SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT NO. 421

NEW YORK, JANUARY 26, 1884

Scientific American Supplement. Vol. XVII., No. 421.

Scientific American established 1845

Scientific American Supplement, $5 a year.

Scientific American and Supplement, $7 a year.

ELECTRICAL APPARATUS FOR MEASURING AND
FOR DEMONSTRATION AT THE MUNICH EXHIBITION.

Apparatus for use in laboratories and cabinets of physics
were quite numerous at the Munich Exhibition of Electricity,
and very naturally a large number was to be seen there that
presented little difference with present models. Several of
them, however, merit citation. Among the galvanometers,
we remarked an apparatus that was exhibited by Prof.
Zenger, of Prague. The construction of this reminded us
of that of other galvanometers, but it was interesting in that
its inventor had combined in it a series of arrangements that
permitted of varying its sensitiveness within very wide
limits. This apparatus, which Prof. Zenger calls a “Universal
Rheometer” (Fig. 1), consists of a bobbin whose interior
is formed of a piece of copper, whose edges do not
meet, and which is connected by strips of copper with two
terminals. This internal shell is capable of serving for currents
of quantity, and, when the two terminals are united by
a wire, it may serve as a deadener. Above this copper shell
there are two identical coils of wire which may, according
to circumstances, be coupled in tension or in series, or be
employed differentially. Reading is performed either by the
aid of a needle moving over a dial, or by means of a mirror,
which is not shown in the figure. Finally, there is a lateral
scale, R, which carries a magnetized bar, A, that may be
slid toward the galvanometer. This magnet is capable of
rendering the needle less sensitive or of making it astatic.
In order to facilitate this operation, the magnet carries at its
extremity a tube which contains a bar of soft iron that may
be moved slightly so as to vary the length of the magnet.
Prof. Zenger calls this arrangement a magnetic vernier. It
will be seen that, upon combining all the elements of the
apparatus, we can obtain very different combinations; and,
according to the inventor, his rheometer is a substitute for a
dozen galvanometers of various degrees of sensitiveness, and
permits of measuring currents of from 20 amperes down to
1/50000000 an ampere. The apparatus may even be employed
for measuring magnetic forces, as it constitutes a very sensitive
magnetometer.

FIG. 1.—.ZENGER’S UNIVERSAL RHEOMETER.

Prof. Zenger likewise had on exhibition a “Universal
Electrometer” (Fig. 2), in which the fine wire that served as
an electrometric needle was of magnetized steel suspended
by a cotton thread. In this instrument, a silver wire, t,
terminating in a ball, is fixed to a support, C, hanging from
a brass disk, P, placed upon the glass case of the apparatus.
It will be seen that if we bring an electrified body near the
disk, P, a deviation of the needle will occur. The sensitiveness
of the latter may be regulated by a magnetic system like
that of the galvanometer. Finally, a disk, P’, which may
be slid up and down its support, permits of the instrument
being used as a condensing electrometer, by giving it, according
to the distance of the disks, different degrees of sensitiveness.
One constructor who furnished much to this
part of the exhibition was Mr. Th. Edelmann of Munich,
whose apparatus are represented in a group in Fig. 3. Among
them we remark the following: A quadrant electrometer
(Fig. 4), in which the horizontal 8-shaped needle is replaced
by two connected cylindrical surfaces that move in a cylinder
formed of four parts; a Von Beetz commutator; spyglasses
with scale for reading measuring instruments (Fig.
3); apparatus for the study of magnetic variations, of Lamont
(Fig. 3) and of Wild (Fig. 5); different types of the Wiedemann
galvanometer; an electrometer for atmospheric observations
(Fig. 6); a dropping apparatus (Fig. 7), in which the iron ball
opens one current at a time at the moment it leaves the
electro-magnet and when it reaches the foot of the support,
these two breakages producing two induction sparks that
exactly limit the length to be taken in order to measure the
time upon the tracing of the chronoscope tuning-fork; an
absolute galvanometer; a bifilar galvanometer (Fig. 8) for
absolute measurements, in which the helix is carried by two
vertical steel wires stretched from o to u, and which is rendered
complete by a mirror for the reading, and a second
and fixed helix, so that an electro-dynamometer may be made
of it; and, finally, a galvanometer for strong currents, having
a horseshoe magnet pivoted upon a vertically divided
column which is traversed by the current, and a plug that
may be arranged at different heights between the two parts
of the column so as to render the apparatus more sensitive
(Fig. 9).

FIG. 2.—ZENGER’S UNIVERSAL ELECTROMETER.

We may likewise cite the exhibit of Mr. Eugene Hartmann
of Wurtzburg, which comprised a series of apparatus of the
same class as those that we have just enumerated—spyglasses
for the reading of apparatus, galvanometers, magnetometers,
etc.

FIG. 3.—EXHIBIT OF TH. EDELMANN.

Specially worthy of remark were the apparatus of Mr.
Kohlrausch for measuring resistances by means of induction
currents, and a whole series of accessory instruments.

Among the objects shown by other exhibitors must be
mentioned Prof. Von Waltenhofen’s differential electromagnetic
balance. In this, two iron cylinders are suspended
from the extremities of a balance. One of them is of solid
iron, and the other is of thin sheet iron and of larger diameter
and is balanced by an additional weight. Both of them
enter, up to their center, two solenoids. If a strong current
be passed into these latter, the solid cylinder will be attracted;
but if, on the contrary, the current be weak, the hollow
cylinder will be attracted. If the change in the current’s
intensity occur gradually, there will be a moment in which
the cylinders will remain in equilibrium.

FIG. 4.—EDELMANN’S QUADRANT ELECTROMETER.

Prof. Zenger’s differential photometer that we shall finally
cite is an improvement upon Bunsen’s. In the latter the
position of the observer’s eye not being fixed, the aspect of
the spot changes accordingly, and errors are liable to result
therefrom. Besides, because of the non-parallelism of the
luminous rays, each of the two surfaces is not lighted equally,
and hence again there may occur divergences. In order to
avoid such inconveniences, Prof. Zenger gives his apparatus
(Fig. 10) the following form: The screen, D, is contained in
a cubical box capable of receiving, through apertures, light
from sources placed upon the two rules, R and R’. A flaring
tube, P, fixes the position of the eye very definitely. As
for the screen, this is painted with black varnish, and three
vertical windows, about an inch apart, are left in white upon
its paper. Over one of the halves of these parts a solution
of stearine is passed. To operate with the apparatus, in
comparing two lights, the central spot is first brought to invisibility,
and the distances of the sources are measured. A
second determination is at once made by causing one of the
two other spots to disappear, and the mean of the two results
is then taken. As, at a maximum, there is a difference corresponding
to 3/100 of a candle between the illumination of
the two neighboring windows, in the given conditions of the
apparatus, the error is thus limited to a half of this value, or
2 per cent. of that of one candle.

FIG. 5.—WILD’S APPARATUS FOR STUDYING MAGNETIC VARIATIONS.

Among the apparatus designed for demonstration in lecture
courses, we remarked a solenoid of Prof. Von Beetz for
demonstrating the constitution of magnets (Fig. 11), and in
which eight magnetized needles, carrying mica disks painted
half white and half black, move under the influence of the
currents that are traversing the solenoid, or of magnets that
are bought near to it externally. Another apparatus of the
same inventor is the lecture-course galvanometer (Fig. 3), in
which the horizontal needle bends back vertically over the
external surface of a cylinder that carries divisions that are
plainly visible to spectators at a distance.

FIG. 6.—ELECTROMETER FOR ATMOSPHERIC OBSERVATIONS.

Finally, let us cite an instrument designed for demonstrating
the principle of the Gramme machine. A circular
magnet, AA’, is inserted into a bobbin, B, divided into two
parts, and moves under the influence of a disk, L, actuated
by a winch, M. This system permits of studying the currents
developed in each portion of the bobbin during the
revolution of the ring (Fig. 12).

FIG. 7.—WIEDEMANN’S CURRENT BREAKER.

To end our review of the scientific apparatus at the exhibition
we shall merely mention Mr. Van Rysselberghe’s registering
thermometrograph (shown in Figs. 13 and 14), and
shall then say a few words concerning two types of registering
apparatus—Mr. Harlacher’s water-current register and
Prof. Von Beetz’s chronograph.

FIG. 8.—WIEDEMANN’S BIFILAR GALVANOMETER.

Mr. Harlacher’s apparatus was devised by him for studying
the deep currents of the Elbe. It is carried (Fig. 15) by
a long, vertical, hollow rod which is plunged into the river.
A cord that passes over a pulley, P, allows of the apparatus,
properly so called, being let down to a certain depth in the
water. What is registered is the velocity of the vanes that
are set in action by the current, and to effect such registry
each revolution of the helix produces in the box, C, an
electric contact that closes the circuit in the cable, F, attached
to the terminals, B. This cable forms part of a circuit
that includes a pile and a registering apparatus that is seen
at L, outside of the box in which it is usually inclosed. In
certain cases, a bell whose sound indicates the velocity of the
current to the ear is substituted for the registering apparatus.

FIG. 9.—WIEDEMANN’S GALVANOMETER FOR STRONG CURRENTS.

Fig. 16 represents another type of the same apparatus in
which the mechanism of the contact is uncovered. The supporting
rod is likewise in this type utilized as a current conductor.

FIG. 10.—ZENGER’S DIFFERENTIAL PHOTOMETER.

It now remains to say a few words about Prof. Von Beetz’s
chronograph. This instrument (Fig. 17) is designed for
determining the duration of combustion of different powders,
the velocity of projectiles, etc. The registering drum, T, is
revolved by hand through a winch, L, and the time is inscribed
thereon by an electric tuning fork, S, set in motion
by the large electro-magnet, E F. Each undulation of the
curves corresponds to a hundredth of a second. The tuning-fork
and the registering electro-magnets, G and H, are placed
upon a regulatable support, C, by means of which they may
be given any position desired.

FIG. 11.—VON BEETZ’S SOLENOID FOR DEMONSTRATING
THE CONSTITUTION OF MAGNETS.

The style, c, of the magnet, C, traces a point every second
in order to facilitate the reading. The style, b, of the electro-magnet,
H, registers the beginning and end of the phenomena
that are being studied.

FIG. 12.—APPARATUS FOR DEMONSTRATING THE PRINCIPLE OF THE GRAMME MACHINE.

The apparatus is arranged in such a way that indications
may thus be obtained upon the drum by means of induction
sparks jumping between the style and the surface of the
cylinder. To the left of the figure is seen the apparatus
constructed by Lieutenant Ziegler for experimenting on the
duration of combustion of bomb fuses.

FIG. 13.—VAN RYSSELBERGHE’S REGISTERING
THERMOMETROGRAPH.

Shortly after the drum has commenced revolving, the
contact, K, opens a current which supports the heavy
armature, P, of an electro-magnet, M. This weight, P, falls
upon the rod, d, and inflames the fuse, Z, at that very instant.
At this precise moment the electro-magnet, H, inscribes
a point, and renews it only when the cartridge at the
extremity of the fuse explodes.

FIG. 14.—VAN RYSSELBERGHE’S REGISTERING THERMOMETROGRAPH.

This apparatus perhaps offers the inconvenience that the
drum must be revolved by hand, and it would certainly be
more convenient could it be put in movement at different
velocities by means of a clockwork movement that would
merely have to be thrown into gear at the desired moment.
As it is, however, it presents valuable qualities, and, although
it has already been employed in Germany for some
time, it will be called upon to render still more extensive
services.

FIG. 15.—HARLACHER’S APPARATUS FOR STUDYING DEEP CURRENTS IN RIVERS.

We have now exhausted the subject of the apparatus of
precision that were comprised in the Munich Exhibition.
In general, it may be said that this class of instruments was
very well represented there as regards numbers, and, on another
hand, the manufacturers are to be congratulated for
the care bestowed on their construction.—La Lumiere Electrique.

FIG. 16.—HARLACHER’S APPARATUS FOR STUDYING DEEP CURRENTS IN RIVERS.

FIG. 17.—VON BEETZ’S CHRONOGRAPH.

COPPER VOLTAMETER.

Dr. Hammerl, of the Vienna Academy of Sciences, has
made some experiments upon the disturbing influences on
the correct indications of a copper voltameter. He investigated
the effects of the intensity of the current, the distance
apart of the plates, and their preparation before weighing.
The main conclusion which he arrives at is this: That in
order that the deposit should be proportional to the intensity
of the current, the latter ought not to exceed seven ampères
per square decimeter of area of the cathode.

Speaking of steel ropes as transmitters of power, Professor
Osborne Reynolds says these have a great advantage
over shafts, for the stress on the section will be uniform, the
velocity will be uniform, and may be at least ten to fifteen
times as great as with shafts—say 100 ft. per second; the
rope is carried on friction pulleys, which may be at distances
500 ft. or 600 ft. so that the coefficient of friction will not
be more than 0.015, instead of 0.04.

A NEW OXIDE OF COPPER BATTERY.

By MM. F. DE LALANDE and G. CHAPERON.

We have succeeded in forming a new battery with a
single liquid and with a solid depolarizing element by
associating oxide of copper, caustic potash, and zinc.

This battery possesses remarkable properties. Depolarizing
electrodes are easily formed of oxide of copper. It is enough
to keep it in contact with a plate or a cell of iron or copper
constituting the positive pole of the element.

Fig. 1 represents a very simple arrangement. At the bottom
of a glass jar, V, we place a box of sheet iron, A, containing
oxide of copper, B. To this box is attached a copper
wire insulated from the zinc by a piece of India rubber
tube. The zinc is formed of a thick wire of this metal
coiled in the form of a flat spiral, D, and suspended from a
cover, E, which carries a terminal, F, connected with the
zinc; an India-rubber tube, G, covers the zinc at the place
where it dips into the liquid, to prevent its being eaten away
at this level.

The jar is filled with a solution containing 30 or 40 per
cent. of potash. This arrangement is similar to that of a
Callaud element, with this difference—that the depolarizing
element is solid and insoluble.

FIG. 1.

To prevent the inconveniences of the manipulation of the
potash, we inclose a quantity of this substance in the solid
state necessary for an element in the box which receives the
oxide of copper, and furnish it with a cover supported by a
ring of caoutchouc. It suffices then for working the battery
to open the box of potash, to place it at the bottom of the
jar, and to add water to dissolve the potash; we then pour in
the copper oxide inclosed in a bag.

We also form the oxide of copper very conveniently
into blocks. Among the various means which might be
employed, we prefer the following:

We mix with the oxide of copper oxychloride of magnesium
in the form of paste so as to convert the whole into a
thick mass, which we introduce into metal boxes.

The mass sets in a short time, or very rapidly by the action
of heat, and gives porous blocks of a solidity increasing with
the quantity of cement employed (5 to 10 per cent.).

FIG. 2.

Fig. 2 represents an arrangement with blocks. The jar V,
is provided with a cover of copper, E, screwing into
the glass. This cover carries two vertical plates of sheet-iron,
A, A’, against which are fixed the prismatic blocks,
B, B, by means of India rubber bands. The terminal, C,
carried by the cover constitutes the positive pole. The zinc
is formed of a single pencil, D, passing into a tube fixed to
the center of the cover. The India rubber, G, is folded
back upon this tube so as to make an air-tight joint.

The cover carries, besides, another tube, H, covered by a
split India-rubber tube, which forms a safety valve.

The closing is made hermetical by means of an India
rubber tube, K, which presses against the glass and the cover.
The potash to charge the element is in pieces, and is
contained either in the glass jar itself or in a separate box of
sheet-iron.

Applying the same arrangement, we form hermetically
sealed elements with a single plate of a very small size.

The employment of cells of iron, cast-iron, or copper,
which are not attacked by the exciting liquid, allows us to
easily construct elements exposing a large surface (Fig. 3).

FIG. 3.

The cell, A, forming the positive pole of the battery is of
iron plate brazed upon vertical supports; it is 40 centimeters
long by 20 centimeters wide, and about 10 centimeters high.

We cover the bottom with a layer of oxide of copper, and
place in the four corners porcelain insulators, L, which
support a horizontal plate of zinc, D, D’, raised at one end
and kept at a distance from the oxide of copper and from
the metal walls of the cell; three-quarters of this is filled with
a solution of potash. The terminals, C and M, fixed respectively
to the iron cell and to the zinc, serve to attach the
leading wires. To avoid the too rapid absorption of the
carbonic acid of the air by the large exposed surface, we
cover it with a thin layer of heavy petroleum (a substance
uninflammable and without smell), or better still, we furnish
the battery with a cover. These elements are easily packed
so as to occupy little space.

We shall not discuss further the arrangements which may
be varied infinitely, but point out the principal properties
of the oxide of copper, zinc, and potash battery. As a
battery with a solid depolarizing element, the new battery
presents the advantage of only consuming its element, in
proportion to its working; amalgamated zinc and copper are,
in fact, not attacked by the alkaline solution, it is, therefore,
durable.

Its electromotive force is very nearly one volt. Its internal

resistance is very low. We may estimate it at 1/3 or 1/4
of an ohm for polar surfaces one decimeter square, separated
by a distance of five centimeters.

The rendering of these couples is considerable; the small
cells shown in Figs. 1 and 2 give about two amperes in short
circuit; the large one gives 16 to 20 amperes. Two of these
elements can replace a large Bunsen cell. They are remarkably
constant. We may say that with a depolarizing surface
double that of the zinc the battery will work without
notable polarization, and almost until completely exhausted,
even under the most unfavorable conditions. The transformation
of the products, the change of the alkali into an
alkaline salt of zinc, does not perceptibly vary the internal
resistance. This great constancy is chiefly due to the
progressive reduction of the depolarizing electrode to the state
of very conductive metal, which augments its conductivity
and its depolarizing power.

The peroxide of manganese, which forms the base of an
excellent battery for giving a small rendering, possesses at
first better conductivity than oxide of copper, but this
property is lost by reduction and transformation into lower
oxides. It follows that the copper battery will give a very
large quantity of electricity working through low resistances,
while under these conditions manganese batteries are rapidly
polarized.

The energy contained in an oxide of copper and potash
battery is very great, and far superior to that stored by an
accumulator of the same weight, but the rendering is much
less rapid. Potash may be employed in concentrated solution
at 30, 40, 60 per cent.; solid potash can dissolve the
oxide of zinc furnished by a weight of zinc more than one-third
of its own weight. The quantity of oxide of copper to
be employed exceeds by nearly one-quarter the weight of
zinc which enters into action. These data allow of the
reduction of the necessary substances to a very small relative
weight.

The oxide of copper batteries have given interesting results
in their application to telephones. For theatrical purposes
the same battery may be employed during the whole performance,
instead of four or five batteries. Their durability is
considerable; three elements will work continuously, night
and day, Edison’s carbon microphones for more than four
months without sensible loss of power.

Our elements will work for a hundred hours through low
resistances, and can be worked at any moment, after several
months, for example. It is only necessary to protect them
by a cover from the action of the carbonic acid of the
atmosphere.

We prefer potash to soda for ordinary batteries, notwithstanding
its price and its higher equivalent, because it does
not produce, like soda, creeping salts. Various modes of
regeneration render this battery very economical. The deposited
copper absorbs oxygen pretty readily by simple exposure
to damp air, and can be used again. An oxidizing
flame produces the same result very rapidly.

Lastly, by treating the exhausted battery as an accumulator,
that is to say, by passing a current through it in the
opposite direction, we restore the various products to their
original condition; the copper absorbs oxygen, and the alkali
is restored, while the zinc is deposited; but the spongy state
of the deposited zinc necessitates its being submitted to a
process, or to its being received upon a mercury support.
Again, the oxide of copper which we employ, being a
waste product of brazing and plate works, unless it be reduced,
loses nothing of its value by its reduction in the battery;
the depolarization may therefore be considered as
costing scarcely anything. The oxide of copper battery is a
durable and valuable battery, which by its special properties
seems likely to replace advantageously in a great number
of applications the batteries at present in use.

FARCOT’S SIX HORSE POWER STEAM ENGINE.

This horizontal steam engine, recently constructed by Mr.
E. D. Farcot for actuating a Cance dynamo-electric machine,
consists of a cast iron bed frame, A, upon which are mounted
all the parts. The two jacketed, cylinders, B and C, of
different diameters, each contains a simple-acting piston.
The two pistons are connected by one rod in common, which
is fixed at its extremity to a cross-head, D, running in slides,
E and F, and is connected with the connecting rod, G. The
head of the latter is provided with a bearing of large diameter
which embraces the journal of the driving shaft, H.

The steam enters the valve-box through the orifice, J,
which is provided with a throttle-valve, L, that is connected
with a governor placed upon the large cylinder. The steam,
as shown in Fig. 2 (which represents the piston at one end
of its travel), is first admitted against the right surface of the
small piston, which it causes to effect an entire stroke corresponding
to a half-revolution of the fly-wheel. The stroke
completed, the slide-valve, actuated by an eccentric keyed
to the driving shaft, returns backward and puts the cylinders,
B and C, in communication. The steam then expands and
drives the large piston to the right, so as to effect the second
half of the fly-wheel’s revolution. The exhaust occurs
through the valve chamber, which, at each stroke, puts the
large cylinder in connection with the eduction port, M.

The volume of air included between the two pistons is
displaced at every stroke, so that, according to the position
occupied by the pistons, it is held either by the large or
small cylinder. The necessary result of this is that a compression
of the air, and consequently a resistance, is brought
about. In order to obviate this inconvenience, the constructor
has connected the space between the two pistons at the
part, A’, of the frame by a bent pipe. The air, being alternately
driven into and sucked out of this chamber, A’, of
relatively large dimensions, no longer produces but an insignificant
resistance.

FARCOT’S SIX H.P. STEAM ENGINE.
Fig. 1.—Longitudinal Section (Scale 0.10 to 1).
Fig. 2.—Horizontal Section (Scale 0.10 to 1).
Fig. 3.—Section across the Small Cylinder (Scale 0.10 to 1).
Fig. 4.—Section through the Cross Head (Scale 0.10 to 1).
Fig. 5.—Application for a Variable Expanion (Scale 0.10 to 1).

As shown in Fig. 5, there may be applied to this engine a
variable expansion of the Farcot type. The motor being a
single acting one, a single valve-plate suffices. This latter
is, during its travel, arrested at one end by a stop and at
the other by a cam actuated by the governor. Upon the axis
of this cam there is keyed a gear wheel, with an endless
screw, which permits of regulating it by hand.

This engine, which runs at a pressure of from 5 to 6 kilogrammes,
makes 150 revolutions per minute and weighs
2,000 kilogrammes.—Annales Industrielles.

FOOT LATHES.

We illustrate a foot lathe constructed by the Britannia
Manufacturing Company, of Colchester, and specially designed
for use on board ships. These lathes, says Engineering,
are treble geared, in order that work which cannot usually
be done without steam power may be accomplished by
foot. For instance, they will turn a 24 inch wheel or plate,
or take a half-inch cut off a 3 inch shaft, much heavier work
than can ordinarily be done by such tools. They have 6
inch centers, gaps 7½ inches wide and 6½ inches deep,
beds 4 feet 6 inches long by 8¾ inches on the face and 6
inches in depth, and weigh 14 cwt. There are three speeds
on the cone pulley, 9 inches, 6 inches, and 4 inches in diameter
and 1½ inches wide. The gear wheels are 9/16 inch
pitch and 1½ inches wide on face. The steel leading screw
is 1½ inches in diameter by ¼ inch pitch. Smaller sizes are
made for torpedo boats and for places where space is
limited.

LATHE FOR USE ON SHIPBOARD.

ENDLESS TROUGH CONVEYER.

The endless trough conveyer is one of the latest applications
of link-belting, consisting primarily of a heavy chain
belt carried over a pair of wheels, and in the intermediate
space a truck on which the train runs. This chain or belt
is provided with pans which, as they overlap, form an endless
trough. Power being applied to revolve one of the
wheels, the whole belt is thereby set in motion and at once
becomes an endless trough conveyer. The accompanying
engraving illustrates a section of this conveyer. A few of
the pans are removed, to show the construction of the links;
and above this a link and coupler are shown on a larger
scale. As will be seen, the link is provided with wings, to
form a rigid support for the pan to be riveted to it. To
reduce friction each link is provided with three rollers, as
will be seen in the engraving. This outfit makes a fireproof
conveyer which will handle hot ore from roasting kiln
to crusher, and convey coal, broken stone, or other gritty and

coarse material. The Link Belt Machinery Company, of
Chicago, is now erecting for Mr. Charles E. Coffin, of Muirkirk,
Md., about 450 ft. of this conveyer, which is to carry
the hot roasted iron ore from the kilns on an incline of about
one foot in twelve up to the crusher. This dispenses with
the barrow-men, and at an expenditure of a few more horsepower
becomes a faithful servant, ready for work in all
weather and at all times of day or night. This company
also manufactures ore elevators of any capacity, which,
used in connection with this apparatus, will handle perfectly
anything in the shape of coarse, gritty material. It might
be added that the endless trough conveyer is no experiment.
Although comparatively new in this country, the American
Engineering and Mining Journal says it has been in successful
operation for some time in England, the English manufacturers
of link-belting having had great success with it.

ENDLESS TROUGH CONVEYER.

RAILROAD GRADES OF TRUNK LINES.

On the West Shore and Buffalo road its limit of grade is
30 feet to the mile going west and north, and 20 feet to the
mile going east and south. Next for easy grades comes the
New York Central and Hudson River road. From New
York to Albany, then up the valley of the Mohawk, till it
gradually reaches the elevation of Lake Erie, it is all the
time within the 500 foot level, and this is maintained by its
connections on the lake borders to Chicago, by the “Nickel
Plate,” the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern, and the
Canada Southern and Michigan Central.

The Erie, the Pennsylvania, and the Baltimore and Ohio
roads pass through a country so mountainous that, much as
they have expended to improve their grades, it is practically
impossible for them to attain the easy grades so much more
readily obtained by the trunk lines following the great
natural waterways originally extending almost from Chicago
to New York.

ENGLISH EXPRESS TRAINS.

The Journal of the Statistical Society for September contains
an elaborate paper by Mr. E. Foxwell on “English
Express Trains; their Average Speed, etc. with Notes on
Gradients, Long Runs, etc.” The author takes great pains
to explain his definition of the term “express trains,” which
he finally classifies thus: (a) The general rule; those which
run under ordinary conditions, and attain a journey-speed
of 40 and upward. These are about 85 per cent. of the
whole. (b) Equally good trains, which, running against exceptional
difficulties, only attain, perhaps, a journey speed
as low as 36 or 37. These are about 5 per cent. of the whole.
(c) Trains which should come under (a), but which, through
unusually long stoppages or similar causes, only reach a
journey speed of 39. These are about 10 per cent.¹ of the
whole.

He next explains that by “running average” is meant:
The average speed per hour while actually in motion from
platform to platform, i.e., the average speed obtained by
deducting stoppages. Thus the 9-hour (up) Great Northern
“Scotchman” stops 49 minutes on its journey from Edinburgh

to King’s Cross, and occupies 8 hours 11 minutes in
actual motion; its “running average” is therefore 48 miles
an hour, or, briefly, “r.a.=48.” The statement for this
train will thus appear: Distance in miles between Edinburgh
and King’s Cross, 392½; time, 9 h. 0 m.; journey-speed,
43.6; minutes stopped, 49; running average, 48.

Mr. Foxwell then proceeds to describe in detail the performances
of the express trains of the leading English and
Scottish railways—in Ireland there are no trains which come
under his definition of “express”—giving the times of
journey, the journey-speeds, minutes stopped on way, and
running averages, with the gradients and other circumstances
bearing on these performances. He sums up the
results for the United Kingdom, omitting fractions, as follows:

A total of 407 express trains, whose average journey-speed
is 41.6, and which run 42,680 miles at an average “running
average” of 44.3 miles per hour.

If we arrange the companies according to their speed instead
of their mileage, the order is:

EXPRESS ROUTES ARRANGED IN ORDER OF DIFFICULTY OF
GRADIENTS, ETC.

LONG RUNS IN ENGLAND.

From this it will be seen that the three great companies
run 61 per cent. of the whole express mileage, and 62 per
cent. of the whole number of long runs.

[1]

[2]

IMPROVED OIL MILL.

The old and cumbersome methods of crushing oil seeds by
mechanical means have during the last few years undergone
a complete revolution. By the old process, the seed, having
been flattened between a pair of stones, was afterward
ground by edge stones, weighing in some cases as much as
20 tons, and working at about eighteen revolutions per minute.
Having been sufficiently ground, the seed was taken
to a kettle or steam jacketed vessel, where it was heated,
and thence drawn—in quantities sufficient for a cake—in
woollen bags, which were placed in a hydraulic press. From
four to six bags was the utmost that could be got into the
press at one time, and the cakes were pressed between wrappers
of horsehair on similar material. All this involved a
good deal of manual labor, a cumberstone plant, and a considerable
expense in the frequent replacing of the horsehair
wrappers, each of which involved a cost of about £4. The
modern requirements of trade have in every branch of industry
ruthlessly compelled the abandonment of the slow,
easy-going methods which satisfied the times when competition
was less keen. Automatic mechanical arrangements,
almost at every turn, more effectually and at greatly increased
speed, complete manufacturing operations previously
performed by hand, and oil-seed crushing machinery has
been no exception to the general rule. The illustrations we
give represent the latest developments in improved oil-mill
machinery introduced by Rose, Downs & Thompson, named
the “Colonial” mill, and recently we had an opportunity
of inspecting the machinery complete before shipment to
Calcutta, where it is being sent for the approaching exhibition.
As compared with the old system of oil-seed crushing,
Messrs. Rose, Downs & Thompson claim for their method,
among other advantages, a great saving in driving power,
economy of space, a more perfect extraction of the oil, an
improved branding of the cakes, a saving of 50 per cent. in
the labor employed in the press-room, with also a great
saving in wear and tear, while the process is equally applicable
to linseed, cottonseed, rapeseed, or similar seeds.
In addition to these improvements in the system, the “Colonial”
mill has been specially designed in structural arrangement
to meet the requirements of exporters. The
machinery and engine are self-contained on an iron foundation,
so that there is no need of skilled mechanics to erect
the mill, nor of expensive stone foundations, while the
building covering the mill can, if desired, be of the lightest
possible description, as no wall support is required. The mill
consists of the following machinery: A vertical steel boiler,
3 ft. 7 in. diameter, 8 ft. 1½ in. high, with three cross tubes
7½ in. diameter, shell 5/16 in. thick, crown 3/8 in. thick, uptake
9 in. diameter, with all necessary fittings, and where wood
fuel is used extra grate area can be provided. This boiler
supplies the steam not only for the engine, but also for
heating and damping the seed in the kettle. The engine is
vertical, with 8 in. cylinder and 12 in. stroke, with high
speed governors, and stands on the cast iron bed-plate of the
mill. This bed-plate, which is in three sections, is about
30 ft. long, and is planed and shaped to receive the various
machines, which, when the top is leveled, can be fixed in
their respective places by any intelligent man, and when
the machines are in position they form a support for the
shafting. The seed to be crushed is stored in a wooden bin,
placed above and behind the roll frame hopper. The roll
frame has four chilled cast iron rolls, 15 in. face, 12 in. diameter,
so arranged as to subject the seed to three rollings,
with patent pressure giving apparatus. These rolls are
driven by fast and loose pulleys by the shaft above. After
the last rolling the seed falls through an opening in the
foundation plate in a screen driven from the bottom roll
shaft by a belt. This conveys the seed in a trough to a set
of elevators, which supply it continuously to the kettle.
This kettle, which is 3 ft. 6 in. internal diameter and 20 in.
deep, is made of cast iron and of specially strong construction.
There is only one steam joint in it, and to reduce the
liability of leakage this joint is faced in a lathe. The inside
furnishings of the kettle are a damping apparatus with perforated
boss, upright shaft, stirrer, and delivery plate, and
patent slide. The kettle body is fitted with a wood frame
and covered with felt, which is inclosed within iron sheeting.
The crushed seed is heated in the kettle to the required
temperature by steam from the boiler, and it is also damped
by a jet of steam which is regulated by a wheel valve with
indicating plate. When the required temperature has been
obtained, the seed is withdrawn by a measuring box through
a self-acting shuttle in the kettle bottom, and evenly distributed
over a strip of bagging supported on a steel tray
in a Virtue patent moulding machine, where it undergoes
a compression sufficient to reduce it to the size that can be
taken in by the presses, but not sufficient to cause any extraction
of the oil. The seed leaves the moulding machine
in the form of a thick cake from nine to eleven pounds in
weight, and each press is constructed to take in twelve of
these cakes at once. The press cylinders are 12 in. diameter
and are of crucible cast steel. To insure strength of construction
and even distribution of strain throughout the
press, all the columns, cylinders, rams, and heads are planed
and turned accurately to gauges, and the pockets that take
the columns, in the place of being cast, as is sometimes
usual, with fitting strips top and bottom, are solid throughout,
and are planed or slotted out of the solid to gauges.
The pressure is given by a set of hydraulic pumps made of
crucible cast steel and bored out of the solid. One of the
pump rams is 2½ in. diameter, and has a stroke of 7 in. This
ram gives only a limited pressure, and the arrangements are
such as to obtain this pressure upon each press in about
fourteen seconds. This pump then automatically ceases
running, and the work is taken up by a second plunger,
having a ram 1 in. diameter and stroke of 7 in., the second
pump continuing its work until a gross pressure of two tons
per square inch is attained, which is the maximum, and is
arrived at in less than two minutes. For shutting off the
communication between the presses, the stop valves are so
arranged that either press may be let down, or set to work
without in the smallest degree affecting the other. The oil
from the presses is caught in an oil tank behind, from which
an oil pump, worked by an eccentric, forces it in any desired
direction. The cakes, on being withdrawn from the press,
are stripped of the bagging and cut to size in a specially
arranged paring machine, which is placed off the bed-plate
behind the kettle, and is driven by the pulley shown on the
main shaft. The paring machine is also fitted with an arrangement
for reducing the parings to meal, which is returned
to the kettle, and again made up into cakes. The presses
shown have corrugated press plates of Messrs. Rose, Downs
& Thompson’s latest type, but the cakes produced by this
process can have any desired name or brand in block letters
put upon them. The edges on the upper plate, it may be
added, are found of great use in crushing some classes of
green or moist seed. The plant, of which we give illustrations
opposite, is constructed to crush about four tons of
seed per day of eleven hours, and the manual labor has been
so reduced to a minimum that it is intended to be worked
by one man, who moulds and puts the twenty-four cakes
into the presses, and while they are under pressure is
engaged paring the cakes that have been previously pressed.
In crushing castor-oil seed, a decorticating machine or
separator can be combined with the mill, but in such a case
the engine and boiler would require to be made larger.—The
Engineer.

AN ENGLISH ADAPTATION OF THE AMERICAN OIL MILL.

APPARATUS FOR SEPARATING SUBSTANCES
CONTAINED IN THE WASTE WATERS OF
PAPER MILLS, ETC.

For extracting such useful materials as are contained in
the waste waters of paper mills, cloth manufactories, etc., and,
at the same time, for purifying such waters, Mr. Schuricht,
of Siebenlehn, employs a sort of filter like that shown in
the annexed Figs. 1 and 2, and underneath which he effects
a vacuum.

SCHURICHTS FILTERING APPARATUS. Fig. 1.

The apparatus, A, is divided into two compartments,
which are separated by a longitudinal partition. Above the
stationary bottom, a, there is arranged a lattice-work grating
or a strong wire cloth, b, upon which rests the filtering material,
c, properly so called. The reservoir is divided
transversely by several partitions, d, of different heights.
The liquor entering through the leader, f, traverses the apparatus
slowly, as a consequence of the somewhat wide
section of the layer. But, in order that it may traverse the
filtering material, it is necessary that, in addition to
this horizontal motion, it shall have a downward one. As
far as to the top of the partitions, d, there form in front of
the latter certain layers which do not participate in the horizontal
motion, but which can only move downward, as a
consequence of the permeability of the bottom. It results
from this that the heaviest solid particles deposit in the first
compartment, while the others run over the first partition,
d, and fall into one of the succeeding compartments, according
to their degree of fineness, while the clarified water
makes its exit through the spout, g. When the filtering
layer, c, has become gradually impermeable, the cock, i, of
a jet apparatus, k, is opened, in order to suck out the clarified
water through the pipe, r.—Dingler’s Polytech. Journ.,
after Bull. Musée de l’Industrie.

SCHURICHTS FILTERING APPARATUS. Fig. 2.

LARGE BLUE PRINTS.

By W.B. PARSONS, JR., C.E.

I send you a description of a device that I got up for the
N.Y., L.E., and W.R.R. division office at Port Jervis, by
which I overcame the difficulties incident to large glasses.
The glass was 58 inches long, 84 inches wide, and 3/8 inch
thick. It was heavily framed with ash. In order to keep
the back from warping out of shape, I had it made of
thoroughly seasoned ash strips 1″ × 1″. Each strip was
carefully planed, and then they were glued and screwed
together, while across the ends were fastened strips with
their grain running transversely. This back was then covered
on side next to the glass with four thicknesses of common
gray blanketing. Instead of applying the holding
pressure by thumb cleats at the periphery, it was effected
by two long pressure strips running across the back placed
at about one quarter the length of the frame from the ends,
and held by a screw at the center. The ends of these strips
were made so as to fit in slots in the frame at a slight angle,
so that as the pressure strips were turned it gave them a
binding pressure at the same time. In other words, it is the
same principle as is commonly used to keep backs in small
picture frames. This arrangement, instead of holding the
back at the edges only, and so allowing the center to fall
away from the glass, distributed it evenly over the whole
surface and always kept it in position. The frame was run in
and out of the printing room on a little railway on which it
rested on four grooved brass sheaves, one pair being at one
end, while the other was just beyond the center, so the
frame could be revolved in direction of its length without
trouble. In order to raise the heavy back, I had a pulley-wheel
fastened to the ceiling, through which a rope passed,
with a ring that could be attached to a corresponding hook
at the side of the back, in order to hoist it or lower it. Although
that is an extremely large apparatus, yet by means
of the above device it was worked easily and rapidly, and
gave every satisfaction.

The solution used was of the same proportions as had
been adopted in the other engineering offices of the road:

Dissolve separately in 4 oz. distilled water each, and mix
when ready to use. But by putting mixture in dark bottle,
and that in a tight box impervious to light, it can be kept
two or three weeks.

In some frames used at the School of Mines for making
large blue prints a similar device has been in use for several
years. Instead, however, of the heavy and cumbrous back
used by Mr. Parsons, a light, somewhat flexible back of
one-quarter inch pine is employed, covered with heavy Canton
flannel and several thicknesses of newspaper. The pressure
is applied by light pressure strips of ash somewhat thicker
at the middle than at the ends, which give a fairly uniform
pressure across the width of the frame sufficient to hold the
back firmly against the glass at all points. This system has
been used with success for frames twenty-seven by forty-two
inches, about half as large as the one described by Mr. Parsons.
A frame of this size can be easily handled without
mechanical aids. Care should be taken to avoid too great
thickness and too much spring in the pressure strips, or the
plate glass may be broken by excessive pressure. The strips
used are about five-eighths of an inch thick at the middle,
and taper to about three-eighths of an inch at the ends.

The formulæ for the solution given by Whittaker, Laudy,
and Parsons are practically identical so far as the proportions
of citrate of iron and ammonia and of red prussiate of
potash, 3 of the former to 2 of the latter, but differ in the
amount of water. Laudy’s formula calls for about 5 parts
of water to 1 of the salts, Whittaker’s for 4 parts, and
Parson’s for a little more than 2 parts. The stronger the
solution the longer the exposure required. With very strong
solutions a large portion of the Prussian blue formed comes
off in the washwater, and when printing from glass negatives
the fine lines and lighter tints are apt to suffer. The
blue color, however, will be deep and the whites clear. With
weak solutions the blues will be fainter and the whites bluish.
Heavily sized paper gives the best results. The addition of
a little mucilage to the solution is sometimes an advantage,
producing the same results as strength of solution, by
increasing the amount adhering to the paper. With paper
deficient in sizing the mucilage also makes the whites clearer.—H.S.M.,
Sch. of M. Quarterly.

HOUSE DRAINAGE AND REFUSE.

A course of lectures on sanitary engineering has been
delivered during the past few weeks before the officers of
the Royal Engineers stationed at Chatham, by Captain Douglas
Galton, C.B., D.C.L., F.R.S.

The refuse which has to be dealt with, observed Captain
Galton, whether in towns or in barracks or in camp, falls
under the following five heads: 1, ashes; 2, kitchen refuse;
3, stable manure; 4, solid or liquid ejections; and 5, rainwater
and domestic waste water, including water from personal
ablutions, kitchen washing up, washings of passages,
stables, yards, and pavements. In a camp you have the
simplest form of dealing with these matters. The water
supply is limited. Waste water and liquid ejection are
absorbed by the ground; but a camp unprovided with latrines
would always be in a state of danger from epidemic
disease. One of the most frequent causes of an unhealthy
condition of the air of a camp in former times has been
either neglecting to provide latrines, so that the ground
outside the camp becomes covered with filth, or constructing
the latrines too shallow, and exposing too large a surface to
rain, sun, and air. The Quartermaster-General’s regulations
provide against these contingencies; but I may as well
here recapitulate the general principles which govern camp
latrines. Latrines should be so managed that no smell from
them should ever reach the men’s tents. To insure this very
simple precautions only are required:

1. The latrines should be placed to leeward with respect
to prevailing winds, and at as great a distance from the tents
as is compatible with convenience. 2. They should be dug
narrow and deep, and their contents covered over every
evening with at least a foot of fresh earth. A certain bulk
and thickness of earth are required to absorb the putrescent
gas, otherwise it will disperse itself and pollute the air to a
considerable distance round. 3. When the latrine is filled
to within 2 ft. 6 in. or 3 ft. of the surface, earth should be
thrown into it, and heaped over it like a grave to mark its
site. 4. Great care should be taken not to place latrines
near existing wells, nor to dig wells near where latrines
have been placed. The necessity of these precautions to
prevent wells becoming polluted is obvious. Screens made
out of any available material are, of course, required for
latrines. This arrangement applies to a temporary camp,
and is only admissible under such conditions.

A deep trench saves labor, and places the refuse in the
most immediately safe position, but a buried mass of refuse
will take a long time to decay; it should not be disturbed,
and will taint the adjacent soil for a long time. This is of
less consequence in a merely temporary encampment, while
it might entail serious evils in localities continuously
inhabited. The following plan of trench has been adopted as a
more permanent arrangement in Indian villages, with the
object of checking the frightful evil of surface pollution
of the whole country, from the people habitually fouling
the fields, roads, streets, and watercourses. Long trenches
are dug, at about one foot or less in depth, at a spot
set apart, about 200 or 300 yards from dwellings. Matting
screens are placed round for decency. Each day the
trench, which has received the excreta of the preceding day,
is filled up, the excreta being covered with fresh earth
obtained by digging a new trench adjoining, which, when it
has been used, is treated in the same manner. Thus the

trenches are gradually extended, until sufficient ground has
been utilized, when they are plowed up and the site used
for cultivation. The Indian plow does not penetrate more
than eight inches; consequently, if the trench is too deep,
the lower stratum is left unmixed with earth, forming a
permanent cesspool, and becomes a source of future trouble.
It is to be observed, however, that in the wet season these
trenches cannot be used, and in sandy soil they do not answer.
This system, although it is preferable to what formerly
prevailed—viz., the surface defilement of the ground all
round villages and of the adjacent water courses—is fraught
with danger unless subsequent cultivation of the site be
strictly enforced, because it would otherwise retain large
and increasing masses of putrefying matter in the soil, in a
condition somewhat unfavorable to rapid absorption. These
arrangements are applicable only to very rough life or very
poor communities.

The question of the removal of kitchen refuse, manure,
etc., from barracks next calls for notice. The great principle
to be observed in removing the solid refuse from barracks
is that every decomposable substance should be taken away at
once. This principle applies especially in warm climates.
Even the daily removal of refuse entails the necessity of
places for the deposit of the refuse, and therefore this principle
must be applied in various ways to suit local convenience.
In open situations, exposed to cool winds, there
is less danger of injury to health from decomposing matters
than there would be in hot, moist, or close positions. In
the country generally there is less risk of injury than in
close parts of towns. These considerations show that the
same stringency is not necessarily required everywhere.
Position by itself affords a certain degree of protection from
nuisance. The amount of decomposing matter usually
produced is also another point to be considered. A small
daily product is not, of course, so injurious as a large product.
Even the manner of accumulating decomposing substances
influences their effect on health. There is less risk
from a dung heap to the leeward than to the windward of a
barrack. The receptacles in which refuse is temporarily
placed, such as ash pits and manure pits, should never be
below the level of the ground. If a deep pit is dug in the
ground, into which the refuse is thrown in the intervals between
times of removal, rain and surface water will mix
with the refuse and hasten its decomposition, and generally
the lowest part of the filth will not be removed, but will be
left to fester and produce malaria. In all places where the
occupation is permanent the following conditions should be
attended to:

1. That the places of deposit be sufficiently removed from
inhabited buildings to prevent any smell being perceived by
the occupants. 2. That the places of deposit be above the
level of the ground—never dug out of the ground. The floor
of the ash pit or dung pit should be at least six inches above
the surface level. 3. That the floor be paved with square
sets, or flagged and drained. 4. That ash pits be covered.
5. That a space should be paved in front, so as to provide
that the traffic which takes place in depositing the refuse or
in removing it shall not produce a polluted surface.

In towns those parts of the refuse which cannot be utilized
for manure or otherwise are burned. But this is an
operation which, if done unskillfully, without a properly
constructed kiln, may give rise to nuisance. One of the best
forms of kiln is one now in operation at Ealing, which could
be easily visited from London.

The removal of excreta from houses.—The chief object of
a perfect system of house drainage is the immediate and
complete removal from the house of all foul and effete matter
directly it is produced. The first object—viz., removal of
foul matter, can be attained either by the water closet system,
when carried out in this integrity; but it could, of
course, be attained without drains if there was labor enough
always available; and the earth closet or the pail system are
modifications of immediate removal which are safe. Cesspools
in a house do not fulfill this condition of immediate
removal. They serve for the retention of excremental and
other matters. In a porous soil it endangers the purity of
the wells. The Indian cities afford numerous examples of
subsoil pollution. The Delhi ulcer was traced to the pollution
of the wells from the contaminated subsoil; and the
soil in many cities and villages is loaded with niter and salt,
the chemical results of animal and vegetable refuse left to
decay for many generations, from the presence of which
the well water is impure. There are many factories of saltpeter
in India whose supplies are derived from this source;
and during the great French wars, when England blockaded
all the seaports of Europe, the First Napoleon obtained saltpeter
for gunpowder from the cesspits in Paris. Cesspools
are inadmissible where complete removal can be effected.
Cesspits may, however, be a necessity in some special cases,
as, for instance, in detached houses or a small detached barrack.
Where they cannot be avoided, the following conditions
as to their use should be enforced:

1st. A cesspit should never be located under a dwelling.
It should be placed outside, and as far removed from the
immediate neighborhood of the dwelling as circumstances
will allow. There should be a ventilated trap placed on the
pipe leading from the watercloset to the cesspit. 2d. It
should be formed of impervious material so as to permit of
no leakage. 3d. It should be ventilated. 4th. No overflow
should be permitted from it. 5th. When full it should be
thoroughly emptied and cleaned out; for the matter left at
the bottom of a cesspit is liable to be in a highly putrescible
condition.

Where a cesspit is unavoidable, perhaps the best and least
offensive system for emptying it is the pneumatic system.
This is applicable to the water closet refuse alone. The
pneumatic system acts as follows: A large air-tight cylinder
on wheels, or, what answers equally, a series of air-tight
barrels connected together by tubes about 3 in. diameter,
placed on a cart, brought as near to the cesspit as is convenient;
a tube of about the same diameter is led from them
to the cesspit; the air is then exhausted in the barrels or
cylinder either by means of an air pump or by means of
steam injected into it, which, on condensation, forms a
vacuum; and the contents of the cesspit are drawn through
the tube by the atmospheric pressure into the cylinder or
barrels. A plan which is practically an extension of this
system has been introduced by Captain Liernur in Holland.
He removes the fæcal matter from water closets and the sedimentary
production of kitchen sinks by pneumatic agency.
He places large air-tight tanks in a suitable part of the town,
to which he leads pipes from all houses. He creates a
vacuum in the tanks, and thus sucks into one center the
fæcal matter from all the houses. Various substitutes have
been tried for the cesspit, which retain the principle of the
hand removal of excreta. The first was the combination of
the privy with an ashpit above the surface of the ground,
the ashes and excreta being mixed together, and both being
removed periodically. The next improvement was the provision

of a movable receptacle. Of this type the simplest
arrangement is a box placed under the seat, which is taken
out, the contents emptied into the scavenger’s cart, and the
box replaced. The difficulty of cleansing the angles of the
boxes led to the adoption of oval or round pails. The pail
is placed under the seat, and removed at stated intervals, or
when full, and replaced by a clean pail. In Marseilles and
Nice a somewhat similar system is in use. They employ
cylindrical metal vessels furnished with a lid which closes
hermetically, each capable of holding 11 gallons. The
household is furnished with three or four of these vessels,
and when one is full the lid is closed hermetically, the vessel
thus remaining in a harmless condition in the house till
taken away by the authorities and replaced by a clean one.
The contents are converted into manure. In consequence
of the offensiveness of the open pail, the next improvement
was to throw in some form of deodorizing material daily.
In the north of England the arrangement generally is that
the ashes shall be passed through a shoot, on which they are
sifted—the finer fall into the pail to deodorize it, the coarser
pass into a box, whence they can be taken to be again
burned—while a separate shoot is provided for kitchen refuse,
which falls into another pail adjacent.

Probably the best known contrivance for deodorizing the
excreta is the dry earth system as applied in the earth closet,
in which advantage is taken of the deodorizing properties
of earth. Dry earth is a good deodorizer; 1½ lb. of dry
earth of good garden ground or clay will deodorize such
excretion. A larger quantity is required of sand or gravel.
If the earth after use is dried, it can be applied again, and it
is stated that the deodorizing powers of earth are not destroyed
until it has been used ten or twelve times. This
system requires close attention, or the dry earth closet will
get out of order; as compared with water closets, it is
cheaper in first construction, and is not liable to injury by
frost; and it has this advantage over any form of cesspit—that
it necessitates the daily removal of refuse. The cost of
the dry earth system per 1,000 persons may be assumed as
follows: Cost of closet, say, £500; expense of ovens, carts,
horses, etc., £250; total capital, £750, at 6 per cent. £37 10s.
interest. Wages of two men and a boy per week, £1 12s.;
keep of horses, stables, etc., 18s.; fuel for drying earth, 1s.
6d. per ton dried daily, £1 10s.; cost of earth and repairs,
etc., 14s.; weekly expenses, £4 14s. Yearly expenses, £247
(equal to 4s. 11d. per ton per annum); interest, £37 10s.—total,
£284 10s., against which should be put the value of
the manure. But the value of the manure is simply a
question of carriage. If the manure is highly concentrated,
like guano, it can stand a high carriage. If the manuring
elements are diffused through a large bulk of passive substances,
the cost of the carriage of the extra, or non-manuring,
elements absorbs all profit. If a town, therefore, by
adding deodorants to the contents of pails produces a large
quantity of manure, containing much besides the actual
manuring elements—such as is generally the case with dry
earth—as soon as the districts immediately around have
been fully supplied, a point is soon reached at which it is
impossible to continue to find purchasers. The dry earth
system is applicable to separate houses, or to institutions
where much attention can be given to it, but it is inapplicable
to large towns from the practical difficulties connected
with procuring, carting, and storing the dry earth.

With the idea that if the solid part of the excreta could be
separated from the liquid and kept comparatively dry the
offensiveness would be much diminished, and deodorization
be unnecessary, a method for getting rid of the liquid portion
by what is termed the Goux system has been in use at
Halifax. This system consists in lining the pail with a composition
formed from the ashes and all the dry refuse which
can be conveniently collected, together with some clay to
give it adhesion. The lining is adjusted and kept in position
by a means of a core or mould, which is allowed to remain
in the pails until just before they are about to be placed
under the seat; the core is then withdrawn, and the pail is
left ready for use. The liquid which passes into the pail
soaks into this lining, which thus forms the deodorizing medium.
The proportion of absorbents in a lining 3 in. thick
to the central space in a tub of the above dimensions would
be about two to one; but unless the absorbents are dry, this
proportion would be insufficient to produce a dry mass in
the tubs when used for a week, and experience has shown
that after being in use for several days the absorbing power
of the lining is already exceeded, and the whole contents
have remained liquid. There would appear to be little gain
by the use of the Goux lining as regards freedom from
nuisance, and though it removes the risk of splashing and
does away with much of the unsightliness of the contents,
the absorbent, inasmuch as it adds extra weight which has
to be carried to and from the houses, is rather a disadvantage
than otherwise from the manurial point of view.

The simple pail system, which is in use in various ways
in the northern towns of England, and in the permanent
camps to some extent at least, and of which the French
“tinette” is an improved form, is more economically convenient
than the dry earth system or the Goux or other deodorizing
system, where a large amount of removal of
refuse has to be accomplished, because by the pail system
the liquid and solid ejections may be collected with a very
small, or even without any, admixture of foreign substances;
and, according to theory, the manurial value of dejections
per head per annum ought to be from 8s. to 10s. The great
superiority, in a sanitary point of view, of all the pail or pan
systems over the best forms over the old cesspits or even the
middens is due to the fact that the interval of collection is
reduced to a minimum, the changing or emptying of the receptacles
being sometimes effected daily, and the period
never exceeding a week. The excrementitious matter is
removed without soaking in the ground or putrefying in the
midst of a population.

These plans for the removal of excreta do not deal with the
equally important refuse liquid—viz., the waste water from
washing and stables, etc. As it is necessary to have drains
for the purpose of removing the waste water, it is more
economical to allow this waste water to carry away the excreta.
In any case, you must have drains for removing the
fouled water. Down these drains it is evident that much
of the liquid excreta will be poured, and thus you must take
precautions to prevent the gases of decomposition which
the drains are liable to contain from passing into your
houses.

There is a method which you might find useful on a
small scale to which I will now draw your attention, as it is
applicable to detached houses or small barracks—viz., the
plan of applying the domestic water to land through underground
drains, or what is called subsoil irrigation. This
system affords peculiar facilities for disposing of sewage
matter without nuisance. There are many cases where open
irrigation in close contiguity to mansions or dwellings might
be exceedingly objectionable, and in such cases subsoil irrigation

supplies a means of dealing with a very difficult
question. This system was applied some years ago by Mr.
Waring in Newport, in the United States. It has recently
been introduced into this country.

The system is briefly as follows: The water from the
house is carried through a water-tight drain to the ground
where the irrigation is to be applied. It is there passed
through ordinary drain pipes, placed 1 ft. below the surface,
with open joints, by means of which it percolates into the
soil. Land drains, 4 ft. deep, should be laid intermediately
between the subsoil drains to remove the water from the
soil. The difficulty of subsoil irrigation is to prevent
deposit, which chokes the drains; and if the foul domestic
water is allowed to trickle through the drains as it passes
away from the house it soon chokes the drains. It is, therefore,
necessary to pass it in flushes through the drains, and
this can be best managed by running the water from the
house into one of Field’s automatic flush tanks, which runs
off in a body when full.

When you have water closet and drainage, the great object
to be attained in house drainage is to prevent the sewer gas
from passing from the main sewer into the house drain. It was
the custom to place a flap at the junction of the house drain
with the sewer; but this flap is useless for preventing sewer
gas from passing up the house drain. The plan was therefore
adopted of placing a water trap under the water closet
basin or the sink, etc., in direct communication with the
drain. The capacity of water to absorb sewer gas is very
great, consequently the water in the trap would absorb this
gas. When the water became warm from increase of temperature,
it would give out the gas into the house; when it
cooled down at night, it would again absorb more gas from
the soil pipe, and frequent change of temperature would
cause it to give out and reabsorb the gas continually.

These objections have led to the present recognized system—viz.,
1st, to place a water trap on the drain to cut off
the sewer gases from the foot of the soil pipe; and, next, to
place an opening to the outer air on the soil pipe between
the trap and the house to secure efficient disconnection
between the sewer and the house. It is, moreover, necessary
to produce a movement of air and ventilation in the house
drain pipes to aerate the pipe and to oxidize any putrescible
products which may be in it. To do this, we must insure
that a current of air shall be continually passing through the
drains; both an inlet and an outlet for fresh air must be provided
in the portions of the house drain which are cut off from
the main sewer, for without an inlet and outlet there can be
no efficient ventilation. This outlet and inlet can be obtained
in the following manner: In the first place, an outlet
may be formed by prolonging the soil pipe at its full diameter,
and with an open top to above the roof, in a position
away from the windows, skylights, or chimneys. And,
secondly, an inlet may be obtained by an opening into the
house drain, on the dwelling side of and close to the trap,
by means of the disconnecting manhole or branch-pipe before
mentioned, or where necessary by carrying up the inlet by
means of a ventilating pipe to above the roof. The inlet
should be equal in area to the drain pipe, and not in any
case less than 4 in. in diameter. If it were not for appearance
and the difficulty of conveying the excreta without
lodgments, an open gutter would be preferable to a closed
pipe in the house. This arrangement is based on the principle
that there should be no deposit in the house drains.
Therefore the utmost care should be taken to lay the house
drains in straight lines, both in plan and gradient, and to
give the adequate inclination.

The following are desirable conditions to observe in house
drains: 1. As to material of pipes. House drains should be
made either of glazed stoneware pipes or fireclay pipes with
cement joints, or preferably of cast iron pipes jointed with
carefully-made lead joints, or with turned joints and bored
sockets. I say preferably of cast iron. In New York the
iron soilpipe, with joints made with lead, is now required by
the municipal regulations. It is a stronger pipe than a
rainwater pipe. The latter will often be found to have holes.
A lead joint cannot be made properly in a weak pipe, therefore
the lead joint is to some extent a guarantee of soundness.
Lead pipes will be eaten away by water containing
free oxygen without carbonic acid, therefore pure rainwater
injures lead pipes. An excess of carbonic acid in water will
also eat away lead. You will find that in many cases pinholes
appear in a soilpipe, and when inside a house that
allows sewer gas to pass into the house. Moreover, lead is a
soft material; it is subject to indentations, to injury from
nails, to sagging. A cast-iron pipe, when coated with sewage
matter, does not appear to be subject to decay; and if of
sufficient substance it is not liable to injury. When once
well fixed, it has no tendency to move. I would, therefore,
advocate cast iron in lieu of lead soilpipes. In fixing the
soilpipe which is to receive a water-closet, the trap should
form part of the fixed pipe; so that if there is any sinking
the down pipe will not sink away from the trap. It is, however,
not sufficient to provide good material. There is
nothing which is more important in a sanitary point of view
than good workmanship in house drainage. In this matter,
it is on details that all depends. Just consider; the drain
pipes under the best conditions of aeration contain elements
of danger, and those pipes are composed of a number of
parts, at the point of junction of any one of which the
poison may escape into the house. You thus perceive how
necessary it is first to reduce the poison to a minimum by
cutting off the sewer gas which might otherwise pass from
the street sewer to the house drain, and in the next place
being most careful in the workmanship of every part of
your house drains and soilpipes. Reduce your danger where
you can by putting your pipes outside. But you cannot
always do that—for instance, at New York and in Canada
they would freeze.

All drain pipes should be proved to be watertight by
plugging up the lower end of the drain pipe and filling it
with water. In no case should a soilpipe be built inside a
wall. It should be so placed as to be always accessible.
2. The pipes should be generally 4 in. diameter. In no instance
need a drain pipe inside a house exceed 6 in. in diameter.
3. Every drain of a house or building should be laid with
true gradients, in no case less than 1/100, but much steeper
would be preferable. When from circumstances the drain
is laid at a smaller inclination, a flush tank should be provided.
They should be laid in straight lines from point to
point. At every change of direction there should be reserved
a means of access to the drain. 4. No drain should be
constructed so as to pass under a dwelling house, except in
particular cases when absolutely necessary. In such cases
the pipe should be of cast iron, and the length of drain laid
under the house should be laid perfectly straight—a means
of access should be provided at each end; it should have a
free air current passing through it from end to end, and a
flush tank should be placed at the upper end. 5. Every
house drain should be arranged so as to be flushed, and kept

at all times free from deposit. 6. Every house drain should
be ventilated by at least two suitable openings, one at each
end, so as to afford a current of air through the drain, and
no pipe or opening should be used for ventilation unless the
same be carried upward without angles or horizontal lengths,
and with tight joints. The size of such pipes or openings
should be fully equal to that of the drain pipe ventilated.
7. The upper extremities of ventilating pipes should be at a
distance from any windows or openings, so that there will
be no danger of the escape of the foul air into the interior of
the house from such pipes. The soilpipe should terminate
at its lower end in a properly ventilating disconnecting trap,
so that a current of air would be constantly maintained
through the pipe. 8. No rainwater pipe and no overflow or
waste pipe from any cistern or rainwater tank, or from any
sink (other than a slop sink for urine), or from any bath or
lavatory, should pass directly to the soilpipe; but every such
pipe should be disconnected therefrom by passing through
the wall to the outside of the house, and discharging with
an end open to the air. I may mention here that the drainage
arrangements of this Parkes Museum in which we are
assembled were very defective when the building was first
taken. Mr. Rogers Field, one of the committee, was requested
to drain it properly, and it has been very successfully
accomplished.

I would now draw your attention to some points of detail
in the fittings for carrying away waste water.

First, with regard to lavatories. As already mentioned,
every waste pipe from the sink should deliver in the open
air, but it should have an opening at its upper end as well as
at its lower end, to permit a current of air to pass through
it; and it should be trapped close to the sink, so as to prevent
the air being drawn through it into the house; otherwise
you will have an offensive smell from it. I will give
you an instance: At the University College Hospital there
are some fire tanks on the several landings. The water flows
in every day, and some flows away through the waste pipes;
these pipes, which carry away nothing but fresh London
water to empty in the yard, got most offensive simply from
the decomposition of the sediment left in them by the London
water passing through them day after day. A small waste
pipe from a bath or a basin is a great inconvenience. It
should be of a size to empty rapidly—for a bath 2 inches, a
basin 1½, inches. There are other points connected with
fittings to which I would call your attention. The great
inventive powers which have been applied to the w.c. pan
are an evidence of how unsatisfactory they all are. Many
kinds of water-closet apparatus and of so-called “traps”
have a tendency to retain foul matter in the house, and
therefore, in reality, partake more or less of the nature of
small cesspools, and nuisances are frequently attributed to
the ingress of “sewer gas” which have nothing whatever
to do with the sewers, but arise from foul air generated in
the house drains and internal fittings. The old form was
always made with what is called a D-trap. Avoid the D-trap.
It is simply a small cesspool which cannot be cleaned out.
Any trap in which refuse remains is an objectionable cesspool.
It is a receptacle for putrescrible matter. In a lead
pipe your trap should always be smooth and without corners.
The depth of dip of a trap should depend on the frequency
of use of the trap. It varies from ½ inch to 3½
inches. When a trap is rarely used, the dip should be deeper
than when frequently used, to allow of evaporation. In the
section of a w.c. pan, the object to be attained is to take
that form in which all the parts of the trap can be easily examined
and cleaned, in which both the pan and the trap will
be washed clean by the water at each discharge, and in
which the lever movement of the handle will not allow of
the passage of sewer gas.

And now just a few personal remarks in conclusion. I
have had much pleasure in giving to my old brother officers in
these lectures the result of my experience in sanitary science.
In doing so, I desired especially to impress on you who are
just entering your profession the importance of giving effect
to those principles of sanitary science which were left very
much in abeyance until after the Crimean war. I have not
desired to fetter you with dogmatic rules, but I have sought,
by general illustrations, to show you the principles on which
sanitary science rests. That science is embodied in the words,
pure earth, pure air, pure water. In nature that purity is
insured by increasing movement. Neither ought we to
stagnate. In the application of these principles your goal
of to-day should be your starting-post for to-morrow. If I
have fulfilled my object, I shall have interested you sufficiently
to induce some of you at least to seize and carry forward
to a more advanced position the torch of sanitary
science.

PASTEUR’S NEW METHOD OF ATTENUATION.

The view that vaccinia is attenuated variola is well known,
and has been extensively adopted by English physicians. If
the opinion means anything, it signifies that the two diseases
are in essence one and the same, differing only in degree.
M. Pasteur has recently found that by passing the bacillus
of “rouget” of pigs through rabbits, he can effect a considerable
attenuation of the “rouget” virus. He has shown that
rabbits inoculated with the bacillus of rouget become very
ill and die, but if the inoculations be carried through a series
of rabbits, a notable modification results in the bacillus. As
regards the rabbits themselves, no favorable change occurs—they
are all made very ill, or die. But if inoculation be
made on pigs from those rabbits, at the end of the series it is
found that the pigs have the disease in a mild form, and,
moreover, that they enjoy immunity from further attacks
of “rouget.” This simply means that the rabbits have
effected, or the bacillus has undergone while in them, an
attenuation of virulence. So the pigs may be “vaccinated”
with the modified virus, have the disease in a mild form,
and thereafter be protected from the disease. The analogy
between this process and the accepted view of vaccinia is
very close. The variolous virus is believed to pass through
the cow, and there to become attenuated, so that inoculations
from the cow-pox no longer produce variola in the human
subject, but cow-pox (vaccinia). As an allied process,
though of very different result, mention may be made of
some collateral experiments of Pasteur, also performed recently.
Briefly, it has been discovered that the bacillus of
the “rouget” of pigs undergoes an increase of virulence by
being cultivated through a series of pigeons. Inoculations
from the last of the series of pigeons give rise to a most intense
form of the disease. It will be remembered that the
discovery of the bacillus of “rouget” of pigs was due to
the late Dr. Thuillier.—Lancet.

Very few persons realize the necessity of cultivating an
equable temper and of avoiding passion. Many persons have
met with sudden death, the result of a weak heart and
passionate nature.

CONVENIENT VAULTS.

This is a subject which will bear line upon line and precept
upon precept. Many persons have availed themselves
of the cheap and easy means which we have formerly recommended
in the shape of the daily use of absorbents, but a
larger number strangely neglect these means, and foul air
and impure drainage are followed by disease and death.
Sifted coal ashes and road dust are the remedy, kept in
barrels till needed for use. A neat cask, filled with these
absorbents, with a long-handled dipper, is placed in the
closet, and a conspicuous placard directs every occupant to
throw down a dipper full before leaving. The vaults, made
to open on the outside, are then as easily cleaned twice a
year as sand is shoveled from a pit. No drainage by secret,
underground seams in the soil can then poison the water of
wells; and no effluvia can arise to taint the air and create
fevers. On this account, this arrangement is safer and
better than water-closets. It is far cheaper and simpler, and
need never get out of order. There being no odor whatever,
if properly attended to, it may be contiguous to the dwelling.
An illustration of the way in which the latter is accomplished
is shown by Fig. 1, which represents a neat addition to
a kitchen wing, with hip-roof, the entrance being either
from the kichen through an entry, or from the outside as
shown by the steps. Fig. 2 is a plan, showing the double
walls with interposed solid earth, to exclude any possible
impurity from the cellar in case of neglect. The vaults may
be reached from the outside opening, for removing the contents.
In the whole arrangement there is not a vestige of
impure air, and it is as neat as a parlor; and the man who
cleans out the vaults say it is no more unpleasant than to
shovel sand from a pit.

Fig. 1.

Those who prefer may place the closet at a short distance
from the house, provided the walk is flanked on both sides
with evergreen trees; for no person should be compelled to
encounter drifting snows to reach it—an exposure often
resulting in colds and sickness. A few dollars are the
whole cost, and civilization and humanity demand as much.—Country
Gentleman.

Fig. 2.

Fig. 3.

POISONOUS SERPENTS AND THEIR VENOM.

By Dr. G. ARCHIE STOCKWELL.

Chemistry has made astounding strides since the days
of the sixteenth century, when Italian malice and intrigue
swayed all Europe, and poisons and poisoners stalked forth
unblushingly from cottage and palace; when crowned and
mitered heads, prelates, noblemen, beneficed clergymen,
courtiers, and burghers became Borgias and De Medicis in
hideous infamy in their greed for power and affluence; and
when the civilized world feared to retire to rest, partake of
the daily repast, inhale the odors of flower or perfume,
light a wax taper, or even approach the waters of the holy
font. These horrors have been laid bare, their cause and
effect explained, and tests discovered whereby they may
be detected, providing the law with a shield that protects
even the humblest individual. Great as the science is, however,
it is yet far removed from perfection; and there are
substances so mysterious, subtle, and dangerous as to set
the most delicate tests and powerful lenses at naught,
while carrying death most horrible in their train; and chief
of these are the products of Nature’s laboratory, that provides
some sixty species of serpents with their deadly venom,
enabling them in spite of sluggish forms and retiring habits
to secure abundant prey and resent mischievous molestation.
The hideous trigonocephalus has forced the introduction
and acclimation of the mongoose to the cane fields
of the Western tropics; the tiger snake (Heplocephalus curtus)
is the terror of Australian plains; the fer de lance (Craspedocephalus
lanceolatus) renders the paradise of Martinique
almost uninhabitable; the tic paloonga (Daboii russelli) is
the scourge of Cinghalese coffee estates; the giant ehlouhlo
of Natal (unclassified) by its presence secures a forbidding
waste for miles about; the far famed cobra de capello (Naja
tripudians) ravages British India in a death ratio of one-seventh
of one per cent. of the dense population, annually,
and is the more dangerous in that an assumed sacred character
secures it largely from molestation and retributive
justice; and in Europe and America we have vipers, rattlesnakes,
copperheads, and moccasins (viperinæ and crotalidæ),
that if a less degree fatal, are still a source of dread and
annoyance. All these forms exhibit in general like ways
and like habits, and if the venom of all be not generically
identical, the physiological and toxicological phenomena
arising therefrom render them practically and specifically
so. Indeed, their attributes appear to be mere modifications
arising from difference in age, size, development, climate,

latitude, seasons, and enforced habits, aided perhaps by
idiosyncrasies and the incidents and accidents of life.

In delicacy of organism and perfection in mechanism
and precision, the inoculatory apparatus of the venomous
reptile excels the most exquisite appliances devised by the
surgical implement maker’s art, and it is doubtful whether
it can ever be rivaled by the hand of man. The mouth of
the serpent is an object for the closest study, presenting as it
does a series of independent actions, whereby the bones
composing the upper jaw and palate are loosely articulated,
or rather attached, to one another by elastic and expansive
ligaments, whereby the aperture is made conformatory, or
enlarged at will—any one part being untrammeled and unimpeded
in its action by its fellows. The recurved, hook-like
teeth are thus isolated in application, and each venom fang
independent of its rival when so desired, and it becomes
possible to reach points and recesses seemingly inaccessible.

The fangs proper, those formidable weapons whose threatening
presence quails the boldest opponent, inspires the fear
of man, and puts to flight the entire animal kingdom—lions,
tigers, and leopards, all but the restless and plucky
mongoose—and whose slightest scratch is attended with such
dire results, are two in number, one in each upper jaw, and
placed anteriorly to all other teeth, which they exceed
by five or six times in point of size. Situated just within
the lips, recurved, slender, and exceeding in keenness even
the finest of cambric needles, they are penetrated in their
longitudinal diameter by a delicate, hair-like canal opening
into a groove at the apex, terminating on the anterior surface
in an elongated fissure. As the canal is straight, and the
tooth falciform, a like groove or longitudinal fissure is
formed at the base, where it is inclosed by the aperture of
the duct that communicates with the poison apparatus.

At the base of each fang, and extending from a point just
beneath the nostril, backward two-thirds the distance to
the commissure of the mouth, is the poison gland, analogous
to the salivary glands of man, that secretes a pure, mucous
saliva, and also a pale straw-colored, half-oleaginous
fluid, the venom proper. Within the gland, venom and
saliva are mingled in varying proportions coincidently with
circumstances; but the former slowly distills away and finds
lodgment in the central portion of the excretory duct, that
along its middle is dilated to form a bulb-like receptacle,
and where only it may be obtained in perfect purity.

When the reptile is passive, the fangs are arranged to lie
backward along the jaw, concealed by the membrane of the
mouth, and thus offer no impediment to deglutition. Close
inspection, however, at once reveals not only their presence,
but also several rudimentary ones to supply their place in
case of injury or accident. The bulb of the duct, too, is
surrounded by a double aponeurotic capsule, of which the
outermost and strongest layer is in connection with a muscle
by whose action both duct and gland are compressed at will,
conveying the secretion into the basal aperture of the fang,
at the same time refilling the bulb.

When enraged and assuming the offensive and defensive,
the reptile draws the posterior portion of its body into a
coil or spiral, whereby the act of straightening, in which it
hurls itself forward to nearly its full length, lends force to
the blow, and at the same instant the fangs are erected,
drawn forward in a reverse plane, permitting the points to
look outward beyond the lips. The action of the compressor
muscles is contemporaneous with the blow inflicted,
the venom being injected with considerable violence through
the apical outlets of the fangs, and into the bottom of the
wound. If the object is not attained, the venom may be
thrown to considerable distances, falling in drops; and Sir
Arthur Cunynghame in a recent work on South Africa relates
that he was cautioned not to approach a huge cobra of
six feet or more in length in its death agony, lest it should
hurl venom in his eyes and create blindness; he afterward
found that an officer of Her Majesty’s XV. Regiment had
been thus injured at a distance of forty-five feet,
and did not recover his eyesight for more than a week.¹

With the infliction of the stroke and expression of its
venom, the creature usually attempts to reverse its fangs in
the wound, thereby dragging through and lacerating the
flesh; an ingenious bit of devilishness hardly to be expected
from so low a form of organism; but its frequent neglect
proves it by no means mechanical, and it frequently occurs
that the animal bitten drags the reptile after it a short
distance, or causes it to leave its fangs in the wound. Some
serpents also, as the fer de lance, black mamba, and water
moccasin, are apparently actuated by most vindictive motives,
and coil themselves about the part bitten, clinging with
leech-like tenacity and resisting all attempts at removal.
Two gentlemen of San Antonio, Texas,² who were bitten
by rattlesnakes, subsequently asserted that after having
inflicted all possible injury, the reptiles scampered away with
unmistakable manifestations of pleasure. “Snakes,” remarked
one of the victims, “usually glide smoothly away
with the entire body prone to the ground; but the fellow I
encountered traveled off with an up and down wave-like
motion, as if thrilled with delight, and then, getting under a
large rock where he was safe from pursuit, he turned, and
raising his head aloft waved it to and fro, as if saying.
‘Don’t you feel good now?’ It would require but a brief
stretch of the imagination to constitute that serpent a
veritable descendant of the old Devil himself.”

As the first blow commonly exhausts the receptacle of the
duct, a second (the venom being more or less mingled and
diluted by the salivary secretion) is comparatively less fatal
in results; and each successive repetition correspondingly
inoffensive until finally nothing but pure mucus is ejected.
Nevertheless, when thoroughly aroused, the reptile is enabled
to constantly hurl a secretion, since both rage and hunger
swell the glands to enormous size, and stimulate to
extraordinary activity—a fortuitous circumstance to which
many an unfortunate is doubtless indebted for his life. The
removal of a fang, however, affects its gland to a degree
that it becomes almost inoperative, until such a time as a
new tooth is grown, and again calls it into action, which is
commonly but a few weeks at most; and a person purchasing
a poisonous serpent under the supposition that it has been
rendered innocuous, will do well to keep watch of its mouth
lest he be some time taken unaware. It may be rendered
permanently harmless, however, by first removing the fang,
and then cauterizing the duct by means of a needle or wire,
heated to redness; when for experimental purposes the gland
may be stimulated, and the virus drawn off by means of
a fine-pointed syringe.

In what the venom consists more than has already been described,
we are not permitted to know. It dries under exposure
to air in small scales, is soluble in water but not in alcohol,

slightly reddens litmus paper, and long retains its noxious
properties. It has no acrid or burning taste, and but little
if any odor; the tongue pronounces it inoffensive, and the
mucous surface of the alimentary track is proof against it,
and it has been swallowed in considerable quantities without
deleterious result—all the poison that could be extracted
from a half dozen of the largest and most virile reptiles was
powerless in any way to affect an unfledged bird when
poured into its open beak. Chemistry is not only powerless
to solve the enigma of its action, and the microscope to detect
its presence, but pathology is at fault to explain the
reason of its deadly effect; and all that we know is that
when introduced even in most minute quantities into an
open wound, the blood is dissolved, so to speak, and the
stream of life paralyzed with an almost incredible rapidity.
Without test or antidote, terror has led to blind, fanatical
empiricism, necessarily attended with no little injury in the
search for specifics, and it may be reasonably asserted that
no substance can be named so inert and worthless as not to
have been recommended, or so disgusting as not to have
been employed; nor is any practice too absurd to find favor
and adherents even among the most enlightened of the
medical profession, who have rung all the changes of the
therapeutical gamut from serpentaria³ and boneset to guaco,
cimicifugia, and Aristolochia India to curare, alum, chalk,
and mercury to arsenic; and in the way of surgical dressings
and appliances everything from poultices of human fæces,⁴
burying the part bitten in fresh earth,⁵ or thrusting
the member or entire person into the entrails of living
animals, to cupping, ligatures, escharotics, and the moxa.

Although the wounds of venomous serpents are frequently
attended with fatal results, such are not necessarily
invariable. There are times and seasons when all reptiles are
sluggish and inactive, and when they inflict comparatively
trifling injuries; and the poison is much less virulent at certain
periods than others—during chilling weather for instance,
or when exhausted by repeated bites in securing
sustenance. Young and small serpents, too, are less virile
than large and more aged specimens, and it has likewise
been observed that death is more apt to follow when the
poison is received at the beginning or during the continuance
of the heated term.

The action of the venom is commonly so swift that its
effects are manifested almost immediately after inoculation,
being at once conveyed by the circulatory system to
the great nervous centers of the body, resulting in rapid
paralysis of such organs as are supplied with motive power
from these sources; its physiological and toxicological realizations
being more or less speedy accordingly as it is applied
near or remote from these centers, or infused into the capillary
or the venous circulation. Usually, too, an unfortunate
experiences, perhaps instantaneously, an intense burning
pain in the member lacerated, which is succeeded by vertigo,
nausea, retching, fainting, coldness, and collapse; the
part bitten swells, becomes discolored, or spotted over its
surface with livid blotches, that may, ultimately, extend to
the greater portion of the body, while the poison appears to
effect a greater or less disorganization of the blood, not by
coagulating its fibrine as Fontana surmised, but in dissolving,
attenuating, and altering the form of its corpuscles,
whose integrity is so essential to life, causing them to adhere
to one another, and to the walls of the vessels by which
they are conveyed; being no longer able to traverse the
capillaries, œdema is produced, followed by the peculiar livid
blush. Shakespeare would appear to have had intuitive
perception of the nature of such subtle poison, when he
caused the ghost to describe to Hamlet

“The leprous distillment whose effect
Bears such an enmity to the blood of man
That swift as quicksilver, it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body
And with sudden vigor it doth posset
And curd like eager droppings into milk,
The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine
And a most instant tetter marked about
Most lazar like, with vile and loathsome crust
All my smooth body.”

It is not to be supposed, however, that all or even a major
portion of the blood disks require to be changed or destroyed
to produce a fatal result, since death may supervene
long before such a consummation can be realized. It
is the capillary circulation that suffers chiefly, since the
very size and caliber of the heart cavities and trunk vessels
afford them comparative immunity. But of the greatly
dissolved and disorganized condition of the blood that may
occur secondarily, we have evidences in the passive hæmorrhages
that attack those that have recovered from the immediate
effects of serpent poisoning, following or coincident
with subsidence of swelling and induration; and, as with
scurvy, bleeding may occur from the mouth, throat, lungs,
nose, and bowels, or from ulcerated surfaces and superficial
wounds, or all together, defying all styptics and hæmastatics.
In a case occurring under the care of Dr. David Brainerd in
the Illinois General Hospital,⁶ blood flowed from the gums
in great profusion, and on examination was found destitute,
even under the microscope, of the faintest indications of
fibrine—the principle upon which coagulation depends.
The breath, moreover, gave most sickening exhalations, indicative
of decomposition, producing serious illness in those
exposed for any length of time to its influence. We may
add, among other sequelæ, aside from death produced
through primary and secondary effects, paralysis, loss of
nerve power, impotence, hæmorrhage, even mortification or
gangrene.

The failure in myotic power of the heart and in the muscles
of respiration through reflex influence of par vagum
and great sympathetic nerves, whereby pulmonary circulation
is impeded, are among the earliest of phenomena.
Breathing becoming retarded and laborious, the necessary
supply of oxygen is no longer received, and blood still
venous, in that it is not relieved of its carbon, is returned
through the arteries, whereby the capillaries of the brain are
gorged with a doubly poisoned circulation, poisoned by both
venom and carbon. In this we have ample cause for the
attending train of symptoms that, beginning with drowsiness,
rapidly passes into stupor followed by profound coma
and ultimate dissolution—marked evidence of the fact that
a chemical agent or poison may produce a mechanical disease;

and autopsical research reveals absolutely nothing
save the general disorganization of blood corpuscles, as
already noted.

Taking circumstantial and pathological evidences into
consideration, the hope of the person thus poisoned rests
solely upon lack of vitality in the serpent and its venom,
and in his personal idiosyncrasies, habits of life, condition
of health, etc., and the varied chapters of accidents. To
look for a specific, in any sense of the word, is the utmost folly!
The action of the poison and its train of results follow inoculation
in too swift succession to be overtaken and counteracted
by any antidote, supposing such to be a possible product,
even if administered hypodermically. We have evidence
of this in iodic preparations, iodine being the nearest
approach to a perfect antidote that can be secured by mortal
skill, inasmuch, if quickly injected into the circulation, it
retards and restrains the disorganizing process whereby the
continuity of the blood corpuscles is lost; moreover, it is
a marked antiseptic, favors the production of adhesive
inflammation, whereby lymph is effused and coagulated about
the bitten part, and absorption checked, and the poison
rendered less diffusible. But when a remedy is demanded
that shall restore the pristine form, functions, and energy of
the disorganized globules, man arrogates to himself supernal
attributes whereby it becomes possible not only to
save and renew, but to create life; and we can scarce expect
science or even accident (as some expect) to even rival
Nature and set at defiance her most secret and subtle laws.
Such, however, is the natural outcropping of an ignorant
teaching and vulgar prejudice that feeds and clothes the
charlatan and ascribes to savage and uncultured races an
occult familiarity with pathological, physiological, and
remedial effect unattainable by the most advanced sciences;
and whereby the Negro, Malay, Hindoo, South Sea Islander,
and red man are granted an innate knowledge of poisons and
their antidotes more than miraculous. A reward of more
than a quarter of a century’s standing, and amounting to
several thousand pounds, is offered by the East India
Government for the discovery of a specific for the bite of the
cobra, and for which no claims have ever been advanced; and
the “snake charmers” or jugglers in whom this superior
knowledge is supposed to center are so well aware of the
futility of specifics, and the risk to which they are subjected,
that few venture to ply their calling without a broad-bladed,
keen-edged knife concealed about the person as a means of instant
amputation in case of accident. Medical and scientific
associations of various classes, in Europe, Australia, America,
even Africa, and the East and West Indies, have repeatedly
held out the most tempting lures, and indulged in exhaustive
and costly experimentation in search of specifics for the
wounds of vipers, cobras, rattlesnakes, and the general
horde of venomous reptiles; and all in vain. Even the
saliva of man, as well as certain other secretions, is at times
so modified by anger as to rival the venom of the serpent in
fatality, and it has no specific; and a careful analysis of the
pathological relations of such poison proves that further
experimentation and expectation is as irrational as the pursuit
of the “philosopher’s stone.”

It is an indisputable fact, however, that there are individuals
whose natural or acquired idiosyncrasies permit them
to be inoculated by the most venomous of reptiles without
deleterious or unpleasant results, and Colonel Matthews
Taylor⁷ knew several persons of this character in India, and
who regarded the bite of the cobra or tic paloonga with
nearly as much indifference as the sting of a gnat or mosquito.
Again, in 1868, Mr. Drummond, a prominent magistrate
of Melbourne, Australia,⁸ met with untimely death
under circumstances that attracted no little attention. An
itinerant vender of nostrums had on exhibition a number
of venomous reptiles, by which he caused himself to be successively
bitten, professing to secure immunity by reason of
a secret compound which he offered for sale at a round
figure. Convinced that the fellow was an imposter, and
his wares valuable only as a means of depleting the pockets
of the credulous, Mr. Drummond loudly asserted the inefficacy
of the nostrum, as well as the innocuousness of the
reptiles, which he assumed to be either naturally harmless,
or rendered so by being deprived of their fangs; and in
proof thereof insisted upon being himself bitten. To this
experiment the charlatan was extremely averse, offering
strenuous objections, and finally conveyed a point blank
refusal. But Mr. Drummond’s demands becoming more
imperative, and observing that his hesitancy impressed the
audience as a tacit acknowledgment of the allegations, he
finally consented, and placed in the hands of the magistrate
a tiger snake, which he deemed least dangerous, and which
instantly struck the gentleman in the wrist. The usual
symptoms of serpent poisoning rapidly manifested themselves,
followed by swelling and lividity of the part,
obstructed circulation and respiration, and coma; and in
spite of the use of the vaunted remedy and the attentions of
physicians the result was most fatal. The vender subsequently
conceded the worthless character of his nostrum,
declaring that be enjoyed exemption from the effects of
of serpent poison by virtue of recovery from a severe
inoculation in early life; and he further added he knew
“some people who were born so,” who put him “up to this
dodge” as a means of gaining a livelihood.

It is a general supposition that such immunity, when congenital,
is acquired in utero by the inoculation of the parent,
and Oliver Wendell Holmes’ fascinating tale of “Elsie
Venner” embodies many interesting features in this connection.
Admitting such inoculation may secure immunity,
recent experiments in the action of this as well as kindred
poisons give no grounds for believing it at all universal or
even common, but as depending upon occult physiological
or accidental phenomena. For instance, the writer and his
father are equally proof against the contagion and inoculation
of vaccination and variola, in spite of repeated attempts
to secure both, while their respective mothers suffered
terribly with smallpox at periods subsequent to the birth of
their children; and it is well understood that there are striking
analogies between the poisons of certain contagious
fevers and those of venomous serpents, inasmuch as one
attack conveys exemption from future ones of like character.
In other words, many animal poisons, as well as the pathological
ones of smallpox, measles, scarlatina, whooping
cough, etc., have the power of so modifying the animal
economy, when it does not succumb to their primary influence,
as to ever after render it all but proof against them.
Witness, for instance, the ravages of the mosquito, that in
certain districts punishes most terribly all new comers, and
who after a brief residence suffer little, the bite no longer
producing pain or swelling.

Regarding the supposed correlation of serpent poison and
the septic ferments of certain tropical and infectious fevers,
they are not necessarily always contagious. It may be interesting
to note that one Doctor Humboldt in 1852,⁹ in an
essay read before the Royal Academy of Medical Sciences
at Havana, assumed their proximate identity, and advocated
the inoculation of the poison of one as a prophylactic
of the other. He claimed to have personally inoculated
numberless persons in New Orleans, Vera Cruz, and
Cuba with exceedingly dilute venom, thereby securing them
perfect immunity from yellow fever. Aside from the extraordinary
nature of the statement, the fact that the doctor
affirmed, he had never used the virus to an extent
sufficient to produce any of its toxic symptoms, cast discredit
over the whole, and proofs were demanded and promised.
This was the last of the subject, however, which soon
passed into oblivion, though whether from failure on the
part of the medico to substantiate his assertions, or from
the inanition of his colleagues, it is difficult to determine,
though the presumption is largely in favor of the former.
Nevertheless, it is worthy of consideration and exhaustive
experimentation, since it is no less plausible than the theory
which rendered the name of Jenner famous.

Outside of the transfusion of blood, for which there are
strong reasons for believing would be attended with happy
results, the sole remedies available in serpent poisoning
are measures looking to the prompt cutting off of the circulation
of the affected part, and the direct stimulation
of the heart’s action and the respiratory organs, until such a
time as Nature shall have eliminated all toxical evidences;
and these must necessarily be mechanical. Alcoholic stimulants
are available only as they act mechanically in sustaining
cardiac and pulmonary activity, and where their free use
is prolonged efficacy is quickly exhausted, and they tend
rather to hasten a fatal result. They are devoid of the
slightest antidotal properties, and in no way modify the
activity of the venom; and an intoxicated person, so far from
enjoying the immunity with which he is popularly credited,
is far more apt to succumb to the virus than him of unfuddled
intellect. The reasons are obvious. Theoretically,
for purely physiological and therapeutic reasons amyl
nitrite should be of incalculable value, though I have no
knowledge of its use in this connection, since its vapor
when inhaled is a most powerful stimulator of cardiac action,
and when administered by the mouth it is unapproached
in its control of spasmodically contracted vessels
and muscles. The relief its vapor affords in the collapse
of chloroform anæsthesia, in which dissolution is imminent
from paralyzed heart’s action, is instantaneous, and its effect
upon the spasmodic and suffocative sensations of hydrophobia
are equally prompt. Moreover, without further
discussing its physiological functions, it is the nearest approach
to an antidote to certain zymotic poisons, and especially
valuable in warding off and aborting the action of
the ferment that gives rise to pertussis, or whooping cough.
Iodide of ethyl is another therapeutical measure that is
worthy of consideration; and iodoform in the treatment of
the sequelæ incident to recovery.

The native population of India, in spite of the contrary
accepted opinion, are remarkably free from resort to nostrums
that lay claim to being antidotes. The person inoculated
by the cobra is at once seized by his friends, and constant
and violent exercise enforced, if necessary at the point
of stick, and severe and cruel (but nevertheless truly merciful)
beatings are often a result. In this we see a direct
application, without in the least understanding them, of
the rules laid down to secure certain physiological results,
as for the relief of opium and morphia narcosis, which serpent
poisoning almost exactly resembles. The late Doctor
Spillsbury (Physician-General of Calcutta),¹⁰ while stationed
at Jubulpore, Central India, was informed late one evening
that his favorite horse keeper had just been dangerously
bitten by a cobra of unusual size, and therefore more than
ordinarily venomous. He at once ordered his gig, and in
spite of the wails and protestations of the sufferer and his
friends, with whom a fatal result was already a foregone
conclusion, the doctor caused his wrists to be bound firmly
and inextricably to the back of the vehicle; then assuring the
man if he did not keep up he would most certainly be
dragged to death, he mounted to his seat and drove rapidly
away. Three hours later, or a little more, he returned, having
covered nearly thirty miles without cessation or once
drawing rein. The horse keeper was found bathed in profuse
perspiration, and almost powerless from excessive fatigue.
Eau de luce, an aromatic preparation of ammonia,
was now administered at frequent and regular intervals as a
diffusible stimulant, and moderate though constant exercise
enforced until near dawn, when the sufferer was found to
be completely recovered.

The value of violent and profuse cutaneous transpiration,
thereby securing a rapidly eliminating channel for discharging
poison from the system, is well known; in no other way
can action be had so thorough, speedy, and prompt. Captain
Maxwell¹¹ tells us it was formerly the custom among the
Irish peasantry of Connaught, when one manifested unmistakable
evidences of hydrophobia, to procure the death
of the unfortunate by smothering between two feather beds.
In one instance, after undergoing this treatment, the supposed
corpse was seen, to the horror and surprise of all who witnessed
it, to crawl from between the bolsters, when he was
found to be entirely free from his disorder; the beds, however,
were saturated through and through with the perspiration
that escaped the body in the intensity of his mortal
agony. More recently a French physician,¹² recognizing
the incubatory stage of rabies in his own person, resolved
upon suicide rather than undergo its attendant horrors.
The hot bath was selected for the purpose, with a view of
gradually increasing its temperature until syncope should be
induced, which he hoped would be succeeded by death.
To his surprise, however, as the temperature of the water
rose, his sensations of distress improved; and the very
means chosen for terminating life became instead his salvation,
restoring to perfect health. Again, Dr. Peter Hood¹³
relates that a blacksmith residing in the neighborhood of
his country house was in high repute for miles about by
reason of his cures of rabies. His remedy consisted simply
in forcing the person bitten to accompany him in a rapid
walk or trot for twenty miles or more, after which he administered
copious draughts of a hot decoction of broom
tops, as much for its moral effect as for its value in sustaining
and prolonging established diaphoresis.

Though the pathological conditions of hydrophobia and
serpent poisoning are by no means parallel, the rationale of
the methods employed in opening the emunctories of the
skin are the same; and were it not for its powerful protracting

effect and depressing action upon the heart, we might
perhaps secure valuable aid from jaborandi (pilocarpus).
since it stimulates profusely all the secretions; as it is, more
is to be hoped for in the former disorder than in the latter.
It would be desirable also to know what influence the
Turkish bath might exert, and it would seem worthy at
least of trial.

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TO FIND THE TIME OF TWILIGHT.

To the Editor of the Scientific American:

Given latitude N. 40° 51′, declination N. 20° 25′, sun 18°
below the horizon. To find the time of twilight at that
place. In the accompanying diagram, E Q = equinoctial,
D D = parallel of declination, Z S N a vertical circle, H O
= the horizon, P = North pole, Z = zenith, and S = the
sun, 18° below the horizon, H O, measured on a vertical
circle. It is seen that we have here given us the three sides of
a spherical triangle, viz., the co-latitude 49° 9′, the co declination
69° 35′, and the zenith distance 108°, with which to compute
the angle Z P S. This angle is found to be 139°
16′ 5.6″. Dividing this by 15 we have 9 h. 16 m. 24.4 s., from
noon to the beginning or termination of twilight. Now, in
the given latitude and declination, the sun’s center coincides
with the horizon at sunset (allowance being made for refraction),
at 7 h. 18 m. 29.3 s. from apparent noon. Then if we
subtract 7 h. 18 m. 29.3 s. from 9 h. 16 m. 24.4 s., we shall
have 1 h. 57 m. 55.1 s. as the duration of twilight. But the
real time of sunset must be computed when the sun has
descended about 50′ below the horizon, at which point the
sun’s upper limb coincides with the line, H O, of the horizon.
This takes place 7 h. 16 m. 30.8 s. mean time. It is
hoped the above will be a sufficient answer to L.N. (See
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN of Dec. 1, 1883, p. 346.)

B.W H.

ETHNOLOGICAL NOTES.

The distinguished anthropologist M. De Quatrefages has
recently spoken before the Academy of Sciences in Paris, and
we extract from his discourse on “Fossil Man and Savages”
some notes reported in the Journal d’Hygiene: “It is in
Oceanica and above all in Melanesia and in Polynesia where
I have looked for examples of savage races. I have scarcely
spoken of the Malays except to bring to the surface the
features which distinguish them among the ethnic groups
which they at times touch, and which in turn frequently
mingle with them. I have especially studied the Papuans
and Negritos. The Papuans are an exclusively Pelasgic race,
that many anthropologists consider as almost confined to
New Guinea and the neighboring archipelago. But it becomes
more and more manifest that they have had also
periods of expansion and of dissemination.

“On one side they appear as conquerors in some islands of
Micronesia; on the other we have shown—M. Hamy and
myself—that to them alone can be assigned the skulls found
in Easter Island and in New Zealand. They have hence
touched the east and south, the extremities of the maritime
world.

“The Negritos, scarcely known a few years ago, and to-day
confounded with the Papuans by some anthropologists,
have spread to the west and northwest.

“They have left unmistakable traces in Japan; we find them
yet in the Philippines and in many of the islands of the Malay
archipelago; they constitute the indigenous population of the
Andaman Islands, in the Gulf of Bengal. Indeed, they have
formerly occupied a great part of the two peninsulas of
India, and I have elsewhere shown that we can follow their
steps to the foot of the Himalayas, and beyond the Indus to
Lake Zerah. I have only sketched here the history of this
race, whose representatives in the past have been the type
of the Asiatic pygmies of whom Pliny and Ctesias speak, and
whose creoles were those Ethiopians, black and with smooth
hair, who figured in the army of Xerxes.

“I have devoted two long examinations to another black
race much less important in numbers and in the extent of
their domain, but which possess for the anthropologist a
very peculiar interest and a sad one. It exists no more; its
last representative, a woman, died in 1877. I refer to the
Tasmanians.

“The documents gathered by various English writers, and
above all by Bouwick, give numerous facts upon the intellectual
and moral character of the Tasmanians. The complete
destruction of the Tasmanians, accomplished in at most 72
years over a territory measuring 4,400 square leagues, raises
a sorrowful and difficult question. Their extinction has
been explained by the barbarity of the civilized Europeans,
and which, often conspicuous, has never been more destructively
present than in their dealings with the Tasmanians.
But I am convinced that this is an error. I certainly
do not wish to apologize for or extenuate the
crimes of the convicts and colonists, against which the most
vigorous protests have been raised both in England and in
the colony itself, but neither war nor social disasters have
been the principal cause of the disappearance of the Tasmanians.
They have perished from that strange malady which
Europeans have everywhere transplanted in the maritime
world, and which strikes down the most flourishing populations.

“Consumption is certainly one of the elements of this evil.
But if it explains the increase of the death rate, it does not

explain the diminution of births. Both these phenomena
are apparent. Captain Juan has seen at the Marquesas, in
the island of Taio-Hahe, the population fall in three years
from 400 souls to 250. To offset this death-rate, we find
only 3 or 4 births. It is evident that at this rate populations
rapidly disappear, and it is the principal cause of the disappearance
of the Tasmanians.”

The lecturer, after alluding to his studies in Polynesia,
speaks of his interest in the western representatives of these
races and his special studies in New Zealand, and referring
to the latter continues:

“One of the most important results of the labors in this
direction has been to establish the serious value of the
historical songs preserved, among the Maoris, by the
Tohungus, or wise men, who represent the Aiepas of Tahiti.
Thanks to these living archives, we have been able to reconstruct

a history of the natives, to fix almost the epoch of the
first arrival of the Polynesians in that land, so distant from
their other centers of population, and to determine their
point of departure.”

Other studies refer to peoples far removed from the preceding.
One is devoted to the Todas, a very small tribe of
the Nilgherie Hills, who by their physical, intellectual, and
social characteristics differ from all the other races of India.
“The Todas burn their dead, and we possess none of their
skulls. But thanks to M. Janssen, who has lived among
them, I have been able to fill up this gap.”

The last subject referred to by the lecturer was the Finns
of Finland, whose study reveals the fact that they embrace
two ethnic types, one of which, the Tavastlanda, belongs
without doubt to the great Finnish family, spread over Asia
as well as in Europe, and a second, the Karelien, whose representatives

possessed the poetic instinct, which causes
M. Quatrefages to ally them with the Aryan race, “to whom
we owe all our epics, from the Ramayana, Iliad, and Eneas
to the poems of to-day.”

GRECIAN ANTIQUITIES.

MONUMENT OF PHILOPAPPUS, ATHENS.

Although so much has been written about Athens, there
is one striking feature which has been little noticed. This
is the beautiful colors of the Parthenon and Erectheum, the
soft mellow yellow which is due to age, and which gives
these buildings when lighted by the setting sun, and framed
by the purple hills beyond, the appearance of temples of
gold.

TOMB FROM THE CERAMICUS, ATHENS.

Until A. D. 1687 the Parthenon remained almost perfect,
and then not age but a shell from the Venetians falling

upon Turkish powder, made a rent which, when seen from
below, makes it look like two temples.

TOWER OF THE WINDS, ATHENS.

The Temple of Theseus is the best preserved and one of
the oldest of the buildings of ancient Athens. It was founded
in B. C. 469, and is a small, graceful, and perfect Doric
temple. Having served as a Christian church, dedicated
to St. George, it escaped injury. It contains the beautiful
and celebrated tombstone of Aristion, the warrior of Marathon.

THE ACROPOLIS, ATHENS.

All that remains of Hadrian’s great Temple to Zeus (A. D.
132) are a few standing columns in an open space, which are
imposing from their isolated position.

OLD CORINTH AND THE ACROCORINTHUS.

The monument of Philopappus is thought to have been
begun A. D. 110, and for a king in Asia Minor.

TEMPLE OF JUPITER, ATHENS.

The Tower of the Winds, erected by Andronicus Cyrrhestes
about B. C. 100, contained a weathercock, a sun dial,
and a water clock. It is an octagonal building, with reliefs
on the frieze, representing by appropriate figures the eight
winds into which the Athenian compass was divided.

THE PANTHENON, ATHENS.

In the Street of Tombs the monuments are lying or standing
as they were found; each year shows many changes in
Athens, a tomb last year in the Ceramicus may be this year
in a museum. There is a great similarity in all these tombstones;
no doubt they were made beforehand, as they seldom
suggest the idea of a portrait. They generally represent
an almost heroic leave-taking. The friends standing in
the act of saying farewell are receiving presents from the
dead; often in the corner is a crouching slave, and frequently
a dog.

ERECTEUM, ATHENS.

Beyond the river Kephiesus, the hill of Colonus, and the
groves of the Academy, is the Pass of Daphne, which was
the road to Eleusis, and along which passed the annual
sacred processions in the days of the Mysteries. Cut there
in the rock are the niches for the votive offerings. This
dark Daphne Pass seems still to possess an air of mystery
which is truly in keeping with the rites which were once observed
there.

NICHES FOR VOTIVE OFFERINGS ON THE SACRED WAY TO ELEUSIS.

TEMPLE OF CORINTH, FROM THE MONUMENT OF PHILOPAPPUS.

From several points in Athens, on very clear days, may be
seen the great rock fort Acrocorinthus, which is directly
above the site of ancient Corinth. It is now a deserted fort;
the Turkish drawbridge and gate stand open and unused.
There are on it remains of a Turkish town; at one time it
was one of the strongest and most important citadels in
Greece. In the middle of the almost deserted, wretched,
straggling village of Old Corinth stand seven enormous massive
columns. These are all that remain of the Temple, and
indeed of ancient Corinth. The pillars, of the Doric order,
are of a brown limestone, not of the country. The Turks
and earthquakes have destroyed Old Corinth, and driven
the inhabitants to New Corinth, about one hour and a half’s
drive from the Gulf.—London Graphic.

TEMPLE OF THESEUS, ATHENS.

TOMBSTONE IN THE CERAMICUS, ATHENS.

SPANISH FISHERIES.

The Spanish Court at the late Fisheries Exhibition was
large and well furnished, there being several characteristic
models of vessels. No certain figures can be obtained of
the results of the whole fishing industry of Spain. It is,
however, estimated that 14,202 boats, with a tonnage of
51,397 tons, were employed during the year 1882. They
gave occupation to 59,974 men, and took about 78,000 tons
of fish. The Government interfere in the fishing industry
only to the extent of collecting and distributing information
to the fishermen on subjects that are most likely to be of use
to them in their calling. In consequence, principally no
doubt of this wise policy, we find in Spain a vigorous and
self-reliant class of men engaged in the fisheries. Some of
the most interesting features in the Spanish Court were the
contributions sent by the different fishermen’s associations,
and although the Naval Museum of Madrid supplied a collection
of articles that would have formed a good basis in
itself for an exhibition, yet in no other foreign court was
the fishing industry of the nation better illustrated by private
enterprise than in that of Spain. The fishing associations
referred to are half benefit societies and half trading
communities. That of Lequeito has issued a small pamphlet,
from which we learn that this body consists of 600 members
divided into three classes, viz., owners of vessels, patrons
or men in charge, and ordinary fishermen. A board of
directors, consisting of 22 owners, and 24 masters of boats
or ordinary fishermen, has the sole control of the affairs of
the society. The meetings are presided over by a majordomo
elected triennially, and who must be the owner of a
boat over 40 ft. long. This functionary receives a stipend
of 8,000 reales a year, a sum which sounds more modest
when expressed as 80l. He has two clerks, who are on the
permanent staff, to help him. His duties are to keep the
books with the assistance of the two clerks, to take charge
of the sales of all fish, recover moneys, and make necessary
payments. In stormy weather he gets up in a watch tower
and guides boats entering the harbor. The atalayero is an
official of the society, whose duty it is to station himself on
the heights and signal by means of smoke, to the boats at
sea, the movements of schools of sardines and anchovies or
probable changes of weather. It is also the duty of this officer
to weigh all the bream caught from the 1st November to
the 31st of March, for which he receives a “gratuity” of
100 pesetas, or say 4l, sterling. Two other señeros, or signalmen,
are told off to keep all boats in port during bad
weather, and to call together the crews when circumstances
appear favorable for sailing. Should there be a difference
of opinion between these experts as to the meteorological
probabilities, the patrons, or skippers of the fishing-boats,
are summoned in council and their opinion taken by “secret
vote with black and white balls.” The decision so arrived
at is irrevocable, and all are bound to sail should it be so
decided; those who do not do so paying a fine to the funds
of the association. The boats carrying the señeros fly a
color by means of which they signal orders for sailing to the
other vessels. These señeros appear to be the Spanish
equivalent to the English admiral of a trawling fleet.

The boats used by these fishermen are fine craft; one or
two models of them were shown in the Exhibition. A first-class
boat will be of about the following dimensions: Length
over all, 45 ft. to 50 ft.; breadth (extreme), 9 ft. to 10 ft. 3
in.; depth (inside), 3ft. 10 in. to 4 ft. The keel is of oak
6 in. by 3½ in. The stem and stern posts are also of oak.
The planking is generally of oak or walnut—the latter preferred—and
is 3 in. thick, the width of the planks being 4½
in. Many boats are now constructed of hard wood to the
water line and Norway pine above.

The fastenings are galvanized nails 4½ in. long. The
mast-partners and all the thwarts are of oak 1½ in. thick
and 8 in. wide; the latter are fastened in with iron knees.
Lee-board and rudder are of oak, walnut, or chestnut; the
rudder extends 3½ ft. to 4 ft. below the keel, and, in giving
lateral resistance, balances the lee-board, which is thrust
down forward under the lee-bow. The rig consists of two
lags, the smaller one forward right in the eyes of the boat;

the mainmast being amidships. The lug sails are set on
long yards, the fair-weather rig consisting of a fore lug with
120 square yards, and a main lug of 200 square yards.
There are six shifts of sail, the main being substituted for
the fore lug in turn as the weather increases, in a manner
similar to that in which our own Mounts Bay boats reduce
canvas. The fair weather rig requires two masts 42 ft. and
36 ft. long, and yards 28 ft. and 30 ft. long, respectively.
The oars are 16 ft. long, and are pulled double-banked.

Such a boat will cost 90 l. to 100 l. fitted for sea, of which sum
the hull will represent rather more than half. These vessels
generally remain at sea for twelve hours, from about three
to four in the morning until the same time in the evening.
Tunny, merluza (a species of cod), and bream are the principal
fish taken. The first-named are caught by hook and
line operated by means of poles rigged out from the boat
much in the same way, apparently, as we drail for mackerel
on the southwest coast. A filament of maize straw is used

for bait. The boat sails to a distance of about 90 miles off
the land and run back before the prevailing wind, until they
are about nine miles from the shore or until they lose the
fish. When the fisherman gets a bite the wind is spilled out
of the sail so as to deaden the boat’s way. The fish is then got
alongside, promptly gaffed, and got on board. Tunny sells
for about three halfpence a pound in Lequeito. The season
extends from June to November. Bream are taken in the
winter and spring, 9 to 12 miles off the coast. They are
caught by hook and line in two ways. The first is worth
describing. A line 50 fathoms long has bent to it snoods

with hooks attached, 16 in. apart. Each man handles three
lines. On reaching the fishing ground the line, to the end
of which a stone is attached, is gradually paid out until
soundings are taken; then another stone is attached and the
operation repeated. If a bite is felt the line is slacked away
freely, and this goes on until about 500 fathoms are overboard.
When, by the lively and continuous jerking of the
line, the fisherman concludes that he has a good number of
fish on the hooks, he will haul aboard and then prepare to
shoot again.

The second method of taking the bream is by long lining;

fifty of the lines we have just described being bent together
and duly anchored and buoyed. Spaniards do not much
care for this way of fishing, as it is costly in bait and the
gear is often lost in bad weather. Bream sells at about 3½d.
a pound. Cod are taken during the first six months of
the year, about 9 miles off shore, by hand lines. Sold fresh
the price is about 6d. per lb. A small quantity is preserved
in tins. Anchovy or cuttlefish is the bait used; sometimes
the two are placed on one hook.

A smaller description of boat, called traineras, is built especially
for taking sardine and anchovy, although in fine
weather they often engage in the same fishery as the larger
boats. The traineras are light and shapely vessels, with a
graceful sheer and curved stem and stern posts. The keel
is much cambered, and the bottom is flat and has considerable
hollow. The usual dimensions vary between: Length,
38 feet to 42 feet; beam, 7 feet to 7 feet 6 inches; depth, 2
feet 6 inches to 2 feet 10 inches. The sails and gear are
much the same as in the larger boats, excepting that there
are only four shifts in place of six. The largest main lug
has an area of about 90 square yards and the fore lug about
50 square yards. The other sails for heavier weather are
naturally smaller. The largest masts for fine weather are
respectively 36 feet and 22 feet, long. The average cost of
one of these boats and gear is about £122, made up as follows:
Hull, £32; sails, gear, and oars, £30; nets and gear
attached, £60. The season for anchovy fishing commences
on the 1st of March and ends 30th of June; it begins again
on the 15th of September, and continues until the end of the
year. Most fish are taken at a distance of about 9 miles
from the land, although they often come in much closer.
Anchovies are sold fresh, or are salted to be sent away, some
are used for bait, and in times of great plenty quantities are
put on the land for manure. The greater part are, however,
preserved in barrels or tins, and are exported to France or
England.

The net used in the capture of anchovies is called traina
or copo. It is in principle like the celebrated purse seine of
the United States, but in place of being 200 fathoms long, as
are many of the nets, which, in American waters, will inclose
a whole school of mackerel, it is but 32 to 40 fathoms
long. The depth is 7 to 10 fathoms, and the mesh ¾ inch.
Sardine fishing commences on the 1st of July and lasts until
December. The principal ground is 2 to 10 miles off shore.
The price of sardines on the coast is about 2½d. per pound.
When the sardines appear in shoals they are taken with the
traina in the same way as anchovies, a net of ½-inch mesh
being used. Sardines are also taken by gill nets about 200
feet long and 18 feet wide. When used in the daytime the
fish are tolled up by a bait consisting of the liver of cod.
When the sardines have been attracted to the neighborhood
of the net, bait is thrown on the other side of it. The fish in
their rush for the bait become entangled in the mesh. These
nets are sometimes anchored out all night, in which case no
bait is used.

A third class of boats of much the same character are of
about the following dimensions: Length, 28 feet to 35 feet;
beam, 7 feet 6 inches to 8 feet; depth, 2 feet 6 inches to 2 feet
8 inches. The two lugs will contain 16 and 30 square yards
of canvas respectively. They are used for sardine catching,
when they will carry a crew of four men, or for taking conger
and cod, in which case they will be manned by eight
hands.

Their cost will average approximately as follows: Hull,
£15; gear and sail, £10; nets and lines, £13; about £40.
The conger season extends from March to June, and from
October to November. The fish are taken by hook and line;
sardine and fish known as berdel (which in turn is taken by
a hook covered with a feather) are used as bait.

There are other smaller fishing boats, among which may
be noticed the bateler, a powerful little vessel, 13 feet to 16
ft. long, about 5½ ft. wide, and 2 ft. deep. They are sailed
by one man, set a good spread of canvas, and are fast and
handy. They are used for taking a species of cuttlefish
which supplies a bait, and is caught by hook and line, the
fishes being attracted by colored threads, at which they rush,
when the hook will catch in their tentacles. There is a
small well in the middle of the boat for keeping the fish alive.
None of the boats on the northern coast of Spain carry ballast.
They have flat hollow floors, and set a large area of
of canvas on a shallow draught. Lobster fishing is pursued
in much the same manner as in England, but often four or
five miles from land, and in very deep water.

One of the most noticeable objects in the Spanish court was
a full-sized boat about 25 ft. long, which had a square hole
cut in the bottom amidships. Through this hole was let
down a glass frame in which was placed a powerful paraffine
lamp. The object of this was to attract the fish. It is said
that tunny will be drawn from a distance of over a hundred
yards, and will follow the boat so that they may be enticed
into the nets. Sardines and other fish will follow the light
in shoals. It is claimed that the boat will be useful in diving
operations, for pearl or coral fishing, or for ascertaining the
direction of submarine currents, which can be seen at night
by a lamp to a depth to 25 to 30 fathoms.—Engineering.

DUCK SHOOTING AT MONTAUK.

Montauk Point, Long Island, is the most isolated and
desolate spot imaginable during this weather. The frigid
monotony of winter has settled down upon that region, and
now it is haunted only by sea fowl. The bleak, barren
promontory whereon stands the light is swept clean of its
summer dust by the violent raking of cold hurricanes across
it, and coated with ice from the wind-dashed spume of the
great breakers hurled against the narrow sand spit which
makes the eastern terminus of the island. The tall, white
towered light and its black lantern, now writhing in frosty
northern blizzards, and again shivering in easterly gales,
now glistening with ice from the tempest tossed seas all
about it, and now varnished with wreaths of fog, is the only
habitation worthy of the name for many miles around.
Keeper Clark and his family and assistants are almost perpetually
fenced in from the outside world by the cold
weather, and have to hug closely the roaring fires that protect
them in that desolation.

But for ducks and the duck hunter the lighthouse family
would die of inanition. With the cold weather comes the
ducks, and they continue to come till the warmer blasts of
spring drive them to the northward. Montauk Point is a
favorite haunt for this sort of wild fowl. It is a good feeding
ground, is isolated, and there is nearly always a weather
shore for the flocks to gather under. But year by year the
point is being more and more frequented by sportsmen, and
the reports of their successes increase the applicants for
lodgings at the light. Some 20 gunners were out there last
week with the most improved paraphernalia for the sport,
and did telling work. Flight shooting is the favorite method
of taking them. The light stands very near the end of the

point, about a sixteenth of a mile to the west, and all migratory
birds in passing south seem to have it down in their
log-book that they must not only sight this structure, but
must also fly over it as nearly as possible. Hence the variety
and extent of the flocks which are continually passing
is a matter of interest and wonder to a student of natural
history as well as to the sportsman. Coots, whistlers, soft
bills, old squaws, black ducks, cranes, belated wild geese,
and, in fact, all sorts of northern birds make up this
long and strange procession, and the air is frequently so
densely packed with them as to be actually darkened, while
the keen, whistling music of their whizzing wings makes a
melody that comparatively few landsmen ever hear. Millions
of the birds never hesitate at this point in their flight,
although thousands of them do. These latter make the
neighboring waters their home for the rest of the winter.
Great flocks of ducks are continually sailing about the rugged
shores, and the frozen cranberry marshes of Fort Pond
Bay, lying to the westward, are their favorite feeding-grounds.
The birds are always as fat as butter when making
their flight, and their piquant, spicy flavor leads to their
being barbecued by the wholesale at the seat of shooting
operations. One of the gunner’s cabins has nailed up in it
the heads of 345 ducks that have been roasted on the Point
this winter.

Early morning is the favorite time for shooting. At daybreak
the flights are heavy, and from that time until seven
o’clock in the morning they increase until it seems as though
all the flocks which had spent the night in the caves and
ponds on the Connecticut shore were on the wing and away
for the south. By ten o’clock in the forenoon the flights
grow rarer, and the rest of the day only stragglers come
along. A good gunner can take five dozen of these birds
easily in a morning’s work, provided he can and will withstand
the inclemency of the weather.

Keeper Clark never shoots ducks. Scarcely a morning has
dawned for two months but that several of the poor birds
have been picked up at the foot of the light house tower
with the broken necks which have mutely told the story
of death, reached by plunging headlong against the crystal
walls of the dazzling lantern overhead the night before.
There is a tendency with such migratory birds as are on the
wing at night to fly very high. But the great, glaring,
piercing, single eye of Montauk light seems to draw into it by
dozens, as a loadstone pulls a magnet, its feathered victims,
and they swerve in their course and make straight for it. As
they flash nearer and nearer, the light, of course, grows
brighter and brighter, and at length they dash into what
appears a sea of fire, to be crushed lifeless by the heavy
glass, and they fall to the ground below, ready to be plucked
for the oven. Inside the lantern the thud made by these
birds when they strike is readily felt. Although they are
comparatively small, yet so great is their velocity that the
impact creates a perceptible jar, and the lantern is disfigured
with plashes of their blood. Upon stormy and foggy nights
the destruction of birds is found to be greatest. When the
weather is clear and fair many smaller birds, like robins,
sparrows, doves, cuckoos, rail, snipe, etc., will circle about
the light all night long, leaving only when the light is extinguished
in the morning. Large cranes show themselves to
be almost dangerous visitors. Recently one of these weighing
40 pounds struck the wrought iron guard railing about
the lantern with such force as to bend the iron slats and to
completely sever his long neck from his body.—N.Y. Times.

[THE GARDEN.]

THE HORNBEAMS.

The genus Carpinis is widely distributed throughout the
temperate regions of the northern hemisphere. There are
nine species known to botanists, most of them being middle-sized
trees. In addition to those mentioned below, figures
of which are herewith given, there are four species from Japan
and one from the Himalayan region which do not yet seem to
have found their way to this country; these five are therefore
omitted. All are deciduous trees, and every one is thoroughly
deserving of cultivation. The origin of the English
name is quaintly explained by Gerard in his “Herbal” as follows:
“The wood,” he says, “in time, waxeth so hard, that
the toughness and hardness of it may be rather compared to
horn than unto wood, and therefore it was called horne-beam
or hardbeam.”

CARPINUS ORIENTALIS.

Carpinus Betulus,¹ the common hornbeam, as is the case
with so many of our native or widely cultivated trees, exhibits
considerable variation in habit, and also in foliage
characters. Some of the more striking of these, those
which have received names in nurseries, etc., and are
propagated on account of their distinctive peculiarities, are
described below. In a wild state C. Betulus occurs in Europe
from Gothland southward, and extends also into West
Asia. Although apparently an undoubted native in the
southern counties of England, it appears to have no claim
to be considered indigenous as far as the northern counties
are concerned; it has also been planted wherever it occurs
in Ireland.

CARPINUS AMERICANA.

Few trees bear cutting so well as the hornbeam, and for
this reason, during the reign of the topiarist, it was held in
high repute for the formation of the “close alleys,” “covert
alleys,” or the “thick-pleached alleys,” frequently mentioned
in Shakespeare and in the works of other authors
about three centuries ago. In the sixteenth century the
topiary art had reached its highest point of development,
and was looked upon as the perfection of gardening; the
hornbeam—and indeed almost every other tree—was cut and
tortured into every imaginable shape. The “picturesque
style,” however, soon drove the topiarist and his art out of
the field, yet even now places still remain in England where
the old and once much-belauded fashion still exists on a
large scale—a fact by no means to be deplored from an
archæological point of view. Dense, quaintly-shaped hornbeam
hedges are not unfrequent in the gardens of many old
English mansions, and in some old country farmhouses the
sixteenth century craze is still perpetuated on a smaller scale.

CARPINUS BETULUS, LEAF, CATKINS, AND FRUIT.

Sir J.E. Smith, in his “English Flora,” after enumerating
the virtues of the hornbeam as a hedge plant, gives it as his
opinion that “when standing by itself and allowed to take
its natural form, the hornbeam makes a much more handsome
tree than most people are aware of.” Those who are
familiar with the fine specimens which exist at Studley
Park and elsewhere will have no hesitation in confirming
Sir J.E. Smith’s statement. The Hornbeam Walk in Richmond Park,
from Pembroke Lodge toward the Ham Gate,
will recur to many Southerners as a good instance of the fitness
of the hornbeam for avenues. In the walk in question
there are many fine trees, which afford a thorough and
agreeable shade during the summer months.

CARPINUS VIMINEA.

In any soil or position the hornbeam will grow readily,
except exceedingly dry or too marshy spots. On chalky
hillsides it does not grow so freely as on clayey plains.
Under the latter conditions, however, the wood is not so
good. In mountainous regions the hornbeam occupies a
zone lower than that appropriated by the beech, rarely
ascending more than 1,200 yards above sea level. It is not

injured by frost, and in Germany is often seen fringing
the edges of the beech forests along the bottom of the valleys
where the beech would suffer. Scarcely any tree coppices
more vigorously or makes more useful pollards on dry grass
land.

BRANCH OF CARPINUS BETULUS.

On account of its great toughness the wood of the hornbeam
is employed in engineering work for cogs in machinery.
When subjected to vertical pressure it cannot be completely
destroyed; its fibers, instead of breaking off short,
double up like threads, a conclusive proof of its flexibility
and fitness for service in machinery (Laslett’s “Timber and
Timber Trees”). According to the same recent authority,
the vertical or crushing strain on cubes of 2 inches average
14.844 tons, while that on cubes of 1 inch is 3.711 tons.

LEAVES OF CARPINUS BETULUS QUERCOFOLIA.

A few years ago an English firm required a large quantity
of hornbeam wood for the manufacture of lasts, but failed
to procure it in England. They succeeded, however, in obtaining
a supply from France, where large quantities of this timber
are used for that purpose. It may be interesting to state
that in England at any rate lasts are no longer made to any
extent by hand, but are rapidly turned in enormous numbers
by machinery. In France sabots are also made of hornbeam
wood, but the difficulty in working it and its weight render
it less valuable for sabotage than beech. For turnery generally,
cabinet making, and also for agricultural implements,
etc., this wood is highly valued; in some of the French winegrowing
districts, viz., Côte d’Or and Yonne, hoops for the
wine barrels are largely made from this tree. It makes the
best fuel and it is preferred to every other for apartments, as
it lights easily, makes a bright flame, which burns equally,
continues a long time, and gives out an abundance of heat.
“Its charcoal is highly esteemed, and in France and Switzerland
it is preferred to most others, not only for forges
and for cooking by, but for making gunpowder, the workmen
at the great gunpowder manufactory at Berne rarely
using any other. The inner bark, according to Linnæus,
is used for dyeing yellow. The leaves, when dried in the
sun, are used in France as fodder; and when wanted for use
in water, the young branches are cut off in the middle of
summer, between the first and second growth, and strewed
or spread out in some place which is completely sheltered
from the rain to dry without the tree being in the slightest
degree injured by the operation.” (Dict. des Eaux et Forêts,
art. Charme, as quoted by London).

LEAVES OF CARPINUS BETULUS INCISA.

It hardly seems necessary to dwell upon the value of the
hornbeam as a hedge or shelter plant. In many nurseries it

is largely used for these purposes, the russet-brown leaves
remaining on the twigs until displaced by the new growths
in spring.

Var. incisa (Aiton, “Hortus Kewensis,” v., 301; C. asplenifolia,
Hort.; C. laciniata, Hort.).—These three names represent
two forms, which are, however, so near each other,
that for all practical purposes they are identical. A glance
at the accompanying figure will show how distinct and ornamental
this variety is.

HORNBEAMS (ONE WITH INOSCULATED TRUNK).

Var. quercifolia (Desf. tabl. de l’ecol. de bot. du Mus.
d’hist. nat., 213; Ostrya quercifolia, Hort.; Carpinus heterophylla,
Hort.)—This form, as will be seen by the figure, is
thoroughly distinct from the common hornbeam; it has very
much smaller leaves than the type, their outline, as implied
by the varietal name, resembling that of the foliage of the
oak. It frequently reverts to the type, and, as far as my
experience goes, appears to be much less fixed than the variety
incisa.

Var. purpurea (Hort.).—The young leaves of this are
brownish red; it is well worth growing for the pleasing
color effect produced by the young growths in spring.
Apart from color it does not differ from the type.

Var. fastigiata (Hort.).—In this variety the branches are
more ascending and the habit altogether more erect; indeed,
among the hornbeams this is a counterpart of the fastigiate
varieties of the common oak.

Var. variegata, aureo-variegata, albo-variegata (albo-marmorata).—These
names represent forms differing so slightly
from each other, that it is not worth while to notice them
separately, or even to treat them as distinct. In no case that
I have seen is the variegation at all striking, and, except in
tree collections, variegated hornbeams are hardly worth
growing.

FULL GROWN HORNBEAM IN WINTER.
CARPINUS BETULUS (Full grown tree at Chiswick, 45 ft. high in 1844).

Carpinus orientalis² (the Oriental hornbeam) principally
differs from our native species in its smaller size, the lesser
leaves with downy petioles, and the green, much-lacerated
bractlets. It is a native of the south of Europe, whence it
extends to the Caucasus, and probably also to China; the
Carpinus Turczaninovi of Hance scarcely seems to differ, in
any material point at any rate, from western examples of C.
orientalis. According to Loudon, it was introduced to this
country by Philip Miller in 1739, and there is no doubt that
it is far from common even now. It is, however, well worth
growing; the short twiggy branches, densely clothed with
dark green leaves, form a thoroughly efficient screen. The
plant bears cutting quite as well as the common hornbeam,
and wherever the latter will grow this will also succeed. In
that very interesting compilation, “Hortus Collinsonianus,”
the following memorandum occurs: “The Eastern hornbeam
was raised from seed sent me from Persia, procured
by Dr. Mounsey, physician to the Czarina. Received it
August 2, 1751, and sowed it directly; next year (1752) the
hornbeam came up, which was the original of all in England.
Mr. Gordon soon increased it, and so it came into
the gardens of the curious. At the same time, from the
same source, were raised a new acacia, a quince, and a
bermudiana, the former very different from any in our gardens.”
This memorandum was probably written from recollection

long afterward, with an error in the dates, and the
species was first entered in the catalogue as follows: “Azad,
arbor persica carpinus folio, Persian hornbeam, raised from
seed, anno 1747; not in England before.” It appears, however,
from Rand’s “Index” that there was a plant of it in
the Chelsea Garden in 1739. The name duinensis was given
by Scopoli, because of his having first found it wild at
Duino. As, however, Miller had previously described it
under the name orientalis, that one is adopted in accordance
with the rule of priority, by which must be decided all such
questions in nomenclature.

The American Hornbeam ³ also known under the names of
blue beech, water beech, and iron wood, although a less
tree than our native species, which it resembles a good deal
in size of foliage and general aspect, is nevertheless a most
desirable one for the park or pleasure ground, on account of
the gorgeous tint assumed by the decaying leaves in autumn.
Emerson, in his “Trees and Shrubs of Massachusetts,” pays
a just tribute to this tree from a decorative standpoint. He
says: “The crimson, scarlet, and orange of its autumnal colors,
mingling into a rich purplish red, as seen at a distance,
make it rank in splendor almost with the tupelo and the
scarlet oak. It is easily cultivated, and should have a corner
in every collection of trees.” It has pointed, ovate oblong,
sharply double serrate, nearly smooth leaves. The acute
bractlets are three-lobed, halberd-shaped, sparingly cut-toothed
on one side. Professor C. S. Sargent, in his catalogue
of the “Forest Trees-of North America,” gives the
distribution, etc., of the American hornbeam as follows:
“Northern Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, through the
valley of St. Lawrence and Lower Ottawa Rivers, along the
northern shores of Lake Huron to Northern Wisconsin and
Minnesota; south to Florida and Eastern Texas. Wood resembling
that of ostrya (hop hornbeam). At the north
generally a shrub or small tree, but becoming, in the Southern
Alleghany Mountains, a tree sometimes 50 feet in height,
with a trunk 2 feet to 3 feet in diameter.” It will almost
grow in any soil or exposition in this country.

Carpinus viminea ⁴ is a rather striking species with long-pointed
leaves; the accompanying figure scarcely gives a
sufficiently clear representation of their long, tail-like prolongations.
Judging from the height at which it grows, it
would probably prove hardy in this country, and, if so, the
distinct aspect and graceful habit of the tree would render
it a decided acquisition. It is a moderate-sized tree, with
thin gray bark, and slender, drooping warted branches. The
blade of the smooth leave measures from 3 inches to 4 inches
in length, the hairy leaf-stalk being about half an inch long.
It is a native of Himalaya, where it occurs at elevations of
from 5000 to 7000 feet above sea-level. As in our common
hornbeam, the male catkins appear before the leaves, and
the female flowers develop in spring at the same time as the

leaves. The hard, yellowish white wood—a cubic foot of
which weighs 50 lb.—is used for ordinary building purposes
by the natives of Nepaul.

GEORGE NICHOLSON.

Royal Gardens, Kew.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

FRUIT OF CAMELLIA JAPONICA.

The fruiting of the camellia in this country being rather
uncommon, we have taken the opportunity of illustrating
one of three sent to us a fortnight ago by Mr. J. Menzies,
South Lytchett, who says: “The fruits are from a large
plant of the single red, grown out of doors against a wall with
an east aspect, and protected by a glazed coping 4 feet wide.
The double, semi-double, and single varieties have from
time to time borne fruit out of doors here, from which I have
raised seedlings, but have hitherto failed to get any variety
worth sending out or naming.”

In the annexed woodcut the fruit is represented natural
size. Its appearance is somewhat singular. It is very hard,
and has a glazed appearance like that of porcelain. The
color is pale green, except on the exposed side, which is
dull red. It is furrowed like a tomato, and on the day after
we received it the furrows opened and exposed three or four
large mahogany-brown seeds embedded in hard pulp—The
Garden.

FRUIT OF CAMELLILA JAPONICA.

[SCIENCE.]

A NEW RULE FOR DIVISION IN ARITHMETIC.

The ordinary process of long division is rather difficult,
owing to the necessity of guessing at the successive figures
which form the divisor. In case the repeating decimal expressing
the exact quotient is required, the following method
will be found convenient:

Rule for division.

First. Treat the divisor as follows:

Repeat this treatment until these precepts cease to be applicable.
Call the result the prepared divisor.

Second. From the prepared divisor cut off the last figure:
and, if this be a 9, change it to a 1, or if it be a 1, change it
to a 9; otherwise keep it unchanged. Call this figure the
extraneous multiplier.

Multiply the extraneous multiplier into the divisor thus
truncated, and increase the product by 1, unless the extraneous
multiplier be 7, when increase the product by 5. Call
the result the current multiplier.

Third. Multiply together the extraneous multiplier and all
the multipliers used in the process of obtaining the prepared
divisor. Use the product to multiply the dividend, calling
the result the prepared dividend.

Fourth. From the prepared dividend cut off the last figure,
multiply this by the current multiplier, and add the product
to the truncated dividend. Call the sum the modified dividend,
and treat this in the same way. Continue this process
until a modified dividend is reached which equals the original
prepared dividend or some previous modified dividend;
so that, were the process continued, the same figures would
recur.

Fifth. Consider the series of last figures which have
been successively cut off from the prepared dividend
and from the modified dividends as constituting a
number, the figure first cut off being in the units’ place,
the next in the tens’ place, and so on. Call this the first
infinite number, because its left-hand portion consists of a
series of figures repeating itself indefinitely toward the left.
Imagine another infinite number, identical with the first in
the repeating part of the latter, but differing from this in
that the same series is repeated uninterruptedly and indefinitely
toward the right into the decimal places.

Subtract the first infinite number from the second, and
shift the decimal point as many places to the left as there
were zeros dropped in the process of obtaining the prepared
divisor.

The result is the quotient sought.

Examples.

1. The following is taken at random. Divide 1883 by
365.

First. The divisor, since it ends in 5, must be multiplied
by 2, giving 730. Dropping the O, we have 73 for the prepared
divisor.

Second. The last figure of the prepared divisor being 3,
this is the extraneous multiplier. Multiplying the truncated
divisor, 7, by the extraneous multiplier, 3, and adding 1, we
have 22 for the current multiplier.

Third. The dividend, 1883, has now to be multiplied by the
product of 3, the extraneous multiplier, and 2, the multiplier
used in preparing the divisor. The product, 11298, is
the prepared dividend.

Fourth. From the prepared dividend, 11298, we cut off the
last figure 8, and multiply this by the current multiplier, 22.
The product, 176, is added to the truncated dividend, 1129,
and gives 1305 for the first modified divisor. The whole
operation is shown thus:

We stop at this point because 24 was a previous modified
dividend, written under the form 240 above. Our two
infinite numbers (which need not in practice be written
down) are, with their difference:

Example 2. Find the reciprocal of 333667.

The whole work is here given:

Example 3. Find the reciprocal of 41.

Solution.—

C.S. PEIRCE.

[SCIENCE.]

EXPERIMENTS IN BINARY ARITHMETIC.

Those who can perform in that most necessary of all
mathematical operations, simple addition, any great number
of successive examples or any single extensive example
without consciousness of a severe mental strain, followed by
corresponding mental fatigue, are exceptions to a general rule.
These troubles are due to the quantity and complexity of the
matter with which the mind has to be occupied at the same
time that the figures are recognized. The sums of pairs of
numbers from zero up to nine form fifty-five distinct propositions
that must be borne in memory, and the “carrying” is a
further complication. The strain and consequent weariness
are not only felt, but seen, in the mistakes in addition that
they cause. They are, in great part, the tax exacted of us by
our decimal system of arithmetic. Were only quantities of
the same value, in any one column, to be added, our memory
would be burdened with nothing more than the succession
of numbers in simple counting, or that of multiples
of two, three, or four, if the counting is by groups.

It is easy to prove that the most economical way of reducing
addition to counting similar quantities is by the binary
arithmetic of Leibnitz, which appears in an altered
dress, with most of the zero signs suppressed, in the example
below. Opposite each number in the usual figures is
here set the same according to a scheme in which the signs
of powers of two repeat themselves in periods of four; a
very small circle, like a degree mark, being used to express
any fourth power in the series; a long loop, like a narrow
0, any square not a fourth power; a curve upward and to
the right, like a phonographic l, any double fourth power;
and a curve to the right and downward, like a phonographic
r, any half of a fourth power; with a vertical bar to denote the
absence of three successive powers not fourth powers.
Thus the equivalent for one million, shown in the example
slightly below the middle, is 2¹⁶ (represented by a
degree-mark in the fifth row of these marks, counting from the
right) plus 2¹⁷ + 2⁹ (two l-curves in the fifth and third places of
l-curves) plus 2¹⁸ + 2¹⁴ + 2⁶ (three loops) plus 2¹⁹ (the r-curve
at the extreme left); while the absence of 2³, 2², and 2¹ is
shown by the vertical stroke at the right. This equivalent
expression may be verified, if desired, either by adding the
designated powers of two from 524,288 down to 64, or by
successive multiplications by two, adding one when necessary.
The form of characters here exhibited was thought
to be the best of nearly three hundred that were devised and
considered and in about sixty cases tested for economic
value by actual additions.

In order to add them, the object for which these forty
numbers are here presented in two notations, it is not necessary
to know just why the figures on the right are equal
to those on the left, or to know anything more than the
order in which the different forms are to be taken, and the
fact that any one has twice the value of one in the column
next succeeding it on the right. The addition may be made
from the printed page, first covering over the answer with
a paper held fast by a weight, to have a place for the figures
of the new answer as successively obtained. The fingers
will be found a great assistance, especially if one of
each hand be used, to point off similar marks in twos, or
threes, or fours—as many together as can be certainly
comprehended in a glance of the eye. Counting by fours, if it
can be done safely, is preferable because most rapid. The
eye can catch the marks for even powers more easily in going
up and those for odd powers (the l and r curves) in going
down the columns. Beginning at the lower right

hand corner, we count the right hand column of small circles,
or degree marks, upward; they are twenty-three in
number. Half of twenty-three is eleven and one over; one
of these marks has therefore to be entered as part of the
answer, and eleven carried to the next column, the first one
of l-curves. But since the curves are most advantageously
added downward, it is best, when the first column is finished,
simply to remember the remainder from it, and not
to set down anything until the bottom is reached in the addition
of the second column, when the remainders, if any,
from both columns can be set down together. In this
case, starting with the eleven carried and counting the number
of the l-curves, we find ourselves at the bottom with
twenty-four—twelve to carry, and nothing to set down
except the degree mark from the first column. With the
twelve we go up the adjoining loop column, and the sum
must be even, as this place is vacant in the answer; the r-curve
column next, downward, and then another row of
degree marks. The succession must be obvious by this
time. When the last column, the one in loops to the extreme
left, is added, the sum has to be reduced to unity by
successive halvings. Here we seem to have eleven; hence
we enter one loop, and carry five to the next place, which,
it must be remembered, is of r-curves. Halving five we
express the remainder by entering one of these curves, and
carry the quotient, two, to the degree mark place. Halving
again gives one in the next place, that of l-curves; and the
work is complete.

It is recommended that this work be gone over several
times for practice, until the appearance and order of the
characters and the details of the method become familiar;
that, when the work can be done mechanically and without
hesitation, the time occupied in a complete addition
of the example, and the mistakes made in it, be carefully
noted; that this be done several times, with an interval
of some days between the trials, and the result of each
trial kept separate; that the time and mistakes by the ordinary
figures in the same example, in several trials, be observed
for comparison. Please pay particular attention to
the difference in the kind of work required by the two
methods in its bearing on two questions—which of them
would be easier to work by for hours together, supposing
both equally well learned? and in which of them could a
reasonable degree of skill be more readily acquired by a
beginner? The answer to these questions, if the comparison
be a fair one, is as little to be doubted as is their. high
importance.

Eight volunteer observers to whom this example has already
been submitted showed wide difference in arithmetical
skill. One of them took but a few seconds over two minutes,
in the best of six trials, to add by the usual figures,
and set down the sum, but one figure in all the six additions
being wrong; another added once in ten minutes fifty-seven
seconds, and once in eleven minutes seven seconds, with
half the figures wrong each time. The last-mentioned observer
had had very little training in arithmetical work, but
perhaps that gave a fairer comparison. In the binary figures
she made three additions in between seven and eight
minutes, with but one place wrong in the three. With four
of the observers the binary notation required nearly double
the time. These observers were all well practiced in computation.
Their best record, five minutes eighteen seconds,
was made by one whose best record was two minutes forty
seconds in ordinary figures. The author’s own best results
were two minutes thirty-eight seconds binary, and three
minutes twenty-three seconds usual. He thus proved himself
inferior to the last observer, as an adder, by a system in
which both were equally well trained; but a greater familiarity
(extending over a few weeks instead of a few hours)
with methods in binary addition enabled him to work twice
as fast with them. Of the author’s nine additions by the
usual figures, four were wrong in one figure each; of his
thirty-two additions by different forms of binary notation,
five were wrong, one of them in two places. One observer
found that he required one minute thirty-three seconds to
add a single column (average of five tried) by the usual figures,
and fifteen seconds to count the characters in one
(average of six tried) by the binary. Though these additions
were rather slow, the results are interesting. They show,
making allowance for the greater number of columns (three
and a third times as many) required by the binary plan, a
saving of nearly half; but they also illustrate the necessity of
practice. This observer succeeded with the binary arithmetic
by avoiding the sources of delay that particularly embarrass
the beginner, by contenting himself with counting

only, and not stopping to divide by two, to set down an unfamiliar
character, or to recognize the mark by which he
must distinguish his next column. One well-known member
of the Washington Philosophical Society and of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, who
declined the actual trial as too severe a task, estimated his
probable time with ordinary figures at twenty minutes, with
strong chances of a wrong result, after all.

These statistics prove the existence of a class of persons
who can do faster and more reliable work by the binary reckoning.
But too much should not be made of them. Let
them serve as specimens of facts of which a great many more
are to be desired, bearing on a question of grave importance.
Is it not worth our while to know, if we can, by impartial
tests, whether the tax imposed on our working brains by the
system of arithmetic in daily use is the necessary price of a
blessing enjoyed, or an oppression? If the strain produced
by greater complexity and intensity of mental labor is compensated
by a correspondingly greater rapidity in dealing
with figures, the former may be the case. If, on the contrary,
a little practice suffices to turn the balance of rapidity,
for all but a small body of highly drilled experts, in favor of
an easier system, the latter must be. This is the question
that the readers of Science are invited to help in deciding.
The difficulties attending a complete revolution in the prevalent
system of reckoning are confessedly stupendous; but
they do not render undesirable the knowledge that experiment
alone can give, whether or not the cost of that system
is unreasonably high; nor should they prevent those who
accord them the fullest recognition from assisting to furnish
the necessary facts.

Those who are willing to undertake the addition on the
plan proposed or on any better plan, or who will submit it to
such acquaintances, skilled or unskilled, as may be persuaded
to take the trouble to learn the mechanism of binary
adding, will confer a great favor by informing the writer of
the time occupied, and number of mistakes made, in each
addition. All observations and suggestions relating to the
subject will be most gratefully received.

Henry Farquhar.

Office of U.S. Coast Survey, Washington, D.C.

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