification, however, of the sites of
the Biblical cities in Egypt was so far merely speculative.
Practically nothing definite was known as to the geography of the
Israelite sojourn, except that the Land of Goshen was undoubtedly
in the eastern part of the Delta, and that Zoan was Tanis, whose
immense mounds are to form the next subject of the society’s
operations. The route of the Exodus was as uncertain as everything
else connected with Israel’s sojourn in Egypt. What sea they
crossed, and where, and by what direction they journeyed to it,
remained vexed questions, although Dr. Brugsch had set up a
plausible theory, in which the “Serbonian Bog” played an important
part.

THE EXCAVATIONS PITHOM-SUCCOTH

Six weeks of steady digging at Tell-el-Maskhutah, under M.
Naville’s skillful direction, placed all these speculations in
quite a new light. The city under the mounds proved to be none
other than Pithom, the “store” or “treasure city” which the
Children of Israel “built for Pharaoh” (Exod. i. 11). Its character
as a store place or granary is seen in its construction; for the
greater part of the area is covered with strongly built chambers,
without doors, suitable for the storing of grain, which would be
introduced through trap doors in the floor above, of which the ends
of the beams are still visible. These curious chambers, unique in
their appearance, are constructed of large, well made bricks,
sometimes mixed with straw, sometimes without it, dried in the sun,
and laid with mortar, with great regularity and precision. The
walls are 10 ft. thick, and the thickness of the inclosing wall
which runs round the whole city is more than 20 ft. In one corner
was the temple, dedicated to the god Tum, and hence called Pe-tum
or Pithom, the “Abode of Tum.” Only a few statues, groups, and
tablets (some of which have been presented to the British Museum)
remained to testify to its name and purpose; the temple itself was
finally destroyed when the Romans turned Pithom into a camp, as is
shown by the position of the limestone fragments and of the Roman
bricks. The statues, however, and especially a large stele, are
extremely valuable, since they tell the history of the city during
eighteen centuries. From a study of these monuments, M. Naville has
learned that Pithom was its sacred, and Thukut (Succoth) its civil,
name; that it was founded by Rameses II., restored by Shishak and
others of the twenty-second dynasty; was an important place under
the Ptolemies, who set up a great stele to commemorate the founding
of the city of Arsinoë in the neighborhood; was called Hero or
Heroöpolis by the Greeks (a name derived from the hieroglyphic
ara, meaning a “store house”), and Ero Castra by the Romans,
who occupied it at all events as late as A.D. 306. Indications are
also found of the position of Pihahiroth, where the Israelites
encamped before the passage of the “Reedy Sea,” and of Clysma. All
these data are directly contradictory to preconceived theories:
Pithom, Succoth, Heroöpolis, Pihahiroth, and Clysma had all
been hypothetically placed in totally different positions. The
identification of Pithom with Succoth gives us the first absolutely
certain point as yet established in the route of the Exodus, and
completely overthrows Dr. Brugsch’s theory. It is now certain that
the Israelites passed along the valley of the Freshwater Canal and
not near the Mediterranean and Lake Serbonis. The first definite
geographical fact in connection with the sojourn in the Land of
Egypt has been established by the excavations at Pithom. The
historical identification of Rameses II. with Pharaoh the oppressor
also results from the monumental evidence. One short exploration
has upset a hundred theories and furnished a wonderful illustration
of the historical character of the Book of Exodus. The finding of
Pithom (Succoth) is, however, only the beginning, we hope, of a
series of important discoveries. When enough money has been
collected for the proposed exploration of Zoan (Tanis), results of
the highest interest to students alike of the Bible and of Egyptian
antiquities may, with certainty, be predicted.

The uppermost view shows a portion of the diggings; a workman is
bringing up a barrow-load of soil from one of the deep store
chambers which the Children of Israel built more than three
thousand years ago. In the foreground lie the fragments of a fallen
granite statue, the head and face of which are intact. The other
illustration is taken from the temple end of the excavations. The
sculptured group of Rameses the Great seated between divinities is
one of a pair that adorned the entrance; its companion and the
sphinxes that guarded the pylon are at Ismailia. Beyond this group,
and a little to the left, is seen the great Stele of Pithom, set up
by Ptolemy Philadelphus and Arsinoë, and containing a mass of
important information in its long hieroglyphic inscriptions. Behind
this, and on either side, the massive brick walls of the store
chambers and the inclosing wall of the temple can be traced; while
on the right hand, in the middle distance, is a heap of limestone
blocks, already collected by Rameses II. for the completion or
enlargement of the temple. The excavations were photographed for M.
Naville, by Herr Emil Brugsch, of the Boulak Museum, and our
illustrations are taken from these photographs, supplemented by
sketches.–S.L.P., in Illustrated London News.

THE MOABITE MANUSCRIPTS.

The surprises of archæology are magnificent and apparently
inexhaustible. It is continually bringing forth things new and old,
and often it happens that the newest are the oldest of all. Whether
this or the exact converse is the case in regard to the latest
discovery of Biblical archæology is a question not to be
determined offhand; but the interest and importance of the question
can hardly be overrated. There are now deposited in the British
Museum fifteen leather slips, on the forty folds of which are
written portions of the Book of Deuteronomy in a recension entirely
different from that of the received text. The character employed in
the manuscript is similar to that of the famous Moabite stone and
of the Siloam inscription, and, therefore, the mere
palæographical indication should give the probable date of
the slips as the ninth century B. C., or sixteen centuries earlier
than any other clearly authenticated manuscript of any portion of
the Old Testament. The sheepskin slips are literally black with
age, and are impregnated with a faint odor as of funeral spices;
the folds are from 6 to 7 inches long and about 3½ inches
wide, containing each about ten lines, written only on one
side.

So far as they have yet been deciphered, they exhibit two
distinct handwritings, though the same archaic character is used
throughout. In some cases the same passages of Deuteronomy occur in
duplicate on distinct slips, as though the fragments belonged to
two contemporary transcriptions made by different scribes from the
same original text. At first sight no writing whatever is
perceptible; the surface seems to be covered with an oily or
glutinous substance, which so completely obscures the writing
beneath that a photograph of some of the slips–which we have had
an opportunity of examining side by side with the slips
themselves–exhibits no trace of the text. But when the leather is
moistened with spirits of wine the letters become momentarily
visible beneath the glossy surface.

These extraordinary fragments were brought to England by Mr.
Shapira, of Jerusalem, a well known bookseller and dealer in
antiquities. Mr. Shapira’s name will be remembered in connection
with certain archæological problems which have been solved by
some scholars in a manner not altogether creditable to his
sagacity.

The Moabite pottery which reached Europe through Mr. Shapira’s
agency and is deposited in the Museum at Berlin is now commonly
regarded as a modern forgery; but of this forgery, if it be one, it
is asserted that Mr. Shapira was the dupe and not the accomplice.
The leathern fragments now produced by Mr. Shapira were, as he
alleges, obtained by him from certain Arabs near Dibon, the
neighborhood where the Moabite stone was discovered. The agent
employed by him in their purchase was an Arab “who would steal his
mother-in-law for a few piastres,” and who would probably be even
less scrupulous about a few blackened slips of ancient or modern
sheepskin. The value placed by Mr. Shapira on the fragments is,
however, a cool million sterling, and at this price they are
offered to the British Museum, where they have been temporarily
deposited for examination.

Dr. Ginsburg, the well-known Semitic scholar–whose receipt of a
grant of £500 from the Prime Minister toward the production
of his important work on the “Massorah” we announced with much
satisfaction yesterday–is now busily engaged in deciphering the
contents of the fragments and examining their genuineness. On this
latter question we refrain from pronouncing an opinion. When Dr.
Ginsburg’s report appears, we shall be able to judge whether these
extraordinary fragments are really 2,500 years old, or have been
compiled within the last few years.

No complete account of the contents of the fragments can yet be
given. To decipher them is a work of time and of infinite patience
and skill, as will readily be inferred from the account we have
given above of the appearance and condition of the slips. But
enough has been deciphered to show that the text employed in them
exhibits discrepancies of the most remarkable and important
character as compared with that of the received version of the
Mosaic books.

In the first verse of the ninth chapter of Deuteronomy, where
the received version reads, “Thou art to pass over Jordan this day,
to go in to possess nations greater and mightier than thyself,” the
corresponding passage of the fragments substitutes the plural for
the singular, “Ye” for ‘”Thou,” while for
“g’dôlîm,” the word translated “greater,” it
reads “rabbîm.” But a far more complete idea of the
variations of text and signification may be obtained from a
comparison of the text of the Decalogue as it appears in the
received version in the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy with that
contained in the fragments so far as they have yet been deciphered.
The version of the fragments, literally rendered, runs as
follows:

“I am God, thy God, which liberated thee from the land of Egypt,
from the house of bondage. Ye shall have no other gods. Ye shall
not make to yourselves any graven image, nor any likeness that is
in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the
waters under the earth. Ye shall not bow down to them nor serve
them. I am God, your God. Sanctify … in six days I have made the
heaven and the earth, and all that is therein, and rested on the
seventh day, therefore rest thou also, thou and thy cattle and all
that thou hast: I am God, thy God. Honor thy father and thy mother
…: I am God, thy God. Thou shall not kill the person of thy
brother: I am God, thy God. Thou shalt not commit adultery with the
wife of thy neighbor: I am God, thy God. Thou shalt not steal the
property of thy brother: I am God, thy God. Thou shalt not swear by
my name falsely, for I visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the
children unto the third and fourth generation of those who take my
name in vain: I am God, thy God. Thou shalt not bear false witness
against thy brother: I am God, thy God. Thou shalt not covet the
wife … or his manservant, or his maidservant, or anything that is
his: I am God, thy God. Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy
heart: I am God, thy God. These ten words (or commandments) God
spake.”

Several points may be noted in this version. The singular
refrain “I am God, thy God”–which does not appear at all in the
received version–occurs ten times, being, as it were, a solemn
ratification of the Divine sanction given at the end of each
separate precept. If this be so, the first two commandments, as
they are commonly reckoned, are here fused into one, and the tenth
place is taken by a commandment which does not appear in the
received version of the Decalogue.

It will further be observed that the distinctive Jewish name for
the Almighty, “Jehovah,” or “the Lord,” does not appear at all, the
familiar phrase of the received version, “the Lord thy God,” being
replaced throughout by “God, thy God.”

On the many variations in arrangement and detail we need not
dwell; they speak for themselves. But we have quoted enough to show
that these fragments present problems of the utmost importance and
interest both to criticism and exegesis, unless, indeed, they are
to be regarded as the ingenious fabrications of some Oriental
Ireland, who, knowing the interest felt by scholars in variations
of the Sacred Text, has set himself, with infinite pains and skill,
to forestall a growing demand. Until this preliminary question is
resolved to the satisfaction of all competent scholars, no further
questions need be raised. In any case the primá facie
presumption must be held to be enormously against the genuineness
of the fragments. Such a presumption rests on the improbability of
finding manuscripts older by at least sixteen centuries than any
extant manuscripts of the same text, on the comparative ease with
which such fragments can be forged, and on the powerful motives to
such forgery attested by the price placed by Mr. Shapira on his
property.

All that we know of the provenance of the fragments is
that Mr. Shapira obtained them from an Arab of doubtful character;
and that Arabs of doubtful character have driven a splendid trade
in Moabite antiquities ever since the discovery of the Moabite
stone. On the other hand, the forger, if forgery there be, is
assuredly no clumsy and ignorant bungler, as the makers of the
Moabite pottery were confidently alleged to be by those who
disputed its genuineness. It is, of course, part of his craft, and
not, perhaps, much more than the ‘prentice part, to give to the
sheepskins on which the text is inscribed an appearance of
immemorial antiquity. But a good deal more than the skill required
to make a new sheepskin look like an old one has gone to the
production of Mr. Shapira’s fragments. If they are forged, the
fabricator must have known what scholars would be likely to expect
in genuine fragments, and have set himself to fulfill their
expectations. In these days of scientific palæography and
minute textual scholarship no forger of ancient manuscripts could
hope to take in scholars unless he were a scholar himself.
Variations of text would be looked for as a matter of course;
palæographical accuracy would be exacted to the minutest turn
of a letter. Now, to vary a text so as to furnish a different
recension without betraying ignorance or solecism requires
scholarship of no mean order, while it is very far from an easy
thing to write currently in an archaic and unfamiliar character in
such a manner as to deceive experts in palæography. But the
fabricator of these fragments, if fabricated they are, has
attempted and accomplished a good deal more than this. He has in
some cases produced two identical texts written in different hands,
both preserving unimpaired the archaic character of the letters.
This implies either the employment of two scribes or else an almost
incredible skill in the single scribe employed, and in either case
it doubles the probability of detection. If, moreover, the supposed
fabricator is also himself the scribe, it is evident that he is not
only a very ingenious artist, but also a very accomplished scholar,
and one can only regret that he has engaged in an industry which
has placed him at the mercy of an Arab who would steal his
mother-in-law for a few piastres, and is likely, therefore, to
enrich no one but Mr. Shapira. We should expect to find, however,
that his extraordinary ingenuity has at some point or another
overreached itself. Familiar as he must be with the labors of
modern Biblical critics–for otherwise he would hardly have
ventured to impose upon them–it would be strange if he were not
betrayed into some more or less suspicious coincidences with them.
In any case, the problem presented by the fragments is one of
profound interest, and the whole world of letters will resound with
the controversy they are certain to excite.–London
Times.

SPECIMENS OF OLD KNOCKING DEVICES FOR
DOORS.–From the Building News.

SHIPPING OSTRICHES FROM CAPE TOWN TO AUSTRALIA.

Since the failure last August of the Cape Commercial Bank there
has been much depression in South Africa. Ostrich farming, in
common with other enterprises, has suffered. Before the crisis a
pair of breeding ostriches have been sold for 350 l., now they
would not realize 50 l.

The resolution of the Government of South Australia to encourage
ostrich breeding came in very opportunely for the Cape dealers, and
one or two cargoes of birds have been shipped for Adelaide. The
climate of the two colonies is very similar, and the locality
selected for the imported birds (the Musgrave Ranges) resembles in
dryness and temperature their native habitat.

The first sketch opposite represents the ostriches bidding
farewell to their South African home. “The dear old farm where we
were reared, good-by!”

One of the boxes, while being slung from the cart to the hold,
got into a slanting position. This frightened one of the two
inmates, a fine cock. He kicked so hard that he burst open the door
of his cage, which was, of course, instantly lowered on deck.
Fortunately there was there a gentleman who understood how to
handle ostriches. He instantly seized him before he could do
himself or the bystanders any injury, and after a brief struggle
prevailed on him to re-enter his box. When released in the hold he
became quite quiet, and ate his first meal on board ship with a
relish.

After being taken out of their boxes the birds are allowed to
take a little exercise just to make themselves at home, and are
then arranged in wooden kraals, of which there are two hundred on
board the vessel. The ostriches are induced to move from one place
to another by catching hold of their bodies, and using a little
gentle force.

The last sketch represents their first meal on board after a
fast of thirty hours. Apple melons were chopped up for them by
their “steward,” who was to accompany them to Australia. It was
curious to see a bird swallow a great lump and then to watch the
lump working slowly down the animal’s long neck. On the voyage they
would be fed with maize or mealies, onions, apple melons, and
barley. They require very little water; however, there were five
large iron tanks on board in case they would feel thirsty. Our
engravings are from sketches by Mr. Dennis Edwards, of Hoff Street,
Capetown,

SHIPPING OSTRICHES FROM CAPE TOWN TO AUSTRALIA.

1. Ostriches on the South African Farm Where They Were
Reared.–2.
Attempted Escape and Recapture of an Ostrich on Board Ship.–3.
Lowering
the Birds Into the Hold.–4.A Queer Dinner Party–Ostriches Eating
Apple Melons.

A NEW WEATHERCOCK.

An ordinary weathercock provided with datum points may, in the
majority of cases, suffice for the observation of the wind during
the day; but recourse has to be had to different means to obtain an
automatic transmission of the indications of the vane to the inside
of a building. The different systems employed for such a purpose
consist of gearings, or are accompanied by a friction that notably
diminishes the sensitiveness of the apparatus, especially when the
rod has to traverse several stories. Mr. Emile Richard, inspector
of the Versailles waterworks, has just devised an ingenious system
which, while considerably reducing the weight of the movable part,
allows the weathercock to preserve all its sensitiveness. This
apparatus consists of two principal parts–one fixed and the other
movable. The stationary part is designated in the accompanying
figure by the letters A and B and by cross-hatchings. This forms
the rod or support. An iron tube, T, with clamps, P, at its lower
extremity forms the base of the apparatus, and is hidden, after the
mounting of the apparatus, by the ornamental zinc covering, Z. The
upper part of the tube carries a shoulder-piece, upon which rests a
bronze platform, E, and which is slightly inclined outwardly to
prevent the accumulation of water on it. Over the platform there
move three crystal balls, which are held and guided by a horizontal
disk movable around the stationary tube.

The movable portion, designed to receive the action of the wind
and to indicate its direction, is designated by the letters C D and
coarse lines. It consists of (1) a zinc tube, K, provided at
intervals with copper rings, and entering the rod, A B, which
serves as a guide for it; (2) of a bronze disk covered by an
external ornament, O, fixed to the tube and resting on the balls;
(3) of the vane, G, properly so called; and (4) of the cap, C,
provided with bayonet catch, crowning the tube and covering the
point of attachment of the wire of transmission. This latter
consists of a simple brass or galvanized iron wire, f f, perfectly
taut, and made fast in the top of the tube. After traversing as
many stories as necessary this wire terminates, in the interior of
the room where the observations are made, in a copper rod to which
is fastened a horizontal arrow, F. The wire traverses the floorings
through small zinc tubes; and, in the rooms through which it
passes, it is protected by iron tubes. To the ceiling of the
observing room there is affixed a wind-rose, R, on which the arrow
reproduces all the motions of the vane.

RICHARD’S WEATHERCOCK.

This apparatus is now in operation in the different stations
that the Versailles waterworks has established near the reservoirs
of the plateau of Trappes, and it is also installed in several
primary normal schools, where it is giving very good
results.–La Nature.

CHARRED CLOVER.

A correspondent of the Ohio Farmer reports an experiment
in curing clover, showing how he just missed breeding fire in his
barn, and illustrating the importance of ventilating hay mows:

In 1861 I used a horse fork for the first time. The haying
season was not a bright one, and our clover was drawn a little
greener than usual, and went into the mow in large and compact
forkfuls. The result was intense heating, and consequently very
rapid evaporation and sweating of the mow. On a bay holding
ordinarily twenty tons we put at least thirty tons, as every load
at the top seemed to make room for another. The barn was rather
open, which allowed quite free evaporation on all sides as well as
at the top. The result was that I had very bright and excellent hay
at the bottom, top, and sides of that mow, but severals tons in the
center were as completely charred as though burned in a coal pit.
What prevented combustion has always been a mystery to me. Since
that escape from a conflagration, I have not deemed it prudent to
put clover in so green as to cause intense heating, or to fill a
mow too rapidly. If we haul six loads per day to one mow, weighing
thirty hundred each, which will shrink during the sweating process
to one ton each, we have three tons of water to be thrown off by
evaporation.

If we continue to put on six loads per day until the mow is
full, the principal part of that moisture must rise through the
entire mass. To relieve the hay of moisture, I deem it best to have
several places of storage, and change daily or semi-daily from one
to the other, thus giving time for a share of the moisture to pass
off. To facilitate this evaporation and prevent the hay from
reabsorbing it and becoming musty, the best of ventilation is
necessary. Ventilation above a clover mow is as necessary as it is
above a sugar or fruit evaporator. If there is not open space and
draught sufficient to carry away the moisture, it is returned to
the mow, and mould is the inevitable result. No ordinary amount of
drying will prevent hay from becoming musty if ventilation is shut
off during the sweating process. If a hole is cut through the floor
at the bottom of the mow near the center and under a ventilator in
the roof and a barrel placed over it and drawn up as the hay is
mowed in, thus leaving a hole from bottom to top, evaporation will
be facilitated and the quality of the hay improved. Salt thrown on,
as the clover is put in, to the amount of two or three quarts to
the ton, will make it a relish with stock.

THE QUEEN VICTORIA CENTURY PLANT.

(Agave victoriæ-reginæ.)

This beautiful Agave is now in blossom in the garden here, and I
am happy to be able to send you photographs of it. This is the
first time it has ever blossomed in cultivation, and it has never
been seen in flower in a wild state. It is a mature native-grown
specimen, dense in habit, and perfectly semi-spherical in form, and
the leaves are arranged in spiral fashion with as much regularity
as those of a screw pine. The circumference of the plant is 5 ft. 1
in., and it has 268 leaves. Its flower-stem appeared about the
middle of June, grew rather fast till it was 7 ft. high, then
rather slowly till it reached its full development. The scape is
now 10 ft. 4 in. high above the plant, 6½ in. in
circumference at the base, or 5¼ in. at a foot above the
base; from there it tapers very gradually till near the apex. The
flower-spike is exceedingly dense, and 5 ft. 8 in. long; the lower
or naked portion, 4 ft. 8 in. long, is prominently marked by
abortive flower buds, with, near the base, some bristle-like scales
3½ in. to 4 in. long. The flowers are regularly arranged in
parcels of three, all the three being equal in size and opening
together; they are greenish white in color, 1½ in. long, or,
including the stamens, some 2¾ in. to 3 in. long.

AGAVE VICTORIÆ-REGINÆ.

The first flowers opened on August 3, and they have continued to
open in succession, a belt about 3 in. wide opening each day. They
remain in good condition for two days; on the third day the stamens
wilt and drop down, but the pistil remains erect till the fourth
day. On the first day of opening the pistil is not so long as the
stamens by ¾ in.; on the second it has grown to be as long
as the stamens, but it is not in condition to receive the pollen
till after noon of the second day. Although the flowers on some
eighteen inches of the spike have already blossomed, none of the
ovaries have been fertilized; they are dropping off, but I am
rather sanguine regarding those about the middle of the spike. So
great is the superfluity of nectar contained in the flowers, that
on the afternoon of the second day it often drops from the cups,
and the least shake to the scape brings it down in a shower. The
main beauty of the inflorescence consists in the dense
bottle-brush-like mass of bright yellow anthers. This plant,
together with several smaller ones, was contributed to this garden
by Dr. Edward Palmer, who collected them in their native wilds–the
mountains of Northern Mexico–some three years ago. He found them
growing in a limited and rather inaccessible locality in gravelly
and rocky soil some miles from Monterey. In addition to those he
sent here he also sent a quantity to the garden of the Agricultural
Department at Washington, and some to Dr. Engelmann, the eminent
botanist at St. Louis. To Dr. Engelmann he also sent a piece of an
old flower stem and some dried capsules which he found upon an old
plant, and it was from these specimens in 1880 that the doctor was
enabled to describe for the first time the inflorescence of this
Agave.–The Garden.

ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE NATURAL FATS.

By J. ALFRED WANKLYN and WILLIAM FOX.

In the course of an investigation in which we are at present
engaged we have arrived at some results which appear to us to be
very interesting. We find that the generally received view that the
fats are ethers of glycerin is partially correct, and that
instances of a different kind of structure occur among the natural
oils and fats.

Ethers of iso-glycerin, or of homologues of iso-glycerin, appear
to occur. Iso-glycerin has this structure:

C(OH)₂
CH
CH₃

It exists in its ethers, but cannot be isolated, and should be
resolved into:

COOH + H₂O
CH₂
CH₃

Ethers of iso-glycerin, or ethers of homologues of iso-glycerin,
yield no glycerin when saponified.–Chemical News.

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