SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT NO. 384

NEW YORK, MAY 12, 1883

Scientific American Supplement. Vol. XV., No. 384.

Scientific American established 1845

Scientific American Supplement, $5 a year.

Scientific American and Supplement, $7 a year.

LOCOMOTIVE FOR ST. GOTHARD RAILWAY.

We give engravings of one of a type of eight-coupled locomotives
constructed for service on the St. Gothard Railway by Herr T.A.
Maffei, of Munich. As will be seen from our illustrations, the
engine has outside cylinders, these being 20.48 in. in diameter,
with 24 in. stroke, and as the diameter of the coupled wheels is 3
ft. 10 in., the tractive force which the engine is capable of
exerting amounts to (20.48² x 24) / 46 = 218.4 lb. for each
pound of effective pressure per square inch on the pistons. This is
an enormous tractive force, as it would require but a mean
effective pressure of 102½ lb. per square inch on the
pistons to exert a pull of 10 tons. Inasmuch, however, as the
engine weighs 44 tons empty and 51 tons in working order, and as
all this weight is available for adhesion, this great cylinder
power can be utilized. The cylinders are 6 ft. 10 in. apart from
center to center, and they are well secured to the frames, as shown
in Fig. 4. The frames are deep and heavy, being 1 3/8 in. thick,
and they are stayed by a substantial box framing at the smokebox
end, by a cast-iron footplate at the rear end, and by the
intermediate plate stays shown. The axle box guides are all fitted
with adjusting wedges. The axle bearings are all alike, all being
7.87 in. in diameter by 9.45 in. long. The axles are spaced at
equal distances of 4 ft. 3.1 in. apart, the total wheel base being
thus 12 ft. 9.3 in. In the case of the 1st, 2d, and 3d axles, the
springs are arranged above the axle boxes in the ordinary way,
those of the 2d and 3d axles being coupled by compensating beams.
In the case of the trailing axle, however, a special arrangement is
adopted. Thus, as will be seen on reference to the longitudinal
section and plan (Figs. 1 and 2, first page), each trailing axle
box receives its load through the horizontal arm of a strong
bell-crank lever, the vertical arm of which extends downward and
has its lower end coupled to the adjoining end of a strong
transverse spring which is pivoted to a pair of transverse stays
extending from frame to frame below the ash pan. This arrangement
enables the spring for the trailing axle to be kept clear of the
firebox, thus allowing the latter to extend the full width between
the frames. The trailing wheels are fitted with a brake as
shown.

LOCOMOTIVES FOR ST. GOTHARD RAILWAY.

The valve motion is of the Gooch or stationary link type, the
radius rods being cranked to clear the leading axle, while the
eccentric rods are bent to clear the second axle. The piston rods
are extended through the front cylinder covers and are enlarged
where they enter the crossheads, the glands at the rear ends of
cylinders being made in halves. The arrangement of the motion
generally will be clearly understood on reference to Figs. 1 and 2
without further explanation.

The boiler, which is constructed for a working pressure of 147
lb. per square inch, is unusually large, the barrel being 60.4 in.
in diameter inside the outside rings; it is composed of plates 0.65
in. thick. The firebox spreads considerably in width toward the
top, as shown in the section, Fig. 5, and to enable it to be got in
the back plate of the firebox casing is flanged outward, instead of
inward as usual, so as to enable it to be riveted up after the
firebox is in place. The inside firebox is of copper and its crown
is stayed directly to the crown of the casing by vertical stays, as
shown, strong transverse stays extending across the boiler just
above the firebox crown to resist the spreading action caused by
the arrangement of the crown stays. The firegrate is 6 ft. 11.6 in.
long by 3 ft. 4 in. wide.

ST. GOTHARD LOCOMOTIVES.

The barrel contains 225 tubes 1.97 in. in diameter outside and
13 ft. 9½ in. long between tube plates. On the top of the
barrel is a large dome containing the regulator, as shown in Fig.
1, from which view the arrangement of the gusset stays for the back
plate of firebox casing and for the smokebox tube plate will be
seen. A grid is placed across the smokebox just above the tubes,
and provision is made, as shown in Figs. 1 and 4, for closing the
top of the exhaust nozzle, and opening a communication between the
exhaust pipes and the external air when the engine is run reversed.
The chimney is 15¾ in. in diameter at its lower end and 18.9
in. at the top. The chief proportions of the boiler are as
follows:

[Transcribers note 1: Best guess, 2nd digit illegible]

The proportion of chimney area to grate is much smaller than in
ordinary locomotives, this proportion having no doubt been fixed
upon to enable a strong draught to be obtained with the engine
running at a slow speed. Of the general fittings of the engine we
need give no description, as their arrangement will be readily
understood from our engravings, and in conclusion we need only say
that the locomotive under notice is altogether a very interesting
example of an engine designed for specially heavy
work.–Engineering.

THE MERSEY RAILWAY TUNNEL.

The work of connecting Liverpool with Birkenhead by means of a
railway tunnel is now an almost certain success. It is probable
that the entire cost of the tunnel works will amount to about half
a million sterling. The first step was taken about three years ago,
when shafts were sunk simultaneously on both sides of the Mersey.
The engineers intrusted with the plans were Messrs. Brunlees &
Fox, and they have now as their resident representative Mr. A.H.
Irvine, C.E. The contractor for the entire work is Mr. John
Waddell, and his lieutenant in charge at both sides of the river is
Mr. James Prentice. The post of mechanical engineer at the works is
filled by Mr. George Ginty. Under these chiefs, a small army of
nearly 700 workmen are now employed night and day at both sides of
the river in carrying out the tunnel to completion. On the
Birkenhead side, the landward excavations have reached a point
immediately under Hamilton Square, where Mr. John Laird’s statue is
placed, and here there will be an underground station, the last
before crossing the river, the length of which will be about 400
feet, with up and down platforms. Riverward on the Cheshire side,
the excavators have tunneled to a point considerably beyond the
line of the Woodside Stage; while the Lancashire portion of the
subterranean work now extends to St. George’s Church, at the top of
Lord street, on the one side, and Merseyward to upward of 90 feet
beyond the quay wall, and nearly to the deepest part of the
river.

When completed, the total length of the tunnel will be three
miles one furlong, the distance from wall to wall at each side of
the Mersey being about three-quarters of a mile. The underground
terminus will be about Church street and Waterloo place, in the
immediate neighborhood of the Central Station, and the tunnel will
proceed from thence, in an almost direct line, under Lord street
and James street; while on the south side of the river it will be
constructed from a junction at Union street between the London and
Northwestern and Great Western Railways, under Chamberlain street,
Green lane, the Gas Works, Borough road, across the Haymarket and
Hamilton street, and Hamilton square.

Drainage headings, not of the same size of bore as the part of
the railway tunnel which will be in actual use, but indispensable
as a means of enabling the railway to be worked, will act as
reservoirs into which the water from the main tunnel will be
drained and run off to both sides of the Mersey, where gigantic
pumps of great power and draught will bring the accumulating water
to the surface of the earth, from whence it will be run off into
the river. The excavations of these drainage headings at the
present time extend about one hundred yards beyond the main tunnel
works at each side of the river. The drainage shafts are sunk to a
depth of 180 feet, and are below the lowest point of the tunnel,
which is drained into them. Each drainage shaft is supplied with
two pumping sets, consisting of four pumps, viz., two of 20 in.
diameter, and two of 30 in. diameter. These pumps are capable of
discharging from the Liverpool shafts 6,100 gallons per minute, and
from the Birkenhead 5,040 gallons per minute; and as these pumps
will be required for the permanent draining of the tunnel, they are
constructed in the most solid and substantial manner. They are
worked by compound engines made by Hathorn, Davey & Co., of
Leeds, and are supplied with six steel boilers by Daniel Adamson
& Co., of Dukinfield, near Manchester.

In addition to the above, there is in course of construction
still more powerful pumps of 40 in. diameter, which will provide
against contingencies, and prevent delay in case of a breakdown
such as occurred lately on the Liverpool side of the works. The
nature of the rock is the new red sandstone, of a solid and compact
character, favorable for tunneling, and yielding only a moderate
quantity of water. The engineers have been enabled to arrange the
levels to give a minimum thickness of 25 ft. and an average
thickness of 30 ft. above the crown of the tunnel.

Barges are now employed in the river for the purpose of
ascertaining the depth of the water, and the nature of the bottom
of the river. It is satisfactory to find that the rock on the
Liverpool side, as the heading is advanced under the river,
contains less and less water, and this the engineers are inclined
to attribute to the thick bed of stiff bowlder clay which overlies
the rock on this side, which acts as a kind of “overcoat” to the
“under garments.” The depth of the water in one part of the river
is found to be about 72 ft.; in the middle about 90 ft.; and as
there is an intermediate depth of rock of about 27 ft., the
distance is upward of 100 ft. from the surface of low water to the
top of the tunnel.

It is expected that the work will shortly be pushed forward at a
much greater speed than has hitherto been the case, for in place of
the miner’s pick and shovel, which advanced at the rate of about
ten yards per week, a machine known as the Beaumont boring machine
will be brought into requisition in the course of a day or two, and
it is expected to carry on the work at the rate of fifty yards per
week, so that this year it may be possible to walk through the
drainage heading from Liverpool to Birkenhead. The main tunnel
works now in progress will probably be completed and trains running
in the course of 18 months or two years.

The workmen are taken down the shaft by which the debris is
hoisted, ten feet in diameter, and when the visitor arrives at the
bottom he finds himself in quite a bright light, thanks to the
Hammond electric light, worked by the Brush machine, which is now
in use in the tunnel on both sides of the river. The depth of the
pumping shaft is 170 feet, and the shaft communicates directly with
the drainage heading. This circular heading now has been advanced
about 737 yards. The heading is 7 feet in diameter, and the amount
of it under the river is upward of 200 yards on each side. The main
tunnel, which is 26 feet wide and 21 feet high, has also made
considerable progress at both the Liverpool and Birkenhead ends.
From the Liverpool side the tunnel now extends over 430 yards, and
from the opposite shore about 590 yards. This includes the
underground stations, each of which is 400 feet long, 51 feet wide,
and 32 feet high. Although the main tunnel has not made quite the
same progress between the shafts as the drainage heading, it is
only about 100 yards behind it. When completed, the tunnel will be
about a mile in length from shaft to shaft. In the course of the
excavations which have been so far carried out, about 70 cubic
yards of rock have been turned out for every yard forward.

Ten horses are employed on the Birkenhead side for drawing
wagons loaded with debris to the shaft, which, on being hoisted, is
tipped into the carts and taken for deposit to various places, some
of which are about three miles distant. The tunnel is lined
throughout with very solid brickwork, some of which is, 18 inches
thick (composed of two layers of blue and two of red brick), and
toward the river this brickwork is increased to a thickness of six
rings of bricks–three blue and three red. A layer of Portland
cement of considerable thickness also gives increased stability to
the brick lining and other portions of the tunnel, and the whole of
the flooring will be bricked. There are about 22 yards of brickwork
in every yard forward. The work of excavation up to the present
time has been done by blasting (tonite being employed for this
purpose), and by the use of the pick and shovel. At every 45 ft. on
alternate sides niches of 18 in. depth are placed for the safety of
platelayers. The form of the tunnel is semicircular, the arch
having a 13 ft. radius, the side walls a 25 ft. radius, and the
base a 40 ft. radius.

Fortunately not a single life has up to the present time been
lost in carrying out the exceedingly elaborate and gigantic work,
and this immunity from accident is largely owing to the care and
skill which are manifested by the heads of the various departments.
The Mersey Tunnel scheme may now be looked upon as an accomplished
work, and there is little doubt its value as a commercial medium
will be speedily and fully appreciated upon completion.

DAM ACROSS THE OTTAWA RIVER AND NEW CANAL AT CARILLON QUE

By ANDREW BELL Resident Engineer

The natural navigation of the Ottawa River from the head of the
Island of Montreal to Ottawa City–a distance of nearly a hundred
miles–is interrupted between the villages of Carillon and
Grenville which are thirteen miles apart by three rapids, known as
the Carillon, Chûte à Blondeau, and Longue Sault
Rapids, which are in that order from east to west. The Carillon
Rapid is two miles long and has, or had, a fall of 10 feet the
Chûte à Blondeau a quarter of a mile with a fall of 4
feet and the Longue Sault six miles and a fall of 46 feet. Between
the Carillon and Chûte à Blondeau there is or was a
slack water reach of three and a half miles, and between the latter
and the foot of the Longue Sault a similar reach of one and a
quarter miles.

Small canals limited in capacity to the smaller locks on them
which were only 109 feet long 19 feet wide, and 5 to 6 feet of
water on the sills, were built by the Imperial Government as a
military work around each of the rapids. They were begun in 1819
and completed about 1832. They were transferred to the Canadian
Government in 1856. They are built on the north shore of the river,
and each canal is about the length of the rapid it surmounts.

THE GREAT DAM ACROSS THE OTTAWA RIVER, AT
CARILLON.

The Grenville Canal (around the Longue Sault) with seven locks,
and the Chûte à Blondeau with one lock, are fed
directly from Ottawa. But with the Carillon that method was not
followed as the nature of the banks there would have in doing so,
entailed an immense amount of rock excavation–a serious matter in
those days. The difficulty was overcome by locking up at the upper
or western end 13 feet and down 23 at lower end, supplying the
summit by a ‘feeder from a small stream called the North River,
which empties into the Ottawa three or four miles below Carillon,
but is close to the main river opposite the canal.

In 1870-71 the Government of Canada determined to enlarge these
canals to admit of the passage of boats requiring locks 200 feet
long, 45 feet wide, and not less than 9 feet of water on the sills
at the lowest water. In the case of the Grenville Canal this was
and is being done by widening and deepening the old channel and
building new locks along side of the old ones. But to do that with
the Carillon was found to be inexpedient. The rapidly increasing
traffic required more water than the North River could supply in
any case, and the clearing up of the country to the north had
materially reduced its waters in summer and fall, when most needed.
To deepen the old canal so as to enable it to take its supply from
the Ottawa would have caused the excavation of at least 1,250,000
cubic yards of rock, besides necessitating the enlargement of the
Chûte à Blondeau also.

It was therefore decided to adopt a modification of the plan
proposed by Mr. T.C. Clarke, of the present firm of Clarke Reeves
& Co, several years before when he made the preliminary surveys
for the then proposed “Ottawa Ship Canal,” namely to build a dam
across the river in the Carillon Rapid but of a sufficient height
to drown out the Chûte à Blondeau, and also to give
the required depth of water there.

During the summer and fall of 1872 the writer made the necessary
surveys of the river with that end in view. By gauging the river
carefully in high and low water, and making use of the records
which had been kept by the lock masters for twenty years back, it
was found that the flow of the river was in extreme low water
26,000 cubic feet per second, and in highest water 190,000 cubic
feet per second, in average years about 30,000 and 150,000 cubic
feet respectively. The average flow in each year would be nearly a
mean between those quantities, namely, about 90,000 cubic feet per
second. It was decided to locate the dam where it is now built,
namely, about the center of Carillon Rapid, and a mile above the
village of that name and to make it of a height sufficient to raise
the reach between the head of Carillon and Chûte à
Blondeau about six feet, and that above the latter two feet in
ordinary water. At the site chosen the river is 1,800 feet wide,
the bed is solid limestone, and more level or flat than is
generally found in such places–the banks high enough and also
composed of limestone. It was also determined to build a slide for
the passage of timber near the south shore (see map), and to locate
the new canal on the north side.

Contracts for the whole works were given out in the spring of
1873, but as the water remained high all the summer of that year
very little could be done in it at the dam. In 1874 a large portion
of the foundation, especially in the shallow water, was put in.
1875 and 1876 proved unfavorable and not much could be done, when
the works were stopped. They were resumed in 1879, and the dam as
also the slide successfully completed, with the exception of
graveling of the dam in the fall of 1881. The water was lower that
summer than it had been for thirty five years before. The canal was
completed and opened for navigation the following spring.

THE DAM

In building such a dam as this the difficulties to be contended
against were unusually great. It was required to make it as near
perfectly tight as possible and be, of course, always submerged.
Allowing for water used by canal and slide and the leakage there
should be a depth on the crest of the dam in low water of 2.50 feet
and in high of about 10 feet. These depths turned out ultimately to
be correct. The river reaches its highest about the middle of May,
and its lowest in September. It generally begins to rise again in
November. Nothing could be done except during the short low water
season, and some years nothing at all. Even at the most favorable
time the amount of water to be controlled was large. Then the depth
at the site varied in depth from 2 to 14 feet, and at one place was
as much as 23 feet. The current was at the rate of from 10 to 12
miles an hour. Therefore, failures, losses, etc., could not be
avoided, and a great deal had to be learned as the work progressed.
I am not aware that a dam of the kind was ever built, or attempted
to be built across a river having such a large flow as the
Ottawa.

The method of construction was as follows. Temporary structures
of various kinds suited to position, time, etc., were first placed
immediately above the site of the dam to break the current. This
was done in sections and the permanent dam proceeded with under
that protection.

In shallow water timber sills 36 feet long and 12 inches by 12
inches were bolted to the lock up and down stream, having their
tops a uniform height, namely, 9.30 feet below the top of dam when
finished. These sills were, where the rock was high enough, scribed
immediately to it, but if not, they were ‘made up’ by other timbers
scribed to the rock, as shown by Figs 4 and 5. They were generally
placed in pairs about 6 feet apart, and each alternate space left
open for the passage of water, to be closed by gates as hereafter
described. Each sill was fastened by five 1½ in. bolts
driven into pine plugs forced into holes drilled from 18 inches to
24 inches into the rock. The temporary rock was then removed as far
as possible, to allow a free flow of the water.

In the channels of which there are three, having an aggregate
width of about 650 feet, cribs 46 feet wide up and down stream were
sunk. In the deepest water, where the rock was uneven, they covered
the whole bottom up to about five feet of the level of the silts,
and on top of that isolated cribs, 46 in. X 6 in. and of the
necessary height were placed seven feet apart, as shown at C Figs 2
and 3. At other places similar narrow cribs were placed on the
rock, as shown at D, Figs 2 and 3. The tops of all were brought to
about the same level as the before mentioned sills. The rock bottom
was cleaned by divers of all bowlders, gravel, etc. The cribs were
built in the usual manner, of 12 in. X 12 in. timber generally
hemlock, and carefully fitted to the rock on which they stand. They
were fastened to the rock by 1½ in. bolts, five on each side
of a crib, driven into pine plugs as mentioned for the sills. The
drilling was done by long runners from their tops. The upstream
side of the cribs were sheeted with 4 in. tamarack plank.

On top of these sills and cribs there was then placed all across
river a platform from 36 to 46 feet wide made up of sawed pine
timber 12 in. X 12 in., each piece being securely bolted to its
neighbor and to the sills and cribs below. It was also at intervals
bolted through to the rock.

On top of the “platform” there was next built a flat dam of the
sectional form shown by Fig 1. It was built of 12 in. X 12 in.
sawed pine timbers securely bolted at the crossings and to the
platform, and sheeted all over with tamarack 10 in. thick and the
crest covered with ½ in. boiler plate 3 ft. wide. The whole
structure was carefully filled with stone–field stone, or “hard
head” generally being used for the purpose.

At this stage of the works, namely, in the fall of 1881 the
structure presented somewhat the appearance of a bridge with short
spans. The whole river–fortunately low–flowed through the sluices
of which there were 113 and also through a bulkhead which had been
left alongside of the slide with a water width of 60 ft. These
openings had a total sectional area of 4,400 sq. ft., and barely
allowed the river to pass, although, of course, somewhat assisted
by leakage.

Fig. 1. CROSS SECTION IN DEEP WATER.

It now only remained, to complete the dam, to close the
openings. This was done in a manner that can be readily understood
by reference to the cuts. Gates had been constructed with timber 10
in. thick, bolted together. They were hung on strong wooden hinges
and, before being closed, laid back on the face of dam as shown at
B, Figs. 1, 2, and 3. They were all closed in a short time on the
afternoon of 9th November, 1881. To do this it was simply necessary
to turn them over, when the strong current through the sluices
carried them into their places, as shown at A, Figs. 2 and 3 and by
the dotted lines on Fig. 1. The closing was a delicate as well as
dangerous operation, but was as successfully done as could be
expected. No accident happened further than the displacement of two
or three of the gates. The openings thus left were afterward filled
up with timber and brushwood. The large opening alongside of the
slide was filled up by a crib built above and floated into
place.

The design contemplates the filling up with stone and gravel on
up-stream side of dam about the triangular space that would be
formed by the production of the line of face of flat dam till it
struck the rock. Part of that was done from the ice last winter;
the balance is being put in this winter.

Observations last summer showed that the calculations as to the
raising of the surface of the river were correct. When the depth on
the crest was 2.50 feet, the water at the foot of the Longue Sault
was found to be 25 in. higher than if no dam existed. The intention
was to raise it 24 in.

The timber slide was formed by binding parallel piers about 600
feet long up and down stream, as shown on the map, and 28 ft.
apart, with a timber bottom, the top of which at upper end is 3 ft.
below the crest of dam. It has the necessary stop logs, with
machinery to move them, to control the water. The approach is
formed by detached piers, connected by guide booms, extending about
half a mile up stream. See map.

Alongside of the south side of the slide a large bulkhead was
built, 69 ft. wide, with a clear waterway of 60 ft. It was
furnished with stop logs and machinery to handle them. When not
further required, it was filled up by a crib as before
mentioned.

The following table shows the materials used in the dam and
slide, and the cost:

The above does not include cost of surveys, engineering, or
superintendence, which amounted to about ten per cent, of the above
sum.

DETAILS OF THE OTTAWA RIVER DAM, AT CARILLON.

The construction of the dam and slide was ably superintended by
Horace Merrill, Esq., late superintendent of the “Ottawa River
Improvements,” who has built nearly all the slides and other works
on the Ottawa to facilitate the passage of its immense timber
productions.

The contractors were the well known firm of F.B. McNamee &
Co., of Montreal, and the successful completion of the work was in
a large degree due to the energy displayed by the working member of
that firm–Mr. A.G. Nish, formerly engineer of the Montreal
harbor.

THE CANAL

The canal was formed by “fencing in” a portion of the river-bed
by an embankment built about a hundred feet out from the north
shore and deepening the intervening space where necessary. There
are two locks–one placed a little above the foot of the rapid (see
map), and the other at the end of the dam. Wooden piers are built
at the upper and lower ends–the former being 800 ft. long, and the
latter 300 ft; both are about 29 ft. high and 35 ft. wide.

The embankment is built, as shown by the cross section, Fig. 6.
On the canal side of it there is a wall of rubble masonry F, laid
in hydraulic cement, connecting the two locks, and backed by a
puddle wall, E, three feet thick; next the river there is crib
work, G, from ten to twenty feet wide and the space between
brick-work and puddle filled with earth. The outer slope is
protected with riprap, composed of large bowlders. This had to be
made very strong to prevent the destruction of the bank by the
immense masses of moving ice in spring.

The distance between the locks is 3,300 feet.

In building the embankment the crib-work was first put in and
followed by a part (in width) of the earth-bank. From that to the
shore temporary cross-dams were built at convenient distances apart
and the space pumped out by sections, when the necessary excavation
was done, and the walls and embankments completed. The earth was
put down in layers of not more than a foot deep at a time, so that
the bank, when completed, was solid. The water at site of it varied
in depth from 15 feet at lower end to 2 feet at upper.

The locks are 200 ft. long in the clear between the gates, and
45 ft wide in the chamber at the bottom. The walls of the lower one
are 29 ft. high, and of the upper one 31 ft They are from 10 to 12
ft thick at the bottom,

The locks are built similar to those on the new Lachine and
Welland canals, of the very best cut stone masonry, laid in
hydraulic cement. The gates are 24 in. thick, made of solid timber,
somewhat similar to those in use on the St. Lawrence canals. They
are suspended from anchors at the hollow quoins, and work very
easily. The miter sills are made of 26 in. square oak. The bottom
of the lower lock iis timbered throughout, but the upper one only
at the recesses, the rock there being good.

MAP OF THE OTTAWA RIVER AT CARILLON RAPIDS.

SECTION OF RIVER AT DAM. NOTE.–THE LOWEST DOTTED LINE IS LOW WATER
BEFORETHE DAM WAS BUILT. THEN THE LINE OF HIGH WATER WAS ABOUT A
FOOT ABOVE WHAT IS CREST OF DAM NOW.

The rise to be overcome by the two locks is 16 ft., but except
in medium water, is not equally distributed. In high water nearly
the whole lift is on the upper lock, and in low water the lower
one. In the very lowest known stage of the river there will never
be less than 9 ft. on the miter sills.

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, four locks were
required on the old military canal to accomplish what is now done
by two.

The canal was opened in May, 1882, and has been a great success,
the only drawback–although slight–being that in high water the
current for about three-quarters of a mile above the upper pier,
and at what was formerly the Chute a Biondeau, is rather strong.
These difficulties can be easily overcome–the former by building
an embankment from the pier to Brophy’s Island, the latter by
removing some of the natural dam of rock which once formed the
“Chute.”

The following are, in round numbers, the quantities of the
principal materials used:

The total cost to date has been about $570,000, not including
surveys, engineering, etc.

The contractors for the canal, locks, etc., were Messrs. R. P.
Cooke & Co., of Brockville, Ont., who have built some large
works in the States, and who are now engaged building other
extensive works for the Canadian Government. The work here reflects
great credit on their skill.

On the enlarged Grenville Canal, now approaching completion,
there are five locks, taking the place of the seven small ones
built by the Imperial Government. It will be open for navigation
all through in the spring of 1884, when steamers somewhat larger
than the largest now navigating the St. Lawrence between Montreal
and Hamilton can pass up to Ottawa City.–Engineering
News.

DWELLING HOUSES–HINTS ON BUILDING–“HOME, SWEET HOME.”

[Footnote: From a paper read before the Birmingham Architectural
Association, Jan 30, 1883]

By WILLIAM HENMAN, A.R.I.B.A.

My intention is to bring to your notice some of the many causes
which result in unhealthy dwellings, particularly those of the
middle classes of society. The same defects, it is true, are to be
found in the palace and the mansion, and also in the artisan’s
cottage; but in the former cost is not so much a matter of
consideration, and in the latter, the requirements and appliances
being less, the evils are minimized. It is in the houses of the
middle classes, I mean those of a rental at from £50 to
£150 per annum, that the evils of careless building and want
of sanitary precautions become most apparent. Until recently
sanitary science was but little studied, and many things were done
a few years since which even the self-interest of a speculative
builder would not do nowadays, nor would be permitted to do by the
local sanitary authority. Yet houses built in those times are still
inhabited, and in many cases sickness and even death are the
result. But it is with shame I must confess that, notwithstanding
the advance which sanitary science has made, and the excellent
appliances to be obtained, many a house is now built, not only by
the speculative builder, but designed by professed architects, and
in spite of sanitary authorities and their by-laws, which, in
important particulars are far from perfect, are unhealthy, and
cannot be truly called sweet homes.

Architects and builders have much to contend with. The
perverseness of man and the powers of nature at times appear to
combine for the express purpose of frustrating their endeavors to
attain sanitary perfection. Successfully to combat these opposing
forces, two things are above all necessary, viz 1, a more perfect
insight into the laws of nature, and a judicious use of serviceable
appliances on the part of the architect; and, 2, greater knowledge,
care, and trustworthiness on the part of workmen employed. With the
first there will be less of that blind following of what has been
done before by others, and by the latter the architect who has
carefully thought out the details of his sanitary work will be
enabled to have his ideas carried out in an intelligent manner.
Several cases have come under my notice, where, by reckless
carelessness or dense ignorance on the part of workmen, dwellings
which might have been sweet and comfortable if the architect’s
ideas and instructions had been carried out, were in course of time
proved to be in an unsanitary condition. The defects, having been
covered up out sight, were only made known in some cases after
illness or death had attacked members of the household.

In order that we may have thoroughly sweet homes, we must
consider the localities in which they are to be situated, and the
soil on which they are to rest. It is an admitted fact that certain
localities are more generally healthy than others, yet
circumstances often beyond their control compel men to live in
those less healthy. Something may, in the course of time, be done
to improve such districts by planting, subdrainage, and the like.
Then, as regards the soil; our earth has been in existence many an
age, generation after generation has come and passed away, leaving
behind accumulations of matter on its surface, both animal and
vegetable, and although natural causes are ever at the work of
purification, there is no doubt such accumulations are in many
cases highly injurious to health, not only in a general way, but
particularly if around, and worse still, under our dwellings.
However healthy a district is considered to be, it is never safe to
leave the top soil inclosed within the walls of our houses; and in
many cases the subsoil should be covered with a layer of cement
concrete, and at times with asphalt on the concrete. For if the
subsoil be damp, moisture will rise; if it be porous, offensive
matter may percolate through. It is my belief that much of the cold
dampness felt in so many houses is caused by moisture rising from
the ground inclosed within the outer walls. Cellars are in
many cases abominations. Up the cellar steps is a favorite means of
entrance for sickness and death. Light and air, which are so
essential for health and life, are shut out. If cellars are
necessary, they should be constructed with damp proof walls and
floors; light should be freely admitted; every part must be well
ventilated, and, above all, no drain of any description should be
taken in. If they be constructed so that water cannot find its way
through either walls or floors, where is the necessity of a drain?
Surely the floors can be kept clean by the use of so small an
amount of water that it would be ridiculous specially to provide a
drain.

The next important but oft neglected precaution is to have a
good damp course over the whole of the walls, internal as
well as external. I know that for the sake of saving a few pounds
(most likely that they may be frittered away in senseless, showy
features) it often happens, that if even a damp course is provided
in the outer walls, it is dispensed with in the interior walls.
This can only be done with impunity on really dry ground, but in
too many cases damp finds its way up, and, to say the least,
disfigures the walls. Here I would pause to ask: What is the
primary reason for building houses? I would answer that, in this
country at least, it is in order to protect ourselves from wind and
weather. After going to great expense and trouble to exclude cold
and wet by means of walls and roofs, should we not take as much
pains to prevent them using from below and attacking us in a more
insidious manner? Various materials may be used as damp courses.
Glazed earthenware perforated slabs are perhaps the best, when
expense is no object. I generally employ a course of slates,
breaking joint with a good bed of cement above and below; it
answers well, and is not very expensive. If the ground is
irregular, a layer of asphalt is more easily applied. Gas tar and
sand are sometimes used, but it deteriorates and cannot be depended
upon for any length of time. The damp course should invariably be
placed above the level of the ground around the building,
and below the ground floor joists. If a basement story is
necessary, the outer walls below the ground should be either built
hollow, or coated externally with some substance through which wet
cannot penetrate. Above the damp course, the walls of our houses
must be constructed of materials which will keep out wind and
weather. Very porous materials should be avoided, because, even if
the wet does not actually find its way through, so much is absorbed
during rainy weather that in the process of drying much cold is
produced by evaporation. The fact should be constantly remembered,
viz., that evaporation causes cold. It can easily be proved by
dropping a little ether upon the bulb of a thermometer, when it
will be seen how quickly the mercury falls, and the same effect
takes place in a less degree by the evaporation of water. Seeing,
then, that evaporation from so small a surface can lower
temperature so many degrees, consider what must be the effect of
evaporation from the extensive surfaces of walls inclosing our
houses. This experiment (thermometer with bulb inclosed in linen)
enables me as well to illustrate that curious law of nature which
necessitates the introduction of a damp course in the walls of our
buildings; it is known as capillary or molecular attraction, and
breaks through that more powerful law of gravitation, which in a
general way compels fluids to find their own level. You will notice
that the piece of linen over the bulb of the thermometer, having
been first moistened, continues moist, although only its lower end
is in water, the latter being drawn up by capillary attraction; or
we have here an illustration more to the point: a brick which
simply stands with its lower end in water, and you can plainly see
how the damp has risen.

From these illustrations you will see how necessary it is that
the brick and stone used for outer walls should be as far as
possible impervious to wet; but more than that, it is necessary the
jointing should be non-absorbent, and the less porous the stone or
brick, the better able must the jointing be to keep out wet, for
this reason, that when rain is beating against a wall, it either
runs down or becomes absorbed. If both brick and mortar, or stone
and mortar be porous, it becomes absorbed; if all are non-porous,
it runs down until it finds a projection, and then drops off; but
if the brick or stone is non-porous, and the mortar porous, the wet
runs down the brick or stone until it arrives at the joint, and is
then sucked inward. It being almost impossible to obtain materials
quite waterproof, suitable for external walls, other means must be
employed for keeping our homes dry and comfortable. Well built
hollow walls are good. Stone walls, unless very thick, should be
lined with brick, a cavity being left between. A material called
Hygeian Rock Building Composition has lately been introduced, which
will, I believe, be found of great utility, and, if properly
applied, should insure a dry house. A cavity of one-half an inch is
left between the outer and inner portion of the wall, whether of
brick or stone, which, as the building rises, is run in with the
material made liquid by heat; and not only is the wall waterproofed
thereby, but also greatly strengthened. It may also be used as a
damp course.

Good, dry walls are of little use without good roofs, and for a
comfortable house the roofs should not only be watertight and
weathertight, but also, if I may use the term, heat-tight. There
can be no doubt that many houses are cold and chilly, in
consequence of the rapid radiation of heat through the thin roofs,
if not through thin and badly constructed walls. Under both tiles
and slates, but particularly under the latter, there should be some
non-conducting substance, such as boarding, or felt, or pugging.
Then, in cold weather heat will be retained; in hot weather it will
be excluded. Roofs should be of a suitable pitch, so that neither
rain nor snow can find its way in in windy weather. Great care must
be taken in laying gutters and flats. With them it is important
that the boarding should be well laid in narrow widths, and in the
direction of the fall; otherwise the boards cockle and form ridges
and furrows in which wet will rest, and in time decay the
metal.

After having secured a sound waterproof roof, proper provision
must be made for conveying therefrom the water which of necessity
falls on it in the form of rain. All eaves spouting should be of
ample size, and the rain water down pipes should be placed at
frequent intervals and of suitable diameter. The outlets from the
eaves spouting should not be contracted, although it is advisable
to cover them with a wire grating to prevent their becoming choked
with dead leaves, otherwise the water will overflow and probably
find its way through the walls. All joints to the eaves spouting,
and particularly to the rain-water down pipes, should be made
watertight, or there is great danger, when they are connected with
the soil drains, that sewer gas will escape at the joints and find
its way into the house at windows and doors. There should be a
siphon trap at the bottom of each down pipe, unless it is employed
as a ventilator to the drains, and then the greatest care should be
exercised to insure perfect jointings, and that the outlet be well
above all windows. Eaves spouting and rain-water down pipes should
be periodically examined and cleaned out. They ought to be painted
inside as well as out, or else they will quickly decay, and if of
iron they will rust, flake off, and become stopped.

It is impossible to have a sweet home where there is continual
dampness. By its presence chemical action and decay are set up in
many substances which would remain in a quiescent state so long as
they continued dry. Wood will rot; so will wall papers, the paste
used in hanging them, and the size in distemper, however good they
have been in the first instance; then it is that injurious
exhalations are thrown off, and the evil is doubtless very greatly
increased if the materials are bad in themselves. Quickly grown and
sappy timber, sour paste, stale size, and wall papers containing
injurious pigments are more easily attacked, and far more likely to
fill the house with bad smells and a subtile poison. Plaster to
ceilings and walls is quickly damaged by wet, and if improper
materials, such as road drift, be used in its composition, it may
become most unsavory and injurious to health. The materials for
plaster cannot be too carefully selected, for if organic matter be
present, the result is the formation of nitrates and the like,
which combine with lime and produce deliquescent salts, viz, those
which attract moisture. Then, however impervious to wet the walls,
etc., may be, signs of dampness will be noticed wherever there is a
humid atmosphere, and similar evils will result as if wet had
penetrated from the exterior. Organic matter coming into contact
with plaster, and even the exhalations from human beings and
animals, will in time produce similar effects. Hence stables, water
closets, and rooms which are frequently crowded with people, unless
always properly ventilated, will show signs of dampness and
deterioration of the plaster work; wall paper will become detached
from the walls, paint will blister and peel off, and distemper will
lose its virtue. To avoid similar mishaps, sea sand, or sand
containing salt, should never be used either for plaster or mortar.
In fact, it is necessary that the materials for mortar should be as
free from salts and organic matter as those used for plaster,
because the injurious effects of their presence will be quickly
communicated to the latter.

Unfortunately, it is not alone by taking precaution against the
possibility of having a damp house that we necessarily insure a
“sweet home.” The watchful care of the architect is required from
the cutting of the first sod until the finishing touches are put on
the house. He must assure himself that all is done, and nothing
left undone which is likely to cause a nuisance, or worse still,
jeopardize the health of the occupiers. Yet, with all his care and
the employment of the best materials and apparatus at his command,
complete success seems scarcely possible of attainment. We have all
much to learn, many things must be accomplished and difficulties
overcome, ere we can “rest and be thankful.”

It is impossible for the architect to attempt to solve all the
problems which surround this question. He must in many cases employ
such materials and such apparatus as can be obtained; nevertheless,
it is his duty carefully to test the value of such materials and
apparatus as may be obtainable, and by his experience and
scientific knowledge to determine which are best to be used under
varying circumstances.

But to pass on to other matters which mar the sweetness of home.
With many, I hold that the method usually employed for warming our
dwellings is wasteful, dirty, and often injurious to health. The
open fire, although cheerful in appearance, is justly condemned. It
is wasteful, because so small a percentage of the value of the fuel
employed is utilized. It is dirty, because of the dust and soot
which result therefrom. It is unhealthy, because of the cold
draughts which in its simplest form are produced, and the stifling
atmosphere which pervades the house when the products of imperfect
combustion insist, as they often do, in not ascending the flues
constructed for the express purpose of carrying them off; and even
when they take the desired course, they blacken and poison the
external atmosphere with their presence. Some of the grates known
as ventilating grates dispose of one of the evils of the ordinary
open fire, by reducing the amount of cold draught caused by the
rush of air up the flues. This is effected, as you probably know,
by admitting air direct from the outside of the house to the back
of the grate, where it is warmed, and then flows into the rooms to
supply the place of that which is drawn up the chimneys. Provided
such grates act properly and are well put together, so that there
is no possibility of smoke being drawn into the fresh air channels,
and that the air to be warmed is drawn from a pure source, they may
be used with much advantage; although by them we must not suppose
perfection has been attained. The utilization of a far greater
percentage of heat and the consumption of all smoke must be aimed
at. It is a question if such can be accomplished by means of an
open fire, and it is a difficult matter to devise a method suited
in every respect to the warming of our dwellings, which at the same
time is equally cheering in appearance. So long as we are obliged
to employ coal in its crude form for heating purposes, and are
content with the waste and dirt of the open fire, we must be
thankful for the cheer it gives in many a home where there are well
constructed grates and flues, and make the best use we can of the
undoubted ventilating power it possesses.

A constant change of air in every part of our dwellings is
absolutely necessary that we may have a “sweet home,” and the open
fireplace with its flue materially helps to that end; but unless in
every other respect the house is in a good sanitary condition, the
open fire only adds to the danger of residing in such a house,
because it draws the impure air from other parts into our living
rooms, where it is respired. Closed stoves are useful in some
places, such as entrance halls. They are more economical than the
open fireplaces; but with them there is danger of the atmosphere,
or rather, the minute particles of organic matter always floating
in the air, becoming burnt and so charging the atmosphere with
carbonic acid. The recently introduced slow-combustion stoves
obviate this evil.

It is possible to warm our houses without having separate
fireplaces in each room, viz., by heated air, hot water, or steam;
but there are many difficulties and some dangers in connection
therewith which I can scarcely hope to see entirely overcome. In
America steam has been employed with some success, and there is
this advantage in its use, that it can be conveyed a considerable
distance. It is therefore possible to have the furnace and boilers
for its production quite away from the dwelling houses and to heat
several dwellings from one source, while at the same time it can be
employed for cooking purposes. In steam, then, we have a useful
agent, which might with advantage be more generally employed; but
when either it or hot water be used for heating purposes, special
and adequate means of ventilation must be employed. Gas stoves are
made in many forms, and in a few cases can be employed with
advantage; but I believe they are more expensive than a coal fire,
and it is most difficult to prevent the products of combustion
finding their way into the dwellings. Gas is a useful agent in the
kitchen for cooking purposes, but I never remember entering a house
where it was so employed without at once detecting the unpleasant
smell resulting. It is rare to find any special means for carrying
off the injurious fumes, and without such I am sure gas cooking
stoves cannot be healthy adjuncts to our homes.

The next difficulty we have to deal with is artificial lighting.
Whether we employ candle, oil lamp, or gas, we may be certain that
the atmosphere of our rooms will become contaminated by the
products of combustion, and health must suffer. In order that such
may be obviated, it must be an earnest hope that ere long such
improvements will be made in electric lighting, that it may become
generally used in our homes as well as in all public buildings. Gas
has certainly proved itself a very useful and comparatively
inexpensive illuminating power, but in many ways it contaminates
the atmosphere, is injurious to health, and destructive to the
furniture and fittings of our homes. Leakages from the mains
impregnate the soil with poisonous matter, and it rarely happens
that throughout a house there are no leakages. However small they
may be, the air becomes tainted. It is almost impossible, at times,
to detect the fault, or if detected, to make good without great
injury to other work, in consequence of the difficulty there is in
getting at the pipes, as they are generally embedded in plaster,
etc. All gas pipes should be laid in positions where they can be
easily examined, and, if necessary, repaired without much trouble.
In France it is compulsory that all gas pipes be left exposed to
view, except where they must of necessity pass through the
thickness of a wall or floor, and it would be a great benefit if
such were required in this country.

The cooking processes which necessarily go on often result in
unpleasant odors pervading our homes. I cannot say they are
immediately prejudicial to health; but if they are of daily or
frequent occurrence, it is more than probable the volatile matters
which are the cause of the odors become condensed upon walls,
ceiling, or furniture, and in time undergo putrefaction, and so not
only mar the sweetness of home, but in addition affect the health
of the inmates. Cooking ranges should therefore be constructed so
as to carry off the fumes of cooking, and kitchens must be well
ventilated and so placed that the fumes cannot find their way into
other parts of the dwelling. In some houses washing day is an
abomination. Steam and stife then permeate the building, and, to
say the least, banish sweetness and comfort from the home. It is a
wonder that people will, year after year, put up with such a
nuisance.

If washing must be done home, the architect may do something to
lessen the evil by placing the washhouse in a suitable position
disconnected from the living part of the house, or by properly
ventilating it and providing a well constructed boiler and furnace,
and a flue for carrying off the steam.

There is daily a considerable amount of refuse found in every
home, from the kitchen, from the fire-grate, from the sweeping of
rooms, etc., and as a rule this is day after day deposited in the
ash-pit, which but too often is placed close to the house, and left
uncovered. If it were simply a receptacle for the ashes from the
fire-grates, no harm would result, but as all kinds of organic
matter are cast in and often allowed to remain for weeks to rot and
putrefy, it becomes a regular pest box, and to it often may be
traced sickness and death. It would be a wise sanitary measure if
every constructed ash pit were abolished. In place thereof I would
substitute a galvanized iron covered receptacle of but moderate
size, mounted upon wheels, and it should be incumbent on the local
authorities to empty same every two or three days. Where there are
gardens all refuse is useful as manure, and a suitable place should
be provided for it at the greatest distance from the dwellings.
Until the very advisable reform I have just mentioned takes place,
it would be well if refuse were burnt as soon as possible. With
care this may be done in a close range, or even open fire without
any unpleasant smells, and certainly without injury to health. It
must be much more wholesome to dispose of organic matter in that
way while fresh than to have it rotting and festering under our
very noses.

A greater evil yet is the privy. In the country, where there is
no complete system of drainage, it may be tolerated when placed at
a distance from the house; but in a crowded neighborhood it is an
abomination, and, unless frequently emptied and kept scrupulously
clean, cannot fail to be injurious to health. Where there is no
system of drainage, cesspools must at times be used, but they
should be avoided as much as possible. They should never be
constructed near to dwellings, and must always be well ventilated.
Care should be taken to make them watertight, otherwise the foul
matter may percolate through the ground, and is likely to
contaminate the water supply. In some old houses cesspools have
been found actually under the living rooms.

I would here also condemn the placing of r. w. tanks under any
portion of the dwelling house, for many cases of sickness and death
have been traced to the fact of sewage having found its way
through, either by backing up the drains, or by the ignorant laying
of new into old drains. Earth closets, if carefully attended to,
often emptied, and the receptacles cleaned out, can be safely
employed even within doors; but in towns it is difficult to dispose
of the refuse, and there must necessarily be a system of drainage
for the purpose of taking off the surface water; it is thereupon
found more economical to carry away all drainage together, and the
water closet being but little trouble, and, if properly looked
after, more cleanly in appearance, it is generally preferred,
notwithstanding the great risks which are daily run in consequence
of the chance of sewer-gas finding an entrance into the house by
its means. After all, it is scarcely fair to condemn outright the
water closet as the cause of so many of the ills to which flesh is
subject. It is true that many w. c. apparatus are obviously
defective in construction, and any architect or builder using such
is to be condemned. The old pan closet, for instance, should be
banished. It is known to be defective, and yet I see it is still
made, sold, and fixed, in dwelling houses, notwithstanding the fact
that other closet pans far more simple and effective can be
obtained at less cost. The pan of the closet should be large, and
ought to retain a layer of water at the bottom, which, with the
refuse, should be swept out of the pan by the rush of water from
the service pipe. The outlet may be at the side connected with a
simple earthenware s-trap with a ventilating outlet at the top,
from which a pipe may be taken just through the wall. From the
S-trap I prefer to take the soil pipe immediately through the wall,
and connect with a strong 4 in. iron pipe, carefully jointed,
watertight, and continued of the same size to above the tops of all
windows. This pipe at its foot should be connected with a
ventilating trap, so that all air connection is cut off between the
house and the drains. All funnel-shaped w. c. pans are
objectionable, because they are so liable to catch and retain the
dirt.

Wastes from baths, sinks, and urinals should also be ventilated
and disconnected from the drains as above, or else allowed to
discharge above a gulley trap. Excrement, etc., must be quickly
removed from the premises if we are to have “sweet homes,” and the
w.c. is perhaps the most convenient apparatus, when properly
constructed, which can be employed. By taking due precaution no
harm need be feared, or will result from its use, provided that the
drains and sewers are rightly constructed and properly laid. It is
then to the sewers, drains, and their connections our attention
must be specially directed, for in the majority of cases they are
the arch-offenders. The laying of main sewers has in most cases
been intrusted to the civil engineer, yet it often happens
architects are blamed, and unjustly so, for the defective work over
which they had no control. When the main sewers are badly
constructed, and, as a result, sewer gas is generated and allowed
to accumulate, ordinary precautions may be useless in preventing
its entrance by some means or other to our homes, and special means
and extra precautions must be adopted. But with well constructed
and properly ventilated sewers, every architect and builder should
be able to devise a suitable system of house drainage, which need
cause no fear of danger to health. The glazed stoneware pipe, now
made of any convenient size and shape, is an excellent article with
which to construct house-drains. The pipes should be selected, well
burnt, well glazed, and free from twist. Too much care cannot be
exercised in properly laying them. The trenches should be got out
to proper falls, and unless the ground is hard and firm, the pipes
should be laid upon a layer of concrete to prevent the chance of
sinking. The jointing must be carefully made, and should be of
cement or of well tempered clay, care being taken to wipe away all
projecting portions from the inside of the pipes. A clear
passage-way is of the utmost importance. Foul drains are the result
of badly joined and irregularly laid pipes, wherein matter
accumulates, which in time ferments and produces sewer-gas. The
common system of laying drains with curved angles is not so good as
laying them in straight lines from point to point, and at every
angle inserting a man-hole or lamp-hole, This plan is now insisted
upon by the Local Government Board for all public buildings erected
under their authority. It might, with advantage, be adopted for all
house-drains.

Now, in consequence of the trouble and expense attending the
opening up and examination of a drain, it may often happen that
although defects are suspected or even known to exist, they are not
remedied until illness or death is the result of neglect. But with
drains laid in straight lines, from point to point, with man holes
or lamp holes at the intersections, there is no reason why the
whole system may not easily be examined at any time and stoppages
quickly removed. The man holes and lamp-holes may, with advantage,
be used as means for ventilating the drains and also for flushing
them. It is of importance that each house drain should have a
disconnecting trap just before it enters the main sewer. It is bad
enough to be poisoned by neglecting the drainage to one’s own
property, but what if the poison be developed elsewhere, and by
neglect permitted to find its way to us. Such will surely happen
unless some effective means be employed for cutting off all air
connection between the house-drains and the main sewer. I am firmly
convinced that simply a smoky chimney, or the discovery of a fault
in drainage weighs far more, in the estimation of a client in
forming his opinion of the ability of an architect, than the
successful carrying out of an artistic design. By no means do I
disparage a striving to attain artistic effectiveness, but to the
study of the artistic, in domestic architecture at least, add a
knowledge of sanitary science, and foster a habit of careful
observation of causes and effects. Comfort is demanded in the home,
and that cannot be secured unless dwellings are built and
maintained with perfect sanitary arrangements and
appliances.–The Building News.

HOUSE AT HEATON

This house, which belongs to Mr J. N. D’Andrea, is built on the
Basque principle, under one roof, with covered balconies on the
south side, the northside being kept low to give the sun an
opportunity of shining in winter on the house and greenhouse
adjacent, as well as to assist in the more picturesque grouping of
the two. On this side is placed, approached by porch and lobby, the
hall with a fireplace of the “olden time,” lavatory, etc., butler’s
pantry, w. c., staircase, larder, kitchen, scullery, stores,
etc.

On the south side are two sitting rooms, opening into a
conservatory. There are six bedrooms, a dining-room, bath room, and
housemaid’s sink.

The walls are built of colored wall stones known as “insides,”
and half-timbered brickwork covered with the Portland cement
stucco, finished Panan, and painted a cream-color.

All the interior woodwork is of selected pitch pine, the hall
being boarded throughout. Colored lead light glass is introduced in
the upper parts of the windows in every room, etc.

The architect is Mr. W. A. Herbert Martin, of
Bradford.–Architect

HOUSE AT HEATON, BRADFORD.

A MANSARD ROOF DWELLING.

The principal floor of this design is elevated three feet above
the surface of the ground, and is approached by the front steps
leading to the platform. The height of the first floor is eleven
feet, the second ten feet, and the cellar six feet six inches in
the clear. The porch is so constructed that it can be put on either
the front or side of the house, as it may suit the owner. The
rooms, eight in number, are airy and of convenient size. The
kitchen has a range, sink, and boiler, and a large closet, to be
used as a pantry. The windows leading out to the porch will run to
the floor, with heads running into the walls. In the attic the
chambers are 10×10 feet, 13×14 feet, 12×13 feet, 10×10½
feet, and a hall 6 feet wide, with large closets and cupboards for
each chamber. The building is so constructed that an addition can
be made to the rear any time by using the present kitchen as a
dining room and building a new kitchen.

A MANSARD ROOF DWELLING. First Floor.

A MANSARD ROOF DWELLING. Second Floor.

These plans will prove suggestive to those contemplating the
building of a new house, even if radical changes are made in the
accompanying designs.–American Cultivator.

A MANSARD ROOF DWELLING. Front Elevation.

THE HISTORY OF THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.

[Footnote: Aug. Guerout in La Lurmière
Electrique.]

An endeavor has often been made to carry the origin of the
electric telegraph back to a very remote epoch by a reliance on
those more or less fanciful descriptions of modes of communication
based upon the properties of the magnet.

It will prove not without interest before entering into the real
history of the telegraph to pass in review the various documents
that relate to the subject.

In continuation of the 21st chapter of his Magia
naturalis, published in 1553, J. B. Porta cites an experiment
that had been made with the magnet as a means of telegraphing. In
1616, Famiano Strada, in his Prolusiones Academicæ,
takes up this idea, and speaks of the possibility of two persons
communicating by the aid of two magnetized needles influenced by
each other at a distance. Galileo, in Dialogo intorno,
written between 1621 and 1632 and Nicolas Caboeus, of Ferrara, in
his Philosophia magnetica, both reproduce analogous
descriptions, not however without raising doubts as to the
possibility of such a system.

A document of the same kind, to which great importance has been
attached is found in the Recreations mathematiques published
at Rouen in 1628, under the pseudonym of Van Elten, and reprinted
several times since, with the annotations and additions of Mydorge
and Hamion and which must, it appears, be attributed to the Jesuit
Leurechon. In his chapter on the magnet and the needles that are
rubbed therewith, we find the following passage.

“Some have pretended that, by means of a magnet or other like
stone, absent persons might speak with one another. For example,
Claude being at Paris, and John at Rome, if each had a needle that
had been rubbed with some stone, and whose virtue was such that in
measure as one needle moved at Paris the other would move just the
same at Rome, and if Claude and John each had an alphabet, and had
agreed that they would converse with each other every afternoon at
6 o’clock, and the needle having made three and a half revolutions
as a signal that Claude, and no other, wished to speak to John,
then Claude wishing to say to him that the king is at Paris would
cause his needle to move, and stop at T, then at H, then at E, then
at K, I, N, G and so on. Now, at the same time, John’s needle,
according with Claude’s, would begin to move and then stop at the
same letters, and consequently it would be easily able to write or
understand what the other desired to signify to it. The invention
is beautiful, but I do not think there can be found in the world a
magnet that has such a virtue. Neither is the thing expedient, for
treason would be too frequent and too covert.”

The same idea was also indicated by Joseph Glanville in his
Scepsis scientifica, which appeared in 1665, by Father Le
Brun, in his Histoire critique des pratiques
superstitieuses, and finally by the Abbé Barthelemy in
1788.

The suggestion offered by Father Kircher, in his Magnes sive
de arte magnetica, is a little different from the preceding.
The celebrated Jesuit father seeks however, to do nothing more than
to effect a communication of thoughts between two rooms in the same
building. He places, at short distances from each other, two
spherical vessels carrying on their circumference the letters of
the alphabet, and each having suspended within it, from a vertical
wire a magnetized figure. If one of these latter he moved, all the
others must follow its motions, one after the other, and
transmission will thus be effected from the first vessel to the
last. Father Kircher observes that it is necessary that all the
magnets shall be of the same strength, and that there shall be a
large number of them, which is something not within the reach of
everybody. This is why he points out another mode of transmitting
thought, and one which consists in supporting the figures upon
vertical revolving cylinders set in motion by one and the same cord
hidden with in the walls.

There is no need of very thoroughly examining all such systems
of magnetic telegraphy to understand that it was never possible for
them to have a practical reality, and that they were pure
speculations which it is erroneous to consider as the first ideas
of the electric telegraph.

We shall make a like reserve with regard to certain apparatus
that have really existed, but that have been wrongly viewed as
electric telegraphs. Such are those of Comus and of Alexandre. The
first of these is indicated in a letter from Diderot to Mlle.
Voland, dated July 12, 1762. It consisted of two dials whose hands
followed each other at a distance, without the apparent aid of any
external agent. The fact that Comus published some interesting
researches on electricity in the Journal de Physique has
been taken as a basis for the assertion that his apparatus was a
sort of electrical discharge telegraph in which the communication
between the two dials was made by insulated wires hidden in the
walls. But, if it be reflected how difficult it would have been at
that epoch to realize an apparatus of this kind, if it be
remembered that Comus, despite his researches on electricity, was
in reality only a professor of physics to amuse, and if the fact be
recalled that cabinets of physics in those days were filled with
ingenious apparatus in which the surprising effects were produced
by skillfully concealed magnets, we shall rather be led to class
among such apparatus the so-called “Comus electric telegraph.”

We find, moreover, in Guyot’s Recreations physiques et
mathematiques–a work whose first edition dates back to the
time at which Comus was exhibiting his apparatus–a description of
certain communicating dials that seem to be no other than those of
the celebrated physicist, and which at all events enables us to
understand how they worked.

Let one imagine to himself two contiguous chambers behind which
ran one and the same corridor. In each chamber, against the
partition that separated it from the corridor, there was a small
bracket, and upon the latter, and very near the wall, there was a
wooden dial supported on a standard, but in no wise permanently
fixed upon the bracket. Each dial carried a needle, and each
circumference was inscribed with twenty-five letters of the
alphabet. The experiment that was performed with these dials
consisted in placing the needle upon a letter in one of the
chambers, when the needle of the other dial stopped at the same
letter, thus making it possible to transmit words and even
sentences. As for the means of communication between the two
apparatus, that was very simple: One of the two dials always served
as a transmitter, and the other as a receiver. The needle of the
transmitter carried along in its motion a pretty powerful magnet,
which was concealed in the dial, and which reacted through the
partition upon a very light magnetized needle that followed its
motions, and indicated upon an auxiliary dial, to a person hidden
in the corridor, the letter on which the first needle had been
placed. This person at once stepped over to the partition
corresponding to the receiver, where another auxiliary dial
permitted him to properly direct at a distance the very movable
needle of the receiver. Everything depended, as will be seen, upon
the use of the magnet, and upon a deceit that perfectly accorded
with Comus’ profession. There is, then, little thought in our
opinion that if the latter’s apparatus was not exactly the one
Guyot describes, it was based upon some analogous artifice.

Jean Alexandre’s telegraph appears to have borne much analogy
with Comus’. Its inventor operated it in 1802 before the prefect of
Indre-et-Loire. As a consequence of a report addressed by the
prefect of Vienne to Chaptal, and in which, moreover, the apparatus
in question was compared to Comus’, Alexandre was ordered to Paris.
There he refused to explain upon what principle his invention was
based, and declared that he would confide his secret only to the
First Consul. But Bonaparte, little disposed to occupy himself with
such an affair, charged Delambre to examine it and address a report
to him. The illustrious astronomer, despite the persistence with
which Alexandre refused to give up his secret to him, drew a
report, the few following extracts from which will, we think,
suffice to edify the reader:

“The pieces that the First Consul charged me to examine did not
contain enough of detail to justify an opinion. Citizen Beauvais
(friend and associate of Alexandre) knows the inventor’s secret,
but has promised him to communicate it to no one except the First
Consul. This circumstance might enable me to dispense with any
report; for how judge of a machine that one has not seen and does
not know the agent of? All that is known is that the telegraphe
intime consists of two like boxes, each carrying a dial on
whose circumference are marked the letters of the alphabet. By
means of a winch, the needle of one dial is carried to all the
letters that one has need to use, and at the same instant the
needle of the second box repeats, in the same order, all the
motions and indications of the first.

“When these two boxes are placed in two separate apartments, two
persons can write to and answer one another, without seeing or
being seen by one another, and without any one suspecting their
correspondence. Neither night nor fog can prevent the transmission
of a dispatch…. The inventor has made two experiments–one at
Portiers and the other at Tours–in the presence of the prefects
and mayors, and the record shows that they were fully successful.
To-day, the inventor and his associate ask that the First Consul be
pleased to permit one of the boxes to be placed in his apartment
and the other at the house of Consul Cambaceres in order to give
the experiment all the éclat and authenticity
possible; or that the First Consul accord a ten minutes’ interview
to citizen Beauvais, who will communicate to him the secret, which
is so easy that the simple expose of it would be equivalent
to a demonstration, and would take the place of an experiment….
If, as one might be tempted to believe from a comparison with a
bell arrangement, the means adopted by the inventor consisted in
wheels, movements, and transmitting pieces, the invention would be
none the less astonishing…. If, on the contrary, as the Portier’s
account seems to prove, the means of communication is a fluid,
there would be the more merit in his having mastered it to such a
point as to produce so regular and so infallible effects at such
distances…. But citizen Beauvais … desires principally to have
the First Consul as a witness and appreciator…. It is to be
desired, then, that the First Consul shall consent to hear him, and
that he may find in the communication that will be made to him
reasons for giving the invention a good reception and for properly
rewarding the inventor.”

But Bonaparte remained deaf, and Alexandre persisted in his
silence, and died at Angers, in 1832, in great poverty, without
having revealed his secret.

As, in 1802, Volta’s pile was already invented, several authors
have supposed an application of it in Alexandre’s apparatus. “Is it
not allowable to believe,” exclaims one of these, “that the
electric telegraph was at that time discovered?” We do not hesitate
to respond in the negative. The pile had been invented for too
short a time, and too little was then known of the properties of
the current, to allow a man so destitute of scientific knowledge to
so quickly invent all the electrical parts necessary for the
synchronic operation of the two needles. In this telegraphe
intime we can only see an apparatus analogous to the one
described by Guyot, or rather a synchronism obtained by means of
cords, as in Kircher’s arrangement. The fact that Alexandre’s two
dials were placed on two different stories, and distant,
horizontally, fifteen meters, in nowise excludes this latter mode
of transmission. On another hand, the mystery in which Alexandre
was shrouded, his declaration relative to the use of a fluid, and
the assurance with which he promised to reveal his secret to the
First Consul, prove absolutely nothing, for too often have the most
profoundly ignorant people–the electric girl, for
example–befooled learned bodies by the aid of the grossest frauds.
From the standpoint of the history of the electric telegraph, there
is no value, then, to be attributed to this apparatus of Alexandre,
any more than there is to that of Comus or to any of the
dreams based upon the properties of the magnet.

The history of the electric telegraph really begins with 1753,
the date at which is found the first indication of a telegraph
truly based upon the use of electricity. This telegraph is
described in a letter written by Renfrew, dated Feb. 1, 1753, and
signed with the initials “C.M.,” which, in all probability, were
those of a savant of the time–Charles Marshall. A few extracts
from this letter will give an idea of the precision with which the
author described his invention:

“Let us suppose a bundle of wires, in number equal to that of
the letters of the alphabet, stretched horizontally between two
given places, parallel with each other and distant from each other
one inch.

“Let us admit that after every twenty yards the wires are
connected to a solid body by a juncture of glass or jeweler’s
cement, so as to prevent their coming in contact with the earth or
any conducting body, and so as to help them to carry their own
weight. The electric battery will be placed at right angles to one
of the extremities of the wires, and the bundle of wires at each
extremity will be carried by a solid piece of glass. The portions
of the wires that run from the glass support to the machine have
sufficient elasticity and stiffness to return to their primitive
position after having been brought into contact with the battery.
Very near to this same glass support, on the opposite side, there
descends a ball suspended from each wire, and at a sixth or a tenth
of an inch beneath each ball there is placed one of the letters of
the alphabet written upon small pieces of paper or other substance
light enough to be attracted and raised by the electrified ball.
Besides this, all necessary arrangements are taken so that each of
these little papers shall resume its place when the ball ceases to
attract.

FIG. 1.–LESAGE’S TELEGRAPH.

“All being arranged as above, and the minute at which the
correspondence is to begin having been fixed upon beforehand, I
begin the conversation with my friend at a distance in this way: I
set the electric machine in motion, and, if the word that I wish to
transcribe is ‘Sir,’ for example, I take, with a glass rod, or with
any other body electric through itself or insulating, the different
ends of the wires corresponding to the three letters that compose
the word. Then I press them in such a way as to put them in contact
with the battery. At the same instant, my correspondent sees these
different letters carried in the same order toward the electrified
balls at the other extremity of the wires. I continue to thus spell
the words as long as I judge proper, and my correspondent, that he
may not forget them, writes down the letters in measure as they
rise. He then unites them and reads the dispatch as often as he
pleases. At a given signal, or when I desire it, I stop the
machine, and, taking a pen, write down what my friend sends me from
the other end of the line.”

The author of this letter points out, besides, the possibility
of keeping, in the first place, all the springs in contact with the
battery, and, consequently, all the letters attracted, and of
indicating each letter by removing its wire from the battery, and
consequently making it fall. He even proposed to substitute bells
of different sounds for the balls, and to produce electric sparks
upon them. The sound produced by the spark would vary according to
the bell, and the letters might thus be heard.

Nothing, however, in this document authorizes the belief that
Charles Marshall ever realized his idea, so we must proceed to 1774
to find Lesage, of Geneva, constructing a telegraph that was based
upon the principle indicated twenty years before in the letter of
Renfrew.

The apparatus that Lesage devised (Fig. 1) was composed of 24
wires insulated from one another by a non conducting material. Each
of these wires corresponded to a small pith ball suspended by a
thread. On putting an electric machine in communication with such
or such a one of these wires, the ball of the corresponding
electrometer was repelled, and the motion signaled the letter that
it was desired to transmit. Not content with having realized an
electric telegraph upon a small scale, Lesage thought of applying
it to longer distances.

“Let us conceive,” said he in a letter written June 22, 1782, to
Mr. Prevost, of Geneva, “a subterranean pipe of enameled clay,
whose cavity at about every six feet is separated by partitions of
the same material, or of glass, containing twenty-four apertures in
order to give passage to as many brass wires as these diaphragms
are to sustain and keep separated. At each extremity of this pipe
are twenty-four wires that deviate from one another horizontally,
and that are arranged like the keys of a clavichord; and, above
this row of wire ends, are distinctly traced the twenty-four
letters of the alphabet, while beneath there is a table covered
with twenty-four small pieces of gold-leaf or other easily
attractable and quite visible bodies.”

Lesage had thought of offering his secret to Frederick the
Great; but he did not do so, however, and his telegraph remained in
the state of a curious cabinet experiment. He had, nevertheless,
opened the way, and, dating from that epoch, we meet with a certain
number of attempts at electrostatic telegraphy. [1]

[Footnote 1: Advantage has been taken of a letter from Alexander
Volta to Prof. Barletti (dated 1777), indicating the possibility of
firing his electric pistol from a great distance, to attribute to
him a part in the invention of the telegraph. We have not shared in
this opinion, which appears to us erroneous, since Volta, while
indicating the possibility above stated, does not speak of applying
such a fact to telegraphy.]

The first in date is that of Lemond, which is spoken of by
Arthur Young (October 16, 1787), in his Voyage Agronomique en
France:

“In the evening,” says he, “we are going to Mr. Lemond’s, a very
ingenious mechanician, and one who has a genius for invention….
He has made a remarkable discovery in electricity. You write two or
three words upon paper; he takes them with him into a room and
revolves a machine within a sheath at the top of which there is an
electrometer–a pretty little ball of feather pith. A brass wire is
joined to a similar cylinder, and electrified in a distant
apartment, and his wife on remarking the motions of the ball that
corresponds, writes down the words that they indicate; from whence
it appears that he has formed an alphabet of motions. As the length
of the wire makes no difference in the effect, a correspondence
might be kept up from very far off, for example with a besieged
city, or for objects much more worthy of attention. Whatever be the
use that shall be made of it, the discovery is an admirable
one.”

And, in fact, Lemond’s telegraph was of the most interesting
character, for it was a single wire one, and we already find here
an alphabet based upon the combination of a few elementary
signals.

The apparatus that next succeeds is the electric telegraph that
Reveroni Saint Cyr proposed in 1790, to announce lottery numbers,
but as to the construction of which we have no details. In 1794
Reusser, a German, made a proposition a little different from the
preceding systems, and which is contained in the Magazin
für das Neueste aus der Physik und Naturgeschichte,
published by Henri Voigt.

“I am at home,” says Reusser, “before my electric machine, and I
am dictating to some one on the other side of the street a complete
letter that he is writing himself. On an ordinary table there is
fixed vertically a square board in which is inserted a pane of
glass. To this glass are glued strips of tinfoil cut out in such a
way that the spark shall be visible. Each strip is designated by a
letter of the alphabet, and from each of them starts a long wire.
These wires are inclosed in glass tubes which pass underground and
run to the place whither the dispatch is to be transmitted. The
extremities of the wires reach a similar plate of glass, which is
likewise affixed to a table and carries strips of tinfoil similar
to the others. These strips are also designated, by the same
letters, and are connected by a return wire with the table of him
who wishes to dictate the message. If, now, he who is dictating
puts the external armature of a Leyden jar in contact with the
return wire, and the ball of this jar in contact with a metallic
rod touching that of the tinfoil strip which corresponds with the
letter which he wishes to dictate to the other, sparks will be
produced upon the nearest as well as upon the remotest strips, and
the distant correspondent, seeing such sparks, may immediately
write down the letter marked. Will an extended application of this
system ever be made? That is not the question; it is possible. It
will be very expensive; but the post hordes from Saint Petersburg
to Lisbon are also very expensive, and if any one should apply the
idea on a large scale, I shall claim a recompense.”

Every letter, then, was signaled by one or several sparks that
started forth on the breaking of the strip; but we see nothing in
this document to authorize the opinion which has existed, that
every tinfoil strip was a sort of magic tablet upon which the
sparks traced the very form of the letter to be transmitted.

Voigt, the editor of the Magazin, adds, in continuation
of Reusser’s communication: “Mr. Reusser should have proposed the
addition to this arrangement of a vessel filled with detonating gas
which could be exploded in the first place, by means of the
electric spark, in order to notify the one to whom something was to
be dictated that he should direct his attention to the strips of
tinfoil.”

This passage gives the first indication of the use of a special
call for the telegraph. The same year (1794), in a work entitled
Versuch über Telegraphie und Telegraphen, Boeckmann
likewise proposed the use of the pistol as a call signal, in
conjunction with the use of a line composed of two wires only, and
of discharges in the air or a vacuum, grouped in such a way as to
form an alphabet.

Experiments like those indicated by Boeckmann, however, seem to
have been made previous to 1794, or at that epoch, at least, by
Cavallo, since the latter describes them in a Treatise on
Electricity written in English, and a French translation of
which was published in 1795. In these experiments the length of the
wires reached 250 English feet. Cavallo likewise proposed to use as
signals combustible or detonating materials, and to employ as a
call the noise made by the discharge of a Leyden jar.

In 1796 occurred the experiments of Dr. Francisco Salva and of
the Infante D. Antonio. The following is what we may read on this
subject in the Journal des Sciences:

“Prince de la Paix, having learned that Dr. Francisco Salva had
read before the Royal Academy of Sciences of Barcelona a memoir on
the application of electricity to telegraphy, and that he had
presented at the same time an electric telegraph of his own
invention, desired to examine this machine in person. Satisfied as
to the accuracy and celerity with which we can converse with
another by means of it, he obtained for the inventor the honor of
appearing before the king. Prince de la Paix, in the presence of
their majesties and of several lords, caused the telegraph to
converse to the satisfaction of the whole court. The telegraph
conversed some days afterward at the residence of the Infante D.
Antonio.

“His Highness expressed a desire to have a much completer one
that should have sufficient electrical power to communicate at
great distances on land and sea. The Infante therefore ordered the
construction of an electric machine whose plate should be more than
forty inches in diameter. With the aid of this machine His Highness
intends to undertake a series of useful and curious experiments
that he has proposed to Dr. D. Salva.”

In 1797 or ’98 (some authors say 1787), the Frenchman,
Betancourt, put up a line between Aranjuez and Madrid, and
telegraphed through the medium of discharges from a Leyden jar.

But the most interesting of the telegraphs based upon the use of
static electricity is without doubt that of Francis Ronalds,
described by the latter, in 1823, in a pamphlet entitled
Descriptions of an Electrical Telegraph and of some other
Electrical Apparatus, but the construction of which dates back
to 1816.

What is peculiarly interesting in Ronalds’ apparatus is that it
presents for the first time the use of two synchronous movements at
the two stations in correspondence.

The apparatus is represented in Fig. 2. It is based upon the
simultaneous working of two pith-ball electrometers, combined with
the synchronous running of two clock-work movements. At the two
stations there were identical clocks for whose second hand there
had been substituted a cardboard disk (Fig. 3), divided into twenty
sectors. Each of these latter contained one figure, one letter, and
a conventional word. Before each movable disk there was a screen, A
(Fig. 2), containing an aperture through which only one sector
could, be seen at a time. Finally, before each screen there was a
pith-ball electrometer. The two electrometers were connected
together by means of a conductor (C) passing under the earth, and
which at either of its extremities could be put in communication
with either an electric machine or the ground. A lever handle, J,
interposed into the circuit a Volta’s pistol, F, that served as a
call.

When one of the operators desired to send a dispatch to the
other he connected the conductor with the machine, and, setting the
latter in operation, discharged his correspondent’s pistol as a
signal. The call effected, the first operator continued to revolve
the machine so that the balls of pith should diverge in the two
electrometers. At the same time the two clocks were set running.
When the sender saw the word “attention” pass before the slit in
the screen he quickly discharged the line, the balls of the two
electrometers approached each other, and, if the two clocks agreed
perfectly, the correspondent necessarily saw in the aperture in his
screen the same word, “attention.” If not, he moved the screen in
consequence, and the operation was performed over until he could
send, in his turn, the word “ready.” Afterward, the sender
transmitted in the same way one of the three words, “letters,”
“figures,” “dictionary,” in order to indicate whether he wished to
transmit letters or figures, or whether the letters received,
instead of being taken in their true sense, were to be referred to
a conventional vocabulary got up in advance. It was after such
preliminaries that the actual transmission of the dispatch was
begun. The pith balls, which were kept constantly apart, approached
each other at the moment the letter to be transmitted passed before
the aperture in the screen.

Ronalds, in his researches, busied himself most with the
construction of lines. He put up on the grounds near his dwelling
an air line 8 miles long; and, to do so, stretched fine iron wire
in zigzag fashion between two frames 18 meters apart. Each of these
frames carried thirty-seven hooks, to which the wire was attached
through the intermedium of silk cords. He laid, besides, a
subterranean line of 525 feet at a depth of 4 feet. The wire was
inclosed within thick glass tubes which were placed in a trough of
dry wood, of 2 inch section, coated internally and externally with
pitch. This trough was, moreover, filled full of pitch and closed
with a cover of wood. Ronalds preferred these subterranean
conductors to air lines. A portion of one of them that was laid by
him at Hammersmith figured at the Exhibition of 1881, and is shown
in Fig. 4.

Nearly at the epoch at which Ronalds was experimenting in
England, a certain Harrisson Gray Dyar was also occupying himself
with electrostatic telegraphy in America. According to letters
published only in 1872 by American journals, Dyar constructed the
first telegraph in America. This line, which was put up on Long
Island, was of iron wire strung on poles carrying glass insulators,
and, upon it, Dyar operated with static electricity. Causing the
spark to act upon a movable disk covered with litmus paper, he
produced by the discoloration of the latter dots and dashes that
formed an alphabet.

FIG. 2.

These experiments, it seems, were so successful that Dyar and
his relatives resolved to construct a line from New York to
Philadelphia; but quarrels with his copartners, lawsuits, and other
causes obliged him to leave for Rhode Island, and finally for
France in 1831. He did not return to America till 1858.

Dyar, then, would seem to have been the first who combined an
alphabet composed of dots and dashes. On this point, priority has
been claimed by Swaim in a book that appeared at Philadelphia in
1829 under the title of The Mural Diagraph, and in a
communication inserted in the Comptes Rendus of the Academic
des Sciences for Nov. 27, 1865.

FIG. 3.

In 1828, likewise, Victor Triboaillet de Saint Amand proposed to
construct a telegraph line between Paris and Brussels. This line
was to be a subterranean one, the wire being covered with gum
shellac, then with silk, and finally with resin, and being last of
all placed in glass tubes. A strong battery was to act at a
distance upon an electroscope, and the dispatches were to be
transmitted by the aid of a conventional vocabulary based upon the
number of the electroscope’s motions.

Finally, in 1844, Henry Highton took out a patent in England for
a telegraph working through electricity of high tension, with the
use of a single line wire. A paper unrolled regularly between two
points, and each discharge made a small hole in it, But this hole
was near one or the other of the points according as the line was
positively or negatively charged. The combination of the holes thus
traced upon two parallel lines permitted of the formation of an
alphabet. This telegraph was tried successfully over a line ten
miles long, on the London and Northwestern Railway.

FIG. 4.

We have followed electrostatic telegraphs up to an epoch at
which telegraphy had already entered upon a more practical road,
and it now remains for us to retrace our steps toward those
apparatus that are based upon the use of the voltaic current.

Prof. Dolbear observes that if a galvanometer is placed between
the terminals of a circuit of homogeneous iron wire and heat is
applied, no electric effect will be observed; but if the structure
of the wire is altered by alternate bending or twisting into a
helix, then the galvanometer will indicate a current. The professor
employs a helix connected with a battery, and surrounding a portion
of the wire in circuit with the galvanometer. The current in the
helix magnetizes the circuit wire inclosed, and the galvanometer
exhibits the presence of electricity. The experiment helps to prove
that magnetism is connected with some molecular change of the
magnetized metal.

ELECTRICAL TRANSMISSION AND STORAGE.

[Footnote: From a recent lecture in London before the Institute
of Civil Engineers.]

By Dr. C. WILLIAM SIEMENS, F.R.S, Mem. Inst. C.E.

Dr. Siemens, in opening the discourse, adverted to the object
the Council had in view in organizing these occasional lectures,
which were not to be lectures upon general topics, but the outcome
of such special study and practical experience as members of the
Institution had exceptional opportunities of acquiring in the
course of their professional occupation. The subject to be dealt
with during the present session was that of electricity. Already
telegraphy had been brought forward by Mr. W. H. Preece, and
telephonic communication by Sir Frederick Bramwell.

Thus far electricity had been introduced as the swift and
subtile agency by which signals were produced either by mechanical
means or by the human voice, and flashed almost instantaneously to
distances which were limited, with regard to the former, by
restrictions imposed by the globe. To the speaker had been assigned
the task of introducing to their notice electric energy in a
different aspect. Although still giving evidence of swiftness and
precision, the effects he should dwell upon were no longer such as
could be perceived only through the most delicate instruments human
ingenuity could contrive, but were capable of rivaling the steam
engine, compressed air, and the hydraulic accumulator in the
accomplishment of actual work.

In the early attempts at magneto electric machines, it was shown
that, so long as their effect depended upon the oxidation of zinc
in a battery, no commercially useful results could have been
anticipated. The thermo-battery, the discovery of Seebeck in 1822,
was alluded to as a means of converting heat into electric energy
in the most direct manner; but this conversion could not be an
entire one, because the second law of thermo-dynamics, which
prevented the realization as mechanical force of more than one
seventh part of the heat energy produced in combustion under the
boiler, applied equally to the thermo-electric battery, in which
the heat, conducted from the hot points of juncture to the cold,
constituted a formidable loss. The electromotive force of each
thermo-electric element did not exceed 0.036 of a volt, and 1,800
elements were therefore necessary to work an incandescence
lamp.

A most useful application of the thermo-electric battery for
measuring radiant heat, the thermo pile, was exhibited. By means of
an ingenious modification of the electrical pyrometer, named the
bolometer, valuable researches in measuring solar radiations had
been made by Professor Langley.

Faraday’s great discovery of magneto-induction was next noticed,
and the original instrument by which he had elicited the first
electric spark before the members of the Royal Institution in 1831,
was shown in operation. It was proved that although the individual
current produced by magnetoinduction was exceedingly small and
momentary in action, it was capable of unlimited multiplication by
mechanical arrangements of a simple kind, and that by such
multiplication the powerful effects of the dynamo machine of the
present day were built up. One of the means for accomplishing such
multiplication was the Siemens armature of 1856. Another step of
importance was that involved in the Pacinotti ring, known in its
practical application as the machine of Gramme. A third step, that
of the self exciting principle, was first communicated by Dr.
Werner Siemens to the Berlin Academy, on the 17th of January, 1867,
and by the lecturer to the Royal Society, on the 4th of the
following month. This was read on the 14th of February, when the
late Sir Charles Wheatstone also brought forward a paper embodying
the same principle. The lecturer’s machine, which was then
exhibited, and which might be looked upon as the first of its kind,
was shown in operation; it had done useful work for many years as a
means of exciting steel magnets. A suggestion contained in Sir
Charles Wheatstone’s paper, that “a very remarkable increase of all
the effects, accompanied by a diminution in the resistance of the
machine, is observed when a cross wire is placed so as to divert a
great portion of the current from the electro-magnet,” had led the
lecturer to an investigation read before the Royal Society on the
4th of March, 1880, in which it was shown that by augmenting the
resistance upon the electro-magnets 100 fold, valuable effects
could be realized, as illustrated graphically by means of a
diagram. The most important of these results consisted in this,
that the electromotive force produced in a “shunt-wound machine,”
as it was called, increased with the external resistance, whereby
the great fluctuations formerly inseparable from electric arc
lighting could be obviated, and thus, by the double means of
exciting the electro-magnets, still greater uniformity of current
was attainable.

The conditions upon which the working of a well conceived dynamo
machine must depend were next alluded to, and it was demonstrated
that when losses by unnecessary wire resistance, by Foucault
currents, and by induced currents in the rotating armature were
avoided, as much as 90 per cent., or even more, of the power
communicated to the machine was realized in the form of electric
energy, and that vice versa the reconversion of electric
into mechanical energy could be accomplished with similarly small
loss. Thus, by means of two machines at a moderate distance apart,
nearly 80 per cent, of the power imparted to one machine could be
again yielded in the mechanical form by the second, leaving out of
consideration frictional losses, which latter need not be great,
considering that a dynamo machine had only one moving part well
balanced, and was acted upon along its entire circumference by
propelling force. Jacobi had proved, many years ago, that the
maximum efficiency of a magneto-electric engine was obtained
when

e / E = w / W = ½

which law had been frequently construed, by Verdet (Theorie
Mecanique de la Chaleur) and others, to mean that one-half was the
maximum theoretical efficiency obtainable in electric transmission
of power, and that one half of the current must be necessarily
wasted or turned into heat. The lecturer could never be reconciled
to a law necessitating such a waste of energy, and had maintained,
without disputing the accuracy of Jacobi’s law, that it had
reference really to the condition of maximum work accomplished with
a given machine, whereas its efficiency must be governed by the
equation:

e / E = w / W = nearly 1

From this it followed that the maximum yield was obtained when
two dynamo machines (of similar construction) rotated nearly at the
same speed, but that under these conditions the amount of force
transmitted was a minimum. Practically the best condition of
working consisted in giving to the primary machine such proportions
as to produce a current of the same magnitude, but of 50 per cent,
greater electromotive force than the secondary; by adopting such an
arrangement, as much as 50 per cent, of the power imparted to the
primary could be practically received from the secondary machine at
a distance of several miles. Professor Silvanus Thompson, in his
recent Cantor Lectures, had shown an ingenious graphical method of
proving these important fundamental laws.

The possibility of transmitting power electrically was so
obvious that suggestions to that effect had been frequently made
since the days of Volta, by Ritchie, Jacobi, Henry, Page, Hjorth,
and others; but it was only in recent years that such transmission
had been rendered practically feasible.

Just six years ago, when delivering his presidential address to
the Iron and Steel Institute, the lecturer had ventured to suggest
that “time will probably reveal to us effectual means of carrying
power to great distances, but I cannot refrain from alluding to one
which is, in my opinion, worthy of consideration, namely, the
electrical conductor. Suppose water power to be employed to give
motion to a dynamo-electrical machine, a very powerful electrical
current will be the result, which may be carried to a great
distance, through a large metallic conductor, and then be made to
impart motion to electromagnetic engines, to ignite the carbon
points of electric lamps, or to effect the separation of metals
from their combinations. A copper rod 3 in. in diameter would be
capable of transmitting 1,000 horse power a distance of say thirty
miles, an amount sufficient to supply one-quarter of a million
candle power, which would suffice to illuminate a moderately-sized
town.” This suggestion had been much criticised at the time, when
it was still thought that electricity was incapable of being massed
so as to deal with many horse power of effect, and the size of
conductor he had proposed was also considered wholly inadequate. It
would be interesting to test this early calculation by recent
experience. Mr. Marcel Deprez had, it was well known, lately
succeeded in transmitting as much as three horse power to a
distance of 40 kilometers (25 miles) through a pair of ordinary
telegraph wires of 4 millimeters in diameter. The results so
obtained had been carefully noted by Mr. Tresca, and had been
communicated a fortnight ago to the French Academy of Sciences.
Taking the relative conductivity of iron wire employed by Deprez,
and the 3 in. rod proposed by the lecturer, the amount of power
that could be transmitted through the latter would be about 4,000
horse power. But Deprez had employed a motor-dynamo of 2,000 volts,
and was contented with a yield of 32 per cent. only of the energy
imparted to the primary machine, whereas he had calculated at the
time upon an electromotive force of 200 volts, and upon a return of
at least 40 per cent. of the energy imparted. In March, 1878, when
delivering one of the Science Lectures at Glasgow, he said that a 2
in. rod could be made to accomplish the object proposed, because he
had by that time conceived the possibility of employing a current
of at least 500 volts. Sir William Thomson had at once accepted
these views, and with the conceptive ingenuity peculiar to himself,
had gone far beyond him, in showing before the Parliamentary
Electric Light Committee of 1879, that through a copper wire of
only ½ in. diameter, 21,000 horse power might be conveyed to
a distance of 300 miles with a current of an intensity of 80,000
volts. The time might come when such a current could be dealt with,
having a striking distance of about 12 ft. in air, but then,
probably, a very practical law enunciated by Sir William Thomson
would be infringed. This was to the effect that electricity was
conveyed at the cheapest rate through a conductor, the cost of
which was such that the annual interest upon the money expended
equaled the annual expenditure for lost effect in the conductor in
producing the power to be conveyed. It appeared that Mr. Deprez had
not followed this law in making his recent installations.

Sir William Armstrong was probably first to take practical,
advantage of these suggestions in lighting his house at Cragside
during night time, and working his lathe and saw bench during the
day, by power transmitted through a wire from a waterfall nearly a
mile distant from his mansion. The lecturer had also accomplished
the several objects of pumping water, cutting wood, hay, and
swedes, of lighting his house, and of carrying on experiments in
electro-horticulture from a common center of steam power. The
results had been most satisfactory; the whole of the management had
been in the hands of a gardener and of laborers, who were without
previous knowledge of electricity, and the only repairs that had
been found necessary were one renewal of the commutators and an
occasional change of metallic contact brushes.

An interesting application of electric transmission to cranes,
by Dr. Hopkinson, was shown in operation.

Among the numerous other applications of the electrical
transmission of power, that to electrical railways, first exhibited
by Dr. Werner Siemens, at the Berlin Exhibition of 1879, had
created more than ordinary public attention. In it the current
produced by the dynamo machine, fixed at a convenient station and
driven by a steam engine or other motor, was conveyed to a dynamo
placed upon the moving car, through a central rail supported upon
insulating blocks of wood, the two working rails serving to convey
the return current. The line was 900 yards long, of 2 ft gauge, and
the moving car served its purpose of carrying twenty visitors
through the exhibition each trip. The success of this experiment
soon led to the laying of the Lichterfelde line, in which both
rails were placed upon insulating sleepers, so that the one served
for the conveyance of the current from the power station to the
moving car, and the other for completing the return circuit. This
line had a gauge of 3 ft. 3 in., was 2,500 yards in length, and was
worked by two dynamo machines, developing an aggregate current of
9,000 watts, equal to 12 horse power. It had now been in constant
operation since May 16, 1881, and had never failed in accomplishing
its daily traffic. A line half a kilometer in length, but of 4 ft.
8½ in. gauge was established by the lecturer at Paris in
connection with the Electric Exhibition of 1881. In this case, two
suspended conductors in the form of hollow tubes with a
longitudinal slit were adopted, the contact being made by metallic
bolts drawn through these slit tubes, and connected with the dynamo
machine on the moving car by copper ropes passing through the roof.
On this line 95,000 passengers were conveyed within the short
period of seven weeks.

An electric tramway, six miles in length, had just been
completed, connecting Portrush with Bush Mills, in the north of
Ireland, in the installation of which the lecturer was aided by Mr.
Traill, as engineer of the company by Mr. Alexander Siemens, and by
Dr. E. Hopkinson, representing his firm. In this instance the two
rails, 3 ft. apart, were not insulated from the ground, but were
joined electrically by means of copper staples and formed the
return circuit, the current being conveyed to the car through a T
iron placed upon short standards, and insulated by means of
insulate caps. For the present the power was produced by a steam
engine at Portrush, giving motion to a shunt-wound dynamo of 15,000
watts=20 horse power, but arrangements were in progress to utilize
a waterfall of ample power near Bush Mills, by means of three
turbines of 40 horse power each, now in course of erection. The
working speed of this line was restricted by the Board of Trade to
ten miles an hour, which was readily obtained, although the
gradients of the line were decidedly unfavorable, including an
incline of two miles in length at a gradient of 1 in 38. It was
intended to extend the line six miles beyond Bush Mills, in order
to join it at Dervock station with the north of Ireland narrow
gauge railway system.

The electric system of propulsion was, in the lecturer’s
opinion, sufficiently advanced to assure practical success under
suitable circumstances–such as for suburban tramways, elevated
lines, and above all lines through tunnels; such as the
Metropolitan and District Railways. The advantages were that the
weight, of the engine, so destructive of power and of the plant
itself in starting and stopping, would be saved, and that perfect
immunity from products of combustion would be insured The
experience at Lichterfelde, at Paris, and another electric line of
765 yards in length, and 2 ft. 2 in. gauge, worked in connection
with the Zaukerode Colliery since October, 1882, were extremely
favorable to this mode of propulsion. The lecturer however did not
advocate its prospective application in competition with the
locomotive engine for main lines of railway. For tramways within
populous districts, the insulated conductor involved a serious
difficulty. It would be more advantageous under these circumstances
to resort to secondary batteries, forming a store of electrical
energy carried under the seats of the car itself, and working a
dynamo machine connected with the moving wheels by means of belts
and chains.

The secondary battery was the only available means of propelling
vessels by electrical power, and considering that these batteries
might be made to serve the purpose of keel ballast, their weight,
which was still considerable, would not be objectionable. The
secondary battery was not an entirely new conception. The hydrogen
gas battery suggested by Sir Wm. Grove in 1841, and which was shown
in operation, realized in the most perfect manner the conception of
storage, only that the power obtained from it was exceedingly
slight. The lecturer, in working upon Sir Wm. Grove’s conception,
had twenty-five years ago constructed a battery of considerable
power in substituting porous carbon for platinum, impregnating the
same with a precipitate of lead peroxidized by a charging current.
At that time little practical importance attached however to the
object, and even when Plante, in 1860, produced his secondary
battery, composed of lead plates peroxidized by a charging current,
little more than scientific curiosity was excited. It was only
since the dynamo machine had become an accomplished fact that the
importance of this mode of storing energy had become of practical
importance, and great credit was due to Faure, to Sellon, and to
Volckmar for putting this valuable addition to practical science
into available forms. A question of great interest in connection
with the secondary battery had reference to its permanence. A fear
had been expressed by many that local action would soon destroy the
fabric of which it was composed, and that the active surfaces would
become coated with sulphate of lead, preventing further action. It
had, however, lately been proved in a paper read by Dr. Frankland
before the Royal Society, corroborated by simultaneous
investigations by Dr. Gladstone and Mr. Tribe, that the action of
the secondary battery depended essentially upon the alternative
composition and decomposition of sulphate of lead, which was
therefore not an enemy, but the best friend to its continued
action.

In conclusion, the lecturer referred to electric nomenclature,
and to the means for measuring and recording the passage of
electric energy. When he addressed the British Association at
Southampton, he had ventured to suggest two electrical units
additional to those established at the Electrical Congress in 1881,
viz.: the watt and the joule, in order to complete the chain of
units connecting electrical with mechanical energy and with the
unit quantity of heat. He was glad to find that this suggestion had
met with a favorable reception, especially that of the watt, which
was convenient for expressing in an intelligible manner the
effective power of a dynamo machine, and for giving a precise idea
of the number of lights or effective power to be realized by its
current, as well as of the engine power necessary to drive it; 746
watts represented 1 horse-power.

Finally, the watt meter, an instrument recently developed by his
firm, was shown in operation. This consisted simply of a coil of
thick conductor suspended by a torsion wire, and opposed laterally
to a fixed coil of wire of high resistance. The current to be
measured flowed through both coils in parallel circuit, the one
representing its quantity expressible in amperes, and the other its
potential expressible in volts. Their joint attractive action
expressed therefore volt-amperes or watts, which were read off upon
a scale of equal divisions.

The lecture was illustrated by experiments, and by numerous
diagrams and tables of results. Measuring instruments by Professors
Ayrton and Perry, by Mr. Edison and by Mr. Boys, were also
exhibited.

ON THE PREPARATION OF GELATINE PLATES.

[Footnote: Being an abstract of the introductory lecture to a
course on photography at the Polytechnic Institute, November
11.]

By E. HOWARD FARMER, F.C.S.

Since the first announcement of these lectures, our Secretary
has asked me to give a free introductory lecture, so that all who
are interested in the subject may come and gather a better idea as
to them than they can possibly do by simply leading a prospectus.
This evening, therefore, I propose to give first a typical lecture
of the course, and secondly, at its conclusion, to say a few words
as to our principal object. As the subject for this evening’s
lecture I have chosen, “The Preparation of Gelatine Plates,” as it
is probably one of very general interest to photographers.

Before preparing our emulsion, we must first decide upon the
particular materials we are going to use, and of these the first
requisite is nitrate of silver. Nitrate of silver is supplied by
chemists in three principal conditions:

1. The ordinary crystallized salt, prepared by dissolving silver
in nitric acid, and evaporating the solution until the salt
crystallizes out. This sample usually presents the appearance of
imperfect crystals, having a faint yellowish tinge, and a strong
odor of nitrous fumes, and contains, as might be expected, a
considerable amount of free acid.

2. Fused nitrate, or “lunar caustic,” prepared by fusing the
crystallized salt and casting it into sticks. Lunar caustic is
usually alkaline to test paper.

3. Recrystallized silver nitrate, prepared by redissolving the
ordinary salt in distilled water, and again evaporating to the
crystallizing point. By this means the impurities and free acid are
removed.

I have a specimen of this on the table, and it consists, as you
observe, of fine crystals which are perfectly colorless and
transparent; it is also perfectly neutral to test paper. No doubt
either of these samples can be used with success in preparing
emulsions, but to those who are inexperienced, I recommend that the
recrystallized salt be employed. We make, then, a solution of
recrystallized silver nitrate in distilled water, containing in
every 12 ounces of solution 1¼ ounces of the salt.

The next material we require is a soluble bromide. I have here
specimens of various bromides which can be employed, such as
ammonium, potassium, barium, and zinc bromides; as a rule, however,
either the ammonium or potassium salt is used, and I should like to
say a few words respecting the relative efficiency of these two
salts.

1. As to ammonium bromide. This substance is a highly unstable
salt. A sample of ammonium bromide which is perfectly neutral when
first prepared will, on keeping, be found to become decidedly acid
in character. Moreover, during this decomposition, the percentage
of bromine does not remain constant; as a rule, it will be found to
contain more than the theoretical amount of bromine. Finally, all
ammonium salts have a most destructive action on gelatine; if
gelatine, which has been boiled for a short time with either
ammonium bromide or ammonium nitrate, be added to an emulsion, it
will be found to produce pink fog–and probably frilling–on plates
prepared with the emulsion. For these reasons, I venture to say
that ammonium bromide, which figures so largely in formulæ
for gelatine emulsions, is one of the worst bromides that can be
employed for that purpose, and is, indeed, a frequent source of
pink fog and frilling.

2. As to potassium bromide. This is a perfectly stable
substance, can be readily obtained pure, and is constant in
composition; neither has it (nor the nitrate) any appreciable
destructive action on gelatine. We prepare, then, a solution of
potassium bromide in water containing in every 12 ounces of
solution 1 ounce of the salt. On testing it with litmus paper, the
solution may be either slightly alkaline or neutral; in either
case, it should be faintly acidified with hydrochloric acid.

The last material we require is the gelatine, one of the most
important, and at the same time the most difficult substance to
obtain of good quality. I have various samples here–notably
Nelson’s No. 1 and “X opaque;” Coignet’s gold medal; Heinrich’s;
the Autotype Company’s; and Russian isinglass.

The only method I know of securing a uniform quality of gelatine
is to purchase several small samples, make a trial emulsion with
each, and buy a stock of the sample which gives the best results.
To those who do not care to go to this trouble, equal quantities of
Nelson’s No. 1 and X opaque, as recommended by Captain Abney, can
be employed. Having selected the gelatine, 1¼ ounces should
be allowed to soak in water, and then melted, when it will be found
to have a bulk of about 6 ounces.

In order to prepare our emulsion, I take equal bulks of the
silver nitrate and potassium bromide solutions in beakers, and
place them in the water bath to get hot. I also take an equal bulk
of hot water in a large beaker, and add to it one-half an ounce of
the gelatine solution to every 12 ounces of water. Having raised
all these to about 180° F., I add (as you observe) to the large
beaker containing the dilute gelatine a little of the bromide,
then, through a funnel having a fine orifice, a little of the
silver, swirling the liquid round during the operation; then again
some bromide and silver, and so on until all is added.

When this is completed, a little of the emulsion is poured on a
glass plate, and examined by transmitted light; if the mixing be
efficient, the light will appear–as it does here–of an orange or
orange red color.

It will be observed that we keep the bromide in excess while
mixing. I must not forget to mention that to those experienced in
mixing, by far the best method is that described by Captain Abney
in his Cantor lectures, of keeping the silver in excess.

The emulsion, being properly mixed, has now to be placed in the
water bath, and kept at the boiling point for forty-five minutes.
As, obviously, I cannot keep you waiting while this is done, I
propose to divide our emulsion into two portions, allowing one
portion to stew, and to proceed with the next operation with the
remainder.

Supposing, then, this emulsion has been boiled, it is placed in
cold water to cool. While it is cooling, let us consider for a
moment what takes place during the boiling. It is found that during
this time the emulsion undergoes two remarkable changes:

1. The molecules of silver bromide gradually aggregate together,
forming larger and larger particles.

2. The emulsion increases rapidly in sensitiveness. Now what is
the cause, in the first place, of this aggregation of molecules:
and, in the second place, of the increase of sensitiveness? We know
that the two invariably go together, so that we are right in
concluding that the same cause produces both.

It might be thought that heat is the cause, but the same changes
take place more slowly in the cold, so we can only say that heat
accelerates the action, and hence must conclude that the prime
cause is one of the materials in the emulsion itself.

Now, besides the silver bromide, we have in the emulsion water,
gelatine, potassium nitrate, and a small excess of potassium
bromide; and in order to find which of these is the cause, we must
make different emulsions, omitting in succession each of these
materials. Suppose we take an emulsion which has just been mixed,
and, instead of boiling it, we precipitate the gelatine and silver
bromide with alcohol; on redissolving the pellicle in the same
quantity of water, we have an emulsion the same as previously, with
the exception that the niter and excess of potassium bromide are
absent. If such an emulsion be boiled, we shall find the remarkable
fact that, however long it be boiled, the silver bromide undergoes
no change, neither does the emulsion become any more sensitive. We
therefore conclude, that either the niter or the small excess of
potassium bromide, or both together, produce the change.

Now take portions of a similarly washed emulsion, and add to one
portion some niter, and to another some potassium bromide; on
boiling these we find that the one containing niter does not
change, while that containing the potassium bromide rapidly
undergoes the changes mentioned.

Here, then, by a direct appeal to experiment, we prove that to
all appearance comparatively useless excess of potassium bromide is
really one of the most important constituents of the emulsion.

The following table gives some interesting results respecting
this action of potassium bromide:

I must here leave the rationale of the process for the
present, and proceed with the next operation.

Our emulsion being cold, I add to it, for every 6 ounces of
mixed emulsion, 1 ounce of a saturated cold solution of potassium
bichromate; then, gently swirling the mixture round, a few drops of
a dilute (1 to 8) solution of hydrochloric acid, and place it on
one side for a minute or two.

When hydrochloric acid is added to bichromate of potash, chromic
acid is liberated. Now, chromic acid has the property of
precipitating gelatine, so that what I hope to have done is to have
precipitated the gelatine in this emulsion, and which will carry
down the silver bromide as well. You see here I can pour off the
supernatant liquid clear, leaving our silver and gelatine as a clot
at the bottom of the vessel.

Another action of chromic acid is, that it destroys the action
of light on silver bromide, so that up to this point operations can
be carried on in broad daylight.

The precipitated emulsion is now taken into the dark room and
washed until the wash water shows no trace of color; if there be a
large quantity, this is best done on a fine muslin filter; if a
small quantity, by decantation.

Having been thoroughly washed, I dissolve the pellicle in water
by immersing the beaker containing it in the water bath. I then add
the remaining gelatine, and make up the whole with 3 ounces of
alcohol and water to 30 ounces for the quantities given. I pass the
emulsion through a funnel containing a pellet of cotton wool in
order to filter it, and it is ready for coating the plates.

To coat a plate, I place it on this small block of leveled wood,
and pour on down a glass rod a small quantity of the emulsion, and
by means of the rod held horizontally, spread it over the plate. I
then transfer the plate to this leveled slab of plate glass, in
order that the emulsion on it may set. As soon as set, it is placed
in the drying box.

This process, as here described, does not give plates of the
highest degree of sensitiveness, to attain which a further
operation is necessary; they are, however, of exceedingly good
quality, and very suitable for landscape work.–Photo.
News.

PICTURES ON GLASS.

The invention of M. E. Godard, of Paris, has for its object the
reproduction of images and drawings, by means of vitrifiable colors
on glass, wood, stone, on canvas or paper prepared for oil-painting
and on other substances having polished surfaces, e. g.,
earthenware, copper, etc. The original drawings or images should be
well executed, and drawn on white, or preferably bluish paper,
similar to paper used for ordinary drawings. In the patterns for
glass painting, by this process, the place to be occupied is marked
by the lead, before cutting the glass to suit the various shades
which compose the color of a panel, as is usually done in this kind
of work; the operation changes only when the glass cutter hands
these sheets over to the man who undertakes the painting. The
sheets of glass are cut according to the lines of the drawing, and
after being well cleaned, they are placed on the paper on the
places for which they have been cut out. If the window to be
stained is of large size and consists of several panels, only one
panel is proceeded with at a time. The glass is laid on the reverse
side of the paper (the side opposite to the drawing), the latter
having been made transparent by saturating it with petroleum. This
operation also serves to fix the outlines of the drawing more
distinctly, and to give more vigor to the dark tone of the paper.
When the paper is thus prepared, and the sheets of glass each in
its place, they are coated by means of a brush with a sensitizing
solution on the side which comes into contact with the paper. This
coating should be as thin and as uniform as possible on the surface
of the glass. For more perfectly equalizing the coating, a second
brush is used.

The sensitizing solution which serves to produce the verifiable
image is prepared as follows: Bichromate of ammonia is dissolved in
water till the latter is saturated; five grammes of powdered
dextrin or glucose are then dissolved in 100 grammes of water; to
either of these solutions is added 10 per cent. of the solution of
bichromate, and the mixture filtered.

The coating of the glass takes place immediately afterward in a
dark room; the coated sheets are then subjected to a heat of
50° or 60° C. (120° to 140° Fahr.) in a small hot
chamber, where they are laid one after the other on a wire grating
situated 35 centimeters above the bottom. Care should be taken not
to introduce the glass under treatment into the hot chamber before
the required degree of heat has been obtained. A few seconds are
sufficient to dry each sheet, and the wire grating should be large
enough to allow of the dried glass being laid in rows, on one side
where the heat is less intense. For the reproduction of the
pictures or images a photographic copying frame of the size of the
original is used. A stained glass window being for greater security
generally divided into different panels, the size of one panel is
seldom more than one square meter. If the picture to be reproduced
should be larger in size than any available copying frame, the
prepared glass sheets are laid between two large sheets of
plate-glass, and part after part is proceeded with, by sliding the
original between the two sheets. A photographic copying frame,
however, is always preferable, as it presses the glass sheets
better against the original. The original drawing is laid fiat on
the glass of the frame. The lines where the lead is to connect the
respective sheets of glass are marked on the drawing with blue or
red pencil. The prepared sheets of glass are then placed one after
the other on the original in their respective places, so that the
coated side comes in contact with the original. The frame is then
closed. It should be borne in mind that the latter operations must
be performed in the dark room. The closed frame is now exposed to
light. If the operations are performed outdoors, the frame is laid
flat, so that the light falls directly on it; if indoors, the frame
is placed inclined behind a window, so that it may receive the
light in front. The time necessary for exposing the frame depends
upon the light and the temperature; for instance, if the weather is
fine and cloudless and the temperature from 16° to 18° C.
(60° to 64° Fahr.), it will require from 12 to 15
minutes.

It will be observed that the time of exposure also depends on
the thickness of the paper used for the original. If, however, the
weather is dark, it requires from 30 to 50 minutes for the
exposure. It will be observed that if the temperature is above
25° C. (about 80° Fahr.), the sheets of glass should be
kept very cool and be less dried; otherwise, when exposed the
sheets are instantly metallized, and the reproduction cannot take
place. The same inconvenience takes place if the temperature is
beneath 5° C. (41° Fahr.). In this case the sheets should
be kept warm, and care should be taken not to expose the frame to
the open air, but always behind a glass window at a temperature of
from 14° to 18° C. (about 60° Fahr.). The time
necessary for the exposure can be ascertained by taking out one of
the many pieces of glass, applying to the sensitive surface a
vitrifiable color, and observing whether the color adheres well. If
the color adheres but slightly to the dark, shady portions of the
image, the exposure has been too long, and the process must be
recommenced; if, on the contrary, the color adheres too well, the
exposure has not been sufficient, the frames must be closed again,
and the exposure continued. When the frame has been sufficiently
exposed, it is taken into the dark room, the sensitized pieces of
glass laid on a plate of glass or marble with the sensitive surface
turned upward, and the previously prepared vitrifiable color
strewed over it by means of a few light strokes of a brush. This
powder does not adhere to the parts of the picture fully exposed to
light, but adheres only to the more or less shady portions of the
picture. This operation develops on the glass the image as it is on
the paper. Thirty to 40 grammes of nitric acid are added to 1,000
grammes of wood-spirit, such as is generally used in photography,
and the prepared pieces of glass are dipped into the bath, leaving
them afterward to dry. If the bath becomes of a yellowish color, it
must be renewed. This bath has for its object to remove the coating
of bichromate, so as to allow the color to adhere to the glass,
from which it has been separated by the layer of glucose and
bichromate, which would prevent the vitrification. The bath has
also for its object to render the light parts of the picture
perfectly pure and capable of being easily retouched or painted by
hand. The application of variously colored enamels and the heating
are then effected as in ordinary glass painting. The same process
may be applied to marble, wood, stone, lava, canvas prepared for
oil painting, earthenware, pure or enameled iron. The result is the
same in all cases, and the process is the same as with glass, with
the difference only that the above named materials are not dipped
into the bath, but the liquid is poured over the objects after the
latter have been placed in an inclined position.

PREPARATION OF HYDROGEN SULPHIDE FROM COAL-GAS.

By I. TAYLOR, B.A., Science Master at Christ College,
Brecon.

Hydrogen sulphide may be prepared very easily, and sufficiently
pure for ordinary analytical purposes, by passing coal-gas through
boiling sulphur. Coal-gas contains 40 to 50 per cent, of hydrogen,
nearly the whole of which may, by means of a suitable arrangement,
be converted into sulphureted hydrogen. The other constituents of
coal-gas–methane, carbon monoxide, olefines, etc.–are not
affected by passing through boiling sulphur, and for ordinary
laboratory work their removal is quite unnecessary, as they do not
in any way interfere with the precipitation of metallic
sulphides.

PREPARATION OF HYDROGEN SULPHIDE FROM COAL-GAS.

A convenient apparatus for the preparation of hydrogen sulphide
from coal-gas, such as we have at present in use in the Christ
College laboratory, consists of a retort, R, in which sulphur is
placed. Through the tubulure of the retort there passes a bent
glass-tube, T E, perforated near the closed end, F, with a number
of small holes. (The perforations are easily made by piercing the
partially softened glass with a white-hot steel needle; an ordinary
crotchet needle, the hook having been removed and the end
sharpened, answers the purpose very well.) The end, T, of the glass
tube is connected by caoutchouc tubing with the coal-gas supply,
the perforated end dipping into the sulphur. The neck of the
retort, inclined slightly upward to allow the condensed sulpur, as
it remelts, to flow back, is connected with awash bottle, B, to
which is attached the flask, F, containing the solution through
which it is required to pass the hydrogen sulphide; F is connected
with an aspirator, A.

About one pound of sulphur having been introduced into the
retort and heated to the boiling-point, the tap of the aspirator is
turned on and a current of coal-gas drawn through the boiling
sulphur; the hydrogen sulphide formed is washed by the water
contained in B, passes on into F, and finally into the aspirator.
The speed of the current may be regulated by the tap, and as the
aspirator itself acts as a receptacle for excess of gas, very
little as a rule escapes into the room, and consequently unpleasant
smells are avoided.

This method of preparing sulphureted hydrogen will, I think, be
found useful in the laboratory. It is cleanly, much cheaper than
the ordinary method, and very convenient. During laboratory work, a
burner is placed under the retort and the sulphur kept hot, so that
its temperature may be quickly raised to the boiling-point when the
gas is required. From time to time it is necessary to replenish the
retort with sulphur and to remove the condensed portions from the
neck.–Chem. News.

“SETTING” OF GYPSUM.–This setting is the
result of two distinct, though simultaneous, phenomena. On the one
hand, portions of anhydrous calcium sulphate, when moistened with
water, dissolve as they are hydrated, forming a supersaturated
solution. On the other hand, this same solution deposits crystals
of the hydrated sulphate, gradually augment in bulk, and unite
together.–H. Le Chatellier.

[Continued from SUPPLEMENT No. 383, page 6118.]

MALARIA.

By JAMES H. SALISBURY, A.M., M.D.

PRIZE ESSAY OF THE ALBANY MEDICAL COLLEGE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION,
FEB., 1882.

VII.

I have made careful microscopic examinations of the blood in
several cases of Panama fever I have treated, and find in all
severe cases many of the colorless corpuscles filled more or less
with spores of ague vegetation and the serum quite full of the same
spores (see Fig. N, Plate VIII.).

Mr. John Thomas. Panama fever. Vegetation in blood and colorless
corpuscles. (Fig N, Plate VIII.) Vegetation, spores of, in the
colorless corpuscles of the blood. Spores in serum of blood
adhering to fibrin filaments.

Mr. Thomas has charge of the bridge building on the Tehuantepec
Railroad. Went there about one year ago. Was taken down with the
fever last October. Returned home in February last, all broken
down. Put him under treatment March 15, 1882. Gained rapidly (after
washing him out with hot water, and getting his urine clear and
bowels open every day) on two grains of quinia every day, two
hours, till sixteen doses were taken. After an interval of seven
days, repeated the quinia, and so on. This fever prevails on all
the low lands, as soon as the fresh soil is exposed to the drying
rays of the sun. The vegetation grows on the drying soil, and the
spores rise in the night air, and fall after sunrise. All who are
exposed to the night air, which is loaded with the spores, suffer
with the disease. The natives of the country suffer about as badly
as foreigners. Nearly half of the workmen die of the disease. The
fever is a congestive intermittent of a severe type.

Henry Thoman. Leucocythæmia. Spleen 11 inches in diameter,
two white globules to one red. German. Thirty-six years of age.
Weight, 180 pounds. Colorless corpuscles very large and varying
much in size, as seen at N. Corpuscles filled–many of them–with
the spores of ague vegetation. Also spores swimming in serum.

This man has been a gardener back of Hoboken on ague lands, and
has had ague for two years preceding this disease.

I will now introduce a communication made to me by a medical
gentleman who has followed somewhat my researches for many years,
and has taken great pains of time and expense to see if my
researches are correct.

REPORT ON THE CAUSE OF AGUE.–BY DR. EPHRAIM CUTTER, TO THE
WRITER

At your request I give the evidence on which I base my opinion
that your plan in relation to ague is true.

From my very start into the medical profession, I had a natural
intense interest in the causes of disease, which was also fostered
by my father, the late Dr. Cutter, who honored his profession
nearly forty years. Hence, I read your paper on ague with
enthusiasm, and wrote to you for some of the plants of which you
spoke. You sent me six boxes containing soil, which you said was
full of the gemiasmas. You gave some drawings, so that I should
know the plants when I saw them, and directed me to moisten the
soil with water and expose to air and sunlight. In the course of a
few days I was to proceed to collect. I faithfully followed the
instructions, but without any success. I could detect no plants
whatever,

This result would have settled the case ordinarily, and I would
have said that you were mistaken, as the material submitted by
yourself failed as evidence. But I thought that there was too much
internal evidence of the truth of your story, and having been for
many years an observer in natural history, I had learned that it is
often very difficult for one to acquire the art of properly making
examinations, even though the procedures are of the simplest
description. So I distrusted, not you, but myself, and hence, you
may remember, I forsook all and fled many hundred miles to you from
my home with the boxes you had sent me. In three minutes after my
arrival you showed me how to collect the plants in abundance from
the very soil in the boxes that had traveled so far backward and
forward, from the very specimens on which I had failed to do
so.

The trouble was with me–that I went too deep with my needle.
You showed me it was simply necessary to remove the slightest
possible amount on the point of a cambric needle; deposit this in a
drop of clean water on a slide cover with, a covering glass and put
it under your elegant 1/5 inch objective, and there were the
gemiasmas just as you had described.

I have always felt humbled by this teaching, and I at the time
rejoiced that instead of denouncing you as a cheat and fraud (as
some did at that time), I did not do anything as to the formation
of an opinion until I had known more and more accurately about the
subject.

I found all the varieties of the palmellæ you described in
the boxes, and I kept them for several years and demonstrated them
as I had opportunity. You also showed me on this visit the
following experiments that I regarded as crucial:

1st. I saw you scrape from the skin of an ague patient sweat and
epithelium with the spores and the full grown plants of the
Gemiasma verdans.

2d. I saw you take the sputa of a ague patient and demonstrate
the spores and sporangia of the Gemiasma verdans.

3d. I saw you take the urine of a female patient suffering from
ague (though from motives of delicacy I did not see the urine
voided–still I believe that she did pass the urine, as I did not
think it necessary to insult the patient), and you demonstrated to
me beautiful specimens of Gemiasma rubra. You said it was not
common to find the full development in the urine of such cases, but
only in the urine of the old severe cases. This was a mild
case.

4th. I saw you take the blood from the forearm of an ague
patient, and under the microscope I saw you demonstrate the
gemiasma, white and bleached in the blood. You said that the
coloring matter did not develop in the blood, that it was a
difficult task to demonstrate the plants in the blood, that it
required usually a long and careful search of hours sometimes, and
at other times the plants would be obtained at once.

When I had fully comprehended the significance of the
experiments I was filled with joy, and like the converts in
apostolic times I desired to go about and promulgate the news to
the profession. I did so in many places, notably in New York city,
where I satisfactorily demonstrated the plants to many eminent
physicians at my room at the Fifth Avenue Hotel; also before a
medical society where more than one hundred persons were present. I
did all that I could, but such was the preoccupation of the medical
gentlemen that a respectful hearing was all I got. This is not to
be wondered at, as it was a subject, now, after the lapse of nearly
a decade and a half, quite unstudied and unknown. After this I
studied the plants as I had opportunity, and in 1877 made a special
journey to Long Island, N.Y., for the purpose of studying the
plants in their natural habitat, when they were in a state of
maturity. I have also examined moist soils in localities where ague
is occasionally known, with other localities where it prevails
during the warm months.

Below I give the results, which from convenience I divide into
two parts: 1st. Studies of the ague plants in their natural
habitat. 2d. Studies of the ague plants in their unnatural habitat
(parasitic). I think one should know the first before attempting
the second.

First–Studies to find in their natural habitat the
palmellæ described as the Gemiasma rubra, Gemiasma verdans,
Gemiasma plumba, Gemiasma alba, Protuberans lamella.

Second—Outfit.–Glass slides, covers, needles,
toothpicks, bottle of water, white paper and handkerchief, portable
microscope with a good Tolles one inch eyepiece, and one-quarter
inch objective.

Wherever there was found on low, marshy soil a white
incrustation like dried salt, a very minute portion was removed by
needle or toothpick, deposited on a slide, moistened with a drop of
water, rubbed up with a needle or toothpick into a uniformly
diffused cloud in and through the water. The cover was put on, and
the excess of water removed by touching with a handkerchief the
edge of the cover. Then the capillary attraction held the cover in
place, as is well known. The handkerchief or white paper was spread
on the ground at my feet, and the observation conducted at once
after the collection and on the very habitat. It is possible thus
to conduct observations with the microscope besides in boats on
ponds or sea, and adding a good kerosene light in bed or bunk or on
lounge.

August 11, 1877.–Excursion to College Point, Flushing, Long
Island:

Observation 1. 1:50 P.M. Sun excessively hot. Gathered some of
the white incrustation on sand in a marsh west of Long Island
Railroad depot. Found some Gemiasma verdans, G. rubra; the latter
were dry and not good specimens, but the field swarmed with the
automobile spores. The full developed plant is termed sporangia,
and seeds are called spores.

Observation 2. Another specimen from same locality, not good;
that is, forms were seen but they were not decisive and
characteristic.

Observation 3. Earth from Wallabout, near Naval Hospital,
Brooklyn, Rich in spores (A) with automobile protoplasmic motions,
(B) Gemiasma rubra, (C) G. verdans, very beautiful indeed. Plants
very abundant.

Observation 4. Walking up the track east of L. I. R.R. depot, I
took an incrustation near creek; not much found but dirt and moving
spores.

Observation 5. Seated on long marsh grass I scraped carefully
from the stalks near the roots of the grass where the plants were
protected from the action of the sunlight and wind. Found a great
abundance of mature Gemiasma verdans very beautiful in
appearance.

Notes.–The time of my visit was most unfavorable. The
best time is when the morning has just dawned and the dew is on the
grass. One then can find an abundance, while after the sun is up
and the air is hot the plants disappear; probably burst and scatter
the spores in billions, which, as night comes on and passes,
develop into the mature plants, when they may be found in vast
numbers. It would seem from this that the life epoch of a gemiasma
is one day under such circumstances, but I have known them to be
present for weeks under a cover on a slide, when the slide was
surrounded with a bandage wet with water, or kept in a culture box.
The plants may be cultivated any time in a glass with a water
joint. A, Goblet inverted over a saucer; B, filled with water; C,
D, specimen of earth with ague plants.

Observation 6. Some Gemiasma verdaus; good specimens, but
scanty. Innumerable mobile spores. Dried.

Observation 7. Red dust on gray soil. Innumerable mobile spores.
Dried red sporangia of G. rubra.

Observation 8. White incrustation. Innumerable mobile spores. No
plants.

Observation 9. White incrustation. Many minute algæ, but
two sporangia of a pale pink color; another variety of color of
gemiasma. Innumerable mobile spores.

Observation 10. Gemiasma verdans and G. rubra in small
quantities. Innumerable mobile spores.

Observation 11. Specimen taken from under the shade of short
marsh grass. Gemiasma exceedingly rich and beautiful. Innumerable
mobile spores.

Observation 12. Good specimens of Gemiasma rubra. Innumerable
spores present in all specimens.

Observation 13. Very good specimens of Protuberans lamella.

Observation 14. The same.

Observation 15. Dead Gemiasma verdans and rubra.

Observation 16. Collection very unpromising by macroscopy, but
by microscopy showed many spores, mature specimens of Gemiasma
rubra and verdans. One empty specimen with double walls.

Observation 17. Dry land by the side of railroad. Protuberans
not abundant.

Observation 18. From side of ditch. Filled with mature Geraiasma
verdans.

Observation 19. Moist earth near a rejected timber of the
railroad bridge. Abundance of Gemiasma verdans, Sphærotheca
Diatoms.

Observation 20. Scrapings on earth under high grass. Large
mature specimens of Gemiasma rubra and verdans. Many small.

Observation 21. Same locality. Gemiasma rubra and verdans; good
specimens.

Observation 22. A dry stem of a last year’s annual plant lay in
the ditch not submerged, that appeared as if painted red with iron
rust. This redness evidently made up of Gemiasma rubra dried.

Observation 23. A twig submerged in a ditch was scraped.
Gemiasma verdans found abundantly with many other things, which if
rehearsed would cloud this story.

Observation 24. Scrapings from the dirty end of the stick (23)
gave specimens of the beautiful double wall palmellæ and some
empty G. verdans.

Observation 25. Stirred up the littoral margins of the ditch
with stick found in the path, and the drip showed Gemiasma rubra
and verdans mixed in with dirt, debris, other algae, fungi,
infusoria, especially diatoms.

Observation 26. I was myself seized with sneezing and discharge
running from nostrils during these examinations. Some of the
contents of the right nostril were blown on a slide, covered, and
examined morphologically. Several oval bodies, round algae, were
found with the characteristics of G. verdans and rubra. Also some
colorless sporangia, and spores abundantly present. These were in
addition to the normal morphological elements found in the
excretions.

Observation 27. Dried clay on margin of the river showed dry G.
verdans.

Observation 28. Saline dust on earth that had been thrown out
during the setting of a new post in the railroad bridge showed some
Gemiasma alba.

Observation 29. The dry white incrustation found on fresh earth
near railroad track entirely away from water, where it appeared as
if white sugar or sand had been sprinkled over in a fine dust,
showed an abundance of automobile spores and dry sporangia of G.
rubra and verdans. It was not made up of salts from
evaporation.

Observation 30. Some very thick, long, green, matted marsh grass
was carefully separated apart like the parting of thick hair on the
head. A little earth was taken from the crack, and the Protuberans
lamella, the Gemiasma rubra and verdans found were beautiful and
well developed.

Observation 31. Brooklyn Naval Hospital, August 12, 1877, 4 A.M.
Called up by the Quartermaster. With Surgeon C. W. White, U.S.N.,
took (A) one five inch glass beaker, bottomless, (B) three clean
glass slides, (C) chloride of calcium solution, [symbol: dra(ch)m]
i to [symbol: ounce] i water. We went, as near as I could judge in
the darkness, to about that portion of the wall that lies west of
the hospital, southeast corner (now all filled up), where on the
10th of August previously I had found some actively growing
specimens of the Gemiasma verdans, rubra, and protuberans. The
chloride of calcium solution was poured into a glass tumbler, then
rubbed over the inside and outside of the beaker. It was then
placed on the ground, the rim of the mouth coming on the soil and
the bottom elevated on an old tin pan, so that the beaker stood
inclined at an angle of about forty-five degrees with the horizon.
The slides were moistened, one was laid on a stone, one on a clod,
and a third on the grass. Returned to bed, not having been gone
over ten minutes.

At 6 A.M. collected and examined for specimens the drops of dew
deposited. Results: In every one of the five instances collected
the automobile spores, and the sporangia of the gemiasmas and the
protuberans on both sides of slides and beaker. There were also
spores and mycelial filaments of fungi, dirt, and zoospores. The
drops of dew were collected with capillary tubes such as were used
in Edinburgh for vaccine virus. The fluid was then preserved and
examined in the naval laboratory. In a few hours the spores
disappeared.

Observation 32. Some of the earth near the site of the exposure
referred to in Observation 31, was examined and found to contain
abundantly the Gemiasma verdans, rubra, Protuberans lamella,
confirmed by three more observations.

Observation 33. In company with Surgeon F. M. Dearborne, U.S.N.,
in charge of Naval Hospital, the same day later explored the wall
about marsh west of hospital. Found the area abundantly supplied
with palmellæ, Gemiasma rubra, verdans, and Protuberans
lamella, even where there was no incrustation or green mould. Made
very many examinations, always finding the plants and spores,
giving up only when both of us were overcome with the heat.

Observation 34. August, 1881. Visited the Wallabout; found it
filled up with earth. August 17. Visited the Flushing district;
examined for the gemiasma the same localities above named, but
found only a few dried up plants and plenty of spores. With sticks
dug up the earth in various places near by. Early in September
revisited the same, but found nothing more; the incrustation, not
even so much as before. The weather was continuously for a long
time very dry, so much so that vegetables and milk were scarce.

The grass and grounds were all dried up and cracked with
fissures.

There must be some moisture for the development of the plants.
Perhaps if I had been able to visit the spots in the early morning,
it would have been much better, as about the same time I was
studying the same vegetation on 165th Street and 10th Avenue, New
York, and found an abundance of the plants in the morning, but none
scarcely in the afternoon.

Should any care to repeat these observations, these limits
should be observed and the old adage about “the early bird catching
the worm,” etc. Some may object to this directness of report, and
say that we should report all the forms of life seen. To this I
would say that the position I occupy is much different from yours,
which is that of discoverer. When a detective is sent out to catch
a rogue, he tumbles himself but little with people or things that
have no resemblance to the rogue. Suppose he should return with a
report as to the houses, plants, animals, etc., he encountered in
his search; the report might be very interesting as a matter of
general information, but rather out of place for the parties who
desire the rogue caught. So in my search I made a special work of
catching the gemiasmas and not caring for anything else. Still, to
remove from your mind any anxiety that I may possibly not have
understood how to conduct my work, I will introduce here a report
of search to find out how many forms of life and substances I could
recognize in the water of a hydrant fed by Croton water (two
specimens only), during the present winter (1881 and 1882) I beg
leave to subjoin the following list of species, not individuals, I
was able to recognize. In this list you will see the Gemiasma
verdans distinguished from its associate objects. I think I can in
no other way more clearly show my right to have my honest opinion
respected in relation to the subject in question.

MALARIA PLANTS COLLECTED SEPT. 10, 1882, AT
WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, 176TH STREET, NEAR 10TH AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY,
ETC.

PLATE VIII.–A, B, C, Large plants of Gemiasma verdans. A, Mature
plant. B, Mature plant discharging spores and spermatia through a
small opening in the cell wall. C, A plant nearly emptied. D,
Gemiasma rubra; mature plant filled with microspores. E, Ripe plant
discharging contents. F, Ripe plant, contents nearly discharged; a
few active spermatia left behind and escaping. G, nearly empty
plant. H, Vegetation in the SWEAT of ague cases during the paroxysm
of sweating. I, Vegetation in the BLOOD of ague. J, Vegetation in
the urine of ague during paroxysm. K, L, M, Vegetation in the urine
of chronic cases of severe congestive type. N, Vegetation in BLOOD
of Panama fever; white corpuscles distended with spores of
Gemiasma. O, Gemiasma alba. P, Gemiasma rubra. Q, Gemiasma verdans.
R, Gemiasma alba. O, P, Q, R, Found June 28,1867, in profusion
between Euclid and Superior Streets, near Hudson, Cleveland, O. S,
Sporangia of Protuberans.

List of objects found in the Croton water, winter of 1881 and
1882. The specimens obtained by filtering about one barrel of
water:

More forms were found, but could not be determined by me. This
list will give an idea of the variety of forms to be met with in
the hunt for ague plants; still, they are as well marked in their
physical characters as a potato is among the objects of nature.
Although I know you are perfectly familiar with algæ, still,
to make my report more complete, in case you should see fit to have
it pass out of your hands to others, allow me to give a short
account of the Order Three of Algæ, namely, the
Chlorosporeæ or Confervoid Algæ, derived from the
Micrographic Dictionary, this being an accessible authority.

Algae form a class of the thallophytes or cellular plants in
which the physiological functions of the plant are delegated most
completely to the individual cell. That is to say, the marked
difference of purpose seen in the leaves, stamens, seeds, etc., of
the phanerogams or flowering plants is absent here, and the
structures carrying on the operations of nutrition and those of
reproduction are so commingled, conjoined, and in some cases
identified, that a knowledge of the microscopic anatomy is
indispensable even to the roughest conception of the natural
history of these plants; besides, we find these plants so simple
that we can see through and through them while living in a natural
condition, and by means of the microscope penetrate to mysteries of
organism, either altogether inaccessible, or only to be attained by
disturbing and destructive dissection, in the so called higher
forms of vegetation. We say “so-called” advisedly, for in the
Algæ are included the largest forms of plant life.

The Macrocystis pyrifera, an Algæ, is the largest of all
known plants. It is a sea weed that floats free and unattached in
the ocean. Covers the area of two square miles, and is 300 feet in
depth (Reinsch). At the same time its structure on examination
shows it to belong to the same class of plants as the minute
palmellæ which we have been studying. Algæ are found
everywhere in streams, ditches, ponds, even the smallest
accumulations of water standing for any time in the open air, and
commonly on walls or the ground, in all permanently damp
situations. They are peculiarly interesting in regard to
morphological conditions alone, as their great variety of
conditions of organization are all variations, as it were, on the
theme of the simple vegetable cell produced by change of form,
number, and arrangement.

The Algæ comprehend a vast variety of plants, exhibiting a
wonderful multiplicity of forms, colors, sizes, and degrees of
complexity of structure, but algologists consider them to belong to
three orders: 1. Red spored Algæ, called Rhodosporeæ or
florideæ. 2. The dark or black spored Algæ, or
Melanosporeæ or Fucoideæ. 3. The green spored
Algæ, or Chlorosporeæ or Confervoideæ. The first
two classes embrace the sea-weeds. The third class, marine and
aquatic plants, most of which when viewed singly are microscopic.
Of course some naturalists do not agree to these views. It is with
order three, Confervoideæ, that we are interested. These are
plants growing in sea or fresh water, or on damp surfaces, with a
filamentous, or more rarely a leaf-like pulverulent or gelatinous
thallus; the last two forms essentially microscopic. Consisting
frequently of definitely arranged groups of distinct cells, either
of ordinary structure or with their membrane
silicified–Diatomaceæ. We note three forms of
fructification: 1. Resting spores produced after fertilization
either by conjugation or impregnation. 2. Spermatozoids. 3.
Zeospores; 2, 4, or multiciliated active automobile
cells–gonidia–discharged from the mother cells or plants without
impregnation, and germinating directly. There is also another
increase by cell division.

SYNOPSIS OF THE FAMILIES.

1. Lemaneæ.–Frond filamentous, inarticulate,
cartilaginous, leathery, hollow, furnished at irregular distances
with whorls or warts, or necklace shaped. Fructification: tufted,
simple or branched, necklace shaped filaments attached to the inner
surface of the tubular frond, and finally breaking up into
elliptical spores. Aquatic.

2. Batrachospermeæ–Plants filamentous,
articulated, invested with gelatine. Frond composed of aggregated,
articulated, longitudinal cells, whorled at intervals with short,
horizontal, cylindrical or beaded, jointed ramuli. Fructification:
ovate spores and tufts of antheridial cells attached to the lateral
ramuli, which consist of minute, radiating, dichotomous beaded
filaments. Aquatic.

3. Chaetophoraceæ.–Plants growing in the sea or
fresh water, coated by gelatinous substance; either filiform or a
number of filaments being connected together constituting
gelatinous, definitely formed, or shapeless fronds or masses.
Filaments jointed, bearing bristle-like processes. Fructification:
zoospores produced from the cell contents of the filaments; resting
spores formed from the contents of particular cells after
impregnation by ciliated spermatozoids produced in distinct
antheridial cells. Coleochætæ.

4. Confervaceæ.–Plants growing in the sea or in
fresh water, filamentous, jointed, without evident gelatine
(forming merely a delicate coat around the separate filaments)
Filaments very variable in appearance, simple or branched; the
cells constituting the articulations of the filaments more or less
filled with green, or very rarely brown or purple granular matter;
sometimes arranged in peculiar patterns on the walls, and
convertible into spores or zoospores. Not conjugating.

5. Zygnemaceæ.–Aquatic filamentous plants, without
evident gelatine, composed of series of cylindrical cells, straight
or curved. Cell contents often arranged in elegant patterns on the
walls. Reproduction resulting from conjugation, followed by the
development of a true spore, in some genera dividing into four
sporules before germinating.

6. OEdogoniaceæ.–Simple or branched aquatic
filamentous plants attached without gelatine. Cell contents
uniform, dense, cell division accompanied by circumscissile
debiscence of the parent cell, producing rings on the filaments.
Reproduction by zoospores formed of the whole contents of a cell,
with a crown of numerous cilia; resting spores formed in sporangial
cells after fecundation by ciliated spermatozoids formed in
antheridial cells.

7. Siphonaceæ–Plants found in the sea, fresh
water, or on damp ground; of a membranous or horny byaline
substance, filled with green or colorless granular matter. Fronds
consisting of continuous tubular filaments, either free or
collected into spongy masses of various shapes. Crustaceous,
globular, cylindrical, or flat. Fructification: by zoospores,
either single or very numerous, and by resting spores formed in
sporangial cells after the contents have been impregnated by the
contents of autheridial cells of different forms.

8 Oscillatoriaceæ.–Plants growing either in the
sea, fresh water, or on damp ground, of a gelatinous substance and
filamentous structure. Filaments very slender, tubular, continuous,
filled with colored, granular, transversely striated substance;
seldom blanched, though often cohering together so as to appear
branched; usually massed together in broad floating or sessile
strata, of a very gelatinous nature; occasionally erect and tufted,
and still more rarely collected into radiating series bound
together by firm gelatine and then forming globose lobed or flat
crustaceous fronds. Fructification: the internal mass or contents
separating into roundish or lenticular gonidia.

9. Nostochacæ.–Gelatinous plants growing in fresh
water, or in damp situations among mosses, etc.; of soft or almost
leathery substance, consisting of variously curled or twisted
necklace-shaped filaments, colorless or green, composed of simple,
or in some stages double rows of cells, contained in a gelatinous
matrix of definite form, or heaped together without order in a
gelatinous mass. Some of the cells enlarged, and then forming
either vesicular empty cells or densely filled sporangial cells.
Reproduction: by the breaking up of the filaments, and by resting
spores formed singly in the sporanges.

10. Ulvaceæ.–Marine or aquatic algae consisting of
membranous, flat, and expanded tubular or saccate fronds composed
of polygonal cells firmly joined together by their sides.

Reproduced by zoospores formed from the cell contents and
breaking out from the surface, or by motionless spores formed from
the whole contents.

11. Palmellaceæ.–Plants forming gelatinous or
pulverulent crusts on damp surfaces of stone, wood, earth, mud,
swampy districts, or more or less regular masses of gelatinous
substance or delicate pseudo-membranous expansion or fronds, of
flat, globular, or tubular form, in fresh water or on damp ground;
composed of one or many, sometimes innumerable, cells, with green,
red, or yellowish contents, spherical or elliptical form, the
simplest being isolated cells found in groups of two, four, eight,
etc., in course of multiplication. Others permanently formed of
some multiple of four; the highest forms made up of compact,
numerous, more or less closely joined cells. Reproduction: by cell
division, by the conversion of the cell contents into zoospores,
and by resting spores, formed sometimes after conjugation; in other
cases, probably, by fecundation by spermatozoids. All the
unicellular algæ are included under this head.

12. Desmidiaceæ.–Microscopic gelatinous plants, of
a screen color, growing in fresh water, composed of cells devoid of
a silicious coat, of peculiar forms such as oval, crescentic,
shortly cylindrical, cylindrical, oblong, etc., with variously
formed rays or lobes, giving a more or less stellate form,
presenting a bilateral symmetry, the junction of the halves being
marked by a division of the green contents; the individual cells
being free, or arranged in linear series, collected into fagot-like
bundles or in elegant star like groups which are embedded in a
common gelatinous coat. Reproduced by division and by resting
spores produced in sporangia formed after the conjugation of two
cells and union of their contents, and by zoospores formed in the
vegetative cells or in the germinating resting spores.

13. Diatomaceæ.–Microscopic cellular bodies,
growing in fresh, brackish, and sea water: free or attached,
single, or embedded in gelatinous tubes, the individual cells
(frustules) with yellowish or brown contents, and provided with a
silicious coat composed of two usually symmetrical valves variously
marked, with a connecting band or hoop at the suture. Multiplied by
division and by the formation of new larger individuals out of the
contents of individual conjugated cells; perhaps also by spores and
zoospores.

14. Volvocineæ.–Microscopic cellular fresh water
plants, composed of groups of bodies resembling zoospores connected
into a definite form by their enveloping membranes. The families
are formed either of assemblages of coated zoospores united in a
definite form by the cohesion of their membranes, or assemblages of
naked zoospores inclosed in a common investing membrane. The
individual zoospore-like bodies, with two cilia throughout life,
perforating the membranous coats, and by their conjoined action
causing a free co-operative movement of the whole group.
Reproduction by division, or by single cells being converted into
new families; and by resting spores formed from some of the cells
after impregnation by spermatozoids formed from the contents of
other cells of the same family.

MALARIA PLANTS COLLECTED AT 165TH STREET, EAST OF
10TH AVENUE, OCT., 1881.

Plate IX.–Large group of malaria plants, Gemiasma verdans,
collected at 165th Street, east of 10th Avenue, New York, in
October, 1881, by Dr. Ephraim Cutter, and projected by him with a
solar microscope. Dr. Cuzner–the artist–outlined the group on the
screen and made the finished drawing from the sketch. He well
preserved the grouping and relative sizes. The pond hole whence
they came was drained in the spring of 1882, and in August was
covered with coarse grass and weeds. No plants were found there in
satisfactory quantity, but those figured on Plate VIII. were found
half a mile beyond. This shows how draining removes the malaria
plants.

From the description I think you have placed your plants in the
right family. And evidently they come in the genera named, but at
present there is in the authorities at my command so much confusion
as to the genera, as given by the most eminent authorities, like
Nageli, Kutzing, Braun Rabenht, Cohn, etc., that I think it would
be quite unwise for me to settle here, or try to settle here,
questions that baffle the naturalists who are entirely devoted to
this specialty. We can safely leave this to them. Meantime let us
look at the matter as physicians who desire the practical
advantages of the discovery you have made. To illustrate this
position let us take a familiar case. A boy going through the
fields picks and eats an inedible mushroom. He is poisoned and
dies. Now, what is the important part of history here from a
physician’s point of view? Is it not that the mushroom poisoned the
child? Next comes the nomenclature. What kind of agaricus was it?
Or was it one of the gasteromycetes, the coniomycetes, the
hyphomycetes, the ascomycetes, or one of the physomycetes? Suppose
that the fungologists are at swords’ points with each other about
the name of the particular fungus that killed the boy? Would the
physicians feel justified to sit down and wait till the whole crowd
of naturalists were satisfied, and the true name had been settled
satisfactorily to all? I trow not; they would warn the family about
eating any more; and if the case had not yet perished, they would
let the nomenclature go and try all the means that history,
research, and instructed common sense would suggest for the
recovery.

This leads me here to say that physicians trust too much to the
simple dicta of men who may be very eminent in some department of
natural history, and yet ignorant in the very department about
which, being called upon, they have given an opinion. All
everywhere have so much to learn that we should be very careful how
we reject new truths, especially when they come from one of our
number educated in our own medical schools, studied under our own
masters. If the subject is one about which we know nothing, we had
better say so when asked our opinion, and we should receive with
respect what is respectfully offered by a man whom we know to be
honest, a hard worker, eminent in his department by long and
tedious labors. If he asks us to look over his evidence, do so in a
kindly spirit, and not open the denunciations of bar room
vocabularies upon the presenter, simply because we don’t see his
point. In other words, we should all be receptive, but careful in
our assimilation, remembering that some of the great operations in
surgery, for example, came from laymen in low life, as the
operation for stone, and even the operation of spaying came from a
swineherd.

It is my desire, however, to have this settled as far as can be
among scientists, but for the practical uses of practicing
physicians I say that far more evidence has been adduced by you in
support of the cause of intermittent fever than we have in the
etiology of many other diseases. I take the position that so long
as no one presents a better history of the etiology of intermittent
fever by facts and observations, your theory must stand. This, too,
notwithstanding what may be said to the contrary.

Certainly you are to be commended for having done as you have in
this matter. It is one of the great rights of the profession, and
duties also, that if a physician has or thinks he has anything that
is new and valuable, to communicate it, and so long as he observes
the rules of good society the profession are to give him a
respectful hearing, even though he may have made a mistake. I do
not think you had a fair hearing, and hence so far as I myself am
concerned I indorse your position, and shall do so till some one
comes along and gives a better demonstration. Allow me also to
proceed with more evidence.

Observation at West Falmouth, Mass., Sept 1, 1877. I made five
observations in like manner about the marshes and bogs of this
town, which is, as it were, situated on the tendo achillis of Cape
Cod, Mass. In only one of these observations did I find any
palmellæ like the ague plants, and they were not
characteristic.

Chelsea, Mass., near the Naval Hospital, September 5, 1877.
Three sets of observations. In all spores were found and some
sporangia, but they were not the genuine plants as far as I could
judge. They were Protococcaceæ. It is not necessary to add
that there are no cases of intermittent fever regarded as
originating on the localities named. Still, the ancient history of
New England contains some accounts of ague occurring there, but
they are not regarded as entirely authentic.

Observation. Lexington, Mass, September 6, 1877. Observation
made in a meadow. There was no saline incrustation, and no
palmellæ found. No local malaria.

Observation. Cambridge, Mass. Water works on the shore of Fresh
Pond. Found a few palmellæ analogous to, but not the ague
palmellæ.

Observation. Woburn, Mass, September 27, 1877, with Dr. J. M.
Moore. Found some palmellæ, but scanty. Abundance of spores
of cryptogams.

Observation. Stonington, Conn., August 15, 1877. Examined a pond
hole nearly opposite the railroad station on the New York Shore
Line. Found abundantly the white incrustation on the surface of the
soil. Here I found the spores and the sporangias of the gemiasmas
verdans and rubra.

Observation 2. Repetition of the last.

Observation 3. I examined some of an incrustation that was
copiously deposited in the same locality, which was not white or
frosty, but dark brown and a dirty green. Here the spores were very
abundant, and a few sporangias of the Gemiasma rubra. Ague has of
late years been noted in Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Observations in Connecticut. Middlefield near Middletown, summer
of 1878. Being in this locality, I heard that intermittent fever
was advancing eastward at the rate of ten miles a year. It had been
observed in Middlefield. I was much interested to see if I could
find the gemiasmas there. On examining the dripping of some bog
moss, I found a plenty of them.

Observations in Connecticut. New Haven. Early in the summer of
1881 I visited this city. One object of my visit was to ascertain
the truth of the presence of intermittent fever there, which I had
understood prevailed to such an extent that my patient, a
consumptive, was afraid to return to his home in New Haven. At this
time I examined the hydrant water of the city water works, and also
the east shore of the West River, which seemed to be too full of
sewage. I found a plenty of the Oscillatoreaceæ, but no
Palmellæ.

In September I revisited the city, taking with me a medical
gentleman who, residing in the South, had had a larger experience
with the disease than I. From the macroscopical examination he
pronounced a case we examined to be ague, but I was not able to
detect the plants either in the urine or blood. This might have
been that I did not examine long enough. But a little later I
revisited the city and explored the soil about the Whitney Water
Works, whence the city gets its supply of water, and I had no
difficulty in finding a good many of the plants you describe as
found by you in ague cases. At a still later period my patient,
whom I had set to use the microscope and instructed how to collect
the ague plants, set to work himself. One day his mother brought in
a film from off an ash pile that lay in the shade, and this her son
found was made up of an abundance of the ague plants. By simply
winding a wet bandage around the slide, Mr. A. was enabled to keep
the plants in good condition until the time of my next visit, when
I examined and pronounced them to be genuine plants.

I should here remark that I had in examining the sputa of this
patient sent to me, found some of the ague plants. He said that he
had been riding near the Whitney Pond, and perceived a different
odor, and thought he must have inhaled the miasm. I told him he was
correct in his supposition, as no one could mistake the plants;
indeed, Prof. Nunn, of Savannah, Ga., my pupil recognized it at
once.

This relation, though short, is to me of great importance. So
long as I could not detect the gemiasmas in New Haven, I was very
skeptical as to the presence of malaria in New Haven, as I thought
there must be some mistake, it being a very good cloak to hide
under (malaria). There is no doubt but that the name has covered
lesions not belonging to it. But now the positive demonstrations
above so briefly related show to my mind that the local profession
have not been mistaken, and have sustained their high
reputation.

I should say that I have examined a great deal of sputa, but,
with the exception of cases that were malarious, I have not
encountered the mature plants before. Of course I have found them
as you did, in my own excretions as I was traveling over ague
bogs.

[To be continued.]

ICHTHYOL.

DR. P.G. UNNA, of Hamburg, has lately been experimenting on the
dermato therapeutic uses of a substance called ichthyol, obtained
by Herr Rudolph Schroter by the distillation of bituminous
substances and treatment with condensed sulphuric acid. This body,
though tar-like in appearance, and with a peculiar and disagreeable
smell of its own, does not resemble any known wood or coal tar in
its chemical and physical properties. It has a consistence like
vaseline, and its emulsion with water is easily washed off the
skin. It is partly soluble in alcohol, partly in ether with a
changing and lessening of the smell, and totally dissolves in a
mixture of both. It may be mixed with vaseline, lard, or oil in any
proportions. Its chemical constitution is not well established, but
it contains sulphur, oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, and also phosphorus
in vanishing proportions, and it may be considered comparable with
a 10 per cent, sulphur salve. Over ordinary sulphur preparations it
has this advantage, that the sulphur is in very intimate and stable
union, so that ichthyol can be united with lead and mercury
preparations without decomposition. Ichthyol when rubbed undiluted
on the normal skin does not set up dermatitis, yet it is a
resolvent, and in a high degree a soother of pain and itching. In
psoriasis it is a fairly good remedy, but inferior to crysarobin in
P. inveterata. It is useful also locally in rheumatic affections as
a resolvent and anodyne, in acne, and as a parasiticide. The most
remarkable effects, however, were met with in eczema, which was
cured in a surprisingly short time. From an experience in the
treatment of thirty cases of different kinds–viz., obstinate
circumscribed moist patches on the hands and arms, intensely
itching papular eczema of the flexures and face, infantile moist
eczemas, etc.–he recommends the following procedure. As with
sulphur preparations, he begins with a moderately strong
preparation, and as he proceeds reduces the strength of the
application. For moist eczema weaker preparations (20 to 30 per
cent. decreased to 10 per cent.) must be used than for the papular
condition (50 per cent. reduced to 20 per cent.), and the hand, for
example, will require a stronger application than the face, and
children a weaker one than adults; but ichthyol may be used in any
strength from a 5 per cent. to a 40 to 50 per cent. application or
undiluted. For obstinate eczema of the hands the following formula
is given as very efficacious: R. Lithargyri 10.0; coq.c. aceti,
30.0; ad reman. 20.0; adde olei olivar., adipis, aa 10.0; ichthyol
10.0, M. ft. ung. Until its internal effects are better known,
caution is advised as to its very widespread application, although
Herr Schroter has taken a gramme with only some apparent increase
of peristalsis and appetite.–Lancet.

AUTOPSY TABLE.

The illustration represents an autopsy table placed in the
Coroner’s Department of the New York Hospital, designed by George
B. Post and Frederick C. Merry.

An amphitheater, fitted up for the convenience of the jury and
those interested when inquests are held, surrounds the table, which
is placed in the center of the floor, thus enabling the subject to
be viewed by the coroner’s jury and other officials who may be
present.

The mechanical construction of this table will be readily
understood by the following explanation:

The top, indicated by letter, A, is made of thick, heavy, cast
glass, concaved in the direction of the strainer, as shown. It is
about eight feet long and two feet and six inches wide, in one
piece, an opening being left in the center to receive the strainer,
so as to allow the fluid matter of the body, as well as the water
with which it is washed, to find its way to the waste pipe below
the table, and thus avoid soiling or staining the floor,

The strainer is quite large, with a downward draught which
passes through a large flue, as shown by letter, F, connected above
the water seal of the waste trap and trunk of the table to the
chimney of the boiler house, as indicated by the arrows, carrying
down all offensive odors from the body, thereby preventing the
permeating of the air in the room.

IMPROVED AUTOPSY TABLE.

The base of the table, indicated by letter, B, represents a
ground swinging attachment, which enables the turning of the table
in any direction.

D represents the cold water supply cock and handle, intersecting
with letter, E, which is the hot water cock, below the base, as
shown, and then upward to a swing or ball joint, C, then crossing
under the plate glass top to the right with a hose attachment for
the use of the operator. Here a small hose pipe is secured, for use
as may be required in washing off all matter, to insure the clean
exposure of the parts to be dissected. The ball swing, C, enables
the turning of the table in any direction without disturbing the
water connections. This apparatus has been in operation since the
building of the hospital in 1876, and has met all the requirements
in connection with its uses.–Hydraulic Plumber.

THE EXCITING PROPERTIES OF OATS.

Experiments have been recently made by Mr. Sanson with a view to
settling the question whether oats have or have not the excitant
property that has been attributed to them. The nervous and muscular
excitability of horses was carefully observed with the aid of
graduated electrical apparatus before and after they had eaten a
given quantity of oats, or received a little of a certain principle
which Mr. Sanson succeeded in isolating from oats. The chief
results of the inquiry are as follows: The pericarp of the fruit of
oats contains a substance soluble in alcohol and capable of
exciting the motor cells of the nervous system. This substance is
not (as some have thought) vanilline or the odorous principle of
vanilla, nor at all like it. It is a nitrogenized matter which
seems to belong to the group of alkaloids; is uncrystallizable,
finely granular, and brown in mass. The author calls it “avenine.”
All varieties of cultivated oats seem to elaborate it, but they do
so in very different degrees. The elaborated substance is the same
in all varieties. The differences in quantity depend not only on
the variety of the plant but also on the place of cultivation. Oats
of the white variety have much less than those of the dark, but for
some of the former, in Sweden, the difference is small; while for
others, in Russia, it is considerable. Less than 0.9 of the
excitant principle per cent. of air-dried oats, the dose is
insufficient to certainly affect the excitability of horses, but
above this proportion the excitant action is certain. While some
light-colored oats certainly have considerable excitant power, some
dark oats have little. Determination of the amount of the principle
present is the only sure basis of appreciation, though (as already
stated) white oats are likely to be less exciting than dark.
Crushing or grinding the grain weakens considerably the excitant
property, probably by altering the substance to which it is due;
the excitant action is more prompt, but much less strong and
durable. The action, which is immediate and more intense with the
isolated principle, does not appear for some minutes after the
eating of oats; in both cases it increases to a certain point, then
diminishes and disappears. The total duration of the effect is
stated to be an hour per kilogramme of oats ingested.

FILARIA DISEASE.

The rapid strides which our knowledge has made during the past
few years in the subject of the filaria parasite have been mainly
owing to the diligent researches of Dr. Patrick Manson, who
continues to work at the question. In the last number of the
Medical Reports for China, Dr. Manson deals with the
phenomenon known as “filarial periodicity,” and with the fate of
embryo parasites not removed from the blood. The intimate pathology
of the disease, and the subject of abscess caused by the death of
the parent filaria, also receive further attention. An endeavor to
explain the phenomenon of “filarial periodicity” by an appeal to
the logical “method of concomitant variations” takes Manson into an
interesting excursion which is not productive of any positive
results; nor is any more certain conclusion come to with regard to
the fate of the embryos which disappear from the blood during the
day time. Manson does not incline to the view that there is a
diurnal intermittent reproduction of embryos with a corresponding
destruction. An original and important speculation is made with
respect to the intimate pathology of elephantiasis, chyluria, and
lymph scrotum, which is thoroughly worthy of consideration. Our
readers are probably aware that the parent filaria and the filaria
sanguinis hominis may exist in the human body without entailing any
apparent disturbance. The diameter of an embryo filaria is about
the same as that of a red blood disk, one three-thousandth of an
inch. The dimensions of an ovum are one seven-hundred-and-fiftieth
by one five-hundredth of an inch. If we imagine the parent filaria
located in a distal lymphatic vessel to abort and give birth to ova
instead of embryos, it may be understood that the ova might be
unable to pass such narrow passages as the embryo could, and this
is really the hypothesis which Manson has put forward on the
strength of observations made on two cases. The true pathology of
the elephantoid diseases may thus be briefly summarized: A parent
filaria in a distant lymphatic prematurely expels her ova; these
act as emboli to the nearest lymphatic glands, whence ensues stasis
of lymph, regurgitation of lymph, and partial compensation by
anastomoses of lymphatic vessels; this brings about hypertrophy of
tissues, and may go on to lymphorrhoea or chyluria, according to
the site of the obstructed lymphatics. It may be objected that too
much is assumed in supposing that the parent worm is liable to
miscarry. But as Manson had sufficient evidence in two cases that
such abortions had happened, he thinks it is not too much to expect
their more frequent occurrence. The explanation given of the manner
in which elephantoid disease is produced applies to most, if not
all, diseases, with one exception, which result from the presence
of the parasite in the human body. The death of the parent parasite
in the afferent lymphatic may give rise to an abscess, and the
frequency with which abscess of the scrotum or thigh is met with in
Chinese practice is, in Manson’s opinion, attributable to this. Dr.
Manson’s report closes with an account of a case of abscess of the
thigh, with varicose inguinal glands, in which fragments of a
mature worm were discovered in the contents of the
abscess.–Lancet.

THE SPECTRAL MASDEVALLIA.

(M. chimæra.)

Of all orchids no genus we can just now call to mind is more
distinct or is composed of species more widely divergent in size,
form, structure, and color than is this one of Masdevallia. It was
founded well nigh a century ago by Ruiz and Pavon on a species from
Mexico, M. uniflora. which, so far as I know, is nearly if not
quite unknown to present day cultivators. When Lindley wrote his
“Genera and Species” in 1836, three species of Masdevallias only
were known to botanists but twenty-five years later, when he
prepared his “Folio Orchidaceæ,” nearly forty species were;
known in herbaria, and to-day perhaps fully a hundred kinds are
grown in our gardens, while travelers tell us of all the gorgeous
beauties which are known to exist high up on the cloud-swept sides
of the Andes and Cordilleras of the New World. The Masdevallia is
confined to the Western hemisphere alone, and as in bird and animal
distribution, so in the case of many orchids we find that when any
genus is confined to one hemisphere, those who look for another
representative genus in the other are rarely disappointed. Thus
hornbills in the East are represented by toucans in the West, and
the humming bird of the West by the sunbird of the East, and so
also in the Malayan archipelago. Notably in Borneo we find
bolbophyls without pseudo bulbs, and with solitary or few flowered
scapes and other traits singularly suggestive at first sight of the
Western Masdevallia. Thus some bolbophyl, for example, have caudal
appendages to their sepals, as in Masdevallias, and on the other
hand some Masdevallias have their labellums hinged and oscillatory,
which is so commonly the case as to be “almost characteristic” in
the genus Bolbophyllum or Sarcopodium. Speaking generally,
Masdevallias, coming as most of them do from high altitudes, lend
themselves to what is now well known as “cool treatment,” and
cultivators find it equally necessary to offer them moisture in
abundance both at the root and in the atmosphere, also seeing that
when at home in cloud-land they are often and well nigh continually
drenched by heavy dews and copious showers.

Of all the cultivated Masdevallias, none are so weirdly strange
and fascinating as is the species M. chimæra, which is so
well illustrated in the accompany engraving. This singular plant
was discovered by Benedict Roezl, and about 1872 or 1873 I remember
M. Lucien Linden calling upon me one day, and among other rarities
showing me a dried flower of this species. I remember I took up a
pen and rapidly made a sketch of the flower, which soon after
appeared (1873, p. 3) in The Florist, and was perhaps the
first published figure of the plant. It was named by Professor
Reichenbach, who could find for it no better name than that of the
mythical monster Chimæra, than which, as an old historian
tells us, no stranger bogy ever came out of the earth’s inside. Our
engraving shows the plant about natural size, and indicates the
form and local coloring pretty accurately. The ground color is
yellowish, blotched with lurid brownish crimson, the long pendent
tails being blood color, and the interior of the sepals are almost
shaggy. The spectral appearance of the flower is considerably
heightened by the smooth, white, slipper-like lip, which contrasts
so forcibly in color and texture with the lurid shagginess around
it. Sir J. D. Hooker, in describing this species in the
Botanical Magazine, t. 6, 152, says that the aspect of the
curved scape as it bears aloft its buds and hairy flowers is very
suggestive of the head and body of a viper about to strike. Dr.
Haughton, F.R.S., told me long ago that Darlingtonia californica
always reminds him of a cobra when raised and puffed out in a rage,
and certainly the likeness is a close one.

Grown in shallow teak wood baskets, suspended near the roof in a
partially shaded structure, all the chimæroid section of
Masdevallia succeed even better than when grown in pots or pans, as
they have a Stanhopea-like habit of pushing out their flowers at
all sorts of deflected angles. A close glance at the engraving will
show that for convenience sake the artist has propped up the flower
with a stick, this much arrangement being a necessity, so as to
enable the tails to lie diagonally across the picture. From tip to
tip the flower represented is 9 inches, or not so much by 7 inches
as the flower measured in Messrs. Backhouse’s nursery at
York.–The Garden.

THE SPECTRAL MASDEVALLIA.–MASDEVALLIA CHIMÆRA
(Natural Size)

SURVEY OF THE BLACK CAÑON.

It is rumored again that a survey is soon to be made through the
heaviest portion of the Black Canon of the Gunnison. For a long
distance the walls of syenite rise to the stupendous height of
3,000 feet, and for 1,800 feet the walls of the cañon are
arched not many feet from the bed of the river. If the survey is
successful, and the Denver and Rio Grande is built through the
cañon, it will undoubtedly be the grandest piece of
engineering on the American continent. The river is very swift, and
it is proposed to build a boat at the western end, and provision it
for a length of time, allowing it to float with the stream, but
controlled by ropes. If the boat goes, the chances are that the
baby road goes, too.–Gunnison (Colo.) Review.

THE ANCIENT MISSISSIPPI AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.

[Footnote: This lecture was delivered in the Chapel of the State
University, at Columbia, as an inaugural address on January 10,
1883, and illustrated by projections. The author has purposely
avoided the very lengthy details of scientific observation by which
the conclusions have been arrived at relating to the former
wonderful condition of the Mississippi, and the subsequent changes
to its present form: as a consideration of them would not only
cause him to go beyond the allotted time, but might, perhaps, prove
tiresome.]

By J. W. SPENCER, B.A.Sc., Ph.D., F.G.S., Professor of Geology
in the State University of Missouri.

Physical geology is the science which deals with the past
changes of the earth’s crust, and the causes which have produced
the present geographical features, everywhere seen about us. The
subject of the present address must therefore be considered as one
of geology rather than of geography, and I propose to trace for you
the early history of the great Mississippi River, of which we have
only a diminished remnant of the mightiest river that ever flowed
over any terrestrial continent.

By way of introduction, I wish you each to look at the map of
our great river, with its tributaries as we now see it, draining
half of the central portion of the continent, but which formerly
drained, in addition, at least two of our great lakes, and many of
the great rivers at the present time emptying into the colder
Arctic Sea.

Let us go back, in time, to the genesis of our continent. There
was once a time in the history of the earth when all the rocks were
in a molten condition, and the waters of our great oceans in a
state of vapor, surrounding the fiery ball. Space is intensely
cold. In course of time the earth cooled off, and on the cold,
solid crust geological agencies began to work. It is now conceded
by the most accomplished physicists that the location of the great
continents and seas was determined by the original contraction and
cooling of the earth’s crust; though very greatly modified by a
long succession of changes, produced by the agencies of “water,
air, heat, and cold,” through probably a hundred million of years,
until the original rock surface of the earth has been worked over
to a depth of thirty or forty miles.

Like human history, the events of these long æons
are divided into periods. The geologist divides the past history of
the earth and its inhabitants into five Great Times; and these,
again, into ages, periods, epochs, and eras.

At the close of the first Great Time–called Archæan–the
continent south of the region of the great lakes, excepting a few
islands, was still submerged beneath a shallow sea, and therefore
no portion of the Mississippi was yet in existence. At the close of
the second great geological Time–the Palæozoic–the American
continent had emerged sufficiently from the ocean bed to permit the
flow of the Ohio, and of the Mississippi, above the mouth of the
former river, although they were not yet united.

Throughout the third great geological Time–the Mesozoic–these
rivers grew in importance, and the lowest portions of the Missouri
began to form a tributary of some size. Still the Ohio had not
united with the Mississippi, and both of these rivers emptied into
an arm of the Mexican Gulf, which then reached to a short distance
above what is now their junction.

In point of time, the Ohio is probably older than the
Mississippi, but the latter river grew and eventually absorbed the
Ohio as a tributary.

In the early part of the fourth great geological Time–the
Cenozoic–nearly the whole continent was above water. Still the
Gulf of Mexico covered a considerable portion of the extreme
Southern States, and one of its bays extended as far north as the
mouth of the Ohio, which had not yet become a tributary of the
Mississippi. The Missouri throughout its entire length was at this
time a flowing river.

I told you that the earth’s crust had been worked over to a
depth of many miles since geological time first commenced.
Subsequently, I have referred to the growth of the continent in
different geological periods. All of our continents are being
gradually worn down by the action of rains, rills, rivulets, and
rivers, and being deposited along the sea margins, just as the
Mississippi is gradually stretching out into the Gulf, by the
deposition of the muds of the delta. This encroachment on the Gulf
of Mexico may continue, yea, doubtless will, until that deep body
of water shall have been filled up by the remains of the continent,
borne down by the rivers; for the Mississippi alone carries
annually 268 cubic miles of mud into the Gulf, according to
Humphreys and Abbot. This represents the valley of the Mississippi
losing one foot off its whole surface in 6,000 years. And were this
to continue without any elevation of the land, the continent would
all be buried beneath the sea in a period of about four and a half
million years. But though this wasting is going on, the continent
will not disappear, for the relative positions of the land and
water are constantly changing; in some cases the land is undergoing
elevation, in others, subsidence. Prof. Hilgard has succeeded in
measuring known changes of level, in the lower Mississippi Valley,
and records the continent as having been at least 450 feet higher
than at present (and if we take the coast survey soundings, it
seems as if we might substitute 3,000 feet as the elevation), and
subsequently at more than 450 feet lower, and then the change back
to the present elevation.

Let us now study the history of the great river in the last days
of the Cenozoic Time, and early days of the fifth and last great
Geological Time, in which we are now living–the Quaternary, or Age
of Man–an epoch which I have called the “Great River
Age.”

It is to the condition of the Mississippi during this period and
its subsequent changes to its present form that I wish particularly
to call your attention. During the Great River age we know that the
eastern coast of the continent stood at least 1,200 feet higher
than at present. The region of the Lower Mississippi was also many
hundred feet higher above the sea level than now. Although we have
not the figures for knowing the exact elevation of the Upper
Mississippi, yet we have the data for knowing that it was very much
higher than at the present day.

The Lower Mississippi, from the Gulf to the mouth of the
Ohio River, was of enormous size flowing through a valley with an
average width of about fifty miles, though varying from about
twenty-five to seventy miles.

In magnitude, we can have some idea, when we observe the size of
the lower three or four hundred miles of the Amazon River, which
has a width of about fifty miles. But its depth was great, for the
waters not only filled a channel now buried to a depth of from
three to five hundred feet, but stood at an elevation much higher
than the broad bottom lands which now constitute those fertile
alluvial flats of the Mississippi Valley, so liable to be
overflowed.

From the western side, our great river received three principal
tributaries–the Red River of the South, the Washita, and the
Arkansas, each flowing in valleys from two to ten miles in width,
but now represented only by the depauperated streams meandering
from side to side, over the flat bottom lands, generally bounded by
bluffs.

The Mississippi from the east received no important tributaries
south of the Ohio; such rivers as the Yazoo being purely modern and
wandering about in the ancient filled-up valley as does the modern
Mississippi itself.

So far we find that the Mississippi below the mouth of the Ohio
differed from the modern river in its enormous magnitude and direct
course.

From the mouth of the Ohio to that of the Minnesota River, at
Fort Snelling, the characteristics of the Mississippi Valley differ
entirely from those of the lower sections. It generally varies from
two to ten miles in width, and is bounded almost everywhere by
bluffs, which vary in height from 150 to 500 feet, cut through by
the entrances of occasional tributaries.

The bottom of the ancient channel is often 100 feet or more
below the present river, which wanders about, from side to side,
over the “bottom lands” of the old valley, now partly filled with
debris, brought down by the waters themselves, and deposited since
the time when the pitch of the river began to be diminished. There
are two places where the river flows over hard rock. These are at
the rapids near the mouth of the Des Moines River, and a little
farther up, at Rock Island. These portions of the river do not
represent the ancient courses, for subsequent to the Great River
Age, according to General Warren, the old channels became closed,
and the modern river, being deflected, was unable to reopen its old
bed.

The Missouri River is now the only important tributary of this
section of the Mississippi from the west. Like the western
tributaries, farther south, it meanders over broad bottom lands,
which in some places reach a width of ten miles or more, bounded by
bluffs. During the period of the culmination, it probably
discharged nearly as much water as the Upper Mississippi. At that
time there were several other tributaries of no mean size, such as
the Des Moines, which filled valleys, one or two miles wide, but
now represented only by shrunken streams.

The most interesting portion of our study refers to the ancient
eastern tributaries, and the head waters of the great river.

The greater portion of the Ohio River flows over bottom lands,
less extensive than those of the west, although bounded by high
bluffs. The bed of the ancient valley is now buried to a depth of
sometimes a hundred feet or more. However, at Louisville, Ky., the
river flows over hard rock, the ancient valley having been filled
with river deposits on which that city is built, as shown first by
Dr. Newberry, similar to the closing of the old courses of the
Mississippi, at Des Moines Rapids and Rock Island. However, the
most wonderful changes in the course of the Ohio are further up the
river. Mr. Carll, of Pennsylvania, in 1880, discovered that the
Upper Alleghany formerly emptied into Lake Erie, and the following
year I pointed out that not only the Upper Alleghany, but the whole
Upper Ohio, formerly emptied into Lake Erie, by the Beaver and
Mahoning Valleys (reversed), and the Grand River (of Ohio).
Therefore, only that portion of the Ohio River from about the
Pennsylvania-Ohio State line sent its waters to the Mexican Gulf,
during the Great River Age.

Other important differences in the river geology of our country
were Lake Superior emptying directly into the northern end of Lake
Michigan, and Lake Michigan discharging itself, somewhere east of
Chicago, into an upper tributary of the Illinois River. Even now,
by removing rock to a depth of ten feet, some of the waters of Lake
Michigan have been made to flow into the Illinois, which was
formerly a vastly greater river than at present, for the ancient
valley was from two to ten miles wide, and very deep, though now
largely filled with drift.

The study of the Upper Ancient Mississippi is the most
important of this address. The principal discoveries were made only
a few years since, by General G.K. Warren, of the Corps of
Engineers, U.S.A. At Ft. Snelling, a short distance above St. Paul,
the modern Minnesota River empties into the Mississippi, but the
ancient condition was the converse. At Ft. Snelling, the valleys
form one continuous nearly straight course, about a mile wide,
bounded by bluffs 150 feet high. The valley of the Minnesota is
large, but the modern river is small. The uppermost valley of the
Mississippi enters this common valley at nearly right angles, and
is only a quarter of a mile wide and is completely filled by the
river. Though this body of water is now the more important, yet in
former days it was relatively a small tributary.

The character of the Minnesota Valley is similar to that of the
Mississippi below Ft. Snelling, in being bounded by high bluffs and
having a width of one or two miles, or more, all the way to the
height of land, between Big Stone Lake and Traverse Lake, the
former of which drains to the south, from an elevation of 992 feet
above the sea, and the latter only half a dozen miles distant (and
eight feet higher) empties, by the Red River of the North, into
Lake Winnipeg. During freshets, the swamps between these two lakes
discharge waters both ways. The valley of the Red River is really
the bed of an immense dried-up lake. The lacustrine character of
the valley was recognized by early explorers, but all honor to the
name of General Warren, who, in observing that the ancient enormous
Lake Winnipeg formerly sent its waters southward to the Mexican
Gulf, made the most important discovery in fluviatile geology–a
discovery which will cause his name to be honored in the scientific
world long after his professional successes have been
forgotten.

General Warren considered that the valley of Lake Winnipeg only
belonged to the Mississippi since the “Ice Age,” and explained the
changes of drainage of the great north by the theory of the local
elevation of the land. Facts which settle this question have
recently been collected in Minnesota State by Mr. Upham, although
differently explained by that geologist. However, he did not go far
enough back in time, for doubtless the Winnipeg Valley discharged
southward before the last days of the “Ice Age,” and the great
changes in the river courses were not entirely produced by local
elevation, but also by the filling of the old water channels with
drift deposits and sediments. Throughout the bottom of the Red
River Valley a large number of wells have been sunk to great
depths, and these show the absence of hard rock to levels below
that of Lake Winnipeg; but some portions of the Minnesota River
flow over hard rock at levels somewhat higher. Whether the presence
of these somewhat higher rocks is due entirely to the local
elevation, which we know took place, or to the change in the course
of the old river, remains to be seen.

Mr. Upham has also shown that there is a valley connecting the
Minnesota River, at Great Bend at Mankato, with the head waters of
the Des Moines River, as I predicted to General Warren a few months
before his death. At the time when Lake Winnipeg was swollen to its
greatest size, extending southward into Minnesota, as far as
Traverse Lake, it had a length of more than 600 miles and a breadth
of 250 miles.

Its greatest tributary was the Saskatchewan–a river nearly as
large as the Missouri. It flowed in a deep broad cañon now
partly filled with drift deposits, in some places, to two hundred
feet or more in depth.

Another tributary, but of a little less size, was the
Assiniboine, now emptying into the Red River, at the city of
Winnipeg. Following up this river, in a westerly direction, one
passes into the Qu’Appelle Valley–the upper portion of which is
now filled with drift, as first shown by Prof. H. Y. Hind. This
portion of the valley is interesting, for through it, before being
filled with drift, the south branch of the Saskatchewan River
formerly flowed, and constituted an enormous river. But subsequent
to the Great River Age, when choked with drift, it sent its waters
to the North Saskatchewan as now seen. There were many other
changes in the course of the ancient rivers to the north, but I
cannot here record them.

As we have seen, the ancient Mississippi and its tributaries
were vastly larger rivers than their modern representatives. At the
close of the Great River Age, the whole continent subsided to many
hundred feet below its present level, or some portions to even
thousands of feet. During this subsidence, the Mississippi States
north of the Ozark Mountains formed the bed of an immense lake,
into the quiet waters of which were deposited soils washed down by
the various rivers from the northwestern and north central States
and the northern territories of Canada. These sediments, brought
here from the north, constitute the bluff formation of the State,
and are the source of the extraordinary fertility of our lands, on
which the future greatness of our State depends. However, time will
not permit me to enter into the application of the facts brought
forward to agricultural interests. But although this address is
intended to be in the realm of pure science, I cannot refrain from
saying a word to our engineering students as to the application of
knowledge of river geology to their future work. The subject of
river geology is yet in its infancy, and I have known of much money
being squandered for want of its knowledge. In one case, I saved a
company several thousand dollars, though I should have been willing
to give a good subscription to see the work carried out from the
scientific point of view.

I will briefly indicate a few interesting points to the
engineer. Sometimes in making railway cuttings it is possible to
find an adjacent buried valley through which excavations can be
made without cutting hard rock. In bridge building especially, in
the western country, a knowledge of the buried valleys is of the
utmost importance. Again, in sinking for coal do not begin your
work from the bed of a valley, unless it be of hard rock, else you
may have to go through an indefinite amount of drift and gravel;
and once more, in boring for artesian wells, it sometimes happens
that good water can be obtained in the loose drift filling these
ancient valleys; but when you wish to sink into harder rock, do not
select your site of operations on an old buried valley, for the
cost of sinking through gravel is greater than through ordinary
rock.

In closing, let us consider to what the name Mississippi should
be given. In point of antiquity, the Ohio and Upper Mississippi are
of about the same age, but since the time when ingrowing southward
they united, the latter river has been the larger. The Missouri
River, though longer than the Mississippi, is both smaller and
geographically newer–the upper portion much newer.

Above Ft. Snelling, the modern Mississippi, though the larger
body of water, should be considered as a tributary to that now
called Minnesota, while the Minnesota Valley is really a portion of
the older Mississippi Valley–both together forming the parent
river, which when swollen to the greatest volume had the
Saskatchewan River for a tributary, and formed the grandest and
mightiest river of which we have any record.–Kansas City
Review.

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